A/N: I wanted the SSC to be a big deal because it should be a big deal. I'm kind of stoked to write it because then I can start the big move into the Capitol and play out what I plan for there. :D

Chapter 35: Even In the Dust

Glory always found the time to stop in and check on Johanna. Every evening without fail, he would show up at her hospital room and he would talk about the day with her or just sit in a comfortable silence and listen while she talked about how much she hated York or how badly she wanted to be the one to put an axe through Snow's chest. Understandably, he panicked when he opened the door and the room was empty.

The same nurse Glory had gotten to know touched his arm gently, "She and Katniss moved into a compartment, they're roommates now while they try to get through this training stuff."

"Where did they put them?" even with the knowledge, Glory could not stop from panicking.

She gave him directions and he thanked her curtly, taking off at a run despite the screaming ache in his legs. Glory half slid, half scrambled when he rounded the corner and identified the door. He knocked as gently as he could, trying to keep the anxiety out of his actions.

Katniss opened the door and looked surprised, "Oh. Hi."

There was a stressed silence between the two of them. Glory and Katniss had gotten to know each other in a roundabout sort of way, but calling them friends seemed to be a strong word for what they were. Even acquaintance felt like a heavy label. She realized how she must look and turned to let him inside, not meaning to be rude.

Johanna was laying down on her bed with her arm over her eyes and sighed with irritation, "Close the damn door, it's so loud!"

Johanna had been especially acidic lately, she was pale and irritable and usually shining with a thin layer of sweat unrelated to their training. Glory knew the signs of withdrawal when he saw it and credited Katniss' procedure with the change. There was no more morphling access for her and Glory was not about to offer it. To her credit, Johanna never asked him for any.

Glory sighed and smiled warmly at her even in spite of her prickliness. Katniss shifted uncomfortably for a moment and grabbed her towel from the back of a chair. She mumbled something about needing a shower and disappeared. Glory did not even bother to say goodbye - not that he would have had time to. Johanna moved her arm and sat up slowly when she saw him. She never really smiled at his presence, but something always seemed to lift inside her.

Johanna patted the top of the bed and Glory sat down. She sighed and ran her hands over her face and buzzed head. Her hair had started to grow back a little more evenly, but only slightly. She was actually becoming adjusted to it being shorn and considered keeping it that way for a while.

"This is torture," she said, "and I was actually tortured. York is a slave driver, she won't let us take breaks and she doesn't seem to get that trauma isn't as easy to get rid of as 'pushing through the pain'," Johanna made air quotes and scowled harshly in Glory's direction.

He reached out and touched her cheek gently, "You'll get through it. Stop thinking of it as torment and think of it as what it is. It's only rain."

"Only rain, he says," Johanna snapped, "The man who was never waterboarded. Only rain indeed."

Glory shook his head with a chuckle, "Tell me other things, tell me about your District again."

It always seemed to work. Johanna pretended to be indifferent to her District, to the entire Panem system, even her own family before they were murdered, but the truth was that she loved talking about it. Even in her most combative state, Johanna would take on a glow, like the distant warmth of a fire in the darkness. She described District 7 again, for the third time, and Glory sat quietly and just listened. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, both trying to envision what she was saying and enjoying the sound of her voice as she spoke without venom.

Calliope was in the Pit when Gale found her. News of her deal with Coin had already traveled through the appropriate vines and reached him, but he knew without even considering it that talking her out of it would be impossible - he was not supposed to be talking to her at all. Calliope was supposed to be exempt from the final examination process, she was supposed to look on and help Coin determine who passed and who failed.

Gale did not go to her, he just leaned against the railing and watched her. She had picked up two training swords and was pushing one of her fellow soldiers - Gale was convinced he knew from somewhere - so hard he stepped off the mat twice.

"Again," she said, loud and authoritative, before taking a new stance.

Gale could not help but smile at her intensity, the subsequent falter Callie experienced when she finally noticed him. She nodded to the soldier and patted his arm, dismissing the man. She trotted up the stairs and stopped herself like she was going to kiss him if she had fewer wits about her.

"You're running the exam alone," he said plainly.

"I am," she nodded, "Coin doesn't get to choose when to test my people, that's my job. If she wants to test anyone for readiness, she can test me. I do everything my soldiers do, if I can pass it then they can pass it."

Gale smiled at her intensity, the passion with which she spoke. He reached up and brushed a strand of hair back out of her face. She was damp with sweat and still covered in dirt, but the fire in her chest made her radiant.

"You're disgusting," he said, looking from her head to her toes.

Callie shot him a wry smile, "You're not supposed to be here."

He shrugged his response, but she did not dismiss him or stop him from walking with her. They walked towards her compartment, both of them taking slow and languid steps as they went. Gale was as tired and muddy as she was, but he had spent time with Beetee in the Weapons Room designing a few things they would need in the Capitol. He enjoyed being able to talk with her, to gesticulate and demonstrate the designs with his hands. Calliope would listen to him intently, nod in her skeptical-yet-approving way, and offer insight to him without him needing to ask for it.

Calliope enjoyed this isolation, this bubble that seemed to set them apart from the rest of the world. It was a short walk, but they made it longer by pausing every few steps so he could reexplain the designs. When they reached her door, Callie did not want the conversation to stop, but she knew he had to. It was not a decision that was either of theirs to make.

Gale reached for her hand and took it lightly, lifting it up as though it were a thing to be examined. He did not kiss her fingers like Callie expected him to, like she almost did not want him to, but he brought her hand close enough that he could have if he wished. She stared at him, the patient ache in his eyes echoed the impatient need in her own. They stayed like that for a long and unforgiving moment before Gale let her hand go and turned so he could leave.

Callie watched him and cursed every bone in her body for not going after him, but she knew better. Emotions were a distraction, especially emotions that had been consummated. Boggs have given Gale orders to avoid her, not be obvious with her, but things like that were always easier said than done.

Training became her means of coping. Calliope was ruthless for the week that followed. Not necessarily on her trainees, but on herself. She introduced firing drills mostly for her own benefit, she ran the circuit once before they all got there and made them all do it twice as a group. They were getting faster, she was losing breath much more sporadically. Callie had taken up a pair of training swords, choosing a slightly more effective and longer weapon for battle in the Capitol. One thing she had learned after going into the Tank was that she needed something that gave her more distance from her opponents. Now, she pushed herself as hard as she could go until she knew this new weapon like the back of her hand, better if she was doing it right.

Gale had never sparred like this, he felt slow and cumbersome against her swift and pointed movements. Calliope gave him no leeway, if anything she pushed him harder than anyone else. Not that he was ungrateful, it made him as good as it made her, but it was trying physically.

A week of this constant thrashing went by. Callie gave herself no mercy, she trained with the squad and then drilled herself or with Wilding and Stark in the Pit after dinner - hand to hand, firearms, knives, sword drills, anything she had the energy for. She was giving herself an afternoon of rest when she noticed the physical changes such a rigorous schedule was making. She was leaner, her muscles more defined. She was faster, ached less, and was no longer slightly winded running up the stairs of the Pit. She was slowly becoming a machine.

Glory looked up when she came into the cafeteria and signaled to her from the table he shared with Pru, Grouse, and Crowe. Callie shook her head and jumped in line, taking the food from her tray and leaving. Her intention was to run solo drills after she scarfed her food - an action she performed while walking.

Glory shook his head, "She's pushing herself too hard."

"She's making a sacrifice so we all don't have to," Crowe corrected with a shrug, "She's allowed to go a little crazy about it. Coin wants her tested at the same time she's sending in the other squads. She's only got two and a half weeks to carry all of us through that exam."

"She shouldn't have made that deal," Pru said with a warning frown, "We would all have gone through just fine. Why is it such a big deal for her anyway?"

"It's not about our capability," Glory said carefully, "It's the principle. Coin is violating an agreement she made with Lark, she thinks she can push Callie any direction she wants because she's young and when she got here she was new and confused. Now, though, Calliope is a commander in her own right. She deserves her title and she wants to show Coin she isn't someone who can be pushed around."

The conversation was broken by yelling coming from another table. Katniss stood sharply and left the cafeteria, Gale on her heels. Glory sighed and shook his head.

Gale chased Katniss down and tried to soothe her, reject the animosity with Peeta that had ruined an otherwise nice meal. She pushed him away angrily and stormed off towards her compartment, leaving him there furious and annoyed. It was instinct to walk towards the Mountain Men's wing, his feet moved on their own. He wanted to see Callie, to talk to her about it, get everything off his chest.

Calliope was drilling herself in the Pit, the wing suspiciously quiet. Everyone was exhausted after over a week of grueling physical exertion and either eating or asleep, especially since Callie was going to be taking on their only worry in a few weeks' time. She paused when she saw Gale and motioned for him to come to her.

He did not need to say anything to communicate his annoyance or the origin of it, Calliope knew from his expression and the slouch in his shoulders something was wrong. She knew better than to ask and was truly too exhausted to do so. Instead, Callie threw Gale one of the practice swords and the two of them took out their emotions on the mat. Neither of them held back, they pushed each other as far as their bodies would allow.

It always ended in a draw, neither of them ever won. Calliope was not sure if that was because part of them hesitated over the other or if they were just so evenly matched, but she did not care. It was almost more fun ending in a constant draw. Gale held up his hand to concede before a fifth round to try and break the tie. Callie smiled cheekily over the empty victory and put the weapons back.

"You've gotten pretty good with those," Gale said, his eyes hazy and foggy.

He had been dreaming of her at night, always wearing a long white gown and always in a field of yellow flowers. She had shimmering, translucent dragonfly wings, a crown of daisies woven around her head. Overhead, stormclouds gathered. She would look up at them, bulbous and pregnant with the coming rains, then reach her hand out to him. She always seemed so far away from him, but whenever he reached, his fingers would touch hers and then he would wake up. Always the same dream, never changing.

"Again," Calliope said sharply. She was smiling, though, which tempered the intensity of the word.

Callie blocked a downswing, countered a sweeping strike, and then began her assault. She pushed him back hard, a flurry of strikes he had not anticipated. Gale tried to dodge her carbon pseudo blade as nimbly as he could, but she was lighter on her toes than he was. Callie swept and struck and spun one of the blades with a jab that declared her the victor, finally. She hesitated before pulling away to stand up straight. Gale passed her the other sword and nodded slowly.

"You've been holding back," he said quietly, kicking himself for ever thinking he was a match for her. Gale realized she had been prodding him, determining where he was weakest, then she laid into him once she knew his weakness.

"You haven't been practicing as much as me," Callie shrugged noncommittally and ran a cloth over her face and neck. She offered it to Gale and he ran it over his hair, the metallic smell of sweat and violets hit him like a brick for a brief moment.

When he went to hand her back the towel, Gale paused. All the ways he had seen her - covered in blood, dirt, dressed up for a wedding, freshly showered - none of them compared to her now. Determined, purposeful, strong. All of these things made her radiant in a way he had not been able to recall seeing her. Calliope carried an intensity on her shoulders when she turned to look at him, an irresistibility that Gale would be remiss to ignore.

He cared very little for whoever saw him when he kissed her, hard and fierce, pressing her back against the wall behind her. Calliope was surprised, then she felt the rush of warm emotion like a bath. She did not push him away. She put her hands on his cheeks, slid her fingers to his neck, wove them through his hair, pulled him closer and closer to her.

Gale had a knot in his stomach, he knew it was against his better judgement to kiss her here, like this, but he did not want it to stop. Calliope was the one who came to her senses first. The wash of warmth faded into a sinking feeling of anxiety and she pushed him away gently. She looked up at him and said nothing, letting herself wordlessly tell him they could not do this.

Gale nodded and hesitated to let her go, allowing himself to kiss her one final time before letting her go. His voice was a hoarse, desperate whisper when he spoke to her.

"I hate this, I hate all of it. I can't stay away from you forever. I need you," he hesitated to say anything else, it hurt too much. Too many times he had said this kind of thing and too many times he had never heard it said back to him, "I'm falling in love with you and I can't stop myself from doing it."

Calliope was taken aback by the confession. She had known how he felt without ever needing to hear the words, but now that she had she felt like the world was changing colors. She tried to remind herself how emotions ruined wars, emotions caused them, but all of that felt diminished and trivial.

"I already fell in love with you," she said without thinking, "it's the only reason I'm willing to wait around for your part in this war to be done."

Gale stared at her, an unreadable mask across his face. He had never heard someone say those words to him. All his time with Katniss, all their secret affections and private moments to talk and she had never said she loved him before. Nobody had. In the moment, Gale could not recall a single woman he had ever been with telling him they loved him. Instead of cutting like a knife, he felt elation. He was glad the first time he heard it was coming from Calliope.

The door to the Pit opened and a small trio of soldiers made themselves known with rowdy laughter. Gale stepped back from her quickly and covered his smile with his hand. Calliope put the weapons on the rack and stared at them, taking a deep breath to steady the fluttering in her chest

"I have to get back," Gale said through his unabating grin.

"Yeah," she said as though she felt distant from her own body, "Katniss is probably looking for you."

Calliope watched him leave and tried to stop the torrent of girlish laughter that threatened to claw its way out of her throat if she did not do something about it. To curb the need to release the pressure of feelings, Callie throttled a gel dummy. She disguised her laughter as shouts and her elated leaping as kicks or punches.

Glory raised an eyebrow at her when she emerged from the shower that evening, "You're in a good mood."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," she chirped.

"You're never in this good a mood," he said, amused. Calliope shrugged and sat down on her bed, wiggling her feet like a child dangling its heels over a bridge. For the first time in a long while, she dreamed of nothing when she slept.

The mood faded over the course of two weeks. By the night before her test, Callie's mood was thoroughly stoney again. She had never pushed Wilding so hard that night, throngs of soldiers surrounded the Pit to observe in an intense murmuring wave. Glory leaned over the railing beside Crowe and looked up when the door opened.

Katniss had insisted they come to see Calliope train for a few minutes. She was taking a break from studying and wanted to see if she had done herself a disservice by not taking Calliope up on her offer to help her get back into fighting shape. Gale seemed uncomfortable, for a moment he panicked that Callie would tell Katniss everything and dismissed the thought when he realized it was irrational. Callie was as sensitive to Katniss' fragility as he was, she would never do that.

Callie pushed the man off the mat and onto his back where Wilding tapped out furiously. The room erupted into scattered cheers. Katniss took an open space beside Glory and Gale stood just a step behind her, off to the side so he could watch.

Callie spread her arms wide, challenging her people, "Who's next!"

"Me," came a clear, familiar voice. Callie even stopped to stare when Finnick released Annie's hand, having never been noticed in the thin crowd.

Glory straightened and nudged Crowe to make sure he saw, "Hope he knows what he's doing."

Calliope's surprise faded into a wolfish grin and she tossed him one of the two practice swords. She held the sword straight up and swept it out to the side in a salute she had been taught many years back at the Academy. Finnick mimicked her movements and stood opposite her.

The coming together of the two carbon blades was like lightning. Callie had not anticipated Finnick's strength or dexterity. He had been in and out of the hospital, weak and subdued since she had arrived. Only after his wedding to Annie had Finnick really changed, Calliope realized how little she had seen of him since that day and determined he had put his nose to the grindstone in the training simulators.

The two of them struck and arced, swept and slashed. The Pit was full of a tense silence filled only by the clack and clatter of carbon blades. Katniss watched them both, her muth curved in a grim frown.

"She's terrifying," she muttered under her breath.

Gale's chest was filled with pride, he swelled with it, "No," he corrected, "She's beautiful."

"You think it's beautiful that she'll be a killing machine in the Capitol?" Katniss snapped, shooting him a warning look over her shoulder.

"She's not a killing machine," Glory chimed in with a half smile, never taking his eyes off the match, "She's part of the reason they call it the art of war."

Katniss' frown was fixed now, she did not care for the way Gale or Glory seemed to revere her. To pretend Callie was not a natural soldier would be a gross underestimation of her ability, but Katniss disliked the talk of combat like it was on the same plane as music or dancing. She watched the match intently, trying to push that comparison out of her mind.

Finnick pushed Calliope, but not in the same way Gale did with brute strength. He pushed her with dexterity, fluid and constant motions, intentional steps. It was like he read her thoughts with every parry and block. They struck at one another like angry snakes in a pit, neither wanting to expend more energy the other. They were perfectly matched. It was almost fifteen minutes before Finnick crouched, rolled, and swept the sword under her legs. He cut them out from under her and she landed on her back, the wind rushing out of her lungs.

Callie heard the roaring conflict of cheers and playful boos, she took Finnick's hand when he offered it and hauled her to her feet. Both of them were breathless, she just a little more winded than he was. He nodded his appreciation and they shook hands without a word, neither of them able to muster any after the toll of the practice match.

Calliope lifted her hands and waved her men away, encouraging them to mill about elsewhere. She climbed the metal steps behind Finnick and paused when the reached the top, finally able to take a breath. She thrust her hand out and they grasped one another's forearms cordially.

"Good match," she said with a competitive grin.

Finnick nodded at her, "You, too. I have to admit, I have a bit of a leg up on you here. I've been practicing with those things a little longer than you, it's unfair really."

"I figured as much," Callie let him go and waved almost shyly to Annie who lifted her hand back in a greeting. She paused when she saw Katniss staring at her with something shadowed and dark, but offered a slight nod anyway.

Katniss turned sharply, rudely, and walked towards the entrance of the wing. Gale followed her, though it went against every instinct. He had wanted to stay, to talk tactics with her or weapons or anything that remotely piqued his interest. Instead, he was following Katniss somewhat bitterly knowing he would have to comfort her. It was a selfish thought he got rid of almost as soon as he thought it and let it go.

Calliope patted Crowe's shoulder and bid him goodnight, Glory followed her into their compartment. He was laying on her bed staring at the ceiling when she came out again, smelling like still water and soap.

"You should stop deflecting," Glory said firmly, like he had known why she was so absorbed in training the night before the exam, "You're pretending you're not nervous."

"No," she said easily enough and lay next to him, resting her ear against his chest so she could listen to the thump of his heartbeat, "I'm making them think I'm not nervous. I don't want them to be worried for me so I have to give them a reason not to be."

Glory sighed and put his arm around Callie's shoulder. They lay in silence, both of them almost afraid to sleep lest the morning pounce on them like a mountain lion in the brush.

"I'm afraid," Callie said softly, so soft Glory would have missed it if she was not as close to him.

"I know," he said and gave her a gentle squeeze.