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Chapter Text

Chapter 1: An Indecent Proposal

Coin wants to see me.

As I walk through gray corridor after gray corridor, I try to imagine what she wants from me but none of my ideas have any substance. I’m so distracted that I nearly bump into Haymitch.

“You too, sweetheart?” When he sees the questioning look on my face, he shakes his head and continues “Don’t bother asking. They don’t tell me anything. It can’t really be good news, though. Can it?”

He doesn’t look good, sallow skin, dark rings under his eyes; the forced sobriety of 13 doesn’t suit him. But he’s right, I’ve been in training to go on a mission to the Capitol for weeks, my final test before the Assignment Board is days away. Coin’s given me what I asked for, a ticket to the Capitol, so any news is bad news. Could she have changed her mind, decided to keep me in this prison?

The thought of being kept in 13 paralyzes me; I have to get to the Capitol. I don’t have another plan. My whole life revolves around killing Snow. I turn to Haymitch and I know he can see the terror in my eyes.

But he’s unfazed. I feel his hand on my shoulder as he says “The odds aren’t exactly in your favor. But how much worse can it get?”

With that, we’re outside of her door. The guards nod to us and we step inside the large, but poorly lit room. Alma Coin, President of District 13, sits behind an enormous desk with Plutarch Heavensbee, ex-gamemaker, fidgeting behind her nervously.

There are three chairs evenly spaced in the front of her desk. Two are empty, obviously intended for Haymitch and me. The occupant of the third chair turns his head and I’m met with a blank gaze from the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.

Peeta

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I’ve seen him in training, at a distance, surrounded by guards. The last time I was this close to him was the cafeteria. He was in handcuffs. I stormed off with Gale and he had to be dragged out after he got into an argument with himself.

Haymitch and I just stand there for what seems like minutes. We stare back and forth between Coin, an unshackled Peeta and a pair of guards keeping watch in the dark corner of the room. Eventually Coin breaks the silence. “Please sit down Soldier Everdeen, Citizen Abernathy. We have serious matters to attend to.”

For want of another option, we sit. Haymitch takes the middle seat, separating me from Peeta. Coin clears her throat loudly before continuing. “As I’m sure you’re aware, Soldier Everdeen, your responsibility under our arrangement, in exchange for all of your demands as ‘The Mockingjay’, is to unite the districts under one banner. And to put it bluntly, you haven’t.”

I try to respond but my tongue feels sluggish in my mouth. “I… I’ve done what you’ve asked. I went to 8, to 2. I danced at Finnick and Annie’s wedding.” I can hear desperate pleading start to creep into my voice, “What more do you want me to do?”

Coin’s grey eyes and mine meet like crossed steel swords and her mouth is curled in a sneer when she speaks. “Plutarch’s office is constantly bombarded with requests for propos of our pair of star-crossed lovers. But you’ve refused to help us. I don’t think I need to remind you that our agreement is predicated on your cooperation with Citizen Heavensbee.”

Of course. That’s why Peeta’s here, because they want us to shoot propos together. Plutarch brought this up weeks ago and I turned him down flat. It isn’t as if I’m much good in front of a camera anyway, but pretending to be… whatever we were, friends… lovers… allies, with this Capitol-made Peeta that hates me, it’s impossible. She must see that.

I’m still trying to force words out my mouth when Peeta speaks up. “We’ve already been over this. It doesn’t matter what you can get her to agree to, my answer won’t change. I’ve told you that I’m through being her accessory. So if that’s what we’re here for, I want to go back to my cell.” His tone is even, controlled but it’s still hollow. It doesn’t have the passion or the warmth that made people melt when Peeta spoke before. I don’t know whether to be happy that there’s still one thing we agree on or hurt because he hates me too much to even shoot propos with me.

I expect Coin to be angry but when I look back at her I almost think I can see a smile. “I appreciate your forthrightness, Soldier Mellark; I believe that will save us a great deal of time. So let me be open and honest with you in return; I am under incredible pressure at this moment. This district paid dearly to rescue you from the Capitol. I was so impressed with your ability to inspire others that I gambled away many of my most highly-placed agents to rescue you from Snow.”

She’s lying; she only rescued Peeta when the guilt and worry about his captivity in the Capitol left me unable to function as her precious Mockingjay. But I don’t try to correct her.

Now Coin’s face hardens, her eyes become darker. “But there are those, even here in District 13, that dare to call me a fool because that costly mission gained us nothing but ‘damaged goods’.”

I scowl at the idea that she can dismiss them, Annie, Johanna and even Peeta, so casually. How can she have any idea what they’ve been through? Of course as someone who used to wear a “mentally disoriented” bracelet, maybe it’s not surprising that I sympathize with insane torture victims. Peeta doesn’t flinch at the characterization, though. His face remains blank while his hands grip the arms of his chair.

Coin’s eyes flit back and forth across the three of us as she continues to lay out her grievances. “We had hoped to begin the assault on the Capitol weeks ago but we still don’t have the strength. We in District 13 simply don’t have the manpower on our own; we need more volunteers from the other districts. Districts, I might add, which are hounding Citizen Heavensbee here for news about the Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12.”

Haymitch is shaking his head as he leans forward in his chair. “This is crazy, Alma. You can’t ask them to do this.”

I can feel hysteria rising in my chest the longer this conversation goes on. “Do what? Hold P- … hold his hand while you film it? That won’t fool anyone!”

I’m on my feet now; I can’t breathe. I can’t believe we’re talking about this. This is worse than my conversation with Snow before the Victory Tour; he wanted me to pretend to love a boy who loved me. Coin wants me to pretend to love a boy who hates me with every fiber of his being, a boy I can’t bear to look at because he reminds me so much of someone I’ve lost forever.

Plutarch breaks the awkward silence. “Katniss, believe me. No one wants to force you into anything but the reality is that the situation is difficult. And we understand your concerns, but Peeta’s made fantastic progress; he’s been training for weeks without any incident. I-”

I don’t find out what Plutarch was going to say next because Peeta interrupts him. “What you mean is that I haven’t gone crazy since the last time I was near her. That isn’t an argument for putting us together for your cameras. I’ll admit that I’m confused, that I can’t tell what’s real sometimes.”

Peeta lets that sink in before he continues. “But this,” he gestures between us, “what you keep asking me for, isn’t real. It never was.”

I can hear a catch in his voice but he maintains the same even tone of speech. “I can’t act anymore; you can’t lie properly if you can’t keep track of the truth. So why don’t we just stop pretending that I’m not a worthless cripple and have these nice men take me back to my padded cell.”

His honesty is painful to listen to. I’m staring down at my shoes waiting for Plutarch’s response when I hear Coin’s voice. She practically spits out “You had better hope that you’re still worth something, Soldier Mellark; because even after the tragic loss of your family, there is still plenty that this war can take from you, both of you.”

My eyes must be as wide as saucers as I stare at her mutely. She gives a small nod to me. “I see that you understand what is at stake here, Soldier Everdeen. If I don’t get the cooperation I need from the other districts, I’ll be forced to make use of every resource we have available here. That will, of course, entail using some of our less experienced citizens in the assault, including those from District 12. For example: Soldier Everdeen’s “cousin”, Rory Hawthorne, and your friend’s brother, Cordwainer Cartwright, are both in training as ground support personnel. And as I’m sure you’re both aware, Primrose Everdeen has passed all of the necessary courses to be a combat medic. You don’t want them sent to a dangerous battlefield, do you, Soldier Mellark?”

I struggle at first to even make a sound, but eventually I manage to speak, my voice cracking with the effort. “No! We’ll do what you want. We’ll do anything you want! But… but leave Prim out of this.”

Coin gives me the faintest smile before she turns to Peeta. “Well, Soldier Mellark? Soldier Everdeen is willing to cooperate. You aren’t going to be difficult, are you?”

I can’t stop my heart from hammering in my chest. This isn’t the old Peeta, my Peeta, the boy who would deny me nothing. Will this new version of him be willing to help me save Prim from Coin?

Haymitch puts his hand on Peeta’s shoulder but I can’t make out what he starts to say under his breath before Peeta bats his hand away and snaps “Save it, Haymitch.” He removes his other hand from the arm of the chair and straightens up before he tells Coin “Tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I can only listen half-heartedly as Coin and Plutarch lay out their script. We’re reunited when Peeta publically joins me for training. We share staged, tender moments, kisses for the camera and in a few weeks, District 13 holds another wedding of victors. It’s the Victory Tour all over again, but this time I’m in it alone. How can this new Peeta play the doting lover when he hates and fears me? Can he maintain the deception when he can’t even hold himself together around me long enough to finish a meal? I keep glancing over to him, looking for some sign of what’s going on inside his head but his face remains impassive. Eventually part of my brain registers that Plutarch has stopped speaking and I see Peeta’s lips start to move.

His voice isn’t hollow when he speaks; it’s hesitant, fearful, nervous. “So that’s the deal? If I pretend that I’m in love with her, you won’t send any of those kids into the Capitol?”

Coin’s tone is as hard as his is soft when she replies “The deal, Soldier Mellark is that if you convince the populace of the districts to provide me with the manpower I need, then none of your friends will be needed for the final assault.”

Peeta turns his head towards me slightly and I can’t tell which one of us he’s making the promise to when he says “I’ll convince them.”

 

Notes:

This was inspired by Prompts in Panem’s “What if” from the previous round of prompts (I write slowly and didn’t want to release until I was sure I could finish it).

I suppose I’m a sucker for Katniss/Peeta marriage fics and there are several that I think are great; “I Do” by Halfhope and “A Marriage between Victors” by Optimus-Pam are personal favorites and I’d also highly recommend Missi Marie’s trilogy on the subject. To my knowledge, this is the first story in which Katniss and Peeta are forced into marriage while Peeta’s still recovering from the hijacking in 13. There are numerous passages from Mockingjay that I’ve adapted for this story because I like them and I think they fit nicely. Naturally Susanne Collins owns not only those passages but the characters, setting and most of the plot as well. I don’t own anything and I’m ok with that.

Chapter Text

All I want to do is go hide in a closet, but I have to hold things together for Prim. Haymitch’s parting words when we leave Coin’s office are typically blunt.

“Here we go again, sweetheart. You don’t need me to tell you just how deep we’re in it right now, but she’s overplayed her hand on this. She’s set things in motion that she can’t control; so don’t lose your head. Do what she tells you, stay alive and let me handle everything else.”

That was a week ago. I’ve passed my tests and the Assignment Board has placed me in Squad 451, the “Star Squad”, along with Boggs, Finnick and Gale. Unfortunately, Johanna failed the final test they gave her; during her test they flooded the street and she couldn’t handle the flashbacks to her torture in the Capitol. Right now though, it doesn’t make much difference because until we have Coin’s “recruits” from the other districts, the “Star Squad” won’t be going anywhere further away from 13 than our training grounds on the surface.

Of course, as the Mockingjay, even when I get to the Capitol, all District 13 wants from me is more propos. Although ostensibly a sniper squadron, Squad 451 includes Finnick, whose skill with a trident doesn’t translate well into using a gun, because he’s a young, hansom victor. Gale and I obviously have experience shooting, but I get the impression that we’d be included even if we didn’t. I don’t know much about the other members, Jackson, Homes, Mitchell and the Leeg twins, but it appears that their primary job is to serve as extras on propos starring myself, Finnick or even Gale. It’s a shame because Mitchel and Homes are good shots and Jackson is absolutely eagle-eyed; she can hit targets that the rest of us can’t even see without a scope.

Cressida’s camera crew, Messalla, Castor and Pollux, film us as we take shots at glass targets on the firing range. But I’m too nervous to make for good copy. I can’t keep my hands from trembling just a little when I think about the fact that another handsome young victor will be joining us for training today and I’m fairly certain that they won’t send any guards with him this time.

I idly wonder what Coin’s real goal is. Does she really think that a fancy wedding of the Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12 will bring in enough volunteers from the other districts? Or is she hoping that Peeta kills me and my martyrdom becomes the revolution’s rallying cry?

When Peeta finally arrives he’s dressed in a District 13 military uniform, including body armor. He seems cheerful when he reports for duty. When Boggs asks him why he volunteered for the “Star Squad”, he sounds almost like the old Peeta when he replies “I just wanted another chance to see her shoot.”

His smile looks genuine too but I know better; I can read the fear in his eyes and feel the slight trembling of his arms when I give him my best over-the-top Capitol smile and pull him in for a hug.

As Peeta leans down to let me embrace him, I can see Gale’s stone-faced expression over Peeta’s shoulder and I’m glad that I warned him Peeta would be joining us beforehand. When I told him about my meeting with Coin, his first words were “Do you want me to kill him?” Even through the fear that grips me, I’m horrified at how easily Gale can make an offer like that. Has the war changed him so much or was this darkness always inside him?

‘You know how to kill.’

‘Not people.’

‘How different can it be, really?’

Finnick and Peeta watch me shoot at glass targets with my District 13-issued rifle while everyone else goes over proper procedure for dealing with “pods”, a sophisticated kind of trap we’ll encounter in the Capitol.

I don’t know what to say to Peeta; there is no script and I can’t see much through the fog in his eyes. He’s going to have to do most of the talking and I don’t have a clue about how to help him do it.

Eventually he turns his face away from the camera and quietly murmurs “There’s no sense in waiting for a better chance to kill me, sweetheart. You have a gun, I don’t have my guards and even if you lose your nerve, I get the impression that Gale would be more than happy to do the job for you.”

The unfairness of it burns me; he’s the one who tried to kill me! But I hold my temper in check and try to keep my voice even when I reply equally quietly “I never wanted to kill you. Except when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as… an ally.”

“Ally.” Peeta says the word slowly, tasting it. “Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancée. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I’ll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out.” His hands grip the railing of the target range. “The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and what’s made up.”

Finnick leans over the railing and pops a sugar cube in his mouth before he responds for me. “Then you should ask, Peeta. That’s what Annie does.”

Peeta glances over at me suspiciously before he speaks again. “A lot of guys have lost their head over her; maybe you’re one of them. How can I trust anything you say?”

“You’ve seen me with Annie, Peeta. Do you really think any other girl could bewitch me?”

Peeta hesitates but he eventually shakes his head. “No.”

Finnick nods encouragingly before he sweeps his arm out, gesturing to the rest of the squad. “You can trust them too. You saved a lot of people here with your warning; maybe them, maybe their friends or relatives. They really want to help you.”

I keep glancing at Peeta out of the corner of my eye, unable to concentrate on my shooting. He just stands here motionless, letting Finnick’s words repeat over and over again in his mind. Eventually he gives Finnick a shaky nod and walks off to join the others.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

The rest of my first afternoon training with Peeta was uneventful. I wasn’t the only one nervous when Cressida kept asking Peeta to take one of the rifles and demonstrate his marksmanship. When Boggs stepped in with some hurried excuse to keep from giving him live ammo, Peeta played it off with a hollow laugh and “I was never much of a shot anyway.”

Afterward, Annie, Johanna and Delly all joined us for dinner in the cafeteria. The conversation was muted. It seemed as if Peeta was forcing himself to smile and be silent to avoid saying something hurtful. Finnick and Johanna tried to fill in all the little silences with jokes and inane chatter, but it didn’t keep dinner from being a complete disaster. Peeta excused himself as soon as he possibly could, muttering something about needing to study for the military’s tests.

It doesn’t take an ex-gamemaker to realize that the footage from today isn’t going to inspire anyone to volunteer to be sent into a war zone. I’m so scared of what Coin will do to Prim that I can’t relax. I just lie in bed clutching my pearl and trying to calm myself. But I know it’s not going to work, the nightmares are going to be terrible tonight.

I don’t know how much time passes before Johanna finds her way back to our room. After she flops down on her bed, she tries to strike up a conversation. “So Brainless, how’s it feel to be reunited with your fake fiancée?”

“I’m not much good at feeling.”

“Good, because I don’t want you getting jealous again. I caught him staring at me a couple times at dinner and well, I must say, all that training is filling out his uniform pretty nicely.”

She’s trying to help, to make a joke out of this mess but of course my mind returns to the glow from Peeta’s suit radiating onto her bare breasts in the Training Center elevator and I just can’t resist saying something nasty.

“He was probably just trying to figure out what’s going on with your hair.”

Johanna rubs the hair that’s just starting to grow back in on her shaved head and laughs. “Put your talons away, Mockingjay. He’ll never have eyes for another girl. You know that.”

I don’t want to have this conversation with Johanna; talking about Peeta isn’t doing anything to calm me down. “He hates me now.”

“Maybe love and hate aren’t as different as you think, brainless. He’ll never stop thinking about you.”

I don’t respond but I know that I won’t ever stop thinking about him either and that scares me more than anything.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

When I drag myself out of bed in the morning, I’m actually happy, despite how little sleep I got, because today is Tuesday, the one day Gale and I are freed from training to hunt. I wolf down a horrid breakfast of some kind of porridge in the cafeteria and rush over to the surface exit where Gale is probably already waiting for me.

But when I arrive at the exit, I’m momentarily confused. Gale is waiting for me, but he’s not alone; Peeta is standing next to him, wearing a quiver and fiddling with a bow. Apparently Plutarch decided that my handsome “cousin” and me wandering off into the woods without my fiancée wasn’t going to do much for his love story.

I take my bow and quiver from Gale try to make a lighthearted comment about Peeta being well enough to join us for the hunt but he just mutters “I doubt you two need any help killing.”

As the three of us make our way into the forest outside of 13, Peeta’s obnoxiously loud footfalls are probably frightening animals all the way over in woods of District 12. How are Gale and I supposed to bring him along and still bag any game?

Gale and I freeze when we no longer hear Peeta crashing through the undergrowth behind us and we quickly turn to find him sitting under a tree and pulling a sketch-book out from inside his game bag. He looks up at us and I can’t read his expression, but his pupils seem overly large and I don’t like it.

“I know. I can’t hunt if I can’t ‘move more quietly’. They showed that tape again yesterday. But that’s hopeless; I couldn’t even when I still had two real legs. So don’t worry about me, I’ll just sit here quietly and sketch.”

He swallows thickly and his voice trembles just a little before he says “Just do me one favor, wait until I’m out of earshot. Just because I know what you two will be doing doesn’t mean I want to listen to all the moaning.”

I don’t run, but I walk away so quickly that Gale, even with his much longer legs, has to hurry to keep up with me. Tears are blurring my vision so badly that I trip a couple times, but I swat Gale’s hands away when he tries to help me up. When we’re finally far enough away from Peeta, I collapse into Gale’s arms and sob into his chest.

He strokes my back as I bawl and wail for what seems like hours, probably scaring away plenty of game myself. By the time I’ve run out of tears and pull myself away from his chest, I can see that his shirt is soaked through.

I open my mouth to mumble an apology but he cuts me off. He raises his hand to my cheek to wipe away a tear and his voice is hollow when he says “There’s no cure for a broken heart, Catnip. I’m not going to tell you that it gets better. But it gets easier, you’ll get used to it.”

I can see the pain radiating out of his grey eyes, so similar to mine and I wonder if he sees the same. I don’t have any words to fix how broken we both are, so I simply motion towards the West, towards our usual hunting grounds.

We hunt in silence; we’ve done this together for so long that we don’t need to speak to communicate everything we need to; probably just as well since neither us is much good with words. When our game bags are full, we start back towards the entrance to 13 and my heart fills with dread.

Gale can obviously sense it because he tries to make it easier for me.

“You don’t have to talk to him; I could go on ahead, take him inside. Just give me a couple minutes head start.”

But I won’t run from this. After all, what’s the point? I have to convince everyone that Peeta and I are love, marry him, I have to do whatever Coin asks for Prim’s sake and we both know it. There’s no point in avoiding Peeta now, not when I know I’ll have to play his doting lover later.

“No, I can deal with him.”

When we come across Peeta, he doesn’t seem to have moved an inch. He’s asleep, his sketchbook lying open beside him. From the way his face is contorted, I’m certain that he’s having a nightmare but I have no idea what to do. He always comforted me at night; I’d wake him up with my screaming and thrashing around, he never woke me.

I’m saved from any decision when he suddenly wakes up on his own, eyes wide and panting heavily. He feebly attempts to compose himself and gathers his things as he gets up. He spares a glance in the direction of Gale and me and says “I hope you two had a good time.”

The words are innocent enough but the bitterness in his voice, the way he implies so easily that I’m some Seam slut that used him, that I deserve this, causes something inside me to snap.

Before I have time to think about the consequences, I shove him up against the tree and practically shout “Don’t pretend that you know anything about me! You aren’t Peeta. He’s gone. Johanna’s right. You’re just another of the Capitol’s mutts.”

Before he has a chance to reply, I’ve left again and this time I do run, all the way to the entrance to 13.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I manage to drop my bow off at the armory, hand over my game to Greasy Sae at the kitchen and curl up in one of my favorite closets before Haymitch finds me. I can see how much he wants to yank me out of it, but he doesn’t want an audience for what he has to say. Instead he steps inside and shuts the door.

“What are you trying to do? Provoke him into an attack?” he asks me.

“Of course not. I just want him to leave me alone,” I say.

“Well, he can’t. Not after what the Capitol put him through,” says Haymitch. “Look, Coin may have set this up hoping he’d kill you, but Peeta doesn’t know that. He doesn’t understand what’s happened to him. So you can’t blame him—”

“I don’t!” I say.

“You do! You’re punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a fully loaded weapon whenever you’re with him. But I think it’s time you flipped this little scenario around in your head. If you’d been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you?” demands Haymitch.

I fall silent. It isn’t. It isn’t how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost. Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn. “You and me, we made a deal to try and save him. Remember?” Haymitch says. When I don’t respond, he opens the door and walks away after a curt “Try and remember.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I see Peeta at dinner that evening, but only at a distance. From the other end of a long table, I can hear him jokingly telling Mitchell and Homes that his loud footsteps scared off most of the game and we’re having a tiff because of it. As much as I hate what we are now, what the Capitol did to him, how much it hurts when he looks at me now, I’m grateful that he goes through the effort to pretend for the audience. And he might even be fooling some people; he’s good, not as good as the old Peeta, but leaps and bounds better than the sullen boy that had to be dragged out of the cafeteria weeks ago.

Afterward, as I lay in bed that night, clutching my pearl again, I think about what Haymitch said and realize with shame that my fixation with assassinating Snow has allowed me to ignore a much more difficult problem. Trying to rescue Peeta from the shadowy world the hijacking has stranded him in. I don’t know how to find him, let alone lead him out. I can’t even conceive of a plan. It makes the task of navigating the Capitol, locating Snow, and putting a bullet through his head look like child’s play.

I’m already stretched too thin: assassinating Snow, convincing the audience, staying alive. It’s all too much already, but in the darkness of my room, I kiss my pearl and promise that I won’t let him face this alone anymore. No matter how much it hurts, I’ll start trying to help Peeta.

Notes:

I always felt the pacing was off in Mockingjay too slow until suddenly everything (particularly Katniss and Peeta reconnecting) is smashed into a pretty narrow band of text. So one of the things I’m doing in this story is using some of the same events, but putting just a little more space between them.

As a side-note, Johanna’s dialog is really fun to write and easy since all you have to keep track of is what she thinks, there’s no filter between what she thinks and what she says.

Chapter Text

When I get my wrist marked in the morning, the first item puzzles me, “Meeting with Citizen Haymitch Abernathy”. It lists a room and a time so I make my way there after an unappetizing breakfast.

When I finally make it to compartment 0916, I step inside to find two couches in an otherwise bare room. Haymitch stands between them sipping from a mug that smells like the sludge they call coffee in 13 while Peeta sits on one couch and Gale and Delly share the other.  Haymitch looks as surly as usual but I can’t read anything else in his expression as I nervously sit down next to Peeta.

As he turns to Peeta and me he plasters a huge, fake smile on his face, lifts his coffee mug in a gesture towards us and sarcastically shouts “Welcome to couples counseling!”

I glance around the room apprehensively and he says “You can relax, sweetheart. There aren’t any cameras here. We’re here to have a nice, open, honest talk.” Haymitch pats himself down with his free hand, obviously seeking his flask, before his pickled brain realizes that he’s in 13 and it’s as dry as a bone.

He shakes his head in irritation and sweeps his arm towards Gale and Delly. “I heard about the prize-fight in the woods yesterday so I made sure we had a couple of referees.”

Peeta rolls his eyes and replies “You brought her boyfriend and the president of her fan club.”

“Only because you stepped down, boy. Or do you not remember those times you begged me to save her, every time you tried to die for her? Goldilocks here doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

I almost add that Gale and I aren’t like that, that I don’t have a “boyfriend” before I decide that anything I say is only going to make things worse.

Peeta sighs and leans back into the couch before he speaks up, tired and faint. “This is a waste of time, there wasn’t any fight. She just shoved me and ran off. I can remember her doing a lot worse.” I have to hold back a gasp when he gestures towards his artificial leg.

Delly springs off the couch and yells at Peeta, “Those memories aren’t real, Peeta! Katniss would never hurt you!”

Haymitch dismissively motions for her to sit back down and says “Let him believe what he wants. The point is that a lot of kids are going to end up in a really bad situation if Mutters and Scowls here can’t pull this thing off.”

The silence that follows is eerie but Peeta breaks it with a calm, controlled voice. “Fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut about our sordid past. But she’s got to do the same; I’m sick of being reminded of what a fool I was.”

Gale scowls and leans forward. He can’t keep the frustration from showing when he says, “She’s trying to help you. It’s hard for her.”

Peeta’s answering laugh echoes in the small room. “Don’t kid yourself; she’s never given a damn about me. And you’re a fool if you think you mean anything to her either. She just needs a warm body to stave off the nightmares from everyone she’s killed. When you’ve outlasted your usefulness, she’ll leave you behind and crawl into bed with the next guy in line. Believe me, I should know.”

Suddenly Peeta and Gale are nose to nose and I take hold of Gale while Delly grabs Peeta to try to pull them apart. Gale doesn’t resist when I pull him back but he looks directly into Peeta’s eyes and says “You don’t fool me, Mellark.” He gestures towards Haymitch. “You’re over her like he’s over white liquor. So keep talking tough; you can’t make it on your own any more than she can.”

Peeta seems frozen, lost in contemplation as he lets Delly lead him back onto the couch. Haymitch looks down and rubs his forehead as I hustle Gale out of the door with tears brimming in my eyes.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I lose track of time after lunch and spend so long under a nice warm laundry room drainpipe that I’m an hour late for training. I can remember when I used to blow off training all the time, but now I’m kicking myself. I need to keep up appearances for Coin; which means not only showing up for training on time, but being nice to Peeta at training and I’m not much good at either.

I worriedly think about the time table that Plutarch suggested and realize that we’re supposed to be married in less than a month. Our fake romance had better heat up soon.

When I arrive at our training grounds and mutter some weak excuse for being late, Gale and Homes are demonstrating techniques for safely setting off pods to Mitchell and the Leeg twins while Jackson and Finnick speak with Peeta.

I sit down next to them and take Peeta’s hand in mine. I can see that it makes him nervous, but his eyes flicker towards Cressida and her camera crew and he doesn’t pull away.

I listen to their conversation and find that Jackson and Finnick are playing a game with Peeta called “Real or Not Real”. He mentions something he thinks happened, and they tell him if it’s true or imagined, usually followed by a brief explanation.

“Most of the people from 12 were killed in the fire.”

“Real. Less than nine hundred of you made it to 13 alive.”

“The fire was my fault.”

“Not real. President Snow destroyed 12 the way he did 13, to send a message to the rebels.”

It’s not a steady conversation. Peeta spends a long time considering even small pieces of information, like where people bought their soap back home. Gale comes over and fills him in on a lot of stuff about 12; Finnick is the expert on both of Peeta’s Games, as he was a mentor in the first and a tribute in the second.

This seems like a good idea until I realize that I’ll be the only one who can confirm or deny most of what weighs on him and we can’t possibly do that in front of the cameras, if I can do it at all. Instead our exchanges are painful and loaded, even though we touch on only the most superficial of details. The color of my dress in 7. My preference for cheese buns. The name of our math teacher when we were little. Reconstructing his memory of me is excruciating. Perhaps it isn’t even possible after what Snow did to him. But it does feel right to help him try.

Eventually we take a break and Finnick and Jackson take part in the pod discussion while I shoot at glass targets with my bow. Peeta is trying to read from a sheaf of papers about the Capitol’s military capabilities but he seems preoccupied with watching Pollux, to the point where it’s getting a little worrisome, when he finally puzzles it out and begins to speak with agitation.

“You’re an Avox, aren’t you? I can tell by the way you swallow. There were two Avoxes with me in prison. Darius and Lavinia, but the guards mostly called them the redheads. They’d been our servants in the Training Center, so they arrested them, too. I watched them being tortured to death. She was lucky. They used too much voltage and her heart stopped right off. It took days to finish him off. Beating, cutting off parts. They kept asking him questions, but he couldn’t speak, he just made these horrible animal sounds. They didn’t want information, you know? They wanted me to see it.”

Peeta looks around at our stunned faces, as if waiting for a reply. When none is forthcoming, he asks, “Real or not real?” The lack of response upsets him more. “Real or not real?!” he demands.

“Real,” says Boggs. “At least, to the best of my knowledge… real.”

Peeta sags. “I thought so. There was nothing… shiny about it.” He wanders away from the group, muttering something about fingers and toes.

I move to Gale, press my forehead into the body armor where his chest should be, feel his arm tighten around me. We finally know the name of the girl who we watched the Capitol abduct from the woods of 12, the fate of the Peacekeeper friend who tried to keep Gale alive. This is no time to call up happy moments of remembrance. They lost their lives because of me. I add them to my personal list of kills that began in the arena and now includes thousands. When I look up, I see it has taken Gale differently. His expression says that there are not enough mountains to crush, enough cities to destroy. It promises death.

We can’t go back to training with Peeta’s grisly account fresh in our minds. Instead we break for “reflection” early and go our separate ways. For me “reflection” has always been “sit in a closet and try not to think about how awful everything is” but I have no idea what Peeta does. So I decide to take another tiny step on the path to helping him and ask him.

“What are you going to do with your ‘reflection’ time?”

He still seems a little dazed from his visions of tortured Avoxes. “I was going to go visit Prim in the medical wing, you?”

“Um… I don’t know. Why don’t I come with you?” I’m as nervous as I was trying to flirt with him in the cave and I can’t keep the tremor out of my voice.

Peeta gives me a wide smile that will no doubt look great on camera and says “Of course, she’ll be thrilled to see you.”

Peeta’s not wrong. Prim seems to be simply ecstatic to see both of us, particularly since we’re holding hands. I never talked to Prim about my one visit to see Peeta a few weeks ago, right after Finnick and Annie’s wedding. I don’t know what to say about my second forced romance either.  Prim’s optimism about Peeta’s recovery is boundless. She’s constantly working with him in therapy, finding something new to try, making every effort to get through to him. Does she understand that Peeta still hates me? That the only reason he’s being civil to me is that Coin threatened her?

Prim’s always believed in happy endings; particularly when it comes to Peeta and me. And when I saw the look on her face when we walked in together, I can see that nothing has shaken that. All the things that have come between us, my deception, Gale, my inability to fall in love and even the hijacking are just minor bumps in the road toward Prim becoming an aunt. As much as I love her, I can’t help but resent her unfailing confidence; it makes me feel so guilty that I can’t share it.

Peeta and I are mute as Prim prattles on about her medical training for a little while before she announces that she needs to get back to work. But she leaves us with cryptic parting words. “After dinner, you should go to Section 5, compartment 8. It’s the best surprise ever! You’ll see.”

I’m still working her statement through my sleep-deprived brain when she gives us both a quick hug and runs off.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

As we walk down another empty grey hallway towards the cafeteria, I glance over at Peeta nervously. We have to move faster if this marriage is going to be convincing, but every time I touch him, I’m afraid that he’ll go crazy. It hurts too much to think about. I ache for my Peeta, for the way I felt so safe in his arms.

When I finally speak, I’m afraid that my words are too quiet for him to hear. “We need to be more… convincing. Coin’s going to want more. At dinner, do you think you could… kiss my hand or… or something?”

His head snaps towards me and he licks his lips before he responds. “We’ve done this before, planning kisses… for an audience, for the cameras, real or not real?”

I gulp loudly.

This is exactly what I was afraid of, the old Peeta and I were partners; he would never abandon me by giving the act anything less than his best effort, no matter how much he hated it. But how does this Peeta feel about the way Snow and I both used his love for me? To survive. To try to quell the rebellion. To sleep through the night. I used him for everything I needed and everything Snow wanted and now I need to do it again.

It’s only the barest whisper when I say “Real.”

Peeta’s expression is angry. He trembles as he closes his eyes and presses his palms up against the wall, his hands still trying to curl into fists. After a minute, he opens his eyes. He looks tired and his voice is hoarse when he replies “We have to do this, for Prim, Rory, Cord, hundreds of other kids. Real or not real?”

I nod. “Real.”

Peeta nods in return but bitterness drips from his voice as he says “I’ll try to give the audience its money’s worth.” And then in a more serious tone. “But sometimes I remember things, from before… more than one way, or there’s not even a whole memory... just… pieces. And I don’t even know if they’re real. If I start say something that’s not real, you squeeze my hand. That’ll be the sign, okay?”

I nod hurriedly and turn away to hide the tears in my eyes. I try to imagine not being able to tell illusion from reality. Not knowing if Prim or my mother loved me. If Snow was my enemy. If the person whose hand I’m holding saved or sacrificed me. With very little effort, my life rapidly morphs into a nightmare. I suddenly want to tell Peeta everything about who he is, and who I am, and how we ended up here. But I don’t know how to start. Worthless. I’m worthless.

We put on our happy faces during dinner, chatting away about nice safe topics like what Prim is doing in her medical courses or how Peeta sculpted Finnick and Annie’s wedding cake. Eventually Jackson breaks the mold by asking something about the past.

I don’t know how much Plutarch or Coin have told her, how much she’s figured out on her own, how much she knows about my sudden romantic rekindling with Peeta. But whatever her motivations, the question she asks turns out to be perfect.

“I’m curious Peeta. You said you loved Katniss for years before you were reaped, but you never spoke to her. Didn’t you ever try to?” she asks.

Peeta takes my hand and I can feel the nervousness radiating through him, but his voice is firm and warm when he replies.

“A lot of times, it just never quite worked out. I guess I was a bit of a coward. Um… the year before we were reaped, I made it to the final match in our school’s wrestling competition, during the Harvest Festival. We have to make our own fun in 12 and the festival is a big deal, pretty much everyone comes. So I was sure Katniss would be there.”

He gains confidence as the story goes on. “My opponent in the final was one of my brothers, Rye. He had two years on me, probably an inch and a half and ten pounds, but I knew I was stronger than he was. And he was overconfident. So I told myself that I was going to beat him and then I was going to stride right up to Katniss and ask her to go celebrate with me.”

This earns an appreciative smile from Jackson and a wolf-whistle from Johanna. Peeta turns beet red and stumbles a bit when he says “I didn’t mean… not celebrate like that. I… I meant maybe she’d let me buy her a mug of cider at Yearner’s tavern… or something.”

I risk a glance at Gale, fearful that he’s going to lose his temper, but even he is entranced by the story, smiling just faintly. Peeta eventually continues “It didn’t end up mattering. I got distracted and lost. I shook hands with Rye and then immediately went home and sulked while Rye was out celebrating with his friends. He kind of thought I was sore loser about the whole thing.”

Mitchell looks genuinely interested when he asks “What distracted you, Peeta?”

Peeta swallows and looks straight into my eyes. “I… I think it was Katniss. I remember she was there watching and she had a dandelion tucked behind her ear. I’d… I’d never seen her wear one like that before and I kept trying to figure out why she did then, what it meant. Anyway, my mind wasn’t on the match.”

I can’t breathe. Peeta noticed. But he didn’t know that it was for him. He couldn’t know what it symbolized for me.

I snap out of my trance with everyone at the table staring at me. I look Peeta in the eye and say “I’m sorry I distracted you. I would have liked… that mug of cider.” I tilt my chin up as I rush the last words out, trying to preserve a little dignity.

Peeta smiles but his eyes are full of confusion when he brings my hand to his lips.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

After dinner we head over to Section 5 just as Prim told us. We stand outside of the door of Compartment 0508 for an uncomfortable period of time, trying to figure out what Prim has in store for us, before I get impatient and reach for the door. It’s unlocked. We step inside hesitantly and I gaze around the unfamiliar room until my eyes lock onto a painting on the wall.

It’s the forest from our first arena and standing on a tree limb and looking out into the distance is Rue, her whole body poised to leap onto another branch at a moment’s notice. This was one of the few of Peeta’s paintings of the games that I could stand to look at. I brought it back from District 12 when I was getting clothes for Finnick and Annie’s wedding. It wasn’t just to remember Rue; it also helped me remember the old Peeta, my Peeta. ‘I wanted to hold them accountable, even for just one moment, for the death of that little girl.’

I jump when I hear a girlish voice call out “Surprise!” and turn to find my mother and Prim standing in a doorway leading to another room.

Prim’s smile is as wide as the sky and as bright as the sun but I’m still dazed. I smile back reflexively and ask “Mom, what is this?”

Prim answers for her. “Since we’re about to officially be a family, they gave us a family compartment! Isn’t it great? We brought all your stuff from your old rooms. It’ll be like having a home again!”

She hesitantly adds “I think Johanna’s going to miss you though.”

Peeta’s jaw is clenched and his pulse is pounding when I risk a look at his face. He says “Prim, no. I… I can’t. I can’t sleep here.”

My mother looks sympathetic when she tries to calm him. “I know that we can’t replace your family, Peeta. That’s not what this is about. But after everything you’ve done for my daughter, we’re your family too.”

She glances towards me before she continues. “I know things are still confusing for you, but you’re a lot better now than… when you first arrived. And well, Mr. Heavensbee told me that appearances are important and that since you and Katniss were used to sharing a room, on the Victory Tour and in the Training Center, it only made sense for you to share one… here.”

Peeta’s pale skin blushes easily. I gape at his bright pink skin as he tries to respond to my mother. “Mrs. Everdeen… I… We… we never… What I said in the interview… that… that wasn’t real.”

My mother cuts him off. “Peeta, I loved your father, though I chose to marry another. I love you as my own son. But I absolutely do not want to hear about what you and Katniss have and have not done in bed. Ever. Do you understand me, young man?”

Prim covers her mouth in a poor attempt to hide her giggle. I wonder just what shade my olive skin is right now. Peeta can’t even look at me.

My mother doesn’t bother waiting for a response before she continues “There are two bedrooms; the larger one has two beds, the smaller only a single bed.”

She pauses a moment to let the implications sink in; one room for my mother and Prim, another for the Star-Crossed Lovers. Does Plutarch really think that Peeta and I would share a bed when he thinks that I’m a mutt?

My mother flicks her gaze back and forth between Peeta and me and says “What I think would be most comfortable for everyone is if Katniss, Prim and I share the larger room. Prim and Katniss are also used to sharing a bed. That leaves the smaller room for you, Peeta.”

Peeta looks around the common room distractedly. His gaze fixates on a spot on the floor before he turns towards my mother. “Thank you for the offer, Mrs. Everdeen. But that’s silly. You and Prim work so hard to help people in the hospital, you should have your own beds. Katniss can have the smaller room, give me a couple blankets and a pillow and I’ll sleep here in the common room.”

Prim stamps her foot and glares and Peeta before shouting “Peeta! The floor is concrete! What’s wrong with you?”

Peeta manages a wan smile. “So was my cell in the Capitol, Prim. But they didn’t give me a blanket or a pillow. Trust me. To me, it’ll be like a feather bed.”

Prim looks hurt and her tone softens. “You aren’t in the Capitol anymore, Peeta. You’re safe here.”

“In the Capitol, they used to dress me up like a doll, force me to tell lies on camera. I don’t think it’s that different here, Prim.”

The conversation ends on that note because none of us really want to think about that. I move all of my things into the smaller room and bring Peeta’s tiny box of possessions out to him.

I find him on the floor playing with Buttercup. He glances up to find me staring at him while Buttercup shamelessly rubs up against him. His tone is apologetic when he says “Prim brings him by my cell in the psych ward sometimes. He’s the perfect company for me; he doesn’t expect me to remember anything, he never gets mad when I say something not real, he doesn’t care how worthless I am because all he wants is to be petted and that’s one thing I can still do.”

“I’m surprised he lets you. He loves Prim, but he doesn’t like most people.”

“Like you, real or not real?”

I can’t help a small smile at the characterization. “Real.”

I lamely continue “I brought your things.” A new sketchpad, colored pencils, an old storybook and several lengths of string, everything he has in the world. I set the box down next to him and sit on the floor. This is the perfect opportunity to help Peeta remember things, to try to help him get better, but I don’t know what to say, I still can’t figure out where to start.

Peeta breaks the silence first. “You make… noises, thrash around, during your nightmares, real or not real?”

I try to read his face as I reply “Real.”

He nods in response. “You would have woken Prim and your mother. They need to sleep.”

He’s right, of course. I hadn’t thought about why Peeta wanted the floor of the common room instead of the bed in the smaller bedroom and now I feel guilty that I’m sleeping on a nice bed while he sleeps on a concrete floor. I finally manage to choke out “Thank you.”

He nods again before he asks another question. “You’re afraid, with me here… while you’re sleeping, real or not real?”

I want to tell him no, to tell him I only sleep well in his arms. But he’s right, I’m afraid that he’s not my Peeta, that my Peeta is never coming back, that something will trigger a psychotic episode and he’ll strangle me again. I’m afraid that if it weren’t for my unfinished business with Snow, I’d want him to. So I lower my head to hide my face and gently say “Real.”

“Me too.”

We sit in silence for a long time afterward. It’s getting late when Peeta turns to me again. “Your favorite color… it’s green?”

“That’s right.” Then I think of something to add. “And yours is orange.”

“Orange?” He seems unconvinced.

“Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset,” I say. “At least, that’s what you told me once.”

“Oh.” He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. “Thank you.”

But more words tumble out. “You’re a painter. You’re a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.”

Then I jump up, bolt into my room and shut the door before I do something stupid like cry.

Notes:

Katniss observing the Peeta/Peeta’s brother wrestling match with a dandelion tucked into her ear is stolen from “Inquisitio” by justadram (which you should really check out). One of Peeta’s brothers being named Rye is stolen from approximately every Hunger Games fanfiction piece ever written.

My natural writing style (such as it is) is very different from Suzanne Collins. I notice it a lot when I try to blend in passages from Mockingjay. She favors short declarative sentences and fragments a lot more than I do.

Chapter Text

Prim and my mother are already gone by the time I get up in the morning. Peeta sits calmly in the common room, playing with a length of rope. I recognize the knots he’s tying as the ones Finnick taught me while we waited for Peeta and Annie to be rescued.

He mumbles something that sounds like “Good morning” while I just stand and stare at him. When I don’t respond, he gestures to the rope and says “Finnick showed me how to tie knots. It helps when I’m… agitated.”

“How long have you been up?” I say.

He runs right hand through his hair. “A while.  But I thought it would be better if we went to breakfast… together.”

I nod. He’s right; it would be better, Plutarch and Coin would like it better. I hate that I have to analyze every gesture from him, trying to sort out how he really feels from what he thinks is expected of him. It takes me back to our first games, when I tried to see the line between what Peeta did for the games and what he really felt for me. But my uncertainly ended on the train ride home. When I consider how Peeta must have felt for the past two years, the guilt is overpowering. I wonder if I could have figured everything out sooner, if I’d understood my feelings for Peeta, if he’d understood what he meant to me, would the Capitol still have been able to take him from me?

We play a little “Real or Not Real” over breakfast, only superficial things; where we sat in our classes at school, our shared passion for hot chocolate, the costumes during the tribute parades.

After breakfast, he heads to the medical wing for more therapy. The tattoo on my wrist tells me that I’m supposed to be in a class on identifying Peacekeeper weapons. For once, I decide to go instead of holing up in a closet. The class is scheduled to last for three hours but the material is both dull and horrifying. I end up leaving class two hours early after I fall asleep and wake up from a nightmare screaming. I’m embarrassed enough that I resolve never to go again. There’s no way I’m getting back to sleep after that, but my desire to be alone leads me to a convenient, rarely-used laundry room.

I’m only there for a few minutes before I’m startled by the door opening. I scramble to my feet as one of two male figures closes the door behind him. Even in the dim light I can easily recognize Haymitch as he turns to the other man and spits out “Like I said; she wouldn’t head back to the compartment.” He turns back to me before he says “She’s not much for company.”

I try to act nonchalant as I brush the dust off of my pants. “What do you want?”

Haymitch motions to the man behind him and now I can see that it’s one of the doctors from 13. I’ve seen him before, speaking to Haymitch or Beetee. I finally learn his name when Haymitch speaks up. “Dr. Lloyd here just heard about your new living arrangements. He’s got a couple of questions for you.”

The doctor steps into a patch of light, but he’s silent. He stares, his large brown eyes looking me up and down before he finally says “Ms. Everdeen, my name is Gaius Lloyd. I’m the chief psychiatrist in this district.” Haymtich mutters “A head doctor,” unnecessarily.

“As per your request, I’ve left it to Mr. Abernathy to keep you informed on Mr. Mellark’s condition up to this point. However this... stunt by Heavensbee, forcing him to share a compartment with you, was made without consulting me and I have serious reservations about it. Have you seen Mr. Mellark make any attempt to harm himself?”

My heart skips a beat. “What?”

“Ms. Everdeen, are you familiar with the term ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’?”

I can feel myself flush with embarrassment and anger. “I can take a guess at what it means,” I hiss through clenched teeth.

I hear Haymitch chuckling in the darkness, but I don’t take my eyes off of Lloyd’s smooth, round face. After an eternity of staring at each other, he speaks again. “Mr. Mellark’s torture was… unusual. Every aspect of it was focused on the suffering of others, on his inability to protect them; his friends and family in District 12, the Avoxes that had served him in the Training Center, his fellow prisoners, particularly Mrs. Odair. His captors used every means at their disposal to convince him that you were responsible for what was being done to them, that he had to protect them from you. By any means necessary.”

My hands tremble as I struggle to hold myself together. This is exactly why I tried to have everything routed through Haymitch. He can understand what hearing this is doing to me, what Peeta was to me before, why I can’t bear to be around this twisted version of him. He finally clears his throat and interrupts. “She feels guilty enough, doc. Just get to the point.”

“Mr. Mellark has made incredible progress since he was first brought to us. In his more lucid moments, he can now recall those parts of his life that the Capitol did not have film of with astonishing precision. He now rarely views you as a threat to anyone but himself. However an unintended consequence of his restored memory is that when his original memories and the altered ones are irreconcilable, it can lead to a violent internal conflict. Some of Mr. Mellark’s statements during episodes have been worrisome.”

Before I can torture myself by asking for details, Haymitch steps in again. “What he’s trying to say, sweetheart, is that Peeta’s having a little trouble deciding if he ought to kill you or himself.”

I shake my head violently as I try to regain some composure. “He hasn’t… He said he was afraid of me, last night. That’s it. He hasn’t said anything like… that.”

Dr. Lloyd nods and turns towards the door but over his shoulder, he leaves me with “We keep Mr. Mellark under close observation during his therapy. If he says or does anything that worries you, I’d appreciate it if you contact me.”

When he shuts the door behind him, Haymitch and I glare at each other briefly before he runs his hand across his forehead and asks “When’s the last time there was anything about that boy that didn’t worry you, sweetheart?”

 O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I start on lunch early, eating the hideous gruel slowly and waiting for Peeta to join me, but he never does. When I ask Delly and Johanna about him, they haven’t seen him either.

When it’s time to go to training, I’m worried but I head over anyway. Maybe Peeta just didn’t want to eat lunch in the cafeteria. But what if he had an episode in therapy? What if Dr. Lloyd is right and he does want to hurt himself? I can’t tell if I’m more worried about him or about all the children too young to be sent into a warzone.

We’re supposed to be practicing hand to hand combat today, but I’m too distracted to take part. It doesn’t matter really. I’m strong for my size but that isn’t saying much. I still couldn’t wrestle a straw scarecrow to the ground.

My voice catches in my throat when Peeta finally shows up. He looks dazed as I run to him and hug him tightly. I wish I knew how much of this is an act and how much is genuine. But I’ve never been good at analyzing feelings, even my own. I can’t tell where the real Katniss ends and Star-Crossed Lover Katniss begins.

Peeta’s hands tremble as he pushes me away gently. I look up into his eyes and all I can see is fear; why is he so much more afraid today? What did they do to him in therapy? I thought he was getting better!

Eventually the haze of my anger fades enough for me to realize that Peeta is talking with Cressida. She’s trying to get him to demonstrate some wrestling moves for us, but he keeps refusing.

“I can’t do that, Cressida, not now. I just can’t.” he pleads.

She’s talking but I don’t hear the words, it’s just noise. I step in between them and shove her an arm’s length away before I practically shout at her “He said no! That’s the end of it. Film something else.”

It’s so quiet that I can hear Peeta’s elevated heartbeat behind me before he speaks. “Thank you… sweetheart.”

I turn to face him, a tentative, fake smile on my face, but he’s not looking at me.

He raises his voice enough to tell everyone “I’m sorry that I’m late, I’ve had a lot on my mind. Gale? Can you take a walk with me? There’s something I want to ask you. In private.”

Gale does a lousy job of hiding his surprise, but he readily agrees. “Sure, Peeta. Let’s walk.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Gale and Peeta have been sitting on a rocky outcropping off in the distance for what seems like an hour. The rest of us try to focus on our hand-to-hand combat exercises, but it’s hopeless. Everyone’s gaze keeps returning to them.

Finnick tries to ease the tension by asking me “What’s the matter, Katniss? Afraid that Peeta finds Gale’s features distracting? He’s a handsome fellow and after all, a face very like his turned Peeta’s head before. I wonder what it is. The grey eyes?  The olive skin? The luxurious dark hair, perhaps?”

I scowl at him and announce that I’m going to practice shooting for a while. I imagine that each target is Finnick smirking at me.

When Peeta and Gale finally wander back, Peeta looks better, calmer, happier, in control. He wraps one arm around my shoulders and presses a gentle kiss to my forehead. I can see Gale watching us out of the corner of my eye but he doesn’t look angry, just… watchful.

Peeta raises his voice slightly to get everyone’s attention. “I’m sorry I stole Gale for so long but I had something pretty important to ask him. I won’t deny that I was worried, because I know how protective Gale can be of his little cousin here. But he’s given us his blessing and agreed to be my best man at our official wedding.”

He flashes a huge smile, Cressida’s eating it up, everyone’s clapping and Gale even smiles and gives a little bow. Nothing makes any sense to me, who are these people? I feel as if everyone knows the script to this propo but me.

Peeta, Gale and I leave training early because Peeta insists that we need to “celebrate”. But as soon as we get inside, Gale and Peeta nod to each other and Gale leaves us. I try to ask Peeta about all of his and Gale’s strange behavior, but he keeps shaking his head and moving towards our compartment while I trail along behind him.

We’re almost there when we turn a corner and find ourselves face to face with Plutarch and Haymitch.

The four of us just stare at each other for a few beats until Haymitch cocks his head towards our compartment. Peeta nods.

Once the door closes, Plutarch starts gushing. “Peeta! That scene with Gale was simply amazing!” He lowers his voice slightly, even though we’re obviously alone and says conspiratorially “You know I thought he was going to be difficult.”

Peeta dropped my hand and stepped away from me the second the door closed. I turn towards him but I can’t read his face when he responds. “He’s someone I can trust.”

“Well that’s fantastic. And it touches on the reason that Mr. Abernathy and I wanted to speak with you two. Now that you two seem to have found some chemistry, we should really start working out the details for the wedding.”

I can see Haymitch rolling his eyes when Plutarch continues “Now I’ve been warned by President Coin against anything too extravagant, but she’s given me a little more room to work this time and I think it’s a fantastic opportunity. People are really going to connect with this.”

Peeta is obviously agitated again and it makes him uncharacteristically impatient. “What do you mean ‘connect’?”

Plutarch says “Well, Finnick has been popular for years, but no one knew anything about Annie. After seeing you two together in the games, on the Victory Tour, the proposal, those touching moments on the beach, everyone feels that they really know you.”

I can’t resist snarling “They don’t know us!”

“Now Katniss, really? Peeta, will talk to your fiancée? This attitude simply won’t do. We’re on a tight schedule.”

At the word “fiancée”, Peeta tenses up and his pupils expand, turning his lovely blue eyes black. He takes a couple steps towards Plutarch, grips his collar in his right hand and begins fiddling with Plutarch’s elaborate neck-tie with his left. “Don’t call her that, not here. We agreed to pretend for the audience, for the cameras, not for you.”

Plutarch is turning pale as Peeta continues in a deliberate even tone “When you say things that aren’t real, it makes me angry. You don’t want to make me angry, Mr. Heavensbee. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

When Peeta releases his grip, Plutarch scurries out of the room like a frightened rabbit. While my eyes are locked on Peeta, I can hear Haytmich chuckling before he walks out the door.

“Boy, just what makes you think that he likes you now?”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

When the door closes, I take a step towards Peeta, but he takes a step backwards to keep his distance. I find myself stamping my foot like Prim when I whine “Peeta, what’s going on? First the thing with Gale and now you threaten Plutarch, what happened in therapy today?”

Peeta won’t look me in the eye, though I note that his eyes have returned to normal.

“Nothing bad happened, Katniss. I just… Some things make more sense now than they used to.”

“That’s good isn’t it? Making sense of things.”

Peeta nods nervously. “Yeah, it’s good, really good. Look, Katniss, I’m tired. I just want to take a nap here for reflection.”

I can’t keep my hands from fiddling with the pockets of my uniform. “Okay, I’ll be in my room, I guess.”

Peeta’s eyes widen in surprise and he runs his hand nervously through his hair before he awkwardly responds “Um, I know it’s a lot to ask, but do you think that maybe you could ‘reflect’ somewhere else. It’s just that I’m so tired and I think I’d sleep better if…”

I finish his sentence for him. “If I wasn’t around.”

I try not to let it show, but it still hurts. Peeta was the boy who couldn’t get enough of me. After the games, we could only really sleep in each other arms. Now he doesn’t want anything to do with me, he can’t even sleep if I’m around for fear that I’m a mutt that’ll kill him when he’s most vulnerable.

It’s humiliating that he doesn’t want me anymore and the fact that I still can’t sleep without him just makes it worse. But I put on my best fake smile and say “It’s fine, Peeta, I think I’ll go visit Prim.”

He almost looks hurt as he stares back at me. “Katniss… I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”

I manage to choke out “Yeah, see you at dinner.” and walk out the door before he can hurt me any more.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I find Prim in the medical wing examining some kind of chart and she gives me a nice bright smile when she sees me. “Hi.”

I don’t quite have it in me to smile back when I reply “Hey.”

She looks so much older when she’s working in the medical wing, the purpose it gives her, the way it shows off her beautiful mind, I feel like I’m the little sister sometimes.

She looks me up and down and asks “What’s on your mind, big sis?”

I glance around to make sure that no one’s within earshot and then quietly ask “What happened to Peeta in therapy?”

Prim’s brow furrows and she shakes her head. “Nothing worth reporting. I was here while he watched some tape of your Victory Tour and then I had to go observe a surgery. When I got back, Dr. Lloyd’s assistant said he’d left to go film a propo.”

I make a small, frustrated noise. “Something happened, Prim. He showed up late and he was acting all weird. He talked with Gale and then told everyone Gale agreed to be part of the… the wedding. It doesn’t make sense.”

Prim looks thoughtful. “I don’t know, Katniss. Peeta’s pretty convincing.”

“The old Peeta was.”

Prim stamps her foot and raises her voice when she says “Stop saying things like that! He’s not a different person; he’s just confused.”

When she quietly continues “You’ve been confused too.” I reflexively touch my forehead as my eyes glance down to the other wrist where my “mentally disoriented” bracelet used to hang.

She picks up her chart and politely says “I really need to get back to work, Katniss.” before she walks away.

Great. Now Prim’s mad at me too.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I pick at my dinner while I wait for Peeta to show up. I can’t figure it out. He seems more comfortable playing up our relationship for an audience now. But as soon as we’re alone, he can’t be far enough away from me.

I think back to how much I tried to resist wanting Peeta because Snow was going to force us to get married. Is Peeta pulling away from me because of Coin’s forced marriage? The old Peeta never minded being stuck with me, but the old Peeta looked at me and saw the sun and the moon and the stars, not a plain girl who kisses one guy after another in between bouts of killing people. No wonder I don’t have any appetite.

When Peeta finally arrives, he looks happier, but he’s with Gale. I decide that no matter what, Peeta is going to tell me what’s going on tonight after dinner. His “I’m so tired” excuse won’t work on me again.

Peeta sits across from me, as usual, while Gale sits down between Delly and Johanna. I hiss at Peeta “You and Gale seem pretty friendly now.” But he just rolls his eyes and quietly mocks me “Now sweetheart, don’t get jealous. Gale and I are just good friends. We have similar taste.”

It’s the old Peeta’s kind of joke and when I realize that, it just confuses me more. I simmer and scowl at him while Annie and Leeg 2 both congratulate Gale on being made “best man”. That gives me about thirty seconds for my brain to buzz before Venia asks me “Have you decided who you want for your maid of honor, Katniss?”

How can I? I never wanted to get married. And we don’t have “maids of honor” in 12. My only female friend is dead. My sister must be too young. Who would Plutarch want me to pick? Annie? Can the “maid of honor” be married? Johanna’s a victor too, but it’s too risky putting her in front of a camera; who knows what she’d say. What does the maid of honor do again? I almost wish I’d paid attention when Effie tried to explain how a Capitol wedding worked.

I’m about to start hyperventilating when I feel Peeta’s hand on mine. He’s touching the back of my hand. Tracing something. An arrow. Why? Wait, what does it point toward? Delly.

The fog in my head clears for just long enough for me to understand. I stumble getting the words out, but I make sure I have nice bright Capitol smile on. “Well… since Peeta took my favorite cousin for his best man, I think that… he should give me Delly. After all, she used to tell people that she was his sister.”

The look of adoration in Delly’s eyes makes me uncomfortable when she squeaks “Really, Katniss? Oh, I would be honored!”

I try to sound happy instead of relieved when I say “I know you’ll do a great job, Delly.”

Once again, all we can talk about at dinner is the amazing love story of Peeta and Katniss. I’m too distracted to remember what the right answers are to any of their questions. But Peeta and Delly manage to field most of the questions with answers sappy enough for Plutarch.

I’m in my own little world when Peeta’s voice snaps me out of it. “Katniss!” My eyes focus on him and I realize that everyone’s gone; the only ones left at the table are Gale, Peeta and me.

When he sees that he has my attention, Peeta continues “We should get going.”

I’m about to mumble goodbye to Gale, but he and Peeta stand up and clasp their right hands together. They look straight into each other’s eyes and nod almost imperceptibly before Gale walks away tossing a “See you guys tomorrow” over his shoulder.

I don’t want to risk a scene in the hallways, so I decide to patiently wait until we’re back in our compartment before forcing the truth out of Peeta. We hold hands, as usual, but Peeta’s grip on my hand is so faint that I have to squeeze his to keep our hands from slipping apart.

When we finally step inside our common room, I’m shocked to see that the furniture has been rearranged and from the looks Prim and my mother give us from the chairs by the television, so are they.

Prim cocks her head to the side and comes right out with it, “Why did you two move everything?”

I shake my head and start to sputter some denial while Peeta walks over to his bedroll which is now right in front of the radiator. He lifts up the blanket to reveal a set of handcuffs and a small peacekeeper energy weapon.

I’m frozen. I should have seen this coming. Coin’s going to get her wish; this mutt in Peeta’s body is going to kill us all and there’s nothing I can do. All the weapons are in the armory. It might take more than three men to wrestle a weapon out of Peeta’s hands, let alone two women and a girl. I’ve failed everyone again.

I’m still standing at the doorway trembling when I realize that Peeta is right in front of me, handing me the weapon, grip first, with an unsteady hand. “Take it, Katniss. Please.”

I take the weapon and look over towards my family but they’re as confused as I am.

Peeta sits down on his blanket before my mother works up the courage to ask him “Peeta, what is this? Where did you get these things?”

Peeta snaps the handcuffs on his left wrist before he looks up at us. “They’re precautions. A friend got them from the armory for me. If Katniss has that and I chain myself to this thing,” he gestures towards the radiator, “then maybe we can get through this without me killing anyone.”

My mother shakes her head “Peeta, Dr. Lloyd wouldn’t have released you if he didn’t have confidence that you were safe to be around others, what brought this on?”

Peeta can’t meet her gaze any longer and as he turns away, I see a tear slide down his cheek. “What brought this on is that someone showed me the truth for once.”

Tears start to stream freely down his face as he continues “I didn’t know. I’ve never seen myself like that before. Katniss is right. I’m the monster. I’m the mutt. I’m the one Snow has turned into a weapon!”

Before I have time to react, Prim is out of her chair and practically nose-to-nose with Peeta when she shrieks “Who showed you the tape? It was Adriana, wasn’t it? Answer me!”

The tape. There’s a tape of Peeta strangling me. It’s the only way it makes sense. Of course Plutarch filmed the reunion of the Star-Crossed Lovers. And for a moment, it was just like before the Victory Tour, me rushing towards Peeta, smiling, arms outstretched, thinking about him kissing me.

I want to scream. I want to sob. I want to dry Peeta’s tears. I want run away and hide in a closet. I want to kill Plutarch. I want to kill Coin. I want to kill Snow. And though I don’t even know her, I want to kill Adriana.

That’s what finally makes it from my addled brain to my lips. I croak “Who’s Adriana?”

I can see that Prim’s crying too when her head snaps towards me. “She’s a manipulative tramp that works for Dr. Lloyd!”

Hearing something like that come out of Prim’s mouth shocks everyone, but no one more than my mother. “Prim, language!”

Prim whips her head around so fast that her braid nearly smacks her in the face. “Well, she is! I’ve seen the way she puts her hand on his arm. She switches shifts with the other nurses to get more time with him and then she wears shirts that are too small to fit me!”

Prim turns back to Peeta. “She’s not your friend! She wants to get between you and Katniss and that’s why she showed you that tape.”

Peeta wipes both of his cheeks with his right hand before he replies “Prim, stop it. I asked for it; I asked her what was wrong with me, why people were afraid of me. Now I know. It has nothing to do with Katniss. That’s not real. And it’s my fault that we have to pretend. I started all of this.”

I can’t look at either of them, I’m staring down at my boots and it’s only when a drop of water splashes on one of them that I realize that I’m crying. The old Peeta never had to pretend to love me. I want to tell him, to make him remember, but I can’t. I don’t have any right. And it’s too late. Whatever we had is gone now. The only thing that matters is killing Snow. Once I kill Snow, I’m free. When I close my eyes, I can see myself standing over his body as I bite down on my nightlock pill.

Prim interrupts my morbid thoughts when she says “You can lie to yourself, Peeta. But you can’t lie to me. I can tell.”

As soon as she’s inside her and my mother’s room, she slams the door.

My mother gets up and looks down at Peeta as he locks the handcuff onto one of the radiator’s pipes with a click that echoes in the silence. “I won’t speak for anyone else, Peeta. But I don’t think you’re a monster. You’re a good man and you’re the only connection I have left to a man I loved.”

She reaches down to stroke his hair back from his forehead before she continues “What they did to you isn’t your fault. And you can’t let guilt consume you. You know that I once abandoned my own daughters, left them to starve; you’re the only reason that the three of us are still alive. How much more reason do I have to feel guilty, how much more of a monster am I than you are?”

She slowly gets up, turns away and she’s almost at the door to the room she shares with Prim when Peeta calls after her “You’re wrong, Mrs. Everdeen. I’m not myself anymore, not that smiling kid everyone wants me to be. But even a monster can be good for something. I can hold up my end of the act. I’ll convince them. For Prim. I’ll protect her. Always.”

My mother gives him only the faintest nod before she closes the door behind her.

The silence that follows is deafening. Peeta finally breaks it by telling me “The key is in your drawer.”

“What?”

“The key, to the handcuffs. It’s in the drawer in your room. I’m sorry I went in there… it’s just… the key is so small. I didn’t want it getting lost in the blanket.”

It’s absurd when you think about it; the one man I’ve invited into my bed is embarrassed about entering my room. But is he the same man? Would things be the same between us if he could remember everything? I swallow thickly and nod. “It’s okay.”

After another eternity of silence I motion towards the peacekeeper weapon and ask “Gale?”

Peeta meets my gaze and nods. “Yeah, he brought the handcuffs and that thing from the armory during reflection.”

That explains why he wanted me gone so badly. I’m angry at both of them for keeping secrets from me. Maybe I should remind Peeta that we agreed not to do that anymore. Of course that might remind him of why we ended up doing that in the first place. ‘Was that really the only time you kissed Gale?’

I settle for “So that’s why you and he are so friendly now.”

“I can trust him to protect you.”

“I’m not one of those porcelain dolls from the Capitol! I can protect myself!”

I try to keep my voice down to avoid bringing Prim and my mother into this, but it’s difficult. Peeta’s handed me a weapon to kill him with. I can’t hide from Dr. Lloyd’s warning any longer. “Gale isn’t just talking about killing people anymore. I don’t even know what to think about… about this” I gesture to the peacekeeper weapon in my hand. “He’s always been jealous of you. He offered to kill you, you know.”

I don’t know why I’m trying to provoke Peeta. This is the exact opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing, but I can’t help it. As much as it hurt that Peeta thought I was in love with Gale, Peeta not being jealous of Gale feels terrible. It feels like Peeta’s finally come to the same conclusion I have; that I deserve to be alone.

I briefly regret my outburst when I see Peeta shudder for a few seconds, breathing heavily. His pupils dilate until I can barely see the irises. But soon his breathing slows and he closes his eyes. When he reopens them, he nods towards the weapon in my hand. “It’s non-lethal. Gale says it’ll just knock me out.”

I don’t respond but after a long pause I try to change the subject. “Are you going to be able to sleep… like that?”

“I’m not afraid of you hurting me anymore. Now that I can see what they turned me into, I don’t think I could sleep if I wasn’t chained to something.”

I used to feel guilty when Peeta would say something that reminded me of how he always put me first. Now I don’t know what to feel, the thought of Peeta hurting himself scares me half to death, but I can’t help but wonder how much of the old Peeta is still behind those achingly blue eyes. I can’t deal with that now. Safe topics. “It’s hot next to that thing.”

“I’m used to standing next to ovens, real or not real?”

I roll my eyes before I reply “Real.”

 

Notes:

Originally, I actually had Dr. Aurelius in 13 heading up Peeta’s recovery team but after re-reading Mockingjay, that just can’t be right. Katniss specifically contrasts Aurelius’ methods with those of the “head doctor” in 13 that Johanna complains about. So Johanna’s nemesis becomes the hapless Dr. Lloyd.

One delicately-frosted cookie to whoever remembers where Peeta’s line about being angry is stolen from. Now I won’t lie, Johanna as maid of honor was so tempting, but I think Delly opens a few things up and she’s relatively underutilized in fanfiction (save as a romantic rival for Katniss and I never found that to be in character for either her or Peeta). This chapter also has the start of another thing I hope to do in this the longer time frame (compared to Mockingjay): flesh out that little Gale-Peeta bromance we see in Tigris’ shop.

Side Note: Does anyone else think Plutarch is a little flamboyant when I write his dialog? I’m not sure what to make of that.

Chapter Text

In my dream I’m watching Peeta from behind a one-way mirror. But he’s not hijacked, not yet. He’s chained to the wall and I can see someone walking towards him with a syringe filled with green ooze. I scream. I pound on the glass. Nothing works, it’s hopeless.

I can’t see the man’s face, but I hear him speaking to Peeta after he injects the ooze into him. “She abandoned you, Mr. Mellark. She left you in the arena while she ran off to be with her ‘cousin’. It was all for the cameras, Mr. Mellark, all for the games.”

I can hear Peeta say “I know. I’m not blind anymore. He can have her.”

I’m shaking. No, someone is shaking me. I open my eyes and find myself staring into a beautiful pair of blue eyes.

“Where’s the stupid key? It’s time for me and mom to go and Peeta’s been up for an hour anyway.”

I fumble for the drawer, patting the inside for the key but Prim finds it before I do and stalks out of the room without another word.

I drag myself out of bed and sit on the floor next to Peeta who’s now rubbing his left wrist. He hands me the key and the handcuffs. “I’m sorry Prim woke you. I told her not to.”

I just shrug. As we sit in silence, my mind returns to my nightmare and I remember something that’s been itching at the back of my mind for two days. “Peeta, when you asked about what happened to Darius and Lavinia, and Boggs told you it was real, you said you thought so. Because there was nothing shiny about it. What did you mean?”

“Oh. I don’t know exactly how to explain it,” he tells me. “In the beginning, everything was just complete confusion. Now I can sort certain things out. I think there’s a pattern emerging. The memories they altered with the tracker jacker venom have this strange quality about them. Like they’re too intense or the images aren’t stable. You remember what it was like when we were stung?”

‘Trees shattered. There were giant colored butterflies. I fell in a pit of orange bubbles.’ I think about it.

“Shiny orange bubbles.”

“Right. But nothing about Darius or Lavinia was like that. I don’t think they’d given me any venom yet,” he says.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” I ask. “If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what’s true.”

“Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly. Only people can’t grow wings,” he says. “Real or not real?”

“Real,” I say. “But people don’t need wings to survive.”

“Mockingjays do.” He turns away and walks towards the bathroom.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

After we’ve both showered and dressed, it’s still too early for breakfast so we’re just sitting in the common room not looking at each other.

I make it about ten minutes before I blurt out “What did you mean?”

Peeta raises an eyebrow.

“About mockingjays needing wings. What was that about?”

Peeta runs his hand through his hair a couple times before he responds. “On the train home from the games, I asked you if… if the way you acted was all for the games, real or not real?”

“Real. And I said not all of it. But you hated me anyway.”

“Not real. I didn’t hate you. But you didn’t know; how much was for the games, how much was… real.”

I nod and reluctantly concede “I didn’t know.”

Peeta nods along with me. “Knowing what’s real isn’t as simple as knowing what happened. I remember kissing you in the snow, the day of the Victory Tour, even though I was… angry with you. I can remember the feeling, but I can’t sort out how much of that kiss was for me, or you, and how much was for the cameras.”

He looks up from his lap and concludes by saying “As long as you’re the Mockingjay, as long as we’re still in the games, neither of us can really know what’s real and what’s not real.”

As I stare into his eyes, I’m torn in half. Half of me is scared to death that the games will never end, that Peeta and I are doomed to keep repeating this cycle. The other half of me is almost… hopeful that Peeta cares. Maybe somewhere inside him, there’s someone who still wants me. But that scares me too.

We sit in silence considering this until it’s almost time for breakfast. As bad as breakfast in 13 is, I’m excited to get out of this room, to try to get away from these thoughts. I break the silence again. “It’s almost time.”

“Yeah.” Peeta looks up from the rope Finnick gave him. “At dinner, yesterday, you didn’t want to talk about the wedding, real or not real?”

“Real.”

“You have to talk about it, real or not real?”

“Real. Coin and Plutarch will want me to.”

Peeta nods. “Delly will do a lot, but she can’t do everything. It’s supposed to be your ‘special day’. They’ll want to hear from you.”

Before I can reign myself in, I snap at him “I don’t know what to say, Peeta! I’m not like you. I never know what to say. That’s why Haymitch always had to explain everything to me!”

Peeta goes back to tying knots for a few minutes before he responds. “You can’t change what’s real. Of course you don’t want to marry me. So don’t talk about me. Prim wants you to get married someday and I think your mother does too. Did your father?”

“I don’t know, I guess. I was eleven, Peeta. Little kids don’t think about stuff like that.”

“I did, real or not real?”

“Real. I think so. I mean… you said you knew when we were five.”

“Your parents’ marriage, it wasn’t like… with my mother, real or not real?”

“Real. They loved each other. She loved him so much that his death broke her.” I can feel myself getting impatient with this game.

“Then maybe you can talk about him, about what it was like, with him and your mother.” Peeta puts the length of rope away and stares at me before he continues “And sometimes it can help to pretend. When they ask you about the wedding, don’t think about marrying me. Think about marrying… someone you want to marry.”

I shake my head at his implication. “It’s not like that, Peeta. Not real. It isn’t about you. It’s me. I can’t. I just can’t.”

I can feel tears forming at the corners of my eyes when I jump up and say “It’s time. Let’s go.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Breakfast is even worse than usual, gruel with things that are clearly supposed to be biscuits. It’s so bad that Peeta spends about twenty minutes in the kitchen talking to whatever idiots prepared it. Meanwhile I try to keep my happy face on during Johanna’s constant monologue of crude sexual innuendoes while Finnick and Delly laugh at me. Annie doesn’t seem to be all that focused on our conversation but I pretend that she’s as outraged as I am.

“So… I hear your mother and sister go to work pretty early. That must leave plenty of time before breakfast to get reacquainted with your fiancée’s breadstick.”

“How thick are the walls in those Section 5 compartments? I mean you used to moan and thrash around a lot when you shared a room with me. I can’t imagine what it’s like for your poor mother and sister now…”

“Your fiancée seems happier lately. Did that idiot Lloyd finally convince him that he’s ‘totally safe’ or have you been giving Peeta a little ‘therapy’ of your own?”

“I heard that your sister’s studying pre-natal care. You know, that’ll come in really handy when you end up with another Mellark bun in your oven.”

It isn’t easy for me. I don’t want to hear this from anyone and she makes it even worse because some part of me is still irrationally jealous of her, of her being with Peeta when I couldn’t, of their camaraderie while he thought of me as a monster.

When Peeta finally returns to rescue me from her, he just laughs the whole thing off, which makes me angry at both of them.

Peeta smiles as he wraps an arm around my shoulders and banters with her. “Now Jo, I’m not sure I like the idea of you talking about that sort of thing with Katniss. I’ve always suspected that your little show in the elevator was more for her benefit than mine.”

Delly’s eyes are as wide and round as saucers and she has a hand firmly clamped over her mouth. I’m practically biting my tongue while Finnick laughs and Annie suddenly and with all seriousness says “Jo likes to tease.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Since I’ve already resolved not to go to class I’m on schedule for a nice relaxing nap in a closet but something stops me. I remember how panicked I was when Peeta was so late from therapy yesterday, along with everything Dr. Lloyd has given me to worry about. Without thinking, I grab Peeta’s hand and ask while we’re still at the cafeteria table, “Peeta, can I come with you today? To therapy?”

Peeta’s eyes betray his surprise for just an instant before he composes himself. “Of course. I’m always happy to spend time with you.” His smile is so perfect, his whole face so tightly controlled that even I can’t tell if he’s lying.

As we walk towards the psychiatric section, my head is a jumble of conflicting emotions; I just gave Plutarch a touching scene for his fake love story, Peeta thinks I don’t care about him at all, I don’t know if I’m coming to therapy because I care about him or I’m just scared to be alone, I can’t tell if Peeta wants me here or he just thinks it’s good copy. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

When we arrive at that psychiatric ward, Dr. Lloyd greets us both warmly but there’s a tall woman there, closer to Peeta’s height than mine, with long red hair and hazel eyes that stare daggers at me.

Her expression morphs into an exaggerated smile when she turns towards Peeta. “Hey, Peeta.”

I wrap both of my arms around one of his and rest my head against his shoulder. His eyes flicker towards me before he tentatively replies. “Hi, Adriana.”

She turns to me with a sickeningly-sweet smile smeared across her face. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Katniss. I kept thinking that you’d come here to see Peeta eventually. But I guess being ‘The Mockingjay’ must keep you pretty busy with all kinds of important things.”

The hatred I felt for her last night doesn’t begin to compare to what I feel now. The top three buttons of her nurse’s uniform are unbuttoned, giving everyone a clear view of the tops of her breasts spilling out of her tiny shirt. And while I think about Peeta getting a nice look at them every day, I have to smile while I listen to her imply that Peeta isn’t important to me.

Peeta must be able to feel how tense I am but he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Adriana was a healer in District 8, Katniss. She came here when she heard about… my condition.”

Adriana flashes her perfectly white teeth when she coos “Oh, we all felt so terrible. And we love Peeta in 8. We’ll never forget the way he comforted poor Emily in the games. She was so scared and he stayed with her; stroked her hair and whispered to her until she was gone.”

Emily, the girl from 8. I never knew her name. I didn’t know how Peeta had tenderly cared for her as she lay dying until Peeta and I sat on Caesar Flickerman’s couch and watched the recap of the games. Of course other people had noticed, grown to admire Peeta while I was stuck in a tree fighting for my life. On some level, I realize that she’s just trying to bait me by contrasting Peeta staying with that girl with my abandonment of him after his hijacking. But something about her tone makes me shiver with revulsion; it’s almost as if she envies the dead girl, wishes she had been reaped so Peeta could have held her while she died.

Thankfully Dr. Lloyd interrupts this conversation before I can do anything I’ll regret later. “Good morning, Peeta. Nice to see you, Katniss.” He nods in my direction. “I was planning on continuing viewing tapes of the family interviews during the 74^th games for today’s session. But if you’d like to try something else, I’m always open to suggestions.”

Peeta nods. “Actually I was hoping I could see something from the cave again. The story about Prim’s goat.”

I loosen my grip on Peeta’s arm as I turn to stare at him. I remember Haymitch telling me about Prim’s experiment with the morphling and Peeta’s confusion afterward. Why does he want to watch that again? I focus on Dr. Lloyd’ face but his expression is completely impassive.

Peeta and I sit on a small couch while Dr. Lloyd prepares the video and I can’t help shaking a little as we wait.

“We did this before, sitting on a couch watching the games, real or not real?”

“Real. After our first games. It was a red couch, about this size and…”

“And you took off your shoes and snuggled up against me?”

“Yeah.”

“Real or not real?”

“Real, Peeta. I took my shoes off and put my head on your shoulder. You put your arm around me.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

Suddenly I understand what he’s asking but I’m afraid to respond, afraid to upset him, afraid that he’ll never trust me again. It takes everything in me to quietly whisper “Not real.”

I sniffle just a little before I continue. “Haymitch said the Capitol was mad about the berries. He said that my only defense was to convince everyone that I was so in love that I wasn’t responsible. When I sat down on the couch, even though I was practically in your lap, I could tell by his face that it wasn’t enough. So I took my shoes off and got even closer.”

Peeta nods without looking up at me. “Thank you.”

I want to tell him that it wasn’t all an act, that when we watched the games and I clung so desperately to him, that it was real, that I knew I needed him even back then though I didn’t understand why. But I can’t. We sit in silence and stare at the floor until the video starts.

The scene plays out exactly as I remember it; Peeta asks me to tell him a story about something happy, I tell him I got the money for the goat from selling on old silver locket and then continue with the true story of how I negotiated for Lady, buying the pink ribbon to put around her neck and how my mother and Prim nursed her back to health.

Afterward he talks about how happy I must have made Prim while I try to frame everything in terms of survival. I get lost in my own thoughts for a while when I try in imagine what it would have been like without the games. I imagine Peeta offering me that mug of cider, would I have accepted it? I swore years ago that I’d never love like that, could Peeta have worn down my defenses without all those chances to sacrifice everything for me?

I come to when Dr. Lloyd stops the tape. I expect him to enter the room and question Peeta about it, but we’re left alone, seconds ticking away on the clock above the television.

For once, I speak first. “Peeta, why did you want to watch that part?”

“Because I think it’s not real. I wanted to ask you.”

“No, that… that’s what happened; exactly like that.”

Peeta shakes his head. “Not how you told the story, the story itself. I didn’t understand at first, why Prim showed me that clip. The doctors from 13, they kept focusing on scenes of us kissing, trying to force it down my throat that we were in love. But Prim understands; there are so many lies in the games. I have to be able to figure out what’s real and what’s not real on my own.”

I nod in understanding. “You mean, where did I really get the money to buy Lady from the Goat Man?”

“Yes. You didn’t have a silver locket. That can’t be real; you would have sold it when you were hungry.”

“When we were starving,” I correct him. And then softly “When you gave me the bread.”

He stares into my eyes silently and then he turns away before he says “I can remember more now, how much I loved you.”

I can’t bear to listen any longer, to hear him tell me how strange he finds it that he used to love a “piece of work” like me. I cut him off to answer his question. “I got the money from selling deer meat. Gale and I brought down a huge buck. It must have been 150 pounds. We sold a little meat at the Hob and the rest to Rooba.”

He nods appreciatively. “And you couldn’t talk about Gale, couldn’t let the audience know you had a boyfriend at home.”

“Not real. Gale wasn’t my boyfriend.” I compose myself before going on “But people might have gotten the wrong idea. And I couldn’t talk about hunting anyway.”

His head suddenly snaps up and his gaze returns to meet mine. “You told me that before, in 11, that Gale hadn’t kissed you until after the games, real or not real?”

“Real.” I don’t know what else to say. I want to tell him that Gale isn’t my boyfriend now either. But I don’t know how to express how I feel. Would Gale and I be together if I’d never loved Peeta, if killing Snow to avenge him wasn’t the last thing left in this world that I wanted? Gale kissing me didn’t make me feel the way Peeta did, but maybe I can’t feel that any more. Maybe when Snow took Peeta from me, that part of me was torn out and taken to the Capitol too.

When Dr. Lloyd finally enters the room, it’s only to inform us that he thinks Peeta made a lot of progress in this session. I glance up at the clock after he leaves and see that it’s time for lunch.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Lunch is just another act for the cameras and thankfully no one seems to expect much of me today. Peeta and Finnick make jokes while Delly and Annie chatter away about dresses and flowers. Johanna and Gale have their own conversation at the far end of the table; I can’t hear any of it.

The Leeg twins sit on either side of me today and they’re mostly quiet but towards the end of lunch, one of them tries to coax me out of my shell. “Katniss, we saw all those dramatic moments between you and Peeta in the games. And everyone makes it seem like this fairytale. But… can you tell us something normal about you and Peeta? I don’t know; something you do together that doesn’t involve some life or death situation?”

My mind immediately springs to the plant book. Peeta called it “the only normal thing we’ve ever done together.” But I find that I don’t want to share that; it’s too personal, too connected to my family. Instead my mind tumbles until I find something else I can use. “Um, during the Victory Tour, Peeta and I had to learn how to dance, the Capitol way, slow and pressed up against each other.”

I see heads swivel towards me but I press on. “Our escort, Effie, taught us how so we wouldn’t embarrass her at all the Victory Tour parties. At first it was too much, being like that, in front of people; I felt humiliated. But after a while, it was fun. The parties were terrible, everyone having to act cheerful when their children had been taken from them. Dancing with Peeta was the only thing I didn’t hate. It was the only time I could forget where I was.”

The other Leeg turns towards Peeta. “Do you remember how to dance, Peeta?”

I’m apprehensive when I hear this. We shouldn’t talk about Peeta’s fragmented mind in public, in front of the cameras. But he plays it off with a joke. “Well, I guess I missed my best chance to find out at Finnick and Annie’s wedding. I think I’ll practice before our wedding though; I don’t want Katniss complaining about having sore feet on our wedding night.”

Everyone laughs at this and I manage to smile before I hide my face in my hands. For the first time I wonder if I can really do this; act cheerful when people call me Mrs. Mellark, as if Peeta and I are really together, as if Peeta still thinks I’m wonderful. I have to do this, I’ve known since the Victory Tour. Even the revolution hasn’t changed the plan, because of my stunt with the berries, because of how useful we are to those in power, I had to marry Peeta. But now Peeta’s gone and I have to marry a stranger that reminds me of him all the time, reminds me of what’s been taken from me.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Training is even more boring than usual since we’re supposed to be working on physical conditioning. We run a three mile course through the woods and then spend a couple hours in the weight room. Peeta puts the rest of us to shame; he still isn’t quite as muscular as he was before the Quell, but he’s a far cry from the starved boy that came to 13 and he’s even stronger than he looks.

The only excitement comes when Gale strains a muscle trying to match Peeta’s bench press. Initially I’m more angry than concerned; a demonstration of Gale’s jealousy could ruin Plutarch’s carefully staged love story. But what happens next surprises me. Peeta and Gale laugh it off while Jackson fetches a cold compress for Gale’s shoulder. Peeta stretches Gale’s arm out and rubs some kind of ointment onto the sore part of his shoulder while they joke about something I can’t quite make out. As different as they look, one could almost mistake them for a pair of brothers teasing each other.

Peeta and I return to our compartment for reflection. He spends it drawing in his sketchpad while I lie in bed and roll my pearl back and forth across the palm of my hand. As I listen to the scratching of his pencil on the paper through the door, I think about sitting with Peeta in therapy today and just for a moment, I allow myself to hope that Peeta will come back to me.

I have an easier time at dinner and the food is a little more tolerable than lunch since it’s one of Greasy Sae’s days to cook. And after another sappy performance, we’re called into Plutarch’s office. It’s smaller than Coin’s, but much more brightly lit and decorated with a variety of Mockingjay images. I hate the way he’s exploiting Madge’s gift, something so closely connected to her memory of her aunt. I want so badly to just rip all of his posters off the walls, but I remain still and silent, waiting to hear what he wants.

He glances nervously at Peeta before he begins, perhaps fearful of another outburst. “I’ve asked you both to come here so we can talk about moving forward.”

When Peeta doesn’t object, he continues “I’ve been pretty pleased with most of the footage that we have. The population, both here in 13 and the other districts, seems caught up in your reunion. But what I think we need to do now is to connect things to the war effort. And for that, I’d like to shoot a few scenes in District 12.”

My head spins toward Peeta as I think about him trying to hold himself together in the ruins of his family’s bakery. I can see Peeta is nervous as well, but when he speaks, his voice is calm. “That won’t be a problem. But it shouldn’t just be us.”

Plutarch looks as puzzled as I feel. “What do you mean, Peeta?”

“It shouldn’t be just Katniss and me. Gale and Delly should be there too.”

Plutarch frowns as he considers this. “I don’t know, Peeta. We already have footage of Gale from a previous visit. I just don’t see that he adds anything.”

“He’s my best man. And I’ll need to pick out things for the wedding. If you want, you can leave him out of the shots. But I want him there.”

Peeta’s eyes flicker over to me and as an afterthought, he adds “I’m sure Katniss feels the same way about Delly.”

Plutarch clearly isn’t. But he agrees and we make it out of his office without any collar-grabbing by Peeta so I feel about as good as I can about the situation.

We don’t speak in the hallway of course. We silently agree to avoid any discussion of our impending trip to 12 until we reach our compartment and we’re about halfway there when we run smack into Gale, in handcuffs, being escorted somewhere by two security personnel.

Notes: First cliffhanger chapter ending; thought I’d try one out. This chapter was also starting to get unworkably long.

I’ve never seen it commented on, but I think Prim choosing the goat story was pretty clever. If you think about it, it’s the only time during the 74^th games that Katniss tells an outright lie and it’s one that Peeta can spot a mile away if he remembers anything at all about home. And the proof he has that it can’t be true is (conveniently) the story about the bread which should remind him of how he felt about Katniss.

My best effort at explaining what Peeta meant by “mockingjays do” still feels a little weak to me. Feel free to chime in with your ideas on the subject.

I sometimes wish that Suzanne Collins had expanded the description of what happened in the games when Katniss and Peeta watch them with Caesar. One obvious point is ‘did Peeta kill the girl from 8 (presumably as a mercy killing) or did she die on her own?’

I really love angry Prim at the start of this chapter, we may see more of her.

Chapter Text

Peeta actually grabs one of Gale’s guards by the arm and asks him “Where do you think you’re taking him?”

The guard tries and fails to shake Peeta’s grip and then reluctantly responds “He’s headed to see President Coin.” He looks down at Peeta’s hand on his arm. “You will be too if you keep interfering.”

Peeta releases his arm. “Actually, I think I’ll just accompany you guys. Why make a second trip?”

The guards are clearly uncomfortable with this arrangement but my status as the Mockingjay and his as my fiancée keep them from protesting too loudly. One of them says something about us into his communicuff as Peeta and I walk alongside them.

When we step inside Coin’s office, the same three chairs are in front of the desk, creating this strong feeling of déjà vu as I take the chair furthest to the left. Peeta takes the rightmost chair, leaving the guards to place Gale in the center. However this time instead of Plutarch, four men in security uniforms I don’t recognize lean against the wall behind Coin’s desk. Coin doesn’t bat an eye at our presence.

The whole room is deathly silent as Coin looks each of us over. She finally clears her throat and begins. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you why you’re here, Soldier Hawthorne. But for the sake of your friends, I’ll state the obvious.”

She reads from a piece of paper in front of her. “Yesterday at 4:14pm, two items were removed from the armory, a P-347 stunner and a set of handcuffs. The access logs indicate that you were the only person in the armory at that time and you had no authorization to remove any equipment.”

She sets the paper down and her cold grey eyes bore holes into Gale. “We take theft very seriously here, Mr. Hawthorne. Would you like to offer any sort of explanation for your behavior?”

My mind is racing but I don’t know what to say. He only took them to keep Peeta from killing me, which must be what you wanted since you put us in the same compartment. Gale always got along with Coin better than I did; but we both underestimated her, never realizing just how far she was willing to go. What can I say to her, to these stone-faced men behind her, that will make any difference?

Thankfully words have always come more easily to Peeta. “You didn’t have to make such a production about this. He got them for me. There are other people who know about it, I didn’t realize it was such a big deal.”

Coin’s lip twitches. “And what did you need with a set of handcuffs and a stunner, Soldier Mellark?”

“Well, they don’t really have anything to do with each other. I asked Gale for a weapon I could use for target practice on my own. Safely.”

Coin can’t see where this is going any better than I can. “The training grounds have target ranges, Soldier Mellark, why did you wish to practice on your own.”

I can tell by Peeta’s eyes that he’s completely unfazed but he stumbles when he speaks anyway. “I don’t suppose it’s any secret that I’m a lousy shot. But practicing next to Katniss when she’s so… incredible, I don’t know what to say. Maybe I’m just traditional but I feel kind of… Look, back home, there are certain expectations about a man’s role in… in a relationship. And I’ve nothing against women fighting, but getting completely embarrassed at a target range by your girl… I just wanted to get enough better that I could hold my head up.”

Peeta gestures expansively with his hands as he adds “And it’s better for the propos. You don’t want me out there looking like an idiot.”

The security men look bewildered and Coin looks completely unconvinced. “And you’ve told this to others?”

“Well, yeah. Everyone in 451 knows. Except Katniss, of course. Mitchell and Homes were going to give me some lessons later.”

I can see Coin struggling with how to deal with the situation but she eventually gives up and moves on. “And the handcuffs, Soldier Mellark? That’s an odd thing for you in particular to ask for.”

Peeta purses his lips and turns his head away from her before he replies “They aren’t for me.”

“Come again?”

“I suppose you think we’re pretty… old-fashioned in 12 when it comes to this stuff. But you know Katniss roomed with Johanna for a while and I guess she got a few suggestions. She talked to me about it… and I agreed when she said she wanted to try something, well… different.”

I’m slack-jawed and probably eight different shades of red when I realize just what “stuff” Peeta is talking about. I want to scream that it isn’t true but I can’t. I want to hit Peeta, but Gale’s in the way.

Gale.

As I look over, I can see the huge grin on Gale’s face as he laughs softly at my discomfort, his chest literally shaking.

It’s only when I turn back to Coin and see the look of pure rage on her face that I realize the brilliance of Peeta’s lie. Does she trust all four of those men behind her desk and the two guards behind Gale? Trust them enough to admit in front of them that the “Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12” are getting married because she’s threatened to use our loved ones as cannon fodder? She can’t call Peeta’s bluff about our activities in bed without admitting that she’s forced us back into this act.

I grasp for words but nothing comes and silence is growing ever more awkward until I finally blurt out “I… I just wanted to show Peeta that I… trust him. Completely.”

It’s obvious that Coin wants to end this conversation as much as I do. Her expression eventually returns to her normal, cold, calculating look and she briefly nods to Peeta before dismissing us. “I’ll send someone to your compartment to collect that stunner, Soldier Mellark.”

As we rise to leave, her parting words are for Gale. “Soldier Hawthorne, your services have been very valuable to this district. But this isn’t the first time that your attachments to others have put you in a compromising position. Choose your friends wisely.”

Gale grins again as the guards remove his handcuffs. “You can’t choose family, Madam President.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

When the three of us make it back to my family’s apartment, the relief that we’ve escaped any further punishment from Coin has faded and I’m back to being incredibly angry. At Peeta. At Gale. At Coin. At this fake romance that feels like being dragged over broken glass.

I turn on Peeta and Gale as soon as the door closes. “That was a great performance in Coin’s office. You work so well together, maybe the two of you should get married instead!”

Gale rolls his eyes as he sits down on Peeta’s bedroll. “I’m sorry I screwed up, Catnip. I should have thought about the logs. But if you ask me, the expression on your face made it all worthwhile.”

He’s my best friend and he just got arrested for helping me. I should be grateful but as Peeta sits down beside him, all I see are two men treating me like a child and I lose it again. “I’m surprised you thought it was so funny. What makes you so sure that Peeta isn’t handcuffing me to the bed after Prim leaves in the morning? There’s plenty of time before breakfast!” I practically scream.

Peeta and Gale both look away as I hear my mother clear her throat behind me. I turn to see her and Prim standing in the doorway to their room. The expression on my mother’s face leaves no doubt as to which side of the family my trademark scowl comes from.

Prim’s mouth is a perfect “O” as she gapes at me and I feel all the guilt from before rushing back.

Gale buys me some time in explaining myself when he says “Nice to see you Mrs. Everdeen, Prim.” He turns to Peeta. “I should get going. You going to be okay here?”

Peeta nods. “Yeah, the first night wasn’t so great, but I’m getting a handle on it.”

After they both get up, Peeta walks over to my room and returns carrying the stunner. As he hands it to Gale he says “If you’re headed towards the armory, you might as well just take it now. It’ll save someone a trip.”

Gale shrugs and stuffs the stunner in his vest pocket. “Anything else I can do?”

Peeta takes a deep breath before responding. “In about a week, we’re headed back to 12. I asked for you. And Delly. But it might help if you volunteer to come.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“It was Plutarch. I made it seem like some kind of wedding party thing.”

Gale sounds skeptical as he replies “You sure me being there won’t make it harder for you?”

“It’s going to be pretty awful either way. And If I do go mutt, you’ll be there to protect her.”

Gale smiles just a little as he shakes his head. “Don’t you ever want anything for yourself?”

“All the time; but who knows if there’s enough of me left to appreciate any of it?”

Gale clearly doesn’t know what to say to that. He simply says goodnight to my mother, Prim and Peeta, conspicuously not me, and silently walks out the door.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Once the door is closed again, my mother tells Prim to go inside their room and shut the door. Then she starts in on me. “Katniss Everdeen! I thought I’d made it clear how I felt about that sort of talk in front of your sister! I know you had to grow up fast and I’ll never stop being sorry that I left you to deal with so much. But no 13-year-old girl, least of all your sister, needs to hear about you being tied to a bed! Is that clear, young lady?”

I stare at the floor and mumble “I didn’t think. I didn’t realize you two were here.”

When she doesn’t respond, I furtively glance up and see her still glaring at me as she says “It won’t happen again.”

It feels so strange having my mother pretend to be a parent after all these years. But after my screw-up, I don’t have the heart to argue with her. I nod my head and agree “It won’t happen again.”

When she opens the door and tells Prim that it’s ok to come out, I briefly wonder if it’s Peeta’s presence that’s brought out her long dormant maternal side. Of course it reminds me of… before. Things can never be the same between us, but seeing her like this thaws the ice just a little.

Since I haven’t even been living with my family for weeks, we don’t really have an evening routine. Peeta suggests we play a game that his family used to where one person draws and their partner tries to guess what’s being drawn quickly before a timer runs out. His family used an egg timer; since we don’t have one here we use one of the electronic timers that Prim and my mother carry for their work in the hospital.

Peeta and Prim form one team while my mother and I form another but we have to abandon this arrangement after only a few rounds. While Peeta clearly outshines the rest of us, Prim has some natural talent as a sketch artist while my mother and I are both terrible. We start over with Prim and I forming one team while Peeta and my mother form the other.

Prim and I keep the score competitive for a while, but eventually Peeta and my mother pull away and we call the game in their favor. As my mother and sister go to bed, I can’t recall seeing them so happy since Peeta and I returned from the 74^th games.

Peeta takes his handcuffs out of my bedside drawer and cuffs himself to the radiator once again. I want to thank him, for tonight, for keeping me safe even when his own mind is fighting against him, for working so diligently on our fake romance when I so often abandon the effort to retreat into my shell. I don’t know what to say, how to start.

He takes a break from working on a sketch to look over at me. “You need to apologize to Gale.”

I tilt my chin up and look away. “He laughed at me. And you both treat me like a child.”

“Sometimes you act like a child! He loves you, he breaks the rules here to help keep you safe and you say something like that to him. How do you think that made him feel?”

When I don’t reply, he continues “You said something like that to me, after Finnick and Annie’s wedding. It didn’t feel very good. You should apologize to him.”

I mimic Gale’s words when I spit back at him “Don’t you want an apology for yourself?”

He shakes his head. “I said things that hurt you too.”

I can’t look at him, not now. But I try to connect, if only a little, to make things less frightening for him. “I was upset. I didn’t… I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“I was.”

My head shoots up at that. I look into his eyes, trying to read his tortured mind. His eyes are a soft blue, not as bright as they should be, but less cloudy than they’ve been since his return from the Capitol. He meets my gaze for just a second before he turns away.

His voice is faint when he speaks again. “I don’t know how describe it.”

After another eternity of silence, “We ate chocolate-covered strawberries, in Snow’s mansion, at the end of the Victory Tour, real or not real?”

I can’t understand why he’s reverted to this, why that matters. But it’s true; I practically gorged myself on them. “Real.”

“I’m like a strawberry grown in President Snow’s garden, filled with blood, a mutt that wants to make you feel as much pain as I do, to take revenge for all the terrible things I see every time I close my eyes.”

My heart is hammering in my chest and my throat aches, this is too much, too real. I turn away to hide the pained expression on my face but I can’t run away, this time something holds me in place, forces me to listen.

“The Peeta Mellark that everyone wants me to be; he’s just that layer of chocolate on the outside. When I’m in control, I feel like I’m pretending, like I’m just hiding all the hate inside me. When something sets me off, when I go mutt, it’s like a bite; the chocolate cracks and the blood seeps out.

I don’t turn to look at him but I say distinctly, “You’re different than before… than when you hurt me.”

When I hear him laugh, my head turns towards him. His eyes look so calm when he finally stops laughing enough to speak. “So you think the chocolate is growing thicker?”

I want to laugh along with his stupid joke, but I can’t. It reminds me too much of my Peeta, of having his arms wrapped around me, of everything I can’t have any more. I stand up. “I should go to bed. Goodnight.”

It’s only when the door is closed behind me and I’ve pressed my face into my pillow that I allow myself to cry.

Notes:

President Coin’s dialog is surprisingly fun to write. It’s also nice to write Gale being happy for once. Jealous Gale and Angry Gale get kind of old after a while. Also, it’s so weird writing a conversation about (light) bondage without Johanna being involved in it.

Chapter Text

My nightmares are worse than I can remember. I’m trapped in Snow’s mansion, stumbling around drunkenly because I’ve been stung by tracker jackers. I can’t find Peeta. They’re going to hijack him, I have to save him, but I can’t find him. Behind every door that I open I find Snow leering at me while he eats enormous strawberries, blood running down his chin. I cry out, but there’s no one to help me, nothing but Snow and a house full of gaudily-dressed Capitol sycophants.

Suddenly, I’m engulfed in warmth. I must have found Peeta; he’s whispering to me, telling me that we’re safe now. I wrap my arms around his neck and beg him to stay with me, to make me feel safe again.

I can’t make out what he murmurs in reply, but I know what he said. I fall back into a cloud and really sleep for the first time since the Quell.

I never want to get out of bed, it just feels so good. I wriggle a little to squirm my way deeper into all the warmth around me and feel Peeta reflexively tighten his arms around me.

Peeta.

My name is Katniss Everdeen, I’m 17 years old, District 12 is gone. I’m in District 13, in my own bed, with Peeta Mellark. He used to love me. He was hijacked. We have to pretend to be in love. We’ve slept together before. It’s just like old times, except now he’s been programmed to kill me.

Breathe.

He’s not having an episode. I listen to his breathing and conclude that he’s still asleep. That makes what I can feel pressed up against my backside slightly less awkward. I tilt my head to look over at the clock and see that Prim and my mother must have left for work half an hour ago.

After carefully extracting myself from Peeta’s arms, I brush his hair back from his forehead; because it doesn’t matter; he’s asleep. I don’t have to worry about what he’ll think or what it means. I’m the only one who’ll remember this so I’m free to touch him if I want.

Eventually his eyes open, staring back at me, pure and blue, full of happiness. My breath catches in my throat, but as he takes in his surroundings, his eyes narrow into a guarded look.

He scrambles off of the bed, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I… You were having a nightmare. Prim couldn’t wake you. You just wouldn’t wake up.” He turns away, suddenly extremely interested in a nondescript part of the floor. “Prim unlocked the handcuffs and she… she ordered me to hold you. She said I had to because you… you were calling my name. In your sleep.”

He finally looks up at me; his eyes look pained, almost guilty. “I was just trying to help you. I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t trying to…”

I can’t stand him apologizing, not for the one thing that’s made me feel good in months. I cut him off sharply by saying “You didn’t have to, you don’t owe me anything.”

He purses his lips but says nothing. We stand there awkwardly until he glances up at the clock and then turns back to me. “I need to get going. I told the kitchen staff I’d start helping out in the mornings. So don’t wait up for me at the surface exit, I’m not going hunting today.”

I hadn’t even remembered that it was Tuesday, but this will ruin it for the second week in a row. I clench my fists in frustration. “Well than you know I can’t go either. Plutarch won’t allow it.”

Peeta shakes his head. “Go anyway. You two deserve some time alone and this is the only time you’ll get together without the cameras.”

“Stop it! That’s not real, Peeta. I don’t care what they told you in the Capitol. We’re not like that. We hunt! That’s all we do, we’re friends.”

Peeta looks up at the clock again and then responds with an angry edge creeping into his voice, “I’m crazy, Katniss, not stupid. It’s them you have to pretend for, not me. I know I’m not the same, but I don’t need your pity. And… and I know, alright? Coin’s been recording the two of you; she showed me a tape right after we started playing “Star-Crossed Lovers” again.” His voice catches when he concludes “But that’s not important. What’s important is that you don’t let this… game ruin things with him too. He loves you.”

As he’s walking out into the common room, he looks back over his shoulder. “And don’t worry about Plutarch, I’ll be at the kitchen when you bring the game back, we’ll make it up to him then.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I act indifferent until he’s showered, dressed and gone and then I let myself go. I let myself collapse on the floor and cry. This is why Peeta and Gale get along so well now; I don’t come between them because Peeta doesn’t even want me anymore. No matter how much better he gets, he’ll never be mine again. All I’ll ever be to him now is his partner in this game we can’t stop playing.

By the time I manage to get dressed, it’s too late for breakfast. I can’t feel hunger anyway. I can’t feel much of anything, really. I just head directly for the surface exit where Gale and I usually meet.

When I arrive there, Gale’s waiting for me as usual. But he looks more worried than happy to see me. “Where is he? Is he alright?”

Peeta is the last thing I want to talk about with Gale so my reply is mumbled as I grab my bow and quiver “He’s fine. He talked the kitchen staff into letting him work there. Let’s go.”

Gale and I walk to our usual hunting grounds in silence. After we shoot a few incautious rabbits, Gale manages to force another question out. “They’re okay with him not being here?”

“I don’t know! He said to go anyway because it’s the only time we’ll get alone!” My pulse is pounding as I spit out “Coin was filming us in 2! She showed him the tape and now he thinks… he thinks I…”

Gale holds me to his chest while I sob. For the longest time, the only sounds are my crying and his barely perceptible breathing. Eventually he lets out a tired sigh and speaks. “I’m sorry, Catnip. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I just had to be sure. I had to know if there was any chance… any chance you could feel something.”

“I told you before Gale, I can’t think like that. Not when things are like this.”

Gale shakes his head as he puts an arm’s length between us. “Did you ever tell him that?” When I don’t respond, he continues. “Just stop making excuses! You were in the games with him! They told you only one of you could come out alive. Twice! But you still felt it! Everyone could see it but you. Even you realized it at the very end, when you really thought about life without him.”

Gale’s crying too now and I’m reminded of our trip to 12, of the only other time I’ve seen him with tears in his eyes. “It’s not your fault, Catnip. You can’t let him go. Even if he didn’t want you, it wouldn’t matter. You’re so crazy! You think I haven’t noticed all that time you spend hiding in the laundry rooms? All the drugs? You think I don’t know what you’re always touching in your right front pocket? Everyone knows why you want to go to the Capitol! It’s a suicide mission! But you don’t even care.”

Gale impatiently wipes at his eyes. “But not everything is about you! He can’t help himself, not after what they did to him; sometimes he’s going to say stuff that hurts you. But you have to try to help him. It’s not just about you two.”

I nod. “I know.”

“Then act like it! You aren’t free to just throw your life away; not when there are people who need you. He tried to tell you that, on the beach. Whether he remembers or not, it still happened. Rory needs you. Prim needs you. Do you remember when they were all that mattered? Before he came along?”

I don’t trust myself to speak; but it doesn’t matter. Gale isn’t looking for an answer. We just keep moving along. We’re better at silence anyway.

We eventually bag three more rabbits and two squirrels before the sun’s too high in the sky and the wildlife retreats into its burrows. As we make our way back, Gale stops me. He looks as if he wants to speak, but it takes an eternity for him to get the words out.

“You remember that first time they let him eat with us? I told you that I knew how he felt, the jealousy, the anger. It was the same for me, watching you and him. The only difference is that I could see that it wasn’t fair to you. You couldn’t help loving him.”

I open my mouth to protest, to say something to make Gale feel better but no words come out. There isn’t any lie I could tell that Gale couldn’t see through. He knows me too well. But I can’t see where he’s going with this.

“After the hijacking, he couldn’t see that he wasn’t being fair, couldn’t tell how much you were hurting, how much you still wanted him. It was the same a week ago when they sent him out here with us. Coin showed him that tape because she thinks he’s still like that, still in the dark. She thinks jealousy will push him over the edge. But she’s wrong about him.”

I watch him while his eyes stare off into the distance. “The day that he and I took a walk on the training grounds… He told me he’d seen the tape of him… hurting you. He’s still confused about a lot of things but not about you, not about what you mean to him.” He finally brings his gaze back to me. “I don’t care what he saw or what Coin or the Capitol told him about us, he still loves you. Even when he hates you, he loves you. He can’t help it.”

The way Gale says that, I could almost believe that he’s talking about himself. But I’m overwhelmed when I think about how hard this must be for him. I try to let go of my frustration and appreciate his gesture. “Thanks.”

He nods in return. “Just think about that before you do something desperate,” he tells me as he picks the game bag back up.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

After we deposit our bows at the armory, we make our way to the kitchen to drop the game off. It’s busier than usual. I see Delly and her brother rolling dough and twisting it into some kind of braided pattern while Greasy Sae is scowling over a large pot. She turns and gives me a gap-toothed grin.

“What did you bring me, dears? This stew could some real meat.”

Gale holds up the rabbits and Greasy Sae cackles with glee. “Now then, coney stew it is! It’ll be a fine lunch for once.”

I manage a small smile and glance around but I still don’t see Peeta. When Greasy Sae notices, she snorts and gestures toward the ovens at the far end of the kitchen. “Your young man has some crazy idea about making bread folks actually want to eat instead of the sawdust cakes that we’ve been serving.”

While Gale butchers the rabbits for Greasy Sae, I slowly walk towards the ovens and when I’m about halfway there, I’m rewarded with the sight of Peeta backing in through a side door carrying four trays of bread stacked on top of each other. I stand there gaping, mesmerized by the way his biceps flex until the sound of the trays being set on the counter snaps me out of it.

He’s in his element here; he seems calmer, more focused. His eyes are brighter and his shoulders straighter. Baking seems to be more effective therapy for him than his time with Dr. Lloyd. As I stare at him, I see the boy who would sneak glances at me as I traded with his father and the young man who’d bring me cheese buns even after I’d broken his heart.

If he notices me staring, he doesn’t mention it. “You’re back. How was the hunt?”

I feel awkward under his gaze and I nervously fiddle with my game bag. “It’s mostly rabbits this time, but Sae thinks they’re enough for some stew.”

He smiles “That’s what we were hoping for; this bread should go well with it. Here, try a piece.”

The symbolism unnerves me. When I think about the old Peeta, my Peeta, the one I miss so desperately, I still think of him as “the boy with the bread”. My gaze moves back and forth between his face and the bread in his hand. If I take it, then my hope that Peeta will come back to me is real, I won’t be able to pretend otherwise. If we reenact this, he’ll be able to hurt me again, really hurt me. I’m not afraid of offering him my neck, half the time I think I deserve to be strangled. But if I let myself hope that he’ll love me again… that hope could break me.

It’s safer to just walk away, tell him I ate before, anything but this. I take the roll and savor the warmth and smell before I take a bite. It tastes grainy and as I chew I can taste what’s been baked into it, sunflower seeds and little bits of apple. It’s not the same recipe as the bread, the loaves he gave me six years ago, but it’s close, hearty with fruit and seeds baked into it.

The whole world is collapsing in on me; I can’t stop the tears that form in the corners of my eyes and I can’t keep back the sob in my throat. I feel my head spinning, my free hand clutching the counter just to keep myself upright. I look up and stare into Peeta’s eyes, trying to read them, desperate to see what this means to him, if he has any idea what this means to me.

I can’t read anything from his expression and I’m still trying when he takes me in his arms. He wraps around me and brings his mouth down to my ear, murmuring gently. “I’m sorry. I’m so stupid sometimes. I didn’t think. I didn’t mean to remind you of… of bad times.”

I sniffle as I whisper into his ear “After he died, that was the first day that wasn’t bad, the first day I thought things could get better.”

His face feels hot against mine and I can feel a tear slide down his cheek until it hits mine. “I promise you, things will be better, after the war, I’ll make it better.”

It seems to ridiculous on the face of it, how can any of us know what the future holds? But his simple promise moves me. I tighten my grip on him, trying to pull his warmth in to me. We stay that way, listening to the sounds of each other breathing in each other’s necks, for minutes, hours, I can’t tell; I lose all sense of time.

Eventually Peeta breaks the silence by whispering into my ear again. “If you’re ready, we should do it.”

I gaze at him in confusion. Do what? But I nod my head slightly. In the daze I’m in, I’d do anything he wants, give him whatever he needs.

When he touches his lips to mine, I’m briefly giddy with happiness. But it doesn’t take long for my heart to plummet. His hand on my shoulder holds me, his grip preventing me from deepening the kiss. I don’t pull away but the disappointment stings me. There’s no heat in his kiss, nothing like the beach or even that one kiss in the cave. It’s just one of our standard kisses, our stock and trade. And it looks great; we’ve done this a thousand times for the cameras, for an audience. But this is nothing like the kisses I’ve been imagining ever since the beach. This isn’t for me, for us. It’s for them.

If all the acting on the Victory Tour taught me anything, it’s that I’m not good at hiding my emotions. So I bury my face in his chest to hide how empty I feel now.

I turn my face just enough that out of the corner of my eye I can see everyone staring at us, Delly, Sae, Delly’s little brother, Gale.

Peeta removes his face from my hair and laughs a little as he says “Delly, Cord, if you’re done watching the show, we should get that last batch of rolls in the ovens for lunch.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Delly and Greasy Sae serve the rabbit stew and rolls for lunch while Peeta and I put on a show in the cafeteria, nibbling at our food while holding hands. I can see everyone smiling at us and I want to throw things at them. Pretending to love Peeta was nothing; it was like shooting an arrow, like singing. It required no effort. Pretending that Peeta loves me is impossibly difficult, like pretending to be full when inside I’m starving.

After lunch, we’re at loose ends without training. Usually Gale and I go back out and check snares together in the afternoon but this time Gale offers to go alone and I make a big show of being grateful that I get to spend more time with Peeta. When Peeta heads off to therapy, I tag along, telling myself that it’s good copy, that Plutarch will appreciate it.

At the medical wing, I not only hold Peeta’s hand but stroke his bicep to give Adriana something to watch. I tell myself that that’s for the cameras too. But when I look her and imagine her feeding Peeta while he’s in restraints or comforting him after an episode, I want to get my bow from the armory, drag her into the woods by her hair and shoot her.

Dr. Lloyd wants Peeta to watch the family interviews from our first games. I don’t understand why but I wait until Dr. Lloyd leaves before I ask Peeta as I nuzzle his ear.

He brings his mouth to me but makes no move to touch me as he breathes into my ear “It’s just about the only tape related to the games that they haven’t shown me four times already. Besides, they waited until you found me before they did the interviews since everything happened so fast after you destroyed the supplies.”

I hadn’t thought of that. The interviews for the families of the final eight tributes. There were only eight of us for such a brief time between Cato killing that boy from Three and Marvel killing Rue before I killed him. Suddenly I’m curious as to what everyone said about us.

Apparently this collection is everyone’s responses to questions about Peeta’s love for me and our odds of winning. To judge from the footage that they’re interspersing, Peeta and I are in the cave, but this is before the medicine, before the story about me singing on the first day of school, before the kiss.

They start with my family and my mother stares into off into the distance as she answers their questions. I suppose to the audience she just seems composed, but I can see how vacant her eyes are, her sanity hanging on by a thread. I used to hate her for it, but I can’t anymore, not really. I’ve seen that look in the mirror too many times now.

“Katniss did a good job cleaning his wound, I’m glad that she remembered some of what I taught her. And I knew Bran’s son was a good boy, he’s so much like his father, strong and open-hearted. And he has a share of his mother’s cleverness too. I’m sure that he and Katniss can come home to us. I’m so glad that she isn’t alone there, in the arena; I know how terrible it is to be alone.”

It brings a tear to my eye when I think about how much we all lost when my father died. But the look on my mother’s face when she talks about Peeta’s father unnerves me a little. I’m thankful when the tape moves on to Prim’s interview.

“Of course Katniss and Peeta are coming home! They’re the perfect team; he’s strong and she’s fast, she’s impulsive but he’s patient. It’s like peanut butter and honey, they just go with each other. I’m sure some sponsor will send them some Chlorosepsin for Peeta’s leg. Now that they found each other, everyone will want to sponsor them; they’re adorable together!”

I risk a glance up at Peeta and he looks me in the eye, his lips twitching slightly before he starts laughing. I don’t want to join in, but I can’t keep a straight face; I’m actually giggling as we lean back into the couch. I try to adopt a serious expression when I scold Peeta, “Stop laughing at my baby sister!”

His smile finally does fade, but only because Gale has appeared on the television.

He looks nervous, I can tell by the way he’s clenching his jaw and wringing his hands. It takes him a long time to look up at the camera and start to speak.

“She can’t hunt if she’s tied down with him! Catnip- Katniss is a great climber but she’s stuck in that cave with him. I’m worried about her. With that leg, I don’t think he’s going to make it and… and when she called his name like that… I’m worried about her, about… my cousin.”

The audience wouldn’t understand but I can see what Gale was afraid of, that I’d turn into my mother if Peeta died. What was it that Caesar Flickerman said? That he knew I loved Peeta when I cried out his name involuntarily? I never wondered what everyone else thought until now. Finnick didn’t know, not until Peeta hit that force-field and I lost it. President Snow asked me to convince him, but it was all a distraction. He knew that we couldn’t stop the rebellion and I wonder now if he already knew; if what he really wanted was to keep me from realizing how much Peeta could help the rebellion. We’re so much more dangerous together.

When Peeta’s eldest brother, Bannock, comes on the screen, my interest deepens. I didn’t know either of Peeta’s brothers well and I’m curious about what they said about me before they met me, even if the Capitol didn’t leave them free to say what they really thought. Bannock always seemed so serious, as if the responsibility of being the first born hung heavily on his shoulders.

“We’re… um… we’re grateful to the gamemakers for the rules change. It’s the only way we’ll see him again. We knew Peeta wouldn’t let her die, no matter what it cost him. He used to just stare at her out the window… his sketchbook, he has all these drawings of her. When he loves, it’s never halfway.”

I hate being reminded of how much Peeta used to love me so I’m grateful when the next tape starts quickly and the middle brother, Rye, appears, looking smug.

“You’ve got to understand, silver tongue s run in our family, but Peeta’s something else. He can talk anyone into anything. I used to tell him he was wasting his talent; he could have had the three prettiest girls in school at the same time. He once convinced Bannock to take all of his evening shifts just so he could get Ban’s morning shifts to gaze longingly at Katniss. You should have seen the look on Ban’s girl’s face when she found out he couldn’t take her on a date for three weeks! He’s always going to be three moves ahead in a game like this, convincing sponsors that Katniss is the hottest girl in Panem, convincing that tribute from Two to let him be part of their alliance, convincing the gamemakers to change the rules… He’ll move mountains if that’s what it takes to end up with that girl.”

Rye was never at a loss for words and I used to chaff at his lewd comments when he was alive. But now I find that I can’t begrudge him his little jokes. My voice is teasing when I turn to Peeta. “So, the three prettiest girls in school?”

Peeta actually smiles and rolls his eyes when he responds “He really did say that. He was wrong though.”

I bat my eyelashes and tilt my chin up. “Really?”

“I couldn’t even work up the courage to talk to the prettiest girl in school,” he tells me with a hint of nervousness creeping back into his voice.

“And who was-” I stop short when I realize he meant me. “Peeta, I wasn’t the prettiest girl in school. You said so yourself. I’m not pretty. I’m duskier than the inside of a coal mine and as flat as a board. And I was a girl from the Seam with no dowry, a sister to support, a crazy mother and no father.” I quietly add “I never understood what you saw when you looked at me.”

His head hangs and his eyes are closed. He licks his lips before he speaks. “You don’t know the effect you can have; I wasn’t the only one that thought you were beautiful. But… I didn’t know what to say; I was from Town. We didn’t have anything in common, not like you and Gale. And I was ashamed, of the way people from Town treated people from the Seam, of the way my mother yelled at you that day... that I was too scared to go to you… to hand you the bread, to tell you that I cared. I just threw it and ran inside.”

I want to say something but my throat is so tight. Peeta doesn’t open his eyes when he continues “I used to obsess over it, to wonder if things would be different if I’d had more guts. I told myself that if ever got another chance, I wouldn’t be such a coward.”

He pauses for a long time, staring at the couch before he speaks again. “But when we got reaped, it all flashed in front of me. You need three things to win the games: food, a good weapon and medicine. With your bow, you had the first two. But everyone gets hurt sometime and then you have to sponsors. But you’re too proud; you’d never ask. The only way was for me to convince them. And I couldn’t even tell you before because you had to be surprised.”

His eyes are wet when he opens his eyes to look at me. “It’s bad enough that they took my leg, my sanity, my family, but what I can’t forgive is that they made me use the one thing I held onto, the thing I kept deep inside, the one part of me that was pure.”

He wipes at his eyes in frustration before he tells me “Sometimes I wish I could stop remembering things.”

I don’t know what to say. We’re both staring at the floor when the next tape finally starts playing. It occurs to me that Dr. Lloyd must be watching us to know when to start them. I feel a hot surge of anger when I think about him observing Peeta when he’s like this, but I clench my jaw and try to concentrate on the image of Peeta’s father.

“I knew how he felt… about Katniss. I tried to make my peace with it when they were reaped. But I won’t deny that it was hard… it was hard seeing him lying in that mudbank. It’s good that they’ll be together, if just for a little while. I don’t… I don’t want her to feel guilty. This is what he wanted from the beginning. He knows what the odds are. He… he wouldn’t want her to take any foolish chances.”

I think back to Peeta telling me the same thing, that I wouldn’t be doing him “any favors” if I died for him. Does Peeta remember me saving him? Does it mean anything to him now or does he just write it off as another trick to get sponsors? His face is unreadable when his mother appears on the screen.

“Oh I knew all about his obsession with her. She’s a heartbreaker, just like her mother. She’d come to our back door to trade and he’d stare at her through the window, entranced. He’s got his father’s eye for pretty things. Of course, it was nice of the gamemakers to remind her that he was bleeding to death in the mud, that he took a mortal wound for her. You’ll notice that she didn’t give a damn about him before that and once she’s gotten everything the sponsors will give her, she’ll leave him to die alone. She won’t be stupid enough to keep him around past his usefulness; she’s a survivor.”

When I come to my senses, I realize that my mouth is hanging open. Of course I never thought that “the witch” liked me, but to insinuate that I didn’t care about him while I was doing everything I could to save him, to cast doubts on our pretend-romance in a video sponsors would see, she could have condemned us both to death!

I turn to Peeta to vent my outrage but he’s not with me. His eyes aren’t just closed, they’re clenched shut and his hands are curled into fists. I sit there, paralyzed, while he shakes and grits his teeth.

When he finally stops shaking, he looks over at me and his irises have disappeared, overwhelmed by his dilated pupils. He’s panting and his voice is strained when he speaks. “You left me, real or not real?”

I swallow and shift away from him on the couch, my hands uselessly searching for something to do, some way to help. “Peeta, I…”

“Haymitch told you about 13. You shot that arrow to short-out the force-field, escaped on their hovercraft, left me behind to be tortured. Real or not real?”

Somehow my tongue is loosened for once and the words come tumbling out. “Not real. I didn’t know about Haymitch’s plan either. I shot the wire into the force-field because I thought I could kill Brutus and Enobaria. Beetee and me too. I didn’t know exactly who was where. I thought everyone was close to me except you and one of the others. I figured the blast would kill everyone close to me; only you and one other tribute would survive.” I swallow to hold back a sob before I force the last words out. “Those were the best odds I could give you.”

He’s silent, his eyes closed again and still breathing heavily for a long time and I keep glancing towards the door, but no guards interrupt us. Finally, he speaks. “The locket didn’t work.”

“That’s right, Peeta. You knew the next morning. We talked about it. I guess if the most charming man in Panem couldn’t convince me to try to stay alive, then I’m not… I’m not really much of a survivor.”

When he opens his eyes again, they’re blue. I stare into them until he breaks the silence. “People told me that she wasn’t always like that. She loved my father, but she always knew she wasn’t his first choice and it made her sick. Even when we were little, she knew how I felt; it hurt her. And later, when Prim was born… She always knew my father wanted a girl. After three boys, she just gave up; that’s all she saw when she looked at me, another failure. And then your mother had a perfect little blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter. Prim was everything my mother wanted, her and my father’s heart. And your mother got both.”

When I think about how he describes his father’s unrequited love for my mother, I remember how guilty I used to feel when he’d say something that reminded me of how much he adored me, of everything I never said to him. The realization hits me like a thunderbolt. “You’re afraid that you’ll end up like her,” I whisper to him.

Peeta turns up one corner of his mouth but pain pours out of his eyes. “Aren’t you afraid of turning into your mother?”

Part of me wants to tell him about my time in 13 when I didn’t know if he was dead or alive, the drugs they had me on, the closets, my “mentally disoriented” bracelet. But I can’t talk to him about that, about how much I long for the old Peeta, not to a boy who can barely remember loving me and not in front the men on the other side of that one-way glass panel.

Instead, I try to reassure him. “You’re nothing like her, Peeta. You’re good; you saved me, saved us, with the bread.”

He just shakes his head. “I feel so guilty after I lose my temper, say something I shouldn’t. But I can’t help it, just like her. I didn’t just get her talent with a brush; I got that fire inside, the wit, the anger. I think she was the hardest on me because we were the most alike. When you hate yourself… you hate everyone you love too.”

We don’t speak again in that room or in the cafeteria for dinner or in our common room afterward. My mother and Prim say goodnight but we just nod. The silence persists while he chains himself to the radiator and I shut the door to my room and lie in my bed, a thousand miles from any kind of rest.

I lie in bed for an hour before I admit to myself that I can’t get any sleep. I want to sleep. I want real sleep so badly and when I start to dwell on the fact that the one person who can give it to me is right outside my door, something inside me breaks.

I throw off the covers and grab my pillow before I pull the door open and step into the common room. Of course Peeta isn’t sleeping either; he’s lying on his back staring up at the ceiling before he turns his head toward me.

He starts to say something stupid like “Couldn’t sleep?” but I’m not really listening. I place my pillow next to his and lie down on the bedroll next to him before I wrap my arms around his neck.

“Katniss, this isn’t safe.”

I cut him off by pressing my fingers over his lips. My Peeta knew how much I needed this and I don’t have the patience to convince this version of him. When I do respond, I can’t resist mocking him. “Oh, I’m sorry, Sir Peeta Mellark, my knight in shining armor. You could protect me from myself if only you hadn’t manacled yourself to this infernal device!”

I’m rewarded when he sounds genuinely upset. “You know, you’re going to get yourself killed for nothing! There aren’t any cameras here; Plutarch won’t even get any usable footage out of it!” His face falls and runs his free hand through his hair. “I’m not the same, you said so yourself. I don’t want you to pretend. And I don’t want to hurt you. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that again.”

I tighten my arms around his neck and press myself even closer to him as I feel anger burning inside me. “I’m not just some poor little girl that needs a big, strong man to protect her! But…” My voice falters as I choke back a sob, “I need this. And so do you. We both need to sleep. So shut up and hold me. I’m cold.”

We don’t talk about it again, but it’s the last night he spends on the floor. After that, we sleep in my bed and the handcuffs gather dust in my drawer.

 

Notes:

Peeta’s mother is a real conundrum for me. We only really get two glimpses of her in the books, the bread scene and Peeta relating his last conversation with her before the games. Based on those, she seems like, well, “the witch”. But Peeta’s father, the nicest guy in the country, married her and they had three kids so she must have or have had some redeeming features. It’s also dissatisfying to have her be a cardboard prop Disney villain. So I’ve sort of divided Peeta’s personality traits between his parents; making his father become a stolid, boring, but strong and kindhearted gentle giant of a baker (aptly named Bran) and his mother become a tempestuous artist with a scathing wit, an iron will and a broken heart.

Chapter Text

For the third time since its destruction, I’m on my way back to District 12. It’s the third trip for both Gale and me but this time we’re partnered up with a pair of bright blonde, blue-eyed merchants. Peeta and Delly are making their first trip to the ruins of our home, where the bodies of all of their parents still lie, all of their family really, save Delly’s little brother. Their friends are all dead too. Merchants were always a minority in 12, and since it was the town that was bombed first, the fraction of District 12 which survived is made up almost entirely of Seam folk, the bombing of the town gave them just enough warning for some of them to make it out.

There are so many competing purposes to this trip that it feels like the Victory Tour. Plutarch and Coin want to see the Star-Crossed Lovers defying the Capitol as they walk through the ruins of their former home. Everyone else in 13 wants to see happy Star-Crossed Lover wedding preparations. Peeta and Delly want to see what’s left of their childhood homes and I just want some time alone. Of course the plan for this trip calls for Delly to be glued to my hip so I’m the only one who can be sure of not getting what she wants.

One the hovercraft finally sets down in front of what was the Justice Building, our little foursome makes its way toward where the shoemaker’s shop used to stand while Cressida’s camera crew, minus Messalla, trails along behind us. Peeta and I hold hands while Delly nervously tugs on her braid and Gale stuffs his hands into his pockets.

After several long minutes staring over the wreckage of the cobbler’s shop and the living quarters above it, Delly turns towards the cameras and speaks, her voice tight with emotion and even higher than normal. “Cord wanted to show me a flower he found in the meadow. That’s the only reason we didn’t die with everyone else. We walked down to the meadow and when we saw the explosions, the fire… I got him to hide behind some rocks. We were still there when Gale and the others came up from the Seam. So many people were hurt, burned; there was so much blood.” Delly gives up when her sobbing becomes too strong and frequent to talk through.

Peeta takes her in his arms and gently strokes her long blonde hair. I don’t have the heart to be jealous under these circumstances, so I take her free hand in both of mine and try to be of some comfort to her.

Of course our next stop is the old Mellark bakery and I’m sickened when I think of Cressida licking her chops at a chance to capture Peeta’s pain on camera.

Peeta sifts through the rubble for a while in silence, eventually emerging with a marble rolling pin that survived the fire unscathed. His eyes are wet when he looks up at the camera, but his voice is steady when he speaks. “This bakery was in my family for generations. It was also my home for the first sixteen years of my life. We didn’t have any weapons here; it wasn’t of any military value. President Snow destroyed it and killed my family because he’s afraid. He’s so afraid of us that he’s lashing out at everything he can reach.”

Peeta makes a sweeping gesture towards the parts of the building that are still upright with his left arm. “My parents weren’t rebels; we didn’t venture past the fence or trade in banned goods. No one in my family did anything illegal. We paid our taxes, watched mandatory viewing, did what the Peacekeepers told us and hoped no one we loved would get reaped.”

When he pauses for effect we’re all holding our breath. “If you think you’re a loyal citizen and that if you do what you’re told, you’ll come out alright, you should think about my parents and my brothers. President Snow isn’t anyone’s friend, whoever you are, whatever you think you are to this government, you’re just another playing piece and he won’t hesitate to sacrifice you.”

He brushes tears back from his eyes before he makes his final appeal. “It’s hard for me to be here because I killed these people, I killed my family and all my friends from school.” When I open my mouth to tell him that it isn’t true, isn’t real, no words come out and he continues. “Do you know why all these people are dead? Because the Capitol told me I was a piece in a game and even though I played by the rules, I didn’t play their game the way they wanted me to. They told me that out of twenty-four of us, only one could live. Only one of us could go home. And I didn’t argue with that. I accepted that I had to die and I told myself that if Katniss got to go home, that was enough. I’d die in the arena and she could go home and be happy. I didn’t ask them to let me live too; I just played the game to get her home.”

He looks directly at me and I know what he’s going to say next, but I’m powerless to stop it. “I know that Katniss blames herself because she saved me with the berries. But she’s wrong; when people sat in front of their television screens and saw that the Capitol couldn’t force us to kill each other, whether it was Katniss or me or Rue or Thresh, that’s what kindled the revolution. If I’d just died in that cave or on the Cornucopia or by the lake, everyone would still remember me saving her, remember her alliance with Rue, they’d remember Thresh sparing her for Rue’s sake. Katniss showed everyone that we don’t have to accept a child’s murder just because she’s from another district.”

Peeta has to deliver the end of his speech with me wrapped around him because I’m pressing my tear-streaked face into his chest and my hands are knotted in the hair at the nape of his neck. “The Capitol is deathly afraid of anything they can’t control, anyone who won’t play their games, even two sixteen-year-old kids from the smallest district in the country. They’re scared enough that they’ll kill everyone in the districts that they can. But they can’t do anything themselves; all they do is stare at a board and move the pieces around. It’s those pieces who drop the bombs, who shoot people. And if you’re one of them, ask yourself, what am I playing for? Because when you play their games, there’s only one winner.”

As Peeta wraps his arms around me, I think back to Finnick, to the myth of being a Victor. Everyone knows now that Victors just play a different game, that the winner Peeta referred to is Snow. But those of us who know Coin well can read double meanings into the speech; Peeta’s given Coin and Plutarch everything they could have asked for, but they motivated him with a threat against innocent children, including Prim, just the way Snow did. When Peeta mocks the men and women playing games with human lives, Coin must know that she’s one of Peeta’s objects.

Eventually I dry my face and the four of us start walking along the path to Victor’s Village. Peeta seems exhausted from the effort. I feel as if I’m dragging up him the hill by his hand. We’re all a little stunned by Peeta’s speech and I’m surprised to find that it’s Gale who speaks first. “I’m sorry about your family, Peeta.”

Peeta turns towards him and I tense up when I see that his eyes have gone black and his jaw is clenched.

“You aren’t sorry! Everyone you loved made it out. My family wasn’t a priority for you so you left them behind; just like she left me.”

My grip on Peeta’s hand is so tight now that I’d probably be hurting him if he were in any condition to notice but before I can say anything, Delly throws herself between us and grabs Peeta’s shirtfront.

“Peeta! You know that isn’t true. She loves you so much! You didn’t see what it was like for her when they had you! You’ve seen those marks on Haymitch’s face; she gouged those into him when she found out he’d left without you. She would never leave you, Peeta! You know that.”

Peeta and Delly are both on their knees now; his eyes are clenched shut and he’s gripping the edge of the brick path that leads up to Victor’s Village. Delly just stares at him with her hands on his shoulders; I hug myself uselessly and Gale turns away from us, embarrassed by the whole scene.

When Peeta’s breathing returns to normal, he asks in a hoarse voice “Gale, you would have saved everyone if you could have, even my mother? Real or not real?”

I can read the pain and guilt on Gale’s face when he turns around, but his mouth ticks up into a grateful smile. “Real, Peeta; even your mother.”

Gale offers a hand to help Peeta stand and Peeta shakes his head a little to clear the cobwebs. “I’m sorry. It’s harder to stay in control here; I thought… I thought I was ready but it just kept getting darker, he’s still so strong.”

My eyes widen when I understand what he means. He. It’s frightening to think about, different personalities warring in Peeta’s head. I think back what Johanna said about that first day he came to the cafeteria, ‘He started arguing with himself like he was two people.’

I want to ask Peeta about that, but not in front of the camera crew, not even in front of Gale or Delly. I’m afraid to admit, even to myself, that I hope somewhere in that blonde head, among these different Peeta Mellarks, there’s one that could love me again.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Once we arrived in Victor’s Village, we were supposed to be picking up things we need for the wedding; Delly and I were to pick out dresses for myself and my “bridesmaids” while Peeta and Gale grabbed clothing from Peeta’s collection of neatly-tailored suits. Of course the camera crew followed Delly and me. But I found something suspicious about the way Peeta made sure that he and Gale would be alone. Which is why I left Delly and the camera crew as they headed up to my room to fawn over dresses while I hastily excused myself and snuck out the kitchen window.

Since Peeta never latches his windows, slipping inside his house unnoticed wasn’t difficult either and now I’m crouched in the kitchen while I listen to Peeta and Gale around the corner in the living room.

Gale sounds as surprised by Peeta’s secrecy as I am. “I don’t understand what you want me here for. I don’t even know what a ‘tuxedo’ is.”

Peeta’s voice is hesitant when he responds. “I wanted to talk. Without the cameras. My memory’s still not what it used to be, but I do remember our deal. So just what is going on between you and Johanna?”

Gale and Johanna? My thoughts turn slowly before I hear Gale’s answering laugh. “I don’t know yet myself. It’s just… she gets me. But I’m sure Jo will be thrilled to hear that you’re so protective of her, Mellark.”

“I think we both know that it’s not her I’m worried about! What do you think this will do to Katniss when she finds out?”

“ ‘When she finds out?’ ” Gale sounds almost amused. “How about ‘if she notices’? One time or the other, I went to the slag heap with about half the girls in the Seam. I don’t think you realize just how little attention she pays to who I’m with.”

That stings. I can hear the echo of Gale from the last time we were here. ‘You only notice me when I’m in pain.’ But I can’t deny it. Back in 12, I never really paid any attention to Gale’s life outside of hunting with me. And with everything else going on in 13, I hadn’t noticed Gale was spending his free time with my ex-roommate either.

Anger seeps into Peeta’s voice when he responds. “You know that’s not true, Gale. I can remember when you were whipped, how crazy she got. She loves you. And… and I never thought I’d have any doubts about you loving her.”

It’s silent for a moment before Gale speaks. There’s no laughter in his voice now. “I do love her, Peeta. But it’s not like… Look, there are things I don’t think either of us really understood when we made that deal.”

Peeta patiently waits until Gale finally speaks again. “I tried. In 2. In the woods. I kissed her. Even though I knew it was hopeless, that she’d never kiss me the way she kissed you on that beach. I wanted to finally be done with it. And I had to try, try to convince her, to convince myself, that we could be together, that she could go on living without you. But… she was somewhere else, not with me. I could have been Haymitch Abernathy for all she cared. I could win the war, maybe I could keep her from killing herself but I couldn’t hold up my end of our deal. I couldn’t put her back together.”

Gale’s tone changes again and I hear something in his voice that sounds like wonder.

“Then, do you know how she got shot? She actually stood up and convinced the workers in the Nut to turn on the Capitol troops. That’s when I realized why it couldn’t work for us, why it always would have been you. She did exactly what you would have done if you’d been there. But I just don’t think like that. There’s this whole side of her I never really understood until you came along. Deep down, where it matters, Catnip and I are like an owl and a hawk.”

Even without being able to see him, I can feel Peeta’s mind turning over. “Night and day… So you really aren’t together? And that tape Coin showed me…”

“Coin must have had cameras on us in 2, that was the only time I kissed her that was anything more than a peck on the lips. But that’s not us, not our way. We’d never make it.”

After what seems like minutes when all I can hear is my own heart hammering in my chest, I finally hear Peeta respond. “You seem to be taking it pretty well.”

“I was pretty low when we got back from 2. She was mad at me, my mother was mad at me. Jo was about the only person that didn’t think I was a monster. I guess you could say that was when things started. But honestly, it was a relief to just admit that it wasn’t going to happen. I mean… You know how this started; for four years, it was just the two of us, hunting, providing for our families, trying to get by without our fathers.”

Gale seems to get lost, it’s not so much a dramatic pause as him trailing off into our past; it seems like another world now. “The winter before last I got so scared of losing her, that we’d grow apart. I wanted us to be together forever, get married, have kids of our own. But I could tell, just by the look in her eyes, she wasn’t thinking along the same lines. I tried to tell her after she got reaped, but by the time I finally found my nerve, it was too late.”

Peeta’s voice is light when he says “You don’t have to tell me that she’s hard to approach.”

The tension in the room dissipates as they’re both laugh before Gale continues telling Peeta our story. “I couldn’t see a future with anyone else. I mean, I took girls to the slag heap, but how many girls are looking to marry a guy who’s already trying to provide for his mother, two brothers and a little sister? Catnip was the only one who understood what it was like.”

Gale’s tone shifts again, becoming melancholy. “But since we’ve been in 13… It turns out that hunting is just about the only thing we can do without yelling at each other. I always thought that deep down, we wanted the same things. But now… I don’t know if I’m different now or she is or I just never really saw her. ”

I’m surprised at how strongly I agree with this, I think back to all of our arguments since we’ve been in 13, at how strained everything has been since the Capitol aired Peeta’s first interview.

Gale seems lost in his own thoughts as he continues. “The more we do things together, the worse things get between us. She makes me so mad and she doesn’t even care! She’s supposed to be this icon for the rebellion, but the only time she even takes any interest in the war is when she’s trying to protect them, whoever it is; Peacekeepers in Two when they’re defending a fortress from us, people working for Snow when Beetee and I design snares for them, her Capitol friends with purple hair and green skin when they think they can just do whatever they want.”

“They aren’t all bad, Gale.”

Gale laughs again but this time it’s bitter. “It doesn’t matter. There was always something to fight about, if it wasn’t them, it was you and your ceasefire, or me keeping secrets from her or her skipping training to talk to herself in a closet. But I tried to blame it all on the Capitol having you, to tell myself that it was just guilt, that if we got you back just maybe she could feel something for me. So when I lost that, I felt like I had nothing to hang onto anymore.”

“Apparently you have Johanna.”

“You know, it’s weird, but I feel like I owe you for that.”

“How do you figure?”

“When you asked me to help you, I knew. Maybe you couldn’t see it then, but I could. That was you, the real you. You’re the first thing the Capitol’s taken from us that we ever got back. And that changed everything. All Katniss talked about was going to the Capitol. And we all knew she wasn’t planning on coming back. But if you were yourself again, there was hope for her. And I don’t know; I guess that made me think there was hope for me too.”

When Peeta suddenly barks in laughter, it startles me. “You know, I don’t know why I’m not angrier about all this. I spent all that time trying to keep from going crazy about you and Katniss being together; now I find out that you aren’t and all that tape shows is you pushing things with a girl who really needed a friend after someone she trusted tried to kill her.”

Gale’s response is immediate. “You’re right. I knew it as soon as it happened; I messed up. And I don’t want it hanging over all of us. So just get it out of your system, hit me.”

“Gale, I’m not going to hit you.”

“No, this is the only way we’re both going to be able to move past this. Just hit me. We’ll tell them you had an episode; it’ll be no big deal.”

I slip back out of Peeta’s kitchen window before Peeta responds. My mind is still buzzing over everything Gale said. Part of me is jealous of Johanna, the fact that I can’t be that for Gale doesn’t mean that I’m happy sharing him with another girl. But Gale’s been hurt so much by what I don’t feel for him, a small part of me is glad that he’s found someone who might be able to love him the way he deserves.

I briefly imagine what things might have been like if Gale hadn’t fallen in love with me, if I could have freely been with Peeta without worrying about hurting Gale. But thinking about a life with Peeta that I’ll never have now hurts too much and I pull my thoughts away.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

“Katniss, where were you? It’s been nearly fifteen minutes.”

Cressida seems more surprised than angry when she questions me about my conspicuous absence. Of course I can’t tell the truth, but no lie comes readily to my lips. Instead I wordlessly open and close my mouth before Delly steps in to cover for me.

“Katniss said she wanted to look for signs of Prim’s goat; Prim loved that goat.” Delly nods solemnly.

I quickly nod in agreement and relief before Cressida asks me my opinion on a dark red dress with a plunging neckline and cream lace at the chest providing a small amount of modesty.

When I glance around the room, I see that both of the windows are open, despite the coolness of the fall air. It’s only when my nose detects the faintest hint of blood that I remember what Snow had left here for me, what Delly must have quietly removed. I can’t find any words to express my gratitude so when her eyes next meet mine, I reach out and squeeze her hand.

The interrogation about my vast and largely unused dress collection goes on until I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming. Peeta and Gale came over quickly with a collection of suits for themselves, Finnick and, to my surprise, one of Gale’s old mining crew, Thom. I hadn’t even known that he’d made it out of 12 and I’m sure that he and Peeta aren’t close, but Peeta needs two “groomsmen” to match Annie and Johanna and I suppose every man that Peeta was close to is dead.

Of course my dress is the big sticking point. Even without the dresses from the contest, I have fifteen potential wedding dresses in my closet, including one from my talent portfolio which is pretty close to the wedding dress that won the contest in the Capitol, the version made by Cinna under his own name. Using that dress would validate the vote on some level, but it could also remind people of my transformation on Caesar Flickerman’s stage. I actually like the idea of skipping the dress entirely and being married in a replica of Cinna’s Mockingjay feathers but that’s vetoed immediately by Plutarch through Cressida’s communicuff.

After a prolonged three-sided argument involving Cressida, Delly and Plutarch between the Victory Tour dresses from Districts 1, 4 and 3 respectively, Peeta steps in and convinces everyone that a dress meant for District 11 but changed at the last minute, a simple and modest white dress, is better in line with District 12 tradition and will contrast nicely with the “beautiful earth tone” of my skin. He can’t really mean that, not now; the Capitol rid him of whatever scales were over his eyes before, but it still causes my stomach to flip when I hear it. As a little girl I was constantly reminded that I didn’t have the fine ivory skin of my mother or Prim; I’m not as dark as my father was, but still miles from the look of the fashionable girls from town. When Peeta thought I was beautiful, it was an obvious rejection of the society he grew up in. No wonder he and my mother get along so well.

Once that’s finally agreed on and Delly has chosen dresses for Annie, Johanna and herself, Peeta motions to Cressida and then sets two small boxes on my bedside table, opening one of them to reveal a ring.

Gale, Delly and I wait for an explanation but Cressida, Pollux and Castor seem to know what this is about immediately. Cressida looks up at Peeta with a puppy’s eyes while she practically slobbers in anticipation.

Peeta looks at me, but turns away before he starts to speak. “It’s a tradition in the Capitol that married couples wear rings on the fourth fingers of their left hands.” We’re all silent now and I turn my head away too. I don’t want to be reminded of how big a part Snow and now Coin have had in planning my wedding.

“Portia told me that the woman’s ring is usually jeweled, but I told her that wouldn’t work for Katniss, she loves doing things with her hands, shooting, working with knives, if the ring stuck out like that, it’d always be in the way. So I ordered a plain gold band from the jeweler here in 12, Mr. Smythe. I knew him pretty well; his daughter, Ingrid, was engaged to my eldest brother, so I trusted him to put an inscription on the inside.”

Cressida takes the ring and hesitantly reads the inscription. “Know I love you…” When she looks up questioningly at Peeta he has all our attention and his eyes are blue, deep and clear.

“It’s from the Valley Song, the song Katniss sang the day I fell in love with her. We never wanted a wedding in the Capitol or their traditions, like the dresses and the rings. This was my way of showing Katniss that no matter what happened, no matter what the Capitol forced us to do, I’d be there for her, they couldn’t take that away.”

But they did. They took him from me. I struggle to keep my face composed and cross my arms as I think about how little I appreciated Peeta while I had him. He loved me for twelve years and for eleven of them, I didn’t even know. I even wasted that last year… Why did it take nearly losing Peeta so many times to realize how much better we were together?

Cressida turns my ring over in her hand while she says “Oh, well when you say you never wanted them, does that mean you two won’t wear rings? I mean, it seems a shame. It’s such a sweet gesture…”

Maybe I’m too close to the edge with all of the wedding preparations and I was never good at this, but something inside me just bursts into flame at the thought of her discussing this with Peeta right in front of me. Before I have time to think about the consequences, I’ve closed the distance between us and snatched the ring out of her hand.

“It’s my ring, Peeta had it made for me and I’ll decide when I wear it!” I stare right into Peeta’s eyes as I place the ring on the fourth finger of my left hand before I tilt my chin up regally and stalk out of the room.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Castor and Pollux are loading all of their camera equipment onto the hovercraft and their largest cameras, the beetle-shaped ones which encase them when they shoot footage outside, are proving somewhat difficult. This gives Peeta, Gale, Delly and me some welcome time without cameras on us. But we spend it sitting cross-legged in the lawn of grass at the center of Victor’s Village and staring at the ground while we wait to leave the ruins of our former home.

Of course it’s Peeta that breaks the silence. “I don’t know how that looked on camera, but you should apologize to her; she didn’t mean anything by what she said.”

I’m tired of Peeta telling me to apologize to people and maybe that’s why I end up snapping back “Why did you show her the inside of the ring? You made it sound like it was something for us… not them.”

Gale and Delly look away while Peeta angrily struggles to respond. “I can’t understand you. Why do you care? I know why you went to 2. I don’t blame you; I tried to strangle you! I just… I didn’t think it mattered anymore. So I did what was good for the act. I guess next time I’ll ask.”

Before I can reply with another angry comment, Delly tries to diffuse the whole situation. “I thought it was sweet, Peeta. You must have been so heartbroken when they announced the Quell. But you and Katniss looked so brave standing up the Capitol.”

I forget the argument as I choke back a laugh at that. “Delly, do you see that house over there?” When she nods, I continue, “When they announced the Quell, I hid from everyone in that house while I bawled like a baby and then I went to Haymitch’s and got so drunk that I blacked out when I got home.”

Delly covers her mouth with her hands while Gale shakes his head as he remembers what I was like. Delly finally turns to Peeta and asks softly “What did you do, Peeta?”

Peeta actually smiles while he plays with a stem of grass. “You probably won’t believe me since you know I cry when birds die or little girls skin their knees,” He gestures to all three of us, “and I guess you all saw me cry when I was reaped. But I actually didn’t cry when I heard the announcement; everything just sort of fell into place.”

Delly shakes her head slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I finally knew what I needed to do. When I first got back from the games, I was confused. I was so angry and alone and I couldn’t talk to anyone about it because I might get them in trouble. I just didn’t know how to fix things. After the tour it was even worse, the whole district was being punished because of me and Katniss was going to be forced into marrying me. I could see living the rest of my life as the Capitol’s puppet in Victor’s Village while people starved to death or got whipped and I grew as bitter and resentful as my mother.”

I can’t look anymore, I’m carefully studying each blade of grass in front of me when he says “But the Quell changed all that; I knew what I needed to do to give Katniss the best chance of getting home and I stopped worrying about everything else. After the games, I’d always felt like everything wouldn’t have been so messed up if I’d just died the arena the way I planned to. The Quell was like a second chance, a chance to make things right.”

Gale laughs out loud and spreads his arms as he falls back onto the grass. When we all turn towards him, he looks at Peeta and says “You know she gave me the same speech when you two got back from the tour,” He slowly twirls a blade of grass in his fingers has he recounts exactly what I said. “ ‘If I had just killed myself in the arena, none of this would have happened. Peeta could have come home and lived and everyone else would have been safe too.’ ” He doesn’t pick his head up off of the grass but he turns it towards me and asks “Do you remember that?”

 “Of course,” I tell him, forcing the words out.

Gale shakes his head as he stares up at the sky. “Neither of you could have come home without the other and really lived. I know you thought it was different for her, Peeta, when you took that picture for your locket, when we made our little deal. I hoped you were right, but I knew you were wrong, even then. I was just too stubborn to admit it, even to myself.”

Peeta clutches the grass, his hands forming fists. When he responds “That’s not true Gale, it can’t be true…” it sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself.

I don’t know what possesses me but for some reason, Peeta thinking that I’m not worthy of him, that I could have just let him go, tears me apart. Whatever he thinks of me now, I can’t bear him thinking that I was pretending during the Quell… on the beach. As usual, words don’t come easily to me so instead I reach out with my left hand and clutch the fingers of his right hand, letting him feel the coolness of my ring against his skin. And slowly, I start to sing,

“Down in the valley, the valley so low

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow

Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow;

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.

Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,

Angels in Heaven know I love you,

Know I love you, dear, know I love you,

Angels in Heaven know I love you.

Build me a castle, forty feet high;

So I can see her as she rides by,

As she rides by, dear, as she rides by,

So I can see her as she rides by.

Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,

Angels in Heaven know I love you,

Know I love you, dear, know I love you,

Angels in Heaven know I love you.”

 

I know that they’ve stopped loading and turned a camera towards me but I don’t care. And from the look in his eyes, neither does Peeta. When he stares into my eyes, I can tell that he knows I’m not pretending, that I really care about him. And for the first time I realize that whatever unfinished business I have with Snow, I won’t leave Peeta to pursue it. Whatever happens in the Capitol, we’ll get through it together. After I’m finished, Peeta and I hold hands while all of us sit in silence until Cressida comes over and tells us that the hovercraft is loaded.

 

Notes:

The idea for an inscribed ring is half-stolen from Optimus-Pam’s excellent “A Marriage between Victors”; I’ve substituted half a line from “Down in the Valley” (which the Hunger Games wiki speculates might be ‘The Valley Song’) in place of her heart with an arrow through it.

Gale’s long speech seems uncharacteristically loquacious for him and obviously the narrative stretches a little so that Katniss can overhear it but I think it’s important for two reasons. One is the idea that Gale was terrified of losing Katniss and not just jealous and angry that she wasn’t in love with him. The other is that Gale and Katniss really are different. Katniss’ line at the end of Mockingjay about both of them being fiery misses the point entirely; Katniss and Gale have very different ideas about the value of human life and this comes up over and over in Mockingjay. But Katniss can’t seem to see her own virtue in that regard. I also thought I needed it because in canon, Gale never admits he made a mistake (and he makes a lot). I wanted to try to explain why he’s different in this story.

Chapter Text

I feel Peeta leave to go bake early in the morning but I’m so tired that when he tells me to go back to sleep, I don’t have the energy to resist. When I finally make it to the cafeteria, I find that it’s serving little sandwiches of sausage served on Peeta’s biscuits. This isn’t the first time Peeta’s made his “breakfast sausage” which doesn’t have a skin and is made into flat, heavily-spiced patties. Peeta says that his family used to make it whenever they slaughtered a pig to preserve some of the meat for weeks later when everything else had been eaten. I might have turned my nose up at it when I lived in Victor’s Village but compared to what they were serving in 13 before Peeta starting working in the kitchen, it’s magnificent. I not only eat the entire thing but carefully pick all the crumbs off of the plate. I’d probably lick the plate if I wasn’t sure I was being filmed right now.

I look up to see Haymitch sliding into a seat across from me while he stuffs a third of a biscuit sandwich into his mouth.  He doesn’t even finish chewing before he says “You know, sweetheart, if the boy’s going to put that on your finger tomorrow, you’ll have to take it off first.”

I close my left hand into a fist as I scowl at him. It’s been three days since we returned from 12 and I haven’t removed my ring the entire time. I know that it’s childish, that unlike my pearl, Peeta hadn’t given me the ring, that Peeta wouldn’t even have had it made if the Capitol hadn’t insisted. But I feel irrationally possessive of it; as if somehow as long as I’m wearing it, Peeta still loves me, in spite of what they did to him, in spite of everything he knows about me now.

I keep my voice even as I say “You’re up early.”

Haymitch’s bleary eyes still hold a hint of cleverness as he grins. “Plutarch wants me around to make all the final preparations. So all you have to do is show up and not trip when I walk you down the aisle.”

I roll my eyes at this. In a Capitol wedding, the father of the bride walks her down a gap in the seats to symbolically hand her over to her new guardian like she’s some sort of child or pet. Since my father’s gone, his place will be taken by the closest thing to a father-figure I have in my life. Of course Plutarch loves the idea of a family of Victors. He’d probably have Peeta and me shake hands after someone recited the Treaty of Treason if Haymitch and Coin weren’t there to stop him.

I’m saved from any more small talk with Haymitch when Peeta emerges from the kitchen and sits down next to me. He sets a plate with a biscuit sandwich at his own place and then sets a plate down in front of me. Before I can see, I can smell them. Cheese buns. My favorite baked good and something I haven’t tasted since I was reaped for the 75^th games.

Peeta gestures towards them as he explains “I could only scrape together enough real cheese for one batch, but I figured since it was a special occasion….”

I see Haymitch start to reach across the table to steal one and without thinking, I slam his hand into the table with the heel of my right hand. I can’t tell which is louder; Haymitch’s yelp of pain or Johanna’s vicious burst of laughter from the other end of the table.

“You should know that brainless is pretty protective of Peeta’s buns, Haymitch. Forced sobriety obviously isn’t doing anything for your judgment.”

Haymitch’s glare shifts back and forth between Johanna and me before he turns to Peeta and mutters “Boy, I don’t know if they let you out of the psych ward or you just brought it with you” and stalks off.

Peeta is silent for a moment as he watches Haymitch walk away but then he turns to me and says “You and Haymitch never got along, real or not real?”

“Real. We’re too much alike.”

Peeta’s eyes narrow for a second. “No. Not real. But you understand each other, the way my father and I did.”

I’m anxious to avoid any discussion of Peeta’s family so I change the subject quickly. “Are you headed to therapy?”

“You could say that, but not the way you mean.” Peeta smiles and makes a sweeping gesture towards the kitchen. “I have the day off to decorate the perfect wedding cake for the perfect bride.”

That’s obviously not true but that doesn’t mean that I’m not annoyed when I hear Johanna’s snort as she slides into a chair next to Peeta. “I think you’ll make a much better Capitol housewife than she will, lover-boy.”

Peeta closes his eyes and grips the table tightly until his breathing returns to normal. He won’t look at either of us as he stands up, tossing “I need to get to work on the frosting” over his shoulder as he walks away.

When he’s out of earshot, I hiss at Johanna, “That’s what the Careers called him! ‘lover-boy’.”

For the first time I can remember, Johanna looks apologetic but I’m still startled when I hear my name from her lips. “Katniss… I didn’t remember. I’m sorry.”

I can’t help but forgive her. I smile just a little and tell her “You can still call me brainless.”

Our strange bond reasserts itself as we laugh together, two broken girls trying to keep our minds off of so many things, and that gives me the courage to ask her something I’ve been curious about.

“So, what’s going on with you and Gale?”

She quickly glances around, obviously thinking of the audience and the cameras before she defiantly replies with her own question. “What’s the matter, Mockingjay? Don’t think I’m good enough for your cousin?”

When I only tilt my head a little in response, her gaze drops to her lap and she continues nervously. “Honestly, I don’t know. At first it was just… he understands. He knows what it’s like to hate them so much, to lose yourself in it. People like you, Peeta, Annie; you don’t get it. You just blame yourselves for everything.”

I want to tell her that I have good reasons, that I am responsible for so much death and destruction, but we can’t talk about that in public. Instead I try to redirect things back to her and Gale. “You said ‘at first’…”

“I…” She makes a frustrated noise. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this. I feel like it’s something more, but it’s hard. It’s hard to have that kind of trust.”

I understand that completely but I don’t know what to say. I don’t get a chance before she continues “And I don’t know if he’s really over… his last crush.” She pointedly avoids language that make it obvious for someone listening in, but I understand exactly what, exactly who, she means.

I try to choose my words carefully when I say “There was a girl that he was close to back home. They were partners, trusted each other with everything, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted something more; or thought he did. She does love him, but it was just never enough. He always wanted more than she could give. I think he knows now that she’s not who he thought she was.”

Johanna stares directly into my eyes. “And him? Is he who she thought he was?”

I can’t help but think about Gale and Beetee’s snares, his cruel, staged mockery of a mine collapse. But that’s not what she’s asking. I respond cautiously, “War doesn’t bring out the best in anyone, but that doesn’t really enter into it. She never wanted that with him. She didn’t think she’d ever want it with anyone.”

“So what happened to her?”

I think back to Finnick’s words. “Someone snuck up on her.”

Johanna laughs and runs her hand through her still short brown hair. “Kind of funny when you think about how loud he is when he walks. When did she figure it out?”

I’m a thousand miles away when I reply “When she realized that she’d lost him.”

Johanna pulls me into an embrace but neither of us cries. We sit for a time after the cafeteria empties, the sound of our own breathing clearly audible in the silence.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

My wrist tells me that I don’t have anything scheduled until after dinner when I’ll be the guest of honor at my “bachelorette party”. So I’m lying in bed staring at my pearl between my fingers when I hear a knock against my open door.

I look up to see my mother standing the doorway, framed by light from the common room. Her voice is hesitant when she asks “May I come in?”

I nod before I manage to croak “of course.”

My mother sits down on my bed and stares down at me for an eternity before she speaks again. She strokes my hair away from my face before she says “You know, I thought for a time that we’d never have this talk.”

I immediately understand what “this talk” is and I have to restrain myself from pushing my way out of bed and fleeing the room. She smiles faintly at my frightened expression before she continues “When a little girl says she’ll never marry, her mother just laughs. But after your father died; I knew. I knew you meant what you said.”

I look down at my fingers nervously fiddling with the bedsheet and say “That was back when I thought I had a choice.”

My mother sighs before she says “The war can’t last forever, have you thought about what you’ll do afterward? Surely after the Capitol falls you could leave Peeta and President Coin wouldn’t mind.”

I’m surprised by the anger in my voice when I hiss “I can’t leave him!”

But my mother isn’t surprised. She smiles faintly and says “I know. We’re not quite as different as you think, Katniss. I did not sit down at the breakfast table and calmly decide to fall in love with a boy from the Seam. There’s a reason that you never met your grandparents. They disowned me when I married your father. I lost my family, my friends, my birthright as an apothecary; everyone in town was disappointed that I didn’t marry Bran.”

My throat is dry and I can barely get the words out. “Why didn’t you?”

She shakes her head sadly. “I grew up with Bran, from the time we were in swaddling clothes. We shared everything and I did love him. Maybe if I’d never met your father… I don’t know. I first spoke to your father after I heard him sing at the Harvest Festival and after that I knew. I knew that I’d always regret it if I let him slip away.”

She laughs as she continues “Though it took a while longer for him to feel the same way about me.”

My mouth is agape. My mother’s never spoken to me about any of this. I feel uncomfortable just thinking about it.

“He didn’t have time for some silly girl from Town with her head in the clouds. I think when he first started taking me into the forest to show me where to gather herbs, he only did it to upset all the busybodies in Town.”

“When did he… What changed?”

“He tangled with a pack of wild dogs over a doe he’d shot. I tended his wounds while he was laid up. I think that’s the first time that he really saw me.”

My mother snaps out of her reverie and looks me directly in the eye when she says “I know that you hated me after your father died… when I left you and Prim. I don’t blame you, I was weak. I won’t ask you to forgive me; at least not until I can forgive myself. But I am asking you to understand. When your father died, my heart fell silent.”

I wipe at my wet eyes as I struggle to get the words out; “Mom, I… I know what it’s like to lose hope.”

While my mother tries to comfort me, I turn everything over and over in my mind, but it keeps coming back to my plan to kill Snow. I want revenge for what he’s done to Peeta, for taking Peeta from me, so badly. But what about Prim? Am I abandoning her by embarking on a suicide mission? It hits me that if I leave Prim because of my broken heart that I am no better than my mother. This is why I was always so determined never to fall in love. But Peeta ruined me.

I feel my mother’s hand stroking my hair as she smiles down at me. Her voice is so soft that she practically whispers “I know you always wanted to be stronger than your crazy mother, my brave little huntress. But you’re getting something I never can, Katniss: a second chance.”

I can barely hear myself when I respond “He loved me so much before. But… everything’s ruined; we’re so different. I can’t even tell what’s going on inside his head anymore.”

My mother purses her lips as she looks down on me. “You were lucky before, but that doesn’t mean that things are hopeless now. I wasn’t sure about how your father felt until I bared my heart to him. Sometimes you have to take a chance, Katniss. I know about what you plan to do in the Capitol. I suppose everyone does. I don’t want you to throw your life away. You have a chance to be happy now. Do you have any idea what I’d give to have your father back?”

As she gets up she turns back to me and says distinctly, “Think about it.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I don’t see Peeta at dinner because we’re both supposed to be wrapped up in our pre-wedding parties. Instead I eat with Delly, Johanna, Annie, Octavia, Venia, the Leeg twins and Cressida before we head to Octavia and Venia’s compartment for the “bachelorette party”.

Cressida’s description of what these things usually entail in the Capitol turned my stomach but since we’re in 13, there aren’t going to be any naked men or bottles of liquor. Cressida and Plutarch’s script calls for dancing, games and girl-talk. At least I know how to dance.

I’m nervous when I step into Octavia and Venia’s now garishly decorated room but I soon relax. Delly must have told them what our music is like in 12 and I find that dancing with the girls is surprisingly fun. While Annie’s clearly the most graceful of us, Johanna should get some credit for being the least… inhibited.

Later, after I win a few games of darts with Johanna as my only real competition, it’s story time. Cressida carefully arranges us in the view of her camera lens before Delly tells us when she first knew that Peeta and I were destined to be together.

Delly stares off into the distance as she starts to speak. “Of course I knew that Peeta had feelings for Katniss. But then they were thrown into the games… It was terrible. What could he do if they couldn’t both come home? But when I saw them in the tribute parade, when I saw him holding her hand, I knew he’d never let her go, not even if it cost him his life.”

Everyone is silent afterward. I manage to hold myself together and I only have to wipe a little at my slightly wet eyes before Cressida announces that the footage she has is wonderful and she’s going to go and edit it now so that she can use it in tomorrow’s broadcast.

But as soon as the door closes behind her, Delly blurts out “Finally. I thought she’d never leave. Now do you all want to hear when I really first knew Peeta would end up with Katniss?”

Of course everyone else enthusiastically approves while I sit bewildered.

Delly suddenly turns coy. “Well, first let me make sure Katniss is okay with me telling this story. Katniss, can I tell them about Peeta and Amaranth?”

I stare at her dumbly before I respond “Amaranth?”

Delly stares back and lets out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Amaranth. Amaranth Longstreet, the apothecary’s daughter, your cousin.”

I’m flustered as I reply “I didn’t… I never officially met any of my mother’s family.”

Delly’s mood turns on a dime and she coos sympathetically “Oh, Katniss. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was that bad.” After a brief, awkward silence, she returns to her subject “Well, it doesn’t sound like you know this story either so I guess maybe I should just tell it.”

My gaze doesn’t waver from Delly but behind me, I hear Johanna say “Just spit it out, blondie!”

Delly glances around the room at each of us in turn before she purses her lips and begins “Katniss’ mother, Lily, had a younger sister named Dahlia and her daughter, Amaranth, was in our year at school.”

She turns back towards me and seems to study me. “She looked a lot like your mother, so slim and elegant. And like you. She wasn’t dark like you, obviously. But you have the same nose, the same lips. She was very pretty. And kind of exotic, she had green eyes. She had about as many boys panting after her as you did.”

My eyes go wide for a second at the twinge of jealousy in her voice. Was I really some sort of sex symbol in District 12, unknowingly outshining a slightly too plump Delly Cartwright? I hear Peeta’s words echoing in my head, ‘a lot of boys like her’.

I hear Delly’s voice as she continues “Since they were both so good-looking, no one was surprised when Peeta and Amaranth started going out. But when they broke up about three months later…”

I can’t see what any of this has to do with me and the thought of Peeta having a girlfriend, kissing another girl, touching her, makes my blood boil. Rationally, I knew that he wasn’t as “pure” as I was, that he didn’t have my deep-seeded aversion to anything that could lead to children. But hearing about it first-hand is something else. I surprise myself when I hear myself snap “Just get to the point, Delly.”

Johanna laughs as Delly smiles and responds “Well I heard from a mutual friend, Camellia Wellesley, that the reason they broke up is that they were out in the meadow… making out. And she was… you know… with her mouth… And Peeta cried out Katniss’ name when he… um…”

I think the others are almost as stunned as I am as we all stare at Delly’s beet-red face. As a thousand emotions whirl around in my head, I hear Octavia’s lighthearted laugh as she gently puts a stop to Delly’s sputtering. “It’s alright, Delly. I think we all understand.”

Delly giggles a little before finally composing herself. “It’s just… Amaranth would have been any other guy’s first choice. She was smart, funny, beautiful. But no matter what she did, Peeta was always thinking about Katniss. I knew that he’d never settle for any other girl.”

I stare into a mirror in the far corner of the room, trying desperately to see what Peeta saw, to understand what made me so special. But Johanna snaps me out of it with another rude comment. “What makes you so sure she’d settle for him?”

I’m immensely grateful that the cameras aren’t rolling but before I can respond with my own nasty remark, Delly nervously replies “I saw the way she watched over him.”

Delly has everyone’s attention again when she continues “Wherever Peeta was, whatever he was doing, I’d see Katniss staring at him. I never saw her look at another boy. But I saw her watching everything he did; wrestling at the Harvest Festival, plays at school, even unloading sacks of flour at the market.”

I look up from the floor to see Annie take Delly’s hand as she whispers “You were watching too.”

Delly nods as she wipes at her eyes with her free hand. “It’s not… I never saw myself as his girlfriend. But it was hard. It would have been nice if someone would look at me that way, just once. But out of all those girls who wanted him, no one ever felt threatened by me or jealous of me.” She sniffles before jokingly adding “Those people from the Capitol, they didn’t feel the need to pretend that I was Peeta’s cousin.”

Without thinking, I cross the small room to embrace Delly. I can’t think of anything to say but she fills in the silence when she puts her lips to my ear and whispers “Take care of him.”

When she withdraws, we stand with clasped hands as the party breaks up around us. Delly bites her lower lip before she looks into my eyes and speaks. “Katniss, there’s one more thing. The bread Peeta gave you after your father died, what kind was it?”

I don’t understand why she wants to know, but I describe it as exactly as I can, the nuts, the fruit, the grainy texture, while the others clean up before we all part for the night.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I spend the night alone for the first time in weeks and I can’t help agonizing about tomorrow and hoping against hope that I’ll close my eyes and open them to find Peeta climbing into bed with me. But I know he won’t. Plutarch’s script says that the groom doesn’t see the bride from the night before the wedding until he sees her walking down the aisle. When Prim comes to wake me up in the morning she finds me already awake but bleary-eyed and sullen.

Since she’s getting what she’s wanted for over a year it’s no surprise that she sounds cheerful when she teases me with “Guess who’s here to see you, sis.”

Right behind her, Venia, Octavia and Flavius burst through the door with the tools of their trade. I get a strong feeling of déjà vu as they make me over. It’s exactly like what I’d go through before one of my appearances on the Victory Tour except instead of the usual Capitol gossip, this time it’s all about the wedding, what everyone will be wearing, what the ceremony will consist of, I even overhear Flavius whisper something to Venia about when Peeta and I will try for another child.

I clench my teeth and keep silent until they’re finished. I manage to thank them before they leave and Prim, Delly, Annie and my Mother drag me out into our common room to dress me for the wedding. Johanna’s absence is conspicuous but when I ask about her, Annie just shakes her head.

I’m almost ashamed at how long I spend staring into the mirror, admiring myself in Cinna’s creation. I couldn’t appreciate his work on the wedding dresses while I was alive but now that he’s gone, I’m fascinated by how he can make me so beautiful, so captivating, so unlike the image I normally have of myself.

Eventually, everyone’s pulled away by one errand or another until it’s just me and Delly. I wordlessly take off my ring and hand it to her. She nods and says “I’ll make sure that Gale gets it.” My hand feels strange without its weight but Delly distracts me by walking over to her bag and pulling out a packet of matches and… a small loaf of bread.

I immediately realize what they must be for but I’m mute with shock. She sets them both down on the table and licks her lips before she speaks.

“I guess there’s a lot to say. I’m not sure just where to start. Um, I know you and Peeta haven’t really toasted. It was just part of that story about you being pregnant, to protect you or to embarrass the Capitol. And I know that this wedding is about more than what the two of you want, that they want you to do it.”

She pauses to take a deep breath and stares into my eyes as if she’s looking for something. “Peeta wants this to be real. I don’t know if he’d even admit it now, but he does and he has for a long time. They could make him hate you but they couldn’t make him not love you. Even when he thought you were a mutt, he was so jealous of Gale because he still wanted to be with you and… and he hated himself for it.”

I don’t know what I’m going to say but I try to interrupt anyway. “Delly…”

“Please let me finish. I don’t want to push you into anything, I know it was hard for you when he came back and said those things and… and of course when he strangled you. But… if you do feel something for him, please, you have to say something. I don’t think he ever believed that it was real for you. It’s hard for him to see how special he is. His mother…” She pauses and shakes her head. “He’ll never ask, Katniss, never take. If you want something with him, something real, you have to tell him.”

She finally gestures to the bread and the matches. “It’s as close as I could get to the bread he gave you before, when you were kids. I won’t pretend to understand what it meant to you. But for him, when he burnt that bread for you, it was love, even then.”

My voice is barely a whisper when I reply “I know…” but I clear my throat and continue “I didn’t understand during the games, even after he told me. I didn’t really know how he felt until we came home, until after I’d broken his heart. But I do now. And Delly, thank you.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

We’re using the same room that was used for Finnick and Annie’s wedding and now I’m nervously waiting outside of it with Prim to keep me company since Haymitch is late, as usual.

Gale took Prim to the surface this morning so she could pick a bouquet of flowers for me and I clutch them tightly while I pace back and forth. Eventually Prim stops me and looks me in the eye before she says “Katniss, you don’t have to worry. If you trust Peeta, everything will work out.” I can only nod mutely in response but Haymitch finally appears before the silence becomes awkward.

He’s clean-shaven and dressed in a black suit, sleek and shiny. Peeta must have picked up something for him from Victor’s Village as well. In the state I’m in, I can’t resist snapping “You’re late!”

He chuckles slightly before linking his left arm into my right. “I’m exactly on time, sweetheart.” He looks me up and down as Prim leaves us to go take her seat. “Look, I’m only going to say this once. When I said you didn’t deserve him, I didn’t just mean you. I meant us, this country, this world. But this isn’t about deserving, not to him. I could hear it in his voice, before your first games, when he told me he wanted you to win. I could tell that you were all he ever wanted. And whatever they did to him, they couldn’t change that.”

He clears his throat and looks me in the eye again. “You’ve got to give them a good show tonight. But don’t let him think that’s all this is, not this time. I didn’t think he was coming back either, sweetheart. But he’s here and I believe you had something to do with that. So don’t waste this.”

Our grey eyes are locked, each of us trying to read the other’s mind when Plutarch sticks his head out of the door, his smile beaming at us. “It’s time.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

As Haymitch slowly walks me down the aisle, I can see that nearly all the refugees from 12 have been invited but the front rows are nearly all dignitaries from 13. Only my family, the Hawthorns and Delly’s brother have been given seats near the front. Posy walks in front of us tossing out willowherb petals until she reaches the Hawthornes’ seats.

My heart stops a little when I see Peeta waiting for me at the end of the aisle. Dressed in one of his old suits and groomed for the occasion, he looks exactly the way he did before the Quell. Before he was taken from me.

Gale stands just to his left and it’s almost disconcerting seeing him in such fancy clothes. Finnick is all smiles while Thom looks confused, his eyes darting nervously around the room. On my side, Delly flashes her teeth while Annie and Johanna stand aloof. But it’s not until I get closer that I can see how pink Johanna’s skin looks. She must a have scrubbed herself within an inch of her life. When her gaze meets mine she tilts her chin up, clearly pleased with how shocked I am.

When Haymitch finally hands me off, Peeta smiles down at me and I give him my best smile in return. I turn to see that we’re being married by Boggs. In 13, like the Capitol, the marriage isn’t simply between the couple but between them and the government. Marriages are “performed” by some government official and I suppose as our commanding officer, Boggs is as qualified as anyone else. I’m just happy that Coin didn’t decide to do it herself. Snow would have.

Boggs recites an oath for each of us, supposedly handed down from even before the Dark Days. Peeta recites his cheerfully before Delly hands me his ring and I slip it onto his finger. Then it’s my turn.

“Do you, Katniss Everdeen,  take this man, Peeta Mellark, to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better – for worse, for richer – for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

“I Do.”

Gale hands Peeta my ring and he places it reverently on my finger. We stare into each other’s eyes as Boggs says “By the power vested in me by this district, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”

We discussed every detail of the ceremony beforehand so I’m prepared for him to kiss me. I tell myself that I won’t break down, that I’ll keep up my end of the act. But when he kisses me, I’m surprised by the depth. The way he explores my mouth, it’s as if he wants to remember. I’m still tentative when I respond, fearful that I’ll ruin the moment, but tightens his grip on me as if he’s afraid I’ll be taken from him. When we finally come up for air, I don’t have any trouble smiling as we walk down the aisle together, surrounded by a joyful crowd singing the District 12 wedding song.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Plutarch managed to wheedle a larger budget out of Coin for our wedding than he got for Finnick and Annie’s so ours includes a dinner after the ceremony. The reception starts with a meal of mixed meat stew and simple whole wheat bread, which Plutarch repeatedly reminds everyone is a traditional dish in District 12. I don’t imagine any stew in 12 ever had as many types of meat in it as this one does; everything from beef from 10 to rabbits that Gale and I caught outside of 13. I do note, with some satisfaction, that I was able to contribute a number of squirrels shot cleanly through the eye.

I’m assigned a seat with Peeta on my left and Delly on my right but before I have a chance to sit down, Johanna pulls me in for a hug.  She brings her mouth to my ear and whispers “Congratulations. Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t deserve this.” At a loss for words, I blurt out “You’re so… clean.” But she just laughs and says “Don’t say I never did anything for you, brainless.”

But once I get to my seat, play-time is over. Like our Victory Tour appearances, we’re supposed to make a speech to the crowd tonight. Plutarch didn’t actually write it for us but he made it quite clear that we need to call for volunteers from the Districts for the final assault on the Capitol. Peeta told me not to prepare anything, that I’m better when I don’t rehearse. The fact that I’m supposed to be following his lead makes me incredibly apprehensive when he stands and calls for everyone’s attention.

“Well, I’d like to thank you all for coming. And for those of you watching, I hope this is as exciting as whatever your regularly scheduled program was.” He pauses for a second for the laughter to die down before he continues “I don’t know what weddings are like in the other districts, but in 12, the couple pretty much only get asked one question, ‘what are your plans?’ Which really only means one thing, ‘when are you going to start trying for a child?’ ”

The whole crowd is silent now. I try to keep my smiling as my brain feverishly works to understand where he’s going with this.

“When I thought about that this morning, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say because it’s a complicated question for Katniss and me. You see, Katniss and I didn’t… we weren’t trying before. Even without the Quell, we wouldn’t have… we never intended that. Katniss has been afraid of being a mother for a long time. You all saw her face when she volunteered for Prim. When Katniss’ father died her mother went through a bad stretch. Katniss had to raise Prim. When you come right down to it, I think that’s the only thing that could scare Katniss, having a child in the arena. Katniss knew that, and it’s why she never wanted children.”

I can’t breathe as I listen. When Peeta tells a story, it’s as if you’re there living it. I close my eyes and I can see Effie Trinket pulling a slip of paper from the bowl. I feel my breathing start to quicken before Peeta’s speech pulls me back.

“I’ve wanted children with Katniss for a long time. Now, when I think about my family, that feeling is even stronger. But neither of us is going to ready for that until we win this war. Having been through the arena twice, we’ll never feel safe, never feel that our children would be safe, while Snow is in power.”

“So we do have plans, just of a different kind. As soon as we can get permission from command, Katniss and I are headed to the Capitol. We’re going to do everything we can to overthrow this government, for Rue, for Prim, for children that haven’t been born yet. We’ll do whatever it takes to make this country a place where our children could be safe.”

“But even Katniss can’t storm the Capitol by herself. That’s why I’m also asking anyone who is able to join the rebel forces of your own districts. Whatever our disagreements, the safety of this country’s children is something that matters to everyone. The officials in the Capitol created the Hunger Games to divide the Districts, to literally pit our children against each other. But they can’t force us to play. President Snow knows that united, the Districts are stronger than the Capitol; the only thing we really have to fear is ourselves. If we’re willing to set aside our own differences, together we can make this a country where everyone can live a life without fear.”

I’m unsteady on my feet when I stand next Peeta and I struggle a little to clear my throat and get the words out. But I don’t have any difficulty figuring out what to say. “I’ve never told anyone this, even Peeta. But the night that Peeta gave me his locket in the Quell, when he tried to convince me to let him go, to let him sacrifice himself, I had a dream. I dreamt of a place where Peeta’s child could be safe. We couldn’t afford many dreams when I was growing up and I don’t have many now. So please, help me make this one come true.”

The applause from the crowd is deafening. Peeta takes my hand and raises our joined hands as the crowd cheers. I think back to how uncomfortable I was with the crowds in on the Victory Tour chanting my name. But now I welcome it. I hold onto the hope that Coin will be satisfied, that we’ll be able to keep Prim safe.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

After such a dramatic opening, the dinner itself is a pretty casual affair. Peeta and I whisper jokes to each other the way we did to get through the dinners on the Victory Tour. As his memory of our past has improved, I’ve felt more comfortable talking to him about it.

Once nearly everyone is done with dinner, they hand out glasses of cider and bring out our wedding cake and I’m as curious to see what Peeta’s done with it as anyone else. When it’s finally wheeled into view, my breath catches in my throat.

If Peeta’s cake for Finnick and Annie was the ocean, ours is a forest meadow. Peeta has sculpted nearly every plant native to 12 out of frosting. The different layers of the cake are terraces with different plants sculpted onto them ranging from a water basin at the base until you reach a little hillock at the top. At the base, arrow-shaped leaves and Katniss flowers shoot up from a pond, as you move up, you encounter dozens of plants from our book: primrose bushes, valerian root and rue flowers growing at the base of apple and walnut trees. A small patch of wild lettuce surrounds a maple tree at one point while the flowers of wild yams dot another. Towards the top, the wild onion flowers grow and at the very center… a bush with dark green oval leaves and round, black berries. Nightlock.

I stare, entranced, until Peeta murmurs in my ear “I guess it’s not very traditional for the top of a wedding cake, but if you hadn’t come up with that trick with those berries, I wouldn’t be here. They’re deadly, but they saved my life. Like you.”

I turn to him, not bothering to hide the admiration in my voice. “You didn’t even have the book as a reference. I said before that you had a remarkable memory.”

He nods just a little and then brings his lips to my ear. “It meant so much to me. You trusted me with something important to you, to your family. I knew you didn’t want… this. But I thought that somehow we could have been happy together anyway.”

We don’t have any more time to dwell on the past because we have to cut pieces from the cake and feed them to each other. When I think about it, it’s sort of a Capitol-equivalent of our toasting. I cut a piece with a Katniss plant for Peeta and he picks a piece with wild onion for me. As we mash the cake into each other’s mouths, I can’t help but wonder what those flowers symbolize for him. He must remember what happened when he picked them for me before.

The cake is a huge success, everyone eagerly pushing forward for a piece. I’m initially concerned that people will be put off by the symbolism of the nightlock but Johanna insists on getting that piece and gleefully eats the entire frosted bush right in front of a camera. She even makes a joke about Seneca Crane wishing he’d gotten to eat frosted nightlock instead of the real thing.

After everyone’s had their piece of cake, the tables are cleared away to make room to dance. We start with the line dances of 12, with Thom and, surprisingly, Haymitch, taking turns playing the fiddle. They play through several of the traditional dancing numbers while two lines of people, mostly from 12, enjoy the party. Few of the District 13 officials seem to feel like joining in and looking around, I don’t even see Coin anywhere.

Peeta and I put on a decent show, twirling arm in arm, but I can’t help giggling at his dancing occasionally. He’s much more comfortable with his artificial leg than when he first got it but he’s just naturally heavy on his feet. After a few dances, we each move a few spots down the line to switch to our old dancing partners from 12; I dance with Prim while he dances with Delly.

Dancing with Prim again sends my mind back months, back to Finnick and Annie’s wedding, to their cake, to how shocked I was that Peeta had recovered so much, to how much it hurt when he looked at me. I can’t help but worry about tonight. I know that he doesn’t think I’m a mutt anymore, doesn’t fear me. But I never understood why he loved me before. It was so unexpected; he resolved to give me everything, to die for me, to kill for me, before we ever spoke. It feels as if I’m hoping for a miracle, for lightning to strike again.

I’m in a somber mood when we start the slow dancing of the Capitol. Most of the couples from 12 just try to follow our lead as Peeta and I dance the first dance. Afterward, Peeta dances with my mother while I dance with Haymitch, since his mother and my father are both dead. Even the Capitol’s marriage traditions seem designed to remind us of our losses.

Later on we make Plutarch happy by having a victor’s dance; Peeta dances with Annie while I dance with Finnick. His eyes laugh as he speaks to me. “You know, before I got to know you, I never imagined that the girl I saw on camera, the one who couldn’t even commit to a kiss most of the time, would ever be so happy to commit herself to this.”

“Before I got to know him, neither did I.”

Out of the corners of our eyes, we see Peeta and Annie whispering to each other happily as they dance. Finnick reads my mind when he offers “She’s not the same. She’s better every day, but she’ll never be exactly as she was. I don’t love her any less.”

I can’t help but feel defensive but I keep my voice even when I quietly say “I know I shouldn’t have given up on him. I couldn’t help it, I’m not like him.”

Finnick shakes his head. “You gave up on yourself.” His gaze lingers on Annie for a second until mine follows. “She knows what I did in the Capitol, what they turned me into. She can see the good in me when I can’t.” His eyes bore into mine when he turns back to me. “He doesn’t blame you for anything. When he looks at you, he sees the girl he fell in love with.”

I have a few moments to mull on that silently before I hear the crowd murmuring from some kind of disturbance and turn to see Annie approaching us. When she sees the questioning look on my face, she offers “Peeta and Gale had to go outside. There was a fight.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

I hitch up my dress and run out the door as fast as these “high-heeled” shoes will allow me to. I can’t believe how stupid I was. Just because Gale and Peeta seemed to be getting along doesn’t mean that the fact that I’m marrying Peeta wouldn’t drive Gale to do something characteristically hot-headed and there’s no telling what Peeta might do during an episode.

So imagine my surprise when I burst through the door to find Gale and Peeta calmly standing with their arms crossed while Rory and Delly’s little brother hang their heads in front of them.

Rory’s shirt is missing several buttons at the top where someone clearly grabbed him by the collar. And Delly’s brother is sporting a red mark on his left cheekbone that’ll be a nice bruise in a few hours.

I can hear anger slipping into Peeta’s voice as he berates them. “You both know that one of the reasons this wedding is being broadcast is to present a united front against President Snow and everyone serving him. How do you think it looked to him when two boys from the same district got in a fistfight?”

Gale chimes in through clenched teeth. “Prim’s a smart girl. Neither of you idiots is going to impress her with a stunt like this. She isn’t some prize to be fought over.”

Peeta sends them back in after extracting promises to behave and as soon as the door shuts behind them, Gale and Peeta break out into fits of laughter. I stand there with my mouth open while they try to calm themselves down enough to explain what happened.

Gale manages to regain his composure first. “It’s a shame you missed it, Catnip. Rory and Cord both wanted to be the first one to ask Prim to dance one of those slow Capitol dances. Of course, I don’t think either of them knows how to dance like that, but never mind. They bumped into each other on the way and got into an all-out brawl before either of them even got the question out.”

I can feel my face flush with outrage, but not about the fight. “She’s too young to be dancing that way!”

Peeta’s grin gets even bigger before he says “Well you might want to talk to her about that. As we were dragging those two out of the ballroom, I saw Prim offering her hand to Mitchell’s son, Julian.”

I realize my mouth is hanging open again when I feel Peeta’s hand reach up and cup my chin as he closes it for me. “Don’t worry, later the three of us can sit him down and make sure that his intensions are honorable.” He gestures towards the door. “For now, let’s get back to the party.”

Gale opens the door for me as he smiles and winks. “There’s just something about the Everdeen girls.” 

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

When the party finally breaks up, Peeta and I head back to our family’s compartment. There’s a note stuck to the door in Prim’s neat handwriting:

Big sis-

Mom and I are going to sleep at the hospital tonight to give you two some privacy. We’re so happy for both of you. Give our best to my new big brother.

-Love,

Prim

I let Peeta read the note before I take it down but I ignore his grin. I can’t deny him the happiness of my family’s acceptance but it still makes me uncomfortable. It reminds me of my role in his family’s death, of the awkwardness of our act, half real and half not real, most of all, of Prim’s disapproval when I abandoned him. ‘Don’t give up on him.’

At first all we want to do is get out of our wedding clothes, to feel like ourselves again. But after we’ve both showed and changed into something more comfortable, the awkwardness sets in. It’s far too early for us to go to bed. We sit silently in the common room and I keep glancing over to the bag with Delly’s bread and matches. I consider a thousand ways of broaching the subject but the words don’t matter. I can’t even open my mouth.

I feel strange when I see Peeta fishing in his bag for something; but I still don’t move towards Delly’s bag on the table. Eventually Peeta pulls out a rectangular package, neatly wrapped in brown paper, and hands it to me.

I rip off the paper to reveal a book about plants native to District 4. As I flip through the pages, I gasp as I see colored illustrations of many of the plants from the Quarter Quell arena. I look up at him questioningly as I ask “Where did you get this?”

Peeta runs his hand through is hair as he shuffles awkwardly from one foot to another. “I had Portia buy it for me. Before… everything. I meant it to be a wedding present. On the beach in 4, you seemed so content, not weighed down by the act. Of course, after the Snow read that card, I just shoved it in a drawer with all the other wedding junk. I felt pretty stupid that I hadn’t given it to you when I saw that most of the arena was a beach.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

He just shrugs. “I suppose not.”

I stare down at my hands splayed on the pages. “I didn’t get you anything.”

He laughs at that. “Don’t worry about it, I have my sketch book.” He gestures with it to emphasize the point before he sits down and opens it.

I shake my head. “What do you mean?”

“I got you the book so that you’d have something quiet to do. You can’t go anywhere because we’re supposed to act like we’re… you know. I figured I’d sketch and you could read.”

I slam the book closed as I stumble to my feet. Peeta just stares at me as I grab Delly’s bag and turn on him. “So this was it all along? Even before, this is what you thought we’d be doing on our wedding night. With all your strategies, all your plans, there wasn’t one that ended with us really being married!”

Peeta seems even more shocked by my anger than I am. “Katniss, what are you talking about?”

I take Delly’s bread and the matches out of the bag and slam them on the table as I stare him down. “I’m talking about us actually being together!”

His eyes bulge and his mouth hangs open when he sees the bread. For once, the great Peeta Mellark can’t just magically come up with the right words. I take a small amount of satisfaction from that but I press on and try to explain how I feel.

“I’m sorry I can’t use words like you can… It shouldn’t have taken me so long to see that you really loved me or to realize I needed you. And… and I let them separate us in the Quell and I left for 2 and I didn’t even try to help you. I’m sorry for everything, alright!”

My eyes are wet and I’m beginning to hyperventilate as I hoarsely whisper the last words. “But… But we’re both here now and I missed you. I missed you so much. When they brought you back, I wanted you to kiss me. Not for the cameras. Like on the beach. For us.”

Peeta’s face falls and his shoulders slump. He shakes his head gently as he says “I know.”

So this is what it feels like. As angry as Gale was, I wonder now that he took it so well. I turn my face as I walk quickly towards my room, towards a door that I can hide my embarrassment behind. But Peeta grabs my arm to stop me. We stare into each other’s eyes for half a beat before he speaks.

“Don’t.” When I stop resisting, he releases my arm but it takes him a few seconds longer to summon the words he wants. “I’m not the same; we both know that. But I still love you. I want you to know that too. I want you to remember that when…” He stops himself and pauses to take a deep breath. “What we want isn’t important anymore. It’s not just the two of us going into an arena this time. There are things I’m going to have to do. For everyone. It has to be this way.”

I cut him off by telling him “I don’t understand!”

“In our first games, when you took out the berries, you asked me to trust you. Real or not real?”

When I tell him “Real,” he wraps his hands around mine and pleads “Trust me.”

Peeta still sleeps in my bed that night. Whatever his reasons are for refusing me, neither of us wants to face our nightmares alone. Coin’s apparent satisfaction with our propos has helped me sleep, but Peeta has become ever more restless from thoughts about returning to the Capitol. I can’t imagine what it must be like for him, but he constantly assures me that everything will work out in the end. My admission of my feelings for Peeta has changed things, even if I can’t bring myself to say those three magic words as readily as he can. When I wake up from a nightmare, he doesn’t pull away when I kiss him, he lets me have that comfort at least. But he’s always so careful to keep things from going any further. He insists that we stay in this twilight between being friends and being lovers. In the weeks afterward, as we prepare for our return to the Capitol, I wonder if this is how Peeta felt before, on the Victory Tour or in 12; confused and angry, but still desperately in love.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Peeta and I continue training with the rest of 451 under the lenses of a thousand cameras. He’s fitted for a suit of body armor but they paint it black to match my Mockingjay outfit instead of the dark grey everyone else wears. I can tell that he’s nervous about returning to the Capitol, but he tries to hide it from me, to pretend that he can handle it. It’s easy for me to see through the mask; there are so many things in a warzone that could drag him down into an episode. I wrack my brain for ideas to help him but come up empty.

In an odd tribute to our one disastrous hunting trip together, when we’re given time to practice with our specialty weapons, Peeta, Gale and I all use bows. Of course I have my Mockingjay bow and Gale his heavy militarized one. But when Beetee offered Peeta a knife that would return to his hand like Finnick’s Trident, he refused outright and instead he got a bow exactly like my Mockingjay bow but scaled-up to fit his larger frame. On the face of it, it makes no sense, Cato was right about Peeta’s skill with a knife, he was always a natural at hand-to-hand combat and during our training for the Quell, he perfected his technique. While I did teach Peeta how to use a bow before the Quell, his bulky frame is just less suited to archery than a lean one like mine or Gale’s. Sometimes it’s like watching a bear trying to be a cat. But of course Plutarch loves film of us shooting together.

Whenever we practice with them, Johanna makes a variety of sarcastic comments but we all know she’s just jealous that she doesn’t have a fancy returning throwing axe. The fact that she’s going to the Capitol at all is a testament to Peeta’s powers of persuasion.

First, the very day after the wedding, Peeta talked to the assignment board and convinced them that she’d recovered enough to warrant another chance at the test. When she failed again, I gathered some pine needles to remind her of 7 and we went with Finnick to visit her in the hospital. She looked so pitiful, so broken, that I dreaded the day that we’d have to say good-bye.

But Peeta just shrugged and chose a different tactic. He gave up on the assignment board and started talking to Plutarch about how great it would be to have another young, good-looking victor for the propos. I didn’t understand at first, Plutarch has practically no authority over military decisions. But Peeta saw another option. He convinced Plutarch to attach her to Cressida’s crew as some sort of dramatic consultant. She’s not supposed to carry a weapon but she’s wearing a uniform and headed out of 13 in same hovercraft that we are.

Of course I was a lot happier about it before I had to spend a week listening to her make lewd comments when Peeta and I kiss for the cameras. But when I testily snapped at Peeta “I don’t know why you fought so hard to bring her along,” He looked me straight in the eye and calmly said “I know what it’s like to be left behind. So does she.”

I told myself over and over again that he doesn’t blame me for leaving him in the arena. But I still spent half an hour under a pipe in a laundry room before I joined him for lunch.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

As commitments pour in from the other districts, the military of 13 makes its final preparations, including a presentation by Plutarch about what we’ll be facing in the Capitol. When he presses a button, a holographic image of a block of the Capitol projects into the air.

“This, for example, is the area surrounding one of the Peacekeepers’ barracks. Not unimportant, but not the most crucial of targets, and yet look.” Plutarch enters some sort of code on a keyboard, and lights begin to flash. They’re in an assortment of colors and blink at different speeds. “Each light is called a pod. It represents a different obstacle, the nature of which could be anything from a bomb to a band of mutts. Make no mistake, whatever it contains is designed to either trap or kill you. Some have been in place since the Dark Days, others developed over the years. To be honest, I created a fair number myself. This program, which one of our people absconded with when we left the Capitol, is our most recent information. They don’t know we have it. But even so, it’s likely that new pods have been activated in the last few months. This is what you will face.”

I’m unaware that my feet are moving to the table until I’m inches from the holograph. My hand reaches in and cups a rapidly blinking green light.

Peeta and Finnick stand on either side of me and I can feel the tension radiating from them.  Any victor would see what I see so immediately. The arena. Laced with pods controlled by Gamemakers. Finnick’s fingers caress a steady red glow over a doorway. “Ladies and gentlemen…”

His voice is quiet, but mine rings through the room. “Let the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games begin!”

I laugh nervously and glance around the room when I realize what I’ve done. I turn to my right just in time to see the green light reflecting off of Peeta’s grim expression. His lips barely move when he mutters “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

The morning we ship out, we head over to the hospital to say good-bye to my mother and Prim. We haven’t told them how much the Capitol’s defenses mirror the weapons in the arena, but our going off to war is awful enough on its own. My mother holds me tightly for a long time. I feel tears on her cheek, something she suppressed when I was slated for the Games. “Don’t worry. I’ll be perfectly safe. We’re not even real soldiers. Just Plutarch’s televised puppets,” I reassure her.

Peeta just places a kiss on her forehead and tells her “Everything will be fine.”

Prim walks us as far as the hospital doors. “How do you feel?”

“Better, knowing you’re somewhere Snow can’t reach you,” I say.

“Next time we see each other, we’ll be free of him,” says Prim firmly. Then she throws her arms around my neck. “Be careful.”

When she reaches up to hug Peeta, I can’t hear what she whispers in his ear but I can read his lips when he replies “Always.”

Delly never asked about our wedding night and I didn’t volunteer anything. But as Peeta and I are finally boarding the hovercraft to leave, Delly makes sure that she’s the last person to give me a hug. As we embrace, she slips a slim package into my pocket and I later discover that it’s a packet of crackers embossed with mockingjays and she’s carefully burned them around the edges.

 

Notes:

This chapter just kept getting longer and longer as I tried to fit in everything I had planned. I was pleased with how the Delly and Johanna scenes worked out and I thought I did a nice job on the mother-daughter bonding. The bachelorette party scene was rewritten several times because I kept ending up unhappy with the portrayal of Peeta and Amaranth’s relationship. It’s not worth devoting a ton of space to but I simultaneously love the idea of Peeta subconsciously searching for Katniss-substitutes and hate the idea of a girl being used as a Katniss-substitute.

Chapter Text

Peeta and I are surprised when the hovercraft takes us to, of all places, 12, where a makeshift transportation area has been set up outside the fire zone. No luxury trains this time, but a cargo car packed to the limit with soldiers in their dark gray uniforms, sleeping with their heads on their packs. After a couple of days’ travel, we disembark inside one of the mountain tunnels leading to the Capitol, and make the rest of the six-hour trek on foot, taking care to step only on a glowing green paint line that marks safe passage to the air above.

We come out in the rebel encampment and Peeta and I stop and stare for a time when we see that it’s a ten-block stretch outside the train station where we made our previous arrivals. It’s already crawling with soldiers. Squad 451 is assigned a spot to pitch its tents. This area has been secured for over a week. Rebels pushed out the Peacekeepers, losing hundreds of lives in the process. The Capitol forces fell back and have regrouped farther into the city. Between us lie the booby-trapped streets, empty and inviting. Each one will need to be swept of pods before we can advance.

Mitchell asks about hoverplane bombings—we do feel very naked pitched out in the open—but Boggs says it’s not an issue. Most of the Capitol’s air fleet was destroyed in 2 or during the invasion. If it has any craft left, it’s holding on to them. Probably so Snow and his inner circle can make a last-minute escape to some presidential bunker somewhere if needed. Our own hoverplanes were grounded after the Capitol’s antiaircraft missiles decimated the first few waves. This war will be battled out on the streets with, hopefully, only superficial damage to the infrastructure and a minimum of human casualties. The rebels want the Capitol, just as the Capitol wanted 13.

After three days, much of Squad 451 risks deserting out of boredom. Some of us stage impromptu marksmanship contests, Finnick weaves nets that he drapes around the campsite, Peeta amuses himself by practicing hand-signs with Castor and Pollux. Jackson tries to find something to keep everyone occupied, she’s so much like a mother hen to everyone in our squad, including Peeta. Cressida, Johanna and their camera crew take shots of us firing. They tell us we’re part of the disinformation team. If the rebels only shoot Plutarch’s pods, it will take the Capitol about two minutes to realize we have the holograph. So there’s a lot of time spent shattering things that don’t matter, to throw them off the scent. Mostly we just add to the piles of rainbow glass that’s been blown off the exteriors of the candy-colored buildings. I suspect they are intercutting this footage with the destruction of significant Capitol targets.

It feels like I’m back in 2, stuck in a standoff with the Capitol. The only thing that makes it bearable is that this time I have Peeta with me. Gale and Peeta spend more and more of the down-time pouring over hand-printed maps they’ve made of the pod locations from Plutarch’s holograph and muttering to each other about how they’re controlled. But so far the only plan we have is Haymitch’s old standby, ‘stay alive’.

On the fourth morning, Soldier Leeg 2 hits a mislabeled pod. It doesn’t unleash a swarm of mutation gnats, which the rebels are prepared for, but shoots out a sunburst of metal darts. One finds her brain. She’s gone before the medics can reach her. Peeta and I barely sleep that night. As we lay in our tent, we can hear Leeg 1’s sobs. Plutarch’s latest arena has ripped its first victim from our group.

That next morning, Gale and Peeta gather Johannna, Finnick and me together a little ways from camp. It seems that while the rest of us sat quietly and tried not to cry over Leeg 2, Peeta and Gale finally found a chink in the Capitol’s armor. Back in 13, when Plutarch described the control system for the pods, Beetee speculated that a single transmitter existed that could activate or deactivate any or all of the pods. After days of pouring over their hand-copied maps, Peeta and Gale think they’ve found it. After Gale laboriously explains his theory about the placement of the traps in hushed whispers, we agree that we have to try to reach it, even if we have to steal Boggs’ Holo and take off. The “Star Squad” finally has a real target.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

In the afternoon, we’re notified that the whole squad is needed to stage a fairly complicated propo. Coin and Plutarch are unhappy with the quality of footage they’re getting from the Star Squad. Very dull. Very uninspiring. The obvious response is that they never let us do anything but playact with our guns. However, this is not about defending ourselves, it’s about coming up with a usable product. So today, a special block has been set aside for filming. It even has a couple of active pods on it. One unleashes a spray of gunfire. The other nets the invader and traps them for either interrogation or execution, depending on the captors’ preference. But it’s still an unimportant residential block with nothing of strategic consequence.

After Boggs makes the announcement, I see Peeta make some sign with his hands out of the corner of me eye and both Pollux and Castor put their cameras down. Messalla and Cressida look bewildered but Johanna just clenches her jaw and walks over to stand next to Gale.

Peeta stares at Boggs in the uncomfortable silence until we’re all waiting with baited breath. Finally, he quietly tells him “This is a set-up. We both know it.”

Boggs’ shoulders slump and he lowers his head before he replies “We have orders, Soldier Mellark. I don’t like it any better than you do, but what alternative to we have? We’ll be as safe as possible, wear suits, use decoys, play it by the book.”

I can barely keep my temper in check when I respond for Peeta, “It doesn’t matter what precautions we take! Leeg 2 took precautions. But the only pods the holo has been wrong about are the ones we we’ve been assigned to clear!”

Boggs looks up at us and nods his head. “The cameras are off. Just go ahead and say it.”

“Coin is afraid of Katniss. Enough to want her dead.” Peeta tells him. “This isn’t the first time she’s tried to kill her. I’d lay odds the pod that got Leeg 2 was meant for her. Think about it: the first time Katniss leaves 13 to shoot a propo, it just happens to be the very day that the hospital she visits is attacked. When she’s sent to 2, Coin develops a plan to bury all those people alive and then she’s set right out in front. She knew about Katniss’ father, she knew that Katniss couldn’t just watch that avalanche, that she’d take any risk for a chance to save those people.”

I can’t help but look at Gale, I see the conflicting emotions across his face as we both remember our argument. But my eyes are drawn back to Peeta when he continues. “And then, after she survived all of that, Coin sent me to kill her.”

You could hear a pin drop in our campsite after that. Everyone’s holding their breath except Peeta. “I didn’t understand at the time, but Coin knew what she was doing. And it probably would have worked if a friend hadn’t shown me a tape of us when I first got back, when I tried to kill her. Seeing that, seeing myself for what I really am, snapped me out of it a little, gave me a reason to hold on when I started to slip.” I can’t bear that he thinks that of himself but I can’t open my mouth, not with everyone else around, it’s too much.

He finally turns back to Boggs. “You saved her before.  Will you help us now?”

I can see Boggs turning the situation over and over in his head. “What do you suggest that we do?”

I weigh the odds carefully before I speak. Can I trust the man who married us? If I reveal our plan to Boggs, he could have us sent back or worse. But something about him, about his demeanor reassures me. So I clear my throat and offer the simplest explanation I can. “In one of the command meetings, Plutarch said that you all suspected Snow was controlling the pods from a central location, that if we could get to it, we could disable all of them.”

Boggs nods but he looks skeptical. “It’s just a theory and we’ve always assumed the transmitter is in the presidential mansion. Getting there isn’t likely to be easy.”

Peeta shakes his head. “It’s true. I know it is. Snow is obsessed with control, with the centralization of power. He’d control all of his soldiers like puppets if he could find a way. So he probably does have some sort of remote control device in the mansion, where he can reach it. But Beetee said the actual transmitter is a tower, and there’s a whole grid of electronic equipment attached to it. There’s nothing like that in the mansion. The mansion’s old and it doesn’t have much of an electrical grid. When they brought me there for propos, the cameramen were always complaining about it. Besides, Snow is… old-fashioned. He’s uncomfortable with things like that, electronics. He prefers living things, people, mutts, those flowers he grows. If the transmitter is anything like what Beetee described, he wouldn’t even want to be around it.”

I turn when I hear Gale speak up. “We’ve been making maps of the pods from memory. When Peeta told me that it couldn’t be the mansion, I started looking at their placement, seeing what locations made sense based on that.” He takes out a heavily-marked map of the capital and points towards a building that he’s circled in red. “I think that I’ve found it. If you let me use the holo, I could be sure.”

Boggs slowly turns his head to look at each of us in turn, weighing his trust in each of us. Everyone is staring back at Boggs now with the same thought; as if we could look inside him and see where his loyalties lie. He doesn’t take long to make up his mind. Half a minute later, he’s showing Gale how to use the holo.

It doesn’t take long to confirm Gale’s theory but Gale wants to take a closer look at the pod locations. He sits mesmerized by the pattern of the traps. While Boggs shows Gale the relevant sections of the Capitol on the holo, Jackson looks over Gale’s hand-printed map before she addresses Peeta. “If Hawthorne is right about this location, it’s doable, but it’s still going to be dangerous getting there. More dangerous than clearing this block.”

Peeta shrugs in response. “If we clear this meaningless block, Coin will just find something else pointless and dangerous for us to do. Until the war is over, there aren’t going to be any truly safe places for us. And if Coin is committed to killing us, being where she can find us is the most dangerous place of all. But If we can disable the transmitter, we’re halfway towards ending the war.”

Homes nods his head in agreement. “I’d rather die trying to make a difference than get blown up as an extra in one of Heavansbee’s propos.”

Boggs looks up wearily and says. “So would I, soldier.”

Mitchell laughs bitterly before he chimes in. “I think that goes for all of us.” He chews on a toothpick as he looks over to Peeta. “Well, you’re the man who’s always three moves ahead, Mellark. How do you plan to get us there?”

Peeta laughs as he sits down next to the campfire. “I appreciate the vote of confidence. But,” He sweeps his arm towards where Johanna has joined Finnick lounging on a sleeping bag, “the five of us have already talked it over and there are… complications.”

Johanna snorts as she stretches out, using Finnick’s backpack as a pillow. “There’s nothing complicated about it. We’re sitting ducks if we try to move through the streets and anything could be in the buildings: pods, peacekeepers, mutts. We won’t know until we’re right on top of them. So unless our Mockingjay can grow wings and fly…”

My scowling at Johanna is interrupted when I notice Pollux is gesturing excitedly and making a kind of buzzing sound while making hand signs to Peeta. But Peeta just shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Pollux, it’s too fast. I can’t understand.” Castor takes Pollux aside and the two make signs back and forth rapidly.

Eventually they rejoin us and Castor quietly tells us “He says there’s another way. Underground.”

“My brother worked down below, in the tunnels, after he became an Avox,” says Castor. Of course. Who else would they get to maintain dank, evil-smelling passages mined with pods? “Took five years before we were able to buy his way up to ground level. Didn’t see the sun once. He says he can get us to the spot on that map.”

It’s exciting and frightening at the same time. We all stand there for a long time trying to formulate a response.

Finally, Peeta turns to Pollux. “Well, then you just became our most valuable asset.” Castor laughs and Pollux actually manages a smile.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

We pack up everything that we can use and carry comfortably, leaving behind the large insect-shaped cameras a thousand other trifles as well as my Mockingjay suit, it’s fantastic for popos but the white ovals on black make it too conspicuous for stealth.

The first problem we’re confronted with is what to do with our propaganda crew. Of course Johanna is thrilled to take up Peeta’s gun and be part of the war effort in earnest. But what are we supposed to do with Cressida and Massella, neither of whom have any combat training? We aren’t scheduled to start filming for another two hours so as long as they’re with us, then as far as anyone in command knows, we’re on our way to clearing that block; just the way our orders are written up. But if we leave them behind and someone discovers them, they’ll immediately question where the rest of us are and what we’re doing. We offer to clear a nearby ground-floor apartment to leave them a place to hide. It’s no guarantee of safety. But Peeta was right; there are no truly safe places in an arena.

But we’re all surprised when they insist on coming with us. Cressida admits that they won’t be much use in getting to the tower but she thinks that they might be able to use the communications equipment there to make sure the rest of the rebels know the pods are disarmed.

We descend into the basement of that same building to make our way into the undercity. As we move through the tunnels, we can all see that Peeta called it right. Pollux turns out to be worth ten Holos. There is a simple network of wide tunnels that directly corresponds to the main street plan above, underlying the major avenues and cross streets. It’s called the Transfer, since small trucks use it to deliver goods around the city. During the day, its many pods are deactivated, but at night it’s a minefield. However, hundreds of additional passages, utility shafts, train tracks, and drainage tubes form a multilevel maze. Pollux knows details that would lead to disaster for a newcomer, like which offshoots might require gas masks or have live wires or rats the size of beavers. He alerts us to the gush of water that sweeps through the sewers periodically, so Gale knows to hold Johanna. He grips her tightly against him, stroking her head as she shivers violently while his other hand is clamped over her mouth to silence her screams. Pollux can also anticipate the time the Avoxes will be changing shifts, lead us into damp, obscure pipes to dodge the nearly silent passage of cargo trains. Most importantly, he has knowledge of the cameras. There aren’t many down in this gloomy, misty place, except in the Transfer. But we keep well out of their way.

We manage to exit a train tunnel just in time when a spray of gunfire brings down a shower of plaster. I jerk my head from side to side, looking for the pod, before I turn and see the squad of Peacekeepers pounding down the Transfer toward us. With long train roaring through the tunnel behind us, there’s nothing to do but fire back. They outnumber us two to one, but we’re flush with marksmen in the Star Squad and we aren’t trying to run and shoot at the same time.

Fish in a barrel, I think, as blossoms of red stain their white uniforms. Eventually the deafening echoes of gunfire die down. But when I turn to congratulate the others, I see that Leeg 1 and Boggs are down and Peeta is hunched on the floor clutching his head, his bow discarded on the floor. Homes is using a first aid kit on Boggs as I approach Peeta.

As I reach him, I hear him whispering “Not real. Not real. Not real. Not real….” over and over to himself like a mantra. I softly call out to him “Peeta…” and then with more confidence than I really have, “Peeta, it’s okay. It’s over now. We’re safe.”

Peeta brings his head up from his hands but doesn’t look me in the eye. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot. He’ll get loose if I shoot, if I kill.”

I tentatively reach out to stroke his hair as I say “You don’t have to. I can shoot. I’ll protect you.”

He shakes his head violently. “You need to protect yourself! I’ll distract you, get you killed.”

I take his face in both of my hands and force him to look me in the eye. “We protected each other before, in the arena. Real or not real?” When he doesn’t respond, I repeat the question, “Real or not real, Peeta?”

I can feel his pulse pounding in his neck, but his face is calm as he replies “Real.”

I nod. “As long as we’re together, we can keep each other safe. We got separated in the Quell, but I won’t let that happen again.”

Peeta and I spend what feels like an eternity in an embrace. When we finally get up from the ground, I see that Leeg 1 is gone. Homes and Jackson work diligently on Boggs, but no first aid kit can patch wounds like that. We he sees me with unfocused eyes, he motions for me to come closer.

I kneel down next to him and place my ear at his lips. His voice is a raspy whisper, “The Holo.” He’s typing in a command, pressing his thumb to the screen for print recognition, speaking a string of letters and numbers in response to a prompt. A green shaft of light bursts out of the Holo and illuminates his face. He says, “Unfit for command. Transfer of prime security clearance to Squad Four-Five-One Soldier Katniss Mellark.” It’s all he can do to turn the Holo toward my face. “Say your name.”

“Katniss Mellark,” I say into the green shaft. Suddenly, it has me trapped in its light. I can’t move or even blink as images flicker rapidly before me. Scanning me? Recording me? Blinding me? It vanishes, and I shake my head to clear it. “What did you do?”

But he’s gone. I watch his eyes stare into the distance unblinkingly until Jackson drags me up and practically shoves the holo into my hands. I can see tears forming at the corners of her eyes as she tells me “You’re in command now.” She continues softly “It has to be you. I can’t do it anymore. What are you supposed to do when you don’t know what to believe, don’t know who to trust?”

I see Peeta place a hand on her shoulder from behind before he whispers “You’ll always have to decide for yourself. But when you’re confused, you can ask.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

We continue on afterward, but our losses make the journey more somber. Under Pollux’s guidance we make good time—remarkable time, if you compare it to our aboveground travel. After about six hours, fatigue takes over. It’s nearly midnight, so I figure command must have discovered that we’re missing and Snow’s people must be wondering about the squad of Peacekeepers we killed. They’ll no doubt waste time searching through the area immediately around where the firefight took place, count and identify all the bodies, and then the hunt begins.

When I suggest we rest, no one objects. Pollux finds a small, warm room humming with machines loaded with levers and dials. He holds up his fingers to indicate we must be gone in four hours. Jackson works out a guard schedule, and, since I’m not on the first shift, I wrap my arms tightly around Peeta’s neck and go right to sleep.

It seems like only minutes later when Jackson shakes me awake, tells me I’m on watch. It’s six o’clock, and in one hour we must be on our way. Jackson tells me to eat some of our field rations and keep an eye on Pollux, who’s insisted on being on guard the entire night. “He can’t sleep down here.” I drag myself into a state of relative alertness, chew on a protein bar and sit against the wall facing the door. Pollux seems wide awake. He’s probably been reliving those five years of imprisonment all night. I get out the Holo and manage to input our grid coordinates and scan the tunnels. As expected, more pods are registering the closer we move toward the center of the Capitol. For a while, Pollux and I click around on the Holo, seeing what traps lie where. When my head begins to spin, I hand it over to him and lean back against the wall. I look down at the sleeping soldiers, crew, and friends, and I wonder how many of us will ever see the sun again.

Shortly before seven, Pollux and I move among the others, rousing them. There are the usual yawns and sighs that accompany waking. But my ears are picking up something else, too. Almost like a hissing.  Perhaps it’s only steam escaping a pipe or the far-off whoosh of one of the trains….

I hush the group to get a better read on it. There’s a hissing, yes, but it’s not one extended sound. More like multiple exhalations that form words. A single word. Echoing throughout the tunnels. One word. One name. Repeated over and over again.

“Katniss.”

Snow’s people must have discovered their dead squad of peacekeepers. It doesn’t matter whether they tracked us from the scene of the firefight or spotted us on a camera somewhere. They know we are down here now and they’ve unleashed something, a pack of mutts probably, bent on finding me.

“Katniss.”I jump at the proximity of the sound. Look frantically for its source, bow loaded, seeking a target to hit.“Katniss.” Peeta’s lips are barely moving, but there’s no doubt, the name came out of him. Peeta’s condition has been steadily deteriorating since we arrived in the Capitol. He could barely hold himself together after that firefight and now here is proof of just how deep Snow’s poison went.

“Katniss.” Peeta’s programmed to respond to the hissing chorus, to join in the hunt. He’s beginning to stir. There’s no choice, I won’t let him die as a mutt, as Snow’s puppet. Our vows echo in my head, “till death do you part”. I position my arrow to penetrate his brain. He’ll barely feel a thing. Suddenly, he’s sitting up, eyes wide in alarm, short of breath. “Katniss!” He whips his head toward me but doesn’t seem to notice my bow, the waiting arrow. “Katniss! Get out of here!”

I hesitate. His voice is alarmed, but not insane. “Why? What’s making that sound?”

“I don’t know. Only that it has to kill you,” says Peeta. “Run! Get out! Go!”

After my own moment of confusion, I conclude I do not have to shoot him. Relax my bowstring. Take in the anxious faces around me. “Whatever it is, it’s after me. I’ll transfer the Holo. Maybe I can lead it away from the rest of you.”

“No one’s going to agree to that!” says Jackson in exasperation.

“We’re wasting time!” says Finnick.

“Listen,” Peeta whispers.

My name echoes everywhere, startling in its proximity. It’s below as well as behind us now.“Katniss.”

I nudge Pollux on the shoulder and we start to run. Trouble is, we had planned to descend to a lower level, but that’s out now. When we come to the steps leading down, Pollux and I are scanning for a possible alternative on the Holo when I start gagging.

“Masks on!” orders Jackson.

There’s no need for masks. Everyone is breathing the same air. I’m the only one losing my stew because I’m the only one reacting to the odor. Drifting up from the stairwell. Cutting through the sewage. Roses. I begin to tremble.

I swerve away from the smell and stumble right out onto the Transfer. Smooth, pastel-colored tiled streets, just like the ones above, but bordered by white brick walls instead of homes. A roadway where delivery vehicles can drive with ease, without the congestion of the Capitol. Empty now, of everything but us. I swing up my bow and blow up the first pod with an explosive arrow, which kills the nest of flesh-eating rats inside. Then I sprint for the next intersection, where I know one false step will cause the ground beneath our feet to disintegrate, feeding us into something labeled Meat Grinder. I shout a warning to the others to stay with me. I plan for us to skirt around the corner and then detonate the Meat Grinder, but another unmarked pod lies in wait.

It happens silently. I would miss it entirely if Finnick didn’t pull me to a stop. “Katniss!”

I whip back around, arrow poised for flight, but what can be done? Two of Gale’s arrows already lie useless beside the wide shaft of golden light that radiates from ceiling to floor. Inside, Messalla is as still as a statue, poised up on the ball of one foot, head tilted back, held captive by the beam. I can’t tell if he’s yelling, although his mouth is stretched wide. We watch, utterly helpless, as the flesh melts off his body like candle wax.

“Can’t help him!” Peeta starts shoving people forward. “Can’t!” Amazingly, he’s the only one still functional enough to get us moving. I don’t know why he’s in control, when he should be flipping out and strangling me, but that could happen any second. At the pressure of his hand against my shoulder, I turn away from the grisly thing that was Messalla; I make my feet go forward, fast, so fast that I can barely skid to a stop before the next intersection.

“This way!” I shout, hugging the wall and making a sharp right turn to avoid the pod. When everyone’s joined me, I fire into the intersection, and the Meat Grinder activates. Huge mechanical teeth burst through the street and chew the tile to dust. That should make it impossible for the mutts to follow us, but I don’t know. The wolf and monkey mutts I’ve encountered could leap unbelievably far.

The hissing burns my ears, and the reek of roses makes the walls spin.

I grab Pollux’s arm. “What’s the quickest way aboveground?”

There’s no time for checking the Holo. We follow Pollux for about ten yards along the Transfer and go through a doorway. I’m aware of tile changing to concrete, of crawling through a tight, stinking pipe onto a ledge about a foot wide. We’re in the main sewer. A yard below, a poisonous brew of human waste, garbage, and chemical runoff bubbles by us. Parts of the surface are on fire, others emit evil-looking clouds of vapor. One look tells you that if you fall in, you’re never coming out. Moving as quickly as we dare on the slippery ledge, we make our way to a narrow bridge and cross it. In an alcove at the far side, Pollux smacks a ladder with his hand and points up the shaft. This is it. Our way out.

A quick glance at our party tells me something’s off. “Wait! Where are Homes and Mitchell?”

“They stayed at the Grinder to hold the mutts back,” says Jackson.

“What?” I’m lunging back for the bridge, willing to leave no one to those monsters, when she yanks me back.

“Don’t waste their lives, Katniss. It’s too late for them. Look!” Jackson nods to the pipe, where the mutts are slithering onto the ledge.

“Stand back!” Gale shouts. With his explosive-tipped arrows, he rips the far side of the bridge from its foundation. The rest sinks into the bubbles, just as the mutts reach it.

For the first time, I get a good look at them. A mix of human and lizard and who knows what else. White, tight reptilian skin smeared with gore, clawed hands and feet, their faces a mess of conflicting features. Hissing, shrieking my name now, as their bodies contort in rage. Lashing out with tails and claws, taking huge chunks of one another or their own bodies with wide, lathered mouths, driven mad by their need to destroy me. My scent must be as evocative to them as theirs is to me. More so, because despite its toxicity, the mutts begin to throw themselves into the foul sewer.

Along our bank, everyone opens fire. I choose my arrows without discretion, sending arrowheads, fire, explosives into the mutts’ bodies. They’re mortal, but only just. No natural thing could keep coming with two dozen bullets in it. Yes, we can eventually kill them, only there are so many, an endless supply pouring from the pipe, not even hesitating to take to the sewage.

But it’s not their numbers that make my hands shake so.

No mutt is good. All are meant to damage you. Some take your life, like the monkeys. Others your reason, like the tracker jackers. However, the true atrocities, the most frightening, incorporate a perverse psychological twist designed to terrify the victim. The sight of the wolf mutts with the dead tributes’ eyes. The sound of the jabberjays replicating Prim’s tortured screams. The smell of Snow’s roses mixed with the victims’ blood. Carried across the sewer. Cutting through even this foulness. Making my heart run wild, my skin turn to ice, my lungs unable to suck air. It’s as if Snow’s breathing right in my face, telling me it’s time to die.

The others are shouting at me, but I can’t seem to respond. Strong arms lift me as I blast the head off a mutt whose claws have just grazed my ankle. I’m slammed into the ladder. Hands shoved against the rungs. Ordered to climb. My wooden, puppet limbs obey. Movement slowly brings me back to my senses. I detect two people above me. Pollux. Jackson, Peeta and Cressida are below. We reach a platform.

Switch to a second ladder. Rungs slick with sweat and mildew. At the next platform, my head has cleared and the reality of what’s happened hits me. I begin frantically pulling people up off the ladder. Peeta. Jackson. Pollux. Cressida. That’s it.

What have I done? What have I abandoned the others to? I’m scrambling back down the ladder when one of my boots kicks someone.

“Climb!” Gale barks at me. I’m back up, hauling him in, peering into the gloom for more. “No.” Gale turns my face to him and shakes his head. Uniform shredded. Gaping wound in the side of his neck.

There’s a human cry from below. “Someone’s still alive,” I plead.

“No, Katniss. They’re not coming,” says Gale. “Only the mutts are.”

Unable to accept it, I take Johanna’s gun and shine the light the shaft. Far below, I can just make out Finnick. He’s abandoned his gun; he’s out of ammo or the fighting is simply too close now. Instead he twirls his trident around him, weaving a steel net as the mutts hiss and stalk around him. Occasionally one lunges forward only to be met with the deadly prongs. He doesn’t look up but he calls up to us, “Go, Girl-on-Fire. Make this mean something.” He can’t last forever; the mutts get closer and closer until they swarm over him, one yanks back his head to take the death bite, then it’s over.

I slide the Holo from my belt and choke out “nightlock, nightlock, nightlock.” Release it. Hunch against the wall with the others as the explosion rocks the platform and bits of mutt and human flesh shoot out of the pipe and shower us.

There’s a clank as Pollux slams a cover over the pipe and locks it in place. Pollux, Johanna, Gale, Cressida, Jackson, Peeta, and me. We’re all that’s left. Later, the human feelings will come. Now I’m conscious only of an animal need to keep the remnants of our band alive. “We can’t stop here.”

Someone comes up with a bandage. We tie it around Gale’s neck. Get him to his feet. Only one figure stays huddled against the wall. “Peeta,” I say. There’s no response. Has he blacked out? I crouch in front of him, pulling his hands from his face. “Peeta?” His eyes are like black pools, the pupils dilated so that the blue irises have all but vanished. The muscles in his wrists are hard as metal.

“Leave me,” he whispers. “I can’t hang on.”

“Yes. You can!” I tell him.

Peeta shakes his head. “I’m losing it. I’ll go mad. Like them.”

Like the mutts. Like a rabid beast bent on ripping my throat out. And here, finally here in this place, in these circumstances, I will really have to kill him. And Snow will win. Hot, bitter hatred courses through me. Snow has won too much already today.

It’s a long shot, it’s suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body starts shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his. “Don’t let him take you from me.”

Peeta’s panting hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. “No. I don’t want to…”

I clench his hands to the point of pain. “Stay with me.”

His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy.

“Always,” he murmurs.

I help Peeta up and address Pollux. “How far to the tower?” He indicates it’s just above us. I climb the last ladder and push open the lid to a utility room. I’m rising to my feet when a man throws open the door. He wears a white Peacekeeper’s uniform but appears to be unarmed. He opens his mouth to call for help.

Without hesitation, I shoot him through the heart.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

After the hell we went through to reach the control building, clearing the tower itself is child’s play. Apparently no peacekeepers can be spared to guard something in the quiet center of the Capitol because we encounter only two more guards, both armed but both quickly shot by Jackson, Johanna and myself. Peeta stays behind to try to sew up Gale’s neck wound with what’s left our first aid kit.

We quickly reach the control room at the top of the tower and the technicians there quickly surrender when confronted by three angry and heavily-armed women. After we lock all of them in a convenient closet, we can finally bring everyone else up.

When we’re all together again, I see that Peeta’s nimble fingers have done a good job on Gale’s neck. After a brief conversation, Gale and Cressida manage to shut down every pod in the Capitol by pressing three buttons. I can’t help but burst into hysterical laughter. Unfortunately we can’t communicate our success to anyone; our communications equipment has been dead since the fight with the Peacekeepers, probably due to some kind of electro-magnetic pulse. And none of us know how to adapt the Capitol’s equipment to our frequencies. Pollux writes that Castor did. I turn my head and try not to cry while Peeta embraces him.

While we stew over that, we sort through the meager rations available from our unwilling hosts and cobble together the first real meal we’ve eaten in over a day. While we eat, we watch the latest Capitol news coverage. The government has the rebel survivors narrowed down to the seven of us. Huge bounties are offered for information leading to our capture. They emphasize how dangerous we are. Show us exchanging gunfire with the Peacekeepers, although not our encounter with the mutts.

After we’ve eaten, we bar every door that leads to the street and Jackson volunteers to take first watch while the rest of us sleep. I approach the corner of the control room that Peeta’s wedged himself into and find him turning his bow around and around in his hands. I try to say something reassuring. “I saw you shoot a couple mutts with it.”

After several beats he looks up. “Yeah, it’s easier to shoot mutts than people. I got a couple before I started to lose it.” We sit in silence for a while longer before he speaks up again. “It’s really not my weapon at all; I shouldn’t have asked for it. I guess I wanted us to match,” he says as he laughs bitterly. “Mostly I just wanted something I couldn’t stab or club someone with if I went mutt.” After another eternity of silence, “I shouldn’t have come.”

I sit down next to him and place my head on his shoulder when he doesn’t pull away. “You saved us. When they were chasing us, you didn’t lose it when the rest of us did.” He nods ever so slightly in response and that’s all the encouragement I need to wrap my arms around his neck. His voice rasps when he nuzzles my ear and tells me “We’re almost there. Just close your eyes and you’ll be home before you know it.”

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

When we wake up in the morning and gather around the television, we’re just in time for one of Beetee’s break-ins. There’s been a new development in the war. The rebels have noticed that the pods aren’t active any longer. At around four in the morning, the rebels began carving three separate paths—simply referred to as the A, B, and C lines—to the Capitol’s heart. As a result, they’ve secured block after block with very few casualties.

Beetee gives the broadcast back to the Capitol, where a grim-faced reporter announces the blocks that civilians are to evacuate. Between her update and the previous story, I am able to mark my paper map to show the relative positions of the opposing armies.

I hear scuffling out on the street, move to the windows, and peek out a crack in the shutters. In the early morning light, I see a bizarre spectacle. Refugees from the now occupied blocks are streaming toward the Capitol’s center. The most panicked are wearing nothing but nightgowns and slippers, while the more prepared are heavily bundled in layers of clothes. They carry everything from lapdogs to jewelry boxes to potted plants. One man in a fluffy robe holds only an overripe banana. Confused, sleepy children stumble along after their parents, most either too stunned or too baffled to cry. Bits of them flash by my line of vision. A pair of wide brown eyes. An arm clutching a favorite doll. A pair of bare feet, bluish in the cold, catching on the uneven paving stones of the alley. Seeing them reminds me of the children of 12 who died fleeing the firebombs. I leave the window.

I turn to see Peeta and Gale studying my hand-drawn map while Johanna ties knots in a bit of string. The others just stare at me. I feel the weight of their expectations crushing me. I don’t have any plan to offer, not even “stay alive”, not after I’ve gotten seven people who trusted me killed in the past twenty-four hours.

Instead I tell them the only thing on my mind. “We need to kill Snow.”

At the sound of that, Gale’s mouth curls into a small smile. Johanna looks up from her rope. “Of course. That’s what we came here for, brainless.”

Peeta leans back into a chair. “It’s a long shot; a lot of things could go wrong. But there’s an opportunity here. The rebels still have to advance block-by-block. We’re almost at the city center here. We could blend in with the refugees. Most of the peacekeepers’ attention is going to be on the main force of the rebels; I have no doubts that we’d make it to the mansion.”

Jackson sound skeptical. “And then…”

I respond. “Then we take our chances.”

Peeta nods reluctantly. “Nothing’s foolproof, certainly not this. But we could save a lot of lives. It’s worth the risk.”

When Peeta decides that we should split up into two teams to be less conspicuous, I feel a kind of desperation rising up in me. It’s like I’m back in the Quarter Quell, with Beetee giving Johanna and me that coil of wire. I grab his wrist tightly and hiss “Together. We stay together.”

We spend the next few hours gathering materials for disguises and finalizing our plan. We gather clothes here and there from around the building to throw over our District 13 uniforms and Peeta and Cressida work wonders with make-up to alter our appearance as much as possible.  We decide that Pollux will stay behind to guard the control panel, and to destroy it if the peacekeepers come in force. Gale, Johanna and Cressida will take the Peacekeeper uniforms and weapons and try to pass for wounded making their way to a field hospital. Peeta, Jackson and I can barely find enough civilian clothes to cover us but we’ll try to pass for a family of refugees. When Cressida puts my hair in ringlets like Jackson’s, anyone would believe I was her daughter. There’s no way to fit bows under our jackets so Jackson and I take guns while Peeta goes unarmed, he’s unsure that he could pull the trigger anyway.

Before we part, we all give each other what could be a last hug. I whisper in Johanna’s ear “Keep my cousin out of trouble.” After she pulls away, she gives me a wan smile and holds up three fingers pressed together.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

We make good time, with hoods over Peeta’s face and mine, we attract little attention. I glance to either side to keep Peeta and Jackson in sight as we fall in with a tattered group of refugees. Grasping my gun close to my chest, I survey the block. There’s only a handful of dazed-looking stragglers on this street. We trail close behind a pair of old men who take no notice of us. When we reach the end of the next intersection, they stop and I almost bump into them. It’s the City Circle. Across the wide expanse ringed by grand buildings sits the president’s mansion.

The Circle’s full of people milling around, wailing, or just sitting and letting the snow pile up around them. I fit right in. I begin to weave my way across to the mansion, tripping over abandoned treasures and snow-frosted limbs. About halfway there, I become aware of the concrete barricade. It’s about four feet high and extends in a large rectangle in front of the mansion. You would think it would be empty, but it’s packed with refugees. Maybe this is the group that’s been chosen to be sheltered at the mansion? But as I draw closer, I notice something else. Everyone inside the barricade is a child. Toddlers to teenagers. Scared and frostbitten. Huddled in groups or rocking numbly on the ground. They aren’t being led into the mansion. They’re penned in, guarded on all sides by Peacekeepers. I know immediately it’s not for their protection. If the Capitol wanted to safeguard them, they’d be down in a bunker somewhere. This is for Snow’s protection. The children form his human shield.

There’s a commotion and the crowd surges to the left. Peeta gathers me in his arms and carries me to keep us from getting separated but we’re borne sideways, carried off course. I hear shouts of “The rebels! The rebels!” and know they must’ve broken through. Yes, I can see the rebel army pouring into the Circle; with no active pods to slow them down, they drive the refugees back onto the avenues. I scan the area for Jackson but I can’t find her. We wait with baited breath for a firefight to break out between the rebels and Peacekeepers but that doesn’t happen. This is what happens:

A hovercraft marked with the Capitol’s seal materializes directly over the barricaded children. Scores of silver parachutes rain down on them. Even in this chaos, the children know what silver parachutes contain. Food. Medicine. Gifts. They eagerly scoop them up, frozen fingers struggling with the strings. The hovercraft vanishes, five seconds pass, and then about twenty parachutes simultaneously explode.

A wail rises from the crowd. The snow’s red and littered with undersized body parts. Many of the children die immediately, but others lie in agony on the ground. Some stagger around mutely, staring at the remaining silver parachutes in their hands, as if they still might have something precious inside. I can tell the Peacekeepers didn’t know this was coming by the way they are yanking away the barricades, making a path to the children. Another flock of white uniforms sweeps into the opening. But these aren’t Peacekeepers. They’re medics. Rebel medics. I’d know the uniforms anywhere. They swarm in among the children, wielding medical kits.

First I get a glimpse of the blond braid down her back. Then, as she yanks off her coat to cover a wailing child, I notice the duck tail formed by her untucked shirt. I have the same reaction I did the day Effie Trinket called her name at the reaping. At least, I must go limp, because I find myself at the base of the flagpole, with Peeta looking down at me worriedly, unable to account for the last few seconds. Then I am pushing through the crowd, just as I did before only this time Peeta’s there to help me, shoving people aside easily. I’m trying to shout her name above the roar. We’re almost there, almost to the barricade, when I think she hears me. Because for just a moment, she catches sight of us, her lips form my name as some dark shape slams into her. I only catch a fleeting impression of black ringlets.

And that’s when the rest of the parachutes go off.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

Once again, Peeta, Prim, my mother and I share a room. My mother tends to the three of us along with an army of doctors, nurses and technicians. We spend most of our time in a drugged sleep. Peeta and I burned and this time the fire was far hotter than the flames Cinna wrapped us in. It destroyed much of our skin, but somehow our faces were spared. We’re assured that wrapped in new skin, we’ll be as good as new.

Prim wasn’t so fortunate, Jackson sheltered her from as much as she could, but Prim’s left arm stuck out uncovered. While they give her new skin like ours, they couldn’t save that arm much past the elbow. Instead when we’re all finished with skin grafts, she receives a hand and forearm of metal and plastic. While she sleeps, Peeta sits by her bedside and whispers to her about what it was like growing used to his leg, the phantom pain he still sometimes experiences.

Slowly, news comes to us from the outside world. On the war: The Capitol fell the day the parachutes went off, President Coin leads Panem now, we’re no threat to her, and troops have been sent out to put down the small remaining pockets of Capitol resistance. On President Snow: He’s being held prisoner, awaiting trial and most certain execution. On my assassination team: Gale, Johanna and Cressida were captured by a squad of real Peacekeepers. Gale took two bullets in an escape attempt but he and Johanna are mopping up Peacekeepers in 2. Cressida and Pollux have been sent out into the districts to cover the wreckage of the war. We receive only the briefest visit from President Coin. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ve saved him for you.” That will be my last act as Mockingjay, just one more death and we can go home.

They bring in a new head doctor to examine us, Dr. Aurelius. I like him. He doesn’t waste his breath telling us how safe we are now. Mostly Peeta talks with him while I rest my head in Peeta’s lap and tie knots. Prim sleeps. He never asks us to do anything more than we’re comfortable with. We don’t speak about the day the bombs went off, not yet. Maybe not ever.

The night before I’m to fulfill the last clause of my Mockingjay Deal, I’m asleep at Prim’s bedside, the drugs keeping us both in blissful darkness. I hear voices in the night through the haze of the morphling. Peeta must still be awake. I’m not surprised, he doesn’t take as much morphling as Prim or me. Snow’s torture gave him an incredible tolerance for pain.

I don’t open my eyes but just listen, trying to puzzle out who Peeta could be talking to. I’m stunned when I suddenly realize that the tortured sobs are coming from Gale.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know what she was going to do. You have to believe me.” I hear a female voice quieting him and it dawns on me that it’s Johanna. I’ve never heard her so subdued. Eventually Gale stops crying long enough to say “We talked about contingencies, about what would make the best bait for the primary targets. Kids… kids would reach for those parachutes; they wouldn’t think. But she never told me about…”

I hear Peeta cut him off but his voice is quiet, as if not to wake Prim and me. “It doesn’t matter. Every one of those children was someone’s Prim. You didn’t see that because you never took the time to get to know them. You could pretend that people born here aren’t just like people from home.”

Peeta takes a deep breath before he continues “I know you saw a lot, back home. You wanted to win the war, to prevent that from happening again. So you started mirroring their moves, trying to turn their tactics against them. But it’s never that simple; you are what you do. Every time you use their methods, you slip a little more into their skin, turn by turn, square by square, piece by piece. Until one day you look up from the board and realize that you’re sitting on the other side of the table.”

As Peeta’s word reverberate in my mind I hear Gale tell him “That’s why you have to let me do it. It’s my fault. And I can get close to her, she trusts me!”

Peeta just lets out a short, bitter, laugh. “Someday you’re going to have to learn to think more than one move ahead, Gale. That plan only gets us through tomorrow, there’s no way of telling what they’ll do afterward. If you don’t care about yourself, think about your family. And Jo, don’t bother. There’s no way you could pull it off. It seems like one more time, everything’s lined up for me; I can get close enough and my whole family’s gone; there’s no one left to retaliate against.”

I can make out Johanna’s raspy whisper for the first time. “What about them? Or don’t you count them as family?”

“What I think doesn’t matter. They all know about the act. And that’s all she has to say, that it was all for the audience. If she has to, she can prove it. They can have a doctor examine her, prove that we never…”

Eventually Johanna sarcastically fills in the blank space for him “That she’s still ‘pure’.”

The silence deepens but it doesn’t help me think, I still can’t understand what they’re talking about, where I am, how we got here, what we’re going to do.

“Are you even sure you can do it? You couldn’t before,” She asks him.

“I had to stay in control before. It’s simpler now. He can do it.”

I turn that phrase over and over in my mind as the drugs pull me back into oblivion but I can’t make any sense out of anything anymore.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

The next morning, I awake to find Peeta dressed in a new suit of black armor. It covers nearly all of his scars, if it weren’t for the burns that are still healing just above his eyes, you could mistake him for the man in our wedding photos. He gestures to where my Mockingjay suit and bow have been laid out. “It’s time.”

Prim’s still asleep when we’re dressed but we don’t wake her. Instead we leave her and are reunited with Effie Trinket. She’s polished from her metallic gold wig to her patent leather high heels, gripping a clipboard. Remarkably unchanged except for the vacant look in her eyes. She apologizes for missing our wedding and dotes over my ring before she leaves us with “Well, it looks like we’ve got another big, big, big day ahead of us. So why don’t you start your prep and I’ll just pop over and check on the arrangements.”

Just like at our wedding, my prep team has to make due for both of us, but there isn’t much to be done. Our new skin is too fragile to handle polishing and our singed hair isn’t amenable to much styling. They give us both a little make-up for old time’s sake and send us on our way. The three of us take a short car ride to the President’s mansion where we find President Snow being tied to a stake in the courtyard. A crowd is already forming around him. I stop and stare into his reptilian eyes and he smiles and congratulates us on our marriage and asks us to pass along his sympathy to Prim over her injuries. “So wasteful, so unnecessary. Anyone could see the game was over by that point.”

I turn away, but I’m not in the courtyard any longer. I’m in Special Weaponry back in 13 with Gale and Beetee. Looking at the designs based on Gale’s traps. I remember the psychology behind some of his designs; endangering off-spring in order to draw in the actual desired target, the parent. They all played on human sympathies. The first bomb killed the victims. The second, the rescuers. Gale’s words echo through my fragmented mind:

“Beetee and I have been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta.”

Visions of Gale’s snares and his strange conversation with Peeta run through my thoughts as we ascend the staircase. I take my place on the balcony but I can’t stop myself from turning over the implications of Snow’s cryptic statements.

I took it at face value that it was Snow’s hovercraft, his bombs. But if he had access to a hovercraft, why didn’t he use it? I know him to be a consummate survivor. And those double-exploding bombs. It’s not that the Capitol couldn’t have the same weapon, it’s just that I’m sure the rebels did. Gale and Beetee’s brainchild.

Suddenly, I’m thinking of Prim, who isn’t even yet fourteen, not yet old enough to be granted the title of soldier, but somehow working on the front lines in spite my arrangement with Coin. How did such a thing happen? I don’t doubt that Prim volunteered, she always wanted to help and she was more capable than many older than herself. But for all that, someone very high up would have had to approve putting a thirteen-year-old in combat. Did Coin do it, hoping that Prim would die and losing her would push me completely over the edge? Or, at least, firmly on her side? The rebels knew the pods were deactivated; no anti-aircraft missiles would light up the sky. And I wouldn’t even have had to witness it in person. Numerous cameras would be covering the City Circle. Capturing the moment forever.

My thoughts race as Coin addresses the crowd. Her lips move but I don’t hear any words. Peeta’s at her side, but he just stares at me, his expression pained. Finally he blows me a kiss and then turns to speak to the crowd himself. Somehow his words carry through the fog in my mind.

“People of Panem. We are about to enter a new era, one of unity. The division between the Capitol and the districts codified in the Treaty of Treason has finally bled out of us, along with the lives of far too many of loved ones. President Coin has asked me to address you today because she believes that our work isn’t quite finished yet.” He pauses to let the crowd take that in before he continues with an edge creeping into his voice “She has proposed that we hold one final symbolic Hunger Games, using the children of those who held the most power in the Capitol.”

A hush runs through the crowd, my heart hammers in my chest. This can’t be happening, can it? “I told President Coin that if she gave me this opportunity to speak, I could show you all what we need to do to move forward as one nation after all the suffering we’ve endured.”

Coin has a smug smile on her face but she doesn’t understand. She never understood Peeta, can’t comprehend what someone as good as he is would think of her sick plan. I realize exactly what Peeta has in mind a split second before his hands close around her throat.

O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O

He dangles her over the ledge. Everyone holds their breath as they wait for him to drop her, for her to fall to a certain death. But he doesn’t. His face is a mask of fear. Sweat forms on his brow and his arms begin to shake as the guards close in on him. I don’t hesitate; Snow will have to wait his turn.

I shoot an arrow right through Coin’s eye and a startled Peeta finally lets go of her lifeless body. In three strides I’m beside him, another arrow notched, daring the guards the take another step towards us. They hesitate at first but then one of them springs forward. I release the arrow but he doesn’t fall. Peeta’s somehow gotten his hand in the way.

He places his bloodied palm on my shoulder and begs “Please, Katniss. No. No more.” I don’t know what to say in response but I don’t get a choice, they’re converging on us, ripping my bow from my hands, binding us, blindfolding us, dragging us off to some prison cell.

When they remove the blindfold, I’m shocked to see that they’ve placed us back in the Training Center. I can tell that this is the twelfth floor, my old room with the corner view. I take a seat on the bed while Peeta lies on the floor, clutching his head in his hands, one of them now covered in a bandage with a red line across the palm marking the path my deflected arrow took.

Finally he speaks. “I can fix this. You weren’t trying to kill anyone. You were aiming for me, trying to stop me. It was an accident.”

I don’t know why, given that we’re both probably going to be executed in the morning, but it’s the funniest thing he’s ever said. Maybe it’s the drugs. I fall to the bed, laughing so hard that I can feel tears forming.

Peeta tugs at his hair and lets out a frustrated noise. “Katniss, I can get you out of this. But you have to help. Don’t give up! You have to focus. For Prim.”

Peeta knows exactly how to tug at my heartstrings but it’s too late for that, too late for anything really. “Peeta, not even you can convince them that I shot Coin through the eye by accident.” I continue, still laughing softly, “Besides, if you really didn’t want me here with you, you should have just dropped her.”

He finally looks me in the eye with a painful glare. “I couldn’t! I just couldn’t. It was different in the Arena, in the Capitol; they were trying to kill me. I had to stay alive then… to protect you.”

Peeta lets out a shaky breath. “I thought it wouldn’t matter. I thought I could just let him out and he’d finally get to strangle someone to death. But something’s changed… I finally tried to let him loose and I couldn’t. I don’t know. I used to be able to feel him all the time, behind my eyes, straining to get out.”

I lick at my dry lips and try not to sound excited when I respond. “But not anymore?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve felt different, since the sewers. When you kissed me, there was this warmth. I changed… somehow, like I’d found something I lost. I felt so much better. But I didn’t think… I’d spent so long unable to get rid of him; I never thought I’d have trouble finding him.”

I can’t help smiling as I say “Well I’m glad that he’s gone.”

“What does it matter anymore? We’re both going to be dead in the morning,” he says, his shoulders slumped.

I sink down to my knees on the floor next to him and force him to look up into my eyes. “It does matter, Peeta; we still have tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to marrying him. Not that I wouldn’t do it for you, but I like this better.” Peeta’s mouth is gaped open when I bring Delly’s long-forgotten crackers out of my pocket. “We never had our toasting, Peeta. If they’re going to kill me in the morning, I want to die as Katniss Mellark. For real.”

Peeta finally smiles and his eyes are as bright as they gaze back at me teasingly. “I can see you’ve got this all planned out. May I ask a question?”

“Just one. And make it quick.”

“You love me, real or not real?”

I take his hand and as I lead him over to the bed and tell him “Real.”

 

Notes:

And you thought the previous chapters were derivative! Maybe this is a good time to remind everyone that Suzanne Collins owns the Hunger Games and I’m not her. There’s a lot going on here, I suppose what I’d like to stress most is that by and large, I think the symbolism of Mockingjay works. I’m trying to show an alternative here; but I don’t mean to imply that it’s necessarily better. There are a few things that I think are needlessly depressing at the end of Mockingjay and so while many of the same events happen in this chapter, things are shifted at just such an angle that I don’t think the reader will feel like drowning him or herself after reading (i.e. Finnick still dies, but not on a pointless suicide mission). The idea of there being a central control for the pods that can deactivate them all at once is stolen from KnottedEnergy’s “Dead by Morning” and her observation that Katniss is surprised that no pods go off when the rebels storm the city center.

Chapter Text

There’s some Capitol tradition that says you should give your spouse a gift made out of wood on your fifth anniversary. That’s why I tell myself I’m carving this bow for him, a replica of one of my father’s on a somewhat larger scale. But truthfully I’d probably have chosen it regardless. I know that I’ll want to teach the children to shoot someday and I want Peeta to share in that.

Peeta thinks I don’t know about the rocking chair that he’s made for me but he went to Johanna for advice and she hasn’t gotten any better when it comes to keeping her mouth shut.

Saeth watches me from his crib with curious grey eyes. His gaze never wavers from the stained wood as I put the finishing touches on it. His sister, Willow, is “helping” her father at the bakery this morning. Despite her blue eyes and pale skin, when she gazes up adoringly at him, I know exactly how I must have looked at her age.  

It amuses me to think that Peeta and I probably conceived her life on a night that we thought we’d lose our own. But even in 13, few people could bear the thought of executing the Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12. At our trial, Dr. Aurelius made a convincing case that we’d been traumatized by our two trips into the arena and went mad at the thought of the games being held again. It became a moot point after an emergency meeting declared Paylor president; she had no interest in continuing the games. We were quietly shipped back to District 12 to recover from our “episode of temporary insanity” under the care of my mother and Prim. Haymitch joined us for the trip back. His only explanation when I asked him why was to mutter “They couldn’t find a place for me in the Capitol either.”

Our wounds have faded, inside and out. I still have nightmares and Peeta still has times when he has to grip the back of a chair to hold onto reality, but we comfort each other. Peeta has rebuilt his family’s bakery and I have reclaimed my father’s woods. Haymitch drinks, raises geese and complains about how infrequent the supply trains are. The mines have closed and District 12 now houses factories that, under my mother’s direction, use plants from our woods and imported ingredients from the other districts to produce medicine for the whole country, not just the Capitol. Prim has largely taken over and expanded my mother’s practice and runs a clinic now. It’s a strange blessing, but Prim’s artificial hand is steadier than any flesh and blood, adding to her natural talent to make her an incomparable surgeon.

They still live in my house in Victor’s Village, just three doors down. I moved in with Peeta as soon as I stepped off the hovercraft. It’s nice to have them so close by; the children love their aunt and grandmother. And I know my mother is glad to have Prim so close as well. Even five years after we nearly lost her, my mother is a nervous wreck about the prospect of Prim moving out, though she still teases Prim constantly about the parade of suitors on the front porch.

For a time, there weren’t many of us. Thom led a rebuilding crew composed largely of survivors from 12, tearing down ruined buildings and placing our dead in a mass grave in the meadow. Greasy Sae and a few others returned to help feed them. But over time, more and more people from 13 came looking for a place to live above ground. Much of the district has been rebuilt now, though it’s still smaller than it was. There’s no fence to separate us from the forest any longer and slowly, the meadow has become green again.

Just as I finish stringing the bow, I hear the door open downstairs and I hide it in the closet before I pick up Saeth and walk downstairs. I’m greeted by Willow at the staircase when she runs up to me holding a cookie and shouting “Mommy! Mommy! Look what I made for you!”

I take a sugar cookie from her hand and see that it’s frosted with a green arrow-shaped katniss leaf, not as finely-proportioned as something made by Peeta’s hand, but amazing for a four-year old. When I stare up at Peeta, open-mouthed, he just shrugs. “She got her grandmother’s hands, better than I was at her age.”

We tidy up the house a little in preparation for our visitors. Annie’s coming all the way from 4 and bringing her son. She found out only days before Finnick died. Strangely it held her together, the knowledge that she had something to live for, that part of Finnick would live on. Phineas has his father’s face but he’s colored like his mother, dark hair and green eyes.

The trip will be shorter for Gale and Johanna. At Peeta’s urging, he became District 12’s first “Sheriff”, a kinder, gentler version of our old head Peacekeeper. I didn’t have an easy time forgiving him, but Prim didn’t leave me much choice.

Prim appears in our living room as if my thoughts have summoned her. But rationally I know that she’s here because we arranged for her to watch the children while we go down to the train station to meet Annie and Phin. Willow dances around her, tugging on her untucked shirttail in a desperate bid for attention as Prim cradles Saeth against her chest.

Prim smiles and mouths “Go” as Peeta and I step out the door. Small patches of snow still cling to themselves in shady spots. But they’re only delaying the inevitable, spring is coming. I can already see a few Dandelions shooting up through the grass. I grip Peeta’s fingers in mine as we walk.

I don’t mean to, but I catch a glimpse of a television screen through someone’s window, just enough to see Alma Coin’s face and remember what this day is to everyone else; the day the Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12 went mad and killed the President. I glance up and see Peeta’s jaw locked.

“Does it bother you?” I ask softly.

He nods and concedes “A little.” Then he smiles before continuing “But I’ve never felt as lucky as I did that day. Not even when Willow was born.”

I stare up at him incredulously. “Lucky? You felt lucky to be shot in the hand, arrested and hauled back to the Training Center?”

“I felt lucky that after everything, all those times I tried to die for you, you trying to die for me in the Quell, me trying to kill you, being forced into the act twice, somehow, that little boy’s dream came true, he got to marry the girl in the red dress.”

I don’t want to have this conversation at the Train Station, so I tug on his jacket to stop him and stare directly into his eyes before I say “Luck had nothing to do with it. Nothing could have kept you from coming back to me. I didn’t know, not until that night, until we were together like that, but we were always going to make it here. Without Coin, without Snow, without the Games, without… the accident; it would have happened anyway. My father would have loved you Peeta. I know he would have been so happy to give you his blessing.”

Has he gathers me in his arms, he leans down and whispers “Now who would have guessed that the famously level-headed girl, who swore she’d never marry, believed in True Love?”

I shove him playfully. “Well it took someone with a silver tongue to talk me into it. And it’s you, us that I believe in. All it took to end the games and overthrow the Capitol was putting us in the games together. The rings and vows are just frills. Before we ever spoke, there was a chain between us that couldn’t be broken.”

Peeta’s lips curl into a smile as he says “You’re starting to sound like me. What happened to my taciturn huntress?”

I roll my eyes. “You made me Katniss Mellark and Mellarks talk too much.”

But he cures that with a kiss. And then another. And we finally come up for air when we hear the whistle of the train arriving.

fin

 

Notes:

I don’t think I’ve gone over as many possibilities for any part of this story as I did for the names of the three kids. Phineas is mostly just a way of avoiding Finnick jr but some people say that his father was Poseidon. Women from the Seam all seem to have plant names so Willow wasn’t that tough but I really scratched my head about the boy. The fact that Peeta rhymes with Pita kinda sorta maybe implies that men from town have names that match their professions which is why Peeta’s brothers always get bread names. But giving his son another bread name is boring and I already used up all the good ones. Since his mother also has a profession, I think Silvercistern nailed it with “Fletcher” but her work is so good, her characterization of him so detailed that I’d feel like I was stealing her whole character if I stole the name. Saeth is my best alternative as it purportedly means “arrow” in Welsh.

It’s been a great ride. Thanks for reading.