:the wheel: {katelyn + nico}

The way Nico stares at her, she knows he is taking her measure. His eyes cycle through fear, admiration, confusion and annoyance. It is likely that his heart yearns to hear this, even as his mind wishes to block it out. She knows because eleven years ago she stood in front of a mirror and felt her heart growing cold. It would have been the easier path. Easier than trying to sort through all of this alone. But she hadn’t had to. Not when Kirito came home. Even then, she’d pushed herself to the backburner in order to help him. It took years for her to learn that it wasn’t always selfish to put herself first.

So she listens, she listens without judging, without interrupting. He has lived for anger and for grief, but never himself. He is lost without bruising his knuckles. Without the pain, he is unsure if he still lives. He is a soldier in peacetime who has not yet learned what to do with his skills. And yet he wonders. Wonders if he has wasted his time. It wasn’t worth it. It never is. She lets him say his piece, paying attention to the hopeful note at the end before his cocksure mask slides back into place. And then, at last she speaks.

“It’s hard, isn’t it? Being vulnerable. Because you can’t let them in right? Not again.” She thinks of the contestants on the Bachelorette. Of people closer to home. Of the allies she left behind in the snow because it was easier than watching them die. Or being the one to kill them. “Because you let down your walls once and they hurt you. And it cut deep. You thought that for once in your shitty life you had something special, something real. But now they’re gone.” In coffins, or worlds away. And you’re drifting and your head is hot and your chest is tight. It’s a pain you never thought you’d have to feel. So you’ll just do it alone, because it’s safer that way.”

You seem stronger that way, she thinks. You feel stronger, even as the cracks are appearing in your armor. “They can’t hurt you if all they ever see is a wall. But it’s worse, because on the side of the wall that faces you is a mirror and in it you see someone who’s not enough. Because if you weren’t enough for them, then what good are you?” She knows this because there were times she was consumed by such thoughts. Because who could see her underneath the image and the armor and the walls?

She sighs and shakes her head.

“I know from experience that that is no way to live. You’ve got to keep an open heart. Love yourself.”

“Because—” she says, biting her lip, she is sixteen; an awkward gangly girl eating peaches alone at the watering hole. Too afraid to speak to more than one person at a time. “Because— “she is seventeen; standing on the stage, crying in front of the entire district as Levi Izar-Krane volunteers to spare her district partner. No one comes to rescue her, but she does not yet know that she will save herself. “Sometimes, the person that you thought you were has to die in order for you to be who you were meant to be.”

She is eighteen; Lightning flashes as Kirito howls at the sky, blood rain and tears flowing from his ruined eye. There is a swelling in her chest, a mixture of horror, sympathy and somehow, pride.

She is nineteen; She can’t believe it, but Septys and Someith lie still. Heather falls and Harbinger is coming home. She is practically bouncing with joy as she hugs her little brother tightly. There is a new addition to their family now.

She is twenty; She stand in front of Iain’s grave, and for the first time she wonders if fighting so hard was a mistake. It isn’t, she swears it isn’t, but the tombstone in front of her says differently.

She is twenty-one; She adds Weaver Rhodes and Iona Holbrook to the list of people she’s failed, but she has found a friend in a career. She will need Opal’s help to get through the gameshow the Capitol has put together to tear down her image. Or the image that her district has begun to paint of her.

She is twenty-two; She sends Drake and Desimae to their deaths, her chest a ball of anger, confusion and hurt. It had worked. Doing the Bachelorette had kept her brother’s siblings safe. The worst part is there were one or two people she thought she might have had real feelings for. But they’d all been paid actors, hadn’t they? They loved her in front of the cameras. It would have never gone deeper than that.

She is twenty-three; She answers their questions, but they will not believe her. She has made a mistake, and the sun cannot find her in the detention center. There is pain. There is misery. But she is Katelyn goddam Persimmon, and she will survive this too.

She is twenty-four; The prison is gilded now, and her jailor no longer faceless. She wishes he still was. Tamron is gone, has been for months, and there is nothing she can do but cry.

She is twenty-five; Her mouth is full of blood and a bit of Harold’s ear. They’ve done something to her head, she knows. She is still herself, but not always. The Capitol so loves playing with their toys. But she is not one of them. Through the haze of pain, she promises herself that the day she gives up will be the day she dies. But giving up is not something she will ever do.

She is twenty-six; Her memories are fragmented. The taste of appletinis on her tongue. Music pounding in her ears. This is a bad place, and she’s not sure that she is her. Katelyn Persimmon is not carefree. Katelyn Persimmon does not dance in clubs. Katelyn Persimmon has too much heart, and it will be her downfall.

She is twenty-seven; Harold is not a man; he is a reddish mark spread over several dozen feet. She knows this because she pushed him in front of the train. She does not regret it, even when she is informed that they finally have material to blackmail her with. That although he went rogue, they would be keeping a closer eye on her.

She is twenty-eight; Home never smelled so sweet. She is older now, and wiser. But while the fire still burns, she has learned to keep a cool head in public.

She is twenty-nine; the boy in front of her has a long road ahead of him. She sees who she was in him, and thinks that she can also see who he could become. Her life has had more downs than anyone she knows. But they made who she is, and who she is, is who she needs to be. Katelyn Persimmon. She had forgotten that for some time.

An aide interrupts them before she can say anything further.

“Ms. Persimmon, the funerals begin in ten.” She nods and offers Nico another warm smile. “I’ve held you up long enough, Nico. But you’ll always be welcome in eleven.” She gives him a reassuring hug and moves away. Rex and Arianna need to be laid to rest, and Nico has the rest of the tour to proceed with. “Don’t be a stranger!” she calls over her shoulder. Because he’s not. He’s one of them now.