A/N A somewhat strange story I wrote a while ago and just found. Weird and wacky and probably would never work but I figured I'd post it. Enjoy :) xox
{first movement}
The Mayor's daughter looks as though she's made of sunlight, he thinks, as he's greeted at the station. Yellow dress, yellow hair, golden ribbon and a smile she seems to think no-one can see the rain behind. He steps forward to shake the mayor's hand, and is ushered into the car next to her. She sits as close to the window as she can – as far away from him as she can – twisting her fingers together.
When he isn't looking, he can feel her red-hot stares burning into the back of his neck.
::
He's all ready for the party, and trying to erase the memory of the speech he'd had to give from his mind, but it keeps coming back. The sky, grey and wintery and steely. The silent mass of skinny, starving people with arms folded and worn, tired faces. The families, four blonde heads on Loverboy's side, and a gaggle of cousins on the other. Everdeen's little sister, with tears dribbling down her pale, porcelain cheeks, and the angry guy he vaguely remembers from the interviews standing protectively behind her, glowering.
Whatever. It wasn't like he was the one who put the knife into her neck. That was all Clove's doing.
There's music, then, drifting out from one of the rooms off the main foyer, and because he's got fuck all else to do before Brutus and Lyme and all those silly, twittery people from the Capitol descend to get drunk and flirt and have a good time even though there'snodamnpointanymore, he pushes open the door.
She's sitting on the piano bench, golden curls and a golden dress and a dainty blue necklace like droplets of water across her collarbones, and he wonders if she's trying to make some sort of point. Her fingers fly across the keys, faster and faster, until she crashes her hands down onto ivory and ebony and mahogany with a thump and turns to look at him.
"Will you not do that, please?" Her voice is tight. He leans against the doorjamb.
"Not do what?"
"Watch me like that. You're scaring me."
First mistake, admitting weakness. He shrugs away from the comforting solidity of the wood, and sits down on the piano bench, next to her. She tries to slide away, but he catches a handful of the gold tulle, anchoring her in place.
"What are you doing? Let me go!"
He doesn't say anything. "I'll scream," she says. Second mistake, threatening something she's not going to follow through with.
"No, you won't."
They lapse into silence. She holds herself stiffly, tilting away from him. He can feel the sequins on her skirt digging into his palm. It's not often that he's at a loss for how to make a pretty girl talk to him.
"What were you playing?"
An unwilling answer seems to slip out of her before she can stop it. "Etude number four in C-sharp minor. Chopin."
Third mistake – never let down your guard.
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
She looks down at the piano keys, and reaches out a hand to brush the top of one. "An etude is a type of music. C-sharp minor is the key signature the piece is written in. Chopin was the composer."
"Ah," he says, like it makes sense. It doesn't, but he's actually gotten her to talk without glaring, a mountain in itself. "How long did it take you to learn?"
She narrows her eyes. "Why do you want to know?"
"I'm curious."
"Why?"
"Haven't you heard of manners? And I was curious."
"About what?"
"The music."
"That's bullshit," she says, and then covers her mouth as though it's a sin she'll never wash away to say such a dirty word. Her cheeks are pink. Cato thinks about how Clove used to toss that and worse around, at him, at the trainers, at the world.
He's about to come out with some sort of witty response – fuck knows what – but then Lyme is standing in the doorway, blood-red evening gown and stem of some sort of liquor idly grasped in her fingers. He lets go of the hem of the Mayor's Daughter's dress – he should really have learned her name by now – and stands up.
Lyme gives him a cool, level look. "It's starting."
::
It's late in the evening, and he's not tipsy as such, but he can feel the alcohol sliding through his veins like melted chocolate. The woman on his arm – more than ten years his senior, he thinks – digs her turquoise nails into the shoulder of his suit and whispers something breathily about finding a room. He sees a flash of golden dress disappearing out through the curtained-off French windows, and pastes a smirk on for the green eyelashes and lips pouting and fluttering up at him.
"How about you go and get ready," he says in a low, gravelly voice, the voice they all like him to use, and she giggles. "I'll be up in a bit."
Twelve would've been the one and only place he'd get a night off. But she's got a red rose on her clattering bangles, and he knows that it's not worth it to refuse her. Never worth it. Ever. Green Lips totters out of the door, and he ducks out the way he's sure Mayor's Daughter did, out into a dark garden that rustles with night and quiet and a gentle wind.
There is a foot dangling from one of the trees in the back, and a pair of golden shoes arranged neatly by the trunk. Fourth mistake – never let yourself be seen.
He climbs up into the foliage, trying not to remember that the last time he did this, he fell flat on his arse. She's sitting on one of the lower branches, thank god, hugging one of her knees to her chest. She starts when she sees him, but doesn't make another sound as he straddles the branch, leaning back against the trunk.
"I never got your name," he says, after a while, feeling the weight of the silence against his shoulders.
"Didn't you watch my interview?" she asks, not taking her eyes off her bare knee. She's beautiful, he thinks, sitting there, hair wild and moss on the sequins. Like a naiad or a fairy-story, something that will never come true. When it's obvious he's not going to respond, she sighs. "Madge."
"Madge," he says. "How did you learn to climb trees?"
"Same as anyone. Practise."
"Bullshit. You don't seem like that type of girl."
"What type of girl?"
"Adventurous. Like Everdeen." He almost regrets it the second his biggest rival's name crosses his lips. Madge's head snaps up, and she impales him with a glare as blue as fury.
"Katniss was my friend, and she wasn't adventurous! Do you think it was her choice to end up in the arena?"
"She volunteered. That's a choice."
"Not for her it wasn't."
"Yes it was. She didn't have to volunteer for her sister."
"It was her only choice. She refused to let Prim go there and die. Wouldn't you do the same in District Two or are you all too heartless?"
"That's why we have the volunteer system, or haven't you noticed? No-one goes to the Games unless they're prepared."
She slumps into a mutinous silence. He feels like he has to say something, but the words come awkwardly. "I'm not sorry about her being dead, I guess, but I am sorry she had to go out like that. Well, that her sister had to see it. I wouldn't want my siblings seeing me die in a horrible way…"
"You have siblings?"
"Haven't you been watching the broadcasts?"
"If I can help it, no."
He pauses. It's starting to grate, all of this anger. Clove and sepsis killed her friends, not him. He tilts his head to one side. A thought pops into his head, and he can't be bothered to stop it. It's been a long time since he could get under someone's skin just for the hell of it.
"Aren't you scared of being in a tree with a murderer?"
"What the hell?"
He decides he likes Madge better when she swears.
"Aren't you, though?"
"No, not really. You're not going to do anything."
"I might."
"Oh can it. You're just being unnecessary now."
"Am I?"
"Yes."
Another pause. The music from the house stops, abruptly.
He growls a sigh and rakes his hand through his hair. "Well, I'd better be off."
"Just like that?" Is that disappointment in her voice?
"Got someone waiting for me." Fuck, fuck, what possessed him to say that?
"Oh, of course." Her tone is sceptical.
"Questioning the existence of my bed?" And Green Lips, unless she's given up waiting for him. "Long few days ahead."
"I can imagine."
He extricates himself from the uncomfortable branch, and drops to the ground, thankfully landing on his feet instead of his arse. She's still crouched up there. At his raised eyebrow, she huffs. "A hand?"
Fifth mistake – never rely on anyone. They'll always fail you.
"Sure." He takes her wrist as she jumps, feeling the blood thrum beneath the fragile skin, a timid, fluttering heartbeat. She bends down to pick up her shoes, and he tries not to enjoy the view of her behind. It's not the best he's seen, but it's sure as hell not the worst.
"Well," she says, straightening up and brushing leaves off her dress. "Nice talking to you." Her tone is insincere, and so is her smile.
"Goodbye, Madge."
"Bye, Cato."
She goes back inside, and after a few seconds, he follows her. Madge Undersee would never be able to survive in the Hunger Games, but for a few minutes she made him feel human. Maybe that's even more of an achievement, though it's not like he would know.
{second movement}
It's two years later, and this time she's not bothering to even attempt to hide the rain, her hands clasped neatly against her blue skirts, and her hair neatly arranged on top of her head. He glances over to her as his tribute – his victor – shakes hands with the Mayor and is escorted to the car. She doesn't look up.
::
He doesn't have someone he's expected to see to tonight, so when she slips out of the party again, he follows almost immediately. It's no surprise that she ends up in the tree again, climbing quickly and easily, hand over hand, and it doesn't seem to surprise her that he's found her.
"What's wrong with the party?" he asks as she settles herself down on a branch just above the height he's willing to risk.
She makes a non-committal noise. "Too much Capitol for my tastes."
"Too much Capitol for anyone's taste."
He can feel her questioning look through the heavy darkness that drapes itself over the branches like velvet. It's a treasonous thing to say, and fear he's not used to chokes in his throat. He backtracks quickly. "It doesn't suit Twelve."
"And it suits everywhere else? They're sick."
"That's dangerous."
"Aren't afraid, are we?"
"You may not have people to protect…"
"There aren't any bugs out here," she snaps, and in that second, he thinks she understands more than he knew. A pause. He tries to get the conversation back onto safer ground. He can't think about it, about how wrong the Capitol are, about how it felt to sit in front of the President's desk with a picture of his family, his little sisters and smiling mother and weary father, and know that to put one toe out of line would mean four headstones in a row in the District graveyard. Such a tragic accident. Yeah right.
"So."
"So what?"
"Working on another piano piece?"
"Of course. Don't have anything else to do with my time, do I?"
He snorts a laugh. "School."
"Graduated a few weeks ago."
"Congrats. A life of meaninglessness awaits."
"And it hasn't been meaningless until now?"
"Touché."
The music ends, but this time he doesn't have to leave. He sees his Victor pretending to giggle through the windows as she snakes her arms around a man's neck – how the mighty have fallen– he sees everyone drifting away, the help coming to take away the food, curtains being drawn, lights sputtering out.
"Why are you all like that?" Madge's voice is strained.
"Like what?"
"Going around with all those Capitol people. I've seen the broadcasts. A different person every day…"
He can't believe she has the nerve to bring it up. Her feet dangle near his face, all daintily-boned ankles and unpainted toenails, and he knows he could lie, he could say 'because who says we can't' but he realises with a shock that he wants this girl he's met all of twice to think well of him. "It's not because we choose to."
"What?"
"I…I can't, okay?" He thinks about plastic skin and pointed nails and hair that feels like strands of nylon. He thinks about them, pretending to own him. He thinks about nights, high on drugs and thick, bitter liquor, picturing his sisters' faces just to get him through. "Just…trust me, it's better that your friend died in that arena."
Madge doesn't push it. "So, do you want to hear what I've been working on?"
It's an awkward subject change, but he's grateful. "Won't it wake everyone up?"
"Not if I put the quiet pedal on."
"Okay. Sure."
"Help me down, then."
"How the hell can you get up trees but not down them?"
"Gale taught me during the Games but Katniss died before he could teach me about getting down."
"Gale?"
"Katniss's cousin. Well. He wasn't actually her cousin."
He can see the blush creeping across her cheeks, but decides not to push it. It's none of his business who she likes, though the cousin who suddenly isn't a cousin seems too angry for someone like Madge. Perhaps that's where she gets all of her cutting one-liners and rebellious ideas from. He doesn't think she could dream them all up by herself.
::
In the morning, Madge goes with them to the train station to see them off, exchanging polite kisses on the cheek with Mersey and smiling at him. It's almost proper, this time, he thinks. As the train pulls out of the station, he stands by the window and watches until the speck of blue has disappeared from sight.
{third movement}
It's in Thirteen that he sees her again. The war is sinking its teeth into their country, and Lyme's sent him to Thirteen to be a soldier or a leader or whatever they want him to be. The hovercraft spirals down and down into a hangar underground, and even though Lyme's told him about this, he can't get over the fact that all these years, an entire district has been hiding here, waiting for the moment to throw of the camouflage and pounce.
He picks up his sword when prompted – why a sword is useful in a war he has no idea – and marches down the ramp after the co-pilot. There's a woman waiting for him, and he almost stops dead because it's Madge. The sunlight is gone and the rain is gone, and it's like she's made of ice now, grey uniform and dog tags and burn scars and a gun. But she smiles when she sees him, an actual proper smile, wide and showing all her teeth.
"Hello, stranger," she says. The co-pilot gives her a look, like he's not sure whether to reprimand her for being so casual. She jerks her head at the man, and he salutes and marches off. "What the bloody hell are you doing here?"
"Lyme," he says.
"I was expecting her, yes."
"There are uprisings in Two, now. She stayed behind to co-ordinate it."
"Ah."
"I heard about Twelve. I'm sorry."
Madge's face closes off suddenly. Her knuckles turn white around her gun-butt. "There's nothing to be sorry about. It was Snow, not you."
"Yeah, but…"
"No buts. Come on, I'll get you settled."
She turns on her heel and walks away without another word, not looking back to see if he's following. He is. He always does.
::
Madge insists he sit with her at her table in the refectory area, once he's got his schedule and apartment and briefing. He's not so sure as he approaches. The angry cousin not cousin is there. Not that he's afraid, he'll never be afraid of anything again but it's more a matter of control. He bets that the other guy will still blame him for coming out of the arena alive when Everdeen didn't, and no matter what they say about him, brutalbloodyCato, he doesn't want a fight. Not here, not now.
"Hey," Madge says as he puts his tray down next to hers. Then, "Guys, this is Cato. You all know who he is, I'm sure. Cato, this is Gale, his family and his fiancée, and Katniss' sister, Prim."
The air feels thick enough that he's about to choke on it as three pairs of grey eyes meet his accusingly. It's like a rain of spears, and he makes himself sit upright, pretend not to be bothered. The other people at the table are staring too, just not as hostile. "Pleased to meet you," he drawls.
Cato can see the hackles rising. Then the girl sitting next to Gale, the cousin not cousin puts a hand on his arm and whispers something into his ear that sounds very much like 'behave.' He gets a jerky nod from Gale, and the two boys who look like his miniature doppelgangers. Everdeen's sister – Prim – pushes her food around her plate, and the older woman smiles at him, though it's strained and pained and not much of an effort.
They eat in tense silence, but to him, he'd take this over the noise of the Capitol any day.
::
He's been in Thirteen chafing at the orderliness and quietness and greyness of it all for two weeks when he's walking down a corridor in the hospital on his way to see Madge when he spots a head of tousled bronze hair through one of the doors. He stops dead and he must have made some sort of sound because Finnick Odair's head jerks up sharply, green eyes vacantly staring at him.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" he says, just as Finnick says, "Cato?"
Cato steps forward to lean against the doorframe, eyeing his old friend. He's thinner than before, all dark circles and sharp cheekbones and pallor. "You look like shit."
"They've got Annie." Finnick goes back to twisting something – rope, maybe – between his fingers.
"Fuck."
"They're not getting her out. I don't know why."
"I'll see what I can do."
"They're not going to change their minds. She's not valuable to them."
"They will if I have anything to do with it."
There's no reply from Finnick. Cato steps away. "I've got to go, okay? I'll sort something out."
"What's all this about them not rescuing Annie Cresta from the Capitol?" he demands the second he shuts Madge's door behind him. She's sitting up in bed with bandages around her chest and a book open on her lap.
"Don't go there. I've tried. Gale's tried. It's not going to happen."
Anger boils in his veins, hissing and bubbling and spitting. He wants to break necks, sink knives into flesh and cut lines into skin because Finnick is sitting there like a broken ghost of himself and lovely little Annie is locked away in a cell somewhere because District fucking Thirteen can't be bothered to get off its arse and go rescue her.
"And you give up just like that, do you?"
Madge's eyes snap up to meet his. "We've tried. We really have. Coin's refusing to budge."
"She's going to budge or I'm bloody well going to kill her."
"Don't you know about picking your battles?" Her voice is acerbic, and he glares at her.
"Not in District Two we don't."
He's gone before she can get another word in.
Weeks later, weeksandweeksandweeks, he always loses track of time down here, after propos and battles and fights, he's finally standing at the edge of the Assembly Hall watching Annie and Finnick recite their vows to each other. It feels as though he's a bit closer to winning the war, seeing them together, hand in hand as though they're the only two people left in the world.
Finnick of all people deserves to be happy.
Afterwards, when there's dancing, he finds the seat next to Madge. He follows her gaze to where Gale and his fiancée are dancing and laughing together, a perfect matched set of dark hair and grey eyes and olive skin.
"Still hung up on him?"
He expects Madge to say something snarky back, but all she does is sigh. So on an instinct, he grabs her hand and pulls her to her feet.
"What are you doing?" Madge hisses.
"Asking you to dance."
"That's not asking."
He pulls her into a ballroom hold he learned from Lyme in the days after his Victory when he was being whisked from party to party, bed to bed. "Fine. Madge Undersee, will you do me the honour of dancing with me?"
"You haven't left me much choice," she says, resting her hand on his shoulder. He tries not to notice how she feels in his arms or the tingling and fizzing under his skin.
"I couldn't let you get away, now, could I?"
"You're so creepy sometimes."
He flashes her a grin, all canines. "Too much time spent around the Capitol."
They dance in silence for a bit, and then Madge looks up at him, her golden golden hair falling around her face like shooting stars. "I always think he's going to change his mind," she whispers. "You know, wake up one day and finally see me for more than just the Mayor's daughter."
"How long…" Cato trails off. His sisters aren't old enough for this melodramatic unrequited love shit, and none of the girls he's been with have ever seemed to have that problem. Why she's pouring her heart out to him like this he has no idea, but he can tell that she needs it, that it's better for it to come out this way than in a heated argument with Gale. The guy's carrying a lot of guilt – he knows this now – because of Everdeen, because of District Twelve, because of the whole damn war. The last thing he needs is Madge piling more on top of it.
"God, I don't know. Since we were kids. He saved me, you know, when the bombs came and I thought…" she sighs and shakes her head. "I don't know what I thought. I just want to forget."
Cato looks down at her, and then steps back suddenly, taking her hand and pulling her along after him. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" she asks, keeping pace as he leaves the hall, takes random lefts and rights through the maze of corridors. He pushes open a door – some sort of storage room – and turns to face her, pale in the fluorescent light.
"I'm helping you forget," he says, and kisses her. There's a moment of shocked stillness, but then her arms come up to find his neck, and she kisses him back, hard and hot and demanding, tangling her fingers through his hair. She is all muscle and sinew and scars under his hands, but she still melts against him as he draws two fingers in rough circles over her clit, panting softly.
"Can't believe we're doing this in a storeroom," she says, her hair tousled and her eyes as wide as an ocean. He kisses her again in response, biting down on her lower lip. She moans, and pulls him closer, and as they come together, he forgets about the war and the Games and that she's thinking of another man.
If reality is this good, he never wants to dream again.
They don't see each other the morning after. And the morning after that, she avoids his eyes in a cafeteria, even though there are bruises clouding against the skin of her neck like thunder. That night, though, she's knocking on his door and he lets her in without a word because if this is what she needs him to be, he'll do it.
Sometimes, afterwards, they'll lie together, curled up, and he'll almost do something stupid like admit he has feelings for her, that she's not just a drug to help him forget. But he doesn't. He's not that far gone. Not yet.
He goes to invade the Capitol with the army, and she stays behind, planning and strategizing and plotting. He tries to forget her, but his mind won't let him stop remembering.
{afterthought}
It's accidental, that they end up together after the war. He's waiting at the station for a train to District Two, and she appears at the edge of the platform in a black dress with her hair pulled up off her face and a suitcase in her hand, all shadows and ghosts instead of ice and rain and sunlight.
"So," she says, after a while, as though they're casual acquaintances who've just met, as though he doesn't know what she sounds like when she comes, writhing and moaning underneath him in his sheets back in District Thirteen. "How've you been?"
"Oh the usual," he says, glancing down at her. "Winning a war. You?"
"Yeah." Her voice is heavy with tiredness. "Spent far too long working on that one."
The train arrives, then, and they sit in silence all the way out. He doesn't question it, though, when she gets up at District Two, and follows him out of the train because what the hell? Twelve's a ruin and it's not like she's got anyone else but him left. His mother and sisters are waiting for him on the platform, and a squeal goes up as they see him. Two little bodies – seven and nine years old – colliding with him. He bends down to hold them, all warmth and soft hair and innocence that he never ever wants them to lose. Madge is hovering near the faded white line on the edge of the stone, her expression uncertain, but she smiles when he looks over his shoulder at her and stands up, his littlest sister balanced on his hip.
"Ma," he says. "Pip, Tessie, this is Madge."
His mother smiles at Madge as though she's the sun and moon and stars rolled into one. "It's so nice to finally meet you," she says, as though wars haven't been won and lost, as though everything's normal and he's brought her home for dinner.
"It's nice to meet you, too," Madge says, stepping out of the hug. She fingers the dog-tags that are still hung around her neck, and smiles at him. He reaches out to take her hand, and she doesn't pull away.