rumble | kate & kass

k a t e l y n .

Darker times will come and go
Times you need to see her smile
And mothers' hands are warm and mild

If there was one thing Katelyn had hated as a young victor, it was the endless parade of outfits she had been expected to wear. It was likely that Kass hated it too. Maybe even moreso than she had. It was no good watching tribute statistics over and over again. Depressing was the word for it. Was this what Kass had been up to since arriving in the training center? Hopefully not. There were better things to do. People to talk to.

Like Katelyn herself for instance.

She looked glum, slumped in one of the chairs like a listless kitten. Katelyn finished putting a tray of sugar cookies in the oven and headed for the living room. She was in high spirits herself, due in part to the night she’s shared with Opal. But Kass was down, perhaps more down than Katelyn had seen her recently. Maybe it was time she tried to build that relationship.

One day, she’d be gone and Kass would be eleven’s senior victor. She hoped that Kass would come around someday, realize that she was just trying to understand her better. Help her. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Katelyn considered all the d11 victors to be family.

Best to start early.

She knew that Kass had a lot of pent up anger; and Katelyn could relate to that. She’d been rather vocal in her younger days, as Harbinger could readily attest. What Kass needed was something constructive to do, though Katelyn was doubtful she could get her anywhere near the kitchen. What did Kass like to do for fun anyhow? She found that she didn’t know, and added that to her list of things to inquire about. Everyone had a hobby after all, and Kass’s hobby couldn’t really be acting like a little shit could it?

“Afternoon, Kass.” She said, greeting the young victor lightly. “Feeling down?”

k a t e l y n .

Darker times will come and go
Times you need to see her smile
And mothers' hands are warm and mild

Maybe Kass needed to get out a little more. Her interactions with Katelyn tended to be frosty, when she wasn’t just ignoring her. It was something Katelyn didn’t really understand. But she thought back to the few in depth conversations they’d had. Kass had viewed Katelyn as having given up. It was true that the fire wasn’t as visible these days, but the passion was still there. It had taken Katelyn years and a good deal of suffering to understand when to hold the cards, and when to fold them.

If you wanted to progress in the game, you had to play by their rules, not try to break them. Kass was still too young to understand that. There wasn’t anyone around that was Kass’s age either. Katelyn understood that. That first year, while she was agonizing over every mandate Kirito had gotten into, she’d been alone, puttering around the quarters with only Fintemaelon to keep her company.

Hey, she thought. Wasn’t Ky around seventeen? Perhaps when she had them over for dinner she could convince Kass to stick around too. She was about to suggest that when Kass snapped at her.It was a slap in the face, a bucket of cold water that upset her on several levels. Opal really had a special place in heart for her to suddenly feel so protective of her.

Katelyn was momentarily at a loss for words, though she recovered quickly. She reminded herself that Kass was young, had gone through the games at fourteen and was only now the same age that Katelyn herself had been when she’d been reaped. She was a child.

One that was now on thin fuckin ice, but a child nonetheless.

It would be shameful to sink down to her level.

Yes, shameful. Katelyn exhaled sharply.

“I paid her in pancakes,” she said drily, coming around the couch to look the young victor in the eyes. Her hands found their way to her hips as her ire rose. “I’m sorry Kass, have I missed something? Has my girlfriend offended you in some way?”

k a t e l y n .

Darker times will come and go
Times you need to see her smile
And mothers' hands are warm and mild

It was hard not to get upset. They were hurtful words, especially coming from someone she’d tried to view as a cantankerous little sister. But when the comments about her cooking came out, she knew.

This had nothing to do with Opal.

This was about Kass’s never-ending vendetta against her.

And her cookies were not dry!

Were they? Oh no, had she added too much flour to the oatmeal raisin? She’d thought her measurements might have been a little off, she’d gotten distracted—

Katelyn shook that thought away, Kass was just trying to get under her skin. It was working too. She was miffed. But she stilled that anger simmering in her chest. Kass wasn’t Rolf Parks, wasn’t that career that had slugged her on her victory tour. You’re a grown ass woman, Katelyn, she reminded herself. Getting into a slapfest with a seventeen-year-old was a terrible thing to do, even if the teenager in question might have deserved it.

“If this was a media stunt there’d be a camera crew following us around.” She responded after a moment. "This isn’t part of anything, I just happen to care about her, alright? What's your deal?" Katelyn let her hands hang loose at her sides. Kass was being so petulant. If Katelyn were younger, she would have made some disparaging remarks about her hair, and then dumped the bowl of frosting in the fridge on top of her. But—

She was an adult, and she had to act accordingly.

“You’re one of us, you know. You’re family.” she sighed quietly. Kirito and her had become fast friends. Harbinger had been difficult at first, and they’d had there ups and downs over the years, but Kass was different. Was the age gap truly a chasm too far across to bridge? Her mind went back to her conversation with Stella, how she’d been made to see herself through someone else’s eyes.

How did Kass see her? From what she’d said, as a sellout; a Capitol stooge who was pandering to the cameras. Should she snap back at her? Would getting through to Kass be the way she’d gotten through to Harb in the beginning? By yelling and dragging him around by his ear? She was worried to do that, even if she was annoyed. Things were different now, it wasn’t three teenagers against the world anymore. It was three adults with things to worry about, and one young girl who’d won more than a decade after them.

“Why do you hate me, Kass?” she asked the back of the girl’s head. "What did I do, except try to get you and Jacob home?"

k a t e l y n .

Darker times will come and go
Times you need to see her smile
And mothers' hands are warm and mild

“You’re not my family, Kass started to yell, taking Katelyn aback. She screamed that she had gotten herself home and that she was sick of pretending that things were fine when they weren’t. That if she’d been trying to get Jacob home, she’d failed, because Kass had killed him. She went on to say that Katelyn probably wished he had come home instead, because then she wouldn’t have to deal with Kass’s nonsense. She was loud, and either on the verge of screeching or tearing up.

Katelyn was quiet for a moment. She hadn’t realized just how much like Harbinger that Kass really was. He’d needed constant reassurance at the start, blaming himself for every bad thing that happened and slipping into self-loathing. He’d come to trust her, a trust that had been shattered when she had been taken. A trust she’d only recently been able to rebuild.Kass didn’t have her trust, and Katelyn had been acting like there was a foundation to build on.

It was difficult to remind herself that not all victors thought the same way. While she was one of the victors that viewed them all as family, tied together by tragedy, linked by their shared experiences, that didn’t mean everyone felt the same. Kass was one of those. And she hadn’t done a very good job of convincing the girl otherwise.

The year after Kass had won, she’d been strong armed into staying home by the Capitol. The year after, she’d thrown herself into trying to get one of the Izars home so hard it was like she’d hardly been there. And then her and Opal had made up for the mistakes of the past. This year, she’d spent a lot of time fretting about Cyro when she wasn’t spending the day with Opal.

Back in eleven, she rarely if at all interacted with the young victor. As Kass had made it clear she didn’t like she’d just tried to give her space. But perhaps that had been the wrong thing to do. She’d been so focused and she’d just sort of assumed that Kirito or Harbinger had taken the time to help Kass through the start of post-games life. Help guide her through the pain and confusion the same way that she had done for them.

But maybe they hadn’t.

None of them were kids anymore. The three of them were adults with lives, loved ones and responsibilities. Which of them had time to listen to Kass when she was by nature prickly and by age so much younger?

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “You’re right. I do wish Jacob was here. The same way I wish Weaver was here. And Iain. And Desimae and Drake, Carrita, Rex, Annora, Gabriel, Iona, Tamron, Raquel and a dozen others. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you here. I care about all my tributes, because I know what they’re going through. I went through it too, and I went through it alone.” Katelyn shrugged helplessly.

“Sometimes you have to live with the choices that other people make. It’s not fair, and you have every right to be angry about it, but that’s life.” She crossed her arms, shaking her head. No matter what she said, it seemed it was the wrong thing to say. How to get through to the girl? How to show love and care to someone who didn’t seem to understand the concept? All Kass saw was a grown woman who used to publically try to buck the system and now smiled for the cameras and seemed to be more concerned with her dating life than making a statement.

Didn’t Kass understand that she was human too? She’d given so much of herself to the district over the years. Had so much taken from her by the people in authority. She’d couldn’t be the person people saw her as 24/7. She wasn’t that spitfire she’d been in the early seventies anymore. Katelyn was only human, and she was only one woman. Who was now trying to defuse the situation in front of her before it got any worse.

“You don’t have to pretend that things are alright. Be mad. Be sad. Whatever helps. It's not healthy to hold that in; I learned that the hard way.” She’d been the same way in the beginning. “But being brave doesn’t mean burning yourself out agonizing over the things you can’t change. Sometimes it means accepting what happened and finding the strength to move past it.”

k a t e l y n .

Darker times will come and go
Times you need to see her smile
And mothers' hands are warm and mild

“I’m not agonizing over anything,” she snapped back, going on a rant about how she’d made her peace with what she’d had to do to survive. Katelyn arched an eyebrow. Then what was bothering her? What was she keeping in despite saying that she never did that? She got her answer a moment later and regretfully realized she’d had Kass all wrong. Stupid of her, really. She’d never stopped to think about Kass’s pre-game life. What is was like to be an orphan, to feel like nobody wanted you.

To be thrust into the spotlight at fourteen, torn away from whatever you had known, and realizing that nothing was going to be the same again. Kass said she had nothing, and Katelyn was unable to come up anything to refute that. No family. No significant other. No friends her age. It wasn’t as thought Ridley or Beck seemed to be in any rush to make friends with an irritable seventeen-year-old from district eleven. Was this how Kass spent her days at home? Alone? Stewing in misery and lacking human contact?

“We— “Katelyn’s words caught in her throat and suddenly she felt very guilty. Kass’s teary admission reminded her that sometimes people slicked through the cracks. They weren’t seen until it was too late. Like Cyro Krane. She shouldn’t have stayed away. Kass lashed out not because she wanted people to stay away, but because she was trying to get them to notice her, and being brash and annoying was the only way she knew how.

Katelyn frowned. It was too easy to put everyone in the same mold and then just walk away when they didn’t fit in it. But that was what she had been doing. She'd gotten so used to seeing Harb and Kirito as equals, that she'd forgotten that Kass was still a child, even though she was one of them. A district eleven victor. She'd written off Kass as not wanting or needing her help or presence when in reality she might need a friendly voice more than either of the boys. 

“I’m sorry Kass." she apologized. "I know the three of us stay busy. That doesn’t mean we don’t want you.” Part of her wanted to hug the young victor, but Kass sort of came off as the type that might get violent if someone touched her when she was upset, so she was unsure how to proceed. She took a few tentative steps towards where Kass had been pacing and decided to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

”You have me,” Katelyn said softly. “ If you'd like, we could go out for ice cream and just talk about you; I always wanted a little sister.” She added hopefully.