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In the final days of the war, as the fighting grew closer and closer to the Presidential Palace at the center of the Capitol, Snow often found himself sitting in silence, eyes trailing over the life he had fought tooth and nail for only to see her everywhere. In seeing her, he saw himself.
He watched their ghosts live.
In the dining room, he sat at the table, eyes catching on the skirt of her wedding dress as they danced around, laughing and shrieking with joy.
“Be careful,” Lucy cries, eyes bright with laughter. “You’ll tear my dress!”
It’s a beautiful dress, a more mature version of her rainbow one, with green lace and beads curling over her shoulders and down the center to circle her waist. A pair of beaded mockingjays sit on her hips, covered by his hands as he picks her up to spin her around.
“We’ll have it repaired!” He laughs, setting her down on the bare table. “Mrs. Snow.”
She laughs into the kiss, her arms around his shoulders.
“Baird.” She corrects him once he pulls away. “Mrs. Snow-Baird.”
“Mrs. Snow-Baird,” he repeats. “That makes me…”
“President Coriolanus Snow-Baird,” Lucy obligingly recites.
“Then that makes you… First Lady Lucy Gray Snow-Baird?”
She thinks for a moment. “We’ll workshop it. But I’m not giving up my name.”
“I would never think otherwise.” He kisses her again as she runs fingers through his hair. He trails his fingers over her waist where he knows she’s ticklish and she kicks out with a shriek of laughter, accidentally hitting a chair and tipping it over.
It hits the floor with a great clatter and they both jump. His hand tightens on her waist and her fingers dig into his shoulders. After a moment, they both relax with quiet sighs.
“Dear god, this place is so empty,” Lucy whispers with a shudder.
“It’s just us for the night,” Coriolanus reminds her, pressing a kiss to her hair as she looks over the large room.
“I know but still. Is it always going to be like this?”
He kisses a spot under her ear. “No, the staff’ll be here in the morning.”
“Besides staff.” She rolls her eyes at him. “Is it really just us?”
“We could always change that.” He puts the words forward almost carelessly, but his eyes are fastened to her, watching her every move.
She looks at him with wide eyes. “Like… like having a baby?”
“I mean- if- if you want, we can- but you know we just got married and I don’t want to-”
She cuts him off with a kiss, eyes impossibly brighter.
“Yes,” she breathes against his mouth. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes!” She laughs. “I want to have a baby with you!”
He stares at her in shock and joy before- “Well come on!” He takes her by the hand and she hops off the table, running for the stairs, their laughter trailing behind them.
“President Snow?” An officer stepped into the room, holding a stack of pads. “The casualty reports you requested.”
“Put them in my office,” Snow waved him off.
He stood, joints creaking with age. No time for dreaming when there was a war to win
~
Snow drifted from room to room, watching them.
They laid together in bed, naked and giggling. Her dark hair looked darker between his pale fingers, her head on his chest with the covers pulled up to their waists.
They dance in the library, her hair flying out. Her brown skin glows under the golden lamplight as a record plays.
She creeps into the office, eyes lit up as he signs off on some inane part of running a country. She bends down and whispers something in his ear. He freezes, and then jumps up to kiss her and spin her around as she shrieks with laughter. He presses a hand to her belly as they kiss.
The guest room next to the master bedroom becomes a nursery painted in the colors of the rainbow, mockingjays and music notes and roses creeping and flying over the walls. He sits on the floor, squinting at the instructions for a crib. Sejanus stands over him, weight braced against a beam.
“It’s upside down, Coryo.”
“Shut up, Sej.”
A rocking chair goes in one corner and in the library, Lucy Gray sits with Tigris, a round belly and piles of fabric between them as together they stitch onesies and blankets. He comes in and kisses her cheek, then her belly. Tigris pretends to gag only to begin laughing when Lucy hits her with a onesie.
“Sejanus kicked me out.” He pouts at them, flushing when they start laughing. “It’s not funny!”
“It is a little.”
In their bedroom, she sits with her legs spread, breathing heavily. A blonde girl - the girl that started it all, the younger Everdeen - crouches, squinting up between Lucy Gray’s legs.
“Not long now,” she says. Her voice reminds him of Wovey’s.
“Where’s Coryo?” Lucy Gray asks, rubbing her belly. “Where is he?”
“He’s on his way,” she promises.
Lucy Gray lets out a small scream of pain, face scrunching up as she doubles over. “It- it’s too soon!”
“It’s not, you can do this. Now push!”
He rushes in and practically dives at her, kneeling by the bed. “Lucy- Lucy Gray, I’m here!” He promises, taking her hand as she beams at him, exhausted and soaked with sweat as the girl again says,
“Push, Lucy Gray! Push!”
She screams and screams and before he can blink, the girl shouts “I can see the head!”
“You can?” Lucy Gray pants, looking up.
“One more big push, Lucy Gray!”
“I don’t think I can,” she says, eyes sparking with pain.
Coriolanus kisses her knuckles encouragingly. “You can,” he says. “You can do it!”
Out in the hall, Sejanus paces, wincing at the next scream. Tigris winces as well. Several staff members stand around, fidgeting with their uniforms or chewing on their cuticles.
“Maybe you should check on things?” Sejanus suggests.
“They’ll let us know what’s going on when they’re ready,” Tigris says, cringing as Lucy Gray screams again. “If you’re so anxious, you can knock.”
“This is a womanly thing!” Sejanus huffs. He shrinks back at the harsh glare Tigris throws him but plows on to say, “I can’t just interrupt!”
“Then shut up!”
In the bedroom, Primrose catches the baby and looks up with shining eyes to announce, “It’s a girl!”
“A girl?” Lucy Gray repeats, lifting her head to look over her bump.
“Congratulations!” Primrose fiddles with the baby, and they hear the soft snick of shears cutting the cord before a loosely swaddled bundle of red flesh and big blue eyes is placed on Lucy Gray’s chest.
“It’s a girl,” Lucy Gray breathes, tears of joy beginning to make tracks down her cheeks. “Coryo, look. Look what we made.”
Coriolanus can’t tear his eyes from her. From his daughter.
“Hello,” he breathes, touching her cheek. A bit of blood smears on his finger but he hardly noticed. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
He stumbles out to the hall on shaking legs. Tigris jumps up, nearly colliding with Sejanus as they both step towards him.
He hardly notices as he announces, “It’s a girl!”
“Congratulations!” Tigris squeals as she hugs him. Sejanus claps him on the back and says,
“Nice to meet you, Dad.”
The staff whispers joyfully among themselves, but Coriolanus hardly notices, already turning to go back.
Lucy Gray is sat up, leaning against a stack of pillows, their baby girl wiped clean(ish) and somewhat calmer.
“We need to name her,” she says, looking up at him with an exhausted but ecstatic smile.
“What ballad did you have in mind?” He kneels next to her again, hardly sure where to look. Her, or the baby.
“How about… Hilda Green Snow-Baird?”
“Hilda,” he tests it out on his tongue. “Hilda Green… yes. I like that. Hilda Green Snow-Baird.”
Hilda grows between rooms. First crawling into the dining room and running in the kitchen. She learns how to dance in the library, chubby little arms raised above her head, her pink skirt flying out and bumping Lucy Gray’s rainbow. She skips out the door to her first day of school and comes back almost a teen, with her hair colored pink. She wears colorful block shirts and tight black jeans. She shouts at Lucy Gray on the stairs about wanting to be with a boy, running into her room and coming out a bride, wearing Lucy Gray’s dress, roses replacing the mockingjays. She marries in the greenhouse, and tells him she’s pregnant in the kitchen, hands on her belly. She gives birth in the same bed as her mother. Primrose Everdeen, evergreen as a girl, coaches her through it, announcing that it’s a girl once more. The baby has Lucy Gray’s eyes, and her name. She sits with him by the bed, kissing her mother’s hand as Lucy Gray coughs. Lucy Jordan Gray watches her grandmother pass, brown eyes full of tears. Hilda Green sits next to him in the greenhouse, hand in his as he passes too.
By the time Katniss Everdeen came to confront him, he had watched his great granddaughter abolish the games, her eyes brown and her hair white as she stepped on a train to go find her great grandmother’s family in District 12.
The morning of his execution dawned cold and bright. As Katniss Everdeen aimed at him, he watched Lucy Gray walk across the sands, her rainbow skirt swirling in the breeze. She stopped next to Katniss, and smiled at him.