I don't own The Hunger Games.
Three days after the cupcake catastrophe, Clove was relaxing on her couch with Marvel. They were lounging around, eating chips and chatting away as if nothing had changed since they started dating. It was nice to relax after the stress she had felt at the hospital. The nurses had told her that was slightly overreacting and Cato had been fine after an hour, but she was so shaken that they had to take a taxi home.
"What if chickens could fly?"
"I don't know, Marvel. What if chickens could fly?" Clove rolled her eyes, but a ghost of a smile crossed her lips.
"The world would change. It would implode, really." Marvel explained. "I mean, just imagine it. Their wings would be bigger, so the population would have more food. They could fly to different countries. They wouldn't chase people. They wouldn't-"
Clove cut him off with a kiss, more to shut up his chicken theory than anything. She heard a door open and close whilst they were kissing, but she assumed it was just Melissa. A few seconds later, the living room door opened and Clove and Marvel broke apart.
"Missy's not home, man." Marvel said apologetically.
Clove turned her head, expecting to see a fairly nonchalant-looking Cato standing in the doorway.
"I see that." He said through grit teeth. His eyes burned with rage, and they were focused on Clove.
"Are you okay?" Marvel asked, his confusion evident.
"I'm good." Cato said. He stepped out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him.
"What's up with him?" Marvel wondered aloud as they heard him going up the staircase.
"I'll go check on him." Clove sighed, knowing that a positive conversation was so not about to take place.
"Cato?" She called out after climbing the stairs.
"I'm just leaving."
Clove followed his voice into Melissa's room, where Cato was retrieving a dark green sweatshirt of his.
"I was just picking up this." Cato waved it pointedly at her.
They were making their way back from the beach one afternoon when the rain came down. From beautiful blue skies a storm had been born and now the rain was coming down like nobody could have predicted.
"Shit!" Clove yelled. She hadn't picked up a sweatshirt when she left her hotel room, and her t-shirt had soaked through in ten seconds.
"Here!" Cato shouter over the rain. He helped her into his dark green sweatshirt.
"You'll get wet!" Clove yelled back as he pulled her hood up.
"Girls like that look." He winked at her.
"Idiot." Clove laughed. Cato grabbed her hand and they tore through the rain together back towards their hotel.
"I think Katniss' baseball game will probably be cancelled." Cato panted once they reached the lobby.
"I don't know." Clove gestured outside, where the rain had stopped. The sun was out as if nothing had happened.
"Just our luck." Cato grinned.
"Here." Clove went to take the soaking sweatshirt off to give it back, but Cato stopped her.
"It's cool. Keep it a few days, you might get stuck in the rain again." Cato instructed. Clove kept the sopping sweatshirt on, because it meant that Cato kept smiling. A few days later, Clove wasn't talking to him, and Cato found the sweatshirt folded up neatly outside his hotel room door.
"Right." Clove nodded. The fire was still in his eyes. Not for the first time, Clove wished she could go back to the Inter-State Games and live in the time that they were happy in each other's company 24/7, without the interference of everybody else.
Cato went to move past Clove, but she refused to let him.
"You wanna move?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You wanna tell me what's making you so mad?" Clove felt the urge to shrink back from his intense gaze, which was unlike her, but she held strong.
"It's nothing." Cato shrugged.
"Right, yeah. Okay then. I give death glares to all the people I care about." Clove said sarcastically.
"Looks like I wouldn't get on then." Cato muttered.
"What?" Clove knew exactly what he had said. She was just giving him a chance to redeem himself before she went mental.
"I just thought you had more respect for me, that's all. I thought we were good."
"What the fuck?! Cato, I didn't even know you had come in! What I do shouldn't matter to you anyway, because you're in a relationship with my sister for God's sake!" Clove yelled, loud enough to get her point across but not loud enough that Marvel would hear from downstairs.
"You know how I feel about you, and you still let me walk in on you making out with my cousin? You're cold as ice." Cato yelled back at her.
"Okay, fuck you. I know you didn't mean that but that doesn't make you any less of an asshole. Stop acting like a jumped up little shit and realise the situation that you're in!"
"Dammit Clove!"
She jumped back as Cato swung his fist into the wall with a crack.
"Fuck!" He grunted.
"You freaking idiot." Clove rolled her eyes. "Good job throwing a football with a broken fucking fist."
"Bye." Cato snapped at her. He pushed past her, but Clove grabbed his arm.
"Come on." She pulled him into her own bedroom and sat him down, still glaring, on her bed. After a few minutes of rummaging, Clove found an old first aid kit in her closet. She crouched down in front of Cato.
"Hand." She demanded. Cato lifted his fist up and Clove gently kneaded his knuckles. She inspected the both sides of his fingers before dropping his fist, satisfied that no bones were broken.
"This will sting." Clove said as she wiped his bloody right knuckles with antiseptic wipes.
"I'm sorry I punched a hole in Melissa's wall." Cato said as he quietly observed her movements.
"It's fine. I'll tell her I provoked you." Clove shrugged. She pulled a role of dressing out of the first aid kit.
"You didn't. I'm just…A dick."
Clove sighed as wrapped his knuckles gently.
"I know I put you in an unfair position."
"I know you like me, Clove. Why don't just tell Missy and Marvel how it really is? We can tell them together." Cato offered as she pinned his bandage in place.
"I can't do that. I'm sorry."
"Why not?"
"Because." Clove could only just meet his eyes. "I owe Missy this. I can't take her dream guy away from her."
"What about what you want? If she loves you half as much as you love her, she'll understand." Cato took Clove's hand and brought her up to sit next to him.
"I've never told anyone why I'm so protective of her. I've never told you why I always put her first." Clove's voice had quietened down to almost a whisper.
"So tell me. I'll understand, no matter what you say." Cato turned so that he was facing her.
"She save my life, Cato." Clove said after a hesitation. "When my mom passed away, I was so low. Nobody could get through to me- not my dad, not my friends. I wanted to die. I just didn't understand why things like that happened. I lost my faith in everything. Missy was the only one that got through to me. She stayed with me every night- let me cry, made me laugh, listened to me talk about her. Her support saved me and I owe her everything."
Cato pulled Clove onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. She didn't protest, even when he kissed her lightly on her temple.
"I'll do anything to make things easier for you." He whispered in her ear.
"Promise me that you'll care about her. Promise me that you'll fall for her and make her happy."
Cato said nothing, and that was when Clove knew that he would never lie to her.