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Coriolanus intends to enjoy Christmas this year.
The time is right to lean into the current fashion for old-world festivities. The Snows are moving back up in the world, thanks to the Plinth Prize and Coriolanus’ sparkling success in his first semester at the University. This Christmas, they’ve received invitations to retro cocktail parties with all the prominent families. He adopted a certain staged hauteur towards Christmas, last year and the year before, when they were struggling for food let alone luxury, when they couldn’t have afforded to dress themselves and take a hostess gift for a fancy dinner with the Cardews or the Harringtons or the Cranes.
Well - that time is gone, now, and good riddance. Coriolanus is in a mood to eat, drink and be merry. He’s rather enjoying the fame and fortune that have come with winning the Games and finishing his first semester as a student at the top of the cohort. He likes being the man of the hour. He likes the lavish gifts he has purchased for Tigris and the Grandma’am. He likes having his diary packed full of seasonal festivities from mid-December all the way through to the new year.
The first party of the season is one to mark the end of the University semester. It’s in a large hall on campus, and it calls itself a winter ball, but frankly Coriolanus thinks it’s just a thousand undergraduates drinking red punch.
All the same, he’s glad to be here. Folks keep recognising him and clapping him on the back - folks he doesn’t know, for the most part. Funny how that does happen to him, these days. He’s always glad when it does. He enjoys being someone worth being.
He enjoys that more than he enjoys the red punch, to be clear. The formal clothing and satin curtains at this so-called winter ball can do little to disguise the taste of fruit juice and cheap spirits.
He’s not a big drinker, anyway. He doesn’t like the way it slows his wits. So he sips at his cup, greets a few more near-strangers, watches Sejanus throw himself at Pup Harrington and wonders idly whether Pup will catch. It doesn’t seem impossible, he decides. It doesn’t seem likely, perhaps, but stranger things have happened. Sejanus is a sweet-natured sort, even if he’s also naive and stubborn and infuriating. Pup is one of the more earnest of their classmates, but he’s also something of a slob. Coriolanus doesn’t think much of his table manners. But if Sejanus is into him, then good luck to him. He could do worse.
Coriolanus wanders away, still sipping slowly at his punch, and leaves Sejanus to lean too-close to Pup without him a while.
The evening wears on. The red punch gets no better. The satin curtains get a bit tireder, and the formal clothes around him begin to stain with sweat and punch and heaven only knows what else.
Coriolanus decides that these sorts of parties are likely more fun if a person is a big drinker - or is a person has a crush on Pup Harrington. He’s beginning to resent Sejanus abandoning him, he realises. A large party like this is a bit dull when he’s mostly-sober and he has no particular friends to hang out with.
That’s supposed to be Sejanus’ one good quality, isn’t it? That’s why Coriolanus has admitted defeat and made a best friend of him, since last summer. He’s a bit runty, very district, naive through and through. But he is at least loyal to the hilt, and that has a way of dwarfing the rest.
What is the world coming to? Has he been abandoned even by Sejanus Plinth? Is he missing Sejanus Plinth?
He stands in a corner, sips a bit more at his red punch, begins to find that it’s clouding his head regardless of his slow little sips. He stands there, mildly tipsy, and listens to the music.
That’s his first mistake.
Then he does as he always will when he truly, entirely listens to music.
He gets lost in thoughts of Lucy Gray Baird.
He hasn’t seen her in months. She was rushed out of the Capitol quickly after winning the Games, with scarcely a kiss on the cheek to say goodbye. He was oddly glad of that at the time, he recalls. He fell for her too quickly for comfort, worried someone would notice his cheating to save her in the arena if their relationship was too long under scrutiny.
But now, drunk and lonely amidst the vast crowd, listening to music and thinking of her voice, he misses her desperately.
He did write once or twice, soon after she was rushed home. It wasn’t a great success. He never knew what to say. She sent back even shorter notes than he sent. But now he comes to think of it, he thinks she was the last to write. He thinks she did send a reply since he last did. So he’s the one who gave up on her, really, when he looks drunkenly at it like that.
He wonders whether he’ll ever see her again.
He gulps at his drink, this time. He well and truly gulps, tries to pretend he’s only gulping down sickly-sweet punch not salty tears. He’s being pathetic, and he knows it. He’s the man of the hour, more or less - or he was the man of the hour last summer, was the man of the hour once again when the exam results came in last week. He has grown accustomed to being the man of the hour. So he shouldn’t be getting himself drunk and upset over missing some district girl now.
It’s just because of the bad timing. That’s all it is. It’s only unfortunate that Sejanus has ditched him for Pup damn Harrington just as he could have used a naive-yet-loyal friend to distract him from the grim reality that his love affair with Lucy Gray Baird could never work out.
Just as he reaches that conclusion, the worst song of all begins to play.
You're here where you should be
Snow is falling as the carollers sing
It just wasn't the same
Alone on Christmas day
Presents, what a beautiful sight
Don't mean a thing if you ain't holding me tight
You're all that I need
Underneath the tree
Tonight, I'm gonna hold you close
Make sure that you know
I was lost before you
Christmas was cold and grey
Another holiday
Alone to celebrate
But then, one day
Everything changed
You're all I need
Underneath the tree
It hits far, far too close to what he suddenly finds he’s feeling. He doesn’t much care for being able to afford gifts and expect gifts in turn, for this year having the means to join in with the fashion for festivities. Instead, that abrupt loneliness is crushing him - crushing him alive. That sense of need.
Need.
He’s not a needy man. To need that girl would be pathetic, chaotic, the opposite of self-control. And yet that need is not the most dangerous thing, in this moment.
The most dangerous thing is that it’s not only need driving him - it’s want, too. It’s not just that he’s sick and she’s the cure. It’s not just that he’s drunk and lonely and craves a warm body in his arms. It’s more that he likes her, wants her, would choose her over anyone else in the world, if he could.
Well, then. Now that’s settled, he had better get on. Coriolanus Snow is a man of action.
He marches across the room and interrupts Sejanus and Pup’s quiet conversation with a loud, dangerous question.
“Is your Ma still in touch with anyone from Two?” He asks plainly.
“What?”
“Does your Ma still speak to anyone in Two? Do you? Do people sometimes have friends in the districts and - I don’t know - speak to them on the phone at Christmas?”
“This is not a hypothetical question.” Sejanus realises, eyes narrowed, surprisingly quick on the uptake.
“Mm.” Coriolanus concedes.
“How is Lucy Gray?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point.”
“Sorry - yes. Right. Coriolanus Snow wants help making a phone call.” Sejanus manages, nodding.
“It doesn’t have to be a phone call. Or - it can’t be a phone call. I don’t think she has a phone. Most people don’t have phones out in the districts, do they? But - I just - I need her.” He swallows hard, tries to say something more useful. “I just need to hear from her. It’s December, and I’m drunk, and everyone - everyone - is pairing up around me, and I just want to speak to her.”
“Not everyone is pairing up.” Sejanus protests, flushed and guilty.
“You’re not drunk, Snow.” Pup adds - perhaps more truthfully.
“He’s at least a little tipsy if he’s begging for help with a girl.” Sejanus argues.
“You don’t need our help.” Pup tells him now, firm. “Use your dad’s old connections. The military can do anything. My dad speaks to people in other districts all the time for his work. I’m sure if you go into head office and tell them you’re Crassus Snow’s son, and you’d like to get through to a particular person in Twelve on a radio or telelink, then they’d have it set up within the day.”
Coriolanus blinks at him, stunned, for perhaps two entire seconds.
And then -
“You’ve got taste, Sejanus. I had my doubts, but at least he has his head screwed on. Have fun, you two.”
He turns towards the door.
“Uhm - goodbye. Where are you going?” Sejanus asks him, as a concerned best friend might.
“I’m going home to sleep off the punch. I have plans with Lucy Gray first thing tomorrow.”
It’s like Pup said. He’ll ask the military to fix it, wave around his father’s name and a handful of banknotes if he must.
He won’t take no for an answer.
…….
His father’s old connections at the peacekeeper office are even more efficient than he might have expected, in the end.
They seem to think this is the greatest Christmas festivity of them all - the son of a notable military hero, winning mentor of the most recent Hunger Games, here to send a Christmas message to the girl he won the Games with. They ask him very few questions about his motives or intentions, and do a vast amount of winking and sniggering and so on.
Coriolanus finds that a bit tiresome. He’s already embarrassed about making all this fuss simply to speak to a girl. But it’ll be worth it, he reminds himself, as soon as he gets through to her.
It’ll be worth it as long as she’s pleased to hear from him, as long as she doesn’t think this is odd behaviour in the extreme.
The peacekeepers who are helping him with his mission decide that a radio call or a temporary phone line won’t do the job, in this instance. The only possible solution to do justice to their enthusiasm for this project is a full entire video-link, fully half a dozen peacekeepers in Twelve called away from their posts for the day to take the apparatus out into the district in search of Lucy Gray Baird.
The morning is less than half gone when they succeed in their mission, when all of a sudden Coriolanus is being ushered into a small office and Lucy Gray’s face is appearing on a big screen before him.
“Hello, you.” She says, light and easy - as if they spoke yesterday and he has only forgotten it.
“Hello.” He offers, tries for a smile.
“I don’t know whether to say I’m surprised to see you or to tell you I always knew you hadn’t forgotten me.” She rushes on now, grinning. “I sure did have a shock this morning when half a dozen peacekeepers showed up at the front door - but then they explained something about an urgent message from you…?”
“Mm. It’s good to see you.” He admits, drinks in the sight of her much-missed face on the screen before him.
“And that urgent message was…?” She prompts him, as if he’s being slow.
“Oh - there’s no particular message. Sorry. I didn’t have anything specific to say. I only wanted to see you.”
She bursts out laughing at that. “Are you kidding me, Coriolanus? You went to all this trouble - peacemakers and half a mobile TV news studio, by the looks of things - just to tell me nothing special? Just to say hello?”
“Just to tell you it’s good to see you.” He decides, with a cautious little nod.
“It’s good to see you too. Bless my soul - I really did get the cake with the cream, didn’t I?”
He doesn’t know what to do with that besides flush and stare at her, frankly.
He tries to gather himself. “So you don’t mind the fuss? I’m sorry - I didn’t think how you might feel with a handful of peacekeepers suddenly on your doorstep.”
“I don’t mind it at all now I know you’re behind it.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t try it sooner.” He offers. “I haven’t written as often as I should - and then last night, I was out at this party with Sejanus and… I realised I wanted to speak to you.” He concludes feebly.
She seems to understand what he’s not saying. She’s nodding, smiling, leaning closer to the camera. “Speaking’s easier than writing.”
“I can agree with that. Everything between us always seemed so… comfortable when we were speaking in person.”
“Mmm. Everything except the Hunger Games.” She offers, dry.
He’s not sure whether he’s allowed to chuckle at that. He only nods, watches her, wants her.
It’s possible he’s less competent at having a sweetheart - or knowing a girl he hopes might be his sweetheart - than he was at saving her life.
He’s saved from his own awkwardness by her asking him a question. “How are your cousin and your grandma?”
“They’re well - very well. We’re much more comfortable for money these days. I won a big scholarship to the University and our family are on the up. Tigris got a promotion too. And then I won another prize for my exams last week and I’ve bought them far too many Christmas gifts.” He stumbles to a halt, feels all self-conscious for talking about himself and his own good fortune at such length.
She doesn’t seem to mind, though. “Well done you. That’s music to my ears.”
“Music to your ears?”
“You know - it’s really good news.”
“I know how much you like music, so I guess it’s quite the compliment.” He tries.
She laughs, smiles at him a bit more. She does seem very glad to hear from him.
“What about you? How have you been?” He rushes to ask.
“About the same. Or - no Capitol prize money, but we’re perhaps going up in the world a little. My success has been good for our income. I don’t know what I make of that - making money off winning such a sick game. I never know what to make of the good things that came out of it like our band getting more bookings or - or meeting you.”
“Mm. I try not to think too hard about the parts which make me uneasy.” He says, and pointedly does not remember clubbing a boy to death.
“Me too, sweetheart. Me too. Come on - turn the page. No sense dwelling on it, not on such a happy day as this. I want to hear all your news. I want to hear what Coriolanus Snow is like at a party. We never did party together, you and I.”
“We never did get that dance and that drink.”
“One day, hmm? One day.”
He chuckles, smiles at her, sets to telling her a half-amusing anecdote or two from his recent life.
He’s still not convinced he’s any good at trying to have a sweetheart. But she seems inclined to put up with him, this morning, so that’s something at least.
…….
He stays and speaks to her for a couple of hours, in the end, until the office he’s using is needed for its actual purpose and he feels too self-conscious to accept the young sergeant’s offer to move him to another room and continue his conversation. He wouldn’t like to make himself entirely ridiculous over talking to a girl.
Before he signs off, he makes a point of telling Lucy Gray his home phone number, of outlining to her how easy it would be for her to make a reverse-charge call from the public phone in the town square or the peacekeeper base in Twelve, and then laying out his entire social diary for the next fortnight for her, so she’ll know when exactly she might find him at home to answer a call.
She seems pleased with that, pleased with the idea of easily speaking to him again. She seems pleased with everything about their conversation, frankly, and he’s rather taken aback by it. He’d forgotten how much good it always did him to have her like him - to have her not just think him handsome or clever, as some other folks do, but to have her find him a genuinely likable person.
No - it’s more than that, isn’t it? She thinks he’s a good man - better than he truly is, certainly - and it turns out that has a way of going to a young man’s head.
It makes him want to be the man she sees when she looks at him.
It makes him want to be kind and thoughtful and loyal and good-humoured and yes, sometimes even brave.
He’s convinced he was only ever any of those things for the sake of saving her. He was several worse things to save her, too - a killer, a cheater, a liar. But she seems so completely convinced by the greater good in him that he finds himself half-way convinced, too. Seeing himself through her eyes is always a very flattering and encouraging experience, in short.
He leaves the peacekeeper office with a spring in his step and more warmth in his heart than he has known in quite some time.
…….
He happens to discuss the matter with Sejanus the next day, when they’re both at a Heavensbee cocktail party together. Coriolanus supposes that romantic relationships are the sort of thing best friends do discuss, even if he’s exasperated with himself for becoming a young man who would gossip about a girl at all.
“Then she asked me about my exams - can you believe it? She wanted to hear all about which paper I was most proud of and which essay was the best.”
“Do you think she actually wanted to hear about your essays, or does she just like the sound of your voice?” Sejanus asks, teasing.
Coriolanus laughs. “She did say it was good to hear my voice. It’s possible she does like my voice.”
“I’m joking - I’m sure she wanted to hear all your news too.”
“She said that, as well.”
“So will you speak to her again? It’d be a shame to deprive her of the sound of your voice when she likes it so much, right?” Sejanus pushes, still with that teasing tone.
“I hope so. We didn’t make firm plans, as such, but we did talk about it. I’ve given her my number and mentioned which nights I’m out for Christmas parties and so on.” In other words, he has described in minute detail exactly when she might find him at home and waiting pathetically for her call.
“Well done, Coryo. Look at you - a proper Romeo.”
“No, thank you. Romeo and Juliet end badly. They’re famously star-crossed.”
“I’d say you two are pretty famously star-crossed, too, but you’re making it work.”
“Are there any famously star-crossed couples with a happy ending? Couples who beat the odds and the troubles of the world to live happily ever after?” Coriolanus asks, because it’s a question which is often on his mind, lately.
“I’m sure it happens all the time.” Sejanus says, with that blithe naivety which only Sejanus Plinth can muster.
Coriolanus ignores him and sets to explaining what Lucy Gray has had for breakfast lately. It seems a more useful train of thought.
…….
The following evening, Coriolanus is sitting quietly in his room, getting ahead on work for next semester and contemplating what to wear for his festive picnic invitation at the Vickers’ tomorrow lunchtime, when the phone rings.
He thinks nothing of it, carries on half-reading his notes about pre-Panem literature. He’s still wondering whether star-crossed lovers can ever come good. The ringing phone certainly doesn’t register as information of relevance to him - Tigris and the Grandma’am receive far more phone calls than he does. They’re both much more sociable sorts. They have chatty friends who call them all the time.
He sometimes wonders how other people do that. How they manage to say so much about so little, just for the sake of sharing company.
Yes. Well. Back to pre-Panem literature -
“Coryo?” Tigris calls down the hallway, sudden and loud.
“Mm?”
“It’s for you. It’s Lucy Gray.”
It’s Lucy Gray? It’s Lucy Gray already, today, just a couple of days after he last spoke to her? It's Lucy Gray, so soon after he called her for the very first time?
That’s incredibly flattering. That’s what he decides - flattering. That’s why he’s so suddenly overwhelmed by warmth and pleased shock. It’s not that he has actually become so silly as to get all lovestruck and pathetic over her. He just thinks it’s flattering that there’s a young woman in the world who likes him so much as all that.
He’s still grappling with the scale of that flattery when Tigris calls out to him again.
“Coryo? Are you coming to the phone? I’m sure Lucy Gray and I are glad to have the chance to get to know each other after all these months, but I think she’d rather speak to you.”
He leaps to his feet at last, manages to overcome all that shock and flattery and silly, eager joy.
He strides down the hall as calm and collected as he can, holds his hand out for the phone.
Tigris wiggles her eyebrows a bit - too much, certainly - and then hands it over.
“Lucy Gray?” He asks, although obviously it is her. Tigris said it was.
“Coriolanus. Hello. I hope you don’t mind me calling - I hope you’re not busy and I’m not interrupting anything - only you did say you’d likely be home tonight. When you said I could call from time to time I should have asked how often you meant. I know it’s not long since we last spoke but -”
“It’s good to hear from you.” He manages at last. “It’s a surprise to hear from you so soon, perhaps, but a happy one. It’s always a happy surprise to hear from you.” He babbles.
“Flatterer.” She accuses him, laughing.
Huh.
There’s a lot of flattery in the air tonight, evidently - or something very like it.
He dives into the conversation with even more eagerness and a touch less self-consciousness, at that realisation.
“How have you been?” He asks, all in a rush.
“How have I been? How have I been since we last spoke two days ago?” She asks, laughter in her tone again.
“It’s a fair question. A lot can change in two days. We two know that better than anyone.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. I’m fit as a fiddle and I’ve had two fine days. You?”
“Mm. I’d say these two days got better when you called.” He tries.
“Well now - I always said you were a charmer.”
Did she always say that? It does sound like something she’d say, he decides. It does have the ring of truth about it.
He grins to himself, stretches the phone cord as far as it will stretch, wonders whether he can take this conversation all the way down the hall and hide in the privacy of his room.
No such luck.
Ah well. Never mind.
If he’s going to make a fool of himself over a girl, he might as well make a fool of himself sitting right here, cross-legged, by the phone table in the hall.
…….
All the rest of that week, Coriolanus speaks to Lucy Gray more days than not. She calls at least every other evening - or sometimes on consecutive evenings, if he happens to be home - and one time she even calls early in the morning when she knows he has plans in the evening and afternoon.
She didn’t want to miss out on hearing his voice that day. That’s what she says to him, when he mentions that it seems… noteworthy. She says that she didn’t want to miss out on a chance to hear his voice, to speak with him as they both like to do, so that’s why she’s at the phone box in the District Twelve town square at silly-o-clock in the morning to call him while he’s eating his breakfast.
He’s amazed that they haven’t yet run out of words to say to each other, honestly. Or - in fact - sometimes there aren’t a whole lot of words. Sometimes they do just keep each other company, late into the evening, while she sits in her phone box with some mending to hand and he sits by the hall table with a book. But for the most part, they’re quite the chatty pair. They talk about Christmas, and family, and the daily minutiae of life. Sometimes they remember what happened in the Games, of course they do, but for the most part their conversations are happy ones.
He might even call them frivolous, if he were being cynical.
The whole situation seems unsustainable and frankly a bit silly. That’s what plays on his mind, as the days pass by. The two of them presumably can’t spend so many hours on the phone forever. It’s not practical. And besides which, calling another district is expensive. These reverse charge calls must be frittering away a good proportion of his family’s newfound comfortable income.
When he mentions that to Tigris, she’s not impressed.
“You’re worried about the cost of a few phone calls when you’ve just bought me an entire new work wardrobe?”
“You needed new clothes. And you work in the fashion industry - you have to be dressed the part.”
“You’re worried about the cost of a few phone calls when you took a case of sparkling wine as the hostess gift for the Vickers last week?”
“The Vickers are a good family and our close friends. It’s important to be generous. It reflects well on us.”
“Do you see my point, Coryo? Do you hear me? You always were the boy who wouldn’t eat our last potato because you thought the Grandma’am should have it - and now we’re living comfortably, you’re telling me it might be too expensive to call your sweetheart every other night?”
“Five nights out of the last seven.” He corrects her, instinctive. “And besides - she’s not my sweetheart.”
Tigris scoffs at that.
“What? She isn’t. We’ve never talked about that. It’s not as if I can take her out to the cinema when she lives in District Twelve. That’s why I’m worried about the phone calls. This whole… situation is unsustainable. We live worlds apart. I can’t take her out or - or court her like a proper Capitol girl. This can’t possibly go anywhere useful and I should - I should just -”
“Coryo?”
“Mm?”
“Take the win. Give yourself a break. Enjoy the ride. It’s Christmas, and you adore her, and by some miracle she thinks you’re worth spending hours sitting in a phone box for. Take the win.”
Hmm.
He’s not sure he knows how to take the win. He’s better at winning victories than knowing how to feel about them, how to react after the win has been won, in general.
Ah well. He can only do his best.
Huh. It’s six-thirty, on a Thursday night, when he has no particular plans.
He wonders how soon Lucy Gray might call.
…….
When Sejanus and Pup make it official, not long before Christmas, Coriolanus uses it as a pretext to start a certain conversation in turn.
He’s becoming increasingly convinced that he’s not much good at having a sweetheart. He was certainly better at saving her life than he is now at sharing it. He has as great deal of self-confidence when it comes to his many superior qualities - he’s rightly proud of his intelligence and his family name, thank you very much - but the fact of the matter is, romantic relationships are simply not his strength. He can’t at all understand what Lucy Gray gets out of this arrangement of theirs, now. Her fawning over him made sense when he was her only hope of surviving the Games. But he finds it unfathomable that she’s still interested now he’s just some disembodied voice on the phone, all these miles apart.
Yes. Well.
Time to clear the air - that’s what he decides.
So -
“My friend Sejanus is officially dating Pup Harrington.” He tells Lucy Gray, when she asks about his news for the day. “You know - Sejanus, my best friend.”
“I am very aware of Sejanus, sweetheart. You’re one of those folks as has a small circle of close people and goes on about them from dawn till dusk - that’s the way it seems to me.”
He doesn’t know what to make of that. “I don’t have a strangely small number of friends. I have friends. I’ve been going out to all these parties, haven’t I?”
“I never said you weren’t Mr Popular. I bet you’re still the man of the hour there in the Capitol. But I can count on the fingers of one hand the people you ever tell me stories about, and your best friend Sejanus sure is one of them. You already told me he was head over heels for this Pup guy.”
“He’s liked him for a while, I think. And Pup’s good news - he’s bright, even if his table manners are rough, and he was a decent sort during the Games - do you remember?”
“I don’t remember much about anyone besides you, sweetheart. Horror, Coriolanus, and a bit more horror - that’s how it went, as far as I remember it.”
“Mm.”
He likes that.
Again - it’s flattering. That’s how he chooses to see it. He’s the only person she finds memorable from her short, horrific stay in the Capitol. He’s the only light in the darkness, as far as she’s concerned.
It’s very flattering to have her so entirely obsessed with him.
He gathers his courage and dives in. “So now they’re officially together, I suppose I found myself thinking about… us. About you and me and the nature of our relationship. We - ahm - are we…? Would you say that we’re - you know - like that?”
“Would I say we’re like your best friend Sejanus and this unmemorable Pup Harrington? I sure hope not, sweetheart. Last I checked we both care about table manners and I wouldn’t call either of us forgettable.”
“Lucy Gray -”
“I don’t know whether to be offended that you even felt the need to ask. Does it seem like I have some other guy on the go while I’m spending all this time with you? You think I go around telling everyone I like the sound of their voice? Maybe a sweet stick of sugar like you has a dozen girls on the go in the Capitol, but -”
“I don’t.” He tells her, urgent. “It’s not like that. I’m not like that.” He tries, because somehow he always does want to be whoever she’d have him be.
“Glad that’s settled.”
“I - I’ve never felt this way about anyone but you.” He manages, feels himself flush from head to toe at the sound of it. He’d rather not be having this conversation sitting cross-legged by the hall table, but it can’t be helped.
“Then it sure does seem like we’re together, doesn’t it?” She bounces back at him, light. “It seems like we must be together just how your two friends are.”
“Mm.”
He’s not disappointed she didn’t say it back. He’s not. It’s embarrassing, to be sure - he’s cringing that he flung such a silly confession at her and heard nothing of the kind in return - but he’s not disappointed. It didn’t upset him. He’s not the sort of man to go getting himself emotional just because a girl doesn’t feel some once-in-a-lifetime feeling for him.
He’s not.
She’s gone quiet, now. He thinks that’s possibly a good thing. He’s glad of a few moments to collect himself, to wrestle his self-control back into place, to remember why he doesn’t go around saying silly, sentimental confessions to district girls on the phone. He’s -
“Coriolanus?”
“Mm?”
“I think… I was lost before we met. I was wandering lost through the world seeing only evil and heartbreak everywhere. And then, that day you just appeared out of nowhere at the station with that rose - I swear on that one day, everything changed. Everything. It was the darkest time in my life and yet suddenly you were there to show me the light. It’s as if fate put you there just to prove to me that there was still good in the world - still good in people. From the very first moment we met it’s as if you’ve been sent to remind me of that.”
He can hardly breathe by the time she’s through. Honestly - it’s true. He can only sit there, cross-legged, panting in ragged, shocked breaths.
She thinks he’s all that? He said a few words about romantic attachment, and she unleashed all that overwhelming faith and hope and joy? She thinks he’s a good man to that absurd extent?
Hmm.
He can’t call this flattering, not any more. He can’t pretend that he only likes to have her like him.
It’s moving. That’s what it is. Moving and humbling and overwhelming, too. She thinks he’s the best damn thing on this earth, if he’s understood her correctly. She thinks he’s what saved her from being lost to the darkness.
Funny. He sometimes thinks that about her, too. Sometimes, in between flattery and phone calls, he allows himself to notice that.
She’s deluded, as it happens. He’s not the light. He’s not such a good man as that. He’s selfish, calculating, and once clubbed a boy to death in fear.
But he’d like to be a good man for her, as well as being her sweetheart.
So -
“Thank you.” He mutters, hoarse. “I - I don’t know what to say. I think - same. What you said about… being lost. You’re like that for me, too. I think about what I’m doing so much more since I met you. Or - maybe that’s not right - I always thought. I always knew the pros and the cons. But meeting you has turned me more thoughtful. I used to only look out for myself and my family. But now I’ve become a man who thinks beyond that. I’ve even become the sort who’s happy about my best friend seeing Pup Harrington.” He offers, tries for a dry chuckle.
She helps him out with a warm, easy laugh. “You always had it in you, Coriolanus.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re wrong, you know - the way you always think so highly of me. Take that day at the station, with the rose. That wasn’t my idea, not at first. It was Tigris who pointed out that you must feel scared and alone.”
“You’re the one who showed up holding the flower, sweetheart. You’re a doer as well as a thinker, and I figure you’re as close to being a good man as anyone on this earth, and you won’t convince me otherwise.”
“I think you’re more remarkable, as it happens. You survived the Games - and everything grim in Twelve - and you’re still full of all this hope and light.”
“Only when you’re around, Coriolanus. Only for you. I struggle in the dark - you know that.”
“Mm.”
He thinks this might be love, as it happens.
He wondered that a time or two last summer, when he put everything on the line for her. He wondered then whether it was love or only infatuation, or something half-way between the two.
But here, now, he thinks this must be love. Seeing the best in each other, wanting the best for each other, bringing out the best in each other - that must be love, mustn’t it? This has nothing to do with butterflies or the pretty shape of her eyes - or not much to do with it. This is about her, Lucy Gray Baird, the jigsaw piece who fits his flawed sharp edges perfectly.
So - yes. It likely is love.
He doesn’t know what to do about that.
…….
He discusses it with Sejanus, the following day. Not that revelation about love, exactly, but something somewhere close to it.
“I think I need to plan where this relationship with Lucy Gray is going.” He announces, sitting opposite his best friend for a casual lunch.
Sejanus raises his brows. “You want to plan the route of a romantic relationship?”
“I think I need to. I’m worried about what might happen if I don’t. Sometimes lately I catch myself thinking of doing something stupid like signing up to be a peacekeeper. I could follow my father, you see? I could do officer training and then request a post in Twelve to live closer to her.”
“That seems a little extreme.”
“Or some tradesmen do travel.” Coriolanus presses on, now he’s on a roll. “Does your father know anyone who’s hiring? Someone who needs logistical support from within District Twelve?”
“You, Coriolanus Snow, would become a tradesman for this girl?” Sejanus asks, his eyebrows half-way up his forehead, now.
“I told you it was stupid.” Coriolanus frets darkly. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I keep thinking of stupid schemes like that. I just don’t see how this relationship with Lucy Gray could possibly work out. I’m a Snow. I’ll have to marry here, settle here, raise a family here in the Capitol. But she doesn’t like the Capitol, and I keep thinking all these stupid thoughts of running away to be with her.”
“Stop thinking so hard, Coryo. Stop thinking so far ahead. Enjoy the moment. You’d barely spoken to her in months until - what? - last week, and when she was here for her Games you never spent a lot of time just chatting at all. So enjoy all this time on the phone with her, get to know her better, build a strong foundation - and let yourself fall in love. You have years in the future to worry about whether you can make it work long-term and get married.”
“But if I know we won’t be able to make it work, surely I'm just setting us both up for disappointment? That’s cruel. If we can’t have a future I shouldn’t get in too deep now. I should end things before we get too attached.”
“Do not end things. Under no circumstances are you allowed to end things with this girl.” Sejanus tells him, slaps him firmly on the shoulder as he says it. “She’s good for you. You are not allowed to break it off just because you’re worried about the future. The future will figure itself out later if you need it to.”
“Do you hear yourself? The future will figure itself out?” Coriolanus echoes, incredulous.
“It’s true. The future’s vast. Don’t let it ruin the present when you don’t yet know what it holds. And - damn it, Coryo - do not break up with Lucy Gray.”
“I hear you. Message received. I couldn’t have done it anyway.” Coriolanus admits, grins ruefully down at his lunch.
“Thank God. You’ll figure it out when the time’s right. Keep getting to know her and concentrate on your studies. Who knows? By the time we graduate the whole world might be different.”
“What are you plotting now?”
“I’m not plotting anything. I’m just saying - give the future a chance to surprise you.”
“Mm.”
Coriolanus is happy with his choice of best friend, all things considered.
…….
Sejanus is plotting something, it turns out - but not revolution.
It all comes to a head on December the twenty-third. Coriolanus should realise something is afoot, perhaps, when Tigris tries to convince him that a Christmas themed brunch at the Snow family apartment would be a very sophisticated and fashionable thing to host, but then she only wants to invite his friends - Sejanus, Pup in tow, Lysistrata Vickers looking spare by the window as if wondering whether she misunderstood the invitation.
Coriolanus doesn’t blame her. It’s easy to feel spare at a festive social occasion, especially when Sejanus and Pup are all coupled up.
He’s half way across the room towards her, meaning to be a good host, when Tigris announces that it’s time for gifts.
“Gifts?” Coriolanus asks. Was he supposed to have gifts ready for these guests? He doesn’t. He’s made an error, here. He should have -
“Well - gift, technically.” Sejanus offers. “We’ve crashed your home for a reason, Coryo. We’ve put our heads together and come up with a little gift for you. Tigris and I had the idea, and a few of our friends have helped us to make it happen.” He says, waving his hand towards Pup, towards Lysistrata, even the Grandma’am.
“What is this? What’s happening?” Coriolanus asks.
Then Tigris puts an envelope in his hands.
“Open it.” She bids him.
So - he does.
It takes him a moment to process what he finds inside. This is a full set of papers for a return trip to District Twelve. He’s leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow, returning early January. There are perfect travel permits, signed by Pup’s military father. There’s transport out with some humanitarian mission the Vickers are funding, transport home with some military-industrial shipment in the name of Plinth senior.
In a world where no one in their right mind would take a holiday to District Twelve - where public transport to District Twelve simply doesn’t exist - his friends and family have conspired to book him a holiday to see his sweetheart all the same.
He doesn’t know how to react. He simply doesn’t. He’s not one for whooping and cheering, not one for crying loud tears. He’s a young man of good family and considerable dignity, thank you very much.
He doesn’t have a reaction ready and up his sleeve for a moment as wonderful as this.
He settles on hugs all round, in the end, and on babbling a senseless stream of grateful words. He’s talking so fast he can hardly understand himself, frankly, but no one seems to hold it against him. No one seems to object.
The Grandma’am even tells him it’s good to see him so happy, so evidently his reaction is not an unacceptable one.
He’s hugging Sejanus for perhaps the third or fourth time when his best friend says something smug.
“You see? The future can have a funny way of surprising you, if you let it.”
Mm. Perhaps, on this occasion, his naive optimism isn't even misplaced.
…….
Coriolanus arrives in District Twelve late at night on Christmas Eve.
It’s freezing cold, and the sky is entirely dark, and he’s clutching one sorry well-travelled rose in his hand. It seemed a good idea, when he left home far too early this morning, but now he's worried that it'll look a pathetic gesture now it's so limp from the journey.
Then all at once the air is knocked clean out of him by Lucy Gray running headlong into his arms.
“You’re here. You’re really here.” She tells him, hugging him so tight he can hardly breathe.
“I’m here.” He agrees, a little dazed, and hugs her back in turn.
She’s holding him so tight it feels noteworthy, he decides. It’s as if she can’t quite convince herself he’s real, perhaps, or as if she’s worried he’ll disappear if she loosens her hold.
He’s hugging her quite tight in turn, too. He must admit that.
The two of them stand there a long time, embracing, whispering hurried, fond nonsense. Little by little, sense returns to him. He notices her brightly coloured coat, notices the familiar scent of her hair. He notices the movement of men unpacking cargo from the train cars around him, notices the cold night air beginning to cut through his coat despite her warm embrace.
He notices, too, that his rose is being crushed.
“I brought you something.” He says, fighting to extract his arm from the embrace.
“I know. I saw. It’s very pretty and I’m sure I’ll like it very much just as soon as I’m done saying hello.” She tells him, laughing lightly.
“Don’t you want it? A Christmas gift? Not a good one, perhaps, but I didn’t have a lot of time to plan once I opened my tickets.”
“I don’t need a gift. You’re all I need.”
“Mm. Same to you, Lucy Gray. Same to you. You’re all I need.”
He hugs her a bit harder, then, and presses a kiss to her hair.
Sejanus would be so smug if he could see them now. Coriolanus can’t help but notice that, as he stands here. His best friend would say something insufferable about the vastness of the future, about how perfect they are together, about how hopeful he should feel in this moment.
And there - just there, just now, just here - at last, Coriolanus thinks he can feel it.
The future is vast, and he hopes it might surprise him for the better. He does hope that, does feel a bit of genuine optimism at the thought. He does hope that, beyond now, the future might sort itself out, and he does decide to give himself permission to enjoy this moment in the meantime.
This moment is an excellent one, as it happens. He has his sweetheart in his arms, her breath against his neck, her voice murmuring softly how glad she is to see him. In fact - he thinks he might call it the perfect moment, if he dared. He might go so far as to call this moment, here and now, as perfect a moment as he has ever known, ever even imagined. He has all he could ever want for complete and perfect happiness.
Lucy Gray is all he needs. This Christmas, it's as simple as that.