Author's Note: My failed "I can write something besides romance, see?" attempt, as well as my offering in honor of the upcoming movie (provided I don't have time to write the other HG fic I have in mind). I had written this ages ago, and at that point I'd fully intended to come back to it, but I think I give up on trying to make this sound good.

And, in retrospect, maybe the title is unfitting for a fic whose series has special significance for the word "quell," but it was the only title that seemed to fit. Enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: The Hunger Games trilogy belongs to Suzanne Collins.

Quell

In the end, you go back because you know it has to be you. Or at least that's what you tell yourself at first.

It's been years and years and years, and when you take your first step into District 12, you're surprised at how hollow the sunshine makes you feel. It seems brighter here, newer, cleaner, happier; those horrible flames seem so far away, and you don't even have to look to know that the Seam is gone, that it's all been rebuilt right on top of the ashes where your memories used to be, and that hollow feeling is tightening in your chest until it feels just a little bit like betrayal.

(And somewhere deep down inside, you know it's a selfish kind of betrayal, of course, because did you honestly not expect the world – your world, the District 12 you used to know – to move on without you?)

It's selfish and it's wrong, but you can't help but feel bitter as you traverse the beginnings of the one place you thought you'd always be able to call home. It strikes you deceiving that everything can look so unfamiliar yet bear so much likeness to everything you used to know: the square is still there – albeit more spirited; the bakery has been rebuilt – just newer and fresher; even something that vaguely resembles the Hob has been reestablished – bustling with liveliness and a new energy that wasn't there before; and it pains you to think you haven't contributed to any of it, that the only part you've played in the lives of these people you used to remember is destruction and ruin and the death of one of their own (murderer; you're a murderer).

It's with this pain, then, that you come to a more plausible realization for why you've suddenly ended here in District 12: you're here to apologize.

You're older now – much older than you were just a few measly years ago – and you know that even though it wasn't technically your fault you did play a small part. It's a numb feeling, really, because you honestly didn't expect it (but how could you not have expected to kill people with the horrible inventions you were working on, silly human?), but the guilt and misery settles in soon enough, and half the time you don't even want to think about it and run away and bury yourself in District 2 instead (coward, coward, coward). But, as it turns out, half the time you do. And on top of that, even through all your stubborn bravado a tiny voice in your conscience whispers blame and nightmares that always have you waking up in cold sweat. You feel like no one could ever regret what happened more than you. No one.

No one.

Except, perhaps...

Here you stop, think, feel a tiny part of yourself quiver with the strain of keeping your heart together.

It's silly, you know, to have expected anything otherwise; it had you be you, plain and simple. After all, you were the one who left without even saying goodbye, and even though you miss her terribly and hope she feels even a fraction of the same way, you know you would wave a Capitol flag before she'd ever get it through her stubborn head that even through all of this she's still Catnip, your Katniss.

(And that you know she chose him over you, and that you don't care, and that you still love her as much as you did when you told her all those years ago.)

She's still Catnip to you, even now, and even though you know you'll never stop loving her, you've somehow finally been able to bring yourself to accept the fact that you've both found someone to help you heal in all the ways you can't help her and she can't help you. (Fire and fire just makes more fire, and that's something neither of you need at this point.) Yes, you love her, but you admit you'd never be able to be with her, not in the way the Mellark boy can.

And quite honestly, right now, what you really want more than anything is to have your old friendship back – to have her back in your life.

In the end, that dull ache you feel somewhere deep in your heart, buried by years of denial and guilt and hopeless longing for something you know keeps slipping through your fingers more and more with each passing day, is what finally pushes you forward, up the hill towards what used to be known as "Victors' Village" but now goes by "just another part of District 12" (because, really, how can you even separate the victorious and the defeated when this is how you feel when you win?). The familiar mansion lies right where it used to, weathered and beaten, and you see her sitting on the front porch before you're even fully prepared.

(And you're suddenly frightened out of your mind because, oh, what if she's just like the rest of it all – the same as ever, yet so, so agonizingly different?)

And then she looks up and sees you before you have the chance to turn around and run away like you feel you've been doing your entire life.

And... oh.

Oh.

She's beautiful.

You feel like you can't breathe. The moment stretches for far too long, and she never tears her eyes away from yours but you know you couldn't look away even if you tried because God she looks so exhausted and your heart is breaking at how much older she looks, but somehow she's still... somehow you can't help but feel like out of everything you've seen changed in District 12, she still looks the same as ever (even though she's not).

But it's true, and there it is. It's true, and it's there, and you don't understand.

In her eyes you see years of sneaking under the fence and running through the woods and sunshine and laughter – and the rekindling of a fire you recognized from the moment you met.

"Oh," she chokes out finally. You know she doesn't know what else to say, and you want to fill the silence that separates you with a million things you never really knew you wanted to tell her.

But there's time for that. All the time in the world, if need be.

Because she's worth it.

And that's the reason why you've come back, you realize finally.

(Life moves on, and you move with it.)

"I'm home."