Chapter Text
August
When the tracks turn and we first see the mountains of District Twelve again, I am instantly reminded of her. I can see her hair in those two dark braids, and I can picture our second grade classroom. Katniss never knew how often the class stopped singing to hear her serenade the air. No doubt she would have been self-conscious. But her voice was like that. At the very least, I could not shut it out. Even now, as the train glides towards the district proper, I can hear her voice rising above the trees.
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you
And hear your rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you
Away, we're bound away
Across the wide Missouri.
When we were kids, neither of us understood the deep longing the song embodies. Her voice was clear as rain as she sang the words didn’t mean much then. I couldn’t imagine a time where I would want come back to District Twelve. All I wanted to do when I was seven was run away from home, from my mother’s lectures and sometimes slaps. Now that I’ve grown older, I can feel what the people who originally sang that song meant. District Twelve may be the poorest district, but out of everywhere in Panem, it is the only one I call home. I remember first making this trip after my Games, and seeing those mountains again, and crying.
Posy Hawthorne has a similar expression today. She rushes to the window. “Oh, Peeta, look!” she squeals, clapping her hands. Cinna, her stylist, has her in a pale pink dress that falls just above her knees, and so, with the enraptured look on her face, it’s hard to remember that she just won the 86th Hunger Games. She looks no more than thirteen. “Isn’t it just the prettiest sight you’ve ever seen?”
I think of the way that my wife’s hair flowed down her back after our wedding day, the blond curls cascading as she released her pins, and I truthfully cannot say yes. But Victors lie as easily as they breathe. Posy just hasn’t caught onto the game yet. “It is, Posy. You should see it in the fall, when the leaves are dying.”
“Haymitch, come see!” Posy calls. It takes her a moment to realize that our mentor is not, in fact, in the communal car. I can’t blame him. In the past thirty-six years, Haymitch has not been around a teenage girl for more than three weeks at a time. He isn’t ever awake and functioning before noon, either, unless he has a pressing commitment. Even when there is an appointment, I have had to drag a hungover Haymitch out of his bed more than once. The Victor’s Village has been quite a boy’s club for the past eleven years. Posy will do us some good. And Madge will love having another woman around.
Poor Madge. She was one of the few friends I had that did not act differently once I won the Third Quell. Rather, she just simply came to my father’s bakery and talked to me about whatever I found interesting that day. After all the loss and suffering that came with each visit to the Capitol, she was my ray of sunshine. So, when she agreed to marry me when I came back from the Capitol last year, I felt that maybe the worse was behind me. That night was the first in a long time that neither a dark braid nor a golden watch haunted my dreams.
But I don’t think Madge realized how hard it would be, living with us in Victor’s Village. Even though Haymitch and I technically live in separate buildings, we had been functioning as a household since I won. He’s my mentor. I owed him my life. The two of us had fallen into a routine. He passed out drunk, I carried him to bed. I woke him up the next morning. He yelled at me and swallowed some stew. And so it repeated. Madge hadn’t been ready to see Haymitch on those days. Most people only like the Haymitch who is fodder for their jokes and scorn.
She hadn’t been ready for the nightmares, either. I thought having someone there, in the room with me, would make them less violent. But the first night that I woke up towering over her, we decided that perhaps she should sleep in the guest room. I would go over to her room in the evening, but at the end, I would always return to my own room for the night. My visits to Madge had steadily decreased over the months leading up to the Games this year, to the point where we have not been together for over two months. However, I’m hoping these four weeks away will have helped our marriage. I want to make this work. And maybe it will be easier when Posy and her mother move into the Village. It will certainly add more life to the ghost within the town.
As the train pulls into the station, I am surprised as always by the marked difference between the Capitol’s best and the District’s worst. The paint here is peeling and flaking, so much so that if you rest your hand on anything too long, little flecks will follow your hand as you move away. It matches the industrial trains that are used to transport coal. Decades old, those trains were built to be efficient and not much else. Mechanics from District Six are constantly repairing them, but no one in the Capitol has bothered to replace them. This train, however, the one we’re all in right now, is all grace and silence. The sleek metal feels cool to the touch even in this heat, and only mockingjays fly away from it as it cuts through the trees. It has made good time, too. We are going to arrive half an hour earlier than our itinerary suggested.
As we pull up into the station, Effie, the district’s chaperone, pulls Posy away from the window in order to straighten her outfit. I go and grab Haymitch to make sure he’s standing up straight. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Effie straightening the gold pin Posy has worn since the beginning of the Games. It looks oddly familiar to me, but I cannot place it. Apparently, it had looked familiar to Haymitch, too, because when he first saw it, he took his bottle of liquor and headed back to his own compartment. I had to explain strategy to Posy and Kellan, the boy who had been her district partner, by myself.
I had my first nightmare about Kellan the day that Posy came out of the arena. I’ve kept a tally. That’s twenty one tributes. In my own arena, I killed four people, and those four people killed a total of twelve. It is just all rearranging numbers at that point, however, because from any angle, twenty three people died so that I can stand here today, knocking down the door of an old drunk.
When he opens up, Haymitch looks reasonably presentable. A casual observer might not even recognize how drunk he really is. But I can see it in the way his eyes don’t track properly and the way that he keeps touching the pocket where I know he keeps a knife hidden. I gesture for him to get up, and he snorts. “Always the gentleman there, Peeta. You told her how much you sold her for?”
“Haymitch.” This is not the time to be making comments like that. This is Posy’s day. A real celebration, not some Capitol parade with Flickerman hosting. It shouldn’t be riddled with dark thoughts. It’s bad enough that Haymitch is right in a sense. Posy was good in the arena. Her brother had taught her about snares, and I suspect the work she did when she got ahold of a bow and arrow wasn’t just good luck. After all, the district already has a fine archer with dark hair and grey eyes, and that girl was as good as Posy’s sister. But even the best of tributes don’t survive without money. And money is my specialty. This year, I out-fundraised Finnick Odair. It’s an odd thing to be proud of, but in this case, I’m just glad I brought her home.
His laugh sounds more like a bark, and it instantly dissolves into a cough. “You know it’s true, boy. They’ll be back for our debts next year. With interest.” He is most definitely drunk. I look over my shoulder. There’s no attendant that could have overheard us. Of course, that also gives me an opportunity to knock it out and blame it on the alcohol. This next hour would certainly be easier if he were unconscious. But Effie would know, and she can hold onto her disapproval for months.
When we pull up, maybe three-quarters of the district is there. It’s obvious that we’ve arrived earlier than people thought, but the camera crews will make do. They’re surprisingly inventive when it comes to making crowds look larger and sound bigger than they appear. Once the three of them are set up, Posy steps off the train. I button my suit jacket and watch her carefully.
The crowd goes nuts for her. She’s our district’s first female Victor, and she’s only the fourth overall. In District Twelve, we know to appreciate any Victors we get. More than that, however, she was already loved by the entire Seam before she was reaped. Her three older brothers made sure of that. Gale, the oldest, is a coal miner, one of the younger foremen who gained his rank through respect rather than age or money. Rory, the middle one, teaches fourth graders at the school, and Vick, the youngest boy, is a grease monkey. All three are well-respected, and their precocious little sister always won hearts, ever since she was a child.
Posy does a little curtsy for the camera and the crowd, and then she’s off to hug Vick. He picks her up and swings her around. Hazelle, her mother, is crying, and so is her sister-in-law, Primrose. Rory wraps his arms around his wife’s waist, but he is grinning so widely that it looks like he might split his face in half. And, off to the side, is Katniss Everdeen. She’s smiling, but she’s also unconsciously playing with the tip of her braid. She looks uncomfortable in the blue dress. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. She used to wear dresses when we were kids and her father was alive, but now she only wears that dress on Reaping Days. Otherwise she can be found in a worn leather coat and her large, dark boots.
It takes me a second, but then I realize why this scene feels unnatural. Gale and his looming six-four shadow are missing. I wonder if he got stuck in the woods. The square is crawling with Peacekeepers. Not exactly conducive to sneaking back under the fence. Cray won’t bring it up, however, unless he wants to lose his job. Everyone knows our Head Peacekeeper has secrets that would keep him from arresting a Victor’s brother.
The scene in front of me is getting more emotional, so I turn away to find my own family. My father-in-law, Mayor Undersee, is waiting off to the side so that he can shake hands with Posy for the photo opportunity. As I scan the crowd, I can see my brothers and their wives in the square as they wave to me. I give a little wave back. Neither my dad nor my mother is here. Nor my wife, actually. Usually, Madge would be at her father’s side in her mother’s stead, but she’s neither on the stage nor with my family in the crowd. Perhaps she overslept, but that thought hurts. Things may be rough, but I at least would have thought that she would be here on such an important day.
I look over the Hawthornes again, and this time, I snag Katniss’s eyes. She’d been staring, but the way she looks at me, I feel as if I am perhaps the one who has done something wrong. I raise an eyebrow, and she looks away. I turn away, and maybe I’m just imagining the feel of her staring once again.
I’m a married man. Thoughts of Katniss Everdeen and her braid and her voice should not creep into my head so quickly. It must be the emotions of this day catching up with me. I shake my head slightly to clear it. There’s a rustling in the crowd, on the side closer to town, however, and it distracts me. A large, dark frame and a tiny light one. I squint, and then I forget to breathe.
Gale Hawthorne and my wife are stumbling through the crowd, trying to get to the front without drawing much attention. It’s not working. Every person that they touch turns her head, and no one fills the gaps that they leave behind. They’re not walking together, but the details betray their common origin. Gale’s grey dress shirt is rumpled, and there is a hint of red on his neck. Madge’s hair is mussed, and her lipstick is slightly smudged. He looks determined, heading towards the stage and his family with purpose, but every few steps, his momentum falters and he looks over at my wife. She is frantic, displaying emotion I rarely see on her stoic face. Her eyes are wide, and her mouth is slightly open. It almost looks as if she is going to call out, but she keeps stopping herself. She’s only looking at me. We get caught in a staring contest. Suddenly, I am quite glad the cameras are focused on Posy and not me. This is a very private moment in front of eight thousand people.
The memory of my own return hits me in full force. My family had no idea what to do with me, and most of the district looked at me as if I had grown a second head. I didn’t win the Quarter Quell purely based on my own abilities. At least, not my physical ones. The arena was extremely hostile, with attacks seemingly at random. I had managed to join the Career pack after killing one of their own, but we had no idea what we were up against. All I knew was that I was the weak link, but that I needed to stay alive, as Haymitch so charmingly put it. My best odds were with the very people most likely to kill me.
Even though I had few, if any, allies in the arena, I had plenty of support outside of it. In my interview, I had confessed unrequited love for a girl with the most expressive eyes I had ever seen and the most beautiful voice I had ever heard. It was true, but more importantly, it was a good story that Haymitch could sell. He had gathered enough money that, when the others were asleep, he sent me a watch.
At first, I was furious. The real Careers had received food, so I was dependent on them. But this? It was essentially a token, something I hadn’t brought because it would have been pointless. I just kept staring at the watch, wondering why Haymitch would waste money on such a gift.
Over the next six hours, I finally realized why. The arena itself was a clock, and the different wedges held different dangers. It took another six hours, but I was able to figure out a way out. That afternoon, right before three, I offered to scout ahead, moving safely into the fourth sector by the time the monkey muttations were triggered. Two of the remaining three Careers died, and I fought the third. I would eventually lose my leg from the gash in my shin, but she lost her life. From that point forward in the Games, I kept moving slightly behind the clock, waiting for my fellow tributes to die off while gathering my strength. It didn’t take long. I came across my final opponent when she was bleeding out from an encounter with the beast, but I didn’t have the heart to kill her. It was only when she begged me to end it quickly that I had the strength to finish what the Gamemakers had started. My win felt dirty, there, something I hadn’t earned. If I hadn’t gotten that watch, I just as easily could have died like the others.
But when Caesar Flickerman brought up my mystery girl in my exit interview, I remembered Katniss. This, more than anything, snapped me out of the toxic fog that had settled. Perhaps now I had the courage to truly admit my feelings for her. And she had to say yes, would want to say yes, wouldn’t she? I was a Victor now, and I could take care of her and her little sister.
When I got off the train back to the district for that first time, I looked for her in the crowd. She was there, like everyone else in the district, but she was talking to Gale. In that moment, I knew she would never be mine. How could she? He was whole, and I was already beginning to cry in my sleep.
I had buried those emotions deep, and I was happy with Madge. Am happy with Madge. But the way that she and Gale approach, it brings back all those miserable memories. Gale Fucking Hawthorne wins again. I can save his little sister’s life, but he is always going to get the girl. The part of me that wants to fall apart weeping turns to bedrock. I refuse to fall apart. But I will run away. Madge isn’t even on the stage when I duck off to the side and nearly sprint towards the Village. The Peacekeepers don’t stop me, mostly because they have no idea what to do with me. In a district where there aren’t many Victors, we always get a little bit of slack.
I don’t think, just let the fire burn through me. When I am halfway home, however, a voice stops me. It’s a voice I would know anywhere. “Peeta! Wait!”
'Tis seven long years since last I've seen you
And hear your rolling river
'Tis seven long years since last I've seen you
Away, we're bound away
Across the wide Missouri.
The words of the song come back to mock me. I stop, even though I don’t want to. A snarl escapes from the same part of me that won the games. “Katniss. You knew, didn’t you? You knew, and you wouldn’t tell me.”
She looks surprised, but she quickly regains her composure and shakes her head. Her arms up and palms out, as though I were one of the monkeys from the arena, she approaches me as if I were a muttation. “I didn’t, Peeta. I had no idea.”
“Don’t say that! You knew!” The rage is just flowing out of me right now, and I feel as though I am back in the Games. I can feel my heart leaping out of my throat. If Katniss knew what we good for her, she would turn back and run now. Then again, she is a huntress. She might just be brave enough to take on a Victor. Perhaps she thinks she can reason with me, or overpower me if the need arose. I’d like to see her try. I have at least fifty pounds on her tiny frame. “Toy had to have known! She was your friend! He was your—” I can’t bring myself to say the word “lover” right now, so I go for a safer word. “Your friend! You had to have known!”
Katniss closes the distance between us with one step. Her eyes lock with mine again, blue on grey. “I didn’t, Peeta. I swear.” She looks like she wants to add something, but I don’t let her finish.
“Stop lying! You knew! You all knew!” My hand raises itself, and it takes a second for me realize how close I am to hitting her. Immediately, I drop my hand, and, for a second, the rage is washed over by sorrow. But it is back soon enough, and I continue. “You were all just hiding it from me, laughing behind my back. ‘Oh, look at the victor, not so might now. Money can’t buy him happiness. It can’t even buy him a girl. His wife is fucking a coal miner!”
Her eyes widen, and I’m proud of that. I’m tired of being Mr. Nice Guy, as self as that seams. I’m tired of being stepped on by everyone, including my own wife, apparently. Katniss doesn’t respond to what I say. She puts a hand on my arm, but I shrug it off. “If you see Haymitch, tell him that he can handle Posy. I’m done.” At least she has enough tact to know there is nothing you can say to that. I roll my eyes and turn around, resuming my path to the village. But then I stop because it is much easier right now to see Katniss than it will be to see Madge. “And tell her… tell her to send her father to come get her things. I’ll send the paperwork to her parents’ when the Justice Building opens tomorrow.”
I am not going to drag this out because I’m done with explanations. Right now, I can’t stand to see Madge because I know if I do, I will beg her to come back. I will think it will work again. But my mother was right. I should have learned from my parents. There is no such thing as a happy marriage. They’re only the people who are pretending, and those that have given up trying. At least we don’t have children. I’ve always wanted them, but I’m grateful that Madge isn’t pregnant. That would be just one more complication, and there wouldn’t even be a guarantee that the child was mine.
Having nothing left to say, I head home. When I arrive, the Victor’s Village seems emptier than ever.