A/N: Seriously though thanks you guys for coming as far as chapter 34, this is the longest thing I've ever written in my entiiiiire life!
Chapter 34: Lay My Cards
Calliope was prepared for the cold when they reached the surface this time, hauling a bag with her of training weapons and a heavier jacket zipped up to her neck. She looked down the lines again of groups with instructions being barked at them and noticed the group of their youngest trainees - all 13 or 14 - shifting uncomfortably. Like sore, too-tall thumbs, Katniss and Johanna's heads towered above the others. Eyes drifting, Katniss caught Calliope's and the two women stared at each other.
Callie saw the determined fire in her face, the dedicated hardness of someone with a true and difficult purpose. It would have been easy to muster the same jealousy and irritation she had been sporting for the young Mockingjay, but she found compassion easier to find now. Calliope nodded firmly, her lips twitched into half a smile. She saw the whisper of something not unlike one returned to her from Katniss' face before the young woman turned her attention back to York's words.
Calliope dropped the bags in front of her people and stared at them severely, "There's no such thing as too good with a weapon. Today we learn how good you think you are. Pick them up and find a partner, you drill with each other."
Glory smirked at her authority, the firmness in her tone, how leader like she had become. It had been a complicated journey for her from their humble beginnings as runaways from District 1, but now they were here. Now they were drilling an army in combat, they were preparing to storm the Capitol, and Calliope was a commander by every right of the word. He grabbed a long wooden pole from the bag and used it to indicate to a lone soldier.
Calliope watched them for a time, pausing to correct the throwing hands of one man or the stance of a woman with a practice mace. She looked up when she heard York's shouts of encouragement and saw the younger ranks of soldiers moving in a well-organized rectangular shape. At the back, struggling and fighting the urge to collapse, Katniss and Johanna trudged through the soft earth.
She stopped what she was doing and folded her arms to observe them. Glory moved to her side to watch and sighed heavily, trying to mask his attempt to catch his breath.
"They are determined to go into the Capitol," he said softly.
"Can you blame them?" Callie kept her stare on the two young women, "If President Snow did to me what he did to them, I'd fight just as hard to try and be the one to kill him."
Glory's whistle ended their day slightly earlier than the one before it and he signaled the return of the equipment. The entire day had been spent learning to combat one another, learning to master hand-to-hand weapons. Callie had pushed them hard enough their first day that she allowed a small reprieve on their second. She had meant what she said, exhausted men were useless men, and made good on that.
The beginner soldiers joined them on the lift back underground, silent with exhaustion. Callie looked down at the legs of a small, brown-haired girl and saw them shaking. She patted the surprised youth's shoulder and smiled warmly.
Calliope looked up and saw Katniss staring at her. She shifted to walk along the platform until they stood close to one another. She could not say what made her walk towards the Mockingjay, just that it felt like what she was supposed to do.
"It gets easier," Calliope offered quietly. She recalled how difficult her first few days in the mountain had been, how arduous and painful on her body the running and sparring was. It was not a thing that was easily forgotten, even under all the piles of experiences she had endured since.
Katniss nodded, "Everybody always says that."
"Are you going to do the treatment?" Callie said with a slight smile at Katniss' expression of alarm, "York isn't exactly quiet when she talks."
"I don't really have a choice," Katniss frowned and looked down at her torso with a hint of annoyance.
"You're welcome to come use our facilities if you need more help," Calliope offered cordially. She had spent a lot of time being annoyed with Katniss, frustrated and staying far away from the girl, but it seemed small and petty to do so now.
Katniss was surprised by the offer, but nodded assent, "Thank you."
The lift stopped and the hatch opened to let them out, finishing the conversation for them. Gale was waiting when they did so, he looked up and saw Calliope first. He smiled at her, something passing along that invisible rope that was permanent and secret and belonged to them. She nodded slightly and tried to fight the upward curve of her lips in vain.
It was brief, fleeting, and quiet. Callie stepped out of the lift and onto the hard ground below her feet. She walked past him, just a little too close, and brushed her fingers against his hand with just a whisper of skin against skin.
Gale felt his hand grow warm, some element of sacredness about it. He lifted his hand to his chest and held it there for just a moment before letting it drop down to his side again. Katniss was too exhausted to really see it, but part of her assumed something had passed when Calliope walked by him. Something always seemed to pass when she was around, but nothing Katniss was ever party to. She felt like she had been locked out of a room the two of them shared. Weeks ago, it annoyed her to see Gale watching Calliope or talking to her. Now, wil Peeta here, with Peeta coming back to himself, it all seemed to matter so little to her.
Glory jogged slightly to catch up to her, the bag of training weapons clattering against his back, "There's rain on the wind."
"It'll be a storm tomorrow," Calliope had smelled the tempest when they left, seen the telltale signs of a gathering storm for days now. It did not matter, training would occur with or without rain.
A knock on her compartment door brough Callie to her feet and off the bed. Glory sat up, apparently also still awake, and watched her move across the room. She turned on the dim lights and opened it, surprised to see all three of her officers outside the door. She moved aside so they could come inside.
"Sorry to disturb you, Commander," Crowe said, almost uncomfortable.
"Don't be," Calliope smiled against all their awkwardness, but felt the anxiety around them all, "What's wrong?"
Grouse and Crowe exchanged a look, holding most of their conversation in their heads. Pru sighed irritably and inserted herself between them
"There's talk on the vine that we will be subjected to this SSC testing as well," she said dark and grave, blunt as ever.
"What?" Callie was aghast, immediately furious, "Coin doesn't have the authority to do that, only I do. She can't subject my people to anything or she violates our agreement."
"The other trainers were discussing it with us, under the impression we would all be going in," Crowe confirmed in his slow and collected manner.
Callie sat down hard at her small table and ran a hand over her forehead. She ached everywhere, having pushed herself as hard as she could go the past two days. The aching was nothing to her anymore, a nuisance, but now it felt exacerbated all of a sudden.
"Explain it to me," she said with a sort of heaviness that betrayed how much she had felt she was carrying.
Pru watched her quietly and saw the gentle slump in her shoulders, she poise of her silhouette, the shadows dancing across her face. She was struck by the image of Lark during a lockdown, many years back. He had lit a candle and was staring down at a map, laying the land for their inevitable escape into District 13. He had carried the world on his back, he was buckling under its weight. It was the most vulnerable thing Pru had ever witnessed. Seeing Calliope looking this way now, Pru saw none of that vulnerability. She saw a thriving woman who would hoist the world back up with her when she stood.
"You go into the simulation alone. Your test is designed by District 13, they make you fight on a Capitol block and gauge your ability. If you pass, you get sent into the Capitol and further the fighting," Pru said grimly. She clasped her hands behind her back and waited for Callie to respond.
Calliope nodded finally and sighed, looking up at them all, "I'll deal with it. You should be asleep, not standing in my room. Go, sleep."
There was a long pause before Grouse opened the door again and left with the others. Glory was still sitting up in his bed and watching her, sitting at the table and staring at her feet.
"What're you going to do?" he asked her quietly.
"I'll do what I always do," Callie smiled bitterly.
"Blow a hole in Coin's plan?" Glory shared a mischievous smirk with her.
Calliope walked with the grave purpose of someone about to do a terrible thing. But it was not towards the conference room to confront Coin, not yet anyway. She shouted to the District 13 soldier and he waited with the doors of the lift open for her. The beginner class - including Katniss and Johanna - was standing on it already. Gale, surprisingly, stood beside Katniss and kept his eyes on the floor when Calliope took the open space beside him.
"Why are you here?" she said, her voice soft.
"I have to train, too," he replied with a shrug.
The lift seemed to be slower than normal, take longer. Callie tried not to look down when she felt the brush of fingers against hers, biting back a smile. Gale let his secretive smirk win for a second when he threaded his fingers through hers for just a short while.
He let her go when the ceiling opened and the feeling of rain overcame them all. Johanna started to shiver where she stood, fighting back a scream when the thick drops of water struck her head. Glory had taken a place behind her and watched her body start to shudder.
Johanna squeezed her eyes shut against the feeling of the rain. She opened them when it stopped and looked up, seeing a familiar palm shielding her head from the rain. She looked over her shoulder at Glory who offered no smile and no frown, just looked at her.
The mud was thick around everyone's feet, the sound of rain drowned out most of the shouts from the training officers. Gale had taken a place in Calliope's squad, which neither surprised her nor she expected. They shared a short look between the two of them.
I will not make this easy, Callie willed him to hear her say. His slight nod was confirmation enough that he had understood.
"We run the circuit today," Calliope shouted. Glory aided, repeating her words loudly so they could hear her.
The soldiers took their places, turned and waited for instruction. All except one. A lone soldier, a District 13 footman, stubbornly stared at her in defiance of the order. Calliope felt frustration bubble up inside her and stopped her pacing of the ranks to stare up at him.
He was tall, blonde hair buzzed short in the back and left long in the front. His dull brown eyes had a spark of fire to them, defiant fire, and he looked down at her from his head and a half over her. The man was a little awestruck that such a small person could have such an intimidating and large presence.
"Why won't you run the circuit?" she asked firmly.
"It's pouring rain," he protested, "We can barely see in front of our faces! How are we supposed to scale buildings that are soaked through or run through mud that tries to swallow our feet?!"
Calliope's eyes glittered with fury, even in the pouring rain he could see it there. She was terrible and lovely at the same time, the rain seemed to fall around her rather than on her. She seemed to glow silver, the rain took on an almost ethereal shine around her body.
"You think the Capitol cares if it's raining?" he should not have been able to hear her tone over the storm, but he could, "You think President Snow will look outside, see a storm, and attack us when the weather's better?"
The group did not move, nervous looks were exchanged. Callie took a step back and shouted so they could all hear her.
"The worst thing about war isn't that people die or places get demolished. The worst thing about war is that it sets itself upon you whether you want it or not," she paused to let her words sink in, "If it rains, we work twice as hard!" she held up two fingers for emphasis, "We run the circuit twice, we drill weapons twice."
The lone District 13 soldier watched her lift her finger high above her head and swirl it in a circle in the air two times. Glory whistled long and high-pitched before breaking the ranks into a jog. The soldier scowled for a moment when he lifted his feet from the wet earth, but he found himself puzzled when he turned his eyes up. Calliope was running with them. She had taken a place in the middle of the clean lines of men and women, ran with them, leapt with them, climbed with them. The soldier's surprise must have shown on his face because he felt someone jostle his elbow. Gale looked down at him, his gray eyes torn between respect for her and irritation with the man.
"She never asks anyone to do something she won't do herself," he said between heavy breaths.
The soldier steeled himself against his emotions and realized the joke everyone around him already got. Commander Cress did her job very differently than Coin, everyone seemed to do their jobs differently than Coin. The refugees from District 8 had spoken of Paylor's bravery and dedication in battle, District 2 had lauded Lyme's strength and prowess in combat. It was almost odd that nobody had an opinion about Coin's combat abilities because she never seemed to be around when combat struck.
Calliope felt the soft ground suck her boot down into it and she stumbled slightly. A hand on her arm pulled her up and out of the ground. She paused and turned, sharing a nod with the impudent soldier. They picked up their feet and broke into a sprint to catch up to the group.
It went that way for a long while, the double circuit in the rain seemed like a good, noble idea at first, but by the end of it Calliope just wanted to lay down face first in the mud for the rest of the day. She sat down hard under a thick, dense oak tree with the rest of her haggard group and felt her heavy breaths burn her lungs with each gulp of air.
The tree provided a modicum of cover from the rain, but nothing that mattered now that they were already soaked through. Gale sat down next to her, chest heaving, and took the flask of water Glory offered him. Callie, Glory, and Gale shared the small filter in silence until it was empty.
"Ironic that we need to drink after running in the rain," Glory mused with a hoarse laugh. He looked up and saw Johanna, just a faraway speck in the woods shielding herself from the water against a similar tree, and frowned sadly.
He wanted to go to her, to help her through this, but he also knew she would not let him. If Johanna wanted to go into the Capitol with one of the chose squads, she needed to overcome this hurdle on her own. Still, Glory's heart ached for her and he tried to stifle the longing by focusing on his own exhaustion.
"Weapons!" Calliope shouted to the quiet rumble of disquiet from her groups. They got to their feet anyway. She could not say what got them to do it, to partner and drill for hours on end, but they did it and she alongside them.
Dusk was falling, only evident by the sudden shift of light from gray to darker gray. Glory whistled at her signal and rounded their equipment up into a canvas bag. They boarded the lift in exhausted silence, Gale as close as custom would allow him to be to her. They were all covered in dirt - hands, knees, boots, chests. Streaks of chalky black earth across Callie's cheek, the tips of her hair brownish-black with it. Gale reached out with muddy fingers and took her hand in his again, both of them drinking in the only moment they would be allowed to touch one another like this for a long, long time.
The lift doors parted and Calliope pulled away from him, walking with a sense of purpose that meant she had somewhere to be. Glory sighed and started to jog up to her and paused, turning back to Gale's distant and foggy face.
"She's going to Coin," they shared a shrug and a shake of the head when Gale wordlessly asked why. Glory turned and had to break into a sprint, despite the deep ache that crept into his bones over the exertion and the cold.
President Coin was sitting at the conference table with Beetee, Plutarch, and Haymitch when she walked in. Four heads turned to look at her, but the only expression of disgust was on Coin's face. Calliope knew how she must look. She was fairly certain there was a stick in her hair, she was sticky with sweat, mud tracks probably would lead anyone here to find her. In a word, she was a mess.
"Coin," Calliope ignored the mess and narrowed her eyes. She had been focused on her mission since that morning when she had decided what to do about the SSC.
Coin actually got to her feet and took a controlled breath, fixing her face in the stern serenity she had so practiced. They were both looking firm and commanding, both of them intimidating and collected. Beetee felt the tension rippling in the air while Calliope tried to stop herself from being angry, he saw the telltale sign of her thumb digging into the side of her index finger. He cleared his throat to try and urge her to say her piece. It was not meant to be annoyed, it was meant to be encouraging.
"You're sending my people through the SSC. I want to know why," Callie's voice betrayed her anger.
Coin's lips twitched into a slow, calculated smile, "Everyone must go through it if they want to go into the Capitol. It's how we filter out who is and is not ready."
That struck a nerve with Callie, "My people are not your concern, their readiness is not yours to decide. You seem to be forgetting pretty often lately that we are partners in this rebellion, we all want the same thing. You just don't get to decide how it happens on your own."
There was a long pause before Coin sighed heavily, "Then what do you propose we do. I'm making all of my people go through the test, it seems hardly reasonable for you to be exempt from it. What else should I do?"
Calliope had been waiting for this moment, she had been hoping to guide the conversation this direction. She knew exactly what she would do, "I'll take the test."
Glory broke his stand at attention and reached for her, then thought better of it and snapped his hand back. Beetee stared at her wide-eyed, Haymitch folded his arms and leaned back. Plutarch was alone in his knowing, slightly amused smile. He had to give credit to her tenacity, that was certain.
"I take the test and pass, my people don't have to take it," Calliope rephrased, sealing any loopholes Coin might exploit.
Nonchalantly, Coin shrugged and waved a dismissive hand. She acted like the trade meant nothing to her, but it definitely did, "Fine."
Calliope nodded firmly once to her and once to the rest of them, turning sharply on her heel before Coin could change her mind. Glory grabbed her shoulder and turned her towards him when the door was closed.
"What're you thinking?" he growled low and worried at her.
"I'm doing what I have to do," Calliope shrugged and gave him her best cheeky half-smirk, "It's just a test, what's the worst that could happen?"