To Move Is To Be Alive

Her constant motion is because of fear. Fear that if she should stop then it will all surge and overcome her, crushing and suffocating her. She will start to question, to examine and to see behind the glamour at all the dirt it hides. She doesn't want to see, doesn't want to know and so she moves to keep all these thoughts at bay.

It's easier to deal with the deaths of children (oh, all those children!) that she calls to their deaths if she keeps moving. No sense in looking back, that's what she was always told.

And she doesn't.

If she falters, she feels that gnawing anxiety start low in her being and it makes her shudder. She clutches at her schedule and her lists as if they are her lifelines and it saves her.

At least for a little while.

She can feel his eyes on her as she moves about the hall but she ignores him. She hates how still he can be, hardly moving from the one spot he occupies. She can think of nothing worse than to sit and have all the thoughts, the emotions, simply take over. He drinks to forget but he doesn't forget, not really. A part of her thinks that he doesn't want to either – not truly – and that annoys her endlessly.

His eyes always will her to stop, burning into her back as she steps out of a group only to move into another. Her breath catches in her throat as she does glance back.

She hesitates and it is noticed.

She feels her cheeks burn beneath her white make-up and she hates him. Hates him for making her pause, to make her stumble. It was too dangerous here to make mistakes.

-/-

She never stays still for more than a couple of minutes. A slight pause, a flash of stillness, and then she's off again. It's one of the things he first notices about her, her constant motion makes him feel dizzy, her voice coming in from different directions. His alcohol-flooded body can't handle it. He can feel the burn of bile start in the back of his throat as his head spins.

She moves too fast.

When she stands, she shifts on her feet or taps her heels sharply. Even during the Reapings she moves about the stage. Or when she sits to watch the Games, her fingers thrum against her thigh or run over the cushion seams.

She flutters from group to group, all smiles and laughs and constant energy. It's exhausting just to watch her. The sponsors like her, the little Capitol butterfly that charms them with her little remarks and pretty smile. Too bad he doesn't make quite the same dazzling impression that she leaves behind. But there she is, running around to tidy up the mess he makes.

Always moving, always coming and going until she is caught.

Then, even after everything that happened to her, (he does not think of her tied up, her body twitching to move but unable to out of pain and the chains) she still finds the ability to go on. There is something different though, a lack of the old lustre that radiated from her. But she covers it with hand gestures, little dry laughs and her endless lists of things to do. She moves so they don't ask the questions that will stop her.

He can't stand it anymore. He wants to stop her. So when he grabs her wrist and pushes her against the wall, she wriggles and squirms but he refuses to let her go. At least not just yet.

Her fingers try to scratch at his hands but that doesn't bother him. Her lips move, saying things that he doesn't hear. He's staring at her, her eyes meet his briefly before darting away. He just waits and eventually she does stop. Her body slumps and her fingers have stopped digging into his skin.

The silence between them is thick and heavy and there – there – he sees it in her eyes. A dimming of the light, so much pain, and suddenly he wishes he hadn't seen that. And he thinks how butterflies are not meant to last, born only to live for a little bit… but here she is.

He lets her wrists go and steps back and she drags in a deep breath as if she had been dying. She leaves immediately, her steps are quick but he sees her trembling and knows.

She moves to remind herself that she is alive.

A/N: Reviews are very much appreciated x