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To keep on living
He had to be wasted like hell,
For what he is seeing is definitely, definitely not true,
A haze of his drunken stupor.
She was sitting on the edge of his fancy bed, with a cue of a smile drawn on her face.
She looked the same, not a streak different.
"So, coming to haunt me, Undersee?"
He wouldn't be surprised if she said yes.
"As if I wouldn't dare, Hawthorne"
'Death definitely made her bolder' he thought
"To what do I owe the pleasure, then?"
"Came to check on the big bad valiant war hero"
Her words were to his face, a mockery of how he didn't bother to save her during the bombings, he didn't think it much though at the time, for the Undersees weren't his most favourite people in the world, not until much later, when they started counting the losses and even then, he didn't spare it much.
"So, you are real, then?" he spat with venom.
"I am what you want me to be" she playfully replied as though to strike his Ire.
Now, with his failure being so obviously thrown to his face and his guilty conscious being aroused and strangling, he was in no mood for mind games.
"Spill whatever you have Undersee"
"You weren't supposed to end like this"
"Like what? In district 2 with money and power and…." His ever-present hostility towards the mayor's daughter still dangling its ugly face.
"Alone" she struck
"I am not alone"
"And broken and guilty and empty"
He doesn't see her again until a month, Later.
When he gets drunk like... whatever, after attending Katniss and Peeta's wedding.
"Came to gloat over me, Undersee"
"Well, it would have been easier, if you weren't wallowing in self pity"
He fights the urge to throw something at her
"You need to move on, you know"
"From what exactly?"
"Everything, Katniss, the war"
"and you are here to help me do so"
"If you will let me"
"Piss off, Undersee"
He felt so trapped.
He couldn't take it anymore.
He needed to talk to someone and here she popped up.
"What is up, Undersee?"
"You are still in denial that you need help?"
"Everything hurts, the very same thing going on everyday, the districts which have barely escaped capitol rule are now grinding over what ever goddamn power"
"And?" Her eyes double in size and her brows arch up expectantly.
"I miss her, I miss my family" he concluded.
Over the course of those meetings he came to open up to her more than he ever expected, more than he ever wanted.
"I barely spend time with my family, Rory hates me since Prim was dead, Mother's busy with Vick and Posy"
"I see, how about Katniss?"
He doesn't answer.
"You can't keep doing that"
"Doing what?"
"Pining over Katniss forever"
"And how would you know?"
"If you want to forget her and move on…"
He cut her in sharply "and who told you I want to?"
"She isn't yours; she wasn't yours and will never be, when will you fathom this?"
Something inside him snaps because in his heart, he knows she is speaking the truth, the ultimate utter truth that he can't seem to stomach.
So he does what he is good at, he lashes out at her.
He doesn't see her over the course of three months.
'Great ' he thinks' now you lost your only friend'
For once, it is all about seeing her again.
He keeps praying and praying, mentally apologising.
His focus on work is in disarray.
"You need to concentrate, if you want to pull this out correctly" she playfully says.
When he hears her voice, he thinks He couldn't have been happier over the course of the previous three months.
Topics shift between them now, he is no longer the centre of the universe when they speak
"So, how is it? Up there"
"Can't tell you, it is forbidden, unless you want me to be stuck here, forever"
"How was it? When you died?" He asked once
The question took her by surprise, her expression darkened , he felt something stirring in her eyes, fear, panic and pain.
For the first time, he felt truly sorry he couldn't save her.
"You hated me that much, when I was alive?"
He contemplates the question a bit
"I hated everything at that point, Capitol, the Poverty, the fear, you were everything that was opposite to what I was, though looking back now I realise that most of the animosity I held towards you and your family was so prejudiced, you had as much trouble as anyone in 12, your father was trying to make things work with Capitol pressuring upon him"
"I was a little envious" he added
He has met someone at work,
She is pretty, smart and quiet and had led quite a tough life prior.
Her demeanour reminds him of someone.
He then realises he doesn't think of Katniss anymore, he has grown an appreciation for the girl with strawberries.
"I wish you were still alive, Madge" he mutters to the air as she lay beside him on bed.
"Me too" She replies almost in a hush, a sad whisper, similant to her.
He shifts position so they are facing, his eyes bearing in hers
And for a moment, they almost forget she isn't tangible, they almost forget she is a mere shadow, they almost forget she isn't real.
they reach out to each other,
He reaches out to the air.
It was the last time he'd seen her.
It was hard on him at the beginning.
He felt every night so heavy, passing like a year.
He began questioning his sanity, was it all his imagination? Was he dreaming?
He resolved he doesn't care, all he wants is for her to come back.
He prays and prays to see her once more.
He knows it is futile, but he does.
He realises now that he isn't going to forget the girl with Strawberries.
He wouldn't know how to.
So he tries to move on.
He has to pretend he is fine, everyday, even though he is far from it.
He feels her presence so still with him.
Sometimes, he drifts away, to a place of his own, a place where he is with the girl with strawberries, a place where he loved her before she was gone, a place where she was still alive with him.
And when he is back, he realises how his life is so much of a burden, now, for he can't live properly with those living around him.
and he isn't dead to be with her.
It is his 70th birthday,
He has grown old and ailing, he is surrounded by a family he had made on his own, children and grandchildren.
People whom he loved, people who love him. Those who he tells of stories, his stories, about war, Katniss, Strawberry meadows and pink Ribbons and someone,
Someone who saved him despite he didn't save her.
someone who taught him to keep on living.
He still prays everyday, to see her.
Exceptionally, those days, he is feeling her absence has grown so long.
For the first time,
He dreams of her that night.