Claudius intended to sit down with Selene and see where her head was at after the battle, really he did. She'd lost her commander, and she'd made it through the final assault with the grim-eyed determination and crazed grin he recalled from years of studying Arenas, enough rage to push her past the grief and whatever other unhelpful emotions might be clawing at her without making her sloppy, but that couldn't hold up long term. She'd have to crack eventually, and after everything during the war Claudius had a front seat to what happened when Selene tried too hard to shove things down only for it to bubble to the surface at the wrong moment. The last thing they needed was another displacement break where she snapped and tried to murder someone barehanded.
He meant to do it after Emory died, really, only watching her lie there, stuffed full of tubes and who knows what else while the doctors removed all the instruments and the life trickled out of her in rattles and gasps — watching Brutus break down until Lyme kicked them out and he had to stand there in the hallway, staring at the paintings on the wall while taking in absolutely none of it — it's clear his head isn't in the right place to comfort anyone. You can't stitch up someone else's arm if you've got a sucking chest wound, and Marius had Selene and Dash out on cleanup duty anyway, and so Claudius took a few hours to lie down and try to clear his head.
After that — he's not sure what happens. Claudius gets them pulled off the survivor hunt because more often than not it ends up being corpse retrieval and Dash keeps getting paler each time they uncover another one. Selene is a little wild and snappish, biting the heads off anyone who says the wrong thing, but that's expected, and there's no time to pull her aside. It's not that she's avoiding him, Claudius has a lifetime of practice and a good ear for it, it's that the rest of the rebellion is doing it for her.
By the time they have a minute alone, he's not sure what to say, because Selene is … fine.
Well. She's not fine, obviously she's anything but fine, but time has kept moving and she's transitioned into a holding pattern that works. She's lost the alarming edge and come down to a cool professionalism that would make her superiors proud, a real credit to the service — except Claudius can't imagine she'd ever had anything like that in her file in her entire life. In fact, every time he thinks of the trainers writing this up as a perfect case of grief transferred to action in a healthy process of recovery, tiny alarm bells start blaring in the back of his head.
Selene isn't fine, she's pretending, but she's getting the job done and this time she isn't giving off vibes of cracking any time soon. There's nothing to write her up about, nothing to approach Marius with, because from a Peacekeeping perspective there's nothing wrong. Pushing her now would definitely force a breakdown, and that would interfere with her ability to do her job.
"Here," Selene says, handing him a bottle of water, tinny-tasting from sitting in her pack in the cheap metal canister all day. "Compliments of the non-busted water main over there."
"Cheers to surviving infrastructure," Claudius says. He takes a swig and hands it back without looking at her, even though all he wants to do is study her, look for the cracks, find anywhere he could use as his point of entry. It's not right, letting her keep working without dealing with her grief — Selene, Dash, Marius, all of them — but she's not a Victor. She doesn't have the luxury of six months post-Arena to lie around with her mentor petting her hair and feeding her mood stabilizers and promising to keep her safe. She's a Peacekeeper, and that means work comes first.
Claudius understands it, but his teeth clench anyway. He can't help the feeling that if he knew more, if he were better at this, somehow, he'd find a way for her to work through it without having to push it down or fall apart. But he can't drag her into the backyard for sparring, and even if he could, push Selene and she'll clam up tight and never open up again. And so, he answers Selene's odd look with a dismissive gesture and picks up his pack again.
Even with Rigel's death a vague, unsettling presence in the background — his body lies in state with the others in a commandeered morgue, waiting until they can find someone with the time and resources to start contacting families about what to do with them — it's still better than staying with the other Victors, where so many dead clouds the air like toxic fumes. Claudius ends up bunking over with the squad more nights than not, his presence an unspoken agreement, and if he can't spar with them and tuck them in and give them meds he can at least make sure they're eating and getting a few hours of sleep.
(Turns out the same techniques he used on Lyme in Thirteen about being a good example work on Marius, too. Marius even glares and snipes at him the exact same way about being.a manipulative brat. Claudius may as well be home.)
One night Claudius stirs, drawn awake for uncertain reasons as the room is quiet — until his eyes adjust and he sees that while Dash is still curled against the wall in his coat, Selene's blankets lie tossed and empty. Claudius slides to his feet, pulls on his jacket and boots and heads up to the roof, where he's learned Selene likes to go when she's feeling thinky at night.
"Stalker," Selene says without looking when Claudius drops down next to her. Her breath puffs in front of her face in a white cloud.
"I'd've brought booze if I had any," Claudius says, keeping it light. "But around here the only places I know to pilfer have the fluffy stuff."
"Yeah, no, I'll pass." Selene looks out over the city grid, the usual cacophony of neon and flashing lights dimmed in the postwar effort to draw a reasonable amount of power from the diminished grids. "You know I don't come up here because I want to talk about my feelings, right?"
Claudius winces. "I'm not —"
Selene snorts, a faint undercurrent of amusement colouring the sound even through the exasperation. "I know you're not. I can hear you notall the way over here."
He runs a hand over his hair, which has actually started to feel like hair again and not like bristles standing out against his scalp. Claudius very carefully avoids any inflammatory phrases like 'I'm worried about you' or any variations on 'I care' when Selene is squirrelly. "Nobody's talking about feelings," he says finally. "I'm just making sure you're okay."
Selene shrugs. "Rigel's dead. We killed the people who shot him. There's no point in revenge because they're our people and we started it, so." She flaps one hand in a sharp gesture that indicates nothing and everything at the same time. "You tell me."
Claudius lets out a breath. The worst part about this whole war is that the sides were nowhere as clear-cut as the media war would like everyone to believe, the good guys and the bad guys with strong lines drawn down the middle, you're either with us or against uswhere everyone knew their place. If not for Brutus, Rigel might not have turned in time. In that world, Claudius might have faced off against Selene and the others at the mansion, stood back as the rebels shot them dead without ever knowing what he lost.
"I know we can't spare ammo," he says finally, "but I think I can scare up some crossbows, as long as we gather up the bolts after. You want to shoot some rubble with me?"
Selene glances at him. "You're not even trying to be sneaky this time."
"No I'm not," Claudius says. "I'm tired, and you're right, we're not talking about feelings, but we also aren't sleeping. I figure that's the next best thing."
She hesitates a moment, then stretches out and cracks her joints. "Yeah, all right," Selene says. "But I get first pick."
Lyme suggests they wait to bring the last of the Victors from Thirteen until everything settles down a bit, until they're sure there's somewhere to put them that isn't going to explode or have its access to running water cut off. That place ends up being the Peacekeeper barracks in the centre of the city — Marius' idea — since it's fortified and well stocked and has enough rooms and showers and kitchens for everyone, and those who want to bunk together can, and those who want to be alone with nothing but them and four walls and a lock between them and everyone else can do that too.
Plus, he points out with a sensitivity and clarity of thought that surprises Lyme until she remembers who he is, what he's done, what he'll have seen, the dorms are utilitarian in a way that Capitol apartments aren't. Those Victors who've spent a lot of time in those apartments — he pauses, doesn't say doing what, lets the silence sink in until Lyme makes the connection and the guilt slams her hard in the chest with all the years of her privilege and protection — won't want somewhere with plush carpets and elaborate furniture. Somewhere plain and serviceable will suit them just fine.
And so the Victors move to the barracks, and once they're settled a hovercraft brings in Beetee, Rokia, Johanna, Annie and Haymitch to stay with the rest of them. After everything Lyme still feels the spectre of exhaustion hovering over her no matter how many hours of sleep she gets, and the nights Claudius spends with the Scouts she mostly lies awake staring at the ceiling trying not to imagine him bleeding out in an alley with a stranger's knife in his back, but she has to admit the reunions are … nice. About damn time something goes right for once.
"Brought you a present," Johanna Mason calls out when they land, sticking out her thumb at Annie as Finnick lets out a wild whoop and tears across the landing strip.
He catches his wife in a mad embrace that Lyme looks away from before she develops some kind of blood sugar disease, but when Johanna snorts and tries to stroll away, hands in her pockets, Finnick catches her by the arm. "Right, yeah, because you're just the messenger," Finnick chides, and ignores the shifty roll to Johanna's eyes and pulls her in close.
Across the way Adessa has brought Eibhlin to Beetee, who's gathered his girl in for a hug that would put the emotionally distant district to shame. Eibhlin has a knit hat and an oversized sweater and she's babbling into Beetee's chest, asking him if her decryptions helped, if the plans to remote-disable the bombs worked as smoothly as they'd hoped since they couldn't run any tests or simulations, as Beetee murmurs softly into the top of her head. After a minute he glances up and exchanges a wordless look with Adessa that speaks volumes.
Katniss, on the other hand, regards Haymitch levelly with her arms crossed over her chest, though Lyme catches the pinch of her mouth, way her nostrils flare and her eyebrows pucker. She wants it to be real but can't trust it yet, isn't willing to do this in front of witnesses. "You're sober," Katniss says, somewhere between clipped and trying for humour and failing.
Haymitch tilts his head. "You're standing."
"I'm sane," Peeta pipes up, raising one hand in a parody of a schoolboy. When they both turn to stare at him he grins, all boyish shamefacedness. "What? I thought we were stating things that started with S. Except I'm not really, not yet, but I wanted to participate."
Haymitch snorts, and Katniss' gaze softens, and the brittle air around the pair dissolves. They'll be all right, Lyme thinks, as long as they have time and therapy and no more cameras asking them to play their roles.
The last to leave the hovercraft is Rokia, from District 6, looking small and thin in her grease-stained coveralls. Phillips lets out a breath of relief and starts to run, but Lyme reaches over to grip his arm and slow him down. "Don't fall and break your leg first thing," she says, using the same tone she would on Brutus, rough and teasing but not quite mocking. "How's that gonna make her feel?"
She's here because Brutus asked her, because Phillips has spent the last few months in a froth worried about his girl and Brutus didn't want him to wait for the hovercraft alone, but they don't have the same camaraderie. Phillips shoots her a look that's very Brutus but with a dash of uncertainty, but then he snorts. "I ain't broken," he says, but he closes his hands into a loose fist to hide the tremor that still hasn't quite left his fingers.
"That's not the point," Lyme says. Rokia's shoulders are hunched up around her ears as she shuffles over toward them, sending Lyme's mentor radar pinging. "She's going to want her blame herself for what happened, so she'll be looking for any reason she can. Don't let her say it's her fault."
"Of course it's not her fault —"
"Of course it's not," Lyme agrees, speaking faster as Rokia draws close, her hand clutched around her upper arm. "I'm just telling you what she's thinking."
But it's not her job to tell a mentor about his kid, even if she has a hunch, and so she steps back and lets Phillips and Rokia have their moment.
Lyme exhales as she leaves the hangar as the rebels comprising the impromptu welcoming committee move in to greet the Victors and take them to their rooms. With everyone here there's one last unpleasant holdover from the war left: the memorial service for all the Victors who didn't live to see a time of peace. Doubtless there will be a public day of mourning set up once the new government gets its feet under it, but the Victors have had enough of pomp and ceremony — and their dead friends can't wait that long.
Personally Lyme wants nothing to do with it: no more grief and guilt and sadness, no more death and mourning and wondering how many people hate her because she's alive and so are both her kids. Lyme has spent more time with the waving grasses in the field of sacrifice and the earthy scent of fresh graves than she would ever care to remember. What she wants now is to move on, not wallow in shared sorrow where the feelings of others will claw at her and drag her underwater until she drowns.
But she can say that because she's safe, and there are districts now whose villages would stand empty if everyone went home today. Even Lyme being able to say she's tired of the quiet, crushing sadness is a privilege, made all the more sharp by the knowledge that while District 2 had more deaths than the other districts, they also walked away with far more survivors.
The day of the memorial itself is a silent one. They agree on no speeches or eulogies, which could stir up negative feelings between the various living Victors; instead, the informal ceremony combines a mixture of funeral traditions from the various districts. It's a good compromise, sentiment without devolving into the kind of performative oneupmanship that tends to happen in public grieving rituals, leaving the private conversations between mourners and the dead to happen in their own time.
They take a hovercraft out to a clearing by a small lake a short flight out from the main city. There's no Victor Affairs office to show up with all the necessary supplies, and they weren't about to ask for anything with all the resources dedicated to surviving the immediate reconstruction effort. Instead, the Victors work together that morning to bring the whole thing together, a show of quiet solidarity that, while still wreathed in death, lets Lyme feel the web of connection between them more than any artificial propo opportunity.
They hunt together for wildflowers for the District 2 Victors to scatter instead of seeds; the able-bodied help Johanna Mason and Cora dig up a pair of small seedling trees from the edge of the wood and plant them in the middle of the clearing. They gather stones from the lake shore that the Ones stack into piles, one stone atop the other. Beetee and Eibhlin set up a string of solar-powered lanterns to light the clearing at night. A group of various Victors, like those from Four and Six, whose funerals involve communal meals, managed to scrounge up some food from the barracks and pass it around, with as much attention to the favourites of the dead as possible.
Several of the districts with no one left find echoes in the traditions of other districts, causing strange, dawning moments as cultures and rituals overlap across the previously iron lines. Eleven shares the scattering of flowers with Two; Ten builds piles of rocks like One, and Lyme marvels a little at what could have been isolated, almost competitive demonstrations of personal grief transforms into something deeper.
Finally Katniss Everdeen starts a song, her voice clear and low, and after the first round of melody Claudius picks up his travel violin and joins her with a haunting sweep of the strings. A few of the more musically inclined join in, gradually adding layers of harmony until their voices float over the lake and the birds fall silent. Lyme has never been one for music other than to encourage Claudius in his pursuits but her skin prickles anyway, and several others wipe away tears or turn their faces to the sky.
It's funny, really. Lyme expected maudlin wallowing in grief, but as the afternoon passes, she watches as the others stand up straighter, their eyes bright but the lines of their faces easing, their shoulders gradually relaxing as though shrugging off the dead muttation they'd been dragging with them for miles over hard terrain. There's still sorrow there, and anger, and anyone who thinks the journey is over would be naive and an idiot, but as she looks around the group she feels herself part of a shared exhale.
They are the Victors, survivors of a brutal joke and uneasy symbols in a world that likely has no idea how it wants to place them, but for now, right now — for the first time in seventy-five years, maybe — they're united. It's a weird feeling.
The music fades, and the birds and the rustle of the breeze in the trees picks up to fill the sudden ringing silence. They stand together for a few moments, not speaking, then by some unspoken agreement they turn and head back to the waiting hovercraft.
Go figure that saving the world meant losing Devon's legs.
Devon won't say it, and neither will Brutus, at least not without either of them punching themselves in the head for collapsing into anything so selfish, but Artemisia is perfectly willing to go there. Say what you will about the Capitol, but their bionics division could take a mangled mess of a human being and make them pretty for the cameras in a week, maybe two. They might have focused on expediency and attractiveness over true rehabilitation — not to mention how Artemisia would have walked out two cup sizes larger if Lyme hadn't been standing guard like a snarling bulldog — but odds are they would have worked their magic on the stumps of Devon's legs and fitted him with working prosthetics before the rebellion finished cleaning up the bodies.
But anyone working for the Games complex has been arrested until the trials and the entire facility closed down, which means no miracle legs for Devon, only a slow, agonizing recovery in the field hospital as Artemisia tries very hard not to chew off her own arm or someone else's head.
"You wouldn't even want that kind of accelerated timeframe," a doctor explains to her with incredible enforced patience, and Artemisia would be impressed if she weren't so punchy. "The kind of quick-healing that the Games doctors put the Victors through is never a good idea, and often causes more problems in the long run. Look at what happened to your youngest Victor because she wasn't allowed to heal at a reasonable rate. Peeta Mellark was given a prosthesis far too soon and was never given physical therapy or brought back to the Capitol for a refit. Both of them suffered incredible pain and underwent a retrograde recovery."
Artemisia takes a second to enjoy the private image of screaming and punching the wall like a caveman, cracking her knuckles against the plaster and smearing blood against the pale green wall. Except even in her mind the doctor only stands there and turns that implacable stare on her, making the whole thing far less satisfying even as a mental exercise. "So you're saying we have to wait," she says, forcing her tongue between her back teeth to stop her jaw from sending spikes of pain through her temples.
"Yes," the doctor says, and Artemisia swallows a flare of temper because she refuses to be like the Capitol refugees complaining in the relocation camps yelling do you know who I am!at the poor rebels in charge of food distribution. "We don't have access to that kind of elite technology, and even if we did, I couldn't in good conscience recommend it. Accelerated healing is for burn victims and celebrities undergoing radical transformative surgery, not double amputations."
"Ugh," Artemisia says, dragging a hand down her face. "Okay, great, thanks. That wasn't sarcastic, I'm just — you know, processing."
So no legs and no magic miracle cure, which means Devon will have to stay in bed for months doing limited physical therapy and letting others do the hard work of putting the country back together. At least — Artemisia thinks, privately, again glad that nobody else can hear her — losing his legs is enough of a tradeoff for making it out alive when so many others didn't that she doesn't have to deal with a resurgence of Devon's post-Arena survivor's guilt. If Artemisia had to help Devon justify his existence on top of everything else, she'd probably end up screaming until her face split in half.
Besides, if anyone needs to prove herself worthy of surviving it's Artemisia, who's never done a damn thing for anybody in her life, but that would take far too much introspection when she has to come up with new amputation-inspired nicknames for Devon every time she sees him to make him laugh and take the sting out of the situation. The last thing he wants right now is for Misha to start treating him like he's made of glass.
She finds him back in his room after a physio session, propped up by the window overlooking the city. Not exactly picturesque, but it's gotten better now that they've cleared out the last of the bodies and Capitol traps in this sector, and Devon glances at her when she comes in. "Hey, sexist half-man alive," Artemisia says, and Devon's mouth twitches but he doesn't laugh. All right, not one of her best, but she can only be so creative on demand day after day. "How are you holding up?"
"Will you marry me?" Devon says.
Artemisia stops dead. She makes a theatrical show of looking for hidden cameras to mask the part where she actually lets her gaze flick to the best spots to hide a crew, quick and unobtrusive, but it doesn't look like there's anyone tucked in anywhere. The last thing she needs is some kind of postwar feel-good special about the legless Victor and his patient, loyal girlfriend. Just thinking about it makes her teeth ache. "They give you the good drugs again?" she says instead, keeping her tone light.
"Mish, I'm serious," Devon says. His skin is waxy under the usual bronze — they must have worked him hard today — and Artemisia twitches to go run her fingers through his hair and tease him until he relaxes but the question and the odd, serious light in his eyes, almost feverish, freezes her in place. "I almost died. A lot of people did die. I don't want to think about what might've happened. It makes you think —"
"If you say 'about what's really important' —" Artemisia says, hearing the edge of warning in her tone but unable to stop it. She can already feel her body fighting to turn, put her weight on the back foot, ready to run.
"You can make fun of me all you want, but it's true," Devon says, and there's the Brutus jaw, the stubborn jut that everyone in his mentor branch learns at one time or another. Snow on a shitpile, this is really happening. "Mish, I love you, and everything's changed and we don't know what's going to happen, but I know that you're one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I don't want anything to take that away."
Artemisia exhales, slowly, and she fights against the survival instinct and makes her way into the room one step at a time. She sits down in the chair next to the bed, propping one foot on the bed rail to give herself enough space that she can breathe. "And you think … putting a piece of paper on it will keep the bad things from happening?"
Devon flushes dark. "No, I —"
"Being married didn't stop what happened to Cora and Burt," Artemisia says, and she manages to make the words come out gentle instead of cruel and savage. Look how much she's grown. "It didn't stop Cecelia from dying in the Arena. It's just a piece of paper. The universe doesn't care about paper, babe."
Devon's mouth thins, and his eyes spark with the first sign of fire that Artemisia has seen since before the mine blew his legs off. That would be a good thing, if he weren't trying to tie her to an arcane courtship ritual that gives her hives. Why couldn't he get this passionate about bees or pyrotechnics? "It's not about the paper," he says. Artemisia braces herself because this is his passionate persuasive voice, the one he brings out when he's trying to save his kids' lives with an emergency medpak or bottle of water. She bites back an automatic protest because he's sponsor-wranglingher. "It's —"
"Babe," Artemisia says, firmly this time, and now there's an edge but she lets it happen. "If you think getting me to write 'no takebacks' on a piece of paper is the only thing stopping me from leaving you after all this, we have bigger problems."
Devon falls silent with a low hiss, sinking back against the pillows. Artemisia drags a hand down her face again, and she has the semi-hysterical thought that they all do the same gesture, her and Devon and Emory and even Claudius. She's not sure if it started as a Brutus thing or a Lyme thing or if the two of them got it from each other, but now both mentor branches share so many mannerisms and catchphrases all tangled together in a weird family of expression that they must seem impenetrable from the outside even without all the murder.
"Here's the thing," Artemisia says finally. "You're upset. You're hurting. I get that. But if you're worried that I'm going to leave because you've lost your legs or whatever, then getting married isn't going to magically make that better, and I'm pretty sure Brutus would tell you the same thing. And I can't do the thing, I can't be that person who's kind and patient and reassures you every time you're worried that I'm not going anywhere and I'll be by your side forever no matter what because let's be honest, just the thought of that makes me want to choke. I don't blame you for freaking out, I just — I can't keep finding new ways to prove it to you. You and me, we are what we are, like always, and you either trust me or you don't."
Nobody from Champion Productions, the Capitol movie film that produces sweeping romantic dramas on characters who are thin veneers of popular victors, has ever made one about Artemisia. She can't imagine why.
Devon gives her a sideways look. "You know you sound like one of those guys who refuses to put a label on things, right, like 'why do we have to ruin it, baby, you know how I feel about you'…"
"Hey, fuck you," Artemisia says easily, and this time Devon laughs. "I haven't let the bruises fade, have I? The doctors have yelled at me every single day about it. And as soon as we get you out of here we'll figure out a way for us to spar, even if it is a lot of rolling around."
She reaches over and presses her thumb against a mottled purple spot on Devon's shoulder, and Devon's eyes flutter closed in reflex. Twos — at least the Careers — don't bother with rings or jewellery unless they feel like it; instead the only sign that matters is leaving bruises on each other's skin. In all their years together, they never missed a day of couple-sparring unless one of them was in the Capitol for Games-month — the whole point of sparring and the bruises it leaves behind is to act as a constant reset and reminder. Since the accident Artemisia has had to settle for punching him or leaving steady pressure on one spot with her thumb, which doesn't have the same reassuring effect.
"Yeah," Devon says, a little breathless. "Yeah, okay. I'm just going crazy, Mish, everyone has something to do and all I can do is lie here."
"You know what Brutus would say," Artemisia says, and Devon gives her a sour look but she forges on ahead anyway. "The most important job you can do right now is focus on getting better."
"Fuck you," Devon says, reaching back like he's going to throw his pillow at her except she leans over and fluffs it for him solicitously. "If I can't find something useful to do I'm going to chew off my arm."
"Let me see what I can do." Artemisia flicks him between the eyes, and when he makes a face at her she bends down and kisses the top of his head. "I'll be back. Don't blame me later when you wish you could go back to relaxing without anybody bothering you."
She heads out of the hospital, glad to shake it behind her and head out into the city even if she has to walk the paths she's memorized to avoid the worst of the damage. And it's funny, even after all these years Artemisia's first impulse is to head over to find Brutus and run this by him first, but — no. Brutus wouldn't like it, he'd say Artemisia has no right giving Devon anything that could upset him, he'd say Devon needs to focus on himself and put his own emotional health first instead of running himself ragged for other people, and he'd definitely say it isn't Artemisia's job to stick her nose into the middle of things.
Except that Brutus has his hands full keeping Petra sane in the middle of her early life crisis, and he's got grief and guilt and a whole mess of his own problems. It's made him double down on trying to control everything he can, and that means clutching his living Victors close. Artemisia won't deny that Brutus wants what's best for Devon, and in any other year she wouldn't get smart and try to argue, but the world's on fire and sometimes you have to break the rules. Devon's right: he needs to feel useful, and for Devon that means people.
Brutus won't like it, but Artemisia knows exactly what to do.
It takes a bit of convincing, but in the end Artemisia doesn't actually have to try all that hard. It's not super high on the list of priorities with resources and infrastructure near the top, and everyone worrying about getting the train lines back up and running so they can start shipping supplies and personnel back out to the districts, but it's the kind of thing that will help morale and also make the new government — or whatever they're calling it, since no one's announced themselves the new illustrious leader or started talking yet about how they're making any kind of major decisions, not that this is Artemisia's forte — look a little less like upstarts in the eyes of people who need to be reassured.
And the thing is, absolutely crucial or not, it will have to get done, and the fact that no one's done it speaks just as much to the fact that no one wants to. It's not fun, it's not pleasant, and it takes a certain type of personality to be able to do it without folding up or shutting themselves off completely.
"That was fast," Devon says when Artemisia comes back. His eyebrows draw together in suspicion but his eyes flick to the side pretty quick, and Artemisia would pump her fist in triumph except that's tasteless even for her. "You find something to keep me busy?"
Artemisia says nothing, but drops the list into his lap. He leafs through it, frowning, but no recognition hits his eyes, not yet, only confusion. "It's the names of everyone they've identified who was killed in the fighting," Artemisia says. Brutus is going to murder her and grind her up into oatmeal to feed the refugees, but as long as it works, he can suck it. "They need someone to find and contact the next of kin, see what they want done with the bodies. If they want them cremated, sent home for burial, that kind of thing."
Devon lets out a long breath and lets his finger wander over the page, idly scanning, but then he stops. "I think I know this one. Peacekeeper. I mean, I don't know her family, but the name rings a bell —"
Artemisia reaches over and hits the button to call for a nurse to bring a chair. "See? You're a natural for this already. They'll set you up in an office for an hour or so a day so you can look through the Peacekeeper database, the Capitol directories, all that, and talk to any rebels you need to. They'll bring a phone to your room so you can do the actual calling from here."
Devon looks up at her, eyes bright. "Thanks, Mish," he says. "I know what you're thinking, too, Brutus is going to say you shouldn't have done it, but this is exactly what I needed. I need to help people, and this is something I can actually be good at. So thank you."
"Yeah, yeah," Artemisia says, borrowing Lyme's stock phrase for when anything gets too feelings-y. "Save it for the families."
The rebels send a car, since Artemisia didn't think helping Devon navigate his chair across half the city would be a great use of his energy, and once he's there she leaves him to it. She wanders the halls idly, not bothering to pay attention to where her feet take her, until she looks up and finds herself in front of Lyme's office.
You can take the mentor from the Victor, but you can't take the Victor from the mentor, apparently. Artemisia stares at the door for a good long second, but finally she sighs and shoves it open with her foot, hands in her pockets.
Lyme looks up in surprise, and Artemisia doesn't miss the flicker of wariness that crosses her expression for a split-second before she settles into a friendly smile. It reminds Artemisia of when she first came out, when she was bug-nuts crazy and Lyme didn't want to scare her off, and they both did this to each other in different ways and by this point it's almost funny.
"Hey girl," Lyme says. "Everything okay?"
"Devon was feeling shitty so I set him up with a job," Artemisia says, taking the couch across from Lyme's desk and sprawling artlessly across it. "Don't tell Brutus, he's gone full cuddly mentor and wants to wrap everybody in cotton wool or whatever, but." She takes a second to give Lyme a quick once-over, and when she finishes she looks up to see Lyme trying so hard to hold back a grin that her face has practically turned itself inside out.
Artemisia folds her arms. "What!"
Lyme shoots her an assessing look, gaze passing over her like a sponsor at the betting table, then she gives up the pretence and grins outright. "I'm proud of you."
Artemisia sits up so fast the blood rushes from her head and leaves her dizzy. "Ex-fuckin' scuseme?"
"Yeah, girl, you heard me," Lyme says, unrelenting, and she gets up and perches on the edge of the sofa. "You noticed Devon was sad and you did something to make him feel better, and not stealing him alcohol or stitching him a dirty joke on a piece of embroidery or playing pranks on him to try to make him forget the whole thing. You found something real and substantial that will let him help a lot of people." She smiles, proud and genuine and — ugh. "You've come a long way."
"Ugh!" Artemisia exclaims, flopping sideways across Lyme's lap. "Why do you always have to make things weird? You're the worst."
The funny thing is, her own reaction and the movement that accompanied it felt so natural that Artemisia didn't even think about it. She doesn't notice anything strange until Lyme stills underneath her, not holding her breath or freezing because that would be an even bigger tip-off but taking very regular breaths to try to show how very normal and not-remarkable the situation is.
This isn't crawling into Lyme's lap, wracked with grief and terrified about the upcoming battle. This can't be explained away as a one-off fluke arising from a freak overflow of emotions. Artemisia could pull away, sure, say it's habit and muscle memory and nothing more, and Lyme might not believe her but she'd respect her choice.
Except, actually … Artemisia is a little tired of carrying around all that resentment, and she's missed her mentor. "You're too high," she says instead. "If you're going to make fun of me, you could at least not give me a crick in my neck."
Lyme exhales a little, but then she laughs and slides down onto the couch cushions so Artemisia can flop on her properly. She runs her fingers through Artemisia's hair, and Artemisia closes her eyes and lets the last of the anger and bitterness seep away. "You're the worst mentor," she says aloud. "See if I do anything nice for anyone ever again. I'm not going to be Emory, making jam and cookies for everyone and being weirdly attuned to everyone's needs."
"You don't need to be Emory," Lyme says, and Artemisia can hear the second half of a sentence brewing and decides to cut her off right there.
Artemisia pinches Lyme just above the knee. "If you say 'we love you just the way you are' —"
Lyme laughs and tugs her hair. "No comment."
But the worst part is that now she said it, a thought that's been worming its way through the back of Artemisia's mind for the past few days decides to eat its way to the surface. She does her best to shove it back, but apparently she doesn't do that great a job of it because Lyme taps her on the forehead and asks, "What are you thinking?"
Artemisia huffs out an irritated breath. She's not a baby Victor, she doesn't have to answer 'tell me what you're thinking' if she doesn't want to, but — fuck it. "I was thinking that Ronan hasn't come out of his room since we moved here. He's lost the most out of any of us, his kids and his friends, and Petra isn't talking to him, and I still feel shitty that none of us remembered to bring his dogs. I kept thinking maybe I should try to rustle up a checkers set and see if I can't keep him company."
"I think that's a good idea," Lyme says. "A few of us have tried, but he's always liked you, and this is a case where your irreverence might be helpful."
Artemisia isn't going to argue there. Unlike Devon, Ronan doesn't need a bunch of responsibility; the last thing he'll want is a million more people relying on him after feeling like he failed to protect so many. "Somebody in this stupid city has to play checkers," Artemisia says. "I'll go crack some skulls."
Lyme is grinning again, and Artemisia slits her eyes at her. "I'm not sorry," Lyme says, making Artemisia snort. "I have the best kids. Brutus can suck it."
"Ha," Artemisia says, flopping over onto her back. "I guess that's acceptable."
Probably the clearest sign of Ronan's age is that he's surprised when they ask him to testify. So many have died, innocents and those not so innocent but doing their best in a system designed to rope survivors into complicity, and he tries, really he does, to try to find the spark of meaning in every day but so many days run together in a wash of grey. Artemisia has taken to sitting with him, and he appreciates her company and the effort she makes, but he can't make himself find the passion for involvement in the reconstruction that his younger self might have done.
When Paylor and a small handful of her people show up at his door, Ronan almost tells them to take their subpoena and feed the hungry populace with it. Winter has hit hard, and with the broken rail lines and downed power plants and destroyed factories and granaries and all the other infrastructure damage meant to hit the Capitol where it hurts, all that has now trickled down to the people — but Ronan has sat in front of too many boxes of poison-laced cookies to know when a request is anything but.
Of course, Ronan knows better than to say anything he's thinking. Paylor and her people might not be Coriolanus, and they claim not to be this Alma Coin woman either, but Ronan didn't build his district to the heights it grew by mouthing off to each new power.
He does ask a question: "Am I testifying in the trial of Coriolanus Snow, or on my own behalf, or the others from my district?"
Paylor glances at the young, red-haired man beside her, one of the District 2 Peacekeepers who rescued Brutus from the Arena all those months ago. There was a time when Ronan would have found out everything about him, made a point to get to know him and charm him and draw him in as an unshakable ally, but not anymore. The only people Ronan can afford to care about anymore are the ones who walked through fire with him.
"There will be no Victor trials," Paylor says evenly. "In recognition of the difficulties you suffered and the unequal power dynamic even your district held with the President."
"But..." Ronan adds, when she doesn't continue yet the sentence seems to linger on, unfinished.
"There is no but," Paylor says, and now Ronan almost laughs, feeling it sharp and ugly in his chest. Paylor might be a war hero turned politician, but she is no liar. He hears the attempt to spin in her voice right along with her dislike at having done it. "From a political standpoint, you were victims and are now ordinary citizens. And as such —"
And there it is. Well, he should probably have expected nothing less, really. "You're taking the stipends," Ronan says, and she nods, once. "Everyone, or just those of us who received training? Don't worry, you can say it. There's no point in pretending we're all extremely talented athletes with a natural gift for murder."
Paylor's mouth goes thin, but she soldiers on. "In the interests of expediency, the entire Victor stipend fund has been frozen and reabsorbed into the reconstruction fund, where it can be given out as needed."
At this point Ronan hardly cares about the accounts; it's not as though anyone will be operating on credit in a postwar economy, and he could hardly expect the rebels to honour the Capitol's agreement to pay the Victors' bills each month. Once this settles they will have to figure something out, but that's a problem for later, when the country isn't teetering on the brink of starvation.
He had, however, been prepared to take on all the punishment in exchange for the rest of his Victors walking free. If Paylor is willing to lay aside all grievances in the name of a fresh start, Ronan couldn't care less about the blood money, not now. Funds will take care of itself, in time.
It's a shame all the deaths have left him numb, otherwise he might feel a bit more gleeful vindictiveness about the thought of facing Coriolanus across a courtroom and knowing that all the power lay on his side, for once. No more pretending to lose a chess game without making it obvious he'd thrown the match; no more heaving his guts out over coconut macarons. He'll sit and unleash every twisted, sordid anecdote he can unlock from his memory, no matter what manner of monster it makes him look by proxy, and he'll lock eyes with Coriolanus the whole time and never blink.
All right, maybe Ronan has enough left in him for a little relish.
"I will testify about anything you need me to," Ronan says. "You want your blood sport, I will give it to you."
Paylor's lip curls back like a cat smelling something unpleasant. "This is justice, not blood sport. We're not having another death match."
Ronan smiles, finding little humour to soften the rictus in his cheeks. "We'll see."
As the trials and reconstruction continue side by side, Claudius doesn't miss the significance of the broadcast timing. Where the Capitol once balanced executions with wedding dress fittings, the former rebels now interleave footage of gut-wrenching depositions and shaking witnesses pouring out terrible tales of excess and crimes against humanity with the good work their own people are doing across the districts. It's not a bad strategy, even with the visible strings, and Claudius' media training might have left him cynical but he recognizes the value in drawing clear lines between the old regime and the as-yet-unnamed new. It might not get supplies out faster or make food appear out of nowhere, but any hope is better than nothing. Or something.
Still, it's chilling to see direct evidence of everything he'd only heard in whispers because he'd stayed in Two as much as humanly possible in the years since his victory. It's worse to see it paraded around on television for everyone to gossip over, each awful, innards-ripping disclosure of rape or assault in front of the cameras for everyone to chew and regurgitate as the latest did you see?moment, like gossiping over the nightly recaps of the Arena and the Featured Kill of the Day. There's a strange guilty pleasure about it all, and the former Scouts might be too polite to talk about it — or maybe it's all mundane to them, being in the thick of it for years — but Claudius catches Capitol citizens, rebels, and even some of the other non-elite Peacekeepers whispering about the latest tidbit of horror until they see him and trail off into awkward silence.
How are any of them supposed to have a normal life now, Claudius can't help thinking. Life as a Victor is alienating enough, with everyone having seen the Games and the interviews and thinking that means they know you and have a right to your private life. How much worse with all these horrors laid bare for public consumption? His own testimony, at least, is short, a quick statement about how Snow threatened him and his mentor and promised death to Lyme's next tribute if he didn't disappear after his Games. His involvement in Coin's trial takes longer, a few days of witness testimony and cross-examination about his time in Thirteen all the way through the attempt to murder him and Lyme in the tunnels, but by this point Claudius can face it with flat-eyed dispassion. They won, she lost, and whatever happens now is none of his business.
No one gets to see him break down on the witness stand, no one has to hear about his greatest humiliations, he doesn't have to sit there alone in front of a giant audience and recount violation after violation. But that's the reality for so many of the remaining Victors, and once this is over they'll be expected to — what? Integrate back into their home society, one that had isolated and alienated them for years out of fear or misunderstanding, and now have all the more reason to deepen that gulf?
"Everything about this sucks," Claudius declares one day when he, Selene and Dash are out on pickup. "I wish they didn't televise these stupid trials. Why don't they just throw the Victors back into the Arena and let them do the whole thing all over again?"
Selene makes a half-distracted, half-sympathetic noise, scanning the map for their destination, and Dash leans over to give Claudius a pat on the arm. "I know I sound like a grumpy old man," Claudius says, and Dash's mouth twitches a little but he doesn't take Claudius up on the opening. "And I'll stop ranting about it at the two of you, I promise, I know I'm pitching to repeat sponsors, but — I don't know. I know what I'm getting with civilians, but I didn't expect this from Peacekeepers."
"Not everyone outgrows the Victor mystique," Selene says, giving him a small, crooked grin. "I mean, when you read everyone's files and see their food allergies and sexual history and everything else, the whole hero worship part pretty much wears off. For other people, they don't get the whole gritty realism part."
Claudius, grimacing as always at the reminder of the level of detail the Scouts kept on him, decides to take his usual tack and skirt right past that part. "I guess so," he says. "And I suppose the longer you stay in the Program, the more you're likely to know any Victors in your age range, so there's some of the sheen rubbed off already. Not so much hero worship if you remember someone being thirteen and going through their awkward gangly stage."
For his part, Claudius tried looking up a few people from Residential after he won, but the awkwardness suffused everything with a choking thickness and he soon gave it up. Worse, his first friend, a boy named Foster who had taken Claudius under his wing when he first moved into Residential as a confused, lonely kid, had gotten married to a pretty girl with two little kids already by the time Claudius found him. He'd left the Program after he failed his second kill test, and now he had a job nowhere near the Centre, and he definitely didn't need a reminder of the days when he'd trained to kill people. Claudius hadn't bothered to go say hi.
He has no idea what happened to the other boys in his year, the ones Lyme passed over before choosing him. If they ended up as Scouts, no one told him, which is probably a mercy. "Did all the Scouts age out?" Claudius asks. "Or — the Twos, I mean."
"Excuse you, I definitely did," Dash says, and Claudius glances at him, startled. They don't talk a lot about Dash's time in Four, mostly out of a mutual agreement not to spend too much time on anyone's backstory, but he had always pictured Dash being a casual member of the Four Athletic Club rather than a dedicated regular. "I mean it was Four, we didn't have your ridiculous system, but I trained and I stood for the Reaping my last year. I would've gone in if they'd drawn a kid, but he was seventeen and trained with us so he didn't need me to."
And then that tribute got his head cut off, Claudius thinks, already running the math automatically, but Dash doesn't say it and that means nobody else will bring it up. Claudius holds his arm out in apology, and Dash snorts and takes the free shot, socking him right in the awkward place behind the elbow. Claudius shakes out his fingers to ease the tingling, still thinking.
Selene didn't answer the question, but he can't tell if she dodged and Dash covered for her or if she really doesn't know. Maybe sitting around and comparing bracelets is gauche in the Peacekeeper Academy. Finally she glances at him, gnawing on the inside of her lip, and says, "Not all the time, but usually. Rigel got knocked out at seventeen from a surprise injury, but until then he was frontrunner for 62. Marius was runner-up for the 63rd."
A strange shiver walks its way down Claudius' spine. He liked Rigel, a good commander who protected his kids to the end, serious about his job while maintaining a sense of humour even at the end of the world, but he wouldn't have won if he'd gone into the Arena against Enobaria. And odds are, if the mentor for 63 had chosen Marius instead, he wouldn't have had any more luck avoiding the poison Cecelia slipped into everyone's food. It's a weird thought, like the ones who die are interchangeable placeholders in a fixed event in time, and Claudius shakes it off.
Both Rigel and Marius would have been in Residential while Claudius lived there unofficially as a kid, which is a funny thought. Maybe that's why he always felt like he fit in so well with the squad; absolutely no danger of fawning or celebrity allure when they'd both read his file and remembered him as a scrawny kid with sharp elbows and a sharper face skulking in shadows, stealing knives and watching the bigger kids whenever the trainers would let him.
"Huh," Claudius says. But he knows better than to keep walking when ice crackles under his feet, and when half the Scouts are dead or missing this is not a topic he should push. He turns the discussion back to their mission, and ignores the stirring in the back of his mind that prickles at the thought of Marius in Residential because he doesn't want to jump off the platforms too soon and trick his brain into inventing a false image. There is something there, he's pretty sure, but it's always better to sneak up on buried memories than to try to charge them head on.
He tries later that night, sprawled across his cot and staring up at the ceiling while he carefully lets his mind wander around his faded memories of Residential without poking at any specific one too hard. The problem is that with the exception of a few, most of them at the very beginning, most of the older boys ended up blurring together after a while. Incidents stick out — like the boy who stole a brace of knives to give to him as a goodbye present after getting cut post Field Exam, or the one who taught him how to strap daggers under his clothes to smuggle them out of the weapons room — but not so much names, and the faces are long gone.
It's funny, his interactions with the older boys tended to fall into two categories: hanging out during free time with the ones who found the novelty of a kid brother type amusing, and sitting with the fresh fourteen-year-olds who came to his room after their first tests to steal his stuffed bear or his pillows and talk about the test. He remembers the latter more than the former; the antics were fun but they weren't memorable, not like the parade of confusion and grief and the overwhelming desire to lie down until it all went away, but trapped in the knowledge that the water would only get deeper from here. Claudius used to study their faces, doing his best to perfect it in the mirror for when it was his turn in case he didn't have the right amount of remorse.
He doesn't have any recent examples of joking around with Marius to compare against, but thanks to the war and Rigel's death and everything else, Claudius has plenty of mental pictures of Marius in quiet, shell-shocked grief. He can't imagine Marius ever sitting on his bed and hugging a teddy bear to his chest, telling Claudius about what his victim said or how the blood felt spurting through his fingers, but — he thinks of Marius outside the mansion, his voice hoarse and shoulders set, eyes shadowed and resigned as his gaze skips over Claudius then drags back to transfer unofficial temporary command of the squad — finally a distant memory shakes loose and rises slowly to the surface.
A minute later Claudius has his boots and jacket and is headed across the city for the building now commandeered by Central Command, breath puffing ahead of him in white clouds, a pillow stuffed under one arm. The city lights wash the night sky a pale orange, but unless Marius has suddenly developed a healthy work-life balance out of nowhere, he'll still be awake in his office going over logistics. Most nights he sleeps there on the couch someone dragged in for him, collapsing only when it would be irresponsible for him to continue on. Claudius has kept his mouth shut because Marius isn't under his jurisdiction and it would feel weird to bully him into eating and sleeping, but he recognizes the signs well enough.
The personnel at the door don't even question Claudius' presence despite the late hour, and sure enough, Marius opens the door right away at Claudius' knock. "What's wrong?" he asks immediately — and damned if that doesn't just sum up their lives lately.
"Nothing," Claudius says, holding out both hands. "Nothing's on fire. I just wanted to stop by."
Marius blinks at him. "It's — I don't know what time it is. It feels late."
"It is," Claudius says, and oh boy this went better in his head, his trainers will be having late-night indigestion over this, wondering where in the seventy-five Arenas he lost all his conversation skills. In the end he still can't think of a way to broach the topic, and so he grabs the pillow from under his arm and tosses it at Marius' chest. "Here. Bring it back whenever."
(Fourteen-year-old Marius, already tall but not yet packing on the muscle that would stay with him into adulthood, standing in front of Claudius' door, eyes skidding away from making contact. He mumbles through asking for a pillow, and he has one hand closed over his wrist to hide his bracelet but his skin from fingertips to forearms is scrubbed red and raw and that tells Claudius everything he needs to know.)
Marius catches the pillow and stares at it for a few seconds, then a muscle in his cheek twitches and he looks back at Claudius with an unreadable expression. "Didn't think you remembered."
"I didn't, not until now. Partly because you didn't ever say anything." Claudius gives him a flat stare. "You're as bad as Lene. Do all of you sign some agreement never to let any of the Victors know you remember us?"
"Mostly it's tacky," Marius says with his usual unflappable calm. "Do you really want every Peacekeeper with a tenuous connection to a Victor talking about the time the two of you sparred in Residential that one time?"
"That's not all it was and you know it," Claudius says. Now that he's placed Marius in the appropriate age range his mind has started to fill in the blanks: teaching him card tricks one evening during free time, bribing him with weapons in exchange for extra blankets, daring him to hit a girl across the room with a throwing star. "Can I come in for a bit?"
He learned years ago not to ask 'are you busy', because people like Marius are always busy, and and asking the question will remind them of it and force them either to lie for the sake of politeness or break social contract by being honest and therefore rude. Marius blinks at him again, then says "Sure," and steps away from the door.
Marius' office is just as depressing as the last time Claudius was here, scant personal belongings and sparse furniture and a hell of a lot of paperwork, but he doesn't seem to notice as he takes one end of the couch and waves Claudius over to the other. "You still have that bear?" Marius asks, tucking the pillow behind his back.
It's been long enough that he has to think about it. "I left it behind when I went full-time," Claudius says finally, once he tracks it down. "It wasn't really for me, anyway, one of the trainers gave it to me when I moved in but it was always the older kids who used it more. I gave it to a different trainer who had kids back home, figured why not let someone actually use it." Marius nods, and Claudius narrows his eyes as another detail crystallizes. "I think … I autographed it? You know, like, keep it, it'll be worth something in five years. Talk about cocky."
This time Marius actually laughs, a burst of genuine amusement underneath the layer of tired, and yeah, Claudius remembers that too, the way he holds it in for a second before letting it out like he can't help it. "Hey, not cocky if it's true, right? Too bad she couldn't sell it without admitting where she got it."
But Claudius is already off chasing another memory. "You gave me something when you gave the pillow back. A switchblade?"
Marius' mouth twitches. "Butterfly knife. You'd just started learning the tricks."
"That's right." He'd cut up his hands something fierce trying to get the flips right, since the knives in Residential proper didn't come with a safe edge, and had to scramble for an excuse that the trainers would believe. They probably hadn't, but he'd at least passed the minimum credibility threshold because no one came to take it away. "One of the others gave me throwing knives."
"That was Gavin," Marius says, surprising him. "He liked you a lot. Said you reminded him of his brother back home."
"Oh." Now it's Claudius' turn to blink. "I kept all the knives and stuff everyone gave me when I moved into Residential proper, you know. I didn't want them confiscated so I stole some tape from the supply closet and stuck 'em all to my body. In retrospect they probably knew exactly what I was doing, but they always did give points for creativity."
"You were a smart kid," Marius says, and his shoulders sit a little less heavy now. "They probably would've been disappointed if you hadn't."
They trade a few more memories back and forth, testing to see which ones match, and sure enough they find more: like the time Claudius convinced the cooks to give him an extra jam tart for his eleventh birthday and he traded it for a wicked dagger, or the first girl Marius ever eyed as a dumb teenage boy, and how he knew he couldn't flirt with her so he tried to get her attention by having Claudius hit her with a homemade blow gun from across the room. After a while the air clears a little, and it it hits Claudius that for all they've worked together and Claudius has fought side by side with Marius' kids, they've never really talked. It's no wonder their history didn't come up.
Finally Marius' chuckles even out, and he gives Claudius a sidelong glance that means he's about to ask why he's really here. Except the stupid thing is he doesn't have a reason, there's no ulterior motive, no grand master plan except that everything is upside-down and strange and kind of awful, and it's actually nice to find someone with a connection that goes past his file or his televised interviews and the terrible truths that keep vomiting out of the trial testimonies.
Before Marius can say anything, Claudius takes a leap off the platform. "Hey, do you want to fight or something? I mean, hanging with you and your friends, that was kind of the best time in the Centre for me. I felt like I didn't have to work so hard to fit in. And now everything's gone to shit, we've lost so many Victors and your people took all those hits, and the trials are a complete shitshow, and —" He waves a hand. "It just feels like everybody's dead, and if they're not they're doing a damn good impression of it."
He's babbling. This is why he should only talk to Lyme; she understands his tics and fills his silences. "I just thought, you're not dead and I'm not dead, so maybe we could … be not dead together for a while?"
Marius pauses, and the silence extends with that particular flavour of politeness that means he probably isn't considering whether he's up for sparring with a Victor, and Claudius has missed a step. But then Marius' eyebrows start creeping up his head until he finally says, "Uh, I'm flattered, but —"
"Snow on a shitpile!" Claudius bursts out, the wave of horror smacking him full in the chest. "I'm not hittingon you!"
For the first time in their entire acquaintance, Marius actually bursts into a full-on belly laugh. Claudius' face flames hot but Marius keeps on laughing, and clearly Claudius is meant to die alone with no friends ever because this is not fair. Finally Marius manages to calm himself enough to speak, though tiny giggles escape at the edges of his words. "Okay, sorry, but I knew you when you were ten, do you know how weird —"
"If I was hitting on you," Claudius says acidly, "which might I remind you I am not, I wouldn't use 'everyone is dead, let's go celebrate being alive' as my line. I may as well have come to you the night before the final assault and tried 'last chance before we die'." Marius sputters into his hand, and Claudius leans over, yanks the pillow out from behind his back, and hits him over the head with it, commanding officer be damned. "You really think I could get away with weak-ass game like that?"
"Well, you are a Victor," Marius says with a sharp grin, and ha, there's the ex-Career who's been hiding behind the responsible soldier, all wolf smiles and taking enjoyment in someone else's suffering. "I thought all you'd have to do is flash your wrist."
Claudius flattens his eyes. "Apparently not."
"Okay, okay." Marius holds out his hands in surrender, but since he's still holding back guffaws, it doesn't really help. Apparently Selene was right about the Scouts and the lack of Victor mystique. "I'm sorry I thought you were trying to seduce me with a cheesy line, instead of using the cheesy line to try to fight me."
"I have this problem a lot when trying to spar with people," Claudius says, resigned and exasperated. "Enobaria thought I wanted to sleep with her too."
That just sets Marius off on another fit, his laughter tinged with hysteria and exhaustion, and even as Claudius resists the urge to fold his arms and sulk like a ten-year-old, he can't help thinking this is probably good release, somehow. Too bad he can't get community service points for this, racking up hours of personal humiliation as civic duty.
Finally Marius winds down, wiping his eyes with his broad thumbs. "Oh man," he wheezes out, catching his breath. "Okay, c'mon you, let's fight."
The first thing Claudius does once they find a space and ditch their boots is cheat, taking a cheap shot before Marius has his stance settled to get him flat on his back. "Oh, yeah, I'm feeling the nostalgia now," he says, grinning, then scrambles back before Marius can throw him off and flip them over. Marius is big the way Brutus would've been if he'd stopped before the juicing stage, and Claudius does not intend to get his nose ground into the floor, thanks.
"Cheater," Marius says lazily, climbing to his feet and shaking out his limbs. "Come back and take a hit, if that Village hasn't made you soft."
"You have to land a hit before I can take one," Claudius shoots back.
Taunting during sparring is as familiar as muscle memory when swinging a sword, but it's been a long time. Mentor sparring with Lyme is a whole other ballgame, and helping Selene overcome her war-induced mental breaks isn't exactly conducive to trash-talking. It takes him a second to find his rhythm, pushing past the overt aggression and rage-inducing provocation from his pre-Arena training days, but once he hits it, Claudius finds himself nearly overwhelmed relief. He hadn't realized how having to tiptoe around the other Victors and their imploding grief, having to censor everything and avoid a minefield of triggers, had started to wear on him.
When Marius lungs in, snakelike and startlingly quick for a guy his size, and traps Claudius in a headlock like they're twelve, he can't help but wonder if Paylor's new commander doesn't feel the same.
It's a good fight, too, competitive without the razor's edge of nasty desperation that leached into every match in the final year of the Program, not love-tapping but not trying to break bones, either. It's nice, satisfying in a way Claudius has been missing, but just like Marius' laugh or the haunted look in his eyes it takes Claudius a second to catch hold of what it is. Not until Marius finally gets him to the ground, and Claudius flops back against the floor with a faint flicker of disappointment only for Marius to shoot him an odd look.
"You want me to believe that's it?" he says, disbelieving. "If you're waiting to stick me with a hidden knife, I pass."
"Just trying to keep you off your guard," Claudius says, scrambling to his feet, and now it clicks.
It's the first time in eight years that Claudius has gone into a fight without knowing exactly which one of them is meant to win, as designated by the Village and its social hierarchy. Artemisia might beat Brutus at sword-fighting every time, but afterward he always flips her on her ass to remind her where she stands — and because she'd be unbalanced and unsettled if he didn't. Claudius sparred with Lyme every single day of his life in the Village, and even after she stopped pinning him down to make a point, he still took comfort in knowing the match would end with him on his back and Lyme helping him to his feet.
He and Marius have no set script, no predetermined winner or loser. For a while now Claudius has been wondering whether he be addressing Marius with more deference, calling him 'sir' or saluting as though he actually was one of his soldiers, since Marius is the one with real military experience while Claudius got vaulted ahead on celebrity. He'd never known how to bring it up during the war, and afterward there didn't seem to be a non-awkward time, but now as they fall back to collect their breath, staring at each other across the clear patch of floor, it seems the fight has finally answered that question. The Victor and the Peacekeeper commander cancel out, leaving two men four years apart and nothing else between them.
Unfortunately, thinking about how natural the sparring feels distracts Claudius from the actual mechanics of it, and Marius' elbow catches him full in the face and knocks him to the ground. "Ow," Claudius says distantly, and Marius kneels down to check his head. "Is this where we kiss?" Claudius asks, his vision blurring.
"You're a shit," Marius says. "You're the one explaining this to Lyme if you have a concussion."
Claudius shakes off his dizziness and waves away Marius' hand as he stands. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Thanks for this, though, really. It's nice not to have to be so — careful."
"Yeah, I know the feeling," Marius says, shifting his weight to test a sore spot on his knee. "This was good, though. And I know you feel like everyone gave you shit for how your year went down, but for what it's worth, it was nice to see a kid make good, especially after so many Twos died messy in the years before you. I didn't go around telling people because I didn't want to be that guy, you know, kissing up to the Victor to look important, but I met up with Gavin and a couple of the others after you won, and we had a drink and all agreed we were proud to know you."
"Okay, well." Claudius wobbles a little, and Marius makes a 'tch' sound and steadies him before he catches himself. "I don't know how to deal with that, so I'm going to go. You should get some sleep." He turns, points a finger, hears Selene laughing at him for the Brutus mannerism but it's too late now. "Also maybe eat a fuckin' vegetable. You can't fix the world if you die of scurvy."
"Go fuck yourself," Marius says, shocking Claudius every bit as much as One Male's sword slicing through his shoulder and hitting bone. "But seriously, I'm sending someone to walk you home because you look a little green."
By the time Claudius makes it back to the barracks the last of the dizziness has faded, and even the pain from where his skull cracked against the floor is gone. He apologizes to his escort, who waves him off with a polite blandishment about the night air, and walks in to find Lyme waiting for him in the common area. "Holy shit," Claudius mutters, and he doesn't jump out of his skin thanks to half a lifetime of hyper-vigilance, but holy shit. "Sorry, am I in trouble?"
"I don't know, are you?" Lyme says, incredulous. "What did you do to your face, try to make out with a truck?"
"Yeah, that's exactly what I did," Claudius retorts. "Nah, Mom, be proud of me, I made a friend. I went to see Marius and we sparred for a bit. Clearly I'm a little rusty."
Lyme snerks a little, and she calls him over and makes a show of fussing over him while Claudius relaxes against her. "I'm glad you're making friends," she says. "I'm sorry I can't be there for you all the time."
"Eh," he says, a little surprised at how little it bothers him. "We did just have a war. We're all busy."
Lyme's fingers brush his hairline as she checks his head for injury, and Claudius' gaze snags on the cuff she wears around her wrist. "Hey, now that things are — well not over,but — do you think you'd want it back? We're not with Thirteen anymore, and now with everyone back together —"
"You're not the first person to ask me that. Brutus and Nero both asked me within the first few days of everyone getting rescued." Lyme drops her arm, looking down at her wrist for several long seconds, then she sighs and removes the cuff. She pokes at the scar from the excised tattoo on her wrist, the raised edges faded a little but still visible even after all those months. "And — no, I don't think so. It wouldn't be the same, and I don't like moving backwards. I had it, now it's gone, and that's that."
Claudius grits his teeth. "They shouldn't have taken it. I shouldn't have let them."
"What were you going to do, fist-fight Coin right there in the hallway?" Lyme says, amused. "It was my choice, not yours. I was a different person when I got it, in a different place, and I'll never go back to being that person again. It would be like trying to redo a wedding, or something."
"Except you hate weddings."
"Except I hate weddings," Lyme agrees. She never talked about it with Claudius but he knows from Village whispers that she hated her tattoo for what it represented, all the parts of her she tried to scrub away and lock in a box and make up for by grabbing kids like Claudius and pulling them out of the muck. Except for all that, it marked her as a member of the Victor family — a family that's a whole lot smaller than it was before.
Claudius thinks about the fight with Marius, about not having to deal with Victor bullshit for once, about the other Victors on television and the sacrifices they're making all over again even though everyone in the whole fucking country knows they're going to convict Snow so this whole thing is nothing but horror-show pageantry. He looks down at his own wrist, at the swirl of black and the dots of orange, red, silver and gold, and remembers the heartsick relief that filled his chest when he woke up in the hospital and looked down to see it, real and raw against his skin.
"I'll get rid of mine," Claudius says, even as something inside him breaks, like a cello string tuned so tight it snaps and slices skin. "You shouldn't be the only one of us without one."
He doesn't tell her he'd rather peel off his fingernails or pull out all his teeth one by one. He doesn't tell her that as soon as he'd been old enough to notice all the Two Victors had a similar pattern inked around their wrists he'd stolen markers from his classroom to draw his own version on his skin at night, and washing it off before getting ready for school in the morning used to make him cry.
He doesn't tell her, but it doesn't matter anyway. "No," Lyme says, quiet but firm. She takes his arm by the wrist and presses her fingers to the ink beneath his skin, her thumb steady against his pulse point. "Thank you for offering, but no. You keep yours."
He struggles not to sigh in relief, and it comes out as an awkward sputter instead. "I would," Claudius insists, but it's hard not to feel like he just surfaced after staying underwater until his vision blacked. "I don't care about the tattoo — I mean, I do — but I care about you more."
Lyme smiles at him, rueful. "I know. But it was weird enough for me, and I never felt connected to mine in the first place. I don't think you need to go through that."
"It still sucks," Claudius says, emphatic, and hating that he sounds like a sulky teenager, but you know what, sometimes after war and fire and slow, lingering death hooked up to half a dozen machines, the only thing left is this sucks. "And… I don't know, we went through everything together, it feels weird not doing this."
Lyme clicks her tongue. "D, no, listen to me. Keep it. I like knowing not everything has changed."
"Yeah, fine," Claudius says, knocking his head against her shoulder. "What if I make you a friendship bracelet, then? You should have something."
It's a joke but not really, and he hears every second in the beat of his pulse until Lyme laughs and combs her fingers through his hair. "You know what, if you make me one I'll wear it. I'll even make you a matching one if you want to."
"I would fucking love that," Claudius says without a hint of irony. "Next time I'm out I'll steal some thread from some stupid floofy craft store. Sorry, 'commandeer for the good of the reconstruction effort'."
"You better at least fix a window," Lyme says, poking him between the eyes. "No looting, even the small stuff. But now we should go to bed."
"Hey, look at you, all grown up and sticking to a sleep schedule," Claudius says. Lyme makes a face and complains about kids these days and their sass, but once they're up she pulls him in for a quick hug and drops a kiss on the top of his head.
The next morning, the television broadcast announces both Coriolanus Snow and Alma Coin guilty of all charges, and that both are officially stripped of any rights to leadership forever. In celebration, in solidarity, and to mark the beginning of a new era, every citizen no longer eligible for the Reaping as of the Quarter Quell will be invited to vote for their choice of candidate for the leader of free Panem reborn.
"Oh boy," Claudius says out loud, and drops his spoon into the bowl of terrible commissary oatmeal.