Chapter 25: Places We've Been Before
Katniss sat on the edge of the bathtub with her feet submerged. Any shoes besides boots apparently could cause her feet to hurt. Many times in the Capitol she had been forced into tortuous heels, but tonight she had worn a pair Soleila had lent her. They were flat, simple dress shoes, but still her toes were pink, and her arches achy. Or maybe it had been the dancing, rather than the shoes that had caused the soreness. She reached in and squeezed her feet in various places, trying to relieve whatever pressure points in her muscles were all knotted up.
The events of the day rippled over her as she watched the bubbles fade from the tub. Gale and Madge were married now, a new Hawthorne family. A smile crept onto her lips while she remembered their ceremony, the tears in Gale's eyes as he vowed, forever, to love and protect his wife. He really loved her, then. Perhaps years ago, in a simpler time, the thought would have crushed her. Now it only made everything feel easier, smoother. She gave up on her feet, resigning to rest her hands in her lap and just rest.
The future laid out before her in strange, vibrant clarity. A life with Peeta and the bread cart. Hunting and baking, baking and hunting. First, a trip around Panem, with their friends... if only they could convince Haymitch to join them. The thought of actually getting to seethe country they had all worked so hard to salvage, was thick, bright with hope.
It felt strange to have so much hope - the thought of touring Panem to help people learn how to run their own government, but mostly a life, a real life with Peeta, with their friends. This idea bloomed in her head. Friends. Real friends. People to talk to, do things with, laugh with. It seemed so foreign, so breakable that she felt a few tears come to her eyes.
Something was missing, too.
She searched for it awhile, thinking of Prim, thinking of Finnick, but their absence didn't feel like missing, didn't feel as much like the hole that had been blown in her heart in the Capitol. It wasn't loss. It was fear. She realized with a start that she was not afraid. There was no fear. She could go forward from this moment with impunity; without fear holding her back. She was still musing over this when she heard Peeta's unmistakable steps on the stairs.
He appeared in the doorway, and she paused for a moment, her thoughts moving toward how strangely handsome he was. Still in his suit from the wedding, his tie loosened and his face with lines of happiness creased over it. And, she noted. He had a pen, and a somewhat crumpled piece of paper.
But he set the paper down on the sink, before she could ask, and removed his socks, splashed his feet, equal parts real and not real, into the water. Wordlessly, she laced her fingers with his, lay her head on his shoulder and let out a small sigh. Peeta. Friends. Hope. This was what she had been too afraid to experience. Love. Real love.
Peeta let out a small cough, and Katniss noticed, looking at him now, he seemed strangely nervous. She squeezed his hand and searched his face, remembering a few nights ago when his pupils went black and the hijacking overtook him, if only for a moment. She was prepared for this to happen again, and to stay by his side. She found his eyes to be as they were at his best - swimming blue pools, like the lake in the sun.
"I got us... um... a paper," he said meekly, sadly.
"That paper?" she asked, indicating it on the counter behind them with a nod of her head.
"Yep," he replied simply. She waited for him to explain, but watched his features work through several different emotions before she decided just to ask him,
"What kind of paper?"
"It's..." he turned to face her, took her other hand in his, "I don't want to put any pressure on you, I just... if you don't want it, we don't have to sign it." Several thoughts flickered through her mind, but none of them made any sense. She looked at him questioningly, until finally he said, very quietly, "It's a marriage license."
Her eyebrows rose without her permission, and he was already sloshing out of the tub, apologizing, murmuring that it was a silly idea. But she caught his hand. A charged moment of silence passed. "What does it say?" she asked after a moment and darted her eyes up to meet his. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest.
He rubbed his thumb over her hand, staring intently at it, refusing to meet her eyes. He breathed out, loudly, but then began to recite very quietly, "It says that I, Peeta Mellark, and you, Katniss Everdeen, being both of sound mind and body," she couldn't help but let out tiny snort at that, "do solemnly proclaim on This day the First of October, in This the Third Year of Peace, to care for one another, to keep one another, to be faithful to one another, to be as one in marriage from this day forward, as long as we both shall live." These words tumbled from his mouth so easily that Katniss knew he must have spent all day reading over the paper, memorizing it, pouring over it. The thought made her feel an even greater admiration for him.
He stared at her, looking almost as scared as in the arena.
"I don't..." Katniss began, but immediately knew this was the wrong way to start from the crushed look on Peeta's face, the way every part of his body suddenly sagged, but barreled forward all the same, "I don't disagree with any of that," she said a little more clearly, next, words she had never spoken to him out loud before, "I love you, but I still don't know why..."
Peeta breathed deeply, "Last time we got married, we did it so that no one could take it from us."
"The first time, the onlytime." She muttered,
"Katniss," Peeta said seriously, "Can we just talk about this?"
"I don't know what you want. If you want to be legally married, that's fine, I'll sign the paper," she sulked, then added, "It wouldn't make us any more married to me."
"It's not about that, though," he tried. Dammit. He was so patient about this, but for some reason, every word that left their lips seemed to be an inch off of the walls of the room. She began to feel claustrophobic, anxious. She felt the urge to bolt, run, and escape the stifling air in the suddenly tiny bathroom.
"Well, what is it about then? Because I'm not going anywhere. We're married." As soon as she said it, she knew that it was true. The urge to flee left her, and she began to feel grounded, and level headed. It helped her to really listen to what it was Peeta wanted, the way Gale had suggested. Just listen to him.
"It's about... it's about not being married by default. It's about choosing to make this life together. Making a real commitment, Katniss, to keep trying. To make a life together. A new life." This silenced her for a moment. She listened to him breathe slowly. It was his habit to control his breathing when he got frustrated or angry, "It's about being happy and celebrating that we dohave each other, we did choose each other. Instead of... we have to have each other."
Katniss tried to match his breathing. In, hold, out. In, hold, out. She wrapped her hands around the edge of tub, holding on a little too tightly. Trying to maintain the feeling of being grounded. In, hold, out. In, hold, out.
"But," she stammered, "I am happy I have you." Her voice began to quiver, and she bit her lip to steady it. "I hate that you don't know that, no matter how many times I say it!"
"I do know it," Peeta choked on his emotions, but managed to go on, "But we never changed the way people saw us. We aren't like Madge and Gale... they're a family. They share a last name. When they're presented to the public during the Voting Tour, they're going to be Madge and Gale Hawthorne, and we are just going to be Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen. The same as we always were. The 'Girl on Fire,' and 'the boy who loved the girl on fire.' The Victors from District 12. I don't want to be Fire or Victors or any of that, I just want to be Peeta and Katniss, a family."
"So you want me to be what? Katniss Mellark?" Katniss couldn't help it. She didn't want to be a Mellark. She didn't want their family to be the Mellarks, or the Everdeens, just them. Just Katniss and Peeta - and suddenly, she understood. That is what Peeta wanted too. To be new. To be themselves. Together.
Peeta sighed. His voice came out thick, and tired, and almost devoid of the emotion that had carried him through his argument so far, "In District 6, when a couple gets married, they combine their last name, sort of a short hand. It's the same way that they label intersections on maps."
"How do you know that?" Katniss couldn't help but be impressed.
"Uhm," Peeta was taken aback at her change in tone. "The Morphlings told me, during the Quarter Quell training... when we were painting together. They knew that we were engaged, and so they were asking me what we would change our names to when we were wed."
Katniss felt a stab of guilt for never having conversed with the Morphlings, or even learning their names. "Did they have any suggestions?"
"Everlark."
It was perfect. Katniss repeated it, "Everlark," the reverence resonated in her voice, which had lost its unsteadiness.
Peeta looked at her strangely, "You like it?"
Katniss could only nod. She wanted their name to ring in her ears forever. "Say it again."
Peeta blushed, "Everlark."
She knew that Peeta was right; this new Panem was no place for fire, or for Victors. It was a place for love, for forgiveness, for rebirth. She and Peeta would serve as a beacon of hope, and of proof, that real and lasting change was possible. Where before there had been two fire mutts, two weapons, two incomplete people, there was now a family. A new family, with a new name, for a new Panem. She thought of Prim as she whispered, "Okay." Her voice was almost unrecognizably calm, as she finally said, "I'll sign the paper." She corrected herself, "I want to sign it."
Immediately, tears tracked down Peeta's face, and his face crumpled in a sob before it broke out into a wide grin. He laughed as he pulled her out of the tub, held her close to him. They stood there for at time, both laughing and crying just a little. When they finally let each other go, what felt like a lifetime later, she reached for the certificate and pen, still resting where Peeta had set them on the sink.
"Wait," he said, "I thought first we could... I baked for us."
"We toasted already," Katniss protested, "years ago."
"I know, but now we can do it for real. We even got to hear the song, and eat cake, and look nice. We can really do this," he said earnestly, "Do it right, and no one needs to be here, just us. Like you wanted. But without any attention... like you wanted."
This brought tears to Katniss's eyes. Without another moment's hesitation, she swooped the paper and the pen off of the sink and brought it down into their kitchen, where, as promised, a small golden loaf awaited them. She went to turn on Peeta's convection oven to toast over, when he came up behind her and rerouted her to the old, wood-burning stove. He did not have to tell her that they should build the fire themselves, together.
And so a fire was built, both of them adding sticks for kindling and a single, skinny log. Peeta took the bread in his hands and tore off two pieces, handing one to her. They toasted as they had when they were children, with forks over a small fire, switching hands in the heat, feeding one another slowly, tears tracing down their cheeks. Katniss savored the buttery bits of bread, marveling at the similarities between this and their first toasting - the bathtub, the fire, and the remnants of fancy clothing they both wore, down to her pink dress. One thing was different, though. One thing that wasn't there before. There was no trembling, no sadness; there was only the best of the two of them.
Peeta and Katniss. Steadiness and fire.
After eating a good portion of the bread, they took up the pen in turns and signed their names.
Katniss Everlark.
Peeta Everlark.
The next day, they would need witnesses to make the paper official. Perhaps they would have Gale and Madge sign it, as Gale had offered, or maybe Haymitch? For tonight, all they needed was the glow of the fire they had built together, and their new name, that declared them, once and for all, in everyone's eyes, including their own, a family.
Gale awoke, his senses struggling to work through the haze brought on by the evening of drinking and dancing he'd shared with his friends and family, and of course, his wife, Madge. Madge Hawthorne. Even just thinking her name made him smile. They were really a family now, legally, to everyone, the way they had been between them for at least a year, and he liked to think more.
"Madge Hawthorne," he whispered her name. He turned to the tangle of blankets she'd folded herself into after they'd consummated their marriage. She'd fallen immediately to sleep, or so he'd thought. He'd soon followed. Now, as he tugged at the covers, he unraveled them to reveal no warm body nestled at their center.
Madge was gone.
He sat bolt upright, "Madge." He spoke her name louder this time, filling the dark room with it. His answer came, not from her, but from the whispering wind outside.
His heart leapt into his throat. She would have heard him speak, were she anywhere in this house in the Victors' Village, which Peeta had let them use as a marriage suite of sorts. In an instant, he was on his feet, pulling his pants on and buckling them as he tripped his way down the stairs, terror causing clumsiness in his careless steps.
He snatched his tuxedo jacket from the hook where it hung by the door and slipped it on, without bothering with a shirt. Barely 30 seconds from when he sat up, he was out the door, jogging at a clipped pace through the Victors' Village toward the square.
It was fall, and the cold nipped at his bare skin. His breath was visible, coming in clouds as he let it out in ragged huffs, loudly whispering Madge's name into the night air. He didn't want to alert the sleeping citizens of the District 12, or his wedding guests. No point in starting a District-wide panic.
He was unsure of where he was going, but his bare feet seemed to carry him involuntarily through the empty square past the meadow to where, somehow, he knew he'd find her.
More dressed for the weather than he was, but still shivering, she crouched in the rubble and ashes that used to be her home. She had lived on the outskirts with her parents, so, even though the bodies had been cleared, the broken pieces of her house had yet to be collected.
She was weeping, he recognized the sound as it reached his ear, and his heart fell.
"Madge," he whispered. She tensed, and he didn't move closer as he asked, fear of her answer settling in the pit of his stomach, "Aren't you happy?"
She spun around, and rose to her feet in a quick, frantic motion. Her face looked a bit wild, tired, and strained with unreadable emotions. She opened her mouth to try to speak; instead, she was overtaken by a round of sobs that brought her back to her knees.
As she collapsed, Gale's concern overcame his fear and he knelt beside her. He reached a hand out to touch her quivering shoulders. He could see her shoulder blades, prominent through the sweater she had wrapped herself in to guard against the cold.
He hated that she had never gained back the weight she lost during her depression. It made him feel guilty, as if there should have been something he could have done, or something he could yet do to keep her safer, healthier. In this moment, as the moonlight illuminated a few of her ribs, also prominent through her sweater, he felt more useless to protect her than ever.
He felt tears forming in the corners of his own eyes, and his hand, which had been an inch from her fell limp. Stubbornly, the tears spilled over, and fell silently down his cheeks, leaving frozen trails in their wake. He tried his voice, and regretted it, "Madge," he tried, but his voice was fighting through his throat, tight with contained sobs, and was barely a whisper. He tried again, but found himself mute with grief.
Marrying Madge had done nothing to make her happy after all.
Madge looked at him, moonlight playing across her face, which was wet with tears. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she had obviously been crying for some time. She tried her voice again, but they were both struck mute by their agony, and instead, she limply pawed at him with her hand, catching, just barely, his fist which he pressed into the ground.
The contact was like a rainstorm flooding a river, and all at once, they were swept up in each other. Arms entangled, holding each other like the world was about to cave in, and kissing each other as if their kisses were the very oxygen that would sustain them through the next few moments.
Their helplessness, their desperation reminded Gale of their first kisses, which they had shared, perhaps in this exact same spot.
Gale broke this frenzied embrace and asked her again, "Aren't you happy?"
This time, she found her voice, which came with a heaving sob, "of course I am!" She took his face in her hands and looked into his eyes through her tears as she spoke, "You married me. You chose me, us, our family."
"Of course I did," he was speaking far too loudly, but he couldn't believe this return to her family home was all about Katniss, still.
"I just-" Madge pushed away from him, suddenly, and folded her knees up to her chest, childishly as she whispered, almost to herself, "I wish my family were here."
A wave of relief washed over Gale, though he was helpless to solve his wife's plight. Her behavior had nothing to do with him, or with the way he had once felt about Katniss. She was sad about a past that neither of them could change.
"Or that they had ever been there, really," Madge added, bitterness coloring her hoarse voice.
Gale scooted over next to her, and copied her posture. They shared a long silence. Madge turned her face to the clear night sky. There were so many stars, and the moon glowed nearly as bright as the sun. The sky never looked like this in 2, and Gale realized that he had almost forgotten this night sky, the one whose company he sought when he wanted to be alone as a child.
He could see it, reflected in Madge's watery eyes as she turned them to meet his.
His words came automatically, and he knew, as soon as he spoke them, that they were true in an honest, flawed way, "I'm here."
He tried with his eyes to tell her that he always would be, a promise that, he feared if spoken aloud may invite disaster to make them a lie, so continued, "I'm your family now."
Madge leaned in to kiss him, and this kiss, to gentle, and fulfilling, and complete, was so different than the first angry, biting kiss they'd shared, Gale could only compare them by their scent, that of wild flowers. This kiss reminded him of the ataraxia he'd sought the night that Maysilee was conceived. They had been two awkward, uncertain teens who thought they had nothing to lose - and at the time, they had been right.
Perhaps that was what marriage was - giving each other something to lose, something worth protecting, worth keeping. Peace in a world that was still torn open and smoldering from the war. Love in a country that had taught its citizens only that value of hatred. In their marriage, they had found true unity, when all they had known, all their lives was complete and utter loneliness.
Madge leaned her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her. As he felt her breathe against him, pressing herself so completely into him, that he could swear, in that moment, that they shared one heartbeat. He knew that neither of them would ever feel that loneliness, so long as they had each other, no matter what it was that lay ahead.
Author's Note FTW:
Hi there team, Super Nova here. Wow, so at about 100,000 words, this story is finally over. We can't thank you all enough for your words of encouragement, your follows, and your favorites. We have had a great time writing this and it has really grown since Super V emailed me with the first half of the first chapter and asked if I wanted to collaborate with her. To which I said, "HELLZ YES," and Unity was born. And man, did it turn out pretty.
V says: This is my first fanfiction that made it to a computer, nonetheless to the internet, and without your support, and my wonderful writing partner Nova, this fic would not have blossomed into the beautiful flower I am so proud to call my own. (Our, own, is a better wording.)
Nova says: AND! This is my first ever fic that's more than 4,000 words long! So feel satisfied that your encouragement has enriched our lives and improved our writing skills!
The theory is that we write another story about the Hawthornes, the Everlarks, and whoever else in our band of excellence ends up there on the Voting Education tour. The next book would be more political intrigue and action with a hearty helping of romance to top it off. And, more Maysilee, who we know you just love. It will take us a bit to get this fic off the ground, and we have a few other projects going on, but we will find a way to post again and let y'all know the title for the new fic when we start it! It will be another wild adventure, so we hope you're along for that ride too!
V: Through this fic, I have found new and wonderful ways to love the characters introduced to us by the loverly and talented Suzanne Collins, and I hope you have too. Also, we can not forget to thank Suzanne Collins, Scholastic Media, and Lionsgate for bringing us the Hunger Games in its various formats. Also, thanks to my mom for introducing the books to me in the first place.
Nova: In the meantime, leave us a review so we know how this all turned out. Again, we appreciate you taking the time to read our words! Happy fandoming, everyone!