I wrote this little drabble a few weeks ago and put it aside. I decided to drag it out again for Lyatt week as it fits the angst prompt. It's set in a post season 2, post Rufus being saved universe.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where dead man called out
For his love to flee
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run
So we'd both be free
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of hope
Side by side with me
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree
From Mockingjay by Susanne Collins
"For the crime of treason against Rittenhouse, we find the defendant guilty." Emma's voice droned on, her face lined with wrinkles but just as dark and cruel. Emma continued but Lucy didn't need to hear. Rittenhouse had won. Forced a treaty upon their struggling band of rebels that gave them a tiny tract of land that was nominally free. But the instigators of the rebellion, they were different. They were to be hung. Wyatt was one of them. Flynn and Jiya were already gone. Denise lived in New Horizon's guarding the rebels. Mason still languished in a jail but it was likely he too would be executed. Many others had already been killed in street fighting. Many more would be hanged. Lucy had no more tears to shed. She could only stand there in the cold and feel her heart twist. "For these crimes, we find the defendant worthy of death by hanging to be carried out tonight, at midnight.
"No," Lucy screamed. There was no hope. No, hope whatsoever. She couldn't fight them. Not now. Not anymore. She had nothing against their armies.
Lucy had not yet been put on trial. Judging from the nausea she was experiencing she knew Rittenhouse was banking on her reproducing. Keeping her alive just long enough to deliver a baby before she was executed. She didn't know the father. The doctor who'd performed the operation had told her nothing. It didn't feel like her baby. It wasn't her baby. She had no role in its conception other than the host organism and contributing her DNA.
She couldn't see him. Because of the mask over her eyes. Lucy screamed and screamed but no one cared. They just laughed. She could see his face and those bright blue eyes pleading with her. She couldn't save him.
"Meet me at midnight." Lucy could hear his voice over the shouts.
"Yes," she would be there. She would be there. Tonight.
The hours passed. She stood there alone in the bitter cold, shaking with fear. No one bothered her. She stood there, numb and uncomprehending as the hours passed.
"It's time." The voice said. She swore the voice came from the clock standing beside the old oak tree. The hanging tree.
She screamed as she saw the body. It was a well-loved form, totally unrecognizable in death. Lucy rushed forward and began climbing the tree. Such a long way up. She had a long knife that she intended to use to cut him down. It was too late to save him but perhaps she could say goodbye. Her hands shook. She started falling to the ground. But then it felt like the rope end hanging from the tree coiled around her arms. She was stuck. Lucy grasped the rope. She carefully untangled the knot from her arm. Attached it around her neck. Let go. The last thing she remembered was the sound of the clocking tolling twelve strokes.
Lucy shook herself out of her dream, the scream still on her lips. The dream had been so real. Every night for weeks she'd been dreaming of Wyatt dying. Perhaps it meant something? Perhaps he was doomed to die like Rufus. She fought her way back to the surface out of the tangle of bedsheets and rushed to the bathroom to empty her stomach in the toilet. Her hands shook as she swallowed a little water and took a mint to take the taste from her mouth.
She needed him. To convince herself he wasn't dead. That the vision of his badly marred body was just a dream. Lucy debated the wisdom of going and knocking on his door. It had only been three months since everything had gone down. Since Jessica had stolen the Lifeboat and Jiya and Rufus had died in 1888. Only three months since her future self had appeared with Wyatt to bring Rufus back.
Her future self had been tight-lipped about the exact nature of her relationship with her bearded companion. But it had been obvious that any tension between them had disappeared long ago. The softness in their expressions when they looked at each other had been even more apparent considering their generally battle-scarred appearance and manners. They worked seamlessly with an unspoken communication that made Lucy wonder if they truly could read minds. Whatever the future held Lucy knew they would face it together.
That didn't mean it made it easy right now. She was angry at Wyatt. Angry at herself. Angry at the way things had turned out. Her heart had been thoroughly broken and now it still felt wounded. As if the slightest injury would send it careening out of control. Her future self had given her a cryptic piece of advice. "When the time comes, don't run."
Lucy wondered what that hardened but undoubtedly confident woman would say. Wondered if she'd support or try to stop Lucy from what she was contemplating. She decided her future self would have been pleased to see her open the door and move noiselessly down the hall. Lucy tapped on the door. She knew Wyatt went through cycles when he slept like the dead. Other nights she suspected he barely closed his eyes.
He opened the door almost instantly. The latter kind of night, then. Lucy saw his shocked expression as she launched herself into his arms. He was alive, whole, and so beautiful in the dim light of the new bunker that she couldn't bear it. "You're alive," she choked out.
"What happened?" he asked pulling her in even closer. Lucy buried her head against his shoulder suddenly all too aware he wasn't wearing a shirt. His skin burned against her chill body sending delicate sparks all along the nerve endings. It was a comfortable feeling.
"Nightmare." she gasped out.
He didn't say anything, just ran a hand down her back soothingly. "Can I stay?" she asked.
"Yes, of course." He led her over to the bed and pulled back the sheets. She crawled in pulling the sheets up under her chin. She watched him stand up and retrieve a shirt from the neatly folded stack in his drawer before turning to her. "Mind if I stay?"
Lucy almost laughed. It was a ridiculous question to ask considering she was in his room. And he was allowing her to stay. She nodded feeling the warm weight of her tiredness draw her in. "Please," she whispered.
She felt him crawl in beside her and wrap an arm around her. Lucy sighed into the pillow and rolled closer, resting her head against his shoulder. It felt so good to know he was alive. That she was alive. Rittenhouse hadn't won. The rest could wait until morning.
Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this. Obviously when quoting from the "Hanging Tree" I also think of Everlark from THG. So Everlark definitely influenced this.