Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: This one is a long one. I know, but there are a lot of important bits here. Plus, lots of Katniss and Peeta at the end. If there are parts you think are unimportant, you are wrong. Nearly everything in here is needed. Also NOTICE: I have posted a Peeta POV on my profile for those interested. I'm sorry about typos. Thank you for reading and for reviewing. I feel like I should point out how I've made Leon to replace Boggs to Katniss in this version of Mockingjay and in some ways Boggs is what he was to Katniss, but in this story he is that to Peeta. (Though as of now it is weak.) Peeta is very important in this coming week to Katniss; he makes her realize and develop in many ways she's unable to do herself. -Taryn(:
Chapter Eight
I just want to leave this place. I want to go back to Peeta. Where is President Snow? Does he hope to leave my thoughts wondering and eventually allow that to drive me insane if he never shows up? Because they are getting at it. I keep regretting everything I didn't say. Why didn't I ask Peeta about Prim or my mother or even Gale? I was too distracted by him to remain on subjects of actual importance. I should have asked him where the others are in case I have need of help. I should have asked him what the plan is. Where this is going. And Prim. Why didn't I ask about Prim? How is she? What is she doing? What happened to District 12 when they were bombed? Who else is alive? Does Prim have a message for me? Does anyone? So many questions I should have asked.
Tomorrow evening won't come soon enough.
I want to ask all these questions, and I want to know about Prim. Smile at knowledge my mother is with her, really with her. I want to find comfort in knowing Gale is healthy and that he'd managed to help people escape District 12. But most of all, I just want to hear that crazy, stupid boy with the bread's voice as it tells me something, in his crazy, stupid way, just to give me the hope that only Peeta in this crazy, stupid reality can give me.
Just as the thought runs through my mind, the television on the wall to my left stirs to life. My eyes raise from the surface of the scarred silver table seated in front of me to focus on the blue thirteen that flashes across the screen. A sharp and female voice eludes from the speakers, "Attention citizens of the Capitol, this is a message from District Thirteen," and then not two seconds later the screen comes to life, that stupid crazy face of Peeta stilled inside the shot.
I don't know what to make of it at first. Peeta introduces himself to the nation, a strained smile crossing his face. He looks nothing like the Peeta I just left; black haired, burly, healthy. This Peeta is weak and there are dark purple smears of color underneath his eyes, accompanying a large green and yellow bruise radiating across his left jaw. It was filmed a long time ago, I conclude.
Peeta talks about the Games. He explains to the people of Panem the last few moments we had together and how much he wished he'd taken better care to hold me close. "That last night… to tell you about that last night… well, first of all, you have to imagine how it felt in that arena. It was like being a child trapped inside a closet. Only this closet is underground. You're just one person, stumbling, lost in the dark that expands forever. And all around you, you imagine these things reaching for you… breathing down you neck... alive, invisible, and completely unfightable. The world hangs above your head, ready to fall on you and end your life in a moments notice. Every tunnel promises a new horror. You have to imagine that in the past three days, seventeen people have died—some of them defending you. At the rate things are going, the last seven will be dead by morning. Save one. The victor. And your plan is that it won't be you."
My body breaks out in a sweat at the memories he pulls to the surface of my mind. Trapped. Darkness. The chill that reached into your skin and into your bones, curling up around your joints, until you're stiff. Around me I imagine the floors of mansion overhead; the equivalent of the caves. Peeta doesn't need a brush to paint images from the Games. He works just as well in words. Yet, I can't decide if this is something to admire or fear.
I can't seem to make sense of why he is there, on the screen, in some place I don't recognize. Why is President Snow choosing to show me this? I recall the first time Snow made me watch a video of Peeta. It was the time Peeta had rescued Annie Cresta from District 4. Then it had been to see how Peeta's action would make me feel and how it would affect me. Now? Would it be the same? Is Snow hoping to see me grow invested into this new show of rebellion? Are these propos all just to make the Capitol think District Thirteen is spending all their time making these?
"Once you're in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant," Peeta continues. "All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. The darkness and the monsters in the tunnels and the tributes who want your blood become your final reality, the only one that ever mattered. As bad as it makes you feel, you're going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it's very costly. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?" Peeta pauses, voice thick and regretful and dark. "It costs everything you are."
I realize a hush has fallen over me, my body careened forward against the table, and I can feel it spreading across Panem. A nation leaning in toward the screens. Because no one has ever talked about what it's really like in the arena before. This is District Thirteen's first publicity since the Quarter Quell. Peeta goes on. "That last night, my wish was to save Katniss. The mutts took all of us by surprise. I knew that there was something planned, to some extent. That there had to be truth in what Finnick, Johanna, and Beetee were saying.. because Katniss believed. But all of it surprised me and when I finally came to in District Thirteen, no one can imagine the pain I felt knowing she'd been taken by the Capitol."
Someone enters the room and I turn to see President Snow. He motions a hand back to the screen: Please, don't let me interrupt. It occurs to me suddenly, this is what Leon meant by the rebels becoming apart of the war again. And this is also why the Capitol won't go looking for Peeta in the Capitol; because they think he's hard at work making these videos. And no doubt there are more just like it. All of them that include Peeta and the others appearing feeble and speaking only useless words that won't matter in the long run.
"I thought I'd never see her again," Peeta murmurs, heartbreaking. There is a crack of static. President Snow appears. He's explaining that this is all just a breech in security. Then Peeta's back, still standing in the same surroundings as before. Somewhere in the woods. "I thought that it was only a matter of time before... before Snow killed her. And I was hoping the least I could do was die with her."
President Snow takes a seat across from me. I see out the corner of my eyes that, he, too, is watching the television. Measuring the decision by his facial expression I don't think he looks angry or upset with this video. But then again, when have I ever been a good reader of expression?
"My plan that night was to save Katniss from everything; the other tributes, the mutts, the Capitol," Peeta says, his voice somehow stronger. I look to him again. "Then, in that moment, I wanted to make her victor and to save her in those Games. Or if the rebels were really coming.. then I wanted that even more." Peeta's eyes finally lift to the camera for the first time through this whole propo. I've never seen him so impossibly breathtaking. His hands raise and he lifts something off the edge of his shirt: a bird, blanketed in gold, perched inside the gilded ring.
My mockingjay pin."And my plans haven't changed."
There is a pause and my heart picks up to a slow, tantalizing gallop inside the bottom of my throat. "President Snow used her to send a message?" There is no anger in his voice, but I can see the way his jaw clenches, in determination, in defiance. "She thinks this war is a bad idea?" This was taped before a long, long time ago, I think, knowing this because I've just seen Peeta today and he looks vastly different. Also because in the propo Peeta does not mention anything about my new title, only the ceasefire. Was this made immediately after my first interview with Caesar? Would Snow make that connection? When was this aired?
Wanting some answers to fulfill my curiosity, I turn to Snow. "When was this?" My voice is unsteady, uncertain. I know this is the emotion he expects me to feel. After all this would be the second time I've seen Peeta in six long months, in Snow's perspective. I would like to keep it that way. Snow can't see the truth in me. I won't let him. I'm a brick wall; a facet of water.
I meet his dark stare across the table and wait. "This was aired today. Right after we filmed the ceremony. It was a counter if I've ever seen one. There are more, despite the fact that my technicians are hard at work to block them out of our televising system. You already saw my previous attempt at defusing it," Snow tells me.
So this is just a ploy. While Snow thinks Peeta and District 13 are focusing all their energy countering me, they'll be in the Capitol helping me. Though I know most of what Peeta says in these outdated propos might be void, I still turn back to the screen, because I have to hear. I want to listen. If President Snow thinks me too uninterested will he grow suspicious?
Peeta is still talking. "I've heard Katniss' voice loud and clear, but not her words. And I want her to know that, if she's watching this, I'm not going to give up. I've come too far to go back now. We as a nation, the rebels, all of us can't just stop. Not anymore. We'll probably never give up." One of the cameras follows his eyes down to the pin on the front of his shirt. "Do you see this?" I swear I can see the golden symbol branded into the irises of his eyes, the blue acting as though the wavering surface of a pool and the pin a design across the bottom of said pool. "It's hers," Peeta continues. "And I have to trust that she'll find her way back home. Knowing her, she will, and all I can ask of you now, citizens of Panem, men, women, children of all likes... will you wait for her? I'm never gonna leave, are you?" His eyes finally lift back to the camera. Firm, fevered, truthful. "I waited for her before. I'll fight in the meantime. I'm asking for you to do the same."
For one moment there is just that. Peeta's request. Those dramatic blue eyes boring straight through you, his words seeping into your thoughts, nagging at you. Wait for her. Fight of her. Don't give up. Even though just before I showed up to this room and Peeta asked me something similar, I find my desire to fulfill the fight request has increased by seeing this. I was in a hopeless, dark, and broken place a few weeks ago, and I find that if I must face such troubles again, I'd be better for it.
Then the screen is tampered. Peeta's figures blurs into another taping. A new propo of Finnick Odair and a dark-haired woman I recognize as Annie Cresta. The last time I saw that woman was when Peeta and Gale pulled her from her prison cell inside of District 4. Compared to that tape and this one I can see that she is much better fed, her desperate green eyes calmer. Finnick holds her in his arms, stroking the woman's bedraggled hair, and they are somewhere in the woods. Taped as they lay in a meadow of grass between trees that tower distantly. They are the picture of beauty, because Finnick is undoubtedly handsome, while Anna is as delicate as a glass doll. Except that beautiful shot if ruined by Finnick. I can hear Finnick's voice, talking of things like secrets and prostitution, and though Annie gets upset, it's perfect. You can see the disgust in her face, the fear, the pain for her loved one. The way her body shakes against his as if she is a sobbing child; and we get to see him comfort her.
I find myself more intrigued with this propo than the last. Throughout the whole thing Finnick has a haunted, dull look in his eyes when he speaks, but you can see him come alive again as he rocks Annie or pauses for breath. You can see he lives for a reason. That he continues to fight, for her, for love, for freedom. And all these points are highlighted underneath a tapestry so rich in detail that you can't doubt its authenticity. Tales of strange sexual appetites, betrayals of the heart, bottomless greed, and bloody power plays. Drunken secrets whispered over damp pillow-cases in the dead of night. Finnick was someone bought and sold. A district slave. A handsome one, certainly, but in reality, harmless. Who would he tell? And who would believe him if he did? But some secrets are too delicious not to share. I don't know the people Finnick names—all seem to be prominent Capitol citizens—but I know, from the slowly curdling expression on President Snow's face, the attention the most mild slip in judgment can draw. I think of my prep team. If a bad haircut can lead to hours of gossip, what will charges of incest, back-stabbing, blackmail, and arson produce? Even as the waves of shock and recrimination roll over the Capitol, Finnick surprises even me by the words he shares about President Snow. Poison. The random deaths, the suspicious disappearances. They say, they say, they say… Snow has a list and no one knows who will be next.
All I can think is that poison is the perfect weapon for a snake.
Once Finnick has finished his dramatic roll of gossip, I stare at the last impression of him and his mad lover. Somehow my mind goes to of what I thought of Finnick Odair before we met. How Finnick's parade of lovers in the Capitol made me dislike him. But they were never real lovers. Just people like our old Head Peacekeeper, Cray, who bought desperate girls to devour and discard because he could. I want to interrupt this session of Snow and Katniss to find the Avox inside this mansion with Finnick's face and beg him forgiveness for every false thought I've ever had about him. But we have a job to do. I must act disturbed and interested into the rebels and Finnick must remain undiscovered.
Because there is a pause between Finnick's and Annie's propo to the next one, I turn to President Snow. Though I have the ability to hide my emotions, I let them show plainly on my face. Fright. Disgust. Loathing. Even accusation. I have to hold him accountable. This video confirms every horrible thought I've had of him. President Snow smells of blood and festering because he's truly corrupt. A man who drinks his own poison to deflect suspicion.
Snow unfortunately does not meet my stare. Instead he has the utmost regard for the image of Peeta on the screen again. This time he looks less like he's been beaten up and he's wearing some strange suit of armor. Around him aren't harmless trees in bushes. No, it is war. Ruins smoking in the background. A sky of gray and hovercrafts. The orange and sickening red colors of fire emboldening the skyline. Words escape his mouth that I miss, until I realize he's talking about the tragedy of District 8. How the hospital was bombed by the Capitol. All the sick and injured, murdered in cold blood.
Just afterward the screen changes to reveal Gale ankle-deep in the ashes of District 12. I hear only two words out of his mouth as he somberly introduces himself as Gale Hawthorne, before the television cuts out and turns black. Irritatedly I turn to the President. "I was watching that," I snap.
"I think we've both seen and heard enough, Katniss. Don't you think?"
Katniss? He's using my first name now, is that it? "No, I don't," I say.
"Why is that?" he asks, measured. But I can see the sliver of uncertainty and anger in the back of his eyes.
"Leon said you had things you wanted to show me. Are these it? Or is there more? I haven't seen.. and it's been so long.." I break off there, eyes cast to the floor momentarily. "Leon also says you have things to tell me. I'm listening," I lift my head again. "As your Mockingjay it's more important that I understand what you want from me. If this isn't some pointless meeting, I'd like to know that now." Already, I know I've spoken too brashly. I can see it in President Snow's face as he slowly rises from his chair. In a snarling way, without holding it in, I add, "I don't want to be poisoned, otherwise."
Snow stops in his rising, eyes and lips narrowing, before he sits heavily into the chair. Composed with professionalism and a strange smugness in his expression, I find my own built up mask slipping slightly in my worry that I'll be punished for this. Snow says, "We both know that we have rather low opinions of each other. And it would be juvenile for me to deny all those things your fellow victor has claimed. So I simply tell you this: There are holes in your friend's story, but most of it, the big portions, are true. It won't matter that I tell you these things because I know that as the Capitol's Mockingjay it is now one of your priorities to keep the government's secrets." I find fear in the way he speaks; I know this tone that he uses in his victory. I feel the apprehension tugging at my heart. "As you know, one step out of line and I take away all your conditions. The baby, mine. Peeta, dead. All the other's tongues, mine. The rest of their life dedicated to serving those who they have betrayed. Aside those, of course, like President Coin who represent far more. They will be publicly executed." His eyes bore into mine. "You are among that list, Katniss."
"It is a good thing that I am the Capitol's Mockingjay, then," I find the words easy to say.
"Yes, rather fortunate you have agreed." There is a wary gleam that I catch in his face. It occurs to me that while I, too, feel wary, I hide it well. So how come he can't hide it? What if I've been just taking bait? Has President Snow been making conscious effort to show me the things he wants me to take from him? Is he doing the same thing I am now? Does he hope to make me arrogant when I think that he's weak, that he's unable to hide his own feelings? Suddenly, I can't trust anything. "Do you remember what I told you the first time District Thirteen acted out?"
I try to recall those innocent days before Mayor Undersee. "That I'm to be held accountable?"
"That, yes. And that you don't draw too much from it," says Snow. "I want you to remember what's at stake. I'm trying to help you by this. Sometimes people can lose sight of the important issues when they see things that excite them."
He treats me like a child. "I know what I have to do."
"I'll be sure not to let you forget it." There is a pause where we measure up each other's faces. I can see sharpness in his. What does he see in mine? Hardness? I try to smooth my facial muscles. I feel like I've done something wrong. That I played my part too well. What if Snow thinks I think too much of what Peeta and Finnick said? Would he try to crush it? Should I have played flat and uninterested? It's too late to take it back though, so when he dismisses me, my anticipation for tomorrow is not so bright as it was before.
When I do sleep later that night, I dream. Mayor Undersee's wide, bloody smile is the center of the night's horror. Every time I throw myself around a new corner, lost inside the tunnels of the arena, Mr. Undersee is there. His corpse hangs from a noose on the cave ceiling; face mutilated. And every time I whirl around, throwing myself to a new corner, there is another to greet me. Sometimes I hear Finnick's laughing voice from before the Quarter Quell as he is tying a noose. Or there are jabberjays pecking at my hands and face, tearing at my flesh.
Unable to break myself from my sleep, it's Peacekeeper Leon who shakes me awake. In the dim light of the room, his forehead is crinkled with concern as he stares down at me. There seems to be a question or a confliction in the back of his eyes. Tiredly, I shove away his hands, remembering what Peeta said about not trusting him. Only after a few quiet minutes, of which I spend staring at the ceiling, chest rising and falling rapidly, does Leon tell me it's time to join the prep team for another's day preparation.
I arrive to the prep room to be greeted with the dawn. It's the same room as before, Snow's personal prep team on the upper floors of the mansion. Through the window on the far side I can witness the sun rising in the distant. Illuminating the cold, unfeeling room. The orange and yellow light floods the mirrors across the white walls and seems to breathe organic life into the chamber. The whole spectrum adding warm and inviting qualities to my morning as the two men who could not be more cold and uninviting work on my appearance.
Completely devoted to my change from bleary to alert and from Katniss Everdeen to Capitol's Mockingjay, I hardly hear Leon when he asks me what I want for breakfast. I tell him something sugary and soon after he departs to get it. So when I hear the door open again, I turn around, expecting to see Leon, and I stiffen at the sight of President Snow entering. Already dressed and ready for the day; suit on, rose pinned to the lapel, hair groomed.
I'm a put off not only because he's never sought me out before, but also that I'm wearing nothing except for the robe pulled over my shoulders. It has always been that we meet in some post-decided place when it comes to my interaction with President Snow. Therefore I cannot properly process my sudden, unavoidable flash of precariousness that crosses my face. I'm overly sure he saw it. I hope for the first five seconds that he is here only to pass along a message, or to add something onto my script previously forgotten. Except to both my dismay and surprise, after a small greeting to the two men that are the prep team, Snow expresses that he'll wait until they're finished to speak with me. I'm not so tired after that. I find myself forcing my hands not to fidget while President Snow stands silently in the back of the room, watching, waiting.
The prep team won't meet my gaze, but they continue to work. They're just as silent as they have been every time I've had the pleasure of being their doll. That isn't changed. It is the air of heaviness that is supposedly derived from Snow's presence. They strip me with lips pressed in a hard line. I want to tell them that I'm fine with wearing a silk robe all day, but I know that's not acceptable. The two of them wash me with quick hands. Cold, sweet smelling wash cloths wiping away the traces of night sweat. None of it, though, their politeness of my body and their indifference to my nakedness is enough to soothe my nerves that are pulled thin, knowing President Snow is behind me, watching me from every angle as the mirrors reflect my image across the walls. Disgust and vulnerability rises until even my lying techniques seem weak. I am a brick wall. I am a brick wall. I can't see Snow. I don't hear him. Brick walls can't be naked.
When I am seated again, the robe pulled back over my body, I start to gather my composure. The prep team gets to work on my hair and I try to come up with a reason Snow is here. Does he have something important to say that couldn't be passed to me by Leon or Plutarch and he's just enjoying the show? Is this a threat he'd forgotten to share last night and is willing to wait to let my sweat over it? Has District Thirteen been releasing more troublesome videos for distraction and he's been upset by one? Or, I counter myself, is he still upset about last night? Is he regretting the fact that he showed me those propos? Is he worried that I am up to something as a result? That I am letting these videos 'excite' me too much? Maybe he even thinks I'm planning some way to speak out today on camera. A hidden message here and there to the rebels that will be watching. I know I won't... but that doesn't mean Snow won't think I will.
The moment I meet his unflinching gaze in the mirror over my shoulder, I know he's here, at this moment, not any sooner today or later, because I'm my most vulnerable. I'm in preparation for the day; still lost between night terrors and readying myself for the change from Katniss Everdeen to the Capitol's Mockingjay. Snow saw last night something that worried him. And now he's here to strike a crippling blow. Has waited for this moment. Wants to use my weakness against me just like the victors in the Quarter Quell had done by unnerving my 'pure' side.
I just can't let him. If he thinks to punish me for thoughts I'm not having, I have to make him believe otherwise. That his threats aren't needed. I've agreed to be his Mockingjay so long as he gives me my conditions. Though really, I know I will go through with it because sometime soon District Thirteen along with Peeta and Finnick and the others will find a way to break me out. There is a rescue plan. And that changes everything.
"It's a nice morning," I comment. My voice echos in the thunderous silence. Awkwardly hanging in the open. Even the prep team's fingers pause at the sound of my clear, loud uttering.
"Yes, it is. The birds are always so alive at this time of day," says Snow. "I heard them singing in my garden."
He has a garden? Charming. And does he mention the birds in reference to me, the Mockingjay? Or am I taking too much of what he says as a hidden message? "I miss hunting in the mornings," I find myself diverting. If I can just talk of things that make me remember myself, that keep my head out of the gutter, I can survive anything. Whatever he is going to try to frighten me with I won't let it do so. "I used to wake up before those birds and slip out into the woods. Gale, too." Then I glance over my shoulder. "But you already know that."
"I do," President Snow confesses. I watch him in the mirror as he approaches. "I have countless witnesses. Peacekeepers who are willing to turn the two of you out in exchange for them getting to walk away free of punishment, since most of them have traded with you. I could have put the two of you to the death before you even became a problem. Long before the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games."
I'm so invested in the stare that we hold in the mirror that I don't even notice as the prep team finishes on my hair and asks me to stand. "You regret it," I say. Not surprised, per se, but curious.
"I do."
"What else do you regret?"
That question takes the President off guard. He pauses in his walk. The steady gaze of his eyes waver and drop from mine. That somehow sparks something in my chest. What does a man like Snow regret? Is there anything remotely decent that he might regret doing? A misplaced cup of poison? Perhaps, he only regrets drinking from the same cup, giving him those sores.
While he struggles to find an answer to this question, the prep team forces me to my feet. One of them has my Mockingjay suit over an arm and they ask me to shrug out of my robe. I do so reluctantly with one hand reaching for the new source of covering instantly; only I never find it in my grasp. Snow moves again, to my side this time, raising a hand at the prep team. They stare at him, waiting for the order and Snow easily shoos them. No. Don't leave me with him. They're obedient though, and they back away, silent, unquestioning. Leaving me to stand naked in front of the mirror as President Snow stands to my right, just behind my shoulder.
The sudden flare of discomfort is alarming, as is the vulnerability. My skin crawls as my hair rises with the goosebumps, knowing how uncomfortable and unpredictable this situation is. A man three times my age. The president of Panem. Snow, the man who hates me just as much as I loathe him. I move to grab the robe on the floor, to hide, surrendering in the face of this unexpected attack but one of the prep team members rushes forward to stall me. He takes the robe, eyes averted, backing away, as the President begins pace around me.
"You want to know what I regret?" he asks, in an ominous way.
Since the robe failed me I use my arms to wrap around my body in an attempt to obscure myself. I'm unable to decide if my breasts, center, or the baby is the most important thing to cover. Still, I try to come up with a response, a clever, witty one, but my mouth is dry. "What?" Snow pauses behind me and I glance up in the mirror beyond my shoulder to find his gaze fixated on my abdomen. The arm over my breasts slides down to wind around my stomach. "What?" I repeat, snapping.
"Do you know why we have victors, Miss Everdeen?" His breath whispers passed my ear and the inhale necessary to speak washes me in the smell of blood. Violent images of Mr. Undersee swirl through my thoughts. Seeder, choking in her own blood. Peeta's bloody nose yesterday. I'm surprised by the sudden change of topic, as if he never meant to tell me what it is he regrets, and I find myself easily going along with the change. "Because of the Games."
"No," Snow murmurs, sounding amused. His eyes raise from my abdomen to meet my gaze, only I lower mine again at the sight of one of his arms reaching around my torso, icy fingers resting against the top of my sloping stomach. I'm tempted to knock it away, but I merely tense. I am a brick wall. I don't feel. I can't smell. "Because the districts need hope, Miss Everdeen," Snow explains. "Hope, but only a little. It keeps them going. Hope is the one thing that conquers fear as a controlling mechanism."
"It didn't work," I spout off before I can control myself. No. I'm a brick wall. I don't have thoughts. I can't let him break through the shell of lies. I cant lose my grip on what he and his own have taught me. It's the only way someone can survive in the Capitol, I've come to realize. You either play by the rules they do, or you'll be drowned by the lies.
Snow laughs, light and completely carefree, relieving me from my distress of being chastened for such a cheeky reply. "No, it did," Snow says. "It worked for seventy-four years. You broke it. You gave them two victors and that was too much hope. That only serves to show how precise it all need be."
For a moment that sinks in. I remember him talking to me before the Victory Tour. When he advised me against upsetting their fragile balance. I already broke it by then. At that time he had wanted me to make it seem as though I wasn't giving more hope, over going his system, but it was the Capitol being merciful and compassionate. Now I have to hold back laughter just at the thought. Only my amusement is shot in the face as I catch sight of his gaze, centered on me and my stomach, his fingers suddenly gliding down the taunt skin along the seam of my middle abdomen. I feel my nerves growing tenser and tenser. "What do you hope for in this child, Miss Everdeen?" he asks.
The way he splashes from one subject to the next is either how disorienting his mind works or he is purposely trying to draw truth from me by taking me by surprise. For several moments I don't hear what he just said. All I know is that maybe I shouldn't have acted so taken with the propos last night. When I do listen to him, my mind flickers in an attempt to shut down, to draw away and bow my head like I have so many times before. I can fall back into my shell and allow myself to be hospitalized, but I remind myself repeatedly that I am a brick wall, and that just isn't working, because I find Snow's companionship far more terrifying. Fight, I remind myself. Peeta is somewhere, very near, and I recall randomly, that propo and our words last night. Fight, Peeta asked me twice in one day, fight because he's waiting, he loves me. Don't fall into a shell because things are getting tough.
"Katniss?" Snow inquires when my silence has gone on too long.
I draw in a long breath, forcing myself onto a rational train of thought. I am a brick wall. I can't feel his gaze on my body. My nakedness is no different from others. He can't hurt me. I'm the Capitol's Mockingjay. I let the list roll through my head like the doctors taught me just as much as Plutarch has. I force my hands to fall at my sides. No fidgeting. I won't give him the satisfaction of making me uncomfortable.
"I don't know," I say, my voice careful. "What are you hoping for in this child?" It is, after all, yours. At least, that's how he views it when you consider the way he has arranged the rules of my conditions.
Snow smiles, those thick lips far to distorted to be appealing or comforting in any way. "I would prefer nothing. That it should not come down to me being involved within its existence. In fact, I've just come here from this morning's war meeting. The topic today was about how we were going to handle your conditions after the war. Would you like to hear the plans we'll be setting in motion?"
Wary, but hiding it, I shrug, knowing by the pleased look in his eyes that this is not something I'll like.
"You love your child, no?" I hesitate. No one has asked that of me; I've only told Peeta I don't hate it. I know Peeta loves it though, and whether I call it another dandelion or a loaf of burnt bread, I nod curtly in reply to Snow's question either way. "You'd do anything for its protection and future?" Snow asks.
"What are you getting at?" I find myself speaking, fed up with suspense. The sooner this is over, the sooner I am dressed again.
"Now, now, don't forget your manners, Miss Everdeen," Snow chides. "As you know the Capitol is free of reapings. Our children are the safest among all in Panem. They never leave the comforts of luxury. They eat all they want, they have clothes of the finest fabrics, and modern medicine District Twelve could have never even dreamed of having at hand. All this, could be for your child." His hand has finally withdrawn from my persona and he lifts his chin to stare me in the face. All professional demeanor. "Once this rebellion is over, the Capitol victorious, I plan on granting you and your fellow victors the immunity you have requested. I will give you all safety within a new Victor's Village I plan on building here in the Capitol, very close by." Under your watchful eyes, no doubt. "They'll live out the rest of their days here, with all I've described. Like I also promised your child will be granted safety. I will take it and give it to the caring hands of one of many child-less Capitol citizens." I feel my facial composure slipping, listening to the last piece of information with much panic and disapproval. "The same will go for the other victor's children. I figured if I give you this gift I must extend it to the others as well. They'll be given protection and prosperity and proper parents to raise them."
This is our punishment. I can see he's been plotting this. He can't get around my conditions by harming any of the victors; whether execution or by the loss of a tongue or discrete poison. No, he's gone to worse means that I'd not even considered. I told him that his government would be responsible for the protection of the victors, not their children or their children's placement. Not even my child's. And he's found a way of making it sound like protection. I think about what's really going to come from this; giving our children to a people who roots on the Career that drives spears through little Rue-like girls. I think about how my child will feed off of excitement watching the Hunger Games. I think about Cecelia, her boys. To whom will they be handed unwillingly over to?
President Snow will give us victors life and take away our children. He will groom them into something that will disgust us despite the fact that we should care for our offspring. The plus side? They won't get thrown into the Hunger Games. Yet, still, I don't know which I'd rather have. Neither. If I'm being honest the only way that will happen is if the Capitol burns. If it never rises victorious.
Somehow I know the moment I am free of this place.. I won't hesitate in throwing everything I have against him and his people. Everything. If not for myself then for everyone else who has suffered. For Mayor Undersee and his daughter. For Johanna and Cinna and Darius. To those that I love, who have been put through hardship all their life thanks to the Capitol. Those children I faced in the arena two years ago; Clove, Cato, Rue, Thresh, Foxface... slowly, I realize that I'm willing to become a Mockingjay. Not the Capitol's. Never for real. But for the rebels? I try to conjure up the face of that little girl from District 3, but her face isn't there. I can't even remember the guilt I felt from her death. Because I didn't kill her, I think. Snow did.
I know I would never allow this plan to become reality. So in truth this taunt of Snow's does not hurt me so much at all... and I let him see this in my face as I stare back at him in the mirror. Let him see that I am unafraid, until I realize that was the whole reason I've been told this in the first place. Am I allowed to say no? Would that get me back in the cell? Would Cinna's neck suffer mutilation with a simple two letter word that crosses my lips? I'm not sure if I can say no, and I know I won't say yes, even if it means being good. I just stand, staring, waiting. I can't find anyway I'm allowed to argue with it. Eventually Snow fills the void. "Think about it, Miss. Everdeen. Without the Capitol, your child won't get far." And then he waves forward the prep team, leaving the room without so much as a farewell.
Without the Capitol, your child won't get far. What does he mean by that? Is he only trying to replant the idea the doctor had originally started the other day? I don't know and it troubles me too much to think of it, so I push it aside quickly.
When the prep team finishes me, I stay where I am, staring at myself in the mirror, waiting for Leon to return. I find the makeup is lighter today. The Capitol's Mockingjay suit is the same. The Capitol's seal stretching itself across the middle of my chest. Fabrics hugging me so tightly it makes it difficult to breathe. The coloring is white, like a Peacekeeper, and a dark blue. I tug at the confining collar, reminding myself of the built in chip there.
Today, I am the Capitol's Mockingjay. In my head, I go through my lines and my expected behavior.
Not too long later, Leon enters the room, dismissing the prep team. He sets a tray of food on the table where I slowly perch myself. I pick at the waffles, finding the syrup on it unappealing suddenly, despite my request for sugar.
"What did Snow want?" Leon asks as I'm sipping at the orange juice. "I saw him in the hall."
I take a moment to recover my thoughts. "He wanted to tell me about the future."
"What did you tell him?"
"Nothing."
Leon puts both hands on my shoulders as to turn me around to face him. "Nothing? Are you certain?"
"Yes," I snap. I'm irritated.
Peacekeeper Leon seems wary. "You know you can trust me, don't you?"
I narrow my eyes. "You told me that whatever I say will be repeated to higher authority. So, no, I don't trust you." I shove his hands from my shoulders and turn away from him, picking at the toast. Somehow though, my curiosity gets the better of me and I ask, "What do you want to know?" I don't know if it's because I'm actually looking for the first time in a long time, but over the past three weeks it seems Leon has lost even more weight and more often than not his appearance is ruffled in one way or another.
"I don't know. Anything. Are you in contact with the rebels?" The question he tagged onto the end is thrown out in the open with the toss of his hands into the air. An exasperated noise escaping his throat as he shrugs and gives me a bemused sort of glance.
"How would I get in contact with District Thirteen from here?" I say, trying to decipher his behavior and convincingly lie at the same time. Leon isn't acting his usual professional self. "Messages sent from the Capitol to there? You're with me all day and night. How would I possibly find the time or resources?"
"I don't know.." Leon runs a hand through his hair, and turns away, but I still see him in the mirrors. To the left and right of the room I watch the emotions cross his expression; conflicted, exhausted, worried. He turns to me once more. "There aren't any cameras or microphones in this room, Katniss. This is Snow's personal floor, so he's never had a need for it, and there are Peacekeepers based on every corner of this hallway. Not to mention the whole building. Whatever is said here is unnoticed."
"So?"
"So," he says. I can't help but feel I'm witnessing a man's slight breakdown. "So, what I tell you is a secret. Don't repeat it. You'll only hurt me, and if you don't care about that, Snow will eventually punish you for it, somehow. I don't know why he would, but he seems to take pleasure in your pain." Leon starts to pace now. Back and forth, for the span of four to five feet, which is just dizzying. I sit slowly into the raised chair in font of the vanity, all my attention directed toward the Peacekeeper. For several moments Leon seems to be thinking to himself, then he stops, abruptly. "You remember my wife?"
"A bit."
"Her name is Violet."
"Okay.." I don't see where this is going. I confess I've always wondered what this wife of his did to ruin him so spectacularly, but I never thought I'd get to know. That it would ever be important to me.
"She's been accused of treason on the highest level. In fact, she was on the list of criminals due for execution on Retribution Day, but she fled the Capitol long before her arrest. I'm not supposed to speak with her. I don't even want to... not after, everything she did..." Leon starts to pace again, shaking his head. "I just didn't understand what made her do it, you see?" There is earnest in Leon's expression. "I thought she did it for the Capitol at first. That's why I asked that of you. I thought it would appease my wife, make her recognizable again. But it didn't! And all our friends, all those people I've known for years on her side..." he trails off. Clearly this is a strain on him. "Then I heard those things Odair said.."
"I really don't see what this is about," I find myself saying. Though the mention of Finnick at the end interested me and the fact that Leon's wife was a rebel of some sort was surprising, considering his roots and his profession, I don't know why he's confessing all of this.
Then I do, "I had to know why she admired you, Katniss," Leon says, softer than all the statements before. "She looked up to you just like those in the districts. She said that you were the symbol. The one they were all waiting for. She talked about all those things you did that made her feel something, that made the rebels inspired. And I just didn't understand that claim. I was confused, because everyone I knew turned out to be traitors."
"Everyone?" Because most of those things shocked me to hear, I find this is the only word I get out.
Leon glances up at me. "Heavensbee was my idol as a kid, did you know?"
"I didn't."
"He was. I became close to him in my profession. Thanks to him I rose high in the ranks as a teenager. Especially with my schooling supported by such a influential and wealthy man within the Capitol. I idolized him more than I did my own father. We became friends. I married his daughter, for odds sake!"
Back paddling to keep up, I pull myself a little straighter in the chair. Violet Dane is Heavensbees' daughter? Leon is the son-in-law to the man who tried to break me out of the Quarter Quell? I didn't even know he had children, let alone that Heavensbees had such friends. Though I hardly knew much about him at all to start with. I stare at Leon now, with a new sense of how connected we are. Him, finding himself innocent amongst the ranks of endless traitors, through blood and friendships. People he loved, who betrayed him. Just like how the act of the rescue mission was a betrayal to me because of Haymitch. And Leon sought me out, because he knew I was the reason he lost his wife, the person who led up to the betrayal. The person he must blame for the turning of loyalties within his family. But I couldn't have done that much. Possibly, they were already loyal to a rebellion before me. It was only then, when they had someone to support, did they reveal these insecurities.
I try to put myself in his shoes. To pity him if anything else. I Imagine what I would do if my mother or Prim, or even Gale, suddenly professed a fondness for the Capitol, that they were willing to break laws to protect the Capitol. That deep down all this time they liked the Hunger Games. And I discover it is unimaginable. I, too, would look for excuses. They were forced. There's something I'm not seeing. A missing explanation. Something has changed. They're lying. They don't actually mean it. I would go out to discover why this is, even if it risks my career or my life. I would go to the person they claimed to devote their loyalty, trying to understand why they are saying what they say, because I love them and I have to try to understand.
All this time I thought of Leon as either my enemy, a tool of the Capitol, a mouth piece for the Capitol citizens, but he's not quite so big. He's only a little game piece who has been dealt much suffering and one who wanted to understand what bigger pieces caused it. A simple man who loves his wife, but can't because it would mean his life or his tongue.
While I come to these conclusions, Leon is still talking and pacing. I try to keep up with the words spilling out of his mouth continuously. He tells me about his son, who his wife took from him when she fled the Capitol as she was grieving her executed father. Leon shares his worries that Violet has gathered up the remains of her father's plans and is now regrouping with those allies of his that survived Retribution Day. He tells me that he's not supposed to talk to her, but he still has contact to her, because of his son. He loves his son, he tells me. I feel like he doesn't really remember who he's talking to. Like I'm supposed to respond? Or understand? Or explain to him why his wife has done all this to him? No, none of that. He's just venting. At me. Has he lost all his friends because of this? He must, because if he's resorted to sharing his fears and worries and secrets with me, I know I'm the last person he's got left.
When Leon is all out of breath and has no more things to say, he has confessed to me that Violet is hiding in District 3, which is now under complete rebel control. That Violet is also in contact with District 13 and that she taunts to him daily that I'm going to be rescued soon. Which only explains why Leon is getting paranoid. I stare at him, not knowing what I should say. I begin to wonder if Violet is the inside help that managed to get Peeta and the others inside the Capitol, then decide to add it to the lists of things to ask Peeta.
"Okay," I finally say, when he hasn't spoken for at least three minutes.
Leon lifts his head at the sound of my voice. The trouble in his eyes is still there, but less fevered. He's just numb now. All the things that needed to be put out on the table have been set there. It's up to me to make something out of them. Of it, I think I make up a complicated puzzle piece to add to the unfinished image of the war I have in my head. For everything I've learned of the war, there are multiple pieces missing and though this one is a big one, I still feel like I will never truly understand what is happening in the districts until I actually go to them.
As for Leon, I don't know what he wants from me. I don't want to give him anything. Truthfully I don't hate him, but I don't trust him either. If Peeta tells me not to trust him, then I know I won't. Still, I question it.. if only a little. If only because I'm too stubborn not to. Because when Leon asks me in a sad voice, "Are you in contact with my wife, Katniss?" I realize that he is more broken and much weaker than even me.
This answer I give him, because that's all he really wants to know. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I've never met, let alone heard of her," I tell him.
There is more silence, more pondering. Leon turns his back to me after awhile, then comes toward me, picks up my uneaten food and says, face composed, "Let's go face the day."
On my walk to meet up with Plutarch before I begin my day of shooting, Leon tells me in a much more professional fashion all the things I ask about the war. "While you've been attained here in the Capitol, the districts have slowly been going under rebel control. They have Eleven, Nine, and they're still working on Ten. Also I hear that they have set a new goal on District Seven recently, which is surprising since five months ago the Capitol managed to smoke them out by setting the logging woods on fire. Various other districts are at war, but for the most part they're not overthrown enough to be considered rebel, yet. Those ones I mentioned before are just the ones that District Thirteen have meddled with. The Capitol still has majority, but that doesn't mean there aren't rebelling citizens in the districts that they obtain. District Two is our strength."
"...that they obtain..." I hear in my ear and I peek at Peacekeeper Leon through a strand of hair on my forehead. I don't know if he didn't notice, but to me I found it interesting. Was it accidental? Subconscious? Is Leon disowning the Capitol? Or does he just not consider himself a part of it at all?
Eventually I ask, "What about District Three? What happened there? I thought the rebels took it."
Leon hesitates. "Yes, I suppose they are rebels. District Three is the one and only district that has managed to regain itself without District Thirteen's help, so many of us consider it a slowly waning victory. The more time that passes without District Thirteen's aid, the higher the possibility it'll fall to the Capitol again."
"But I thought.." Leon cuts me off with a sharp look.
"You thought?"
"Nothing," I say.
He reaches for the handle of one of the doors in this hallway I don't recognize. "Plutarch is waiting for you inside," Leon informs me, opening it and I move passed him, the door closing again behind my back. And I frown because I recall the "...many of us..." statement he added after my first pondering.
Leon won't and can't be trusted.
From this point of the day and on it falls into nothing but a pit of hate. Hating Snow. Hating the Capitol. Hating all the people who run up the streets, around my row of Peacekeeper guards and the camera crew just to hug me, touch my stomach, feel the child kick, and stare up into my painfully stretched smile until they reach their heart's content.
Plutarch tells me almost immediately that this first day I only get to go for a stroll outside the mansion's immediate gate. He primps my hair, and adjusts my uniform, then smiles. And all I can think is that there is no tongue in there. That Darius is the same. That if I make one wrong move, say the wrong thing, step too many steps away from the mansion, the fate awaits many of my loved ones.
There are already people swarming the streets beyond the mansion's gate when Plutarch escorts me to the front steps. All of them just waiting to get their hands on their new Mockingjay. I take careful, awkwardly pregnant step after step, down this elaborate front staircase. Halfway down, already waddling, a Peacekeeper among my guard takes me by the elbow and we fly down the steps this way.
Once we are at the bottom I turn my head to see who it is (secretly hoping it's Peeta), but it's a man I don't know. He's got to be at least forty, with close cropped gray hair and blue eyes. Rather on the burly side, which made the practically carrying me down the stairs act possible. He doesn't return my regard, though, only returns to his spot among the others with his face carefully angled upward and away.
By this point I've given the crowd time to manifest in their noise, their shouts and cries mingling together into a scream of jubilance. Before the gate is opened to omit me into this craze, a pair of Peacekeepers go through first, warding them away a little as to give me and my escorts room. Then I'm pulled through, three Peacekeepers stationed on both my sides and the camera crew keeping pace a few steps to my front, and behind me, too, alternatively swinging to the sides to capture a better angle.
The first person who runs up to me is a woman, holding the hands of two young boys. She is a complete oddity; pink skin, round of body and arms, the children just balls of pale skin, bound by leather jackets that are an unappealing color of burgundy. All of their blue eyes stare up at me with this shining, expectant light. I smile because I'm supposed to. "Hi."
"We made you this, Kat-is," exclaims one of the boys. For a moment his four year old pronouncing of my name sounds almost like 'Catnip' and I find myself feeling a little numb when he hands me a scarf, made of silk and drawn all across it, awkward, ugly little mockingjays in black crayon.
"Thanks," my script tells me to say. I wind it around my neck and smile at them. See I'm accepting you and your gifts.
Thankfully, after a hug from the mother, they are ushered to the side by the Peacekeepers, a new person stepping up to take their place.
Most of the time I only have to say simple two word sentences, or nod my head, or throw an arm around someone's shoulder when they ask for a photograph. The kids are always an awkward greeting for me, because every time I look at them, I think; is this my baby's future? The future of Finnick and Annie's kids if they ever have them? What if Johanna has a baby? I can only imagine the scene that would ensue when someone tries to take something so important from gusty, stubborn Johanna Mason.
Odd men will approach to shake my hand, while women with wigs, whiskers, tattoos of ever type will automatically envelope me in their arms. Only to pull back and laugh, patting my belly, that "gets between us." Children cling to my legs, ask me to tell them stories or sing them a lullaby like I did to Rue. I have no choice but to comply. And all of it is overwhelming, but the fresh air is nice, as long as I ignore the fact that all my soft words, mingling attempts, and compliments through clenched teeth are being aired to every television in Panem.
Sometimes I get the peculiar citizen who pauses at the sight of me; suited up in Capitol branded clothes, hair short and askew, smile plastered over my pale, sun-deprived face. They're not like the others. They have some flat, disappointed glint in their eyes as they shake my hand and I compliment their home. I don't know what to make of them and those come far and few the more space I patrol.
For hours the morning sun glares into my eyes as I force my face to beam. The muscles in my cheeks feel like aching rubber by the time lunch rolls around. I've walked around most of the mansion, saw over a hundred citizens, and still, my duty is not complete. As I'm escorted by the Peacekeepers back into the mansion, Snow greets me at the front door. He says that I'm to start attending lunches and dinners with people that have paid for the luxury of eating with the Capitol's Mockingjay. Tense already, a brick wall, I tell him that's perfect, while really all I can think about is that if he's already selling my eating time to strangers, how long until he starts to sell my body? Before the baby is gone? Or would people pay for that? I find throughout the lunch I have lost all my appetite.
All the same, Snow vows to start a routine of this, so I force myself to get through the hour. On the television inside the extravagant dining room are the currently made propos of me, playing throughout the hour. I watch it sometimes, just to keep my eyes from the others. To be forced to sit among Snow's companions, and listen to their laughter and jests, and to feel their eyes slide over to me, considering, perhaps enjoying my humiliation, as they talk of the rebels and their failings, pointing out their flaws, making fun of my old friends, I find it almost worse than the citizens. At least the citizens who don't have the money to eat with me are less deceitful, only shallow and oblivious. Among these wealthy ones they know the truth of my forced decision. And they laugh about it.
For hours all I hear is Capitol accented laughter, all I see are Capitol faces, all I have of home is the child, who slumbers through most of it, rocked to sleep by all my walking. I had thought practicing the lies were bad. That those three weeks of spending my days inside the mansion with a handful of people was the worst thing to endure. This is worse because it seems to take longer. There are so many people. So many things they hand me. The words they say so similar to the others. After lunch I walk beyond the mansion's gate, again and again, greeted with a new round of people. The thing that gets me through it is the hate, and the knowledge that in a few hours more I'll get to see Peeta again.
An hour before dinner, I'm already back at the front of the gate, having finished one of many laps. As a distraction I'd begun to count them but somewhere around twenty-nine it lost its appeal. My feet began to ache too much. All I want to do is sit, when Plutarch comes to me, and waves the cameras down. He's got a note for me to read that expresses my need to be more influential. He wrote that I need to be more anti-rebellion. I need to be a voice. Powerful and meaningful. Where is your spunk? it read word for word. I try to communicate to him that I don't really understand what he's wanting from me, but that's no matter. He just stares at me, while backing away, waving the cameras back up. Once he is gone, the Peacekeepers once again move aside to admit the next citizen.
Be more meaningful? Powerful? I turn to the man, uncertain. I try to remember what Leon said this morning about his wife being inspired by my actions. I don't remember trying anything special, though. Maybe she meant the berries. Or covering Rue in flowers. How do I do those sorts of things stuck here? It's not something I plan. They just happen.
This next citizen looks to be about thirty; unless surgery only deceives that. His hair is brown and his eyes are an almond-shaped green. I smile at his wide, crinkled-eyed grin until my lips feel like they are splitting. Be meaningful, I tell myself, but all he tells me is that he can't wait for me to have the baby and start to fight for the war. He wants to see me out there with my arrows, tearing the rebel's ranks apart.
I start to nod, knowing that this is what they are all waiting for in the long run. The moment when I'll start going through with my promises. Once again, I can't help but think the baby is my savior. The thing that I teeter on top of. A ledge that I cling to. Once it is gone though, I will have to do these things that I promise. Neither side expects me to fight while pregnant, but the second I'm not... suddenly, the amount of things I owe Peeta seems all a bit more.
"Yes," I tell him. I hold out my hand, that he takes and shakes immediately, but I hold on to it. I grip it tightly, trying to think of something else to say, something powerful. Something that'll keep me from getting shocked. Only I don't. I can't think of anything good to say, nothing inspiring to do. Not with my script to follow.
I drop his hand, and he turns away. The Peacekeepers move aside for him to exit my circle of space, but the moment their backs close around me again, I wince, the shock traveling harshly down the side of my neck, through my shoulder and fingers and my legs.
Thankfully I only get shocked three more times before I'm called away to dinner. The event passes quicker than the last meal because this time I actually take interest in the food. I eat a lot, considering the full day of walking and sweating. Then Leon meets me at the doorway, as I'm bidding those who paid to eat with me goodbye.
I'm antsy for the rest of the time. I fidget throughout my doctor appointment. It's not a lying fidget. More of a nervous, anticipating fidget. Multiple times Leon glances at me weirdly, or a doctor insists I sit still.
In my head I go over all the questions I have to ask Peeta. I want to talk about Prim, first. Then the rescue plan and if Leon's wife has anything to do with it. After, I'll tell him about all these horrible things Snow's been telling me. The new plan. The way he twists my conditions and uses them against me. I'll tell him how awful it is to meet with all the Capitol citizens. And now that I think of it, I'll tell him the propos distraction plan is working, because Snow thinks that's all the rebels are doing to counter my new title.
By the time the doctors are gone and Leon informs me the Peacekeepers are waiting outside to escort me to the showers, my heart is beating fast. I shouldn't be nervous. It's just Peeta. What if he's not there? Wouldn't I know if they were found out? Wouldn't President Snow make a huge deal out of it if he found them inside his mansion? I don't know, but the moment I step into the hallway, eyes flickering from one Peacekeeper's face to the next, I push out a long, fluttering exhale at the sight of Peeta among them. He smiles a little, nervously. Like he's been feeling all the build up I have.
The walk takes too long. The amount of time it takes for Peeta to enter the room after I do is no more than two minutes, but feels much longer. I make sure to turn the shower on the second I enter, so that our voices will go unheard and the moment Peeta closes the door behind him, I stop in my walk, awkwardly still, in the middle of the room.
Peeta pulls the plastic protector from his face and tosses it onto the shelf. The smile is still on his face, but I can see a slight blue-purple hue clinging to the pale skin around his upper lip and nose countering the contentment of that smile. I bite into my cheek, knowing I did that.
"What?" asks Peeta. "No kiss?" He opens his arms to me. "Not even a hug?"
I surrender at that and move toward him, rather quickly and I allow him to pull me in. Arms wound around his torso, his around my shoulders and neck. Usually it's the other way around, I realize, when it feels different. Except I like this better. I like feeling his solid body against mine, in my grasp, real.
Peeta pulls a stray pin from my hair. "I saw you today," he murmurs against my ear.
"When?" I looked for you, I think, the words unsaid.
"After lunch, you were on your way back outside, heading toward the front doors. I was taking my daily patrol of the first floor with a handful of others. I wanted to tell you that you looked nice."
"Thanks."
"No problem," says Peeta, more fingers pulling out more pins. Eventually all of my hair is loose and he buries his fingers into the tresses along my scalp, tangling the strands between his fingers. It occurs to me he always does this. I shift away from him, my face away from his chest so I can gaze up at him. He smiles innocently.
I remind myself of everything I need to ask. Because, again, he threatens to throw me off my train of thought. "How is Prim?"
I can see he is taken off guard by my question, but not by much, only the slight raise of an eyebrow. Then he shakes his head, disbelieving, looking distantly over my head. "An angel," he says. His eyes narrow playfully for a moment, "And too smart for her own good. She never lets me finish my jokes." Peeta becomes a bit more serious after that, meeting my gaze. He knows how much this information means to me. "She's grown up so much since the Quarter Quell announcement. I didn't believe it at first, but she's great, Katniss. Really. Her and your mother are getting along fine in District Thirteen, and they're both already into the healing program. Prim started training to be a doctor long before your first interview.. but afterward, she's really gotten into the study of obstetrics and neonatal. I know, long confusing words. Took me days to repeat them after her. She just wants to be ready for you when you come home," now his smiles is encouraging, nudging, just as much as his hand on my back is. "She wants to be a midwife for the baby. That's what those words mean, really, studying things about having babies and how to take care of them afterward. And she made this decision all on her own, just came out and said it one day."
Grown up. Becoming a doctor. Wants to help me through the most painful part of pregnancy. It sounds just like what she should be doing. What Primrose Everdeen has always done. And though I adore that, that she's doing that all for me, I can't help the twinge inside me that doesn't like it. She's my little duckling. She shouldn't be doing all these grown up things. I don't want her there to see me, weak and in pain. Except there is nothing I can do to stop her, and maybe I'm glad, deep down. I know I'm really glad to hear that she's happy, that in my months of tortuousness someone has been getting along better than I, or even Peeta.
Which reminds me. "Gale?"
Peeta's smile is somewhat dimmer. "He's good. Actually, he's a lot better than me at all this military stuff. Him and Beetee get along pretty well, and Coin, too. She likes Gale better because he comes up with these brilliant plans for her armies. I wish I could come up with half the things he does. Just before we got smuggled into the Capitol I think he was being sent to District Ten to help with the siege there." Peeta pauses, seems to remember something and says, "He's also the one who helped save the people of District Twelve when the fire bombs were dropped."
Hearing about Gale is lightening. I search Peeta's face, trying to decide if Gale's reaction to the baby is something I should know about. If it is, Peeta doesn't let on, instead, he says, "Maybe you should shower. They say that if you're taking more than thirty minutes I have to make you get out."
"Oh." I had completely forgotten. Shaking myself mentally I pull away from Peeta and go about the room finding what I need, before I step into the shower and pull off the Mockingjay suit, tossing it over the top of the fogged glass door. Peeta settles in the same spot he had yesterday just beyond the door around the corner. As I wet my face and hair, rising away today's mask, I try to recall the next thing on my list to discuss, but I find my head is blank. "Peeta?" I ask, when there is silence for five minutes. A waste of five minutes between us. We have only thirty minutes, and already fifteen of that is gone. "Say something."
"I love you?" he offers, aloof.
"Something else."
"Do you want to hear about the rescue plan?"
"That'll be a nice change," I say, knowing he'd make the connection of how unfamiliar those words are. Last time the rescue plan was lost on both of us, but this time Peeta is right inside of it, and it's relieving to know that he won't hold back from me. Suddenly, I remember Leon today, his wife, all my questions about her for Peeta. I choose to save those until the end.
"It's kind of simple, if you think about it. By the end of this week we hope to pull it off. Friday, possibly. If not that day then we have to hold it off until I can get another rotation into this position or anyone else can. We need that because this is the time of day we'll try to accomplish the rescue. Late in the evening. Finnick has noticed how the security on the main floor lessens at night and we're going to have to count on that as a crutch. As for the others, in the cells, that'll be a problem.."
I pause in washing myself. "A problem how?"
"They're exactly two floors below this one, Katniss. That's four floors underground. Not to mention that the floor above this one is the Peacekeeper barracks. The thing we go off of here is surprise and stealth. We don't have the brute strength to get anyone out of here. We have two hovercrafts that'll arrive from District Thirteen at specifically eight. We have a fifteen minute period of time to get you from this room to anywhere outside the mansion and without adversaries."
"I won't leave them, Peeta," I snap.
"I know, I know," says Peeta. "I've been working on a plan. It just isn't complete yet."
"Tell me what you have so far. I can help."
"I don't know.. you might not like it. I don't even like it–"
"Peeta," I say. "Trust me."
There is a small pause, then, "I was thinking that if.. if you could somehow get yourself in trouble, and while I'm around, I can be the one to take you to this cell that you've talked about. That way I have the authority to take everyone in that cell out while I'm there. I could lie about Snow needing them–"
"No," I interrupt. "That won't work. Snow doesn't talk to prisoners. It's Head Peacekeeper Brock who deals with them. If you say Brock needs them, maybe. All of them might be a stretch. And if he's already got one of them, they might get suspicious.. but it might work. Everyone fears him and if they don't relent to you taking them out, you can threaten them that they'll just have to face Brock when he gets upset." Even I shudder at the thought of facing Head Peacekeeper Brock after deliberately disobeying one of his orders.
"Okay," says Peeta. "After I have them I can lead them to the elevator. There's one that only the Peacekeepers use and if I can get them on the top floor within the span of five minutes, that'll work. Then the only problem would be getting outside with everyone else."
That sounds so simple, yet I know it couldn't possibly be. Neither of us can seem to decide if this should be done. I want them out, but I don't know if this plan would work. Under the length of fifteen minutes? All the things that could go wrong run through my head. "Can you discuss this with your.. leader? Do you have someone to report to?" Is her name Violet?
"I have Boggs. It's him who talks with President Coin or all the other people." Peeta pauses. "He was on your escort today."
Immediately I know who. "The big muscly one?"
"See, I thought that one was me," Peeta says.
I repress a sort of sigh and smile. "The one with gray hair, right?" I press.
"Yeah, that's Boggs. I thought he was sort of a hard head since he's Coin's right hand man, but he's gotten better," Peeta tells me.
I note the change of his tone. "You don't like Coin?"
"She's not my favorite president."
"I don't think I like presidents at all. Any of them," I say.
"Maybe we should be presidents," Peeta jokes. "I think we'd do pretty good. At least I know we won't butcher it as much as the other ones have."
I imagine that for a moment, entertaining the tease. Then I shake my head. "None of the citizens would like me and they'd all love you," I accuse, knowing it's true. I'm finished washing so I reach for the silver knob to turn the water off, but I hesitate. We have at least seven minutes left.
"I don't think so," says Peeta. "Just look at right now. They all love you way more than me. And it's not like I can blame them." I'm used to the guilt I feel when he says those sort of things. The things that hint at his undying love for me. But the guilt I feel is so small I almost don't notice it. Maybe it's more due to the fact that what he says is true, than anything that has to do with love.
I'm at the door of the shower, accepting a towel he hands me as he turns away. I dry my hair and face and body quickly, discarding the fabric into the hamper before I pull on the cotton garments quickly. In the silence that follows, it gives my head time to clear itself. I recall all of today. The love of the citizens washing over me, their words, their gifts. Before that, my discussion with President Snow. The new plan. I turn to Peeta with a new direction of thought.
"President Snow is worried."
"About what?" Peeta's face is serious as he overlooks mine. "Does he suspect that we're here?"
"No, not this. I think he's worried how the new propos are making me feel. He's already come to talk to me–"
Peeta moves to me at that, pulling me by the hand, closer to him. "What did he say to you? What did he do?" he demands.
"Nothing.." I stumble out the word, surprised by the intensity. Worried that if I tell Peeta about the naked vulnerable ambush that happened today he'd grow too upset to control. "He hasn't done anything to me... he only told me how life is going to be after the rebellion ends."
"If the Capitol wins."
"Yes," I say. "If."
"What will it be like?"
"Horrible. When I was making my conditions I made one of them be that he promises the victors immunity. Only he makes it so we're prisoners to the Capitol, bound to live here.. and our children, all of them will be given away to the Capitol, too. That way they won't ever get reaped." The last sentence comes out bitter and sarcastic because really the options of losing your child to the reaping or to strangers is practically the same. Either way they come back broken, if not back at all.
"I won't let him do that," Peeta says. He places a hand across the span of my abdomen. "This is our little girl, he won't take her away, I promise."
I rebuke at his words. "Little girl?"
"Well," Peeta deliberates. The expression of insult and anger and determination fades from his face, to be replaced with one that looks equal parts guilty and mistaken, as if he'd let those words slip out without being edited. "I'm just hoping, you know?"
"Hoping for what?"
"It's going to be just like you, isn't it?" Peeta sighs in response. Is that disdain I hear in his voice? His hand drops away from my abdomen as he leans heavily into the wall behind him. There is a feeble smile on his lips. "As stubborn as a mule," he says. "Fierce. And I even bet she'll have your scowl– there that one!"
I try to wipe the scowl from my face. I don't know what brings it on, the tone of his voice, the way he looks down tenderly at me, or the words he's speaking. Between my chariness at this topic, it occurs to me I've never once thought of the child as something other than 'it' or that is could possess either mine or his qualities. I haven't even thought of it as a person since the middle of the Quarter Quell, at which time I hadn't known I was pregnant, nor did I consider it as anything more than Peeta's child. "How do you even know what 'she' will be like? What if it's not a she?"
"I don't know," Peeta confesses. "Do you think she'll look like you?"
"Maybe," I relent. I look nothing like my mother. "What if I want it to look like you?" I ask primly, narrowing my eyes.
"Why?" he retorts. "I'm boring. Blonde with blue eyes. Typical town traits, nothing like you."
He thinks he's average? Peeta? With the dramatic blue eyes? I'm so stunned by anyone assuming such a thing that I let an actual desire of mine slip out without it sounding either critical or off-handed. "I want it to have your eyes," I say, then clamp a hand over my mouth, before it could betray me further.
"We can't even agree on this," Peeta laughs. "You know what, I'll make you a bet. If she has grey eyes, I get to name her. If she has blue eyes, you can."
"Name her?" I ask, shocked twice in this conversation. How does he think about all this stuff? So far ahead, too far away to be certain. "I can't even.. you can't just. That's not right," I snap.
"What isn't?"
"Betting on its name?" I say, suddenly upset. "We're not.." I throw up a frustrated hand. Why are we even talking about this? "Really, that's not how it should be."
"How should it be, Katniss?" Peeta asks carefully.
"I don't know!"
"Then why can't we do this?"
"Because that's not what good parents do!" This time I turn my face away when I realize how my words have betrayed my insecurities about this sort of subject. Peeta waits several moments for me to continue. In that time I find that the place of my concussion aches dully and I press a hand into it. Slowly, Peeta reaches out for this hand and when I turn to look at him the smile on his face is fragile. Hurt. "Look," he says softly. "I know I haven't been around for a long time... and that maybe I don't have the privilege..."
No, that's not it. "You can name it," I tell him. I don't want him thinking that. I know there's a reason we've been apart. I don't blame him for the separation. The lack of his participation in this pregnancy isn't something I'm going to punish him for.
Peeta frowns. "It?"
"The baby," I correct myself.
"Our baby," says Peeta.
"Yeah."
Now he just looks frustrated, eyebrows furrowed. "Do you really want this baby, Katniss?" he whispers. "I just.. I need to know. Is there anything you're upset at me for? Things that I need to apologize for?"
I scowl. I thought I made all of this clear yesterday. Obviously not if he's asking me these things. I want to snap at him, but I hold my tongue. Trying to reflect off of my new lying skills, about the part of controlling my replies. "I don't not want it," I tell Peeta.
That isn't what he wanted to hear. I can never tell him what he needs to hear. Peeta drops my hand and pulls away from me. For a moment I remember not having him. The past six months without him, missing him. Already I'm taking advantage of the fact that he's back. "Wait," I say. The thought of not seeing him again still makes me want to fall to pieces... so I know that my irritation isn't anything. I'm not angry at him, not really. "It's just.." I try to explain. Outside I can hear the Peacekeepers above the sound of the running shower and I know I have little time left. "I'm not used to.. talking about it.. I mean, our baby. Her. And I don't think.. I'm worried.." How do we know if we're doing it right? What if we make a mistake? We're not cut out for being parents, are we?
Peeta opens his mouth, I stop him with a raised hand. Then I lift a finger to ask for a minute.
He waits patiently while I let my thoughts roll. How do I explain this? "You know how you said that you couldn't stand the thought of losing me? Before the Quarter Quell?" I ask him.
Peeta nods.
"Well that's.. basically the same thing. Except for thi–our baby. I thought if I could not think about it. Her. That if I just pretended, or acted indifferent, maybe it wouldn't matter so much if we both died here. And I guess.. well I'm not just.. I can't.." Peeta saves me from the rest, with a light, dappled smile appearing on his face.
"I understand."
"Good," I say, sighing. I don't think he does all that much but I'm glad he'll pretend for the mean time.
For several long minutes we stand and I move back into the shower to turn off the water. When I step back out Peeta is his usual optimistic and joking self again. "A kiss before you go?" he asks.
"Okay," I say. I step into him, expecting the taste of him, allowing myself to relax.
Unlike yesterday, where most of the kisses were excessive ones, these are less in multitude and more in depth. Dipping into the kinds of kisses that Peeta had taught me before the Quarter Quell. Peeta's tongue is hot and wet against mine. Momentarily, his teeth press into my bottom lip, leaving soft indents behind. Awakening a long forgotten, and stunningly missed hunger inside the pit of my stomach.
I hadn't even thought of these things in my past few months of unhappiness. The fact that Peeta finds me attractive, even this pregnant, even looking so unlike myself, is gratifying. And the fact that even Peeta looks different makes me wonder just how changed we are inwardly, too, since the last time we shared these kinds of moments. The kinds of moments where I can feel myself growing more in need, in want, the greed very selfishly there in the back of everything my mind should be on.
Without my permission my hand runs up from his chest to trace the edges of his collar bones, his shirt buttons already somehow, mysterious undone. Unconsciously I lean more into him, causing Peeta to lean more heavily into the wall. I close my eyes, reveling in this moment. Until Peeta pulls away, laughing lightly, the sound shaking. "Wow. When I said kiss," he begins to say, but only an impatient noise, an embarrassing sort of mewl escapes my throat and I take Peeta by the back of the head and bring him back to my mouth.
Instantly, I think Peeta caves into both mine and his wants. The restraint he forced himself to hold has turned into mist, the steam of the shower's hot water against the chilling concrete floor making my skin feel sticky against his, as his hands slip underneath the back of my shirt, running up and down the length of my torso.
"Katniss," Peeta says, groans, the word damp against my cheek. My lips trail sloppily down his face, to his jaw, and my own hands are gripping the waistband of his uniform pants as if they are the only thing holding me to the floor.
"Later," I tell Peeta. Lips finding a place on his neck I find acceptable. Peeta tastes of salt and sweat and some sort of sweetness that must have to do with his body wash. Like fruit. I'm not good at this act, the neck thing, but I love it when he does it to me so I'm giving it a go. Licking, sucking, the white tips of my teeth gliding along the teased and raw skin as Peeta twists into me, trying in vain to be closer.
Somehow it surprises me the pleasure I can find in such easy and simple acts such as kissing him or hearing him say my name. If happiness is so easily found, why do I feel unhappy all the time? "Katniss," Peeta says for the fifth time, this time less moan and more levelheaded. "They've knocked three times."
Did they? "Oh," I say. Still I kiss him. Peeta has trouble stopping, too. I wonder if he's been having the worst half year of his life in the past six months of war as I have. My thoughts wander from there to remember the other night, after our first talk.. the propo I'd seen him in. The way he said he'd been fighting in the mean time. Does that mean unhappily fighting? My attention problems are showing. "Do you have my mockingjay pin?" I ask him, when it is his lips traveling to the soft skin of my throat, tracing down the length, over the pulse point hammering at the joint of my neck and shoulder.
"I do," he says. "Enorbaria tore it off of your shirt when she grabbed you. I reached the cliff after the snakes and was able to find it.." just not you, I can hear, unsaid. After that it seems his kisses are stronger. Unwilling to let go. "You feel so good," he breathes into my mouth, turning his head to accompany the angle of mine, and his hands that stayed well at my back suddenly become a little stronger. His fingers span out over my skin, each digit burning its presence into my flesh, and his elbows bend, pulling me tighter against him. One of his legs is suddenly between mine, the other wrapping around my left.
My knees are unusually weak, buckling beneath me as Peeta's knee adds pressure to my center. Thankfully Peeta has most of my weight on him, so I merely slip further into his grasp, eyes opening in my shock. Heat has already risen inside me, from lower abdomen to cheeks to my upper back except it seems to swell and pulsate with this new action. Those words are enough to make me feel uneasy, though. They are unfamiliar if not recuperated, and I feel something warning me somewhere inside me, that this isn't good. Except, I don't want to let go, either. This feeling disconcerts me even more.
One half of me thinks that I shouldn't be so whimsical. I shouldn't cling to him. I am a brick wall; the support, not the one in need. The other, completely different part of me, the fire inside me, begging for the fuel, leans into his legs, returns his kisses, loves the way Peeta looks with his eyes closed, cheeks properly flushed, curls as dark as pitch tickling me just underneath the ear lobe as his lips drop to my shoulder and trail kisses from one side to the other.
"Tell me to stop," he whispers into the constellation of freckles that dance down the length of my bicep. The hot breath rushing over hot skin as one of my rebellious hands untucks his shirt and runs along the hard muscles of his stomach. Traces the familiar map I once learned, that seems too long since last visited.
I don't say anything.
Peeta's mouth moves from arm to chest, one of his hands tugging at the collar of my shirt. "I mean it," he says. "You have to.. I can't. I want.."
"Then don't stop," I say, suddenly at a conclusion. The two parts of me that were in conflict have suddenly made sense. Feeling and instincts finally coming together in a way that makes sense. I do need Peeta. If it weren't for him, all those years ago with that burnt bread, I would have fulfilled something Snow regrets a very long time ago. I would be dead as a child. Starved. But I don't need Peeta because I love him. I love Gale, too, and I know I can get on without him. If these past six months have taught me anything it is that I need Peeta because without him I won't get on. I can't survive. It seems heartless of me that I don't choose who I want because of the love or feelings I have or because he's the man I'd have a child with, but merely because it is a survival mechanism. I can't live without Peeta because I wouldn't survive without him.
But that's who I am. A survivor.
Before either of us lose a article of clothing and Peeta's lips drop too far, I attempt to untangle myself from Peeta. If only to have enough room to lift my face to his. Only he stares right back at me with bright eyes and a sheepish smile. My stomach does an uncomfortable flip. To lower my eyes, to distracted myself, there is a pink mark on the side of his neck that I press a finger into as I say, breathe, barely whisper, "I love you."
The shock in his face is enough to be comical and to wound me at the same time. Then the sound of the door knob rattling causes me to turn from him and hurry away. The two steps I bound to the door gives me enough time to right my shirt and force myself to smile at the Peacekeeper who opens the door to peer down at me, equal parts suspicious and impatient.
Throughout the whole walk I take back to my room, Peeta doesn't make one word or sound or glance, despite the amount of times I peek at him. I had hoped for a different reaction. He did, after all, know before. Didn't he? All night I lie awake, wondering what tomorrow will bring, asking myself that same thing.
