Clove

She loves running.

Everything about it is amazing—the pounding of the ground beneath her feet, the pleasant burning of her lungs and limbs, the satisfaction that comes with falling into that perfect rhythm. Some people might think she's crazy, but running truly is one of her favorite things.

"On your left!" she hears from behind her. She turns to look over her shoulder and sees Cato catching up to her.

"You been watching some of Marvel's superhero movies?" she asks with a grin as he easily falls into stride with her.

"Yeah, you got the reference?" he says, his grin matching hers. "By the way, you didn't wait for me this morning. Rude, Clove."

"I was up early. Figured I'd get a head start," she replies, and he smiles. She leaves out the part that she didn't actually sleep all night. Her nightmares have started coming back.

They run in silence for a few laps, lost in the rhythm of each other's breathing. She's coming up on two miles now, eight laps, and thinks she might get her personal record. And sure enough, when she crosses the hundred-meter line signifying her last lap has ended, she checks her timer to see that she's done it—nine minutes and fifty seconds. If only her trainers could see her now.

"Got my record!" she says, arms going up in celebration.

Cato has never been a distance runner, so he only did the last four laps with her, one mile. "And that's why you were the best," he says, his own hand going up for a high-five. When she complies, he wraps his hand around hers or a brief moment, giving it a squeeze before letting go. Her heart jumps at the gesture.

"Hey, wanna do something tonight?" Cato asks as they reach for their waters. "Movie? Mall?"

Clove takes a swig and screws the cap back into her bottle, pursing her lips and shaking her head. "Can't," she says, still slightly out of breath from the run. "I already told Glimmer we could have a girls' night."

"Lame," says Cato, and Clove shoves his shoulder.

"You're lame," she retorts, and Cato laughs.

This is how it's supposed to be, she thinks.

"Oh my gosh, you're right," Glimmer gasps as Patrick Verona appears on screen. "He is hot!"

"I told you!" laughs Clove. "Heath Ledger was his name. So attractive."

Glimmer decided that the theme for tonight's movies would be old old. As in 1980s-1990s. Clove barely even knows when those happened, but she does know that some of the best movies came from that time period. Hence 10 Things I Hate About You, playing on Glimmer's flatscreen television.

"You seem to like the big, tough-seeming guys," says Glimmer, and Clove narrows her eyes. It's innocent enough, but Clove also knows her friend. She's up to something.

"Oh?" she presses, eyes on the screen as she matches Glimmer's innocent, nonchalant tone.

Glimmer hums beside her, plucking a potato chip from the bag before them and popping it into her mouth. "Yep. Always the strong ones with a secret soft side."

"I haven't even seen many movies with guys like that."

"We both know I'm not just talking about movies."

Clove whips her head around to face Glimmer, not even masking her shock. She didn't expect the other girl to be so… abrupt. "You know you just made us fail the Bechdel Test, right?"

"You act like I care," says Glimmer dismissively, rolling her eyes.

"I don't like Cato like that."

"Who said I was talking about Cato?"

Clove's eyes widen, and so does Glimmer's smile.

"Clove!" screeches the blonde, lunging forward and gripping Clove's arms. "I knew it! I totally knew it, you totally like Cato, you're totally in love with him. Oh my god, I knew it!"

"Relax!" Clove snaps, and she can feel her face heating up. "I'm not in love with him!"

"But you do like him!"

Clove sighs. Does she like Cato? She thinks she might, especially after the arena. She wasn't able to stop thinking about him after the night before the Games, when they talked and talked for hours. She saw a new side of him that night, one that she liked. And she's not dumb, or blind. She knows he was trying to protect her in the arena, for whatever reason it may have been. She doesn't want to get her hopes up, though, so she's forced herself to chalk it up to friendship and the fact that they reminded each other of home.

Obviously Cato is attractive. Tall, blond, chiseled, it's no surprise he had half the girls at the Academy falling to their knees for him. Not that he ever noticed. He never noticed. Only ever had eyes for training, something Clove respected. He was driven and dedicated, never letting anything cloud his vision of victory. He helped her improve, just as she helped him do the same. They work well together, natural and effortless. Maybe it means something, after all.

"I don't know," she says lamely, and even she doesn't believe herself.

Glimmer's smile has become something close to sympathetic. "Clove, you don't have to be afraid to feel. That boy's in love with you, and I mean it."

Once again, she finds her heart has begun skipping beats. Her stomach twists, and she looks at Glimmer with a frown. She doesn't mean that, does she?

"I-I don't think so," Clove says. "No, if anything he just likes me. If anything. We can't love. We don't know how."

"Love isn't something you can just learn or choose to feel, Clove," says Glimmer, still smiling. "It's not something you can help. It just… happens."

Clove takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. "Okay. Okay. So you think that Cato, the one that everybody called brutal and bloody, actually loves me? Like, love. Not just like."

Glimmer nods. "I've got a sense for these types of things, trust me. He's head-over-heels for you."

"But—"

"You didn't see his reaction after you died out there, Clove," says Glimmer, shaking her head. "He completely broke. Threw his spear at the cornucopia, clawed at his face and tugged at his hair and just… screamed. At Katniss, at Thresh, at you, at the Capitol. I've never seen somebody more heartbroken."

Clove's head is beginning to spin. This is all too much. She knew Cato didn't handle her death well, but she didn't know it was so… extreme. Same as how she knew he disliked Thresh, but she always thought it was because of their similarity in size and how Thresh held out for so long in the battle after her death—she did see that, and had never seen Cato fight like he did that night. She thought it was just adrenaline.

"This is… a lot, Glim," Clove says, laughing nervously, humorlessly, disbelievingly. "What should I do?"

"Well, at this point it's pretty obvious that Cato is even more terrified than you are. It's such a foreign feeling to him—love—that he doesn't know how to handle it. He doesn't hide it as well as you do, so you might want to just… I don't know, show him that you like him, too. Don't try to act so strictly like friends."

Clove ponders that. Not hiding her feelings anymore won't be easy. She's self-aware enough to know that she'll probably forever be scared of caring for someone more than they care about her, all thanks to her less-than-stellar father, so to take that leap and finally give into her heart is going to be a challenge.

But she's Clove Kentwell, and she has never backed down from a challenge in her life, so she looks to Glimmer, takes a deep breath, and nods affirmatively.

"Okay," she says.

On the screen, the main characters share a kiss.

And we have a confession!

This was a fun chapter to write. I love writing the friendship between Clove and Glimmer, because so many stories seem to paint Glimmer as the bad guy who tries to come between Cato and Clove, but I disagree with that trope with all my heart.

Anyway, I needed to put that Clato scene at the beginning because I figured it's about time we see them actually interact.

More answers coming tomorrow, keep asking!

Also, out of curiosity, does FFN have some kind of rule where you can't update twice in 24 hours? I noticed that sometimes if I try to update within that time frame, the story doesn't move to the top of the archive like it normally would, but when I scroll down I'll find it with the update showing.