Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.

“How are you feeling?”

Clove shifts nervously in her chair and looks down, biting her lip. She’s moving the fingers on her left hand, curling them and uncurling them over and over, while she stares at her right hand as if willing it to do the same thing. It doesn’t. She looks up again.

“Good,” she manages, and that word is strong, at least. She keeps going, more confident. “I had…only one…um…” She trails off, eyes wide, clearly wanting help. Cato doesn’t know if she can’t ask or if she’s still hanging onto that part of her that’s too proud to ask. He’s guessing it’s probably the latter.

“Dream,” he finishes for her, and she nods, grateful.

“Yeah.” She reaches forward, picks up her fork, and stabs a piece of meat. She brings it to her mouth easily, chews, and swallows. Five months ago it would have seemed like a given, but now it’s enough to fill him with warmth. She’s getting better. He smiles at her now, like it’s all normal. Like he’s not mentally celebrating how good her left hand coordination has gotten because her right hand still can barely change position. He decides not to mention it. “She’s still the same in there,” the doctor told him. “Her thoughts are perfect. It’s only her words that have changed.” She’s still the old Clove inside her head, and the old Clove would probably threaten to kick his ass if he congratulated her on anything short of perfection.

“What was the dream about?” he asks.

“Thresh, and, um…” She makes her good hand into a fist and mimes smashing it into her left temple. He shudders slightly. “And dying and…and you. Same like…every…”

“Yeah, you dream that one a lot, don’t you?” he says, trying to keep his tone light.

“Did you?” she asks, and the concern on her face means he knows exactly what she’s saying. And maybe he should tell her. Maybe she should know that he spent last night, and every other night, going over and over the last ten minutes of the games in his head.

“No,” he answers easily. “No, no dreams. I’m fine.”

She can probably tell he’s lying. She always used to tell him he was a shitty liar. But she says nothing, either because she doesn’t want to fight or she doesn’t want to talk any more than she has to. He feels despicable.

“The victory tour’s getting pretty close,” he says. “You looking forward to seeing the other districts?”

“Kind of,” she answers slowly. “But the, um…when you talk with so many…”

“The speeches?” A nod. “I know. But Brutus and Enobaria are working on it. You shouldn’t have to read them.”

“Sure?”

“Pretty sure,” he tells her, and in his head he’s thinking that, if he’s wrong, he’s going to personally tear President Snow limb from limb. “He probably wants them read word for word, perfectly, you know? They’re supposed to make the families feel better.”

“Girl killed the, um, the kids is…can’t talk,” she mutters bitterly. “Might better.”

He laughs, because he’s pretty sure she’s at least partially joking. Or, at least, he hopes she is. It’s the kind of thing that she might have said before, except a lot clearer and with a lot more words. It’s something, at least.

“You think the families of the kids you killed would feel better if they saw you?” he asks, just making sure.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so.”

She raises her eyebrows, a question.

“They’d feel better if it made you weak,” he tells her. “You’re still the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

“No,” she says. “Not like, um…um…”

He frowns, wanting to help but unsure what she’s trying to say.

“Us,” she finally finishes.

“You’re not as strong alone as we are together?” he guesses. “I mean, that’s true. But neither am I.”

“No, no.” She shakes her head and makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, looking for the word but unable to find it. “Um, Brutus.”

“Oh, like a victor? You’re not strong like a victor?”

“Yeah,” she says, relief spreading over her face.

“Bullshit,” he says, almost smiling. “You’re stronger than all of them.”

“Not—”

“Yeah,” Cato insists. “Yeah you are. Trust me, I’ve hung around all of them lately, and almost none of them could handle this shit.” He relaxes as he speaks; he’s telling the truth this time. He’s been trained since he was a kid and now he lives in the Victor’s Village and he’s still never seen anyone who fights like she does. Mentally and physically.

“Besides,” he adds. “You’re getting so much better.”

2.

The first weeks were worse than any part of the games, worse than any part of anything he’s ever done. It was probably worse because he wasn’t expecting it. He’d seen her fall to the ground with that dent in her skull, sure, and he knew she would have died if he hadn’t killed Thresh and threatened to kill himself within minutes, but he’d never seen a victor come out like she did. When he woke up after the surgeries, he figured they would say she was alive. He also knew there was a chance they would say she was dead, and then he didn’t know what he’d do. He’d never expected to hear the words, “She’s alive, but…” come out of Enobaria’s mouth.

She’s alive but she can’t speak. Or move her right side. She’s alive but brain damage is too hard for even the Capitol to fix. She’s alive but we don’t know if she’ll ever really come back.

The Capitol hadn’t expected it either. They’d planned for one victor, then, when Cato refused to live if Clove died, they planned for two. And there were things that the victors had to do, things that she just couldn’t do, not at first. There was supposed to be a dramatic reunion in front of the country. Instead, they pushed her onstage in a wheelchair and all she could do to communicate during the three-hour recap of the games was squeeze his hand and blink at him, a thousand words behind her eyes. The interview was worse. Caesar had to rephrase every question that had been for her on the spot, and Cato tried his best to answer them, but she was staring at him the whole time and he knew she must hate it just as much as he did but there was nothing else to do. That night was the last time he lost himself. She always hated when he screamed and broke shit, when he couldn’t stay in control. That was the one unspoken condition of their relationship. She’d be with him as long as she trusted him, but she could only trust him if he could control himself. And he’d been doing well too, but this was the one thing he couldn’t take. His knuckles left bloody spots on the dented walls. The fucking walls deserved it. They were keeping them apart.

“You promised me you’d get better.” He could almost hear her reproachful voice floating to him all the way from whatever hospital room she was stuck in.

And he screamed back, at the top of his lungs, “I will if you will!”

And she did. She was walking again within a week, and her limp was almost gone within two. That part was fine. But the other part was almost unbearably slow. The fact that he had absolutely no idea what to expect probably didn’t make it feel any faster.

“It’s called aphasia,” they’d told him. He didn’t even know why they’d told him at the time, because Clove hadn’t even come around to telling him that half of her family was dead and the other half wanted her to join the first half if at all possible. “It’s a result of damage to the left side of the brain. The blow not only damaged her right-side motor skills, but also her language center. She can understand us perfectly. But speaking, reading, writing…no. It’s likely that she’ll recover some words, and some people are even able to speak normally at a certain point. But every case is different. There’s no way to know for sure.”

“Aphasia,” he’d repeated slowly, feeling like just the opposite of what the doctors had described. He could say the word easily, but he couldn’t force himself to understand what it actually meant.

It was better after all the victory celebrations were over. Technically both of them had their own houses, but the living situation wasn’t even a question. They’d as good as agreed on it back when she could still speak. She slept better in his arms. If he was alone, he hated the dark. And at the very end, she’d told him she loved him. It was almost the last thing she said before she slipped into unconsciousness. Because as he’d told her that he loved her back and he would never let her die without going too, she whispered, “Cato…”

The man they sent from the Capitol for speech therapy was called Dr. Marcellus, and Clove didn’t like him at all. Or maybe she just didn’t like speech therapy in general. Cato didn’t blame her. It reminded him a lot of the gen-ed classes he’d had to take before he was in full-time training, and it was basically two straight hours of asking for help. But she’d do it if he was there. He didn’t mind at all. She would get better, he knew it, and he wanted to see. And he did see. He was right there next to her when she turned to him with startling intensity in her eyes and shakily, very shakily, said, “Cato…”

3.

“Cato…”

“Can you get his last time too for me?”

“Langston. Cato Langston.” Clove’s voice sounds stronger than usual. There’s a reason Doctor Marcellus always asks this first. She’s good at this question, better at it than any of the others. And even though Cato knows it would probably be more useful if she were best at something like objects around the house, he can’t even pretend it doesn’t make him happy. He smiles and squeezes her right hand, and feels her fingers twitch slightly, which makes him smile wider. Maybe that’s getting better too.

“And your name?” Doctor Marcellus asks.

“Clove…Caverly,” she answers.

“And how old are you?”

“Seventeen.” It’s faster and clearer than she’s ever answered that one before, and she turns to Cato, smiling, as proud of herself as she’s capable of being these days. And he’s proud too, so he tries to look happy, even though he knows what’s coming next.

“That was great,” he says, hoping to stall for a little bit of time. Because mostly he likes watching her in speech therapy, but there’s one part he can barely stand. “Your numbers are so fast now, I mean even next to last week—”

Doctor Marcellus cuts him off with an understanding but firm look. Technically he’s never supposed to interrupt unless Clove specifically asks for it, and even that’s a rule that Clove made up herself, because Doctor Marcellus hates it when he talks at all. His methods are very precise, or some bullshit like that.

“Do you remember what happened to you?” the doctor asks now, and Cato has to fight the urge to stand up and leave the room, preferably running with his hands over his ears. She needs him. She needs him and it’s his fault.

“Games,” Clove starts, and he takes advantage of the fact that she’s staring straight ahead to press his free wrist hard into the wood of the table. “Yeah, games, and Cato and me and Thresh and um…” She stops, closes her eyes. Cato distracts himself by glaring across the table. He hates how long Doctor Marcellus makes her search for a word. Maybe it’s making her get better faster, but he doesn’t see how letting her get upset helps anything. Sure enough, when she opens her eyes again, she hasn’t found the word and her eyebrows are knit much tighter than they were before.

“Us…me and Cato and him and like, um…like hit?” she tries.

“You had a fight?” Doctor Marcellus finally offers.

“Yeah. Fight, and then Thresh with the…” She bangs sharply on the table. Cato jumps. He hopes neither of them notice.

“The rock?”

“Yeah. Thresh had the rock and he hit…and it was dark and hurt and…and Cato. And Cato dead Thresh and then I…not dead.”

“Why didn’t you die?”

“They said, um…one. Not like before but they made different the…um, the…”

“Rule change,” Cato says instantly, drawing two irritated looks. Usually even he will let Clove think for longer than that, but right now he can’t stand it. He just wants her to get the explanation out of the way. Clove shoots him a glance that says, far clearer than her words can, “If I need your help I’ll ask for it. I’m not stupid.”

“Sorry,” he says quickly. He wonders if Clove is picking up on what’s wrong. He’s being more obvious today than usual and he’s not quite sure why, but he does know that if they don’t move on soon he’s going to start to panic, and that’s definitely not something either of them need to see. He’s broken in front of Clove a few times, and she loves him so it’s okay, but it always upsets her and that makes her speech even worse. She feels guilty if she can’t think of the right words to say to make him feel better, and the fact that she can’t find words just makes him feel worse and panic more, so it’s really just better for everyone if he stays calm.

“Was rule change,” Clove is saying, and Cato forces himself to tune back into her words. “No…was rule change two victors and then back. But Cato…” She stops and beams at him. “Fucking perfect.”

It’s undeniably sweet, and even Doctor Marcellus has to smile at it, even though he tends to be against swearing. Clove can communicate about half of her emotions using various inflexions of the word fuck, and while it’s good for getting Cato to understand her, it’s not helping her recover any new words, which is what the whole point of speech therapy is. She leans in to kiss him and he tries to look delighted, and he should be, because she’s wearing her down over a loose black t-shirt today and she looks amazing. He’s so lucky. But her comment about him being perfect is reminding him of just how imperfect he was that day. He should have guarded her better. He should have killed Thresh quicker. He shouldn’t have taken so long to figure out how they could both survive. Most of the damage didn’t come from the direct blow, the doctors told him. It came from cells dying because of the pressure inside her head. At least, he thinks. He’s never really understood. What it means is he could have done more. He’s the reason she’s like this. He kisses her again, quickly, trying to distract himself. Hating himself won’t help her get better.

4.

Clove likes sex a lot. It surprised Cato at first. Well, that much, because everyone likes sex, and he fucked enough girls before Clove to know that he’s pretty good at it too. But in the games, she was always a bit hesitant. It’s not like they could have done much there, but even when he took kissing just a little too far, she was always quick to draw away, let him know. Then there was the first week after the games, when he barely did more than peck her on the lips. Maybe that deprivation made her want more, or maybe her close brush with death made her realize all the things she didn’t want to miss out on in life. Cato has quite a few theories. The one that scares him the most is that she feels like a burden, and wants to somehow repay him for still loving her in spite of the damage to her brain. But Cato’s told her more times than he can count that he’s never seen her that way. She wasn’t entirely alright before the games either. The nightmares aren’t new. In a way, he almost likes it. He hates that she’s hurting, but he feels almost honored to watch the nearly impossible fights that she’s constantly winning. And he likes to help. It makes him feel like he matters.

Right now Cato’s main theory, though, is actually something Clove kind of told him once, after one of their first times. He was breathless, nearing peak, unable to do anything but swear and moan her name, and she smiled at him and said, “Like me.” His head wasn’t very clear at the time, so it took him a few minutes that the words weren’t a teasing attempt to further turn him on, but rather a comment. A taunt, almost. She’d reduced him to the same level of speaking she was at constantly. His guess is she likes that. She likes, if only for a moment, taking away the imbalance of power between them that he tries his best to ignore but undeniably exists. He guesses it makes her feel useful too. That also came from her. Another time, when she had just finished giving him possibly the best blowjob of his life, she smirked, pointed at her mouth, and said, “Not useless.” It was a joke and he laughed at it, but it made him feel so undeniably warm.

So Clove likes sex at least partially because it makes them equals, and also because she’s good at it. And she is good at it. It might not be fair to call her the best he’s ever had because he loves her and that probably makes it a whole lot better, but he’s not stupid either. He’d have to be to not realize that she’s amazing. And his other theory about her and sex is that she’s so amazing at least partially because she can’t speak much, so the two of them are constantly reading each other’s nonverbal cues. They’re always perfectly in sync. So when they come at the same time, even though during sex she can’t speak at all to tell him how close she is, it’s really no surprise.

And then he pulls out, rolls off her and onto his back, and grins up at the ceiling, breathing hard. Quiet, for a few moments. He’s exhausted, and she’s less so, but it always takes her a second to remember how to form words.

“Damn,” he breathes.

“Damn,” she echoes easily, and then says, “Cato.”

“Clove,” he bounces back. He leans over and trails a row of kisses over her collarbone, which again, for a moment, leaves her speechless.

“I love you, you know that, right?” he says softly.

“Yeah. I love you too,” she responds. She does better when he hands her the words first. It doesn’t work all the time, obviously. Otherwise he’d be the only one steering their conversations. But here, now, he’s pretty sure they want to say the same things anyway.

“You’re so beautiful,” he tells her.

“You too. No, um, not beautiful.” She laughs. “Um…handsome?”

“Yeah, handsome,” he agrees encouragingly. A little too encouragingly, because she takes on a mocking tone.

“Yeah, I’m so handsome.”

“You know what I meant,” he says, only pretending to be irritated.

“Welcome my life,” she whispers, running a hand over his bare chest. He laughs softly. So that is why, at least partially. It’s the one time when they’re almost exactly the same.

5.

“Bad news.” Brutus’ voice is blunt, unhappy but clearly unpitying. Maybe Cato should find that comforting, but then, he’s never seen Brutus crack for anything, so the response isn’t telling him shit about what the bad news is. He has a guess though, and his fears are confirmed when Enobaria starts talking.

“Clove, you’re going to have to read half of the scripted reply to the mayors’ speeches.”

Cato feels her hand move and tangle with his own. The thick fabric of her dress, which is supposed to protect from the district twelve winter they’ll be facing in a few hours, rubs against his arm. She looks upset. If there’s one thing Clove hates, it’s looking weak, looking like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Cato is the exception, because she trusts him, but trust isn’t something Clove likes to hand out for free. Apparently, she doesn’t even consider Brutus and Enobaria worthy enough to talk freely in front of, because she just raises her eyebrows, even though he’s sure she could ask why.

“Can’t you talk to Snow?” Cato asks.

Brutus snorts. “Yeah, I’ll just call him up and have a quick chat.”

“Snow’s the one who insisted,” Enobaria says.

“Why?” Clove asks, using the word this time, looking agitated.

Brutus and Enobaria exchange a look before Brutus says, “So should I just give it to you straight?”

Clove nods before Cato can think to hesitate.

“Basically,” Brutus explains. “The whole two victors thing wasn’t supposed to happen. Cato kind of forced their hand there, which was a smart move, but Snow’s not happy at all. He’s worried it seems like the Capitol’s going soft. You two are too lucky. It’s bad enough they have two victors on their hands. They can’t afford to have, well, two…two victors in good shape. Clove, I know this is bullshit, because you’re fine, but they want to seem…damaged.”

“Damaged?” Clove repeats, incredulous. “Fuck you.”

“We feel the same way,” Brutus says, laughing slightly. Cato understands why he’s laughing. He almost wants to laugh too, because he loves it when Clove is so undeniably her old self. But she’s not trying to be funny. She glares at him fiercely and crosses her arms.

“So I’m…worse?” she asks. It’s obvious to Cato what she’s asking immediately, but Brutus and Enobaria have to exchange a look before responding.

“Probably not,” Enobaria replies smoothly. She pulls two crisp white notecards out of her pocket and holds them out. “You’ll have one of these. But unless you’ve perfected your reading aloud since we last talked to the doctors in charge of your case, trying your best should suffice.”

Cato knows Enobaria’s fucked up before she even finishes talking. She’s basically calling Clove’s speaking so bad that she doesn’t even have to try and sound damaged enough for Cato to look like a victim, and apparently she’s been talking to Doctor Marcellus instead of to Clove herself, which Clove will hate. Sure enough, she gets up suddenly and shoots daggers at both of the mentors.

“Fuck you,” she hisses again, and storms toward the door of the train car. Right before she reaches it, she turns around.

“Cato.”

He doesn’t have to be asked twice. He grabs the notecards out of Enobaria’s hand forcefully and follows her until she reaches the door of her room, which she wasn’t actually planning to sleep in. She flings the door open and practically collapses onto the bed. Cato sits down next to her instantly.

“Talk to me,” he says gently, after a few seconds filled only by Clove’s breathing.

“They’re…Snow…I’m your…” She stops and closes her eyes, trying to focus. It’s always worse for her when she’s upset.

“Reward,” she finishes, and Cato can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or if it’s just close enough to the word the was actually looking for that she’s not bothering to correct herself. “And I have to…”

She points at Cato’s hand and demands, “Paper.” He offers her the choice of the notecards, which he can see contain two halves of the same speech.

“I think this one’s the first half,” he tells her, pointing to the one on the right. He doesn’t know if she’ll want to start or finish, but it’s only fair to let her choose. She picks left and holds it close to her face.

“We also wish honor falling…children?” The word on the card is tributes, but her guess is probably close enough that no one would notice, so Cato doesn’t correct her. “The of district fight…brave and…and…I can’t.”

“Brought pride to their families,” he reads for her.

“Brought pride to families,” she repeats, as if the words are completely unfamiliar. “They, um, not ever forget…”

She stops and closes her eyes tightly, shaking her head.

“I can’t,” she says again, and this time he can tell it’s not her asking for help with the next word. “I can’t.”

“That was pretty good,” he offers, and it was, for her, but she wants to sound normal and she’s miles away from that.

“Funny,” she spits back. “Snow happy, then.”

“Do you want to try and memorize it? I know the words might not all come out perfect still, but at least you’d know what you meant,” he offers. “I can read the sentences and then you can say them back to me.”

“Long,” she replies, then scoffs. “Capitol.”

“It is, isn’t it,” he agrees. “I don’t know if I can pronounce all the shit on here. I guess it’s just traditional or something.”

“Yeah.” Her lower lip is quivering. She presses her mouth closed almost forcefully and takes a deep breath.

“What do you want to do?” Cato asks. She just shakes her head, crawls the foot or so over to him, and leans up against his shoulder.

“Fuck you,” she murmurs again, but he knows he’s not talking about him.

6.

He set up the target about a week after they first moved in. He pretended it was nothing. He pretended he’d just unpacked all of their old training stuff and set it up without thinking, made a half-hearted promise to take it down later, and then never did. It wouldn’t be strange for him. She’s been telling him how messy he is ever since she managed to get the words out. But this isn’t just one more piece of clutter. This is her. Well, this was her. This was the girl with the use of both of her hands, the girl who volunteered for the games, the girl who did die in the arena. This was the girl he fell in love with.

He doesn’t quite know how to explain it to her, because it’s not like he gives a shit if she can throw knives or not. Sure, it used to turn him on, but it’s not like he has a knife fetish. He has a Clove-being-impossibly-good-at-difficult-things fetish. Once he started to realize just how much she had to fight inside her own head, even before the rock hit it, the weapons became almost boring. But he likes it when Clove is happy, and she is happy when she feels good at things, and she knew that she was good at throwing knives. It’s ridiculous to him, because if she understood just how amazing she actually is, she might not even want anything to do with someone like him. But Clove doesn’t understand, and this is one thing he can’t describe any better than she can. He doesn’t even want the old version of her back, but he wants her to feel amazing again. He leaves the target up.

Occasionally he’ll hear the loud thumps of knives hitting the target, or sometimes the wall around the target, but it never lasts long, and when he walks into the room, she’s always gotten frustrated and moved onto something else. She still trains. Both of them do. He likes lifting weights. She likes running. When she runs, she can measure her progress down to the second. He hires someone to fix the holes in the wall, and for a while, she doesn’t make new ones, just gives the target a sad half-glance whenever she passes by it. She’s never said a word about it. Maybe she doesn’t know how, but he figures she just doesn’t want to.

When he hears the sound again, he half thinks he’s dreaming. He waits a few minutes, just listening, waiting to hear if it will stop. When it doesn’t, he cautiously enters the room. Clove stands near the door with her back to him, several knives laid out on the table next to her. A few dozen more have already been thrown, most of them into the outer rings of the target, but Cato does spot one that’s almost a bullseye.

“Wow,” he says, which pulls her out of that all-too-familiar state of laser focus she always inhabits when she throws.

“Not bad?” she says, smiling a little.

“A hell of a lot better than me,” he responds. “Have you been practicing and I just didn’t know?”

“No,” she says. “Um, training. If good arm gets bad, you have to learn…but a little.”

“Oh, right,” he agrees. He vaguely remembers doing left-handed sword training at some point. He also remembers getting in a shouting match with one of the trainers about how he was too good to ever lose the use of his right hand in the first place. How was he ever so stupid? No one’s too strong for that.

“It’s good,” he says. “Shit, really good, and if you haven’t even really been practicing, I bet you could get back to what you did with your right hand pretty quickly if you tried. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, maybe,” she agrees. For a second, she looks hopeful, proud. Then she picks up a knife off the table and all the joy abruptly falls off her face.

“Cato,” she whispers, and if he didn’t know better he’d say she looked terrified. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” he asks, and then it dawns on him, because there’s only one thing in her hand. He tries to appear normal as he tells her, “Oh, that. That’s a knife.”

“Knife.” She inhales sharply. “I…I knew that.”

Without warning, she raises her left arm and throws as hard as she can. The blade lodges in the wall about a foot away from the target.

7.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He can barely see her in the dark, but he feels her jerk away from him, flinching as if she’s been burned. He quickly shifts backward, giving her all the room he possibly can without getting out of bed. It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.

“Does that mean no?” he asks. He manages to raise the corners of his lips, but he’s glad she’s not looking at him, because it really can’t even be called a smile. He swallows hard.

“Clove, I’ll leave you alone if you want, but I’d like to help.”

She turns to face him. She’s controlling her expression like her body’s just a puppet, and the mind behind it somewhere else entirely, somewhere he can’t see.

“I’m fine,” she says, and the words are all harsh breathing and gritted teeth and it’s obvious that they’re a struggle to speak but Cato thinks she’s never sounded more like herself.

He sighs. “Can I touch you?”

She gives a jerky nod, and he reaches out slowly and puts a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t move away this time, and after a moment, she actually leans into his touch. Her eyes stay wide open though, even as he moves his hand down to rest on the small of her back and tangles the other one in her hair.

“Sleep,” she whispers after a while. “I’m keeping…”

“I don’t mind,” he says softly.

“But I’m…” She stops, shudders. “Um, mistake.”

Cato freezes. He knows exactly what that word means, and he hates it. It’s her mother. He doesn’t know the details of what happened there, and Clove probably couldn’t explain even if she wanted to. But Clove hasn’t lived at home for years, and her mother is the one responsible. Apparently she thinks, even as a victor, Clove isn’t worthy of their family, just a mistake that caused more harm than good. Clove has only had one conversation with her mother since winning, and Cato wasn’t there. If Cato had been there, he’s not sure if Clove’s mother would currently be breathing.

“You’re not,” he breathes. “You know that, love. You’re so much better than she ever was.”

“Yeah,” she says back, undeniably sarcastic.

“You didn’t deserve what she did to you,” he insists. “Everything she said. It was just to stop you from realizing that you deserve so much better.”

“Why?” she asks, staring right at him now. Her fear is nearly gone now, replaced by a hollow, almost resigned look that makes him want to scream.

“Because you’re amazing,” he says simply.

“Amazing.” She sounds bitter now. “And I can’t…I can’t…”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, more harshly than he meant to. It feels like a blow when she flinches slightly.

“Was that all?” he asks. “Because if all you’re scared of is feeling like a burden I can promise you never have to be afraid in your life, okay? And she can’t hurt you. Never again. I’ll die first.”

It’s one of those times when he realizes just how different his voice sounds from Clove’s, and this time, he’s glad about it. He sounds strong. He sounds like he can protect her. And it’s such a fucking joke.

“Not just,” she says. “And the…Thresh.”

All the strength drains out of him in an instant. He wants to promise to protect her from this too. But he can’t. He already failed.

“He’s dead now,” he says instead. And then he can’t think what else to say, so he presses a kiss into her hair, but he’s not sure if it’s to comfort her or comfort himself.

“Sleep,” Clove says again. “Not your…um, problem.”

“It’s okay,” he replies. “Really, it’s fine, I was up anyway.”

He starts to wrap his arms around her when her voice stops him.

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why?” she says again. “You were not sleep?”

He closes his eyes as a wave of images flashes through his head and tries not to shiver. It’s easy enough to explain, he figures. Even she could probably do it. But when he looks at her again, he can’t bring himself to answer.

8.

If there’s one good thing about the time Clove almost died, it’s that it was one hell of an ice breaker. The last few days of the games were a swirl of emotions that were certainly shown, but still desperately unspoken. The love was blindingly obvious, but apparently not quite obvious enough for either of them to risk talking about it. Things had been going perfectly. They couldn’t take the slim chance that saying it would ruin everything. And then everything was ruined, and as the rock smashed open their tightly corked bottle of secrets, it looked for a moment like they had nothing to lose.

She said it first then, because she didn’t know he had a plan for them both to live. She thought she was choosing last words. In a way, she almost was. She choked on the words with her quickly-fading breath and he screamed them back like a plea, begging her not to leave just yet. She couldn’t really talk anymore by that point, but she could listen, and she did. She said it first then, and it was good, because it was hard enough trying to take care of her after all that without the added fear that maybe she hated him and just didn’t have the words to say it. That one time was enough for him. It had to be.

He didn’t realize he was saying it every day for quite a while, and then when he did realize, he decided to make an extra effort to keep it up. That was incredibly easy. For maybe a month, the only answer he got was a soft smile, and maybe his name said in a soft voice that lingered on every sound and said more than he ever would have thought one word could. When she first said it back, he almost cried, but it became clear pretty quickly that nothing had actually changed. Clove could repeat almost anything by then. And she’d been as good as telling him for weeks. As amazing as it felt to hear the words come from her lips, it wasn’t anything new. Life continued. He said it every day, and every day, she said it back, and it was both otherworldly and mundane at the same time. The words would never get old, but the order in which they said them never changed, and sometimes he had to force himself to remember that very first time to really believe that she would tell him first if she could.

It’s almost been four months when they’re sitting in front of the TV and she goes quiet. It’s not that strange for her to be quiet, but she’s not relaxed, she’s focusing, just like she does when there’s a word she’s trying desperately to find. And that’s not strange either, except for the fact that that usually goes on for maybe a minute, not for twenty. She looks so urgent, but if it were that important, she’d just try and get him to guess. He watches her intently. She’s twisting her hand through her hair so roughly that it must hurt, eyebrows knit together in a tight line.

“Are you okay?” he asks, concerned, and his heart speeds up a bit when he gets no answer. His mind starts flying. What the fuck happened? Has she lost all the words again? Will she ever get them back?

“What’s going on?” he asks, trying to hide his panic from her. If she picks up on it, she doesn’t make it obvious, because all of a sudden her face is eerily calm. She takes a deep breath before she speaks.

“I love you.”

The world stops, if only for that one second. A beat. Then two. Her face grows worried again, like she’s afraid she said it wrong. He forces himself to speak.

“I love you too,” he tells her, because if this were normal, it would be the right thing to say, only now it feels like the complete wrong thing to say. “Uh, wow, you…”

“Like me,” she teases softly, and it’s enough to pull him out of his trance, out of his chair and directly to her side. He kisses her, and it’s soft and raging and joyous and desperate and he never wants to stop. But when he does, he can almost think straight.

“I’ve never heard you try that one in therapy,” he says, infinitely more calm than he feels. “Have you been, uh, practicing?”

“Little,” she admits, eyes sparkling. “Some way to make you…”

“Happy?” he guesses. “Well it worked.”

“Crazy,” she corrects him, laughing. “And, um…favor?”

“Return the favor? What, cause I’ve been saying it first?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not a favor. I just—”

“Love you,” she cuts him off before he can finish, and kisses him again.

9.

“And what exactly do you call your condition?” Caesar Flickerman’s voice booms across the city circle. Clove fidgets slightly in her chair, squinting against the bright stage lights. Cato knows she’s not much for interviews, but she’s determined about this one. She doesn’t want a repeat of what happened after the games, when she just had to sit there, hearing the questions but unable to answer a single one.

“Aphasia,” she answers slowly, and Cato thinks the quiet and polite applause that gets should really be about ten times louder.

“And can you explain to us what that means?” Caesar asks. “I’m afraid I’m no medical expert.” He turns to the crowd, chuckling. “Can you imagine?”

Clove purses her lips, probably about as annoyed as Cato is that they even have to do this stupid fucking interview, especially after all the shit the Capitol’s made them put up with during this victory tour. He’s sick of playing tragic, and she must be too.

“Can’t, um…can’t speak,” she says, raising her eyebrows slightly.

“Of course,” Caesar says, in a tone that says he was stupid for not knowing. “Anything to add to that, Cato?”

Cato frowns. He hated speaking for Clove enough the first time, and that was when Clove couldn’t speak at all. And it’s not even like she was having trouble getting the words out. She’s doing so well, and fuck Caesar for acting like she still needs help.

“No, I think she pretty much covered it,” he says, joking, but with a cold edge to his voice. If the crowd hears, they don’t react to it. They just laugh.

“Now Clove,” Caesar says, leaning toward her and speaking more slowly than usual. Cato can see that she’s just barely hiding a scowl. “The last time you were on this stage, you couldn’t speak at all, am I correct?”

She’s probably dying to give him some snarky response, but for one of what Cato figures could be a few different reasons, she just says, “Yeah.”

“And you’ve been in speech therapy, yes?”

She nods.

“And now that you can talk, what is your favorite thing to say?”

It’s a stupid question, which would be enough to irritate Clove anyway, but when he turns to look at her, he can see the slight panic behind her eyes. This is one thing she can’t do. This is the reason it took her so long to say even one word. Clove can say a lot of things, but she can’t just say something, because the possibilities are too endless and her mind can’t focus enough to pick out one or two words. Cato’s heart sinks slightly. He turns to Caesar, ready to explain the situation if he has to.

“I love you,” Clove says, looking right at him, quiet even when speaking into her microphone. The crowd explodes, shrieking and sighing and probably talking about how cute she is. And it would be pretty hard for Cato to deny that that wasn’t fucking adorable, but he is allowed to think that, because he already loves her. Clove doesn’t mind being sweet around him, but she hates this. This is national TV. She wants to be anything but cute.

Cato figures he’s probably the only person in the room not surprised when Clove turns directly to one of the cameras and says, “Fuck off.” Nervous laughter fills the space. Caesar looks taken aback.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks innocently, and Cato has to stop himself from grinning, because Clove can and will play that game. She wrinkles her forehead and tilts her head to the side in an exaggerated confused expression. Of course, she’s never had any trouble understanding what people are saying to her. But then again, Caesar doesn’t know that.

“Sorry,” Cato says apologetically, playing along. Brutus and Enobaria can’t exactly get mad at them for this. After all, she is supposed to be damaged, or whatever bullshit the president wanted.

“She has a little trouble with, you know…” he says. He turns to her, faking a look of extreme concern. “Are you okay?” he asks, much too gently. He’s pushing it and he knows it, but the Capitol is just so fucking clueless and it’s funny.

Clove blinks, like she’s coming out of a trance or something. Cato has to admit, if he didn’t know how her aphasia actually worked, he’d probably be convinced. She’s always been a good actress.

“What?” she asks, still looking around like a lost puppy. It’s enough, and Caesar decides just to let her off the hook. Cato is still just trying not to burst out laughing.

“So both of you, tell me, tell me, how are you coping with this? How are you feeling?” Caesar asks.

“We’re good,” Cato replies. “I mean, it’s hard, but she’s amazing, and we can handle anything. Yeah, we’re great.”

“Yeah,” Clove echoes. “We’re great.”

10.

Clove once told him, for her, every word is a battle. She probably didn’t say it quite like that, but he’s so used to mentally translating everything she says that he can barely ever remember her exact words. He wants to. He wants to be able to think of something beautiful she told him and only think of that, not of the way her lips curled into a tight frown as she struggled to form each syllable. He tries to convince himself it’s better now, and in some ways it is, because they’re both safe and they love each other and he really has a whole lot of shit to be grateful for. He is grateful. He’s grateful every day. But it’s like having a broken arm and thanking the world that the arm didn’t fall off. Of course it’s better. It just fucking hurts.

Clove once told him that, for her, every word is a battle, and she’s the best fighter he’s ever met, but sometimes he wishes she’d just give it up, if only for a while. He can’t even imagine what it would be like to be trapped inside his own head. Maybe he’d try to break that prison every second of the day too. But it just looks so exhausting for her. And it is exhausting for him, and it’s not made any better by the fact that neither of them ever seem to get enough sleep. It’s hard and it’s painful and it’s always his fault. If it were just that, maybe he could ignore it. Maybe he could tell himself it didn’t matter how he felt because he had done this and now his only job was to try and make it right. But if every word is a battle for Clove, her armor isn’t going to last forever.

It’s the stupidest thing. But then, isn’t it always the stupidest fucking thing? It’s winter. Barely six o’clock, but dark outside.

“No sun,” Clove comments, gesturing out the window.

“Yeah, it’s getting dark so early,” Cato agrees. “Cold too. I thought I was going to freeze when we went on that walk earlier. I need a new coat.”

“Tomorrow?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Whenever. I might call the Capitol and ask them to send one over too. I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I fucking hate winter.”

“I like it,” she says. “Not so…um, hot.”

“It’s never that hot,” he says.

“Not that cold,” she counters. “But in the…um, the…you know?”

“No, sorry,” he says. He thinks, but she could be about to say almost anything.

“Big. And tall. And here, you know? And made…um, made of? I don’t…but not in the other…but Capitol…”

She’s starting to breathe too fast, and her hands are shaking. He makes the mistake of looking closely at her face and finds no clues, just a panicked expression.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m sorry.” He glances at the clock. “Hey, it’s after six, and you barely had lunch. Do you want to eat something?”

He gets up from the bed, moves toward the door, and looks back expectantly, but Clove is just staring at her hands, her distress growing by the second.

“With the snow. And the…the black, but not black it’s like…um, middle. And hard and…you know, you see, every place. But not every place like but here…and, um…” She looks up, and he’s startled to see tears welling up in her brown eyes. “Help me.”

She’ll be fine if he helps. He knows that. But he can’t. He’s trying, but he just doesn’t know what she’s trying to say. And maybe if they sat here another minute she could figure out a way to explain it, but he’s hungry and tired and he just doesn’t want her to be hurting anymore.

“I told you, Clove, I don’t know,” he says, a bit more firmly. “It’s fine. You can tell me later. Now come on, let’s eat.”

Her jaw tightens and her eyes shine. “No.”

For whatever reason, she wants to do this. She wants to fight with this word until it kills her. But he’s done watching. And the more insistent she is, the more determined he becomes to make her stop it.

“Come on,” he insists, walking over to her side of the bed and taking her wrist in his hand, trying to get her to stand up.

“No,” she says again, louder, and then, without warning, she screams it. “No!”

He lets go of her, startled, and something shatters in his chest as he sees the first tear slip down her cheek.

“It’s okay, love, it’s not important, you’ll think of it—” he starts, but even though he’s trying to be as comforting as possible, his words have the opposite effect.

“Shut up!” she shouts, and gasps for breath like she’s a second away from drowning. “Shut up! Shut up!”

“Clove,” he tries to say, but it’s become a chant now, and she’s just sobbing and screaming it in his face, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

He feels sick, far sicker than when the blood of any innocent child stained his hands. Because she isn’t a child. She’s strong and beautiful and unbreakable and she’s the last person this should have happened to but he did this and now there’s no taking it back.

“I can’t,” Clove says, bringing him back to the present. She draws her knees up to her chest and buries her head in her hands. “I can’t.”

“What?” he asks, almost robotically, but it’s honestly a surprise to him that any word can make it out from behind the lump in his throat.

“I can’t talk. I can’t throw. I can’t do…” She cuts off her words with a muffled scream.

“What?” he says again, and he feels useless, but feeling useless is better than feeling responsible.

“This. I can’t…this.” Her voice breaks, and she raises her head for just long enough to wave her hands around. It takes Cato a moment to realize that she means everything. And he can’t think of a single thing to say.

“Mistake,” she whispers. “We won. Why?”

“I tried, really, I just couldn’t think,” he says, and then swallows hard, trying to think of how he can do this, how he can apologize. He’s run it over a million times and he can never get it good enough for her to stay.

“No,” she cuts him off. “We won. But I’m not…and…and weak and, um, and I can’t. It’s too hard. I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” he chokes out. Can she? He doesn’t know. It is hard, too hard, too hard for anyone. And it doesn’t really matter if she can or not, because she shouldn’t have to.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying too until she starts staring at him, wiping at her own eyes.

“You,” she breathes, momentarily distracted. “Why?”

He shakes his head, and before he can stop himself, he’s talking. “Why are you even here, Clove?”

“I…I know,” she replies, and he realizes too late that that she’s trying to agree.

“Not like that,” he corrects himself. “No, I mean here, with me. Why?”

“Why?” she repeats, not understanding.

“Yes, why?” he shouts, and she jumps back, but he’s too far gone to even regret it. “Are you a fucking idiot, Clove? I did this to you! I did this and you should hate me but you’re just still here!”

For a second, the pain is gone from her eyes, replaced only by sheer confusion.

“You?”

“Me,” Cato confirms. He swipes his sleeve over his face and the motion scrapes across his eyelids too roughly, which only makes his eyes keep burning. “I wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t protect you. I fucked up everything and now you’re…you’re…”

“Useless?” she finishes. “Um, pathetic?”

“No! No, you’re not, you’re perfect, but you’re hurting and it’s my fault! And I love you but…but every time I look at you I just remember…and I can’t. I can’t do it either. I’m trying but…you’re right. It’s too hard.”

The bedroom is quiet except for the sound of choked sobs and ragged breaths. Cato climbs back into the bed and Clove bunches up a handful of the fabric of his shirt and doesn’t let go. Before long, their breaths are in sync. And neither of them really means to move toward the other, but they’re tangled up together just the same.

“Leaving?” Clove asks, after a few minutes.

“No,” Cato replies hollowly. “No, never.” She exhales shakily and almost manages a smile, but has to wipe more tears off her face.

“Are you?” he asks.

“No,” she agrees. “Just…sometimes…I can’t.”

“I know,” he says softly, and wraps one arm around her. Her shoulders are still shaking. He considers asking if she’s okay, but decides against it. He doesn’t know what he would answer himself.

11.

“How’d we get here?” He doesn’t even really mean to ask the question out loud.

Clove shrugs, half smiles. “Volunteered, and kissed you, and Thresh, and…I love you, and um…like sleep? Wake up, and then, um practice speaking…”

“No, he interrupts. “Sorry. That’s not really what I meant.”

“I know,” she replies. “But what to say?”

He laughs slightly. “I don’t know. Forget it. Stupid question.”

She nods thoughtfully and carefully smooths down a small piece of his hair that’s sticking up the wrong way. Her hand lingers by his face, dragging across his jawline and then softly brushing his lips. He smiles at the touch.

“You want to be…not here?” she asks.

“No,” he replies instantly. “No, not at all. Here is…”

He stops, searching his mind for the correct word. He can’t exactly say perfect, because it’s not. It’s far from it. There are about a million things he’d change. But those are just outcomes. How’d he get here? He’s not quite sure. But of all the tiny steps he took, he wouldn’t take a single one differently. Not knowing what he does now. It’s easy to see what isn’t, he figures. But there’s a lot of things that could have changed for the worse. Cato closes his eyes. He sees a world where it took him years and years to finally get up the nerve to say I love you. He sees a life of danger, taking every step on thin ice, knowing that President Snow saw him and Clove as too lucky and waiting for him to take every bit of luck away. He sees a time when he and Clove didn’t even make it as far as the final two, both dying forgotten, dying alone. He opens his eyes again and sees Clove, the real Clove, staring intently back at him.

“Best reasonable option?” she offers. He blinks. She barely hesitated.

“Yeah,” he agrees, laughing again. “Something like that.”

Fatigue pulls at the corners of his mind. He stayed up too late again. He didn’t want to see her nearly die like he does every night. But maybe it doesn’t matter so much. He gets to see her more alive than ever when he wakes up.

“I love you,” he says. “Always, okay? So don’t go anywhere.”

She moves closer to him and rests her head against his chest. Her hand creeps up, under his shirt, feeling the spot right over his heart.

“Not planning on it,” she says. “You’re…um, you know…”

Her eyes darken for a moment, a cloud passing over the sun. Cato doesn’t bother guessing. There are too many options, and he doesn’t want to sit there and list off compliments for himself.

“You too,” he says instead.

She gasps loudly, false shock on her face. “Rude.”

“Was it?” he asks. He kisses the top of her head once, twice. “Well, you really brought that on yourself, didn’t you?”

Her laugh makes his heart fly. “So rude. Can’t believe you.”

And just like that, the last traces of the cloud are gone. Another will come soon, and he knows it. And he can’t even pretend he’s ready. It’s been almost a year and it still hurts him every time. But maybe that’s just the whole love thing. As far as he’s concerned, she deserves the fucking world. And as long as he doesn’t have it, maybe he’ll always hurt, if only just a little bit. But of course she’ll never have everything. And she awes him a little more every second that she survives whatever shit the world has decided to throw at her. He knows she’ll keep winning, and if she doesn’t, well, that’s what he’s there for.

“Do you want to be here?” he asks. And there’s a moment of terror as she opens her mouth to answer the question, because fuck, he got her here, and maybe he’s learning to live with all the imperfections but she might hate it, might want it all gone, might want to just start over and never know him again. He doesn’t know if he would blame her. But that doesn’t mean he won’t die inside if she says it.

Clove raises her head and looks him directly in the eye, their faces only inches apart. He feels her breath on his cheek as she opens her mouth.

“I want you.”

He holds her gaze for an impossibly long moment. Then, she blinks, and looks away. He follows her eyes down to her right hand. It’s shaking. But slowly, very slowly, she unfurls her fingers and then closes them again, this time around his wrist. He raises his eyebrows. She gives a shy smile. He beams, and one of her fingers starts to trace tiny patterns on his skin.

They don’t speak. They don’t need to.