Title: Fly My Name

Category: Books Matched

Author: Shingeki-no-Kenobi

Summary: One-shot alternate ending to Matched, begins at beginning of last chapter. Cassia is agonizing over her actions and finds a hopeful scrap of her past- and it's flying Ky's name.

A/N: I am so sorry for this dreadful, dark, sorrowful suicide oneshot. It may contain triggers, I don't know. Just- bear with me that Xander is Xander, and we don't have to question him.

-x-x-x-

I close my eyes and ask the angels and Ky and Grandfather for strength. Then I open them and look straight at my father. "How?"

I dig my fingers into the hard soil, planting row by row of the food that will not feed me, but the Citizens in the Society, the Citizens who do not have to agonize in impatience, waiting for the boy they love. "Love"- the word was once so distant to me, a dream of extravagant Banquets and perfect lives. Now it is so close to my heart, tied down with not one string but millions of steel cables, all of which with one word written in beautiful handwriting all over them- Ky. Was it really just six months ago that I was dreaming of my Match, still sixteen and believing that the Society harmed no one without good reason? Now I know better, since I am proof myself. I fell in love and now I'm relocated to an outlying Province, so close yet so far from Ky. And Xander.

I am once again stung not only by the cold air but by the guilt of everything I had done to Xander, despite not regretting it. He had protected me and done everything I had asked of my Match, and what did I do? I sneaked around with another boy, an Aberration, no less, and didn't even tell him until Ky was taken by the Officials. I can still hear Aida's screams and Patrick's shocking insubordination against the Society.

I sigh and continue my planting, the rough work gloves offering little sanctuary for my reddening hands whenever I find sharp rocks. It's nearly quitting time; the sun's low in the sky, reminding me of when I pointed to the sky, knowing of no other way to communicate my love to Ky without dooming us both. Back in Oria, the sun is setting too, and I can imagine both Ky and Xander looking up at the sky, different memories for both of them but still involving me.

Ky could be thinking of that one kiss, the one hidden from the Society and still purely ours...

I sigh and again smell the delicious cocoa cake from my Match Banquet. The Society still feeds us but not as well as back in the Boroughs, and I long for another bite of the food. But, of course, I probably won't ever taste food that good in my lifetime again, since I'm so close to becoming an Aberration and having my Final Banquet cancelled. Thinking of the Final Banquet once again reminds me of my grandfather...

Enough, Cassia. You have to focus on finding Ky. I think, so lost in nostalgia that I'm befuddled for a moment. Then I realize that the whistle's sounded and it's time to eat dinner and go to bed- there's no recreation hours here. I think again of the last part of Ky's story, the one that I was especially loathe to burn.

There was only one Ky on the napkin, smiling. A smile in which I could see both who he had been and who he had become. His hands were empty and open, reaching a little. Towards me.

Cassia.

I know which life is my real one now, no matter what happened. It's the one with you.

For some reason, knowing that even one person knows my story makes things different. Maybe it's like the poem says. Maybe this is my way of not going gentle.

I love you.

I had to burn this piece too, but even after burning it I clutched that I love you so close to my heart, a fiery nothing that meant everything. I think of the relics of beautiful confessions, the poems that we had shared. I see a bird flying out of the trees near me, its scarlet wings nearly flashing with a life not controlled by the Society. The poem Ky gave me for my birthday was so beautiful, speaking of romantic fantasies like flying...

The bird has a piece of paper in its beak, and then drops it. I pick the tiny scrap of paper off of the dying grass, and it's a piece from the very birthday poem that I had to shred on the Hill.

It says, Birds and the birds of winged trees flying my name.

"So this bird was flying my name..." I whisper. I look to where the wind was flying from and smile, feeling the burning of tears in my eyes. I realized I'm wrong. The bird is flying with the wind, its wings flashing towards the bloody sunset, but it's not flying my name.

It's flying Ky's.

I decide something at that moment, something so suddenly vital. I'll write a poem for him... And when I find him, I'll whisper that poem to his ears, against his lips. I'll search for him until I find him, and I'll hold on to him so tight that no one will never take him from me again.

And now I have to frown because Xander crosses my mind again. How would he feel if I became an Aberration to be with Ky, and left him alone? No, he won't be alone. He's attractive enough to attract the Society's attention, and smart enough for anyone to take an interest in him. They'll declare this a tragedy and re-Match him, for sure.

Xander did love me, I realize. Enough to risk his own Citizenship and help me. The blue tablets still rest in my bag, their salvation ready if I run right now.

But he still holds no love for Ky.

While my mind is processing all of this, I fail to hear the footsteps behind me. Suddenly I'm locked in cold arms, and I am terrified. I hold my breath to hear the voice of some Official come to arrest me for my blasphemous thoughts, but no deep, demanding voice comes. Instead my eyes are covered and I'm turned around, and a soft pair of lips are on mine. It takes a second for me to realize that the very boy that has haunted my dreams, filled my thoughts, and agonized me so completely is kissing me. I can't bring myself to disconnect us, but he does anyway to take a breath.

But before I can say his name, a shock runs through his body. and a bullet knocks him down. I scream.

"Ky!" I collapse on my knees, unable to cry, unable to move. I clutch his hand and whisper his name. "Ky..."

He coughs and looks up at me, eyes already glazed. I know the bullet has hit something vital, but I'm no doctor and I can't tell what. Ky gives me one of those smiles I so relish and love, and whispers to me.

"Do not go gentle, Cassia... I love you," He coughs a splatter of blood onto me, but I don't bother to try and wipe it off of me. Because that thread of life that told me that the boy I love is still there has left, and he's just a dead corpse, laying in my arms with a smile on his face and blood on his dirty clothes. He's wearing a ripped jacket, barely of any use, and dark pants and a shirt. The shirt, although dark, is stained with the scarlet that I so hate; I hate it because the red bird lied to me- it promised me happiness and gave me agony. But I don't remember really see these details clearly. Right now something else is catching my attention, the one who shot Ky, the one I can't look at until he lets out a sob.

I can't even process what's happened when the gun wielder looks at me and cocks his gun. He points the barrel towards my head, and tears are running out of his eyes. His blonde hair is in a mess and his face is pale. It's clear he feels agony and will feel worse because of what he has done and is about to do. His face is so heartachingly, infuriatingly close to my heart, but already I'm pushing it away from me. I want nothing to do with this monster.

It's Xander. I smile, unable to contain the insane hysteria coursing through me. No adrenaline rush, no sorrow. Just happiness that both of them have found me.

He positions his finger over the trigger.

I love you both, I may have said. I'm not sure if my mouth even made the movements before he pulled the trigger. I think that I float to the ground, out of the clutches of the Society and safely into the love of Xander and Ky.

-x-x-x-

EPILOGUE

I don't... I can't even look at her picture, the one I've kept with me all these years, either tucked away in my pocket or shirt for safekeeping. It's a picture of Cassia, nine years old and giggling as she reaches to stop the camera from that one picture.

I had to kill her, and Ky, too.

The Society would have gotten her first! Tortured her, mutilated her... what I did was a mercy killing. For her to die with Ky at my hands would be thousands of times better than any fate the Society had planned for her, and for him, too. The Officials were already on their way when I killed the girl I love and the guy she had chosen over me.

She thinks that I left her alone in whatever afterlife I sent her to. I can't send her alone. I have to go with her.

They were both smiling when they died. I'll do the same.

I tie the knot securely, so that there's no chance of failure on the rope's part. I've stolen this from the Arboretium, but it's no matter because when they catch me, I'll be dead anyway. I'm in the garden of my home in Garden Borough, and the tree there makes the perfect scene for Cassia to meet me in the other life. It's too tall, irregularly shaped, and completely beautiful. Its leaves are colored with green kisses from the autumn, little declarations of my love for Cassia. She was the one who helped me plant this tree, the one that wasn't cut down because it was an apple tree and therefore useful for food. It doesn't grow anything, of course, but it's still useful by Society standards.

Society standards... I'll never live by them again.

Or any standards.

I stand on the chair, dragged from the kitchen. Mom and Dad are at work, so there's no chance of being barged in upon. I loop the noose around my neck, its scratchy fibers comforting and soothing. Once I go, I'll take no one with me but the public pride of the Society.

As I kick the stool over, time goes in slow motion from the first moment I met Cassia to the last second I saw her alive, looking at me with love and fear in her green, green eyes.

The girl in green kisses me as my full weight tugs on the rope and I fall, smiling, into the spiraling, dizzying comfort of her arms.