Haymitch POV
Just another day in Command. Sitting around the table with a dozen others blathering on about war this and rebellion that. Boggs and Gale were telling Coin about the details of their recent rescue mission, both fully recovered. Many others were gathered around the screens of the room, watching and re-watching footage we had shot and Peeta's interviews. I wish they would turn them off. Can't they see what they're doing to her? But no, they are too busy with their rebellion to notice that the center of it hadn't said a word, hadn't spoken all day, actually. Katniss was just sitting next to Finnick, absentmindedly rubbing the fading bruises on her neck. She flinches, and so do I. The sound of running feet interrupted my thoughts. No one ran here in thirteen. Running usually meant we were all in danger. As the footsteps got closer the room silenced, all of us expecting orders to get to a safer location.
But when the door opened, instead of an authority figure standing outside the door, It was Prim. She was dressed in the uniform of the doctors, with a very serious look on her face. her eyes darted around the room, landing on the frozen footage of the interview Peeta had given after the propo in 8, and her eyes grew hard. I looked at Katniss, who had not even bothered to acknowledge her, still staring at the floor, rubbing her bruises.
Coin spoke first, "Can we help you, Ms. Everdeen?" This caused Katniss to finally look up.
"I need to speak to Katniss. Alone." said Prim, a hard edge to her usually sweet and calm voice.
"Why?" said Coin, obviously not used to be bossed around by a thirteen year old.
"That's none of your business" said Prim coldly, but in an afterthought, "It's about Peeta".
"Anything related to Katniss is my business, she is the center of the rebellion, and so is anything related to Peeta, well, at least Haymitch should be informed."
"Should he?" said Prim, dangerously close to yelling, "does he really have a right to know? After everything that's happened do any of you really have a right to know!"
She was yelling now, and turned on me. "You left them there to die! And you knew, you knew that he would do anything to save her, anything, but I guess you didn't count on her doing the same!" I raise my eyes to meet hers, but quickly drop them again, when I see the rage, the hurt.
"I was so happy," she said, calmly almost at a whisper, "to come here, and tell you what happened, I was so, so happy. All I came here to say is, " she took a deep breath, " I was talking to Peeta today-"
"And what? You managed to convince Katniss isn't a mutt? Been there done that." I said scathingly.
"What I said to him," her voice rising "was that Katniss loved him. I said that to him, and he blacked out."
I watch Katniss' eyes fly up in terror, but Prim continues, "When he woke up, he immediately asked where Katniss was. I was confused, but answered that I didn't know. After a few more questions, I decided to ask him one."
"What? ask him what?" Katniss asked, her voice barely a whisper, her eyes terrified and wild.
Prim walked over to her sister with careful grace, as if walking on glass. She took Katniss' hand and leaned down so they were at the same level.
"I asked him if he loved you"
You could have heard a pin drop. You could have heard the dust shift on the floor from the silence that stretched out.
Slowly, Prim continued, "He looked at me and said, Why wouldn't I love her? I've loved her since we were five, you know that."
"He said what?" Katniss squeaked.
"He said, he loved you."
And I swear to god, I have never seen someone move so fast. She flashed by in a wave of brown hair and joy that seemed to tumble off her as she went. I looked up, expecting Prim to follow, but instead she sat in Katniss' vacant seat, and looking around, almost accusingly, began to speak again.
"My sister has fire. She has a spark, and it burns so, so bright. But sometimes too bright. Sometimes it burns so bright you don't realize that she's seventeen years old. Seventeen." her eyes fly up and land on Coin, on Boggs.
"What were you doing at seventeen? Living here? Or better yet, eleven, when she was sneaking into the woods to save our family? You look at her, you see the symbol of the rebellion. I see a seventeen year old girl. I see my sister. I see a girl who watched a twelve year old die in her arms, and who can remember the name of every person she's killed. Every child. Because that's what they all were. Children. And at night, I hear her screams, Nightmares she can't escape. Have you ever heard her screams? Broken and terrified in the middle of the night? I have. People say there are no children in war. That war makes corpses of us all. And they may be right. But there are children. People like Katniss and Peeta and Finnick and Johanna. But they layer them with armor, and call them soldiers, and send them out to die. So before you judge them, remember that you don't know a thing about them, or what it's like to have an ally die in your arms, or to be chased by a pack of mutts, or to see your greatest and fiercest enemy reduced to a scared child, in the blink of an eye."
She sits back, pleased, and I tentatively lift my eyes.
"Can we see him?" I speak low, trying not to anger them girl further.
"No. Not right now." her voice softens, "My sister is the strongest person you will ever meet. But even the strongest people have a weakness. Even the strongest people break sometimes."
She smiles, then says "Come with me." We file out, an odd sight, the leaders of the district trailing behind the tiny girl.
She speaks kindly now as walk down the vacant halls of thirteen, "I know war is hard. I know that it sucks, and you just want it to be over. But until then, I want you to remember something."
We stop outside door that adjoins a hospital room, and Prim peeks inside before letting all file in.
"Quiet." she whispers.
I look up through the one way glass, and almost faint out of shock.
Dancing. They are dancing. Inside the small hospital room, they sway back and forth and he twirls her to invisible music. And he pulls her in tight and they clutch to one another, because they know better than most, any moment could be your last. And I watch Katniss and Peeta hold each other, and tears of joy slides down her face.
And Prim speaks, soft and soothing, as a room full of soldiers witness a true miracle of love,
"Remember this."