PART ONE: THE AIR
CHAPTER ONE
The smell hits me first. The bad ones, to start with. Smoke. Ash. The lingering odour of burnt flesh, even after so many months have passed.
But then the good smells come. Floating through the air, the distinct and indescribable smell of home hits me. It's the kind of smell you don't notice until you've left somewhere and come back, but when you do smell it, you instantly recognise it. District 12 is that for me. Somewhere, in the back of mind, I knew I needed to smell home again. That's why I chose to come back.
Dr. Gregor said I might not be ready. The nightmares come so violently at night still that they leave me in an hour long states of panic. The flashbacks during the day - thick and shiny with the venom of the hijacking - still take every ounce of my strength to control. But I told him I needed this. That staying in endless cycles of unfamiliar hospital rooms and accommodations were never going to help.
I took everything he told me, about holding onto to something tight and counting backwards until I could feel reality slip back into me. To feel out every sense I could, list five things from each one, until the flashbacks left. To tell myself that things weren't real. To ask others if they were real.
Eventually, after much fight, Dr. Gregor signed me off. He almost withdrew all the paperwork again when I told him I wanted to go back to 12, but I stood my ground. It's home, after all. There may not be much left of it, but what was left was mine and I needed it more than anything else.
Behind me, the train whirrs mechanically as it starts to leave the platform. I hadn't realised I'd just been standing here, letting the smell of home wash over me, until I heard the train go. I started to walk until I felt a hand touch my shoulder. It was sudden and I can't help but startle, a flashing image of something from one of my Games - which one, I wasn't sure - hits me.
My nostrils widen. The smell, I tell myself. My fingernails find my palms and dig in slightly until the image goes. It's only after it's gone that I realise what it was: one of the mutts from the finale of my first Games, lunging up at me as Katniss pulled me up the Cornucopia to escape it.
I turn to see who's hand is on my shoulder and realise I'm facing Haymitch. It's almost hard to recognise him at first - his beard is shaven, his hair trimmed and face washed. He looks... well.
"Welcome home," he says, a smile crossing his face momentarily. I almost have to double take - Haymitch, smiling? - but it's gone before I can take it in.
"How long have you been here?" I ask.
Haymitch picks up my only bag. Most of my possessions are still in the Victors Village. My clothes. My painting gear. My baking tools... I never thought I'd see them again. I said goodbye to them when I left for the Quarter Quell.
"Well," he says, "a while. I couldn't stand to be in 13. Too many rules."
"What about the Capitol?"
He just looks at me, his face crumpled, and I understand. I couldn't stand to be there either.
We walk solemnly to the Victors Village, Haymitch leading a way through paths that didn't exist back before the bombing. So much has been cleared out, despite the war only having been declared as over for four months. "How many have come back, Haymitch?"
"Well, there's just a handful of us really," he starts. "They're mostly old mining crew. Can't stop 'em from working all hours even though they don't have to anymore... but I think they just can't stand to see it... well, like this."
His eyes glance over the uncleared parts of the new path. Blackened wood, burnt metals. I think I see a few bones every here and there, making my stomach turn. Blood rushes out of my face as I feel the start of another image flash to me, so I concentrate on the sound my boots make under the gravel the mining crew have placed. Even and consuming, it takes away the nausea.
"Anyone I know come back?"
"There's Tom - you know, old boss man. Always in the mines, even on a Sunday," Haymitch says. "Yam, Jole, Hill, Po... and the girl."
My feet stop me from walking. "You mean...?"
"Yeah. She came home a few months ago."
"Oh," I say.
"Surely they told you that when you got permission to come back here," Haymitch says.
I shake my head. "No," I tell him. "But I never asked, either."
We keep walking, nothing but the gravel between us as we get closer to the Victors Village. Haymitch says little bits here and there about the mining boys and the work they've been doing into clearing parts of 12. The market square and the Justice Building are almost fully cleared now and almost look how they did before. He tells me that he'll take me sometime, once I've settled in.
At the arched gates of the Village, there's little rubble surrounding any of it. "Did they clear this, too?" I ask.
"Nope. The bombers left it alone."
"Why?"
"Who knows why they do anything, kid?" Haymitch sighs. "Probably to have a nice place for their reporters to stay at. Wouldn't want them slumming it in the Seam, would they?"
My house is a few paces into the Village, one of the first few in the circular row. We reach my door - the size of the house oddly overwhelming, being bigger than anything I've been in for over a year now - but my gaze is elsewhere, looking across from my own house to someone elses.
Haymitch's eyes follow mine. "She's not home right now."
"But-"
"She leaves the lights on all the time. Even at night," he says. "The nightmares."
I go back to my own house, thinking about how maybe I'll do the same. Lights on, always, even at night. Nobody likes waking from cruelty in their sleep to find themselves alone, scared and in a dark room. I wonder how many nights it took for her to leave the lights on. I wonder, for a second, if she would leave the lights on if I was there. Or if she'd just ask to me to stay.
I force myself to turn the key into the lock of the door, force the thoughts away. If there's anything I can't do, it's staying with her. It's keeping the nightmares away. She stays at arms length. She has to.
I can't hurt her.
Once I've stepped inside, Haymitch passes me my suitcase and leans against my doorframe. "Don't forget to put an extra jumper on while you turn on the gas. It takes forever to heat these houses up."
"I will."
"And make yourself something to eat. Greasy Sae should've let herself in yesterday to drop off some bread and eggs and whatever else to keep you going."
"Tell her thanks from me."
"Will do."
I go to close the door, but Haymitch puts a hand out to stop me. "Was there something else?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. "Don't hide from her. She misses you. She may not say it, but she does."
I nod. I try to swallow a lump in my throat but it won't go down. It sticks, hard, like the pit of a fruit. It stops me from saying anything, but as I close the door, I feel her name being tugged onto my lips.
Katniss.