Disclaimer: I don not own the storyline or the characters. All rights go to Suzanne Collins.
They never could see it. The pain, the hurt, lying just beneath the surface. They couldn't see the sleepless nights, the panic attacks, the way she would wake up screaming, sweat pouring down her spine, her eyes wide and full of terror. They saw what they wanted to see, what she wanted them to see, a girl who had survived the Hunger Games and found true love. The girl on fire, the girl who started the rebellion. The girl who had it all together.
Even Peeta never could see the whole thing, sure he saw the way she would stare into space for hours on end with glazed eyes and would return, eyes full of fear and pain, but then it would be gone, and she would act normal again. He heard the screams in the middle of the night but always assumed they were caused by the Games. He never knew how she dreamed of Prim's death in the Games, her father's death, Gale's, Peeta's, the list went on and on, a different person each night, numerous ways they would die. Stab wounds, gunshot wounds, slit necks, coal mine explosions, they would be whipped to death, bleeding out from numerous arrow punctures, and on and on and on. It was all her fault, her fault, her fault, she was never fast enough to save them. Yes, she did dream of the horror that was the Hunger Games some nights, and those nights were the worst of them all, all her friends and family replaced the other tributes and she was forced to kill them all one by one and listen to them scream out as they died.
However, every now and then, she dreamed of her father, hunting with him from sunrise to sunset, him teaching her how to hunt, how to shoot. Sometimes Gales was there too, and they would all sit and talk and laugh around a small fire once the sun disappeared beneath the trees and grass. Prim would be there and her mother, and on the best of nights, Rue was there too. Alive and laughing at one of her father's corny jokes. On these nights she would wake up with a smile on her face feeling content. The pain and trauma and hurt was still there but it didn't have as much of a hold over her as before. On these days she didn't have to put up as many walls and as thick of a façade. She could resemble a larger fraction of what the Capitol thought of her. Strong, put together, and braver than they could ever hope to be. They still couldn't see what their Games had done to her, the PTSD that she now had and the memories that would never go away.
There were also times when the nightmares would get so bad that she couldn't get out of bed, couldn't find it in herself to eat or drink anything for days. When this happened, Peeta or Haymitch would come over and just talk to her for hours on end. They would talk to her about anything and everything and she would sit and listen only hearing fragments of what they were saying, too lost in her own world to really comprehend what was being said to her. They would talk, and she would listen and sometimes she would break down and they would hold her, still speaking softly. Other times they just sat with her in silent comfort until she either broke down crying or she came out of her trance and would listen to them reassure and comfort her. They were the only ones who could understand what it was like to be forced to kill like soldiers, to see friends die, to feel the threat of death creeping up from behind every moment of every day. They knew what it was like to be one of the last few and have to kill people you had made alliances with, who you trusted to have your back. Her mother and Prim tried their hardest to try and understand and she knew that, but it wasn't the same. They couldn't comprehend the feelings she had, the things she had to do to stay alive in the same way that Peeta and Haymitch could. They saw it happen, but they were never there and as much as she wished they could understand she never wanted them to experience it the way she had. After all that was why she volunteered to Prim in the first place, so that she would never have to be placed in an arena and forced to kill for other people's entertainment.
The people in the Capitol would never have to feel like that, would never have to leave their friends and family and not know if they were going to see them again, would never know what it's like to be the poorest of the poor and then be chosen to play a game of life or death for entertainment. To travel to a place where everyone had much, much more and then to see them take it for granted. A place where the people wouldn't dream of death and pain, they would dream, instead, of money, food, and wealth. People who would never see past the face that she showed them, who would never see the suffering and loss. The fear and panic that their entertainment caused.
But none of that mattered because to the districts she would always be their Girl on Fire their hope, their Mockingjay.
A/N: Read and review please. Constructive criticism is welcome.