Author: adryanna's echo
Fandom: The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Story Title: "bluebells"
Character/Relationships: Clove/Cato
Rating: T
Warnings: mild bad language and darker themes
Story Wordcount: 764
Disclaimer: I only own the original concepts. All settings and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.
Notes: AU. Written for clato fic exchange on tumblr (tag- clatoficholla). I honestly have no idea what I was thinking as I wrote this (like seriously, bluebells?) and it sucks but I had to get it in and I need to get back to homework so bye.
Clove trudges through the brilliant white snow, carefully weaving her way through the tombstones and flowers of the District 2 Tribute Graveyard.
Every headstone is the same- polished white marble engraved with the name of the tribute and the number of the Hunger Games he or she died in. Clove knows the coffins are the same too, having witnessed many a homecoming of dark wooden boxes as a trainee of the Tribute School. Their trainers would stand next to them, solemn as they recounted the death of the tribute (more often a mangled mess than a human being) in the coffin floating by with a look that said "this is what happens if you fail."
So they didn't. More often than not, one District 2 tribute managed to return home a victor- proud but broken, successful but shattered.
Clove chuckles bitterly as she sits down next to one of the later graves, placing a bouquet of bluebells in front of the gravestone.
"Do you remember, Cato?" she asks with a twinge of malice. "They said both of us could come home. Two victors, from the same district. We should've known it was too good to be true."
She gazes upon the bluebells, sighing. The first time she met Cato, they were both sneaking out of the Tribute School ("to get away from those damn harpies!" she still remembers him saying) and he led her out to a secluded meadow he had discovered previously. They spent the afternoon getting to know each other (his favorite color was green, he thought the food at the tribute center was decent but he would never, ever eat that "goddamned meatloaf," and his favorite weapon was the sword) but as soon as the sky began to fade they knew they had to part ways. Cato quickly plucked a bluebell and stuck it in her hair, smiling at her.
"If you keep that bluebell in your hair, I'll be able to find you again!"
Clove feels tears streaming down her face, freezing on contact with the cold winter air. She had worn blue in her hair for days, months, years afterwards, hoping to meet Cato again.
And they did.
At the reaping of the 74th Hunger Games.
She watched him march up to the stage and her breath caught in her throat.
She couldn't volunteer. She couldn't, she couldn't, it was fucking CATO and she wasn't going to kill him, no, she wasn't going to—
"Clove Aurealis!" the stupid lady with the pink wig and the pink dress and the pink everything called her name up and then Clove was pushed towards the stage and it was just her and the dumb pink lady and Cato up on the stage. And then they shook hands and Clove searched his eyes for any recognition, any sign of the boy from the meadow and she found nothing.
She took the blue out of her hair the moment she entered her room on the train.
The rest of the Games were a blur, until the final stage after the muttations that killed Thresh and it was just the two of them, standing next to the Cornucopia, beaten, bruised, and battered.
Then the fucking Gamemakers changed the rules again.
"Tributes, it seems that the earlier rule change is not allowed and has now been revoked. The original rule of one champion is now back in place."
Clove takes one look at the bleeding man before her, only seeing the small, happy boy from the meadow.
Cato smiles weakly at her, raising his sword.
"I'm sorry," he says, and before she can even register what's going on, he plunges it into his chest and red goes everywhere and she runs up to him and cradles his head in her lap as he begins mouthing something.
"You… always looked nice… with that blue… in your… hair…" Cato manages to say before his eyes dim and his heartbeat stops and Clove is left alone, sobbing and cursing and screaming with a corpse in her arms.
She has to be knocked out before his body can be taken away.
Clove continues to sob uncontrollably next to his grave, a blue ribbon twisting itself free of her hair and flying freely on the wind.
She met him when she was 13 years, 6 months, and 3 days old.
It's been 13 years, 6 months, and 3 days since he died.
Maybe tomorrow she'll finally be able to work up the nerve to join him.
"There are two kinds of courage: the courage to live and the courage to die.
A/N: Yeah, I know it's bad Dx Review please!