disclaimed
commence
She's not sure where the fuck he got a gun, but goddamn, she's not sure she's ever been so happy to hear a gun fire.
Eleven's arm goes slack, and she falls to the ground, crawling for refuge, her throat constricting sporadically in response to almost being choked out. She feels like vomiting. She hears Cato in the background, screaming at Eleven, telling him he shouldn't fuck with him or his partner. Another bullet and Eleven stops fighting.
She sees Twelve (what is it– Catnip? No, Katniss) at the edge of the clearing, staring at the scene behind her in shock. Twelve scrambles backwards but she doesn't move fast enough, and she crumples from a bullet in her brain.
Clove collapses, her arms and legs giving out on her, and, oh dear god, she's alive. Next thing she knows, Cato's voice is in her ear, his hand warm on her back, calming her and grounding her here, now.
She struggles to her feet, lets him slide his arm around her and half drag-half shuffle her into the forest. It's there that she realizes she's shaking. He wraps her in a hug, dwarfing her in comparison, and whispers, "We're going home; we're going home to Bay," over and over, as if he has to justify the violence that happened back there to himself, to his daughter when she inevitably sees the tapes.
She's not sure what just happened, what will happen after this, but right now, in the forest, his voice, the words he promises, sounds something like salvation.
...
The boy from Twelve, Peeta, dies in a cave, alone and ignorant of his lover's death. It twists her insides up. Normally, she would not care at all, but since Bay, she suddenly can't stand to think of anyone's child scared and alone, and, though she knew it would come to this, he's still someone's son, and it still hurts her.
All that's left if Five and them, and she knows that the Capitol will have something else up their sleeves, and she's right, of course.
She's always fucking right.
...
She's dozing against his chest, lulled by the steady thrum of his heart beneath her head, when he jerks upright. She startles, looking up at him questioningly, but finding herself too tired to articulate a question.
For a moment, it's silent.
And then…snap.
A twig, somewhere in the woods.
Could have easily been a rabbit, she thinks.
Cato disagrees.
He scrambles to his feet, dragging her with him, and screams at her, "RUN!" And then, she sees it, a dark shadow in the wood that bursts forth at them, and then she runs.
...
Cato.
Cato Cato Cato.
He's right there and then he's not.
He drops back, drawing his sword and facing their pursuers. She freezes for a minute, turning and screaming for him to come with her, to stop being a goddamn fool and to fucking run. He sends a look over his shoulder at her, and the look in his eyes– oh, sweet jesus, he's grieving already, grieving what he knows he's about to give up, and oh hell no, she's not leaving him, not now.
She starts towards him, but he yells at her, "Bay needs you! She needs you!"
They've been trying to keep Bay's name out of it, out of the spotlight, off of camera, but she doesn't give a damn anymore.
He looks away and continues fighting, and she, shocked and resigned and goddamn maternal, begins to run. Her only goal is to live through this hell, to go back the way she came.
She makes it to the clearing, makes it to the Cornucopia just as the beasts break through the trees, blood on their breath and gore trapped between their teeth, and it's Cato, she knows, reduced to a few shreds of flesh. She scrambles up, eyes wide, turning on the spot to survey her surroundings, searching for threats.
How fast she can switch off her emotions, she marvels, how easily she can tamp down the utter grief that is threatening to swallow her whole.
Five appears out of nowhere, from somewhere deep within the forest. She must see her atop the Cornucopia, must see the feral look in her eyes, the look that one can only acquire by losing something dear to them, something they love, because Five stops, staring at her, fear etched into her face.
The beasts destroy her in a matter of seconds, her moment of contemplation becoming her downfall.
The lights come up in the clearing as the beasts retreat to the woods.
...
"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the winner of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games!"
...
Bay hasn't let go of her for the past hour, ever since the train pulled into the station and she stepped off it, hands immediately reaching for her sole reason for survival, Cato's mother handing the infant over bitterly.
Tomorrow, they'll move in to their home in Victor's Village, but tonight, oh but tonight they'll sit on the couch in front of the fire, mother and child alone in the world now, and she'll mourn for herself, and for her daughter, for the father she'll never get to know, for the husband he would have been because he would have been.
She's not one for wishing and hoping, but god does she hope that he knew how much she loved him.
Bay tangles her little hand in her mother's hair, and chews happily on it, and she doesn't mind that much because this is the only reason she's still alive.
She thinks that, if not for Bay, if not for the little person they created, drunk off their own perceived power and immortality, she would have lain down next to him and let the beasts come.
...
There's something to be said for genetics. Bay looks just like her, and Clove can't decide if that's a blessing or curse, but she's damn sure that she's thankful that she doesn't have to look at her daughter and see a dead man.
...
President Snow shows up to their house out of the blue, one day, and Clove finds out from Bay scurrying in from the yard, shrieking that a helicraft had landed in the clearing that separated the Victor's Village from the rest of District Two.
She had been making dinner, a routine that she enjoyed and despised and clung to as part of a schedule that kept her sane. She supposes that that'll have to wait for a bit.
She sends Bay to her room, telling her to stay up there no matter what because she'll be damned if that man gets his hands on her daughter.
Bay does as she's told, sending a worried look over her shoulder at her mother, her too-young mother, and when Clove hears the door close upstairs, she washes her hands and dries them slowly, waiting for a knock on the door.
It's no secret that the Capitol despises her, for rejecting their offer of comfort and luxury in exchange for selling her body on the grounds of not wanting to leave her child an orphan. They gave her a reprieve then, and now they're coming to collect on her debt. She's been expecting this.
When someone knocks on the door– probably a bodyguard– she collects herself and answers it.
Snow looks old, standing there in her doorway, flanked by two armed Peacekeepers, old and tired. He still smells of blood and roses and death, she can smell the stench from where she's standing, a good ten feet away from him.
He smiles at her, and it almost seems genuine, if not for the apathy apparent in his eyes. "President Snow," she exclaims, feigning surprise, "what an honor!"
He smiles coldly, his eyes blank and face expressionless, and he doesn't ask for an invitation in, because it's practically a given that when the president of Panem arrives at your door, you fucking let him in, so she steps back and he enters, and the guards stay outside and he mind is in a million different places and she starts thinking of reasons why he would want to speak to her alone, and none of them are good so she stops trying to explain his presence to herself and waits on him to say something.
He pivots slowly, his eyes sweeping the room, searching for something, and it hits her that he's looking for Bay and on instinct she shifts towards the stairs, intent on putting something between this man and her daughter, and finally Snow says in a measured tone, "District Twelve is in revolt. District Eleven is soon to follow."
She's not sure why she hadn't expected this.
A community will only lose so many children before they snap, and, since her Games, they've been consistently killed first and brutally, none much older than fourteen. But she's not sure how this relates to her.
Snow seems to read that on her face and says, "There were small squirmishes during your Games. Some small-scale rebellions in Eleven and Eight. That girl you killed– Arietta Aster, she was well-loved in her district. None were pleased with her death. They were threatening to stop working; a strike they called it. They wanted to stop the Hunger Games. It was even worse in Twelve, at the end. Burned half the district to the ground."
This seems like sensitive information, and Clove isn't sure why he's sharing this with her, other than for a guilt trip, and fuck if it doesn't get the job done because she's suddenly feeling so heavy with grief and guilt and pain and is she really the reason for all of this?
Snow continues, ignorant or perhaps just choosing to ignore her inner turmoil, "They want me to step down. To stop the Games. They want peace."
He laughs derisively, and much as she wants to say she wants that too, she bites her tongue and thinks of her daughter, upstairs and probably worried sick.
"Peace is something hard won by soldiers and death. The Hunger Games reminds them of this, and they no longer want that reminder. Don't they understand I'm simply trying to help them? Do you understand that?"
He turns to stare at her, his blue eyes cloudy and she is struck by how old this man is, this beast of a man, his beard and hair teased to look like a mane of a lion. How silly he looked, an old man impersonating a lion in the height of his glory.
She nods nonetheless.
She does understand it.
She was part of this 'reminder'.
She was bathed in the blood of this reminder.
She understands it; it doesn't mean she likes it.
She hears the floorboard creak above her head, hears Bay's little feet crossing the floor of her bedroom.
She looks back at President Snow and asks, "What can I do?"
...
He asks her to speak to them, to film a propaganda commercial to air on televisions everywhere.
He wants Bay to be in it, to soften the revolutionaries hearts, to give them a reason to stop fighting, a child in a land where children are no longer safe.
She doesn't think it will work the way he wants it too, but keeps quiet and agrees, hoping to paint them as victims of the Capitol too, which, quite frankly, they are. A lot of people may not view them as such, with their mansion and their surplus of food, but she lost her lover and Bay lost her father and they've lost so much to this regime that she hopes others may recognize a little bit of themselves in her and her daughter.
So the Capitol filmmakers have her pose, sitting in a chair with Bay on her lap, and in all actuality, Bay is getting a little too big for this, at least for her, and it hurts her a little to realize that she won't be able to hold her daughter like this forever, and it hurts even more that if Cato were here, he'd be able to hold her no problem, and give her piggyback rides and protect her better than she ever can, and she has to bite back tears and fuck, when did she turn into such an emotional wreck?
She thinks it was sometime around the time Bay stopped calling her Momma and Mommy and started calling her Mom.
Bay stays still, her hands wrapped in her mother's, and Clove says what they tell her to say, coming off sounding canned and rehearsed, but it's the best she can muster, and they can edit it to hell and back but she'll still sound tired and terrified and scarred and that's all that they'll be getting from her, thank you very much.
...
Twelve revolts completely.
The Capitol bombs them, and what few were chosen to live are transplanted to other districts. It seems that fate's cruel hand brings Primrose Everdeen to District Two.
She works in the bakery that bakes Bay's favorite bread, and it becomes unavoidable to run into her because she tries to adjust to life in Two quickly and that means that Clove sees her at district meetings and volunteering at the school and the hospital.
People in Two are hardened, but there are a few older women that take the young girl in.
At eighteen, she's still very young and very naïve and while no one else wanted to take on the responsibility of keeping an eye on her, they still breathe a sigh of relief that someone is caring for her.
Mrs. Everdeen, Clove supposes, died in the bombing.
Life carries on, but whenever she sees that blonde head in the crowd, her heart drops and she feels more than a little sick.
...
Eleven revolts next.
Homes are set aflame with its inhabitants locked inside, screaming to get out. She only knows because Snow keeps her updated, because he thinks she should know.
Bay turns seven.
Primrose Everdeen falls in love with the bakery boy, a chilling recall to days past.
Clove finds ways to go on.
...
It's quiet for years. Twelve no longer exists, and those that survived the rebellions don't speak of the way their lives were before. She doesn't tell Bay anything about this, about her Games, about what very well may turn into a fledgling war, but she thinks she hears of it through friends and gossip around the town.
Bay turns twelve. She doesn't get Reaped.
It's one of the happiest days of Clove's life.
...
On Bay's third Reaping, when she's fifteen, Clove dresses her in blue silk, with a neckline that isn't prudish but is a hell of a lot more modest than what she wore on her Reaping day. She does her hair like she always does, plaiting it and wrapping it down over her left shoulder, and she lets her wear a little bit of makeup, a luxury that most women in District Two don't indulge in, but she always has liked spoiling Bay, just a little bit, to compensate.
At fifteen, her daughter is beautiful and graceful and sweet and everything she could never have been at that age, and she'll make damn sure she stays that way, and she grips her hand as they walk to the town center, and Bay's grip is equally as strong, and sometimes it's nice to be reminded that her daughter still needs her.
And oh, how she wishes she could hold her when the name is called.
"Bay Asphodel," the escort trills, her voice dripping in a practiced Capitol accent.
A hush settles on the crowd, and no one steps forward to volunteer; not one Career to take her place.
She catches Bay's eyes, and sees such pure and unadulterated fear in those familiar brown orbs that her heart cracks and shatters and no amount of white liquor can fix her now, now that the only thing that's kept her alive is sentenced to death.
Bay walks slowly, lifting her feet primly and refusing to drag them, to hang her head, to make it seem that she's accepted her sentence.
To all of Panem, she is a girl with a ferocious will to live.
To her mother, she is a walking corpse.
...
Because little girls like her, with their salvation laughs and dreams of love, do not fare well in the land of the damned.
...
Clove is, thankfully, not a mentor.
The Capitol has the compassion to not present her a futile attempt to save her child.
Enobaria is one, though, as is Lyme, and she threatens Enobaria with bodily harm to keep her child alive, and she must see something more than a little deranged in her eyes because she nods and offers her a shaky smile, her teeth shining in the dim light of the alleyway.
She goes to the Justice Building, and is directed to a room where she waits.
When Bay walks in, she's shaking and her eyes are swollen and it's obvious she's been crying, and she's trying so hard to be strong, and Clove knows that it's on her behalf, and she just sort of gathers her daughter into her arms and holds her close and lets her break.
She keeps getting these flashes from her Games, of holding Bay and of her tears and of trying to keep it together to not scare her daughter anymore and is this what death feels like?
...
Bay's throat is slit in the dark of the first night by a boy from Eight, whose name she memorizes because irony is a bitch.
Forte Aster Forte Aster Forte Aster.
...
She jumps off the roof of the Justice Building.
Just to rub it in Snow's face.
...
The Capitol falls, because the little girl the people wanted to live died, and Snow's blood is painted on the streets of his city.
...
Primrose Everdeen marries the bakery boy she fell in love with all those years ago and all of Two shows up for the ceremony.
...
And somewhere, far away, Clove Asphodel wakes up to sunshine and chirping birds and walks to a house.
Two figures are there, seemingly waiting for someone and as she draws closer, the sun warm on her face and wind curling through her hair, she sees something beautiful.
Cato sits next to his daughter, who looks remarkably untainted by blood, holding her hand and talking to her, his face happy and his body whole and they both look up at the same time and Clove's heart stutters to a stop because she's never quite realized it before, but Bay smiles just like her father.
fin
so, nobody kill me, okay? i know it's been way too long since i've done this. sorry! i don't really have an excuse, outside of being so depressed that i literally could not bring myself to write, and what little i did manage was all crap anyway. butbutbutBUT i'm back with a vengence, and i plan on wrapping this up at twenty installments, so it's not long now! i think you'll like what i have up my sleeve for the grand finale... also, i've made a tumblr, where i blog about feels and crey a lot. i like making friends, so message me! my tumblr is fat beotch in a skinny world (with no spaces). um, so i believe that's all! oh, and if you happen to be following any of my other stories, never fear! i'll be updating within the week!
review?