DOOD. Go see The Avengers. Like, for realz son. I saw it for the second time yesterday, and I fell even MOAR in love with it, if that's even possible. Or, rather, I fell even more in love with the Black Widow and Hawkeye. I mean, I'm already plotting out a fic for them. It's an unhealthy obsession. But, because of it, I was inspired to finish off this little sucker, probably my last update before June (thanks finals!).
Disclaimer: I don't own THG or the amazing song, Fallout by Marianas Trench. Listen to it!
commence
The invitation is staring her down from its spot on the counter. It has been sitting there, untouched, for five days, now, mocking her. Forte got one too, though his was simply a copy of the one that was sent to his parents and sisters and brothers. This one is only for her, and Clove, of course.
She eyes it warily, before reaching out over the counter and grabbing it, sliding her thumbnail under the flap and ripping it open.
Dear Mrs. Aster,
It is with the utmost respect that we announce that Capitol Weekly will be doing a spread on the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games for the twenty-fifth anniversary. We would be exceptionally pleased if you found you could make it for the photo shoot; you are the only surviving family of the District Two tributes, Cato Fervor and Clove Asphodel. Your quick reply is much appreciated.
Yours truly,
Gregiorna Hull
She realizes that she is gripping the paper so tight that it's wrinkling in places, and she drops it quickly, smoothing it out with her palm. She calls out over her shoulder, "Forte, do you have Capitol Weekly's number?"
XxXxXxX
The train ride is terrible, and Clove is cranky and fussy and so is Forte, and she's pretty sure she is no picnic to be around.
Luckily, it's in the middle of a work week, so the only people on the train with them are business men, and they just tune the young family out, focusing solely on their newspapers and paperback novels.
She almost wishes they couldn't just tune them out, wishes that they'd share in their irritation. Misery loves company, right?
The Capitol train station is packed, filled with people trying to get places, and she keeps a tight grip on Forte's hand, an even tighter one around her daughter. Eventually, they find a way out.
But not the exit she wants.
XxXxXxX
They have two days to wander throughout the Capitol, sightseeing, before the photo shoot and interviews. Forte will be joining his family the day of, and she tries to forget that, the fact that it will be her, just her and her daughter for the District Two pictures, only her for the interview.
She throws herself into making this as much of an enjoyable experience for Forte, because god knows she'll never, ever like this place, and Clove is too young to remember this stuff, anyway.
She follows him dutifully, pushing Clove's stroller and smiling when he tells her some fact that she doesn't care about. They're wandering aimlessly, and he has a running commentary on the architecture going, when he stops abruptly and says, "Er, let's head to the hotel."
She doesn't argue –she couldn't care less– but she catches sight of a sign just past his shoulder that reads "HUNGER GAMES MEMORIAL".
Her breath catches.
XxXxXxX
The hotel is luxurious. Absolutely awesome. They got a suite, courtesy of Capitol Weekly, and Clove's got a room with this crazy amazing crib –she almost wishes that she could replace the old one for one like that (she couldn't, of course, it'd hurt far too much)– and she and Forte have this giant fluffy, white bed, with like a million pillows, and she just does a face-plant into it.
She hears him pad over, drop their bags on the ground, and the bed jolts as he follows her lead and falls face first. His arm reaches out and snakes around her waist, pulling her closer, and he buries his face in her hair, inhaling deeply.
"You smell vaguely like apples."
She smirks into the sheets. "Thank you, Captain Obvious."
She shifts so that she's facing him, takes in his content look, half-mast eyes, and little smile that he reserves only for her, and says, "…I think Clo's asleep."
His dropping eyelids snap back open, darkening at the implication of her words, and he asks huskily, "You sure?"
"'Course I'm sure. I'm always sure."
She rolls him over, laying flush against him, chest to chest, and she can feel his heart beating, reminding her why she's still alive. She leans down to kiss him, and purrs against his lips, "I'm always sure."
XxXxXxX
The next day, Forte's family arrives, and they sweep him and Clove off, inviting her along, but she declines graciously, citing weariness and want for a nap. They didn't get much sleep last night, but Forte's always been much better at hiding such things, and honestly, she's not in the mood to run around the city with his family.
So, she flops back down into bed and sleeps for a good four hours before finally getting up and showering. Once she feels more human, she dresses comfortably and then sets out.
It takes almost an hour and a half to weave her way through the throngs on the sidewalk and find the museum. There aren't many people –she figures that everyone's at work, or they just don't like dwelling on the Hunger Games– so she heads in without hesitation.
There's an older woman and a young man in a café off to the left of the entrance, the young man bearing a startling resemblance to someone she vaguely remembers from sixth grade history when they learned about the various Victors of the Games, but she pays them no mind.
She goes to the back of the museum, intending to work her way up, and wanders into District Thirteen's section. It's basically empty, just some facts about the district, so she moves on quickly.
District Twelve's is sparse, up until the Girl-On-Fire and the guy who loved her. Their exhibits are long and take up almost a third of the section. She lingers for a moment, and decides that the exhibit describes someone completely different than the woman she met almost seven years ago, who's eyes were guarded and defiant and scared, all at the same time.
She moves on, making quick work of the other exhibits, pausing only for a moment at the ones of people she remembers from the tapes. She avoids Two at all costs, saving it for the end.
Finally, she walks in.
The earlier ones she has no interest in, sparing them only a passing glance. After about ten minutes, she reaches the end. The exhibit on the final Tributes from Two is rather sparse, with only generic information that was probably taking from interviews from the Games.
At the end, it reads, "Clove Asphodel died from a blow to the head. Soon after avenging his district partner's death, Cato Fervor was killed by wolf-like muttations."
Nothing else.
Nothing about the fact that she was ripped from their goddamn arms and that they were forced onto a train to die.
Nothing about her having to watch their deaths, over and over again, for the sake of history.
Nothing about them having to leave their only child alone, to figure out how to survive on her own.
There is nothing else.
She turns and leaves.
XxXxXxX
She doesn't mention her little outing to Forte, since he still thinks she doesn't know that museum exists. She listens attentively as he details his day with his family, as he talks about the new baby his sister just had, as he rambles on about how his parents are thinking about moving into a retirement home – she doubts that they'll actually do it; that family loves their old house more than anything – and nods when he suggests they go to some allegedly amazing restaurant for dinner.
While there, the couple receives the expected looks of disbelief and pity.
Mostly, the disbelief is directed at Forte, for being with her, and the pity directed at her, for who her parents are.
She figures that inhabitants of the Capitol are slightly better-versed in everything involved in those dreadful Games. She stabs her salad with slightly more force, and succeeds in freaking Forte out, but she ignores him and squeezes her eyes shut tight, because that's what they were to these people, games –with her parents, with Forte's sister as pawns.
She suddenly wants a drink.
A really, really strong drink, something to take the edge off.
And everything she has worked towards, this family she's built herself, it means nothing in this place, because, she realizes, she is nothing more than a tragic story's collateral damage.
She's entertaining the idea of calling over their waiter and ordering a scotch when she feels Forte's hand on her knee, his thumb rubbing the same spot, over and over, his skin warm on hers. She chances a glance at him, and sees him watching her, gaze steady, and she decides that he is a better balm than any drink could ever be.
She leans over and kisses him, smirking when she catches the looks of disgust some old couple in the corner are giving them.
XxXxXxX
She's not ready for this. She's really not. She bounces Clove on her knee and leans down to kiss her cherubic cheek, smiling softly when she gets a laugh out of her. Unfortunately, said laugh alerts Forte to their location – the closet of the hotel room – and the door to their fortress slides open quickly.
Forte frowns and says, "You're not even dressed?"
She shakes her head.
He sighs –he knows how hard this is going to be for her– and says, running his hand through his hair, "We've gotta be there in an hour and a half."
She nods. She knows this.
"And Clove still has to get bathed. And dressed. And fed."
She nods again. This, too, she knows.
"…Hand her to me, Bay."
She shakes her head. She's a little afraid that if she opens her mouth and speaks, he'll be able to hear just how unstable she is right now.
"Love, please?"
And she can never deny him anything when he calls her that, it's just something in his voice, like he's putting his heart out on display for her and her alone. And she knows resistance is futile, so she hefts Clove up onto her hip and walks out, hands her baby over to her husband, and from there she goes on.
XxXxXxX
She dressed comfortably – jeans and a button up she's had since before Clove – but even that feels constricting. Forte went off with his family close to an hour ago, because they wanted to get breakfast, and she wanted some alone time. But now, ten minutes after arriving at the studio where the photo shoot and interviews will be held, she's not sure she can do this alone.
The waiting area is packed when she walks in, but she spots an empty chair and settles into it, cuddling Clove close to her chest. The room falls silent, however, when the door opens again.
Whoever everyone's waiting for is preceded by a blonde lady, who looks like she's in her late thirties, early forties, and grinning widely. Behind her is the boy who won. Behind him is the girl on fire.
Peeta is holding his wife's hand loosely, and she's walking slower, her eyes jumping from face to face, scanning the room.
They lock eyes for a moment, not long, but long enough for recognition. Katniss glances at Clove and her lips twitch into what could almost be considered a smile. And then she's walking faster, keeping pace with her husband and with the woman that she figures must be Effie Trinket, though it's hard to tell, since she's only seen pictures of her pre-revolution in full makeup and wig.
She watches them until they disappear down the hall.
XxXxXxX
"Okay, turn your head this way –no, no, go back to the way you were. Can you get the baby to stay still–?"
"She's a baby. She's never still."
The biting, "Her name is Clove," is on the tip of her tongue, but that is one thing she'll never let the Capitol have, her sentimentality, her weak spot. Instead, she tucks her index finger into the crook of her daughter's knee, some odd type of off button that she discovered when she was wrangling her into her sleeper a few months back –it never fails to get her to calm down– and Clove stills long enough for three more pictures to be taken.
When the pictures with the two of them are done, one of the stylists takes the baby from her and, at her wary look, assures her that they'll sit right next to the photographer, where she can see them at all times. She reluctantly agrees (more like doesn't argue) and poses for the few solo photos they want for the issue.
After that comes the interview.
And it's not that bad, really, just a lot of questions about growing up in Two, which she prepared for. They ask a few questions about Forte, about being married to another tribute's brother, about marrying into a tribunal family, about being a mother. These she answers freely, they are the few happy things in her life, and she'll answer most questions they have about them. The topic of motherhood takes a turn, however.
"How hard is it to…to be a mother when, really, you had no mother?"
She freezes, and sends the reporter a suspicious look. She says slowly, "…It's not hard. It's…painful, sometimes. It's taxing, and emotional, and I'm sure that it's like that for most mothers. I don't see how I'm any different."
The reporter, some perky redhead opens her mouth again, but she cuts her off by saying firmly, "I had a mother. She died young, because of those Games."
There's more, but she thinks that the dark haired girl would be rather proud of her restraint, at her ability to shove away her feelings, swallow the obscenities she wants to hurl at the reporter, at the Capitol.
She's about to ask for the interview to be over, and the reporter seems to sense this, as she blurts out, "Do you ever think about them? Your parents?"
Her breath hitches, and there's a lump in her throat, a burning in her chest that always alerts her to her being this close to tears. She opens her mouth to answer a few times, but nothing comes out, and she'll close it again.
Finally she says, "Yes."
Her voice breaks on the word, and then she's crying. She tries to swallow it, tries to hide it all because she doesn't even cry in front of Forte, why on earth would she cry in front of people she doesn't know? She blames that damn museum for exposing this nerve, for prodding at this unhealed bruise.
But, no matter how hard she tries, the tears keep flowing, and the reporter hands her a tissue box, and the stylist brings Clove back over to her, and they both leave after that, with a whispered, "Thank you for your time," and she's left to cry in peace.
She sucks it up quickly, because Clove starts sputtering, and she slips back into her role as a mother, packaging that vulnerable little girl back up and locking her away again.
XxXxXxX
On her way out, she bumps into a group of people. She immediately identifies a portion of them as the family of the little girl from Eleven, the one that the dark haired girl and the blond boy didn't kill, the little mockingjay girl, and a minute later, as she murmurs "Sorry" and "Excuse me," she recognizes the ones from Twelve.
The man, Peeta, flashes a friendly smile, though his eyes are clouded – she blames the stylists for that; though she looks like the dark haired girl a lot normally, the makeup they applied seems to increase the resemblance– and the woman, Katniss –she flashes back to being nineteen and scared and only halfway drunk and walking up the steps to a white door– dips her head slightly in her direction, and she responds in kind before walking the rest of the way to the waiting room.
The room is filled with Forte's family, and as her husband stands to meet her, to slip his arm around her waist and kiss her cheek, and as his mother, Melody, reaches out for Clove, her face lighting up at the sight of her granddaughter, she thinks –god– she thinks that maybe, just maybe, she's not all that's left of the district partners from Two.
XxXxXxX
The article is great. They don't focus on how the dark haired girl and the blond boy slaughtered mindlessly, don't focus on the fact that they may or may not have been clinically insane; they focus on them being, oh, right, parents. Her parents, and she's never felt so proud to claim them. The bit on the Asters is good too, their family picture taking up two pages. She and Forte have the magazine framed.
She likes walking past it on her way to work.
fin
I hope you all liked! You know what to do. :)