"Cato! Cato!"
No. No.
Her voice shatters the air and splits the earth and pierces his heart and his soul. He's up and running without a second thought, barreling through trees and hurdling over bushes and tearing his clothes on thorns, with only one thought racing through his mind.
Please please please not her not Clove please no how did this happen please please please no!
But no matter what happens next, the odds are not in their favor.
i.
the one that we know
He bursts through the clearing just in time to see three bodies in motion: one sprinting east, the other sprinting west, and the last crumpling on the ground.
"CLOVE!" he bellows, because he knows which body belongs to her.
He crosses the field in fifteen long strides, sliding into the grass beside her and dropping his spear and reaching for her hand and gripping it with whatever strength he can muster. There's a dent in her skull and a bruise all around the area and oh god how did this happen? "Clove, come on. Clove, come on!"
"Cato," she breathes, labored, and her chest is rising and falling in rapid succession and he knows what this means but damn if he won't deny it until he's dying, too. Her eyes, once bright and hazel and fiery, are now dull and glassy and lifeless, and he doesn't even think she can see him.
"Hey, stay with me, Clove, come on!" he pleads, the first time he's ever begged in his life. "Please, Clove, just stay with me! Come on!"
"I-I can't—" she begins, but she cuts herself off with a painful groan.
"Please!" he all-but shouts. "Don't you dare die on me, Clove! We're supposed to win, damn it! You can't just leave me here!"
Her breathing has picked up, something he didn't even consider a possibility. He thinks he might be going crazy, but he swears he can see a tear forming in one of her unfocused eyes, and that in itself just about kills him, too. "No…" she murmurs, and he runs a frantic hand through his hair.
"Someone help!" he bellows to the sky. "Please, anyone! Just help us! Help her!"
But there are no miracles today.
It finally sinks in when he looks down at Clove, at her once-beautiful, so delicate face, sees that tear leaking from the corner of her eye. "Clove—" he chokes out, but he never gets to finish.
One cannon fires, and two lives end.
ii.
the one where "almost" isn't enough
He makes it. He breaks through the tree line and tears across the field to where that monster from 11 is looming over a panic-stricken Clove, jagged rock in hand as he prepares to bring it down.
"No!" Cato screams, and then he hurls his spear with all his might. He's always had a great arm, great aim, and this time it is no different. The weapon soars through the air just as Thresh's arm drops, piercing the other boy's back and no doubt sticking straight through to the other side. Thresh goes rigid before toppling to the side, and the cannon fires instantly.
Somewhere to his right, the Girl on Fire is dashing away, but she's the least of Cato's worries. Right now his vision is tunneled, his only mission being the tiny girl who lies on the ground not even fifty feet away. He did it. He killed Thresh, and he saved Clove, and now they can both win and be victors and be happy and—
But wait. Why isn't she moving? Why isn't she moving?
"Clove," he calls, and it's part-hopeful, part-confused. His jog slows a bit as he finally reaches her, dropping to his knees beside her on the grass. "Clove—no. No, no, no, no, no! Clove!"
The dent on the side of her head is hard to miss, the coloring all purple and red and mottled. She's breathing quickly, her gasps for air much too shallow for somebody who will live. Her body is shutting down right in front of him, and all he can do is watch.
He was too slow.
"Clove, stay with me! Please, Clove, just hang in there! I-we'll get you help, okay? Right? Brutus! Enobaria, anybody!" He's growing more desperate by the second, increasingly terrified for Clove's life. Deep down, perhaps he knows that it is futile, that Clove will be lucky to survive even another minute. But he doesn't want to believe it, not yet, and so he continues to grip her hand and murmur words of encouragement to his dying partner.
"I could've loved you, you know," he whispers, his voice catching in his throat as he leans down, his lips hovering just above hers as he connects their foreheads. "Really, I could've. I'm so sorry, Clove. I'm so, so, so, so—"
The cannon echoes through the arena, though its volume can't match the anguished cry that rips its way from his throat.
iii.
the one where mercy is bittersweet
"Please, Clove. Don't do this. Please."
"I can't..."
"You can, Clove, you can! Just hang on, just stay with me!"
She shakes her head, the movement infinitesimal, and even that seems to cause her pain, as she hisses and groans and lets a tear slip from her eye. Cato can feel himself losing it, losing her, and he doesn't know what to do. They were so close—so close—and now what? Now they're here. One dying, one suffering all the same.
"End it," she breathes, and at first he isn't sure if he heard her.
"Wh-what?"
"Kn-knife. En-d. It."
Her shoulder shifts, and when he looks down he sees that she still clutches a tiny silver dagger in her hand. He looks at the blade, then to her face, and realization dawns on him. "No."
"Please."
She's getting weaker by the second, he can tell, every breath seeming to cause her great pain. But what she's asking him to do... he can't. He won't. "Clove—"
But then she fixes him with that classic Clove look, the one that screams defiance and determination, even in her weakened state. It's what she wants. She's trusting him. He glances once more at her face, at the dent in her skull that's growing more purple by the second, at the dying embers of the fire that once lit her eyes, and he thinks he loves her.
He makes his decision. She won't feel a thing.
Moments later a cannon fires, and nothing has ever hurt more.
iv.
the one where fate has other plans
"Run!" she screams, gripping his elbow and pulling him in a complete one-eighty as the first mutt leaps out of the clearing. Cato staggers, nearly loses his footing, but focuses instead on Clove's tiny hand that's wrapped around his arm.
Eventually she lets go as they tear through the trees. He can hear the mutts gaining on them, growling and breathing heavily and nipping at their ankles. He doesn't even know what direction they're running in, but if the mutts closing in on either side are anything to go by, they're being led somewhere specific. Maybe to their deaths.
But no. If neither of them have died yet, then there's no reason that they should now. They've saved each other countless times, dodged bullets and cheated death. The way he sees it, if either of them were going to die, they would have by now.
Clove lets out a sudden shriek beside him, and just as he's turning to her he feels the arrow bounce off of his chest, the armor apparently doing its job. But this means they aren't alone anymore, and his theory is confirmed when he sees the pair from 12 sprinting away as well. So that's where the mutts were leading them.
He and Clove easily fly past the other two tributes, and before they know it they're breaking through the clearing. He has a brief flashback to what happened here not even forty-eight hours ago, when Thresh nearly killed Clove, and he ended the massive boy's life quicker than he has anybody else's before. He's come to realize that he would rather die himself than have Clove's blood on his hands, no matter if it be directly or indirectly.
Maybe that's why he stops once they reach the Cornucopia, crouches down and cups his hands to give her a foothold. She accepts, leaping up, and he thrusts her upwards, where she scrambles up to the top. The pair from 12 have arrived as well, are also trying to scale the giant metal walls.
"Cato!"
He looks up, sees Clove looking down desperately at him, arm outstretched.
His next move is his mistake.
Foolishly, he spares another glance to his left, to the other tributes who have managed to make it to the top. The hesitation costs him precious seconds, and he's just reached for Clove's hand when he's yanked to the ground by a growling mutt. Over the pounding of his heart, he thinks he hears Clove scream from above. But he doesn't have much time to think about that, as he scrambles to his feet and draws his sword. From the Cornucopia, he can hear Clove begging for him to grab her hand, to Hurry up, Cato, come on! Please! But he's surrounded now, and his odds are looking less favorable by the second.
"Cato, please!" Clove's voice is anguished, and when he risks glancing upward, he can see her eyes glistening, her face ridden with desperation. But neither of them are stupid. And so he shakes his head, gives her a watery, apologetic smile, an unspoken Win this for us, and turns to the beasts before him.
He draws his sword.
The mutts converge.
v.
the one where smoke fades and mirrors disappear
The last cannon sounds, the lifeless bodies of the lovers from 12 splayed out on the surface of the Cornucopia. Cato and Clove stand beside one another, still in fighting stances, weapons drawn. But they've done it. They've won. They can go home.
"Cato—"
He turns to her at the same time she turns to him, and he cuts her off with his lips on hers, hungry and triumphant. She inhales sharply through her nose, but the knife clatters from her hand regardless as she stands on her toes and winds her arms around his neck. He drops his sword as well, his hands finding purchase in the much better spot of Clove's waist as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss.
When they break apart, he presses his forehead to hers with a disbelieving laugh. "We did it, Clove," he whispers, and she can't fight the grin that splits her face. "We did it."
And then they're both laughing, their shoulders shaking and happy tears falling from both of their eyes because they've done it they've won they've made history.
Unable to resist, he grips her face and brings her mouth back up to his, and she melts into him just as he does into her. They're so lost in each other that they almost fail to hear the crackle of speakers, the Capitol drawl of Claudius Templesmith.
"Only one victor may be crowned," he says. "Good luck, and my the odds be ever in your favor."
Clove reacts first, jumps away from him as if she's been burned and scoops her knife back up and points it right at him. Her face has gone from one of joy to one of despair in a matter of seconds, but he's still too shocked to reach for his own weapon. "Clove…" he begins, but she shakes her head.
"Stop it."
"But they said—"
"They took it back!"
"I know, it's not fair, it—"
"They want us to—to kill each other! After all of this!" Her eyes have become wild, her hand shaking as she continues to grip her knife.
Cato has never been more angry in his life. He hates the Capitol. Hates President Snow. Hates Panem. Hates the Hunger Games. They're stripping everything away from them, all because they aren't the star-crossed lovers the Capitol wants so badly. It isn't fair.
But there's no way around it. Wearily, he crouches and reaches for his sword, keeping an eye on Clove while he does. He wipes at his nose with the back of his hand, puts on a steely face to match the one that now graces her features as well. "Like old times, then?" he croaks, and he's surprised at how broken his voice sounds.
Clove shakes her head, tries her best to sneer like she always does, but he can't bring himself to believe it. "Just like it," she says, and they lunge forward at the same time.
When the telltale cannon fires only ten minutes later, the citizens of Panem will shake their heads and cluck their tongues, murmuring about tragedy and what could have been. They will talk to family, to friends, to neighbors, and they will all say the same thing, sinfully dismissive before they move on to the next topic of interest.
"The odds were never in the favor."
