I've been in the wandering around in the woods for a couple hours, trying to work up the nerve to approach her house, when I see them emerge out of the trees in front of me. She's got her bow slung over her back, hunting boots on, and that long, familiar braid falling across her shoulder. He's limping slightly on his prosthetic leg, but his eyes are smiling. He reaches down, picks a yellow dandelion and offers it to her. She laughs as she takes it, kissing his cheek, and I can tell it means something to them. It's the kind of private gesture only lovers know.
I slink back into the trees wanting so much to run, but I can't look away. I'm transfixed.
The two of them settle down on the bank of the lake. He spreads out a blue-checkered blanket and she unpacks a picnic basket: a long loaf of bread, goat cheese, ruby red tomatoes, fresh lemonade. I see him reclining, propping himself up on one elbow, gazing up at her with a softness that I'm sure I could never replicate. I want to be jealous, to rage and cuss and threaten—that's what Old Gale would have done—but New Gale is just sad, and all he does is stand and watch and stay silent.
The man by the lake reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and the gesture is so natural that I can tell he's done it a thousand times before. The fact that she lets him reminds me how much time has passed, how much things have changed since the days when she would have bristled and brushed off such tenderness. There is something so different about her. She's stretched out like a cat in the sun, her eyes half closed against the bright rays, allowing him to gently undo that tightly wound plait and run his fingers through her hair. She looks…vulnerable. But not against her will. She looks triumphantly vulnerable, like she's routed her fear and guardedness and sent it fleeing for its life. She looks vulnerable not because she has surrendered, but because everything else has surrendered to her.
I see her kneeling by his feet and her small, nimble fingers run up his leg to where the prosthetic meets his skin, just below the knee. With a careful, practiced motion she releases the prosthetic and eases it off, gently brushing her fingers across the stump. This simple, chaste action is so intensely intimate that I almost wish they were kissing. Why did I come here? I wonder. To apologize? To scream at her? To plead for forgiveness? To…win her back? The last one sounds so foolish now, as I see her massaging that red, aching stump of a leg, laughing at his jokes, wrapping her arms around his shoulders possessively as he leans back against her, his head in her lap…
And there's something else about her as well. But I'm having more trouble placing it. It's only when I see her smile—a real smile, one that reaches her eyes—that I realize she must be happy. It's an emotion that I can hardly recognize, because it has surfaced so rarely the entire time I've known her, but now I'm sure that it must be happiness I see tugging up the corners her lips, dancing in her gray, Seam eyes. The last time I saw her happy she was surely looking at Prim. But Prim is gone. I killed her. And now Katniss is looking at him, and I guess I should be happy, happy that after all this time someone can bring a real smile to her face again. I should thank him, really, but instead I only feel the hollow ache in my chest grow more pronounced.
I watch them all afternoon. Each caress feels like a peace keeper's whip on my back, each tender kiss like a muttation's jaws on my flesh, each embrace like the walls of the mines crushing me under layers and layers of unforgiving stone. I feel I deserve this self-flagellation—my punishment for the monster I became during the rebellion. I suppose I've always known that the beast was lurking deep inside me. It had reared it's ugly head every reaping day since I can remember, making me curse the Capitol, plot my revenge, imagine making them pay—slowly and painfully—for the horrors of the Games. But I never imagined I would act on any of that rage. Not until the Nut. Not until later when I designed the trap that would kill the one she loved most in the world.
I force myself to look at him, even though she has been my focus for most of the day. He looks stronger now than he did then. His face is no longer drawn and haggard and his eyes have lost that cloudy deranged look brought on by the tracker jacker venom. Her hands are lost in his hair, twirling around the blonde wisps at the nape of his neck. What I wouldn't give to switch places with him right now. I always thought of Peeta as weak. Town bred, well-fed, soft. In the first Games I though he would be an anvil around her neck, but I was wrong. He saved her. She saved him. They saved each other. Over and over again. Unbidden, I feel a scowl creeping onto my face. The competition, if there ever was one, ended long ago, and the odds were not in my favor.
She's gathering herbs now, and I'm watching the muscles work in those long, lithe arms, when I see her pick up something that suddenly makes her sink to her knees in grief. What is that in her hands? It's a doll. Must have been dropped by one of the children fleeing the firebombing. I want to run to her, put my arms around her, mingle my tears with hers, but he is already there. He scoops her up and kisses away the salty tears from the corners of her eyes. I hear him saying her name, whispering comfort into her ear. She just lets him hold her while she sobs and I see that his eyes are wet as well. Such a display of weakness, scoffs Old Gale before I can stop him, but at the same time New Gale is wishing that he knew how to cry. When was the last time I cried? I notice that she is beginning to calm down, taking long slow breaths through her nose, her eyes closed. He's rubbing circles on her back. And then I hear him say something so unexpected I think my gasp almost exposes me.
"Gale saved a lot of them, you know," he says plaintively, looking at the ragged doll. "Maybe she survived, the girl who dropped this."
Should it surprise me that he's speaking well of me? Not really. Even though he clearly has no reason to defend me now, no reason to play nice with me, because I can see the way Katniss' jaw clenches at the sound of my name. Peeta's probably never been dishonest in his life, thinks Old Gale disdainfully. If he's saying something kind, he must believe it, and somehow that thought makes Old Gale even angrier. Didn't I once tell Katniss that all of this would be easier if he wasn't so damn likeable? But the bottom line is that the doll reminds her of Prim and it doesn't matter how many children I might have saved before. You can't take back a detonated bomb. You can't disarm a trap that has already sprung. I am death, and he is life. I am the past, and he is the future.
He bends down, wincing a bit as he puts pressure on his bad leg, and I see that he is digging in the dark soil by the lake bed. She lays the doll in the shallow grave he has made and, with a feather soft motion, places the dandelion on top. What does it mean, the dandelion? Life? Love?Hope? Perhaps all three?
I see her take his arm now, this time she is supporting him. Both of their cheeks are glistening. I reach up tentatively to touch my own, but they are dry. Mine are eyes that have forgotten to cry… or maybe they just never learned how.
They are about to walk away now, back towards town, towards the house I know they share, and it's far too late to reveal myself. What a coward I've become. Traveling all the way from District 2 to hide in the woods. The light is growing dimmer now, the shadows of the trees lengthening, and I know dusk is approaching. I should go back, too, but I feel like my feet have put down roots. Then the sudden hoot of a brown owl overhead shakes me violently from my reverie and for one piercing instant I am staring straight into her eyes. The next second I have recoiled into the shadows, breathing heavily, my heart pounding in my chest. Did she see me? I feel certain she did, certain that for a split second Seam met Seam. I imagine her squinting into the dark forest with her keen, hunter's eyes, trying to decide if what she has seen is real or just one of the phantoms that haunt her dreams.
"Katniss?" I hear him say, concern evident in his voice. "Is everything ok?"
"Yes," comes her quiet response and there is a distinct note of sadness in it. "I just…thought I saw something…someone…"
With bated breath I inch around the tree trunk for one last look at her. She's still peering into the trees, her eyebrows knitted together as they do when she is troubled. It's the same expression I wear so often these days. Is it just me, or does she seem disappointed that I'm not there? Does she feel like she's lost a piece of herself as well? Does she long for the days when these woods were not full of ghosts and they were our refuge? I think she does. Despite all that's happened between us, I see in her eyes that she does, and for the first time in a long while I feel my heart lifting, buoyed up by hope.
He tugs on her hand gently, "Come on Katniss, let's go home. Haymitch is making dinner tonight, always an adventure…" She nods, tearing her eyes away from the trees and giving him a half smile. He puts his arm around her and kisses her temple.
They are almost across the meadow now and the last thing I see is Katniss framed in the brilliant orange of the sunset, harrowingly beautiful, the Girl on Fire. As she finally disappears over the ridge, I pull up my roots and step out of the woods, drawing in a deep breath. The twilight air is cool and earthy. I see a solitary dandelion in front of me, and it catches my eye the way it's standing apart from the others. It is not yellow like his dandelion—this one has already gone to seed. On a whim I pluck it from the ground, rolling the stem between my fingers thoughtfully. I pucker my lips together, blow softly and watch the feathery seeds fly away. They glide through the dusk, dipping and bobbing, colliding and then breaking apart, soaring away in different directions. I think about the broken souls from 12 and 4 and 8 and 2 and all the rest, I think of Peeta's entire family, I think of pink-haired, golden-tattooed citizens of the fallen Capitol, I think of Tributes, and Victors, and all the children who will never be reaped, I think of her, I think of me. We're all flying away, caught on the current of a new wind. Will we take root where we land only to bloom and fade and fly away again? Will we be wrenched up like weeds, or cherished as flowers? Can we be reborn from seeds, and rubble, and fire?
Well, the dandelion can…and perhaps so can we.