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She stands in the open doorway, contemplating the two futures she sees for herself now.
Lucy Gray could stay in this cabin and put on a show for him, as she’s always done. They could spend the night dry and warm underneath the covers, his head thrown back with childish laughter as she makes some playful quip referencing an event only they know. He’d kiss her with the reverent intensity she should expect him to have, and Lucy Gray could, for a moment, forget how treacherous of a situation this was, the imminent danger she could be placing herself in. She’d risked leaving the Covey for this, her friends, her family, to follow Coriolanus Snow to the ends of the earth. This beautiful, haunted boy, who was never given a chance to be one, this boy, who held her heart in the palm of his hand and could shatter it at any possible second.
After they’d destroyed the evidence linking him to the murders, she’d drag herself to District 2 with him and become another spectacle for their pleasure. The train ride back is mostly silent as she looks out the window, knowing that she’ll never return to see 12 again or the Covey or play in its musky taverns. He’d be looking at her with an expression somewhat resembling concern, and she’d wave it off as melancholia from leaving the home she’d known for her past eighteen years. He’d place a warm hand over hers and promise, “I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll take care of you, Lucy Gray, I’ll look after you. You can trust me on that.” She’d give him a half-hearted smile in return and spend the rest of the ride with her hand in his and mind far away from here.
They arrive at District 2 with much acclamation and awe from those who have devoutly followed the Games and are surprised at how this dynamic has turned out; mentor and performer to lovers, an acclaimed general’s son and a girl with no name or family, holding hands as they step off the train. He finds her a place to stay near the barracks, next to a musty old pub where she can play her guitar. Snow visits every day after his duty to Panem has been complete; sometimes, when he sees her composing another one of her haunting tunes, he stands in the doorway and listens until she’s finished. He’ll make some backhanded compliment about her voice with genuine affection underneath the barb, and she might flinch for a moment at the sound before wiping it off with a smile and walking over to kiss him at the door. He’d come to her shows when she played, tapping his foot, clapping to the beat, and shaking his head in time with the music. She’d wink across the room at him as she sang a line that contained an inside joke or a veiled reference to him, and he’d give her one of his genuine, unguarded boyish smiles in return.
In three months, Coriolanus Snow finishes his training, and Lucy Gray packs up. She’s sad to have left, but she’ll sing again. The last night she plays at the pub, it’s all haunting ballads and ends with a lively jig. After her set, she’ll join him for a dance to the next slow song, head resting on his shoulder, heartbeats in sync, breaths mingling, and hands intertwined. Once the song is finished, he’ll dip and kiss her to applause and wolf whistles from the audience until she forgets all about being sad.
Another long train ride to the Capitol, with gentle smiles and touches and moments of playful conversation. Snow is beautiful, face created from all sharp edges and defined features as the sunlight from the window shines onto his face. His hair is beginning to grow back; she’s convinced him to grow it back out into those fluffy, girlish curls instead of the gelled pompadour he was originally going for.
They get off, and so many people are waiting at the train station to gawk at the news; they had to see for themselves if it was true. The victor and the mentor, now the heir to the Plinth fortune. He tells her to ignore the stares as he grasps her hand in his tightly. She is his, he is hers. It is obvious, to anyone who looks at them, that he could easily break her.
She’ll move into the fancy new apartment he shares with cousin Tigris and Grandma’am Snow. She gets along with the former a lot better than the older woman’s religious fervor towards the word of the Capitol. Tigris and Lucy Gray bond over Snow’s embarrassing childhood memories and go shopping together in the finest stores until the closet they share is bursting with all the latest fashions. Once in a while, she’ll turn around and find Coriolanus staring at them with a gentle smile. She’ll give him a small smile and a wave in return.
Lucy Gray will play her guitar and sing at the opening ceremonies of the Hunger Games for the next several decades, knowing that he’ll be watching with that signature smirk on the other side of the television screen. She’ll come home and kiss him breathlessly as he tells her about how well she did, then join Tigris and Grandma’am for an elaborate dinner that could feed the entire District 12.
He sees her walking to the outskirts of the city sometimes, giving pieces of stashed-away food to families whose children are starving with ash-covered faces. She always comes back, though. He knows that. She is his songbird, and he is her captor.
One day, Snow proposes, and they get married in his mother’s wedding dress that Tigris adjusted to fit Lucy Gray. It’s a small ceremony, filled with the faces of his family and the Covey and his former classmates from the Academy. He carries her bridal style back to their new place together, and the next several weeks are a blur of languorous kisses and experimental touches, the high building up to breathless ecstasy and loud gasps.
They fight, and it’s always nothing short of vicious and biting. They’re twin flames, knowing each other all too well, and therefore the weakest places in each other’s armor to aim for. They pick at scabs that never truly healed, memories that are still sore, and eventually, he leaves. He goes somewhere for a few hours, slamming the door, and she flinches again, scared out of her mind that he’ll kill someone or do something drastic. When he comes back, he’s begging for her forgiveness, gasping out between sobs I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, while she cradles and soothes him as a mother would her babe. He kisses her, and he tastes like cigarette smoke and whiskey with just the faintest undertone of roses. When they wake up in the morning, tangled up in bedsheets, he traces patterns on her bare skin and whispers sweet nothings in her ear. Neither of them can remember what the fight was about.
Life is like that. She plays her guitar sometimes, for the annual Hunger Games, but there’s always hurt in her eyes for the people that will be endangered. People’s children, people’s siblings, people’s sweethearts. She accompanies Snow to important affairs and matters of state, smiling for the photographs like she’s been instructed to do since the first day she met him. She’s more often than not dressed in his colors, red and white and black with the barest hints of light catching on the dress’ trim the only nod to her old life.
The Games continue, year after year, and with the Games, so do the children. Lucy Gray thinks about singing old ballads to help them sleep, teaching them to play guitar, and making sure they do not make the same mistakes as their father. They were more fortunate than she ever was, more than she ever would be. She sees Coriolanus, icy blonde hair giving way to driven snow-white as the seasons pass. Her brunette curls, too, become a pale silver, and their wrinkled, spotted hands intertwine as they narrate a story of years past to their plethora of wide-eyed blonde and brunette grandchildren. With her behind him, he could be a good leader; she could be there to talk sense into him, to make sure he doesn't become his father.
It’s the life she could have, just there in her grasp, and her heart aches just thinking about it. It’s the obvious choice, it’s the easy way out, but she knows she will pay dearly.
She knows that the glint in this boy’s eyes, fixed directly on her face, was nothing childish or affectionate. It contained none of his beauty and all of his venom, and in that moment, Lucy Gray knew, she could not stay. This boy would never be satisfied; nothing would ever be enough. He would become an officer, and then a Gamemaker, and slowly, his thirst for blood and power would strip away his humanity, and even she was not strong enough to stop that from happening. In no time, he would be bored of her songs and her attempts to restrain him from his empire of betrayal and lies, and she knew she would be done for. If she dared to fly away, he would shoot her down. It would then be as if she’d never existed to him; he would make up some lousy, pathetic excuse about her disappearance and continue with his never-ending cycle of bloodthirst and slaughter. If he’d done it to Sejanus, whom he’d called his brother, he could no doubt do it to her.
And if that didn’t happen, she saw herself and Snow at the end of the world, holding hands while twin arrows were aimed at their heads. Some devotion remains, even in these final moments. Lucy Gray is guilty by association of loving a murderer. Her crime was marrying him and bearing his children despite every crime he’s committed against the nature of humanity itself, and she too, must pay for it with her life. If he goes down, he’s dragging his songbird with him — down, down, down into the depths of hell.
Lucy Gray brings herself back to the present just as the imaginary arrow hits her square in the forehead. She knew, exactly, what she had to do now. This had to end, once and for all — her or him. Once upon a time, there might’ve been hope of them, but she knew much, much better than to believe in him.
“My sweet, darling boy,” she murmurs, lowering the knife and stepping closer to him. She caresses his cheek with her palm, bringing their lips together for one final kiss before the grand finale. Lucy Gray makes it count, scratching his scalp with her fingers and inhaling his scent of rose and ash. He grips her arm hard enough to leave bruises, the other hand running up and down her curls. She sighs and allows herself to get caught up in this moment for just another minute; to say goodbye to what could’ve been, to say goodbye to the possibility of them and any hope for this story to continue.
When they finally break apart, tears are running down her face and her breaths come in shudders. “What’s wrong?” he asks with genuine concern in his eyes, and she can’t stand it any longer. Lucy Gray sobs as she slams the jagged knife right into his heart, Snow’s betrayed look making her break even more. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
She holds him as he bleeds out in front of her, tears soaking his mother’s scarf and his beautiful face. Even in death, he looked as elegant and cold as ever with features carved from marble and not a line out of place. Lucy Gray strokes his cheek lovingly as her sobs continue, wracking her small frame. Before, she knew he would’ve had his father’s handkerchief at the ready to dry her tears and comforting words to soothe her pain, but now, she was utterly and irrevocably alone.
Lucy Gray holds him and cries as the sky outside thunders and pours, mourning such a tragic story. Two star-crossed lovers, the tale always went; a Peter and his Wendy, and now a Snow and his Lucy Gray. The heavens watched as she wrapped up his corpse and the guns in an old sheet, rowing out to the lake and gently lowering it down, down, down into the water. Her haunting song pierces the night sky, a final farewell to the love that could’ve been.
“Cold and clean
Swirling over my skin
You cloak me
You soak right in down to my heart
This world, it’s cruel with troubles aplenty
You asked for a reason, I’ve got three and twenty
For why I trust you
You’re as pure as the driven snow
It’s why I love you
You’re as pure as the driven snow…”