AN: First try at writing, try not to be too harsh!
I am sitting in a meadow, flowers scratching at the exposed skin on my arms and face. Across from me sits Rue, humming a familiar tune under her breath. She isn't looking up at me but down at her lap, where her slim fingers nimbly weave flowers together. The wind is light, rustling the flowers that itch my skin.
"Rue."
My voice is quiet, scraping its way out of my throat to leave a burning sensation in my mouth. The word hasn't reached her ears, though she still sits before me. I know, somewhere in me, that I should reach out to her, hold her hand, brush the hair out of her face. But I am still, entranced by the song. Why is it familiar?
As soon as she stops singing, I remember the tune. But it makes no sense for Rue to be singing it, since I had never sung "The Hanging Tree" to her. As she raises her head, the tears I see in her eyes lead me to the reason she stopped singing.
"How could you do this to me, Katniss?" Her voice is softer than even mine was, but it instantly fills my head. As she shakes and shudders, tears falling into the growing wound in her stomach, she keeps repeating my guilt until her voice fails. She croaks out a final why, and suddenly she is gone, leaving the chain of flowers in her place.
I am still, body refusing to release the emotional torture in my soul. I could not even comfort her by showing my guilt and regret in tears on my face. No tears come.
Madge has suddenly materialised in Rue's place. She too weaves the flowers, but she is shaking too hard to make any progress. "You were my friend, Katniss, you were my only friend. Why would you kill me, Katniss, why would you kill me?" Her voice is hollow, and before I could even truly absorb her words she is blown apart, her body discarded into the meadow around me.
And then there is Prim, sitting in the exact spot Madge left, and she, too, is tangling together flowers, and her healing hands are even faster than Rue's. I struggle to say her name, because my sister is sitting before me and seems to not even know I am there. But the word strangles my throat until I feel I am choking, as if the tears I desperately want to release from my body are sliding down my throat and into my lungs. I cannot breathe.
She looks up. Her blue eyes, once so soft and gentle, are filled with a sorrow and fear that pierces through me. I was supposed to protect her, I think, as she begins to voice the timid accusations of my guilt for her death. "How could you do this to me, Katniss? Why would you leave me when I needed you?" And before I could even think of reaching out and falling into her arms, trying to beg for the forgiveness that she was once so willing to forgive, she is blown apart. At first it seemed as if she would burn before my eyes, but all too soon her small, fragile body is thrown into the sharp and thorny flowers of the meadow, far beyond my reach.
Only her chain of flowers remain as evidence of her presence, untouched by the flames that licked at her body. They lie on top of Rue's, perfectly made but as unfinished as her life was.
My father is there, standing instead of sitting, and he is already crying. "Katniss, you were supposed to protect them; you were supposed to be someone I could be proud of; you were supposed to be someone I could love. But don't you see, it's all your fault. The only person your spark has left unharmed is yourself." And suddenly he is screaming through his sobs, and the voice that used to sing me to sleep is being used to scream my faults until I think I am deaf. Selfish. Needy. Unwanted. Cold. Mean. Cruel. Uncompassionate. Flawed. Ugly. Worthless. Stupid. Childish. Failure. Unlovable. Selfish. Failure. Selfish. Failure.
And as sudden as he came, as they all came, he is gone, blown to bits again in the coal mine that I did nothing to prevent. An idea pops into my head, a good daughter would have kept him home that day. He wouldn't have died. The idea is ridiculous, there is nothing I could have done. But it still resounds inside of me. If I was responsible for everyone else's death, why shouldn't I be punished for his?
I can't do this. My mind is screaming, shouting out apologies as the pain of their deaths rip through me over and over. But my body is still, forced to idly watch the blood I have shed.
All too soon, the pile of flowers raise at my feet. All the thoughts I had supressed had risen to scream into my ears. Cato and Clove, the woman in the doorway, all the thousands of people whose deaths I either enabled or committed come back to lay their flower-chains at my feet. The pile rises, and all I can hear is the cries of their family members, because even people I hated, such as Cato and Clove, had families who miss them and had siblings and friends, and although their own pain has been extinguished by my spark induced flame, I have broken their families.
I see Gale walking away, not even bothering to look back at the girl he once loved, because who could love someone who killed everyone around her? And Peeta, sweet Peeta, is lying, screaming in pain as his memories are distorted. After what could be hours of his torture, he stands with an empty look in his eyes. I broke him, too. "You killed my family, too, Katniss." His voice breaks my resolve, and I begin to tremble violently. It looks as if he is about to come over and squeeze my throats until I cannot do more harm to anyone around me. But he is too late. The thousands of flower chains at my feet has engulfed me, and the thorns of the beauty and wealth that is all around me cuts into my skin until I have died, hearing nothing but the cries of the remaining broken families and the sound of Peeta chanting my name Katniss Katniss Katniss as he draws ever nearer, desperate to seal my death after I caused his emotional trauma. The scream is still piercing the air as I come to.
I awaken to total darkness, drenched in my own sweat, not blood from thorns. No flower chains suffocate me, but rather the sheets that are plastered to my body. It is, however, Peeta's voice that shouts my name, as he tries to shake me awake, accounting for my trembling body in the meadow. And the only scream to reach my ears is my own, loud and real, but just as piercing as the families'.
Peeta stops whispering my name as soon as he sees my eyes burst open. He pulls my shaking body into his chest, murmuring "shh" under his breath quietly, but my mouth won't, can't, stop.
"I'm so sorry. I am so so sorry," I sob into his chest, clinging to his shirt as he strokes my hair back. "It's all my fault. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," my voice breaks off because my sobs continue to wrack through my chest.
"It's not your fault, Katniss, it was never your fault." Peeta's voice is soothing, but worry is evident. In my dazed and half-asleep state, I only perceive this as doubt.
"It is!" I screech, voice rising in hysteria. "I killed them all! It is all my fault; I could have stopped it, I should have done something, I could have protected them! They haven't forgiven me, Peeta, and I can't tell them I'm sorry. And I can't tell them because I killed-"
"Katniss, please." His voice is now desperate, trying to stop my body from shaking. He pulls me tight into his chest. "It wasn't your fault, it was never your fault. Shh you're safe and fine, it was just a dream. Of course they forgive you, anyone who knows you can have no shadow of a doubt that you never meant for any of it to happen. It's not your fault, Katniss, I promise you." He keeps whispering assurances until my sobs subside, leaving only trickles of tears on my face and the occasional hiccough.
Minutes pass, but I am too scared to ever close my eyes. I am wrapped in Peeta's arms as he whispers sweet words into my hair, occasionally glancing down at me to see if I ever begin to drift off again. He sighs softly each time he notices that my stubborn, tired eyes stay open. He kisses my hair once more, and tilts my chin up to look me in the eye.
"Why are you awake?" he whispers softly.
"Because. You'll all be there, waiting for my eyes to close."
He picks up on his inclusion, and gently squeezes me even closer to him. "I'm there?" I'm starting to think his voice will never not be worried again.
I flinch ever so slightly. "Yes. Of course you are." I pause, not wishing to voice the guilt that has plagued me for the past few months following the end of the war. He squeezes me again, urging me to continue. "I a- it's my fault you were…" tortured "and it's still my fault that you still have …" flashbacks. I can't seem to finish my sentences. "And your family, God, I even killed your family." I can't go on because the sobs are threatening to return. Peeta, as always, knows exactly what I am trying to say. "And don't even think about saying you forgive me, because it is unforgivable and atrocious. I don't deserve any of the love and forgiveness you try to give me." As I try to wriggle out of his grasp, he only tightens his hold on me.
The voice that fills my head is now deadly serious and firm, only holding a twinge of the earlier worry. "Katniss. You can't keep blaming yourself for things out of your control. I don't hold you responsible for anyone's death. I wish I could explain that to you. You haven't killed anyone without good reason, and it was never my family or your family or your friends. I'm sorry, Katniss, I'm so sorry if I haven't made it clear enough to you that as opposed to you being responsible for what has happened to me in the past, I consider you responsible for my recovery. You are the one to calm me down when I'm in a state, and I don't ever think I'd be able to do any of it without you. No one, not me, not Rue, not Gale, not Prim, not anyone needs to forgive you, because you didn't do anything. The only person who needs to forgive you is yourself, because you can't keep blaming yourself like this." He falls silent, watching my face.
I have never been good with words, that was Peeta's job. And this is no exception. Peeta has told the truth, I haven't forgiven myself. I don't know how. But that is for another day. I have no words to say, and settle on a kiss and a mere "thank you" before curling up into his arms, finally falling asleep in his arms to his whispered words of love.
And maybe, this time I mumble them back.