Lucy gray baird isnt dead actually she ran away and is currently building a small starter house near a jungle, thats also surrounded by a valley, forest and possibly a coral reef! She has 8 parrots and currently trying to tame a few cats!
summary: After Lucy Gray returns victorious from the Hunger Games, she finds her girlfriend barely alive with grief and fear. Through tender reconnection, swimming in moonlit waters, and whispered promises, they begin to heal each other.
warning(s): self-neglect, not eating, grief, anxiety, hunger games (own warning in itself 😭) , emotional trauma
wc: 2.1k
The cabin had become a tomb of waiting. You sat on the edge of the bed you'd shared with Lucy Gray, staring at the wooden floor where dust motes danced in the afternoon light. The bread someone had left on the table three days ago remained untouched, hard as stone now. Your stomach had stopped growling sometime last week. Now there was just emptiness, a hollow that matched the one in your chest.
When they'd called her name at the reaping, something inside you had shattered. Lucy Gray Baird. Your Lucy Gray, with her rainbow dress and her voice like honey and wildflowers. You'd watched them take her away, watched her disappear into a world of violence you couldn't follow her into, couldn't protect her from. The Covey had tried to comfort you, tried to make you eat, tried to pull you from this cabin where her scent still lingered on the pillows. But you couldn't leave. This was where she'd kissed you last, where she'd promised she'd come back, where she'd held your face in her hands and told you to keep singing even when she was gone.
You hadn't sung a single note since.
The days blurred together. You'd heard fragments of information about the Games, whispers from those who had access to Capitol broadcasts, radios, and mentions from peacekeepers and officials. Each scrap of news about Lucy Gray's survival was like finding water in the desert, enough to keep you alive but never enough to ease your terror. You'd pieced together that she'd charmed them, survived them, outwitted them. You'd learned somehow, some way, that she'd won. And then there had been silence, days of not knowing when she'd return, if she'd return, if winning meant she was truly free or just alive in a different kind of cage.
Your clothes hung loose on your frame. Your face in the cracked mirror looked gaunt, unfamiliar. But none of it mattered without her.
The door opened.
You didn't look up at first, assuming it was Maude Ivory or Barb Azure coming to check on you again. But then you heard it. That voice, that impossible, beautiful voice you'd been starving for more than any food.
"Oh, my darling girl."
Your head snapped up so fast your vision swam. Lucy Gray stood in the doorway, still wearing clothes too fine for District Twelve, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. She was thinner too, you noticed, shadows under those expressive eyes. But she was here. She was real. She was alive.
"Lucy Gray," you whispered, and then you couldn't say anything else because she was across the room, dropping to her knees in front of you, her hands cupping your face with a gentleness that made you want to weep.
"What have you done to yourself?" Her voice cracked, thumbs stroking your hollow cheeks. "Oh, sweetheart, what have you done?"
"I couldn't," you managed, your own hands coming up to grip her wrists, needing to feel her pulse, proof of life. "I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't breathe without knowing if you were coming back to me."
"I'm here." She pressed her forehead to yours, and you felt wetness on your cheeks, couldn't tell if the tears were yours or hers or both. "I'm here, I'm here, I'm here."
You pulled her closer, wrapping your arms around her and burying your face in her neck. She smelled different, like Capitol soap and train smoke, but underneath it all was still Lucy Gray, still home. Her body shook against yours, and you realized she was crying, really crying, her fingers digging into your back like she was afraid you'd disappear.
"I thought about you every second," she said into your hair. "Every single second in that arena, I thought about getting back to you. About this cabin, about your smile, about the way you look when you first wake up in the morning. That's what kept me alive, darling. You kept me alive."
"I listened to everything," you confessed, your voice muffled against her skin. "I heard every moment I could. I died a thousand listening to that radio, imagining you in there."
She pulled back just enough to look at you, her hands framing your face again. Her eyes, those beautiful eyes, searched yours with an intensity that made your breath catch. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that, had to live through that. But I'm back now. I'm back and I'm not going anywhere, you hear me? They can't take me away from you again."
You kissed her then, unable to wait another second. Her lips were warm and soft and tasted like salt from tears, and it was like breathing for the first time since the reaping. She made a small sound against your mouth, her fingers threading through your hair, and you kissed her harder, deeper, trying to pour every ounce of fear and relief and love into it.
When you finally broke apart, both gasping, she rested her forehead against yours again. "Come with me," she murmured. "Come down to the pond. Let me take care of you."
The pond was the same as it had always been, hidden away in the trees where the world felt smaller, safer. The water sparkled in the late afternoon sun, and the air smelled of pine and summer warmth. Lucy Gray held your hand the entire walk there, as if afraid you'd collapse without her support. Maybe you would have.
She started unbuttoning her fancy Capitol shirt, and you watched, mesmerized by the familiar movements, the reveal of skin you'd mapped with your fingers and lips a hundred times before. She'd always been unselfconscious about her body, comfortable in it in a way you'd always admired. When she stood in just her undergarments, she turned to you with a soft smile.
"Your turn, sweetheart."
Your hands trembled as you reached for your own buttons. You were ashamed suddenly of how you looked, of the ribs that showed too clearly, the way your collarbones jutted out. But Lucy Gray stepped close, stilling your hands with hers.
"You're still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," she said firmly, and there was such conviction in her voice that you almost believed her. She helped you undress with tender care, pressing kisses to your shoulders, your arms, every bit of skin she revealed. "We'll get you well again. I'll make sure of it."
The water was cool when you stepped in together, hand in hand. You gasped at the temperature, but Lucy Gray laughed, that bright sound you'd been aching to hear, and pulled you deeper. When the water reached your waist, she turned to you, wrapping her arms around you and pulling you close.
"There," she murmured, swaying slightly, moving you both in a gentle rhythm. "Doesn't that feel good?"
It did. The water held you both, buoyant and clean, washing away the grime of the past weeks. You wrapped your arms around her neck, your legs around her waist, clinging to her like she was the only solid thing in the world. She held you easily, her hands splayed across your back, and started humming. One of her songs, one she'd written for you months ago, about morning light and promises kept.
"I missed your voice," you said, your own voice thick with emotion. "I couldn't sing without you. Couldn't do anything without you."
"Then we'll sing together now." She kissed your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. "We'll do everything together now. I'm not letting you out of my sight for a good long while."
You floated together like that, wrapped around each other, her humming turning to soft singing, your face buried in her neck. The water lapped gently around you, and slowly, so slowly, you felt something in your chest begin to unknot. She was here. She was real. She was yours again.
Eventually, she guided you back to shallower water, sitting on a smooth rock with you in her lap. Her fingers traced patterns on your back, up and down your spine, and you shivered despite the warmth of the day.
"I love you," she said quietly. "I need you to know that. I need you to know that there wasn't a moment in that arena when I wasn't fighting to get back to you. You're my reason, darling. You're my whole heart."
"I love you too." You lifted your head to look at her, reaching up to brush wet hair from her face. "I love you so much it scared me. The thought of losing you, it was like losing myself."
"You'll never lose me." She caught your hand, pressing a kiss to your palm. "I promise you that. Whatever comes next, we face it together."
After the swim, she led you to a grassy spot near the water's edge where she'd apparently stashed a basket earlier. Your heart clenched at the realization that she'd planned this, had thought about taking care of you even after everything she'd been through.
Inside the basket were simple things: bread and cheese, some fruit, a jar of honey. Lucy Gray spread out a blanket and pulled you down beside her, immediately reaching for the bread.
"I'm not very hungry," you started, but she shook her head.
"I know, sweetheart. But you need to eat. Just a little bit. For me?"
She tore off a small piece of bread, drizzled honey over it, and held it to your lips. The sweetness of the honey, the softness of the bread, it was almost overwhelming after so long. You chewed slowly, and she watched you with such tender attention that you felt tears prick your eyes again.
"That's my girl," she encouraged, already preparing another piece. "Just like that. Nice and slow."
She fed you piece by piece, never rushing, always praising. Between bites, she told you stories about the Capitol, about Coriolanus Snow and the other tributes, about how she'd survived. Her voice washed over you, familiar and soothing, and you found yourself eating more than you'd thought possible.
When you'd had enough, she set the food aside and pulled you into her arms, lying back on the blanket with you tucked against her side. Your head rested on her chest, and you could hear her heartbeat, steady and strong.
"We're going to be okay," she murmured, her fingers running through your damp hair. "Both of us. We're going to heal together."
The sun was setting now, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. You tilted your head up to look at her, this girl who'd survived the unsurvivable, who'd come back to you against all odds.
"Sing for me?" you asked softly.
Her smile was like the sun breaking through clouds. "Always, darling. Always."
And there, beside the pond where you'd spent so many peaceful afternoons before the reaping, before the Games, before the nightmare, Lucy Gray sang. Her voice rose clear and true into the evening air, and for the first time in weeks, you felt something like hope bloom in your chest. She was home. You were together. And somehow, impossibly, you would find your way back to the life you'd had before.
You would heal. You would sing again. You would love each other through whatever came next.
Together.
As her song faded into the twilight, you shifted to face her fully, tracing the line of her jaw with trembling fingers. "I was so afraid," you whispered. "Afraid that even if you came back, you'd be different. Changed by what they made you do."
Lucy Gray caught your hand, pressing it flat against her cheek. "I am different," she admitted, her eyes glistening in the fading light. "I've got shadows in me now that weren't there before. But loving you? That's the one thing that stayed pure. That's what kept me human in there."
"I should have been stronger for you," you said, guilt threading through your voice. "Should have kept myself together, kept faith."
"No." She kissed your forehead, your nose, your lips with infinite gentleness. "You loved me the only way you knew how. And that love, even the painful parts of it, that's what I was fighting for. Don't you see? We get to have this. We get to have mornings and nights and years. We get to grow old together in this district, singing our songs, living our lives. They tried to take that from us, but we won."
You kissed her again, tasting the salt of shared tears and the sweetness of survival. The stars were beginning to appear overhead, and wrapped in her arms, you finally believed it. You had tomorrow. You had each other. You had everything.
Travellers through Imladris were common enough, Elrond often ended up playing host to all walks of life seeking the enchanting lure of what he had built and maintained. A travelling band trading music for food and shelter had settled into the tranquil halls of what was known to them as Rivendell. After an afternoon of song, it was time to eat and Elrond as host, joined them at the table.
"You play very well," he complimented the young woman sat beside him at the long table. "Long have the songs of the past echoed through halls and hillside however it is always a blessing when new songs are written and shared." A steady but genuine compliment to her, songs often marked occasions in history, Lucy Gray had a talent he was keen to acknowledge.
"The nomadic ways are fading," he partly lamented as the nomads in the past had often brought with them tales, songs, news and cultures far beyond his reach. "I consider your coming a mark of great occasion, your kin would be missed if they no longer traversed through Middle Earth so freely." A brief and careful pause because he would have to check where they were going and try and direct them away from Mordor if that was their path.
Hey... So I don't think Lucy Gray was singing her own funeral song when she sang the old Therebefore ?
I mean yes it's a funeral song for the covey, but if you actually listen to the lyrics of it, the person singing is not the one dying. They are staying in the old Therebefore because they have lose-end to tie up. The funeral is not for them,they are singing it to someone.
So this is Lucy Gray saying: no actually, I will survive this because I have things to do.
