Title: Picking Up The Pieces
Author: ArcaneDesires
Pairings: Cato/Clove, (Brief mentions of Female OC/Clove, and very brief hints of Cato/Glimmer, Possible Marvel/Glimmer mentions/hints too.)
Warnings: Swearing, Mild Violence, Mentions of Girls Kissing Girls at the beginning, Mature Het Situations, AU storyline. (Warnings may be added to later on.)

A/N: My first THG based fiction, even if it is AU. And my first Clato. I ADORE Clato, and am pretty fond of Glarvel too. I'm still very iffy on this one and please be warned the actual Clato won't happen until the later chapters, but I'm hopeful that someone will like this. Written for my wonderful friend LovelyAche.

If you feel like dropping me a review I'd love that and would adore you. Anywho without further ado, please enjoy. I hope you will!

Dark brown, almost black eyes glanced down as nimble fingers skimmed over the screen. Image after image swept past her scrutinising eyes, but only one specific one held any interest for the teen. Flicking through the images faster and growing increasingly annoyed, Clove ignored the irritated huff from the front of the car and breathed a sigh of relief when the image she'd been looking for finally came upon the screen.

Lit up by the mobiles screen, were the smiling faces of two young female teenagers. One teen was fair in just about every way. Light skin, pale strawberry blonde hair tied up in a high ponytail and bright green eyes stood out from her pretty face. She had high cheekbones, a toned slender body and a broad, bright smile that lit up her eyes and a sense of friendliness that you could practically feel flowing out from the image.

The other was dark haired, dark eyed and pale skinned, with a soft smattering of freckles upon her face. Her smile was more smirk like than anything and you could just about see the darkness that was hidden behind the somewhat happy façade. But there was a genuine sense of happiness that still somehow radiated towards the girl beside her. Towards the strawberry blonde with her arm around the shorter dark haired girl, the one who was grinning at the camera like she'd never been happier.

And it was to the other girl that Clove now turned her attention. She remembered this image so clearly it was like it was yesterday and the entirety of the day it was taken was burned so deeply into her mind, seared so clearly before her eyes like a movie. That was the day, only a matter of moments before the picture was taken actually, that Dela had kissed her for the first time.

She'd never been one for being happy with people, or even being able to put up with them, but Dela got her. She wasn't like Clove, she was popular and friendly and… nice. But she understood Clove, she saw past the darkness within her, the distaste for being around most people in general and she still liked her anyway, had always liked her.

And not all that long ago… God had it really been only three months? Clove was pretty sure it was, she was very careful with things like this. But that aside, three months ago their friendship had grown into something bigger, stronger and oh so much better.

She'd always sort of thought the girl attractive, but it hadn't hit her just how attracted she was to her until the older girl had shifted from her position stretched out on the bed and looked at her from beneath surprisingly thick eyelashes and asked that question.

Clove's lips quirked up at the edges and she closed her eyes for a brief second to capture the moment in greater detail. Dela had looked at her with those bright, emerald green eyes of hers and said 'Clove, have you ever thought about kissing a girl?' And the dark haired teen had shaken her head, because she could honestly say that No, she hadn't ever thought about it. But then again she hadn't really thought about kissing anyone, because in general people were stupid and pissed her off severely.

But then the idea was there and she couldn't help but wonder what it would be like, so when Dela asked if she could kiss her, she hadn't even had to think about it, she'd just nodded and licked her lips in preparation. What the older girl had done was not so much kiss her as completely steal her breath from her lungs as she plunged her tongue into her mouth.

She'd swept it over every inch of Clove's mouth and claimed it completely. And for possibly the first time in… well EVER, the younger teen simply hadn't cared enough to reclaim the control she should have had. Because she hated to not be in control, but this was just… it really didn't matter when Dela kissed her like that.

Blinking her eyes open, the girl scowled at the backs of her parents heads. That was all over now, they'd ensured that just because they'd caught her and Dela making out and indulging in some heavy petting, they were packed up and moving to this sunshine ridden hell hole just over a month later. Or at least that was how Clove preferred to see it, because all this sunshine did NOT do her already bad mood any good.

She huffed again and flicked the image off her screen, turning her glare to the tree lined street they were making their way down.

"Clove… I do wish you wouldn't keep huffing," her mother complained from the front passenger seat.

"Yeah well I wish you wouldn't have fucking moved us here, shit happens. That's life… mom," she mumbled back under her breath.

"I beg your pardon? What was that?"

"I just asked if we were there yet?" she shot back, injecting false sweetness into her voice and pulling up a smile that could probably fool even her mom, since she'd long ago perfected the art of mixing sarcasm and saccharine.

"Yes actually," her father finally interrupted as they pulled into the driveway of a large grey and white detached house.

"Finally," Clove grumbled exiting the car the second it stopped and standing in the drive, just sneering at their new surroundings. Bright flowers in a range of colours banked the walkway and driveway. The sight and smell of them made her just want to trample them all beneath her feet.

Sometimes she hated having money, because it meant living in a place like this, where all the houses were different and spread apart to make room for the large, sprawling lawns. Everything was so neat and tidy and perfect and everywhere there were flowers… Too many damned flowers.

Ergh, she could already tell she was going to hate this fucking place, and not only because they'd forced her away from Dela either… Though, that was a large part of it obviously, but not all of it. She just plain hated it already. It was just too fucking… NICE.

As for her parent's homophobic attitude, that was just fucking pathetic. It wasn't like she was ONLY interested in girls, she found guys just as attractive, but Dela had just been, well there. She'd sparked the interest first and she was just attractive, really fucking attractive. God the girl was hot… But no, that didn't matter, because oh my god their precious daughter was kissing a girl and that couldn't be allowed, because they just had to be fucking normal.

Snatching her wallet and phone from the back seat, Clove rolled her eyes and moved away from the car, intent on simply getting away from them, from here for a while. Of course, that wasn't allowed either and she should have known that, but fuck! She hadn't wanted to move here, so if they wanted her to help, then they were shit outta luck. Because she didn't want to be here at all.

"Clove, where do think you're going?"

"Away from here mom," she replied with the same false sweetness from before, but she made sure to add a twisted grin so that her mother knew she was doing it deliberately this time.

"You'll stay here and unpack young lady," was her father's contribution.

Yeah right, cause that was totally happening. Snorting, she turned away and gave a shake of her head. "Sorry, since you insisted on dragging me here, I'd like to take a look around. Bye!"

And with that she turned and stalked off. They wouldn't follow her, they never did and she knew that, she was relying on it. Oh sure she'd probably get told off later and yeah they'd purposefully leave all her boxes for her to carry upstairs and unpack, but she really didn't see why she had to stay and help when she didn't even want to be here in the first place.

If they were going to force her to be here, then she wanted to know where exactly HERE was, and just how bad this place was. So it was with this in mind that she started down the tree lined streets, feeling her nausea grow with every step. Because this place looked so damn boring and prissy and she was probably gonna get lost, if she wasn't already. Where the hell was the centre of the town anyway?

Her parents had said it wasn't far from the centre of town but, she'd been walking for… Flipping open her phone, she checked the time and scowled upon realising she'd been walking for over an hour and all she saw was street after street of bloody houses! She was tempted to go back, but well she didn't know how to, so fuck it, she'd just keep going and hope she finally found the town centre soon.

And then finally a little while later, she turned a corner and the houses gave way to shops. Not exactly a town centre as she'd call it, but it was obviously what her parents had meant because there DID seem to be a big town square and a lot of shops and things. But it was not quite what she'd been expecting at all. Yep, it was now more than official, this move fucking sucked!

Huffing, she made her way to the big supermarket and stalked down the aisles just for something to do. And well maybe also to get a drink, she could use a soda right now, it was quite warm out after all.

Ignoring the odd looks she seemed to be getting from the people she was moving past, she finally located the pop aisle and moved towards the cola section. God this town was not exactly small, but somehow everyone here seemed to already know her as an outsider. Great, just what she needed having been forced to live in this place, to be seen as the outsider from the second she stepped into the damn place.

She made a mental note to 'thank' her parents for bringing her here later and snagged a bottle of cola off the shelf. Turning, she rolled her eyes at the security guard standing at the nearby aisle entrance, with his thick arms folded over his rotund belly and walked past him, holding up the pop as she headed for the checkouts. Feeling like sharing her annoyance and making someone else feel it too, she smirked at him and wiggled her fingers in a lazy sham of a wave.

When he glared back at her, she cackled and moved to stand in line at the nearest and shortest queue. Idly, she fiddled with her wallet and let the smirk drop as the guy in front of her took his time counting out every last bit of change to pay for his items apparently.

On impulse and purely because he was being a dick, she grabbed a packet of gum from the stand next to the check out and tapped her foot angrily on the ground. She'd move to another check out, except they all had longer queues and there were now many people behind her. She regretted her decision to come in here instead of trying to find some small corner shop, at least until the jerk in front of her turned around at the sound of her foot slapping agitatedly against the tiled floor of the shop.

He frowned at her, and she scowled darkly back, shooting him a glare cold enough to freeze even the fires of hell. The meek looking guy ducked his mousy brown head and turned quickly back to paying as quickly as humanely possible and then shuffled off hurriedly, leaving Clove feeling the urge to cackle again. But she resisted… Barely. Instead she placed her items on the conveyer belt and watched as the cashier rang up her pathetic purchases.

"$1.35 please… Say you're new around here huh?" the woman asked, cracking her own gum and making Clove roll her eyes.

"No shit Sherlock," she snapped back under her breath before raising her voice and shrugging. "Yeah, so. What of it?" She handed over the money, just daring the woman to make something of it. She seemed to think better of it and instead just handed her back her change with a strangely squeaked response of 'Have a nice day!' that followed her as she stalked away.

"Yeah, I'll have a fucking fantastic day," she muttered to herself, wandering just when things would pick up, or if they even would. Considering she'd been dumped in this snobby, shitty town, she didn't think they would. Not for a long time at least.

Twisting the lid off her pop, she swallowed a mouthful and swept dark eyes over the town square she once more found herself in. A pleased shiver travelled through her system as the sugar rushed through her system and the cold fluid hydrated her body.

She turned towards a nearby building that appeared to be some sort of very large community centre and figured she might as well start there. It would hopefully have some sort of information about anything noteworthy that would be going on here and probably a bunch of useless info too.

Still, it was better than nothing she supposed. Upon reaching the large black and grey building, she frowned up at the odd symbol above the huge arched windows that made up the majority of the front of the building.

A circle of gold that surrounded a gold bird of some sort with an arrow carried in its mouth. Ok, weird but whatever. She glanced at the glass doorway in the middle of the large glass front and noticed the nearest inside wall had a large bulletin board absolutely covered in pieces of paper, letters and notifications.

She tried the door, tugging at it and found it open, so her assumption of a community centre or town hall or something seemed pretty fair all things considered. She could hear faint sounds from down the corridor but wanting to know exactly what this place was before she allowed herself to look around further, she made her way to the bulletin board instead.

Once there she realised her first conclusion was wrong, which pissed her off, Clove HATED to be wrong, but she wasn't completely wrong. This did appear to be possibly the heart of the town. At least for teens and young adults anyway, just not a community centre as such. Every single notification was for something to do with sports, or well most of them were to do with some sort of martial arts type thing mixed with… holy shit!

She read it again. It was for competitions and training sessions that appeared to be a mixture of martial arts and an almost military like training program where they were trained in various types of weaponry skills. Well that sounded interesting!

She considered the noises she could still hear occurring somewhere behind her. Hey the door had been open, obviously this wasn't a private party as the saying went, and she was absolutely intrigued about what she would find at the end of the corridor.

Clove stalked past doors, hearing sounds from inside a few of the other rooms, sounds which made her curious, but she didn't bother to pause and find out what lay behind those other doors. She had one goal in mind and somehow, she just knew that this was the source of what excited her curiosity the most.

And then she reached the end of the corridor and another set of large glass doors stood in front of her. But these ones were tinted sort of blackish. It wasn't impossible to see into the room by any means, but it was a lot less easy than the original glass doors into the entrance of this odd place. Inside a large group of people moved and she narrowed her eyes, taking everything in.

A huge brute of a guy stood far away from the main group, a sharp sword in his hand and she watched with a mixture of awe and anger over his absolute skill with the blade as he swung it in quick, practiced movements. Well at least she knew she hadn't hallucinated the whole weapons part of things.

Her gaze switched to the other occupants of the room and she watched as a pair of teens moved to the middle of the quite frankly HUGE room. The girl, some tall, curvy blonde shifted into what Clove recognised as a defensive stance while a dark haired guy, about the same height as the big blonde with the sword stepped towards her. His movements were slow, calculating and careful, while the girls were swifter, harder and almost furious as she pursed her lips up at the brunet guy.

All around the room the occupants were practicing varying forms of hand to hand combat or weapons training. Well this explained where all the teens around here were on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps living here wouldn't be so bad after all.

Turning her attention away from them, her gaze met with that of another dark haired girl, who looked around her age, maybe a little older. The girl seemed to be eyeing her with some sort of distaste and Clove sneered back, instinctively not liking the other girl who pouted at her.

Rolling her eyes, the teen turned her attention towards a dirty blonde who was walking up to what she presumed was one of the trainers and leaning up to whisper into the guys ear. Brown locked with blue as he stared over the guys shoulder at her and pointed towards her.

As one, the two males turned to her and the darker haired guy she'd assumed was the trainer, nodded at the blonde before breaking away and moving towards her. She took a step back as he pulled the door open and bore down on her with a questioning smile. But she refused to pull away, because she hadn't done a damned thing wrong. The main doors had been open, if they didn't want people walking in then they shouldn't have left the doors unlocked.

To her surprise however the guy wasn't at all unhappy about her not so covert studies, he was actually smiling at her. Ok… what the hell? But whatever, she'd go along with it.

"I take it you're interested in joining?" he asked greyish eyes moving over her frame.

He was assessing her, she knew it and he was no doubt finding her lacking thanks to the small size and slender frame. But she'd had some similar sort of training back in her old town and she was incredibly interested now. Still, she faked a nonchalant shrug and tilted her head to the side. "Hmm, possibly yeah."

"Do you have any experience?"

"Back where I used to live yeah. Hand to hand and weapons training."

"Any good?"

Clove laughed at that and smirked. "I could show you if you like," she shot back.

The guy, she still didn't know his name laughed in response and shook his head. "I can't let you participate today, you need your parent's permission, but I can let you observe if you'd like. You can show me those skills of yours next time."

She'd anticipated that, the same had been true back when she'd started classes in her old town. So she wasn't bothered by that, but it would be good to watch the others, take in their strengths and weaknesses to use to her advantage later on. And of course for now, they wouldn't get to view hers until it was too late for them to assess her as anything other than some tiny slip of a girl that everyone seemed to mistake her for.

"Sure. Sounds good," she shrugged.

"Alright, just stand near the doors and watch then. I'll be deep in it if you don't stay safe." And with that, he moved forward, holding the door open for her to step through.

She did, following him inside and immediately the atmosphere changed. She couldn't even count the pairs of eyes that locked onto her as she leaned back against the wall just to the side of the doors. The blonde girl from before was pursing her lips and whispering something to the lanky brunet guy she'd been fighting before. Judging by the bimbo's face she didn't like her. What a fucking shame.

There were others watching her, but she passed them over briefly just rolling her eyes at the way everyone seemed to dismiss her completely. Well fuck them! Of course the one person who seemed to not dismiss her, but outright seem to want to burn a whole right through her and the wall behind her, was the blond from before with the downright amazing sword skills.

Sharp blue eyes narrowed at her from across the room and she swore she could practically feel ice forming in the air between them. She sneered back at him when his lips curled up, twisting his handsome features, and dark chocolate brown eyes narrowed at him in response.

So he was clearly the big shot in the room, or he sure as hell seemed to think so. Well, she'd give him a run for his damn money and if not, she'd sure as hell try! She just hoped she could convince her parents. They'd been against it last time, something about how normal girls shouldn't want to play with knives. Oh well, guess that made her abnormal huh? She didn't care, she was quite comfortable with who she was thanks.

Well let the stupid dick think whatever the hell he wanted about her, she'd show them all next time just what a little girl from Heighsham could do! Scrunching her nose up as he turned around, dismissing her like everyone else did, she whipped her head away in the opposite direction. Oh she'd give him his dues, he was good with that weapon of his, but so was she. And she wished so badly right in that second that she could just show off her skills and make them all regret the way they'd ignored her as nothing special.

She kept up her watch throughout the training session, taking note of the ones who sparked an interest. The somewhat unremarkable looking blond boy from before was surprisingly strong. The blonde girl who'd glared at her when she entered was somewhat good with a bow and arrow, but absolutely nothing compared to the brunette girl currently firing arrow after arrow into the targets at the very back of the room. The brunet guy who'd been with the blonde girl was fairly good with a sword, but much better with throwing spears. And of course the blond guy…

Clove didn't know why her gaze kept switching back to him, possibly because she kept feeling his gaze on her. Or maybe it was simply the way he handled the sword as if it was an extension of him. As if it were just another part of his arm and not just a weapon held in his hand. There was an odd sort of grace to his movements and he was incredibly powerful too.

Not that she managed to watch him fight anyone else, the rest of the room seemed to steer clear of the hostile looking male. She wondered if it was his sheer size, or just the glares he seemed to shoot not just at her, but everyone else too. It had to be his attitude, she finally decided. Because off to the side, trailing after a sweet little dark skinned girl and looking incredibly protective was yet another huge dark skinned male who was easily as big as the blond, if not more so.

It was hard to tell truthfully, he seemed to be busy training the little girl by his side and was sticking mostly down the other end of the cavernous room.

Sighing as the instructor finally called a halt to the action, she once again found her gaze sliding over to the tall blond. Why the fuck he kept glaring at her she didn't know, but it was severely pissing her off. From the minute she'd entered the room he seemed to have taken an intense dislike to her. And she hadn't done a damn thing!

She turned to walk away since everyone was now cleaning up their weapons and the floor mats, but stopped when the instructor's voice called out to her.

"Hey wait! Need to talk to you before you leave, just give me a second," he called, waving a hand in her direction.

Shrugging, Clove resumed her position of leaning against the nearby wall, arms folded over her chest as the large group began to file slowly passed her. She hadn't actually been planning on leaving, just waiting outside while the group left the room. But ok, sure she could wait in here instead. It wasn't like the eyes trailing over her as they walked past were going to be any different inside or outside of this room.

She vaguely noted, once everyone else had trooped out of the room that the blond guy from before hadn't made his way out with the rest of them and was still getting a few very last minute swipes in with his sword. She rolled her eyes at that and turned to the instructor seeing as he was now walking towards her, holding out a few sheets of paper.

"Just get your parents to fill these in, sign it, and bring it back on Thursday. Oh and be sure you bring some form of ID with you too and we'll get you all signed up and started then."

"Provisional licence ok?" she asked, reaching out and taking the papers from him. Folding them in half, she clutched them in her free hand and looked up at him. Damn it, why was everyone around here so freaking tall?

"That's fine. Training goes on all day for the older ones Thursdays, you're free to come along any time after you finish school, and all day if it's the holidays or the weekends. It usually goes on till later but unfortunately we have to close early and all the trainers have somewhere to go today."

"Ok, good to know. See you Thursday then." Clove turned then, beginning to make her way out of the hall and dismissing the still training blond as she walked thoughtfully from the room.

Behind her, she heard the trainer's voice calling out in slight exasperation for the blond guy to stop training and get his ass outta there. She didn't give it too much thought, even as heavy footsteps began to sound from behind her. Given the weight and movement, she was pretty sure it was the guy who'd spent the past few hours glaring at her for reasons completely fucking unknown to her.

Reaching the main door, she pulled it back, about to step outside when a warm body collided with her. She stumbled, almost falling at the weight pushed against her and narrowed her eyes at the jerk. "What the fuck is your problem asshole?" she hissed furiously, thankful she'd grabbed the door before otherwise he would have knocked her fucking flying!

He glanced sideways at her and she could literally watch his expression change from outright hostility to what she could only call surprise. She barely had time to register this before he swept out the door ahead of her, leaving her reeling in confusion. What the fuck? Seriously just what the fuck was that all about?

It should put her off, normal people would have probably run away screaming from the big brute, but Clove wasn't a normal person. Besides, the surprise he'd seemed to show when he'd actually looked at her in close quarters intrigued her. Oh yes, she was going to come back. One way or another she'd persuade her parents to let her train here.

Making her way outside, she wasn't surprised to see that a few of the teens were still milling around, but the blond guy was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging, she made her way past the huge dark skinned guy and the happily chattering girl by his side and turned in the direction she remembered coming upon the town centre from. She didn't truly remember the way home, but she'd memorized most of the street names so hopefully she'd manage to make it through.

Pulling her phone out of her pocket once more, she flicked to the photo from earlier and sighed. Well might as well let Dela know she'd made it here safe. She was a bit pissed to be honest, not once had the other girl texted or messaged her since she'd left this morning.

She was tempted to not say anything just to get her back, but right now Clove needed some sort of familiarity and damn it she really missed her girlfriend. Besides, she hadn't messaged Dela either, so she was also at fault she supposed.

XxxxxxxxX

To: Del

From: Clove

Hey. Made it here safe, towns a nicey nice shithole, fucking miss u. Left the 'rents 2 unpack and found a training centre like I used to go 2 though. Every1's so damn 'friendly' here… Guess I fit right in huh? Anyway, call or text me back soon yeah?

XxxxxxxxX

She pressed send, continuing to walk and waiting for the buzz that would inform her the message had gone through safely and been delivered to the other girls phone and breathed a sigh of relief when it did. The other girl would reply soon, she was sure of it. Dela always replied right away and she knew she would be missing her as much as she missed the other girl.

So she kept her phone out in her hand, holding it tightly as she trudged through street after street, trying not to get herself lost. Her parents were probably freaking, but they hadn't phoned yet, so that meant they were probably pissed and waiting for her to get home before slinging some sort of punishment at her the minute she walked through the door.

It wasn't until she reached a street she actually recognised and not just remembered the name of that her phone finally went off and she breathed a sigh of relief. Pressing the accept button, she read the message and laughed. Typical Del. Why she insisted on using that term of endearment when she knew Clove hated it, she'd never know, but this time it made her feel better instead of angry.

XxxxxxxxX

To: Clover

From: Dela

Hey baby, miss u 2. Sorry was in the shower, phones not waterproof otherwise I'd have answered sooner. Anywho, ditched the 'rentals the second you got there no doubt. That's my girl. ;P So u're gonna be the knife wielding bitch in ur new town 2 huh? I'm so proud of u. lol Now hurry up and get the hell home and set up that computer of ur's so we can talk proper. Speak soon! Xxxx

XxxxxxxxX

Typing back a message that she'd be home soon and she'd get her computer set up as quickly as possible, she shoved her phone back into her pocket and felt the smile slip from her lips as she walked up the stone pathway to her new house.

Well, here went nothing. She wasn't going to escape their ire, so it was probably best to leave bringing up the training thing till tomorrow. They'd only give her a flat out no right now and probably throw the papers in the trash or something. They'd moved her over four hours away after catching her kissing a girl after all, she wouldn't put anything past them after that. I mean seriously.

Folding the papers in half again, she slipped them into her pocket for now, exchanging them for her wallet and not her cell so her parents wouldn't do something shitty like take her phone away to keep her from being able to call Dela or something. Since she didn't yet have a key to this place, she raised a fist and knocked on the door. Time to get used to living here she supposed…