8 Years Later
Katniss's Point of View
My family is a motley crew. Young, old, fresh, scarred. We are all types.
They sit around me at the dinner table. Stuffing their faces or staring grimly at the wall. And I take them all in, I pick out their faces, I hold them each in my memory. Each individual is distinct, each is a soul with a different story. But all the stories intersect somewhere. In the eight years since the rebellion, we've kept close to each other. How could we not? We hold each other together when nothing else can.
Annie's sweet face is across from me. It looks detached. Dark hair streams down her shoulders unchecked, dangling dangerously close to the gravy as she leans across the table for salt. She usually keeps to herself during these reunions, but I know she takes comfort in the hubbub of the group. The woman is as lovely as ever, though visibly worn out. Raising a child alone has been tough for her, unstable creature that she is. I always notice the grief etched into the lines on her face, the occasional quivering of her lip. She has been suprisingly strong for her son, though. Tiny Rollin brings out the best in Annie Odair. When she leans down to listen to the 7-year-old boy gushing about the orange rolls, I can see a resilience in her green eyes, a glimmer of life as she laughs and nods and obligingly dumps another roll onto his plate. Finnick would be happy to know that she hasn't given up.
Rollin is a re-creation of Finnick. I wonder if that's hard for Annie. He has Finnick's sea green eyes and his Grecian profile. He is still young, but the resemblance is clear in the beautiful child's face. Not in his hair, though. His hair is like his mother's: a dark-chocolate excess of waves. He talks very intelligently for such a small boy, and Annie tells me that he loves the sea. He calls me "Auntie Katniss", which surprisingly tickles me every time I hear it. It's hard not to grin when I talk to the kid. He can only be described as a breath of fresh air.
I grin and wink at Rollin from across the table, to which he responds by quickly sinking down into his chair, giggling. Kid's got a thing for the ladies.
Haymitch slouches next to Annie. His whiskers run rampant on his jaw, his hair is unmistakably laced with gray. I love the grouch like a parent, although we bicker like gassy old men. Ours is a conflicting relationship. I do not interfere with his drinking habits, although they've become progressively worse over the years. Who needs a functioning liver, anyway? Not Haymitch. He seems fine. He keeps busy between drinking and tending to his geese, something that he denies taking pleasure in, although I know better. He's sober tonight, and I'm thankful for that. I like to see the unclouded laughter in his Seam eyes as he jokes with Johanna, who sits next to him. Cheeky birds of a feather, those two.
You could say that my strange friendship with Johanna has grown over the years. I glance diagonally at her. Spiky auburn hair, massive brown eyes brimming with their signature smug self-confidence. That's Johanna. The woman still intimidates me frequently, although I know that she has a soft underbelly. She has a boyfriend of sorts back in District 7 now. Deck Lafayette. I met him once when they came to visit Peeta and I. The man obviously adores her, and it's about time that someone did.
Johanna and Gale actually get along well, too. They have a similar inferno blazing inside of them, though even Gale is afraid of the more explosive flame inside of Johanna sometimes.
A saturnine Gale solemnly occupies the chair to my left. We talk softly about his life in District 2, his siblings, his job, light subjects that cannot arouse any pain. I do love having him back, even if our connection is not the same as it was. Our friendship, once charred beyond recognition, has been gingerly mending, piece by piece. Scarred, altered, yes. But mending. Gale is my best friend. For just a moment, as I look at his face, his permanently somber expression, my mind travels to the day, four years ago, when I found him in the snow-covered woods. It was a Sunday. He had been waiting for me, because he knew that Sunday was my hunting day. He was close to tears, choking out apologies. He told me he missed me. He missed his hunting partner. I had wanted to tell him that his hunting partner didn't exist anymore.
That was before I had fully found myself again.
Gale isn't a boy anymore. He's taller and stronger. Wiser, even. The scruffy stubble on his chin never goes away. Life has returned to his gray eyes, though something still haunts them. Bombs. Guns. Shattering mountains. There's a bloody battle going on behind those glassy orbs, I can tell.
When Gale breaks off our conversation and begins talking with Johanna, my attention goes to my husband. My fingers are curled around Peeta's beneath the table. His thumb is tracing repetitive pictures on the back of my hand. Flowers, I think, or flames. He is speaking gently to a beaming Annie. Peeta alone can make Annie feel comfortable when she comes to visit. When her eyes begin to look lost, Peeta always comes to her rescue, pulling her out of a reverie that probably included flashbacks of the Games. Like Finnick did when he was here.
Peeta is changed, of course. The war changed him. Mentally and physically he is scarred. But he is still Peeta. My Peeta. And he is more handsome to me than anyone else. He lets his hair grow out to hide the scars on his scalp, and to cover the faded burns on his forehead. I'm just happy that the flames didn't touch his eyelashes. His flaxen curls rustle as he laughs with Annie. That laugh. A sound so welcoming. A sound I once thought was forbidden to me and the rest of the world. It's beautiful. And I'm sure it's working wonders on Annie's mood. Actually, it's probably working wonders on everyone's mood, even those who wouldn't care to admit it.
I lean against Peeta's solid shoulder, and his strong arm instinctively encompasses me and holds me fast to his side. Dependable. I snuggle closer to him, basking in his warmth as if he were the sun. Which, actually, he is. My eyes start closing of their own accord, and I feel myself drifting. I allow it. Because really, I get so few moments to feel perfectly happy and burden-less like this. This is exactly what we fought for, tooth-and-nail, blood and sweat, soul and sanity. To be safe and content with family. With no threats hanging above our heads like a guillotine. And we deserve it.