Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them." - A. A. Milne
Peeta looks out the window of the dining car as the buildings of District 6 rise up around the train. Already it looks different from District 5, where their little party had stopped previous, though the same general feeling seemed to rise out of both of them. Oppression. The word swirls around in the back of Peeta's mind like wisps of smoke.
Oppression is nothing new to Peeta. While the tour of the districts went by so quickly, each one so distinctly unique that it nearly overwhelmed him, the sense of oppression was the one thing that he noticed they all shared. After all he's seen, Peeta suspects that this will even be true in 1 and 2, where on the surface things seem almost as good as in the Capitol for its citizens.
Next to him stands his fellow victor, his co-conspirator in this whole thing; the only one who really understands the images that still haunt him in the light and darkness alike. She's also the one that people seem to care most about, but Peeta doesn't hold that against her. There's a reason he's loved her since the moment he first heard that velvet voice serenade the mockingjays that perched in the trees outside their tiny kindergarten classroom. No, before he heard it. Because despite the story he's told, he's aware that this love that has a hold of him blossomed even before he heard her sing on that fateful morning. It was that same indefinable spark that seems to have kindled the nation that also drew him to her.
"Are you ready?" he asks her with a tired smile as he thinks about the same song and dance they've been performing in every district before, and will perform in every district after. He smiles because it is the only alternative to crying.
"Do I have a choice?" Katniss asks, then flinches as she realizes how her words come across. And for one brief, glorious second when she looks up at him, Peeta sees something in those beautiful grey eyes that he has spent his entire life hoping to see. Then it's gone as she averts her gaze and wordlessly makes her way to where Haymitch and Effie wait.
The speech he and Katniss give is the same one they've given in every district since the disaster in 11. Peeta knows better than to try anything else now. And even if he forgot, the tension he feels on every stop of the tour would remind him immediately. In fact, Peeta isn't sure that anything he and Katniss could do would quell some of these people. Even if everything they were presenting about their relationship were the truth.
What's more, he's not sure they should. Though that is a thought he is only able to admit to himself at night on the train, when he has Katniss safe in his arms and the darkness to conceal them both.
Just like in districts 11, 8 and 7, the victory rally in 6 is hijacked by rioting citizens. As Peacekeepers usher him and Katniss away from the scene, Peeta spots another set of Peacekeepers doing the same for a young woman in the audience. She wears a white dress spangled in a messy pattern of brightly colored flowers. Her eyes are sunken in with dark moons underneath them, and something registers in Peeta's mind. Between the bewildered look and the dress that reminds him of when he paints, she looks like how he feels.
Peeta wonders who she is, and what about her warrants the special escort of the Peacekeepers. Is she a victor? He realizes that so far, he and Katniss haven't been introduced to a single one. Not that that's surprising-if he were President Snow, he wouldn't want that display of camaraderie amongst the victors flaunted, either. Especially not when he and Katniss had caused so much trouble.
Months later, Peeta leaves Katniss's house, having spent most of the afternoon helping her with her family's plant book. Before he can return to his own house, however, there's one other stop he has to make.
Ever since Katniss convinced him to hire Hazelle Hawthorne on to clean, Haymitch's house has actually been tolerable. Pleasant, even. It certainly makes life easier for Peeta. He rests easier at night knowing Katniss is safe and Haymitch is healthy. Besides, it makes conversations with Haymitch so much easier when his mind and house alike are in order.
When he arrives, Haymitch is sitting at the kitchen table with an open bottle in hand. A stack of opened mail rests nearby. As Peeta slices the bread he brought over for Haymitch's benefit, a card sitting on top of the stack catches his eye. The artwork is clearly hand-painted. The card itself is abnormally large for such an item. He would be able to tell from the uneven pattern of the brushstrokes, even if the picture itself weren't a mockingjay. Because somehow Peeta doubts President Snow would allow such cards to be printed, despite Katniss's mockingjay being all the rage in the Capitol.
Haymitch must spot Peeta looking at it, because he speaks up. "Came from one of 6's victors. Poppy Lowell," he explains.
Peeta picks up the card and examines it more closely now. He remembers the stop in 6 and the riot that broke out while they were there. He also remembers the sight of that woman being escorted by the Peacekeepers, and something occurs to him.
"Haymitch, how come Katniss and I weren't introduced to any of the other victors on our tour?" he asks.
Haymitch leans back in his chair and studies Peeta for a long moment before he answers. "The Capitol didn't want any of the others taking away from your celebration." Peeta understands that this is code for what Haymitch really means. That what he suspected on the tour about being kept away from the others was right.
For the next twenty-four hours, Peeta is preoccupied by this confirmation. He wonders what the other victors must be like. There must be some sort of kinsmanship between them all if Snow feels so threatened by it. He almost voices his thoughts to Katniss as they work on the book the next day, but stops himself just in time. It isn't safe here. They're all aware the house is bugged. He'll have to wait until they can talk someplace safe before he can tell her. Her foot is healing, so he doesn't think he'll have to wait long before he can do so. But her style team arrives the next morning for her wedding dress photoshoot.
The following day, the Quarter Quell card is read, and Peeta forgets everything else as he becomes consumed with keeping Katniss alive.
Peeta sees Haymitch speaking to them that first night before the chariot ride through the city. He recognizes the woman as the same one in the dress he saw in 6 on his tour. So he was right about her: she was a victor. Then Peeta sees both the woman and her district companion give an unfocused glance in his direction, and he wonders what Haymitch is telling them. For a moment, he considers making his way over and joining the conversation. But he knows it's almost time for the parade to start and he needs to be ready on his own chariot, and besides, Finnick Odair is talking to Katniss. So he decides to wait, at least for now, before he meets the District 6 tributes.
Haymitch told them to make friends, so that's exactly what Peeta does after he and Katniss split up in the training center. He sees the 6 tributes, the morphlings, over at the camouflage station, but he doesn't approach them just yet. Camouflage is easy for him, and if he's going to get Katniss out of that arena alive, he needs to focus on the skills he's not quite as good at. But after lunch on the first day, while Katniss is making hammocks with the siblings from 1, Peeta finally approaches them.
"Hi," he says, "I'm- "
"Peeta," the women finishes before he can get his own name out. "I know… we all know…" She giggles, but Peeta isn't sure why. "This is Sim. My name's Poppy."
That's right. Poppy Lowell. Peeta remember the conversation he had with Haymitch back in 12 that now feels like a lifetime ago where Haymitch mentioned it.
"She wanted to meet you," the man, Sim, says.
"Cuz I love your paintings," Poppy sighs. A sequence of emotions cross her face: sadness, confusion; a look of deep concentration. Then epiphany. "I was," she says, "I was- am- a painter, too."
"Not me," Sim grins as he shows Peeta his paint-colored hands. "I'm just playing."
"It was- is- my talent," Poppy continues.
"Really? I didn't know someone else shared my talent. I hope you don't think I'm stealing your thunder." He means it, but he means more than that, too. He means he hopes that however brief their time may be, they can get to know each other better. To become friends and discuss things he's always wanted to discuss, but never could because no one else in 12 paints. "Will you tell me about your painting?"
So they do. And despite their spacey demeanor, Peeta finds that he enjoys the time he spends with them. So this is what it's like, he thinks idly to himself later the second day, as the three of them paint Katniss into a meadow of yellow flowers. This is what it's like to have people who understand you. And even the morphling addiction he can't hold against them because he knows the demons they fight against. They're the same demons Haymitch deals with. He just uses alcohol to keep them at bay instead of the morphling. And if Peeta had been a victor all by himself (Yeah right, he thinks), maybe he would have turned to one of those vices himself. Maybe he still would have, even with Katniss as his co-victor, if he had been given enough time to give in to the temptation.
But Peeta enjoys getting to know the morphlings. He almost forgets the reason they're together in the first place, before it comes jolting back to his memory and he knows that soon enough, they will all have to say goodbye.
If there's an afterlife, he thinks, maybe I'll get to spend it with them.
Peeta's heart breaks for the hundredth time over as he holds Poppy's slight, failing body in his arms. Just another death in the Games. The blood from whatever she had drawn on his cheek is still wet. He wishes he could see what the drawing is. He makes a mental note to ask Katniss to tell him later. But right now, he has an important task. He is going to see this woman, who has sacrificed her life for him, to the end. He isn't going to leave her side until she's gone.
The way her face lit up when he thanked her for her drawing was one of the most beautiful sights that Peeta had ever seen.
When it's over, Katniss waits for him on the beach as he carries Poppy's body out to the water. "Goodbye, Poppy," he mumbles as he places her gently down, floating her on the water's surface. He wonders if there is a chance she could still hear him. If something about a human being is able to go on after death, and this awful piece of time called today isn't all there is. His fingers idly touch the drying blood on his face as he wonders this, wonders if Poppy's death will have been in vain, if everyone's death will have been in vain.
He's always known that he must be the one to die, because he couldn't stand life if Katniss were to leave him behind in this arena. But as he looks at the broken body of the gentle artist who had befriended him, whose life had been stolen by the Capitol in every way, perverted and tarnished in the sick name of entertainment, he realizes that isn't the only reason he has to be the one to die. So with new resolve, he turns and makes his way back to the Girl on Fire.
Author's Note: This story was written for the Remix Redux 11 on AO3. It's a remix of the beautiful Only a Wisp of Smoke by Suzume, which I highly recommend reading in order to get the full 'experience' so to speak. (I'd offer links, but FFN isn't cooperating-sorry!)