Impossible for Me


But my resolve trembles, anyway, haunting my sleep. I've never had dreams like this before - feeling the sensation on my flesh as if he was here in my bed with me, his lips pressed against my neck.

"That tickles," I gasp.

"Then why are you crying?" he asks me.

I wake abruptly, tears on my face. Look around for him. I just see Buttercup, staring at me in the darkness from the bunk on the opposite wall, where Prim and my mother sleep.

I slide down from my bed and tiptoe to the dresser where we keep the very few things we still own in this world. The middle drawer is mine - I have a couple of changes of standard-issue District 13 uniforms. And the handful of things that were in my possession when I was lifted from the arena. My mockingjay pin. The token that Peeta wore into the arena. A silver parachute that I had converted into a sack for carrying the spile we used to tap trees in the arena. On the last day of the Quell, Peeta found and gave me a pearl, and this also lives in the parachute. I dig around until I find it.

I take it back to bed with me, and rub it against my lips in a cool and deliberate kiss. And I close my eyes and visualize him, and the memories flicker, just like a dream.

"For you," he says, handing it to me, a small bead - but beautiful, I marvel, watching it roll around on my palm. Somewhere between white and silver, hints of pink and orange playing on the surface as it moves, capturing the light. There are oyster shells in a pile in front of me - in front of him, too - misshapen, dirty shells, starting to foul up in the relentlessly moist heat. Strange that something so beautiful - fragile-looking, but quite sturdy, really - could come out of this pile of ugliness. I don't have to strain for the metaphors - they are right here, in the palm of my hand.

I look up at him, finally - it's been hard to meet his eyes today, even during the whispered conversation about how and when to break away from the alliance in this rapidly-shrinking field of players. Last night … last night … it can't compare to what we did that night in the Training Center, I guess, but something strange happened in the middle of it - something more conscious than the desperation of sex. Something more deliberate in the kisses, like I had corralled the unruly creature of lust and it was tame in my hands, to do with whatever I wanted.

Apart from the whole Game thing, of course, and the fact that one or both of us will be dead, soon.

It is suddenly more important than ever before that it will not be him.

It is Peeta who breaks the stare, suddenly drawing back as if my expression has hurt him, and looking away. I want to say something - to ask what I have done - but Finnick's presence, a reminder, as it was last night, of the presence of the audience at large, stops me. "Thank you," I say. "Thank you."

But he is just looking at the oysters and, after a heavy moment, he returns to prying them open.

Later, as I squat at the edge of the water, washing my hands and the pearl in the warm brine, he comes down the beach to sit next to me. He is silent, watching, while I pull my silver-parachute-pouch from it's place on my waist and - after staring at it for a moment again: it is so beautiful and I've never really owned anything quite so pretty before - putting it away there. It is safe on my body now, to be confiscated after they pull my corpse from the arena. When they take it and undress it, patch it up, re-dress it and put it in a box, to ship home. I've seen so many of these boxes brought to the Seam, and with them the small brown packages, which contain the Tribute's original clothes - whatever random items were on them when they were Reaped - whatever token they took with them to the arena - whatever souvenirs they took from there. So, these will go back to my mother and to Prim - to bury with me, as usually happens. But the pearl is too beautiful to bury. They will, I hope, return it to Peeta. Something to remember me by - some token to carry with him while he speaks to the masses, reminding them what I died for.

Yes, that's good - almost satisfying. I can almost -.

"Katniss," he says, abruptly. "Last night -."

"Yes?"

"Last night we were interrupted before I got to talk to you - to ask you to do something for me."

"What do you mean?" I ask, confused for a moment before remembering that we are at cross-purposes, he and I; that we are actually opponents in this Game, more than we are allies - each of us trying to ensure that the other comes out alive. Peeta's plan is to disrupt mine, so I must be wary of anything that he says.

He reaches under his shirt and pulls out the medallion that he brought in with him to the arena - his token, designed to mimic mine, a small gold circle with the mockingjay stamped on it. He pulls the chain over his neck and for a moment stares at the medallion, as if uncertain, then he presses the side of it and pops it open, revealing it to be a locket.

"Will you take this for me? I - think - I think we're getting pretty close to the end here, and …" He stretches his hand out and I see now that the pictures in the locket are meant for me. On one side, my mother and Prim. On the other - Gale. Surprised, I look up at him. The cameras are surely capturing this moment, and he is handing me away; not just back to my family, but back to Gale. What must they think, the audience that believes us to be married, that believes me to be pregnant with his child? That believes me to be in love with him? Then, I realize that he is not talking to the audience; he's not thinking about how badly this will play. I am his only audience and I am the one he is attempting to play.

I remember the promises he tried to wring from me, to move on after this, to let myself love and be loved by someone else. But he has misread me again - more deliberately, perhaps, this time. I very slightly shake my head.

He sighs, closes the locket and puts it around my neck. He gathers up my hair to let the chain slip into place and my heart races at the touch of his fingers.

"Remember," he says, "that you have people to go home to and take care of. It will be hard for you - I'm not saying that it won't - but it would be impossible for me. You can see this now, right?"

Again I look into his eyes. Our faces are closer now and I can hear his breathing. He leans in, smiling slightly - though his eyes are sad. But our lips do not meet. He puts a hand on my stomach, and in his face I can see it slipping back into place: the act, the strategy. "You are going to make a wonderful mother," he says softly, for the audience, before standing up and walking away from me, down the beach.

Impossible for me. Yes, impossible. Impossible...

"Katniss?"

Prim's voice startles me and I nearly drop the pearl. I ball my fist around it.

"Prim."

"You can't sleep?"

I shake my head. Sleep - what a strange concept. "I'll be fine," I say, dully.

"Katniss, you don't have to keep secrets from me. I'm actually quite good at keeping them myself - even from Mom."

I look at her with my sore eyes and try to remember a time when I wasn't such a complete wreck - when I could be a better sister to her. She's right, though - what need is there to keep this secret?

"I'm going to agree to be the Mockingjay."

She comes over and joins me on my bed. I can see now the look of concern and care - so beyond her years. She has been forced to grow up way too quickly. "Because you want to or because you are being forced?"

I chuckle softly at this. "A little of both," I respond. Which is almost true. "No, I want to help. No one wants to take down the Capitol more than I do. But - I'm worried." My lips tremble. "Peeta. I know he's not safe there … but he's not safe here, either. He said some things on Capitol television that … I'm afraid that even if we can somehow get him back safely, he'll be - punished by the rebellion."

Now, when I look at her, I'm searching for some sign that my fears are unfounded, that I'm being paranoid or silly. But Prim's face is very serious. "I don't think you understand how valuable you are to them," she says. "You could ask almost anything you wanted, and they'd have to give it to you."

My breath catches. Could this actually be true? Could I actually protect him this way - could it be this simple? "So - I make a pardon for Peeta part of my - agreement - to performing as their Mockingjay," I say, slowly.

"Yes," says Prim, "but how do you know they will stick to it?"

And this is another sign of how much - how quickly - she's been forced to grow. She's observed enough around here - enough over the last year - to know very well that promises can be reneged, oaths broken. "I could have Coin announce it, in public, to as many people as possible," I muse. "It's not a guarantee - but it's as good a one as I can think of." I smile on a sudden thought. This is what Peeta would do in my place, I think - and perhaps that should be a guiding principle, from now on, because it feels right. It is one thing to aid the rebellion - but to aid the rebellion in order to protect him: that makes it feel like I am actually doing something useful. I'm sure Coin, Plutarch - even Gale - would think my priorities need rearranging. But Peeta … I left him behind, and my debts to him are overwhelming. "I should wake you up more often, little duck," I say to Prim, and she smiles in pleasure. With her snuggled up beside me - and the pearl safely tucked beneath my pillow - I sleep, for once, restfully.