Chapter 3: Friend's Commiseration
"Don't go, Mommy!" The little three year old pleaded as she clung to her mother's leg. Her full lips - his lips - trembled pleadingly. Lillian gave a trilly laugh.
"Katniss! I need you to stay here for a few minutes. I should be back soon. Lock the door and don't answer it for anyone, OK? Unless it's Daddy coming home from the mines!"
Katniss cautiously smiled. "Listen for the mockingjay's song?"
"That's right! Then you'll know it's either Mommy or Daddy, and you can open the door!"
"OK, Mommy!"
Lillian smiled tenderly. "There's a good girl. I love you!"
And off Lillian went into town. The farther she got away from the Seam, however, the more nervous she became. She never ventured into the Merchant section of Twelve, if she could avoid it, unless she needed to replenish her stock of medicines.
And doing that meant she had to...
She forgot herself; she should have known better than to go to the front door to knock. For when her own father answered, he gave a stare so cold, it was as if he didn't know her. And why wouldn't he act as though he didn't? As far as he was concerned, he didn't have a daughter. The power disownment had over the mind was unimpeachable, indeed. He never even asked about his only granddaughter that Lillian surely knew he was aware of.
"Wait in the back, like the other Seam." That was all he said.
Lillian gave no reply, didn't even call him Father. It was pointless to. As she rounded the back of the Apothecary, to wait for her family to throw her medicines out the door the way they might throw scraps to a stray dog, she was surprised to find a man who was most definitely not Seam standing there already.
A Merchant - who was very familiar...
"Steffan? Steffan Mellark?" she could not help the grin that came over her face at seeing her old childhood friend and playmate.
Steffan broke into a surprised smile. "Lillian!" They shared a cautious hug. Being back in his arms again, Lillian could not help the familiar blush that came over her cheeks - a blush as long-lost as the... friend she now embraced.
"How is the little one? Katniss, right?"
Lillian smiled as her heart filled with love at the thought of her daughter. "My miracle on Earth. My little angel. And yours?"
"All right, but I wouldn't exactly call them 'little angels.' More like 'little devils.'" He grinned self-deprecatingly. "You know how boys are."
Lillian laughed, but it quickly faded as she peered closer at something on Steffan's cheek. "Oh my god... did... did Paula do that to you?" The bruise on his skin was a chillingly dark purple.
Steffan tried to smile her inquiry off, but it was more of a grimace. "This? Oh, it's nothing. She's losing her touch, in fact!"
"This isn't funny, Steffan! She's abusive! You have to report it to the Peacekeepers!"
"And turn in my own wife? Now why would I do that?" Then he answered his own question:
"Because she doesn't love me. She hasn't loved me for years. And I don't think I have loved her, either."
And I know why. Because you love me. Or you did. It was agony to think such a thing, but it had to be thought. She would never forgive herself for how hard she had fallen for the handsome miner with the voice of a songbird... and broken the baker's heart. They had been friends since they were little, throughout school - for a time, she had thought about marrying him.
But then the Hundred Days Union happened, and she was thrown together with the poor Seam miner who would change her life forever.
She hadn't loved Estes, at first - shocking as it was to think such a thing now. At the time, she had intended to ride out the forced arranged marriage for 100 days, annul it, go running back into Steffan's arms and then that would be that. But Estes had crept up on her, shown her a world her Merchant pride had shielded her from. He had humbled her. Wooed her. And ultimately seduced her - so much so, that she maintained their marriage when the time for annulment came, renouncing her Merchant life and damning herself as well. But could it really be called damnation, if it felt like heaven?
Nevertheless, she felt guilty as she noticed the soft, sad gaze Steffan now projected towards her. Seeing his clear melancholy, hidden just beneath - the melancholy at losing whom he had really wanted and then having to turn to his very, very, very second choice made her pity him.
Suddenly, she got a crazy idea. It was crazy, but still warmed her all the same. As this idea turned over in her mind, the door opened and she watched as Steffan accepted herbs from her family. No doubt they would be placed in the bread he had always been so good at baking.
"Steffan, I... I'll have some medicine pretty soon. I know you have to get going, but... I can treat that bruise, if you like."
Steffan nodded. "Where can I meet you? I wouldn't advise coming to the bakery." He was right about that. The few times she had stopped there for bread and encountered Paula, his wife's reactions had been... less than friendly.
"Meet me in the Meadow at 9:00 tonight," she suggested breathlessly. She could not hold his confused gaze for long as she silently took her ration of medicine at last, turned, and ran up the path for home.
