Chapter Twelve
The greatest gift she gave me was her love. It was the one thing that I had always wanted. To feel loved by her, and to feel wanted. That is why I dreamt of a life with her, ever since I was five.
She gave me a reason to live, a reason to matter, a reason to fight. After everything in her heart she gave me the one thing I needed since the end of the war, she gave me a home. It is enough for me, to live my life with her and only her, but I want to give her the same thing, the same thing that she lost.
Children do that, or at least that is what I saw in my father. It was the only thing that made sense, after losing the one he loved. He once told me that all of his sons was what finally made him complete, it filled a void in his heart that he didn't know possible.
My only hope is that a child of her own would help her with the sorrow that I feel coming from her. She may think that she hides it well, even when I ask what is wrong she says nothing. But I know that that there is sadness in her eyes that even now as I look into them is enough to pierce my heart.
"Okay?" I repeat.
Her hand is still on my cheek as she rubs it with her thumb. She smiles ever so innocently, as she nods.
"I think that we could build a swing set in front of our home," she says.
I smile, and we embrace. The last time we were here we kissed, finally allowed ourselves to love each other, and now we have decided to have a child of our own. The thought of bringing a child into this world with the woman that I am hopelessly in love with brings a new level of protection.
"Did I tell you," I start to say.
"I love you too," she says.
"Thank you, I love you too, but what I wanted to say was that did I tell you what a wonderful mother you will be," I say.
"You really think so, I mean I am so nervous because I don't want to fail them," she says.
"You won't," I say.
The last comment comes from the first time I brought up the idea of having children. We had just finished the bedroom in the house by the lake. We spent months collecting the correct type of woods and even requested nails from the Capitol slowly as to not attract attention.
"How does it look," I say looking up at the ceiling. "A little better than the bench."
"My regular mister fix-it," she says. "And I like our bench, it has character."
"Well we can always start on a nursery," I say.
Her smile disappears in an instant as she sits down on the edge of the bed. She stares off into the wall; I guess she is trying to come up with a way to say what she needs to say.
"It isn't that I don't want to," she starts. "I mean I know that you will be a great father, but...I don't know. There is peace now, but what if there isn't tomorrow."
I sit down next to her trying to make sense of what she is saying. It is true that we are just now experiencing the fruits of peace and that it is still a little rocky, the new government. But there hasn't been any indication of the resurface of the Games, like President Coin wanted us to vote on.
"Katniss, we cannot hold ourselves from the happiness that we deserve, because of something that might never happen," I say.
She stands and paces obviously frustrated.
"Peeta, I am just not ready...I don't like to feel pressured," she says.
"Hey, hey, hey," I say standing and embracing her. "No pressure, I am happy with it just being us, I just wanted to see how you felt about it."
"Well," she says. "Now you know."
"Honestly I don't," I say. "The Capitol thing had always been on my mind too back when Snow was president, but honestly I don't think that we would allow anyone to come and force our children into anything. Do you?"
She shakes her head no.
I turn her around and look her in the eyes.
"So what is the reason you aren't telling me," I say. "We promised each other, no secrets."
She pauses and knows that although the first reason should have been good enough, I know that she is hiding a deeper reason. She struggles with it, almost as if she doesn't want me to know, because of how it might make me feel about her.
"I don't want to fail them, like...," she starts and then stops, almost like it is hard for her even to admit it.
"Like your mother failed you, when your father died?" I say.
She fights it. The pain, of remembering, of what it must have been like back when she was younger, of what it is like to not only lose her father, but to lose her mother as well. It is always this way with her. The walls come up, the anger pushes you away and then finally if you can take it, and still hold on, and she finally lets you in.
"I don't want them to hate me, like I did to her for so long," she says.
"They won't," I say. "You are not her."
"She was a wonderful mother, happy and loving, before," she says. "After, it was like we didn't exist, and it is hard for me to admit it, but I... I hated her for it."
She begins to walk away but turns and with anger in her voice.
"When we needed her the most," she continues. "She left us, and I don't want that to happen to my children, for them to hate me. Is it okay for you just to love me?"
I hold her now, and I try and reassure her.
"You are enough for me," I say. "We don't need to have children, if you don't want to. I don't ever want to pressure you."
We hardly ever talked about it, although many people in the district would ask. We would always just brush it off, saying someday. It became a word that we would use for the things that we always wanted and couldn't have. It was the words I said when we left our little house in the Victor's village, the word of someday.
Now she tells me that it won't be someday, but more like soon. She stands and begins to walk to the water. She slows down and it is that gesture that makes me stand and catch up to her. I stand next to her and finally she grabs my hand.
The sun starts to peak over the horizon and we can finally see the soft orange color meet the blue sky.
"A passionate kiss," she says. "Wasn't that what you said?"
"It was something that my father once taught me," I say.
She turns and I see here, looking as innocent as only I can know her. Pretty soon, she will go into her military mode, and well it is all business, but right now it is all about us. I see her stand on her tippy toes and I kiss her right there.
"I think I like waking up this way," I say.
"We have to get going soon," she says. "We can get it done today, and be home probably in a week."
It would be that simple, now that I think of it. Just get to the other kill switch, call over the communication, turn them both on, and then we are done. It just sounds simple enough.
Everyone is starting to get up and most of us had a couple of minutes here and there of rest, although no one I think slept any. Katniss's mother walks over to us and checks her hand.
"Mom," she starts.
She removes the bandage and starts to scan the hand. Her eyes focused on her hand. Katniss told me once that when they bring a wounded coal miner to her back in District Twelve, that she shuts down to everything but the task at hand. I have seen it first hand when we brought her Gale that time he was whipped. She tells me that it can be a good thing when you are by yourself, but not so good when you are with a partner.
Whenever we are in the forest hunting, Katniss would get this way. She was so focused on the game that sometimes I have to remind her that I am still there, well out of safety of course. The one thing that Katniss taught me about hunting is never get in front of the sight of vision of a hunter. When hunting you have to keep in the peripheral of the other. If you were to be separate because of strategy then a signal is needed to know where the other is. That is why one day Katniss showed me a call signal that sounds like a bird.
"Like the mockingjay bird call we had in the Games?" I ask.
"Well no," she says. "Now you have to practice it, so that no one knows that it isn't a bird. So that the game doesn't think that it is us but a bird."
Must have been weeks of practice at our house before I could have mastered it. I was outside one day when I finally got it mastered and could see Katniss running outside smiling, telling me that I finally got it.
We tried it out with a couple deer we saw in the woods, and found that they couldn't distinguish between that and the real birds. It made it easier to hunt, because we knew each other's call, and could easy follow it.
She later told me that it was a call signal her father taught her as well as a way of finding each other should they ever get separate.
"It was something that we would do, split up, and hunt," she says. "It became easier to hunt on our own and then meet up later. The signal became our way of finding out where we were."
"Who would have thought," I say. "That I would be out here, with you."
She hands a slice of an apple that she just cut with her knife. She places another slice in her mouth and smiles.
"I did," she says chewing through an apple.
"Really, even back then," I say surprised.
"Well, you were the strongest of all of us," she says. "Even the Careers knew that."
"What was that, the whole thing with the flour," I say trying to remember. "When did you see me do that?"
She blushes at the fact that I still remember that she was watching me even back then.
"Well it was that day back in the harvest festival, we were walking from the Seam to the school and Prim wanted to see the new cakes for the festival," she says.
Thinking back, I cannot remember the day that she talking about. It was a couple of years before we were selected for the Games, and I do remember one year that we were so busy because the flour production was not as much as we had hoped for the festival.
"So you were carrying these two heavy bags of flour, and all I could see was the girl from our class pointing and snickering," she says.
"So you noticed the snickering?" I say curious.
"Kind of hard not to, with the group of adoring fans you had," she says shortly.
"Probably they were just making fun," I say dismissively.
"I highly doubt that," she says looking down. "For a person who notices a lot of things about me really don't pay much attention to the people around them."
"Well no one else really matter that much," I say.
She grabs my hand and I can feel the moist sweat from her palm. She was nervous back then, and even nervous right now. She always did know how to say the right thing at the right time to make you feel just a little bit better. Well that is what I always thought so.
"Mom," she says again lifting her voice.
"What Katniss," she says looking up.
"We have decided," she starts and then looks at me. She smiles and then looks back to her mother. "To make you a grandmother."
She smiles, and puts down the scanner, opens her arms and we hold her for a couple of seconds. We let go of each other as we start to hear the rest of the team waking up. The anticipation of the day seems to be on everyone's mind today. There were even talks of a light breakfast to get going and getting it done as quickly as possible. Our on-site medic opposes against that, stating that the distance is about a couple of hours in rough terrain and that we would need all the energy we can get.
Liam fishes for the group while we breakdown camp and get everything ready for departure. Katniss's mother gets the medical equipment in their respective crates and into the boat that was inflated and left on the shore. There is quickness in everyone step and we all feel the need to not have to be here anymore than we should.
Finally after giving us all a quick bill of health, Katniss's mother gets in the boat and heads for the Cornucopia where she will get everything in order for a quick departure.
The mission briefing is done through the team, with even Gale and Johanna attending but hardly speaking. The only words we hear from them is that they have seen the first kill switch and that the most optimal time for it would be in a couple of hours where both zones are in the off mode.
"There has been no activity in the thermal imaging that is not in their respective zones," says Haymitch. "There is major activity though when the insect and beast zones are active, so if you are going to do it makes sure that they are off."
Katniss opens and closes her hand and finally feels almost one hundred percent. She laments having to hit him, and in hindsight she probably wouldn't do it if she had the opportunity.
"Sometimes, he can just push the right buttons, and can just irk me in a certain way, you know," she says to me as she quickly eats her breakfast. Once we are done, everyone get their packs on and we are off down the coastline.
Katniss walks in the point position with Liam. April and I, we walk in the rear position, everyone else walks in the middle. We see the sunlight glisten on the water, it is a beautiful day, although that is secondary to the true nature of this location.
We look at the visor and see that it is nine in the morning and we are ahead of the clock arena by only a couple of hours.
The visor reads that we are all on pace towards the primary target. There is also a countdown timer on the lower right hand corner. They tell us that it is when the beast zone will become active. If we pick up the pace then we can have a good comfortable time to find and active the kill switch.
The zones light up the visor when we pass them at pace that is not really running, but not really walking either.
We pass by the fog zone, and the memories of that night in the arena, seeing the white milky fog that almost took my life and took Mags life come seeking us through the jungle trees. It is enough to remind me that the arena was all about keeping me alive, all a game by the Gamemaker to keep her on their side, on the rebel's side.
We slow down a little when someone up ahead hears a rustling. It comes from the Monkey zone. I slowly scan the trees, and there is no movement. There is a signal of something in the area, we do a quick scan with the visor and it picks up, a singular heat source. The visor has a distance of twenty feet, and looking into that area, I see them. I can see them, a pair of eyes staring through the leaves, waiting for us to cross an invisible line. There is a hand signal of a quick departure. I tap on April's left shoulder and she nods as she walks slowly towards the rest of the crew.
I look down at the sand and the leaves. That must be the line, the line to cross. What are we to have known back then, when all we were looking for was water. It was stupid of us to believe that the Gamemakers wouldn't throw something like this so early in the game. They killed us like we were nothing. Those monkeys, the way they tore into morphling that saved my life. I hear a beep, and then another one. I can feel the anger inside of me swelling up to the surface. I look down, and I can see my feet start to come to the edge of the invisible line. Something inside of me wants them to attack, wants to kill them for taking a part of me.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. Someone leans in and whispers.
"Let it go," I hear her say.
"It was the beginning," I say. "I became a monster after that. It scared me, because all I could feel was anger, all I could feel was revenge."
"You came back," she says.
"Not the same," I say. "You know it."
I hear the beep get more frequent. It is coming from around my neck.
"Please," she says. "I can't help you if you don't want me to."
The snaps me back, and I slowly take a step back. I look at her and she sees me.
"I am sorry," I say. "It is this place, I don't know."
"I know," she says.
She grabs my hand and I can see that she is worried, but still focused.
"Let's get this over with," I say picking up the bow that she had dropped to help me. I had it to her and she places it over her shoulder. We only have to walk a couple of steps before I hear her call out to the group.
"Let's take a couple of minutes to gather ourselves," she says. "Stay away from the jungle. We are in the jabberjays zone and any voice can be projected."
We sit down near the water, and all Katniss could do is stare at the Jabberjay zone. I grab her attention, by kissing her hand. She looks away and sees me there.
"Thank you again," I say. "You pulled me away before I made a mistake."
"That is what we do for each other," she says.
She seems puzzled about something, almost as if she is trying to come up with an answer to a tough question. She stares at the leaves of the jungle and it is probably the memories of what happened in there.
"What is it?" I say.
"It is nothing," she says. "Just a thought."
I rub her hand.
"Do you think it is wrong, to want to walk in there?" she says.
"Into the Jabberjays?" I say confused.
"To hear her voice again," she says longing. "I know we have the tapes of the interviews, but Peeta, I miss her."
The thought of it, I grab her and press her to my chest.
"You don't want to remember her that way, Katniss. Remember her for the good she did, and how she always loved her big sister."
She doesn't say much, just buries her head deeper into my arms, wishing to forget. This is what the Capitol has reduced the victors of the 74th Hunger Games, the Mockingjay of the Rebels to. This is why we were so fearful of coming back. It wasn't the zones, or the dangers of the traps. It was the memories that they bring. The horrors of things we have been trying to forget for years.
We look at the zone next to the jabberjays. It is a zone we never went into. What horrors could have fallen us if we did mistakenly crossed that invisible line. Would we have survived it?
"Let's keep moving," I say keeping her in my arms.
We are no longer walking like the Star Squad 451, stealth fully or even militarily, but we walk together trying to reach our destination, trying to forget everything.
Cressida and Pollux could not have known the horrors that we had to go through. April and Liam are too innocent to realize what the Capitol had stolen from us. We walk almost like we are just trying to get this over with.
Passing the unknown zone, we do not seek to see what is inside, but we keep our eyes focused on the only zone that matters. It is the one zone that is our ticket out of this nightmare, to the switch and then to our ride on a hovercraft. It sounds very easy to do, walk in and turn the switch. But we know from experience that the Capitol would have made it difficult, would have made it near impossible.
We all stand now staring into the eyes of the abyss. The water laps on our feet. The zone of the beast.