She stands in line with the other seventeen-year-old girls, with her green linen frock, and a red ribbon in her black-coffee hair. Clove stands next to her, and the two girls exchange a solemn look and a quick squeeze of hands.
"May the odds be ever in your favor," she murmurs.
"Yours, too," Clove whispers back.
She turns to Cato, standing on the other side. He winks at her and she smiles weakly.
When the man from the Capitol rustles in the glass bowl for a female Tribute, she mouths silent pleas for it to not be herself, not be Clove, as she watches his hand swirl dramatically among the slips of names, slips of death sentences. She is overcome with the sudden urge to smash the man's head against the glass bowl and watch him bleed over the slips of paper, shards of glass ornamenting his broken face. When he whips one up and holds it aloft in the air, she holds her breath and her mind screams curses at him, for prolonging their suffering, for perpetuating the torturous grief. She wants him to die, to drop dead, and she wants it all to burn. And it is revealed. Clove Heathridge, just like the death sentence it is. Clove squeezes her hand again before heading towards the platform. To anyone else, the look in Clove's eyes would be a steely resolution, but she can see Clove's eyes from the projector screens, and knows it is resignation.
When the man announces it is time to select the male Tribute, Cato shouts that he volunteers, and she really wants to slap him for his idiocy. He strides towards the platform confidently, with a spark in his eyes, and she can't tear her eyes away. The man applauds Cato's bravery (idiocy), and he and Clove are led away into the Justice Building, and all this time, she feels like she's going to throw up.
She finds Clove first, deciding to save Cato for later because she wants her to be the last thing he sees of home before he leaves. The two girls rush to hug each other, for the first time since they were friends.
"I wish we were friends again sooner," Clove says.
"Same here," she murmurs back.
They separate, and she offers a small smile. Clove smiles back, and they both ignore the tears welling up each other's eyes. They hug each other once more, for the last time.
"Give them hell, Clove," she whispers fiercely.
"I will."
Then she leaves.
There are no words exchanged when she first sees Cato, just a half-frenzied dash into each other's arms and a desperate clinging-on. Neither of them cry. They shed them all on the mountain. She tries to memorize how it feels to be in his arms: the solid planes of his chest closely pressed against hers, the steadily thudding heartbeat that calms her own, the strength of his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, the warm safeness that came with being enveloped inside his embrace. She buries her face into the crook of his neck and inhales his warm, musky scent, willing that scent to be burned into her memory forever. His fingers are tangling themselves into the ends of her hair again, she can feel them gently tugging at it, and she runs her fingers through his hair, feeling the short, soft blondness ruffle between her fingers like thick velvet. It's the closeness she will miss, this feeling of security. She will miss his smile, the smile that lit up his face and her heart. She will miss his ice-blue eyes, his laugh, the way his fingers tangle themselves into the ends of her hair, his strength, his steady heartbeats, his low, husky voice murmuring into her ear, she will miss it all. She will miss the nights in the training center, the dancing. She will miss him.
And they stand there, locked together in something she hopes even the Capitol cannot separate. This is the last time, she knows. This is the last time anything is ever the same. He'll come home, he won't, he'll live, he'll die, the Capitol will burn to the ground and freeze over into a thousand years' worth of ice, President Snow will be blasted into a million pieces of blood and evil, and this will still be the last time anything is ever the same.
He looks down at her and cups her face, stroking her her cheek with his thumb. His eyes are soft now, more snow than ice, and so tinted with grief and regret in spite of the gentle smile on his face that it hurts her. She reaches up and traces his jawline with her fingers, then the line of his nose, along the shell of his ear, burning the image of his face into her memory, burning everything into her memory. And they kiss, slowly, softly, at first, his lips sliding over hers like a soothing murmur that everything will be alright, like he always tells her. She remembers that she will miss this too, his gentleness, the warm softness of his lips against hers. And then it is deeper, darker, more desperate, it is her plea to never forget, to never give in, to go down fighting, her promise that she will do the same, because they are District 2, and District 2 is as hard as the granite it's carved out from, and they will never bow down to anyone, they are as unyielding as stone and just as cold, and he needs to remember, as will she.
They break apart for air, gasping, both of them on the verge of tears and willing themselves to be strong for the other. He places a hand on her belly, and smiles again, softly.
"Tell the baby how much I love him." He stops her before she can ask how she knows. "It's a boy. Trust me on this one."
"...I will...I love you, Cato."
"I love you too, Thyme."
He kisses her one more time, and before it is over, she takes the ribbon from her hair and pushes it into his palm.
"For luck. Red for victory," she gasps out, choking on tears. His fingers wrap around the ribbon and he nods.
"I promise I'll come home."
And now it is over.
The Peacekeepers lead her out of the room, and she turns to look over her shoulder to see him smiling gently at her, and she manages to give him a small smile back. When the door shuts behind her and the lock clicks, she wants nothing more than to break away from the Peacekeepers and rush back and break the door down and grab Cato's hand and climb over the mountains, and run and run and run into the prairies and hide in the waves of tallgrass, where nobody will find them, and if they die, they'll die together.
