breathless

The first time it happens, she is too little to remember, and he is old enough to be scared. He's just back from his first day at the training academy, lying in his bed because he's not sleeping nights over there yet when there's a scream from the next room and suddenly his father's in the door, shaking him roughly. "Get your shoes on, go and fetch a doctor," he snarls, and because Cato is used to being unquestioningly obedient in the face of his father's drunken rage, he does as he's told, fear pounding white as an avalanche tumbling through his veins as he clatters down the stairs of their apartment building and begins to run as if the very hounds of hell are snapping at his heels. He doesn't know what to tell the doctor when he bursts into the medical centre off the town square, but when he gets back, following the stern, authoritative man in the white coat into the battlefield that is always his parents' bedroom (he knows, he's heard the shouts, the crack of calloused hands hitting a soft cheek), his baby sister is the colour of the sky over the mountains on a summer's day and struggling against an invisible weight pressing down on her chest.

The doctor bends over her, and then Cato's father is glaring at him, so he goes back into his bedroom and puts his arms around his knees. He doesn't cry though. He never cries. He hasn't since his father hit him and told him tears were for women and children and that Cato was neither. He's still there, bloody crescents in the palms of his hands and muscles screaming stiffly when his mother comes in and in a rare show of weakness puts her arms around him and pulls his head awkwardly down to his shoulder. "Perdita will be alright," she tells him, and he finally lets himself breathe out until it is a physical impossibility for any more air to leave his lungs. "Okay? Go back to sleep."

"Okay," he says, lying back down. He doesn't though. Wakefulness pulls his brain into pieces until all he can see is the unnatural blue that no child's face should ever be. And then he turns his face into his pillow and vows that he'll make sure Perdita never goes that colour again.

...

But it does happen again, this time when he's older and she's older and just coming back from a day training with his friends, muscles stretching in his legs as he bounds up the stairs of the apartment block, ready to tell his father how he didn't miss the middle of the target today, not once. But his father's not there, and the door to his parents' bedroom is locked. He goes into his room to take off his sweaty clothes, but the sight hits him like a spear flying through his stomach because Perdita is curled up on his bed, gasping breathlessly and what does he do, what the hell is he supposed to do? He runs out, pounds on his parents' door, but there's no answer, no answer whatsoever, he goes back and scoops Perdita's three year old body up into his arms and he's running again, skipping the queue at the medical centre to a cacophony of shouts and protests, which he ignores, and bursts through into the first available doctor's room.

The doctor takes one look at her, and presses a button and then nurses in smart starched uniforms are crowding around her and he's sagging against the wall, biting down on his lip hard to stop the tears that burn at the corners of his eyes. He will not cry. He Will Not Cry.

They manage to save her, somehow, and when he's sitting at the side of her little cot, weaving his fingers through her baby-ones, when she opens her eyes for the first time after the attack, blue, just like his, and she slurs his name, he realises that she's the only one who really loves him, and that he can never trust his parents to look after her again. And that's when he makes his decision. One day, when he's old enough, he's going to volunteer to win the Hunger Games, and bring back medicine from the Capitol to stop her attacks once and for all. And so he throws himself into his training, not leaving in the evenings until he's sore and bruised and battered from a day of practise fights or running or ducking and weaving.

And then he's eighteen, and Perdie's sort of grown up into a little eleven-year-old with flaxen braids like the golden silk he sees on television and a sweet little smile even though more often than not she's sporting a slapped cheek or a black eye from times when Cato isn't there to get in between her and his father's fists. It's the day of the Reaping, and she knows he's going be to volunteering, so that morning she insists on sitting on his lap and being carried all the way down to the town square even though he tells her teasingly that she's getting far too heavy for it. She just locks her arms around his neck like a vice until he has to go and register, and their mother is pulling her away, pursed lips and a hand tight around Perdita's upper arm.

The names that are called don't matter. The escort barely gets through the boy's first name when Cato is shouting "I volunteer," and marching up to the stage, taking his place next to Clove Robinson, a fifteen year old he knows vaguely from the training academy, knife-sharp and tough as old leather boots. He couldn't think of anyone better to head into the arena beside, although in end, he's going to have to kill her.

His parents come to say goodbye, his father with his chest puffed out and eyes still sunken from last night's drinking spree, and for once, they pay attention to their son, they tell him how proud they are. The three minutes drags by, and finally they're gone, only to be replaced with his friends, and then the girl he's been seeing on-again-off-again for the past six months or so. It feels as though years have slipped away when Perdita catapults herself into his arms, pressing close. He rests his head on top of the wisps of blonde hair that defy her braids.

"Come home," she says into his neck.

"Of course I will," he tells her. "I've got you to come back to."

"I'm scared."

He tightens his hold on her. She doesn't need to say what of. "I know. But if you feel like one's going to come on, talk to your teacher or one of your friend's mothers, and I'll be here before you know it."

"Promise?"

"Promise," he says. The door opens, and the peacekeeper's voice is telling them that time's up. He kisses Perdita's forehead. "I'll see you soon, okay?"

He hates how small she looks next to the peacekeeper as the man escorts her out. "Okay," she says, starting to blow kisses to him that are almost tangible, white dandelion fluff misting through the air. And then she's gone. He sits down heavily on the sofa until the same peacekeeper returns for him.

"Ready?"

He nods, and that's the way he leaves his District, all shoulders back and charming smiles for the cameras with his goodbyes tucked deep into the gaps between his ribs.

...

It's the night before the Feast, only him and Clove left out of their alliance, sitting opposite each other with the fire that crackles away happily to itself between them, leaning against the golden walls of the Cornucopia. It's been a hard slog ever since the Bitch on Fire blew up their supplies, and he's more than ready to return to the Capitol to a cup of hot chocolate and a soft bed to sleep in.

"Why did you volunteer?" Clove asks all of a sudden. He looks up from where he's been warming his hands in the soft, glowing warmth of the flames. In these past two weeks, Clove's not been the one to ask any prying, personal questions. She left all of that to Glimmer – Glimmer who'd curl up beside him with her pale hair threaded with gold falling across his shoulder, Glimmer with her heated kisses and the feel of her skin sliding beneath his palms, Glimmer who he left to the tracker-jackers, who now lies buried somewhere in District One.

He shrugs. "Why does anyone volunteer?"

Clove chuckles, low in her throat. "Money? Fame? Glory?"

He sighs. "Something like that."

She settles herself closer in her sleeping bag, pulling it up until she looks like some bizarre sort of caterpillar. He remembers going to pick Perdita up from one of her friend's houses where she'd spent the night, and found the five girls hopping about in their sleeping bags and giggling as they tripped over each other and lay stranded like upside-down woodlice, legs waving in the air.

"I wanted to be noticed," she admits, quietly. "That's why I volunteered. I'm the youngest of five and, well…"

He grunts. "Suppose it makes sense."

She's looking at him across the fire, eyes like jet. An odd strand of black hair falls in front of her face. "Is glory really enough to volunteer?"

"For some people. You don't seem to care that your reason is purely selfish."

"That's because I've told myself it's not."

"Well, at least I can content myself that I'm not the shallowest person in these Games, then." He throws her a sharp look.

"No, that prize went to Glimmer," Clove says acerbically. He snorts. There's silence for a few seconds. "If it comes down to the two of us…"

"We'll win it together."

"If they retract the rule change…"

"There's no use thinking about what-ifs."

"Then I want you to know that I'm not going to go down without a fight."

"I wouldn't expect any less," he counters with a wry smirk, and then the quiet laps at the corners of the flickering light like waves gently rocking the shore into slumber. She's made him think, god damn it all, that maybe he might end up dying here, bleeding away his life into the green, green grass and then all he can think about is Perdita. Her face, slowly turning blue, because there's no-one to take her to the medical centre, no-one to look out for her.

Clove's almost asleep, he can see the fluttering of her eyelashes, when he speaks. "I have a sister."

She opens her eyes sleepily to look at him. "And I needed to know that why?"

"If they retract the rule change…"

"I thought we weren't thinking about what-ifs."

"Damn it, Clove, stop being so fucking difficult."

"Sorry," she says briefly.

"If they retract the rule change, and I die…"

"Yes?"

"Will you look after her for me?"

"If she's anything like you, she won't need looking after."

"She's nothing like me."

"What about your parents?"

"Next to bloody useless. They don't give a damn about either of us."

Clove sighs. He takes it as a sign to continue. "Her name's Perdita. She's eleven."

"I never thought you'd have anything in common with the Bitch on Fire."

"What?"

"She has a precious little sister too, remember? The whole country's drooling over her."

"For fuck's sake, Clove, will you shut up and listen?"

For once, she does as she's told. "Fine."

"Perdie has these attacks, sometimes, where she stops breathing. I just have to know that if I don't make it back, that there'll be someone to look out for her, to take her to the medical centre."

"Why does she get them?"

He shrugs. "It's a condition with a long and complicated name. But if I'm gone, it's as sure as hell my parents won't notice until it's too late."

"Fine. I'll do it."

He graces her with a brief smile, and slowly, she smiles back.

...

There are three of them left. Three left. Clove didn't last twenty-four hours after their conversation, and Cato knows he's got to get home, he's got to be there for Perdie.

(He doesn't think of another little blonde girl, sitting and watching and praying that her sister will return).

And so, it's down to this. The pouring rain. The mutts howling and scraping at the Cornucopia. He admits he's shaken, if not by all of them, by Glimmer's hard, flinty emerald eyes, and Clove's snarl. Marvel's teeth, bared, as long as his fingers. But he can tell that Katniss is shaken even worse. So his arm goes around her district partner's neck, and it's almost over, all it'll take is twist of his arm and a shove and then he's won it, but he hesitates just a fraction too long.

The arrow catches him in the back of the hand, and off balance, he's stumbling, arms wind-milling, and he's on the ground, winded, the mutts crowding around him. To start with, all he can think is fight, cut, slash, parry, but then he's disarmed and on his back, and he's thinking of Perdita as their teeth and razor tongues snap and worry at the armour protecting him. I'm sorry, he thinks. Perdie, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He remembers sleeping with her warm body curled up next to his whenever she had one of her bad spells, he remembers carrying her through the rain and snow and hail on more than one dark and stormy night, the only thing getting him past the peacekeepers being the logo of the training academy stamped upon his chest. He remembers the good times, the laughs, the tip-toeing around their parents, the walks home from school, the showing her how to defend herself, his bright, birdlike little sister, but then, in the end, all he can think about is the pain, the pain, oh God the pain. It's endless, and he doesn't think he can bear it a second longer when finally there's a stab behind his temple and all that's left is a dizzying dive into a blackness that seems to have no end.

...

It's a week after her brother's death that they find her, lying on his bed, wearing his old shirt, breath sandpapering against her windpipe. The blue is already creeping across her face. Her parents' door is locked again, and the peacekeepers lift her onto a stretcher, run her to the medical centre, but it's no use. The world is blurring around the edges, and voices ring loud and soft in her ears. Perdita thinks about all the times her brother would hold her close, tell her to just breathe, how she'd fight and fight the weight dragging down her lungs with all her might as water splashed on her face and white hospital lights burned into the backs of her eyes.

But her brother's not here now. Her brother's dead. He's dead and he's never going to come back, and it's because of that that Perdita gives up the ghost and lets her last breath whistle past her lips.

A/N So...I kind have a little bit of an obsession with Cato, and portraying him as more human than Collins or the film did. There's so much scope for his character that never really gets explored, so I thought, hey, why not? I'd really love to hear what you all think! Red xxx