Chapter Text
The journey back to the apartment happens faster than Lucy can remember, and before she knows it because she’s still very confused and out of it from the emotional pain, they are making their way up in the elevator and walking through the very well-lit hallway.
“Hey, do you want to go to sleep now? Or do you want to talk about it?” Tigris interrupts her thoughts and she looks up to find that they have entered the apartment and that they are now standing close to the door while the taller girl moves a few steps back to close the entrance behind her.
Lucy just waves a hand around, looking around the darkened room before pointing to the bedroom and making her way there. Tigris understands the signal and follows silently until she’s standing at the door of the room and looks for the switch to turn the lights on.
Inside the bedroom, on the other side of the bed, the one that’s closest to the window, Lucy stands with her back to Tigris as she removes her dress, shoes, and the rest of her clothing to exchange them for the pajamas she had been gifted by her friend. She does all of this in silence and the only thing that’s heard in the room is the sound of fabric being stretched and placed over naked skin as she turns for a moment and watches her friend undressing as well.
She’s perfectly aware that she’s also wearing makeup, and that sleeping with makeup is not the best choice she could make, but she doesn’t have it in her to go to the bathroom and pick through the cabinets for the products to remove it, she’s that exhausted, both physically and mentally and all she wants to do is just lay on the fluffy bed and fall asleep for the next three days at least.
But the thing is, that she doesn’t have the next three days, and the thought that she’ll leave soon somehow keeps her alert as she and Tigris make their way inside the bed and lay together, side by side in silence. Once the lights on each side of Tigris’s bed are turned off again and the air conditioning is on and running, Lucy also realizes that she’s sweaty and exhausted. But she’s too tired to do something about it, like take a shower, so, she just manages to turn around and face Tigris with droopy eyes as a yawn escapes her lips.
It’s a very strange feeling. She’s exhausted, but at the same time, she’s very alert of her own body, presence, and of Tigris next to her.
The blonde hair in her friend’s head that she can see in her periphery makes her have flashbacks to earlier that night when Coriolanus was still at her side and their bodies were next to each other’s on his bed. The hand on her right side itches to touch Tigris’s blonde hair in the same way she did for Coriolanus as they made love but she stops herself before she can do it. Instead, she just smoothes out the fabric of the comforter over her body and sighs deeply as she settles on the too-soft bed.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” Tigris asks her while she looks her in the eyes with a worried expression. It’s almost as if she feels that something profound happened between Lucy and Coriolanus when they saw each other but she’s too afraid to express it out loud.
“Yeah, I’m just tired.” Lucy breaths. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. I promise” She finishes as she fully faces her friend in the dark of the room.
Tigris doesn’t say anything, but Lucy feels how her thinner hand makes her way above the covers and squeezes her right hand in what she feels is a comforting way.
“Alright, have a good night, then.” The older woman whispers before removing her hand from Lucy’s and pulling back to her position on the bed.
Lucy sighs softly again as an answer and hides her hands and arms inside the covers to adjust them underneath and over the pillow as her eyes close.
And slowly, as Tigris sighs too and settles on her side of the bed, Lucy, for as much as she’s alert and still thinking about Coriolanus and what they did, feels as if her body is giving out on her and sleep starts to drag her away to its heavenly kingdom where nothing else matters but recovering herself from the exertions of the day.
Next thing she knows, Coriolanus’s sad face is no longer at the forefront of her mind, and instead, white fluffy clouds over a beautiful meadow where a child’s laughter is heard appear on her mind, and she smiles.
The next morning, the sun’s streaks try to fight their way through the curtains of the room and it’s this that wakes her up. She sits groggily on the bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and the first thing she notices as soon as she’s aware of her surroundings is that her body is sore.
“Ouch…” She whispers as she moves around the bed and turns around to find that Tigris is no longer there. She looks around the room and the only thing she hears is the air conditioning working, so she steps down from the bed and starts padding toward the door. When it opens for her, she walks outside to the hallway.
Everything outside is just as quiet as in the room and every step she takes resonates around the hallway. Her body feels as if it’s in pain but in a good way. She’s sensitive in spots she hadn’t been in a long time and it feels as if she did one very long workout the night before.
Out of nowhere, a memory from the night before when she was still tangled in the sheets of Coriolanus’s bed and his head was between her legs appears in her head, but she shakes it off with a blush, not wanting to think about what he did or what she did or what it implied for her, so she continues as some of her dark hair continues to fall in front of her face as a curtain.
When she makes it to the living room, she finally finds that the whole apartment is completely deserted. Tigris isn’t anywhere, not even the bathroom, and the only company she has is the light of the sun that’s hitting the couches because of the heavy curtains that were left wide open.
With a small shiver, because the air conditioning is functioning all over the apartment and she missed taking a blanket with her, she makes her way to one of the couches and decides to lay there so that the heat can warm her off and almost immediately, it does. But as she closes her eyes, intent on soaking up the rays, sleeps and her exhausted and sore body claims her again and she’s dragged into a dreamless sleep once more.
The next time she wakes is because of the smell of food close by.
This time, she feels more rested, and even though the sun is now a bit higher in the sky and the apartment is cool, someone seems to have put a blanket over her to keep her warm on the couch.
“Good morning sunshine.” Tigris turns to her with a spatula in hand and a beautiful smile on her thin face. “Actually,” She looks down at her watch before she looks up again at Lucy who is removing some hair from her face and rubbing her eyes from any remnant of sleep that was there. “Good afternoon. You slept throughout the morning and for most of the afternoon now.”
Lucy shakes her head, to try and get rid of the fogginess in her brain and actions and this helps her, making her more awake as she smells the eggs making in the kitchen in front of Tigris.
“Oh.” It's all she manages to say and she watches how Tigris’s smile turns into a giggle for a second before she turns to continue cooking for them.
“If you don’t mind, I started making breakfast a few minutes ago,” Tigris mentions from where she’s moving.
“Yeah, that’s fine, thank you,” Lucy says as she sits on the couch and removes the blanket from her lap before she stands and makes her way to where her friend is.
Inside the kitchen, the smell of food becomes more prominent and she feels the soft rumbling noise her stomach makes and she takes notice that aside from being sore, sweaty, and stained, she also probably looks like a clown, with all her makeup smudged around her eyes and lips, and with matted hair that desperately needs a brush.
“Where were you?” She asks as she leans over the ceramic table next to the kitchen where Tigris is hard at work. Underneath her feet, the floor is cold and the cabinet’s handles hit her knees as she sways subconsciously.
“Oh, I was at the train station, I wanted to ask around and see when is the next train from Twelve coming and going,” Tigris replies as she puts salt on the eggs. Next to them, in another pan, the bacon is sizzling.
“Ah.” Lucy shuffles around for a second, looking down at the food before her eyes look up again and she focuses on Tigris. “And when do they come and go?” She asks.
“There should be one tomorrow morning, and it would leave tomorrow night, so we still have some time before you go back,” Tigris announces as she motions for the cabinet above Lucy’s head. “Can you pass me a plate? This is about to be done.”
Lucy nods and pulls herself away from her position to open the cabinet and she has to stand on the tip of her toes to get the plates like her friend is asking.
Once she passes two, she figures that since there’s coffee around and it’s making in a coffee machine in a corner, she might as well look for the cups, so she searches around until she finds two clean ones and takes the glass pot from the coffee machine and pours them the dark liquid.
“Let’s go to the living room while the sun’s still out and eat there,” Tigris announces when the food is done and she has set everything on the plates.
Lucy gives one look to the dirty dishes and pans but Tigris just shakes her head and ushers her out of the door.
“Don’t worry about those, we’ll handle them later. Go.” She says and Lucy nods, too hungry to not follow orders.
They make their way out of the small room and sit where Lucy had been sleeping before. She throws the blanket over the back of the couch and sits crosslegged in front of her taller friend and when Tigris passes her a fork, she starts eating like a woman who had not seen a meal in a week.
For a while, they eat in silence, enjoying their food and the environment around them. The coolness of the room against the streaks of sun coming from the window makes for a very interesting mix and Lucy finds herself enjoying it as she sips from her coffee.
“So…” Tigris starts when she’s almost done with her meal.
Lucy looks up from where she’s cutting her bacon and for the first time since the night before, she starts to feel nervous again.
“Care to tell me what exactly it was that you did with my cousin last night? Because I’m pretty sure that you didn’t spend more than five or six hours just talking.” Tigris turns for a second and places her plate on the glass table in front of them before she looks at Lucy once again.
Lucy, for once, scratches the back of her neck, a gesture she picked up from Samuel and something that he did whenever he was nervous. With a short look at her plate, she figures that she’s going to need to tell Tigris the whole truth if she doesn’t want to keep everything bottled up. Besides, if there was someone that she could trust outside her family and husband, it was Tigris, and she doesn’t want to leave her again without knowing what transpired between her and Coriolanus in case anything comes from that situation and she needs to face the consequences of her actions later on.
“Well, I guess there’s no way out of it with you.” Lucy chuckles for a few seconds before her eyes finally meet Tigris’s and she moves to put her plate next to her empty cup of coffee on the glass table next to them.
Tigris smiles, an encouraging smile and Lucy nods.
“You’re right. We didn’t spend all that time talking. We…did more. ” She finishes with a sigh that makes Tigris’s eyes widen when she understands the implications of what Lucy is trying to say.
“What do you mean by more ?” Tigris asks immediately.
Lucy blushes the moment more memories appear in her head and she shakes her head again, willing them to just go away. But for some reason, for as much as her head tries to avoid and forget, her body still betrays her and the soreness makes itself known as she shuffles around on the couch.
“We didn’t talk at all Tigris.” Lucy widens her eyes, unwilling to say the words that describe what she did out loud out of fear that when she says them, they become true.
Tigris nods, not exactly seeing that Lucy doesn’t want to say them, and Lucy feels slightly desperate. Almost as if she’s clinging to her silence for help.
When a moment of silence where nobody says anything happens, and for as much as she doesn’t want to continue speaking, it’s contradictory, yeah, she knows. She realizes that either way, Tigris is going to know, so she gathers what little courage she has, and speaks.
“We slept together.”
Tigris’s hands go immediately to her mouth to stop the sound she almost makes as she understands what happened the night before. Silence follows and Lucy expects it to be tense, but it just isn’t and when she opens her eyes because she had not realized that they had closed after she said the words, she finds that Tigris is still there, wide-eyed and with her hands over her mouth but without any sort of judgment on her face.
“Wait, what? Tell me more!” She says when Lucy sees her again and she manages to control her expressions. There’s almost the ghost of a smile on her lips that Lucy cannot decipher at the moment.
A very small smile appears on Lucy’s own lips when she hears the question and it feels as if a weight has been lifted off her chest. At least there’s one person who’s not going to judge her for what she did.
She has more than enough with judging herself to add more people to the mix.
“Well,” Lucy starts before Tigris scoots closer and she feels their knees touching. “After we saw the introduction that the Plinths did with him and Livia, I purposefully grabbed his attention by waving at him. It was going to be meant as a sarcastic wave, but I don’t know what happened because as soon as he noticed me and then the speech was done, he ran down the stairs and moved to where I was…”
“Yeah, I noticed that.” Tigris interrupts.
“Ok,” Lucy agrees before she continues speaking. “He then took me away from the party and we ended up in his room on the second floor of the house and we hadn’t even said hello to each other when we started kissing Tigris…” She sighs as she starts to remember. “It was almost as if nothing had changed from the last time I saw him. I don’t know why, but it felt as if we were only picking up from where we left off, and not much had changed between him and me ever since.”
Her friend listens to her explanation with an indescifrable expression on her face but Lucy tries not to pay attention to that and continues.
“And then, things just escalated and I found myself unable and unwilling to stop and we made love for the first time. And it was as if a part of me that I didn’t know was missing was found again…”
The awe on Tigris’s face is enough to make Lucy blush and she looks down so that her friend doesn’t notice that she’s doing exactly that.
“And then?” Tigris prompts her to continue as a hand makes its way to her knee and stays there comfortingly. “Wait, there were more times after that?” She asks.
Lucy nods as she looks down to the couch. “We fell asleep, I think?” Lucy looks up again. “And then we made love a couple more times until he said that I should just go because he was not going to let me go if I stayed there with him.” She puts a hand on her chin as if she’s thinking about it before speaking again. “It was strangely as if whatever last shred of goodness that was left in him came out for those few moments and he was able to just understand what he needed to do and what was best for me and for us in the long run…”
By then, some tears were threatening to spill from Tigris’s eyes and she moved to clean one that managed to escape as it made its way down the blonde’s cheek.
“I knew it. He’s still good. Deep down, he’s still the same person I grew up with.” She speaks softly as her hand moves to be over Lucy’s on her cheek.
Lucy’s not sure of what to say or even so much as to change the way Tigris thinks so she keeps quiet and lets her friend believe what she wants to believe.
She, on the other hand, is not so sure that he’s still the same person that he was almost twenty years ago, and deep down, she fears that her efforts to make it to the Capitol and try to get him to listen were unsuccessful in every way she could think of.
Because that’s the thing. People change, and they grow and evolve and they make their choices and for as much as he loved her, his path was different than hers and probably a lot worse than she could imagine.
She had thought that she could help change him. Her younger self would’ve jumped at the thought of helping him because he had always helped her. Since the beginning, he had been there for her and she wanted to reciprocate because she truly, deeply loved him, but seeing now the choices he had made and the decisions he had taken to be where he was…
Maybe he was always meant to be up in the sky while she stayed low on the ground.
She couldn’t save him from himself, for as much as she wanted to try and take the burden of his pain, she just couldn’t.
Fear of making things worse by having come to the Capitol takes over her, though she doesn’t show it. She doesn’t want to make Tigris stop hoping, so with all the strength she can muster, she gives her friend what can pass for a hopeful smile and starts nodding along as she listens to her speak about what else can she do for Coriolanus once Lucy is gone and back to her district.
“I just hope that he can stop that marriage from happening before it even makes it to the wedding day…” Tigris rambles in her seat and Lucy nods.
This goes on for the next few minutes until out of nowhere, Tigris’s eyes widen and she turns back to face Lucy for a single second.
“Honey!” She exclaims.
“Hmm?” Lucy hums to let her know that she’s listening.
“Did you guys use protection?”
Lucy’s head swivels and her whole body follows a second later because she’s now kneeling between the glass table and the couch trying to pick up their plates to put them in the sink.
“Not really. But don’t worry about that. I can’t have children. It’s ok.” She reassures her blonde friend with a friendly pat to the forearm that’s exposed from the robe she’s wearing.
Tigris doesn’t seem convinced and presses on. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry. It’s safe. Nothing’s going to happen.” Lucy tries again, this time waving a hand around as she finally stands with the plates in one hand.
“Huh. Alright then, if you say so…” The sound of Tigris’s voice follows her as she makes her way to the kitchen and she has to bite her lower lip in order to contain the anxiety that came from the question because for as much as it is true that Lucy cannot have children, there’s always the smallest of possibilities of something happening there.
After all, that’s how she happened.
She was a mistake according to her parents. A welcome mistake once she made it to the world, but a mistake anyway. Born out of a celebration and a bottle of whisky some months after her parents had decided to stop having babies…
“No, no, no…It’s fine.” She whispers to herself as she drops the plates carefully in the sink.
Outside she can hear Tigris humming a song and this is helpful when it comes to making her forget. She pushes the dangerous thoughts out of her head and puts on a more serious expression on her face as she walks back out.
She only makes it to the door because she finds Tigris on the other side about to go in and when she sees that her friend is carrying the mugs, she extends her hands and takes them from her.
“I got it.”
“Thank you.” Tigris gives her a grateful smile before she turns around and goes back to her seat. When she makes it there, she turns again and gives her a questioning look, almost as if she just thought of an idea and wants to let her know.
“But, don’t you want me to get you some pills, just in case?” She asks.
Lucy shakes her head, trying to reassure her that everything is fine before Tigris nods, looking a bit worried and not like she entirely believes Lucy, but she hums again as she reluctantly moves away from the door and Lucy goes back inside the kitchen to drop the mugs next to the plates. And when she finally makes sure that everything that’s dirty is in the sink, she starts washing it.
The motion is immediately soothing and it works to settle her nerves.
The water coming from the faucet down her hands feels amazing, the soap in her hands and the movements she makes as she cleans with the sponge become repetitive enough that she almost falls into a trance and she starts doing everything on autopilot.
Her head for some reason feels disconnected and she’s not thinking of anything else other than the feel of the cool water against her skin that she quickly and completely forgets that there might be danger ahead for her because she did not use protection the night before.
Silence surrounds her and engulfs her but every once in a while she continues to listen to Tigris hum in the living room as she continues her task and tries hard to forget about any pill or any protection she could take that day.
It wouldn’t work anyway.
She comes from a place where there’s not a lot of food or medical care and that has led to her period being late most of the time. Sometimes not even showing up, and for as more as she had decided to not have children, she knew that she was backed up by the fact that she was so irregular that it would be practically impossible for a child to come out of whatever it was that she did the night before with Coriolanus.
With a deep breath and willing her mind to forget, she continues with her self-assigned task and moves around the kitchen cleaning anything and everything that she thinks needs to be cleaned. And it’s only when, moments later, she brushes the bottom of the sink and finds that she cleaned everything around her that she finally comes out from her trance-like state.
She looks down and finds that along the way, she put everything on the rack next to the sink to dry and that there’s no water splashed around, probably also cleaned by her while she was out of it and she smiles.
“Hey!” She calls out, feeling much better as she starts to move from the kitchen back to the living room.
“Yeah?” Her friend replies.
“I’m going to take a shower, do you mind?”
“Not at all. I’m going to finish a design, I’ll be here.” Tigris calls out from where she can be seen now lying on the couch.
Lucy nods and slowly pads back toward the bedroom where she looks for her bag and finds a change of underwear that she takes with her to the bathroom. She then makes her way inside and repeats the same process that she did when she arrived and in a few minutes when the water is hot enough, she’s finally undressing and making her way inside the tub.
The moment her muscles are hit by the pressurized water, a soft moan escapes her lips and she feels as if she’s made it to heaven.
Slowly, and taking her time, she washes all the sweat, soreness, makeup, and curls of her body and hair.
Her hands make their way throughout her body rubbing the same places where Coriolanus kissed her the night before and she makes sure to erase his smell from her body as much as she can.
But as she cleans, and passes the bar of soap around herself, she cannot forget his smell. It’s almost as if it’s imprinted on her nose and she feels as if that’s something that she’ll never forget.
It’s so incredibly strong that she thinks that it’ll probably stay seared on her brain for as long as she lives.
She breathes a deep sigh and just pushes her head underneath the shower head and closes her eyes. Her hands go through her hair and she washes it thoroughly as she stands there silently.
A few tears that she didn’t know had created in her eyes fall to the ground and she just pushes her hands against the tiles to keep herself from doing anything else other than clean them up. With another deep sigh, she opens her eyes and looks at the tiles in front of her until she feels the water start getting cold and that’s when she knows that her shower is done.
She closes the water and grabs a towel that’s lying next to her on top of the toilet and towels off until she’s as dry as she’ll ever be.
Once outside, she cleans her teeth and wears her pajama again and then she’s making her way out of the bathroom and back to the living room.
“I’m going back to bed. I need all the rest I can get if I’m leaving tomorrow night. It is a long journey after all.” She explains the moment she finds Tigris in the same position she left her in.
“Yeah, go ahead and give me a minute and I’ll join you, ok?” Tigris replies as she’s focused on her drawing.
“Ok.” Lucy nods and slowly goes back to the bedroom.
She senses Tigris moving around the living room but once she makes it to the bedroom and settles in the bed with her arms around her pillow, she knows she’s not going to last for much longer. She’s extremely tired, more so than she had thought she was, and in less than a few minutes, her eyes are already dropping.
Tigris does join her a minute after she promises and when she’s inside the room again and lying on her side of the bed, Lucy sighs softly.
“Good night, dear friend. Get some rest.” She hears Tigris say softly as her lips touch the top of her head.
“Goo’ night…” Lucy manages to get out before she’s finally falling asleep again.
The last thought in her mind as she looks at the blurry face of Tigris is something about feeling as if she spoke too little of her and Coriolanus’s meeting and if she made the wrong choice by not accepting her friend’s offer of some late protection for herself and her body.
The next day is spent resting inside the apartment again.
She’s not in the mood to go out and Tigris is more than happy to indulge her. She owns her own boutique now and she doesn’t have to do much if she doesn’t want to. Her workers do most of the job for her and that’s why she has the liberty to move and do whatever she wants with her day.
There’s also the matter that for as much as the people in the Capitol seemed to have forgotten about her and her games, Lucy is not willing to risk it.
In the safety of her friend’s home, she eats some more and sets out to prepare herself a bigger bag than the one she came with to the Capitol.
Poor Tigris feels so guilty about Lucy not eating as well as she does that she makes sure that Lucy brings enough goods with her back to Twelve so they can feed her and her cousin’s family for a considerable amount of time.
Lucy though, doesn’t know how she’s going to hide all of that, but she’s willing to think of something and there will be plenty of time on the train to think of ideas.
“I am going to miss you, you know?” Tigris tells her later when the sun is coming down and they are watching the sunset from the couch in the living room.
“I am going to miss you too Tigris. So much…” Lucy replies, the same sentiment that’s on her friend’s face is on her voice.
They hug because they are pretty sure that they will not see each other again for a long time but eventually, they split apart as they clean the tears from their eyes.
“Thank you so much for what you’re giving me here, and for making me come too.” Lucy nods gratefully as they continue to speak. “And I’m sorry if you feel as if what I told you about me and Coriolanus is not enough.”
Tigris shakes her head vehemently and puts a hand on her shoulder. “No need to apologize. I understand that there are things between you and my cousin that are only yours to keep and that you shouldn’t tell them unless you want to. What you told me is more than enough for me to have hope for him.” Lucy puts her hand above hers and squeezes it. “You made me believe again that he can change for good. And that the person he was is still there somewhere…”
Lucy smiles and launches herself again at her friend’s arms who embraces her with the same watery laugh.
Silence falls on them again as the sun continues to fall and it’s only when night happens that they stop.
“Come on. We should go. We don’t want you to miss your train.” Tigris speaks when they split apart again and she looks at the darkened room.
Lucy nods and stands to go and look for her stuff.
Together, they gather what Lucy is bringing back with her to Twelve and they make their way out of the apartment wearing the same dark cloaks from the night of the party. Down in the parking lot, they get to the car as quickly as they can and they make their way through the streets just as quickly.
The whole ride to the station is silent. Tigris is focused on driving while Lucy looks around the capital of their country one last time. The yellow lights of the lamps creating long shadows of the vehicles and she watches them one by one as they pass her just like the night before.
There’s not a lot of traffic, probably because they go through less crowded streets but she still pays attention to everything around her. The tall buildings loom over her again but this time she’s no longer afraid of them. She’s actually glad to leave them behind and go back to her district. She realized that she missed the bright, tall trees and the beautiful greenery of Twelve and the thought of going back fills her with an unexpected joy she never thought she would feel.
And it’s with these thoughts that they finally make it twenty minutes later to the train station.
Tigris parks them as closely to the trains as she possibly can and opens her door when she’s out of the car to help her with her stuff.
There are a couple more bags with her alongside her own bag of clothes but the two of them manage until they make it halfway through the tunnel that leads to the train when Tigris just stops.
“Lucy” She speaks, standing next to her smaller friend.
“Yes?” Lucy looks up at her.
“Promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll reach out,” Tigris says as seriously as possible and Lucy, who had never seen her that way before, somehow understands what’s she asking.
“I will.” She nods, looking just as serious as her taller friend.
Tigris looks for sincerity in her answer and it seems that she finds it in her eyes because she nods and stops holding onto Lucy’s shoulders and resumes her walk in the dark.
“If there’s anything that you might need in the future, don’t forget that I’m here and I’ll do my best to help you if I can.” She says as they finally reach the entrance of the train station and they notice the workers around.
“I know. Thank you so much for everything again Tigris.” Lucy mentions as she takes a moment from looking around for peacekeepers to turn and face Tigris one last time.
Tigris shakes her head as if to say that there’s nothing to worry about and with one last smile, the two women make a run for the train that’s supposed to be Twelve’s and once there, they weave through the high crates and boxes until they make it to the last car.
They look inside and just like when she came, there’s nothing inside other than crates and boxes. Luckily for them, the surroundings are surprisingly alone as well, and with one last look and an embrace, the two women part.
Lucy finds the darkest spot inside the car and drops her bags there but before she can sit and try to get comfortable, she turns and notices that Tigris stays there on the side of the car door watching her.
With one last wave, the two women finally realize that a lot of time will pass before they can see one another again. And that’s it even if there’s a small possibility for them to see each other again in the future, but for some reason, and unlike the situation with Coriolanus, Lucy has the feeling that she will see Tigris once more pretty soon.
So, she smiles and when Tigris smiles back as she waves, she’s finally able to sit again and hide in the shadows of the car.
The last thing she sees of her friend is the back of her pink cape running away a moment later and she thanks whoever is above in the sky for the lack of security around the train station.
The journey back to Twelve is uneventful and just like the first two times, it takes her exactly twenty-four hours to make it back to her district.
This time, thankfully, she has more food and more water to eat and drink along the way. It also helps that she had a good meal before she left and therefore, when it comes time to sleep, she doesn’t get the nightmares that plagued her a few days ago.
Around her and outside, she can feel the cold wind against the train and she’s grateful that she’s safely hidden and warm inside the car as she slowly falls asleep.
She turns around a couple of times and tugs the small blanket Tigris gave her above her head to stop the moonlight from coming through and it’s like this that sleep catches her and she slowly falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The next morning catches her a little off guard because it takes her a few seconds to process the events of the night before and remember how she made it there but when she eventually catches on, she sits with her back against a wall and searches her bags for something to eat for breakfast.
She settles for some fruit and water and eats in silence, looking around as sun rays make their way through the creaks of the wood of the car where she is and she wonders what can be happening back in Twelve at that very moment.
She’s been gone for almost a week now and she knows that her poor husband is probably going mad as he looks for her throughout the entire district.
Lucy doesn’t even want to think about what kind of explanation she’s going to give him the moment she sees him again because she’s not entirely sure of what she wants to say, but one thing’s for certain. What happened between her and Coriolanus will stay with her until the grave.
Nobody is going to know about that for as long as she lives.
She sighs as she bites into an apple and a moment later, with a grimace, she realizes that her bubble has been burst and that she’s returning to reality.
A reality that she left on a whim without so much as telling her husband, cousin, or the rest of her family and band members where she went.
Her poor Maude must be worried to death for her and she knows that the thought of not knowing where Lucy is will make her cousin do something crazy to help Samuel look for her.
At this point, she thinks that they probably even involved the peacekeepers and she doesn’t know what’s going to happen if that thought is actually true.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, Lucy Gray…Calm down, we cannot do anything right now…” She talks softly to herself in order to soothe her worries.
She takes a couple of breaths and pushes herself back to the creaky floor of the car after she saves the carcass of the apple inside of a bag and decides to just look up at the ceiling of the train and start counting the cracks on it to pass the time.
Some time passes after that and Lucy finds herself slowly forgetting about the hell that’s probably waiting for her back on Twelve as the day moves on.
She eats her lunch when she calculates is almost noon, and after that, she walks around the place singing to herself and trying to peek through the cracks of the walls.
There’s really not a lot for her to see because the train moves extremely fast through the tracks and all she can catch is flashes of greens, gray, and beautiful blue in the sky, though every once in a while she catches some cold wind and she has to pick up her blanket from the floor to put it over her shoulders when the temperature starts to lower halfway through the afternoon.
She then sits back and distracts herself with organizing everything that she’s bringing back with her to Twelve and when that’s done, she sings to herself again until her voice is exhausted and the sun in the sky is no longer there.
A hand goes over her forehead to rub it in an effort to keep her from closing her eyes and she knows that as soon as the train starts to slow its motions then that means that they are close to her home.
She sits on the floor, puts on the dark cape, and starts picking up bags as she settles on her hidden spot and waits.
The temperature drops a couple more degrees as they enter the district and Lucy braces herself mentally and physically so she can make her escape the moment the men start to work to put the coal in the cars.
When they finally make it to the station, she takes one last deep breath and waits.
Outside, she can hear the men working and moving around, opening the car doors and shuffling around as they move their precious cargo inside. After a few minutes pass, she crawls out of her hiding spot and makes it to a spot closer to the door.
She’s grateful that the cloak Tigris gave her is as dark as the night because when a minute later, the door to her hiding spot is open and a man enters to look for something inside, she’s not even remotely seen.
The man moves around and moves some empty boxes behind him as he makes his way deeper into the car and Lucy takes a moment to look outside.
It’s not exactly deserted because men are working, but pretty quickly she finds an opening when they leave some boxes and make it toward the beginning of the train and she takes it.
She looks back at the man inside and she hears him grunting as he starts to stack some boxes in front of him so she takes advantage of the fact that he has his back to her and crawls to the edge of the door and jumps down as silently as she can to the gravel floor of the station.
Once there and breathing the air of her district again, she takes one last look around and runs through the crates, careful not to make too much noise, and goes to where the shops are located.
Her journey is not easy and she’s scared to death as she runs away, but she says a thank you to whoever is listening to her in the sky again as nobody crosses her path and she’s able to make it safely to where the people are still around.
The center of the district is mostly silent at that hour, even though is not later than seven or eight at night, the citizens know that they have a tight curfew to return to their homes sometimes.
Lucy walks around with her black cape like a dark creature from a horror story and she’s thankful that all of the kids are inside their homes already because she doesn’t know what could happen if they were to see her dressed the way she is.
Still, she continues and when she’s finally making it to the edge of the houses in the seam and finds that there are more peacekeepers than she had seen before and that they are patrolling around the streets of her home, she knows that her family called for them to search for her like she thought they would.
So, that’s why when the tree line and the edge of the forest appear in her line of sight, she quickly formulates a plan and runs to hide there in a position where she can watch everyone but they cannot see her.
She’s so grateful that her husband’s illegal hunting can be of use to her when she needs it the most.
There, she finds her husband’s hiding place for his bow and arrows and she quickly hides her bags next to it. Digging in the dirt, she hopes that nothing that she brought back gets infected or dirty and she takes the cloak off and hides it inside the tree next to his instruments and hopes to come back for them the next day when everything is clear and she’s back to her regular life.
As she does all of this, Lucy looks around and over the trees for the lights that come up every once in a while. In the distance, she can see her house and she can even make out some of the members of the Covey Band walking around her porch while Maude is standing with her arms crossed in front of her and Samuel’s larger frame standing next to her with his two arms behind his back.
She could not decipher their expressions but she was pretty sure that they were all worried for her, so with one last breath and after making sure that everything that came with her was hidden safely, she picked up her bag and slowly walked out of the forest.
“Wait! Wait everyone, I think I see her!”
Maude and Samuel turn around when a friend points to where Lucy is coming from inside the forest and when they realize that it is actually her, they break into a run and together, they embrace her with sighs of relief leaving their lips.
Lucy hugs them back with a smile on her face and she closes her eyes for a second, taking in their scent and feeling her family’s bodies around her.
“Where the hell have you been?!” Samuel almost screams when they finally part.
“Lucy you had us scared to death!” Maude does scream next to Samuel as they look at her with twin angry stares.
Lucy extends her hands in front of her in an attempt to pacify them and she swallows before she’s speaking again.
“I know, I know. I’m so sorry guys.” She says. “I decided to hike a couple of days ago but then I lost my way and ended up in a few parts of the forest I didn’t know before.”
Her explanation is flaky at best and she knows that Maude doesn’t buy it because her eyes narrow when she listens to Lucy but Samuel for some reason, does believe her and he deflates in his spot.
“I’ve told you not to go into the forest without me sweetheart.” He pulls her into his arms and puts his chin over her head as she returns the hug. “You don’t know it the way I do.” He whispers in her ear.
“I’m sorry.” She whispers again. The sound is muffled by the thick shirt he’s wearing.
A moment later she feels Maude touch her hair and the feeling is comforting as Samuel shakes his head above hers.
She knows she’s tricking them and has lied to her husband, something that she promised herself she’d never do and that’s why she hugs him tighter and smiles kindly at Maude. Almost as if that was her silent apology to them for doing the things that she did the past week.
“How did you survive?” Maude asks her when the couple splits apart and they turn to face her.
Lucy points to her bag and Maude smiles.
“I had brought some provisions and I found a cave pretty quickly. There I rested until I was able to start making my way back here yesterday.”
Samuel shakes his head again, but this time there’s an air of amusement around him that makes her smile and she pushes herself again into his arms and puts her head on his chest.
“Are you injured? Did anything happen to you while you were out?” He asks her as he looks down at her.
Lucy shakes her head and that’s when a couple of members of her former band finally approach her and start making conversation with her.
They ask her about what happened to her and she continues telling her lies about losing herself in the woods and how she survived until she was finally able to find her way back to the district. Maude still has an air of suspicion around her but keeps quiet as she listens to Lucy speak and it’s only when the peacekeepers approach that she starts to retreat and leave to go to her own home.
“You know I don’t believe you right?” She whispers when Samuel splits from them and starts talking to the peacekeepers about how Lucy finally appeared.
“I know,” Lucy whispers back as she continues to watch her husband in the distance.
Maude sighs tiredly and puts her hands on the wood railing of Lucy’s porch as she turns to face her cousin.
“I’m not going to pretend to know what happened or where were you this past week, but I am your cousin and I like to think that we are close and that we trust each other. So, if this is something that you can and want to talk about soon, I’m always here to listen.” She says with a serious expression on her face.
Lucy just nods, not trusting herself to start crying and telling her everything the moment she sees the expression on Maude Ivory’s face and she wraps her arms around her chest to hug herself.
“I know. Thank you, Maude.” She manages to get out a second later.
Maude nods just as solemnly as Lucy and they turn back to watch Samuel approach the house and the peacekeepers return to the center of the city now that the issue has been dealt with. Around them, the rest of her family and friends wave their goodbyes and the cousins wave back until the only ones left are them and Samuel.
“Alright, I should go back. It’s freezing tonight.” Maude makes it as if she’s going to hug Lucy and Lucy complies. “I’m glad you’re safe and that nothing happened to you. I love you.” She says when Samuel has finally reached them and is standing behind Lucy.
“I love you too, cousin. Thank you so much for coming and trying to help Samuel. I know it was probably a stupid search because I was not that far but still.” Lucy replies with a tired smile.
Maude shakes her head as if to say that there’s no problem and the cousins finally move apart.
Samuel places his hands over Lucy’s shoulders and the two of them start to wave a moment later when Maude starts climbing down the short stairs to the dirt path where they were a few moments earlier.
Together, they watch her go until she turns around and they hear a door close by open and close and they know she has made it to her home where her family is probably waiting for her.
“Are you sure you’re ok love? Not injured? Or hungry or anything like that?” Samuel asks when they turn around and make it to the door.
She shakes her head immediately and he seems to take the hint just as quickly because he goes silent and opens the door for her.
One of his hands stays in her shoulder and she squeezes it to comfort him once they are inside again and the door closes behind them.
“We were crazy worried about you sweetheart. When I returned from work that next evening and found that you weren’t there I grew concerned because leaving for so long was not something that you would do.” He starts to explain as he places himself in front of her again.
“I know, I’m sorry. “ She repeats. “I just felt like I wanted to exercise for a while and I wanted to get to know the forest a bit better. I never thought I would end up missing there for almost a week.” She explains with a chuckle, hoping that her words are convincing enough.
He hums as he looks at her but there’s nothing in his expression that feels as if he doesn’t believe what she’s saying to him and she finds herself finally relaxing for a second there.
“Just…Don’t do it again, please. I don’t want to even think about losing you. I love you too much.” He whispers as he pulls her closer and places a kiss on her hair.
She looks up at him with the most sincere and apologetic smile, though he doesn’t know that and probably never will, she kisses him.
“I love you too. And I’m sorry.” She whispers this time and she tries to charge her words with her genuine remorse so that he knows, even if it’s subconsciously, that she’s apologizing for everything she did behind his back in the Capitol.
He nods and watches her for a few seconds as his hands make their way to her cheeks and stay there for some seconds caressing her. The silence falls around them and embraces them and Lucy cannot help but continue to look into her husband’s dark brown eyes.
She doesn’t know how long they stay like that but eventually someone closes the distance and their lips are on each other’s.
Every thought that was passing through her head at that very moment goes away and all she can focus on are his lips on hers and how he grabs onto her waist with his two strong hands.
She starts pulling him backward and they walk blindly through the living room of the small hut until they make it to the entrance of their room. Lucy’s hands roam all over his strong chest and his go down as much as they can until she can feel them underneath her skirt and at the back of her thighs.
With a push, she jumps into his arms and he welcomes her with a small chuckle as they resume their walk and finally enter their small bedroom.
There, everything is dark but they know their way around and when she feels that they made it to the bed, she feels him letting loose and she falls into the bed.
Samuel takes a couple of steps back and removes his shirt, revealing his strong white chest to her and Lucy smiles as she watches from where she’s laying with her back to the pillows.
He then moves with the same smile to remove her shoes from her feet and slowly continues to work with the rest of the clothes she’s wearing. When she’s finally naked, he strips of his pants and toes off his shoes and crawls all over her body until they are finally facing each other again.
“I missed you.” He whispers in her ear.
She doesn’t reply but a moan makes its way from her lips and this is all he needs to know of her to continue.
His kisses begin on her lips and slowly they make their way down. Over her neck, collarbone, chest, breasts, stomach, and then he finally makes it to the place where he wanted to be all along.
“Oh…” She sighs when she feels him where she’s starting to need him the most. Her hands shoot from his sides and make their way to the top of his head where they latch onto his hair and she tugs.
He looks up and smirks at her and the only thing Lucy can do is roll her eyes at him for being a showoff.
“Less…smirking…More lick-” She starts to say before he passes a finger over her most sensitive places and she moans. “Oh…”
“You were saying?” He jokes with a raised eyebrow.
“Shut up.” She grumbles before a moan makes its way out of her lips again.
“Yes, ma’am.” He says before he goes back down and she’s climbing to her peak with her hands buried in his hair.
She’s grateful for the night’s cover and the fact that it’s late already as she feels him around her.
Here, on their bed and in their house she can moan and scream all she wants as they make love and she does as they switch positions and she moves up top so she can ride him.
Her hands go to his chest and their eyes lock as he watches her with awe in his eyes. The same look that he gives her every time that they make love this way and she cannot help but feel pretty and important as he does it.
Their moans of pleasure that borders on pain fill the small room and Lucy closes her eyes as she focuses on him and only him underneath her hands.
She kisses, bites, and licks every part of him she can find and she’s pleased when she hears his moans as she starts to move faster. His hands move to touch her where she needs him the most and she’s screaming when he makes it to the space between her legs where they are joined.
He seems to understand that she’s peaking again because his thrusts become more intense, almost as if he cannot wait to get her to the place where she wants to be and she has to hold onto his shoulders to keep steady.
“Sam-” She tries to say but he looks up at her and thrusts harder.
“Shh, shh, it’s ok, I’m here.” He whispers.
Lucy mewls as the bed underneath them creaks and when she finally makes it, she opens her eyes with a silent shout and smiles at him.
“Your turn.” She says and then she starts bouncing.
He looks satisfied and proud that he got her to have a second orgasm before he could finish but when she speaks and he notices the dangerous glint in her eyes, he moans and switches them so that she’s now underneath him and he’s pounding into her.
The mattress bounces with them as they move and try to match each other. Their foreheads touch and when they see each other, they smile.
Beads of sweat fall on each other’s bodies and they continue until she can feel him tense and slow his motions.
Lucy’s hands and arms go around his neck and she hugs him as she brings him down with her and their chests touch. She feels how he grunts and closes his eyes as his face hides in the crook of her neck and she tries to soothe him by rubbing her hands on his sweaty back.
With a deep moan, a second later, after she kisses the shell of his ear, he finally comes inside of her and spills himself there with a satisfied breath.
She moans just as much as he does when she feels him snap and her hands continue to roam his back. A sigh follows and he’s finally pushing himself off to hover above her.
A smile is gracing his tired features as he looks at her and she cannot help but smile back.
“I love you.” She moves her hands from his back to touch his lower lip for a second.
“I love you too.” He says it back with the same smile.
They stay like that for a few more seconds, enjoying the afterglow but he eventually pulls out and rolls to his side of the bed while she adjusts herself and tries to cover herself with a blanket.
“Wait.” He mentions and then he’s standing to go out into the kitchen.
She watches him leave their room and when he comes back he’s carrying a small wet rag to clean her. She lets him and watches him do it with all the care in the world.
When’s he done, Lucy kisses him as a thank you and pulls the cover for him to join her but he leaves her again to drop the rag in a basket. Still, she waits for him and when he’s finally by her side, she arranges the covers for them to lay together underneath.
His contented sigh as he pulls her closer to him in an embrace makes her feel better and she quickly closes her eyes, too focused on the beating of his heart to think about anything else.
They snuggle together in bed and soon enough, too tired from their eventful days, they fall asleep as the moon slips through the curtains and caresses their faces.