"Your...daughter?" The words pulled themselves from me in disbelief, even though I knew they were true. I had realised it even before Junia had told me. I looked from the smugly smiling woman beside me to the child who was watching us curiously. She looked about seven or so, perhaps less?
I stared at the little girl. She held my gaze for a several moments until she tilted her head to the side, a mischievous smile sliding onto her face.
"Mami, can I go look at the woods over there?"
She had barely waited for a reply before she was off, dashing through the grass and darting around logs. She yelped as she leaped to avoid a low hanging branch. Junia let out a low grumble but didn't do anything about it.
I turned to her, blinking, still shocked. "She's...a child?"
"Well she isn't a squirrel." Junia's voice was dry and scathing, but it wasn't cruel. She was teasing; clearly she had anticipated my shock. I looked back towards the woods. Through the leaves I could just make out the shape of the girl scrambling her way up a tree. There was a cracking sound, a yelp, and a crash. I watched with amazement as the girl shook herself off, glared up at the tree and began to climb it again. It was exactly what Clove would have done, if she'd ever been the sort of child to playfully climb trees.
An overwhelming sadness bore down upon me as I watched Aixa play. That was what childhood was supposed to look like. It was supposed to be about play and adventure and comfort. She looked over her should to make sure her mother was watching her and with that for courage, she climbed a branch higher. She was not scared and angry with the world. She did not draw comfort from weapons that provided protection.
Clove and I had never had the luxury of something as simple as a childhood, and I hadn't even realised it until now.
Junia continued to watch her daughter and as we watched her make it to the next branch of the tree she began to speak.
"I was furious at you when Manius died. Days before the Games, I found out I was pregnant and I begged him to come back to me. I didn't care if it meant you and everyone else in there died. We were going to have a baby and I was so, so scared. I didn't think I could do it on my own...I didn't want to do it on my own."
"You loved him." It was a statement. I'd known even when we were still training that Junia and Manius had loved each other. I remembered watching their swift exchange of smiles and easy, natural reassurance of each other and being amazed that anyone could feel love like that, let alone in the environment of the Centre. I'd never understood it but I'd been unable to deny it. I felt rather than saw Junia nodding.
"I still love him. And I love Ai because she reminds me of him and she means that I never really lost him...her name means life, you know."
The girl had made it to the third branch now and she was easily four feet off the ground, though she seemed completely fearless. Just like Clove was said a little voice in my head.
"Aren't you worried she'll fall?" I asked Junia, surprised at the concern in my own voice. Nurture was not a trait I'd ever associated with myself, despite the fact that I'd raised Clove. We'd always had a different kind of relationship.
Junia shrugged and then turned to face me.
"She might hurt herself falling out of that tree, or she might hurt herself training till she's a killer and then walking into that Arena and slaughtering other children. She has to learn to bounce, and I know which way I'd rather she do it."
I felt there should have been an accusation to her words - after all, I had been one of those people trained to kill, who had walked into an Arena and slaughtered children - but there was no sharpness to her voice. Junia just sighed and ran a hand through her hair, her fingers snagging on a knot. Absently she began to untangle it, thinking aloud.
"I know you feel like it's your fault that Clove died," she ignored the low hiss that I let out, "but it isn't, just as Manius' death wasn't your fault. We're just little puppets in their sick games and no matter how deadly we are we're powerless against them...I'm sure you know that better than most, Enobaria."
She gave me a pointed look and suddenly I found myself shivering, unwillingly remembering the powerlessness I'd felt at the hands of the Capitol. I dropped my eyes and placed my head in my hands. "You know, then?"
"After I left the Training Centre, when Aixa was born, Domitius kept in touch. I think he liked having someone to talk to who wasn't involved in the madness of that place. He talked about you a lot."
Instinctively I let out a low growl, loathing the idea that he had done that. How dare he talk to anyone about the things he hadn't even been able to talk to me about? He had never told me, never warned me about what winning would actually mean, not even when he knew I was going to the Capitol to practically be sold like an animal. How did he even have the right to talk to Junia about it?
"He had no r-" my angry words were cut off by Junia.
"Do you remember how he used to be with Tass? He was different with her, almost like he loved her like a daughter." I lifted my head at the mention of the blonde haired girl who still haunted my nightmares, the girl who had been too good to survive. Junia continued, ducking her head to meet my eyes. "Well that's how he talks about you too, En. He loves you...as if you were his own daughter. He tore himself apart with worry for you when you were in the Arena and he tried so hard to protect you from the Capitol. He hates himself everyday for what he sees as his failures...all of them."
I held Junia's gaze, confused by the mass of information. Reluctantly, I felt my anger at Domitius ebbing slightly, though there was still enough of it. He had still lied to me, still hidden things from me; he was still hugely responsible for what had happened to Clove.
"His failures?" I repeated in a stiff voice, not trusting myself to say any more.
Junia nodded solemnly. "He couldn't save Clove, he couldn't keep you out of harm's way, and he couldn't stop you getting chosen for tribute. I think he knew all along you would always go into that Arena, so he resigned himself to training you so you had no choice but to walk out alive." She paused for a long time, biting her lip as if she was unsure of her next words. Eventually her expression revealed her decision. She spoke in a flat tone, as if she were repeating something she'd heard many times before.
"I think most of all he wished he could done more for you. He didn't fight for your mother, for Cassandra, even though he loved her. He lost her in a way worse than death and to this day he curses your father for having all that he did and not appreciating it. He hated that he couldn't protect you from him so he resigned himself to helping you protect yourself."
She glanced across to where, with a triumphant shout, Aixa jumped from a branch 8 feet off the ground, and landed in the dirt with a thud and a wicked giggle.
"He was never happy and you were never happy. It broke his heart."
Despite what Junia had told me, I couldn't change completely. Most days I could make it to the steps where we sat, but I still couldn't face the world beyond that. I moved from my permanent position in the darkened bedroom to one at the kitchen table, tracing the grains of wood with my finger.
I couldn't forgive Domitius, either. Junia's story had made my chest constrict with emotions I couldn't comprehend, but anger still swirled in my blood every time I thought of him. He had trained Clove just like he had trained me but he hadn't saved her. If what Junia said was true, then he should have been able to bring her home just like he did me. We were both our mother's daughters.
His blame though was nothing compared to my own. He had failed her but I was the one that had led her down the path of danger. I should have known what was going on. I should have known.
It seemed cruel that it was only in the hours of empty time that I poured over every action, every word, every moment with Clove, and realised that I should have known something was horribly wrong. I remembered watching Clove torment bugs on the kitchen floor and her squeals of delight at their suffering echoed through the house. I remembered the way her eyes had gleamed whenever I told her about a kill in the woods, and the way she had trailed her fingers through the blood of my first deer. I remembered her joy at a new knife, not simply the comfort that I felt at the sight of a weapon that represented strength and safety, but a manic smile and wide, crazed eyes.
With each memory I would scream and grip my head and try to shake the thoughts out and wonder how I had never seen any of it before.
I wanted to blame Cato too, because in my memories he was always there, holding his hand out to Clove with the same look in his eyes. I wanted it to be his fault. I wanted the beautiful boy with golden hair to have taken my little sister and corrupted her, filled her heart with cruelness and arrogance. I wanted so badly for it to be his fault.
I knew it wasn't.
It was me and it was Clove. The painfully sensible voice said that even if I had noticed, it wouldn't have made a difference. There had been something horribly, horribly wrong with her.
Five days after Junia's visit, I couldn't take the pressure in my head any more. When a clap of thunder echoed over the house, I was suddenly filled with the electric urge to run, to pump my arms and legs until there was nothing left to feel.
I was out of the house and into the woods before I had even properly thought about it. The leaden grey clouds overhead rumbled discontentedly as I raced through the trees, uncaring that I had no pace and that my lungs were burning fire and my legs were screaming.
Heavy drops of rain began to pound the ground around me as I pushed deeper into the woods. Branches reached out and left crimson claw marks across my cheeks and down my arms. I hit a log and fell hard, slamming my palms and knees onto rocks ground. Pain radiated in my shoulders but I pushed it aside and scrambled to my feet again. As I ran I let each the ache of each joint and the sting of each cut blend together until all I could feel was a single unit of powerful pain. It sang in my head and left no room for anything else.
My route took me far into the woods behind my house and around in a wide sweeping arc. It hit the edge of the old quarry lake and continued along the marshy shore. The rain was falling with ferocity and the other shore was invisible behind a curtain of grey. The water was churning with hundreds of fat drops of rain and the ground had turned slippery and dangerous. Mud and lake water joined the dirt and blood and rain that covered me from head to foot.
The shore of the lake curved around and sent me back towards civilisation until I burst from the edge of the trees onto the grass plain behind my house. I stopped and my legs gave out. The grass was soggy against my skin. My breath was ragged and it felt as though my lungs and throat were bleeding and raw. I tumbled forward, kneeling in the mud as my rasping breath gave way to heaving sobs that rippled through my entire body. I clutched my arms tight around myself in a vain attempt to keep them inside.
Pain rippled through me and I couldn't move. I curled into a ball and let it go, let the rain crash down onto me, the mud seep into my clothes, the blood seep out of my body and the tears pour down my cheeks.
It took a long time before I was able to draw a deep breath again. The tears ceased only when I think there were none left to cry. Every muscle trembled with exhaustion and cold as I slowly uncurled and raised myself to my knees. My hair tendrils that had twisted around my face and throat as though they wanted to throttle me. The sky overhead was darkening to dusk but the storm was passing. Thunder rumbled in the distance. My head swum as I raised it.
Pain and cold and hunger and exhaustion gripped me, but I didn't mind. Something was different. Not better, but different.
When I had gathered the strength, I pushed myself back into a sitting position, scrabbling with my mud caked fingers to rid my face from tendrils of hair. I exhaled shakily. The rain was easing.
Something caught my eye in the trees beside the house. I swept water and blood from my eyes and tried to focus through the drizzle.
Someone stood between the two pine trees that divided the Navarro's cottage form ours. My muscles tensed painfully.
Realising that I had spotted her, the woman shifted slightly. She was soaking and shivering as well, but I could still recognise her perfectly. Amica held my gaze expressionlessly. How long had she been standing there and watching me? Neither of us moved for a long time.
I didn't know how I felt about her anymore. At the sight of her, guilt and fury and jealousy all fought for dominance. I knew I didn't want to speak with her though. She reminded me of Clove and she reminded me of Cato.
I also didn't know how much she hated me. It had been uncharacteristic of Amica to avoid me since I had returned from the Capitol, so I knew her grief or anger must have been overwhelming. She looked frail between the towering trees. Her body was thinner than it had been where the sopping fabric clung to it, and her face looked grey and lined.
A rogue crash of thunder made me jump and I tumbled backwards into the mud. I shook more water from my eyes and searched the trees again for Amica. She was gone. If it weren't for the footprints in the mud I would have thought my crazed mind had conjured her.
I rose to my feet, shivering uncontrollably, and spun in a circle searching the forest. I didn't expect to see her though. She couldn't face me just as I couldn't face her. I began to stumble through the wet grass and weeds back towards the house. For the first time in ages I craved feeling better. I thought of drying off and setting the fire and sitting in front of it as I pulled on fresh, clean clothes. Without realising it, I had begun to think of the future.
A/N: See! Even though it takes me ages, I do keep going. Have faith with me dear readers, and I promise it will be rewarded.
Thanks melliemoo for being my sole reviewer on chapter 1. I'd really like to hear more feedback from people! It's just so useful.
And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the AU ending. It is still in progress.