Authors Note: It's been a long while since I have wrote on Fanfiction (it was with another pen name in case you were wondering). But I've found myself to be exponentially better than I used to and I hope that means more reviews (wink wink). This is also the first time I've written a fic on the wonderfully addictive Hunger Games, and I can be highly unobservant so if there are any inaccuracies with this piece compared to the books, I would appreciate it if you pointed them out to me for future reference. Any other critiques would be lovely because I am in a creative writing class and any suggestions or comments are what keep me a goin'.
When the screams started I instinctively assumed they were mine, but after fully awakening I realized the true source. I flung the covers off of me and quickly leaped onto the floor. Peeta's protecting arms groped the now empty space beside him but they only met wrinkled, warm bedding. I bounded out of the room and careened down the dark hall. Laurel's child screams bathed the area in empathetic shrills. Like the last call of some beautiful dying creature. I tripped every step to the doorway where I stopped. Her thin young body flailing around under her sheets made me halt. Just like Prim. Just like Prim in her nightmares. It took me a moment to regain myself as it always does when the waves of painful nostalgia hit me. As soon as they pass I tumble through the door and appear on the edge of her bed. Gently nudging her into consciousness. Her eyelids lift and reveal the frightened blue beneath. The same gorgeous color as her father's. Once they comprehend me the fear subsides to relief. Our arms wrap around each other's in embrace.
"Shhh it was a nightmare, you're with me now." I whisper in an attempt to coax her. We sit in silence until the tears become less abundant and then I sing.
"Dear little dogwood
Why do you cry?
Howling at the moonflowers
La-ate at night?
Why are you weeping?
Oh gentle willow?
Did a dragonfly away with your love bug?
Tomorrow, tomorrow
The sun might shine
The clouds might rain
And the butterflies die
But tomorrow, tomorrow
Tomorrow you see
My lovely laurel will still be with me
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
The meadow's charm and an angel's smile
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
Laurel my flower will always love me
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
And happy together we shall be"
She smiled at the familiar lullaby. I brushed her damp hair back from her face, a mixture of tears and sweat. The thin strands were soft under my touch, so much the same as Prim's. The two of them would have gotten along very well had circumstances been in our fortune. Now all that Laurel has of her aunt is a memory book. She would never know the similarities the two shared. Laurel was smart like Prim, she was wiser than anyone I knew. But Laurel was fearless. She was the kind of strong I pretended to have during the games and the war. Laurel never needed or wanted to be fake though, she was always very real about everything. She was truthful and sometimes to a fault. My little girl noticed the pain in my expression and repeated my earlier action, brushing the long dark hair behind my ear.
"Mommy what are you thinking?" What am I thinking? I'm thinking about hope. I am thinking about freedom and peace and love and happiness. I'm thinking about laurels and robins. I am thinking about the day when some of the things I thought I had lost forever came back to me.
It was four months after returning to district 12. Peeta and I had pretty much finished our memory book and had nothing to do with our time anymore. Well actually I had nothing to do with my time anymore. Peeta had bread to bake and pictures to paint but I was left with nothing. Hunting was just too painful; it reminded me of Gale and how he betrayed me. Plurtarch had set up that singing program on TV but the truth is I hated it. I recorded the first three episodes and then quit. Primping with my prep team, scheduling with Effie, and being forced to read Fulvia's poorly written scripts so I "become more appealing to the general audience" reminded me too much of the propos. Peeta and my mother, and Haymitch for that matter, insisted repeatedly that I do something with my time because they knew that if I didn't I might go psycho again. Not that that isn't a likely assumption. So for weeks afterward I decided I would try writing songs. I carried a thick journal with me and a pencil, and I walked. I walked downtown and I stumbled into yards with sparse sprouts of grass. I walked around the meadow. I walked so much my feet would blister. Then at the end of the day I would sit by the lake and write songs. I would write about everything I had seen. Not just with my eyes but beyond that. I saw a world that had changed and broken things fixing themselves. I saw grass growing where ashes once were. Peeta started following me when he had time. Walking beside me and holding my hand. We shared a silence that was very...prominent. We were thinking the same things, feeling the same things, remembering the same things. Occasionally his hand would flinch when he saw the place where the bakery once stood. I would just squeeze it back and we would move on. When I got to the writing part Peeta would lie on the grass beside me and play with some wild flowers, turning them over carefully in his hands to observe the color and shape for future paintings. Once in a while he would glance up at me as my hand quickly glided over the paper to form the words in my mind. I knew he probably saw the same things I saw when I watched him paint, the thoughtful expression of something beautiful being created. Teasingly he would try to read what I was writing over my shoulder, knowing how much I hated that. I would shoo him away and insist he was distracting me. One day in the spring Peeta didn't stay with me as I wrote and instead wandered off to draw some scenery. To be specific I believe it was a robin's nest in a low hanging tree branch. Below was a multitude of mountain laurels, freshly blooming. I decided to surprise him and write about the same scene. But somehow I couldn't find the right words this time. Peeta damn you…your absence is an even worse distraction. I tried taking a break and took a swim in the lake, feeling the katniss beneath my toes. The water was relaxing and worked wonders on my stress. I stepped out, dried myself off and went back to work. Even after clearing my head, not a single word would surface. I had just given up when I heard a deafening snap behind me. My bow was beside me so no worries of danger came to mind. It might be a wild animal. But a wild animal is smarter than to be that loud. It was probably Peeta sneaking up on me with that awkward gate he has. A theory came to me. I could scare him in a counter attack if I trained a bow on him just as he was about to pounce, and then shoot so to barely miss him. Yes Katniss, that is a smart idea, teach that boy a lesson. Five. Four. Three. Two. I spun around with the weapon poised and shot just above the intruder's head. Or heads. Instead of finding Peeta before me I saw three other familiar faces. I closed my eyes and opened them again trying to register what had happened. Just as before, I saw the three people. The first was Leevy a girl from twelve. She was my old neighbor who was so kind to help me when Gale was whipped. Her black hair was tied back neatly in a bow and a scar stretched across her cheek. I had never known Leevy that well but I felt a pang of joy at the sight of her. The second was an even bigger shock to me. It was Mr. Byron Melark, the baker, and Peeta's father. Some of his hair was singed on the side and he had lost a lot of weight at one point, but he had regained his health once again. Peeta's father? He died…he was in the bakery when the bombs dropped. What is going on? Yet neither of these two long forgotten citizens of twelve could be as impacting on me as the last. There she was, possibly my best friend. She was the most like her old self. She appeared the same as ever except for her lack of rich clothing. Madge. It didn't take a seconds thought before I was embracing the three figures, ignoring the idea somewhere inside of me suggesting they were hallucinations. But as I held each one I could feel their skin as clearly as my own. They were real. They were with me. I didn't notice that tears were streaming down my face until Madge brushed them away with her hand. Yet I could tell by her eyes that she was near tears as well.
"How?" I choked out to them. Leevy was the first to speak. She looked faraway and wispy, as though she could blow away in the wind at any given moment.
"Madge and I found each other during the attack on 12 and we tried to escape with Gale but we lost him when a bomb went off. We ran in the direction he went and stumbled upon lying in the rubble. We dragged him with us and made it into the meadow, but didn't have a clue where we were going…" she stared off into the distance as if forgetting where she was and then Madge intervened.
"We ended up at 11 and saw the rebellion going on. We joined in for a while but then bombs started dropping and Byron…" she stopped and I noticed why. looked rather distraught at the memories being resurfaced. Most likely the bombs gave him traumatic damage. It was heartbreaking to see these people I once knew in such a tortured state, but I had to know more. I had to know how they came to be before I truly believed they were actually here.
"Please Madge, tell me what happened." I begged. Byron retreated to the water and began to skip stones across it.
"So we kept going until we ended up at 10. We staid underground for a while incase another rebellion broke out. It did and some peacekeepers found us…"
She stopped as if not knowing how to word it. Leevy lifted her pant leg to reveal a piece of wood where a leg should have been. Too bad the districts don't have any metal mechanisms like Peeta has. The part of her leg that did exist looked grotesque and almost putrid. It was cut up like the apple sized scar on my arm from the Quarter Quell, where Johanna dug out my tracker. There was something else wrong with Leevy, she was very scattered brained. She used to be so cool in demeanor but I guess the blow of the rebellion hit hard for even her. I sympathized for the girl I once was acquainted with. She is in a world between Annie's insanity, Peeta's loss of reality, and my brokenness. That seems like a terribly lonely world. But that didn't matter as much now. They are alive, and that astonishes me.
"They had mutts with them." Madge sighed. I remembered the lizard creatures stalking us down through the capitol streets. The rose scented mutations. They killed Finnick… They left Annie, pregnant lost Annie, without anyone to love her, to understand her. Were these the same creatures that took Leevy's leg or was it some other destructive demon created by the capitol? Madge saw the contempt in my eyes as well as the hurt and changed the subject back to their escape from the peacekeepers and their journey to the woods.
"When we got to the woods I gave Leevy one of my mother's painkillers which I had taken with me and bandaged her up as best I could. I tried to remember what your mother used to do but I still did a terrible job. I wish she was there." I smiled. My mother's magic really did make an impact on people. I would have to tell her that next time I called her. "We didn't know when the rebellion would end or if we would win, and we were all…injured."
By the way she said it, it was apparent she didn't just mean physically. I can relate. We all can.
"So we remained in the forest for a long time. I remembered what you told me about hunting and I set up some snares. Byron made a shelter and a leg for Leevy. We lived there. It wasn't until some kids, wandering away from ten, found our camp that we were told the rebellion ended. We went to a hospital in the district and had Leevy's leg looked at. They did the best they could and gave her a new wood leg but they couldn't do much. They are going to send in some medical supplies for her in the next few days. Anyway, we took a train and arrived at here earlier this morning."
Madge explained. I was rather proud that she actually listened to my ramblings about hunting. I always thought she felt uncomfortable about the topic since it was technically illegal and her father was the mayor. It even distracted me from the agitation I felt when hearing they avoided the rebellion. While I was fighting and making propos, they were hiding. But I wanted to run away to the forest with Gale when the rebellion was right in our future. I remembered the days when I let myself slip into depression, when I actually felt the pain that was growing inside me. Those days I fled to supply closets and refused to talk to anyone. The only reason I didn't follow a plan like Madge's was because I was the Mockingjay. I can't hold anything against them, not really. Madge continued the ending of her story but this time she was quiet and emotional.
"My house…my parents…I didn't expect to find much and I was right. I knew you were here though. As soon as the people from ten heard we were from twelve they assumed we knew you, Peeta, and Gale and went on long tangents about your influence in the revolution. I had to find you. Leevy didn't have anyone either so we went together to your house in victor's village, but you weren't home. Greasy Sae said you were walking around town with Peeta so we recruited and went looking for the two of you. I supposed the meadow was where you were since I couldn't find you anywhere else and here you are."
After all was said I smiled. I was touched they went through so much to find me. These people meant a great deal to me, even though at one time I took them for granted. I bet they never took me for granted. Suddenly I felt foolish and selfish, and other words that Johanna might utter when she went through morphling withdrawal. But more than anything I was relieved they made it. Suddenly I was hugging them all over again. It was at that moment that Peeta had decided to walk into the clearing.
"Hey Katniss, you have to see this picture. I think you will really like it. Something about the color of the Laurel's …"
He stopped mid-sentence at the sight of the people around me.
It took him a moment to decide whether they were real or not but I could tell it was taxing on him. "Real or not real?" I could almost hear him ask.
"Real" I answered his silent question.
He nods slowly then runs to his father so fast I think he might knock him over with impact when they hug. Tears come streaming down his face like me when I hugged Madge. The two held each other for a long time. For just a moment looked like his old self. He was going to be okay now, because now he had someone to take care of again. He had a reason, a purpose again. I grinned. I grinned because Peeta also had another piece of himself back. A piece that Snow thought he had destroyed. Before the stories were told a second time and introductions were made for Peeta, Madge, and Leevy, we ushered the survivors out of the meadow and into Peeta's house. I served some of Peeta's cinnamon bread and fresh tea as the other's settled in the family room, and began their long conversation. Even after hearing it a second time it was still remarkable to me that these people made it. It must have been for Peeta to because as I watched his eyes when the stories were told, they would light up with wonder at certain points and in others become gravely thoughtful. At the end we changed the subject and held a normal conversation. It didn't involve death, survival, or rebellion. It was just a normal conversation with old friends. Peeta joked and the group chuckled just like old times, the kind of familiar old times that you like remembering. After the bread was eaten and then seconds of the bread was eaten, the brigade went on a trip upstairs to see Peeta's studio. Oohs and awes filled the room immediately when we stepped in. Each painting was a masterpiece to them. As I looked around at oil painted cornucopias and weapons and swirled images of something unnamable, I only saw puzzle pieces. The little fragments that made up Peeta's thoughts. Some were frightening, so much that I had to turn away. But others, newer ones, made me smile. Pictures of Prim with lady, a bigger version of the one in our memory book. One of me shooing Buttercup away from a plate of cooling bread, it was so realistic that I could hear Buttercup hissing and smell the dill wafting in the rising steam. Then was one of me and Peeta, I was writing and he was lying on the ground looking up at me with lilac in his hand. I stared at it admiringly even after the guests had withdrawn back down to the living room, no doubt for more of that delicious bread.
"I meant to give that to you tonight…" he said from behind me. His breath caught on my neck soothingly.
"It's beautiful" I tell him. I reach out tentatively and touch Peeta's painted cheek. A warm sensation fills me and I begin to panic at the stuffiness of it. I need out of the room but when I turn around Peeta is right there looking at the distress on my face. I expect him to make some romantic advance on me but he doesn't. He lifts up a cloth covered canvas and hands it to me.
"But I think you should have them both" he finished. I unwrapped the thick cloth to expose the drawing Peeta had created earlier in the meadow. But it wasn't what I expected. The whole picture was covered in a background of pale pink blooming laurel flowers. Amongst them I sit, petals resting in my hair and around my shoulders. I am singing, and a baby robin sits on a branch of the mountain laurels singing back to me. Its feathers are downy and grey instead of the orange tummied adults. It seems more innocent this way. Everything about the picture depicts innocence, even me. Is this how Peeta sees me? Beautiful, lovely, sweet? How can he when anything but that is true? I am a killer, I have always been a killer. If not with humans than with animals. How many times have I shot and cooked a robin? How many times have I ripped off the branches of mountain laurels to use them as snares?
"Only because you had to Katniss. You were protecting yourself and Prim, your mother, Rue, me, even Gale. You had to kill. That's the furthest thing from heartless. The mutts are heartless. They don't feel, they don't hurt, they don't even protect, they just kill because they were trained to. But to kill to protect? That is completely different. You killed because you felt, because you hurt, because you would rather die than not protect the ones you love. That isn't a picture about innocence Katniss. It's a picture of an Angel." Peeta says behind me. I didn't even know I was talking out loud, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that it's even warmer than before in here but instead of wanting away from it I want more of it. I want more of Peeta's words. I want them to fill me. To replace all of the ugly ones that occupy my mind. That is something Gale could never do, he could never convince me of anything, not even his love for me. Maybe Peeta can because he is good with words, or maybe he can because the same words are sitting around my head they are just dusty and buried, or never fully formed. But he is able to make them clear and make them mean the things I want them to mean. Now I know exactly what I want to say. Peeta found the words for me even though I already had them locked away somewhere.
"Dear little dogwood
Why do you cry,
Howling at the moonflowers
La-ate at night?
Why are you weeping
Oh gentle willow?
Did a dragonfly away with your love bug?
Tomorrow, tomorrow
The sun might shine
The clouds might rain
And the butterflies die
But tomorrow, tomorrow
Tomorrow you see
My lovely laurel will still be with me
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
The meadow's charm and an angel's smile
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
Laurel my flower will always love me
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
And happy together we shall be"
"Dear little dogwood
Why do you cry,
Howling at the moonflowers
La-ate at night?
Why are you weeping
Oh gentle willow?
Did a dragonfly away with your love bug?
Tomorrow, tomorrow
The sun might shine
The clouds might rain
And the butterflies die
But tomorrow, tomorrow
Tomorrow you see
My baby robin will still sing with me
My baby robin
My baby robin
The meadow's song and angel's heaven
My baby robin
My baby robin
Robin my sweetheart will always love me
My baby robin
My baby robin
And here in the meadow we shall sing"
I finish the joyful tune I didn't even know I created. Peeta was looking at me with amazement in his eyes but more than anything love. Then the heat of the room got so fierce that I felt like fire. The girl on fire. I did the only thing I could think of to extinguish it. I wrapped my arms around Peeta's neck, closed my eyes, and pressed my lips to his in a real, tender kiss. He responded instantly as if he was going to do it if I hadn't. I felt the emotions running through me so fast I couldn't keep up with them. Eagerness, Love, happiness, fear, reluctance, frustration, anger, fury, passion, love, happiness, and then freedom. True utter freedom. I knew it would stick with me forever as long as Peeta was with me forever. And really I would kill anything that would get in the way of that. If Peeta calls that an angelic action than fine, you can call me "Katniss Everdeen Peeta's angel". When I open my eyes I'm in a new place entirely. I'm in Laurel's bedroom and she is staring up at me like she had asked a question. I hear a noise behind me and turn to see Peeta leaning against the doorframe with admiration, sleepy little Robin tugging on his pajamas and rubbing his eyes.
"Mommy it's no fair you sing to Laurel and not me" Robin insisted with a pout. I can't help but laugh. Peeta picks him up and twirls him around until he lands with a plop on the mattress beside me.
"Please mommy" he begs and I finally give in.
"Dear little dogwood
Why do you cry,
Howling at the moonflowers
La-ate at night?
Why are you weeping
Oh gentle willow?
Did a dragonfly away with your love bug?
Tomorrow, tomorrow
The sun might shine
The clouds might rain
And the butterflies die
But tomorrow, tomorrow
Tomorrow you see
My lovely laurel will still be with me
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
The meadow's charm and an angel's smile
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
Laurel my flower will always love me
My lovely Laurel
My lovely Laurel
And happy together we shall be
Dear little dogwood
Why do you cry,
Howling at the moonflowers
La-ate at night?
Why are you weeping
Oh gentle willow?
Did a dragonfly away with your love bug?
Tomorrow, tomorrow
The sun might shine
The clouds might rain
And the butterflies die
But tomorrow, tomorrow
Tomorrow you see
My baby robin will still sing with me
My baby robin
My baby robin
The meadow's song and angel's heaven
My baby robin
My baby robin
Robin my sweetheart will always love me
My baby robin
My baby robin
And here in the meadow we shall sing
Dear little dogwood
Why do you cry,
Howling at the moonflowers
La-ate at night?
Why are you weeping
Oh gentle willow?
Did a dragonfly away with your love bug?
Tomorrow, tomorrow
The sun might shine
The clouds might rain
And the butterflies die
But tomorrow, tomorrow
Tomorrow you see
The boy with the bread will still be with me
The boy with the bre-ead
The boy with the bre-ead
There in the meadow with an angel we-ed
The boy with the bre-ead
The boy with the bre-ead
The boy with the bread will always love me
The boy with the bre-ead
The boy with the bre-ead
And together in the meadow we'll always be free"
Peeta kisses me and then we tuck in each child, praying that they will sleep well now. As we retreat back into our own bed Peeta turns to me quizzically.
"What are you thinking about?" he asks. I curl up beside him.
"About how glad I am that there are people out there worth living for. That all of the shit I went through is no longer for nothing"
"It was never for nothing, Katniss" he whispers.
"It would have been, if you weren't here" I say just before we fall into a hopefully peaceful sleep.
TO BE CONTIOUED…
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