A/N: So this was my contribution to the Fandom 4 No Kid Hungry compilation, and it is my first step into the world of Hunger Games fanfic writing. Hope you all enjoy it. Banner is up on my blog: lvtwilight09fanfiction . blogspot . com (just remove the spaces) and in my FB group: lvtwilight09s lovers.
President Snow's piercing stare and Haymitch's words of warning play over and over in my head the entire way back to District 12. Despite the worry building up within me about having angered the Capitol, I still feel some sense of relief seep into me the closer we get to home.
Home…hopefully once I'm there, everything will start to make sense again. No more confusion over the things Peeta has said to me and then dealing with his disappointment because I can make him no promises for a future together. No more manipulating and performing for sponsors. No more cameras watching my every move of every day.
I can be get back to how life used to be. I can see Prim smile, having fulfilled the promise I made to her to come back. I can get back to my routine of hunting with Gale.
Gale. A sticky situation in and of himself. I know he no doubt saw everything that transpired between Peeta and I. I'm not quite sure I know how to explain it all to him, and honestly, until now I didn't think I really had need to worry about it. He's always been just Gale to me, but now…knowing that I'll soon have to face him and account for my actions, I realize that there is something more to him…something that makes him no longer just Gale.
It's the realization of that though that turns my thoughts back to Peeta. He's a good boy. He'll always be my boy with the bread. So the thought of bringing our charade to an end…for some unexplicable reason, tugs at my heart.
All of this is confusing and making my head hurt. Suddenly going home doesn't seem like such a relief as reality comes crashing down. Effie doesn't do much to help either. The entire train ride back to District 12 she's been prattling on about all of our obligations now that we're the victors of this year's games.
The welcoming ceremony when we first return, banquets in our honor, parades…and then of course in a few months' time we have the victory tour around the districts we are required to take. Thinking of that tour reminds me that we'll be heading to District 11 and facing the people who knew and loved Rue. Not a single day has passed since the end of the games that I haven't thought about her.
To be honest, I can't go much more than a few minutes without something reminding me of that arena, of what happened there. I had hoped that once the train doors closed and I was sped away from the Capitol, I could leave all the memories of what happened behind me.
The truth is though, that death and the knowledge that your own demise is precariously imminent…changes a person in ways no one who hasn't been through it can understand. I've tried keeping things to myself. I suspect Peeta knows my struggle though, there is a certain sadness in his eyes now that tells me that he is suffering much the same as me, if not more. At least with my coming from The Seam, I was a bit more hardened to the harsher realities of life. But Peeta's being the baker's son offered him a much more sheltered childhood than I had.
The train shudders to a halt as we reach home. Effie runs off to who knows where to make sure everything is in order, and Haymitch takes the moment to remind us of what's at stake.
"Remember Sweetheart, they're all watching you. Keep your eyes open and make sure you keep on playing the game. They're all just waiting to see you make a mistake so they can make their move," he tells me.
My words falter and die in my throat. I never wanted any of this. All I wanted was to survive the games and get to come home. Now, I have to keep an eye on every move I make because one small slip can cost not only me, but my family and Peeta's family as well.
Effie returns and tells us it's time. Walking to the door, Peeta takes my hand in his and offers a halfhearted sad smile. I want to pull my hand away, I want to tell him I need time to sort everything out, but I can't because we're supposed to be 'The Star Crossed Lovers of District 12'. We have to keep pretending…at least for now, because all eyes are on us.
We walk out of the train and up onto the platform set up for us. Roaring cheers and shouts surround us as everyone welcomes us home. Peeta raises our joined hands above our heads, kisses me softly on the cheek. It drives the crowd wild. I see Gale and he looks…broken. I want to scream out and tell him it's all just a façade, but I can't. We all have a role to play, and Peeta is particularly good at his, so I smile at him and wave to everyone.
Mother and Prim are there with Gale. They are smiling, happy. I haven't seen my mother like this since before Father died. Seeing them reminds me of why I volunteered in the first place. Prim is safe, and we'll no longer need worry about having enough to eat.
The welcoming ceremony drones on, and I have to fight the urge to scream. They play highlights of our time in the arena, offering us praise for our skill and tenacity. But I can't help think of how wrong all of it is. I don't want praise. I just want to forget. I just want to be able to close my eyes at night and not see the blank stares of the dead in my mind. I want to be able to sleep free from the nightmares that have begun to haunt me nightly.
The ceremony ends with the parade that leads Peeta and I into Victor's Village where we are allowed to select our new homes. I choose the one next door to Peeta and across the way from Haymitch. We'll be the only three who live here, and I can't help but think that the solitude will be a good thing.
OoOo_EO_oOoO
We've only been back in District 12 for a few weeks and I feel like I'm losing my grip on life as I knew it. Maybe it was foolish of me to think that we could just return and go back to life the way it was. Haymitch was right. All eyes are on Peeta and I now. It's clear the Capitol has taken action as well.
All of the old peacekeepers were relieved of duty and replaced a few days after our return, no doubt as a way for President Snow to keep watch. It's made hunting more difficult, but so have the changes with the fence. It's been "under repair" as the Capitol has called it, so slowly more and more sections of it have been electrified around the clock.
Beyond those changes though…the hunting isn't the same for me anymore. Before leaving for the games, Gale told me that using my bow and arrow in the arena would be no different than when we were hunting, and to an extent, he was right. The only problem is, now every time I've made a kill, I keep seeing one of the other tributes as the animal falls dead to the ground.
Gale doesn't understand the changes in me. He's frustrated over how different I am, blames Peeta for it. But the reality is, even if it was someone else's name that came out of that bowl, even if I was the only victor…I think I would still be like this. There's no way that anyone who goes into that arena could come out of it unchanged.
It doesn't help that he's tried telling me he loves me. He tried kissing me a week ago too. The problem is though, I don't know if I'm capable of love. At least not in the romantic sense of the word. I've tried to be honest with him, but whenever he's said "I love you," all I offer as a response is "I know," and every time I do, I can see the ire and hurt in his eyes.
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I've stopped hunting all together. The last trip into the forest was too much. Beyond the fact that we barely made it past the peacekeepers, there are only a few sections of fence left unpowered. I think though, the tipping point was the deer I managed to kill. It stood utterly still as I approached, and the moment I let my arrow fly, it looked at me with wide innocent eyes. Eyes that were so much like Rue's. It brought it all back. All I saw as that deer fell to the ground was Rue dying all over again. I could hear the panic in her voice as she called out my name, I could hear her sweet melodies she would whistle and sing.
Gale found me curled up on the forest floor next to the deer, a sobbing mess. He's changed, and I don't know if it's because I've not returned his advances or because he's had to start working in the mines, but he's no longer the Gale I used to know. He looked at me as if he was disgusted in the changes in me. Told me that I needed turn back into the Katniss he knew before I left for the games and ranted how he wants things to go back to how they used to be. He doesn't get it though…they'll never be that way again.
The only ones who understand are Haymitch and Peeta. I told Gale as much, but he thinks I'm just being stubborn. He just doesn't get it through. For everyone here in the districts…they can just pretend that the games don't affect them once they're over…especially if they aren't the family of a tribute. But for those of us who have had to go through it. For those of us who have been pitted against one another and have had to see just how black our souls can be…it's not pretend. It's reality, and for those of us lucky enough to make it out alive…when we're released back into the world and sent home to our districts, we know just how cruel the world can be.
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Haymitch and Effie are concerned, and they have good cause to be. There are rumors spreading in some of the other districts that the romance between Peeta and I was completely fabricated for the games. It's not an entirely untrue statement.
To try to counter the rumors, we've been appearing together in public more, and making people see us acting like a couple. At first the acting was taxing on me, I was never good with showing affection. I felt bad because I knew for Peeta…it wasn't a matter of acting. It was real for him. But the longer we've done it, the easier it is for me, and to be honest, the more I realize I could be comfortable having a life with Peeta.
Gale was unhappy about Peeta and I being together so much, and he did the one thing I never thought he would ever ask me to do. He told me I had to choose. He wouldn't listen when I told him it wasn't a choice for me. It was a matter of keeping my family safe, including him. If he only understood how hard it's been for me, trying to keep watch over everyone, knowing that one false move could bring the Capitol down upon us all. It killed me to do it, but I told him that if he couldn't even try to understand the choices I've made and why I've made them, then there was no longer room for him in my life. We haven't spoken since.
OoOo_EO_oOoO
Spending my time with Peeta has been good for me…good for both of us. Outside of Haymitch, we're the only two people in our district who will every really understand just how much the Hunger Games affect you. Peeta and I have been able to find comfort in each other, knowing we can talk about it all without fear of judgment.
He is still hopeful that the act we put on for everyone else will become reality one day. I still tell him I can't promise him anything. But he has seen the changes between us…the gentle touches or kisses on the cheek that I will offer, even when we both know full well there are no eyes upon us. He says it is enough for now.
He knows I need time, and never asks for more than I am able to give. He doesn't pass judgment on me when I am having a darker day and the memories are too much for me to bear. In the end, it all boils down to the fact that he isn't Gale, and as happy as I am to know that I have found a source of solace in the midst of everything, it pains me to know that Gale wasn't who I had come to think he was. I understand that he had hopes for me and him beyond our friendship, and for as much as he said he loved me, he should have been understanding as well of all I have been dealing with.
Perhaps one day we will find our way back to each other as friends. But until then, I have Peeta to support me. Our being together has done us both well. He no longer cries out in the middle of the night from nightmares. I no longer have memories haunting me in my waking hours. I've even begun to venture out to hunt again. Peeta comes with me, although he is still heavy footed and manages to scare away more game than we catch.
We have found a happy medium, each of us reclaiming pieces of our old selves as we struggle to balance the reality we find ourselves in now. And as Peeta has said to me…for now that is enough.
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Haymitch was right. We needed to keep our eyes open. The problem is though, I never thought I would have looked so carefully at someone I once considered family. The unrest that began to brew as the Games ended has begun to turn into an all out storm in some of the districts, and the rumors of the truth about my relationship with Peeta are still flying about despite how much we present ourselves as a couple. All of it is bringing the Capitol down harder on all of us.
It was Madge who gave us warning of what Gale had done. She was on her way to bring her father his lunch. The head peacekeeper was talking to someone in his office and when she heard the voice she knew it was Gale's. He had made mention of mine and Peeta's name and so she stopped to listen. She heard him telling the peacekeeper about how our relationship was in fact a sham, and how we were already formulating our way to end it by the time our victory tour was over.
After overhearing everything, Madge came to tell Haymitch, Peeta, and I all about it. She'll never know just how much she saved us all. We contacted Effie and she came to help us develop a plan of action for handling it, hoping that our upcoming interview with Caesar would be enough to counteract what Gale had done.
I'm not quite sure what Gale had hoped to accomplish or why he did what he did…didn't he understand it wasn't just Peeta and I at risk here? That our actions would have a direct influence on not just our families lives, but the lives of everyone in District 12 as well?
The one thing Gale did accomplish in all of his actions though, is that he made me realize something. That as much as I thought I was incapable of love…I am. The moment I heard of Gale's betrayal, aside from Prim and my mother, the only other thought in my mind was for Peeta, and what would happen to him. That thought…that one second was when it hit me…if something were to happen to Peeta, I wouldn't be able to live without him.
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It wasn't long after my realization of my feelings towards Peeta that I told him how I felt. I think it was the happiest I had ever seen him. We spent the rest of that day moving my things from my house to his, with plans for my mother and Prim to continue using mine.
That night he asked me if I trusted him to make sure everything we were planning for damage control during the interview went according to plan. I told him I did. After that he started getting skittish and a bit secretive. There were a few days where he holed himself up with Haymitch. When I asked him about it, he told me they were just going over last minute stuff for the interview.
The day of the interview with Caesar gave me the answer as to Peeta's strange behavior. Caesar was welcoming and warm as always when he arrived. Many of the questions dealt with how we felt now that we were back home, and what our plans were now. We answered everything as we had rehearsed it, offering answers which would please the Capitol, saying that we were very happy to be home and to get to have a chance to build a life together, and that we were grateful for the generosity of the Capitol for affording us the chance to have a happy, stable future by providing us with financial stability and our new homes.
What wasn't planned, at least to my knowledge, was Peeta's interruption at the end of the interview, when he asked Caesar if he could ask a question of his own. He took my hands in his, spoke of his love and devotion for me, and proposed marriage.
His eyes were full of so much hope, so much love despite my not understanding why it was me he fell in love with, that all I could do was say yes.
As Caesar congratulated us, it all clicked in my head. I knew the proposal was genuine, and that Peeta would never have asked unless he meant it, but I knew…this was his plan to help counteract anything that Gale's betrayal might have brought down on us. It was his way of providing proof that we were more than just something conjured up for us to get sponsors or to try and outwit the Capitol. It was proof, for me as much as everyone else in Panem that our love was real.
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Our victory tour was more than a little unsettling. Our engagement did little in terms of what we hoped it did and many of the citizens within the districts were still turning to Peeta and I as a source of inspiration for defiance against the Capitol. The unrest amongst the population in many of the places we went was unsettling, many of them outwardly showing signs of rebellion against the Capitol. I lost count of how many times I saw people holding signs which read 'Fire is Catching', giving a nod to my nickname as 'The Girl on Fire'.
Peeta, Haymitch, Effie, and I were all thankful when the tour was over, even though we only had a week between the time of our return and my wedding to Peeta. As soon as the tour began and we saw the truth of how much the idea of rebellion had spread, we all thought it would be wise to not draw out our engagement. Cinna was contacted and he promised to have a dress ready for me by the time we returned to District 12.
Our wedding, even though it was televised through all of Panem, was kept simple and we maintained the traditions of our district, including the toasting. Despite the publicity of it all, it was a happy day, and one which I will never forget. The truth of it all was, that despite everything Peeta and I had been through, how careful and watchful the two of us had to be as we played a deadly game against the Capitol, it was Peeta who truly opened my eyes…to love, to happiness, to all the good things that we could still have together despite the uncertainty of the world around us.