A/N This conversation is alluded to in The Feast,chapter 2 of Dreams and Nightmares. I don't think it matters which one you read first, but they are definitely meant to be read together. Would appreciate hearing your thoughts, lovely readers. Enjoy!
~ Snofums
Perhaps it wasn't obvious to all of Panem. Perhaps you had to know Katniss well to know what it meant.
Because Prim knew. And I knew.
I know what she's going to do even before she does. I know it from the moment I recognize the tiny vial of sleep syrup. So I'm surprised at the anger I feel swell inside me when I see her make the decision.
"Damn it, Katniss." Bitterness fills me, spilling from me, overwhelming me. I am suddenly unable to stay seated, and start pacing the room like a caged animal.
"Now she has to go for him! Now there's no choice, is there. The audience would hate her if she didn't go. No, can't have star-crossed lovers abandoning each other to die, can we?" I run my hands through my hair, making me look crazed. But I don't care. There's no one to see me but Prim.
"Hm," Prim responds. Neither a denial nor a confirmation. It's enough to stop my pacing, though.
"What?" I ask her.
Prim doesn't answer. She keeps her eyes on the screen, and watches her sister. But I know what she's thinking, because I'm thinking it to.
"You think she'd go anyway," I say. My voice is more hollow than I remember.
"I do," she answers.
This is, oddly, why I like watching with Prim. Prim doesn't lie to me.
The anger and bitterness swell up again inside me. This is the reason for my anger, I realize. This is the real reason. Katniss isn't only going because of what people would think of her.
She's going, to what is sure to be a bloodbath...
...for him.
To keep him alive.
"Why?" I croak. Despair fills my voice now, because I want the answer to be anything, anything but what fear whispers into me in the darkest hours of night.
She loves him.
Nausea courses through me. I grip the back of a chair to steady myself.
No. It can't be. It's an act.
But here she is, mashing up berries with the sleep syrup to drug him. If she wanted to, she could do any number of things at this point to avoid giving it to him. She could "trip," she could "accidentally" drop the pot in the fast-moving stream. No one could hate her then, and she wouldn't have to go.
Even as these thoughts flash through my mind, I know she won't do any of it. I know what she is going to do. I knew from the moment I saw the vial in her hand.
I ask again. "Why, Prim?"
Prim is quiet for a few moments. She presses her lips together as she watches her sister on screen.
"Katniss …" she begins, then pauses, and frowns.
Katniss what? I want to ask. I am not sure what I want to hear. Do I want her to say that it's obvious that Katniss is in love with Peeta? That that's the only possible explanation for her sister's behavior? It's what my brain is telling me every minute of every day. Does some part of me want her – need her – to confirm it, to quell all hope, once and for all?
Because if Prim says it, I'll believe it. I'll believe it because if she says it, then it's true. And at least I'll know.
Yet I find myself gripping the chair harder, desperately wanting her to find some other, any other explanation for why Katniss is risking her chances of coming back to us just to keep him alive.
The answer I get brings no respite from my torment.
Prim continues slowly, as if weighing her words and choosing them with great care. " Katniss is someone … who will go to great lengths … for someone she cares about."
And there it is. Prim didn't say "for someone she loves." The truth is that neither of us know – Katniss herself probably doesn't know – what her feelings are for Peeta. Or for me, for that matter.
Not that I'd ever told her my feelings. Remorse swells in my chest again, making it difficult to breathe. No, I never told her in words. But couldn't she sense them? How is it possible she still doesn't fucking know?
As if in response, Prim's voice cuts into my thoughts. "She's also not one to be … the most …" she searches for the right word, "observant, really, when it comes to other people's feelings."
I nod. It's not that Katniss doesn't care about what other people feel. That's not what Prim means at all. It's that for so long, Katniss has known nothing but the need to keep her family alive. To keep her sister alive. Letting herself think of anything else, anything that might get in the way of that, jeopardized the people she was trying to save.
Our eyes haven't left the screen. We watch as Katniss, having mashed berries into the small pot with the syrup, heads back to the cave.
"Not when she needed to keep you safe," I whisper in agreement.
When Katniss smoothly lies to Peeta about the berries, I almost snigger at his idiocy in believing her. No child from the Seam would be so stupid as to not recognize sleep syrup. Too often, that's been our only medicine for illnesses that required something stronger. For pain beyond what sleep could cure.
But now, the spoiled baker's son is letting her trick him. Anger courses through me as I watch him take bite after unsuspecting bite. The laugh that escapes my lips when he finally catches on is bitter and contemptuous, and I cannot help feeling that he deserves this. He deserves to wake up with the knowledge that his own spoiled upbringing, his full belly at night, and his comfortably fed siblings all led to her death. I want him to choke on his guilt just the way he is choking on the last spoonful of syrup.
But the look he gives her before he slips into darkness doesn't escape me.
It soon becomes clear that is hasn't escaped Prim, either, because as he uses his last moment of consciousness to glare at Katniss, I hear Prim whisper, "Poor Peeta."
We watch as the screen changes and shows the tributes, one by one – or two by two - waiting in their respective hiding places. We watch Katniss watching Peeta sleep. Watch her slip into the sleeping bag with him. I try and ignore the nausea pulsing in my stomach.
But before I can stop myself, I've said more:
"Doesn't look like she cares to much about staying alive to keep you safe now, does it."
For the first time, Prim's eyes leave the screen and she fixes them on me, eyebrows raised. Her expression changes, and suddenly it's like she is studying me, seeing a part of me she didn't know existed. A part she doesn't know if she likes.
"Would you let your district mate die - even if both of you could return - if it meant a better chance at getting back?"
It seems as though genuinely wants to know. I sense, more than anything, the accusation behind it. I swallow, but it's not enough to keep the anger out of my voice.
"If it meant coming back to my family, who are depending upon me to keep them alive …" I swallow again, and my voice drops to a whisper. "If it meant coming back to Katniss …then … yes."
I close my eyes and clench my hands tighter on the back of the chair, but even the sharp pain of splinters driving themselves into my fingers can't stop the rest of the truth from coming out: "And I'd do it myself, if I had to."
Prim is quiet after that for a long time. Eventually, she says, "you and Katniss are very different people, sometimes."
Her words, though gently spoken, pierce me. Shame rushes in, anger on its heels defensively. Anger at the world we live in, at the hopelessness of our situation. My conversation with Katniss about running away, about leaving everything behind, flits across my brain like sunlight reflected on water. Bright and fleeting.
Because that's all it is. Nothing tangible, nothing real. An illusion of hope. Katniss was right – we do live here, in Twelve. Or we did. Hopefully she will again.
But will he?
Hope, born of desperation, fuels my next question, and I can't keep the note of desperation from slipping in.
"Do you think … do you think that's the reason she's doing this? Because they're district mates? That she's doing this out of loyalty, to – you know, to Twelve?"
I can hear my voice becoming more pleading as I move to sit next to her again, because if anyone knows, it's Prim. Because if Prim says it, I'll believe it.
"That – ok, maybe she's not doing it because of the audience, but … but because of what life would be like for her here if she were to let him die?"
My voice drops to a whimper, and I despise myself for it.
"Do you think she's only doing this because for him because he's her district mate?"
Prim looks into my anguished eyes, compassion surging behind her own. She knows what I want – what I need to hear. She knows what I am really asking.
She places a tiny hand on one of my large ones.
"No, I don't," she says softly.
With a gentle squeeze, she leaves, probably going to try and find a few hours fitful sleep, if she can.
For once, I am glad she isn't here.
Now, in the agonizing solitude, my anger, my fear, my frustration – all can find release.
Now, the tears can fall.