Your bones have been my bedframe and your flesh has been my pillow. And I'm waiting for sleep.

- Ani Difranco


Alternate Ending - 1/12


In her last moments, Clove prayed for death to be kind and clamped her eyes shut.

With her hands covering her ears, she barely heard the garbled remark, "—Watch your back!"

A spurt of sticky, warm blood hit her face and she screamed out instinctively. This was how she'd meet her bitter end. In a desperate motion, Clove wiped the blood away from her eyes and shook, preparing for what would come next. Forty agonized souls would soon claim sweet justice — their judge, jury, and executioner would forever burn in hell's blazing inferno.

Hesitantly, Clove forced her eyes open just in time to see Twelve retreat back into the forest. It was then that she realized the blood wasn't hers. Well, of course it wasn't. She looked at the her jacket sleeves and gingerly pressed her fingers against her head. Thresh laid on the grass before her, his eyes stony even in death, with a spear lodged directly in his heart.

The heart is a mere organ to keep you alive.

The blond withdrew it in a harsh motion and began a barrage of hits on the corpse, lashing out and leaving several gaping holes in the boy from Eleven's back.

Finally, he stopped and viciously spat, "Let that be a warning."

It took her a second to realize he was addressing the cameras and not her.

Clove's confused eyes met his. Her heart would have been pounding with love, affection, admiration, but mostly she was just grateful and overwhelmed.

"Cato—" she began, awe clear in her tone.

He gave her a spiteful look. "Did you not listen to a word I said?" Cato demanded, his voice a few octaves higher than normal, "You go down, I go with you. Your arrogance almost cost us both of our lives!"

At a loss for what to say, Clove remained in her vulnerable position of the floor.

"You're overreacting."

The blonde's eyes narrowed into the slits as he barked, "He was going to kill you!"

Clove held the throwing knife firmly in her hand and defensively mumbled, "I would have been fine."

Cato gave her an incredulous look, crossing his arms and returning to his regular stance. "If you really think that then maybe we should part ways."

"What?"

"Stupidity is dangerous and if you really think that then I guess I can't afford to have you on my team."

Clove studied him for a moment, before gritting out. "Fine, I'll get my things and go."

He didn't miss the flash of hurt across her face, but every action had a reaction. Cato knew that better than anyone.

He remained at the Cornucopia as she headed north for the lake. As soon as she was out of sight, he retrieved the bag marked 2 and then opened Thresh's bag. To his displeasure, it wasn't filled with food, and instead held rope. Cato didn't bother trying to figure out the significance, and what Thresh was supposed to have done with it, but his mind strayed to what Clove would have done with it.

Meanwhile, Clove gathered her things from camp and headed into the forest in the same direction as the girl from Twelve had sprinted towards. She could have laughed at the irony — the arena was an compressed area and it'd already managed to replicate her and Cato's entire relationship over the last ten years in the span of two weeks.

She was beginning to wonder if the arena was meant to be more a psychological assessment than an evaluation of their physical capabilities.

A few hours into her journey, she mellowed a bit. Okay, so maybe she'd been a bit presumptuous and irresponsible. Cato had every right to be mad. She would have been too, but to just cut her from his alliance was cruel even for him.

With a resigned sigh, Clove combed through the forest, brainstorming how to find the other tributes when she thought of the perfect way to get back into Cato's good graces. Honestly, she'd could have created a half-dozen venn diagrams at this point.

It was simple, really. She'd kill Twelve for him. He hated killing, after all. Then she'd let him do the honors of finishing Red and allow him the honor of the very last kill. She hoped this brief respite would help him overcome the haziness he'd suffered from. It didn't take a genius (though Cato was the closest person she knew to one) to see that the arena had not been good to him. Clove made a silent commitment to get him out as soon as possible.

Don't worry. It'll be over soon.

As night fell, Clove rested at the base of a tree and tried to warm herself up. A few hours into her sleep, rain descended upon her and she nearly let out a displeased wail. Unlike Cato, the dark-haired girl knew she had thin blood and much less insulation against the cold.

It was almost sad how easily such a small matter broke her. Clove placed her head in her knees and wrapped her arms around the base of her kneecaps.

She almost pitied the tributes from the poor districts. Did they go nights without heat? Even the most decrepit homes in Two West were warm at night, just another consequence of living in the middle of the desert. A certain sympathy overcame her, but she brushed it away.

Clove reprimanded herself. You can only save one person at a time.

And she would save Cato a hundred times before anyone else, because he needed her most.

Mentally blocking him from her thoughts, she shifted her thoughts to the various survival techniques they had been taught in strategy courses. Countless wilderness concepts flashed to front of her mind, some more useful than the others.

A few that came to mind included to protect yourself from the cold by placing a barrier between you and the ground, pulling up your collar and use your breath to stay warm, keep your feet dry. The list went on and on.

These were temporary fixes, though. There was no way to survive using these techniques alone.

Closing her eyes and assuming the form of a ball, Clove returned to sleep.

In the morning, the rain continued to fall and she quickly realized that if she wanted to remain a contender that she'd need to find sustainable shelter and fast. A hollow tree, cave, cove, dome, or dune. Something. Anything.

She wandered rather aimlessly, trying to get into the minds of her competitors. District Twelve was farthest east in Panem, who knew how long their tributes could survive in open air, and District Five was situated in the breezy Mid-West. She'd recalled Felix looking especially pale in the mid-districts during his Victory Tour.

Apparently only she and Cato were at an extreme disadvantage. By now, Lover Girl was most likely nursing Bread Boy back to health, probably in more ways than one. That was fine with her. Clove had a lot of tension she needed to exhaust and the two of them would be the perfect canvases. Twelve's girl especially had nice cheek bones, they'd be the perfect place to start. Such a thought cheered her up considerably.

A second bit of mercy appeared as she contemplated torturing Fire Girl as Bread Boy looked on, but she dismissed the idea. For a moment, she felt only a small inkling of the immense agony that would overcome her if she was forced to watch as someone hurt Cato. It'd been bad enough when they'd been just friends and the ten-year-old boy had worked so hard not to cry as she'd attempted to tend to the wounds his parents had inflicted on him.

Clove made a note to make sure Cato's mother suffered a most inglorious end when they returned.

Losing him was an impossibility she didn't dare contemplate too long. Three weeks and he'd already wormed his way back into her heart.

Hours passed as Clove tried to find the others tributes. Her movements halted at long last when she tripped over some slippery rocks and scuffed up her pants, leaving her not only cold, but dirty. Clove bit back a sob.

This was hopeless.

Something fell over Clove. She looked up weakly towards the sky and realized it wasn't a parachute. No, all the sponsors would go to Cato, because he likely wasn't being a crybaby like she was right now.

She turned around to see a pair of sadly sympathetic blue eyes. "You didn't really think I'd leave you on your own, did you?"

His voice was soothing, coalescing her like warm tea during a frosty night, even more comforting than the blanket he'd draped over her. He was literally her shelter in the rain and she couldn't stop her heart from beating out of her chest.

She was broken, tired, and anguished. More humble than she'd ever been in her life, she croaked out, "I don't know. I deserved it."

Cato pulled a tendril of her hair back and pulled the hood of her jacket further up to cover her face. He rubbed her back comfortingly, a soft apology on the tip of his tongue.

"You scared me, Clove. I woke up with no idea where the hell you went and then I heard your screams and I really thought I wasn't going to make it. I really thought I'd have to watch you die, and I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life. We have so many more adventures in life and I couldn't stand the idea that could be the end—"

He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and pulled her close, as if afraid to let go.

"Do you still hate me?" she asked loudly, struggling to hear him over the pouring rain.

Cato looked directly at her, staring into her eyes, and made sure she was paying attention. "You really are a bad listener," he replied back equally as loudly.

"I could never hate you, Clove."


Author's Note - Welcome back, Cato and Clove! I've missed you guys. Felix was making me saaaaaaaad. The "I could never hate you" line is a reference to chapter 4, when they were nine and Cato saved Clove from her competitor.

Please, please review - with a cherry on top!

Written: October 12th, 2012
Edited: April 9th, 2017