Chapter 7: Quarter Quell
It's a few weeks after the wedding. Peeta and I have begun to settle into our new life as husband and wife. Cooking with Peeta, kissing him, sleeping with him, I wonder why or how I ever thought that marriage could be something I would shun. My husband and I have developed a deep love, understanding and intimacy that allows us to be best friends and lovers both. My family is only a mile or son down the road up on Victors' Hill, my sister happy and safe. I have everything I could ever want.
I wish I could say the same for Peeta. He hides it well, but I know he misses his parents. The Witch cast her youngest son out of the Bakery and the family upon his marrying me. Peeta mainly bakes for friends of ours in the Seam now; he's been discussing setting up a venture in the Hob. Both of his brothers have thankfully stood by our marriage and accepted me, but I can tell not having contact with at least his father weighs heavily on my beloved's mind.
One evening near the end of April, I am giggling at Peeta's attempts to distract me from sorting through our daily mail. This is mostly done through deep kisses and feeling me up, fondling my breasts. And while I enjoy the attention, I nonetheless have to tear myself away from kissing him back, laughing gaily as his lips dip into the soft curve of my neck.
"Peeta!... Stop…. I… I have to read this from my sister." I use the letter opener to slice the envelope, taking the missive out from Prim. I feel Peeta's large arms encircle me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder.
"What does she say?"
I purse my very-kissed lips. "Dinner in the Village tonight. Haymitch is hosting."
Peeta's face immediately falls. "At Haymitch's? That doesn't sound good." His delivery of this in a dry, horrified deadpan sends me into peals of giggles. It only grows when I see how seriously my husband performs an about-face towards the oven. "I'd best get a loaf rising if we're to have anything edible."
I've never interacted with my sister's mentor all that much, and the interactions we have embarked on mostly occurred after my sister's Victory and after I was married. But Haymitch did use to come in and guest lecture our Hunger Games History class when Peeta and I were in school. His actions during these moments left much to be desired, all the worse because his reputation precedes him.
From the letters Prim writes me, it is clear that her and Mother's presence in the Village has done Haymitch some good, or so she wants to believe. She might not be able to change the man's drinking habits, but I think having neighbors for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century has made Haymitch feel less lonely, and thus, less surly.
That's good, because I've never really liked the drunk very much. It was almost a relief that my marriage and Justice Building housing policy dictate that I move into an assigned dwelling with my new husband. For the brief time that I lived in the Village with Mother and Prim, Haymitch wasn't exactly a model neighbor. And while I can't prove it, I've always suspected that Haymitch was opposed to my marrying so young – I'm now only days away from my 17th birthday, and most young people in Twelve wait to get married at 18, after all of their Reapings are over and at what is technically considered the district age of consent. Peeta and I hadn't wanted to wait, and had gotten around the law thanks to a stipulation that two people can get married younger than 18, provided they each have the written consent of at least one parent/legal guardian. Mother had granted her permission for me to marry; from what I understand, Rye actually took a huge risk and forged his father's signature on behalf of Peeta, likely figuring that the Baker was less likely to raise a challenge to our marriage than his wife would.
Balmy weather is finally beginning to return to Twelve as my husband and I step out into the evening air, Peeta carrying a breadpan in his arms. Looping my elbow through his, we pass through the streets of our home smiling at each other and laughing, kissing every handful of steps.
We stroll past the gates of the Victors' Village, set high on an embankment commonly referred to as Victors' Hill. An orange mangy lump of fur is curled on one of the stone stantions and it hisses at me in a threatened way as we stride past.
I shoot old Buttercup a glare. "I'll still cook you. I have a husband to feed now."
Peeta just laughs and kisses the scowl right off my lips. "We can feed each other just as well, my love, without resorting to cat meat."
"Hmm," I demure, perching on my tiptoes to kiss him softly in return. "True. Very true."
Prim actually answers Haymitch's door when we knock, nearly taking the wind out of me as she throws her arms around my middle. I smile, never failing to be enamored by her, as she chitters to me and her brother-in-law excitedly. Peeta lifts up the breadpan.
"We figured we would need to intervene to…. spice up the menu."
Prim takes the breadpan gratefully. "Thank the State! Haymitch can't cook worth a damn."
"Primrose Cyan!" I admonish, my grey eyes bulging at her foul tongue. "Language."
To my dismay, and in a reminder of how she's becoming more and more like a teenager, my baby sister merely shrugs. "Mama's helping him," and she turns and flounces into the foyer, leaving us to follow. Prim continues to talk to us as we pass through to the kitchen.
"Katty, you look a little peckish."
I turn to my lover, lifting an eyebrow. "Where did she get an idea like that?"
"Where did she ever get a word like that?" Peeta wittily parries back, blue orbs twinkling. "Peckish, indeed…"
Prim hears us, turning about and noticing how I happen to be holding my stomach. She observes the posture with unusual curiosity. "Are you going to have a baby?" she asks me, sounding like a little girl again with her voice small and her gaze impossibly hopeful.
My husband and I glance to each other, sharing a meaningful look before I turn back to Prim and smile weakly, sadly, as I answer honestly, "No niece or nephew for you. I'm sorry."
Prim tries to hide how disappointed she looks by shrugging my lack of impending motherhood off. "Someday," she holds out. "Perhaps someday…"
I feel Peeta's hand at the small of my back dip lower to cup my rear as his breath tickles my earlobe suggestively. "Poor Primmy. We could always try to oblige her by putting a bun in that oven…"
"Not in my family's house, Peeta!" I admonish, though it lacks any real bite. He merely chortles, and I swat him on the arm just before we emerge into the dining room.
Haymitch Abernathy is already slouched in his chair, Mother fussing over him as she serves what is clearly her cooking, in that it looks to be a passable meal. "Katty, dear! Peeta! You made it!" She circles the table to give us each a hug.
"Hi, Mother," I smile weakly. I beam beatifically as Peeta gentlemanly pulls out my chair for me. Haymitch liberally pours the wine, with apple cider for Prim.
"Want some, Sweetheart?"
I breathe in deeply even as I try to smile genuinely at the man who had a hand in saving my sister's life. "Just water, please, Haymitch."
He leans back, eyes giving me the once-over. "Really? Any particular reason?"
My grin, already tight, dips into an annoyed frown. "I'm not pregnant, Haymitch."
He hisses through his underbite, lifting hands in surrender. "No one's saying that you are, girl…." Directly opposite me, Mother looks a little crestfallen.
"It's OK to tell us, dear. It might be early yet, but…"
"I said I'm not pregnant, Mama!" I blast out a little too harshly. Next to me, Peeta diplomatically extracts himself from the awkward conversation by taking a hearty sip of wine.
I sigh as the grating sound of talking heads coverage on the TV in the sitting room one over reaches my ears. "Primrose, honey, be a dear and turn the volume down, will you? Better yet, unless it's Mandatory Viewing, turn it off!"
Prim is just pushing her chair back when Caesar Flickerman's voice wafts in: "And don't go away now, folks! Tonight we are going to be broadcasting a special announcement on Mandatory Viewing, regarding the upcoming 75th Hunger Games! The 3rd Quarter Quell!"
I slump in my seat a little. "Damnit."
"What will they do?" Prim asks each of us in turn, head going from person to person. "It isn't for months yet."
"You and Haymitch will have to mentor, Primmy. That's really all you need to know," Peeta tries to soothe her. Next to my husband, Haymitch is now staring down his half-empty bottle of liquor like he wants to climb inside it and take a nap. Across from me, Mother is biting her lip.
"It must be the Reading of the Card."
I try to think back to what I learned about the Quarter Quells in school. In our Hunger Games History curriculum, there wasn't much on the subject, seeing as there have only been two of them. The Quarter Quell is special edition of the Games held once every twenty-five years. I've never been alive for one, but Mother has, as the last time a Quell was held, she wasn't much younger than I am and it was the year District 12's very own Haymitch Abernathy won the Crown.
We finish our meal mostly in silence before traipsing in to the sitting room one by one to watch the Mandatory Viewing. Haymitch nearly braces the armrest in his desire to keep off to himself, not looking at any of us. Prim leans against his legs while criss-crossed on the floor. I sit in Peeta's lap, straddling him, ignoring how Mother is giving our public display a rather disapproving look. I just lean against my husband, listening to the steady beat of his heart as he holds me, turning my head back to take in the screen.
President Snow is now taking the podium, reading off the past special twists that have defined the previous two Quells. Whatever this Reading of the Card is, I have a feeling we are going to learn the twist that will befall the tributes my sister and our resident drunk will have to mentor.
"On the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder that it was the rebels' choice to initiate violence, each district was made to hold a special election, and vote on the tributes who would represent it."
I wonder what that would have been like. Picking the kids who had to go. It is worse, I think, to be handed over by your own neighbors than the whims of the Reaping Ball.
"On the fiftieth anniversary, as a reminder that two rebels died for every Capitol citizen, the districts were required to send twice as many tributes."
I instantly try to imagine facing a field of forty-seven instead of twenty-three. But the man sitting on the opposite end of the couch did, and he alone came back alive. I find myself peering at Haymitch with a tad more respect.
"And now we honor our Third Quarter Quell…." Snow accepts an envelope marked with a 75 from a pageboy, the envelope selected from an ornate wooden box. Whoever chartered the Hunger Games must have envisioned centuries of them. Lifting the flap, and pulling the Card out, Snow reads:
"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes are to be Reaped from their existing pool of Victors. Every living Victor is to present themselves on Reaping Day regardless of age or health…"
I can't hear the rest, the blood is roaring so loudly in my ears. A bellow of betrayal from Haymitch soon joins the white noise assaulting my brain, followed by a shatter, as he hurls his beer bottle – still partially full – at the television screen. I can feel Peeta trying to hold onto me, kiss me, caress me, calm me down with his soothing words, and I squirm to get free, wriggling off his lap and pelting out of the mansion. I only get to so far as the fountain in the center of the Village's green before I collapse, wailing and sobbing. It is as if I have been gangpressed into the arena myself.
But no. It is my sister. My sweet little sister, who now has to compete for District 12 a second time, against tributes who will all be much older than her, guaranteed. At barely 13, she will be the youngest Victor in history when she goes back in this summer. And she has to – with Lucy Gray Baird long dead, she is the only living female Victor from District 12. Only this time, she will be competing not with my late, capable hunting partner, but a washed-up drunk already past his prime at only 41.
I hear the crunch of gravel behind me as I sense my stalwart husband come up behind me. His hand, calloused and large and strong, comes to rest on my shoulder. I don't throw him off.
"Katty girl…"
The sound of his pet name for me is all it takes to set me off, and I stagger to my feet while bawling hysterically. I'm hyperventilating, and Peeta wordlessly gathers me into his arms and holds me, rocking me.
"I can't lose her again, Peeta! Am I…. Am I going to lose her again?! Are we going to lose her… to lose…." I come apart on his shoulder. When my sobs have finally subsided into sniffles, Peeta takes me by my shoulders and leans me back in our embrace, so he can kiss away the tears on my eyelids, then my wet cheeks, then my lips.
"We won't. But if either Prim or Haymitch is going to come home Victor again, they're going to have to approach this a little differently. They'll have to train – like Careers. And we're going to help them."
And so we do. Every morning from the end of April until the first days of July – a little more than two months – my husband and I join my mother in helping the only two residents of District 12's Victors' Village train to become tributes once again. I give instruction in archery and hunting. Peeta conducts a weight lifting and wrestling class. Mother cooks her youngest child and former classmate healthy meals. Prim and Haymitch even try their hands at being both teachers as well as students. My sister is able to demonstrate to her future district partner all her training in Healing, and then apply it all in reverse. What's the best artery to cut to ensure a bleed-out? Things like that. As for Haymitch, he offers knife-throwing lessons, despite the fact that in his retirement, he can no longer hit the broadside of a barn with one. The man is still remarkably strong, but the shortest run winds him.
From far away in the Capitol, Effie Trinket does her part. She sends us by mail the videotapes of every living Victor Haymitch and Prim might have to face. Also included in the care packages are polls of the Capitol citizenry showing the District 12 Victors up among the favorites to seize the Crown all over again. There are T-charts, breaking down the districts' existing pools of Victors by gender. These in particular make me wince. District 12 may not be the only one barely scraping up one male and one female Victor, but we're certainly offering up the pair of tributes who will be the most diametrically opposed: a 40-something drunk who hasn't entirely kicked the bottle and a 13-year-old tweenie who hasn't yet had her period.
And now they're going to be in an arena filled with Haymitch's old friends and may very well fail in trying to kill our outlast them all.
The day of the Reaping that summer dawns hot and sultry. I desperately wish I could go to Victors' Village and have one last moment alone with my Prim, but I know the Peacekeepers will be watching her and Haymitch closely.
Just before the appointed hour, Peeta and I dress sullenly and then head down to meet Mother in the Square. My relief at my husband and I being given a freebie, safe for another year, is barely registered against the sheer panic I feel for my sister. To have her, only to lose her again.
Haymitch and Prim are escorted into the Square under heavy guard and directed up onto the stage before the Justice Building, where they stand alone. Clad in a golden wig, Effie Trinket lacks her usual verve. "Welcome! …. Welcome. On this the 75th anniversary, the Third Quarter Quell, of the Hunger Games. As always: … ladies first."
Effie's voice bobbles only slightly at this, while she crosses to the leftmost Reaping Bowl, the one for the girls that now holds a single slip of paper that everyone already knows has my sister's name on it. Effie unfurls it. "The female tribute from District 12…. Primrose Everdeen."
I watch as a solitary tear blazes a path down my sister's cheek. She looks despondently to Haymitch, who merely nods bravely. The old drunk is shaking profusely, by now deep into withdrawal from the bottle. Oh, Snow's Roses…. Once he's in the arena… this is going to be a disaster!
"Wonderful!" Effie squeaks. "And now for the men."
Like before, she crosses to the men's Reaping Bowl, and fishes for the one slip of paper that everyone knows bears the name of –
"The male tribute from District 12…. Haymitch Abernathy." Effie's breath is shaky and filled with emotion as she finishes reading, and Haymitch takes his place at my sister's side. "Your tributes from District 12: Primrose Everdeen… and Haymitch Abernathy."
A tense, simmering silence, boiling low with anger.
"Well, all that remains is…."
I do it without thinking. Pressing three fingers to my lips, I hold them aloft. Mother and Peeta soon copy me, starting a chain reaction until everyone's fingers are lifted on high, across the whole Square.
Screams and cries go up as Peacekeepers move into the crowd. I try to fight upstream, yelling for my sister as hands seize both her and Haymitch and drag the Victors into the Justice Building.
"Prim! ….. PRIM!"
I muscle through and break into a run, but not fast enough to reach the oak doors before they close. I am left to pound on the doors, screaming and crying and wailing, but they won't open to me, nor anyone else.
And my heart breaks as I realize: this time, I won't get to say goodbye…. I didn't even get to say goodbye…
The course of the next week that Prim and Haymitch are back in the Capitol, being prepped to be tributes once again, is nearly unbearable.
I'm largely able to get through it thanks to support from both Peeta and Mother. Delly, my sister-in-law, also always makes sure to stay close to me, coming right up to the edge of hovering and sometimes Rye has to pull her back. Still, it's nice to have a girlfriend and a shoulder to cry on besides.
Much of the Reaping recaps leave me feeling… cautiously optimistic. Like last year, only between a third and half of the field are considered legitimate contenders, and the stakes are all the higher because these are past Victors – national celebrities – making a run for the Victors' Crown once again. Many others, sadly, are so wasted by illness or substance abuse that I can't place them, much less see them as anything other than cannon fodder.
The Capitol media makes big hay out of the polls they've been taking of their citizenry. Opinion surveys show both Prim and Haymitch in the thick or front of the pack among the favorites.
The parade down the Avenue of Tributes is cringe-worthy, except for the Careers – now seen as having a strong fifth member of their pack in Finnick Odair, the handsome pretty boy from District 4 who won a decade ago at the age of 14 – as well as some players from the high-numbered districts. But it is my sister and her mentor who really manage to save the night, coming out in flaming accents and looking as stone-faced as vengeful gods. The audience eats them up. Haymitch even looks as though he cleaned up really good. Whether he's sobered up is another question entirely.
The following four days while the Victor-tributes are in training pass by as slow as molasses. But when the training score returns are announced, Prim and Haymitch both make Hunger Games History: unprecedented scores of twelve for them both. They even outclass Finnick and the other Careers, who score 9s and 10s. Low to medium for the rest.
Only in the interviews do we see how disturbing, even… controversial this Quell twist is. Cashmere, the woman from 1, sobs about losing all her fans. Beetee, the man from 3, questions the legality of the Quell. Seeder and Chaff, the Victors from 11, openly postulate that President Snow is all-powerful so why not use that power to change the Quell – he could if he wanted to, but he must not think it matters much to anyone.
This thinly veiled sedition is mixed in with clear lessons in substance abuse: drunks like the man from Five. Morphling addicts such as duo from District 6. Then there are those who are clearly emotionally unglued or mentally compromised. Mags, the old woman from Four who clearly had a stroke some time ago, can clearly articulate only one or two words in every sentence. Johanna Mason, the woman from 7 who won a few years back by pretending to be a weakling, cusses the audience out. Cecelia, a young mother from Eight, breaks down weeping over her three little children, setting every patriotic Capitol mother in the studio audience on edge. Her district partner, Woof, abruptly wanders off the stage in the middle of his interview and just… doesn't come back.
By the time we get to the little girl and recovering alcoholic from Twelve, the audience is an absolute wreck. People have been weeping and collapsing and even dangerously calling for change all night, so that the sight of Prim practically causes a riot. Caesar focuses much of his time on expressing regret that the angelic little girl who stole the nation's heart did not have as much time to live her life – nearly all of it still ahead of her – as had been assumed.
"Did you get to be with your sister? Were you able to say goodbye to her?"
Prim smiles sadly, her dramatic timing perfect. "Yes, Caesar, I did have time with her. Though I didn't get to say goodbye exactly. Katniss is married now, to a kind, wonderful man. I'm so... deliriously happy for them, knowing that they'll be together. And I wouldn't have any regrets at all, if… if it weren't…"
"If what? If it weren't for what?" Caesar holds his breath.
"…. If it weren't for the baby!" Prim chokes out just ahead of a convincing sob. "My little niece or nephew I'll never get to see!"
In the Square, Peeta and I shoot each other a look and just as quickly avert our gazes, lest the cameras are on us and pick up on what I hope are in fact not rather obvious facial cues. Baby? There's no baby!
But as I can clearly now see, whether Prim's claim of her sister's pregnancy is true or not might not matter. The audience starts moaning like wounded animals, Caesar calling for calm and attempting to show happier pictures of Prim and our family: Prim with the Victors' Crown on her head. Prim on her Victory Tour. A shot of Peeta and I kissing happily on our wedding day, with Prim very prominent in the background and beaming with pride as Maid of Honor.
But the picture that really chills my bones is one of me, tugging and pounding on the closed Justice Building doors, tear tracks streaming down my face.
Haymitch does nothing to stamp out the fuse that has clearly been lit. He attempts a convincing act as an embittered man who hates that he could only save one child out of the 48 that have been placed under his care – enough to have filled up the entire Quell arena from which he emerged triumphant. By the time his buzzer sounds, Caesar's entire choreographed night has completely fallen apart.
And then the Victors actually, in a brazen act of defiance and solidarity, start holding hands.
It makes for a powerful image, even if you ignore the deliberate break in the pattern of two men at the end, and though the Capitol tries to cut the feed, it is too late. All of Panem has seen.
I climb the stairs to the viewing platform the next morning on no sleep, my husband supporting me emotionally and physically, fearing the worst. Prim and Haymitch, along with 22 others, are launched into an arena topped off with a Cornucopia on a rocky spoke in the middle of a miniature sea. Heart in my mouth, I pick out my sister like a heat-seeking missile and keep my gaze on her, wishing for all the world that I was there with her to support her, to love her, to protect her. It's only small comfort that Prim knows how to swim, Daddy and Mother having taught us in the lake beyond the Meadow when we were little. Thanks to our training, Haymitch knows how too.
Somehow, both Prim and Haymitch swim for shore, even make an alliance with Finnick and Mags, and escape the bloodbath.
It isn't long at all before whatever détente the Victors had during the interviews dies, and still shorter before these champions start dropping like flies.
The tributes from Twelve don't give up, and after close to three days, there are only three tributes left: Prim, Haymitch, and the large man from 2, Brutus, who had volunteered for the arena quite eagerly. On the Cornucopia island, my sister and her mentor confront their last enemy, the tribute from Two once again, in a brave last stand.
Haymitch lands a couple of hits, weakening Brutus, but he ultimately goes down while we all watch and weep. Prim, in a fit of rage, scrabbles up the body of the huge man from 2 with a knife…
…. and kills him. She manages to stab him again and again in critical places, before scrambling away and letting him bleed out. Death by a thousand cuts. Brutus lets out a roar of defiance as he goes down and twitches through his death rattle before growing still.
I scream and sob, crumpling in relief. "YES! YES!" But just as Claudius Templesmith is announcing Primrose Everdeen as the Victor of the 75th Hunger Games, Victor for the second year running -
…. the feed cuts out. Then seconds later, the ground begins to shake. Followed by a building barely a hundred yards from us at the edge of the Square suddenly bursting into flames.
"FIREBOMBS! RUN! HIT THE DECK!"
Pandemonium breaks out as people stampede to get out of the Square. Peeta grabs my hand and pulls me into his side, not letting me out of his sight. Rye and Delly are not far behind. Somehow, we find Mother in the crowd, my husband taking the lead. He begins to direct people through the cobblestone streets of Town and to the Seam, leading them to the district's outskirts in the hopes that, if the bombs are rolling in from the west, maybe we can outpace them. Get to the trees… and perhaps safety.
"EVERYONE, TO THE MEADOW! THIS WAY!"
With Peeta leading the charge, a swell of several hundred people makes a mad dash for the district fence and the Meadow. Some at the head of the queue fault over, crawl under, but the bodies are pressing in against the barbed wire too hard, too fast. The surge of humanity pressing in on the barrier finally causes the structure to buckle and we trample over it underfoot. It's a miracle we don't stampede over any of our fellow neighbors as well in the panic.
We break through and flee across the Meadow to the treeline. Through the smoky haze, I see the strong frame of a man, waving us forward, and for a moment, I fear that I've seen a ghost.
"Gale," I breathe.
"COME ON!" Rory Hawthorne is shouting for us to sprint faster.
We hit the treeline in surging rows, Madge Undersee standing next to Rory and waving people forward like an umpire. Behind us, the sky glows red with fire and smoke. Once I see my loved ones safely into the trees, I also pause with my friends to help direct others.
"Is that everyone?!" Rory hollers.
Madge nods. "Everyone who came this direction, anyway. Others were running for the gates outside Lucy Gray."
Rory looks horrified. "Those gates are sealed tight! They'll never get through!"
Madge takes a deep breath. "Then someone has to warn them. Pick up stragglers." She starts forward, but Rory grabs her arm.
"Undersee, are you insane?!"
The Mayor's daughter gazes at him solemnly. "Someone has to help."
Rory looks like he wants to fight her on it, but Madge just smiles sadly. "Go."
Rory stumbles back, grabbing for my other hand and with Peeta, we disappear into the trees, leaving our home behind as it burns to the ground.
Three months later, the war is over.
The rebels take the Capitol city in a brazen assault, marching up and through the gates of the presidential mansion. Snow is captured and executed, and President Alma Coin, the conquering hero, is inaugurated as his successor. The Hunger Games are declared abolished, and refugees are encouraged to return to their homelands if they so wish.
My mother, my sister, my husband and I all return to District 12 by train, pulling into Lucy Gray Baird station and a land that has been razed and flattened, looking like a ghost town. Also on the journey home with us are Rye and Delly Mellark, my sister-in-law's belly great with child. At six months along, Mother and Prim spent much of the train ride coaching a nervous Delly on what to expect.
The only structures that appear to have been spared are the mansions in the Victors' Village, and the first batch of refugees returning to Twelve set up shop in the furnished homes. Peeta and I move in with Mother and Prim, into the mansion they stayed in for just a year. Only Haymitch's mansion stands empty, as Prim demanded; my sister intends to turn it into a memorial/museum to her old mentor.
"Let me help you with the bags, Mama…" Peeta is gallant in assisting my mother up the front steps and into our new home. I smile tenderly at the sight, even as I fret, my blue dress swishing at my ankles.
After supper, I finally work up the nerve to steal my husband away in private, onto our front porch so we can be alone. Wrapping my arms about his waist, I suddenly find that studying the buttons on his dress shirt is incredibly interesting.
"I… I have something to tell you…" And I lift my grey orbs to meet his blue ones, trembling slightly, my smile weak. "…. I'm pregnant."
There is a prolonged moment of silence, which I spend anxiously searching my husband's eyes. "Say something!" I beg.
I nearly melt when I notice the tears beginning to stream down my husband's cheeks.
"I…. I love you! Congratulations!" He sweeps me into his arms.
I smile, and we embrace, kissing passionately as stars twinkle above us in the nighttime sky….
Five Years Later
They play in the Meadow. The little boy with brown hair and blue eyes trying to keep up on long, chubby legs with his big sister of fairer skin, light hair and grey eyes. On a picnic blanket out in the Meadow, the skirts of my sundress fan out around me as I rock Peeta's and my infant son, asleep at my breast. Carrying a third child was easier, but not by much.
The district has been rebuilt now, with Prim elected as the Mayor. Mother seems ambivalent about living in the reconstructed Justice Building, now as the closest thing to our District's First Lady; she runs her Healing business out of her and Prim's former home in the Village.
The Meadow is where many of the dead from the firebombings after the Quell have been buried. Sometimes either Peeta or I will wake in the middle of the night from a terror. We soothe each other when it does happen, and often find comfort in making relieved, anguished love. Peeta, my dandelion in the spring, tells me we'll be OK – we have each other.
At my breast, my baby boy suddenly awakes, stirring as he begins to cry.
"Oh…. Sssssh…. Sssssh…." I bounce him, rock him, brushing a finger along his chin as I croon down at him. "Did you have a nightmare? I have nightmares too. So does your Daddy. Someday I'll – we'll – explain it to you. Why they came…. Why they won't ever go away… But I'll tell you how we survive it. Daddy and I make lists in our heads, of all the good things we've seen someone do. Every little thing I can remember… It's like a game: I do it over and over. Gets a little tedious after all these years, but…. there are much worse Games to play."
