This is my first Hunger Games fan fiction story. I planned to make it a one shot because it won't be too long. But I wanted to test the waters first, hope someone out there likes it or something. If yes, then it'd be done in three chapters. It may sound mental but if we're honest I'm only writing it to give more depth to the happy ending I wanted from the last chapter of Mocking Jay. I just want some smutty Katniss and Peeta, but not too smutty lol ...sorry for typos and grammar.
Disclaimer: This is Suzanne Collins genius, I only want to provide for myself the Everlark closure I need.
Few people know this kind of misery. A grief so real it becomes something so tangible. It becomes a physical object that chains you and immobilizes you. Immobilize, ha, the irony that word has now. Here sits the proclaimed Mockingjay, the girl on fire, whose flames couldn't be stopped by two hunger games and a war. No, not the war and all its losses were capable of extinguishing her grit to survive. She didn't know the meaning of restrain or being immobilized in all those years leading up to the rebellion. That of course has its own ridicule given where she grew up. But even all the confinements while growing up in this caged district were never enough to subdue her will to survive.
Not when she had a purpose, not when she had Prim. It was always about Prim, because Prim was her purpose. She couldn't define it now, but if you'd ask the old Katniss, she'd tell you. She would have told you the first day she went out into the woods frightened but unwavering to let Prim starve. She would have told you the day she volunteered to take her sister's place in the reaping and every day since. Every day was about her. Every day until she seared with the explosion that is, because that is the moment, the instance in her ill forsaken life when she became immobilized.
It's a sick joke really. Growing up in a suppressed Panem but feeling a perceptual resilience to live. Now it's a free world and she's given up. She doesn't live anymore, she only exists. The voids she carries inside are as transparent as the isolation she subsists with on the outside. She doesn't know whether to be grateful or resentful for the solitude people have given her. The feeling changes every other morning.
Today she feels resentful. She begrudges the people of Panem for using her for their convenience and then dumping her in an abandoned corner when she became damaged goods. She resents her mother for being selfish, for discarding her to deal with her own sorrows …again. She resents Haymitch for giving her the letter where her mother tried to justify her desertion. She resents Gale… but those reasons are too much to deal with today. Then there is Peeta.
She resents him the most at days and the least on others. She remembers reaching for the pill and his hand stopping her, that's when she hates him the most. She blames him for being the reason she still exists and everything that entails. But on the other days she doesn't hate him, she can't. None of what happened to them is his fault and he might be the only person who could truly understand the impact of what she went through. She can't hate him for coming back. But then, she does for not really coming back, because she longs for the old Peeta. The one the Capitol decimated and replaced. The one she got a glimpse of when he planted the primrose bushes outside her house. The same one she only nodded to before turning around and running back into her emotional sanctuary. He's just too much to think about on anyday, so she doesn't. She does her best to avoid him, just as she does in real life.
Days turn to weeks and weeks to a few months. Time doesn't heal her wounds, but in time, the mind protecting its sanity covers them with scar tissue. The pain curtails, but it is never gone. She has too many scars in her soul that complement the ones on the surface. And scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real. And her past reminds her she doesn't deserve the present. She will mourn the dead every day for the rest of her life, that is a given. But one morning in a moment of enlightenment, she decides not stay cradled on the couch anymore. She forces herself to get up and develop a routine.
One evening she is habitually sitting across the table from Greasy Sae, eating the modest stew the old woman prepared with the meager provisions in the kitchen. As far as Katniss is aware of, the people who have returned to district 12 have barely begun to rebuild from the ruins. She wonders how Greasy Sae got her hands on the rabbit. She doubts the new government at the Capitol is being so generous and Katniss hasn't hunted in weeks. She can't. And so she wonders who provided it, unlike the bread that sits on a plate in the center of the table. She doesn't touch the bread or verbalize her questions. She just sits there staring into her stew as she takes unhurried spoonfuls until Greasy Sae clears her throat.
As Katniss looks up, she says cautiously, "The boy wants to speak to you."
Katniss looks back to her bowl and after seconds too long replies, "No."
"I know—," Greasy Sae attempts.
Katniss doesn't blink, "No."
Greasy Sae gets up carrying the remains in her bowl to the sink and shaking her head in disapproval.
Days later, it happens in the middle of the night or a few hours before dawn, she isn't sure. She is awoken abruptly from her own pitiful sleep at the sound of a scream. On any other given night it could be the echo of her own voice, but not tonight. She doesn't have happy dreams anymore. They are either nightmares that trap her in her own mind or distorted ghost dreams of moments that really happened. She prefers the nights when she doesn't dream at all like tonight, well until… there it was again. She sits up on her bed thinking for a second. She moves to her bedroom window and opens it. She's greeted by a cold breeze and waits for another noise to direct her to the source. It's not hard to deduce the possibilities. There are only two other people here who've lived enough to resonate those kind of haunted screams. They also happen to be her only neighbors, Haymitch and Peeta.
When she hears the clash of things being thrown and broken in the direction of Peeta's house, she has her answer. She looks to where she knows his bedroom is located but the lights never come on. She gazes at his windows in the dim lights of Victor Village's street lamps. She stares for so long that she becomes entranced even till' after the clattering subsides. It's not until she touches her face to move loose hair strands that she realizes how icy it is. She closes the window and lies back down. Her mind wanders until she drifts off to sleep.
The next night she sits across from Greasy Sae in silence and this time she clears her throat.
As Greasy Sae looks up she goes on, "I— umm if Peeta wants he could join us for dinner tomorrow."
Greasy Sae nods, a smile hiding on her wrinkled lips, "An invitation?"
Katniss looks away and her eyes land on the daily plate with bread in the center of the table, "As a thank you for the bread."
Greasy Sae only nods.
When they are finished Greasy Sae is about to clear the plate with the untouched bread when Katniss reaches out and stops her. In all the weeks Greasy Sae has brought it with her, it is until this moment Katniss allows herself to reach for a piece.
She looks back at the old woman's wonder, "Is it okay, if I cut a piece?"
Greasy Sae smiles and hands her a knife from the counter. As Katniss bites into the slice, the old woman wraps the rest of the bread in a bag as she usually does. Katniss guesses she most likely gives it to someone who really needs it, someone who truly appreciates the creations of Peeta's hands.
The next day she wakes before the sun has risen over the horizon. She gears up in her old hunting clothes and eats a small breakfast alone. She packs a lunch consisting of leftovers from last night and writes a note for Greasy Sae. She lets her know where she's going and when she'll be back.
It is the first time since she was sent back that she is venturing into the forest. Her legs get shaky as she makes the familiar entrance through the fence that still has not been taken down. Whether she really has the courage to be here again is a tentative feeling but she makes herself believe she does. She reasons that it is because she'll have company tonight and the extra meat will be gratifying.
The forest is blooming with life in the foliage and in the animals that reside here. She finds her hidden bow and arrows in the logs they never left. It is a bittersweet reunion. The forest will never provide the same optimism it once did, but its absence in her life only casts a shadow she doesn't want to be followed by anymore. She doesn't hunt at first, she only walks around aimlessly, observing. She walks known trails and climbs acquainted trees. She pauses and let the flashbacks of moments with Gale happen. Time and distance have blurred the edges. She sulks and seethes, then she moves on. It doesn't take long before morning nears noon with its merciless light, and every bristle in the forest becomes clear. Finally, she resolves to accomplish the intention she came here with and shoots down two squirrels. Her shot is messy, but she still feels a senseless pride in still being able to hit her targets.
She replaces her lunch in her tattered game bag with the dead squirrels and finds a shaded spot to sit down. She finishes her meal and leans back into the tree providing the relief of Spring's warmth. She closes her eyes and thinks about what seeing Peeta will result to. She doesn't distrust he's made remarkable progress in his recovery. She's heard he's baking for the townspeople migrating back to the district as far as Greasy Sae has let on. She hasn't seen him in months. She's done a well damn job evading him and that says a lot seeing they only live yards apart.
She contemplates about how her own appearance will reflect in his eyes. She is convinced she will never look attractive in his eyes again. Her reasoning ranges from the Capitol destroying his love for her to his aversion at her existing looks. She is stained with burns and scars across her body. She spared her own face in the explosion by shooting her arms protectively over her head but to no advantage. Her face only expresses the tragic semblance her life has become. The sleepless nights manifest themselves in the dark circles under her eyes. Her endless gloom is obvious in her permanent frowns and scowls. The solitude is visible in the dullness in her eyes. She has no one or nothing to make them shine anymore, and she's okay with that. That is until now that she has become self-conscious in a matter of minutes wondering what Peeta will think of her.
She only hopes he thinks she looks healthier since the primrose bushes encounter. It has been almost three months since that moment. She has to thank Greasy Sae some day for forcing her to eat in all this time, because that was about all she had been able to do. She was ashamed to admit hygiene had been another thing for the first weeks. Katniss was confident someone was paying the old woman to look after her because there was no way she could put up with Katniss for free.
Katniss opens her eyes to look up at the clear blue sky but she does it so hastily she sees floaters in the corners. She closes them again for a few seconds and opens them in the same manner trying to see them again. She does. It's such a disregarded phenomenon to see these clear strands or fibers as they dance and glisten in your eyes. She is tempted to smile at this trivial discovery but the fleeting moment of contentment it is gone as quick as it came.
The oppression of her conscious reminds her that no matter how hard she tries to look at them, they'll float away. They will be gone like everything else in her life that provides her with any sense of joy. It only takes another glance to know it is true. She shuts her eyes and resigns to the darkness.