A/n Post-Mockingjay Pre-Epilogue. If there are any words … that aren't English words, it's an honest mistake because I have been learning English for a quite some time. But you know, I'm only human. :)
Summer has come to pass
The innocent can never last
Wake me up, when September ends
This one is different. Prim is here. But she always is. Prim is sitting between my mother and father on the small couch in the main room of our old house. They are all smiling, and Peeta and Haymitch and Gale are here, too. I smile, it's a happy moment. Haymitch is drunk, as he always is, and is laughing hysterically at something Peeta had said to Gale. But then my father disappears.
I run to his spot on the ratty old sofa but I'm too late. He's gone, and suddenly my mother is gone. She sits there, but doesn't move or respond to a single thing, even as I shout at her to come back. Despite my unhappiness, Prim has a seemingly permanent smile on her face. And then Peeta is clutching a chair, his eyes shut tight, and Haymitch is passed out drunk and Gale disappears.
And then Prim is disappearing, slowly, but as she does, she says to me, "We're okay, Katniss. We're gone so you can live. Remember, Katniss, existing is one thing. Living is another."
And then I am jolted awake.
The warm glow of the rising sun shines through the slightly open shutters. I decide to get up, because if I go back to sleep I am sure to return to a never ending string of nightmares. Even as I wake up, the nightmares do not go away. So I swing my legs over the side of the bed and pad through the house on hunter's feet. When I get to the first floor I hear a glass shatter behind me and kick the perpetrator as I let out a small and terrified shriek. I flip on the lights and see the vicious attacker sending offending hisses at me. I roll my eyes and continue to the refrigerator to retrieve a bottle of water.
As I turn from the fridge with the water bottle pressed against my lips I notice a small plate of cheese buns on the table. There's a note beside it.
Katniss,
I thought you might like these. Enjoy!
Peeta
"Thanks, Peeta," I say out loud before snatching the bread from the plate and sinking my teeth into it. It's warm and cheesy and soft and reminds me of the days when I would have a never-ending supply of this particular bread.
"You should say that to his face, not to his sweets," Jokes a familiar voice behind me. I pop the last of my cheese bun into my mouth.
"Good morning, Greasy Sae," I smile. Today's a good day. It is. And it's worthy of a smile.
"You won't need my cooking this morning, I s'pose?" She smiles. I know she's a full believer that Peeta and I should be a couple, but the truth is I just don't know if it would be good for either of us. I know I love Peeta, I realized that when the Capitol gave him back, and he saw me for who I really was. And he didn't love me anymore. Besides, Peeta wants kids, and I've always sworn to myself that I would never get married or have kids.
"I guess not," I reply with a smile.
"Why don't you go visit Haymitch?" She suggests. She knows how on my bad days I spend the entire day hidden under the sheets of my bed and I won't even come out to eat. She keeps me busy my doing errands and usually it works. Keeping me busy is a good way to keep my mind off of the past and on the future.
I glance back over at the cheese buns. They're just sitting there, taunting me, and my stomach grumbles so I make like Foxface, grab two of them and take off.
Haymitch is sitting at his kitchen table with an empty liquor bottle in front of him. He's staring at it intently, and I have to question his motives.
"Look who's out of her cage, it's our Mockingjay!" Haymitch shouts sarcastically. He knows I hate being called that, especially since the war is over. He's not drunk, but I wonder why he's shouting like there's more people in the house. And that's when I realize there is.
"Hey, Katniss,"
I whip around to the source of the voice, my eyes involuntarily locking with a pair of beautiful blues, whose owner is standing in the doorway. I remember I have two cheese buns in my hands, so I toss one to Haymitch and bite into my own nervously.
"Hi, Peeta," I have to force the words from my mouth. The last time we spoke to each other –not so much us both speaking as I mean him speaking to me- was when he planted the Primroses outside my house, which I trim and care for every afternoon. He flashes a smile, a smile that he used to reserve only for me, only I'm not so sure if that's the case anymore. It's that smile that makes my insides warm, but I have to ignore it. For now, at the least.
Suddenly gory images of death and violence flash through my mind, and I vividly remember Peeta's hijacking. I start slowly backing away while the men are exchanging pleasantries again and I take off out the door.
"Bye, Sweetheart!" Haymitch calls.
I run up the stairs to my room, my foot catching on the last step like I always do and falling headfirst onto the ground. I fling myself onto my bed and lay there. I am numb. I am troubled. I am stupid for thinking today was going to be good.
My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am eighteen years old. My home is District 12. They are rebuilding District 12. I was the Mockingjay. I still am the Mockingjay. Prim is gone. I still have Sae, Peeta, and Haymitch.
The last thought, the thought of still having, I have a morsel of happiness still inside of me, but it refuses to grow. Sometimes it does, like the baby Primroses outside the windows.
Eventually I find myself in darkness, and I realize I must have fallen asleep and thrown the blankets over myself. I am thankful I had a dreamless sleep, the way they are whenever I feel numb like this. I notice the sun has set, has been set for about an hour, so I decide to just go back to sleep. What harm could it do?
The next time I wake up, it's the middle of the afternoon. I feel wetness on my cheeks and realize I had been silently crying in my sleep. Still I lay there under the covers, unmoving, depressed.
At the thought of being depressed, I am flung off away from the sea of depression. Acting the childish way that I have been acting for the past two days may be one of the worst nightmares I have ever had.
I have turned into my mother.
I jump from my bed, hobbling into the wall for a moment because the blood rushes to my head and I momentarily go blind and insanely dizzy. I run down the stairs. Clad in nothing but my cartoon dog pajamas I grab a pair of clippers, slip on my gardening gloves –which Greasy Sae took from Haymitch- and run outside. Just before I begin trimming the bushes that rim my house, I spot a small yellow weed from the corner of my eye. I know I should pull it, because it will invade my garden –if you could even call it that- but I cannot bring myself to do it. I cannot bring myself to weed away the thing that was my last hope. I cannot bring myself to rip the roots of the thing that fed my family when we were starving to death. I cannot bring myself to take Peeta out of my life, I realize.
Peeta is my dandelion in the spring, and I would never forgive myself if I managed to forget that.
The next few days are uneventful. Sae notices my boredom during the day and suggests that I take up a hobby. She writes a long list of hobbies and the first one is knitting.
So I knit.
At first I get so frustrated with it, I throw the needles and thread at the coffee table but it gets stuck to my fingers, which only enrages me more. Eventually Greasy Sae shows me how to properly "knit one, pearl two," and I get the hang of it. By the end of the week, I have knitted four scarves –two in black, the others in orange and green- and two black hats.
On Saturday, when I have nothing more to knit, I grab my creations and walk out the door.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Trills Effie Trinket. She states she is spending a month in every district starting with 12 and just arrived today, so I give her a black scarf. She is sitting uncomfortably on Haymitch's couch watching him stare at an empty bottle of liquor.
"Nice scarf, Sweetheart," Haymitch says, as three of them are wrapped around me.
"Actually, it's yours now."
He raises a skeptical eyebrow but doesn't question me. He grabs the other black scarf and I head over to Peeta's. It's a bit of a risk, but I'm having one of those days, one of those impossibly good days, one of those days where everything just gets better from the beginning. So when Peeta doesn't answer his front door when I knock, I figure he must be at the bakery so I write him a small note, leave it on his doorstep, and wrap the orange scarf around the doorknob.
Peeta,
Thank you for the cheese buns last week. I knitted you a scarf. I hope you like it.
Katniss
It's short and blunt, but I've never been very good with words so it's okay. It's not like someone who knows me as well as Peeta does will be expecting a great piece of literature.
The next hobby on Sae's list is Baking. I am a bit unnerved by this, because she knows Peeta is a baker. She knows I have been having trouble looking him in the eye or even being within a ten foot radius of the poor guy.
I can't bake to save my life. If the The Hunger Games had actually been about hunger, about baking to feed people, I would have died. Peeta would have won, of course, him being the baker's son and all.
Oh, right. I think. Peeta doesn't have parents.
So, in search of some helpful suggestions or instructions on baking, I head to the first place that comes to mind.
The bakery.
A/n So sorry about the cliffhanger, but this was starting to become a monster of a chapter and I don't want this to be a oneshot. In fact, I am hoping to make this my first real and finished story. Rating will change to M in later chapters. ;)
"Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!"
-Haruki-