Title: What I Wouldn't Do

Fandom: The Hunger Games

Characters: Cato and Clove

Prompt: 085 She

Word Count: 7,658

Rating: T

Summary: Their lives had been connected long before the train that took them to the Capitol. Moments in time that have defined them and their relationship.

What I Wouldn't Do

She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark.

-Barbara Alpert

The first time he had seen her was when he was fourteen years old, well into his Academy training. He had been sitting outside the school, laughing with friends, when someone had caught his eye. A little girl, barely eleven and not even five feet tall, with bruises on her face, begging outside of a market stall. He had never seen someone who looked like that before, never seen someone who was starving before, not here in District Two. She was all sharp angles and sunken cheeks, a too large shirt hanging off her bony shoulders and a length of rope tied tightly around her waist was the only thing holding her pants on her hips.

He wasn't sure what made him go over to her. Maybe it was the shock of seeing someone like that in a place he thought was free of such things. Maybe it was the determination in her eyes as she pleaded with the stall owner. Maybe it was what his friends had started saying once they'd noticed her too. But it was with their mocking laughter ringing in his ears that he walked over and dropped a handful of coins into the vendor's palm. The sack of vegetables he had bought was almost bigger than her and as he took it from the seller he wasn't sure if even he could lift it on his own.

"Here, you take one side and I'll help you get it home."

"I'm not some charity chase, I'm not just going to take your money." Her voice was a low snarl and she had started to stalk away before he had registered her words.

"Wait, please. I didn't mean any disrespect," he said quickly and she stopped, standing stiffly in the middle of the path, looking for all the world like a little bird about to fly away. She looked over her shoulder at him and he saw the indecision in her big brown eyes. "You were looking for food, weren't you? What's so different about getting it from me than from him?"

"You…" she started, fists clenching and feet digging into the dirt to strengthen her stance. He wasn't sure if it was so she was getting ready to punch him or run away. "How could you possibly understand? Just go back to your friends, they're waiting for you."

"I want you to have it."

"Why?" She challenged, bite to her words and she crossed over to him so they were standing face to face. She had to stand on her toes to reach anywhere near his height. "Say it. Tell me why."

"Because I felt sorry for you," he said, almost instantly. There was nothing else to say and he certainly wasn't about to back down from a girl at least three years younger than him, especially not in front of his friends. They were going to think this was odd enough as it is. But he couldn't help wanting to back away under her steady, unblinking gaze. It was unsettling, the calculating look in her big brown eyes as she regarded him.

"Thank you, for your generosity," she said slowly, settling back on her heels and dropping his gaze to look at the food. She fisted both hands on the burlap sack but it wasn't until he seized the other side that they were actually able to lift it.

"Where are you going Cato? You've had your fun, leave the tramp alone. You might catch something nasty!" She didn't turn, didn't react, and he couldn't help but be impressed by her resolve. He half-turned to face his friends, the group sneering and laughing at her turned back. He gave them a vague wave.

"Go on without me Nero. I've got to get home soon anyway." Before they could respond he had hiked up his grip on the bag and started to walk away. She kept up with him, even when his longer legs made her take several more steps than he had to.

"So you're Cato," she said softly as she led him down an alley behind the main shops. He gave her a quizzical look. "My mother spends a lot of time at the training grounds. She talks about you a lot. How you're one of the best fighters she's seen in years."

"Thanks. So you know my name, you have one?"

"Clove." And then they were there, climbing the steps of a much more modest house than he would have expected and knew, suddenly, that their change of fortune must have been recent. "Dad I'm home," she called into the empty hallway. It was clean, so clean he fought the urge to take his sandals off before entering, but scarcely furnished. "I met a boy at the market and he bought us dinner."

"And he's still here I see," said a voice from their right and Cato looked sharply to see a middle aged man with Clove's brown eyes standing in the doorway off of the main hall.

"Dad! You shouldn't be up. The doctor said-"

"The doctor hasn't seen me in months, Clover. I've done everything he said and it hasn't made a difference so I'm going back to doing what I can around here." It was then that Cato noticed that the man was bracing himself against the doorframe, that those eyes held barely concealed pain. His left leg was mangled, twisted slightly at the knee and crushed from foot to calf. He noticed quickly where Cato's gaze had strayed. "Accident during repairs on the Justice Building a few years ago. Slows me down a bit."

"You need to sit back down, the exertion isn't good for you. Please Dad." She's using the same wheedling tone that he heard in the market, except it works on her father. He relents quickly, briefly cupping her cheek in his hand before limping slowly into the room he had come from. She glanced at Cato quickly, almost like she was embarrassed by the exchange or desperate to hide her family from him, but none the less led him deeper into the house and into a small, sunny kitchen. A young boy, six or seven by Cato's guess, was sitting at the wooden table in the centre of the room. "Alex, shouldn't you be helping Mum in the garden?"

"Not anymore, I don't think most of the plants are going to make it anyway," he said slowly, torn between staring at the stranger in his house and the bag of food he brought with him. "She's drinking again."

"Of course she is. Why don't you go find your brothers and get them to wash up? I'm going to make dinner and it'll be ready soon, okay?"

"How much of this are you going to cook? How many people for dinner?" Cato was asking as he pulled produce from where he had stashed the bag in the corner of the kitchen. From the look she gave it he knew it would be moved but it would do for now.

"Dinner for seven," she said uncertainly and he wasn't sure why until she clarified. "Mum, Dad, me, my three brothers, and… you. If you wanted to stay. It's all I can really offer in return."

"Thank you, I'd like that." They fell easily into prepping together and Cato tried his best not to compare his work chopping the vegetables to Clove's, trying to not let it bother him that an eleven year old was outshining him in something that should be so simple. Sure he could hack a training dummy to pieces with his sword but Clove's precision with the small kitchen knife, how uniform and almost delicate every cut was, was something that he just couldn't replicate. There was a noise at the kitchen door and she must have turned to look because he jerked around when she cried out. Her brother was back and standing a good few feet from the sack of food, staring at Clove in what registered to Cato as shock.

It wasn't until Clove had walked over and removed her knife from the wall that he realized what had happened.

"You threw your knife at me!"

"I wouldn't have had to if you weren't trying to sneak things, now would I? This has to last us and I don't know for how long. I know you're hungry, we're all hungry, but we have to be careful okay?"

Her throw had cleanly pierced both sides of the bag's opening and imbedded the knife into the wooden wall behind it. It was one of the most impressive throws he had ever seen and he routinely worked with kids training in knife and dagger combat.

"What would you say if I offered you a job?" He asked softly, coming quickly to his decision.

"Is that a trick question?"

"No, my parents want me to get someone to work with as a training partner, someone to run the drills from school with and things like that. I mean, with the Peacekeepers' restrictions on combat training I wouldn't be able to-"

"Pay someone outright because then you'd have actual records of the fact that the Academy trains people for the Games."

"But two students practicing together wouldn't cause the same problem." Clove froze as the meaning of his statement sunk in. "That throw, you're really good. Good enough to impress the trainers. I could get you a spot at the Academy. You're trying to support your family, you deserve a chance to have the schooling to get a good job."

"I'd do anything to help them."

He could feel her shaking as he did her hair for her first Reaping. His mother had taught him long before he could remember and he quickly pinned back three small braids on top of the rest of her dark hair. After he was done he pulled her backwards into his arms. They had known each other for eight months now, eight months of training and spending every possible moment with each other. His friends had started to tease him about it, mocking him for being in love. They could think what they wanted but in the short time he had known her Clove had become one of the most important people in his life, someone he was not ashamed to admit he prized among all others. He wasn't in love with her but he did love her. Loved her as his best friend and his little sister. He caught her expression in the window opposite them, nothing in her face betrayed how he knew her to be feeling.

"Tell me what you're thinking," he said as she fixed the tie at the front of his tunic and arranged the fabric so it lay flat across his shoulders.

"I'm thinking that my name is in the reaping ball more times than yours is. I'm thinking that if I get chosen no one will volunteer to take my place. I'm thinking that my mother will enjoy watching me die in the arena. I'm thinking-" He takes her squarely by the shoulders and the look in his eyes quiets her.

"There has never been a twelve year old tribute from District Two. Never, not even when the Games first began. Even if our dolt of an escort pulls your name from that bowl you will not be the one going to the Capitol. Not today. Besides, I've seen the eighteen year old girls training at the Academy. They're much too excited not to take their last chance at volunteering. Now let me fix your belt, you've got it horribly twisted." He undid the strip of fabric that held her father's best tunic close to her skinny frame. On Clove the tunic was more like a dress and reached past her knees when she stood.

"Are you going to volunteer?"

"Not this year, there's still a lot I have to learn from the Academy before I can go to the Games."

"But eventually, you plan on volunteering. You want to be part of it."

"Of course, a chance to bring honour to the district. Isn't that what we all want?" He tried to catch her eye to see what she was thinking but she was staring resolutely at where his hands were braiding her belt.

"I think they're horrible." Her words were soft, meant only for him, but he still froze. He could hardly believe she had uttered the statement and quickly looked around to make sure there was no one else around to hear her.

"Don't say things like that, Clover." His use of her nickname, something he'd heard her father call her ages ago, made her finally look up at him. "It's dangerous, even here."

"I'm sorry. It's just…" He could stop her now, say that they had to get going or shush her outright. But he just leaned in closer so she wouldn't have to speak as loudly. "When I kill I want them to know I'm not doing it for them. That I will never be fighting for them."

"If you get into the Games I advise that you don't tell them that. The most important part of the Capitol during the Hunger Games is getting them to like you so they send you things to keep you alive. Tributes don't get to hate them, but Victors, Victors get to think whatever they want when they're my neighbour in the village. Okay?" She smiled at that, the smile she gave her instructors when she was insufferably pleased with herself.

"Okay," she said softly and he was shocked at how easily she relented but he didn't question it. He kissed her on the forehead and pushed her towards the door.

"We'll be late if we don't go now."

"Cato, if I end up in the Games." There, he knew that it wouldn't be the end of things. "If I end up in the Games I'll fight for you. I'll fight to make you proud of me." He stopped and pulled her into his arms. She had reached over five feet tall last month but he was rapidly gaining on six and she was still tiny in comparison.

"Thank you but you don't have to do anything more to make me proud of you, you already have that. And don't you forget when you're in that arena that you're also fighting for you. You still have to survive."

"Of course. And maybe you'll be my mentor when I'm a Tribute."

"Yes and with your natural talents coupled with my charm and good looks getting you sponsors you would want for nothing in the arena. But that won't be for long time. We don't have to worry about today."

They walked to the town square together, hand in hand, and he could feel her shaking all through his arm. The square was buzzing with movement, excitement, for the coming Games. Children from the Academy were chatting and laughing together, laced with anticipation, while those few from poorer families like Clove's with no training, just a handful of boys Cato recognized from the market, tried to go unnoticed in the crowd.

"Now, when you sign in they're going to take a little blood. It hurts but only a little, nothing you haven't been through before. Then you'll stand with the other little kids-"

"I'm not a little kid!"

"And I'll meet up with you after it's over," Cato said as if she hadn't spoken at all. "We'll watch the other Reapings together and make our own bets on who looks most likely to win, yeah?"

"Yeah." And then she was off, disappearing into the group of twelve year old girls as he was pulled in by his peers. The sharp prick on his finger before his blood was smeared and tested on their record books and he was cordoned off in a row with the other fifteen year olds. These were all familiar sights, extra peacekeepers, rows of children standing before the marble stage of the Justice Building, their pudgy and green skinned escort from the Capitol, and their seven Victors standing on stage waving at the cameras. This was his fourth year standing before the Reaping, there was nothing new about the speech explaining the Games or their Mayor's welcome or the Treaty of Treason. So instead he focused on the one thing that was different about today: Clove standing at the front of the crowd, her back straight and her whole body stiff, hands clasped behind her back. The only girl not wearing new clothes.

"Alright, as always, ladies first," their escort chirped in his annoying Capitol accent as he strode over to the glass ball containing the slips of paper holding the girls names. He knew that there were several hundred names in that bowl but he couldn't help thinking that seven of those slips said Clove. And that next year it will be fourteen to his five.

And then that man was reading from the slip in his hand, Cato hadn't even seen him draw it out, he was reading a name and it was Clove Muratore.

He had no time to worry for her, he could barely look at her as she squared her shoulders and made the walk up the marble stairs towards the man near the microphone. He was too busy scanning the crowd behind him, looking at the faces of the seventeen and eighteen year old girls. Staring up at the faces of those trained to volunteer, the ones who had seemed so eager at the Academy. He could see decisions passing between them, in glances and prods and whispered words.

He had to see it in one of them, the desire to be victorious before they were too old to compete. He had promised her, promised Clove that there would always been a volunteer for a reaped twelve year old, but the looks on some of the girls' faces were making it difficult for him to breathe. He saw several sneers and a sixteen year old with a cut across her cheek who looked like she was about to laugh. The trainers may have passed it off as an accident, that she shouldn't have been standing so close to the targets, but Cato knew better. He knew that she had made one too many jokes about Clove's family.

He turned back forward then, looking at the girls who were Clove's only hope was more painful than looking at the stage. He watched as their escort jostled her into position beside him and returned to his microphone. "As per tradition, do we have any volunteers?" Nothing in Clove's face betrayed her in the sickening moments of silence following the pronouncement. Cato gasped for breath, this couldn't actually be happening, Clove was talented with her knives and her age might make sponsors take notice of her, but the youngest tribute who had ever won was Finnick Odair and he was fourteen.

But then he saw her, this beautiful young woman striding down the walkway up to the stage, a tall blonde with the words I volunteer as tribute on her lips. He could have kissed her but she was already on stage and shaking hands with Clove. She retook her place amongst the twelve year old girls as her replacement smiled and waved to the crowd.

"What's your name sweetheart?"

"Aelia Faustus."

Aelia Faustus, may Jupiter grant you victory, Cato thought as his breathing started to return to normal. He barely heard Pythion Terentina, a strong seventeen year old that he recognised from school, be reaped for the boys and climb the stage himself.

"Let's have a big round of applause for our lucky tributes from District Two. Happy 71st Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favour!" The two tributes shook hands and were lead away into the Justice Building and as soon as everyone else was free to go Cato darted forward towards Clove. No one dared to block his way, not with the look on his face, and he was quickly by her side. She hadn't moved from the spot she'd found after coming off the stage and she didn't resist when he picked her up. That was the worst part, she had never let him do this before and was a testament to just how far she was in shock.

"People are staring," she said eventually, when he was halfway towards where her father and brothers were standing. Mrs. Muratore wasn't there anymore, he had seen her before drunk as always and she must have skulked off as soon as the cameras stopped filming. Clove's hand found his shoulder and gripped the fabric there.

"Let them look," he growled as he reached her family, the grimly smiling man and the excited boys who were happy to have their sister back. "I'd like to invite you to my house to watch the recap of the Reapings." He didn't want her to go home without him, as if Aelia's choice wasn't real and if he let her out of his sight she'd end up on that train.

The 71st Hunger Games lasted three weeks and Clove spent most of that time curled up beside Cato on the couch in his living room. Her father was often absent, watching from their own small TV when his leg wouldn't let him join them, and her brothers preferred to watch in the square with their friends.

They watched the Parade where their tributes were dressed in blindingly white togas looking regal and imposing in the second chariot. The interviews were the most interesting, Aelia in a sky blue dress that sparkled in the stage lights. When asked about her Reaping she gave the predictable scripted response that she didn't want someone, especially someone so young, to go and steal all her glory. But then she does something that they don't expect. She lays a perfectly manicured hand on Caesar's arm and leans in, almost if she's going to tell him some deep dark secret.

"You see, the thing is, she's got a big brother and he has a bit of a temper. I certainly wouldn't want to be one of the girls who didn't volunteer back home." She laughs as if it's a joke to make her seem more likeable and Caesar takes that angle and the crowd screams and applauds. Drama from the districts flaunted for their amusement was almost as good as the Games themselves.

It's the first time Clove ever kissed him, just a soft touch on his cheek before she settled her head back onto his shoulder.

The Bloodbath was unlike any Cato had ever seen. There was a Career alliance of five, Pythion leading the two from Districts One and Four, but Aelia had made short work of them with her spear the moment he had betrayed her. She did make her own alliance, with the girl from Twelve and the boy from Nine. It was an unprecedented turn of events and one that ended up being the talk of the Games. Her two fourteen year old companions had been killed by the boy from Five, a stocky eighteen year old who had built his muscles hauling fuel in the power plant, who turned out to be Aelia's strongest competition.

Everyone had known their final fight had been coming, the Gamemakers had swept a sandstorm through the arena that dried up all the water and destroyed the fruit trees he had been heavily relying upon. Clove and Cato had gone down to the city centre at dawn at watch her standing radiant and golden on top of the cornucopia as she waited. Clove gripped his hand all through the battle, even after her spear had cleanly pierced her opponents throat and Claudius Templesmith had announced Aelia the Victor.

And they cheered along with the rest of their district when the train brought her home.

Her mother had been drinking more heavily than normal the night before and Cato had woken up with Clove in his arms. She had been crying, there were dried tears over her swollen cheek. Days like this had become more common the older Clove got and Cato's mother had started checking in on him before she went to bed so she knew to lay out extra breakfast for her.

Normally he would wake her and they would get a run in before the morning meal but today was a Reaping day and they were allowed to sleep in. There was a brand new tunic and a pair of leather boots laid out for him and beside them a lavender dress with sandals that matched his boots. She would reject the present, he knew, but they would all insist.

The 74th Annual Hunger Games, it marked his last year of eligibility for the Games and even though the trainers had made it expressly clear that he was not to be the one to volunteer as a tribute he couldn't help but let the excitement wash over him. Next year at this time he would be entering into Peacekeeper training and Clove in three was determined to take up her father's trade. They were not the ones the Academy wanted representing their district so they began to plan what their lives would be like as adults. Planning for the future.

"I have to stop barging in here in the middle of the night, it's becoming a habit." She was awake an craning her neck to see him behind her. Dropping a kiss on top of her dark hair, he uncurled from where he was spooning around her so she could roll onto her back.

"You will never hear me complain about it," he promised as he stretched out before he got up to have a closer look at the outfit that had been laid out for him. "Mum set clothes out for us. I don't think she's done that for me outside of Reaping day since I was eleven."

"What do you mean for us? Cato!" Clove snapped and she was up and over to the dress in an instant. He could see the war in her eyes, between how beautiful she found the dress and her pride at not letting them spend any more money on her. He recognized the fabric, it wasn't expensive, his mother was clever like that. It was nicer than what she had been wearing to Reapings, more suitable than her father's old tunic, but it wasn't especially expensive, wasn't expensive enough for her to reject it outright. "Cato…"

"Put it on, let's see how it looks. Then I'll do your hair."

"Cato, this is too much," he heard her say as he turned his back to change into his own clothes. He knew she would be facing the opposite wall as well; they weren't shy or embarrassed around each other or anything, it was just something they'd always done as a way of being polite. Despite her protests he heard her nightclothes hit the floor and her slide into the lavender dress. "Wow you look great."

"If you want to see who looks great you should look in a mirror Clover," he said brightly as he helped her finish tying the straps keeping the dress around her shoulders.

"I can't wear this Cat."

"Of course you can, it's a present from all of us. We've been good the last few years with your 'no gifts' rule for your birthday. You can accept this one." He stared down her glare and resorted to the one thing he knew would work. "It's my last Reaping and the trainers say I'm not good enough to be this year's tribute. Wear it for me?"

"Fine but only for you. Now let me fix your top, you're horrible with these ties." She was growling her words at him but he knew he had won. He allowed her to fuss over him until his mother came in to get them moving. "I'm going to go and help my Dad, I'll meet you down at the centre."

"Okay, I'll see you there."

The Reaping in District Two was at nine in the morning, he knew it to be staggered with the rest of the districts so that the twits in the Capitol with nothing better to do would be able to watch all twelve broadcast live. They had a new escort this year, Piper Twist who was a comparatively plain young woman who had waist length perfectly straight turquoise hair and delicate pink patterns painted over her skin. She must have been chosen by their retiring escort, no one that young would have gotten a district like Two right away.

"Happy Hunger Games!" Piper crowed once she's made it to the microphone. "And may the odds be ever in your favour." She happily introduced the Capitol's film and then the Mayor's reading of the Treaty of Treason. She bounced over to the glass ball that contained the girls names after announcing ladies first.

He could never understand how the Capitol viewed the Games. Yes it was an honour to win, the Victors were celebrated by their home districts but it was not entertainment to be watched and enjoyed. It was a pageant to survive, to live through, before you can honour the Victor. They were trained for this, trained to fight and to kill, but they always knew they would lose their district partner. Lose a person they knew from home, knew from the Academy.

"Clove Muratore." There was no panic this time when he heard her name because he knew it was inevitable that she was called again. This year her name was in the bowl twenty-eight times. But she was fifteen and formidable with her knives. No one would volunteer for her this year. There was no point in even looking. There was only one thing he could do, if he was fast enough, and he started to move through the crowd to the edge of the aisle. The other eighteen year old boys, even the ones who were bigger than him, shrank back from his look. Not even the boy who was told to volunteer could even look Cato in the eyes.

"And now for the boys!"

"I volunteer." His voice carried to the stage and Piper jumped at the sudden sound that she wasn't expecting. She looked between Cato, striding up towards the stage, and the glass ball she had just been about to put her hand it. It was her first year as escort and she had a tribute who wasn't following the rules, but he couldn't feel anything but contempt for her distress. "I volunteer as tribute."

"I think that you're supposed to wait until I call-"

"Read the name if you want but there's no point in him coming up here. What's the difference between now and then for me to volunteer?" He grinned, trying to look eager and vicious for the games and he was eager to go now, now that he was standing on stage with Clove glaring at him, her eyes begging him to take this out and go back. But he wanted it now, wanted to destroy everyone of the other tributes so that Clove could come home.

"Alright, what's your name darling?"

"Cato Marcus."

"Let's have a big round of applause for this year's tributes from District Two. Shake hands," she prompted over the clapping of their peers. Clove's face didn't hold any hint of emotion as she clasped his hand but her nails certainly dug more deeply into his hand than was really necessary. She wouldn't easily forgive him for this.

"Let the 74th Annual Hunger Games begin!"

He didn't expect to get any visitors after his parents. Tributes were required to wait the full hour before they were taken to board the train that would take them to the Capitol. He expected to wait by himself after the Peacekeepers ushered out his parents. They had gotten longer than normal as it was, since his father was the head Peacekeeper for the district.

Never once did he think that Mr. Muratore would limp into his waiting room.

The man didn't say anything, he just sat in the chair that Cato helped him to and stared at him in silence for a few long moments. He didn't seem capable of forming the words he wanted to say. Cato couldn't imagine the stress. The stress of being unable to provide for your family and watching the daughter who can be reaped twice. And now she was going into the Hunger Games.

"I will do everything within my power to bring your daughter back to you."

"You two make yourselves right at home, I'll go find your mentors." He was so distracted watching Piper walk away, trying to figure out how she was moving that got her hair to move like that, that he didn't hear Clove move up behind him. But he did know she was angry, it was radiating off her in waves, and the slap shouldn't have surprised him. His cheek would swell and his stylist would have to do something about it but he'd make up some story about an annoyed friend coming to see him who had wanted to volunteer. He didn't want her getting in trouble for it.

"What were you thinking?" she hissed, glaring up at him before stalking away to the other side of the dining car. She was shaking again and all he wanted to do was go over there and hold her like he did through the long hours of her nightmares. But then Brutus, the huge Victor of the 53rd Hunger Games whom Cato had always admired, was walking into the compartment to size them up.

"Did she hit you?" The mentor had an iron grip on his chin, eyes flicking back and forth between the red imprint on Cato's face to Clove standing on the other side of the room still facing away from them.

"A boy from the District. He wanted to volunteer." It was a believable story, Brutus didn't buy it, but the man let it go. It was too much of a hassle to deal with Clove over something that wouldn't incapacitate him.

"Fine, I'll take the boy. You can have sullen and hostile over there," Brutus barked and Cato looked over at their other mentor for the first time since the two had entered the room. Something in him tightened and then it was a fight to stop from laughing out loud.

Clove's mentor was to be Aelia Faustus.

Still young and beautiful, the girl who had been betrayed by her alliance on the first day of her Games, who had made her own alliance from scratch with the most unlikely people, who made for some of the best television that the Hunger Games had seen in a long time. She was a favourite in the Capitol and he knew that this was her first year as a mentor. She would have little trouble securing sponsors. Clove was in safe hands with her.

"Alright, why don't we go find your room and we can talk a bit of strategy before the replay of the Reapings," Aelia said in the same bright voice that they had heard three years ago during her interviews. She took Clove by the elbow and has led her halfway to the door before Clove questioned it.

"Wait, why? What's wrong with here?"

"Well, you don't want your opponent to know all of your plans for the arena. Right?" Aelia says softly and Clove had to reluctantly agree. She shot him a look that he couldn't quite decipher before the door separated them. There was a stab through his gut as the thought of never seeing her again shot through him, even though he knew it wasn't true. He allowed himself to collapse into one of the velvet covered seats and didn't look at Brutus as the older man sat in the chair opposite.

"Don't get attached kid."

Cato couldn't help but laugh. "You're about four years too late with that advice."

"Then why would you-" Brutus started and growled when he found the answer to his own question. "Look kid, the last three tributes I've mentored have been Victors and all the others were top contenders who lost based on flukes."

"For the sake of your record then, you should hope that someone else kills her."

"Oh, he's so handsome. Everyone's just going to love him!" Latella, the brightly painted woman who was currently making his eyebrows into even shapes, was gushing and she blushed when he winked at her. He knew he looked good and felt no embarrassment lying naked on the table in front of the three members of his prep team. The two younger members of the team, Latella and Cassius who could only be her twin brother, seemed completely enamored by him; twittering constantly about the size of his muscles or how blue his eyes were or how tall he was. Gaius, the head of his team who was approaching the age at which the Gamemakers would start to ask him to retire, just seemed mildly amused by their antics.

While the twins worked on his hair, nails, and exfoliating his skin, Gaius took the more difficult task of scrubbing off years of training scars. The Capitol may love their fighting and bloodshed but they didn't think kindly of the tributes who arrived looking like they had already been in battle. And whatever he was rubbing over his skin certainly was working. Cato lifted his left hand after the man was done with it; besides it being bright pink and feeling like several layers of his skin had come off, the scar across the back of his hand that he had been there since Clove had accidentally caught him during spear training was entirely gone.

They were just washing him down with a gritty lotion that they promised was the last cycle before they would send him to his stylist for his parade makeup and clothes when someone burst into their room. A skinny blue haired man collapsed into Gaius' vacated chair, nursing a bleeding hand and crying so hard his eye makeup was running down his cheeks.

"Florian!" Latella shrieked, falling to her knees in front of him and padding his hands with the towel they had dried Cato's hair with. "What happened?"

"I'm sorry but one of you needs to switch with me. She's a monster! It's my first year working here and my first tribute stabs me with the scissors!" Cato couldn't help but be amused at the statement, Clove would certainly be doing a lot worse to the other tributes once they got into the arena, but for the sake of his own prep team, who looked so distressed at their colleague's injury, he tried not to let it show.

"You tried to cut her hair, didn't you?" he asked after Florian's tears subsided, at least after the first wave of them was over, and off the man's nod continued. "Yeah, don't do that. I do her hair all the time, you can do plenty with it without changing the length. And make sure to explain everything to her before you do anything because she doesn't really like people touching her." He saw Gaius give him a small smile over Florian's head but it wasn't Florian's fault he was so stupid and freaking out over a bit of blood, there was no reason for Cato to get angry at him.

"I'll go help them out, we're on the final rinse and polish here. Do you think you can help with your hand hurt like that?" Gaius asked comfortingly as Latella bandaged up Florian's hand.

"We're done early because there isn't much for us to do," Cassius said brightly, pushing Cato back onto the table so they could finish with him. Florian wasn't much help, he mainly just sat in his chair moping, but the twins didn't need it. "So you know her then?"

"A friend from home." They didn't press him further as they rinsed him off and applied a lotion that gave his skin a soft glow and made it stop stinging but he didn't miss the look that passed between them. The look of pity at the thought of him going into the arena against a friend.

His stylist, a portly blue skinned man by the name of Iovita, dressed him in a white tunic that reminded him so much of home it almost made him sick. He had always thought that this moment would feel wonderful, being prepped for his first official entrance to the Capitol, ready for the honour of participating in the Hunger Games. Instead he found himself longing to be back home, watching the presentation on screen, with Clove curled up safely beside him.

But at least he looked the part. Golden breastplate and plate skirt with a winged helmet of the same material, flowing cape down to his knees. Iovita hadn't used a lot of makeup on him, highlights on his cheekbones and something to bring out his eyes. The stylist obviously had strength in mind when he made the costume, the short sleeves and wide gold bracelets would draw attention to his arms.

But if he looked good than Clove was extraordinary. She wasn't looking at him, talking to Gaius as her stylist stood behind her to make final adjustments. They were dressed identically, as was normal. She smiled when she saw him and before she could stop him he had seized her around the waist and lifted her onto their chariot. Her laugh and playful smack to his shoulder were enough to cause both Florian and Cassius to burst into tears and have to excuse themselves. But Cato barely noticed them as he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. Maybe it was her stylist who had suggested their helmets, how good the contrast between the gold and her dark hair looked couldn't be a coincidence.

How beautiful she will look wearing the Victor's crown.

"Give a warm round of applause to Cato Marcus!" He allowed the cheering to swell as he took his time taking the seat beside Caesar Flickerman and he didn't need to look at her to know that Clove was rolling her eyes. "Tell me Cato, how are you feeling? I hear you're a fighter."

"I'm prepared, I'm vicious, I'm ready to go. It's about bringing honour to my district." This was the angle, the brutal bloodthirsty killer, that Brutus had suggested he take for his interview. It would get him sponsors, the cameras would be trained on him to wait for the bloodshed, as well as scaring the other tributes. His responses were aggressive but his posture was relaxed, a contrast his mentor assured him would make him seem unstable and more dangerous.

"So I've just got one last question for you Cato and it's a bit more serious," Caesar asked and Cato unconsciously leaned towards the blue haired man as his voice lost its showy grand quality he had kept up through the interview. "Besides the fame and the fortune, everyone here wants that, if you had to pick one thing that you will be fighting for out there what would it be?"

What will he be fighting for? The fight itself should be his answer, it's the answer Cato can almost feel Brutus trying to send him telepathically. He should grin at the cameras and say he's fighting for the thrill of the hunt, the joy of killing. But there was only one answer in his mind.

"My little sister."

He heard Caesar sigh happily and the crowd cheered again. Maybe this would work out for him, that the cold heartless killer still had a human side. They would think that he would strive to go back home to his family. As long as he could get enough sponsors to provide whatever they couldn't get when they took the cornucopia.

"Well I think you're in very good company with that," Caesar said, patting Cato's knee as the cameras flickered to the Girl on Fire, Katniss Everdeen, who had volunteered in place of her twelve year old sister at her Reaping. Maybe they did have something in common but he couldn't help but hate her. Her job was done, Primrose Everdeen was safe at home back in District Twelve. If only he had been born a girl then he could have said the same thing. "You would win for her?"

"I would do anything for her." He could see Brutus in the audience, fists and jaw clenched in anger, but he knew that most of the crowd would take his words as agreement to Caesar's statement instead of a correction. He caught Clove's eye as he was standing for Caesar to finish the interview, her wide eyes that had settled on a mix of anger and grief. He saw her hands twist in the fabric of the most expensive dress she had ever worn, worrying it the same way she had held that burlap sack all those years ago. She was the one who looked away because she knew, even if no one else could figure it out, she knew what he really meant and there would be no pretending otherwise with her from now on. Because she knew what he was really saying.

I will die for you.