Golden light filtered into Laurel's room as she opened her eyes. She wiped away sleep as she sat up, only now realizing she'd fallen asleep against the door. Her back stiffened in protest to the ungainly rest, sending jolting aches across her pine. Laurel groaned and rubbed her tailbone, stretching out her legs and trying to grasp just where they were.
The train was slowing down from its earlier speed, and strange, white birds circled in the clear blue skies outside. Whispy white clouds hovered in the blue backdrop, lazily sauntering their way across the sky. A salty smell reached Laurel's nose – apparently, the train was faster than she'd thought.
District 4 would be coming up shortly.
A soft tap on the door shook Laurel from her thoughts. She shook the remaining bits of sleep out of her mind, standing up and letting out a long exhale. Hopefully, the news wouldn't be bad.
Prim's soft face greeted her with a smile: "Good…well, afternoon, Laurel. You slept all day. Madge said you were in here. Feeling better?"
"Is my mom okay?" Laurel immediately dove into the issue at hand.
"She's resting," Prim placed a re-assuring hand on the nape of Laurel's neck. "She's stable. There's going to be better medicines in District 4…but your mom'll be fine. She's tough. Always has been. Don't let all that get to you."
Laurel fretted and nodded, her hands folding in on each other: "Do…you need me to do anything?"
"Well…" Prim curled her lip up as she examined Laurel's appearance with a disapproving eye. "Maybe you should shower? You could use a little…re-do."
A lot better than Mom would say, Laurel thought as she smiled and turned away from her aunt. Katniss's response would have none of the same niceties – more along the likes of "You smell like shit," followed by a finger pointing towards the bathroom.
Laurel'd forgotten just how opulent the old train bathrooms were. She found herself obsessed with experimenting with various shampoos – still supplied to the old Hunger Games carriages like these despite the old days of Panem long since having ended. Fumes of rose, saffron, thyme, and other scents came together to form a bubbly myriad of smells, overwhelming Laurel's nose as she sat on the stone floor of the shower. The warm water running over her drew the armor she'd put up out of her skin, washing away the inhibitions holding back her pent-up emotions.
Before she could help herself, Laurel placed her head against the shower wall and cried. She didn't simply let out a tear over what had happened the night before – she let every fear and worry out of her system, unleashing a flood of water from her eyes that mixed like dust with the shower's comforting rain.
Something like that wasn't supposed to have happened. Wasn't this the post-Hunger Games Panem, where people were supposed to be free and supposed to be safe? How could anyone even think people living in the districts were safe when roving mutated bandits could saunter in at a moment's notice, setting half of a district on fire? For all Laurel knew, her home – the one she'd been born in, the one that had raised her and watched her first steps – was merely ashes in a cool spring wind, carried over the trees she now so desperately wanted to forget.
A pounding on her compartment's door roused her from her thoughts.
"Laur?" Ash's heavy voice carried into the bathroom. "Are you ever coming out? We're almost there."
She composed herself in a hurry, wiping her nose scrubbing water from her eyes: "Yeah…I'll be out in a sec."
Her brother caught the cracks in her voice: "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just…gimme a minute."
Laurel scraped all the soap off her body, washing the mountain of bubbles she'd produced down the drain and hurrying out of the bathroom. She stared at her reflection in the mirror as she wrapped a towel around her midsection. Proof of her teary shower session showed in her eyes, as red cracks ringed her blue irises. Her brown hair hung limply off her shoulders, falling in pathetic lumps around her arms. A bloody scratch cut along her right cheek – a mark of her desperate run to safety the night before she hadn't noticed until now.
Hopefully she wouldn't have to impress anyone in District 4.
Laurel tossed on a loose lavender blouse and took a final look at herself in the mirror. She tied her hair back, hoping to conceal the mess it was in, and made a futile effort to rub away the redness in her eyes. She'd just have to hope no one asked too many questions.
That didn't last long. Summer was waiting for her as she opened the compartment door, quickly appraising her friend with a quizzical look: "Laurel…you look horrible. What's wrong?"
Gee, thanks. "I'm fine, Summer…let's just go. I'm probably already late for whatever I'm supposed to be doing."
Warm spring air Laurel's face as the train's door opened to District 4's station platform. She squeezed her eyes momentarily against a salty wind, taking in the scent of the sea. The strange, misshapen trees and brown, grass-strewn hills that met her gaze were a far cry from the dense woodlands of District 12; she'd been taken to an unknown land that she didn't understand at all.
The rest of her family didn't seem to mind so much. Before Laurel had a chance to do much but stare, a brown-haired whirlwind collided with her father, yelling "Peeta!"
"I'm not dead, Annie," Laurel's father smiled.
The scene warmed Laurel's heart just enough to loosen her inhibitions. No matter what she was feeling, watching Annie Odair and her father reconnecting on the platform was a welcome sight. A tall, bronze-haired man – Finnick – strode up behind the two, stripping Annie off from Peeta and shaking the fellow victor and rebel's hand firmly.
"Heard about the news," Finnick nodded as he clapped Peeta on the back. "Everyone okay on your end?"
"Prim and Madge are taking Katniss to the hospital in the town square," Peeta flicked a thumb over his shoulder. "She'll be alright. Got roughed up a bit when we were leaving by a few thugs. She'd probably not want me stressing over her when she's unconscious, anyway."
Annie gasped, her wide green eyes bulging: "Is she okay?"
"He said she's fine, yeesh," Finnick brushed his wife away playfully. "But if you keep grabbing my arm like that, you'll cut off its circulation. Then I'll be in trouble. You don't wanna have to sit by me night and day, feeding me my dinner while you look after me, do you?"
"I already do that, Finnick."
Laurel suppressed a nervous laugh at the pair of victors. Their easy back-and-forth banter came across as the perfect balance – two people still lost in love after years of being together. It was a welcome sight from the occasionally chilly relations in the Mellark household, what with her mother's hunting "hobby" drawing her into the woods for hours at a time. At least Katniss now spent more time at home; until old Haymitch Abernathy had died, she'd seemed to spend almost as much time with him.
"Ah," Finnick noticed her, pushing Annie away gently and swinging his eyes down at Laurel. Something about his gaze froze her in place: The same seductive expression he'd once used to win over dozens in the Capitol still had court today. "Laurel, right? Been a while. I think you were about…I dunno, two feet tall the last time I saw you?"
"Maybe," Laurel answered hesitantly. To be truthful, she didn't remember Finnick all too well, besides how her parents described him. In the flesh, he was an unfamiliar rush of charisma.
"I'd let my brain-dead son show you around, but I don't know where he ran off to," Finnick swept his hand around, vacantly staring off into the coastal hills of District 4 that surrounded the station. "Ah well. Peeta – grab your brood, and we'll make you at home back at our place. Not like we have much else to do for now…"
The new district opened up Laurel's sense of curiosity – and suddenly, she didn't want to be following her father and the Odairs back to their home, as the others did. She wanted some time alone, anyway; some time to confront what was going on inside her, and time to get comfortable with this land beside the sea. Laurel remembered mountains from her family's occasional trips to the Capitol; she knew forests from her home, and open grassy fields from District 11 to the South. But the ocean…that was something she couldn't remember. The thought of the flat blue expanse, stretching out to the horizon just over the nearby coastal hills, stirred a craving to steal away and see the sea for herself.
She ducked out of sight as Summer caught Ash and Lily up in conversation, biding her time until Peeta, Rory, and the Odairs had moved safely away – quickly forgetting about her as they dove into their adult discussions. Allowing herself a smile, Laurel wheeled in the opposite direction – heading away from District 4's town center and towards the windy coastal hills that shrouded the ocean from view.
"Getting lost already?"
Laurel froze. The male voice behind her didn't sound intimidating or threatening – merely curious, inquisitive, with a tenor note of amusement. She turned her eyes back towards the station, spotting a tall boy her age sitting atop the open-air station's roof. His copper hair, green eyes, and bored expression gave him away immediately.
Drake – son of Finnick and Annie, and apparently no more excited about going home as she.
"I'm…just…" Laurel stuttered.
"Psh, relax," Drake spat something out of his mouth, swinging off the corrugated aluminum sheeting of the station's roof and landing perfectly on his feet. He smoothed out a crinkle in his white shirt, eying up Laurel from head to toe. "I'm not going to eat you. Or maybe I will…you look delicious."
"Delicious?" Laurel raised an eyebrow at him, perplexed. "What?"
"You don't have a lot of guys in District 12, do you?" Drake smirked. "Or maybe a sense of humor. Jeez, relax."
"We have jokes and stuff…a sense of humor!"
"Oh yeah? Prove it. Tell me one."
"Um," Laurel wrung her hands. Drake wasn't exactly what she expected – nothing like her parents' descriptions of Annie, and far too much like their stories of Finnick. "I dunno. I had a joke about bananas…but it's not very a-peeling."
Drake gaped at her for a second before laughing derisively: "That's awful. That's so bad. You know what; I'm never going to ask you for a joke again."
"You probably can't do better!" Laurel felt blood rushing to her face as Drake laughed at her.
"No. I just wanted to laugh at someone," Drake replied with a wry grin. "Here's something you didn't know: My name's Drake. Drake Odair."
"I had an inkling," Laurel rolled her eyes. "My parents have told me all about your dad, and you're just like him."
"Oh, so you're…let's see, the girl of the Girl on Fire? Did I get that right? Like, girl-squared?"
"That's just as bad as my joke!"
"I wasn't even joking!" Drake protested with a smile. "How is that wrong?"
"It's still bad," Laurel harrumphed. "Fine. I'm Laurel. You're right."
"Ha!" Drake laughed triumphantly. His expression immediately sobered up as he regarded her with a serious face, his eyes turning from playful to cautious: "Look, I heard about what happened in District 12…"
"Don't," Laurel held up a hand, looking away. She couldn't take any more sympathy or well-wishing from others – especially funny guys she'd just met. "I don't wanna think about it. I'm trying not to think about it."
"Alright," Drake nodded. The two stood in awkward silence for a moment before he veered the conversation into less-pressing concerns: "So…why did you take off from all your groupies, anyway?"
"They're not my groupies," Laurel answered, pushing aside the gray cloud of moodiness that threatened to rear up with the mention of District 12. "I think they forgot about me, anyway. I wanted to see the ocean. This is District 4…"
"We do have ocean here, yes," Drake replied sarcastically. As if making up for his reference to District 12's unfortunate circumstances, however, he quickly shied away from the jokes. "But…it's, uh, over these hills. You can even touch it, if you want. Wanna go see?"
Laurel paused before answering: "Yeah…yeah, I'd like that."
