Woo! One more chapter and then we're done with Mortem! Exciting, right?
47 - Phase Two
Horace Becskei, Interim President of Panem
This may be the most difficult thing he's ever done. More difficult than talking Celestia down from her excited impulses. More difficult than getting the rest of the council to agree with him on a proposal. More difficult than, just this morning, earning the right to be called the interim president while Celestia, fresh out of surgery and weakened considerably, is placed in a coma.
He pushes open the doors to the intensive care unit like he owns the place, head held high. No one stops him, too busy working on their own patients and emergencies. Speaking of comas, he thinks as he passes one bed…
Sarah Church is being crowded by half a dozen doctors, still unconscious but apparently showing improvement. The doctors look pleased, checking all of her vitals and discussing their results with each other. Horace overhears one of them say she may awaken before the end of the year—just long enough for the rest of her brother's down payments to last. Horace lingers by her tucked away section of space for a moment; he'd seen Church in the Games, reviewed the footage to get a proper grasp on the kinds of tributes going into the Games this year, and now he thinks it's uncanny how similar he and his sister look.
All this for Sarah. Horace straightens his jacket and continues on through the ICU. He can understand the sentiment, especially when he thinks of his own family.
The room he wants, still tucked away from the rest of the ICU, is at the end of all the beds lining the floor. Two Peacekeepers guard the door, unarmed but still looking imposing in the hospital gear they've had to replace their armour with. Horace pulls out his ID, gets permission to enter, and shuts the door to the room behind him.
It's been… a while since he last saw this face. Nearly two years, if he thinks about it enough. Young and blank, the face of a son Horace never quite got along with no matter how hard he tried. The face of a son who, upon learning of his parents' divorce, had disappeared without a trace and tore a further rift between his parents. The blame game still hasn't ended. Horace isn't sure if it ever will.
This is the face of someone he'd give anything to see smile again. Before him is not the person, however, that this face belongs to.
He's handcuffed to the bed, his gaze dull and broken as he watches nothing. He just stares ahead, barely following Horace as he approaches the bed and takes a seat a good two feet away. For security reasons, he'd been told the moment he placed the order—putting in a neat little loophole in Celestia's sick deal—but by now it's obvious that he barely even has the strength to kill someone else, let alone grab them.
"You know," Horace begins. The dull gaze slowly turns for him. There's still some bruising around the eyes, where his nose and cheekbones were operated on. "You're a lot like him. Quiet, hiding behind a mask, had a knack for his namesake. Autistic—though he was diagnosed from a young age, compared to you."
He can't speak yet, but Horace can see the despair forming behind his dead stare. Despite two weeks having passed, the surgery for his lungs will take the longest to heal compared to his face.
"Same age," Horace goes on. "Same height—though he wasn't expected to grow much in adulthood, anyway. Same hair and eye colour, even."
Horace can hear his son's voice when he looks back at those eyes. He can hear him begging the same way Calico would, if he could: "Kill me. Don't do this to me. Please."
Horace folds his hands over his lap. "Hate me for this if you want," he tells Calico. "I know what Celestia promised she would do if you survived. I know how difficult it is to just release someone from a cell without a good reason other than deserving freedom. But you need to know that she's safe."
Calico tries to shake his head. He's still too weak to do even that.
"She is. And I want to keep you safe. I want you to help me prevent something like this from happening again."
The despair turns to anger. One arm shakily lifts from the bed, only to flop back down with a loud clatter of the handcuff against the rail. Calico opens and closes his mouth. No sounds come out.
"The legal work's been done and the officials have been bribed," Horace tells him. He rises from the chair and gives the teen—no, his son—a sympathetic smile. "Calla won't be needing his name anymore, and I doubt we'll be finding him after this long. At least, if you're disguised as a reclusive child of mine, no one will go digging around about you."
When he makes it to the door, opening it just an inch, Calico finally makes a sound.
When Horace closes the door, the Peacekeepers still as statues, he faintly hears Calico—Calla screeching at the top of his lungs. There are no words, but even someone in Sarah's state would recognise the anguish and rage in his voice.
Morganite Gardierre, 14, C-District 6
Victory Tour
The Capitol is their last stop, according to their escorts. Proper time is apparently needed for twelve whole families to be assembled, especially when some of them are in mourning or hospitalised. Or, she thinks grimly, arrested.
The last thing she expects to see is Gossamer boarding five minutes late, cat carrier balanced under his good arm while his bandaged, slowly healing arm is tucked inside his jacket. Morganite raises a brow, watching as he sinks into a seat and settles the cat carrier on his lap. From inside, a calico kitten mewls at her.
Morganite can't stop herself from asking. "What is that?"
The train begins to move, the escorts heading for a lunch car with their attention completely off of their victors. Morganite can't imagine how often regular tributes have to put up with such treatment.
Gossamer opens the carrier and pulls the kitten out. She can count six toes on each foot—something she's pretty sure not every cat has.
"It's a hemingway cat," he tells her. The cat begins to purr loudly as he lets it climb his shoulder. "Well, officially they're called polydactyl cats. But—"
"A hemingway calico cat," Morganite growls. She clenches her hands into fists under the table. "Is this some joke to you?"
He stares at her for a moment. He thinks of what to say. For the first time since she's met him, he's being considerate of his answer.
Just as the train exits the Capitol, heading for the first of the Districts, Gossamer answers, "I really did respect him. Not knowing what happened to him after we came back, and just being told that he was dead, it… It made me sad, I guess. I think I wanted to get to know him more."
"You think?"
"I don't do feelings outside of the 'villainy' spectrum that well, Morganite. But I'm trying to figure out what it is."
She glares at him.
"I really did mean it too, when I tried to apologise earlier this week." The cat nudges his face, and Gossamer gives it a small, soft smile and nudges it back. It's too tender to hate, but Morganite hates the fact that it is anyway. "I hurt you. It was wrong."
"No shit," she snaps. The cat startles, its claws digging into Gossamer's injured shoulder. He flinches, but to her surprise he doesn't admonish the cat. Instead, Gossamer makes soothing sounds at it and scratches behind one of its ears.
It's jarring to watch. It's difficult to yell at him and make him react like she wants when the cat is there, comforting and correcting him. Morganite lets out a breath and leans back into her chair.
"So what'd you name it?" she asks. She doesn't hide her disgust when she guesses, "Chambray?"
Gossamer chuckles. "No, no. The night before the Games, I actually ran into him in the elevator. I… I tried to intimidate him, invaded his space. You could actually see him contemplating jumping out and landing on one of the walkways underneath us."
She frowns at him. Gossamer clears his throat and mumbles an apology. That's two extra than normal.
"I called him muffet," he goes on. "Not really an insult like I usually go for, but… Well, it hit me today when I saw the kitten. Muffet's a really cute name for a cat."
"So you made its namesake a night you probably traumatised Calico," she deadpans.
Gossamer gawks at her. "I—"
And then he stops. He can't find the words to continue, eventually conceding as the kitten climbs down onto his lap.
"It is pretty insensitive, huh?" he sighs. When he looks at her again, he adds, "Do you… want to throw a name out that'll suit him?"
"Whiskers," she fires immediately.
"Basic," Gossamer critiques, just as quick.
The names she suggests are all critiqued one way or another. By the time they get to District One, she'd hardly noticed the time go by.
Knight's parents don't have much to say about their son. Morganite finds out that her initial ally had been considered a statistic, more of a soldier than a son to his own family. He didn't even have any friends, the closest he had to one being a boy who was next to him every year for the reapings. The same boy who lifted him when he volunteered.
Morganite wants to yell at his parents for dismissing him so readily. He was their only son, someone they should've loved or at least worried about! But instead they just act like he never existed anyway, and even announce intentions to have another child. She feels sick as Gossamer handles the speech, his kitten left on the train for security's sake.
"Disgusting," Gossamer hisses once they're back on the train. For once since the Games ended, she has to agree with him.
It doesn't take long to arrive at District Two. Compared to Knight's parents, Cetronia's at least acknowledge their daughter.
When the speech is over and the image of Cetronia on the banner above her family fades, Morganite's shocked to find the girl's father approach her with an almost impressed look on his face. He holds out a hand, nods to her once, and tells her that her coup had impressed him. Taking down Cetronia, even by other careers, was apparently no easy feat.
She feels even more sick as she shakes his hand, forcing a smile and a thank you.
District Three is a longer trip. She doesn't understand why they don't just do the victory tour in one fell swoop, out of order but at least saving more time. But no, it's all numerical order and slowly counting down the Districts until she has to face the one family she dreads most. At least, she thinks once they arrive at District Three, she wasn't the one to actually kill Daphne.
The Petharaph family are so different to what she expects them to be. She knows Three is full of intelligent people who can make anything out of anything, but she never expected there to be vets and comic book artists among them. Vector Petheraph smells of wet dog when he shakes her hand, and Morganite finds a small ink stain on her palm after shaking Disney Petheraph's.
District Four is on the other side of the country. It's leagues more beautiful than Morganite can even imagine.
Adrianne's father—adoptive father, he points out once they meet—is heartbroken over his loss. He's a big man, well-learned and definitely someone who'd fit in among the Capitol. But his heart belongs to Four, and to his family he'd made here. Morganite can't stop herself from hugging him and apologising for attacking Adrianne when she did.
Jack Evans promises them both a steady supply of fish, which he normally only sends to the Victors' Village outside of business. When they part, he tells Morganite to check on Cole's father—the one who'd adopted him while the Games were in preparation.
Morganite loses her appetite the closer they get to District Six. She goes to bed that night without dinner, and when they arrive she struggles to even eat breakfast.
District Five isn't far from Four, but they stop midway and keep Peacekeepers posted on all the cars. She wakes up a few times due to nightmares. One trip for a glass of water sees Gossamer watching the news like it's a lifeline, eyes on the headlines while he pets the kitten.
When she meets the Ikeda family, it's almost like looking at her own. Disapproving mother, supportive father, which soon breaks out into an argument on live TV as Cliona continues to deadname her son. Morganite shakes onstage, and she even stops her own speech to screech at them, "His name was Tooru! Tooru!"
Katsu Ikeda thanks her, unable to stop his crying, for letting his only son be remembered for who he was. Cliona Ikeda never speaks so much as a word to her, leaving without her husband for their home once the speech concludes.
And then the District she dreads most arrives.
She's supposed to give a speech on how the Quell theme has promoted the reliance of Capitol and Districts working together, on how her District partner fought hard and proud to the end. Neither points are true. She knows Finn died looking for Luxor, blinded and in pain; she knows that having only Capitolite winners has put an even greater divide between the Capitol and the rest of Panem. It's all bullshit.
Morganite tears up her sheet notes and drops them to the stage.
"I'm sorry," she says, loud and clear, into the mic. The Styx family huddles together, but they don't ignore her. "I couldn't do more than push him onstage."
His sister hugs her when the speech concludes. Even his parents, impossibly understanding and forgiving, embrace her and tell her it's alright. Calic Styx tells her he's proud of her. Morganite sobs in his arms and continues to apologise.
Both the escorts and mentors chew her out for not giving the speech, and even forbid her from speaking in the subsequent Districts.
That's fine, she thinks. Gossamer's better at wowing a crowd with what they want, anyway.
Gossamer Wormwood, 17, C-District 10
Victory Tour
They're halfway were. Just six—maybe seven, if he even wants to count the Capitol—and then they can go home to their mansions.
While Morganite's deviation from the script is understandable, he wishes she hadn't done it so close to the Districts he's directly responsible for the deaths of. He's not used to thinking of others before he speaks, or even holding back his more snide remarks. Even Lola agrees that he's got a good, long road ahead of him with this.
Before they arrive in Seven, he's glued to the tablet he snuck on the train as updates to the arrests are reported. At first it was the reveal that wanted criminal, Isabelle Eulane, had been posing as Eunice Porter during the Games. Then it was the news that rebels in the Capitol have been discovered, even among Gamemaking families.
Yesterday a report on Luvenia and Selma Nero, Malvolia Nero's daughters, being arrested was made. Today, it's about celebrities even Gossamer hadn't expected to be rebels.
He told Lola he's not losing sleep over his dreams, but of course that's a bold-faced lie. He needs more and more makeup with each passing day to look like he's slept a proper amount. Soon enough he'll be found out, and then it's back to square one and being treated like a liar.
His speech in District Seven keeps him awake long enough to see the sheer hatred the Hamilton family aim at him. Considering how much practice Morganite has given him over the last few weeks, seething at him whenever they make eye contact, he's at least somewhat used to it. He doesn't back away or try to fight back. He just reads the speech out, and keeps his face blank has one Hamilton tries to slug him.
Gossamer isn't surprised to see that it's the same Hamilton who tried to help Ham run away during the reapings.
District Eight, in comparison, is much, much worse. And they never even get off the train.
Dianne spots them both and delivers the news. "We're not stopping at Eight," she tells them. Gossamer looks up from his tablet, and Morganite stops staring at his cat and writing down names.
"Why?" he asks.
They emerge from the tunnel, and as they pass through Eight it becomes increasingly clear just why they're continuing past it. The train is assaulted by countless pieces of wood and stones, the sounds of people yelling and screaming outside clear through even the thick walls of the car. Morganite jumps to her feet as a heavy stone hits the window behind her, cracking the glass to the point of almost shattering.
"Because of that," Dianne sighs. Gossamer picks up his cat and loads it into the carrier. He can't be too safe with the chaos outside. "The District's split in half over the arrest of the Hemingways. Peacekeepers are containing it, but it's hard to arrest all the rebel sympathisers in one day like this."
When they're between District Eight and District Nine, the train is repaired on short order. Windows are replaced, and a few panels of the train's casing have to be buffed out. Gossamer and Morganite don't argue over names for his cat when the train moves again. Instead, they stare at each other with growing anxiety over how the last four Districts will fare.
District Nine is quieter. The Belfast family stays silent, heads bowed in mourning as Gossamer delivers the speech. This is a District Morganite was supposed to speak in. The condolences sound hollow with his voice. Even when he meets with the family, giving them a handshake and apologising for their daughter's death, they don't say anything.
They just accept it, like they'd come to terms with her death long before the Games had started.
When they're back on the train, Gossamer blurts out, "Can we skip Ten?"
Barbara, tucked away at the back of the car with a meal, tells him he's a spoiled brat and that he has to suck it up. Gossamer, unable to help himself, calls her a jaded hag.
To his endless surprise, a fight doesn't break out between them. Barbara just smugly tells him, "And you'll be the next one."
Much like Seven, Ten is filled with animosity directed at Gossamer. The Faye family is well aware that Isabelle was arrested, and they saw Octavia die. Now, with Peacekeepers surrounding them, Victor and Adolphe Faye can only glare at Gossamer and spit at his speech.
Victor is dragged away kicking in screaming once the speech concludes. Adolphe goes silently, his face darkening with the hollow condolences from his daughter's—rival? Enemy? Now that he thinks about it, just what villainous label had Octavia given him? Or was he like the other Capitolites, too disliked by her to even be categorised?
Eleven is right next to Ten, so the trip there is short. Gossamer never really interacted with the last two District tributes, and he's not at all phased at the sight of Jareth's spiteful uncle yelling about how much of a weight off his back the boy's death had been.
Gossamer levels a glare at the man, and like Morganite he deviates from his script. He knows, without a doubt, that this would probably be his own family had he died in the arena.
"Where's the woman who abused him?" he demanded. Morganite gawks at him, and she's shoved aside by Dianne as the microphone is snatched from him.
Constance raises her hand despite Gossamer's microphone being taken away. And Gossamer, despite the decrease in volume he has, shouts across the large crowd to her.
"You're fucking pathetic!"
The train is once again pelted with rocks as they leave.
He's yelled at much like Morganite had been, but they still make him read the last speech. Gossamer curls up beside his cat that night, ignoring all news on his tablet, and he just stares at the feline.
He wishes he'd gotten to know Calico more. Maybe they'd have gotten along. Maybe Gossamer would've had a friend—not someone he used like Sol, who still hung around because he couldn't get a clue.
Their last stop before the Capitol is Twelve. It's peaceful, if a little somber, and the momentary father of Cole Aish—Cole Flare is brought up to shake Gossamer and Morganite's hands. Hartson chews his lip and apologises for the soot on his hands, and he doesn't linger near the two victors. No, he returns to his shift where his employees comfort him, hands rubbing his back and arms holding him in an embrace.
It's camaraderie, if Gossamer ever saw it.
Finally, finally, they return home. Twelve families are gathered outside the Games building, including his and Morganite's, and one by one he takes in their expressions. All but their own families hold portraits of their children.
The anguish on Vikram Plume's face while Bex and Nadiya Plume-Teagan hold each other.
The unspeakable anger that Alan and May Warwick, former Peacekeepers Gossamer knows worked with his parents, aim at him.
The hateful glares of Elias and Natania Farrington.
The sniffling, distraught face of Rorius Serif as he clings to his sibling's portrait.
The stoic, possibly altered faces of the X family, who probably aren't even the real X family. Gossamer can't say for sure.
Morganite's fire-and-ice parents, Jourisme frowning while Alexandrite watches proudly.
The resigned expression of Cyber's owner, Madeline von Bucharest, as she fondly runs a hand down his portrait.
The enraged, handcuffed Darios Aricunai and his uncuffed, equally enraged wife, Relope.
To Gossamer's surprise, given what he knew of Church, the presence of an unconscious Sarah Church in a wheelchair while their butler, Leonard, holds her steady. Church's portrait rests on her lap.
His own family, bored to tears and in full Peacekeeper gear. Even Velour is too busy inspecting his nails to care, and Gossamer's left without so much as a glance from any of them.
The bittersweet expressions of Avita's mothers, Florentina and Varinia, while their son, Philo, hugs the poodle they'd brought with them. It's dyed pink, probably in Avita's honour.
Finally, the mixed bag of emotions that is Florence's family. The sobbing Abdiel, a father in mourning. The silent Dashiel, a brother speechless. The furious Ember, a sister ready to lunge for the people who were supposed to protect Florence.
The victory tour is more exhausting than he expects. The families disperse, his own ignoring him and returning to their duties. When Morganite's approaches her, he can't help but watch with envy as they hug their daughter and welcome her home.
Gossamer leaves for the mansion without so much as a word to anyone else. He just picks up his cat and hops into the car waiting for him outside.
And there's our victory tour! I'll base the QQ on Gossamer's cat, since I'd love to see what you guys can think of!
QQ #42: What would you suggest for a name for the kitten?
I'll see you next chapter, which'll be Mortem's last! And from there, I hope I'll see you all in Meliora :D