Gone a Wooing to Several Gentlemen

by CaliforniaTexasNorthCarolina

I intended to publish this much earlier, but then I got distracted on my Gilmore Girls binge - so much so, that I deleted the first four chapters I had already completed, as well as the story outline. I had to reconstruct what I had done from memory, and then push towards the end. Title inspired by a quote from President James Buchanan, our possibly only LGBTQ POTUS. Have fun!

1. Chapter 1: Terrible Accident

Chapter 1: Terrible Accident

Lillian Everdeen covered her ears as the elevator took her down into the mines. Ordinarily, she wouldn't be down here, but she had to make an important delivery.

Stepping out into the earthy tunnels, she saw miners picking at the rock around them. Others were gathered around wooden tables brought down, on break.

"Lillian!" She turned to see a sooty miner approaching her. The black dust that coated his face made him unrecognizable by sight, but she recognized his voice. Her husband, Estes.

"Hi, honey!" Smiling tenderly, she wiped some of the soot off from beneath his nose, revealing his lips so she could give him a proper kiss in greeting. The couple smiled when they broke apart.

"What are you doing here?"

Lillian gave him an amused grin while holding up a brown sack. "You forgot your lunch."

Estes kissed her again in thanks, before taking her over to the edge of the tunnels for some privacy. "How are the girls?"

"In school. Katniss made sure Prim got up. Our little baby didn't want to."

Estes laughed. "Those two! They need their education to really be the Belles of District 12!"

Suddenly, a siren came blaring over the limited intercom system, along with some rumbling. The earth began to shake. Lillian covered her ears. "Estes, sweetheart, what's happening?"

Estes began to push his wife towards the elevators. "You have to get out of here! It's a collapse! Get to the surface before -"

BOOM! The explosion threw Estes into an open elevator, and he hit his head on the metal. Smoke began to fill the space and he could see no sign of his wife. And then, everything went black.

---

When Estes came to, he had been returned to the surface and placed in the hospital. He knew he was lucky to be alive, and was confident that he would be returned to work after a brief recovery.

But that confidence was shattered when the Miner Foreman visited him with the devastating news that his wife of nearly twenty years had died in the mine collapse - one of the worst that District 12 had seen in several decades. Estes came apart, drowning in his own tears. What would become of him, as a widower still only in middle-age? What would happen to his two daughters?