The Games were over.
He had been crowned as sole victor months ago. Currently, he was supposed to be in his victory tour but he refused to go. He couldn't bring himself to go to the Districts and talk about the Games when they took her away from him.
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They had been partners both inside and outside of the Academy for a few years. They were very easy together- it was natural for them. The problems arose when they disagreed over what they wanted for their future. She wanted to keep it a secret, afraid that the Capitol would find out about them and use their relationship against them.
He agreed with her reasons. However, he wanted to run away with her. They both knew it was a long-shot, but they were trained to fight. He was certain they could leave District 2 and make a new home.
They didn't have anything to fight about, except for that. Loving and fighting were natural for them.
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They were Careers. They were trained to kill. People accused them of being monsters- of being heartless and savage.
And it was true.
As much as neither of them wanted to admit it, they were born murderers. Whether they actually wanted to kill someone or not, it didn't matter. Their personal desires had long been beaten out of them. They were trained so that once they were in the arena, they wouldn't need to think. They would turn into killing machines. At that point, it would be muscle memory for them to end someone's life.
They were in his room. She technically wasn't allowed to be there but no trainer would ever try to separate the two. They were joined at the hip, following each other anywhere.
"I don't know if I could do it," He confessed to her. A cold laugh met his ears.
"I don't think we have much of a choice. The demons we're made of… we can't stop them. It's what we were trained for."
His chest felt heavier at that. He knew she was right, of course. He just wished she wasn't.
"I know, but… there will be children there, kiddo. How could I live with myself if I slaughtered a child?" She grabbed his hand.
"I don't know."
After being training partners and something more for so long, they had gotten used to not needing answers from each other.
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She had been reaped and he had volunteered. He couldn't let her go without him.
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"I won't do it," He told her late one night during their stay at the Capitol.
"If I don't make it out, you have to win," He turned his face away from her so she wouldn't see the turmoil swimming in his eyes.
They were sitting on her bed, the lights dimmed so no one would suspect that he was in there with her. They were both exhausted but they would give up sleep if it meant they could be with each other, even if only for a little bit.
"Look at me," She cupped his face and tried to force him to look at her. His eyes wouldn't- couldn't- meet hers. "You have to win. For me."
He finally met her eyes. "I can't imagine a world with you gone," He whispered. She didn't say anything- there were no words that could bring him comfort. She had lost countless nights of sleep trying to figure out if she could actually live without him. She knew exactly what he felt.
"Please. Someone has to win. Bring honor to your name."
He could only nod before he made her promise the same thing.
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It was late after a party.
They had charmed up a storm trying to gain sponsors. It was fairly successful, they both thought. At least, he thought it was successful until he looked over at her.
She was talking to a potential sponsor. Her face was frozen while the man was talking to her. Without warning, her face snapped into a glare and she walked away.
He was worried about her the rest of the night. She continued engaging with sponsors and mingling but he could tell something had set her off.
When they got back to their floor she walked out of the elevator and slammed her bedroom door. He shrugged at their mentors, hoping they would leave it.
When everyone left their floor, he quietly walked into her room. A light came through the bottom of the bathroom door.
"Hey kiddo," He tapped on the door. "Can I come in?"
"Absolutely not." It was the first time she had locked herself into a room and wouldn't allow him to come in.
"Please? What's going on?" He tried to turn the knob but she had locked it. "Hey, you locked yourself in the bathroom so I can't get in. Can you come unlock it?"
"Go away. I don't want to see you."
"Just open the door so I know that you're alright." He waited a few moments but was met with silence. His worry immediately grew into anxiety. "I don't want to do this, but I will bust the door open."
"You're going to really piss the Capitol off if you do that." He shrugged before slamming his shoulder into the door.
The barrier popped off its frame with no difficulty. He stepped inside onto the marble flooring. In front of the toilet, on her side, there she was. Lying on the floor when he broke through.
"Hey," He gently sat down next to her and crossed his legs.
"Please. Not tonight. I don't want to talk about it." She always wanted to talk about whatever "it" was with him. He didn't know what had happened, only that something had seriously upset her.
"Ok," He drawled. "Are you sick?" He asked, nodding at the open toilet lid.
"Not anymore." He waited a few heartbeats before talking again.
"Well. Can I at least hold you?" He figured she would tell him to leave again, but she quietly lifted herself from the floor and onto her knees before collapsing onto him. She didn't make a sound- she had been trained to always be as quiet as possible- but her shoulders began to shake.
"He offered to give me anything I would want or need in the Arena as long as I took out my biggest competition at the Cornucopia," She got out in between her silent sobs. "He wants me to kill you as soon as the clock goes off. I can't do it- how could I ever do it? I can't kill you and you can't kill me but one of us is going to die and it can't be you-"
On the cold marble floor of the dimly lit bathroom, with the smell of vomit in the air, he could only pull her closer to him so that he could feel her heartbeat.
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She was on the ground, bleeding.
The face he once adored was now bloody and bruised, with a sizable dent on the side.
He threw himself to the ground and gently lifted her to him. Her breathing was labored and her eyes weren't able to focus on him.
"You're here," She rasped out.
"Of course I'm here," He tried not to cry but oh god she was dying in his arms and he couldn't do anything to save her and her breathing was shallow and he could feel her pulse which was too weak and if a sponsor could just come through then she would be ok and everything would be ok but she was dying and it was happening fast it was happening too fast and she was dying in his arms-
"Don't cry, love. It will be ok," His tears rolled down his neck anyway.
"Just focus on your breathing, ok? The sponsors will come through."
"Hey, it's ok. Look at me," And just like she did only a few nights ago in the security of her room, she turned him to look at her. "You were my greatest gift. Now win."
Her eyes were closing. He put her on the ground and began to push on her chest, hoping to revive her. Panic swept his body.
She couldn't be gone- they were supposed to win. Somehow they were going to win together and live a long life together. That was the plan. But her chest had stopped moving and her body went slack and surely she couldn't be dead she wasn't actually dead because she was all he had and she was too strong and he didn't get to tell her how much he loved her and she died without before he could save her-
"Hold on," He cried, stopping the chest compressions. He pulled her back into his arms and rocked back and forth. He tried to push her hair and the blood off of her face. "Please!" He was no longer trying to stop the tears. They fell rapidly from his blurred vision.
Her canon went off in the distance and every bit of him died with the rumble of it.
"Come back! I still need you," He was frozen. He needed her. "Please don't leave me!" He screamed. "Don't leave me!"
He stayed like that for hours, cradling her limp body in his arms. He lifted her closer to him so that he could bury his face in her neck. "Please come back. I still need you," He whispered.
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He had turned the fire on in his empty house. Sitting in front of it, with a blanket wrapped around his bare shoulders and snow falling outside, he closed his eyes to try to picture her face.
It was impossible, he knew that much. He could never see her face without the blood and the fatal dent. It was the only image he could see of her and he hated himself for it.
He hadn't bothered to eat for a few days. He was desperately hungry but food had lost its flavor and he didn't have the energy to walk to his kitchen. So he sat in front of the fire. His once well-kept hair now had grown to brush past his ears and itchy scruff spread over his cheeks. The person he was before the Games was long dead so he stopped trying to keep up appearances.
He had gone back to District 2 alone. Her coffin had arrived a few days before him. When he was freed from his mentors and from giving speeches, he walked to the graveyard and laid down beside her grave. He stayed that way for hours.
When he finally opened his eyes, he saw her sitting across from him. There was no blood or dent on the side of her face- she looked like she had before the Games, but she seemed to be at peace.
"You're here," He whispered. A knowing smile greeted him. She reached out to touch his shaggy hair. Of course, her hands ghosted through his head. "I know," He chuckled. "It's gotten long."
She frowned at his response and his throat constricted. She looked real. She looked too good to be true- the girl he loved more than anything was sitting in front of him and nagging him about his hair. It was so typical of her he could have sworn she was actually there.
The memories of sleepless nights and the occasional nights he did sleep only to be woken up by nightmares, the memories of them together in District 2, the memories of her laugh and fierceness all floated into his mind. His eyes began to water.
"Kiddo, come back. I still need you." Her expression didn't change when she shook her head. "Please," A sob broke from him. A sad smile formed on her lips and she reached forward to cup his face. He couldn't feel her when she pressed a kiss to his forehead. She sat back and they sat together in front of the fire for an unknown amount of time.
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It became a common experience.
He would sit in front of the fire and eventually she would join him. For the past few weeks, he had forced himself to eat and shower and he had even been able to sleep for a few hours each night.
The snow had persisted in the District so he was huddled even closer to the fire.
On most occasions, he never spoke to her. He thought just being able to see her would rid his pain but he was wrong. Seeing the image of her without being able to hear her or talk with her felt like losing her all over again.
"I don't know how to let go." She continued to stare into the fire. "I know I'm not that strong… I don't think I can."
After a few moments, she turned to face him, her dark eyes meeting his tired ones. "I just… I just want to hear you. I want to hear you tell me it's time to go to bed after training, or that I need to cut my hair, or that I should have punched harder, or that you know I love you- I just want to hear you say it's time for me to go home. To come home to you."
She smiled at him again. It's all she ever could do.
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It had been a year without her.
He had gotten himself to go outside and into town. Everyone seemed to keep their distance at first- never sure when he would go off. He didn't blame them. He wasn't sure either.
No one spoke of her or of them. They didn't need to speak to him to confirm what everyone knew- she had been his lifeline and without her, he was barely surviving.
As the months went on, he began to heal. Spending hours in a town surrounded by people was not what he thought would help, but it did. It took his mind off of her.
Everyone in the District slowly came to support him. Most of them had also lost someone they loved to the Games.
He slept more and ate more regularly. He had let his hair grow long enough so that he could pull it back into a short ponytail and his boyish scruff had turned into an untamed beard. He would occasionally go to the Academy to burn off his anger, but he couldn't be there for too long. He had too many memories with her there.
He was sitting in the town square when a fight erupted between a Peacekeeper and a few of the shop owners. He stood up to see the Peacekeeper beat an old lady with his baton.
The old woman had been so kind to him. She had welcomed him into her shop. He would sit and listen while she talked to him about anything she wanted to. It has been comforting.
So when he saw her in trouble, it was no surprise that he leaped to his feet. He hadn't been in a fight for a year but his instincts still kicked in.
Charging over, he wrestled the Peacekeeper to the ground. They fought in the mud until he finally gained the upper hand and repeatedly punched the guard in the face. He was one punch away from getting off the guard when he felt something sting him in his chest. He looked down to see the mud on his shirt mix with blood from a hole in his chest.
He pushed himself off the guard only to stumble and fall down a few feet away.
The crowd that had gathered now turned into a mob as the Peacekeeper reinforcements had just shot the anguished Victor they had grown to love.
While the mob swallowed the guards, he struggled to catch his breath. His eyes were having trouble focusing until a figure kneeled next to him. She sat down in the mud next to him and turned his face to look at her. At once, his eyes focused and he released all of the tears he had kept for the past year. She was there with him.
"Here, love," She held out her hand to him. "Let me take your hand. I'll make it right." An overwhelming sense of relief filled him. The mob began to disappear and the noises and smells of District 2 began to fade when he reached for her hand.
He sat up without any pain and pulled her to him. "I've missed you so much, kiddo." He whispered into her ear.
The background had turned into a meadow filled with flowers and a beach in the distance. Birds sang a happy tune in the trees and the sun warmed his body.
"I've missed you too," Clove whispered back. "Now let's go cut your hair."
And for the first time in a year, Cato was home and laughed.