As we reach the last days of December, the already heavily falling snow only increases. It seems that a blizzard is hitting 12, because we've been blanketed in snow for days, and each morning when we think it can't possibly get heavier than it was the previous day, we find ourselves proven wrong. On this particular morning, I sit on the window seat in my and Peeta's bedroom, looking out at the flurry of white and grey that is encompassing our entire world.
"It's really coming down out there, huh?" I hear Peeta's voice say. I turn my head away from the window to see him step out of the bathroom, a towel slung low over his hips and his body still wet from his recent shower. I nod, and can't help the smile that creeps over my lips as I take in his form. He catches me looking and wiggles his eyebrows in a goofy, semi-suggestive way that makes me snort and roll my eyes.
"Put some clothes on," I fake heckle. Peeta chuckles lightly as he turns towards his dresser and searches for whatever sweater of choice is warm enough for the day. He doesn't get cold that easily, so the fact that even he needs to bundle up is telling. I'm wearing the thickest knit cardigan that I have on top of two layers of shirts, and I'm still a little cold. I slip some wool socks on my feet before padding downstairs. Peeta follows me down soon after. He moves towards the door and throws on a jacket before double knotting his boots.
"Are you trying to get to the bakery?" I ask him, surprised he's going to attempt the trek in weather like this.
"I feel like I should," Peeta says. "It'll be busy today - if people expect the snow to get worse, they'll want to buy bread on the off chance we end up stuck in our homes. It might be a lot for Albie to handle on his own."
I nod, but I feel a little anxious. His logic makes sense, and I know conceptually there is very little actual risk in him going. But so many times I've thought something would be safe, someone would be safe, and I was dead wrong. My fear is so elementally out of proportion that I don't want to stop him, though.
"Are you okay?" Peeta asks me, clearly reading the worry on my face. I do my best to master myself and fix my expression.
"Mhmm," I say, nodding.
"You sure?" he asks. "Because I don't have to -"
"Peeta, it's fine," I say, cutting him off. I do mean it, despite my nervousness. My anxiety is for such a stupid reason, and it shouldn't stop him from working. "Just be careful, and don't be back too late."
"Of course," he says, giving me a kiss. "I love you."
"I love you too," I say, before waving him out the door. I watch him start trudging through the snow and making his way towards town through the window.
As soon as he's gone from my view, I feel my chest tighten with worry. It's such an out of proportion reaction, but since the weather and the terrain pose some small chance of bringing him trouble, I am terrified about having him out of my sight. It's so ingrained in me that if I lose track of someone, something bad will happen. I wasn't with my father when the mine collapsed, I wasn't with Rue when she got trapped in the net, I wasn't with Peeta when the Capitol took him from the Arena, I wasn't with Prim when she boarded the medivac hovercraft that would lead her to her death.
I feel panic setting in, and I shake my head in an effort to clear it. I take several deep breaths, trying to remind myself how many worlds away we are from any of those situations. Peeta is not heading into the mines, or an Arena, or a warzone. There are no threats worth this much panic. I feel the need to keep my mind occupied elsewhere, so I set about making some hot chocolate to busy myself. It helps, but it doesn't fully eliminate the images of snow buckling the bakery roof and making it collapse in on Peeta just as the mines did my father.
I sip my drink and sit down in front of the TV, hoping to find something I can get lost in that will keep me distracted well enough to pass the time. Flipping around, nothing is close to compelling enough to alleviate my anxiety completely, but I stop on various shows for little bits of time in order to make the attempt. Unsurprisingly, though, my mind wanders. I find myself staring out the window frequently, as if I could somehow see any problems in town all the way from here, which is completely untrue.
I'm frustrated with myself; it's been a while since something this irrational has gotten to me to such an extent. I don't even really know why today is so much worse than the past few days. It's been snowing heavily for weeks now, and I've been totally fine. It's stupid to get so worked up over this. I hear a voice in my head that sounds a little like Peeta's attempting to tell me that some days are harder than others and that it's okay to feel however I need to feel, but I'm not okay with it. I hate it when I'm like this. I know that it's unavoidable, that sometimes I'll struggle with just getting through the day. The last time I felt so panicked, though, there was a reason. I haven't felt this bad since we left the Capitol. It feels completely and utterly disproportionate to be feeling nearly as anxious now because of some goddamn snow as I was when I had to speak on national television.
Beyond frustrated with the way the stupid flurry is impacting me, I throw on my hunting jacket and fling the door open angrily, filled with a blind determination that somehow if I feel it tacitly it will give me control back. It's overly optimistic, bordering on downright stupid, but for some reason it is the only idea I can process right now, and I'm set on it.
I don't even put on my boots, and instead just wander out into the snow in my socks. As soon as I step off the covered porch and onto the ground, they are soaked through and icy cold shoots from the tips of my toes all the way up to where the snow stops around my mid calf. It's so cold that it's almost painful, but I can quickly feel my toes start to go numb. As uncomfortable as it is, focussing on the physical sensation is helping me keep my mind away from the painful thoughts lurking in its crevices.
As I stand out here in the snow, in a way I'm sure would look thoroughly insane if anyone passed me, I think about how long it's been since 12 got a snow quite like this. I think the last time it was this intense was the winter before the Quell. Thinking back on that time only makes me feel further chilled, both as I remember the icy weather and the extended time outside when I got stuck beyond the fence, but also because of the number of looming threats that were nearly overwhelming at that time. I think about whippings, and then I think about snow coats, and then my heart aches for Prim. She enters my mind, and then she doesn't seem to leave. All around me on the canvas of white provided by the snow strewn ground, I see images of her, but not the images I might take comfort in. What I see is her hunger panged body as a young girl, with her cheeks hollowed in and her ribs visible through her threadbare shirt. I see the terror on her face when her name was called for the Reaping, and then the look of utter distress when I volunteered to take her place. I see her burning up, entirely trapped in a world of fire.
I fall to my knees, unable to support myself and desperate to feel something, anything other than pain. I sink into the snow and even though it's unpleasant, the burning cold sensation brings me out of myself somewhat. It forces me to process that I am utterly freezing. I feel a sort of stinging pain in my toes that I know is a bad sign in regards to frostbite. It's something that at one point would have caused me panic, if I found myself trapped outside the fence in the snow and was struggling to keep warm. Now, though, it's a strange feeling. It's not fear, or at least not exactly. It's a heavy, painful reminder that I am alive.
I manage to extricate myself from the snow and trudge inside, the door closing behind me and blocking out the biting wind. I feel very, very off right now. It's almost as if I'm watching my body from the outside, seeing myself move and take actions without really thinking about them. I feel my feet carry my upstairs, and I am aware that I'm trying to head towards the bath, hoping the hot water will warm my frozen limbs, without really remembering making that decision.
When I get to the landing at the top of the stairs, though, I stop. I find myself unable to move, utterly focussed on the door in front of me. I can't seem to take my eyes off of it, that door, and the longer I stare the more my mind seems to come back into focus and concentrate directly on what is in front of me. It's a door I have not opened in over a year, and it represents something I have been utterly terrified of every moment of my life since them, even if I've managed to protect myself and not really processed the fear. It's a terrible idea, and I know this. I'm aware that I'm not well today. Even at my best this would be a dangerous choice to make, and today I am nowhere near my best. There are so many challenges I will face if I open that door, and I know that choosing to face them now would be a deeply impactful mistake. But for some reason I can't seem to look away, or to focus my mind on anything else. I am utterly fixated on the wooden paneling in front of me, on the way the light reflects off the shiny brass knob. I can't focus on anything other than her, how I failed her, how she's gone.
So, against my better judgement and every voice of reason in my head shouting at me not to, I step forward and open the door to Prim's room.
The first thing my body registers as I take a step into the room is the smell of dust. Peeta keeps the house quite clean as a habit, but he hasn't touched this room, knowing it would be too much for me. He didn't want to disturb it or disrupt it in any way. Now, though, a layer of dust seems to have settled on everything. I feel as if it can't possibly be as thick as it seems, and a part of me wonders if I'm imagining things or hallucinating. It doesn't matter, though, because even through the dust I see Prim standing out in every object in this room.
I find myself drawn towards the dresser on the far side of the room, not entirely sure why. I make my way over to it slowly, running my fingers along every item I pass and leaving little tracks in the dust. When I reach the dresser I drag my finger along the entire width of the top, before taking my hand to the mirror that sits atop it in an effort to remove the dust. I see my eyes in the reflective material once I've cleaned it, and I see that they are bloodshot and slightly deranged. I avert my gaze quickly, my eyes finding a home instead on all the little boxes that are resting on the dresser. I open one, then another, then another. I find small tokens, reminders of the years in which we had so little, and that even the most basic items were worth cherishing to Prim. A spare button that could be attached to a dress or sweater, a length of fabric that was softer than most, a vial that could be used to store medicinal herbs.
She kept everything, not wanting to let any measly possession feel as if it wasn't appreciated. She would probably hate that nothing in here has been touched, I think ruefully. And suddenly I have to touch everything, have to appreciate every single thing that Prim held dear. I open all the drawers and run my hands along each item I come across. There are hair ribbons hanging from her mirror, and I run my fingers obsessively over the smooth material, seemingly unable to stop. I take them with me as I continue around the room.
I go to her closet and feel each and every item of clothing, taking certain things in my arms and not letting them go. I don't fully remember doing it, but I seem to have taken her reaping clothes, Cinna's dress, and an old nightgown that I remember her being fond of out of the closet and with me on my tear around the room. They must fall from my arms at some point, because when I reach a shelf of books my hands are empty.
I take each book out in turn, keeping some out with me while returning others. She didn't have many; books of any sort were an utter rarity in 12, being generally expensive and extremely controlled by Snow's government. But Prim loved to learn and wanted to catalog every piece of knowledge she could come across. There are the standard issued, propagandistic textbooks about the history of Panem and manuals about the processes of coal mining that were passed out in District 12 schools, but there are also anthologies about regional flora and several compendiums regarding healing techniques. One of these books seems to have been purchased, though years ago by the look of the pages, while the others seem to be compiled notes written from my mother's experience. Most of the writing is in Prim's small printing, but with certain additions in my mother's script that imply she added onto Prim's notes. I'm met with images of the two of them at the kitchen table, going over all the ways to help alleviate someone's pain and make them better, Prim doing just that for my mother in the process of trying to learn from her.
I didn't know they did this. It must have been while I was trapped in my own fear after the Games, or maybe when I was away on the Victory Tour. I suddenly feel such an overwhelming sense of pain and longing that I almost can't breathe. Not only was her life cut so unfairly short, I further shortened it by not spending every possible moment with her in the way that I should have. What I would give for one more evening with her, sitting across from her at the kitchen table and just talking, and maybe braiding her hair, is simply incalculable. Anything, of any magnitude or any price, would be worth even an hour of having her back.
I look around me, and see that I have left the room in a mess in my effort to reach everything. It doesn't look like her space at all, suddenly, and I hate myself for ruining what she left so pristine. What feels like a hundred pound weight settles in on my chest, and my breathing becomes shallow and fast paced. I back up as I hyperventilate, until the backs of my legs hit her bed and I fall down onto it. It's the last thing in the room I haven't explored in one way or another.
I take a shaky breath as I take it in. The bed is covered by a plush Capitol quilt, but folded up at the foot of the bed is the same old, ratted blanket that she and I used in our shared bed back home in the Seam. I place one of my hands on each of the items. The fabric on the Capitol quilt is smooth and soft, quite similar to the one covering my and Peeta's bed, somehow having managed to maintain it's pleasant finish after months of disuse and the infiltrating dust. The blanket from home is thin, rough, and pilling, the texture uneven and it's soft creamy color more of a distorted yellow through years of coal dust and wear. It would have provided Prim with no meaningful additional warmth when she laid in this bed, already covered by the airy comforter, but she kept it anyway. She kept it. This girl who grew up with absolutely nothing and was suddenly thrown into a life with lavish luxuries didn't want to discard all memories of her former self, but rather kept and appreciated everything together in whatever way she could.
She managed to keep the Seam with her while here in Victor's Village. Our whole family never fit into the norms of 12, what with our father being from the Seam and our mother being from Town. We all stuck out, and it only increased when I came home from the Games, somehow alive and now rich and half of the star-crossed lovers. I think, though, that in a way Prim had always stuck out even more than I had. While my coloring allowed me to fit in with others from the Seam, at least physically, Prim's blonde hair and blue eyes meant she looked Town, and was the only one besides my mother with that look in our entire neighborhood. There was nowhere to hide, even if she wanted to. While I turned to the woods for survival, focussed only on our family, and shared the same somewhat unkind self-preservation instincts with other people at the Hob, Prim's focus on healing and goodness set her entirely apart.
Then she was known as the girl who was Reaped, and was very likely going to have her older sister die for her. She had to deal with that pain alone. There was no one else to comfort her, or to sympathize, because no one else had experienced it. There were many people who had lost a sibling to the Games, far too many, but no one in 12 had to carry the weight of guilt from a sibling volunteering for them in quite the way Prim did. That was a burden held by her and her alone. But it didn't turn her unkind, or block her from wanting to help others in whatever way she could.
Then, after the Games, she was different because I was a Victor, because we lived here now, because she had money. I can't imagine how much resentment she faced at school, but she never seemed to let it get to her. She still wanted to only put good into this world that had given her nothing for so many years.
In 13, she seemed to be finally free of a life defined by molds she could not fit into, trying to make a life for herself that she would love by training to be a doctor. And it killed her. The goodness that she had managed to keep with her in every situation in which we lived is what led to her death.
I think back to her youth in the Seam, when we had nothing and feared everything, yet Prim was still here, and still good.
And suddenly I cannot contain my rage, and I am ripping apart the Capitol comforter with every ounce of strength left in my body. I am screaming with effort as I battle with the professionally reinforced stitching, and I see teardrops falling onto the fabric next to the tares I am making. I scream, and cry, and rip, and then I turn to the pillows, dissecting them with the same fury until there are feathers floating everywhere. It takes time, and effort, and all the rage I have in me, and I give it all. I let the fire carry me forward until it all is in tatters, sobbing and screaming as I go.
When all on the bed is destroyed except for the blanket from the Seam, it appears that my energy and ability to fight has gone with it, and suddenly I am just as tattered and beyond repair as the scraps of fabric that rest on the ground. I don't feel fury anymore. I feel so overwhelmingly sad. I don't find myself able to process anything else except sadness.
I curl up into the bed on my side, clutching at the old blanket and one of her hair ribbons that I somehow managed to hold onto through my tirade. Tears leak from my eyes and the blank canvas forms in front of me once more. All I see is emptiness, and the occasional movements of a blonde figure, dancing in and out of the frame with a smile on her face.
I don't know how long I lay there like that, unmoving and paralyzed in grief. It's not unfamiliar, this sort of sensation. I lived in it for months after the end of the war. In a way, falling back into this catatonic state of pain and loss is not entirely unwelcome to me. It's easier, so much easier than trying to live without her. Why fight it? I have no fight left in me.
I am only roused slightly from within myself when I hear the door open and shut downstairs. I vaguely process that the light in the room has started to dim with the early sunset. I hear the heavy footsteps downstairs and I know it's Peeta. I know I should get up so he doesn't find me like this. I should feel a sense of happiness or relief that he's home, since my worry about him is what began my trip down this path. I should tell him what happened today and let him try to coax me back to myself.
But even that is just too much effort. It's too much for me and it's too much for him. He shouldn't have to exert that sort of effort on me when I am a hopeless case, when it would be so much easier for me to just lay here and disintegrate. No, there's no need for him to try. This is so much easier.
"Katniss?" I hear him call from downstairs, but I don't respond. I say nothing, just listening to the sounds of him moving around without much attention, my focus still trapped on the girl on the canvas. I hear him starting his way up the stairs, his movements becoming more hurried as he goes, clearly starting to be energized by the fear that something is wrong. I wish I could take his fear away from him. I wish I could make him let me go.
I see his shadow out in the hallway as he seems to check our room and bathroom, and then his distressed face becomes visible every so slightly through the small crack in the open door. He looks panicked, terrified, and pained. I wish I could help him, but I can't. I am not capable of moving or speaking.
"Katniss?!" he calls again, his voice infinitely more distressed this time. I'm not sure if he will notice that this door is open or not. There is only a slight crack, and no lights are on in here, which would make it hard to tell. Plus, he has no reason to suspect that I would be in here, as I never have been before. That was probably the right choice, I think to myself. But it's too late now. I don't really care if he finds me or not. It doesn't make much difference. I can't go anywhere, he might as well know that.
I see him run his hands back through his hair shakily, a telltale sign of his anxiety mounting. I see him start to turn back towards the stairs, presumably to check with someone like Haymitch and ask if he's seen me, but then he stops. He turns toward me, and I know he's noticed the open door. He approaches slowly, as if aware that my presence in here can mean nothing good. He's right, of course. He always seems to be right.
"Katniss?" he repeats, this time much more softly. He pushes the door open slowly and walks into the room. I see his eyes travel around the destroyed room, taking in the terror and ruin I have left in my wake. Good. He should know that's all I bring with me. Ruin follows wherever I go.
His gaze seems to settle on my form quickly, though, as if he cannot focus anywhere else. He walks straight towards me, kneeling down beside the bed so his face is right in front of my blank, staring eyes. My eyes are open but I can hardly see him, and it's not a factor of the darkness. It could be the brightest summer day, and I would still barely see anything past the little girl on the blank canvas.
"Katniss, what happened?" he whispers, brushing a hand over my cheek. I say nothing, not even blinking or flinching at his contact. It seems I am utterly paralyzed, more frozen and numb than I was in the snow all those hours ago.
"Please," he whispers again, his voice sounding completely and utterly broken. "Please talk to me." There's immense pain radiating from every aspect of him. It is abundantly clear in his voice, and his face, and his eyes. Still, though, I am silent. He continues to ask, his voice growing evermore distressed, and I continue to stay unreachable in my silence.
I do not think I will ever leave silence again.
A/N: to the reviewer who said they wanted to see more hurt in this hurt/comfort, little did you know that you were right on the money for where I was heading next! Hi y'all, just wanted to say thank you so much if you're still reading, and thank you infinitely for being patient as updates have started to take a little longer. I want you all to know that I have every intention on finishing this story, and that I appreciate your reads and reviews more than words can describe. Also, another reviewer asked about the approximate timeline for the end of this story, and while nothing is fixed, I can say that I do have the remainder of the story plotted out, I just don't know how many chapters that will translate to exactly. I tend to plot out storylines thinking they'll only take a couple chapters, and then find myself proven entirely wrong when I actually sit down to write it out (I had originally thought the trip to the Captiol and 4 could be done in like 5-6 chapters and it was actually more like 12 lmao). Anyways, I would say we are approx. 3/4 of the way through this story, but I can't give an exact number of how many chapters we have left. I do plan to keep writing more after this is done, and will update more on that when we're closer to the end! All that aside, main thing is I love you all and appreciate you sticking with this sosososo much. Please review and stay healthy :)