Are you, are you….
Chapter 10
There were no birds in the capital.
Birds sing and I smell the unmistakable scent of Greasy Sae's cooking. I am in Haymitch's house. Though it is a cleaner version then I have ever seen, I know his room. I sit up and find blood. The sheets are covered in it and it is on me too. It isn't mine.
I silently sneak out of the bed, following the trail of blood to the top of the stairs. The voices are not muffled. Sae is angry with him.
"You can't keep this up, boy. One of em or t'other is going to murder you. Is that what you want?" She says in a huff. I wonder when we left the capital. I must have slipped for real when he gave me the sleep syrup.
"I don't know. It doesn't really matter." Haymitch sounds tired, sick even.
"Well, I can tell you now, t'ain't nobody else goin to take em. You need to face facts and find some place to put em."
Haymitch coughs miserably. "No. I won't do it. My girl would rather be dead and the boy, would be fine if she didn't get it in her head that Peeta wants to kill her. I am all they have."
"Hmph. More like the other way Haymitch. You could be doing so much more. But here you sit, turning into a human filet. Which one of them this time." She demands with livid amusement. "It was her, wasn't it? I am going to walk in here one day and find you carved up real pretty, and ready for the cookin pot. Serve you right, if I put you in the stew." Sae complains in her brusque, no nonsense, rudely direct way I have always loved her for.
Haymitch laughs. "Wouldn't be the first time district twelve was treated to some long pork Sae."
I heard the sound of metal hitting porcelain, like a sound I heard often at my mothers. She laughs," True, but they was all sa hungry at the time they didn't care. They may be a bit particular when it comes to you. Put em off my cookin, that's for sure. Well that's about the best I can do for your stubborn old butt. Not as pretty as her Momma could do, but it's all you got and better then when I got here."
"Thank you. Again." He says softly
.
"You ought to have a snort Haymitch. At least for the pain."
"No. I bleed faster that way." He says in his amused distracted way.
"Well, eat at least. You look like hell warmed over."
"Yes ma'am. I imagine hell is a very lonely place. I think I have been there a time or two. I will wait for the kids. They will be up soon." I hear him groan.
"Just stay there. I know my way out. They are just going to have to go dirty for a couple weeks. You can't get that wet. And you cain't pay me enough to get that close to Miss slash and dash." Sae says as she stomps across the floor downstairs, then I hear the kitchen door close.
I creep down stairs after hearing no movement for a while. Haymitch sits in a kitchen plush chair. His arms rest on the puffed armrests. His head is leaned back against the wall. His eyes are closed. I don't remember this furniture and note it seems a little lavish for the kitchen.
There is a large white bandage taped to his bare chest and another by his neck. I must have done this. I watch his chest rise and fall. He has gone to sleep while I watched. I figure he must be drunk. If I am such a danger, why don't I hurt him now? How could I hurt my beautiful Haymitch? I don't remember hurting him. He told me once I did it during my spells. What happened to him at the capital must have hit me hard. I feared they must have darn near killed him for me not to even remember the trip home.
What could they have done to him that would freak me out, if what I saw in the bathroom had not? Was Snow dead? Was Peeta? What was I like, that Greasy Sae was afraid of me? A tough old bird from the Hob feared me. Who was the boy?
I don't say anything I just stand there watching him and trying to figure out what has happened. "How long have I been gone Hay?" I whisper. He seems older then I remember.
His eyes open and lock on me. "Katniss? Are you awake sweetheart?" There is no fear in his eyes, only a strangely miserable hope.
I nod. I walk to him with deliberate caution and fold myself into his lap carefully. "I hurt you?" I say kissing his chest and breathing in his smell. How can I hurt someone I love so much?
He holds me. His arms are softer and no longer bulky with the strength of his youth, but I feel safe with them around me and I still feel power in him. "It's alright sweetheart, I know you don't mean to." He kisses my temple and tries to hide the choke of a sob with a gruff cough.
"I have been gone, for how long? When did we leave the capital?" I ask.
"Oh Sweetheart, your trial ended three years ago. But you have had many fine times since then. The last few months have been hard." He says kindly.
"Months? The last thing I knew we were at the capital and someone bad, hurt you."
"Well, that is all done sweetheart. I got every last one of them and they will never hurt you again." He pets my hair with near frantic obsession and rocks me a little side to side. "You are all safe now."
I tuck my head under his chin and breath him in. He smells strange but in a good way. "I hurt you?" I murmur again in deep regret.
"It's nothing baby. Don't you worry, I am a big boy."
I kiss him and his reaction is a defeated patience as he pulls me away. "Make love to me Hay. I love you." I am already losing myself in his eyes; kissing every part of him I can reach.
He sighs deeply. "Katniss no. We have had this discussion multiple times. I am not, nor have I ever been, your husband, lover, rapist or future… those things. I love you sweetheart but there are things that happen in your head that are not real."
I can't even comprehend what he is saying. I have made love to this man for months. I know every inch of him. I am desperate to feel him sigh against me as he let me give him pleasure and wipe this old, strained face away. "I want you." I say softly. I smile the way I know melts him and reach for him wanting to stir him.
He stands up and rudely sets me down in the chair next to him. His Grey eyes are not mean but he seems so broken. He is blushing. "Katniss you must stop at once."
"Haymitch you can't be serious. Have I done something? Is it because I hurt you? I am here now. Please I am…Don't you want me?" my breath is heavy with my craving for him.
His face is neutral. He holds up his hands. "That has nothing to do with anything Katniss. We are not lovers and we never have been. Your mind plays tricks on you and nobody really knows enough to put it all together and help you."
I don't know what to say. I flash to how he sighs when I kiss him and lick him. I think of how he gets goosebumps when I touch him. I smile as if he's playing some horrible new Haymitch game with poor stupid little victor. "Are you saying the most happy moments of my life. What we shared. Those never happened." I fill my eyes with light knowing he is trying to confuse me, and wanting to prove to him I am all here, so he will take me seriously and let us get on to the blissful activities.
He takes my hands and says softly. "I am." His eyes are so earnest and plead so valiantly, the first stab of anger quickens my heart.
It feels like a thrust of something sharp in my rib cage. "You didn't ask me to marry you and change your mind?" I say it like a challenge.
"No sweetheart. Three weeks ago you thought you were married to Finnick Odair. You see people who are not there."
My heart drops again. "Where is Peeta….he's going to kill us. He's Rose, made again." I say tears beginning to well in my eyes. "Did you kill him? You killed the mutt right?"
His voice is calm. "Sweetheart, Peeta is here. He has been here for over two years with us. He's no Mutt. He didn't kill me or you or anyone else. He is just a broken young man who paints. He bakes you cheese buns almost every day. Sometimes he has a violent spell but he loves you and I love you and we are family."
"I am not a virgin. I remember my first time. With you." I say pleading. Heartbroken to have the one really perfect thing that ever happened to me be tainted. I had seen his face filled with the joy of me; surely he could not lie to me about even that private sweet thing between us.
His eyes fill with tears. He looks at my mouth, as his bends and shudders with pain. He says his words with tender caution. Not quite able too look me in the eye. "Katniss, when you were. During your trial, the guards. They tortured you. They took you. All of them, for months. The more you fought, the more brutal they became. They drugged you to gain your …compliance. By the time I got to you, there was, you were broken. I am sorry. I would have saved you that agony in any way, with my life sweetheart. But we didn't know. You have never fully recovered. But they said your chance of surviving was not worth getting any hopes up for. They had starved you and you were hours away from…failure. You weighed sixty-seven pounds and they had abused you that very morning. You were too weak to move and they had….left you to die in their filth. "
I shake my head at him as if he's mistaken. "When I would slip. You would kiss me and it would bring me back to you. I was in the training center and nobody ever came there. I was alone. I was alone that entire time. You could wake me with a kiss. You could bring me out of the fog. "
"The stories. Peeta sits with you. He tells you stories. That one, of waking to a kiss is The Poison Apple story. He tells you all sorts of silly things like that. We know you can hear some things no matter how deeply you are lost. And I have kissed you, sweetheart. Things start off nicely then I usually get something like this for my trouble." He said indicating his wounds.
"I sleep with you." I say. I blink the tears helplessly, can't stop and they tumble from my eyes, betrayed by his words and his sorrowful pity.
"Yes, but it is not in that way. Sweetheart. Once long ago, I hoped. You seemed to be coming back a little. But love is love sweetheart, and just because that can't be, doesn't mean I don't love you. Nothing matters but tomorrow. Are you hungry?" He says getting up and dishing two bowls of soup into crocks and scooting one to me.
"I don't want to be here. I want to go home." I want my Haymitch, who thinks my ugly skin is kissable. I don't even care if the PeetaMutt gets me so long as I can stop seeing the guilty embarrassment I see in Haymitch's avoiding eyes here.
I take a yawning breath. "Finnick is dead." I say.
He blows his nose and wipes his eyes. He takes a deep breath and blows it out. He busies himself bringing salt and pepper and slicing cheese thinly and tucking it into our bowls where it melts from the heat of the soup.
"Yes. He is." He takes his seat again and only now do his gray eyes venture all the way up to my own. He has no reaction to the information, as if he has discussed it to cool detachment, but his voice is patient. "Do I need to feed you today? Or can we pretend that Katniss is getting better and wanting to do things for herself?"
I pick up my spoon, not caring if I ever eat again. What is the point? I dip the spoon in it and let all the liquid and vegetables plop back into the bowl. "Long Pork?" I ask with distaste.
"Mmmm no Probably Dog and possum, but it could have a bit of beef in it too."
"I went to a memorial to him. To Finn. He stood with his trident in a park and there was a statue of me, behind it. My bow was drawn. We were there. Annie, Johanna and baby Finn? He must be talking now!" I say smiling with excitement. Oh, I wanted a picture of little Finn.
"There is a memorial. You must have seen the ceremony on television. We did not go to the opening, but I walked you there one day. You did not do well, so we have never returned to that park. We have made multiple visits to the capital for your doctor visits. Annie and the baby passed away, before the memorial was open. She sailed her boat out into the big hurricane they had over there. She thought she was taking the baby out to where her husband lived now. The poem she left was heart wrenching. It has become another symbol. I can't stand them for it. What she did was a private thing. It should never have been like that." He says as he eats.
"Johanna?" I say thinking how she had stolen my morphlin.
"She married a lumberjack. They disappeared up in the north woods, I guess about a year ago. We don't know if it's accident or intent. Guess we will just have to wait and see. And your next question is Gale. Yes he's a congressman. Yes he comes to see you twice a year and no you have never acknowledged him, other than for one brief moment in the capital. If you hang around a day or two, maybe we can call him. Your mother is well, sends her love, as always" He says with obvious disapproval.
"You don't like my mother do you?" I say smiling.
"No I do not. She takes care of everyone but … no I don't like her." He said with finality. "I didn't like her in school, but I like her even less now."
I grinned. "She was not going to be invited to the wedding. We had an argument about it. You didn't like her then either."
"Well, I am glad to see the imaginary Haymitch has some taste at least." He gets up and brings me a cheese roll. "The imaginary Finnick dresses nicely. I could like your world maybe."
I didn't mean to make him look at me like that, but that Haymitch of my memory was not to be erased in a few tiny sentences. "When the …my Haymitch, made love to me, he bit my ear the first time. I remember your face as you…" There were no words to match the hurt in my eyes. When he didn't look at me with fondness and love at that most secretly treasured memory, I broke down crying thinking nothing in my life was real. "It was so wonderful and now it's not real. I don't remember the real and it must have been….horrible. I want to go home. I want My You."
"Oh Katniss. I am so sorry." He holds me while I sob and when I can again look at him he pats my face fighting his own tears. "If that memory is the one you want, you keep it ok? I would have bitten your ear sweetheart. And I would have done anything to make it something you could look back fondly towards. So if that's what you want, you keep it." He smiled.
"It could be true?" I look at him with hope.
"In a someplace else it could. Not in this place." He kisses my head.
I sit quietly for a while pretending to eat, even though it tastes wonderful. I eat a single pea or bean at a time. Haymitch has seconds and then thirds. He has not poured a half of a cup of white liquor into his soup here. He's not drinking at all. There is no stale odor of it in the house and no scent of it wafting from him.
"Why do I try to hurt you? I want a drink." I say giving each equal importance.
"We don't drink any more." I hear the voice from behind.
I turn in terror. "Peeta?"
"So looks like you had a bad night. Are we friends today or am I the bad guy?" He says softly, leaning against the doorframe and his eyes sparking, blue like water.
"I don't know. Let me feel your head." I say scowling.
He smiles and bends down. "No Mutt, just lots of stupid."
I feel his head carefully for tell tale signs of the repairs to his skull. There are no tiny demarcation flaws but his ear on the left side under his long blond hair is almost missing. I feel swirled skin all down his neck. "You're burned. Like me?" I say surprised. "How?"
"Carrying you and Prim out. Away. She …she…." He starts shaking. And closes his eyes. "came apart." His eyes flutter opening and closing rapidly. They roll back in his head for a second. He seems to be making fun of the way she must have looked when she died. I am so angry, if that's what he's doing. He seems to stop and then he looks at me again but like he's confused.
"You took my pill away, you let it happen. My Nightlock" I said remembering how I had killed a woman who was like President Snow. "I killed that woman didn't I? The one who killed my sister? Right? But you let them have me. You should have killed me for them, not served me to them."
"Katniss stop it right now." Haymitch growls. "You don't know what you are saying."
Peeta shakes more and his face is covered in sweat as he pants like he is in pain. He turns and goes to a room down the hall and closes the door. I turn to Haymitch confused. "He got burned like me? He's ugly here. He's perfect there. He isn't the same one who hurts me is he?" I sit back down, trying to understand what I know and what I am doing awake in this sad place.
"Dammed Katniss, you could have at least let him eat first." Haymitch said with no real anger. He dishes up a crock of soup and puts a spoon in it. I stand in his way and he pats my face. "Stay here sweetheart, I have missed you." He smiles.
"Can I take it for you?" I say realizing Haymitch has scars all over him.
He studies me for a moment, hesitating. "If you want. Please do not damage him. Please don't continue the conversation you just began. Sae refuses to sew us up more than once a day." He lets me have the crock. Crossing his arms he watches me walk to the door. I knock, but there is no answer. I turn the handle and step inside, assaulted with the smell of linseed oil and soap and tints. The room is from floor to ceiling a mess of canvas. There are so many colors surrounding me that for a moment I am dumbfounded.
"Peeta. I brought you something to eat. I am sorry I upset you." I say keeping my eyes anywhere but his face.
"Is it you?" He asks softly.
I look at him and nod. "I know you're not a Mutt. I know I am not married to…Hay." Though I can't say it with out tears.
"Some of it must be leaking. You look sad." He says.
"I remember sweet things, so real, and then they aren't, and I have nothing. All my memories are horrible. I don't understand how I could be so happy then wake up from it to find we are…"I don't know what to call us.
"It's ok Katniss. I have something like that too." He takes a bite of the soup.
"I hurt him. Do I hurt you too?" I ask thinking I know the answer.
"I don't know. I have some scars, but you don't do it. There are others in you. They do it."
I look around. He's working on two canvases. One is of me hunting, while the other is of a young Haymitch, grinning and eyes sparkling. "Wow, he's beautiful Peeta. You really have gotten just amazing."
He says nothing but smiles in pleasure. I gaze around. Eyes picking out one specific picture, my breath is taken. There is a picture of Haymitch and I pressed together, high on a ridge, the sun shining on us in a cascade. He has me bent backwards and I hold a wild turkey. Haymitch looks strong and a longbow is slung across his shoulder. I know this moment. I touch the canvas. "Did this happen Peeta?"
He shrugs. " I don't always know if I am, where I am. Like sometimes you tell me things and I see them, but I don't know if they are happening or I am just painting them." He says shyly.
I look astounded. He has painted me into fairytales, mythology and everyday scenes. He shows me holding a baby, with Finnick Odair beaming next to me. In the next, I comb Annie's hair, both of us have breasts exposed and fish tails. He has made us mermaids. "I like this one too. Haymitch says she's gone." I wonder how he knows what I look like naked.
"I don't think of her like that. I think of her and Finnick like this, part of the sea that they love. Gone to myth, not dead. Together some how. All of them with the sea." He says scraping the bottom of the soup crock.
"He was upset that he couldn't smell or touch little Finn. He was lost, unable for them to see him." I add to his dream.
There are pictures of our games, haunting and beautiful rather than just horror. Finnick and I wake him with our faces covered in green scabs. Me grinning down from the tree the careers had me trapped in. Him handing me the pearl. Finnick holding Mags. Haymitch holding me in his arms as if I am a little child. Peeta and I, baking in his parent's old bakery. His father kneeling by him, pointing to a girl with a braid. There are paintings of cakes and plates of cookies. Dozens of pictures of geese fill in small holes. Baskets of beautiful bread. The Hob on a sunny day. Sae tending to Haymitch. Gale and I sneaking under the fence. Peeta and I at a wedding. He and I sitting in a meadow, with children dancing in the distance and Haymitch laughing.
"Who are these children?" I ask softly.
"They are Primrue and Finna." He clears his throat. "Our children."
I look at him wide eyed. "I don't understand. That isn't real."
"Somewhere it is. Somewhere we came home and fell in love. We had a boy and a girl. It is real for me Katniss. It makes me happy. I know we don't have that, but in my heart we do. They have the sea and we have the meadow and Johanna has the big woods and tall trees. We all have our happily ever after." He hands me back the empty crock.
I am turning to go when I see the dark paintings. They are deep blues and blacks. There is a tree with terrible fruit. Three bodies hang from the tree, faces pale and peaceful. In the middle, the fruit is my face. Peeta and Haymitch on either side. The faces are serene; the hands are still clasp together in the dark. Together the victors sleep, beyond the nightmares. I can't take my eyes off of them. They are so clear it is like looking at photographs, all taken from different angles. "Peeta? The tree. From my song."
"Sorry. You are not supposed to see those." He says trying to draw me away.
"Is that what you want? Is that the happy ending?" I ask my voice choking at how beautiful they are.
"I see it coming, but I don't want that to happen." He admits. His arm slips carefully around my shoulder and I don't flinch.
I nod and look at him. "They are strange, but lovely somehow." Near the floor on an exceptionally large canvas, I stand out like some dark evil warrior. My lips are curled into a cruel smile and my eyes are toughly insane. So fierce is my face it is hard to tear my gaze away from my own image. My arms are folded in satisfaction and a huge bloody knife still bears the gore of my fresh kill. I realize my kill is a human head. I gasp as I realize Peeta has painted me proudly dismembering Haymitch.
I step through the door physically sick and head back to the kitchen. I have to escape from this image. I try to remember one I liked. Peeta closes the door behind me, but says nothing.
I set the empty crock on the cabinet. I turn and wrap my arms around Haymitch trying to block out the last painting. I tremble and Haymitch wraps me in his arms. I am safe. I finally shift my mind to the painting of us kissing on the ridge. "Did you kiss me up on the ridge when we went hunting together?"
"It was a long time ago Katniss. A lifetime ago." He rubs my back in a friendly comforting way. He bends to my ear and speaks low and soft, into my hair, the way he did when we told each other secrets. "Sweetheart, I killed them all. I hunted down every single one of them and murdered them. Every single one of them, that hurt you in that jail. They are all… all gone. I don't know if it helps, or if you will remember tomorrow, but I want you to know. Gale helped me. But, it is all over."
"I wish…." But I don't finish the thought.
"Me too sweetheart. Me too." He whispers softly, just in my ear like my Haymitch would. For a moment I am in his arms and it is quiet and safe.
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Whoops – did I have you going?
You didn't really think, true insanity can be loved enough to just blink away did you? (You have been listening to Peeta's fairytales if you believe that.)
Love doesn't fix hate and the crime and terror that emotion can foster upon those who do survive the event. It will not go away, just because someone still loves the broken thing left behind. – True love endures the bad things that happen to the ones they love, with stoic patience, but it doesn't fix it.
Next chapter as soon as I can get it together properly. Bwahhhh hhhaaaa hhaaa. Now you know why I write horror, monsters, paranormal and not fan fiction….grin.
Please check out my other stories – If you need one that is sweet to get the {Hay that's a head} image out of your mind – I recommend "Where the waves meet the sky" Finnick – Mags and why she was half his family.