Why hello there! I thank you for clicking in this story, I hope it doesn't disappoint you! :) It's a bit of a mix of the film/book, because I'm too lazy to look up what color the flowers were in the book, but all mix-ups should be relatively minor, I tried to spot and edit all of the big things to align with the book. If you notice any glaring mistakes, feel free to message me about them!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games Trilogy or anything affiliated with it. I instead try and do it justice in fan fiction. This idea is my own. Everything else is not.

Enjoy!

Sometimes I disappear. I don't mean to, it just kind of happens. For weeks. Months. I go all over, have been all over. All of the fences have been torn down or shut off so really, I'm limitless. I've been to a lot of different places, but usually by accident do I end up somewhere inhabited. I'm technically not supposed to leave 12, and it was a fact that everyone used to know. Now though…People still know my face, still look at me with unsure eyes. I think, in even a thousand years, people will still know who I am, what I've done. What I did. I am famous. Infamous. It depends who is being asked.

I don't wander for the sake of going, or for some thrill of stepping out of my ban, which everyone has all but forgotten, it seems. The first time, it was just for food…to get away. Hunting, because it's still one of the only ways I can feel peace. It's not the same as it used to be. The woods have changed, their sounds, scent. Permeated by curious people. Even my lake isn't the same. Many people still don't even know about it, and really, I don't think it really has changed all that much, if at all. In this instance, I think I have.

But I can't go there anymore. I still need the woods, but I started going new routes, blazing new trails, armed with the bow I no longer needed to conceal and my father's hunting jacket. For a while, I also had at least one little one in tow, to give Peeta a break or just have some alone time, as myself, with my children. Rarely did I bring both.

They're incredible, and sometimes I look at them and can't believe they're mine. She has my eyes, but they're kinder, I think. Less affected, less jaded, by her world: serious and steely, a trait I think she learned from me, but always with a softness I doubt I ever had…or, if I did, will never truly have again. It's a playful glint, a dare. "Talk to me, be with me…if you dare." It makes her alluring in a way I never was. She gets that from her father. Her speech is as easy as his, when she chooses to use it, tongue quick as silver and as sweet as the icing on her first birthday cake. Effortlessly charming. Half of her class is spellbound and she's completely unaware. Something Peeta says she definitely got from me, but he was never very good at realizing just how astounding he is himself, so though I've stopped arguing, I think she got it from him.

She's gifted with a bow, her aim is trumped only by mine, but I've got quite a few years and two Hunger Games on her. She enjoys the woods, but not for the same reasons. She has an eye for beauty and tells me the forest is full of it. She doesn't draw often but when she does well…we know who she got that from.

She can't walk quietly worth a damn though, her footfalls heavy, far too much like her father's. Sometimes I cringe with each step she takes, my memory assaulting me with alarm bells and automatically making my eyes dart, ever-vigilant of a prowling tribute. I have to force myself, sometimes, to stop. To remind myself that I'm no longer in the Games, that those ended long ago. That she is not her father, loud and in danger of death from his own infection or by the hand of whomever he attracts with such loud and inelegant feet. To remind myself that it is not us who are in mortal danger, but our prey. Though they hardly have anything to fear when they can hear their cunning hunter from what must be miles away.

I usually manage to break myself out of it, the memories, and continue on, but still…there are ashes beneath the leaves beneath our feet. There are quiet creaks from ancient trees, knocked over and rotting from the force of the explosions.

And I can't help feeling there is something wrong with me.

I have the opposite problem with him. He is silent as the wind, his steps even quieter than my own, despite his height and muscular frame. He would be lethal, if he could shoot an arrow. But he can't, though he tries for me, because, like me, he secretly seeks approval. Silently feels he owes me for attempting to teach him, despite needing no form of repayment. Silently wants someone to be proud of him, and I don't really know how to tell him I could never be more proud of him. He's amazing. Talkative, but unlike Peeta and his sister, not very good at it. He stumbles all over his words, but it's so endearing, we can't help but just listen. He's great with a knife or setting snares, his mind analytical and probing: curious. He's no stomach for blood or killing, though. He cried when he was along for his first hunt and he killed a rabbit.

I don't think he realized how much I loved him in that moment. How truly proud of him I was. Here was this boy: born from violence, unable to bear violence. He's still embarrassed, but when I can, I tell him not to be. That it is the best trait I could have hoped for in him, if I had known it could be a trait. I don't think he believes me, he thinks I like his sister more because I can take her hunting, and all he does on our trips is whittle and hum, his deep baritone voice caged. He has my gift of song, but he only sings in the woods. I join him, and I would think that because of this, he would realize that he couldn't be more wrong. The things he creates, the songs he sings in his deep melancholy voice bring tears to my eyes. Every song I teach him, I tell him the meaning behind. He morosely sings "The Hanging Tree" when I am sad. I don't know why, but though it doesn't cheer me up, it makes me feel okay. He must know that.

Everything he does- makes, sings-holds far more beauty than death ever could. His blue eyes are like mine too. Dull, but focused. He observes, is often quiet and brooding, and has the attention of every female in the ever-expanding District 12. Of course, most people don't call it that any more.

But I can't call it anything else.

Both of them have Peeta's strength. He has my smile: beautiful when it shows up, but rare. She has his smile.

They're incredible, and beautiful, and I have to remind myself: mine. They and Peeta are my anchors. Time has allowed me to heal, but the wounds run deep, and I can still feel them sometimes, clawing at me. Burning the skin beneath the raised and tarnished, imperfect scars. They get me in my sleep, nightmares that come and go unpredictably and indistinguishably.

They still affect Peeta too, and on random days we will stop and think and feel. Peeta once dropped an entire dinner platter when they flooded him, uninvited and long-thought forgotten. Paralyzed him with fear as his nerve endings lit up like embers. I know, because mine do too, occasionally. It doesn't take much to re-open the healed wounds, one sharp memory as good as any weapon, if not better. Slices through the heart and makes it bleed as fast as it is beating.

On bad days, I would go to the woods. I always knew I would never fully recover, but I think I had foolishly hoped.

But something was always wrong. Something had been damaged and no amount of Capitol medicines could help.

Maybe I had always been wrong.

I knew it the first time I saw her. She just…appeared. Was suddenly next to me as I took aim at a turkey of some sort, on the top of a woodland hill. I was a good three hour hike into the wilderness, so another's presence should have scared me, but it didn't. I guess that was the first tip-off. I shot the turkey, retrieved it. She followed, quiet as the whispering wind in the evergreen needles.

We didn't talk as I cleaned the bird. I didn't even look at her. I would see her fidget, out of the corner of my eye, and at one point she got up from her perch on a dead log and skipped about. Sat back down. Fidgeted some more.

She followed me all the way home, and I didn't have to look to know she was skipping. Silently. She only disappeared when I neared what was left of the fence. I finally glanced behind me in time to see…nothing. Woods greeted me, same as ever, and I turned back around and continued home.

I didn't tell Peeta, though I know I should have, and though I knew he would understand. I didn't tell anyone. But I opened our book, still unfinished, and found her page. Traced her features, inhaled the fragrance of her pressed namesake. If there was actually any left, I can't say. But I could smell it, just as plainly as I could see her, could feel her as she'd gently touched my arm, cool touch of mist. I shivered and shut the book.

She started meeting me in the woods. Whether I was alone or not. She would play hide and seek when there were others, but when it was just me, when it was just us, she trailed behind me. Danced over leaves, ran to catch up with me.

I should have been unnerved. She came out of nowhere. Her touch, that one time, a kiss of fog, and her ability to be and then suddenly…not be. And always, I was unperturbed. Elated, even, when I sensed her behind me, bringing a certain lightness to my heart that hadn't been there…I think ever.

I didn't…don't, believe in ghosts. And I think a part of me still knows she's not. That her…it's all me. A projection, a production, of my own mind. And that should scare me, concern me, but it doesn't. It never has. She never has.

I won't admit it, but that's what started the wandering. I grew restless, unsure, agitated. Unsatisfied with having only a few hours with her, if that. Peeta could sense my unease and eagerness but mistook it for some form of cabin fever, some form of distress even he couldn't relieve. It was him who told me to go first. Hugged me tight in our bed as I fidgeted, tired and excited for a hike the coming day.

"They're almost grown, and I wouldn't mind," he'd whispered into my hair.

"What?"

"You, Katniss," Peeta'd smiled, a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. So few were sincere after the war, haunted and leaden with weariness. But the few that were truly spectacular lit up his entire face.

"I don't know what it is, you haven't told me, which is okay…" he sighed, "but I'm sick of seeing you unhappy."

"I am happy!" I protested immediately and petulantly, which made him chuckle.

"Yes, but you're wired. Always tapping your foot or playing with your hair, looking way out to somewhere," he shrugged. "I don't know where, but it's not here."

I'd opened my mouth to protest again, but he put his hand over it to get me to shut up.

I folded my arms and huffed, but listened.

"The kids are almost grown up. They don't need to see you all the time. I love you. I trust you. I know how much those woods have helped you heal. Probably more than I have!" he joked, "But you can never go far because you always come back to us. I still want you to come back," he buried his nose into the crook of my neck. "But maybe, you can take a little more time. And eventually, maybe you can let me in on why."

I'd cried, and being a horrible mother, walked into the woods the next day, supplies on my back, leaving my family behind. It was selfish of me, I was all too aware. And a part of me still had to be soothed, reminded that they would not starve. Food was far more abundant, and Peeta knew far more about survival now, not to mention one of our own little ones could easily bring home meat. It took me most of the night to talk myself into it, but that temptation waiting for me, just beyond that fence…I had to.

On some level, I felt guilty. Leaving them behind, being scared for them but clearly not enough to stay behind and watch over them while they still needed me. Even more guiltily, all concerns for them evaporated as I immersed myself in peace, calmed by the sounds of the woods and the comfortable presence behind me. I felt warmth in my heart and turned to finally, fully look at her.

She looked a little younger than the last time I saw her, still innocent. Her smile was broad and I felt myself returning it as she reached behind her back to fix her shirt I knew would be untucked.

Tuck in that tail

"Hey little duck," I said, smile turning into a toothy grin. I offered my hand and she skipped forward to take it, her touch a soft mid-springtime rain. She let go and took off ahead of me, and I followed, keeping an eye on her wispy light hair.

...

I was gone for two weeks. Every day of it was spent with Prim. We didn't talk, or I would and she would listen, attentive but always in motion. I don't know why she never talked, but if I thought about it, it was probably because I couldn't remember what her voice sounded like.

But it didn't matter, we really didn't need words. I was just thrilled to have her. Prim, in all her glory, beautiful and alive, skipping ahead of me or behind me. Sliding silently over the earth, a tiny spring brook brought to life by the winter rains. I never questioned how she would get to the top of the tree at night with me without demanding help. Never wondered how she could be right next to me and disappear in an instant. I just…lived. With Prim. In the woods, like we could have done all those years ago, as Gale had suggested. As even I had secretly thought.

And for once, I felt whole. Content. I felt like me again, the me untouched by tragedy and loss, if such a version of me had ever existed. She must have: the feeling was old, rusted, brittle and charred, but familiar. A tiny seed buried under years of rot and decay and trysts.

I told Prim all about the nightmares. The Games. The Mockingjay. My story, not theirs. Not their spun tales and not their lies and propaganda. I told her while we walked. While we hiked. By the fire at night. Sleepily, at the top of my trees right before dreamland overtook me. I didn't have nightmares, but I would tell her every one I could remember while cleaning a kill or gathering firewood. In fact, the only time I was ever quiet, or ever really shut up, was when I was actually hunting. And even then, it was hard for me to keep my mouth shut, memories untold overflowing me and pushing against my mouth, my lips, forcing me to part them and blow out, letting the memories into the wind and shoving the rest of them back. Sometimes I would even mutter them to my bow, as though she was connected to it somehow, as though the words could reach her where she was standing, several feet away, silent and facing away from my hunting. She was never really much a fan of it, save for the meat we got out of it. I think she could have been a great hunter, if she had wanted. Blood from humans didn't faze her, the trick would have been to get her to give up some of her compassion.

I'm not sure if I would have liked to see that, though.

I think she could have been bloodthirsty, if she tried. If we tried. But it wouldn't have been Prim anymore, and sometimes when I think that, I look at her hesitantly, and she simply nods, smiling a small smile at me.

Prim didn't mind the talking. Just silently followed and nodded and looked at me.

It was surprising, really, how much I didn't mind spilling my secrets to the forest and the specter with her shirt tail untucked. Neither of them answered, not in words.

But that was actually better. I found myself smiling in return when Prim would send me one, or roll her eyes at me, or really…just when she would look me in the eyes. I smiled in those two weeks more than I had…or, well, more than I felt like I had…ever. I laughed again, a real, full laugh. I allowed myself to enjoy things with no strings, no worries, no cares. No burdens. Not to live for all those who died, and not to love in memory of those who survived, but to just be, for the sake of being. For the sake of reclaiming. Reclaiming what, I don't know. But I could feel it creeping into my chest as we trekked deeper and deeper into the thick greens, and it warmed me as though I still had anything like love left inside of me.

It was only when I left the woods, left the dancing girl behind me at the remnants of the fence, that I felt that great pang of loss, the one that I should have felt for the entire two weeks. The one that should have been creeping over me instead of that odd sense of transcendence. The pang of loss, and the guilt that accompanied it, as the understanding rushed inside of me and I realized I missed my family. Missed them, but only when I had stepped foot back into 12, only when I was on the other end of the fence and looking back out into the dark woods, with no one there to look back at me.

I didn't think I would go back into the woods, but Peeta knew. He didn't say anything, just looked at me with sad but understanding eyes. The eyes of a fallen, old warrior who was tired and still painfully in love. Sometimes I like to think I returned the look, but I can't say.

And one day, I just…had to. I missed Prim. I would stare out from our windows at the woods as though they were beckoning for me, the shadows from their branches reaching out like tendrils for me, to grab me and pull me back, like the skeletal fingers of the Capital's control. I shivered, but didn't feel any fear. The woods could be cruel, but not to me. Never to me.

I missed whatever illusion of true freedom I felt, lost in those trees, in that creaking and ancient embrace, indulging in all of my thoughts. Not needing to feel anything, allowed to feel everything, and Prim, beautiful and insightful, never judged me for it. Just walked with me.

On some level, I knew she wasn't real, couldn't be real. But I wanted her to be. Needed her to be, and so she was, her touch the kiss of early morning dew and her smile an anchor pulling on my heartstrings.

The longest I disappeared for was eight months. I didn't mean to, time just started to bend and blend together. I ended up in other Districts, some friendly and some not. It was by accident I ended up in an actually inhabited space, and it was with hesitancy I went forward, breath quick in my chest. I was in enemy territory, territory I was banned from. But it had been so long. So much had changed…

I met new people. I told Prim about them, all of them, everyone, as we continued on our way. I told her about the statue in 4: Finnick and Annie, Finnick in nothing but that fistnet he had to wear in the parade at the final Quarter Quell, Annie holding their baby, a spritely little thing with chubby arms and wide eyes. After them Mags, peering out from where she stood behind Finnick and smiling, that one tooth showing. I told Prim all about Mags, everything that she did for me, how she died in her final Games. I could feel the tears prickling at my eyes, but they didn't fall while I sliced an apple for myself, a gift from new friends in District 4. I had a whole bag and limited time to eat them, but by firelight, I could do nothing more than enjoy them, eating thin slices while relaying, replaying, and reliving everything that had transpired with my friends from 4. My unexpected allies, old and new.

I told Prim about Finnick too, and how he died. The horrors of the muttations. The guilt that consumed me for years before I allowed myself to forgive. And that was just him. There were so many others who haunted my dreams, who died because of me, and who I am still all too aware of.

I told Prim how this all seemed a lifetime ago, a different era. I told her about how much they all helped me, even Finnick, with his knot-tying lessons and Mags with her fish hooks. I demonstrated what I could remember, and even though it came out a mangled branch, a swell of pride rose in me as I held it up for Prim to see.

Then I told her about Nuts and Volts. Joahnna. Their sacrifices, all for me. Because I was the Mockingjay, as real as the tiny pin grasped in the bronze baby's tiny fists. But how I was considered far more delicate.

Revolution. I led it. She was there for that part, but now…so many are dead. I grieved all over again, but it didn't feel like grief. It was different, not as heavy. Not as stifling.

It was reliving. It was remembrance, probably. And though the tears came, they never truly fell. I never really felt like they needed to, I'd cried enough. It was not the time for them, the time for them had ended long ago. It was the time not for mourning, but not for celebrating.

For being, I guess.

Prim did nothing but listen. To every word and every thought I could never have said to anyone else. How much I blamed myself. How much I resented them for foolishly trying to help me. Everything I thought I had shed myself of all those years ago…I'd just been piling on, layer by layer by layer.

I told her how angry I got with half of them, and she laughed, because I started laughing at how absurd it was to be getting mad at someone, anyone who was giving their life for a greater cause, but who still wouldn't listen to me and get the hell out while they could. But of course that wasn't my choice to make for them.

But that didn't stop me from feeling, from being, responsible, and nothing ever really will. I thought about it as I silently chewed, and Prim didn't say a word.

...

Somehow, I made it through several districts. Each had their own form of commemoration. Their own way of coping. Some no longer called themselves "Districts" but I couldn't think of them as anything else. Their images from my victory tour still surfaced, fresh as ever, their gaunt faces untarnished by time. Sometimes I would fear leaving the woods, my heart leaping into my throat, nerves as prevalent as during the tour, but Prim would just look at me, questioning.

I explained, with each new District, each new civilization of people who may hate me or may not, all about the citizens from that place, from what I remembered. The way they looked. Their destitution. How nonplussed they were to have to listen to the victor who had, if not killed their children, at least hadn't stopped their child's death from happening. How acutely they probably remembered my "betrayal" in the revolution.

Some had changed, some hadn't really. Some adored me, somehow. Others…not so much. Four was mostly welcoming, merchants gave me free fish and asked for my stories. I tried to tell them, but fumbled over my words, unsure what exactly to say, what to leave out. I would tell Prim the details I left out when I left, recount my guilt at leaving them out. But my audience up until we had arrived at the District had been the silent Prim. What a change 4 had made!

She'd smiled sympathetically and squeezed my arm, a soft summer breeze with a cooling bite. I would do nothing more than smile gratefully.

I went until I hit District Two. Only then did it dawn on me how far I'd gone, how many tracks I'd followed, how many miles I'd traversed. I'd somehow missed all of it, an absolute blur, Prim by my side.

Two hadn't changed much. The rail station where I was shot, where all of those frantic, burned and dying passengers found refuge as The Nut turned into a tomb, was still standing, an eerie memento to all those who lost their lives. It's wasn't open and no one was allowed in, though there had apparently been talks of restoring it, making it a museum, a true monument, a true testament of bloodshed. A few locals told me about it, what few were left, Two a virtual wasteland, The Nut rising up in the middle of a quiet and unsettling ghost town.

"Too much pain," one elderly woman had whispered. Peacekeepers turning on each other, brother turning against brother, friend against friend. Deeply divided, it seemed, forever.

I didn't look for Gale. He'd moved, long ago. We lost touch, unintentionally, and though he always knew where he could find me…I think it was best he hadn't. The rest of who had lived in Two, or, well, most everyone actually, cleared out to the further reaches of the district, or relocated altogether. What was left, "Old Town" as it was deemed, was a somber reminder of the past. A shrine, entombed and empty, the screams of yesteryear echoing into the dark and vandalized tunnel, bouncing off of the walls of the station and permeating, poisoning, the buildings around it.

I only knew that because I went in one night, snuck under the heavy chains that lined the untouched entryways and into a past I wasn't exactly in need of reliving. But the place hadn't changed, charred as it was. Dark, no light flooding like it did that night. It was just as well, the darkness seemed fitting.

I didn't tell anyone left that I was secretly glad no one had really touched the station. Riddled with graffiti and left for abandon, it spoke of horrors that happened, and that should be remembered. It was a looming and menacing reminder of a dark past, an embodiment of degradation and betrayal. And it would slowly rot, like the rest of us.

I also sort of took comfort from it, as I left the decaying station and what little was left of the metropolis that had neighbored it. Because even after all of these years, I was not the only one who couldn't heal, who wouldn't, who held her demons within her, never to be extracted. Never to even really be touched again, nor understood by those who surrounded me.

I told Prim all about the seizing of The Nut. About the fire, the smoke, the thousands probably still stuck in that mountain, and the hundreds who managed to escape with injuries so deep they're lucky if they've healed at all. It was the first time I saw Prim cry, as we stared at the dark mountain in the bright sunlight from the edge of the woods.

And then we headed home, because this was as far as I would go.

...

Through all of my wanderings, I'd managed to visit every district, slowly undoing the stitching that bound me together. I got as far as Two, way out near the mountains which ominously hid behind a haze as we traveled away from what was left of The Nut and the few people left around it. But I could never bring myself to go as far as the Capitol. I was banned, but even that really wouldn't stop me. No one even seemed to remember my punishment. But…even if I wanted to, no matter however "new" and "rebuilt" and "restored" it was, too much had happened there, too much I was denying with my traveling companion walking three paces behind me. Too many things had been broken, myself included. From the papers, I guess it was bigger and grander than it had been before, "better than ever!" Positively bustling with people who were already probably forgetting the destruction that had been suffered not long before, the oppression that was over-thrown.

So that they wouldn't forget, there was a statue of me in the middle of the city. The epicenter. A controversial statue which hadn't even been built until I was pregnant with our first, and that in its early days was defaced often, before being rebuilt, and then added to over the years. Now I guess it contained the biggest contenders of the revolution…well, rather, the faces of the revolution, with the Mockingjay at the forefront, bow drawn, aiming across the bustling city square, aimed right at what is left of Snow's Mansion, surrounded by blood-red roses. It's supposed to be a reminder that justice will always prevail against the corrupt. It is supposed to warn and be a warning. The only time it truly was viewed as such was when it was defaced, a local graffiti artist melting coins on the eyes. Old coins. Capitol coins.

It was the only time I liked it, this statue I hadn't and with any luck would never see, when Dr. Aurelius told me about it years ago. Because though it was meant as a negative connotation, I think, a stab at me killing the true leader of the revolution, it meant the opposite. It meant through the obvious, the established, through the haze of lies and bloodshed and propaganda, we saw, we see, the truth. If anything, that was more a warning than my "imposing" figure could ever impart.

It was the only time, however briefly, that I considered going to the Capitol: entertained thoughts of seeing myself, blinded by coins, but still able to see.

I think it would have been quite a sight to behold, but it was short-lived, the iron taste of blood in my mouth like the bite of the old coins when merchants stuck them between their teeth to make sure they were real.

...

My shortest trip was four days. I caught a supply train mid-spring. Wandered out to the tracks, walked until I found a stopped train, delayed for reasons I didn't and will never know. I grabbed onto it. Swung up by the railing, muscles protesting only slightly before I turned and offered Prim my hand. She wasn't there to take it, already by my side, sitting, her legs dangling off the side of the small metal platform until the train started moving again.

We rode until it stopped, down in District 11, right in the heart, I guessed. I'd been through 11 several times, but always, always on the outermost areas. I just…couldn't really handle the middle. The District center. The place where I guess this all started. Or at least, greatly helped. The warm air was pleasant and haunting.

Prim had disappeared on the ride, half-way down, and reappeared as I jumped off of my perch. Together we walked, the wide open fields of golden straw and the early afternoon sun forcing me to squint. Out there, I was exposed. Naked, yet embraced by the dancing plants as they waved in an invisible breeze.

I was welcomed, as I secretly hoped I would be, as I quietly told Prim while we walked, into the heart of District 11. Children eyed me curiously, the ones who knew who I was. I suspected even the ones who didn't, but I honestly didn't know how much of me they would know. Adults, though, watched me, knew me, their darkened faces slackening when they looked up from whatever they were doing.

New metropolises had sprouted all over the District, but news spread fast of my arrival. I was welcomed to homes, events. I didn't feel right taking them, but had to when Rue's oldest sibling offered his home, in one of the newer cities, not far from where the train had left me.

I felt strange, but he let me be. Gave me a map and let me wander on my own, at my leisure. He seemed as unsure as I, but friendlier, his wounds were as old as mine, but he hadn't harbored them. Or if he did, his demons and he had a mutual understanding that left him old and battered, but with his back straight. His head bludgeoned, but unbowed. He was tall, his voice soft but powerful, his words important and respected. I don't know what role he played in the revolution, only that he had to have played one to silently command so much respect. He only told me two places that I had to go. And of course, I was horribly obliged, unable to repay the debt to him any further, per his refusal and my utter incompetence to think of anything to offer as condolences or thanks.

The first took me to the city's center, small, with tiny painted buildings in unassuming pastel shades, reaching no higher than five stories. Residential, welcoming. Peaceful and new, so unlike the gaudy homes of the far off, ancient and dead Capitol.

The square was intricate, but not sprawling, the bushes surrounding the centerpiece oddly familiar, sticking out tiny tendrils and spilling onto the street, beautiful green and lovely little white flowers in heavy abundance. And looking out over them all stood Rue, her beautiful angelic features alight even in stone, lips pursed, forever in a whistle, hand outstretched and, perched upon her extended finger, a call-returning Mockingjay. The words inscribed on the platform beneath her sunk, half hidden, into the flowers with which I had bid her, along with the rest of District 11, goodbye. "For Rue: Singer of the Mockingjay Song"

I couldn't contain myself and collapsed where I stood, on my knees, looking into her beautiful, immortal eyes, still bright, trained on the one thing that couldn't save her. So young, so naïve, so clever.

I don't know how long I stayed there. I don't know how many countless people came up to me, talked to me, hugged me, saluted me. Tried to soothe me, their voices blurring together, words about Rue. Words of thanks for giving her the burial she needed, for respecting her, for loving her. Words of anger about how I didn't do more. Words about words they wanted to say to me, but over the years had forgiven me for. Murmurs of how I shouldn't be out of District 12. I was nuts. Stories from her childhood, stories from their own pasts, how they'd decided on the words to commemorate her…so many stories, but I couldn't listen to them.

Despair and euphoria claimed me at different, ever-changing intervals, but I finally stood as the sun was setting. Felt eyes upon me as I kissed my three fingers: pointer, middle, ring, and touched those overflowing, sprawling white flowers, eyes never leaving Rue's own.

Leaving felt wrong, but I knew I had to, and I knew Rue would understand. So I turned my back, heavy weight still in my heart, light scent of the tiny burial flowers filling my lungs with beautiful sorrow.

The next day I walked around, trying to find the other spot specified by Rue's brother. He hugged me when I fell into him, my knees and feet giving out on me when I saw him standing at his door, smoking a pipe, his strong arms and lean body so much like hers. A part of me wanted to leave then, but I was still much obliged, and so I awoke the next day, exchanged a smile with him, a weighted one, and then went to explore again.

I got lost, but encountered, in a different square, the steely eyes of Thresh, gripping his weapon tight. His plaque said only "The Protector" but no more needed to be said. He was a boy of few words, and to have had more would have been to do him a disservice. I silently thanked him, started to walk away, then turned and asked him for directions, as though he would answer. As though he could hear me.

He didn't answer, but he didn't need to, and I picked a direction and walked in it, until the streets became familiar again and I started my trek anew.

It was the smell that caught me first, and I turned immediately to see if she was behind me, though the comfort she brought did not soothe the prickles in my skin. She wasn't there to greet me, so with skin still crawling from the eerie smell, I walked forward, onward. Around the corner, and there…

The statue wasn't exorbitant, exuberant, or big even, smaller than Thresh's, but still life-size, and still high on a stand, a grand plaque, though not as high or focal as Rue's. Understated, even. Much like her.

She was completely frozen, but stunning in her nurses uniform, hat slightly crooked, eyes vulnerable and raw. Loving and comprehending the destruction that must have been around her, determined to help. In her hands was an injured Mockingjay, frail, one wing over her hand, the other, crumpled. Its head turned into its body, and in the sun, glinting.

"For the one who holds the heart of the Mockingjay forever in her hands"

It wasn't even that, though, which brought me to racking sobs. It was the flowers.

Hundreds, thousands, millions of primroses scattered everywhere. On the statue. Around it. On the plaque. Around the stand, reaching out into the square. Spilling from everywhere and nowhere, lining the unassuming monument. Overwhelming.

I couldn't remember the last time I cried for, or really truly missed, my sister. And I think that was the first time I realized the Prim in the woods could not be who I let myself pretend she was. Who I knew she wasn't.

It was explained to me later that I was only a few days late for the annual Primrose Festival, a day in which citizens, from all over Panem, not just District 11, celebrated the memories of those they had loved and lost. It used to be for Prim, the one whose death brought my sanity to its knees, but over the years began to lose its strict connotation, until it applied to anyone who had passed, and whose memory would live on with those who were alive to remember them. In the places it was celebrated, people gathered and gave, received, threw, and laid primroses at the sites that meant most, to those who had passed. Rue's had been so overflowing that it took up the entire street, and they'd had to clear them. Prim's was left alone, because District 11 saw it as their tribute to the girl who had bothered to love theirs. Even as the flowers died and slowly receded, the core set never vanished, their scent hanging in the air.

I actually liked that it wasn't just for Prim any longer, but though it had changed in this new city they called "Harmony", the tradition still stood that the flower of choice would be the primrose. In fact, it was the one thing that had stuck throughout all of Panem: a primrose for the dead. A primrose for the girl who was named after, and embodied, the delicate flower.

I cried tears of happiness, I think. I honestly couldn't tell. I wondered how 12 had never heard of this celebration, but then…Peeta and I had all but quarantined ourselves from the ever-changing world, even within our own district.

I didn't, and don't, regret it. We had our own way of celebrating, but I took the entire trip home to tell Prim all about just what she meant to me, and now, so many others. What she had become, what she could have become had she lived. How this would have all changed. But with the ache in my heart, I could still feel it as she touched my hand, the touch of tiny water droplets in an insistent mist: it can't, and couldn't have gone any other way. With watery eyes I returned her sincere smile.

I told her about her family. About the boy with the bread, the girl with the loud footfalls but true arrows and the boy with footsteps lighter than hers and a heart to rival the one that had beat in her breast. Told her what became of that damned cat of hers. Told her everything and nothing as we hitched on the train, hanging onto the handrails, the smell of springtime primrose filling my lungs and the sprinkle of a bubbling stream flowing over my hand.

...

And then one time, I never came back. I left a watery-eyed Peeta with our grown children. He could care for them, and them for him. I asked him not to rush after me, but I don't know if he listened. I wandered into the woods not much later, armed only with my father's hunting jacket, a quiver with a few arrows, my bow, and the smell of primroses to comfort me.

I don't really know how long I was in the woods. How far I wandered. I had a sense that it didn't really matter, and that made it even better. I could enjoy the warm air, the snaps and pops of the earth as I stepped through it. I could take deep breaths and, for the first time, let them out without them catching. Free. Somehow, some way, I was free. From the memories that only lightly prodded me now to the lightness in my limbs and the weightlessness in my chest.

But finally, I came across a tall fence, the electricity shut off long ago. I walked along it, a sense of familiarity prickling at the back of my mind and overtaking me as I dropped to the ground and slid through a gap, coming out on the other side and continuing on my way. There were signs, old and rusted and hard to read because of that, taken and reclaimed by nature. Vast rock formations and planks of wood holding them up dotted the hills. Old vehicles left for dead and covered in a thin film of black. Ancient, rudimentary. Abandoned. Fresh sprouts sprang from the gray dirt around them. I walked passed them, until I saw the first telling of civilization, outskirts of a big town, towering buildings off in the distance. I had never been here before.

I take in every building, every house, the structures unfamiliar but hitting a pang of memory, echoing inside of me. I can't place the exact recollection though, and it fades.

The houses and buildings give way to city streets, busy but sprawling, not crowded. Beautiful, even.

I find myself in the strange new place, shiny and bustling and clean, untainted, unmarred, with just a gentle itch of familiarity.

It nags at me as I turn a corner and come face to face with…myself. Large and bronze, glinting in the warm sun. My bow is at my side, quiver on my back, body forward, paused. I recognize it as images swim forth: my first games. To my own surprise, I smile. It feels like a lifetime ago. Right before I saluted District 11, I think. My face is serious, sad, eyes dangerous but grieving, heavy with loss. The face of a reluctant future leader. Of a reluctant victor. My mockingjay pin flashes and sparks more images to leisurely flood me, as I work my gaze down, down, below my Games boots, to an inscription directly below the District 12 seal that hasn't been used since the fall of the Capitol:

Here lies Katniss Everdeen

Child of the Seam

Girl on Fire

I hope that was satisfactory! I don't know if it delivered quite the emotional punch I was going for...but I think it delivered a lot more than I hoped, at the same time.

But alas, I am the author! Please tell me how you felt about it! And thank you for taking the time to read it. :)