A/N: First HG fanfic. It's been a while since I read the books. This is a random one-shot look at the Mellark household nearly 15 years after the events of Mockingjay. Take pity on me :)
Disclaimer: I don't own a thing. Not even the ideas I appropriate.
}{
Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
}{
Monsters live in the dark.
They hide in the corners. They thrive in the night. They claw at my mind and hiss with breath that smells of blood. But they're not here for me.
I stopped asking daddy to check under my bed a long time ago. I don't want him to find them. I'm afraid of what they'd do to him.
My mother tells me monsters don't exist. She says there's nothing in the shadows that can hurt me, but her eyes flick to the unlit corners of my room just the same. She's never been a very good liar.
They don't always come, but I know they'll be here tonight.
I knew it this morning, when the news played the national anthem to 3D images of fire and the old president whose name I can't remember. My father ripped the television plug from the wall, but not before my mother saw something that made her push her breakfast plate away.
Cal dropped the fork he'd been banging the table with, his cerulean eyes wide with wonder. Our mother never wastes food.
Uncle Haymitch had come in looking for fresh bread and was in the foulest mood I'd ever seen. He didn't have anyone at home to unplug the television for him when it showed things he didn't want to see.
He sniped at my mother until her brow furrowed and her fingers tensed like she wanted her bow. Haymitch teased her with jibes I didn't understand until even daddy looked unhappy. He left quicker than usual with a loaf that wasn't his favourite.
At school we celebrated Liberty Day. Last year, when I asked what Liberty Day was, Uncle Haymitch just muttered that fools love parades. My class spent the morning colouring in the flag of Panem, with its thirteen bright stars that surround the mockingjay and its arrow. All in all, the meaning of the day remained a mystery.
When I got home my mother was pacing around the kitchen. Perhaps stalking is a better word. Her hunting mask lifted only to greet me. Those grey eyes searched mine for a second, desperately trying to find out if she's needed in this realm before she slips into the other, the one that calls to her so much louder. Prim, Finnick, Rue, Mags, Coin, Snow. I don't know the people who steal my mother from me, but I know their names. They're the names gasped out in the middle of the night, the names whispered in conversations I'm not meant to hear.
They're the secrets I'm supposed to ignore.
Greasy Sae arrived and my mother grabbed her bow, the one worn smooth and shiny with age. It rests over her shoulder as she walks out the door, one hand gripping it hard like it's the only thing keeping her alive. We have more meat than Greasy Sae can cook. I know, because I heard her complaining about it yesterday. Still, my mother will search the woods for animals we won't eat, and trade the meat for money we don't need.
Not many people go into the woods anymore, and no one goes in at dusk. No one, that is, except for my mother. There are bears and wild cats that can take down small children in the blink of an eye. But it's the mutts that turned the forest into something nightmarish. The muttations are all through the wild, creatures that were never meant to be, set loose after the Capitol fell and no scientist wanted to take responsibility for their existence.
I never told anyone how scared I was when she went into the woods, but I think my father guessed. When I was younger, and my mother left with her bow, I couldn't leave the window for more than five minutes without rushing back to press my face against the glass, looking for any sign of her return. I was certain there'd be a day when she wouldn't come back.
"You know," my father had said behind me, "there's never even been a mutt sighted at District Twelve's fence."
I tore my gaze away from the window. "Never?"
One year there were so many mutt attacks, every district had to get its border fence reinforced. Janusimps, the two-headed boar-like creatures, had killed eleven people in District Three. Xolotmites, the large bugs that infected District Eleven, spread a disease that left three dead, hundreds sick and one in ten babies born deformed. The news said all of Panem was in danger, but when I thought about it, none of the stories happened close to home.
"Never," he repeated. "Katniss will never let a mutt into Twelve. If you or your brother go into the woods, you'll never have to be scared. We'll never have to worry. Your mother is keeping us safe the only way she knows how."
I didn't understand all that meant then, but now I knew my mother hunted monsters. District Seven had been evacuated for a week while the government destroyed sleipniris herds with air strikes. Yet, no one thought it odd that one woman and a bow kept Twelve safe. It was just another mystery that I never felt comfortable asking about.
That night it was cold and silent before they came. I forced my eyes shut again and again, but nothing would keep them that way.
I could feel them seeping into the house, dark claws sinking into our heads and trying to slither into our brains.
For a brief time, I burrowed deeper into my bed. There's always a small part of me that believes the monsters can't see me if I can't see them. They got louder. Gasped breaths turned into smothered screams. I didn't want to leave my bed in the dark, but I knew I had to. Caladius was all alone. I had to protect him.
My comm watch lit the room with its sickly yellow screen. It wasn't bright enough to chase the shadows in the corners, but it would have to do. My feet were silent as I flew down the hall. A few timber panels creak in our house, the ones daddy always says he'll fix, but they never squeak under my feet.
I never notice how huge our house is during the day. It's only at night when the smallest sounds echo that I realise its intimidating size. Sometimes I wonder why a baker and a poacher live in one of the biggest houses in the district, but it's hard to hold onto that thought when it all seems so natural. I was born here. It's the only home I knew and no one else questioned why my family got to live in one of the mansions on Undersee Road.
The only other people who had homes like ours on Undersee Road were Haymitch and the Aurantium family who rented the house that had once been my father's. Yew and Fedra Aurantium had five children and Fedra's widowed sister lived with them and had three more children they couldn't afford. Everyone around town said daddy rented his house out for next to nothing so they could live comfortably. If it was true, no one mentioned it at home.
Some people would feel privileged to live in one of the nicest houses in the district, but I was never proud of our house, maybe because people occasionally forgot and called it Victor's Village by mistake. My mother's lips would always curve up when she used that name, but not happily, just a vicious baring of teeth.
Caladius was already up. He stood just inside the doorway of his room, a small blanket clutched in one hand, his eyes huge and unhappy. ''Come on, Cal. We're going on a hunt," I stage whispered.
"A hunt?"
"Uh huh. A midnight trek across the snowy plains."
"Mary, I don't wanna…"
I hurried past him, opening his closet to find the shoes and coat he'd need. "We can't stay here," I told him softly.
My brother had never agreed to anything or with anyone, so I was somewhat surprised when he glared at me before snatching the shoes out of my hand and crouching down to put them on. Then again, new sounds had stated banging and knocking that seemed fearsome in the deep of the night, I could understand his need to escape.
I tucked Caladius into a coat and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. I held his hand tighter than was comfortable, pulling him along behind me. The noises got louder and clearer as I walked down the hall till they sounded almost human. I knew I shouldn't, knew I didn't really want to, but I paused outside my parents' door. I positioned myself to peak through the slightly ajar door. There was nothing to illuminate the room but moonlight. Still, the light seemed brighter and the shadows darker than anywhere else in the house. I could just make out daddy on the floor, his head in his hand and the silvery moonlight reflecting the most hopeless look I'd ever seen in his gaze.
"Katniss…" He spoke towards the oversized armoire like he expected it to talk back.
And then it did.
So much anguish. So much despair. "Prim, Prim, Prim, I volunteered. I did! I did everything! It should have been enough! Why wasn't it enough? Why wasn't it me? It should have been me. It should have…" The armoire trailed off in my mother's voice.
I didn't understand the words. Not really. But still they brought tears to my eyes and took my breath away in a painful shudder. It was my mother's pain, pain that I'd never known, pain that I would probably never know.
My father's fingers gripped the door of the armoire and tried to pull. The door stayed firmly shut, as if it was forced shut from the inside. The whole armoire rocked before my father gave up and slid down the wall again. "Kat, please come out. Please?" There was something in his voice I'd never heard before. Desperation.
My father clutched at his head again, as if he too could see the dark wisps trying to fight their way into his mind, trying to make him say evil things, do evil things. His shoulders shook with the effort to fight them, but all I could hear was the muted voice of my mother behind the doors of the armoire. "My name is Kat niss Everdeen. I am thirty-three years old. My home is Dis trict 12. I was in the Hunger Games. My husband is Peeta…" And on and on it went. Those useless facts in that monotone voice that threatened to make me as vulnerable to the monsters at they were.
A sharp sob caught my attention, but it wasn't from inside the room. Caladius was peeking in beneath me. "Mom!"
"Cal," I hissed, dragging him away. He tried to pull me back, but I was older and stronger and yanked him across the hall and down the stairs. I fumbled with the front door even as Caladius quietly hiccoughed and asked for his mother.
"Rosemary, mom and dad need help! Help them!"
I shook my head and pushed us into the snowy street. He pleaded and struggled against me. Quickly the cold got too much for him to talk and be dragged at the same time. His tears stopped as instantly as they started and I hugged him close as I lead him across the road.
I banged on the door, which was almost an exact replica of our own, only the paint was green and chipped in a way daddy wouldn't approve of. I knocked and shouted till I was hoarse and still no one came. I was about to give up and go home when the door finally opened.
Haymitch looked even worse than usual, if that was possible. He stared down at us with bleary eyes and a sour expression.
"Wha' d'yas want?
All I could do was shiver and rub my brother's back.
The words stuck to my tongue. My mother's locked herself in her wardrobe and my father's going crazy trying to get her out.I couldn't say it. I knew my parents had no secrets from Haymitch, but they still weren't my secrets to tell.
Luckily, I didn't have to say anything.
"There are monsters in our house," Cal said earnestly.
Any other adult would have been patronizingly sympathetic, if not downright mean at being woken up for something so idiotic.
Haymitch just looked back at our house, his eyes lingering on what I was sure must be the window to my parents' bedroom. There was something close to compassion in his eyes, before his face went back to its normal sour disposition.
"Yeah, I know how that feels."
He opened the door and I scuttled past him with my brother in tow, before Haymitch changed his mind.
His place was in its usual disarray, but it felt oddly comforting.
He scratched his head, and gave us a long look. "I don't suppose either of you know how to play Red Dog?"
I shook my head.
"Ah, Rosemary, what kind of drinking partner are you then?"
"A sober one who isn't your partner at all…"
"My house, my rules."
So I sat down and learnt the rules to Red Dog. Haymitch poured me a tiny glass of brown liquor as Cal fell asleep on his uncle's lap. I didn't like the drink very much and liked the game even less. I sipped at the drink just so I wouldn't have to hear how little fun my mother made life. I gave up the game when Haymitch's eyes lingered on my comm watch.
"Where'd you get that sweet piece, Rosemary?"
I fingered it gently. "Gale gave it to me for my birthday."
"Army issue." His eyes narrowed. "I'll bet you a bottle of whiskey for it."
"What would I do with that?"
He sighed. "There's no need for you to be as big a kill joy as your mother, you know. You don't even like Gale!"
True. But I liked the watch.
My mother ignored Gale, even though he came to every one of my birthdays and Cal's too. Then Gale would watch my mother too intently, like she'd disappear if he blinked. And then my father's eyes would narrow on Gale, like he wanted Gale's head permanently detached from his body and far away from my mother. It made for some awkward celebrations.
"You're not getting it." I grinned.
Haymitch waved his hand dismissively. "You better keep it. It's obviously to buy your affection, so when your mother's natural stupid starts up again, Gale will have something to work with when he becomes your new daddy."
It took me a few seconds to close my mouth then I launched myself at Haymitch and did my best to tackle him to the floor.
I don't remember falling asleep, but I know there were no monsters, no nightmares, just Haymitch's snoring competing with my brother's.
When I woke up, I was back home. Not in my bed, but on the living room couch with my brother on top of me. A sharp kick to my shin drew me from the couch and I glared at Cal as I stumbled away. Haymitch must have carried me and Cal in the snow without waking us up. His level of dexterity occasionally surprised me.
There was laughter in the kitchen, soft giggles and pretty whispers.
Katniss sat on the kitchen bench with Peeta standing between her legs, feeding her bits of bread. The kitchen smelt like loaves pulled fresh from the over.
"I know the only reason you keep me around is because I keep you fed," Peeta informed her, popping another bit of bread into my mother's mouth.
"Mmmn." Katniss closed her eyes to savor the bread. "Well, that and you're not exactly hard on the eyes either."
"I figured as much."
"Morning." I tried to sound normal, but mostly I just sounded weak and tired.
They both looked at me in surprise. My mother deftly slid down the bench to wrap her arms around me. She lifted me easily, like I was still Cal's age and walked us back to daddy's side. I burrowed into her neck just for a second; soaking in the smell of pine trees and sunlight. I never worried about getting too big for my mother to cuddle like this. I was pretty sure she'd still be able to lift me like this when I was fully grown (though I hoped to have enough dignity to stop her by then.)
"Taste your father's new invention," she suggested, handing me a slice of meaty looking bread. "Tell him he has to make it every morning if he wants to stay."
"Oh, so there's a toll now?" Peeta wrapped his arms around my mother's back, resting his head on her shoulder.
This close I could I see the dark smudges underneath my mother's eyes and the bloody stains in my father's eyes, like he'd been crying all night.
I pushed away the bread roughly. "I don't want it."
My parents' went oddly still. "Mary?" my dad questioned.
I knew the monsters crawled in through the dark shadows. I knew they ate away at dreams and happiness and left haunted eyes and tears in their place. But I couldn't stop them. All I wanted to do was keep my family safe and in the end all I did was cower away in case I learnt the truth behind all the secrets.
"What's wrong?" he questioned again. My mother didn't say anything, just fixed her eyes on mine and read everything she could.
"I want to know," I said petulantly. It wasn't how I wanted to sound. Not strong and mature, but it was all I could manage.
"Know what?" he asked again.
My mother looked away, her eyes sharp on the floor. She ran a hand over her messy braid. "Everything," she answered for me, still not looking up.
I just nodded, words gone like they always were when I needed them.
I needed the truth. I already knew that the monsters existed, my parents couldn't hide that, all they hid was their beginnings.
My parents turned to each other and shared more in a single look than most people could in a lifetime.
Daddy lifted me onto the bench, which was still warm with morning light and mother's presence. Katniss moved closer to squeeze my hand with her calloused fingers.
"Everything," Peeta agreed with a sigh.
Monsters live in the dark, but they die in the light.
}{
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
}{
E/N: "Here Comes the Sun" was written by George Harrison and originally performed by the Beatles, but I was totally listening to Nina Simone's cover.