𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐬𝐢𝐱

── district two

          ℭato is less than impressed when I tell him what I had been up to.

"You met with Prim and then the salute? Mitz, Snow has just asked us to prevent an uprising, to stop the rebellious nature within the districts and you incite it."

"I wasn't inciting it." I correct him, taking a piece of chocolate from his plate as I pull my legs up further beneath me. We're in a room in the Justice Building of 12 that's dusty with lack of use, both of us hiding from our teams before the dinner. My makeup and hair are done but there's a distinct lack of a dress on my body and Cato is without his suit. "I wasn't going to take Katniss' brooch and not attempt to offer it back to her sister nor was I going to ignore what was her potential last wish. She wanted me to look for her sister, and I did."

"You've honoured her memory good. Now, we need to make sure that Snow doesn't kill our families."

"We stuck to the script, showed that we're head over heels besotted with each other, went the whole nine yards. We're doing our job." I shot back. "We can't control that, in Twelve, they choose to honour their fallen. We were good, we were consistent and good."

"For some reason, I doubt he'll see it that way." Cato muttered back. I reached for his knee, my hand finding it as I rubbed my thumb across it. "This is going to be every year now. Every year we're going to be dragged out and made to mentor children and they'll replay every moment of our games to distract the Capitol from the real problem. What?"

I looked up at him, taking in the furrowed eyebrows and slight downwards tilt of his lips.

"Sorry, that was harsh." He sighed. "I don't want anybody else hurt on our behalf, on my behalf."

"I know." I leant over, tilting his chin up as he watched me with sad eyes. I brushed his hair out the way, before kissing him softly and sweetly, trying to comfort him. He responds, hand tracing my side cautiously before I kissed him once more. "Come on. We've hidden long enough."

He agrees, before both of us go back to society. My prep team is at their wits end trying to find me, Varya shooting me a narrowed eyed look as I wander back into the room.

"How's Cato?"

"Not sure what you're talking about." I mutter, shrugging my looser clothes off and stepping into the dress that is being held out for me.

"Your lipstick is smudged." Varya muttered, as I hid a half grin. Lish giggles as my lipstick is reapplied and I see myself in the mirror. This gown is red and floaty, multiple skirts layered over each other with a slight slit to show off the sparkling heels of gold. The top is cut like a square, showing off the token necklace and the dress is slightly simple, even for Varya's standards. I cock an eyebrow. "I wanted to showcase the mockingjay pin more than anything, for Katniss' memory. It's a little dress for showcasing honour for Katniss."

I take a step, watching as the skirts flutter as if making flames.

"Oh-" My eyes go wide before I take another step, twirling to see how the dress moved and how the flames started.

"I spoke with Cinna, her stylist. He thinks she would have liked the idea as well." Varya smiles as she and the prep team lead me down to assemble for dinner. Cato is already waiting, dressed in a dark suit, before he turns to see me, a small smile forming on his face.

"Beautiful."

"The dress or me?"

"You." He hums, kissing my cheek as my prep team swoons over the gesture. I almost chuckle at that as he whispers something nonsensical in my ear, before he pulls back and the mask of the warrior is back on. I take that as my sign, giggling and patting his chest as we find Aralya and Rhea. Enobaria was speaking quietly with Geare and Jasmine. I'm not sure how well the trio know each other or get on, but they seem not to mind speaking with each other.

Everyone is ushered out in order, the prep teams first, then Aurelia and Rhea, Enobaria, Geare and Jasmine follow them and then it's me and Cato. He finds my hand, tugging me closer before whispering a poor joke in my ear to make me laugh as we exit the doors to some form of music. He and I know how to play things up, and I watch him with warm eyes, trusting that he won't let me fall down the stairs as he preens.

I once asked him why, when he's in his Capitol required persona, he puffed his chest up and tilted his chin, making him look more arrogant. It was the complete opposite of his normal character, most of the time. He had replied that he felt, as his persona was the boisterous warrior, he would obviously be cocky about the fact he had one of the most beautiful women in the world on his arms. I reminded him then that I was outer district, and thus looked down upon by most others and he had merely shrugged and stood by his statement.

We stand at the top of the stairs, giving our mentors their fifteen step lead, before taking off.

"This is going to be a long evening." I mutter.

"Think of this, we just have to do this twelve more times and then home." Cato and I plaster on dazzling smiles as a light hit us. "One down."

From there on, we are sucked into an indistinguishable haze of dinners, ceremonies and train rides. Each day, we have the same monotonous routine, though Cato and I try our best to make it interesting and keep ourselves from falling apart too much. It's not doing wonders for our health that we have to keep looking at the faces of children who had died.

Wake up. Get dressed. Ride through cheering crowds that were forced to be there. Listen to a speech in our honour. Give a thank you speech in return and thank parents for sacrificing their kids. Sometimes, if we're lucky, there's a brief tour. Dress in evening clothes. Attend dinners and then back on the train, workout to get rid of the pent up energy and sleep.

During the ceremonies, Cato and I are solemn and respectful but our hands are always linked, I'm always half facing him and we always try to give little hints to our Capitol personas that they need us to play. At dinners, we overplay everything. Everything is made more outlandish and absurd. We kiss, we laugh, we dance and stare at each other when we're apart, we get caught trying to sneak away to be alone and we make sure that we are always overplaying everything. 

Once we get back to the train, Cato and I are normally too tried to do much else apart from sleep and workout to get rid of the pent up anger and energy left over. It wasn't much, but Cato, who was always terrified that something would happen to me as they normally did in his nightmares, had made me keep up my weapons training. I supposed I was better.

They edited out the salute from District 12, but even though they had, there was something in air. It felt like the moment before the cows stampeded, you could feel it in the ground and in the air as the mood changed. Some of the other outlier districts didn't have it, trudging along as they had to, but others, there is elation in the faces of people when they see us, and under that, fury. Particularly district 8, 4 and 3, which surprises me. They don't chant for Cato, but they do chant for me, in a cry for revenge rather than a cheer, and even when Peacekeepers move into quiet the crowd, it presses back instead of retreating, tactically. Cato and I discuss that when we're alone, finding quiet places to speak that we're not going to be overheard.

We come to the conclusion that there is nothing either of us can do to make it better. No amount of love will turn this tide and they don't believe me when I tell them that the truth of the entire berry ordeal was that I couldn't do it without Cato. They think that I did it on purpose.

That was never my intention.

As we get closer to the Capitol, both Cato and I get worse. This is where more of our trauma is located around. Cato's nightmares become more and more prevalent, meaning my sleep was also affected. I knew they wanted to give him drugs to make him sleep, but Cato had refused and so we would try and tire ourselves out as much as possible before facing the terrors of our mind. Then we get to the back to back appearances in District 1 and 2. 1 goes first and I try to avoid looking at Marvel, knowing that Cato had killed him to save me and there's nothing that I can do there.

I'm not sure what I expect from District 2. I killed Clove and then stole Cato from them, having refused to leave my farms to come to this district. When we arrive, people are cheering for Cato and he receives a winner's welcome. They're not quite sure what to make of me.

We reach the Justice Centre, which is huge and I'm constantly looking around in awe as Cato points out places that he grew up and what had happened in each place. It's sweet in a sense, but his Capitol persona also makes a lot of sense.

"Cato, there's someone here for you." Enobaria pats his shoulder, both of us looking up from where we're speaking to each other. We turn towards the other end of the hall and Cato pauses, for a moment, his eyes flashing back to what I'm used to, a much warmer blue.

"Cato!" A little boy is running towards him, barely six but all blond hair and blue eyes just like his brother. 

"Cassius." The boy goes slamming into him as Cato picks him up and smiles. I smile at the sight of Cato's happiness, knowing that he's been missing his family more than anything. I know each of them, not from their faces but from Cato's descriptions.

Cassius was the youngest of his family, then there's Regulus, who's twelve and just starting the reaping process. He's in the same academy that Cato was, and whilst Cato is happy that his brother is good, he's worried about Regulus being reaped more than anything, especially knowing what he went through. His sister, Valeria is sixteen and was not ever going to be reaped, mainly due to an injury that she'd sustained in a practice fight that had never healed. Then, there was his parents, Juno and Augustus. I knew that Cato's father had won his games and that Cato was a legacy of sorts, destined and told that he would be a victor. He couldn't remember his father's trauma from the games, and often said that his father was strong and Cato felt weak that he didn't cope as Augustus did. He'd told me all about them, stories and little things that each one loved.

"Are you alright? Have you been alright?" Cato held Cassius in his arms, rocking the boy gently. Cassius was the brother that was most attached to Cato and had cried when Cato had left for the games, and cried even more when he'd come to District 11. 

"I missed you, Cato. I missed you so much." Cassius mutters, holding onto her brother tightly. Regulus had followed after his brother cautiously, eying me up like I would do something, before accepting the hug from Cato as the man picked his brother up. How he could hold both of them up at the same time makes me laugh slightly as I met Cassius' eyes over Cato's shoulders. 

His head tilted, a small smile appearing on his face as he waved.

"Hi."

"Hi." I smiled, waving back. "I'm Mitzi."

"We know." Regulus nodded as Cato tensed. He was never sure how his parents and family were going to react to me. 

"Cato!" Valeria was shouting, hobbling over with her cane, his parents further behind as he put the two youngest down to hurry over to the rest of his family, leaving me alone with the two boys.

"You said you had cows." Cassius looked up with wide eyes. "In the games. You said you have cows."

"I do. 150 of them." I smiled, crouching slightly to be more at Cassius' level. 

"What colour are they?"

"Mostly black and white though we have a couple of new cows that are all dun colour, brown, with white noses." I explained. "But mostly big black and white spots. Your brother has a favourite."

That caught both of their attention, moving a little closer, though they were still wary.

"She's two and a half years old and we call her Scoop."

"Scoop?" Regulus cocked an eyebrow. I nodded. "Why? That's a silly name."

"Scoop because she can flick the entirety of the contents of a 350kg round bale of hay out with just her nose." Cassius giggles, drawing closer until I can feel his little hands on my legs. He was leaning closer, his hands on my knees as his blue eyes went wide.

"And you have dogs?"

"I do. Mick and Cas."

"My nicknames Cas." Cassius gasped, eyes going wide as I found myself grinning. "What's he like?"

"He's-"

"Cassius. Regulus. Come." There was a sharp call of their names as both boys immediately turned, rushing back towards their father. Augustus was a tall man, slightly smaller than Cato, but still tall, and not as built as Geare. His blond hair was turning grey, wrinkles around his face that was set in a grim line as I gulped and stood further up. He looked like the peacekeepers back at home and I hated that.

"Father, this is Mitzi Kennedy." Cato retreated back to me, placing a hand on my back as he watched his father, waiting for his approval. "Mitz, this is my father, Augustus Hadley."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir." I replied, smiling gently. He looked me up and down and despite it all, I didn't take it too seriously. When Cato had first met my father, he had done the same, not knowing what to make of someone not from their district. "You raised a wonderful son."

The look on his face tells me the compliment isn't welcome as Cato shifts next to me.

"Mitzi's a dairy farmer, her family's done that for years like we've done with masonry." Cato is softer now, looking between his mother and father, before back to me. "It's incredible. The boys would love it, and-"

"Cato, enough." Cato stops, as Augustus looks back to me, observing me up and down like his son often did. "You don't fight with a spear or a dagger well."

"I'm used to a bolt gun, sir."  I felt the urge to straighten my back. "That's how we kill cattle back in Eleven."

"You kill cattle."

"I'm a farmer, sir. It's necessary to make sure farm life continues to go as smoothly as possible." I explained. "We're authorised within our farm to own and carry one and my father and I are authorised to operate one."

"That sounds like you've had to explain it to peacekeepers before."

"A few times." I agreed. "I take my licensing everywhere in case you'd like to read it."

Augustus' lips twitch at that, before he relented which I took as a good sign. 

"The Capitol broadcast showed you had dogs." Juno was smiling, her arm going through her husband's to give it a squeeze. "Cato talked about them too."

From there on, the Hadley family was a little more welcoming. It explained so much of what Cato was like, seeing him with his family, and by the time we were off to the Capitol, Cato had a ring in his pocket, ready for all of the madness ahead and for our plan to go into action.

──⭒─⭑─⭒──

Hiya,

So, we finally get to meet Cato's family and Augustus is a little cold, but mostly protective over his son, he doesn't know what to make of an outer district with Cato but he's mostly just happy if his son is happy. Also, Cassius is so sweet, and I just love the entirety of the Hadley family so much.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx