Prompt Response.
Prompt read: "Katniss and Peeta - Apocalypse Fic"
She always wondered what it would be like after it was all over. The war, the constant state of oppression, the seemingly endless barrage of heartache and terror. She assumed that she would be dead; long gone and leaving only the memory of her existence behind.
Looking around at the desolate beach, scattered with bits of debris and littered with the remnants of human bones, she watches as Gale's little sister, Posy, the only Hawthorne left standing in the end, pokes at the shell of a hermit crab. The creature is long dead, just like everything else on this stretch of sand. Save for the two of them.
She can honestly say that she never expected this.
Even after the arena had exploded in a fiery burst of sound and light before her very eyes... After the Capitol had bombed District 12 to the ground... After she had watched, her breath caught in her throat and fingers suspended in the air in front of her, as Peeta's warning to the people of District 13 had resulted in his blood being splattered on the camera lens...
Even after all of that, she had never expected this.
But the Capitol's bombs weren't enough. Enough to drive the people of 13, and rebels everywhere she's been told, even farther under ground, but not enough for Snow. There were more bombs, in more districts, until they heard that only those driven into the depths of the earth and those in the Capitol itself remained.
They thought it would be safe then. Safe to go to the surface. Surely there wouldn't be more... not with so few of them remaining and so many of those left with absolutely nothing. When the first group stepped into the still dewy morning, happy to see the sunlight and breathe air that hadn't been recycled, that first lungful killed them instantly.
Gale had been with that group. Her family had been with that group.
They had died, blood seeping slowly from their ears and noses, while she'd been buried hundreds of feet underground, gnawing her fingers to the bone and limbs shaking with exhaustion. Too sick... too mentally unstable to make the journey to the surface.
They would come back for her later, they had said. They needed soldiers, like Gale, and healers, like her mother and Prim. Not seventeen year-old girls, suffering from what everyone else recognized to be a broken heart.
Even miles away, and perhaps dead himself, Peeta was still managing to save her. Even if she didn't want to be. Didn't deserve to be.
They waited longer. The sounds of grief echoing through 13's hallways for weeks before sending another group. The second cluster of rebels had better luck, Coin had told them. Better meaning that they lasted a full week before whatever weapon Snow had released into the air had managed to kill them. Better meaning that at least they had time for the symptoms of what was to come to rear its ugly head. Better meaning that they were able to tell each other goodbye before choking on their own blood.
Hazelle, Rory, and Vick Hawthorne were in that second group. Posy was held behind. There was no room for a four year-old to slow them down.
She didn't want to live then. Practically begged for Coin to let her go. Let her step out into what remained of the world and let it kill her like it had the rest. She was slowly dying anyway. She wished that she could have told her mother that she was sorry... that she understood now.
The Capitol's plan had backfired.
They didn't foresee such a large killzone. They didn't foresee being in it, either.
Each month, more rebels were sent to the surface. Each month, they got farther and lasted longer. A year went by and, though radio contact was spotty at best, the group sent out during the ninth month was still alive. No one was showing symptoms of any sort.
One year and three months after the bombs initially dropped on the district that wasn't supposed to exist in the first place, they let her out. She scooped up a terrified Posy Hawthorne, separated herself from the rest of the group, and never looked back.
She has to know. She has to know if he's still alive - chained to a wall in the underground bunker that Snow's sure to have- waiting to be freed, or broken and searching for answers like she is, or if he's long gone. Dead and buried underneath piles of flat stones like those in the mass graves outside of 13. Like her mother and sister.
She's encountered others along the way - all looking for someone or something that she can't help them with. Some recognize her, but most don't acknowledge the fact. Some she ignores altogether, deeming it better that way - safer. The closer that they get the Capitol, though, the more open she is about precisely what (who) she's searching for.
Surely someone must have heard something. Surely someone knows.
They don't, though. No one knows what happened to the bright-eyed, blond-haired boy that she'd clung to in front of the entire nation in not one, but two arenas.
That won't stop her from continuing on, however.
Posy runs past her, and she cringes as she watches the little girl dodge what looks to be the carcass of some sort of large seabird while the foam of the water chases her toes. It may not be appropriate, but she lets herself slip into the memory of the only other time she's been on this beach.
She looks out at the waves that crash in the distance and remembers a day when this terrain didn't look so desolate and grey. She remembers a night when the moon hung, full in the sky, reflecting off the water and the planes of his face as she turned to see him approach her underneath the pier. She thinks of how he thought he'd finally managed to sneak up on her, and the way that she had continued to sing, even though she'd known he was listening the entire time.
She closes her eyes and swears that she can almost feel his arms wrapping around her like they did that night. She opens them when she feels a smaller, decidedly less strong, set wrap around her thighs instead.
"Katniss," Posy whispers harshly so that she can be heard over the waves crashing into the rocks not far away. The older girl kneels down so that she's eye level with the only person that she's certain is left to depend on her in this world. Widening her eyes, urging her to go on, she places her hands on the girl's narrow shoulders. "There's a man."
It's been a while since they've come across any other survivors, and Posy's hesitance is anything but unfounded. Even at five, she knows that those they have stumbled upon haven't always been the nicest.
Katniss turns her head slowly, squinting her eyes into the distance. Sure enough, standing by a large pillar, all that remains of the pier that she was envisioning just seconds before, is a man. He's too far away for her to get a feel for his face - for whether or not he poses any sort of threat. She narrows her eyes as he begins to straighten up; ready to put herself between whoever this man is and Posy.
But then he starts to walk.
He starts to walk, and she takes in the build of his broad shoulders and the way that they hunch slightly each time his left leg hits the sand. She watches his uneven tread , hands curling into fists at his sides with the difficulty of the terrain.
Without a second thought, she goes to meet him halfway.
It's not until they're only feet apart that she's sure of it. She's not the only one that's been making her way across the earth's destroyed surface to find someone.
His hair is longer, its curls not as apparent with the added weight, but it still curves up from where it's tucked behind his ears. And whatever they did to him during their first Games to make sure that his facial hair wouldn't grow has obviously worn off. A thick layer of stubble that she's never seen on him before covers his cheeks and chin, but his eyes... His eyes are still the same and the familiar way that they crinkle up at the corners when one side of his mouths lifts is her undoing.
His hands, cold and calloused, cradle her face as she does nothing to stop the tears spilling from her eyes. Her head throbs and her throat burns, but she still feels as if there's something inside of her that's sliding gently back into place.
When he says her name, she sobs openly.
She never expected this.