I don't own The Hunger Games.

"I don't understand." Glimmer sighed as Cato parked the car. "This was your idea in the first place."

Cato wearily ran a hand through his hair. When he told Glimmer that she'd have to live in the dormitories, he hadn't expected her to cry. She'd always asked why, but he hadn't given her a straight answer yet. He helped Glimmer to pack her things and had now taken her down to the dormitories, because he highly suspected the Glimmer wanted everyone to know that she was hanging out with Cato Wood.

"You know that I'm going back to Oregon, and I don't really feel comfortable with the idea of you staying in my house when I'm not there." Cato explained, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.

"But why? You trust me, don't you?" Glimmer asked, looking up at him sadly. No. Cato thought. You moved in with your best friend's boyfriend.

"I'm not coming back here without Clove and I don't want her to think that there's anything going on with you and me. She already has enough to be mad at me for, I don't false accusations on top of that." Cato said. He turned to face Glimmer, who pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"There could be." She said after a few minutes of silence.

"Huh?" Cato's forehead creased in confusion.

"There could be something going on with you and me. Come on Cato, I've loved you for forever. Clove hated you before she even met you. You could stay here and we could be together. Come on Cato, you know the press would like me better." Glimmer said, looking hopefully up at Cato.

"I-"

"Just cancel your flight; you won't have to tell Clove. It can be our little secret." Glimmer continued. Cato stared at her in shock, unable to respond.

"I love you." She said desperately. She rested her hand on Cato's cheek, leaned over, and kissed him softly on the lips.

"I'm a bad person, Glimmer." Cato said, wrenching away from her. "But you're one thousand times worse than I am."

"No I'm not." Glimmer scowled at him, her cheeks tinted pink.

"Yes you are, Glim. I was a dick for inviting you here, but you were one too for accepting. Now as I'm telling you that I'm going to go get Clove back, your best friend, you're telling me that you have a crush on me. Oh, and you kissed me. What would Clove say about that?" Cato glared at Glimmer, who winced at Clove's name.

"Please don't tell her." She whispered.

"Get out of my car."

…

Bitter. That was Clove could feel. It attacked her in the strangest places- during dinner, when she was working on the farm, in the shower. She would hunch over, and try and spit the horrible taste out of her mouth. Bitter wasn't an emotion that was new to Clove, but she had never before felt it like she did now.

"Clove, please don't do this." Nick pleaded. He was stood in her room, wearing a dark suit. Clove lay in her bed in her pyjamas, an open book in her hands.

"Go away, Nick." She said calmly.

"She wouldn't want this for you." Nick pressed the heels of his hands to eyes.

"Well," Clove violently snapped her book shut and spat on the ground. "She's dead. What she wanted doesn't really matter anymore, does it?"

"She's still your mother, and I want you to be at her funeral." When Nick got no reply, he sighed quietly and left the room.

Mandy died on the operating table at exactly eleven minutes past three on a Sunday afternoon. Clove received that news that she had lost too much blood and passed at eighteen minutes to four, and she had cried until exactly twenty seven minutes to five. Since that day, she had carried on with her life as if nothing had happened. Only now her shoulders sagged a little, the corners of her mouth drooped and she treated everyone in a way that was one hundred times icier than she had before. So, when Clove arrived at the funeral wearing her best black dress, her family was more than a little shocked.

"I wanted to say goodbye." Clove said. "Is there anything wrong with that?"

They spent the service watching her with red, puffy eyes as she stayed still and soundless. She didn't shed a single tear, but of course they knew that on the inside she was screaming.

"My mother," Clove spoke to the crowd, "Was always nicer one day than I remembered her being the day before. Her cheeks always seemed a little rosier, and her smile a little brighter. She never truly gave up on me, so now I won't give up on her."

After the service, they gathered in the local pub for a buffet in Mandy's offer. The only ones that ate were the little children, and the ones that hadn't known her.

"Hey." Clove barely registered the voice, and didn't look up when somebody slid into the booth opposite her.

"You, um, doing okay?" The person asked. Clove rolled her eyes, irritated. Obviously not. She glanced over at the person sitting next to her, and her mouth fell open with shock.

"You have no right to be here." She hissed through her teeth.

"She's not why I came. But I loved her Clove, she was like a second mother to me. I know that I could have trusted her with anything." Cato said, pushing away his untouched plate of food.

"She wouldn't want you here." Clove said, her hands trembling. She shoved them under the table to hide the weakness from Cato.

"Clove, we both know that she wouldn't want anyone here. She wouldn't want anyone to be sad, but she'd also want to me to pull you out of whatever dark pit you're falling into." Cato found her hands under the table and he held them tightly. And for a moment, Clove let him. It would be so easy. It would be so easy for her to just fall back into Cato's love and embrace, to have him think rationally for her whilst she desperately tried to get through this. He could comfort her like nobody else had been able to, find all the right words to say. He could love her again, and she wanted nothing more than for that to happen.

Clove pulled her hands back sharply.

"I'm perfectly fine, actually. And I don't want anything to do with the likes of you." Clove slid gracefully out of the booth. Folding her arms against her chest and keeping her head held high, she stalked away from Cato and didn't look back.