Six years. That's how long I was kept in an underground bunker, forced to work in the sewers with the others. Our tongues cut out, our spirits broken, our communication cut off from the world. We were constantly watched by peacekeepers, punished if we slacked on our work for even a second. It was worse than working in the mines. Much much worse. At least then I was able to go home at the end of the day, see my beautiful children and hold my amazing wife who had given up so much to be with me. At least I got a day off in the mines. At least, once in a while I got to see and feel the sun shining down on me, heat radiating onto my flesh through my shirt and the layer of coal dust that often built up on me.
But it wasn't like that here. We never got to see the sun. Ever. We never got to leave the sewers, we even had our own bunkers in which to sleep in an overly crowded room, being picked off one by one from malnutrition, exhaustion or the peacekeepers themselves.
Thankfully, that had ended as soon as the war was won. Of course, none of us knew of a war until it was over. None of us ever dared dream of freedom again. Yet, here we were, climbing the rungs of a ladder from the sewer and peeking through a pothole for the first time in years. The sun felt glorious on my skin again, the sight of trees, birds and life made a smile come to my face. Of course, you could still see the devastation from the war, but it had ended almost a month ago, most of the devastation being cleared up by now. All I could think was how good it felt to finally breathe fresh air again before another thought came to my mind. Katniss, Prim and... Ellie. Beautiful sweet Ellie with her town hair and her town eyes but her seam clothes and constant dusting of coal soot. Ellie who had given up so much to be with me and had given me two beautiful children.
I knew they all thought I was dead. I had seen the mine explosion just after I had been taken. Me and several other people who had been ratted out for 'revolutionary' talk, resulting in our tongues being cut and our families ripped from us. But now...now I could see them all again. I could hold them all in my arms again. I could go back to district twelve and I could live in the comfort of my family. I could see the sun, and listen to the birds again. I just wish I would still be able to sing to the mockingjays.
As soon as I get off the platform at the train station, my heart stops at what I am faced with. Devastation. Complete and utter devastation. I walk towards my old home only to find that the seam no longer exists. It has clearly been blown to smitherines. I turn around on my spot at the beginning of the path where the seam should be and find myself face to face with one of my dear old friends from the mines; Joel Castrol.
"Jake? Is that really you?" he says as if he can't believe his eyes. Well, I suppose I am supposed to be dead. I nod my head with a smile before taking out my notepad and pen that was given to me in the Capitol. What happened? Where is Ellie? I wrote on the notepad before showing it to him. His expression suddenly turns grave and I realise anything he is about to tell me isn't good news. "I probably shouldn't be the one to tell you this, Jake, but district 12 was destroyed. Ellie made it to district thirteen as far as I can remember but I don't know what happened to her after the rebellion." My face visibly fell as I looked towards the ground. My family could be anywhere, I realise feeling my heart sink, all dreams of my reunion with my wife and children gone.
"Katniss is here, though," he says continuing. My head snaps up to look him in the eye. Where? I write frantically, unable to contain the excitement I feel to see my daughter again. Joel looks grave again. "She lives in victors village now... but, Jake... you need to know. She isn't exactly...herself anymore. Not after the war. No one has seen her in weeks besides Greasy Sae." I shake my head indicating it doesn't matter before holding out my hand in thanks. He takes it with a smile. "It's nice to know you're alive, Jake... even if you can't talk anymore, your family will be happy to see you." I nod again before running off to victors village.
I look down the row of houses identical to one another biting my lip, debating which door I should try first. I immediately rule out the one I know Haymitch lives in before turning to the next one along. I start towards it before I see an old frail woman leave the next house along accompanied by a little girl who looked identical to her when she was a younger woman. Instantly recognising her as Greasy Sae I run towards her and tap her on the shoulder.
She turned around as it to tell me to go away when her jaw suddenly goes slack and what little colour there was in her face instantly drains. Anyone would think she had seen a ghost. I suppose, figuratively, she has. "J-Jacob?" she whispers as though she can't quite believe it. I smile and nod and point to the door where she emerged from. I can see she's trying to work me out, wondering why I'm not talking her ear off like I used to do at the hob. I sigh silently before tapping my throat and my mouth alternately. Suddenly her eyes widen. "Why those sons of bitches!" she exclaims whilst covering the small child's ears whom she was with. "I tell you Jake, that man got everything that was coming to him." I know she is referring to President Snow. "Come on, I'll take you to see Katniss, goodness knows she could use some good news." I frown puzzled at what she was saying before relenting and following her inside.
Sae leads me straight into the living room and that's where I see her, curled up under a blanket in a rocking chair. Only, it's not the same girl I left behind. Not the vibrant girl who was perfectly beautiful and full of life with so much to offer the world. No. Something else had taken her place. A broken battered girl covered in an array of scars, burns and cuts. A girl who, even I could tell was broken from the inside out. She wasn't the little girl I left behind, but she was still my little girl and I felt a huge rush of protection come over me as I looked at her. I wanted to protect her from whatever had happened to her, I wanted to comfort her as best I could without my voice... but most of all, I wanted to sing to her. Oh how I wished I could sing to her.
"Katniss, there's someone here to see you," Sae says gently. I think it's the most gentle and motherly I have ever seen the old woman, her old hard exterior gone as she too looked upon this broken shell of a girl.
Katniss doesn't respond, she just keeps staring into the fireplace, as though no one had said anything at all. I wish I could let her know I was here with my voice. Instead I nod to Sae in thanks and motion to the door. Sae nods before leaving, casting a worried glance at Katniss before she was gone. I slowly moved towards my eldest daughter before I took one of her scarred hands in mine and stood in front of her. Cupping her chin in my hand I moved her head so she was staring me straight in the face. Suddenly she pulled away from me, clamping her hands over her ears and yelling out to no one in particular that it wasn't real, that it was all an illusion.
Again I gently took her hands in mine and forced her to look at me. My eyes pleaded with hers to see sense she was still shaking her head at me five minutes later and I decided enough was enough. I took out my pen and notepad and wrote on it, real. I showed it to her and surprisingly enough, just that one word seemed to pull her out of whatever day terrors she was consumed with in her mind.
"D-Dad?" she whispered, as if she didn't know what to believe. I nodded softly before writing out a short explanation on my notepad about what I am and how I came to be here again. Let's face it, explaining to your daughter that she will never hear your voice again is just painful. But maybe not as painful as losing me altogether? By the time she had finished reading there were tears streaming from her eyes and dripping onto her shirt from her chin. I waited patiently, knowing that, even as a child, she never liked to be held without consent.
Surprising me, however, she threw herself into my arms, her own wrapping around my neck tightly as she sobbed into my shoulder. "W-we were so broken without you... we almost starved, mum wasn't ever responsive an-and... Prim, she got reaped and I took her place... but it was a-all for n-nothing... she d-ied anyway i-in the war."
I felt my heart shatter into a thousand tiny pieces when this information passed her lips. Prim. Poor little Prim who was so kind and so innocent she couldn't even swat a fly. Dead. Really really dead. I want to ask how it happened, I want to ask if she was in pain, if it was quick, if she knew what was coming but all that escaped my mouth was a strangled sob as I found myself grieving for my lost daughter and my broken daughter and everything they had been through in the past six years. I chant sorry over and over in my head, wishing I could tell her just how sorry I really was. But it doesn't matter, it wouldn't change anything, I knew it wouldn't. Instead I held my little girl close to me and stroked her hair, rocking her back and forth, trying to stem the flow of my own tears as I allowed Katniss to express her feelings. Something which, I am sure, she hasn't done in a long time.
"P-please don't leave me again," she whispered. I closed my eyes and shook my head, indicating that I would never leave her ever again. I would always be there for my baby girl from now on. I held her for a few hours before I realised she had gone to sleep in my arms... just like she used to as a toddler. I smiled fondly down at her before I picked her up and walked with her up the stairs, I didn't know which bedroom was hers but I took a guess at the one that had the bow and arrow on the inside of the door. I gently laid her down on the bed before kissing her forehead and pulling the covers over her. She looked so peaceful during sleep. Still battered and bruised, but a lot less troubled.
I sigh closing the door to her room softly before going to explore the rest of the house. I instantly know which is Prim's room considering it's covered in pink and just screams Prim. The next room, however, contains wedding photos of me and Ellie. I take one from the bedside table, sitting down on the bed and running a finger over her beautiful face. I would give anything to see her right now. Anything.
Walking downstairs and into the kitchen I raid the cupboards for something I could eat, finding, to my delight, cheese buns. And by the smell of them, freshly baked cheese buns. Katniss must have made friends with the old baker. Just as I'm about to take a bite of one of the delicious bread buns I hear footsteps and a voice behind me. "Put down the bread and turn around."
I smile as I recognise the voice. Even after all these years I could still recognise the gravelly voice of Haymitch anywhere, his throat so numbed with alcohol that it no longer sounds like the softer tones he used to carry. I turned with my hands up, putting the bread on the counter top. He looks at me for a moment and then at the bottle of liquor in his hands. He shakes his head for a moment, mumbling about how he really needs to cut down a little. I snort through my nose knowing it would never happen. He looks up again startled by the noise that I've made, as if confirming that I am here, not just in his imagination. I motion to the notepad that I had brought into the kitchen with me and sat on the table, the page still open at where I wrote my explanation to Katniss. Haymitch picks it up slowly, reading through it once before dropping it like hot coal.
"B-but it can't be! We'd have found you! We'd have known you were alive!" I shrug my shoulders once, sending a goofy grin his way. He just looks dumbstruck. I slowly walk over to the notepad, remembering his habit of always carrying a knife on him and wrote on the paper again.
Ellie?
Haymitch sighs before sitting down at the table. I don't think I've ever seen him this serious in years. "She moved to district four, working at the hospital there I do believe. She didn't want to come back here because of all the bad memories around... she can't even look at Katniss anymore, not after Prim." I nod my head once before writing again.
Can you call her? Convince her to come visit?
"I dunno Jacob, she's pretty messed up as it is, I don't think a call from me will change her mind."
Please try? I promised Katniss I wouldn't leave her again. I can't go to four and leave her alone!
Haymitch nods sighing again.
Don't tell her I'm here... I want it to be a surprise.
I watch as he wanders into the other room to use the phone. So much has changed from our lives in the seam. I can't even imagine how much Katniss had to go through in order to get to this point. I feel terrible for my little girl to have experienced the Hunger Games. I saw what it did to Haymitch, how he turned from my best friend into the shell of an alcoholic. And now Katniss, turned from my vibrant independent and strong little girl into the broken shell of a woman. I instantly felt guilt overwhelming me again as I thought of all she and Prim and Ellie had been through since I was proclaimed dead.
Picking up the cheese bun again I began to pick at it, waiting for Haymitch to bring word of Ellie. I wish I could talk to her, just to hear her voice. But I can't she wouldn't understand why there was silence on the other end. I had to wait to see her face to face. I had to wait to hold her in my arms again.
Waiting, apparently, turns out to be a horrible affair. Two days after Haymitch had convinced Ellie that Kaniss was in need of her she still hadn't arrived. Was she scared of Katniss? Of what she would find? Surely she knew how bad she was after her sister's death? Is that why she was reluctant to come home?
Every moment I spent with Katniss proved to me that she was no longer whole. Some days she refused to move from her bed, other days she would just sit on the sofa in my arms and stare into the fireplace. I always held her, frowning at the fact that she wouldn't utter a word to me. I had been so looking forward to hearing my little girl's voice, but it was rarely ever present. She would wake in the night, screaming from nightmares until I bounded into the room and held her close, stroking her hair like I used to do when she was a child. Eventually she would calm to just sobbing, but she never went back to sleep. She wouldn't talk to me about the rebellion either, but Haymitch had filled in most of the gaps there, and I just knew that my little girl would never stop being paranoid about who was around her and if they were using her or not.
When I walked into the kitchen on the third day Katniss actually seemed to be doing better, she was pottering about, eating without being told and her bow and arrows were leant against the counter top. I pointed to them in asking.
"I decided to go hunting... I miss the woods..." she said with a sad smile. I nodded in approval with a wide smile. I knew what she meant, I missed the woods so much it was unreal. "Do you want to come?" she asked. I stared at her for a moment before nodding eagerly. It was then that I saw the boy, outside the window, a wheelbarrow full of primroses. I tapped Katniss on the shoulder and pointed out the window, hoping she would give some explanation as to what a stranger was doing in our yard, so far from town. However, she only left me more confused as a sigh of Peeta left her lips and she ran outside to greet him. I watched their exchange carefully as they spoke, Katniss's eyes and facial expression quickly becoming more and more worrisome by the second. She then walked back into the house with tears in her eyes locking herself in her room. I sighed knowing trying to talk to her was no good. Instead, I watched the boy carefully as he continued to plant the primroses before hopping over the fence into the yard next door and through the back door of the house. Another victor.
So engrossed as I was with the cause of my daughter's distress I had not heard the door open, nor the footsteps wandering through the house and into the kitchen. In fact, I might not have known anyone was there at all had they not gasped right behind me, causing me to reach for the bow, an arrow and point at the beautifully frightened face of my wife. Ellie. I smiled at her brightly, placing the bow back down on the ground and holding my hands up in surrender, an apology of sorts.
"J-Jacob?" she whispered, much like Katniss did, unable to believe I was really there. I nodded my head and held my arms out towards her. she ran towards me, her arms quickly flinging around my neck and my falling around her waist to pick her up and spin her around. After setting her down I stared down into her beautiful blue eyes and smiled brightly, inching closer until my lips found hers in a slow sweet kiss.
She pulled away after a moment placing both her hands on either side of my face, as if making sure I committed to her memory. "But... how?" I just shook my head, not wanting to ruin the moment. "Jake, please say something," she pleaded. I sighed looking down. I reached into my back pocket, finding the notepad I had written my explanation upon before handing it to her with a frown on my face. She had always said my voice was her favourite thing about me... would she still love me after finding out the truth?
"You're an Avox?" she whispers, still not looking at me but down at the paper? I felt a pang in my chest. I looked away with tears in my eyes. There was no point in nodding, she knew the truth. The question was, would she still accept me? Would she still love me? It has been six years after all.
"Jake?" she whispered, pulling my face back around to meet hers. I rested one hand upon the one cupping my cheek, not wanting to ever let go of her hand again. Ever so softly her thumb moved across my cheek, wiping the stray tears away. Standing on her tiptoes and leaned up and kissed me again before pulling me to her and holding me close. I closed my eyes burying my face into her shoulder blade still softly crying. My arms looped around her waist, pulling her closer to me still, unable to ever think about being apart from her ever again. "Do you remember our toasting?" she whispered into my ear. I nodded smiling slightly at the thought of it. "I told you I would never stop loving you, no matter what. And that still stands today. I will always love you, Jacob Samuel Everdeen."
I picked up my notepad, intending to write the same thing back to her but she took it from my hands shaking her head. "I know you love me too, you don't need words to tell me that." I smiled down at her brightly, knowing I was possibly the luckiest man alive right now. I took the notepad back from her anyway.
Stay with me? In 12?
She smiled before taking the notepad and writing in her neat loopy scrawl;
Forever.
AN; so i really wanted to read a story like this, and i figured, if i do, then surely others would too? i don't know how well i got the reunions done, i was quite nervous about Ellie and Jake's reunion purely because i imagined it to be a rather passionate affair, but instead it came out fluffy :S but oh well!
reviews are welcomed :) please don't favorite without reviewing