I really hate writing Luke being mean. It's not well suited for him, wouldn't you agree? I really hated to write him like that, but I think it made the story better. You have to tell me in your review for this chapter if that was the case. Don't worry; I think this chapter is going to be pretty good. You'll have to tell me if it is good or not. Also, as for the role play, I wanted to say there aren't any parts that are filled yet, and before I actually assign anyone to a part, they are going to have to do a rest role play conversation with me or either 25 messages or 50 back and forth, and then only after that will I assign them a part if they are good. I just wanted to let you know that, because I know that there are people who were interested in joining but thought that there weren't parts open still. There are! Nothing is filled so far besides my part as Liz. So all of you send me a message and try it out for me, and then if you don't like it, you can tell me and just stop after the test trial. Deal? Alright. Go on and get on that after you read the chapter and stuff. ALSO, my friend LyndseyRyder12 has a story called The Way Things Should Have Been, and it is a prequel to Children of the Games I am pretty sure. I think that's what she said. She is writing it like it's ending when she has Liz….or something like that. I don't know, because SHE HASN'T BEEN ON. I'm worried about her, and I think that if we all went and read and reviewed on her story maybe she would come back. I mean, she'll get all the emails and have to come on to investigate! I say we do it. Please please pretty please join me in doing this. I want my friend back on here! She's really cool, and really nice, and she would probably read your stories if you PM'd her and asked. JUST SAYING I THINK SO, do not sue me Lyndsey if you are reading this. Ok, so…. I am writing my chapter now, so…..yeah. Have fun reading.
Clove POV-
There are times in every woman's life where they have to stop pretending they can do everything, and just allow themselves to crumble apart. Allow me to explain. It is in a woman's nature to believe that they are strong enough, energized enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, and determined enough to be able to do anything and everything the daily life she is involved with calls for. I had been in that mindset for as long as I could remember….probably from a little bit after I had met Cato….mostly while we dated before the Games, but that isn't my point. My point is, that I had finally snapped out of that mindset. There was something I couldn't do.
I couldn't keep my husband from getting hurt.
I couldn't do the simplest thing a wife should do for her husband. I should have stayed by his side outside our daughter's door. I shouldn't have left to go look for frozen yogurt. I know, it sounds stupid; that I was looking for a frozen yogurt machine…..but that was one of the foods Liz loves the most. And if I could have found her some frozen yogurt and taken it to her while she was in her hospital bed….if it had made her feel better, I would have searched everywhere for it. I had found a machine, and I was walking back to see if Cato wanted any, and I came back to find my daughters fiancée beating him to a practical pulp.
I was sitting next to Cato now as he lies in his hospital bed about a half hour ago. He had just gotten through an analysis with a female nurse who was none too modest about what she wore, with her little white hat and strapless low-cut black scrub top and shorts instead of the usual pants. She had to have been breaking some rules. Ok, before I start ranting about the nurse again, I'll continue my story. Cato had his analysis, and the nurse had gotten him cleaned up and on a bed, and it was found he had a broken nose and some bruising on his shoulder and neck area, but besides that, there wasn't that much damage. Cato would be fine within the week, and for a moment, I allowed myself to be perfectly happy. Liz might have been down the hall, but she was going to be fine thanks to her doctor telling me that they were going to try and do a non-invasive procedure to try and make Liz better so she could decrease her recovery time, and then still be able to be at her wedding in three weeks while still having been treated.
Then I heard the doctors screaming down the hall, and I just knew something was wrong. Cato jumped up as well, and suddenly it didn't matter if he was hurt, or if I was looking weak, or whatever- we both jumped up and ran down to try and figure out what was going on. We were both confident in the fact that we could handle whatever was going on.
We should have known something was incredibly, incredibly wrong when we saw Luke sobbing his eyes out outside of her room.
Cato shot Luke a glare that clearly said our conversation is so totally not over yet, boy, and you are going to pay for punching me. Or maybe it said something along the lines of Way to go. You've finally started acting like a man by punching me. I don't really know. I'm not a man, so I will never exactly know what all of their looks and silent exchanges mean.
"GET SOME ELECTRICITY THROUGH HER!"
I grab Cato's hand fast enough and hard enough to make him scream.
"Our….daughter….." is all I can get out.
I run in and see the doctors rushing around Liz's bed like a hive full of bees. Some are pushing on Liz's chest and leaning their ears in to try and get her out of her stupor-others are just trying to hold back tears, which I can tell are coming from some of them. They think she's dead. I eye the machine, now flat lined…..she is dead.
She can't be dead. My Liz cannot be dead. Not three weeks before her wedding. Not three weeks before she's becoming happy. No. This can'tbe what is happening to her right now. Not now. There's no way.
One doctor spots me just as I am running to Liz's side. I am too numb to even notice if it's a doctor I recognize. Any of his features. I am too focused on my daughter right now to notice anything besides the fact that she is in trouble and needs help.
"No! NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO!" I scream, but the doctor takes a firm grip on my arms.
"Mrs. Hirsch, you have to leave. You have to leave so we can help her."
He's so calm. How can he be so freaking calm about this? My daughter is near dead!
"ARE YOU STUPID? HELP HER! HELP MY DAUGHTER!" I'm shaking now, trembling. Me, the wall. The unbreakable, unmovable force, is broken down and sobbing.
Cato braces me and steers me out of the room as I protest with all my might, screaming and sobbing all the while.
I'm still shaking, and Cato puts his arms around me, helping me sit down back in his room.
"Why is this happening to us?" I cry.
He strokes my hair and sits down next to me.
"Honey, this isn't about something we did. I promise you, Liz is going to be fine. The doctors are going to get her back, and-"
"But what if they don't, Cato? What if we lose her forever? What if the doctors here can't get her back to us?"
"She hasn't been through everything she's been through just to die here."
"Snow doesn't take any of that into consideration. He wants her dead, Cato. Call Gale. Now. I don't care whether Katniss and Peeta have issues with him, call him. Now. If Liz comes back, she's going to need protection from all of it."
"It?" Cato asks, his eyebrows twitching.
"Snow. He obviously isn't human."
"No….he really isn't."
Someone speaks up from the doorway, and I look over, seeing Luke.
"Luke, how is Liz?"
"The doctors got her back….they used the shock therapy thing. She's really weak, but they are hooking her back up to some more machines, and the ones she was hooked up to before, and she's going to be fine. That's what Dr. Mars said."
Cato tosses him another smirk.
"Why were you crying outside of Liz's room?" He asks.
"Because she had a heart attack, sir."
He called Cato sir…..when Cato specifically said that he could call him Cato. He's done something. I know it. Somehow, he knows something we don't. Cato and I exchange a look. He seems to be thinking the same thing that I am.
"What do you know?" I ask him.
He flushes and looks down at his shoes. I storm over and grab him by the earlobe.
"I. Asked. You. What. You. Know."
He still doesn't answer me.
"TELL ME!" I shriek in his ear.
"I'm the reason she had that heart attack. I was with her when it happened."
I can feel my eyes getting wide. Luke's expression changes from one of sheepish usualness to one of fear, so I know I look like a serial killer. Cato has described to me how I look when one of these extreme anger episodes hits. And he has told me that I look like a serial killer.
Cato pulls me away before I can claw Luke's eyes out from my anger.
"How? Why? What? What did you do, Luke?" I am asking questions in rapid succession. Because now that I know Luke knows something, and he has willingly said that he is the cause of my daughter having a heart attack, and the reason she almost died, I want to know everything.
Cato beats me to asking what I really need to know.
"What were you two talking about before she….uh…..went?"
Luke starts sniffling.
"I was yelling at her. I….we were fighting. She started yelling at me for beating up Cato, and then she started saying that even she hadn't spilled the amount of blood I had on me, and then I started yelling at her because she kept talking about pain and how I was hurting Cato by doing what I did. She doesn't have a high tolerance for pain….and then I lashed out and screamed at her….I swore at her."
Cato, to my surprise, circles the smaller boy in a hug as he cries.
"It's alright…..Luke, just tell us what you said to her. We want to know. We won't get mad…or at least, I won't. I've said terrible things to Clove as well. Alright? Every couple has a fight."
He continues to cry, but will not reveal what he said.
"I'm sure even your own parents have done something like this before. I'm sure they've said something mean to each other before." Cato says gently.
He's handling this situation a lot better than I would be. I mean really, I would have already killed the boy by now for crying so much.
"I told her she would be the first mother in the world if she couldn't even handle a little pain."
Cato nods, and I find myself collapsing onto the bed in silent hysterics. I do not dare shed another tear. I do not make a sound. I only look at the two men before me in silent wonder of what has happened.
"And what happened after that?" Cato asks.
I know what he's doing. He's grilling Luke for information, exactly how I would have, but he's using his specialty maneuver. He's making Luke think he's not going to get in any trouble, and that he's forgiven him for whatever he said, whatever he did. He's acting calm in order to make Luke calm enough to tell him everything, and to tell him the truth, and then as soon as he gets what he needs and wants to know, Cato's going to explode on him. Oh yes. I know my husband so well.
"She told me she couldn't…..couldn't breathe."
Cato blinks a few times, probably to try and remain calm over this, but this is information that as a parent we both are probably internally freaking out about. I know that I am. I can't exactly imagine what is happening within Cato's mind right now. Probably thoughts of guns and weapons of torture and pictures of half naked woman. That does sound like something he would be thinking about in the middle of a semi interrogation.
"She couldn't breathe?" Cato asks him, just to make sure that he is getting all of this straight. I am unbelieving about all of this as well.
Luke nods. "That's all I needed to know. You should leave now. Go find your father, and send him in here."
Luke tilts his head to the side and his eyebrows knit together.
"Please, Luke. Please. Just go and find your dad, and tell him I need to speak to him. Alright?"
I can tell that
Luke nods again and walks out.
"What are you thinking now, honey?" I ask.
He looks at me, his eyes blazing in silent fury.
"You'll see, Clove. You'll see. That boy is going to pay, I swear to God."
I gape at him. "Cato, please, what are you thinking? You're not….going to hurt him, are you?"
"No. But I should be. He's torn this family apart, Clove. He's nearly killed our daughter, and if it weren't for that shock treatment working, she would have been dead at this point, and we would have never seen or spoken to her again."
I start crying again, tears trickling down my cheeks slowly.
"Cato, he's a child. Treat it like the actions of a child. He can't be hurt over this. You have to understand that." I practically whisper.
"Why? Why should I do anything to help this kid? He's hurt her, Clove. He's hurt Liz. She could have been dead right now! DEAD! And you're saying we should just let him off with a warning and tell him not to do it again?"
He's using my own words against me, and I know it's only because he's upset, but nonetheless, it still hurts, and I still want to make it stop so I can go back to talking to him like I was before those doctors started screaming.
"No. But I am saying you should just talk to his father, and let him decide what he'll do about his child. He and Katniss are his parents. They are going to have to be the ones to handle this. In the end, we can't be the ones handling this."
"The hell we can't! Clove, we have as much control as they do. We have a say in what they do at the very least."
I do have to agree with that. We can at least attempt to have a say in this.
"Fine, Cato. Talk to Peeta, and then come and talk to me," I say, my fingers latching onto his tie and pulling him forward to my lips so we're kissing. "Or we can do something else. Whatever you want." I continue, and then I walk out, leaving my husband gaping and wide eyed with my promise of intercourse later if he wants it.
Luke's POV-
I walk down the hallway contemplating my options. I could leave here and never come back. Yes, that would only be a temporary fix, and I probably would make Liz even madder at me then she already is, but I could do that if I really had to. I could go and get my dad and tell him to go and speak to Cato, like Cato told me to do. Or I could go to the top floor of this building, which happens to be the roof, and then jump. I am so angry with myself that I am genuinely thinking about committing suicide.
I know that I am being crazy, but I can't live with Liz being angry at me. I just can't. I won't.
I quickly decide that I am going to do as Cato told me to do, and then after my dad is talking with Cato, I am going to Liz's room to apologize. If she'll accept, then I won't take the jump. But if she doesn't….if she won't forgive me, I will kill myself to save her the trouble of having to be married to someone she doesn't want to be married to. President Snow is making us get married after all, whether we are happy and willing to do it or not.
I knock out to the waiting room to see both of my parents sitting exactly where they were 8 hours ago when my dad first told me to go in and hold Liz's hand. They look the same as well-wearing the same sad, exhausted expressions.
"Dad?" I ask.
My dad is nodding off in his chair, and my mother has to gently nudge him awake. "Peeta, sweetie, our son is trying to talk to you." She says.
My dad looks up at me. "Hmmm?" He replies, yawning.
"Cato wants to talk to you." I say quietly.
My dad nods and stands up wordlessly.
"What does he want this time?" My mom asks.
"He just wants to talk to dad. I don't know why. I didn't question it." I reply.
My mom gives me a weak smile. "It's probably best not to question him. Then he starts talking, and God help us when he starts talking."
I chuckle for a second. "I can't say I agree or disagree with that statement, mother. He's my fiancé's father, and so I am not going to say anything mean about him."
I kiss her on the cheek and give her a smile, trying to hide my inner thoughts. "I'm going to go say hi to Liz." I say.
"Be careful." Is all my mother says, and then she goes back to reading a wedding magazine.
I walk to Liz's room, knocking on the door gently.
"Come in." I hear, and I step inside, plastering a smile on my face. Liz's expression is the same, until she realizes it's me.
"Luke, get away from me."
I ignore her and sit on the edge of her bed, looking into her eyes. They are glaring back at me, her lips set in a thin line against her face, like when she first confronted me about her dad. I look down at my hands, clean and not bloody. I could always just pretend she was delusional and dreamed it all….but then she would see her dad and know I had lied and be mad at me all over again.
"Liz…..I'm sorry." I say, trying to keep my tone calm.
She looks down at the sheets on her bed instead of at me.
"Liz….please….talk to me. Yell at me. Scold me. Do anything except stay silent."
She still says nothing, and I know that soon I'll be crying. I will get down on my knees and grovel and beg if I have to, just to make her happy and forgive me.
"I don't want to talk to you, Luke. Please, leave me alone. I need to be alone right now, alright?"
I nod, but I remain on her bed, unmoving.
"I want you to forgive me. What can I do to make you forgive me?"
She looks back up at me, her eyes blinking a few times before she answers. "Tell me you were wrong. That you didn't mean what you said."
I breathe a sigh of relief. "I was wrong, Liz. You are totally going to make a wonderful mother, and I will be there to help you every time that you ever doubt yourself. In sickness, and in health, I will be there for you. Even before we are married, I will promise you that."
She nods and looks down again, this time at her fingers. I can see my ring on her finger. It looks all wrong with her face being so pale, and her looking so damn tired, and upset, and hurt. I don't want her to be hurt like that anymore.
"I think the marriage vows need to be rewritten." She says quietly.
I smile at her, knowing I can make her smile if I keep up the right attitude. If I keep saying the right things.
"Oh? And why is that?"
She looks at me, her mouth still not in a smile. "Because they are stupid, and cliché."
"Hmm….interesting reasoning. Why are they stupid, may I ask?"
"Because the couple says the same things as every couple before them. There's no special feeling to it. You're just another check mark on the list of people who said it. And then there's the fact that when you say them, your partially lying. I mean really, in sickness and in health? If you're sick, I am not coming near you. And then there are the times where you can't be with your spouse. I mean, there are lives outside of the house. Work. School, if you're young enough. There are other things to be done."
I cannot believe the words that just came out of her mouth. It's like she's speaking the things I have been thinking for years. We really are meant for each other.
"I agree…..but you know….if your still mad at me, we are going to have to be cliché about our wedding, considering there won't be any positive emotion in any of it."
That makes her look at me. I am pleased with myself. This is what I need to make her forgive me again. I just know it. I've got her in the palm of my hand. Now I just have to seal the deal.
"That's true. But then again, I can put some serious negative emotion into words, Luke darling." She says the word darling like it's a disease. And suddenly I realize I have nothing. She isn't just someone I can have. I'll have to work a little harder if I want Liz to forgive me.
"I love you." I say, smiling.
She rolls her eyes. "Love you too, bastard."
I frown and look down at my legs, and when I look up after 30 seconds, Liz is beside me, laughing.
"You thought I would seriously call you a bastard? My god, Luke. You are more stupid then I thought!"
I start laughing too, and I am crying happy tears. "I knew I was stupid the second those terrible words I said to you left my mouth." I reply, crying just a little bit more.
"What did you say?" She asks.
I roll my eyes and laugh. " I said I was stupid." I repeat.
She puts her hand around her ear. "I'm sorry. I couldn't hear that."
"I was stupid, alright? I didn't mean any of those nasty things I said, and I shouldn't have said any of it."
She looks down at her fingertips again, and then she does the one thing I am not expecting her to do- she pulls my engagement ring off her finger, places my hand in hers, palm up, places the ring in my palm, and then closes my hand around it.
"Take your ring back." She says.
I gape at her. "B-b-b-b-but Liz…..I thought you were forgiving me." I stammer.
She tosses me a smirk. "I am. But you're going to have to propose to me, the new and improved Elizabeth Hirsch. The one who cheated death."
I laugh. "Oh, I see, so just asking you in front of all of Panem wasn't enough for you then?"
Now it's her turn to laugh and she smiles, a real genuine smile. The one that I have been waiting for. "Of course it was! But it was so….cheesy….and so planned. I loved it of course, but I mean, wouldn't you have done it differently if we had been alone, just the two of us?"
I nod. "Yes. And I know what you mean."
I clear my throat and readjust my shirt collar, and Liz giggles. "Elizabeth Hirsch, I am passionately, madly in love with you, and I want to be with you the rest of my life, and after that for the rest of eternity. Will you do me the incredibly wonderful honor of being my wife for the rest of the world's duration, and until the end of time after that?"
I can see her eyes clearing up, and looking brighter. "Yes. I will, but only if you never, ever say something like what you said to me a few hours ago ever again."
"I never will hurt you like that again." I take her left hand in mine and slip the ring on her finger. Once I know it will slide on properly, I lean in and kiss her as gently as I possibly can. I can feel my face getting slightly wet, and when I pull away, Liz is crying.
"Why are you crying, Lizzie?" I ask her, rubbing her hand.
"You did hurt me, Luke. You hurt me so badly I wanted to die. I wanted that heart attack to kill me. I could feel my breath growing short, but I didn't say a word, and then…..I wanted to die, Luke. You made me want to die when you said that….what you said."
I move my hand to her cheek and kiss her again, and then release. "I am so sorry, Liz. I will never hurt you again. I will never make you feel that way ever again. It's going to be me and you, until the end of time, and it's going to be amazing. I promise you, it will be amazing. You'll have everything you could ever want for, and everything we will need." I kiss her again, after every word. That's 60 times, people. All is forgiven.
Liz pulls away. "I already have everything I want. I have you, and that is all I will ever need. I want you, Luke. And only you."
She twitches her eyebrows suggestively. "Now?" I ask.
She nods. "Liz…..you promised yourself you would wait until the honeymoon, remember?"
She nods. "Screw the honeymoon. Let's get it on now."
I look from her smiling face to the bag of morphling by the bed. It's only half full.
"Liz….? I'm going to get Dr. Mars. I think your morphling dosage is too high."
"No, Luke. It's not. If it was, I would be throwing up again." She replies confidemtly.
I nod and smile and pretend I am oblivious to what could happen to Liz if she gets too much morphling into her system at one time.
"I'm fine, Luke. I promise. And I think your right-about waiting. It will be much more fun once I've had my procedure to stop the internal bleeding and I'm not connected to all these machines."
I laugh. "Yeah, I don't think there should be pain coming from those wires in your arms popping out of your IV's."
"There's only one pain that should be happening. And I'm going to endure that pain, Luke. I'm going to make myself tolerate it, for you."
I kiss her again, and she kisses back. We both ignore the sound of the heart monitor beeping. I see her close her eyes, and I close mine too, and then we're both imagining we're somewhere else I'm sure. At least, that's what I'm doing. I imagine my new life with Liz, after we're married.
Peeta POV-
"Cato, that isn't fair, and you know it! What would tying Luke up and hanging him from the ceiling do? Would that truly make any of these issues go away?"
Cato has been making stupid punishment proposals for Luke for a half an hour now. I got bored of him about 29 minutes ago, but when Cato told me what Luke had said to Liz, I knew why she had had a heart attack. I mean, Liz isn't someone who can have heard like something like that with the condition she was already in and just be perfectly unscathed. All of the emotions in the room made her have a heart attack. That is serious stuff, and I agree with Cato when he says that Luke needs to be punished somehow.
"I know what I am going to do." Cato says, and I groan. This isn't going to be good, I can tell.
"I don't think its right for Luke and Liz to get married." He says.
I nod. "I agree. They are too young, but they have to. Snow is forcing them."
"Peeta, there's always a loophole, and I've found one."
I groan. "And what would that be, Cato?"
"They have to have parental consent. Remember? I give Liz away at the altar. You or Katniss, or both of you, have to be witnesses on Luke's side, just like Clove does for Liz. If we say they can't, then they can't."
I will admit, this is something actually intelligent that Cato is saying, and it is surprising to me, but I know that somehow it does make sense, and he smirks, meaning he knows as well. But yet, I have to rain on his parade. I have to be smarter than him. I just do.
"Snow could still find a way around that."
Cato tosses me his trademark smirk again. "Yes. Which is why we eliminate that issue before they even get to the altar."
"What are you talking about, Cato?"
"I'm making Liz give the ring back." He says.
Alright, there's the chapter. I hope you all liked it. Sorry for the kind of cliffhanger. It's bound to be interesting considering what happened. Please, leave me a review, and tell me what you are thinking. I would love to hear from you. The role play(RP) is still open, so PM me if you are interested, or just put it into your review, and then we'll be all set for that. And please, if you have ideas for the next chapter, on how Cato should get Liz to give back the ring, PM me that too. I need some inspiration. Thanks again, everyone!