In District 12, we don't bury the bodies of mining victims. Instead we cremate them and set them loose in the breeze in a Wind Ceremony, assuring them that they'll never be underground again. It's the last thing we can do to honour the ones we've lost.
I'm given a week off work to recuperate. I don't leave my bed. I only see Delly when she comes in to change out my bandages. She chose to sleep in the guest room after I spent the first night screaming with nightmares. I try not to blame her, but it's hard when all you need is someone to stay close and that one person can't bear it.
In the quiet hours when Delly is out looking for work (something she despises doing) I can't help but think of Katniss in her lonely house. I picture her sitting on the porch and staring at the trees. I picture her mourning for hours on end. The thoughts make me even lonelier and I promise myself that I'll get to see her once I'm back at work.
On the fifth day, I'm down in the shop attempting to knead a loaf of bread with a pair of rubber gloves on. The pain of the movement shocks through my system but I'm determined to get used to it knowing that in a few days it'll be a pick axe and not something as soothing as a rising loaf of bread. I'm just about to shove the tray into the oven when a knock comes from the front of the shop. I poke my head through the door and look out the windows to see a young woman on my stoop, her face pressed to the glass with her hands cupping the windows around her face. She looks familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
"Hello?" I ask tentatively, opening the door as the woman stands and brushes herself off. She looks frazzled and worn, but none-the-less cheerful.
"Peeta Mellark?" I nod, furrowing my brow. "I'm Primrose Everdeen," she states, watching me for any reaction. I nod again, unsure as to why Katniss' little sister would be standing in my doorway. "Would you like to come over for lunch?"
"What?" The word sputters out of me before I have the opportunity to stop it. I'm sure it came out rude and insulting and I shake my head again. "Sorry, sorry," I mumble, holding up my still-gloved hands. I feel my face flush pink as I realize and pull the gloves off. Prim laughs tightly and looks around to the nearly deserted square in front of the store.
"Things sure have changed around here." I nod at her words and gesture for her to step in. Following me through to the back I hear her audibly sniff the air and sigh at the smell of the bread baking. Smiling sadly, I offer her a chair wishing I could give her more.
"I thought you moved away to District 1 for medical school?" I ask when she's pulled in her seat, leaning heavily on her hands.
"How'd you know that?" She responds quietly, squinting her eyes towards me. I look away out the window, out anywhere but at her as the conversation with Gale filters back through my mind. He'd told me about the day she'd left and how difficult it had been for Katniss to see her sister leave.
Now he was gone.
"Oh," She quietly realizes after a moment. The air in the space turns tense as we both disengage. It's the sound of the bread buzzer going off that snaps me back to attention and has me reaching for the bread in the stove without another thought. "Peeta!" Prim yells and I'm startled backwards as I swing around to look at her. Silently, she holds out a pair of oven gloves and I realize what I'd been about to do. I nod in thanks, slipping them on and reaching again for the hot pan.
"Sorry about that – I'm not really on page just yet. They said it might be a concussion or something," I ramble on, settling the loaf and leaning heavily against the table as I try to right my mind more carefully.
"Come for lunch, it'll be good for you both," Prim murmurs and stands, grabbing my jacket and leading me towards the doorway.
I follow reluctantly, not wanting to intrude on Katniss and her mourning. She still hadn't had her Wind Ceremony for Gale, which typically means that the family is not coping well. Some families in the District still had family members on their shelves.
I hoped Katniss wouldn't be one of them.
Together we walk carefully across town, into the Seam, and down the row of houses until we see Katniss' white picket fence. I'm caught up short again when it comes into sight, nervous at the idea that I'm the last person she would ever want to see.
"Why did you bring me here, Prim?" I ask quietly as the woman before me stops and turns around.
"She's barely gone outside. She doesn't talk. If I hadn't heard it on the news, I wouldn't have called Madge and found out what happened. You understand what she's going through, Peeta. You loved Gale too. It'll be good for you both," she finishes sadly.
I want to turn and run. To go back home and hide out in my bed. I don't want to face down my friend's widow. I don't want to face down the girl I loved since I was a kid. Turning around, I head in the opposite direction. Away from the memories and the nightmares and the sadness that eclipse me here.
"Please don't go!" Prim shouts from behind me. I hear her feet clatter along the dust and stone behind me as she reaches for my shoulder. I stop dead in my tracks and fall to a crouch, putting my head between my knees and sucking in air until my head stops spinning.
"She doesn't want to see me," I say under my breath. Prim kneels down before me and rests her hands on my cheeks, guiding my head up to look at her.
"She doesn't want to see anyone – not even me. But she needs to see you. She needs to know that it's real and that she needs to keep living. Help me remind her," she says, begging. She's begging me to remind her sister that her husband is dead. That my friend is dead. The thought makes my chest hurt, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut to stop the tears from forming. "Just lunch, Peeta." She guides me up, and we start walking again, my resolve fading with every step forward.
Prim leads me into the house and I'm shocked by just how different it is since the last time I came to pick up Gale for work. There's a fresh coat of paint in every room and where a wall used to be there is now a front room. We slip together into the kitchen and Prim sets to work on sandwiches, pulling together a variety of small condiments that they still have in stock. I stand by the doorway stoically, watching her move around the space with such ease.
"I'd offer to help, but I'm still a little clumsy," I mention, holding up my bandaged hands. Prim smiles and nods.
"Don't worry about it – I've got this down to a science now."
She finishes up the prep and motions for me to sit, disappearing out of the room like a summer breeze. I hear her quiet feet on the stairs, her voice calling out to Katniss.
"You've got to come downstairs. Just for a while," I hear her plead above me. The girl stomps her foot when she's still not getting anywhere, and I can't take it any longer.
I slip from my seat, making my way upstairs through the rebuilt staircase and down the hallway to where I see light streaming from a room. Poking my head inside, I see Prim standing next to the bed, arms crossed over her chest as she scowls down at Katniss' prone form. I take in the sight of her, the pale olive skin and the oily hair as she curls towards the empty spot on the bed facing the wall. Her hand lies outstretched, and something about the way it reaches towards the emptiness breaks a piece inside of me.
"Come down for lunch, Katniss," I quietly ask, my voice startling Prim from her stance. She looks towards me with wide eyes and motions for me to leave. Instead I come closer, stepping towards the bed and sitting heavily on its edge. She stirs behind me, only minimally, but still it's something. "Let's eat up here – can we do that?" I look towards Prim who's nodding her head, disappearing from the room as lightly as she came.
When I can hear that she's downstairs, I sigh heavily into my hands, breathing through the pain that racks my bones being in this house.
"I'm sorry I didn't save him," I say quietly. I feel the bed below me shift again, and I turn to see that she's rolled over and is facing me now, her gaze distant and wide.
"There was nothing you could do, I know that," Her voice is raspy and stiff. I doubt she's talked since the explosion.
"Still."
We sit together in the longest silence I've ever endured. In fact, I'm sure Prim is giving us extra time in the hopes that I'll work some magic over her sister. But I can't – I can't offer anything that I don't have myself. All I've got right now is a sickness for him and a pulsing fear that everything will come crashing down around me.
When Prim finally returns, tray in hand with all of the sandwich fixings she's rustled up, she places the tray on my lap and crawls onto the edge of the bed next to her sister.
None of us enter the empty spot.
There is no respite if I'm to keep making an income. Delly still hasn't found work, and my leave from the mines was only for the week. Apparently they've arranged other duties that can be done with minimal use of the hands.
I can't find it in myself to get optimistic about this. I don't want to be down there, ever.
Come Tuesday morning I'm slipping on my boots when I remember my predicament from the last time I wore them. The right lace is still broken and unusable. I'd forgotten to find some twine since my last shift and now I am stuck having to tape it again. That isn't the thought that made me late though.
No, I got caught up in the memory of Gale rushing me for work. I think perhaps I'm late on purpose, just to spite them all for taking him.
"Mellark – you're on bird duty today. Take the next lift down and find Rackon – he'll show you where to check for leaks," Gaius, the labour master, yells at me from the gates. My stomach drops at the realization that I'll still be underground, and worse, I'll be monitoring the only alarm system that hundreds of men have down there.
"Yes, sir." My voice is a squeak on my reply, and the lift master laughs in my face as he lowers the trap into the mines' depths.
Reaching the lowest level, I make to step off and instead find myself frozen in the lift. I can't move, can't breathe, as the thick air strangles the breath from my lungs and freezes the blood in my veins.
"Peeta, how are ya?" Bristel, one of our – my – crewmates, calls out to me from the lunch area, getting to her feet and approaching carefully.
She'd been on reverse shifts the day it had happened.
"Alive," I joked, poorly. Grimly. We both smiled tightly in the dim light as the silence dragged out.
"Has there been a-?"
"No. I don't think she's up to it yet," I interrupt abruptly. I know the crew is anxious about the ceremony – they usually are and I can't blame them. It's not uncommon at these depths to convince yourself that the dead are still walking. Some believe that the only way to see them through is to hold the Wind Ceremony and truly set them free.
"Alright, well, I've best get back to-"
"Yeah, I'll see you soon," I mumble and head off towards the main post.
Rackon isn't a hard man to find as he stands too tall and too wide to be down this deep. He keeps his helmet tucked under his arm for his whole shift and somehow I can't help but think that he probably has a death wish by now.
"Come to sing the tunes?" He states wearily, shoving a caged canary into my hands. I nod absently, looking into where the bird is fluttering around within its cell. "You're taking this one down A5 – can you handle that or do you need some hand holding?"
"I'm fine," I spit and head off in the direction of A5. I take my time, meandering through the tunnels at the slowest pace possible. Once or twice I get lost, always returning to the main point and restarting.
I do this for hours, methodically delivering the birds to endless destinations so that other men don't suffer the same fate as me. Later on, I start to think that they've assigned me to this in the hopes that I see it as a useful act and not simply torture. Maybe there's a kindness at work here.
But then one of the birds dies while I'm walking and I drop the cage, the sound clattering on the rocks and causing a panic in the tunnel as the workers around me flee towards the lift. I'm stuck to my spot, my feet rooted to the ground as my eyes never leave the bird carcass.
Perhaps death wouldn't be so bad. If it's just poison air – I'll go peacefully, won't I?
"Mellark! Get your ass in gear!" I hear Thom yell from down the tunnel, waving me towards the lift shaft with an urgency that I haven't felt in forever. When I still don't move, the man rushes towards me and grabs my arm, pulling me towards the elevator with a renewed force. He pushes me on and I crash into the grates.
The image of the explosion flashes back into my mind's eye as we move upwards. Reaching the surface, I'm dragged from my memories by the sound of a siren wailing and emergency personnel waiting.
There is no hacking lung. No gasping for air. No fainting or burning skin. We are fine.
This time.
AN: Again, another huge thanks to PenelopeWeaving and Wildharp for their time a direction on this bit.