leveling the playing field // coriolanus snow

what happened to lucy gray baird

"You wouldn't believe the things I've seen that girl do." Sejanus agrees, tossing a stick onto the rubble of the fire. "She's crazy. I always thought that was a good thing, she stood up for herself, she wouldn't go down without a fight to get anything she wanted. She'd scream and throw things like no one's business when someone said something she didn't like. Lucy Gray, you have no idea."

"But you were friends with her. Why?"

"Why were you?" He asks, turning to her and raising an eyebrow.

Lucy Gray opens her mouth to answer, but she can't bring herself to say what she wants to.

"I get it." He admits. "She's good when she wants to be. I've seen both sides of her. She's... Complicated, but at the end of the day, I'm not much different than her. She's braver. Much, much braver, though. I mean, I've seen her get violent before, but nothing like that. I could never hurt anyone."

"They deserve each other." Lucy Gray mutters, and Sejanus hums in quiet agreement.

Snow littered the grounds of the presidential palace on the day Sejanus Plinth and Lucy Gray returned to the Capitol.

The whole building had a chill that stung Sejanus down to his core as he was lead through the large halls, the building more lifeless than it had ever been. Quiet. Haunting.

When he thought back on his life in the Capitol, a full lifetime ago, he did imagine at the time that you and Coriolanus would occupy the space; filling it with life and tones of red and laughter and love, despite everything the Capitol leaders had done. He had hope back then that you would have done better.

The guards open the doors to what appears to be a bedroom, large with endless opulent decor and a patio overlooking the back of the property.

He doesn't say anything when he enters and the doors are shut promptly behind him. He turns, seeing the guards had entered now. Likely, in an effort to protect him.

"Leave us, please." He prompts them quietly, voice rough from nothing more than the decades that had passed. The guards look confused, but obey anyways. Sejanus had been on the receiving end of your anger before, and he was one of few who lived to tell the tale. You wouldn't hurt him.

You were sitting at the window, looking out at the snow falling over your garden. You turn your head when you hear his voice, eyes already wide. You stand up slowly, holding the arm rest of the chair as you stare at him in shock. "Sejanus?" You ask, but it comes out more as a comment.

"Y/N." He smiles. Smiles. You could be sick.

You're not sure if this is a fault in your medication- if you had been distributed too many by Thirteens doctors and you were losing your mind, or if Sejanus Plinth was truly standing in front of you right now. You let out the slightest laugh from shock, eyes welling up with tears.

"It's good to see you." He says, taking steps toward you, hands held behind his back. He was older, like you, but you didn't have a doubt in your mind that it was him.

He had survived. All this time.

"Oh my..." You shake your head in disbelief as he opens his arms to you. After all this time- after what you did, something so long forgotten from your memory, he was greeting you with a hug.

You hug him back, once again unsure whether or not this was real. Perhaps this was the afterlife, and you had been executed by something so boring as an untraceable overdose. You certainly hoped not.

"Sejanus..." You cry, patting his arms as you pull away and looking him up and down.

"I'm sorry." He mumbles, almost inaudible to you even from right there.