Chapter Text
It was so cold here.
She always felt the cold in her bones, turning her warm soft flesh into hard unyielding ice. She felt like that ever since she was a girl, in the back of the Covey’s little wagon, all the kids pushed into the only corner that wasn’t cracked, letting the ice and frost into the only permanent ‘home’ they had.
She felt that way as she asked Barb Azure to sing her song for the millionth time that night, she was so patient, curling Lucy Gray into her arms, the only real source of warmth, and signing to her about her namesake, who got lost in the freezing Snow, never to be seen again.
Barb Azure would be so disappointed in her she thinks absentmindedly at Coriolanus drones on in front of all the Capitol clones, she looks out on their faces, trying to pick one to focus on so she didn't look so forlorn, (sometimes Coriolanus caught her vacancy in these memories, and the drive home was not enjoyable) but they all blur together, she used to be able to do this often at performances in the Hob, everyone in District 12 had a different face, unique and beautiful in its own right, but everyone here looked the same.
Full overstuffed lips, perfect posture, overly trimmed eyebrows, and the worst of all, no wrinkles, just smooth uncanny, unmoving faces, they did not understand the privilege of growing old, of earning those wrinkles, and they never would. She doesn’t even realize that Coriolanus has stopped talking at last until she feels his hands on her hips, a warning squeeze urging her to smile.
His hands were always cold.
She waves until the curtains draw to a close, finally concluding the eighth gala in two weeks, Coriolanus had explained to her many times what they were for, but her mind couldn't hold onto silly monotonous things like this after five long years of them. Only twenty one, and she felt the bitterness of an old woman.
“I must have told you a thousand times in the car to smile.” Coriolanus’s voice breaks through her self pity, he doesn’t sound angry, just annoyed, but then again he's learned to save his anger over their time together, Lucy Gray does so many things wrong in a day that getting angry about all of them would take a great deal of energy.
“I didn’t feel much like smilin’.” Lucy Gray quips back, making sure to emphasize her southern drawl; he hated it when she emphasized any kind of ‘districtness’ in his perfect Capitol wife.
“Smiling.” Coriolanus grits out, holding her wrist like he would snap it in half.
Lucy Gray grows bored of the arguing easily, it always ends the same, and thinks about her birds, he’s given her many, and even if they aren’t allowed in the house after one tore through his forms, she still loved visiting them in the large glass room she’d been granted outside. She found little joys where she could, and had learned to stop rejecting the small freedoms he gave her out of anger.
It seems Coriolanus grows tired of the arguing as well, but holds her wrist no less tight as he drags her back to the awaiting limousine outside, it seemed they would not be mingling tonight, it was for the best, she didn't like the way the looked at her like an animal on display.
People congratulate him on his speech as they leave, he dismisses them fast but not without manners as he makes his way through the crowd. He opens the door for her, and she wants to laugh, kidnapping her and displaying her as a trophy? Perfectly acceptable. Not opening the car door for her? Absolutely scandalous.
She throws herself into the car with as little grace as possible, laughing at him as he nearly slams the door in agitation, the sound felt hollow in her ears. He comes back around and tells the driver to head back for the mansion, the, “Of course, President Snow.” before the car speeds off and the divider is slid up makes her internally roll her eyes.
“You can’t make a fool of me whenever you please, not only is it rude to our relationship but it’s rude to the country.” He manages to seethe out the words without so much as glancing at her.
“Oh yes, I’m sure all of Panem struggles when you reckon you look a fool.” She snarks right back.
“You will struggle if I feel you're making me look a fool. As will your precious Covey.” Ah, checkmate. This was the way all spiffs ended, a reminder that with just a call he could have everyone of them accused of treason. She fights the urge to open her door and fling herself from the car. She had tried it once, just for dramatics after a particularly grating dinner with his horrible friends. The aftereffects of the incident reminded her that it wasn’t worth it.
The conversation dies a swift death after that. She is bathed and pampered and tucked into bed as if she is a child when they are home, she struggles to call it home, it was too opulent and well taken care of to appear lived in. The bed is too big and too soft to sleep in.
She thinks about when he’d first taken her, chased her through the woods and found her, dragging her kicking and screaming back to the Capitol. She’d run through that day in her head a million and one times, it always ends with her as the First Lady of Panem, heartbroken and angry.
The train was a nightmare in its own right, if she wasn’t scared enough being kidnapped by a mad man and dragged from her only home and only family, she was made more scared by the fact that the only other time she’d ever been on a train was also to the Capitol, also on the way to her doom.
She was practically smuggled to his penthouse, which was crumbling to the ground, she found comfort in that, he was just a man, a poor man with no power, no influence, no money, she could get away from a weak man, snake out of this hole and back to the Covey.
Then of course there were the Plinths, who turned a blind eye to her tears as the penthouse was turned into a sanctuary with their money, the money that was meant to go to their son, the son that Coriolanus had exposed as a rebel, and caused the hanging of. With Coriolanus as their replacement son, and all the money in the world, it was only a matter of time before he became President, he’d married her just a week after, it was no surprise, they’d been engaged a year.
She often thinks of that year spent locked away in the Snow's penthouse. The Grandma’am’s condescending scoffs when she played the guitar, telling her music was unfit for a Capitol housewife. The shock and disgust of her face when Lucy Gray was quick to inform her she was neither. The soft hands of Tigris as she adjusted all of the new dresses she made Lucy Gray, Tigris, her only friend. Lucy Gray wished that Tigris could have come with her, but she knew that would be cruel, Tigris wanted to be away from him just as much as she did. At least she was granted that.
He grabs her by the hair, tugging her closer as she’s pulled for the second time that night from her memories, so he can lie his head on her stomach.
She’s filled out since he’d taken her of course, the fat steaks and rich chocolate of the Capitol could never compare to the occasional scraps of chicken and the gray bread made of whatever was on hand in District 12.
He had an odd fixation on food, specifically food in relation to Lucy Gray, his favourite thing in the world was feeding her, next only to getting to hold all of the new parts of her that had begun to grow, as if he was leaving a mark on her that could not be pushed away, a mark that showed he could take care of her in a way she could never take care of herself.
He holds his hand over her stomach, as if he could spawn something into her through sheer force of will. He’d been trying to get her pregnant for years, desperate for it, she’d been to every doctor in the Capitol, taken more supplements and medications than she even thought existed, and tried every single old wives tale in every single book he could find, but nothing.
She’d never taken such pride in something in her life.
One thing she could control, her body would not betray her, refusing to conceive, whether it was from pure spite, or from years of malnutrition and struggle turning her womb too hostile to hold anything but herself, she did not care. All she cared for was watching his face drop each time she handed him a negative test, each time a doctor said they could not figure out what was wrong, each time she got the biggest victory she could, the victory of rejection.
“Don’t worry dove, I’m sure you’ll get pregnant soon, you have to.” He soothes, running his hand back and forth. She wants to scoff at him, the way he speaks as if her only worry in life is not being granted the blessing of nursing his brats.
She falls asleep a few minutes later, his hold on her tight, as he dreams of little blond babies and a settled happy Lucy Gray, she dreams of the woods, and finally being free.
They both awake happier.