started with a !BANG! [ROSETTA]

He missed her.

He actually missed her.

Eric missed her.

Sitting against the wall of her now desolate hallway in the Training Center, Lethe was torn between tearing up the letter or holding it to her heart. Or burning it in her hands until they were red and raw or kissing it over and over in gratitude. It was as if the past three years of pain, of fractures rubbing and twisting between her had finally pulled apart because of the little white note in her hand.

Eric’s note.

The letter was the schism between Lethe post Eden and Lethe pre-Eden. Without Eden, a one-night stand would've meant nothing, the loss of innocence Lethe never had, but with Eden, it was an entirely different story. Sucking in deeply, Lethe folded the letter with careful hands, exhaling out the decision until tomorrow. He wanted her tomorrow. Until tomorrow, the decision could wait.

In all honesty, it couldn't hurt. Eric hadn't struck her as a creep and it was unlikely that she was going to find herself attacked and defiled upon meeting him. Eden didn't know the word for father and perhaps it hadn't yet come to her that she was missing half of her existence. She had a multitude of aunts and uncles and two grandparents and a mother to fill the space, but it was true that they were only veils to hide the real absence. Lethe got to her feet, but found she had no intention of returning to her room. It was cold and lonely there and Lethe often found herself tracing the faded squares on the walls that marked where mirrors once were until her fingers were rubbed raw. Would Eden grow to be unable to recognize her own father. Would he be the blank whiteness that haunted Lethe's first eighteen years? Thus far, it was clear that Eden was not afflicted with the same abnormality as Lethe. She smiled at the sight of her mother, her tiny pale hand always reaching up for her and when Lethe held it, her own hands were clean as the day she was born. Eden was purity born of impurity.

And with Lethe, her murderess, maculated, monstrous mother, would she remain so?


The next morning was met with rain. The kind of fat drops that blinded the eye when hit and filled the palms of the hand to drink. It did little to dim the vibrant hues of the Capitol, but succeeded in dismaying Lethe as she laced herself into one of her signature green dresses. The worst thing about the rain was the puddles and as the water leaked into her shoes and sloshed over her feet, it filled her bloodstream and when she glanced down, there she was, the rippling reflection of the monster, pumping and beating the water through her body. The scales and claws and fangs and blood. Blood as fluid dripping over her like water. Blood that fell hot like rain. In her mouth, filling her lungs and every drop of rain drowned her.

And so, Lethe took a commissioned car. A drier, temporary solution to a permanent problem. But, then again, as Lethe's fingers swept briefly across the thick scar underneath her hair, where neck met head, it was always her choice.

Eric's house didn't surprise her partly because Lethe, since her eighteenth year, was used to extravagance. Her new And judging by the size and grandeur of the address on the note, of course, of course he was, Eric Rhodes had money. A lot of it. Naturally, not enough to combat Lethe's, but enough to send him to vet school.

Her chauffeur handed her an umbrella and she was walking up to the door, each step a stain on her heart. This morning, she'd woken up with a dull ache behind her eyes and a tingling in her tummy. The note in her pajama pocket had burned a hole right through the fabric and onto her thigh, spurring her to read it.

I miss you. I miss you. The words swallowed her, chewed, and spit her back out, dripping wet, unable to deny her own feelings in that general direction. Oh, Lethe, are you happy? No, not without seeing your eyes again. It was the truth she found herself forced to give in to. It was hard to forget the piercing they’d made in her heart. Even when she woke up the next day, groggy and aching, his face swimming illegibly in her head, the eyes had stayed with her. They’d stayed with Eden too. Was she to deny herself the pleasure of seeing them.

Would it be a pleasure at all?

It was like fighting the monster within her. Lethe paced her room. She forced herself to eat breakfast and then threw it back up. She got into bed and pulled the covers to her chin before she became too sweaty and she pushed the blankets from her body, fanning herself wildly. To see his eyes, hear his voice, hear what he had to say or not?

Outside, the rain pitter-pattered and Lethe finally gave in and then, there she was, huddled under an umbrella as she walked briskly up to the door. Her heels, she’d bothered to put on low heels for goodness’s sake, clicked and clacked and her small fist knocked, knocked on the door. She hadn’t let herself hesitate. She mustn’t hesitate for if she did, she’d lose herself entirely.

And there was no hesitation for what happened next.

For as soon as those green eyes met her, the opening of the door, Lethe felt her hand, stiff from the length of time without his, fly up and meet his cheek hard in a slap. And her tongue was running off, spitting out the sparks in her mouth since- “Where have you been?!” –he held her child for the first time and then- “Where in the world have you been, Eric Rhodes?!”

And then in a blink of an eye was gone.

The Games had hardened Lethe's heart.

She knew an easy target when she saw one. In fact, she could smell it, feel it. Like a weak wounded animal in the forest, Eric cringed from her blow and Lethe felt no remorse, but rather an instinctual urge to pounce further. If the Games had taught her anything, it had taught her you should never wait to make your move. Lethe had made that mistake with Razor and the glint of betrayal she'd seen in her eye early on disappeared to be replaced with glass that moved minimally in its socket.

"Sure, invite me in!" Lethe heard herself sniff disapprovingly, but nevertheless, she accepted the invitation and stepped inside. Anything to get out of the rain. The interior of his house was just like she'd imagined: typical. A candy-coated masterpiece. A Capitol home. Those extravagant things with their magnificent, showy foyers and glittering chandeliers and slippery marble floors and curving staircases. Sure, Eric had it all.

To be fair, Lethe had her own extraordinary home back in District Five in the Victor Village just as fake, like looking through a diamond: fragmented. But, at least Lethe's house was warm and filled with sisters and brothers and mother and father and little baby Eden. At least there were other bodies to fill the space Lethe felt left behind by twenty three lost souls. In contrast, Eric's house felt cold and lonely.

For a long time, Lethe found she couldn't quite look at Eric straight on. She could focus on his feet, large and awkward. No wonder he felt so clumsy stumbling into her, into the bathtub. She could glance sideways at his hands. So soft, so gentle, fumbling at her clothing, sweeping a strand of hair off her face. Holding her child. Their child. She could glance sideways at that button nose that had buried itself in her hair, in the milky smell of Eden. She could cross her eyes to discreetly watch the rise and fall of his broad chest, breathing, breathing.

While he breathed and lived, she'd bore the life of another. She could still feel that terrible pain, still gasp out and scream, but then release and the cry of another being. Lethe, a murderess, had brought life into this world. And a part of that life stood before her right now. A contributing factor to the life of her baby, her little girl, lovely little Eden, stood before her. And while she screamed and strained and pushed to bring that life into existence, where had he been? She felt her eyes rising from his feet to his torso. While she dressed, fed and kept watch over child, where had he been? To his chest she went, breathing, breathing. While she painfully left the life that had come from her body in order to watch over the lives born from the bodies of others. Discharged to watch someone else's children. And they never lived. To his throat and his chin and his face and that silly button nose. Where have you been? And his eyes, gentle, unassuming. Where were you?

The animal pounced. That horrible, scaly monster had never been good with her body. She threw her silver and prayed it stuck. She threw the words she had boiled in her mouth in the years since seeing him and prayed they stuck.

"Did you ever even care?"her voice was soft and lethal. Like knives. "Did you? Eden is our daughter and you've only seen her once. Just once. Do you really think that's enough?" She turned for his eyes were piercing and sniffed. "Do you?"