He's woken by a creak. No, not woken, that's not the right word. Wrenched is more like it, wrenched from nightmares of blood and singing silver and sharp teeth, ripping into his skin. He lies there for a second, heart pounding even though the rational part of his brain that he's been trying to foster over the last three months tells him it's just the house settling down on itself, the bedrock shifting metres and miles below the ground or a vibration from an avalanche high up among the hard, grey faces of the mountains.
Then it comes again. And again.
He sits bolt upright this time, snatching for the knife he always keeps on the bedside table. His sword is lying across his desk, and it would take two seconds to cross the room and get it, but somehow, his muscles are refusing to move, his head's gone foggy with the fear he tells himself he doesn't feel anymore. A faint grey light slips through the crack under the door. The ridged handle digs deep into his palm.
"Who's there?"
No answer. Another creak, and then another, a cacophony of creaks.
"I said, who's there?"
The light is floating around the floor, and he stares at it. I must be going mad. Light doesn't swoosh like that, light doesn't choose where it falls. Light just is. That's all there is to it…until the light forms itself into a shape. It's familiar, so familiar, its dead eyes stare at him out of thoughts all day and dreams all night, except right now its eyes aren't dead in the slightest, they're alive with a fire and…
"Fuck," he says. "Fuck."
"Hello to you too, dipshit."
"Clove…" he whispers. "You're dead."
"Thanks for reminding me."
"You're dead, how the fuck are you here?"
"Who the hell knows?" she shrugs, far more fluid than she ever was in life. "I thought it would be fun to come a-haunting you. It's Halloween after all."
He lets out a short, sharp bark of laughter, but doesn't let go of the knife. "Fun? You thought it would be fun to torment me like this?"
"It gets lonely," she continues, gliding over to trail her hands across the sharpness of his sword, before coming to perch on the end of his bed. She looks so real, so whole, there's no trace of the dent in her skull from the rock that snapped her soul loose and sent it drifting away through the air whilst he begged her to stay with him. "And there's no way I'm spending the rest of eternity with Glimmer."
"You never liked her."
"No," she replies agreeably. "I didn't."
They sit there for a few moments, and she reaches out to brush his hand. Her touch is freezing, and his hand passes right through her fingers. "I was going to scare you," she says absently after a while.
"What, more than you already did? It's not often my dead district partner comes calling in the middle of the night."
"No, rattle some windowpanes and shriek in corners. It would have been hysterical."
"For you, perhaps."
A pause.
"You were saying my name. In your sleep."
He looks at her from beneath eyelashes that she's always thought are far too long for a ruthless, bloodthirsty killer. "Nightmares."
"Why me? Why none of the others?"
He snorts. "Do you even need to ask me that?"
She gets up and flits over to the window. "Draw the curtains back."
"What?"
"I can't do it, idiot, I'm a ghost."
He does as she tells him, dropping the knife among the rumpled sheets and padding over to her, pulling aside the minimalist black and white as though they're curtains at some sort of theatre. The weakly-stewed moonlight washes over him and makes Clove transparent around the edges. He looks down, and she's staring at him, eyes all bright shadows and dark highlights.
"I miss you," he whispers, suddenly, and she smiles for the first time in a long time, almost sadly.
"I know. I miss you too, dipshit."
They turn back to face the window again, and forever more, after that, when he's seeing a client (President Snow makes no exceptions) or walking alone in the forest, or training another batch of kids to fight and die, he never fails to laugh when there's the low reverberating chuckle echoing off the ceiling or a chill running up his spine because he knows it's only Clove playing tricks, just the same as she used to do when she was alive.
A/N Written for the Caesar's Palace Monthly Oneshot Challenge, using the prompt 'Something wicked this way comes.' Enjoy! Red xx.