Chapter 1: Baptism by Fire
Chapter Text
content warnings and notes: Katniss dies in the arena!AU, hospital setting; no vomiting even if characters are nauseous; no OC deaths; canon mental illness and disability (eg: Haymitch and Johanna’s substance use, Annie’s PTSD, amputee Peeta, Beetee using a wheelchair after the explosion); canon-compliant trauma; canon-compliant dystopia (including Capitol medical and genetic experimentation and District 13 being a shithole); canon character deaths (except Finnick)
I Won’t Give The World Your Name
“Listen to me,” Haymitch said when he saw Peeta’s eyes fluttering open. “Listen to me, because they’re not going to knock you out again and they can’t wait until your tribute interview before calming people down. They did something and you’re going to be happy about it, okay? You’re going to be very, very happy about it because they’re watching.”
“Katniss,” Peeta said through chapped lips.
“She’s dead,” Haymitch said. Peeta has the feeling that he knew this already, that Haymitch had said this to him before. Maybe he had. It wasn’t his first time, opening his eyes and looking around—he knew that much.
“You were supposed to keep her alive,” Peeta said. “You had one job.”
“Well, fire me,” Haymitch said. “It got complicated.”
The door swung open and a crowd swarmed into the room with cameras and equipment. His prep team was there, Portia was there even if she looked like a wreck. He ignored them all and focused at the cameras, wondering what the cameras were doing there…
The familiar smell of powders and toners and products he can’t name fill with nostrils as his prep team descends on him, eyes red and puffy but trying to chatter on for him. Someone says congratulations, someone else says I’m so sorry, and Haymitch slinks away for now.
“Sit him up,” someone calls just before he’s pulled upright. He’s dizzy and his insides scream in protest, which is how he realizes how empty and acidic his stomach feels. He slumps his head back onto his pillow and feels empty in about a thousand more ways.
“She’s dead,” he says when Portia comes closer to fix up his make-up, the way she always does after his prep team swoops in.
Portia gives him the slightest nod and then runs her ring finger across his lip to blend a product into his skin.
“But you’re not,” she said. “It’s what she wanted. Remember that.”
Peeta wants to cry instead but suddenly Caesar Flickerman is sitting at his bedside, a surely sympathetic hand on his arm, and the cameras turn on. Peeta recognizes the sound well.
It’s what she wanted. Remember that.
It’s the only reason he doesn’t push Caesar away or cry or scream or try to see if Haymitch is really that far from punching distance.
“We’re live,” someone says.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am here with the victor of the 75 th Hunger Games—Peeta Mellark!” Caesar says, offering the camera his dazzling smile. They’ll edit in some cheers or let the crowds fill them in themselves, Peeta’s sure of it. But why are they showing him in the hospital? Why aren’t they letting him wallow and heal and scream and clean up for a few days before recapping the games and interviewing him? Is it because they know that without Katniss, he might never heal? He might never be the charming, lovable baker’s boy they want him to be?
“Peeta,” Caesar says seriously now. “I think I speak for many in the Capitol when I say I’m so very glad to see you again.”
Peeta doesn’t have an answer to that. He looks away from Caesar and away from the camera, which is when he sees Haymitch and Portia, standing next to each other. But he can’t make himself say anything. So Caesar squeezes his hand again.
“Although I suppose you never intended to see me again,” Caesar offers gently.
“No,” Peeta says because this is something he knows for sure. He tests what little he remembers about the games on Caesar, seeing what comes to him easily and what doesn’t. “No, I didn’t. We were in the Quarter Quell. Katniss was alive. We got separated. The forcefield around the arena blew up. There was a fire in the jungle. I wanted it to be Katniss. I wanted her to survive.”
He stares at his feet, under the thin hospital sheet, and Caesar squeezes his hand.
“Of course you did,” he says sympathetically. “But it must make you feel a little bit better that they saved the baby.”
Peeta looks up and he sees the camera, zooming in on his shocked face, but he can’t process it.
“They saved what?” Peeta asks again.
“You didn’t know?” Caesar says, in a shocked voice that almost sounds real, as if this wasn’t staged. “They haven’t told you yet?”
They did something while you were knocked out and you’re going to be happy about it, okay? Haymitch had said.
But there was no baby to save. There’s simply no way.
“I just woke up,” Peeta says because it seems the safe thing to do.
“Peeta,” Caesar says very sincerely, holding his hand. “Katniss died in the arena. But the best doctors in the Capitol were waiting, when they retrieved her body. They saved the baby.”
The camera captures Peeta’s absolute shock and disbelief for another beat before someone yells cut and there are orders being barked around about the next shot but Peeta doesn’t pay attention. Caesar starts saying something to him before being whisked away and Portia appears at his bedside again, probably sensing that he’s nearly reached his limit. He never has before, because Katniss always hit hers first, but Katniss isn’t here even if they’re saying that—
“Peeta,” she says quietly, taking his hands.
“Did you know?” he asks. “Did you know Haymitch was going to save me?”
“No,” she says quietly. “No, BB, I didn’t. I’m so sorry.”
That soothes him, at least, so does her old nickname for him. BB. Baker’s Boy.
“What are they saying?” Peeta asks. “Portia I don’t understand…”
“The Capitol performed an operation when they retrieved Katniss from the arena and they saved your baby,” Portia repeats carefully. She has to know there was no baby, there was never a baby, but she says it like it’s true. They’re being watched, she has to. Portia ran a hand through his hair, some of it’s been cut off maybe because it was singed in the blast that destroyed the arena. He’s sure he’ll get a proper haircut to even it out soon if the cameras are going to stick around—and when don’t they?
Peeta doesn’t know what to do with this. Haymitch risks getting close enough to join in.
“Are you happy?” he asks.
Peeta remembers the script he was given, before the cameras were rolling.
“Yes,” Peeta says even if he doesn’t understand what he’s saying.
“Someone get him in a wheelchair so we can head to the NICU for the next shot!”
The cameras are rolling again as soon as Peeta’s in a wheelchair. They’ve got Haymitch pushing him, Caesar walking next to him.
“I’m going to meet…?” Peeta doesn’t know how to end that sentence. Caesar puts a hand to his heart and awws.
“Of course you will, Peeta,” he says. “She’s your daughter.”
“It’s a girl?” Peeta asks. Thankfully, Caesar reads his confusion as shock—disbelief.
“It is,” Caesar said. “She’s still fragile, because she was so premature, but the Capitol’s best doctors are looking after her. But even hooked onto all those machines she’s beautiful. You’ll see.”
The cameras follow them as they roam through a suspiciously quiet hospital. He can’t help but think of Katniss’s mother’s kitchen, of how many people there were to heal…
Then they’re in a different room and there’s a tiny glass box in the middle. Peeta remembers something like it, an incubator, from when his class has chicks when he was in kindergarten. That was the only year they did it, because someone stole the chicks as soon as they were big enough to eat. But as he’s rolled closer and closer, Peeta realizes that in this incubator there’s a real…
The camera watches him look at his daughter and, for a second, he might have bought it himself if he hadn’t been the one to make up the lie about their baby in the first place. She looks like she was just picked out of the Seam—there’s that olive skin, and then there’s the size of her. Small and frail, like those dolls made of twigs he’s seen some children carry when their parents can make but not buy toys. But when the baby opens its eyes, they’re bright blue. It’s almost like a mirror.
Caesar is saying some platitude about a family reunited against all odds.
Peeta swallows and turns to Haymitch, to Portia, to anyone who might know.
“How?” he asks.
Haymitch looks at him and he knows he won’t lie.
“The Capitol’s generosity and power,” he says. Because that’s going to have to be true since it’s their line.
“Medic, please, is there any way he can hold her?” Caesar asks.
Someone explains that no, he can’t, she’s too small and needs all those tubes and wires to survive, but he can reach his hand in the incubator through a hole in the wall and touch her. Peeta has no idea what it is he’s doing but he reaches in and puts one of his fingers against the baby’s hand. Her little hand latch around his finger, which only makes it all more confusing. Because there’s no way she should be able to do that, there’s just no way, but she’s warm and real and strong in her own little way.
“What a beautiful moment, folks!” Caesar beams at the camera. He puts a hand on Peeta’s shoulder. “Peeta, do you have any idea what you’ll name her?”
“No,” Peeta says. “No, we never talked about… we never really thought…” he can’t bring himself to finish but it works out because being shocked and overwhelmed and grieving works as naturally in the lie he’s in as it does in Peeta’s head. Caesar squeezes his shoulder.
“Of course not,” Caesar says. “But she’s here now—a little miracle!”
Peeta doesn’t know what this baby is, miracle or not. But then when he looks at the baby some more, at the way the colours and features are perfectly formed but still don’t mash—like colours on a painting that should contrast and match perfectly but haven’t been blended together… he realizes that what he’s looking at is a Mutt.
Haymitch only talks to him when they’re back in Peeta’s hospital room, after making up some lie about how he’ll help Peeta shower to get it together. Haymitch says he’s reasonably sure it isn’t chipped, he’s checked a few times, but runs the shower just in case as he explains everything in a low voice. The plot to break the Tributes out of the arena. The way they only got Finnick and Beetee and Johanna to District 13, because Katniss died and the Capitol zoned in on Peeta too quickly and Katniss died…
“You didn’t tell me,” Peeta says. “After you said you weren’t going to lie anymore.”
“It was too risky,” Haymitch said.
“Right, and we wound up perfectly safe because you didn’t,” Peeta snaps back.
“Katniss was dead before the hovercraft arrived,” Haymitch said. “I take no responsibility for that. You, on the other hand, are still here.”
Peeta wants to snap back and say something ugly, something snarky enough to be on Katniss’s level, but then he realizes that Haymitch didn’t go to District 13 without him. Like always, Haymitch is lying about how little he cares about the two of them—keeping them at arm’s length like tributes that might die in the arena and that he best not get too attached to because, so far, that’s all they’ve been. But Haymitch stayed with him. Stayed with him and…
“There was never a baby,” Peeta says finally. “What did they…”
“There was enough unrest as it was without the Capitol killing their darlings and an unborn darling-to-be,” Haymitch said. “And so, they made a baby.”
“Like all those things in the arena,” Peeta said, which only made him hate all of this more. “They made a Mutt.”
“No,” Haymitch said. “It’s your child—and you’re going to be very, very thankful that the Capitol saved it and you’re going to love it as if it was your own because that’s what it is. Peeta, Katniss was starting a revolution whether or not she liked it. They want that Mutt of theirs to end it.”
“Didn’t you also want a revolution?” Peeta asked. He holds his hands against himself, knowing that Katniss would be better at this—would be better at making a decision about how she feels and how to act on it. He could never even decide if she was in love with him or not. Until those last few days in the arena, when it felt… “If she was here, she’d kill that baby in a heartbeat, before the Capitol could do anything to it.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” Haymitch said. “I want to keep at least one of my promises, so I’m going to get you out of here alive, which means you need to stay valuable to the Capitol. Which means you need to make this baby the absolute light of your—"
There’s a knock on the door and Portia opens the door.
“President Snow is here to see you Peeta,” she says, looking pale.
Haymitch pushes Peeta in the water to get him wet.
President Snow comes in when Peeta is respectable, his hair toweled off, sitting up in bed wearing a fresh hospital gown and a soft blue robe Portia brought, to bundle him up against the cameras a little bit more. There’s nobody else around.
“Mr Mellark,” he says. The door behind him closes. “I had a deal worked out with your counterpart. We agreed not to lie to one another to save time. I would like us to assume a similar bargain.”
Peeta nods. Katniss had told him about Snow’s visits, but he’d never imagined that they would feel this gutting, this intimidating, this…
Snow sits on the edge of his bed and the smell of roses irritates Peeta’s noses. They used rosewater for certain cakes and pastries at the bakery, the Mayor’s wife weirdly liked it. Peeta had a deal with his brothers that he’d scrub down the whole kitchen by himself at the end of the day if they covered for him so that he wouldn’t have to be around the stuff.
“Do you know why the Games were specifically written to include children, and not adults from all twelve districts?” he asks.
“Because it hurts more,” Peeta says.
“And why is that?” Snow says. Peeta doesn’t answer. “Because children are, Mr Mellark, innocent. Until they are turned into killers. Or until they inspire uprisings in several of my districts.”
He wonders which ones Snow is talking about. He wonders if District 12 is one of them, if watching Katniss die has snapped something or really gnawed at the Seam’s last patience.
“Your child is one such innocent,” he says.
“I think a tribute needs to be able to hold their head upright before being thrown in the games,” Peeta says coolly.
“I agree,” Snow said. “Which makes this one all the more innocent. All the more miraculous. All the more indicative of the Capitol’s generosity and the promise of the future, of the system we have here and that rebellions could burn to a crisp, Mr Mellark. Which is what you will say whenever the opportunity presents itself.”
Peeta doesn’t answer but he doesn’t need to. Snow must know that he’s far better at sticking to a script, at understanding the optics and politics of things, than Katniss ever was. Besides, Snow doesn’t have to make the threats he’d made to Katniss. Peeta knows they still apply, and without Katniss around her family is his responsibility too.
So instead, the president simply stands up. A new wave of that enhanced, sickly rose smell reaches Peeta.
“Congratulations on winning the games,” he said. “Do let me know when you’ve thought of a name for your daughter.”
Peeta asks a medic to bring him to the baby because he wants to see it again, without the cameras, to see if it’s any less confusing. He used to think that he and Katniss were less confusing without the cameras, until those were everywhere of course. The medic tells him she’s not supposed to, that he’s meant to rest, but then she gets a few of her friends onboard and they smuggle him in. They must have liked him as a tribute. And they must think that it’s real, what they’re doing here.
Peeta sits by the incubator and looks at the baby and when he gives her a finger, she takes hold again. He should be furious, he knows he should be furious, but the small wonder of something so small having any kind of grip at all wipes that away.
Katniss didn’t want children, didn’t want any that could be used in the games in any kind of way. That makes it all worse, really. The fact that this baby’s here now, exactly for that reason. As a piece in a game. Part of him feels sorry for it, for this little thing, that unlike them has never been part of anything else. But even if she’s part of a game, she’s part him and she’s part Katniss too. He wonders if that’s why she’s holding on so tightly—or at least he thinks she is. He doesn’t know much about babies, about what they’re meant to be like when they aren’t engineered into this world.
Haymitch wakes him up and tells him that he fell asleep in the chair and ought to go back to bed to sleep properly because there’s more formal interviews and a review of the games coming. When he helps Peeta into bed, he pulls the blanket up to his chin and leans down to tell Peeta well done. A reporter snuck in and saw you in there. The pictures will be everywhere.
Peeta doesn’t have time to figure out how he feels about that before he falls asleep again.
He sits with the baby when he can’t sleep, which is most nights, because the machines she’s hooked up to act like a heartbeat and that’s what he usually needed from Katniss to sleep. The artifice is a poor substitute, but it’s better than nothing.
Since he started doing that, someone caught on and decided that there should be cameras around to capture those moments. Now, the baby is on a livestream on a special channel that anybody in the Capitol can watch. It’s free, as part of the propaganda of course, but you can pay to unlock special features—like the ability to listen in, too, or the privilege of having a brief message appear on the screen. Every morning, people tune in when a doctor comes in and gives Peeta an update. He hates the livestream, but knows that he can’t avoid the cameras. Snow, and the world, is watching.
So, since he can’t sleep, he reattaches his prosthetic and makes his way down the hall, waving at the night medics who never really try to stop him even if they should. When he walks into the baby’s room, he’s surprised that the lights are on and, most of all, that Effie is there.
“Oh, Peeta, dear—” she says. She rushes over and wraps him in a big hug that itches because of the garment she’s wearing and smells like too much perfume. Still, he manages to hug her back as she blabbers excuses about being so dreadfully busy.
“Effie,” he says. “What are you doing here? You…”
“I’m still your escort,” she says gently. “So I see your schedule. I try to come see her when you have doctor appointments, so she’s not on her own. I just got so tied up today that I didn’t have time to visit her during visiting hours.”
That’s strangely touching and Peeta doesn’t know what to do with that, so he just holds Effie again and thanks her. Then they walk back to the incubator.
“She looks so much like Katniss,” Effie muses. “But I am ever so happy she has your eyes.”
Peeta nods because he should have been happy about that too. Maybe there’s a soft epilogue somewhere for them, where these things don’t sound like platitudes he has to swallow like bitter pills. He sits by the incubator in his usual chair and puts two fingers on the baby’s belly, feeling it rise and fall as she breathes.
“I wish Katniss’s mother could come visit,” Effie sighs. “Or your parents. It just seems such a shame that she doesn’t have a big family to love her while she heals up.”
That’s when Peeta realizes how little Effie knows about the whole situation. Haymitch must never have told that the baby bomb was a lie. He must have been too busy, when the games started. Or maybe he just didn’t see why he should bother, or considered it too much of a risk. Effie must have been besides herself when Katniss shot that arrow…
“You can be her godmother then,” Peeta says before he can help himself.
Her jaw drops. She blushes so hard it shows through her makeup, and she turns away from the cameras.
“Oh, Peeta…” she says, a hand on her chest. “Oh, I simply couldn’t…”
“You’d be wonderful,” Peeta says. “She already knows you and likes you, and besides. You did everything you could for Katniss and me. You knew what the games meant to her.”
That part isn’t quite as true. Effie never heard the worst of their complaints, had always seen the world with rose-tinted glasses just like anybody else in the Capitol. But she had been genuinely upset about the Quarter Quell, and besides. Peeta knows the cameras will love this. He hopes it’ll placate Snow somewhat.
“Oh, Peeta,” she says quietly, hugging him again.
She lets go an eternity later and sits next to him. The baby wakes up and a big hullabaloo of medics flutters in, but Effie—to his surprise—handles it all. Once a medic taps in the code to unlock the incubator, Effie gently picks up the little girl inside, careful not to mess with all her tubes and wires.
"She needs a change," Effie announced. Instead of backing up to let one of the medics do it, Effie rolls up the glittering sleeves of her garment and changes the baby herself, knowing exactly where the supplies are—though she does use an absurd amount of disinfectant on her hands when she’s done.
“Just part of my godmotherly duties,” she announces brightly when she’s done. And she sounds so happy that Peeta actually smiles. And then he hopes that President Snow watched. If not, he’ll read it in the tabloids.
Now, Haymitch starts hanging around the baby at night too—since he never sleeps when it’s dark out anyways. The first time Peeta notices, he goes back to bed for another sleepless night filled with nightmares in which Katniss screams his name while she’s burned alive. But if he’s going to be smart and patient enough to get through this, he needs his sleep and needs to hear the rhythmic beeps of the machine, so he goes to sit with the baby even if it means being in the same room as Haymitch. One night, Effie joins them which means they’re not sitting in silence. She runs her fingers down the baby’s wispy hair while she sings.
“ Hush little baby, don’t say a word.
Papa’s off to hold our city walls.
And if the rebels don’t get a hit,
Papa’s going to buy you a diamond ring…”
It’s obviously something Effie’s grown up hearing, but he and Haymitch have the same reaction.
“You call that a lullaby?” Haymitch asks.
“One of the best ones!” Effie huffs defensively.
“That’s not one we sing in the districts,” Haymitch said.
“Well what do you sing then?” Effie says, looking first at Haymitch and then at Peeta. It’s a strange question, to ask someone who knew Katniss Everdeen and who had heard her sing before. Maybe that’s why Peeta does it, then.
“Down in the valley, valley so low,
Late in the evening, hear the train blow.
The train, love, hear the train blow.
Late in the evening, hear the train blow.
Go build me a mansion, build it so high,
So I can see my true love go by.
See him go by, love, see him go by…”
Peeta stops then, because he remembers the next part of the song is about a Capitol jail. Snow wouldn’t like that. But Peeta liked singing something from home. Something he’d heard Katniss sing. Something he’d fallen in love with. Still, there’s a lot of the latter so he switches songs easily enough.
“Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes
And when again they open, the sun will rise.”
And Peeta reaches into the incubator to give a finger to the baby again, and she takes it. And her hand is warm and her skin is soft and whatever she is, she has that new baby smell that he’s heard people talk about. It’s clean and soft and enveloping and he forgets that the camera is watching him and probably loving this. He just keeps singing to her.
Portia’s put him in a grey suit, with a jacket that ends at the elbows and bronze buttons on the vest. It’s formal and it makes him look older. He’s not a dumbstruck boy in love anymore.
“It was black at first, but they said no funerals,” she informs him as she buttons him up.
“At least it’s not my wedding suit again,” Peeta says.
Portia offers him a smile before fetching the tie she’s chosen—a dark green one, that looks like it could blend into any of the paintings he’s made of District 12’s forests.
“I thought it would be nice to have part of her with you,” Portia explains as she ties it around his neck in a fancy knot he couldn’t replicate, no matter how often she tried to teach him. She folds down his collar. “So, one last thing…”
She takes the flower crown out of its own box, and he looks at the little white flowers and knows he’s seen them before.
“Do you recognize these?” Portia asks quietly.
“I feel like I should,” he says. “They look wild.”
One corner of her purple lips dips up.
“They’re katniss flowers,” Portia said. “No mockingjays today. Just the real thing.”
She puts the crown on his head and he immediately realizes that this is the only thing that’s going to keep him together. The Capitol skipped over the recap of the game, maybe because they’re afraid of the riots it would cause. Peeta doubts it’s to spare his feelings. Still, this interview is going to be painful enough on its own.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, Portia. I don’t know how.”
“I can go get Haymitch,” she offers. “I know he offered to coach…”
“I don’t want Haymitch,” he says.
I want Katniss, because I thought I knew how to protect Katniss and what to say around Katniss. What is the point of me if I can't do that?
“Okay,” Portia says. She readjusts the jacket. “Then do what you always do to steer people in the right direction.”
“Play the lovestruck boy?” he asks.
“No. Use whatever love you have in you,” she says. “And say something real.”
He supposes that every Victor has always sat alone during their victory interview with Caesar, but because Katniss was with him last year he feels especially lonely now. The crowd is a wreck, seeing him on his own. He’s not up for the usual banter with Caesar and feels bad for missing the beats that usually come so easily to him, but Caesar is good enough at his job to readjust.
“So Peeta,” Caesar says. “You’re very different tonight than what we’ve usually seen you.”
He takes a deep breath and remembers Portia’s advice. Say something real.
“You’ve only ever seen me with Katniss,” Peeta says. He hears the effect that that has on the crowd and feels exhausted. He just wants to go back to the hospital, curl up in his chair, and sleep.
“Indeed we have,” Caesar says. “But she’s not completely lost, is she Peeta? I think we’re all dying to know about the baby.”
Peeta swallows hard.
“It’s a girl,” Peeta starts by saying—because that’s easy, that’s real. The crowd cheers, and Peeta wonders if they had started betting on that, when he first lied about the baby in the Quarter Quell interviews. Don’t think about that, give them what they want. “She’s small, because she was born so early, but the doctors are doing everything they can for her.”
That’s real too. Some of the medics clearly like Peeta and have smuggled him sweets from the hospital cafeteria, or let him in to see the baby after visiting hours plenty of times if he successfully makes it out of the Tributes Centre where he’s been staying.
“Of course they are,” Caesar says. “She is, in many ways, all of our child.”
She’s nobody's child, but Peeta doesn’t say that.
“You can see the Katniss in her,” Peeta says instead because that’s true too. That’s real, no matter how it got there. “She’s strong, even if she’s little. You can tell when you give her a finger to hold onto, or by the way that she’s been fighting to stay alive.”
The crowd applauds at that and Peeta nods.
“She also likes a lot of Katniss’s favourite songs,” Peeta goes on. He knows he has to keep talking, because that’s what a new father would do in the miraculous situation Peeta’s in. Besides, if he stops talking he might cry and while the crowd would undoubtedly love that, that’s not what his job is. His job is to be grateful and happy. “I’m not even half the singer she was, but I’m trying.”
“We’ve certainly seen you try,” Caesar says. “But tell me, Peeta, what’s your daughter’s name? Have you named her yet?”
He should have expected this question. The fact that he hasn’t is a sign of how out of it he is. He has to think fast.
“Well, the medics call her Baby Everlark in the meantime…” Peeta says.
“In the meantime?” Caesar asks. “Does that mean you haven’t named her yet, Peeta?”
There’s no real answer to that. What’s the other thing Portia said he could do? Right, love. Love that was real.
“There’s an old tradition in District 12 that you don’t name a baby until the family’s met her,” he lies through his teeth. “Until she’s strong enough to go back to District 12, to see my parents and Katniss’s mother and our siblings, I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”
The crowd sounds disappointed and Caesar himself crosses his arms and pouts.
“Really, Peeta? Even for me?” he asks. “For old times’ sake?”
“Even for you,” Peeta says apologetically, offering Caesar a smile. He should say something cheeky. But you’ll be the first to know, trust me, maybe. But instead he says, “It’s what Katniss would want.”
Not because it’s an old tradition from their old home, but because lying to the Capitol so unnecessarily is a satisfying small act of rebellion. It doesn’t matter why; the crowd loves it anyways.
“You were amazing,” Portia says as she helps him unbutton and hangs the suit back up in its garment bag.
“Thanks,” Peeta said, voice hollow. While he was out there, he realizes that he hasn’t reached out to his family—and more importantly to Mrs. Everdeen, to Prim… there’s no way he could explain what’s going on, he has to assume any correspondence will be screened heavily, but they must be so confused. He owes them some sort of explanation, even if he’s been in a fog.
“Can you tell Effie I’d like her to mail some letters for me tomorrow morning?” Peeta asks. “To District 12? I’ll write them tonight.”
“I will,” Portia promises. Peeta’s arms hang at his side, useless and heavy.
“Is it so you can get to naming the baby?” she asks gently.
“No, that was… that’s not a real tradition,” Peeta confesses. He unknots his own tie and then hands it back to her. “I just… I didn’t want the whole world to know so soon. Besides, I… I’m not sure, yet.”
It feels like a lot of responsibility, and Peeta’s already about to collapse under the weight of what he's already found himself holding.
“Well, what are you thinking BB?” Portia asks in that nonchalant way that makes it so easy to bounce ideas with her. That must be why she and Cinna are such a good team; Cinna is explosive and brilliant but quiet, while Portia’s loud and colourful but reflective. But he hasn’t seen Cinna since the start of the Quarter Quell, since the mockingjay dress appeared onstage. He’s smart enough not to ask what happened, especially since Portia looks so sleepless and pale and shaky all the time. He realizes she must be looking for a distraction too.
“I want to name her something Katniss would like,” Peeta admits.
Katniss would hate the whole thing. Maybe, if she’d survived and been presented with this baby instead of him, she would have found a way to unplug all the machines without anybody noticing. Mercy-killing it like she’d done with so many other Mutts, like Cato during their first Games... But Peeta wasn’t like that; never had been, never would be. And if he’s going to do this, he wants her with him in some way.
“And what was that?” Portia asked.
“Green,” Peeta said. “She liked green. And we could always find it, wherever we were—in the arenas, on someone’s clothes at a party…”
Portia smiles.
“Baby girl Green then?” she asks.
“I was thinking of all the greens in my paintbox, back home,” Peeta says. “I thought… I thought Jade sounded soft enough to be a good name.”
Portia stops for a second and then smiles at him, a big and sad smile.
“Jade is a beautiful name,” she says before pulling him into a hug. “She would have loved it.”
Peeta hugs her back, but he’s stiff and he can’t really be happy with her, because he realizes what he’s done by giving that baby a name. He’s made her real. He’s made her his. And however else he feels about the situation he’s in and the lot he’s been given, he knows that she’s a part of it he can’t escape or pretend away.
Caesar isn’t there for every single morning update on how Jade is doing. Most of them are only captured by the livestream, but they make them available to everyone in Panem every now and then. Today, Peeta’s bundled in the sweater he slept in because Effie’s been in meetings working out the details of a victory tour that will include an infant—which Peeta doesn’t want to think about. Caesar shows up, lavish as ever, and must register how awful Peeta looks. He sends his assistant out to get them two coffees, which is nice of him. As they set up Caesar’s cameras and sound equipment, the live stream is temporarily cut off.
“How are you doing?” Caesar asks. Peeta’s surprised by the question, but Caesar looks honest. He’s always had honest-looking moments with Peeta.
“Bad,” Peeta says honestly.
Caesar nods and pats his arm. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
It’s the most honest thing anybody’s told Peeta since he woke up from the arena. He can’t believe it came from Caesar Flickerman, who is now looking at the baby. She’s sleeping at the moment; Peeta just gave her a bottle—which always makes viewership levels spike, according to Haymitch.
“Thank you,” Peeta says quietly.
“Sometimes I wonder what this would be like if you really could have had it all,” Caesar says. “If the Quarter Quell had been a different one.”
Peeta is so relieved to hear him say it for a moment that he thinks he might cry—but then he thinks through the phrasing. If the Quarter Quell had been a different one. Not if there hadn’t been a Quarter Quell. Not if there hadn’t been any games at all. Just if the inch of tragedy that Caesar can see could have been avoided, so that the cameras could have been on all of them, ignoring another mile of pain.
He goes back to feeling empty and he gives short answers when Caesar follows up on the doctor’s visit.
As soon as Jade is strong enough to spend a decent amount of time away from the jungle of tubes and wires, there’s a photoshoot.
Portia brings a soft, grey pullover for Peeta to wear and a matching dress the colour of rain clouds for Jade, with a tulle skirt like a princess belted by white flowers made of silk. Again, the katniss flowers keep him together as he holds the baby and smiles at the photographers. Effie insists that she and Haymitch hop in for at least one photo, since they’re all family. Peeta doesn’t protest. He knows that these photographs will be absolutely everywhere. The Capitol will trip over itself looking at the baby—they’ll fawn over how much like Katniss she looks and how she has his eyes, they’ll finally have a nice photo that wasn’t taken through glass to put up next to polls about what the baby’s name will be... But this picture with Haymitch and Effie he knows nobody else will want or care about. That’s something.
When he’s changing the baby into something less complicated for her to sleep in, Haymitch comes to talk to him.
“Effie overheard a doctor say that she’s nearly ready to be discharged,” he says.
“I’m bringing her back to District 12,” Peeta says. He knows Haymitch will try to talk to him about District 13 again, but he doesn’t want to hear it. He wants to bow out of all of this and take the baby with him so that she isn’t part of any of this either, whatever she is.
“Do you think you’ll make it that far?” Haymitch asked.
“What do you mean?” Peeta asks.
Haymitch walks away before he can say more and just as Effie descends with a new stuffed rabbit she’s found for the baby. There are gifts raining on them from all across Panem, but Peeta has Effie hold on to things the baby actually needs and discreetly send the rest to the districts. But since this is a gift from Effie herself, Peeta knows it’s not going anywhere.
Just like him.
Peeta gets it later, when the baby’s heart stops out of nowhere.
The medics sweep in and she’s better in no time, but all of a sudden there’s no more talk of her getting discharged—only tests, more tests, and more time in the Capitol hospital. She was fine yesterday. Peeta knows she was. He says it over and over again as he consoles Effie, who’s half-convinced herself that she’s done something wrong and hurt the baby. A part of him, a part of him that he knows would sound mad if he hadn’t seen for himself what kind of lengths the Capitol was willing to go to when children caused trouble, can’t help but wonder what they did to her. Because it had to be something. She was so, so fine and all the doctors are tripping over themselves to figure out what went wrong.
Peeta refuses to leave the hospital that night, he stays with her and listens to her steady heartbeat throughout the night. He’s nodding off throughout the next day and that night Effie promises she’ll stay with the baby and begs him to get some sleep. Haymitch is waiting for him. They call for a car and Haymitch gives the driver Peeta’s address and rolls up the glass to separate them.
“You’ve done the math, haven’t you?” Haymitch says.
“They need her here,” Peeta says. “The baby. That way they can show her to the world, show me to the world, use her, I mean us, to appease the districts. They’re never going to let us go home.”
“Yup,” Haymitch says, popping his ‘p.’ He reaches for the mini fridge in the car and finds himself a tiny bottle of white liquor. Peeta takes it from him.
“Fine, I get it now,” Peeta says. “Do what you have to do with your contacts. But I’m not leaving without Jade.”
“Without who?” Haymitch asks, still upset about the snatched bottle. Then he realizes and his eyes widen before they close, and then he sighs. “You named her?”
“We didn’t make her but she’s part me, part Katniss, and it’s not her fault she’s here now,” Peeta insists. “Just like it isn’t anybody’s fault that they end up in the Hunger Games in the first place. She’s innocent, we can’t just abandon her.”
“You can’t go back to District 12 and you can’t stay in the Capitol,” Haymitch says. “We’re on borrowed time. The rebellion’s only increasing in the districts. We saw how well it went last night that Snow gave a victor a special mission to appease the violence.”
“We sure did,” Peeta said coolly. It takes everything he has in him not to throw Katniss’s name at the old man. Not to throw a punch, even. “I’ll cooperate, Haymitch. But I’m not leaving her behind.”
Haymitch sighs but leans back in his seat and doesn’t say anything. Peeta tosses him the tiny bottle of liquor.
Portia doesn’t make it. That’s the only thing Peeta can focus on as they take off in District 13's ships.
Peeta can’t move, can’t think, can’t feel until they’re far from the Capitol.
There were four oxygen masks in Haymitch’s bag, enough for all of them after District 13 dropped the gas in and stunned the medical staff and co-opted the hospital’s medical evacuation aircraft—ditching the rebel hovercraft, that way the Capitol might not give chase so soon. Effie was too worked up and confused to put on her mask, so Haymitch slung her over his shoulders when she passed out and carried her out. Someone shot Portia as they ran up the fire escape; a guard who must not have been knocked out completely. Peeta didn’t even stop to look, he had the baby in his arms and he just kept running. It doesn’t matter, one of the District 13 soldiers shot back and got them. But it does matter, because Portia’s gone.
He holds Jade against his chest. She’s sleeping, which only makes her breathing deeper and sounder, which is good because Peeta needs something to hold him together right now and that’s it.
Then a woman in a uniform comes to him and asks for the baby. Peeta holds her tighter.
“She’s fine,” he says, defensively.
“She’s probably got a tracker in her,” Haymitch says. “Like the ones they used in the games.”
“She’s not part of the games,” Peeta said as if that mattered.
“She’s a piece like any other,” Haymitch said. “Let them check her out.”
He insists on following and watches the doctors work. They find the tracker in her arm with a scanner and put a little mask on the baby’s face so she sleeps through it. Peeta shakes as they use a clean scalpel to cut into her arm. It’s when the long, sharp forceps go digging in her arm for the tracker that he loses it, curls up on himself and shuts his eyes and blocks his ears, even if he knows the baby’s asleep and safe and not feeling anything.
Haymitch crouches down on the ground with him and wraps an arm around him. Peeta lets it happen and just cries harder and harder—partially because they’re cutting into her even if she’s so very small and partially because it’s a problem that he loves her enough to cry for her. He knows the latter’s the real problem when they hand her back to him and the tears don’t stop.
Chapter 2: An Ember in the Ashes
Summary:
In which Peeta realizes what strings have come with their rescue from the Capitol, and Prim meets the closest thing she will ever have to a niece.
Chapter Text
Chapter 2: Am Ember in the Ashes
He fell asleep on the flight with Jade strapped to his chest in a sling. Some of the gas must have gotten to him after all, or maybe he’s just too physically and emotionally exhausted to keep it together now that they're out of the Capitol. In any case, he has no idea how they got to District 13—only sees it from the inside as a new set of soldiers lead him and Haymitch to a room where they sit and wait for some time. Then a woman with stick straight grey hair that falls to her shoulders where it cuts sharply arrives in the room, followed by Plutarch Heavensbee.
Peeta knew he was involved, Haymitch told him, but he hadn’t thought much about where he’d be now. Frankly, Peeta didn’t think much about the aftermath of the games and the rebellion at all. Maybe he should feel guilty for that, for the privilege of being able to ignore a problem so big it engulfed everyone else—just like a Capitol citizen. But mostly he’s tired, nearly too tired to stand up when Haymitch does. But he does and he shakes the woman’s hand when she reaches out.
“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she says in a voice that would be too sincere if it wasn’t so restrained. “There have been some… complications.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Haymitch asked.
“Haymitch Abernathy, Peeta Mellark—President Alma Coin, of District 13,” Plutarch says.
“Madam President,” Haymitch says, nodding his head.
“Ma’am,” Peeta manages.
Coin’s eyes land on the baby, still sleeping against his chest. Her little arm is bandaged where they went digging for a tracker. Peeta immediately recognizes the look she gives the baby because it’s the way his mother looks at him—the way you look at an extra mouth to feed that you didn’t plan for or need.
Peeta’s arms tighten around her.
“She’s beautiful,” Coin says, as if sensing that she’s been found out. “I am so, so sorry for your loss. Welcome to District 13. You’ll be safe here.”
“Is there a way to get word out to the family?” Peeta says. He means Prim and Mrs. Everdeen; they’ve lost Katniss once and that’s already abundantly painful. He doesn’t want them to lose this baby too, no matter how complicatedly she fits into the picture.
Coin doesn’t answer. She sits down and everyone else sits.
“They’re on their way here,” she says.
“What?” Peeta asks. “All of them?”
“The Everdeen family definitely,” Coin promises. “I don’t know about yours, but I will find out.”
“Why is that?" Haymitch asks.
Coin looked at them evenly.
“We got word from our informants, shortly after you were evacuated from the Capitol, that the Capitol had pulled its Peacekeepers out of District 12,” Coin said. “By the time we sent a drone to investigate, they were firebombing the district.”
One of the soldiers tells Peeta what quarters Mrs. Everdeen and Prim have been assigned to. He doesn’t ask about his family: not yet, he has to do Katniss’s family first because that’s what she would have done but isn’t here to do. The fact that this is his fault, no matter what Haymitch says, only makes him more sure that he has to take care of them. The soldier must feel sorry for him because he looks lost, so she shows him the way. She tells him her name is Daisy and that she works in the cafeteria, if he ever needs anything. She tells him the baby’s cute, since he’s refused to put her down, and then disappears.
Mrs. Everdeen opens the door when he knocks, in a sky-blue dress he’s seen her in a hundred times. She’s wearing an apron too, and he wonders if she was cooking dinner or treating a patient when Gale and the other miners started rounding people up to flee the district.
“Peeta!” she says when she sees him. Her eyes fall to the baby but before she can say anything, Prim’s there. There’s a cut near her eye and she’s wearing Katniss’ leather jacket over her dress. Her jaw drops when she sees the baby and she wraps her arms around his waist.
Peeta starts shaking a little bit because she’s not holding him like he’s wounded, but like she’s happy to see him. Tears well up in his eyes and he realizes that he’s with two of the only people in the world who will feel as awful as he does—about District 12, about the mess they’re in, and, most of all, about Katniss. When he breaks down into sobs, Mrs. Everdeen wraps her arms around him too and they all stop and pull themselves together when the baby wakes up and starts crying. She pulls him inside and sits him down on one of the two beds in their simple living quarters. He doesn’t have a bottle to give the baby, so he gives her his finger instead and it keeps her busy.
“I named her Jade,” he said. “I was trying to think of… of something green. Is that okay?”
“It’s beautiful,” Prim said. “Just like her.”
And that’s all he needs to hear.
His family didn’t make it out of District 12. Apparently, they didn’t want to risk it in the woods. Mrs. Everdeen promises that they tried to talk sense into them, but they couldn’t wait forever. They had to go. Peeta believes her and he thanks her.
But that doesn’t stop him from feeling the last bit of himself scooped out.
“She’s not…” Peeta struggles to explain it to Prim and Mrs. Everdeen. Explaining it to the latter is especially complicated and even if it’s stupid, he feels his cheeks flush. “We didn’t make her.”
“We know,” Mrs. Everdeen says, and he supposes they always must have. If Katniss had ever been pregnant, secret marriage in the woods or not, they would have known. They’re good healers, they loved her so much, and their eyes are too sharp.
“But it’s still… they made her using parts of you and parts of Katniss,” Prim said. She’s the one holding the baby now, sitting on the bed with her legs crossed and Jade in her arms. Haymitch came by to drop off baby supplies—as a favour to Effie, who is apparently besides herself about all this but insisted that her goddaughter needed to be taken care of—so Prim is feeding her now. “She’s family.”
“She’s family,” Peeta nodded. He’s so relieved to be with someone who understands it that he feels lighter now. Not by much, because of everything else going on, but better.
He turns to look at Mrs. Everdeen, who also knows this but is older and more tired and less hopeful than Prim, as a rule.
“I know Katniss wouldn’t like this at all if… if she’d been the one who made it out, not me,” he says. The words come out so, so painfully. It’s harder to say Katniss’s name to someone who really cared about her. Maybe that’s why he’s been avoiding Haymitch so much.
“Katniss learned to love a lot of things that came through the games, in her own way,” Mrs. Everdeen says carefully but pointedly. It’s nearly enough to make him cry again, but then Jade spits up on Prim and he bursts out laughing along with her.
Haymitch is the one who brings it up first and suggests that they swear as many people as possible to secrecy.
“It’s better if people don’t know she’s a Mutt,” he tells Peeta and the Everdeens.
“But that’s the truth,” Prim says. “I mean, mockingjays are Mutts too and they’re okay. The people in our district really liked them.”
Haymitch would have said something disparaging to that to anybody but Prim, but because it’s Prim he’s actually nice about it.
“It’s an inconvenient truth,” Haymitch says. “I don’t know how they feel about Mutts in 13, and I don’t think it's worth finding out. Plutarch agrees and besides, real babies are a bit more useful.”
“Useful?” Peeta asks.
“We have a meeting tomorrow,” Haymitch says. “You’ll see.”
Peeta doesn't bother asking, but he wonders if Plutarch will be at that meeting too.
He’s left the baby with Effie, which feels safe enough, even if it makes him want to get out of this meeting with Coin as quickly as possible.
“The violence across the districts is only increasing, but it’s coming from Peacekeepers and the Capitol,” she says. “We need the districts to rise up too.”
Peeta isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do about that. Then again, he does. What did Portia say? Do what you always do to steer people in the right direction. Use whatever love you have in you and say something real. Peeta was good at the games; Katniss was the one who was good at keeping thing real. She's the one that people chose to follow and draw their strength from, after all.
“I’m no Mockingjay,” Peeta says.
“I know,” Coin says straightforwardly.
“But you have the Mockingjay’s child,” Plutarch says.
“That’s just depressing,” Peeta says. It feels good to say it finally, if not to Caesar and every single person in the Capitol who treated this strange little baby like an absolute blessing and an unequivocal mercy.
“Not if we spin it the right way,” Plutarch says. It’s something only a Gamekeeper could say to him and Peeta wants to hate Plutarch for it, but he can’t. He’s tired and besides. Plutarch is right.
“Fire caught when Katniss walked,” Plutarch says. “And that baby? She’s an ember in the ashes. She can cause just as much danger, if the people see her. If we fan that ember properly. In fact, that’s what we’ll call her in the propaganda films. Ember.”
Peeta wants to open her mouth and then he shuts it, because if he tells them that’s not her name, they’ll ask him what is and that’s not something he wants to give these people. Not if they’ll put it on television for the world to see.
The Capitol had told him that the remaining victors died in the fire that coursed through the arena, and even if Peeta knew that wasn’t true he’s still surprised when they come to see him—Beetee, Joanna, Finnick, and the girl he knows to be Annie Cresta. She's holding Finnick's hand and looks a little more grounded than she did in all the footage of her they'd watched to prepare for the Quarter Quell.
He’s feeding Jade so he can’t exactly go anywhere, but he doesn’t speak first.
“That’s a beautiful baby,” Annie says.
“Her name is Ember,” Peeta says, following Plutarch’s line.
“She almost looks real,” Johanna says.
“ Johanna,” Annie says.
“What?” Johanna asks, annoyed. “Yeah, Haymitch told us to keep it hushed but the Capitol made her.”
“The Capitol made me too,” Annie says. “Into something very different. That’s got to be okay.”
He appreciates that Annie stepped up to defend Jade, because he’s starting to realize how much of that he’ll have to do. He decides he likes Annie and that Finnick, if nothing else, has good taste.
“Do you want to hold her?” he offers. Annie is delighted to. Peeta notices a ring on her finger and one on Finnick’s, but he doesn’t ask even though he knows he should. Annie asks Finnick to help her remember an old District 4 lullaby about fish that grant you wishes if you catch them under the night stars. Johanna looks like she would rather die than be around and when she slips away, they let her go. Beetee looks at Jade as if he’s trying to figure out how her insides are wired, and Peeta braces himself for questions about her that never come. The song is enough for now.
Jade’s been out of her tubes and machines for a long time now, and she hasn’t had any of her medicine either. Mrs. Everdeen worries about her lungs being underdeveloped. She shows Peeta how to massage the baby’s heart sometimes to help her out; Prim already knows how and Effie soon demands to learn. But Peeta barely sleeps, he usually just lays down with Jade on his chest because he’s too afraid to leave her in the crib. She’s going to need help and care that he can’t give her, and that District 13 might not want to give a Capitol Mutt. Unless he makes them a deal they can’t refuse.
He’s no Mockingjay. He doesn’t have the fire Katniss always had; the drive, the fierceness, the daring, the gut-wrenching way of saying the truth before she’d even thought it through. But maybe being the Baker’s Boy can be enough. Maybe he can find something in himself that can burst into a flame, now that he’s survived her loss. He remembers some of the survival training that he got before his first Hunger Games; the instructor kept telling him how much easier it was to keep a fire alive than to start a fresh one. One only had to know how to properly stir the embers and feed the flame.
Jade is cooing while they try filming, which is very distracting. Peeta's had lines to memorize and deliver before, but he was never supposed to be the bold one, the rousing one, the inspiring one. That was all Katniss, and his job was always to hold her up. Cinna had left behind a Mockingjay costume for Katniss, and Portia had a sketchbook of costumes for Peeta to wear at her side which just reminds him that he was always second to her and always will be. But Jade—well, nobody saw Jade coming, and without either of the stylists around they’ve had to make do. They’ve wrapped the baby up in a little black dress made out of scraps from the Mockingjay costume, which looks a little bit ridiculous. She is, after all, a baby.
“People of Panem,” Peeta tells the camera, giving it another go. “Rise so that our children are not ripped from us and that we are no longer ripped from them!”
He hates the line, which is why he’s a little relieved when Haymitch’s voice appears through the intercom after a few tries.
“That, my friends, is how you kill a revolution.”
Effie offers to take the baby, but Peeta is nervous enough that he wants her close while they reconvene with Plutarch, Haymitch, Coin, and some other District 13 people he might be able to remember if he weren’t in such a fog all the time.
“You’re trying to play this like you’ve got the Mockingjay,” Haymitch tells them with the tone he usually reserves for telling Katniss and Peeta why they were being idiots who would definitely die in the arena.
“We have the Mockingjay’s child,” Plutarch says.
“No, you don’t. Katniss Everdeen wouldn’t even look at that child twice if she saw it in the Hob, let alone recognize it as her own,” Haymitch says, agitated.
“And it’s that loss, that absence that we can bank on—”
“It’s a baby,” Haymitch says. “Yes, I know—it looks like her but has his eyes and that’s very sweet, but babies can’t do anything. What you have is Peeta Mellark. And Peeta Mellark doesn’t sing like a mockingjay, does he?”
He sings to Jade sometimes, but that’s not what Haymitch means so Peeta shuts up.
“The people in the districts understand symbols,” Haymitch says. “But they don’t want to see children as symbols. They want their children to be children. That’s the point of this. You can’t put this baby in the Mockingjay’s clothes and try to play that game with them. You need to use Peeta for what he is.”
Baker's Boy, Portia had smiled when she’d first met him and asked him a little about himself.
“And what’s that?” Coin asks which, frankly, Peeta can’t blame her for.
“Excellent question, Madam President,” Haymitch says. He stretches his arms over his head. “Quick exercise everybody. Let’s all think of one time that Peeta made you like him—it should be pretty easy; he was always the most likable of the two.”
“That very first interview, when he told Caesar how he felt about Katniss,” Effie says with a smile.
“When he volunteered for you, to go in the arena with Katniss.”
“In that cave, when he told Katniss about the song that made him fall in love with her.”
“When he showed the cameras all those paintings he’d made as his talent and said his favourite one was of a rainy day clearing up.”
“When he took care of Katniss, when she came back from the feast, even if he was hurt too.”
“When he promised Caesar he’d bake him a cake if he survived the games.”
“When he gave Katniss the pearl in the arena and told her she had to survive.”
Peeta looks down at his knees, nose buried in Jade’s hair as they list things out. He doesn’t want to hear these things, doesn’t want to go back to all those moments and what they meant and what they mean now.
“I knew you all had it in you,” Haymitch said. “Now look at that big list you all just made. And what do all these things have in common?”
“Katniss,” Plutarch says.
“Wrong,” Haymitch says.
“They’re kind things,” Effie says. “In all those moments, he was kind and he was gentle.”
“Exactly Effie,” Haymitch says. Peeta's cheeks flush.
“Just like he is now,” Effie says. Peeta looks up because he knows Effie’s looking at him and she smiles.
“Exactly,” Haymitch says again. “Beautiful and brainy, darling. Who’d have thought?”
Maybe Effie blushes this time, but Peeta’s too distracted to pay attention.
“People like Peeta because he’s legitimately a good person,” Haymitch said. “Because he’s kind and soft and gentle. You can’t give him Mockingjay lines without destroying all of that. Peeta isn’t someone they’ll fight with. He’s someone, some thing, they’ll fight for.”
“We don’t need softness,” Coin said. “We need strength.”
“Strength comes from caring about someone else so hard that you don’t care how badly you break,” Peeta says quietly.
Looks turn to him. He buried his face back in Jade’s hair some more.
“I can’t believe you wasted this whole morning only to miss that line,” Haymitch says, shaking his head.
Haymitch is assigned to the other bed in Peeta’s quarters.
“We wanted to give you space,” Boggs—Coin’s second in command—says. “But now that District 12 survivors are moving out of the infirmary, we need all the room we can get and at least you two know each other.”
Peeta nods because yes, he gets it, and Haymitch unceremoniously dumps his stuff on the spare bed. It’s not much since they fled the Capitol with the clothes on their backs. Haymitch wasn't even able to sneak any booze into Panem's only dry district.
Boggs leave them to it.
“The baby wakes up at night,” Peeta warns him.
“I’m vaguely aware of how they work,” Haymitch says.
He makes his bed and there isn’t much else to do, aside from that. Peeta doesn’t really have any reasons to stall.
“Did you mean what you said at the propaganda meeting?” Peeta asks.
“That their ideas were stupid? Yes.”
“That I was a good person,” he counters.
Haymitch barely hesitates before nodding.
“Too good for all of this,” Haymitch said. “That’s why Katniss wanted you to survive so badly. That’s why I picked the promise I made her over the one I made you.”
Peeta’s throat clogs up and he doesn’t know what he wants to do about this. Instead, he lies back down with Jade on his chest and wonders where they might both be if he apparently weren’t so good.
Cressida gives him a wide smile and introduces him to her cameramen, Pollux and Castor, and her assistant Messalla.
“So, you’re just… going to follow me around?” Peeta asks, not sure what’s expected of him.
“We’re going to get footage of you and Ember together without showing exactly where you are,” Cressida nods. Peeta wants to correct her, but then he reminds himself that it’s okay that even the crew doesn't seem to know Jade's real name. The Capitol gave Peeta something he never asked or planned for, and in exchange he won’t give them her name. It’s not a fair exchange, but it’s not one in which Peeta gives the Capitol anything so that’s what counts.
“She’s really little,” Peeta says. “And her lungs aren’t the strongest and she’s a little bit stunted. Her vocal cords aren’t quite right…”
“That’s okay,” Cressida says. “Just… show us her morning routine.”
“I already did all that,” Peeta says. He supposes he could do it again, but Mrs. Everdeen said something about babies liking routine is and so it seems wrong.
“Alright,” Cressida replies, persevering. “Then we’ll come back earlier tomorrow and get that. Maybe we can just get shots of you holding her, for now.”
“Just… sit and hold her?”
“Sit and hold her,” Cressida nods. They’ve built a set that looks a little more like a nursery than the living quarters do. The crib is bigger, more visible, than the cradle that mostly stays tucked under Peeta’s bed since he usually sleeps with her in his arms. There’s more blankets than a single person owns in District 13, and a rocking chair which feels like the oddest thing in the room to him. But he sits in it to do as he’s told, and readjusts Jade in his arms. He had no benchmark for this, but Mrs. Everdeen says that she’s a quiet baby. Maybe that should bother Peeta, because it means the Capitol might have made her that way, but whenever the thought crosses his head it never stays long enough for him to latch onto it properly. The farther they get from the Capitol, from Snow, the more Jade starts to feel like something of her own making.
He pushes back in the rocking chair and Jade evidently likes it because she coos, which kind of makes him smile.
“You like this chair, don’t you?” he says. He rocks some more and she spits up a little bit so he wipes her mouth with a yellow blanket that’s laying around.
“Is this how you usually spend time with her?” Cressida asks.
“I can’t stop holding her. I don’t like not holding her," Peeta says. "There’s a couple of people who are good with her and I trust them, but…”
“It’s hard,” Cressida finishes for him. “After what happened with Katniss.”
“After what happened with everyone,” Peeta says. He looks at Jade again so he doesn’t have to look at the camera. He knows he should, because of the propo, but he doesn’t want to. It’s kind of nice that Jade, if nobody else in the world, knows nothing about this whole thing.
“I’m sorry about your family,” Cressida says. “I heard they didn’t make it out of District 12.”
Peeta shakes his head and then says thank you quietly because condolences are a thing you need to be thankful for.
“Do you wish they’d gotten to meet Ember?” Cressida asks. Peeta nods, because it would be foolish not to, but he knows that’s not enough of an answer.
“My father loves babies,” Peeta says. “If there were any cookies or things that had cracked when they baked, he’d break them up into pieces and give them to little kids in the bakery if they came in with their parents. He would have spoiled a granddaughter rotten.”
“He sounds like a lovely man,” Cressida says. Peeta nods. The camera would love it if he said something about how he wanted to be just like him or something, but the words dry up on his lips and he can’t do it.
“Maybe there’s ways for you to give pieces of that to Ember,” Cressida says. “Things from home, things that you remember.”
He nods because he can’t look up at the camera yet. He’s still looking at Jade, at those too-piercing blue eyes in that Seam dark face. He can nearly imagine her in a red plaid dress.
"I never expected to go back to District 12," Peeta says. "And the people who got out didn't carry much with them. But there's things you always have with you, I think."
"Like what?" Cressida asks.
"Like lullabies," Peeta says. Then he realizes that he should sing one, and the one he's been thinking of as Jade's favourite comes to mind.
“Down in the valley, valley so low,” he starts singing.
“Late in the evening, hear the train blow.
The Train, love, hear the train blow.
Late in the evening, hear the train blow.
Go build me a mansion, build it so high,
So I can see my true love go by.
See her go by, love, see her go by…
So I can see my true love go by…”
This is where he’s used to stopping the song, because the rest of the lyrics don’t fit in well in the Capitol. But he doesn’t have to anymore, does he?
Jade acts up when he pauses the song for a second.
“Go write a letter, send it by mail.
Bake it and stamp it to the Capitol jail.
Capital jail, love, to the Capitol jail.
Bake it and stamp it to the Capitol jail.
Roses are red, love; violets are blue.
BIrds in the heavens know I love you.
Know I love you, oh, know I love you,
Birds in the heavens know I love you,” he finishes.
“Cut,” Cressida says, satisfied.
Because of the propo, he’s eating lunch at a different time than usual—which means that none of his regular people are there. Effie is watching the baby, who desperately needed a nap and some quiet time. He has no idea where Haymitch is, and Delly Cartwright, Prim, and even Mrs. Everdeen must be back at work. Peeta takes his tray and goes to sit at a random table quietly. It’s not that he’s been good company lately or anything like that; it’s just that he’s not used to being alone. Even in school, he always had others to fall back on. Even when they were training in the Capitol, Haymitch always made him and Katniss sit together.
Calm down, he tells himself. It’s just a meal. And a rather good one, by District 13 standards. The chicken is in a sauce made out of canned mushrooms so there’s some salt to the usually unseasoned food, and most importantly the bread is still warm in a way that makes him homesick. He breaks it up into really little pieces to stretch out its warmth and the crunch of the crust. It also gives him something to focus on aside from the District 13 citizens sitting near him, watching him.
“Is the baby okay?” a girl a bit younger than him asks.
“ Nessy.”
“What?” the girl says, although she blushes.
“Yeah, she’s okay,” Peeta says. “She’s just sleeping. Her godmother is watching her.”
“That Capitol lady?” One of the boys asks, wrinkling his nose. He must be Peeta’s age.
“Her name’s Effie,” Peeta says. “She’s not as bad as she looks. She’s changed a lot since the first time I met her.”
“Before your first games, right?” another girl asks. Peeta chews on his lip instead of going for another piece of bread, and nods.
“We don’t watch them here,” Nessy says. “But whenever someone dies in the arena, there’s a bell that goes off and we have a moment of silence. We had a vigil for the Quarter Quell, since it was so confusing that the hackers watching the Capitol stream missed the end part of it.”
That’s strangely touching, and while Peeta’s trying to figure out what to say to that he realizes why they’re talking to him. They’re curious. Peeta doesn’t particularly want to talk about the games, but these are probably the only kids in Panem who aren’t intimately aware of how the games work.
You’re the one who’s good at making friends,
Katniss always said whenever they appeared as a pair. She wasn’t wrong. He doesn’t particularly want friends now, but keeping to himself has never been how he’s survived. So, he talks to them. He answers their questions slowly, chewing on the pieces of his bread when he feels like he's about to slip away into his memories, rubbing his prosthetic leg to remind himself that the phantom pain is only a spectre, and that he's here now.
“Her lung sounds are strong,” Mrs. Everdeen reports. She blows a raspberry on Jade’s tummy before straightening out her clothes.
“That was so quick,” Prim says.
“They’re getting her good medicine, then,” Mrs. Everdeen says. “They must be smuggling it from the Capitol or one of the districts.”
Part of Peeta feels guilty for this, because he’s sure that there are other kids in District 13 who need things from the outside world badly. But at the same time, he can’t regret the bargain he made with Coin. If he couldn’t keep Katniss alive in the arena, he’s going to make it up now.
He knows it’s the one thing that Katniss would want, and she’d have done it sooner—so that’s something else for him to feel guilty about.
When Prim tells him that Gale’s back from a scouting mission to see who or what is left of District 12, he asks her if she knows where he’s staying. He wraps up Jade in a particularly nice blanket, one that’s soft and forest green and that someone probably made by hand. On the walk over, he convinces himself that Katniss trusted Gale enough that he should trust Gale with the baby’s name if nothing else.
Prim brings him to the family-sized living quarters Gale and his family were assigned. Gale’s obviously just gotten home, he’s still wearing the soldier uniforms they wear in 13 and his siblings are swarming around him. Hazelle beams when she sees Prim, as she must have done a hundred times back home, and then her eyes widen when she sees Peeta.
“Hi,” Peeta says. He’s trying to think through the list of interactions they’ve had, which is short. The last time he saw Hazelle, she was rushing through the Victor's Village and Gale was laying face-down on Mrs. Everdeen’s kitchen table with snow and herbs on his back.
“We heard you were here,” one of the little boys chimes up. “You won twice!”
Peeta offers him a tight little smile because the boy’s too young to know better.
“Yeah,” Peeta says. “Coin told me that all of you had made it here. I was happy to hear that.”
Gale looks at Peeta with eyes that he has no idea how to read. Mrs. Hawthorne eventually whisks the little ones to one of the bedrooms aside from the tiny kitchenette and Peeta worries because he’s reminded of a mother bird hiding her chicks when a storm’s coming.
“I thought you deserved an explanation,” Peeta says to Gale, even if he doesn’t really have a satisfying one to give.
“I don’t need one,” Gale says. His eyes are scanning the pile of blankets, just like Katniss when she’s hunting, so Peeta tries to angle her a little differently so he can see her—suckling on a pacifier and watching the world go by. Something shifts across Gale’s face when he sees just how loudly the baby screams Seam. As loud and clear as Katniss did.
“Listen,” Gale says. He looks pale and queasy, which isn’t something Peeta associates with him at all and doesn’t want to start now. “I don’t… I don’t need this.”
“Alright,” Peeta says because he hates this conversation and doesn’t want to have it either. He just needed to make this offer for Katniss’s sake because Gale’s her oldest fried—and if the box is checked, it’s checked.
“If my mother asks, fine, bring her back here. But I don’t want to have anything to do with that Mutt,” Gale says.
Prim punches Gale square in the jaw before Peeta can even decide how to feel about that response.
Gale reels but sounds more surprised than hurt. Prim yelps in pain and immediately holds her hand. Of course, she has no idea how to punch. Who would have taught her? Katniss was so determined to take care of her all by herself.
It must be pretty bad because she’s crying, but then Peeta realizes that Prim’s sobs are too heartbroken to be about her hand.
“How could you, Gale?” she asks, cradling her hurt hand. “How could you call her that?”
“Prim—”
“She’s all we have left of her! She’s all we have left of Katniss and—”
“Prim…” Gale starts straightening up. But Peeta cradles Jade in one arm and wraps the other around Prim, conscious that at any second now he'll have two separate meltdowns on his hands.
“Don’t,” Peeta says when Gale reaches out to Prim, pulling her against him protectively. “You can apologize to her later.”
“That thing has nothing to do with Katniss,” Gale says again, eerily pale.
“She’s family!” Prim screams so loudly, Peeta is shocked. In the past he’s thought to himself that the Everdeen sisters have few things in common, but apparently lung capacity is one of them. “She’s family, you don’t get to say whether she’s important or not! That’s what the Capitol does to us. She’s all we have left of Katniss and if you didn’t want any reminders, then you should have left me in District 12 too!”
“Prim,” Peeta says. Prim’s small enough that he manages to drag her away pretty easily, even with a baby in one arm. Jade starts sobbing too. He looks back at Gale one last time. He looks like he’s seen a ghost, the kind from the stories about the mines that they tell little kids so they don’t get too close.
He left Jade on Prim’s lap and snuck by the cafeteria, where he asked his friend Daisy for a cup of tea for Prim. She hasn't stopped shaking and her face is still red and wet and snotty, but she takes the tea. He sits next to her on the bed, leaning against the wall. Jade’s done that thing she sometimes does where she goes very still and very quiet, almost like she’s waiting for something to happen. She’s almost too doll-like when she’s like this, but he’s gotten used to it.
“Thanks for the tea,” Prim mumbles.
“Don’t mention it,” Peeta tells her. “Your hand feeling okay?”
Prim nods.
“I don’t need ice,” Prim says. “Don’t ask the medics for any. Mom will find out.”
“Okay,” Peeta promises.
She takes another tiny sip of tea.
“You know, Prim…” Peeta says, chewing his lip. “I’m glad Gale got you out of District 12. And I know that’s the only thing in the world Katniss would have cared about too. Please don’t forget that, no matter how upset you are.”
“I know,” Prim says quietly.
“She loved you like crazy.”
“I know,” Prim says. “I saw that locket you gave her in the arena. It might have worked. It might have made her want to win.”
“That’s what I was hoping,” Peeta says even if he rather not talk about the Quarter Quell at all. “But Gale’s not wrong, Prim. Jade’s a muttation.”
“I know,” Prim says quietly. “Everyone in the District knew there was no real baby.”
“Yeah, there wasn’t,” Peeta says. It’s not a fair thing to grieve, since there never would have been one anyways, but it still hurts to admit that they never had a chance.
“When we saw her on the screens the first time, we knew something had happened,” Prim says. “We knew you were pretending.”
“How’d you know?” Peeta asks. “I’m usually pretty good on camera.”
“It wasn’t you, it was her. She looked too pretty, because the Capitol only wants to make pretty things.” Prim says. “But I’m not wrong. Jade’s still family. Because if we're not her family, then who is? She can't have no one, it's too much.”
“I agree,” Peeta says. “But you can’t punch people for calling her a mutt. There are some high-up people here who do it every day. And while Gale likes you plenty, Johanna Mason would have punched you right back.”
Prim nods her understanding.
“But between you and me,” Peeta ads. “Katniss would have done the same thing for someone she cared about.”
That gets a small smile out of Prim who looks up at him and looks a little proud of herself, even if her eyes are still puffy.
“You know, back in the Capitol I wasn’t thinking straight,” Peeta says. “I made Effie Jade’s godmother, but Katniss would have wanted it to be you. I’m sorry.”
“That’s alright,” Prim says, running her fingers through Jade’s wispy black hair. “I’m her aunt.”
He goes back without the baby and he suspects that Mrs. Hawthorne lied to Gale about who was at the door because Gale doesn’t look happy to see him at all.
“Hey,” Peeta says. “I hope Prim didn’t hurt you.”
“Prim doesn’t know how to punch,” Gale says. “Well, now she does. I taught her as an apology.”
“Good,” Peeta says. “I’m glad she came to you.”
Gale swallows.
“Just… tell me why you’ve come,” Gale says. “We don’t have to do this.”
“We have to, a little bit,” Peeta says. “I know that the baby has nothing to do with Katniss. I need you to know that.”
“Alright,” Gale says.
“And I need you to know that I understand just how much Katniss hated mutts,” Peeta goes on. “I was in the arena with her every time she dealt with them. I know how much they bothered her.”
“Alright,” Gale says. “Well, I knew Katniss too. Pretty well, actually. Why are you telling me this?”
“So that you don’t walk around thinking I don’t care about how Katniss would feel about all of this, about her memory,” Peeta says. “Because the other thing I know about Katniss is that her first instinct is to take care of things that are small or outmatched or innocent.”
She did it with Rue. Mags. With him too, actually.
“Is that why you’re doing all of this?” Gale asks.
“I’ve got a lot of reasons and you and I aren’t particularly friendly enough for me to tell you all about it,” Peeta says. “But yeah, that’s one of them.”
Gale nods, and Peeta considers that a successful peace.
It takes him a second to recognize Greasy Sae even after he feels his eyes on her, since she's not wielding a ladle and wearing her trademark, badly-stained apron. He didn't think she knew him much, but since her eyes are on him he puts down his spoon and gives her a wave.
“That baby sworn in yet?” she asks.
“Pardon?” Peeta asks.
“It’s a Seam tradition,” Mrs. Everdeen fills him in. “The Swearing In. It’s a way to welcome a baby into the world.”
“Oh,” Peeta says. “Umm, no. Not…”
“You should,” Greasy Sae says. “That baby’s the spitting image of the Seam’s finest.”
“Yes ma’am,” Peeta says because he doesn’t know how else to respond.
But it seems like a good idea, to build up a family for Jade. When Prim explains what the ceremony looks like, they figure out how to adapt it to District 13 easily enough—they just need space and a few things. When Peeta talks about it to Plutarch, Plutarch is over the moon about the propo potential of it—which Peeta is immediately annoyed about, but accepts as an inevitability for now. He hashes out the details with Coin and the District 12 survivors are rounded up in the cafeteria one night instead of going to regular old Reflection. They couldn’t build a fire indoors, Coin was categorical about it, so they have a small ring of candles in the middle of the room instead.
There’s a song that gets sung while the people who know how to sew sit in the middle of the room and join some scrap fabric together to make a baby blanket.
“As they sew we’ll sing the stories
Of love and home and us,
You were bound to know soon enough,
That we’ve got nothing but the scraps
But we’ll grace these with our songs
And hope that these will bring you,
Good luck and happiness.”
It’s short, so usually someone picks a different song to sing in between takes of that one verse. Most of the songs feel foreign on Peeta’s lips, even if Prim tried to help him practise, and he’s self-conscious that he’s the only person there who hasn’t done this a thousand times.
“Prim?” he asks under his breath.
“Hmm?”
“Do the people in 12… do they know about..?”
Prim ponders this for a second.
“I think some of them believed you and some of them didn’t. And some of us knew where she was from right away, and some people didn’t,” Prim says. “But I think they just decided to adopt her anyways, because the Capitol treats us all like we're only there to serve it.”
The sewers are fast and it’s a small project, and when they’re done Mrs. Everdeen—the only thing remotely close to a grandparent that Jade has—wraps her up in the blanket they've made and kisses her forehead before giving her back to Peeta.
Then there’s more songs and a circle dance and Peeta struggles to keep up so Prim laughs at him a little bit, in a nice way. He’d ask her what these dances mean, except he’s pretty sure that they’re just… well, for fun. He sees Gale struggling to keep up with Greasy Sae who’s surprisingly quick on her feet, the Hawthorne children skipping around, Mrs. Everdeen is laughing with her dance partner, the lone fiddler who made it out of District 12 is smiling toothlessly as he gets to play again…
And he can’t help but smile at Prim, when she laughs at another misstep on his end, because it’s the first time he’s danced for fun in almost a year.
BlazingPencils on Chapter 2 Fri 05 May 2023 06:49PM UTC
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Little_Ditty on Chapter 2 Wed 17 May 2023 12:13AM UTC
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writerdyke on Chapter 2 Wed 19 Jul 2023 04:32AM UTC
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