Chapter 6: Double First Cousins

Haymitch and I stagger off the train platform back into Twelve on a sweltering day in late July, utterly distraught and exhausted. The 81st Hunger Games ended in a Bloodbath loss for Collic and Mimosa going down placing in the Top Three; her bronze medal, customarily given out to the top three tribute finishers, is slung around my neck. Eventually it will hang in the atrium of the district school.

I decide to try and distract myself from my grief by making us stop at the Hawthornes' so I can pick up my daughter, who has been staying with Mother and Prim and Rory since we left for the Games. But when I push back the door, Mother is dashing about and grabbing hot water bottles and blankets and a grotesque mix of groaning and screaming can be heard from Rory and Prim's upstairs bedroom.

Mother doesn't even look at me as Focaccia dashes into my arms, her little face pale. "Your sister is in labor," Mother reports flatly.

Focaccia whispers to me in a small voice, "Auntie's baby is making her tummy hurt."

"What?!" I half-yelp, now joining my daughter in becoming a bloodless cadaver. "But it's weeks early!"

Mother shrugs. "First babies are usually right on time, with a few exceptions. You came early yourself. Caught your daddy and I flatfooted." My cheeks turn rosy at this, even as I anxiously glance at the clock. 4 PM.

"But Rory and Gale won't get out of the mines for another hour!" I squeak.

"MOTHER!" Prim shrieks like a banshee from upstairs.

"This child won't stay in until then. You'll have to run."

I nod, passing Focaccia off to her adoptive grandfather. "You're on the clock. Take her back to the Village. Play, put the TV on. But you might be stuck with her into the night."

Haymitch doesn't put up a fuss, whisking my daughter away and out the door. I pelt past them in my sprint to the Abernathy Mine (named after my mentor) by the Slag Heap's East Entrance.

The hour passes slowly. At ten minutes to the top of the hour, I am too anxious to wait any longer, and badger Dex Stalag, the Miner Foreman, into taking me down in the lifts. Dex calls ahead on the intercom for my husband and brother-in-law, and holding a cloth over my face, I descend into the depths.

The air is suffocating, and the heat even more so. Despite them both being covered in soot, I recognize my brother-in-law and my husband as the lift doors open.

"Primmy is in labor. You boys are getting off a few minutes early."

Even under a layer of coal dust, Rory is as white as a ghost, but Gale looks thrilled, letting out a country whoop. Slinging an arm over his kid brother, both Hawthorne men dive into the lifts. We take off at a dead run as soon as the grates of the lift are clear aboveground and reach my sister's place within minutes.

Gale and Rory both track coal dust into the house as the latter takes the stairs, two at a time.

"Prim!" Rory dives for his wife's side, gripping her hand and peppering her face with kisses. My sister shoves him off, but keeps a clench on his palm so hard, his fingers look in danger of breaking.

"Never again," she growls low, sounding like a bear mutt before she lets out a truly gut-wrenching moan.

"Primmy…"

"We're never doing this again," Prim vows. "I…. OH, SNOW'S ROSES!"

Mother looks a little shocked at her baby girl's foul mouth; Gale just smirks, obviously pleased that he got to tag along. I whack him hard on the arm.

It is well past dusk by the time Mother instructs Prim to start pushing.

"I KNOW WHAT TO DO, MOTHER!" Prim screeches, cantankerous, but she growls as she bears down. The Healer in her gives her inner strength, and quite suddenly, just like that, there is a piercing wail and then it is over. Prim delivers the afterbirth almost immediately following and collapses back, sweaty but triumphant. Rory dive-bombs her with kisses, which my sister now happily returns.

I feel arms encircle me before my face is tilted back and I feel Gale's strong, unyielding lips against mine.

"We have a nephew," he murmurs.

I nod. "We have a nephew." I kiss him again, quickly, my palm gripping the back of his neck. "Run and fetch my daughter? She's with Haymitch."

"You got it," my husband grins, striding for the door. "I'll drag the drunk along too – Ol' Abernathy needs the exercise."

I actually laugh for the first time since before the Games and shoo him away.

Several weeks after my nephew is born, when I've thrown up in the bushes round the back of my mansion for the fourth straight day, I begin to panic.

I wail and scream even more when I take a pregnancy test nicked from my mother's stores and it comes back positive. I become a little calmer once I break the news to Focaccia that she's gonna be a big sister, but the waiting up until Gale comes home from work is agony.

When Gale finally drags himself past the front stoop, I quietly murmur to my daughter to run along next door to Grandpa Haymitch's and play; Gale and I have something to discuss. My husband watches my daughter dart past him with a bemused expression.

"Everything OK, Catnip?"

I nod like a marionette on strings, and pull out his chair for him. "Come and sit down."

Gale obeys, and I can tell his curiosity is piqued. Sitting astride his lap, just as I did that one time we fucked in the Meadow (the time I'm pretty sure our child now in my womb was conceived), I can feel the tears stream down my face as I let forth in a shaky whisper:

"I'm pregnant."

My heart shatters all the more when Gale, after a moment of gobsmacked disbelief, lets out a happy shout and picks me up, swirling me around. Spinning me around and around the room, Gale kisses me all over, kisses me until my lips are bruised. When he finally sets me down, he gazes deep into my eyes.

"Congratulations. I love you. And I promise you, your life will never change."

He's wrong, of course – life is change. But in order to make the ones I love happier than I will be, I have to make this sacrifice. I've made Gale wait long enough.

I just hope I won't have to wait too long until I can break free from the Capitol. Before my…. babies ever see their own names in the Reaping Bowl.

Nine months later, I am hugely pregnant and ready to pop when a rumble along the earth shakes the very foundations of our mansion in the Victors' Village. From where she is coloring at the kitchen table, Focaccia looks up.

"What was that, Mama?"

Gale is frowning hard, shaking his head. "Both of you, stay here…." He briefly steps out onto the front stoop, likely scanning the horizon for a mine collapse. Except it's Sunday, and the mines are closed. Within seconds, my husband is back inside, a strange mixture of red and white coloring to his cheeks.

"Capitol bombers! Hovercraft!" They're bombing Lucy Gray Baird train station!"

I feel myself start to sweat. I'm woozy. "Oh, the State preserve us…."

Haymitch staggers in at this moment. "What in the hell is….?" He's followed by my mother, who was out watering the flowers.

"I'm going to go get Prim and Rory!" Gale hollers. "All of you, stay here! We have to get out before the bombers reach the Seam!"

I yank my husband close and kiss him fiercely. Breaking apart, he springs like a gazelle out the door.

The ground continues to shake, and I hold my stomach while leaning against the kitchen table. Within fifteen minutes, Gale is back with Prim, Rory and our nephew, Yarrow. Haymitch, Mother and Focaccia have set about, packing up whatever we can get our hands on.

Gale gallantly scoops me up into his arms, bridal style. I am astonished that he can take my weight.

"Run for the fence!"

And so we do, spiriting out of the gates of the Victors' Village. We are actually at the head of a throng that begins to swell with each step. Directly behind me, I can see Dannel, Bannock, and Rye Mellark, along with their families. Noticing my staring, Gale flushes a little.

"They were outside when I arrived at Prim and Rory's and I told them to follow me."

Cupping his face, I kiss him deeply, which seems to take him aback. "Thank you," I whisper. He seems to understand.

The district fence is only about two minutes from the Village on foot. The mass crunch of people start to hop and dive over the fence. Some crawl under whatever gaps there are. At a certain point the swell of people surge forward and actually crash through the fence, running it down. It is a miracle no one is trampled underfoot.

The mass exodus from Twelve makes it to the treeline and we disappear into the woods. Gale and I used to talk about taking off with our families into the great unknown. Now we have no choice but to actually do it.

Gale leads about 800 people out of Twelve and all the way to the lake where Daddy's hunting cabin still stands. Here we make camp, and barely a half hour after making landfall, my water breaks.

I give birth to Gale's and my daughter in the wee hours of the next morning. We name her Lorelei.

Three days later, a final survivor of the firebombs manages to make it to our camp and announces that District 12 is no more. The rest of the districts are in open revolt and there is a chance that the Capitol will fall, if it hasn't fallen already. The Hunger Games are over.

The survivors from District 12 manage to make our home here and survive in the woods. Mother and Prim are on hand to give any medical care required, Rory assisting them. Focaccia helps by holding her little sister and marveling at the little creature.

"She's so tiny, Mama!"

I slowly begin to recover from childbirth and bedrest, enough to walk about our primitive little community. I am so relieved that the Baker and his two surviving sons made it out of Twelve alive… and I also notice that my quasi-father-in-law, the father of my first love, has been spending quite a bit of time with my mother.

I finally take Mother aside one day and smile at her encouragingly. "Mama – just because Prim and I got our happy endings doesn't mean you shouldn't."

Mother's cerulean eyes go huge as she seems to understand exactly what I am encouraging. When Peeta first told me the story about how our parents used to date, it had made me uncomfortable. Now, sadder and wiser, I see this lost love as one that can be regained… but only if Mother is brave enough to take the chance.

"Oh…. well…." But then Mother squares her shoulders, and strides over to Dannel. I can see her nervously bunching up her skirts as she speaks to him earnestly, but then the Baker takes her trembling hands in his own.

That very same evening, Mother and the Baker approach Clerk Rosen, who also managed to flee Twelve alive.

"Your Honor, I would like to take this man as my husband, if you please. Would you marry us?"

A Toasting is hastily thrown together over a bonfire, and Mother and Dannel toast a bit of bread and share it before softly giving vows. I appreciate Mother's for their simplicity:

"I love you. I never did stop, and it is better to have love late than never." Smiling, her eyes glassy, she gets out, "For the first time in years, I can say: I love my husband."

Then Mother and the Baker embrace and kiss to happy to enthusiastic applause, both of them now remarried.

They play by the lake – my two little girls sired by different fathers. As I watch Focaccia splash around with her stepfather, and the rest of our family, I bounce Lorelei in my arms. When she starts to fuss, I tell her about how I have nightmares too. I tell her how I survive them, by making a list in my head of all the good and kind things I've seen someone do. It's like a game, a tedious one, perhaps, but to be sure…. there are much worse Games to play