for the love of a child; self-para
A conversation in the Tower, shared between four. Miller Brick; the man who would assume the false role of father, who would break apart his relationship to do it, who would sacrifice his image to save his friend and her child. Cress Meadowforge; the woman carrying a precious thing, a fragile thing, a baby to be protected no matter the cost, who would deny her true love to ensure the safety of her child. Slate Skylar; the true father, handing over his right to fatherhood and any claim, posthumous or not, of the baby so that she might be safe.
And, just out of view, Helios Serpentine; the man who was never meant to know at all.
Though it seemed that the alliance always swung back together at some point, there was the pulling apart each day to be contended with. It seemed that the Arena was designed to separate, to confuse, and so he was here, on his own, again. The storm had thrown them all from the ship, flung them apart throughout the Arena. He’d spent the shivering night in the darkened shack on the island which seemed to contain nothing of use; eerie, singing voices had spent the night with him, driving him mad long after Mars had left his company.
The night had passed, though; there had been a loud boom, and he’d stepped outside to see a ship rising out of the water. For a long time he had debated going to the ship, or trying to find Nettle, Mercuria, and Bramble. But he hadn’t heard any cannons go off since he’d seen them last, and so he knew they must be okay. And the look of the ship was not good, not at night anyway. And his bones were aching, his body feverish, fighting off infection from the gaping hole in his head. So he used Link’s sweatshirt as a pillow and slept.
In the pre-dawn hours, though, he couldn’t stay where he was for any longer. He’d left that island for the more familiar one. He managed to find fruit, cracked open a coconut and drank it in big, thirsty gulps. The mist over the islands had yet to rise, and so moving through the jungle was made more difficult. He stumbled into an open area, and for a moment didn’t realize that it was just that — that the thick trees were gone, that there were pools of water and a large waterfall. The mist was thinner here, too, and he looked around him in some confusion, unsure of what he’d stumbled upon.
Seeing all of the fruit-laden trees, he went around the perimeter of the clearing, gathering as much fruit in his hands as he could. He’d go find the girls, share it with them. His ears – ear – listened for a cannon in every moment.
He moved to the largest pool of water, and bent down to smell the water. He put a finger in; it seemed safe enough. So he cupped his hands in it, brought up mouthfuls of water, drank deeply, and when it tasted so good, so cool and fresh, he dipped his whole body in, fully clothed. The rain had not fully washed the blood out of his clothing, and had in fact made him feel dirtier than before. But this water was so nice, and after a few long moments of cleaning himself off, he noticed that the pain in the side of his head, his constant companion since the cave, had dulled somewhat.
He didn’t know how long he’d spent in there, soaking his aching body, reveling in the joy of feeling half-human again, unable to think of what the consequences of this would be. Because there would be consequences. There always were.
And his consequence arrived with light steps, but Slate heard him. He saw his shape and knew who it was before his features were revealed. Helios.
“One of us will have to leave,” he said, pulling himself up from the water as quickly as he could, his dagger finding his hand like it belonged there.
“And I think it’ll have to be you,” Helios replied. The boy was stepping closer to Slate, and Slate was now dripping wet, his clothes a heavy weight on his body. Already, he missed the soothing feeling of the pool.
“Why the fuck should it be me?” Slate demanded, his grip tightening. There were six people left: Helios, Mars, and his alliance. They were so close to Bram, Nettle, or Merc winning.
Helios scoffed. “Because,” he said, his expression unreadable through the fog. “Seems like it’s about time you lifted a finger.” Helios, perhaps thinking of his conversations with Bramble, the information she’d shared with him: her plan to die for him, to keep the rebellion going. To keep his role in it clear.
Slate knew none of this. “The fuck you mean?” he demanded, moving so that his position was more defensible. When Helios attacked, he wouldn’t be right in front of the pool of water; wouldn’t allow himself to be pushed, drowned. A horrible way to die.
“Just thinking about all the people throwing themselves everywhere for you,” Helios said, and he was still advancing, but Slate was still moving to the side, adjusting their positioning carefully, slowly.
“I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” Slate said. He was a boy from Twelve. He had clawed his way into notoriety through TH3 T0MMYKN0CK3R, it was true, and he’d had a leg up from Hestia – but to say it had been handed to him, or thrown to him, or that he hadn’t lifted a finger was ridiculous. Long nights pouring over material; writing, gathering photographs, interviewing people in Eleven. “I work for everything I fucking have. Unlike you.” Helios was born in One, he didn’t know want or need like Slate did.
“I’m talking about–” Helios seemed about to say one thing, perhaps on the verge of telling Slate about Bramble’s plans, all of his alliance’s plans, but thinking better of it. Perhaps, though, it was his plan all along to use this one thing – one piece of ammunition he’d been handed unknowingly by Cress, Slate, and Miller.
Perhaps Helios was a boy cornered, a boy who’d now lost his two closest allies and friends in this Arena, a boy who didn’t know if he would survive what had once seemed impossible not to. A boy afraid that he was about to go the way of his cousin, Hades – death. Perhaps he wanted to make a stamp on his time in the Arena; perhaps he wanted to explode everything for the obnoxious boy from Twelve, the boy who had thrown a wrench into every one of Helios’s plans for how his Games would go.
Or perhaps it came out without much thought at all. Blurted in a moment of heat, grief, and anger. “I’m talking about your goddamn baby!”
Slate froze, stopped moving so that they were now both standing with their sides to the pool of water, which was only feet away.
Your baby. A naming, a claim. A claim he had given away, though it had been painful to part with it. “I don’t know what you–”
“You fucking do,” Helios snapped, cutting him off, and continuing, “I heard you and Cress. The plan to pretend it’s Miller’s baby. But it’s not, it’s yours. You made a rebel baby; you want to lie about it? Fucking cope. You did what you did, you have to face the consequences.”
Slate stood before him for only a fraction of a second before he moved. Launched into action, running at Helios with the power of surprise on his side. Helios tried to dodge, but Slate grabbed his arm rather than body-checking him, and he used all the strength that was left in his body to throw him to the left, then throwing himself in the same direction. They both landed in the water, the healing pool.
Helios had crossed a line. To bring the baby into this was too fucking much. It had nothing to do with her, and yet this was who Helios was, he supposed. Either a desperate, angry creature, or a vicious, evil one. It didn’t matter which.
A few moments ago, Slate had been holding one of the rocks that made up the bottom of this pool. It was shallow at the edges, but much deeper in the middle. Helios had his knife out, had regained his whereabouts in the water, but Slate was faster. He’d scooped up the rock, gripped it tight in his hand, and driven it against Helios’s skull.
“You fucking asshole,” he was screaming, his voice ragged, torn at the edges, “you absolute fucking dickhead! Do you know what you’ve fucking done?” Helios gripped his arm to stop him, so Slate kicked at him beneath the water, pushing him toward the deep end. Even as they began to wrestle in the water, he could feel its healing properties kicking in; the pains were dulled, the sharp ache of his ear growing once more dull. But the ache in his chest – knowing what this might do to Cress, to the baby, hell, he even spared a thought for Miller – was more noticeable.
As the two tributes inflicted blows upon one another, as Helios dislodged the rock from Slate’s hand and sliced a large cut down Slate’s chest, as Slate found Helios’s thigh with his own blade and stabbed it hard, directly in, the water did its job: it dulled, it healed, making the job of killing much more difficult.
But Slate was determined.
This was an eye for an eye. He was certain that Helios had just killed his baby by revealing its true paternity. And so, Helios would die. He’d see, before the child could, just what it was like.
The two thrashed; both were bleeding, bruised; the water itself couldn’t stop this. But finally, Slate got the upper hand; he thrust the dagger into Helios’s stomach, and when the boy stopped fighting, he pulled it out only to shove it more directly into his heart. Cress had shown him how. All he had to do was do it. And it was remarkably easy; perhaps buoyed by the water, or the anger, or the fear that now seized his heart.
Because what would happen now?
What would happen to his baby?
He pulled the knife free and let go of Helios’s body, which fell limp. He made his way back to the shallow waters, stepping onto the bank, soaked through with water and blood now. The fog still obscured his view of the trees around him, but the cameras would pick this up: the shape of a boy, a father-to-be, falling to his knees. Laying the knife in front of him. Bending his head to it, as if praying to it, and then raising up to the sky and letting out a horrendous, awful scream. A scream that held his own life, suffering at the hands of the Capitol, and the life that now lay before his baby: who would suffer just the same.
