XVIII: Reintroductions.
Kai Melchior, 15
Victor of District Five
If he had any say in it, Kai was never spending any time in a hospital ever again.
Unless he won again, that is. To patch him up, to put him back together... he would allow it.
There was no telling just how much time he had spent there back in Five, but time here passed in a way that was more recognizable. They kept him under for three days after the arena while they purged his body of the radiation and cleaned him up, and then kept him for a week more to monitor his symptoms. Granted, that hadn't been the easiest task—he was still nauseous, sick, hardly able to open his eyes some days because of the headaches.
But then they cleared him. Sent him to his apartment for the next two weeks, no sign of Zoya, and told him that he was good.
Except he wasn't.
All he really knew now was that the doctor was coming to visit today, and the ensuing knock at the door proved it. An at-home visit, everyone was calling it, except this was the furthest thing from home in the universe. Khione was quick to her feet to answer it, welcoming in Dr. Marsden with a tight smile on her face. Kai, to his credit, wasn't confident in his abilities to stand up and offer the same greeting—he felt off, today. Worse than he usually did. He cooperates, though, while Dr. Marsden runs through a series of checks on him and scribbles numerous things down on an adjacent clipboard, entering several different ones into a hand-held tablet.
To get people to listen to you, you had to play nice. There was no demanding here. Only once the doctor was finished would he ask the question.
Why haven't you cured me?
"Everything checks out," Dr. Marsden says, taking a step back. "She wants to talk to him alone. If you could come with me, Mrs. Soriano."
Kai blinks. "Who's she?"
Khione squeezes his shoulder on the way by—the crow's feet gathered at the corner's of her eyes are on display, today, highlighting the worry that gleams within them. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
But she's gone, leaving him alone on that couch and led away by the doctor's open arm, down the hall and out of sight. Before Kai can get to his feet and call after them, the door to the apartment is opening once again. Somehow, the first thing he manages to make sense of is the security detail—half a dozen of them, at least, all dressed in sleek black, the President's seal emblazoned across their blazer pockets.
In stark contrast, of course, is the President herself. Tall, regal, the perfect picture of superiority. Not a hair lies out of place on her head as her heels click-clack into the room, seemingly focusing only on him.
She wants to talk to him alone.
She being the President?
"Mr. Melchior," she says, face adorned with a sugary-sweet smile. "It's a pleasure to officially meet you."
His throat is dry, legs even weaker than normal. Clearly she doesn't expect much of him, judging by her poised stance as she stops some five feet away, finding no contentedness in sitting down across from him. Responding would be the proper thing to do, but Kai doesn't have any words for once. What the hell is he supposed to say to someone like her?
"I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here," she begins. "This isn't exactly the most commonplace of circumstances—your existence here, and your survival, frankly. Of course we all know just why you volunteered. A noble reason, I must say. Not everyone could take such agency into their own hands."
"Thank-you?" he attempts, relieved to find his voice steady. "Why... why are you here?"
"I thought the news would be best delivered by myself. You see, it would have been quite easy to cure you while you were still in-hospital. The technology has been afforded to us for years. But, frankly, curing you now would be a disservice to the twenty-three other competitors; your injuries are one thing, but pre-existing conditions are not something we accounted for. There's no doubt that you would be stronger, more sound of mind—"
"What?"
"There is no curing your ailment, Mr. Melchior. Not unless you emerge from the Games a second time."
The headache lingering at his temples pulsates harder, threatening to send him crashing to the floor. "My ailment? I'm fucking dying."
"As we're well aware."
"I could drop dead before anyone even has the chance to kill me."
"A risk we're all prepared to deal with. You won once, Mr. Melchior. I'm sure you could do it again. I'm sorry to deliver the news this say, but it's for everyone's best interests."
Everyone's interests but his own. Of course. Why would anyone care about Kai now? He's spent months coming to terms with his own death—there's no reason for everyone else not to do the same. They're forcing him back into that arena when some days he can barely stand, hardly able to see straight. Zeph was the exception to the rule in helping him along. No one is going to want him now.
There is no winning like this.
"This isn't," he starts, but Kai can't find the words to finish. It's not what? Not fair?
Neither was killing four people. Neither was Zoya blowing the reactor because he didn't know any better. Neither was him having to come to terms with everything that happened more rapidly than anyone should ever have to.
"Again, I do apologize," the President says. "And I wish you luck."
Life's not fair. Luck's not real, not in his world.
And Kai really did just sign his own death certificate.
Sanne Levesay, 16
Victor of District Seven
Even on her better days, Sanne can't help but wonder if she would be better off back in the arena.
Then again, can it really be considered a better day when she's spent more than a few minutes of it crying in the shower?
It's the only thing resembling a safe haven that she has now, this glass cubicle with its two dozen settings which encases her from the outside world. Sanne will turn the temperature up as high as she can stand it and force herself to remain still until her skin is sensitive to the touch, red and raw. It feels like even the slightest bit of penance for the way everyone died.
The irony of standing in the shower while thinking it isn't lost on her.
She hasn't had the courage to watch the way everyone burned—doing that would mean thinking about all of their loved ones, the friends who called them family, and how one simple refusal to stop the fire from building had caused so much destruction. She could have never known what she was doing when she let that happen. Thinking about it threatens to break her in two and send her crashing down to her knees.
Sanne is supposed to better by now. That's not what anyone tells her out-loud, but she can see it in their eyes.
Every single day is a miserable existence. Apparently that doesn't go away so easy. At least under the burning spray of the shower she can pretend her tears are nothing more than water droplets, and when she steps out and faces herself in the mirror she can blame her reddened, blotchy skin on the heat and nothing more. Thinking up excuses makes it easier to bundle herself up in a cozy sweater and fluffy slippers like she deserves any of those things.
A part of her wishes she could allow herself to think intimately about what it would be like if Brycen was here, too—if it would be easier or not.
For a time, she imagines, until one of them had to die. Blissful ignorance would be the only way to live.
If he was here, Sanne would find some way to be optimistic.
It's not so easy, however, when she steps into the hall to find two faces looking back at her. Ilan, on the left, perhaps walking away but too curious to do so without seeing what she was doing first, and Evette to her right. Both of them are near-impossible to figure out, ghostly enigmas that wander around the apartment almost silently, but they're here. They're real.
That's all that matters.
"Are you alright?" Evette asks gently. It's difficult to remember sometimes that she's hardly any older than the two of them, her trauma nearly as fresh. She has hardly an inch on Sanne, and her eyes are always so soft that it's a wonder she's still standing after everything. Despite her efforts, Sanne feels tears begin to build in her eyes. There's no reason to cry today, or ever again, and it's all she can manage to do.
Better now than in front of the audience, at least.
Before even a single tear has fallen Evette has stepped forward, and Sanne feels her arms more than sees them as she's pulled into the embrace. How is she supposed to stand tall when some days putting one foot in front of the other seems impossible? Her arms seem to weigh a thousand pounds each as she hugs Evette back, letting her forehead fall to her narrow shoulder.
"Cry all you need to," Evette says. "God knows we all have."
"Yeah," Ilan agrees quietly, feet squeaking across the floor as she shuffles back and forth. Evette gives her one last squeeze before she pulls back, managing a weak smile.
"I have to head out for a bit; an interview, or something. But we can talk when I get back, if you want."
"Okay," she whispers.
"You'll be good until I get back?"
"I'm good," Sanne insists, wiping frantically at her cheeks. Feeling like a burden on top of everything else isn't something she can handle right now, even if a part of her wants to sink to the floor the second Evette leaves. Soon enough, she'll be on her own again, and Sanne doesn't plan on dying like some weak, scared little girl. Tears or no tears, she's not going to cower on the ground if someone comes to kill her.
She needs to rise above this.
"Can I give you a hug?"
Sanne peers over her shoulder, taking in Ilan's concerned eyes, his awkward stance. Of course he cares—it seems he always has.
"I mean you can say no, I just thought—I don't know what I thought, actually—"
His words trail off when she nods jerkily. Ilan looks no less awkward on his approach, body rigid even as he hugs her. He tenses up further when her arms tighten around his waist, something about the human contact unsettling him in a way that she'll never be able to quite understand. Sanne has never shied away from touch; she's yearned after it, even, sometimes when she shouldn't have. It feels easier to breathe when she knows she has someone to rely on.
Sanne lets out a heavy breath against his shirt-front, willing the last of the tears away. "Thanks."
Judging by the way they're still clinging to one another, there's a chance Ilan needed this just as much as she did. They all need something. He yearns for home and the people he left behind just like Sanne longs for her old self, burnt to ash.
A hug isn't going to fix any of that, but at least it's a start.
Sanne will take every little bit she can get these days.
Hawke Rabanus, 18
Victor of District Ten
If Ten spared no love for him, then the Capitol never even considered it in the first place.
The Capitol likes people who play along, who put on a show. They want speeches and grandiose gestures, unforgettable moments that will play out for years to come.
The television shows him shooting that last boy square in the chest for days upon days, but so many of the commentators seem at a loss for what else to say about him. Hawke doesn't give them what they want; he never will.
He knows that will mean almost certain death, in the end, but Hawke has done nothing if not survive things that most people would be incapable of.
If the Capitol wants him dead because he refuses to be their good little victor, they're going to have one hell of a time seeing it through.
Of course it's not just the Capitol as a whole that has managed to get under his skin.
He hates the rooms. The clean lines and the silver and the blue and all the glass, so much damn glass it's impractical. He hates that everything always smells like antiseptic, freshly cleaned before even he, early riser that he is, opens his eyes in the morning. He hates that there's no fresh air no matter where you try to look for it. It's all smog overlaid with something uniquely flowery, as if someone has tried to cover up the stench with an overwhelming perfume.
Hawke only has one thing that's truly left from Ten, if you ignore the people, and that's the bullet he dug out of Lev's chest before the hovercraft came. He remembers turning away from Robbie, fingers slipping through the blood and toughened muscle to pull the capsule loose, tucking it back into his pocket.
There was nothing sentimental about him, but it felt good to have now.
Of course, though, Bellamy doesn't enjoy the fact that he has it—it appears as if their escort hasn't clued into the fact that he needs a gun to do anything with it. Jabbing the thing into Bellamy's eye isn't high on Hawke's priority list, even if he has been tempted once or twice.
There are rules here, unlike in the arena. He can't react with violence.
The only thing he has between him and everything he hates is a single bedroom door. One without a lock, of course, but right now he's jammed the desk chair beneath the handle so that no matter how much Bellamy fights with it, there's no give to be found.
Both of Ten's mentors know when to leave him the fuck alone. Even Robbie's learned.
Some people just don't know when to quit.
"I thought we could go out today!" Bellamy calls. "Get you out on the streets, let the masses see you… I'm sure you have some particularly enthusiastic fans!"
"Fuck off," he says back, and kicks the door for good measure. He's sure the noise he hears in response is Bellamy jumping away, if only for a moment, no doubt concerned for his own safety. Apparently he doesn't quite understand the rules either.
Hawke doesn't doubt that he has fans—sure, many of the Capitolities like their tributes and victors with a touch of humanity, but there are some that simply don't care. They want the ruthlessness that comes with vicious bloodshed, an unfeeling killer that will do what has to be done without lamenting over every single little thing.
The Games were founded on people like him, those willing to fight and kill and do it all over again until they were free.
"Well, if you change your mind…"
"I won't!" he shouts back. No one in his entire life has ever paid him such mind before. Bouncing from home to home meant that the people who ran them hardly spared you a glance, if they even knew your name. His teachers saw his lack of promise and reduced him to a back-row learner, someone who paid attention perhaps, but got nothing out of it.
And his peers, the kids who hated him… well, they did a good enough job ostracizing him from the very start.
It's a good thing he's never cared.
Hawke listens carefully for the sound of Bellamy scuttling away before he removes the chair, returning it to its proper place. If he doesn't, someone will just tell him to, and that will only serve to make him more annoyed.
Truthfully, he can't wait until all of this farce is over. There's only a few days left until they'll be taken back to the Tribute Center—it's never something he would have described as a dream until this day, but Hawke would rather be anywhere than trapped here. He feels stuck in a box. Worse, a maze. The halls grow longer with each day and the doors further away, escape no longer in sight.
The fact that he can only leave when they tell him too doesn't help his irritation, either.
Footsteps pick up outside once again and all Hawke can do it stare, relieved when they finally pass him by. Robbie, if he had to hazard a guess, probably curious enough finally to wonder what all the ruckus was about. Still he sees the other boy on the ground before him, leg bandaged, bleeding profusely from the shoulder. Hears his incredulous laugh.
If only there was anything even slightly amusing about this. They were both stuck here, repeating the same ugly motions until someone dared to set them free.
Hawke Rabanus was not a poetic person; he would never dare to consider himself one. He just wanted the shackles gone.
He wanted to be able to do what the world knew he was capable of.
Ten had never seen it, but they had been the fortunate ones.
Nobody else he encountered would be afforded such a grace.
Clementine Alinsky, 17
Victor of District Eleven
"Where is she?" Atropa demands. "I swear to God—"
"Oh, calm down, I'm right here," Clementine drawls, leaning back in her chair. "What did they tell you? I didn't even go that far."
Atropa levels her with a nasty look as the apartment door slams shut. It leaves her effectively trapped there with a bunch of severe looking folks. Her mentor, particularly peeved. A handful of stiff-looking guards, one looking more shameful than the rest. Probably the one who had lost track of her.
Xanthe was guarding the door, all five feet of her, as if somehow she was going to be the one to stop Clem from running off again if she so chose.
Fat chance.
"You can't just run off whenever you damn well please," Atropa snaps. "You have guards for a reason. Someone to escort you places you wish to go. Last time I checked, leaving wasn't—"
"Wasn't what?" she fires back. "An option? So what's my punishment, huh?"
Everyone in the room is silent, and there's nothing strange about it. They all know the truth. In less than a week they'll all be preparing to die yet again, and there's no certainty in surviving a second time.
If the odds were not for her the first time, what are the chances they're still lingering around to consider her for the second?
In just a short time, Clementine will no longer exist in this world. She'll never see her home again. Not her brother, even if he's distant, or her father, who wouldn't pay much attention to her even if she did happen to come home. With that time, she at least wants to see some of it. The Capitol is grand and mighty and fucking sue her if she wanted to see a bit of it without someone breathing down her neck.
It was harmless fun. She was just exploring the way she's always wanted to. Of course nobody else is going to see it that way, though—nobody ever understands just how she sees things.
In those few minutes she had been alone, Clementine hadn't worried one bit. There had been no thoughts of someone following her, no urge to run away from some invisible force or strike out first before something could hurt her. Even if she had been keeping her head down, at least she had been at peace.
But so much for that.
"You know I'm looking out for you, right?" Atropa questions. She settles firmly on the arm of Clementine's chair, staring down at her. "I don't want anything to happen to you."
Then get me the hell out of here, somehow. "I know."
"I get wanting to take off. But that's not how this works. You know that, right?"
"Yeah," she mumbles. With Atropa looking down at her like nothing more than an admonished child, someone about to be sent into time-out.
She wouldn't listen to that either, of course, but there's nothing wrong with trying.
"Thank you all for getting her back safely," Atropa says, turning to wave the guards away. "You too, Xanthe."
Even as the rest file out, their escort stands there, fury simmering in her spritely form. "If this ever happens again, young lady…"
"I'll make sure to run faster!" Clementine tells her. It doesn't sound quite as chipper as she aims for, but Xanthe sighs, running a hand through her vibrant hair. Atropa pinches her arm in retaliation, though it's not nearly enough to hurt.
She really would, though. No one is going to let her even get close enough again to try it, but if Clem had the opportunity… well, she would run. Far and fast and she would never look back, not even when she hit the fence that led out into the wilds.
Clementine would escape.
"Gave me a freakin' heart attack," Atropa mutters as she gets to her feet, no doubt searching for the nearest bottle of alcohol. Clementine can't say she blames her. "What's so fascinating about the downtown, anyway?"
"There's a carnival," Clem says quietly. "I think."
She doesn't truly know what it was. But there were rides and joyous, laughing children and somehow even despite their breaths coming out in frosty puffs everyone had looked so damn happy that Clementine was instantly jealous. The lights had twinkled, so tantalizing in the distance, and for a moment she had allowed herself to dream of being a child again. A proper one though, with two adoring parents and a little brother who looked up to her. No job, no responsibilities.
Just life.
"They do know how to throw a good event, I'll give them that," Atropa says. "I'll make sure you see one, if—"
"You don't have to say it."
"I will," Atropa says again. "I promise."
If she gets out. If she wins. There's not much likelihood in that, but then again, she has said there's nothing wrong with a good dream or two.
"Is everything okay out here?" Farasha's voice asks behind her, and Clem keeps her gaze fixed forward, refusing to do an about-face to look her younger partner in the eye, worrying little traitor that she is.
A part of her had wondered if she should give Farasha a chance. Her heart, that is.
Clementine's brain is what wouldn't allow it.
"All good," Atropa answers. "Thanks for checking in."
Farasha will still be allowed outside. She'll go on walks and adventures and no one will worry about her running off, not even for a second. It's everything that Clementine craves, and nothing that she will be allowed to have.
Everything about her is a walking hypocrisy, and yet she can't shake it. Clementine knows she's wrong, at least in some things, and it never seems to matter.
What will, in the end, if she doesn't live?
Didn't have anything written in this, didn't plan to, and now I've had a busy morning and am lazy so I love you all. :) Bye.
Until next time.