Ever since the Games ended, nightmares have haunted me all the time. They consume me when the sun falls below the horizon, taking any sleep or peaceful slumber from my grasp, maybe forever. And it's only gotten worse since, because it's not only about the Games anymore. It's not just Rue dying in my arms, or killing Marvel, or Cato, or any injuries that myself or Peeta received that could have very well killed us. Of nightlock and wolf mutts.
No, now there are the the guilts and shames of the war in a way I began and ended, but really it never ends. Because the war still lives in me. It always will. Now it's Finnick Odair dying from the lizard mutts. Boggs' legs being blown to pieces, the pods, the peacekeepers. The fires that scorched the very person I loved most, disintegrating her into nothing. Those are the worst.
And yes, I do dream of the other person that meant the most to me before, and yes it's still of him being hurt sometimes. The cracking whip from Thread's horrible gleaming sadistic eyes, the injuries and the pain that resonated from him every time I kissed Peeta in the arenas. Snow taking him from me and making good on his barely concealed death threat. But the ones that hurt most are the ones where he is the one that causes the pain. Where he's the one with the gleaming sadistic eyes, burning my Prim into nothing.
Because even now I know it's not really him. I did kill Coin after all, I know she's the one that dropped the bombs. That it may or may not have been Gale's bomb but I can't shake the connection between his snares being transformed into real weapons and my Prim singed and bursting into unrecognizable pieces as I failed to save her. But I still miss him, though I rarely admit it even to myself. Only in the woods. Ever.
And so it shouldn't surprise me when I have a dream one night that doesn't feel like a nightmare and I'm walking along, finding a snare about five feet above my head with a rabbit. My breath catches as I tentatively go to touch it, because I haven't dared to venture to our old snare line and I can't bring myself to set one. Which means…
"Stealing is punishable by death, haven't you heard?" a voice calls out behind me. His voice. But instead of the threat it held the first time, instead of the mirth added in as we joked on and on long after that about our first meeting, it holds an easily detectable hint of sadness and remembrance. I slowly turn around, idly wondering if I'll immediately hate the man that now holds horrible memories in my mind, but all I can see in him is a pain and sadness. A longing. A resentment of himself.
"What are you doing here?" I finally question him, my hand dropping from the rabbit beside me. He slowly walks toward me but stops maybe five feet away, so far and yet too close at the same time. But his eyes are fixed on mine steadily and I can't seem to break the stare either. I can't seem to even so much as breathe.
"Taking us back to the start." He finally tells me. "We've gone off course, haven't we? We're not who we used to be."
"As…friends?" I venture to ask, because somehow though that's what I wish for it can't be. We've gone past the point of friendship, haven't we? I couldn't even tell you what we are or what we even could be, but it's not that I'm certain. It would always be tinged with something else, right?
He smiles a little but I can tell his heart isn't in it. "You know we can't. That died long ago, didn't it?"
"Because of you." I remind him, and he shrugs. But even though I miss him, I can't give him what he wants. What he needs. It's not possible.
Maybe if I didn't have that stupid image of his bomb killing my sister…
"Katniss?" a new voice calls out, one that doesn't belong in the woods. I don't even know how he could have possibly found me.
"Peeta? What are you doing here?" I question him, confused as even as Gale doesn't even bother looking his way, just at me. Only at me. And while I look at him while Peeta answers, I can't seem to take my eyes off of him. Looking for any indication at all of what he's thinking.
And nothing. Nothing at all. The person that knows me best and who I know best I can no longer read. It terrifies me.
"I've come to bring you home. Where you belong." Peeta's voice claims, and I finally rip my gaze away to stare at Peeta as he takes my hand. No sooner than I do so I can sense a fire crackling and look on to hear the ear piercing screams from the second arena, both his and Prim's together burning in a fire.
"No!" I shriek, running right into the fire but it disappears as soon as I reach it, leaving me with just ashes in its place.
I wake up with a start, sweat coating every inch of my skin where I am in my bed. I knew the nightmares were still bad but this one was horrible. I didn't ever want to even think about it again.
But that's too much to ask of course, because my brain apparently loves to torture me with my own fears and anger and pain. Again and again I have the same dream, but the end is always different and yet the same. I can never save them but it changes each time. A scorching fire turns into a flood that drowns the screams, or an avalanche. Gunshots from Coin. Peacekeepers with whips. Snow with poison, or Gamemakers with pods. Careers gleefully beheading them. Over and over, new tortures end the dream that always ends with me not able to save them. Nothing at all.
And so when I can't take it anymore, in the dream I finally ask a question to the person being backed up into a new sickening twist, one of his own snares. Instead of screaming no and running, I ask,
"Please! What can I do to stop this?"
Still being backed away into the ropes that will undoubtedly claim him, he glances to me.
"You know. We can go back to the start but it can never finish the same."
"What does that even mean?" I yell, confused. The dreams always end the same. With death. With me failing.
"You know."
And with that maddeningly unhelpful answer, he's once again taken into death's grip and I once again wake in a sweat. You know? What kind of answer is that? I know the answer? I know the…I know. Gosh, that's as bad as my answer back in the cabin so long ago when he whispered those three words that terrified me. I know.
I know.
At least I know how to make the nightmare cease now. Maybe if I just do it once it will disappear, not reminding me endlessly every night of what I miss. What I'm missing. What I could have had, still can have if I let it.
But as the sun rises I know that it's pointless to attempt slumber again so I get up, go to the woods as I always do to hunt. Alone. But somehow I can feel him here; maybe it's because it's always been our place, or the endless dreams. Maybe it's because I'm going crazy.
But though I'm ready for the nightmare that night, it doesn't come. Nor the next night, or the night after that. Was that all it took to make it go away? Just knowing how to end it? Maybe, and I at least feel some guilty relief at that even when I go to the woods.
And then I find a snare with a rabbit hanging from it, near my head. I have to shake my head and pinch myself because I can't be dreaming, right? I already woke up. But if this isn't a dream…
No, that's ridiculous. This has to be right? That rabbit isn't real. I go to touch it and as I feel the silky fur, caressing it I think it's never been this long before he appears. It's always just as soon as I touch the stupid rabbit. And so I bring my hand away again just to retouch the rabbit, waiting for the voice that comes after. And it doesn't.
I'm just being ridiculous now, aren't I? With a sigh and telling myself to get a grip, I go to take the rabbit off, my hands shakily attempting to break the rabbit free.
"Stealing is punishable by death, or haven't you heard?"
Freezing where I am, I can already tell this is different. Because unlike the pain, or mirth, or sadness, this voice is the right one but it's guarded.
Slowly turning to face him my eyes meet the same ones as my ceaseless nightmares, but this face is different. It's got a little bit of a beard, a more rugged look. Tired eyes meet mine instead of just sad and pained ones.
"What are you doing here?" I question him, feeling a sense of déjà vu even if I know in a way that this is real. Because it has to be.
"Bringing us back to the start." A wry grin answers me, and I take a few tentative steps towards him.
"What's the point? You and I both know it can't end the same." My voice answers without my permission, knowing how this ends. I half expect Peeta to walk through the clearing right now and when I sense no loud steps or his voice it affirms that this really is real to me in every way. That he's really here.
"I know." He replies and my breathing stops though it really shouldn't. No, this is too much. Not this.
While I'm frozen in place he takes me in before heaving a heavy sigh, his head bowed. "If it means anything to you I'm sorry. I'll just go away now. You never have to see me again." His voice tells me, pain laced into it which he fails to hide before turning and walking away as I stay frozen, trying to grasp what this new development means.
And somehow (yes, maybe irrationally) I know that I can't let him walk away from me. That something bad will come of it. That it will just be a living nightmare that has reoccurred so often that I can tell you how it ends every time. And I already know how to keep it away, so what am I doing?
"Gale!" I shout his name as I run, making him stop in place as I run up to him, frantic. I can't lose him, I'll never live it down. It's irrational and I know something in me is only doing this to make the nightmares cease forever, but another part of me is urging me on for a very different reason. I've already lost so much, I'm not going to let another opportunity slip from my grasp.
He slowly turns around to look at me, waiting for me to do something as I stare back. And without thinking I step up to him and pull his face down to mine, pressing my lips to his for the first time in a while. And unlike every other kiss we've shared, it surprisingly doesn't have a taste of misery to it though it's almost what I expected. It's like…a new beginning. For both of us. For what everyone always thought we'd have. For what very well could have been our path had one measly slip of paper changed my fate.
So no, it can't end the same and we've both changed, but that doesn't mean we can't go back to the start. Because it has to end differently and though I still don't know what that is, I'll take it day by day. Because this is our new start, our new hope. A new beginning.