Ricochet
Chapter 4: This too shall pass
Author: Carla, aka cali-chan
Rating: Most likely PG-13. Nothing worse than what's in the books.
Genre: Adventure/suspense/drama/romance... again, pretty much what's in the books.
Pairings: Peeta/Katniss, Rory/Prim... and probably others. You'll see soon.
Canon/timeline: Same-context AU- this fic still happens in the same world as THG, but the actual events in the books never happened. I'm adding about five years to the characters from the age they were at the beginning of The Hunger Games. Katniss is 21.
Disclaimer:Yeah, just let me go get my transfer laser and switch bodies with Suzanne Collins.
Note: I've never really tried this before (and I'm sure it will eventually come back and bite me in the behind), but each chapter will be from the PoV of a different character. You should be able to tell whose PoV it is fairly easily, though.
Summary: "Primrose Everdeen." This can't be happening, Katniss thought. She desperately pushed through the crowd. I volunteer!, she wanted to scream. I volunteer as tribute! But she couldn't, because she wasn't eligible for the reaping anymore. There was nothing she could do.
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Prim rearranged her position slightly, lifting her feet onto the couch. Not that resting her head against her boyfriend's shoulder was uncomfortable, but she hadn't moved in almost half an hour and the entire right side of her body was getting a little numb. She found her reading on the effect of mineral deficiencies on the body incredibly interesting (especially considering most of the ailments that affected the people in District Twelve were a product of malnutrition in some way), but maybe she could take a break?
She closed the book, making sure her finger marked the page she was reading, and leaned her head back against Rory's shoulder with a sigh. She felt him turn his head to look at her. "Finally got bored?" he asked, with a chuckle. The time she had spent reading the book Madge had brought her last week, he had spent carving a little piece of wood he'd found in the Meadow before coming to see her. He must've been close to finished by then.
She didn't even bother to open her eyes. "One day, this information might save your life. I'm sure you won't call it boring then," she replied. Rory obviously supported her goal of becoming a good healer, but he liked to tease, especially if she was "ignoring him" over a book. It was something the men in her life had in common- Buttercup could also get a little jealous when she didn't show him enough affection. She thought it was adorable. "What are you carving?" she asked, finally taking a moment to be curious about his project.
"It's supposed to be a horse." He extended his arm to the side, showing her the figurine.
She opened her eyes to look at it, and knew she would've recognized the stallion even if he hadn't explained; it was really life-like. There was also a certain movement to it: the mane, the legs, the angle of the head. It was almost like the horse was really running. "That looks really great," she said, and meant it. He was really talented at woodworking, had been since they were kids.
He half-shrugged, with the shoulder she wasn't resting against. "I still gotta fix some details," he said. She didn't insist further because she knew when it came to his carving skills, he was his own worst critic. Instead she just closed her eyes again and got comfortable as he continued with his task. Now that she was no longer paying more attention to the book than to him, though, he didn't stay quiet for long. "So I was thinking of maybe asking Ripper if she needs any help," he let her know.
Prim let out a little laugh and turned her head a little, so she could look at his profile. "Your mother would never let you work for Ripper," she pointed out. Then she frowned a bit. "Actually, I've heard that Ripper has a thing for younger men. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with you working for her either." She was still teasing him, but it was also kind of true.
He pretended to shudder, which made her laugh harder. "Don't even go there," he said with a horrified-slash-grossed-out expression on his face, but eventually he couldn't hold it anymore and grinned cheekily at her mirth. "Seriously, though," he started again when her laughter finally subsided, "you have to stop vetoing all my suggestions. At this rate I'll never find a job!"
"Maybe you could ask in town. You never know, someone might need help," she suggested. She knew some of the merchants in town from when she'd accompany Katniss on her rounds, and most of them were nice enough. Nothing wrong with asking, she thought. She knew, ideally, Rory would prefer to work on something of his own, maybe something in carpentry; but they would never be able to afford to bring in lumber from District Seven and it's not like they could chop down trees from the forest and bring them in through the fence, like Katniss did with the game. So right now, he was simply looking everywhere, for any sort of job he could do.
"I highly doubt that," he muttered under his breath. Prim rolled her eyes. She knew he didn't think too highly of the merchant class, but sometimes she wondered how much of that resentment was really his, and how much of it was his older brother's.
In fact, sometimes she thought Rory's whole idea of getting a job went back to Gale, in a way. Rory idolized his older brother, and wanted to prove to everyone- especially Gale- that he could help support the family and his loved ones just as Gale had. Unfortunately, this usually clashed with Gale's idea that he had sacrificed himself all these years so that his younger siblings wouldn't have to do the same. It was a disagreement that went as far back as Rory signing up for tesserae behind Gale's back, through the "why won't you teach me how to hunt" debacle, and repeating through the years. And as Rory grew up and Gale's height/strength advantage diminished, these periodic clashes got a bit more loud, and a bit more serious.
Prim knew they argued because they cared. They were really alike in many aspects, even though they would never admit it out loud; boys were silly like that. However, through a lot of prodding from both herself and Hazelle, they'd begun to step back before an argument erupted and try to come to a compromise. So Gale admitted that it would be a good idea for Rory to find a job even if he was still in school, and Rory tried to look in places his brother would approve of.
Technically, Rory could wait until graduation and go work in the mines, like his brother had. They didn't require experience or training, so that would be easy. However, Gale was diametrically opposed to that option, no compromise. It also helped that Prim herself didn't want him working in the mines; since her father died in that explosion, she had been scared of them. The fact that she had had to treat many injured mine workers didn't make her feel much better about it.
So Rory steered clear of the mines. However, that really limited his options.
For the last month or so, he'd been extra anxious about finding a job soon. At first she thought it had something to do with her turning seventeen. They intended to get married as soon as they were both out of school; he was four months younger than her and that put him in a lower grade, so they still had a couple years to get ready, but they wanted to both help their families in the meantime, and start saving up early so they could be assigned a lot and build a small house as soon as they got married.
She thought her birthday might have marked some unspoken deadline in his mind, and that's why he'd been so focused on the job hunt lately. But now she suspected there might be something more to it. She dog-eared the page she'd been reading, left her book to the side and cuddled a little closer to him. She wrapped an arm around his waist carefully, so as not to disturb his carving. "The reaping's coming up," she murmured dimly, resting her cheek against his shoulder.
He let out a sigh and his knife hand stilled, and she knew she'd hit the nail on the head. The Hunger Games were something they all had to live with, and everybody dealt with that in different ways. Many a time she had sought comfort in the words of her mother, or Katniss, or Rory; their arms around her gave her strength. For Rory, the way he coped with it was by making plans. Having something planned after the reaping made him feel he had control over his life, like everything didn't revolve around whether he was chosen or not. After the way he reacted to her bringing it up, she had no doubt his eagerness to get a job as soon as possible was an extension of that.
She took the horse figurine from between his fingers and set it on top of her book, then moved his arm so that it wrapped around her shoulders. Encircling his waist with both her arms, she pressed herself to his side, hiding her face in the crook where his shoulder met his neck. Immediately he dropped his carving knife on the small coffee table that was in front of them, and wrapped his other arm around her, pulling her closer, his chin resting against the top of her head. "We're going to be fine," she stated, trying to reassure him, and herself as well.
"I have 30 slips this year," he replied, grimly. She knew. She knew, and it made her heart ache for him. She loved him, and she wanted to share his burden as much as possible, but the fact was he had 30 slips while she only had the mandatory 6, and there wasn't much anyone could do to change that. She never knew what to say whenever he brought that up.
She shook her head emphatically against him. "Gale had 42 at his most, and he never got picked," she reminded him. Both their older siblings had been through the same and even with tesserae, they'd never been chosen. Surely her and Rory could be granted the same luck. "And even if you have 30, it's still 30 out of thousands. We won't get picked."
She cupped his cheek with one hand and made him look at her. "We're going to be fine," she repeated. "We won't be reaped, and you'll get a job, and I'm finally going to finish this book and learn what the effects of vitamin D deficiency are..." He couldn't hold back a laugh at that, and she smiled, glad that she'd managed to cheer him up a little. "...And we're going to be happy. Okay?"
He was still smiling, but there was a touch of melancholy in his eyes. Once again her heart felt heavy at the unfairness of it all; they were only teenagers, there shouldn't be anything for them to be melancholy about. "I don't know what I would do without you," he said softly, touching a strand of her hair, which hung against her neck. Since their relationship got serious, she'd taken to wearing it in a half-braid instead of the usual woven braid down her back. That way, she could still keep her hair out of her face when she was tending to patients, but the rest of it was free. Rory liked to play with her hair, for some reason, and she found it soothing when he did.
As familiar as the gesture was, there was something in his tone when he spoke that made her a little anxious. Scared, even. "Remember our promise," she said. "No volunteering," she reminded him. They had agreed on this early on. Rory had a tendency to be rash at times (it was another thing the Hawthorne boys had in common), so she'd made him promise this back when they first started dating, and were facing this dilemma for the first time together. She reminded him every year.
He didn't look at her as she expected; instead, he leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes for a second. "No volunteering," he agreed. He was silent for a second, and then he opened his eyes. "That goes both ways," he declared, the steely grey of his eyes boring into hers.
She nodded, reinforcing their compromise. The corners of his mouth drew up a little. "We're going to be fine," he echoed her words from earlier. It made her smile. He kissed her forehead lightly. "I love you," he said, and she savored it. Although she never doubted his feelings, he didn't say the words often, and when he did, it was something she treasured.
"I love you," she responded in kind, and lifted her head to kiss his lips.
His arms drew firmly around her waist, bringing her closer as he breathed out in a sigh and deepened their kiss. She melted into his embrace willingly, as she always did, feeling safe from everything when she was in his arms. She was just starting to get into it, though, when there was an unexpected sound, like something being dropped on the dining table behind them, and then a voice. "Alright, that's enough."
Rory sprung off the couch and apart from her so fast, if she hadn't known better she would've sworn he'd been bitten by a snake. "Katniss!" he exclaimed, a bit wide-eyed in his surprise. "Um. How- how was hunting?" he asked, trying a little bit too hard to appear casual. Prim had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. Usually Rory and Katniss got along just fine, but situations like these were always awkward, and Katniss could be intimidating... especially when she was carrying a bag full of dead animals she'd killed herself with impeccable aim.
If her sister noticed Rory's discomfort, it didn't show in her face. "Gale could use some help skinning the rabbits," she sentenced, her tone neutral.
The meaning behind her words was more than clear: visiting hours were over. "Right," he nodded, as if that one word required emphasis. "I should probably go, then." He leaned down to give her a kiss goodbye- she tried to catch his lips but he dodged her and kissed her temple instead. He picked up his knife and the horse carving and with a stiff wave in Katniss' direction, walked out of the Everdeen's home like someone had set his coattail on fire.
As she watched him scuttle out, Prim finally chuckled. She turned to her older sister, giving her a mock glare over the backrest of the couch, in defense of her poor boyfriend. "Must you always do that?" Katniss said nothing, simply taking her loot out of the game bag; a pheasant and a couple woodchucks, from the looks of it. "You're so mean to him," Prim grumbled, though the corners of her mouth were still crinkling up in mirth.
Her pouting made Katniss smirk, but she still refused to admit she was being difficult on purpose. "If you help me with the pheasant I'll let you have the feathers," she offered. Prim could never resist colorful feathers, so with a shake of her head and a grin, she got off the couch and went to help her sister. She figured if she read a little faster that night, she could get her share of kisses the next day, while Katniss was out.
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Author's note!-
Hi, guys! I hope you liked this little chapter. I just wanted to let you know (for those of you who don't celebrate this holiday... which is most of you, I guess) that this weekend is the start of Carnival, so I'll be out of town from this Friday until possibly next Thursday. I'll try my best to get chapter 11 written while I'm away but I'll have limited internet access, so I don't know if I'll be able to upload chapter 5 until I get back home. Sorry 'bout that, but I promise I'll try my hardest to update ASAP! Thanks for your patience.
(Hey, maybe if I get like a flood of reviews I'll be inspired to kidnap our mobile modem for a day so that I can post, hinthint). ;)