A/N: Disclaimer: I know very little about Italy and I have never been there, so I apologize if I butcher the language, give misinformation, or otherwise offend out of ignorance.
This is it. The last chapter, apart from one more teeny one, which is really an epilogue. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it!
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They're welcomed with open arms in Italy, where they have been celebrities, without even knowing it, since the uprising against Snow.
Brutus had circled Rome on the map in his atlas, and so that's where they start off.
They are invited to stay at the Prime Minister's official residence, and given a bedroom with a gilded ceiling and walls paneled in silk that looks like liquid gold.
"I hate it," Katniss whispers when they're left alone to settle in. "I can't breathe. My soul feels stifled by all of this...this…" She waves her hands around inarticulately.
"...gold?" Cato finishes for her. It's a bit much for him too. He actually feels like something heavy is pressing down on him.
So they haul the mattress out onto the balcony off of their room and they spend their first night in Italy sleeping under the stars.
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The next day they ask if they can see the big round building off in the distance. The one that looks like it's falling apart.
The government official tasked with showing them a good time grimaces and looks concerned.
"What?" Katniss asks.
"Are you familiar with what the Colosseum is?" he asks. "And gladiators? Have you heard of those?"
"No." They both shake their heads.
So he takes a deep breath and explains it to them, clearly bracing himself for them to be offended.
But Cato can't help snorting and then Katniss giggles and within seconds the two of them are rolling around on the floor laughing.
It's absolutely perfect. It is so fitting, and Cato wonders if somehow Brutus knew about gladiators and the Colosseum.
"Now you have to show us," Katniss says when they finally calm down.
"Yeah," Cato agrees. "We'll be the first real gladiators to set foot in there in like twenty-five hundred years!"
His comment sends Katniss into another fit of giggles.
The government official rolls his eyes and sighs, but he calls for a driver to take them to the Colosseum.
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That night they are served veal saltimbocca for dinner. It's fried up lightly with something that kind of reminds Cato of ham (they tell him it's called prosciutto) and some sage leaves and it's incredible.
And the wine they serve with it…Cato's never had anything like it.
The Prime Minister calls her chef out to thank him for the delicious meal, and Katniss asks the chef how he makes it. But he doesn't speak their language, and so the Prime Minister translates, and all of a sudden the two of them have been issued an invitation to a private cooking lesson the next evening. Cato is not thrilled, and he's pretty sure Katniss isn't either, but he doesn't want to be rude, so he nods and says grazie, which he has learned means thank you.
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The next day they're taken to the Vatican, which they learn is considered its own nation, right there in the middle of Rome.
"Kind of like 2 now that they've seceded!" Katniss says.
They've never heard of God or Catholicism or Christianity, or religion at all for that matter, but a nice man called Il Papa explains the basic idea to them and gives them each a book, printed in English, that he calls The Bible, and then he sends them to look at the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel.
They just stand there for several minutes, their mouths open wide as they stare up at it.
"Do you believe in this God he was talking about?" Cato whispers.
"I don't know," she whispers back. "Do you?"
"I think so. Maybe not that exactly," and he points to the section where God is reaching out to Adam. "But I think there's something out there."
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That night the Prime Minister's chef brings them into his kitchen and begins his demonstration.
Katniss watches politely as she sips on a glass of wine, but Cato is fascinated.
He wants to do it himself, and somehow, after lots of gesturing back and forth, he manages to communicate this, and so with a delighted grin, the chef motions him to the other side and hands him the meat mallet.
His favorite part is making the sauce.
When he's all done he plates it up and hands it to Katniss along with a fork, and he's proud to give her a mouthgasm for the second time in his life.
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When they return to their room, they haul the mattress out onto the balcony again, and then Katniss reaches into her pocket and pulls out a little hunk of cheese, which Cato by now recognizes as pecorino romano.
"I brought us a snack," she says with a grin.
Cato doesn't remember seeing the chef give her anything. "Where did you get that?"
Her face takes on a guilty look and Cato bursts into laughter.
"It was just sitting out," she says defensively.
"You little thief!" he teases her with a tickle on the ribs. "You little mouse!"
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They stay in Rome for a few weeks, and Cato is surprised to find that his favorite part of this whole adventure, other than eating and cooking and drinking wine, is learning the language.
He loves the way it sounds, the way it rolls off of everyone's tongues, and so on the fourth day they get him someone to tutor him, a nice little old lady named Signora Alderisi, and he spends at least a couple of hours a day with her.
He doesn't know anything about learning other languages, but Signora Alderisi seems surprised at how quickly he picks it up. When she asks him about it, he just shrugs. "It just makes sense to me," he tells her, because he doesn't know how to explain it.
After that, he tries to speak in Italian as much as he can, only resorting to English when he has to (which is still a lot of the time).
"No, say it in your language," he says to the well-meaning bureaucrats and magnates and celebrities who speak English fluently. "I want to learn."
By the time they leave for Florence, which is where everyone is telling them they should go next, he's made a lot of progress. He's not fluent or even anything close, but he's not like Katniss, who panics if anyone says more than two words to her in Italian.
She has learned to say thank you, please, hello, goodbye, more wine, more cheese and where is the bathroom. The last one never helps because she can't understand the directions they give her and they have to walk her there anyway, but more wine and more cheese seem to have served her well so far.
On his last day with Signora Alderisi, he realizes that he doesn't know how to say mouse yet.
"Topo," she says with a laugh. "But why mouse? Why not...oh, I don't know...leopard or swan or some more glamorous animal?"
"Katniss. She loves cheese. She's like a little mouse."
"Ah, then you need to call her your topolina."
"Mia topolina," he says with a grin.
"Si."
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Florence is an entirely different experience for them.
Katniss explains to the mayor that, while she and Cato appreciate his offer to house them at his mansion, they're looking for an experience that's a little different, and that she hopes he isn't offended.
He's not at all offended, it turns out, and he finds them a stone cottage just on the outskirts of the city, overlooking an olive grove.
It's small, with two stories and a wrought iron balcony off of the bedroom. There's nothing even remotely fancy about it, but it's airy and tranquil and charmingly rustic and it has running water and electricity so it's perfect.
The mayor is a little embarrassed by how sparsely furnished it is, and offers to have some pieces delivered.
"No, grazie," Cato says. "E abbastanza." No, thank you. This is enough.
"At least let me get you a proper bed," he insists as he gestures toward the mattress lying directly on the stone floor, which is literally the only thing in the room.
"It's fine," Katniss tells him with a smile. "I kind of like it this way. I don't think we need anything at the moment."
"Apetta un minuto," Cato breaks in. "Mi piacerebbe una cosa…" Wait a minute. I would like one thing….
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"You're kidding, right?" Katniss asks when the courier arrives with a new set of Frette linens and a gray cashmere blanket.
"Nope." Cato grins and tucks the sheets over the mattress and then he lays the blanket on the foot of the bed.
Katniss places the ivory pillar candles that she has found in the storage closet all over the bedroom and lights them and then they open a bottle of wine and they sit on their bed and watch the sunset through the open balcony door.
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They stay there for two months.
Most mornings they go their separate ways.
Some days Katniss goes hunting for pheasants and hare and wild boar with a few of the locals who have taken to her. She doesn't use guns because she doesn't like them. She sticks with her bow and arrow and her snares, and she sells her kills to a nearby butcher so they can have some money of their own instead of continuing to rely solely on the generosity of their host country.
On other days she helps out in the nearby olive grove, and sometimes she even goes foraging for white truffles with an old one-armed man and his hog. She tells Cato that every once in awhile he speaks a few words to her in Italian and sometimes she'll say something in English but neither of them can understand the other, so for the most part they pass the time in friendly silence.
No matter how she spends her time, she always comes home smelling like the sun instead of the rain, her skin tan and burnished and still warm from the heat of the day, and he can hardly keep his mouth from her shoulder.
"What are you doing?" she asks as she tries to push him off. "I'm all gross and sweaty."
"No you're not," he says, his words muffled against her skin. "You're delicious."
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Cato spends most of his time learning to cook like the Italians. There are several prominent chefs in Florence who are more than happy to teach him their craft. Almost every day, one of them comes by the house with a basket full of fresh ingredients to teach him to make beef carpaccio or fresh pasta with vodka sauce.
One day after they've been in Florence for a couple of weeks he learns to make risotto, and just as he's finishing up, Katniss returns from her first day of truffle hunting.
"You gotta try this," he says to her and holds out a spoonful of his new favorite dish.
"What is it?"
"It's rice and you cook it really slowly in broth and wine. But you only add a little bit at a time and it gets all creamy and rich and-well-here. Try it."
"Mmmmm," she says once she's had her first taste. "It's sooo rich!"
"Yeah. There's Parmesan in there too."
"You found some truffles?" the chef asks her.
She nods and produces three.
The chef gasps with delight and takes one from her. "May I?"
"Well I sure as hell don't know what to do with it. So, yeah, have at it."
The chef shows Cato how to shave pieces of the truffle overtop of the risotto. "Try it now," he says.
It's incredible, and the two of them finish off the entire batch that night after the chef leaves and wind up with bellyaches.
"This is worse than my hangover after 1," Katniss moans.
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One day they decide to go shopping in the city. Cato wants Katniss to see for herself why he fusses over Italian leather shoes.
She's unimpressed until they wind up at a place called Tod's. And then she oohs and aahs over a pair of loafers. She flexes her feet in them with satisfaction.
They come in just about every color. She could choose buttersoft cobalt leather or shiny patent red.
But no.
Tan suede. That's what she picks.
Of course she does. Because she's Katniss.
He raises an eyebrow at her. "Really?"
"What?" She scowls.
"All these colors and you pick tan?"
"What's wrong with tan?"
He shakes his head and sighs. "Nothing." I love you.
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She's much more enthused over Frette; she loves the feel of that gray cashmere throw against her skin.
Unlike Tod's, Frette does not have one in just about every color. Cato assumes this won't be a problem. After all, she chose tan shoes. A cream or chocolate colored blanket should be just fine.
But no.
She sighs as she runs her hand over the soft cashmere. "You don't have any green ones?"
They trip over themselves in their rush to reassure her. They'll have one for her in a week. What specific shade of green is she looking for?
"Dark. Like the forest."
Cato raises an eyebrow at her. "Really?"
"What?" She scowls.
"You chose the most boring shoes but now you want a green blanket?"
"They didn't have forest green shoes at Tod's or I would have picked them," she points out.
He shakes his head and sighs. I love you.
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One day a pastry chef that Cato met at one of the numerous dinner parties they're invited to comes and teaches him to make cannoli.
"You gotta try this," he says later that night when Katniss comes home.
"What is it?"
"Cannoli. It means little tube. It's a dessert. It's from Sicily originally." He holds one out toward her mouth, and puts his free hand underneath her chin to catch the crumbs.
She doesn't make a sound as she takes a bite, but her eyes roll to the back of her head.
"Good?"
"Mmm-hmm. Heyyyy!" she complains as he finishes off the rest of it.
"Relax. I made a dozen." He points to the platter he's laid them out on.
"I only see eight there. Your math is a little off."
"I may have eaten three already."
They polish them all off that night and end up with bellyaches.
"This is worse than the risotto," Cato moans.
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One day she comes rushing into the house with a large paper bag in her hands. "Look!" she cries, and dumps its contents onto the table. What looks to be several bars of soap wrapped in thick, gilded paper tumble out.
"Smell this," she says as she tosses him one wrapped in white.
He gasps as he inhales. Gardenia.
"Yeah. I got a bunch of 'em for your mom. And I got my mom and Prim some that smell like rose and violet and pomegranate. And you should see this place. It's called Santa Maria Novella. The ceiling is painted and has gold trim and everything is in these beautiful old wood cabinets with glass doors!"
"Did you buy yourself anything?"
"I got three of these." And she hands him a little olive green box with gold lettering. Sapone d'olio d'oliva.
All those fancy girly smells and she chose olive oil.
Of course she did. Because she's Katniss.
He raises an eyebrow at her. "Really?"
"What?" She scowls.
He opens his mouth to tease her about her plain taste, but then he realizes that he doesn't really want her to smell like roses or violets or pomegranate. He just wants her to smell like her. Like an early summer rainstorm. Or like the sun after she's spent the day outside in Florence.
"Nothing," he says. "I love you."
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Every night they sit at the little table and chairs on their balcony and drink a glass of wine or two as the sun dips beneath the olive trees.
She colors in last night's sketch while he draws a new one for her to work on tomorrow.
Sometimes he brings a little chunk of asiago or mozzarella or gorgonzola upstairs and then, once he's done sketching, he feeds it to her bit by bit.
"Ti amo, mia topolina," he tells her. I love you, my little mouse.
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About a week before they leave, a storm blows in, so instead of sitting on the balcony as usual, Katniss lights the candles and they snuggle up, her back against his chest, to watch the rain and lightning and listen to the thunder.
After a few minutes though, she rolls over to face him and kisses him on the mouth. He smiles against her lips and strokes her hair and returns her kiss, but when he pulls back she wraps her leg around his hip and pushes herself into him, and when he looks into her eyes he sees a hunger there that he recognizes from that night so many months ago on the train.
He can feel himself starting to grow hard, so he tries to pull away from her gently, but she holds on. "Katniss," he whispers. "I don't think this is a good idea."
Her face falls. "You don't want to?"
She sounds so disappointed that it makes his chest hurt.
"Are you kidding? Can't you feel that?" he says with a tender smile as he rocks against her ever so slightly.
"Then what's wrong?"
"I'm just worried about you, that's all. Everything they did to you, everything that happened...what if this brings it all back?" What if I hurt you?
She studies his face in the candlelight and then she says something that surprises him.
"I could punch you in the jaw, right?"
"What?"
"I could punch you in the jaw. Or I could do this." And she caresses his cheek with the tips of her fingers. "Either way, I touched your face."
"No, that's not the same thing at all."
"Exactly. And this," she says as she pushes herself into him again, "is not the same as what they did to me. It's not the same thing at all."
Her words remind him of that night in 4 when he sat on the back deck with Annie Cresta. Do you understand the difference now, she'd asked him, between fucking and making love?
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
"Please Cato," Katniss whispers, her lips against his forehead.
He nods and then he opens his eyes and gives her another tender smile. "Roll onto your back."
Her eyes light up and she does as he says.
He goes slowly.
He explores.
He pays attention to the signals she gives him.
He listens to her breathing and to the sounds that she makes.
He feels the way her body moves in his hands.
When he enters her, he takes his time and he focuses on making her feel good.
He forgets about himself entirely.
And then, just as she cries out and clenches around him, her body shaking, his own orgasm comes up on him out of nowhere.
He doesn't understand at first, but as Katniss drifts down from her high and whispers that was incredible into his chest, he realizes what's just happened.
He has found his own pleasure in that of his Katniss, his little tornado, his topolina.