This is my first venture into the Clato section of fanfiction. Reviews are appreciated.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Suzanne Collins, I am making no money off of this story.
Her name is like honey on his lips. Clove. Clove. Clove. Beautiful Clove, with her dark ponytail and freckles in patterns like the stars. Terrifying Clove, with her wicked aim and cold stare. Tiny Clove, barely reaching his shoulder and as thin as a twig. His Clove, who whispers secrets on dark nights and clings to his arm in the rain.
Neither of them remember how it started, but it was after they won the Games. Nightmares plagued them both, haunted their waking and sleep. She would curl up, in a tiny ball, fisting the sheets as people tortured her. Cato (What an ugly name. He hates it.) never goes to sleep without smoothing out her brow and listening to her breath even out and slow down.
That night, she didn't feel like sleeping, her knife was being twirled carelessly in her hand, even the simple, trainee, move was made beautiful by her. It was one of those nights where, no matter how much he asked, poked, prodded, she would stay silent until she thought he was ready to discuss the nightmares. It didn't happen that much, but it usually ended in tears and screaming and sobbing and ruined furniture.
"Maybe Katniss should have won." She has insisted in honoring the tributes and calling them by name, claiming that she wouldn't have wanted to be forgotten. She forgets that he would have made sure she won either way.
"She had something back home, she had her sister and cousins, doesn't her district deserve to win? Just this once?" She is contemplating, and with her intelligence, there is too large a chance that it will suddenly be blown out of proportion.
"Fire," he stops at the look on her face, "Katniss, didn't deserve to win."
"But, Cato, she had people who would love her, miss her, I don't. The only one who would miss me is you." The sad part is, her statement is true. Their families were basking in the glory of a victor, and were unfeeling, unwilling to feel the pain being a victor inflicted. They, and the other victors of District 2, were drowning in pain, and regret, and blood, and nobody was trying to pull them up.
"Now we don't have to miss each other. "
"I guess." Sometimes, he thinks she needs to stop doubting herself, other times he goes along with her. Tonight, he just wants to sleep.
"Clove, can we talk about this in the morning? We have a party to go to tomorrow." It was at the Capitol, and with Snow already on their backs about hating the Games, they couldn't ditch again.
"But we never talk about serious stuff in the morning." She has her head tilted to the side, in an almost innocent expression. It reminds him that she is just a child, that they all were just children, forced into something they couldn't control.
She goes to sleep anyways, and with the thought of her being just a child, Cato holds her more tightly than before.
..
..
She talks about the tiny one, Rue, next.
"I was looking through documents about the game, and, she had a family ,and, they loved her and they tried to offer their lives in exchange, and," Clove pauses, and a wrinkle appears between her eyebrows, thinking about her next words. "I was ready to kill her in cold blood."
The thought that was once something to glorify over now repulses them. Cato wonders when they changed so much, and he decides that it was when Clove was almost killed, when they felt the fear that the other tributes felt. He wishes they hadn't, that they could enjoy their victory and not have to live through all this. He wishes they would be okay.