There is "only" one version of this chapter, but there will be two versions of chapter 9 - one on AO3 and one here on FFN.
And as always, thank you to Lbug84 and Chelziebelle - what would I do without you?
Galeniss alert!
Chapter eight: Children of the Seam
Katniss POV
With Peeta gone, it's very quiet. Especially at night. There's no one to play poker with. Haymitch won't come over to play with just me. There's no one to sit beside a fire with after the children are asleep. On the nights when Peeta and I didn't play poker, we would simply sit in the same room, both with a cup of tea and a book. There was little or no talking, but still, he was there, and now he's not. I find myself missing his presence.
It's so quiet. Is it odd that I find it even more quiet now than it was before, even when we didn't say anything?
I find myself sitting in a corner in the living room. I don't know how I got here or how long I've been sitting here. I've already walked Arrow to school, and I don't hear any noise coming from upstairs, so Ivy must still be napping. My body is shaking. Tears are rolling down my face. Gale is gone. He is gone. And I'm all alone.
After my father died, I had nightmares about being left alone. I would dream of a place where no one would find me. Or worse, where no one would want to find me.
There were other nightmares, too. I'd dream of losing someone. It was often my father, but not always. Sometimes it was someone else, someone I couldn't identify. But I knew losing that elusive person would destroy me forever; I wouldn't be able to go on. I would become like my mother – a shell of a person who wasn't really alive.
Perhaps that was the reason why, when Gale asked me to marry him, it took me several weeks to give him an answer. Was Gale that person? The one I couldn't live without if I lost him? And if so, was that reason enough to accept his proposal... or perhaps it was the very reason why I should say no?
And what did it mean that I didn't know? How are you supposed to know?
It hurt him when I didn't immediately answer yes.
The phone rings and I hesitate before answering. I'm not used to talking on the phone. I never had one living in the Seam.
It's Peeta. Hearing his voice, I sink down on the floor, my back against the wall. He's so far away. What do I say?
I'm empty.
He sounds hesitant. He initially talks about the garden, giving me instructions about seeds and trees – it's clearly just an excuse he's made up, and a bad one, too. I know the garden isn't the real reason why he called, but he doesn't seem to get to the point. If he has a point, that is. I don't say much, letting him do all of the talking. Tears have started to roll down my cheeks, but I don't want him to know how broken I am. So I say nothing.
He's quiet for a few seconds. Then he asks, "How are you doing, Katniss?"
I'm tempted to hang up, if only to avoid answering. "Why do you ask?" I try to dodge his question.
"You just seem so… far away."
"I am far away."
"You know what I mean."
Yes, I do know what he means. My chest is like a big, black hole. "I'm tired, Peeta. That's all." I can barely get the words out. I know he can't see my tears, but still, I think he must understand that I'm crying.
I hang up, and then I take the phone off the hook so he won't be able to call me again. For some reason, I just know that he will.
Our first kiss was in the afternoon after his last reaping. Gale's name was in there 42 times, and yet somehow, the odds were still in his favor. He was free. He knew his future was in the mines, but still, he could live. Perhaps not to old age, as few miners do, but at least he wouldn't die in the Hunger Games.
I, too, had been granted another year to live.
It was a beautiful day, and the sun warmed my skin. We slipped into the woods together, but for once, we didn't hunt. Instead, we shared a bottle of white liquor that Gale had gotten in a trade at the Hob. I'd never had white liquor before, and I thought it tasted terrible. I still think it tastes terrible. Gale laughed when he saw my face as I had my first sip, and suddenly, he kissed my lips. The kiss was soft and I don't know how long it lasted.
The sun, the liquor, and our first kiss helped to keep the train that was speeding off towards the Capitol away from my mind. A train with two blond merchant children. The train carried away Madge Undersee, my only friend at school. I said goodbye to her before she left, during her precious hour of transition. Her father was crying uncontrollably, and her mother had been sedated. Madge wore a gold pin with a mockingjay on it. I'm not sure why I remember that. On the train with her was Peeta Mellark, the baker's son, the boy with the bread. I didn't say goodbye to him.
Everyone knew they were both as good as dead.
When Gale ended our kiss, releasing me, his eyes met mine. He looked nervous. Scared, even. "Didn't you…" He cleared his throat. "Didn't you want me to?"
I never contemplated kissing him. It had simply never crossed my mind. I never gossiped about boys like the other girls, never even looked at them. I was too busy trying to survive. But I saw something in Gale's eyes that day, something that made my body feel alive. So I leaned in and kissed him again. And again. We laid in the shade of a tree and my skin, no longer warmed by the sun, was kept hot by his body. We didn't go home until nightfall.
Since that day, we were together.
The days pass. Slowly. I do my best to keep on a happy face for the children when they are awake, but the darkness comes at night, when they are both asleep. I sleep with them in my bed now, to ward off the loneliness. Their warm bodies and steady breathing make me feel safe.
I have to force myself to eat. My milk production is finally back up, but I don't have any reserves. It wouldn't take much to lose my milk again.
I try, I really do.
I'm so tired.
But I can't sleep.
When Gale asked me to marry him, we were in the woods, in the same spot where he'd given me my first kiss exactly two years earlier. I had survived my last reaping, and I, too, was at last free. I would live.
But I couldn't give him an answer. I told him I needed time to think. He accepted it at first, but as the weeks went by, and I was still unable to answer, he grew more frustrated.
"Is it me?" Gale asked one day, confused and hurt and perhaps even a bit angry that I kept telling him I simply didn't know if I wanted to marry him. "Are you unsure about me and how I feel about you?"
I shook my head. "No. I've never doubted you." It was true. I knew he loved me, that he'd do anything for me.
Was I hesitating simply because the two of us getting married was what everyone expected? I knew that people thought we were a couple long before that first kiss in the woods. If I married him, would it be at least in part out of some kind of expectation? Because marrying miners was what Seam girls did? Our options were very limited. There were few job opportunities available to us. I was making a living as a hunter, but I knew it was dangerous, and I was only able to do so because Cray turned a blind eye to it. I knew that could change at any moment.
Gale also said that Cray was looking at me in a way that he shouldn't. Gale knew I was vulnerable.
Or was my hesitation all because of me? I would lay awake in bed at night, long after Prim had fallen asleep beside me, thinking about it. Trying to figure out what to do, what to answer. I loved Gale. I knew that I did. But I could see something in his eyes sometimes, something I couldn't quite understand. I didn't even know what that something was. At first, I thought it was passion. That there was some kind of passion that I, a young and naive girl, couldn't understand. I'd felt the evidence of his desire for me many times, but Gale never pressured me. He always respected my "no." But as I gradually let his hands wander more, allowed him to touch me more intimately, and finally to bring me release, I realized my passion could easily match his.
So passion wasn't the difference between us.
"Marriage means children," I whispered. "And I can't… What if we can't feed them? What if they are reaped?"
We hadn't been together yet, not truly. We had done a lot of things, but we had never crossed that final line. It was too dangerous for a poor Seam man and his equally poor Seam girlfriend. If I got pregnant…
"I want children. Your children. We'll find a way."
"Find a way to save them from the Hunger Games? You know we can't do that."
His shoulders slumped. "There are a lot of Seam children, Katniss. The odds are in our favor."
I shivered. Could I live my life, hoping someone else's child would be reaped so that mine would be safe? Hoping for someone else's misfortune? How could he say that so easily?
"They were in our favor, weren't they?" he continued when I didn't answer.
Yes, they were. We were both out of the eligible reaping age, despite taking tesserae.
"We can be careful," he whispered, unbraiding my hair. I closed my eyes, feeling his loving hands accidentally brush my ear as he combed his fingers through my black hair. "My mother said… there are times of your cycle that are safer." I blushed. I couldn't believe he'd talk to his mother about this. "And I could… try not to finish inside you." I blushed even more deeply. But thinking about being with him in that way only made my core throb harder. I opened my eyes and turned around in his arms, facing him.
"Do you really think that will work until I'm too old to have a baby?"
"I'm not sure," he murmured in my ear. "Because I plan to make love to you as often as I possibly can." I giggled as he playfully kissed my neck; it tickled. "But even if it doesn't, it would hopefully limit the number of children we'd get, so that we could feed them."
He stopped kissing my neck and looked deeply into my eyes. He looked so scared. Scared that I'd say no. Suddenly, I hated the Capitol. Hated them for forcing us have this conversation. We shouldn't have to. "Okay," I finally croaked, my voice barely audible. "I'll marry you."
I was a virgin until our wedding night, as a good Seam girl should be, even though it was only just.
Haymitch knocks on the door.
"Hi, sweetheart," he says. I don't like how he keeps calling me that. "Mind if I come in?"
He looks almost sober, and anyway, Ivy's asleep. I nod my head and step aside, making room for him to enter Peeta's house.
"How are you doing?" he asks.
I'm startled, but quickly recover. "Fine. I'm… fine."
He cocks his head. He has Seam gray eyes like mine - like Gale's, and they seem to stare right into my soul. "You haven't been outside playing with Arrow in days." Oh. I had no idea he paid attention to my schedule. "And you've looked pale and tired lately. Besides, Peeta called me. He's worried about you."
To my horror, tears start rolling down my cheeks. And I tell him. I don't know what it is about Haymitch that makes me open up. He doesn't interrupt me, not once, he only listens. Once the words spill out of my mouth, they don't stop. I tell him about Gale and the hunger and the fear. And the grief and the darkness. He gives me a glass of white liquor and I taste it. I cough when I feel it burning down my throat, but he doesn't laugh.
"It was bound to happen sooner or later, Katniss," he says after I'm done. "Just give yourself time to grieve. It takes time."
"How long does it take?" I whisper.
He shrugs. "Sometimes it takes all your life."
I look up at him, and his eyes meet mine. He's lost someone, too.
"Who was she?" I've never seen Haymitch with anyone. If he had a wife or a girlfriend, it must've been many, many years ago.
"She was… well, it doesn't matter who she was. She died many, many years ago. So did the rest of my family."
"Why?"
He laughs bitterly into his drink, before shaking his head. "You don't want to make the Capitol look like fools, Katniss Hawthorne. You really don't want to do that."
I nod. I don't quite understand his answer, but I do know that I shouldn't ask any more questions about it, it's not safe. Not here. Perhaps it's not safe anywhere.
"Why is Peeta really in the Capitol?" I realize this topic might not be any safer than Haymitch's long-lost girlfriend and family, but something has been gnawing at me since the first time Peeta told me he was leaving for the Capitol. A sinking feeling that something is wrong.
Haymitch laughs bitterly and pours himself another drink. "Will you do me a favor, Katniss?"
"Of course." I owe this man a lifetime of favors.
"When Peeta comes home, don't ask him anything about the Capitol. Not unless he brings it up first." I must look very confused, but he continues. "We all do what we have to do to survive."
After Haymitch leaves, my emotions rise up to the surface. I am angry. No, I am furious. At Gale. I hate him for dying. For doing this to me, to us. For leaving us. Ivy won't even remember him. All I have are three photos of him. Three fucking photos.
I replay every fight we ever had in my head. What stupid things we'd fight over. Chores. Hunting. He said I was risking my life for nothing. I said I needed to feel useful, that I needed to get out. I accused him of being selfish for wanting to keep me inside the fence, and he in turn accused me of being reckless. It was a stupid fight because, in the end, Cray took the decision away from me by making sure the fence's electricity was on around the clock. We fought about his mother, my mother, his brothers, chores again, what to spend money on…
My mother sits with me, attentive in case I have anything to say. I don't think I do. I don't think any words will come.
"I hated him sometimes." My voice is quiet and cracks more than once.
"I hated your father sometimes, too."
This surprises me. "You did?"
She laughs. "Did you think we were saints, your father and I? We fought, too. We just did our best to hide it from you and Prim. When you love someone, there is so much… emotion. With all that love, it's overwhelming. And love is surprisingly close to hate sometimes." She pauses. "I hated him too, sometimes… after. For being gone."
She holds me as I cry.
Mandatory viewings are a nuisance. I don't think the Peacekeepers actually go to the Victors' Village to check if the TV is on, but I can't take the chance. So I do what all good Panem citizens do - I turn the TV on and pretend to be interested. There's a speech from President Snow. He's looked the same for the last 30 years, at least. I've seen old footage of him, and he doesn't appear to have aged one bit. Or perhaps more accurately, he's always looked old and worn. The speech is boring, because I've heard it all before. I zone out. I don't need to be reminded of the historical sins of the districts. But then there is footage from a Capitol party, and suddenly, I see him. Peeta.
I hardly recognize him. In 12, Peeta usually wears jeans and t-shirts, or simple sweaters. Perhaps a collared shirt on a good day. At the Capitol party, he's wearing a golden suit that sparkles. His hair looks different, too. But it's not just the way he looks, it's all of him. He's just… different. His arm is wrapped around the waist of a woman. I don't know why the sight makes me uneasy. Perhaps it's the little twisting in his thumb, the way his jaw clenches.
He's nervous.
I'm surprised by his choice of female companion. She could possibly be pretty, but it's hard to tell with all that make-up and the massive wig.
I turn off the TV as soon as I am allowed to.
I dream of wigs and make-up and Peeta's hands.
Gale didn't give up hope that I would change my mind about having children. I knew he wanted them so badly, but still, I said no every single time he brought it up. I broke his heart, over and over again, and I knew it. He tried to hide it, but he was angry. I, on the other hand, resented him for asking. He knew my feelings about having children before I married him. I could never come to terms with the idea of having children, only to spend my life desperately hoping someone else's child would be murdered instead of my own. Why couldn't he just let it go?
In the end, nature made the decision that the two of us were unable to come to on our own. Gale's plan of how to avoid pregnancy worked for five years... until one day, it didn't. That was the day my world filled with terrors I knew - and some I'd never even known existed. But there were also new joys. Having Arrow opened up a whole new spectrum of emotions for me, and once that door had been opened, it could never be closed. Life in the Seam is cold and hard and short. But Arrow made it feel sweeter, softer, and warmer.
Perhaps that was why having Ivy was my idea. I'll never forget the look on Gale's face when I actually asked him if we could have another baby. Ivy was conceived not even two weeks later.
Hazelle and my mother knock on my door early in the morning. I'm exhausted after a long night spent somewhere between wake and sleep. That's where my dreams reside. They aren't exactly nightmares, but they're not pleasant, either. I'm walking, walking, walking, endlessly in a maze, and I can never find my way out of it. When I wake up, I'm often more tired than I was when I went to bed. I blink against the bright spring light and let them inside.
They must both see the dark rings under my eyes. "We've come to take the kids for the day so you can go," Hazelle says.
"Go? Where am I supposed to go?" I ask them, confused.
"You're going to go over to Haymitch's place."
"Haymitch?" I feel like an idiot. It's too early in the morning, I'm too tired. What does Haymitch have to do with this?
"He came and talked to me a few days ago," my mother says. "He asked if Hazelle and I could take care of the children for you. Said he needed you to help him out with something while Mr. Mellark is out of town."
It seems a bit odd. Haymitch has never asked me to do anything for him before. Why would he now? But I suppose that if he asked both my mother and my mother-in-law to come here, it must be important. I give them instructions about Ivy's feedings and nap times. Ivy happily plays with my mother's necklace as I leave the house. Arrow is ecstatic to spend the day with his grandmothers.
Hesitantly, I knock on Haymitch's door. I find him awake and reasonably sober, which is rare for him at this time of the day.
"Come in," he says. He's already dressed and ready to go outside. And why shouldn't he be? It's a beautiful spring morning. The sun is finally starting to feel truly warm. Birds are singing in the distance. He leaves the house and I follow him. We walk in silence for a while, my stride a few steps behind his. To my surprise, we walk to the Meadow, all the way to the far end. Finally, Haymitch stops. He's found a secluded spot between some trees. They have only just started turning green, the fresh and very light green color of spring.
"Here," he says.
"Here what?" I ask him.
"This is my grieving place. This is where I came after my Hunger Games. To cry, to scream, to sit in silence… and to think that I wanted to die." He looks at me. "Do you have a grieving place?" I shake my head. "Does your husband have a grave?" I shake my head again. "I thought not. Well, here you go. You can borrow my grieving place. I'll be back this afternoon... if you're not home by then, that is."
And then he walks back over the Meadow, leaving me alone here in the sunshine.
At first I don't know what to do. Cry? Scream? Do I really want to die? I'm too numb to do any of those things. So for a while, I sit in silence. I sink down on my knees, on last year's dead grass. There's a bird in the tree just above me, singing.
Gale would've known the name of the bird species. I try to force the thought away, but I can't. The tears fall before I even realize. When there aren't any left, I scream. And when my throat is raw and my voice can't carry anymore, I curl up and decide that I want to die.
That's how Haymitch finds me after the sun sets. I'm nearly catatonic, lying in the fetal position, and shivering from the cold. He gently helps me to my feet, lends me his coat, and helps me home to the Victors' Village. My mother already has tea ready. Ivy is asleep, but Arrow curls up in my lap. I can feel his warm, tiny body against mine as he hugs me and holds me tight. I kiss the top of his head, and my silent tears drip down onto his black hair.
"I miss Daddy too, Mommy," he says, and I realize just how much my son understands.
"I know," I whisper.
I've been in bed for hours, ever since the children went to sleep. I can't sleep, though. Ivy is lying next to me, not in her own bed, with her little nose pressed against my shoulder. Her breaths are slow and steady. I can just about make out her features in the darkness. On her other side, Arrow stirs in his sleep. Then he sighs deeply, and keeps sleeping.
It's so quiet.
I twist the narrow strip of metal around my ring finger and wonder to myself when the right time is for a widow to take off her wedding band? Right after the funeral? But there wasn't one. After a month? A year? Never?
After I touched myself while thinking of another man?
No, not that.
With trembling hands, I take off my wedding band. It's a bit of a struggle to get it over the knuckle, but I succeed. I look at my left hand. It looks so naked. It's too dark to see it now, but I know that tomorrow morning, I'll see a narrow strip of pale skin where the ring has been.
I carefully slip out of bed to avoid waking the children. I have a small cardboard box, beautifully decorated with somewhat faded drawings of flowers. I keep it in my wardrobe, high up, where the children can't reach it. I've had it since I was a child - my father made it for me. In it, I keep the few treasures I have from my childhood. The bow I wore on the first day of school. A book of plants, which has been in the family for generations. A photo of my father. A dress that both Prim and I wore when we were babies.
I take down the box, careful not to make any sounds so I don't wake the children. I open the box and put the ring inside. Then I close the lid and put the box back on the top shelf.
Writing this chapter hurt, but it was necessary. What do you think about chapter 8? I love hearing from you, whether it's PMs, reviews or asks on Tumblr (I'm mockingjayflyingfree). :)
Next: Peeta in the Capitol.
