A/N: For Prompts in Panem, Round 3, Day 4, with the visual prompt being The Godfather movie poster:
Katniss's room looked about as sparsely decorated as I'd expected; her lack of affinity for her Capitol-made house in Victor's Village was no great secret—at least, not to those who truly knew her. I placed myself firmly in that category, believing that I knew Katniss better than she knew herself. Not that that would be saying much, I mused.
I walked slowly around the room, my eyes taking in the few personal effects she had placed in the room while living here. A bouquet of dried flowers sat on the dresser, and I smiled, loving the feeling of yet another perfect plan coming together. Her room needs more of a personal touch, something that will make her feel welcome when she realizes its presence…
The closet door loomed in front of me, and I knew I had to open it. Katniss would never leave something personal here lying out in the open for just anyone to see. My instincts, as always, proved to be right, and my eyes took in Katniss's old, leather hunting jacket hanging safely in the enclosed space. I briefly wondered if Katniss had somehow known of the impending destruction of her home but dismissed the idea; Katniss never thought that far ahead. Still, I knew that she would come back to her room to retrieve this jacket if not to relive all her happy memories.
I reached out to touch the jacket but stopped when I heard a hiss from the doorway behind me. My lips cracked in a smile as I turned around and saw the ugliest, scruffiest cat I had ever seen. He walked up to me as boldly as if he were the father of Panem, as if he were the one who pulled the strings. His meow was rusty as if he hadn't used it in a long time, but his girth showed a cat who had not missed a meal. You can thank me for that, too, since you've surely been enjoying the feast I left for you all over the district.
As if he had sensed my thoughts, the cat rubbed up against my legs, begging me to pet him. I indulged him and even picked him up, resting his body on one arm and cupping his head with the other hand. My satisfaction of taming Katniss's cat was short-lived as he sank his claws and fangs into me without warning. I slung him off me in the direction of the wall, but he kicked off of it with his feet at just the right moment to land in the doorway; he was gone before my kick could reach him.
The scowl on my face turned into a cackling grimace as I savored the irony of Katniss's cat of all things getting past my defenses. True, my surveillance devices have told me that the cat actually belongs to young Primrose, but he definitely has Katniss's attitude. He also has better acting skills…
The scratch marks on my hands had already clotted; none of them was particularly deep, but they combined to cause a pain that was—like Katniss herself—persistent and annoying. I had nearly snorted in a manner most unbefitting the president of Panem when one of my assistants had reacted to the information of the Mockingjay's planned visit to District 12.
"Should we kill her there? Should I order the men to set a trap?"
"No, Pontius, of course not. You cannot just kill the Mockingjay, not anymore. I have to break her piece by piece, bit by bit. 'A death of a thousand cuts,' the ancients called it. Order my personal hovercraft made ready immediately; I am going to pay our illustrious Mockingjay a visit on my own terms.
I looked down at my hands again and smiled. The death of a thousand cuts. The white rose waited in my breast pocket, thorns and all. I pulled it out and placed it carefully in the middle of Katniss's dried flower arrangement. Katniss may not be good at looking ahead, but she is often all too good at understanding covert messages from her allies. Surely she'll understand this message from her enemy.
Hiding the other evidence of my visit was not difficult; all the right doors were closed and there was no evidence of any feline disturbances. I strode confidently from the house, anticipating the day when I would be able to inflict that final cut, when I would lay that last white rose on her grave.
The Capitol had changed a lot since I had last been here 15 years ago, but so much remained the same. Many of the buildings still had that unnaturally bright and sleek look to them—as did the people who lived in them. While the Capitol no longer indulged in so much excess, its citizens still often looked like members of another country. The air also still had that thin quality—or maybe I always felt breathless here due to the ever-present fear and anxiety that were still hard to shake even 15 years after the end of the war.
Fortunately, one thing that had not changed was the presence of the man at my side, at my back, or anywhere else I needed him to be. The slight yet visible baby bump that was—much to everyone's delight but mine—on display for all of Panem to see had only increased Peeta's level of protectiveness, especially given our current location. While Peeta had not been confined to 12 at the end of the war like I had, he had never felt the urge to return to the place that had hurt us all so much.
Until now, at least, and only because I wanted to. When I told Haymitch I wanted to go to the Capitol, he eyed his liquor bottle accusingly and promised to quit drinking. Not that we believed him, any more than he believed that I actually wanted to go to the Capitol. Because I didn't; not really. But I needed to go because there was something I wanted to do, a message I wanted to send to one in no condition to receive it.
So here we were, walking in the most nondescript cemetery in the Capitol—at least the most nondescript cemetery that was the final resting place of Panem's worst people. The executions of war criminals that took place after the war left a lot of inconvenient corpses lying around, so, after much deliberation and bickering, the new powers that be decided to bury all of the war criminals in simple graves designated only by small, uniform headstones with identifying numbers. That way, the new government didn't have to worry about people targeting, say, President Snow's grave and desecrating it.
Not that he gave the bodies of District 12 the same consideration…I pushed the thought from my head, not wanting to betray President Jameson's trust in me. He and numerous other people across Panem had been supportive of lifting my district arrest sentence in honor of the fifteenth anniversary of the end of the war, and the movement had…well, it had caught fire. Mockingjay apparel had gone back in style all over the country—especially when young, handsome Finn Odair was photographed sporting a "Free the Mockingjay" shirt that became an instant sensation. Speaking of which…
"Peeta? I can't believe you're wearing that thing."
"Please, Katniss," Peeta said, his voice doing a creditable, clipped impersonation of Effie at her snootiest. "This shirt is a Finn Odair original and anyone who cannot appreciate its true value simply does not have an ounce of fashion sense. But then again, you never have had an appreciation for high fashion."
A small smile played across my lips against my will; I wasn't in a smiling mood, but Peeta had always been able to make me feel better no matter the circumstances.
"It could be worse," I replied, my eyes scanning the stones for the right number. "I could be wearing that ridiculous shirt you made for me."
"The one that said 'Free the Mockingjay's Baby' with a feathered arrow pointing down? What could be more stylish or sexy than that?"
"Yeah, Cinna had nothing on you."
"Cinna would've loved that shirt."
"He would've loved making fun of that shirt."
"Would you at least give me the chance to appreciate the shirt in private?"
"Really, Peeta? Are you really flirting with me over the graves of evil Capitol war criminals?"
"What better way to honor them than to give them a good show?"
"I don't know if it's the hormones, but that's kind of hot. And I can't believe I just said that."
"I can't believe you said that, either, but—"
I stopped suddenly, and Peeta immediately stopped talking. The light mood he'd instigated dissipated, and he did not need to be told where we were. He tried to stand behind me, to give me the space he felt I needed to do what I'd come to do. I was having none of that, though; if there was ever a time for Peeta to stand beside me, this was it. He understood what I wanted when I held out my hand to the side; no words were necessary.
Reaching into my pocket with my other hand, I grasped and withdrew a metal tube. I pushed a button on the side and the top released with a snick. Peeta looked quite impressed that I managed to withdraw the contents of the tube with one hand while maintaining my hold on his hand with the other; I shot him a look that clearly said, Come on, Peeta; I am pretty much a two-time Victor, but he just smiled.
Peeta helped me unwrap the contents of the metal tube. I contemplated putting up token resistance but figured that he had the right; we had picked it together from the Meadow just yesterday, after all. The lone, perfect dandelion glowed brilliant and golden in the late afternoon sun; Peeta's beloved sunset orange would soon be making an appearance in the sky.
My eyes drifted to the simple stone flute the government had thoughtfully provided for this—and every other—grave in the cemetery, but they rejected the idea; they drifted instead to where Snow's breast pocket would've been. The symbolism seemed appropriate, and if there was one thing Snow had appreciated in life, it was symbolism.
Now seemed to be the time when I would place the perfect dandelion on Snow's grave where his breast pocket would've been, clasp Peeta's hand, and say something poignant and emotional. Numerous possibilities that I'd thought about beforehand ran through my mind. "Is this baby bump convincing enough for you?" "My husband and I say 'hi.'" "We torched your hideous roses ourselves, so we brought you this instead."
We laid the dandelion in the proper place on the ground and held hands, but I couldn't think of the one clever line I could say that would put Snow in his place forever. Peeta had always been much better at this thing, and…screw it; I'm pregnant.
I pulled Peeta into me by our clasped hands but quickly let go to pull his head down to mine. I put all of the emotions I could not talk about into that kiss, my tongue, as always, speaking more clearly when paired with Peeta's. My husband enthusiastically contributed to our "conversation" with Snow, his lips moving mine in a way that conveyed both of our feelings more eloquently than any of my silly put-downs.
We pulled apart in search of air; Peeta was wearing the dopiest grin I'd ever seen on someone standing over a grave. I grabbed his hand and turned, walking away from Snow's grave without a backward glance. My mind turned to more important thoughts…like that special shirt Peeta made for me that he doesn't know I brought here.
"Maybe we should come here more often," I said absentmindedly; my husband didn't contradict me.