Hey y'all. Been a while.

These two are... so much. Toxic. Messy. Complicated. And I'm loving it. Warning for a lil ooc while I get a handle on them. Hope to write more soon. Thoughts and requests?

SSS

After 15 years, she thought it should be safe enough. Surely he'd have forgotten her by now, lost her memory in the haze of power he sought to drown himself in. At least to drown the man she'd known. And she was never built to be alone.

So she goes home, though it isn't home anymore and wasn't ever, really. But it's the closest thing she ever had. District 12. She finds the people she loved gone from the house they once shared, and when she at last ventures into the town, her face causes no remark. So she tells them, these people who don't remember her, that her name is Lucinda, but they can call her Lucy. She doesn't sing, not for a long while, and when she does it's in private for those who can pay, and the songs are insipid and stir neither strife nor recollection. She feels as naked without her guitar as she wants to feel invisible.

And after a while, she feels that too. She is one of the many, a face in the crowd, anonymous and safe. Lucy Gray Baird is dead.

So it's alright when the mayor- a new mayor, not Lipp, this one younger and not yet as puffed up on his own importance, kinder than she would've pictured- asks her to join his household to play music. After all, she is no one, and she has no one to care for but herself anymore. So she does. She still plays for others, but he buys her a guitar- nicer than her old one, but still nothing to the one she played for a television interview once upon a time- and she strums soft chords in his dining room and drawing room each night as he and his guests eat and mingle in the light of dull electric bulbs.

This house is one of the few still lit.

It even feels alright when he asks her to marry him. She doesn't love him, and is fairly certain he doesn't love her, though he thinks he does. She doesn't love him, but she likes him fine, as well as she does most men, and marrying him will be easy. It will not only secure her future but also add another layer to her disguise. She'll be Mrs Leod Lockhard, and that'll be alright. She's done with love anyway. Bitten not once, but twice, and shier than shy.

So she says yes.

Leod wants a spring wedding, and so they'll have to wait. Fine by her, she doesn't care when it takes place, though she pretends for his sake. She pretends to be interested in food and flowers, and who will provide music if not she herself?

He moves her into a better suite in the house, provides her with a few pretty dresses and the one or two pieces of jewelry he can get his hands on. She's the center of attention at his dinners now, rather than an ornament in the corner. He really is smitten, she thinks, the way he fawns over her. She almost begins to wonder if this is a good idea.

Two weeks before they're to be married, he insists she accompany him to greet the train as it arrives in district 12. He doesn't explain, though he's nervous and excited enough that she knows someone important must be aboard. Someone he wants to impress.

She should've known. She should have recognized the thrumming in her bones. But she thought it was just the train.

Leod's hand is on the small of her back as passengers begin to disembark, the first a handful of men and women dressed in neat, understated business attire who nod politely at her fiance but don't engage. The important guest must still be aboard.

A figure appears in the door of the traincar, and blood rushes in Lucy Gray's ears. Leod's hand presses into her spine, propelling her forward.

"Mr. Snow! So pleased to welcome you to Twelve!" his voice sounds far away and tinny. All she can hear clearly is the pounding beat of her own heart as it tries to fight its way out of her chest like a bird in a cage. "May I present my future wife, Miss Lucinda Clade?

Blue eyes, so very very blue, find hers, and his gaze burns like a brand. Suddenly, her whole body feels cold. She presses back into Leod's touch, as though he can protect her. She can't look away. It's been so long. She never wanted to see him again. Never wanted him to see her. She's been so stupid. She should've stayed in the forest.

"Lucinda." his voice is silk smooth, almost neutral, but those blue eyes are all cold fire. He reaches for her hand, and she can't do anything but let him take it. Can't jerk it away. Can't run. There are too many people. Too many guns. Even if her body weren't frozen in place. His lips are gentle against her knuckles, but his gaze never leaves hers. "Lovely to make your acquaintance."

SSS

Should I continue?