The first night Cato's home, they find themselves in the Training Center, lying on the mats like before. They don't talk much, just lie there in each other's arms. She is bubbling over with the urge to ask him Why, why did you try to kill yourself, why did you do it, why did you break your promise, why did you try to leave me behind, why, but she knows that this is not the time. Cato is still too broken, too fragile. Now, the only thing she can do is be there and take care of him. It is what she does best, fixing broken things. Cato needs to know that everything is okay, and that is something she can make happen, even if she herself does not believe that everything is okay. So she curls up in Cato's arms as he holds her against him, the top of her head tucked under his chin, and feels his heart beat, solid and steady against her hand.
"I love you, Cato," she whispers into his chest, clutching to the front of shirt. He is not the only one that needs to know that everything will be okay. She knows that it will never be okay, but she wants to.
"I love you, too," he murmurs into her hair. She snuggles in closer and buries her nose into the crook of his neck and breathes him in. She has waited so long for him to be back, and he is finally here. She still can't believe it, but she knows enough of how the world works to not question her good fortune. Instead, she just sinks into the slow, steady rhythm of Cato's breathing and the solid cadence of his heartbeat and drifts off to dreamless sleep.
She's woken by Cato's screams.
"NOOOOO! THYME! Thyme, no! Please, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Cato. Cato! Cato, I'm right here." She fights her way out of his arms and shakes him harder and harder, pulling his hair, willing him to wake up. "Cato, it's okay. Everything's okay." He continues twitching and screaming, begging, sobbing.
"Thyme! No, don't, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Clove. No, Thyme, please. Please. Thyme. Wake up. Wake up. THYME, WAKE UP! No. NO. Stay away. Don't come any closer. Stay BACK."
His arm flings out, as if trying to sweep away some unseen assailant, and his the back of his hand crashes into Thyme's face, snapping her face to the side with a resounding crack. She gasp, eyes wide open in shock and pain. She'd almost forgotten how strong Cato was. Her cheekbone throbs as she holds her hand against the side of her face, the skin stinging and hot. Slowly, she backs away from him and runs to the hospital wing, filling a cup with cold water. When she returns, Cato is still shouting and flailing, and she throws the water onto him. He wakes up spluttering, eyes wide open and terrified.
"Thyme!" Cato gasps and bolts upright, water dripping from his face and trickling down his hair, soaking dark tracks into his shirt. He looks about wildly, looking for Thyme, who gingerly kneels down, just out of arm's reach.
"I'm right here, Cato," she says, injecting as much calm gravity into her voice as possible. His entire body sags in relief as he reaches for Thyme, who slowly scoots closer. His hand cups her cheek, and she holds his hand in place. His eyes are swimming with tears.
"I did that, didn't I?" he whispers tearfully, thumb running over the beginnings of a bruise blooming on her cheekbone in a mottled yellow-green-purple.
"No. It was dark and I ran into the doorframe."
But he shakes his head slowly, tears trickling down his face, knowing that Thyme is lying. She knew her way in the dark the way he knew his way with a sword. She never got lost in the dark.
"It doesn't matter, Cato. I'm fine." She smiles softly, almost wryly, and ruffles his hair. A silent sob shakes Cato's shoulders and he throws his arms around Thyme and drags her closer until she is nestled against his chest like a doll, her head resting on his shoulder, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, while he cries into her hair.
Eventually, his shuddering sobs give way to sniffles, and slowly, he falls asleep, wrapping Thyme into his arms like a child with a beloved plush toy, and she sinks into his touch. She's not sure what hurts more, her face or her heart.
On second thought, perhaps visiting Clove's grave so soon was not as good an idea as previously believed. Tears are positively streaming down Cato's as he kneels in front of Clove's headstone, Thyme's hand resting on his shoulder. Her face is dry as stone, and she likes to think that she's cried all her tears away. She cannot afford to cry now. Cato needs her to be strong, so she will.
"I'm so sorry, Clove." Cato's voice cracks with tears. "I'm so sorry." He traces the carvings on the polished black granite. Clove Heathridge. December 3, 2294 - June 17, 2310. Daughter, sister, Tribute. An honor to District 2. Thyme's memorized the words by now, she's been here so many times. Tears begin to sting her eyes, but she crushes them ruthlessly and swallows them down. I don't have time for tears. Instead, she kneels beside Cato and takes his hand into hers as his shoulders shiver in silent sobs.
"I'm sorry, Thyme," he whispers. Something sharp shoots through her heart at how broken he sounds, how he sounds as though he's expecting her to snarl and rage at him, and she squeezes his hand tighter.
"There's nothing to be sorry for, Cato. Nothing's your fault." She winces at the flatness of her voice. Sometime during her getting pregnant and Cato volunteering and Clove getting Reaped and Clove dying and Cato stabbing himself, her capacity for empathy had been significantly diminished. She tries again, warmer this time. "Really, Cato. It's not your fault. You don't have to apologize for anything." He nods weakly and she leans against him. She knows that she loves him, she doesn't love him any less than she used to, she probably even loves him more, but she wonders why it's so hard to translate her feelings into words and actions.
Thyme, will you marry me?
Of course.
A week into the wedding preparations, Thyme comes to the conclusion that weddings are overrated. Entirely overrated. District 2 weddings were simple things: a quick officiated ceremony by the mayor at the Justice Building followed by a dinner with friends and family. Then the groom carried the bride over to their new home and that was it. It did not involve the fitting of a thousand dresses or the creation of floral arrangements (she's still not sure why floral arrangements are necessary or how they work into a wedding) or the arranging of menus (Really? Menus? Multi-course meals? Why? How?) or compiling guest lists. Her list consisted of Mother, Father, Andrea, Mr. and Mrs. Paxton, Julia and her husband, Mrs. Steele, and Mr. and Mrs. Heathridge, but the woman on the other end of the phone paused for several seconds when Thyme read out her admittedly-short guest list and eventually was somehow forced to include all of District 2. Why bother with guest lists, then? Just use the damn census.
She blames Cato entirely. After declaring his undying love for Thyme and plans to wed her in front of the entire country, the Capitol seemed to feel it their personal duty to plan the wedding of the century and had descended upon District 2 en masse, ruining any semblance of peace that Thyme once had. Currently, she was being stuffed into the third of seven wedding gowns, much to her chagrin and the delight of her mother and Andrea, who were inordinately enthusiastic about participating in her suffering. This particular torture device was a fluffy, gauzy confection that looked deceptively light and comfortable when it was hanging on the rack. The bodice has a hundred lacy rosettes stitched onto it and is cinched so tightly around her waist that she can barely breathe. A frothy explosion of tulle and gauze bursts from her hipline, held up by hoops and petticoats and crinolines. The skirt's so wide around that Thyme feels like a cake topper, and she's sure that Andrea and several of her friends could fit comfortably under it. Her hips hurt from the weight of the hoops holding it up, and she's not quite sure how she's supposed to sit in this thing. She can barely stand properly, what with her ridiculous five-inch stilettos precariously propping her up against the weight of the veritable blizzard of fabric.
Her dress and shoes alone, she can tolerate, if only barely. What really sends her an inch away from the edge is her hair. Thyme is sure that there are at least a hundred pins digging into her scalp like so many tiny claws. She was not previously aware hair that could be piled to such altitudes. But somehow, the Capitol stylists have managed to use an unholy amount of hairsprays and gels and creams and starches and pins and curlers to torture her hair into a poofy, sky-high monstrosity. And not only has her hair been teased and fluffed into being its own sub-entity, but there are flowers and little puffy things with rhinestones glued on them pinned into her hair. Naturally, all Thyme wants to do is to rip out the offending pins, throw the stylists out onto the streets, wash her hair clean, slip into her old frock, and go to sleep. But Andrea is completely entranced by the princess-y gowns, the sparkles and frills, the whole opulent, chaotic, extravagant mess. Besides, the stylists fawn over the little girl with the cornsilk hair and sky-blue eyes and beautiful manners and Thyme thinks they genuinely adore Andrea (how could anyone not), and if enduring this torture session will let Andrea feel special and beautiful and rich, then she'll do it. And she couldn't deprive her mother of the chance to see her daughter all dressed up and about to be married off.
"Turn around," her mother instructs, and Thyme tries her best to do just that, gingerly turning, praying that she doesn't topple over on her heels and skirts. Her mother frowns.
"Hmmm. I don't know about this one. What do you think, Thyme?"
Thyme manages to summon the energy to aim a long-suffering look at her mother.
"Honestly, Mother?"
Her mother smiles wryly. "That's what I thought." She turns to the stylists, who are already preparing for the next outfit change. "Can we see the next one, please?" The head stylist, Quintus, claps his hands together gleefully.
"Of course, Mrs. Rivers! Oh, it's really such a delight to dress your daughter, isn't it, girls?" The girls in question are a pair of twins, Cara and Lara, who nod rapidly in agreement and giggle.
Thyme just wants to cry.
Thyme's father is not a particularly large man, not like Julius Paxton, and while he is tall, as tall as Cato is, it's not his height that fills Cato with a sense of ominous foreboding. It's his eyes, the same forest-green as Thyme's, only sharper, colder, harder, crueler. Cato remembers that this man, Daeron Rivers, was a legend in his Reaping days. His knowledge of poisons ran deeper than anyone dared to think, and his skill with a razor was made all the more terrifying when they realized that Daeron Rivers could slit a man's throat in a crowd and vanish into thin air before said man fell to the ground. The entire District was shocked and disappointed when he didn't volunteer. Cato does his best to keep his face stoic as he sits up a little straighter in his seat at the kitchen table.
"Thyme loves you," the older man states flatly. "I don't know why. You've hurt her more than enough." Cato flinches inside at the entirely-accurate statement.
"I know, sir."
Daeron shoots him a glare colder than the greatsword he stabbed himself with.
"You know." He spits out the last word venomously. "You don't know anything, Cato Steele. You didn't see the way she was when you were with Clove. After the Spring Festival, I saw her run home like seven hells were chasing her down. She locked herself into her room the whole night and wouldn't answer our questions, wouldn't come out. All I could hear was her crying into her pillow."
His voice is low, threatening, tight with barely-suppressed anger, and Cato sinks further into his guilt.
"You got her pregnant, even though you were volunteering. You put in a child in her, and then you went off to die. For what? For glory? For honor? What if you didn't come home? Or were you so arrogant to believe that you would come back for sure? Either way, you gave my daughter a child and then you volunteered. You weren't even Reaped."
The hate, the rage, it runs through his voice the way blood runs through veins, and his eyes pick Cato apart completely.
"And you didn't just leave her, you had the fucking nerve to run yourself through with your fucking sword."
Daeron clenches his hand into a fist so tight, the skin on his knuckles go painfully taut and white. His eyes (Thyme's eyes) are cruel and cold, an angry, vicious, toxic green. Cato remembers seeing Thyme like this once before, that first night in the Training Center, but even then, they were never so deadly.
"Let me make one thing very clear, Cato Steele." Cato braced himself. "I hate you. I hate you, and nothing would make me happier than to use you as a practice dummy for the kids to slice you up. But," Daeron's voice softens and he leans back in his chair, "Thyme loves you. I don't have a fucking clue why, but she does. So I'll let this happen. But if I ever have a fucking reason to believe that you're making Thyme unhappy, I will find you, strap you down, and shoot you so full of poisons, your veins will burn for hours before you vomit out your own intestines and choke on your own tongue. That clear?"
Cato nods rapidly. He has no doubt that Daeron Rivers will more than follow through on his threat.
"Now get the fuck out of here."
Thyme has to admit that the wedding itself is gorgeous, despite the unimaginable amounts of pain she went through to plan it. By the end, she had left all the decisions up to her mother, which in hindsight, was probably the wisest course of action. But it was all worth it. All of District 2 has shown up in front of the Justice Building. The ice-white columns have endless yards of shimmering silver silk twisted around them and there's white camellias twisted with flickering lights strung up across the square and a long lane of silvery-white organza is laid out down the aisle. She can see Cato standing at the end, tall and handsome in his crisp black suit and black buffed-leather shoes, grinning widely. The string quartet off to the side strikes up a soft wedding march.
Andrea traipses ahead happily, a little fairy in her snow-blue tulle skirts stitched with tiny white blossoms and linked with impossibly-thin vines of silver thread, wearing a circlet of apple blossoms twined with the ribbons the same blue as her dress. Her lanky blonde hair flips and swishes and she skips, tossing white camellia petals out from a small white wicker basket.
"I suppose there's no way to put this to an end?" Her father grits out between his teeth as he takes his daughter's hand in his arm.
"I'm afraid not," Thyme replies, chuckling. Her father sighs.
"Best get this over with then."
Thyme can feel everyone's eyes on her. Some are kind, some are filled with wonder, some are happy and joyful and some are bitter and judgemental, but they are all looking at her. She keeps her head high and keeps walking. I look like a princess, she thinks. I should act like one. And look like a princess she does. Of course, the perfect dress had to be the last, the seventh, the fucking last. But it is showstoppingly, breathtakingly perfect. The bodice is a corset in glowing, soft white silk, with twisting, curling vines embroidered in silver thread, dotted with tiny emerald leaves and spreading out over half of her skirt, which sweeps over the organza walkway, flaring gently from her hips and pooling around her feet in soft folds of silk. Her hair is curled and held in place by a small tiara, wrought silver and set with emeralds and miniscule diamonds. A single white ribbon is tied around her neck. The stylists had insisted on a necklace, but Thyme insisted more vehemently on the ribbon that Cato gave her so long ago (was it really only four months ago?).
"I love you, Daddy," she whispers through her gossamer veil, mere feet away from Cato and the mayor.
"...I love you too, Thyme. I'm proud of you."
Thyme's father hands her over to Cato, and she swears Cato gulped when her father looked at him.
Cato gently flips the veil over her face and smiles down at her. Thyme grins back. She can't remember the last time she smiled so widely. She savors the moment, runs her eyes along the slope of his nose and the line of his jaw, the sparkle in his eyes (she's waited so long to see his eyes sparkle again), the curve of his lips. She turns over her shoulder and grins at Andrea, who is bubbling with excitement, her face beaming with near-unbridled joy. The mayor clears his throat and Thyme turns back to Cato, the both of them grinning stupidly like lovesick puppies.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Cato Steele and Thyme Rivers, a union that is entered into not lightly and flippantly, but reverently and passionately, lovingly and solemnly, with no small amount of heart and forethought. If any present has any valid basis on which these two should not be joined in matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace."
Thyme's eyes flicker over to her father, who is tense in his seat, glowering openly at Cato. She shoots her father a warning glance, and he relaxes somewhat, but intensifies his glare. Nobody speaks.
"In light of the lack of objections, do you, Cato Steele, take Thyme Rivers to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and to cherish, to honor and to respect, to have and to hold?"
"I do." His voice his deep, and strong in a way that it has not been since he returned.
"And do you, Thyme Rivers take Cato Steele to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love and to cherish, to honor and to respect, to have and to hold?"
"I do."
"The rings, please?"
Cato pulls out from his coat pocket a silver ring mounted with a teardrop emerald and slides it onto Thyme's ring finger. Andrea hands Cato's ring to Thyme, a silver band set with a stripe of miniscule sapphires around it, and she slides it onto Cato's finger.
"Then by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife."
The thunderous cheering roars in Thyme's ears as Cato's lips crash against hers and for once, she lets herself think that everything will be okay.