WARNING: MAJOR MOCKINGJAY SPOILERAGE UP AHEAD
I've honestly had an obsession with tragic, post-Mockingjay song-fics lately. I decided to write this in Mrs. Everdeen's perspective, just because I think she didn't have enough screen time in Mockingjay. And since she's the mother of both Prim and Katniss, I felt like she was worth so much more.
Credit to HalfHope's fanfic, Sing For Me, for Mr. and Mrs. Everdeen's names. Go read it. It's an amazing story.
The song I used is Always by Switchfoot. But I mostly listened to Hallelujah by Future of Forestry while writing this, so I suggest you listen to that, too.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins does.
I skim across the Meadow dotted with beautiful yellow dandelions and rue. Today, the weather is warm and sunny—a rarity. District 12 is almost always dank and chill. I tilt my head back, arms extended outward with my palms facing up, and spin in a slow circle, basking in the sunlight. The birds are chirping all around me, and a pleasant male voice carries through the air.
"This is the start
This is your heart
This is the day you were born
This is the sun
These are your lungs
This is the day you were born
And I am always
Always, always
Always yours"
I look over my shoulder, and sure enough, there stands Phoenix. He walks up to me with Katniss at his right and Primrose at his left, hand-in-hand. All three of them are smiling, giggling—even Katniss. My poor, beautiful, hardened Katniss. Prim lets go of her father's hand and comes racing up to me, tackling me in a hug. We fall to the ground in laughter, and soon enough, Katniss and Phoenix follow. All four of us lay in the Meadow, as happy and joyful as can be.
A beautiful family. A beautiful song. And, despite all of its exterior deficiencies, a beautiful home.
Suddenly, the day shatters and darkness falls. I gasp, feel around the grass for my family—my beautiful family—but they cannot be reached. I glance around me, but the darkness is too thick to see through. Something is pushing against my chest, making it extremely difficult to breathe. I pant, struggling to resurface. A crushing grief traps me. Bone-chilling screams cuts through the air—three simultaneous screams. Three simultaneous screams from the three people I love the most in life. Again and again, they scream in horror until I cannot take it anymore.
My own voice, high-pitched and animal-like, joins their lamenting.
And then I wake up.
I shoot up and sob. For the first time in three months, I sob like I have never before. Tears, intermixed mucus, groans of pain. It goes on for quite a while, and as is expected, no one comes to comfort me. I am a grown woman now. I will have to deal with my losses alone like all the rest of Panem has. But why does it feel like nobody will ever know the grief I feel?
I try going back to sleep. But I twist and turn in bed until I can't help myself; I eventually get up, turn the bedside lamp on. It casts a muted orange glow all across the room and I catch sight of the clock overhead. 11:08pm. This must be some kind of record for me. Usually my nightmare-induced sleepless nights begin around ten in the evening.
Phoenix's voice floods my thoughts again, singing the other stanzes of that song—that very old song written some very long time ago when no one on earth had the wherewithal to bear this agony.
"These are the scars
Deep in your heart
This is the place you were born
This is the hope
Where most of your soul comes ripping out
From the places you were torn
And it is always
Always, always
Always yours"
I pace around the room, my heart aching. I shake my head to clear the thoughts out, but they cling onto my consciousness like a vice. I decide it's time—time to take my pills again. I know they say I should try going without it lest the lozenges become an addiction to me, but all I can think of as I run to the medicine shelves and empty the remains of the tiny bottle into my mouth is: Too little, too late.
Too little, too late. How very fitting a phrase for me. I can try saving my husband but it is too little, too late. I can try saving Primrose—my dear, lovely, fresh-as-a-raindrop Primrose—but it is too little, too late. Katniss. Katniss. Katniss. I can tell myself it's not too late to patch things up with her, my eldest daughter, but that would be a lie as well. Katniss has been brain-dead since her father's death, and her heart stopped beating entirely when she went into her first Hunger Games.
Too little, too late.
The medicine muddles my thoughts, but does nothing more than that. For what seems like an eternity, I swim in and out of consciousness. When I finally get a grip of myself, I glance up at the clock again, willing it to be morning, willing it to be 9:00am so I can get back to work and bury my grief, at least until evening when it digs itself up once more. But it's not even dawn.
11:11pm.
Three minutes. Three minutes have gone by. How can that be?
I stare the clock's hands, stare at the time it displays, and I swear there is some memory associated with it. It tugs at me, at my whole being, until I finally remember what it means.
It was my wedding date. That evening, after signing some papers at the Justice Building and moving into our new rickety home in the Seam, Phoenix and I collapsed on the couch together, laughing. For the first time, we were free. I'd been a young woman from town and Phoenix had been a young man from the Seam, so naturally, my parents were very against my marrying him. But we persevered, kept our relationship under the radar yet still very stable, and then we finally got married. And we were finally free!
When the laughter died down, Phoenix and I made a celebration of the only loaf of bread we could afford as newly weds. We toasted it, as is customary. Phoenix wanted to buy us a piece of cake—just a tiny one—but it would have cost so much and I decided I could make do with a loaf of bakery bread. As we nibbled on it side-by-side on the dusty couch, I caught Phoenix smiling at me.
"What?" I said, but a smile was creeping up on my face, too.
He shook his head, grinning now. "Nothing, it's just… do you know what time it is, Ruth?"
I laughed. "I don't have the vaguest idea, Phoenix," I said, because it was true. I'd lost track of time since we signed those papers in the afternoon. But it was dark out now and I was quite sure more than half of the town was asleep.
Phoenix pointed at the simple clock on the wall opposite us. "It's 11:11pm," he said. "There's an old folklore about it. They say that when the clock hits 11:11, you close your eyes, make a wish, and it comes true."
Maybe it was the idea of having Phoenix to myself now, never having to deal with my parents' opinions about our relationship, that made me act childishly. Maybe it was all the yeast from the bread. Either way, I closed my eyes, and made a wish.
When I opened them again, Phoenix was looking into my eyes intently. "What did you wish for?" he asked.
"For you to be mine," I whispered. "Always mine."
Now, when I look back at it, I probably shouldn't have told Phoenix. Another folklore says wishes wear off when you give them away.
11:11pm.
The memory shocks me. I stare at the clock. Still 11:11pm. The young woman inside of me—the vibrant, joyful, newly-wed young woman—whispers a suggestion at the hardened version of myself. "Make a wish," it says. "What's to lose?" The meager amount left of my sanity, I think back. But, on second thought, there is not much left of it anyway; it couldn't possibly cost so much to wager it all for one wish.
I close my eyes, and I am at Phoenix's and my home in District 12 again. I can almost feel the bumpy couch beneath me. I can almost smell the aroma coming from the toasted bread that we shared—the toasted bread that signified the permanent bonding of our lives. I can almost feel the warmth Phoenix radiates next to me.
I take a deep breath.
"I wish I can be happy again," I whisper. "Truly happy."
And then I open my eyes. They automatically go to the clock.
11:12pm.
Too little, too late.