DISCLAIMER: HG characters do not belong to me.
Chapter 27-Paylor
Katniss sat in her seat and recited Sioux words to herself the rest of the way to pass the time. When they finally arrived at the Capitol it was almost 10 pm. Once they all got off the hovercraft Sequoyah and Trent were ushered off by soldiers immediately. 'No doubt being taken to a holding cell' Katniss thought.
Gale came up to Katniss and said, "Since it is so late the President will be meeting us tomorrow at 8 am. Be ready at 7:30 am, I'm going to take you to your room for the night."
Katniss nodded and started following Gale, looking back at Spencer behind her as she walked away. Spencer gave her an encouraging nod as she walked off with Gale.
President Paylor resided in the new President's mansion. A decision was made after the rebellion to tear down the old one and build a new one close by. Where the old mansion sat is now a large walking area. What was once Snow's old greenhouse is now a large fountain that serves a memorial with the names of the all the people who lost their lives in the Capitol the day the rebellion won. Katniss knows Prim's name is on the memorial, but does not stop by to look at it as she and Gale walk to the mansion. They are allowed past the gate once the guards clear them after Gale shows his military ID.
Once inside Gale walks her down a long hallway and shows her to a room that is right beside his. He stops in front of her room and says, "This is it, there is some food in there if you are hungry and a bathroom. I'll see you tomorrow at 7:30 am sharp."
"Thanks Gale" Katniss says with a small smile.
He nods and turns around and heads for his room, looking back at her briefly before turning the doorknob and heading in.
Katniss heads into her room and looks around. There is a large bed in the center of the room with two night stands on each side, a small table with two chairs by the window and a small refrigerator with food and drinks inside. While the President's mansion does have workers, Panem no longer has Avox's so while in the Capitol guests and residents have to do more for themselves and Katniss has no problem with that.
She goes into the bathroom and sees a stand up shower. While it looks nice and new it is not nearly as elaborate as the showers were in the old Panem. Katniss approves of this change as well.
She showers and changes in her sleepwear, munching on some fruit before watching some TV before going to bed. The TV in this room was a lot nicer than her TV back in District 12, and her TV in District 12 was one of the nicer TV's in the District.
She sleeps with her dreamcatcher placed beside her on the nightstand. Instead of dreaming of Gale like she usually does and has become accustomed to, she dreams of Rue. They are running through the woods, singing to Mockingjay's and listening to them copy the words, smiling and laughing the whole time.
Gale walks into his room and sets his stuff down. He immediately takes a shower and after he is finished, he picks up the phone in the room and calls Dez.
"Hello" she says sounding as if she has been woken up.
"Hey Dez" Gale says happily. He has not spoken to her in almost 4 months.
"Gale! Where are you? Are you alright?" Her voice raising about ten octaves higher.
"I'm fine, everything's alright. I'm in the Capitol staying at the President's mansion."
"Why didn't you come home? You are not that far away you could have taken a train in." He could tell she was disappointed he didn't come to her.
"I just got here, and I have to see the President first thing in the morning. I'm sorry but I don't know when I can come to District 2. I might have to leave again tomorrow morning."
"Is she with you?" Dez asked in a salty tone. This surprises Gale.
"Yes, Katniss is here. It is one of the reasons I am not sure what tomorrow holds. She wants to talk to the President. And my work here is not finished."
"What do you mean?"
"The militia group is still in the wild territory looking for Katniss. Until this group is captured and sent back to Panem, I can't leave. I plan to talk to the President about making a move on them."
"If Katniss is in the Capitol how is she in any danger now?" Dez's salty tone was gone but Gale could tell she was still not happy about Katniss being in the Capitol with him.
"The militia group poses a threat to the Native's. They will be looking for her, possibly hurting innocent people. Plus, Katniss might return to them. Unless this group is captured this mission will never end. Katniss might be there for a long time."
"Katniss is not going back to Peeta?" Dez asked with a tone of surprise.
"I don't know, I don't think so. Not anytime soon."
He heard silence on the other end of the line for what seemed like an eternity before Dez finally says, "Can you call me tomorrow? Let me know what the plan is before you leave again?"
"Yes, I will I promise."
"Harper is good, he misses you."
"Thanks for taking care of him, I really appreciate it."
"Your Mom, Vick and Posy are doing well also. I see them every other Sunday at their house for dinner, they miss you."
"I miss them too, and I miss you-so much." Gale could feel himself getting emotional, the months of not talking to her and finally hearing her voice overwhelming him.
"I miss you too." He hears a hint of sadness in her voice.
"I love you" he says sweetly.
"I love you too Gale" he still hears the faint sound of saltiness in her voice.
He feels he has to say something before hanging up, something to make this awkwardness go away.
"Dez, you know you don't have to be jealous of Katniss right?"
She scoffs and says, "Hard not to be when the man you are going to marry leaves you for four months to go protect an old flame."
"You know Katniss was never an old flame. We were never really together, unless you count the few days at her house recovering after I got whipped. But after she found out about the Quarter Quell she distanced herself from me and things between us were never the same. That window of opportunity closed a long, long time ago."
"You know what I think? I think she distanced herself from you because she knew she was probably going to die."
"Perhaps, but as you know once we were in District 13 the focus was Peeta. It was all about Peeta. Can we drop this now please?" He was tired and the last thing he wanted to do was argue with her.
"Yes-I'm sorry, I just, I miss you, and I've been crazy worrying."
"I know, I'm sorry baby but where I was at I couldn't make any phone calls. Only calls to the Capitol."
He hears her sigh, a happy sigh. He knows he has made things slightly better by calling her by her favorite pet name. She knows he never had pet names with any of his other girlfriends before. She doesn't know about the Catnip nickname, but Gale figured she didn't need to know, and besides, Katniss was never a girlfriend, no matter how much he wanted her to be back then.
"It's okay, I better let you go to sleep. I love you Gale."
"I love you too, I'll call again as soon as I can."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye Dez" he says before hanging up the phone.
The next morning Gale walked over to Katniss's room and was about to knock when she opened the door, startling him.
"Oh-sorry" she says as she sees him.
"It's okay, glad to see you are ready."
"Yep, for once I didn't have any trouble sleeping in the Capitol."
He nods forgetting she has never been to the Capitol since the rebellion. "I figured we could grab some quick food before heading over to the President's office."
"Okay" Katniss says as she follows Gale down the hall to a large eating area. They are greeted by servers who bring some pastries and fruit. They sit down at a two person table and quickly eat.
Katniss takes the opportunity to try small talk with Gale.
"So, how is your family?" she asks in a friendly manner.
Gale looks down at his plate while answering, "Good, my Mother, Vick, and Posy live in a townhouse about 10 minutes away from where I live. There are a lot of townhomes in District 2 since a lot of it had to be rebuilt. My Mother still cleans houses for a living. I tried to get her to take a job at the government building where I work but she declined. She says she didn't want to learn how to do office work." This doesn't surprise Katniss.
"Vick is what? 18 now?" Katniss asks.
"Yeah, and Posy is 12" Gale says.
"Wow, 12-I can't believe it."
Gale finally looked up at Katniss and smiled. "Yep, she's growing up fast. She's looking more and more like my mother."
Katniss smiled back. "And Rory?"
"He's 21 now and is living in District 4. After he finished schooling he decided he wanted to try to being a fisherman."
"Really? Katniss asked surprised. She felt a tint of sadness, Rory was only a year older than Prim. Prim would have been 20 if she will still alive.
"Yeah, I talked with him about joining Panem's military but he didn't want to do that. I think he wanted to get away and no longer be sharing a room with his brother. My Mom's place has only 3 bedrooms, but still way bigger and nicer than what we used to live in. I offered to let him live with me but he declined." Katniss was happy to hear Hazelle had a nice home to live in. She suspected Gale had a lot to do with that.
"So he got a job pretty quickly in District 4?" she asked.
"He did, luckily he let me help him with that. He stayed with your Mom actually for about two months before he saved up to get his own apartment."
Katniss went quiet. While she didn't talk to her Mother all that often, they at least chatted once a month. She was perturbed to hear that her mother never mentioned that Rory stayed with her.
Gale saw the look on Katniss's face and decided to change the subject. "How's Greasy Sae?"
"Good-same old, same old. Nothing really changes with her."
Gale laughed, "No, I guess it doesn't. I miss her."
"I think she misses you too, you sort of keep in touch with her right?" Katniss remembers back when she was still deeply depressed after Prim's death and one day out of the blue asking Greasy Sae where Gale was.
"A little, more so when the rebellion first ended. I write to her about once a year."
Katniss nodded while chewing on her food. She was not surprised to hear that Greasy Sae still wrote Gale and neglected to tell her. 'She knew I was with Peeta, why would she tell me, it's not like I ever asked about him after that day' she thought to herself.
"We better finish up." Gale said gulping down his juice. Katniss followed suit.
They proceeded to the top floor of the mansion. President Paylor resided on the entire floor. They were immediately greeted by guards once they got off the elevator. The guards escorted both of them into a waiting area. After about 5 minutes a staff member came out and said, "The President will see you now Miss Everdeen."
Katniss stood up and looked at Gale who nodded at her to go on. She then turned and walked with the staff member into the President's office.
"Thank you" Katniss said to the staff member as they closed the door behind them.
"Katniss, how nice it is to see you again. It has been too long." President Paylor extended her hand for Katniss to shake. Katniss accepted the greeting with caution.
Paylor noticed her uneasiness. "Please—sit" she said extending her arm out over to a couch.
Katniss sat on the very edge of the couch with Paylor sitting down on the other side.
"What can I help you with?" Paylor said getting right to the point. She knew Katniss wasn't much for small talk.
"I want to talk about the cameras in the wild territory."
Paylor nodded and said, "Yes, I figured you would have questions about that."
"I sure do have questions. Why is the Capitol spying on the Native's? They have done nothing to you."
"First thing I want to tell you is, the cameras were already there by the time I got to the Capitol. It was one of the first things Heavensbee showed me when I got here."
Plutarch Heavensbee. Now that's someone Katniss hadn't thought of in quite a while. She knew Paylor had appointed him Secretary of Communications after the war.
"How long have the cameras been there?" Katniss asked.
"I'm not sure exactly, but I think the stationary cameras were set up during the first rebellion, before the dark days. I think once the rebellion happened, the Capitol decided to keep closer tabs on the Native's. They didn't want to risk the Native's joining forces with the Districts. I assume they placed the cameras at night into the trees of the 5 tribes."
Katniss again caught how Paylor said 5 tribes. She continued to remain quiet concerning that.
"Why didn't you take them down?"
"I thought about it, but, I decided to keep them up because I thought it was in the Native's best interest"
"Best interest how?" Katniss asked incredulously.
"Keep in mind we were rebuilding here. Some of the district were in ruins. Not everyone was happy, especially with the rebellion. Small opposition groups started to form. The electric fences were turned off. People were free to roam all throughout Panem and beyond. I wanted to keep observation on the Native's to ensure no harm came to them."
"What? If the Natives were being attacked you were just going to send a hovercraft in and rescue them? They can take care of themselves just fine."
"I'm sure they can."
Katniss stared at Paylor. She wanted to believe she was telling the truth and part of her did believe it. But a part of her also told her to keep cautious.
"So there was no wanting to keep the camera's on due to fear of them returning to Panem and trying to take back what was theirs?"
"No. I assumed they didn't know about the second rebellion and the collapse of the Capitol. How could they have?"
Katniss became angry, she knew Paylor was lying. "Rainbow Bridgewater. I know you know who she is!"
Paylor looked down at the floor, not saying a word. Katniss shook her head and got up to leave saying, "I see my gut was right after all. This new Panem is anything but new, it is just as corrupt as it always was. Only now there is no more games."
"Katniss wait" Paylor said loudly.
Katniss stopped by the door and turned around. "What?" she asked impatiently.
"I know you think I can't be trusted and I don't blame you, but will you hear me out?"
Katniss put her hands on her hips and said, "I'm listening."
"I didn't mention your friend, because I didn't think you were aware we knew about her."
"I knew, Gale told me."
"Well, I am a little surprised he did that."
"Then you don't know Gale as well as you thought you did. He knows not to lie to me."
"I didn't lie to you. We didn't know about Miss Brigewater until after we saw you at the village on the video surveillance. I truly thought that the Native's didn't know about the rebellion. We just did brief monitoring of the Natives, after looking at some older camera footage after we discovered who Miss Bridgewater was we noticed that when she would come to the village, she had already changed into their attire. We never knew she was a resident of Panem when we saw her before."
Katniss's anger eased up. What Paylor said made sense, perhaps it is how Rain was able to slip under Snow's watch for all those years. Rain did look a lot like the members of the tribe. When in their clothing, she didn't look like someone from Panem. But then something occurred to her.
"If you saw me on video footage, how did you know Rain was a resident of Panem?"
"Your friend Haymitch informed us."
"Haymitch?" Katniss asked quizzically.
"Yes-he was the one who informed Commander Hawthorne and me that you were in the wild territory."
"Why would he do that?" Katniss knew that Haymitch periodically went to the Capitol to visit his friends, but she didn't know he was in contact with Paylor and Gale.
"Haymitch has always known about the militia groups, he was concerned after you left District 12 for your safety and came to us for help."
Katniss absorbed this information. All this time Haymitch knew her life was potentially in danger and he didn't say anything. She didn't know how to feel.
"How was it I was safe in District 12? As you mentioned, people can go anywhere they want in Panem now."
"Commander Hawthorne set up surveillance in District 12 after hearing about these groups when he first started as a government official. We were always watching District 12's borders, and Commander Hawthorne said everyone he saw come into District 12 over the years were former residents. The militia groups knew they could never get to you in District 12. That's why they came to the wild territory the minute they found out you left."
Katniss didn't know what to say. She couldn't believe Gale had done that for her. To learn he was still looking out for her after all this time.
Finally she said, "And Haymitch knew this?"
"Yes."
"How did the Jay Killers find out I left?"
"Unfortunately someone working for us was a militia supporter and happened to see you in the village from the camera footage. However, because this person was new, he sent the Jay Killers in the wrong direction. That's why they never found you."
'Some of them found me' she thought to herself. But she wasn't about to get into that discussion with Paylor at this moment. Obviously Gale didn't tell her about what happened.
"Is anyone else working here secretly one of them?"
"Well, we can't be too sure, but I think we have figured out who most of them were. We have dealt with them."
Katniss nodded. Hearing about traitors being dealt with made her suddenly remember something else she wanted to talk to Paylor about.
"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about before I go."
"Okay" Paylor said waiting for her to continue.
"It's about the two soldiers that came back with Gale's group."
"Yes, the two soldiers who ran off and destroyed one of our hovercrafts, almost killing the pilot."
"What will happen to them?"
"We have a hearing officer who will decide what will happen to them."
"What do you think will happen?
"Most likely sentence both of them to serve 5-10 years in our military prison for abandoning their post and attempted murder along with destruction of military property."
"Where is the military prison?" Katniss asked with urgency in her voice.
"In District 13 actually, above ground."
"Really?" Katniss asked in disbelief.
"Yes-we built it after the war. We figured it was far enough away and close enough to military weapons should we need it. We still have District 13's weapons underground."
"Is there any way you would consider pardoning solider Barnes?"
"Which one is that?"
"The younger woman. Your hearing officer will probably need to interview her, but if I had to guess, I am betting the other soldier-Green was the one whose idea it was to set off those bombs."
"Why do you want me to pardon someone who abandoned their mission and almost murdered someone?"
"She abandoned the mission because Gale found out she was pregnant and was going to send her back here. She was scared. And when they set those bombs off they probably thought it would at least take down the hovercraft, I heard that the bomb went off right in front of it, it didn't directly go into it."
"Setting off a bomb is still setting off a bomb" Paylor said in a matter of fact tone.
"I know-look, I am just asking instead of sending her to this military prison for the next 5-10 years to dismiss her and let her go home."
"You do know the prison time would be a lot longer if the pilot had died."
"Yes, I'm aware of that."
"You don't care what happens to the father-Green?"
"Like I said, I am betting the bomb idea was his."
"But you don't know that for sure."
"Find out, if I'm right, will you consider it?"
Paylor looked at Katniss suspiciously. "I still don't understand why you care what happens to her."
"Because—Barnes—she's Rue's sister. I don't know if you remember Rue, but she was the youngest tribute in my first games."
"I remember, you two formed an alliance and she was killed by the boy from District 1."
"Yes. Rue was special to me. She reminded me of my sister. I felt like I had to protect her while in the arena."
"And you felt you didn't?" Paylor asked.
"Well I tried as best I could."
"Yes you did, you did the best you could have done. Don't forget that."
"Thank you. But I still want to try to do right by Rue."
"By saving her family from additional heartache?"
"Yes" Katniss responded.
Paylor was quiet for a few moments, thinking about what Katniss told her. "Alright, I will try to find out more information and will consider your request. But if she is dismissed, she can never return to Panem's military or the Capitol."
"Fair enough, thanks for hearing me out."
"Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"Yes-one last thing-I need the coordinates for the other cameras in the other 3 villages, they need to be taken down as well."
"And you want our help taking them down?"
"Yes."
"Any way you will reconsider this request? By taking the cameras down, we cannot help the Natives should they need it."
"No—I told you, they can take care of themselves, besides, now that two of the tribes know the others will find out eventually."
"Very well. I suppose it's the least we can do since Panem's founders pushed them out of here in the first place. I will give Commander Hawthorne's group the coordinates. You can use the hovercraft I provided to the squad."
"Thank you" Katniss extended her hand to Paylor who gladly shook it.
While Katniss walked out she felt more at ease concerning Paylor. A lot of things made sense now, as shocking as some of it was.
When she walked out into the hallway she saw Gale and Haymitch talking intently. Neither one looked happy.
"Haymitch!" Katniss cried.
Haymitch suddenly turned from Gale and looked towards Katniss's voice, he smiled and said, "Why hello sweetheart."
