With Peeta settled enough that they could be sure he wouldn't try anything, Finnick left him with Monica and sped across the room to where Calypso had situated herself in a shadowy corner. She was ok, she was alive. That was all she had said. He was very aware that she hadn't been with them for a good few minutes, considering the fact Monica was forced to drag her back across the courtyard and into their new shelter. He knew she wasn't right from the minute that gunfire had first gone off. But they'd had far too much to contend with. There was nothing more he could have done for her.
At the very least, she was here. She was back to being aware and back to pouting about it with a classic hollow look in her eyes. It was painful to see, but it was a version of Calypso he was familiar with. While her attention was elsewhere - on Gale, evidently - he picked up her hand and sighed with relief at the way her fingers automatically curled around his.
"Are you ok?" he asked her in a whisper. She gave a small shake of her head. Her eyes did not leave Gale, and the man had definitely noticed.
"What?" he questioned. Calypso did not speak. "You're staring. What?"
"I thought you would've just left me to die," she said. Some part of her wanted him too. Some part of her wanted to swallow the nightlock pill before she caused the world any more damage. "You could have."
"We're still fighting the same war," he said indifferently. "We're on the same side. I may not like you, but I can put up with you for the sake of the mission."
It was a better answer than she could have hope for. Calypso went to say more, to try and finally explain herself to him... But then, more gunfire came, more explosions. Her hand tightened around Finnick's and she shrunk further into the shadows. The sound of shattering glass, a whole building crumbling. It was only now she realised the Leegs were not here. Boggs. Mitchell. They were all gone.
When the noise died down, all that remained was Calypso's shuddering breaths. She was crying, body trembling and eyes shining with tears as she looked up at Gale again. Her heart was stuck somewhere between crippling remorse and unjustified anger.
"It wasn't me that killed him," she said, thinking back to that soldier who'd come for her with Monica and Gale. "It was me, but it wasn't me."
"His name was Knox," he said, same emotionless tone in his voice. But his eyebrows were furrowed either with concern, frustration or sympathy. Probably not the latter. "Just so you know."
"I'm sorry," she sniffled. "I want to do better. Snow made me a monster and that's not who I want to be."
Gale regarded her for a moment, how she fought so hard to keep those tears in but failed terribly. He watched the way Finnick kept rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand like she needed the constant comfort, like she was deserving of it. He saw her, then, not as a killer, but as a destroyed woman. Snow's plaything. She was surely broken beyond repair. But was that really her fault?
"You're still carrying that rage," he commented. "You're letting him do that to you."
Calypso furrowed her brows. She could not deny the statement. She was angry, and she could not let it go until she saw Snow die by her hand. But that did not mean she was still in his clutches, that she was letting him do anything. And was that not the reason they were all there. For anger? For revenge? For justice?
"So are you," Calypso retorted, gaining back some of her fire at the comment. She let the tears fall naturally, illuminating her now burning gaze. "At least this time it's not a blinding rage. I know who my enemy is. Do you?"
Gale opened his mouth and closed it again. His enemy was Snow. His enemy was the Capitol. But Calypso's intentions with her question were clear to him. His enemy was Peeta. His enemy was her.
The screen within their apartment came to life, illuminating the room and sparing Gale of having to answer the question. The broadcast, immediately labelled as mandatory viewing, had everyone's attention. Calypso tried her best to ignore how it burned her eyes in favour of seeing what was being shown. After all, these kinds of broadcasts were once her only form of entertainment in an otherwise white and empty world. Not only that, it was a welcome distraction from her show of weakness.
"Good afternoon, I'm Caesar Flickerman, here with our continuing coverage of our defence of the Capitol," the usually charismatic man addressed the nation. He was so solemn and serious now, despite his ridiculous pink hair and suit that matched. "Today, as our Peacekeepers valiantly hold off the rebels, our story takes a surprising twist."
The screen changed from Caesar's face to footage of the courtyard and the black wave chasing them into the building. Calypso watched herself go in and out of clarity, reaching for Peeta, then Monica, keeping her eyes on Finnick.
"Katniss Everdeen, our once favourite daughter, has infiltrated the city with some of the victors, whose names are all too familiar," he continued. She shrank down further, leaning into Finnick's side. "Finnick Odair, Calypso Silva and Peeta Mellark."
"Calypso Odair," the man muttered to himself. She smiled, even as the footage showed Peeta's attack on Katniss, his shoving of Monica and killing of Mitchell.
"Hmm," Caesar hummed mockingly. "Clearly some alliances don't last forever. Take a look at what happened just a moment ago, when our Peacekeepers cornered Katniss Everdeen and her band of foolish rebels. Whatever arrogance brought this treacherous girl back to us, you are about to witness a great victory, not only for the Capitol but for Panem."
Explosions. Gun fire. A building collapsing. Calypso turned her gaze away from the screen. She locked eyes with Peeta, who wore an expression only she could read. He'd lost it, she knew, or at least he thought he had. His last shred of humanity was gone from his eyes. He was a hollow shell of a human. It was a kind of impermanent death she had experienced several times over.
"So there you have it," Caesar finished. "Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire, a girl who inspired so much violence, seems to have met a violent end herself. Stay tuned for more information. Caesar Flickerman. Thank you."
"So now that we're dead, what are we gonna do?" Gale wasted no time in asking.
"Can't we take just a moment?" Calypso mumbled, her exhaustion catching up to her. In response, Finnick pressed her head against his shoulder.
"Isn't it obvious?" Peeta replied to Gale. "The next move is to kill me. I murdered one of our squad members. Katniss is right. I'm a mutt, and it's only a matter of time before I snap again. I'm not in control. I need a nightlock pill, so I can die when I need to."
"If it gets to that point, I'll kill you myself," Gale said, once again with no hesitation. Calypso hated that. She hated it.
Blood Mutt. The name came back to her like a violent whisper. Maybe it was who she was now, but not who she wanted to be. Swallowing the nightlock pill would be easy for her. But what would she be leaving behind? Somehow, Finnick and Monica had found room in their hearts for her, and she could not take that for granted.
She reached up to her shoulder for the small compartment where she kept her nightlock pill and pulled it out, rolling it between her fingers as she contemplated. If Peeta was going to go, it would be best to go on his own terms. Not for the Capitol. Not for anyone else. For himself. She'd make him promise not to use it until he absolutely had to. But better he died than be recaptured and tortured all over again. Somehow, it was something she felt she could stomach going through all over again so long as her loved ones did not.
"No," Monica spoke up. She snatched the pill from Calypso's hand before she could do anything with it. "You're not killing yourselves because you think it'll be the easy way out."
"I wasn't-" Calypso tried to defend herself.
"No," Monica repeated. "You're my cousin, and I love you. But you're more than that, Cal. You're the person who inspired me and so many others to actually fight in this war. You're the person that bled for the districts when no one else cared to bleed for you. You never gave up on anyone, even when it seemed like the world had given up on you. And I refuse to let you be lost to this. You think you have blood on your hands? Wash it off. You're not strong because you can kill, you're strong because you can overcome."
Before Calypso could even get a word in, the redhead was whirring on Peeta next. With his expression still broken and defeated, he leaned back where he sat as if preparing to be hit. Monica stayed where she was, but pointed an accusatory finger.
"And you," she kept going. "You don't get to decide to just die after everything we all did to get you this far. You've fought, Peeta, and we've all fought with you. For you. That's what's real. Not some fake hatred for Katniss, not the belief that you're a mutt. This. Your guilt. Your feelings. Your heart. It's proof that it's still there and it's still beating. And hell if we let it stop any time soon. Both of you need to pull yourselves together and stop fighting your damn demons alone. Because if you don't, then none of us are gonna make it."
What could any of them say in response to that? Calypso lifted herself from the ground and trudged over to her cousin, unsure how else to express what she was feeling. It wasn't a warm feeling. In fact, it was rather cold and incredibly humbling. But lovely. Terrible and lovely. She slowly put her arms around Monica, pulled her close and buried her face into her shoulder. Monica returned the gesture, feeling more hopeful than she had in a long time.
-
Calypso jolted awake at the sound of the Panem national anthem. The room was alight again, this time awash with the same horrible blue that used to light the night skies in the arena. She sat forward between Finnick and Peeta, staring intently at the screen. Cressida's face appeared first, then Castor, Pollux, Messalla. A huff of laughter came from beside her as Finnick laughed at seeing his own face. Calypso, Peeta, Katniss.
It ended there. Only those of Capitol origin or association were granted a memoriam, it seemed. The known faces. The photographed faces. One more face appeared on the screen. Calypso turned herself away with a sharp breath. Just looking at him made her rage swell again.
"So, Katniss Everdeen, a poor unstable girl with nothing but a small talent with a bow and arrow is dead," Snow said, as stoic as ever. "And with her, the legacy, turned lunatic, turned lost cause, Calypso Silva."
"Odair," she growled under her breath. Hearing him say her name like that again only worsened her inner turmoil. Her mind drifted back to what Monica had said. Seeking out comfort, Calypso wrapped her arms around Finnick's bicep and place a kiss on his shoulder, turning her face back to Snow. In turn, he placed a kiss on the top of her head.
"Not thinkers, certainly not leaders," the president spoke. "Katniss, simply a face plucked from the masses. Calypso, a monster of her father's making, ruination for the Capitol citizens they corrupted. Priya Feather. Monica Feather-Creed."
Calypso exchanged a glance with her cousin, only getting a reassuring smile in return.
"Were they valuable?" Snow questioned. "They were extremely valuable to the rebellion because you have no vision, no true leader among you. No one with the guts to kill or be killed like the Blood Mutt who claims she bleeds for you. But her blood means nothing. You call yourselves an alliance, but we saw what that means. Your soldiers are at each other's throats."
Her eyes drifted once more, this time to Gale, though he was not looking at her. Back on the screen, Snow's face grew blurry and his voice robotic. Static filled the broadcast until a new image appeared. A woman.
"Good evening," she greeted Panem. "For those of you who don't know me, please allow me to introduce myself. I am President Alma Coin, leader of the rebellion. I have interrupted a broadcast from your president in which he attempted to defame two brave young women. 'A face picked from the masses' he called Miss Everdeen. As if a leader, a true leader, could be anything else. And Mrs Odair, 'a monster of her father's making'. Like her father before her, she was strong, smart, and her loyalty knew no bounds. I had the privilege of knowing a small-town girl from the Seam in District Twelve, and a legacy from Victor's village in District Five, two women with backgrounds that couldn't be any more different, yet both of whom survived the Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell, and rose up and turned a nation of slaves into an army!"
Calypso could feel Katniss' eyes on her, a piercing stare that spoke a thousand silent words. She remembered when Katniss used to question her motives, her past actions, essentially everything about. Back then, that's all Calypso was: the legacy victor known for all kinds of horrors during her games. They were sisters in arms now, understanding of each other and their intentions better than anyone else there. Maybe it was for selfish reasons, but killing Snow was the one ultimate thing they both knew this was all leading up to.
"Dead or alive, Katniss Everdeen and Calypso Odair will remain the faces of this revolution," Coin continued, her voice breaking. Calypso hadn't realised she'd become one of the faces of the rebellion on par with the Mockingjay, though she supposed it was inevitable following all her involvement throughout the Quarter Quell, her threatening of Caesar on live TV, and her wedding being used as a propo to show she was alive and prospering in District Thirteen with her new husband. "They will not have died for nothing."
"I had no idea we meant so much to her," Katniss commented.
"We don't," Calypso replied, recalling their earlier conversation with Boggs about it all. That woman wanted them dead. If they survived Snow now, they'd have to survive Coin after.
"Their vision and ours will be realised, a free Panem with self-determination for all," Coin concluded her speech. "And in their memory, we will all find the strength to rid Panem of its oppressors. Thank you. And be safe."
Coin faded from the screen, being replaced instead by a doctored image of Katniss and Calypso stood back to back, making her scoff. 'Remember the Mockingjay and the Legacy', it read underneath. What legacy? Maybe she was a legacy victor, but she had no real legacy worth anything other than blood and death. But there was no time to ruminate on the thought.
"Snow's in his mansion," Katniss pointed out, placing the Holo on the coffee table and loading up the map. "Where is that?"
"That's us," Monica pointed to the courtyard they'd come from. She moved her finger almost all the way over the map. "That's the city circle. It's at least 70, 75 blocks north."
"Seventy-five blocks?" Finnick questioned. Monica hummed in confirmation.
"Easy," Calypso said. The amount of times I walked that to and from clients, it's nothing."
"That's basically the whole city," he replied. "Of course it's nothing for you. You've got strong legs."
"And you'd know that how?" she questioned him.
"Well, I know it now."
"Shut up," Monica interrupted them. "We're getting dangerously close to talking about your sex life and I don't wanna hear it."
"Nobody knows we're alive," Katniss brought the conversation back on topic, opting to ignore the newly-weds. "This is our chance. These buildings, do these look over Snow's gardens?"
Calypso bit the inside of her cheek as she examined the spot Katniss was referring to. She shared a look with Finnick, who knew just as well as her.
"They do," she confirmed when Cressida and Monica couldn't accurately answer the question. "The elites live there. Most of Snow's inner circle, ironically."
"If he goes outside at all, I could get a clear shot," Katniss theorised. Calypso felt something within her waver. Snow was meant to be her kill, not that she'd ever claimed it. But she'd always wanted it to be her.
"We're getting ahead of ourselves here," Jackson cut in. "Whether they're looking for us or not, we're pinned down. Hit that button. Scan for pods."
Katniss did as she was told, revealing the never-ending maze of pods, street after street. Not a clear way through in sight.
"Just about every ten steps."
"And it doesn't even show the new ones."
"So we can't go anywhere in the streets."
"And the rooftops are just as bad."
It was too many voices all all once, all of them losing hope as they dragged out their sentences. Calypso shook her head and examined the map again, hoping some hidden path would reveal itself to her or that she could put more of her time spent in the Capitol entertaining clients to use. But it was Castor who spoke up, prompted by his mute avox brother point down towards the ground.
"There might be another way."
-
a/n: MONICA MY LOVE YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS xoxo