#againn

This was what Clove was made for. She knows it in the exact moment she feels her knife sink into flesh for the first time, with a startling lack of resistance that was both satisfying and exhilarating. Sure, they practiced on the carcasses of animals, to learn the way skin swallows a knife in a way that a firm practice dummy would never. She memorized it at fourteen, when they placed a half of a pig in front of her for the first time. The way a blade penetrates skin, the gelatinous texture of subcutaneous fat, the sound of fascia ripping from muscle, the splitting of muscles against the grain, the feeling of metal on bone. Clove reveled in it then, and now, as hot, sticky blood shoots from a severed artery and right onto her face, she throws her head back in an open mouthed laugh as warmth coats her face.

She pulls the knife backwards, and pushes the bleeding boy backwards onto the snow, leaving him to make those disgusting yet enticing gurgling sounds as the blood suffocates him.

For just a second, Clove watches the way the blood stains the snow around the fallen boy, spreading like watercolor on a canvas. It is more beautiful than she could have imagined.

Next is one of the girls from 11 or 12, she isn't sure which, but she easily hits the dead center of her chest. If the pulsing squirts of blood are any indicator, she cut right through the vessel behind her heart, letting her bleed to death in seconds.

She got the boy from 11, a quick slice from ear to ear that leaves him bleeding out like livestock.

With knives locked between her second and third and also her fourth and fifth digit, she takes out two kids at once when she releases the blades with a single flick of her wrist.

Clove couldn’t really tell you where her allies were, or who killed who. The boy from six, maybe, she isn't really sure and doesn't care, came up behind  her when her back was turned. She was focused on retrieving one of her knives, but she could sense the intrusion in her space. It takes less than a minute to run her leg under the boy’s knees, knocking him flat on his back in a bed of plush snow. She stabs the tip of the knife right at the base of his sternum, and then gives a long, slow drag down the entirety of his abdomen, viscera and blood spilling out through the sliced fabric and flesh.

At some point the blood behind her eyes stops pulsing, and she takes in her surroundings. The snow is stained crimson, truly giving the illusion of a bloodbath. Bodies litter the ground, and deep footprints head towards the barren trees, leading right to where the rest of her competition would be. Absently she notes the girl from one dead with something lodged in the back of her skull protruding from her left eye. Pity, to lose an ally so fast. One less body between her and home.

Clove is mentally taking stock of what they have in the cornucopia, the conical shape that really is barely more than a glorified igloo. She can practically hear Enobaria in her brain, screaming that she won in an extreme climate, to stay alive and nature would do the rest. True survival of the fittest, Enobaria would tell her.

When Clove finally looks up, the realization that it is snowing hits her at the same time that the flakes begin to cleanse the blood from her skin.

-

It would be a lie if Cato said that the feelings in his chest during this game were any better than during his own. At the very least, in his own he was able to make the calls. Where to stake out, what supplies to use when.  Actually, the longer he thinks about it he never felt like this during his own games. There was nothing but pure, unfiltered confidence when he was in the arena. Maybe it was adrenaline. Maybe it was rage. Maybe it was the way he blacked out for a week and saw nothing but red around him, felt nothing but fire in his chest and pride in the depth of his soul. Of course he was going to win, that had never been a doubt.

There had never been a doubt she was going to win, either, so why did he have this nagging tightness in his throat whenever the camera panned away from her for too long?

It’s morning in the Capitol, and for now the games are following the same cycle of day and night as the rest of the country.  The first day passed and the tribute count was already cut sharply in half.

The initial bloodbath had been a strong start for the careers, save for the girl from District One who literally slipped on a frozen patch of ground and ended up with an ice pick in her eye. What an embarrassment for a career, something he would definitely be mentioning to Marvel and Glimmer, the current reigning mentors of one, when he saw them tonight.

Overnight the temperature had dropped, and instead of taking the usual approach of hunting out the tributes stupid enough to light a fire, Clove had pushed to stay put inside the cornucopia they had claimed for themselves.That fight very well may have kept her alive, as when the sun went down in the arena the weather shifted rapidly. At least three kids froze out overnight, taking the grand total from the first twenty four hours to thirteen dead. Ten to go.

A whole six of those thirteen had been hers. Not that he counted or anything.

He’s laying on the couch as the emblem of the games appears again. He grabs the white fleece blanket off of the back of the couch, crumbling it into a ball  before settling it under his head like a pillow. The cornucopia appears on screen the exact moment he feels a sharp tug on the top of his ear that pulls him completely up and off of the couch.

“Ow! What the FUCK-”  Cato smacks the hand away only to have that same dexterous hand wrap around his wrist and sharp, filed nails dig into the flesh below his hand.

“What are you doing?” It’s Enobaria, practically hissing as she squeezes the hand on his wrist like a python around its prey. “Isn’t the whole point of you being here to help get her home?”

“Help? What am I supposed to do? I can’t climb into the fucking arena, Enobaria. Aren’t our hands kind of tied right now?” Cato tugs his hand out of her grasp, and rubs at the back of his neck to distract from the fact that yeah, he absolutely wishes he could waltz right in there and pull her out.

“You want to bring our girl home? Here's what you’re going to do.” Enobaria leans back to get a look at him, decide what she’s working with. Maybe that attitude of his would have to work for them.

Cato leans forward, elbows on his knees while he digs the heels of his hand in his eyes to wake himself up. Enobaria gets an eyeful of the broad expanse of his back that is covered in fine scratches in various stages of healing.

Amazing, Clove.

“First, you’re going to get dressed. You’re what they all want to see. Give them intimidating, give them brutal, bloody Cato. You’re going to go down there, and you’re going to show them the boy they rooted for last year. You’re going to give them cocky smiles, remind them you were the best.”  She waves her hand, emphasizing the need to flourish his story. Show off, she says without needing to even use the words.

“Recap your best kills, how it felt the moment you felt warm blood on your hands the first time. Remind them of who you are. And then? You are going to do nothing but talk about how she is even better than you.” Enobaria doesn’t give him a moment to refute it, and there's a dark look in her eyes that tells him the fight would be moot anyway. This isn’t the time for coy comments or debate. It’s literally a matter of life and death for the girl they both care for more than they’d currently admit. “You had the look that she doesn’t. You were a big, scary boy from District Two. You were their golden boy, their ideal victor. Remind them of her scores. Of her training. She is a force, despite the fact she is the smallest one out there.”

She grabs him by the chin and sharply jerks his face to look at her. “I won in an extreme arena, Cato. The weather is going to take out most of the field. Three of my competitors died of dehydration, and another three from heat stroke. She is small. That weather is officially her biggest competition in there. She needs to stay warm. She needs to stay fed. We keep her warm and we keep her alive.” Enobaria waits until he gives her the slightest nod in understanding, before she drops her hand from his face.

“And put on a fucking shirt, I don’t want to see this shit,” She waves a hand in a circular gesture towards the angry red flares on his shoulder. Risking her ire, Cato smirks anyway.

Cato rises from the couch, and intentionally raises his arms over his head in a long, drawn out stretch that emphasizes the musculature of his back. “I don’t think that will be too hard. There's no one better than me and her…never will be, either.”

He can brag about them, all that's been said for years is how great they are. The best in their

classes, the best in their entire district. That’s who they have always been. When all is said and done by the end of the week, they’ll be the best duo in the eyes of the entire world, too.  

He’s shuffling down the hall, mind already wandering to the way the world would see them hand in hand as victors within the week, the way that side by side they’d be enough to strike fear into people for the rest of their lives.

“Cato?”  Enobaria calls out, leaning back on the couch, now covered in the white blanket he had been manipulating.  “Don’t come back without money in your hands.”

-

There is a whole other world on this side of the games, Cato learns fast. Victors from the last fifteen years weave through crowds of the Capitol’s richest, dressed in what is surely the finest outfits in the country. There is a lot of skin showing and even more loud fake laughs that filter through the air. Various degrees of desperation, or maybe manipulation, to secure sponsorships for their tributes.  The method didn’t really matter, he supposed, when the end goal was the same.

“Oh I remember you!” Comes a high, feminine voice that comes only seconds before Cato has long, manicured fingers on his shoulders. The feather light fingers twists him around to face a tall, notorious blonde girl.

The recognition is almost immediate, when he sees the blonde curls framing her face, the whitest smile he’s ever seen, and eyes that were green in the opposite way of Clove’s. More like spring grass than evergreen trees.

Cato always preferred winter to spring.

There is a man behind her, that he also recognizes. The same height as him, yet a stark contrast in appearance. Dark hair to blonde, brown eyes to blue. The two of them probably would have had it out had they been in the same games after their time as allies came to an end. Yeah, Cato and Marvel would be a respectable fight.

“I’m Glimmer!” She gives a little wave of her fingers, an inviting grin on her face. Glimmer then  gestures to the man, who hovered just slightly beside and behind her, as if he were more loyal than her shadow. “This is Marvel. District one, but you know that already!”

Glimmer, the name is as familiar as the face. She had won the 68th games with a combination of charm and a ferocity that was so easily hidden beneath a shimmering smile. It was admirable, if not typical, for a District One Career. Her sister had won the same way, and her brother, the year before that. The three of them had been the longest line of related victors, and were three of the four victor from one within seven games.

There was always something to be said about the differences in the way one and two presented their best trained tributes. One with unmatched beauty and the other with unmatched brutality.

Marvel had won the 69th games, a joke Cato soon finds is a favorite of his to bring up. He had a charisma and a knack for making people laugh on his side, something that evidently still had sponsors lining up in his favor.

“You won last year, yeah? I remember the end, with the sword and the eyes, man that was awesome.” Marvel grabs a champagne glass and a mini sandwich from the tray that goes by, momentarily distracted from the introductions. “We wanted to find you earlier, but you were talking it up with the sponsors. Usually people don’t go that hard when it’s early enough in the games that the supplies are still stocked up. You can usually wait for a few days…you know, see if yours are even going to live long enough to need extra” He pops the mini sandwich in his mouth, and with a pleasantly surprised raise of his eyebrows he chases down the tray for another.

Glimmer’s got a look of what Cato can only describe as amused affection in her eyes as she watched Marvel chase down the snack. Interesting. For a girl who is known to have the entire capitol in her hand…she sure does have a spot in her heart for that goofy kid from her district.

“So,” Glimmer redirects, raising her eyebrows in a knowing smirk. “I hear two’s got another promising one?” She takes a long sip from the champagne flute in her hand, but there's a mischievousness in her eyes that does not falter. She had noted just the slight shift in his body language, how his shoulders tensed when Marvel suggested his tributes may not even survive to need sponsors.

“She’s the best girl we’ve had since Enobaria. I’ve never seen her miss.” The proud smile is one he’s worn all morning, and it makes its way back to his face the second he gets to share more about the girl.  “And she was my training partner, I would know.”

“Hmm. Funny. I never specified it was the girl.” Glimmer flashes a grin and he knows she knows can tell something, that her perception of the change in how he held his shoulders when mentioning her was absolutely correct.  She didn’t get this far by not knowing how to read a man. “I already knew she was a favorite, she killed it in the blood bath. I just wanted to hear it from you.” Glimmer shoots him a playful wink, and his secret is all but exposed to her now if the way his jaw clenches is any indication.

“Clove? That's her name? Cute. Cato and Clove.” It rolls off her tongue and Cato has never considered quite how much he likes to hear those words strung together until he hears them said by someone else. “Well, If it’s not our boy winning then I hope it’s her. God knows our girl is already tapped out.”

“An ice pick, that was graceful.” Cato scoffs, drawing the attention away from Clove and hopefully away from the warmth that was creeping up his neck from the Glimmer’s knowing looks.

“Even if she survived, she was done for. Nice girl, but nothing without her pretty face.” Glimmer sees Marvel and her siblings waving her over to some previously loyal district one sponsors. “I hope we get to meet her. Clove. I think the four of us could be great friends.”

–

Clove isn’t sure how much time has passed. The days go slower in the arena. Or, maybe they’re faster, she can’t really tell anymore.  

She’s on her own now. The boys from one and her own district have taken each other out in what she can only describe as a cockfight. Hell, they hadn’t even finished the job on each other. Her district partner landed a fatal blow to one, only to succumb to hypothermia and hypovolemia himself before morning. That always did wonders for interdistrict relations when the allies turned on each other this early in the game.

If her count is right they were down to three or four. Her, that giant kid from eight, and maybe a girl or two from some mid level district. She isn’t sure.

Clove isn’t sure of much right now, except for the fact that she’s fucking cold. They’ve sent her in a couple blankets, some one-time-use hand warmers. She can feel Enobaria screaming at the screen, telling her to hurry it up and end it already. While she flips a knife through her fingers, she can’t think too long about the fact that the metal is almost imperceptible in her numb hands. She cannot afford to think about what that will do to her accuracy and precision.

She leans her head against the icy cornucopia, and considers closing her eyes for just a few seconds. Clove wants these games to be over as much as anyone. She wants to warm her fingers in front of the fireplace, take a bath in water that scalds her skin, and curl up under a down comforter that traps the body heat of her and the man who will be next to her inside of it.

As much as sleep calls her, there's part of her that fears she will not open her eyes again if she allows them to shut.

Light beeping draws her green eyes upwards towards the sky, squinting as heavy snowflakes block her view.

For fucks sake, can they cut this blizzard shit out yet?

The little pod lands in her hand, and her fingers are a little clumsy to open the freezing metal. It could be more hand warmers, or maybe extra gloves, based on the size.

When she opens it though, she can’t even be annoyed when it isn’t one of those things. Clove actually smiles when the marshmallow cereal bar lands in the palm of her left hand.

For a minute Clove lets herself think back to when they began this little tradition.  He was thirteen and already a head taller than her. She was 12- turning 13 that day, mind you-  with all the anger of someone thrice her age. Until that point they’d barely been able to tolerate each other beyond the training room floor. It’s what had made them such strong competitors.

“Everyone has a cake they like. You seem like a chocolate girl.”

“Why do you care? Go home, Cato.”

“Come on, it’s your birthday. Maybe you’ll actually have a shot at winning against me this year.”

“Will you just shut up? Birthdays only matter when you’re twelve and nineteen.”For them at least. What else did it matter except your first and final chances at the games?

“Vanilla then?” He’s had that same teasing, taunting smile since they were kids.

Clove nearly tossed the knife she smuggled out of the center, warning to wipe that infuriating grin off of his face. “I don’t like cake at all.”

He paused to look at her, really look at her, with narrowed blue eyes and a little tilt of his head. Maybe he hit another nerve of hers, he’s pretty good at finding them. “What do you like then? Come on, we’re partners. We should know something about each other.” Cato blocks the door out of the training room, and not even her tiny body could slide past him. “I'm not moving until you tell me.”

She gave him a solid shove in the center of his chest, and he did not falter. Clove groaned, and rolled her eyes as she shoved her backpack over one shoulder. “Those little bars. With the marshmallows and the cereal. My mom used to make them, I guess. I always liked them more than cake.”

Cato actually smiles–not smirks, smiles– at her. “That wasn’t so hard now was it. I like white cake myself. Chocolate icing.” He steps aside to let her pass. “Happy Birthday, Clover.”

And as much as she hates that stupid, mocking nickname, she doesn’t have it in her to snap back.

Clove runs her thumb over the plastic packaging, and when she goes to rip into it the wrapping with her teeth, the little white note falls into her lap.

Happy Birthday. Finish this already. -C

-

The end of the games is not spent in the district’s apartment, Cato learns that very last night. Once the game makers decide it’s time to end, the past Victors gather in a central headquarters on the ground floor of the tribute center. It’s the party of the year, according to Brutus.

There’s an endless bar in one corner, where the singular victor from twelve practically resides. Enobaria is conversing lightly with him, before slipping back towards Cato and Brutus with a handful of variously colored drinks.

She hands Brutus the short glass with a tawny toned liquid draped over a round ice cube. In her hand she maintains the slightly pink tinted beverage, with berries of some sort floating to the top. To Cato she hands the only colorless liquid, and as soon as it gets close enough to his hands he can smell it’s far stronger than water.

“You’re going to need it.” Enobaria warns. “It’s always brutal in the end.”

Cato nods, and continues to survey the community of victors he has yet to fully assimilate into. The games may not have formally ended but Enobaria and Brutus are on the receiving end of many congratulatory remarks.

“I like that one.” Johanna Mason, the District Seven winner from 71 says quickly, nodding towards his girl who’s pale freckled face filled the screen. “There’s something in those eyes. Something not right, but it makes her a hell of a fighter, whatever it is.”

Finnick Odair, the star of the capitol ever since the 65th games, congratulates Enobaria directly. “You’ve outdone yourself with this one. I’d know she was yours from a mile away. She’s got that same…aggression, we’ll say.”

“How do you feel!? Oh I am just so excited to meet her!” Glimmer whispers excitedly, settling herself to sit on the back of the couch next to his head, her legs and feet dangling by his right side. “She’s going to make the best addition, don’t you think Marvel?” She leans back, and while the couch would not support her, Marvel did. Cato would have noticed the way he had held the girl up by her waist if it were not for more pressing matters at hand.

Cato tries to tune out the Victors babbling around him. He leans back into the couch with his knees spread just a little, twisting the drink in his left hand to hear the ice swirl against the glass. Enobaria joins him on the left, with Brutus next to her. Together the three of them- as well as Glimmer and Marvel– actually focus their attention to the end of the games.

As Clove’s only remaining competitor enters the field across from her he is thankful for Enobaria’s preparation. Yeah. He was going to fucking need this drink. With that he finishes in one long drink, the burning in his throat nothing compared to the tightness in his chest.

She’s got the advantage, or so everyone thinks. Clove’s got the benefit of distance, lucky for her considering this man is nearly as big as Cato.

When Cato notices the way her fingers struggle around the handle of the knife, he feels his breathing hitch and his heart stop.

She aims. She throws.

She misses.

She misses the boy’s head by inches, more than Clove has ever missed a target by.

“No..” Enobaria gasps, and for the first time since the games began her face falls. “Oh no no no…”

“What, what are you no-ing?” Cato snaps, his relaxed posture immediately tensing up as he leans forward, desperate to get a clearer view, as if leaning in allows him to peer into the arena.

“It’s too cold. Her hands are too cold.” Enobaria growls, finishing her drink in a quick jerk of her head before the glass is shattered against the wall holding the screen. “She doesn’t have the control she should.”

The thrown glass shattering silences the entire room.

Cato knows all eyes are on him when he folds forward, head in his hands. He tugs sharply at the root of his hair, in a desperate attempt to control the utter rage he felt bubbling to the surface. He can’t watch this, and yet he doesn’t want to look away. He will not abandon her.

It’s the gasp from Glimmer that has his head snapping back up, but oh he wishes he hadn’t.

The boy from eight has her by the throat, body slammed against the cornucopia. She’s two feet off the ground, and the strangled sound that comes from her is the worst thing he has ever heard in his entire life. He knows then, that he’ll kill this kid if she doesn’t.

“I can’t watch this..” Comes from Glimmer, who’s turned to look in any direction but straight ahead.

Enobaria, Brutus, and Cato however, cannot tear themselves away.

“Cato-” Brutus begins, and he knows his own mentor is about to brace him for the worst thing that will ever happen to him.

“Shut up. She knows what to do. I’ve had her like that, ” If his voice falters his face does not. He’s not going to betray her by doubting her now.

The room is deathly silent, and Cato feels his blood run as cold as the arena itself. He isn’t sure when he pushed himself to a standing position, or when he took three or four steps forward.

“Come on, baby.” He whispers for himself and himself alone, wishing for all the world he had gone harder on her in training. “Foot to his chest,” She’d worked herself out of it a million times before, albeit not with the air in her lung being choked out of her.  

When Clove places the heel of her foot on the boy’s solar plexus, and shoves him back with all the force in her leg, he has no choice but to stumble onto his back with a groan. She falls multiple feet back to the ground, but she doesn’t stop to catch her breath or address the bleeding that is coming from some unnoticed wound to her abdomen. Clove regrips the knife in her hand, and with everything left in her, she manages to get her knee on his throat.

Noone says it, but everyone knows that it was the years of training against Cato himself that probably just saved her life.

Clove could choke him with her body weight driven into her knee. She could take him out in the way he wanted to her.

That isn’t Clove.

The crazed look, the very same one from the moment the canon announced the start of the games, fills those fiery green eyes. She grabs the boy by his hair, tilting his head to the sky. Into the center of his forehead she carves a script C, identical to the one dangling from her neck.

There is no more fanfare when she plunges the blade between his eyes with all the strength in her body.

The canon booms.

Clove stands. Blood from both herself and her opponent covers her skin. She makes it half a step back before she falls to her own knees.

The scarlet liquid makes her green eyes all the brighter.

Her freckles shine through the sheen on her face.

When she falls back, her dark hair surrounds her head as a sharp angelic contrast to the paleness of the snow and of her skin. Clove is smiling, bright and brilliant, as the perfect snow under her body bleeds red with her.  She’s won, she’s won. She’s won.

The announcement finally comes and she lets herself laugh. There is no stopping them now.

Ladies and Gentlemen may I present to you the winner of the 73rd annual Hunger Games.

The announcement fills the otherwise quiet room of victors.

Cato is first to break the silence.

He slams his hand together in a single clap, and now he is the one who cannot wipe that big, proud smile off his face.

“That’s my girl!” He all but screams, the reality of it all actually hitting him as if he were the one slammed against the cornucopia. Cato pauses, catching the breath he did not know he was holding. His heart races but in a way completely different than only moments before when he felt his life slipping from his hands as hers slipped from her eyes. “...that's my girl.” Cato repeats, much quieter, and his smile is unnervingly genuine.

The world can know, for all he cares. In fact, let them.

“That's our girl.” Enobaria agrees, a voice other than his finally chiming in. She rises next, and while she notes the knowing smirks from Glimmer, Marvel, Finnick, and Johanna, she doesn’t address them. The shocked look from Haymtich Abernathy is accompanied by a half-raised glass in Enobaria’s direction.

She can deal with the rumors later. (Were they really rumors anymore, Enobaria wasn’t sure).

Cato wastes no time for congratulations, or from commentary from the other victors he was sure would be coming his way if the smile on Glimmer’s face were anything to say about it.

He does not even wait for Enobaria and Brutus before he is out of the room, and half running down the hall, not wasting another moment of his life without her.

-

Enobaria tries to make him sleep in the hours between the resolution of the games and her clearance by Capitol medical staff.

“You better shower. And take a nap. After that little declaration of yours, you’ll be lucky if they don't drag you out during her interview for a very public reunion. She’ll love that, knowing you went and blabbed to all of her new co-victors.”

He obliges, not because of the threat of public eyes on them, but because he’d rather not look like hell when he sees her again. When he gets out of the shower there is a pressed suit waiting for him, the shirt underneath a deep shade of burgundy.

He’s unable to wait, and only interested in occupying his mind, so he dresses before climbing into bed fully clothed and ready to go.

He manages to sleep for about twenty minutes on account of the excitement buzzing in his veins that would not be quelled until his arms were around her. He’s staring at the ceiling, a whole new version of their future unlocked now that they are done with the games, when there is a knock on the door that has him flying out of bed.

They were victors now. They could move forward with the rest of their lives.

Enobaria and Brutus are with him, when they’re escorted through an underground tunnel to wherever she was held.

“We’re going under the stage. They’re going to interview and crown her after.” Enobaria explains once she recognizes the fluorescent lit tunnel they’re entering. She must recognize something in the surroundings, because she flashes those teeth at him in a terrifying smile. “You ready, loverboy?”

The car stops almost immediately, and he nearly pushes past the guards to get out. Brutus is chuckling at his eagerness, and Enobaria is only a few steps behind the frantic man.

There is nothing else in the world that matters the moment he sees her again.

She’s in a deep red dress that he can almost identify as the same color as the shirt that was laid out for him. It’s a tight velvet from a few inches below her collarbones until the top of her hips, where it transitions to thick layers of blood red gossamer fabric that falls to the middle of her calves. The sleeves are only a finger length past her shoulders, and are puffed up and girlish. Tall heels raise her just slightly closer to his height, but do not distract from the overall femininity of the look. She looks young, but as if she has been dipped in the blood of her competitors. Pale skin, dark hair, and green eyes are highlighted by the crimson shade.

Red is her color.

She doesn’t process that she’s moving towards him until they meet halfway across the room. Any disregard for years of their facade are out the window the minute his hands wrap her waist.

Cato lifts her effortlessly and Clove’s legs wrap around his hips just as naturally.  One of her hands is in his hair while the other cradles the angle of his chin, leaning until their foreheads are pressed tightly to each other.

He holds her up with one arm around her waist, the other holding her face like she is the most priceless thing in the world.

“We did it, baby.” Cato whispers, for her and only her, before years and years of their carefully crafted resolve shatters. “God, I fucking love you.”

She kisses him like she wants to consume him, like he is the first breath of fresh air she has ever felt inside her lungs. He kisses her as if she is fire and he is ready to be burned to ash.  Clove nips at his lower lip, claiming and possessive, and his hand around her hips tightens enough that she knows he will never let her go again. They’re lost at sea in the arms of each other, brought back to shore by the sound of someone clearing their throat.

While they pull apart, their foreheads still rest against each other, stupid, childish smiles plastered across each of their faces. They could go back to coy smiles and smirks when it was time to go back on stage.

For now, they soaked in the pure bliss of simply being together.

Enobaria comes forward and clears her throat again. She tries to look disapproving, but instead there's a little smile that comes through and breaks any mask she tries to wear.

Clove reluctantly drops her legs, though her arms stay looped around his neck. Cato’s hands rest on her waist, and she leans her cheek to his chest as Enobaria reaches up to take her hand and tug her away,

Her mentor pulls her into a hug of her own, crushing and tight in the arms of the woman who trained her. “I am so, so proud of you.” Enobaria promises, and lowering her voice she whispers further, “Your mom would be, too.” She smooths her hand over Clove’s soft curls, giving her a comfort she will never admit to needing. “I’ve never been prouder of anyone. You did it, Clove.”

Clove tightens her grip on her mentor, in a wordless understanding. She nods against her shoulder, squeezes her eyes tightly shut to ward off any emotions she may feel brewing underneath. “Thank you, Enobaria.”

Brutus is next, even going so far as to give her a crushing, albeit fast, hug himself. “Good job, Kid. You deserve it.”

Clove cannot stop smiling for once in her life. When Cato wraps his arms around her, pulling her back to press against his chest as he leans down to kiss her again, openly and unashamedly in front of their long time teachers and friends, she understands why.

She’s finally won.

–

“May I present to you, the victor of the 73rd Annual Hunger Games, Clove Kentwell!” Caesar Flickerman stands to welcome her, as Clove nearly floats across the stage. The smile on her face is the picture of pride, the picture of a flawless, perfect victor.

The cheers are deafening, as Caesar raises one of arms above her head to present her to the crowd.  

“I told you I would be back, didn’t I?” Clove reminds him slyly as she settles in the chair directly across from him, referencing back to her three minute interview a mere week ago.

The fans eat that up, and Caesar uses it as a moment to segway into her highlights of her games.

They recount her initial kills and her survival instinct not to leave into the night, which she openly attributes to Enobaria’s endless training.

He goes through each step of the final confrontation, and when his tone shifts Clove immediately knows what is coming.

From the way Enobaria bristles off stage, so does she.

“Now, I don’t know if you all know this.” Caesar addresses the audience. “But this is not the first Kentwell girl we’ve had on this stage. Does anyone here remember Sevina Kentwell? 58th games, ring a bell anyone?”

Clove's smile does not fall, and she gives a small nod as various reactions ripple through the audience. Most notably are the loud gasps and occasional confused murmurs, as Caesar holds up a finger to silence them.

“Plenty of victors have children. But you all are looking at the only known child of a tribute.” He gestures to her, and encourages a round of applause to distract from the notable confusion of the audience.

A video begins to play, and Clove whips her head to look behind her as she hears a voice she could never forget but at the same time does not remember. They are playing the interview of a girl who looks alarmingly like her, right down to the specific dark freckle under her left eyes.  Even her voice– Clove realizes she hears herself– is both foreign and like home.  

The girl on the screen has the same assured confidence as Clove, but a softness Clove herself lost a long time ago. Maybe she never even had it at all.  There's the same soft curls, eyes the same indescribable shade of green.

She does not talk about her skills with a knife, or about the victor she is bound to be. Instead she talks about a little girl, a toddler with a nose that scrunches when she smiles, who likes her mother’s rice crispy treats as her favorite snack.

“I named her Clove, she’s my little lucky Clover. My token is actually a little clover on a necklace, right next to a C. She’ll be with me.”

“You sound like you love her very much.” A version of Caesar, 18 years younger yet looking exactly the same, prompts.

“I love her more than anything. I’m going to win for her.”

It hits Clove in that moment, in front of the entire world, that she didn’t remember her mother saying her name.

She cannot remember her saying that she loves her.

The next picture stops her heart, though it never once shows on her face. She maintains cool and collected, as a photo she has never seen before, of a girl smiling at a grinning toddler is flashed across the screen.

If Cato didn’t know any better, he would have sworn that it was  Clove in that picture, not as the child but as the teen holding her. Suddenly, he feels furious. They took her moment of Glory and turned it into a chance to exploit a relationship with a woman she never even got to know.

“I’m going to kill him.” Cato growls, taking a step forward, stopped by Enobaria’s hand on his shoulder.

“Stop. Look at her. She’s handling it perfectly. Not a tear in sight. She’s flawless.” Clove would likely not forgive him for walking out there anyway.

Now, Clove may never have seen the photo, or the interviews, but she is entirely prepared as they pull up the final moments of her mother’s life.

She had seen it millions of times. Her mothers death was her bedtime story from the time she was three until she moved into the academy to train. Her grandmother blamed her for the death of her mother, naturally. She claimed it was the love Sevina had for her daughter that made her weak. That the existence of Clove alone stole a valuable year of training away from her. Maybe it was true.

Clove watches, unblinking, unwavering, as her mother is slammed against the cornucopia, by a big boy from district eight. Once, twice, and Clove has never known if her mother’s neck snapped from the force or if she bled into her brain until she stopped breathing.

All she knows is that in that moment the boy from eight became a victor. Her mother died in the final two, despite being the absolute favorite to win. And Clove lost the only person who had loved her.

“What a full circle moment, right!” Caesar brought her out of her thoughts, out of her emotionless wall, as he brought the audience back to life. “Incredible! Tell me, did you think of your mother when you were in that final showdown, in that same position she was in?”

“Yes.” She answers honestly. Of course she had, she’d seen it enough times to know how terrible her mother had looked in those final seconds of her life. She won’t give him more, she won’t elaborate on the way she thought that maybe this would be the way she saw her mother again.

“We know your mother made it to the final two, and lost. A tragedy for such a young mother and her child back home.” He feigns sympathy, and Clove can literally hear the stifled sniffles and sobs from those in the audience. How dare they cry over her life when she doesn’t even do so. “Do you remember her?”

She could be honest. She could say no, the games took her mother and left her with the endless weight of proving her and her mother’s worth on her shoulders. No. She could not remember the way she smelled or how tall she was. Clove chooses not to give them any more than what she’s already lost, and deflects the question.

“My mother loved me.” Clove answers, and that much she is sure of. Enobaria reminded her constantly. Her existence alone is proof enough, in a world where she certainly did not have to actually have her in the first place. Even her grandmother, who resented Clove from the time her mother took her final breath, kept her because she was the baby that was so loved by Sevina Kentwell. “She loved me. She was not a victor herself but she made one. I don’t think I'd be sitting in front of you, had things gone differently.”

Sevina had been the only one to want her. Not her grandmother. Not her father, a boy a few years older than her mother who never even was good enough to volunteer.

She knew what happened once she died. Her mother was buried in a box in the tribute cemetery. No mention of the dark haired little girl she left behind on her grave marker.

She cried for her mother. For weeks, months, maybe. Noone came to comfort her. Noone told her she was worth it, without Sevina there to kiss her nose and hold her in the crook of her arm as she slept.

Her mother died and no one came to comfort her.

Eventually, Clove learned there was no use in tears. Noone was coming to help.

No, if her mother had come home a victor, Clove would not be sitting here a victor herself.

“Clove, do you remember where you were?”

“It was my third birthday. No, I don’t remember where I was.” There it was, the venom dripping into her voice now.

“They were bringing you on the train! You were on your way to be reunited with your mother on stage, when she so tragically died.” Caesar revealed, and if Enobaria hadn’t been holding Cato by the arm off stage he would have strangled Caesar Flickerman at that moment. “You are the only tribute to be on that train twice, isn’t that so crazy!”

Clove’s hand balls up in the fabric of her skirt, the only sign she is anything less than stoic and confident.

“Did you know that the dress you’re wearing is very special?”

It’s Enobaria who’s now being restrained by Brutus backstage, this final exploitative blow to this girl’s life too much to stay quiet and witness.

Caesar hushes the audience, waiting for complete silence.

“This was the dress that was designed and created for your mother to be wearing when she was crowned. Isn’t it so special to be honoring her in this way?”

“She’d be very proud of me.” Clove announces, the edge in her voice less the crest of a waterfall and more the steel of a blade, and all she wants is this crown on her head already.

“That she would. That she would.”

The interview continues with the redirect back to her skills and her highlights. They talk about her birthday, now also revealed to be the anniversary of her mother’s death, and her excellent training.

Cato is seething beside an equally enraged Enobaria, side by side with their arms firmly crossed over their chests. Brutus stands behind both with a hand on each of their shoulders to ground them (and restrain them, if needed).

“I get why you were worried about her now. Last year.” He admits, referring back to the lecture Clove had faced when Enoabria found out about the extent of their relationship. “We never would have-”

“It doesn’t matter now.” Enobaria cuts him off, the wound of Sevina Kentwell’s fate ripped far too open to think about much else right now, much less how her goal had been to save her daughter from the same one.  “...She was a knife thrower too, you know”

President Snow makes his way to the stage, granddaughter trailing behind him with a golden crown on a crisp white pillow in her hands.

Clove stands in front of the President, and Cato feels a surge of pride when he remembers he was the first person in the world to see her in that crown.

She is announced as the formal winner, and President Snow looks exceptionally pleased with the quality of the victor before him.

The cheers are deafening until Caeser’s playoff music starts and Clove is permitted to walk off the stage, still giving a single handed wave to the audience.

The moment she is off stage she is in Cato’s arms, pulling his face down to hers so she can kiss him properly, this time with her own crown on her head.

If the gasps in the audience reveal that the camera has cut to them, capturing and revealing their relationship for all of Panem, they choose to ignore it.

There is a silence between them, Enobaria, and Brutus, as they make their way back to the elevator to the second floor. Enobaria and Brutus take the first, giving Cato and Clove a moment to take one alone, giving them a second of privacy for the first time since they parted the morning of the games.

As soon as the doors close, Clove relaxes into his arms, the exhaustion of the past two weeks and the past two hours crushing down onto her.

He holds her up, taking the metaphorical and physical weight off of her shoulders for the duration of their time alone. He rests his chin on her shoulder., breathing in the scent of her hair that is somehow capitol shampoo but also so distinctly Clove.

In a moment they will be back with their mentors and their team. They will have a late, glorious dinner and talk about the next six months and the following Victory Tour. They will discuss the inevitable questions about their relationship they are sure to face tomorrow.

For the next few blissful moments, it is just the two of them.

“Cato?” Clove mumbles, face pressed into the crook of his neck.

“Yeah?”