Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Emily, it’s almost time to go.”

She sighs as her mother calls out for her and she closes her eyes, blowing out a shaky breath before she looks at herself in the mirror. She runs her fingers through her dark, perfectly curled hair, making sure it was lying over her shoulders. The dark green tea dress her mother had picked out for her came down to just above her knees, the colour of it complimenting her skin tone. It was velvet, soft and clearly expensive even just to look at, her appearance at odds with almost everyone else in her district.

She looked every bit like the Victor she wished she wasn’t.

It had been three years since she’d won. Since her name had been called out in the town square, the murmuring of her peers around her, whispers that ‘the mayor's daughter’ hadn’t even been safe fading out as she walked to the stage. In her worst moments, the timing of her mother’s reelection, something that looked unlikely at the time, and her reaping felt suspicious. The mayor’s daughter going into the games and becoming the first Victor for the district in a quarter of a century had won the election in a landslide.

It wasn’t lost on Emily that even if she’d died in the arena her mother would have likely won again anyway.

She liked to think that her mother hadn’t put her life at risk for a small grab of power, that she hadn’t made some deal and bartered her 15-year-old daughter’s survival like a chip in a poker game, hoping no one saw her bluff. She liked to think that, but she knew enough about how it all worked, had seen enough in the Capitol since becoming a Victor to know that power was the most important currency in this country. Instead, Emily actively ignored the truth laid out in front of her, knowing that in order to maintain appearances she had no other choice.

She’d won, but sometimes she wondered if she’d ever left the arena at all.

She looks at herself in the mirror one last time, smoothing her hands down her dress, her palms lingering over where the large scar on her abdomen was, the injury that had almost killed her. It was unsightly, something that made her wince whenever she saw it, but she stood by her decision to not have the Capitol remove it. She wanted to remember every day what she’d survived.

“I’m ready.”

The walk to the town square is familiar. She’s sure she could do it in her sleep, a death march she’d been part of her whole life, something she’d done long before she qualified for the games in the first place. She felt a sense of relief that her friends would age out this year, that this was the final time their names would be in the draw, their 18th birthdays always coming with a sigh of relief because it was the last time they’d stand there, their breath caught in their lungs as they waited to hear their name called out.
It feels like a weight is lifted from her shoulders when she spots Dave the moment she steps into the town hall. He was her mentor and friend, the only other victor to ever come from their district. The only other person who knew what it took from someone to win the games and come home alive.

“Hey kid,” he says, pulling her into a hug, one she returns gratefully. She freezes when she hears a throat clear from behind her, her mother’s disapproval at the father figure in her life something she’d made clear. Emily smiles tightly at Dave as she pulls back from him, and she conceals a smile when he winks at her, “You ready?”

She blows out a slow breath. None of this ever got any easier. Having to stand on stage in silence, a fake smile painted on her face, as more children were picked for a death they’d done nothing to deserve. The screams of the parents constantly echoed in her head, never quite going away. They always came back with a vengeance when the tributes died and she knew she was going home on an empty train, with no way she could possibly comfort anyone.

She’d become a cog in the machine that she hated, and she wasn’t sure how she’d ever escape. Her victory and her biggest crime both wrapped up in surviving, in pulling herself out of the pit she’d been thrown into when she was 15.

“Yeah,” she breathes out, pressing her lips together as she lets her mask slip into place, “I’m ready.”
___

He has to encourage this brother out of the house.

His father was passed out drunk in the living room, and his mother was close to hysterical at the thought of Sean being old enough to go into the games now, a level of emotion Aaron didn’t ever remember her showing for him.

He wraps his arm around Sean’s shoulders as they approach the town square, and he feels the 12-year-old tense, his body tight with a fear that Aaron remembered well. It was a feeling that oddly faded over the years, leaving him almost apathetic now, the reality that this was the final year he’d have to do this almost lost on him until his mother mentioned it in passing that morning.

“It will be okay Sean,” Aaron says, stopping to look at his brother, a smile he hopes is reassuring on his face, “It’s your first year. People rarely get their name called on their first year.”

Sean nods and carries on walking towards the signing-in point, “Will Mom and Dad come?”

Aaron sighs as he ruffles his younger brother's hair, “Mom probably will. Dad’s…resting after a long day at work yesterday.”

“I’m 12, not stupid Aaron,” he says, and they come to a stop again before they both join their respective lines, “You don’t have to protect me anymore,” he shrugs, a playful smile spreading across his face, “If the government think I’m old enough to die for entertainment, I’m old enough to know Dad is a piece of crap.”

Aaron chuckles and shakes his head before he ruffles Sean’s hair again, wondering when his little brother had grown up, “Don’t talk like that.”

Sean shrugs him off, any remnants of nerves long gone, “See you after?”

He nods, “See you after.”

Aaron sighs as he signs in, not even flinching as they take a drop of blood to confirm his identity, and he then walks over to the holding pen for his year group. He pauses for a moment when he spots Haley, his smile tight as their eyes meet. They’d dated for the last couple of years but ended their relationship recently, a difference in opinion on what life would hold for them once they were free from this pulling them apart. She smiles back, offering him a small wave before she turns back to her friends, and he finds a place to stand.

He looks up as the doors to the town hall open, the usual anthem playing out through crackly speakers set up around the square. His gaze is immediately fixed on Emily, her beauty as distracting as it always had been.

He’d known her all his life. She was from the other side of town, but they’d always gone to school together. She was nice, and funny and beautiful, never using the fact she was the mayor’s daughter to try and gain favour or popularity. If anything, she seemed to butt against the privilege it would give her, constantly pushing boundaries. They were friends for most of their lives, and always spent as much time together as possible. He’d been in love with her, always convincing himself that one day they could be more than friends.

Then she was reaped and everything changed.

He’d watched the games closer than he ever had that year, looking out for her as much as possible, always feeling a strange sense of elation and fear the moment he saw her. When she won he was happy, delighted that she’d survived, that he wouldn’t have to imagine a life without her, but she came back different. Changed by the things she had seen and done in the games.

She never returned to school, the life of a Victor seemingly a busy one, and her initial attempts at spending time with him faded away once he started to date Haley. Their friendship changed by circumstances beyond their control. He’d aged out of school just a few months ago and soon as he’d turned 18 he’d got a job alongside his father.

Aaron missed Emily, even though she was right in front of him, and he wanted to fix things one day, to be whatever she needed.

She always looked like she needed a friend, her life as lonely as it was busy, her only real company these days found in David Rossi - the only other Victor from their district.

Their eyes briefly meet, her’s flicking towards him, a brief smile flashing across her face before she continues to look forward, stoic and strong in a way she’d been since long before he stood hopelessly in this very spot when her name rang out around them.

He’s drawn back into what’s going on around him, all the explanations for why this was happening, the price they were paying for a war fought and lost long before they were born. The enthusiasm with which the woman from the Capitol explained it all always got his shackles up, her brightly coloured clothes and hair as out of place as her zeal for selecting teenagers to send to their deaths.

Emily had told him once, fresh back from the games, her clothes stuffed with padding to try and hide the weight she’d noticeably lost, that the woman’s name was Penelope. That she was actually nice, albeit misguided, and that she’d been one of the few people in the Capitol Emily had been able to get along with.

“Ladies first,” Penelope says, reaching into the giant bowl, dipping her hand into the pile of slips of paper, a literal hand of fate dealt to someone standing in the crowd. She picks a slip and unfolds it, stepping back in front of the microphone, “Kate Joyner.”

Aaron looks over at Kate and sees the momentary panic flash through her before she steps away from the crowd and walks over to the stage. She was 17 and in the year below at school, someone he’d always got along with any time that they interacted. He feels guilty for the flash of relief that rushes through him when he realises this means Haley was free, that she’d never be at risk of going through all of this again. Despite everything, he still loved her, had still imagined a future with her, and he was happy she’d get to have the life she deserved and wanted.

He looks back at the stage and sees Emily reach out and touch Kate’s arm as she stands next to her, a brief thing he’s sure no one else would notice unless they were looking right at her. It’s a moment of comfort, something that he’s sure doesn’t even touch the surface of what Kate is feeling. But it’s something. A reminder she isn’t alone in this.

At least, she wouldn’t be alone until the moment she stepped into the Arena.

“And now for the gentlemen,” Penelope says, and Aaron feels his breath catch in his chest, the few moments it takes her to pick a name seem to last a lifetime, everything drawn out into slow motion, even the breeze in Emily’s hair, loose strands moving in the wind with more freedom than any of them had ever had. Penelope picks up one of the slips of paper and unfolds it, “Sean Hotchner.”

It takes a moment for Aaron’s brain to catch up, for him to realise what’s happened. He snaps his head to where his brother is standing. He can see from where he is that Sean is panicking, that tears are flooding his eyes as his peers step backwards from him, making it clear to everyone exactly who he is. It seemed unfair, cruel that his brother had been picked on his first ever time when this was Aaron’s sixth time going through this process.

Aaron doesn’t think about it, his body moving on autopilot, his desire to spare his brother from this, to save him in a way he hadn’t been to save him from their father, driving him forward. He’s standing on the path leading to the stage before Sean can even start to walk towards it, and he sucks in a deep breath, before he says two words that he’s sure all but sign his death warrant.

“I volunteer.”
___

She freezes as she watches him walk out from where he was standing. She already knew what was about to happen. He was brave to a fault, foolhardy with his own safety, and he loved his brother. He held everyone he cared about in higher esteem than himself. His almost subconscious desire to protect everyone around him even to his own detriment something she’d known about since they were small children.

He’d once taken the blame for damaging a vase in her mother’s house that she’d broken, claiming it was his fault that it had fallen from the table it had been sitting on even though it was her who had knocked it over. He’d teased her about it for years, and winked as he told her that owed him one.

Emily can’t help but stare as he walks up the stairs to the stage and stands next to Penelope.

“A volunteer, how exciting,” Penelope says, her exuberance something Emily cannot find comfort in for once, “What’s your name?”

“Aaron…” he says, clearing his throat, “Aaron Hotchner.”

His name rings out around the town square, a death rattle he was ringing himself. One that had led so many to their demise before him. The last few years it had happened under her watch, and it takes everything in her not to gasp, to continue to play the part of the victor she’d been for three years now.

She’d survived the very worst a person could, lived through things that still kept her up at night, the screams of other innocent people ringing in her head as sleep evaded her. She’d survived so much, but she didn’t think she’d survive leading him to his death.

Not when she’d been in love with him for as long as she could remember.

Chapter Text

She seeks him out on the train.

He’d left the dining carriage not long after they left the district, and at first, she leaves him to it, giving him the space she remembers needing herself. It was strange to leave home, the only place you’d ever been, and not know if you’d be coming alive or in a body bag. Not everyone even got that, the brutality that the tributes sometimes showed each other beyond imagination, as if the Capitol had truly won in convincing them all that they were each other's enemies. Their gaze and anger turned inwards, instead of all of them looking out to see who was using them like chess pieces.

She goes looking for him for a couple of hours, Kate’s crying eventually getting to her, too many memories of other tributes who hadn’t come home haunting her. The ghosts of children whose faces she’d never forget in every reflective surface she walked past.

She finds him at the back of the train looking out of the large window, scenery they’d otherwise never get to see speeding past them, hints of life and freedom in the birds that flew between the trees. She clears her throat as she steps into the carriage and he looks up at her, his smile tight as their eyes meet.

“Want me to leave you alone?” She asks, not stepping any closer to him and he shakes his head.

“No,” he replies, “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

She nods and walks towards him, revealing that she has two glasses of scotch behind her back, smiling wryly as she tries to hand him one, “Here, I brought you this.”

He frowns, the smell from the glass familiar, the scent of alcohol something he thinks he might always associate with his father, “We’re not ol-”

“We’re old enough to die for a TV show,” she says, pressing the drink into his hand before she sits next to him, “I think we’re old enough to have a drink.”

He pauses for a moment and considers arguing with her. He thinks about putting the drink down, ignoring that she’d brought it to him, but he doesn’t. There was something about it pulling him in, the chance to break the rules, to do something he’d never done before, tempting as he thinks about the fact his days are numbered. He nods and takes a sip, something simmering in his gut when she smiles widely at him.

He’d never been able to say no to her anyway.

She laughs at him when he grimaces at the taste, at the burn in the back of his throat, and for a moment they are children again, playing in her mother’s house with no regard for anything other than the fun they were having. The train jolts and pulls them out of it, bringing them back to the harsh reality they were in.

“Can I ask you something?” She asks, and he nods in response, “What happened with you and Haley?”

He smiles sadly, scratching the back of his head as he thinks of his ex-girlfriend, the woman he thought he’d one day marry, “We talked about the future. She wanted kids. I don’t,” he sighs and shakes his head, “I can’t imagine bringing a child into this world and then potentially sending them into this.”

Emily nods even though he’s not looking at her, blowing out a steady breath, “I know what you mean. Especially now I’m a victor.”

He looks up at her, his eyebrows knitting together with curiosity. He’s so close she could reach out and touch the line it creates between his eyebrows, press her thumb into the ravine that she’s sure would get so much deeper as he got older.

If he ever got older.

“Why?”

She smiles sadly, “The kid of a victor would almost be guaranteed to go in the games,” she says her lips pressed together as she shrugs, “It makes good TV. It would show even the strongest of us aren’t protected.”

There’s a pause, and it stretches out between them. Tied together with threads of their separate histories, tattered edges knotting together to create a morbid tapestry.

“What about you and that guy from District One?” He asks, breaking the silence, his voice soft, as if he was afraid to ask.

She smiles wryly, “Ian?” She says and he nods, making her chuckle, “Don’t believe everything you read, Aaron. He’s just a guy who won’t take no for an answer.”

He isn’t sure what to say to that, how to feel about the wave of protectiveness that washes over him, so he clenches his teeth and decides to move the conversation on.

“Where’s Kate?” He asks, looking at the amber liquid in his glass before he takes another sip, this one going down easier than the first.

“Dave’s comforting her,” she replies, looking out the window, her gaze fixed on the trees, “She’s upset,” she says, even though it’s obvious. She looks at him and takes a moment to study him as he continues to look at his drink. He was handsome, he always had been, but the boyishness that had once been in his features had faded away. Sharp features had replaced once rounder ones as if they’d cut through from underneath, pushing away innocence and childhood with the harsh realities of life. He looks up at her and she clears her throat, pushing down the embarrassment that she feels at being caught staring at him, “What you did was really brave.”

He laughs wryly and nods, blowing out a slow breath before he finishes his drink. It was objectively brave, he knew that, if he’d seen anyone else do it he’d think the same thing, but he didn’t feel brave. He couldn’t have let his brother do this, couldn’t let him march towards certain death when he could help.

He wasn’t sure it counted as bravery when it was his only option.

“He’s my brother,” he says simply, “I only did what was right,” he says as he puts down his empty glass. He can see her start to argue with him, the pinch between her brows something he’d seen countless times before, so he cuts her off before she can, “So, how does this work? Do you and Dave train us both? Do we have a mentor each?”

She sighs at the change of subject but lets it slide, well aware that he needed to deal with this in the way he needed to, that her feelings weren’t important in any of this, “One each - I’ll be working with you, Dave will be with Kate.”

He frowns, “I saw you with Tara last year,” he says, feeling momentarily regretful when she flinches for a second, a brief reaction she can’t control at the mention of the female tribute from the year before. She’d almost made it, survived until the final three, and then was killed by a career tribute from District One, “Don’t you usually work with the female tribute?”

She nods, pressing her lips together to gather herself, “Yes but, because we’re friends Dave suggested I work with you,” she says, the lie slipping past her lips easily.

She used to hate lying, used to think the truth was always the better option no matter what, but one thing she’d learnt since leaving the arena was that lying was the way to keep everyone she cared about safe. She’d asked Dave if she could work with Aaron and had ignored his concern. Selfishly, she wanted to spend as much time with Aaron as she could, so if she did lose him, if she had to watch him die helplessly and keep a straight face, she would be able to tell herself that she’d done her very best to help him.

He chuckles wryly, “Friends? Em, we’ve barely spoken since I started to date…” he drifts off and shakes his head, cut off by the look of hurt that flashes across her face, guilt sparking in his gut, and the thought of his ex-girlfriend, her name turning to ash on his tongue at the thought of how she must be feeling about all of this. He sighs, “Look, that wasn’t fair. I’m-”

“No,” she says, tucking her loose hair behind her ear, “You’re right. I haven’t…” she sighs and a humourless laugh escapes her, “It’s not been an easy few years.”

The guilt in his belly catches fire, spreading through his blood as he reaches out and places his hand on her arm. It’s only when he does it that he realises it’s been years since he’d touched her, and he feels like an addict, the desire to never let go forcing him to do just that, his hand springing back like he’d been burned.

“I am sorry, Em,” he says, smiling tightly at her, “I can’t imagine how you’ve felt since you came back.”

She looks down at her arm where he touched her, his warmth lingering where his palm had been. She knows she’ll inspect her skin later, that she’ll check to see if he’d left a mark behind, if he’d somehow branded her with a simple touch because she can almost feel it burn. She looks up at him and smiles, and she shrugs half-heartedly.

“Well, in a few weeks when we’re back on this train, you’ll know.”

It’s false optimism neither of them buy into, but he can’t help but smile back at her, “Yeah,” he replies, “I will.”
___

She’s running.

Her lugs hurt, her feet her almost numb with pain, a dampness in her shoes she knows is blood and not water, but she can’t stop running.

Her life depends on it.

“You can run, but you can’t hide pretty. The things I’ll do to you when I catch you.”

She’s only forced further forward by Karl’s words, by the foul implication dripping from them. She’d seen what he’d done to some of the other girls, and had seen the joy he’d derived from it. Emily wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of killing her, she was going to outlive him or she was going out on her own terms.

She curses as she realises she’s run into a dead end, her feet just touching the cliff edge as she comes to a stop. She can hear him gaining on her, his thundering footsteps getting louder, and she closes her eyes, giving herself a second, one final moment of peace, but when she opens her eyes she sees a shimmer in the sky. It’s almost discernible from the blue of the fake sky in above her but she sees it. She chuckles as she remembers what Dave had told her about the forcefield, about the edge of the arena, and she pulls her knife out of her pocket. She looks over her shoulder and sees that Karl is right behind her, a smirk on his face as if he had won already. She looks straight ahead and she throws the knife, immediately ducking as it hits the forcefield and bounces back. She’s knocked to the ground by the force of the soundwaves that echo around her, her hand automatically covering her ears as she tries to protect them.

Everything goes eerily silent, everything overwhelmingly quiet after so much nose, and her hands shake as she removes them from her ears. Her arms are unsteady as she pushes herself up off the ground. She walks over to where Karl is lying, the same smirk still painted on his face, a grim flash burn of the last moment of his life, and her knife planted firmly in the centre of his chest.

She jumps when the canon goes off, half convinced until that moment she’d lost her hearing, and she looks up at the sky, Karl’s face briefly emblazoned on it, before the disembodied voice of the game maker fills the arena.

“Ladies and Gentleman, the winner of this year's Hunger Games - Emily Prentiss.”
___

Aaron was exhausted.

No matter how much training they did, how much preparation Emily had put him through the last few days, he couldn’t sleep. It alluded him, forever out of reach as he slept in a bedroom bigger than his childhood home.

He’s walking around the apartment they’d been assigned when he hears her scream, the sound of it pulling him towards her room immediately. When he walks in she’s wrapped up in the bed sheets, twisting in the bed as if she’s trying to escape from something he can’t see. He runs over and sits on the edge of Emily’s bed, placing his hand on her sheet-covered knee and squeezing as he says her name.

“Em,” he says, quietly at first, not wanting to startle her, “Em, you need to wake up,” he says, shifting closer, his hand skating up her side as it lands on her shoulder. He turns her towards him and the look on her face, the devastation she couldn’t escape even in her sleep, makes him ache, “Sweetheart, please,” he says, the nickname slipping out of nowhere as he begs her to come back to him, “Wake up.”

She sits up so fast that their foreheads would have collided if he hadn’t moved, a gasp loud enough to shake the walls escaping her as she looks at him, her eyes wide. She tries to shift away, as if she doesn’t recognise him, still half asleep as she tries to shake the rest of the nightmare off.

“Emily, it’s me. It’s Aaron.”

She breathes heavily, her chest rapidly moving up and down as she frowns at him, recognition finally seeping into her eyes, “Aaron?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling encouragingly as he rests his hand on her shoulder again, grateful when she doesn’t flinch, “It’s me. I was walking past and I heard you.”

She frowns, “Heard me what?”

He presses his lips together briefly as he weighs up his options, but he knows she needs the truth, “I heard you scream.”

“Oh,” she says, clearing her throat, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” he says, smiling softly at her. His gaze drifts to his hand on her shoulder and he lets it drop to the mattress, “Were you dreaming about the games?”

She nods, her hand pressed against her chest as her heart still hammers at her rib cage, the beat of it so hard she thinks her ribs might crack, that the places the Capitol doctors had put her back together would slowly unravel.

“Yeah,” she says, her nerves too shot from the nightmare to deny it, “It’s always the same moment.”

He’d watched her games, and had felt relief when she’d won. It was the only one he remembers all the details of, the names of the other tributes forever burned into his memory.

They were people he’d prayed would die so the girl he loved would win.

“What moment?” He asks without thinking, his eyes going wide as he realises what he’s said, “You don’t have to-”

“When I won,” she says, cutting over him, feeling a strange sense of relief in finally saying this to someone. She was under no illusion that her mother hadn’t heard her screams. Elizabeth made her coffee on the mornings after the worst nights, or sent for her favourite bread from the bakery. A silent apology that would have to do, because Emily knew if her mother asked about it, if she acknowledged what her daughter had gone through, the house of cards they’d built around themselves stuck together with half-truths and platitudes would come crumbling down, “It’s always the moment when I won.”

He nods, “The knife and the forcefield,” he says, “I didn’t know what you were doing at first.”

She hums sadly, shaking her head she repeats the words she’d heard again and again anytime she saw footage of any of the games - hers included.

“The moment a tribute becomes a Victor,” she says, doing an impersonation of Penelope that gets a smile out of him that she matches, “Not that there are any Victors,” she says, her smile fading, “Just survivors.”

Her words are heavy in the air, laying like a cloying blanket over them, an acknowledgement that even if he won that he’d never be free trapping them in place. He eventually clears his throat and starts to stand up.

“Well, I should go back-”

“Please stay,” she says, reaching out and grabbing his wrist before she can stop herself, her basic instinct to keep him close winning out over everything else, “I…please stay.”

He doesn’t have to think about it, he simply nods and climbs into bed next to her, careful to make sure he’s on the other side of the mattress from her, their bodies not touching as they lay next to each other. For a moment it’s awkward but he turns his head to look at her, a half smile on his face as her eyes meet his.

“I think this bed is bigger than my bedroom at home.”

She chuckles and rests her head back on her pillow, “I will give the Capitol one thing,” she says, blowing out a shaky breath, “They sure know how to make a mattress.”

When they wake up in the morning they are tangled together on his side of the bed, wrapped up like vines that had grown side by side, destined to become indistinguishable from one another.
___

“He needs to smile more.”

Emily doesn’t look at Dave, doesn’t tear her eyes from the screen as she slaps his chest with one hand, the other by her mouth as she bites her cuticles, “He’s doing fine.”

“He’s lucky he has the whole volunteering for his brother thing on his side,” Dave says as he steps closer to the TV, Aaron’s one-on-one interview with Jason Gideon, the host of the games, happening live in front of them, “Let’s be honest, not a lot of star power on that screen right now.”

“Shut up Dave,” she says, finally turning from the screen and looking at him, “He’s doing his best. I didn’t do great either.”

He nods thoughtfully, “True. I think that was the first time they’d ever had to censor a 15-year-old on the show before.”

She chuckles and looks back at the screen, blowing out a slow breath as she looks at the other tributes sitting behind Aaron as he speaks to Gideon, her gaze fixed on one of them in particular, “I don’t like the look of him.”

Dave frowns as he leans in and gets a closer look, “Oh, that intense guy from four? What was his name…”

“George Foyet,” she says, turning to look at him, “He reminds me of Karl. I think he’ll get a kick out of it all.”

“He does have that look about him,” Dave replies, watching her carefully, concern washing over him. She was clearly close to Aaron, or had been at some point, and he was worried she was setting herself up to get hurt. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Aaron’s room had been untouched for days and that Emily wasn’t screaming in the middle of the night anymore. “Bella, are you-”

“Shh,” she says, tuning back into what was being said, aware that the conversation was wrapping up.

“So, do you have a special lady waiting back home?” Gideon asks and Aaron looks down at his hands before he looks at the camera and he shakes his head.

“No, I used to but…” he trails off and shakes his head, “We broke up.”

“That’s a shame,” Gideon replies, leaning forward in his chair towards Aaron, “There must be someone else though, someone else you’ve had your eye on.”

Aaron sighs and Emily swears she can see his thought process, can see him physically weighing up the pros and cons of what he was about to say, “Well, there is someone. I’ve loved her for as long as I can remember” he says, his smile tight, “But it won’t ever work.”

“Why not?”

Aaron looks down the camera, an intensity in his eyes that, for a moment, makes Emily feel like he’s talking directly to her, “Because I came here with her.”

She feels her breath catch in her chest as she flicks her gaze to where Kate is sitting on the stage, any vague hope she’d felt the last few days, waking up in his arms even when they fell asleep on separate parts of the bed, gone in an instant.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Dave says, shaking his head, “Maybe he does have it in him.”

“Yeah,” Emily says, swallowing thickly, “Maybe he does.”
___

She avoids him after the interviews, purposely changing the habits she’d formed in the time they’d been in the Capitol, and it takes him a while to find her using the tactics she’d taught him on how to track someone against her.

He finds her on the roof of the building, her elbows resting on the edge as she looks out over the city. The fireworks going off in the distance make him feel sick, the celebratory feeling in the air more akin to that of a festival rather than marking the start of the death match between children that would begin in the morning.

“Emily?”

She turns to look at him, her smile fake, the one she always wore in front of her mother or the cameras, as their eyes meet, “Aaron, what are you doing up here?”

“Looking for you,” he replies, walking over to join her, “You disappeared.”

“I don’t have the privilege of being able to disappear,” she says, her grip on the wall in front of her tightening as the smell of him washes over her. He smelt different here, clean and fresh in a way that wasn’t always possible at home, the Capitol’s array of soaps something that had surprised even her and her relative privilege when she first came here. He smelt different, but there was something that was still him sneaking out from underneath, “Don’t you want to spend the evening with Kate?”

She regrets it as soon as she asks it, pettiness winning out for a second. It could be his last night in some sense of normality before he died and she was upset because her feelings had been hurt, her unrequited love for him that had followed her everywhere her whole life making itself known at the worst possible time. She looks up at him, expecting to see the sting of her words on his face, but she’s only met with confusion.

“Kate?” He asks, and then it clicks into place, the assumption she must have made when he was speaking to Gideon, trying to win some kind of favour with the audience. He’d thought about his literature class at school, how the teacher had always told them that a love story pulled people in, and he’d thought of Emily. Thought of how her seat had been empty during that class because she’d been here in the Capitol, ready to fight for her life. He’d loved her for so long that it had felt good to admit it, even if it wasn’t the whole truth, “Oh, no. Em-”

“I’m sorry,” she says, turning to walk away, “I think I’m just tired-” she’s stopped as he grabs her shoulders and turns her to look at him, his expression intense, a hint of fierceness to it that makes her breath catch in her throat, “What-”

He cuts her off, his words falling free before he can even think about stopping them. He could be brave now.

He might not have many chances left,

“I wasn’t talking about her,” he says, dropping his hands from her shoulders, both of them frozen in place, “I was talking about you.”

It’s everything she’s ever wanted to hear at the worst possible time, and her chest shudders as she lets out a choked noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, “Me?”

“Well, I wasn’t talking about Dave,” he says, offering her a half smile that fades as she doesn’t respond to the joke, “Em-”

“Why did you never say anything?”

“You stopped talking to me,” he says, no malice in his voice, only confusion that somehow made him seem younger.

“I was protecting you,” she says quietly, “President Barnes, she…well let's just say, the people close to Victor’s don’t always have the longest life expectancy. The entire time I was in that arena I told myself if I lived I’d tell you. I’d admit what I’d always been too scared to…but I wanted you to live and be happy,” she laughs bitterly, “Even if it was with someone else.”

He knows her well enough to read between the lines and he steps closer, the space between them so small now he can feel her breath skip across his face, “Are you saying…”

She nods, her eyes boring straight into his, an intensity in the darkness of them he’d never seen before, “I love you too.”

Everything shifts, everything he thought he knew suddenly different, and the lingering fear he’d felt for days about what he was about to do disappears. For a moment he feels nothing but love for her. He leans in to kiss her, drawn in by the way she’s looking at him, but she stops him, her fingers pressed against his lips as she shakes her head desperately. It physically hurts to stop him but she can’t let herself have this, can’t have a taste of him when he might die tomorrow.

“No,” she says, the word catching in her throat, “I can’t. You’re…I’ve dreamt of this for years and I don’t think one kiss, one evening would ever be enough,” she says, her thumb still resting against his lower lip, her entire body aching to lean forward to kiss him, “I can’t spend the rest of my life desperately trying to remember what it was like to kiss you.”

He wishes he could pretend that he didn’t understand, but he does. Any amount of time with her would never be enough. Whether it was one night or a lifetime, and if he was her, if he was the one sending her off to what could end up being her death, he knew he couldn’t do it either. That the unknown was better, that it would allow her imagination to live on after him. He tightens his hold on her, pulling her into a fierce hug so he doesn’t go against her wishes, settling for kissing the top of her head instead, for smelling her hair and the shampoo that had always been too nice for where they came from.

“How about,” he says, a hand on either side of her face as he pulls back to look at her, his thumbs catching tears as they land on her cheeks, “ If I live, I’ll take you on a date when I get back?”

She chokes out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob and she shakes her head as she presses her forehead against his, “Aaron…”

He cups the back of her head and encourages her backwards again, the same smile she’d fallen in love with when she was too young to understand what it meant painted across his face, “Come on,” he says encouragingly, “Give a man going off to his death something to live for.”

She has to bite back the tears, not wanting his last memory of her to be one full of sorrow. She blows out a shaky breath before she nods. She smiles shakily at him and wipes a tear from his face as she does so, pushing it away trying to commit the feel of his skin against hers to her memory.

“Okay,” she says, nodding, an edge of desperation to it, “It’s a date.”

Chapter Text

“You should get some sleep.”

She scoffs as she turns to look at Dave, tearing her eyes from the screen just for a moment before she looks back at it, her lips pressed together as she shakes her head, “I can’t sleep.”

Dave sighs and sits down on the couch next to her, he sits so he’s in her line of vision, blocking the television, and he smiles at her with so much sympathy it makes her want to scream. She looks away, the opulence of the apartment they were always put in when in the Capitol makes her feel suffocated, the large expansive space with amenities people at home couldn’t even imagine putting her on edge.

It had always been something that had irritated her, the cruelty of the fact she was living like this whilst children were fighting to the death never failed to make her skin itch, but this year it felt worse. The knowledge that Aaron could die and she couldn’t do anything to help beyond hope he made it out alive made sleep almost impossible, the thought of waking up to find out he’d been killed whilst she was sleeping was too much to bear.

Especially because her sheets still smelt like him, the lingering scent tricking her into thinking he was right there with her the first few seconds she was awake, a precious moment of joyful ignorance of the reality they lived in.

“I don’t know him as well as you do, but something tells me if he comes out to find you sleep deprived and barely hanging on he won’t be happy,” Dave says, and Emily smiles wryly and nods.

“That’s true,” she says her gaze drifting back to the television, anxiety building in her chest as she once again desperately hopes to see him on screen, to have the reassurance that he was still alive. She can feel Dave’s stare burning into her and she turns to look at him, concern bleeding out of him in a way she hadn’t seen since her own games, “What?”

“Have you thought this all the way through, Bella?” He asks, his tone nothing short of loving, the kind of judgement free affection she’s sure she would have had from a father if she’d had one who hadn’t left when she was young.

“Thought what all the way through?” She asks, purposely acting like she doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Dave wasn’t stupid, she knew that, and he would know Aaron had been sleeping in her room the entire time they’d been here. He also would have known that he’d been talking about her to Gideon, not Kate like almost everyone else including her had assumed. He’d been playing this game since before she was born, aware of the ever changing and twisting rules. Rules that had been created to make sure even the winners walked away with no real victory.

He smiles softly and sighs, “If he survives and you two…do this. There will be expectations of you both,” he clears his throat, choosing his words carefully, both of them well aware that there was no such thing as a private conversation here, “You would have very little choice in what your life would look like.”

She hadn’t allowed herself to think about it in any great detail beyond the hope that Aaron would survive, that the rushed confessions on the rooftop the day before he went into the arena wouldn’t be all they’d ever have. He’d slept in her bed that night too, and for the first time, they didn’t fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed. She’d curled up in his arms and rested her head on his chest, the same position they always woke up in, and she fell asleep and dreamt of a world where he would come back to her.

She knows that Dave is right, that if Aaron did survive and their relationship was public, something that was unavoidable, there would be expectations from President Barnes. They’d have to get married, which even if they wanted to it wouldn’t be anything like what they’d choose. It would be a spectacle, the celebrity status that came with being a Victor something she hated. They’d be expected to have children. Children she didn’t want because she already knew what their fate would be, destined to follow in their parent's footsteps at some point. Children she once said she’d never have but would love with her entire heart until they were taken from her by the same people who had made her have them.

It was unbearable to think about, pre-emptive grief for something that might not even happen if Aaron died filling her lungs.

She blows out a shaky breath and she nods at him.

“I know,” she says, laughing humourlessly, “But I’ve had very little choice in what my life looks like since I threw that fucking knife,” she says, wiping the one stray tear that had escaped her lashline away, getting rid of it as quickly as it had appeared, “At least with him…”

“You wouldn’t be alone in it,” Dave finishes for her as she drifts off and she nods again, forcing another sigh from him before he stands up, his hand on her shoulder as he squeezes tightly, “Just make sure he understands it all too,” he says, his smile soft, full of hope that seemed misplaced, “When he makes it out.”

She chuckles and nods, placing her hand briefly over his before he lets go. She knows it’s his way of saying he approves, that he hopes it works out for her, and she’s sure she’s never been more grateful for him.

“I will do.”
___

By day three of the games there are only ten tributes left. They hadn’t made it beyond the initial bloodbath with both of their tributes in years, so it felt like nothing short of a miracle that both Kate and Aaron were still alive.

Dave insisted that she came with him to a viewing party, and convinced her that they had to keep up appearances and act as if this was just normal games for her, as if the man she was in love with wasn’t part of the show they were all watching whilst getting drunk.

She groans as she sees Ian Doyle walking towards her, a familiar smirk on his face that makes her skin crawl

“Well, well, Emily Prentiss. You’ve been ignoring me,” he says, and she smiles politely at him, the same smile her mother had taught her when she was young painted across her face.

“Yes,” she says, taking a sip of her drink, “And until right now it was working.”

Ian had won when he was 13, one of the youngest ever winners, a decade ago. He was vicious even then, a violence to his victory that had stood out to everyone. He’d pursued her for years, flirting with her the moment she’d turned 16 in a way that had made Dave ultraprotective of her, purposely making sure there was distance between them whenever possible.

“Now come on, that’s not very nice,” he says, smiling as he steps in closer, the smell of whiskey and smoke washing over her, “How about you let me take you out when this is all over?” He says smiling, “My tributes didn’t last long, yours probably don’t have much longer…we can drown our sorrows.”

She chuckles, fake interest dripping from her smile as she leans in, “Not even if the president herself demanded it.”

She thinks he’s going to say something else, his pride clearly hurt, but an explosion tears her attention away from the conversation and she looks at the screen, her breath catching in her chest as she watches Aaron get thrown from his feet. He’s flung through the air like he weighs nothing, like she didn’t know that simply having his arm thrown over her waist was enough to pin her in place. She swallows thickly as she walks closer, shrugging off Dave’s attempt to hold her back, and she does everything in her power to make sure she doesn’t physically react, her shoulders tight as she comes to a stop.

The relief she feels when Aaron stands up is palpable, his weight against a nearby tree as he stumbles, stunned by the explosion. It takes him a few seconds to steady himself and then he’s up again, running towards where the explosion had happened.

It’s only then that she sees Kate, and guilt washes over her as she realises she hadn’t even thought about her, all of her focus on Aaron.

He drops to his knees next to her, his hands immediately covered in blood when he touches her, her injuries clearly too extensive to survive.

“Kate,” Aaron says, shaking his head as he looks around as if searching for help they both knew wouldn’t come, “You’ve got to hold on. I…” he swallows thickly as he pushes her onto her side to see the damage, his eyes going wide when he sees the mess her back is in, exposed bone and muscle drawing gasps from the crowd around Emily.

“Is it bad?” Kate asks as he lowers her back down and sits down next to her, looking over his shoulder for more danger, trying to stay alert in case someone comes to finish what they started.

“Does it hurt?” He asks instead of answering her question and she shakes her head, “Good. It’s good it doesn’t hurt.”

Kate smiles tightly and nods, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“When…when you said what you said during your interview, you were talking about Emily weren’t you?”

It feels like a lifetime passes as Emily watches him weigh up his options. Everything around her comes to a stop, her breath catching in her chest as she stares at him, the way he nods in response makes her close her eyes. She can feel everyone looking at her, can hear the whispers as they all start to gossip.

“Then you need to make sure you go back to her,” Kate says, her voice getting weaker, her words slurring together, “One of us should go back home.”

Aaron nods and he reaches out for her hand and squeezes it tightly, “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, “Don’t be,” she says, her eyes drifting shut, “It’s not…”

She drifts off, her words dying in her throat as a cannon rings out in the arena, making Emily jump ever so slightly, the sound always taking her right back to the arena herself. She looks back up at the screen and watches sadly as Aaron stands up and takes one last look at Kate before he walks away, a new determination in his step.

“Well,” Ian says, standing so close to her she can feel his breath on her neck. She turns to look at him, making a point of scrunching her nose up in disgust at him, “Now I know why you turned me down.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Ian,” she says, taking a step back from him, “I’ve never needed an excuse to turn you down.”

She walks away, making eye contact with Dave as she does so, and she desperately makes a point of ignoring how everyone is looking at her, how she feels like an animal in a zoo for the first time in years.
___

Emily jumps awake, not aware that she’d even fallen asleep in the first place as she gasps for air, her hand pressed against her chest as she takes in her surroundings.

“Emily, you’re okay,” Dave says, smiling softly at her, his hand on her shoulder as she looks around, realising that she had fallen asleep in the living room. Her eyes go wide as she looks over to the television, and Dave clears his throat, drawing her attention back to him. “He’s okay too. He’s still alive.”

She nods rubbing her eyes as she sits up, “How long was I out?”

“Only a few hours,” he says, “The girl from five and the boy from seven died.”

She frowns, “That leaves…”

“Just Aaron and that creep Foyet from four are left,” Dave says and he stands up, “It’s why I woke you up. They’re getting ready for the grand finale.”

She blows out a shaky breath and she stands up, “I’ll get ready. I assume they’ll want us all out there.”

“We can sit this one out, Bella,” he says as she starts to walk towards her room and she freezes in place. She turns to look at him, and he smiles sympathetically, as if she’d already lost Aaron, and it makes her ache, “We can make an excuse. Stay up here and give you some privacy.”

She stares at him for a moment, affection for her friend, for how he’d protected her over the years flooding to the surface. She walks over and hugs him, sinking into the embrace when he hugs her back.

“We should go,” she says, smiling tightly at him when they pull back, “The first rule of being a Victor?”

He smiles as she repeats what he’d said to her when she made it out of the arena, when she was scared and traumatised and wishing she’d died too.

“Keep up appearances,” he says squeezing her shoulder before she steps back, “You won’t have long.”

She nods and walks towards her bedroom, she pauses when she looks at the bed, the bed she hadn’t slept in for days, and she walks over her hand hovering over the pillow that had become Aaron’s. She picks it up and presses her face into it, breathing in the scent of him, letting it wash over her for a moment.

“Don’t die on me,” she says quietly, “Not now.”

She gets ready in a haze, grateful that she’d turned down her stylist team, not sure she could cope with putting on a brave face until the last possible moment. When they get out to the main square it feels like everyone is looking at her instead of at the giant screen in front of them all, Aaron’s confession about loving her still lingering in everyone's minds all these days later.

She’d always hated the jubilance that came with this, the excitement that lingered in the air as people were waiting to find out if they’d won their bets, if they had made money from the deaths of children. She had been bewildered her first time here, the year after she’d won. She’d felt out of place, like she was underwater as she watched people act like it was the party of the year whilst she wondered what people had made of her victory. If they thought it counted because she’d, according to some people, cheated by using the forcefield.

She looks up at the giant screens, watches how the game makers clearly try and draw Aaron and George Foyet together. She stands tall, uses everything her mother had taught her about politics, about how to survive in the world they lived in. She uses everything Dave had taught her about being a survivor, what Penelope had taught her about the Capitol. She was the sum of everyone she’d ever known, of everything she had survived herself.

She just hoped she’d get the chance to help Aaron do the same, to be part of what made him whole again.

“I have a good feeling about this,” Dave says as he turns to look at her and she scoffs, shaking her head.

“You’ve never lied to me before,” she replies, crossing her arms over her chest, “Don’t start now.”

“He’ll make it back to you,” he says, winking at her in a way that relaxes her and makes her furious in equal measure, “He’d be a fool not to.”

She smiles at him, his attempt at calming her down having worked, albeit briefly, but she’s drawn back to the spectacle of the games when she hears a yell, a scream she knows is Aaron. Foyet has him pinned down, a knife in his hand that glints in the artificial sun as he draws it out of him, the grunt that leaves Aaron animalistic.

“Emily-”

“Don’t,” Emily says, cutting off Dave’s platitudes, her hands clenched by her sides as she stares at the screen, “Come on Aaron,” she says under her breath, “You’ve promised me a date.”
She isn’t sure where Aaron gets his strength from, isn’t sure how he overpowers Foyet, but he does. He rolls them over, knocking the knife out of his hand at the same time, and he punches him. Hard. It’s something he repeats again and again, and she finds it oddly mesmerising. The crunch of Foyet’s bones, the sound as his teeth gave way under fists that had never been anything other than soft with her.

Foyet collapses, his head falling to the side as he passes out, and Aaron breathes heavily as he pulls back, his knuckles bleeding from where his skin had broken against the other man’s face. He tries to stand up but he stumbles, falling next to Foyet, his hands against the wounds he’d given him, blood seeping through his fingers as his eyes drift shut.

The transmission cuts out, the screen goes black and the crowd yells in disappointment. Emily turns to Dave, her eyes wide as she looks at him.

“What’s going on?”

He opens his mouth to respond, some half-hearted attempt to make her feel better, but he’s cut off by the loud booming sound of a single cannon going off in the distance.

Chapter Text

He grunts as the knife enters his chest again, the pain barely there, not matching up with what he thinks it should feel like. He looks up at George, at the crazed look in his eyes, and he knows this is it, that he’d got so close to surviving, so close to fulfilling his promise to Emily, and he’d fallen at the last hurdle.

Emily.

He thinks of her smile, of the way she’d laugh just when he needed to hear it. He thinks of her beauty, not diminished by what she’d survived but enhanced, her endless strength making her impossibly more gorgeous.

He had to make it back to her.

He growls, an animalistic sound escaping him as he surges forward, taking George by surprise as he flips them, the knife scattering out of the other man's hand as he gets the advantage. He hits him, his fists aching and splitting open as he carries on, not stopping as he feels bones crack beneath his knuckles.

He carries on, all the anger he’d ever felt surging through him. Anger at his father. At himself. At the world he found himself living in.

He only stops when he physically can’t do it anymore, his arms giving out from under him as he collapses off of George, who was eerily still, his eyes, one of the only recognisable parts of his face left, staring straight ahead.

Aaron collapses, his head swimming as blood loss catches up with him, his eyes drifting shut as he hears a canon crack in the air around him.
___

He sucks in a panicked breath, his eyes flying open as he looks around him, his body heavy as he tries and fails to sit up.

“Aaron.”

His head snaps to his left, his eyes wide and wild as he looks at Emily, a mix of relief and disbelief painted across her face, “Emily?”

“It’s okay,” she says, still in her seat, seemingly glued to it as she looks him over, her shoulders tight, “You’re okay. You’re in the private wing of the hospital,” she says, looking around them, “I shouldn’t even be here,” she flashes him a quick smile, “Dave can talk anyone into anything.”

He nods, taking in his surroundings a little more now the panic has passed. Everything looked opulent, expensive in a way he never would have been able to imagine before he came to the Capitol. He looks past the open door to his room and sees the nurse sitting at a computer and typing, the clack of the keys clear even from where he is lying in his bed.

“My hearing,” he says, placing his hand over his right ear, “It’s back. After the explosion with Kate…I could barely hear.”

“They restored it for you,” she explains, her smile tight as she sits up straighter in the chair next to his bed, “Nothing but the best for their victor.”

He nods, blinking heavily a few times before shaking his head, trying to dispel the sleepiness that threatened to overtake him, “What else?”

“You have a fair number of scars on your chest,” she says, her eyes fixed on his gown as if she could see his damaged skin through it, “And on your knuckles from where you…” she presses her lips together, the memory of the sound of George’s face giving way under his fists sending a shiver down her spine, “They can get rid of the scars too if you want to. Some people keep them.”

“Did you keep yours?”

His question takes her by surprise, and for a moment she forgot he didn’t know, that in all the nights they shared a bed he’d never seen her without her clothes on, had never seen the constellation of scar tissue that spread across her abdomen. Pink lines and creases that had faded to white, skin that was still numb to the touch and likely always would be.

“Yes,” she says, subconsciously placing her hand over the scar through her shirt, “I kept it.”

He stores the information away for later, not wanting to pry now, but he thinks he’ll make the same decision, not wanting to lose the evidence of what he’d survived.

“What else happened?” He asks, and she frowns, her eyebrows knitting together as she tilts her head and he smiles softly, “You looked like you saw a ghost when I woke up.”

She wonders how she should feel about the fact he can read her so easily, that, despite everything, they’d seemingly picked back up right where they left off when she’d been reaped for her own games and her life had changed forever. She thinks she should hate it, but she doesn’t. She likes that he knows her like that, that he understands her.

It had been so long since she’d felt known.

“Your…” she clears her throat, her teeth clenched as she tries to breathe through the emotion threatening to overwhelm her, “Your heart stopped when they got you out,” her voice shakes a little, “You were dead for almost a minute until they brought you back.”

He frowns and places his hand against his chest, his ribs aching, his entire body on fire from pain that the medication in his system barely dulled, “They brought me back?”

She chokes out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob and she nods, “Yeah, they brought you back.”

“Why?”

His question surprises her, makes her breath catch in her chest as she looks down at her hands, her torn up cuticles something she can focus on instead of him, “Because they need a winner,” she whispers, “None of this works if they don’t have a winner and George died in the arena. So you’re their winner.”

He stares at her, his focus on the way she absolutely avoids looking at him. He can’t help but wonder how she felt when she was in his place. When she was laying in a bed, stitched back together after barely surviving the unthinkable, alone and wondering what came next. He feels selfishly grateful that he has her, that she can guide him through this next part.

“So,” he says, offering her a half smile when she looks at him, “Looks like I’ll be able to take you on a date after all,” he jokes, wanting nothing more than to lighten the mood, to feel anything other than despair for the first time since his brother’s name was called during the reaping.

She scoffs, shaking her head as she crosses her arms over her chest, Dave’s words from just a few days ago weighing heavily on her chest, “I wish it was that simple.”

He frowns at her, lifting his hand from his bed and offering it out to her, grateful when she stands and takes it without any further prompting, as if she was magnetised to him, moving against her will, “What do you mean?”

She isn’t sure how to put it into words. She wanted him, wanted whatever sense of happiness was possible in the reality they lived in, but she knew there would be a cost. She’d always known that, it’s why she’d cut him out of her life until he volunteered for his brother, fate intervening and putting them back firmly in each other's paths. She sighs as she sits on the edge of his bed, his warmth even with the small amount of distance between them intoxicating.

“There will be expectations of us,” she says, her chest hollowed out, aching and empty, ready for the heartbreak she can already feel, the heartbreak she’d endure for the rest of her life if it was what he chooses. She reaches out to push some of his hair out of his face, the strands longer than they usually would be, unkempt from his time in the arena, her fingers ghosting across his forehead. “If we do this. Our life won’t necessarily be our own.”

He catches her hand as she pulls it away from his face, linking their fingers together and squeezing, desperate to keep her close, “What do you mean?”

She looks over her shoulder to make sure they are alone, to check the nurse who was assigned to him wasn’t in earshot. She’d learnt a long time ago that no one could be trusted, that even those who seemed to be her friends here would give away her secrets for free. The only person she did trust, other than Aaron, was Dave. He’d never lied to her, never been anything other than almost painfully honest, their shared burden of what they did year after year something that had bonded them in a way she’s sure she’d collapse without. She leans in and makes sure she talks quietly, her voice low so only he hears her.

“We’ll get married,” she says, a smile flitting across her face at the treacherous hope that flashes in his eyes, something that even what he’d just been through couldn’t kill. She liked to think that would one day be the country’s downfall - the hope that existed between them all no matter what they had done to them. Hope that planted seeds and bloomed even in the darkest of circumstances, its flowers too bright and beautiful to be ignored, “And we won’t…there won’t be a lot of choice,” she says, hoping he’d understand, that he wouldn’t make her say it, “We would be expected to do our duty as victors.”

It’s the desperate look in her eyes that makes it click for him. He thinks of their conversation on the train, the way they’d casually agreed children weren’t on the cards for either of them as they drank liquor he’s sure cost more than his parent’s house. It was a moment in time, something that had led him back to her, his volunteering for his brother a crossroads in his life that had changed everything. A decision that, in the grand scheme of things, hadn’t been that long ago but may as well have happened to a different person.

“Oh,” he says, feeling her hand go slack in his, her expression tight as she starts to pull away, taking his silence and lack of a reaction as confirmation he would change his mind. He holds her hand even tighter, and feels her bones pop against each other, “Well, if there was anyone I’d want to do any of that with, it would be you.”

She scoffs, disbelief catching on every rib as it forces its way out, “Aaron, it’s not that simple,” she says, looking down at their joint hands, his tanned skin from the artificial sun in the arena making hers look even paler than usual, “We’d have to have children. If we didn’t Barnes would punish us, our families.”

“Em-”

She carries on as if he hasn’t spoken, as if she can’t hear him. All of the fears she’d pushed down for years finally burst to the surface, escaping from the box she’d hidden them in because he’d knocked it over, his love and kindness tearing her defences to pieces.

“And as much as I always said I don’t want children, I’d love them. I’d love them so much and then having to send them off to the arena when they turn 12-” she’s cut off as he sits up, groaning at the pain that spreads through his chest, his entire body burning from the points where Foyet had stabbed him, “What are you doing? You’re hurt.”

“I’m trying to hug you,” he says through gritted teeth as she lowers him back down to the bed, her hands firm on his shoulders as she raises an eyebrow at him in disbelief. He breathes through the pain for a moment and then rests his hands on her hips, “Em, I understand what you’re saying,” he says, encouraging her closer, her face close enough that he can feel her breath skipping across his skin, “I know it won’t be easy, but even if we had a kid tomorrow, 12 years is a long time. You never know what could happen.”

She huffs out a laugh and presses her forehead against his, “You think the world is going to change enough between now and then to mean we’d be safe.”

“I think you haven’t even kissed me yet,” he says, his hand on her back, his palm splayed so his fingers sneak under the hem of her shirt, smiling softly as she shivers as his heated skin touches hers, “Everything else will happen as it happens.”

She thinks she should hate him for being so sure, for the hint of optimism she knew time would kill over the next few years, but she can’t bring herself to. Instead, she allows herself to feel the relief that she’d been holding off since she’d arrived at the hospital. It fills her lungs, her chest fully expanding for the first time since she’d last seen him before he went into the arena, and she shakes her head, pressing her forehead against his for a moment before she pulls back, her smile fond as their eyes meet.

She leans in and presses her lips against his, her hand on his cheek to hold him in place, as if he’d rather be anywhere else even if he had the strength to move. It’s everything she’d ever imagined it to be and more as he pulls her closer, his hand insistent on her back as his other one finds its way into her hair, anchoring her to him. He tastes of the sugary medicinal drink she’d been made to have when she first woke up when she won the games, a boost she’d never known the name of, a hint of something she knew must just be him lingering underneath.

He sighs contentedly as she sinks into him, her tongue running across the seam of his lips before he opens his mouth. He’d thought about this moment for so long that it didn’t feel real, almost too good to be true. For a moment he wonders if he really did die in the arena, if this was the last thing his subconscious was doing for him, a moment of heaven before he slipped into darkness.

He knows it’s real the moment she pulls back, a concerned look on her face as he groans in pain, the two of them having got carried away as he pulls her tight to his chest, the pain reverberating throughout his body.

“Sorry,” she says, her hand slipping from his cheek to his throat, the reassuring thump of his pulse against her skin calming her down.

“Never apologise for kissing me,” he replies, encouraging her back in for another kiss, a quick thing stamped against her lips, “But we might have to wait a little while for our date.”

She smiles and nods, resting her forehead against his, taking a moment to breathe him in, “I should get going anyway. Let you rest.”

He shakes his head, “No, stay.”

“Aaron-”

“Please,” he says, wincing as he tries to shift in the bed, making room for her to slide in next to him, “I want you to stay.”

She hesitates, not sure what people would say or think if they found her in his bed, but she realises she doesn’t care. For the first time in years, she doesn’t think about anyone other than herself and she nods, slipping off her shoes before she carefully slips into bed with him, her head on his shoulder as she snuggles into his side. A sense of peace she hadn’t felt since they’d last slept next to each other washes over her and she tilts her head to look up at him.

“I love you,” she says, the words not seeming as heavy as they had on the rooftop the night before the games started. It was no longer something she’d only get to say to him once, no longer a rushed confession borne out of a misunderstanding. It was softer, impossibly more real.

Something she would say to him every day for the rest of her life.

“I love you too,” he replies, kissing the top of her head, tightening his hold on her the best he can with his injuries, “And I’ll spend the rest of my life doing that the best way that I can.”
___

At first, she’s not sure what wakes her up.

She’d never slept well on the train, not from the very first time she’d boarded it. It was eerily quiet given the speed they were travelling and it left her feeling uneasy, a stillness to it all that felt unnatural.

She rolls onto her back and groans, rubbing her hands over her eyes as she considers going to watch the sunrise in the back carriage, and then she hears a moan next to her, drawing her attention to Aaron as he sleeps fitfully. As he thrashes in the bed, his fists clenched at his sides, she knows what woke her up and she sighs sadly. She sits up and turns on the light, folding her legs against her chest and wrapping her arms around them as she watches him, waiting for him to wake up.

The first night he’d been back from the hospital, the same day he’d had his interview with Gideon, she’d tried to wake him up. She’d put her hands on his face and tried to pull him out of it, her words soft and reassuring as she eased him back to her. He’d grabbed her wrist, his grip tight around it, as he woke up, leaving a bruise that hadn’t quite faded yet. He hadn’t forgiven himself, had refused to sleep next to her again until she promised she wouldn’t try to wake him up again, and she hated how he sometimes looked at her.

As if she had something to be afraid of when she was with him.

It feels like an age passes before he wakes up, his chest filling quickly with a breath that’s clearly painful as he sits up, his eyes wild as he yells, his fists clenched so tightly she’s sure he could break the skin on his palms.

“Aaron,” she says quietly, not wanting to startle him. He looks at her so quickly it must pull at his neck, his eyes still wide as they meet hers. She knows that look, she’s seen it on her own face in the small hours of the night as she splashed water on herself in the bathroom after a nightmare. He was in the arena, his mind playing tricks on him even though he was now as safe as he ever would be. “You’re okay. It’s a dream. We’re on the train home.”

“Emily?”

She smiles and nods, shifting closer to him as the fog in his eyes starts to lift. She reaches out and places her hand on his cheek, her heart twisting in her chest as he leans into it, seeking out the affection she always had waiting for him.

“It’s me. I’m right here,” she assures him, shifting closer again until she’s in his lap, something in her stomach easing when he wraps his arms around her and holds her close, “I’m right here.”

He sighs, his eyes drifting closed as he rests his forehead on her temple, taking the chance to breathe her in, to replace the blood he could still smell with the scent of her, “I’m sorry.”

She pulls back and cups his cheek again, “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

His eyes drift to her bruised wrist and guilt churns in his gut just like it had every day since he’d woken up to find his first wrapped tightly around it. He clenches his teeth and shakes his head, familiar anger he hadn’t been able to shift since the arena burning through him.

“I don’t know how you can even look at me.”

She frowns as he looks down, avoiding her eye contact. He barely lets go of her though, as if she was the only thing keeping him grounded, so she wraps her arms around his shoulders to hold him close.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?” She asks, the moniker slipping free without her meaning it to, her focus on playing with the short hairs at the back of his head, providing comfort in any way she can.

“I hurt you,” he says, his tone flat as he continues to stare at the wall, “I killed people, Em,” he finally pulls away to look at her, “I killed a guy with my bare hands.”

“If you hadn’t, he would have killed you,” she reasons, an edge of desperation to her voice that she ignores, “And I’ve killed people too. It’s the only reason we’re both still here,” she smiles sadly, her hand on his cheek as she holds him in place, “Does that make it hard for you to look at me?”

He shakes his head immediately, his eyebrows furrowing as if the mere idea was ridiculous, “Of course not,” he says emphatically, “Never.”

“Then it’s not going to make it hard for me to look at you,” she says, making a point of reaching for his hand, of smoothing her fingers over the still healing cuts on his knuckles, “We survived,” she looks up at him, making eye contact as she kisses his hand, soothes away the damage both physical and mental, the scars she couldn’t see but knew were there, “We survived, and now we’ve got to try and live. As best as we can,” she kisses him, her lips firm against his, and she barely pulls back, her breath skipping across his face as she speaks, “Together.”

He nods, pulling her closer, his grip on her fierce. She holds him back just as tightly, seeking comfort as easily as she gives it.

“Together.”