Chapter 5 – The Return (P)

"We were just sitting down to dinner, not that any of us had the stomach for it. Mom was talking about the baby again, how it was some kind of ploy by Katniss to trap Peeta," Marko begins.

When I woke up with my father and brother alive and in my kitchen, I had nearly fainted right along with Katniss. We had decided to wait until she had revived before they told us everything, although my father had briefly explained that they had escaped the bombing of District 12 by a lucky accident, and then had quite an adventure.

Now, we are all sitting around my living room having hot tea and bread. Marko continues, "I was so sick of hearing that from her. I tried telling her that she was wrong, that it must be made up as part of some kind of plan by you to keep her safe," he says, looking at me. I still can't believe he's sitting right in front of me, my dead brother. "Because you would have told me if you had really done the toasting and…"

"Of course I would have told you," I say. It occurs to me that they don't actually know if Katniss had been pregnant or not. That there is so very much that they don't know. "No, you were right; it was something I made up to help protect her."

"It surprised me, too, when he said that in the interview," Katniss offers quietly.

"I didn't think it was real," Marko says resolutely. "Mom did, though, and it caused quite the uproar. It was bad enough, watching my little brother fight for his life on television, without her constantly harping on about it. By that night, I'd just had it. I…I shouted something terrible at her and ran out of the house. I didn't even know where I was going, I just ran."

"Then what happened?" Katniss asks, rapt.

My father picks up the story. "After a couple of hours, I grew worried. It was well after dark, and I knew if he was caught out after curfew there'd be trouble, so I went to find him. It wasn't hard."

"The trains?" I ask. Ever since he was little, Marko had loved trains, and the station was his favorite place in town. As a teenager, he'd often run there after fights with my mother and hide among the large freight cars.

"Yes, the trains, I knew I'd find him there. And there he was, sitting on top of a coal car. I climbed up the rungs on the side of the car, tried to see if I could get him to come home." Dad stops there, looking to Marko to continue the story. He does.

"But I wasn't ready to go yet, to go watch my brother die on TV. So we sat up there a bit longer. Then…the whole atmosphere seemed to change. Men started running up and down the train yard in a big rush. Dad and I stayed quiet and tried to keep hidden. When we realized they were readying the train we were sitting on, we knew we needed to get down, but we were too high to jump and the ladder was in plain view with railroad workers everywhere. Before we had a chance, the train started up. It was too late.

"A few minutes after we left the district, we saw it. We saw the whole thing." I hear the sadness in Marko's voice and see it in his eyes.

Dad continues for him. "The train we were on was the last of the coal leaving the district before it was bombed. And then I knew."

"Knew what?" I asked.

"That District 12 was gone, and the bakery with it. That your mother and Lucca were most likely dead. That the games had ended with either you or Katniss doing something that set off the Capitol's anger. And that Mayor Undersee had been right: We were at war."

The room grows silent, save for a soft clink as Katniss somberly sets down her teacup. I'm sure the image of District 12 on fire is foremost in everyone's minds.

"Then what?" I ask.

"Luckily, those huge cargo trains don't move too fast, and we were able to hold on. We knew we had to get off of the train before we got to a major station, but there wasn't a fuel stop until dusk the next day. We were able to climb down without being seen," Marko goes on. "We were in a mountainous region covered in pine forest. Later, we found out it was near the border of Districts 7 and 8. We found a hidden place along a small stream and stopped there. We knew we couldn't return home, but we weren't sure what else we could do. But you inspired us, little brother," he says with a smile and a jab to my bicep.

"How's that?" I ask.

"How you fought so hard to survive in those arenas. How you and Katniss helped each other live. We knew we'd have to lie low somehow until we could find some kind of help, people who weren't loyal to the Capitol. But we had no idea where we were, or where to find people. But then Dad remembered Katniss."

"Me?" she asks.

"Yes," says my father. "I remembered how you found Peeta the year before by following the stream. So I decided we should do the same."

"Did it work?" Katniss asks.

"It did," Marko picks up. "We ran into a man named Porter. Well, not exactly ran into. He said he had followed us at a distance for a while to make sure we weren't a threat before he revealed himself to us. When he showed us a small bit of paper with a mockingjay imprinted on it, I immediately thought of the pin Katniss wears and I somehow knew to trust him."

"Turns out Marko's instincts were right," says my dad. "Porter, himself a refugee from District 10, was part of a local pocket of rebels operating out of a nearby town. He knew who Marko and I were, recognized us from our interviews on TV. He invited us to come back with him, join up with their group."

A vision of my father as a rebel soldier enters my head as Marko goes on to tell of how they earned their place among the rebels by taking over all cooking and baking for the group, a task everyone was glad for them to have.

Dad interrupts Marko. "There was a television at the headquarters. We saw you, in those interviews."

"It was horrible, Dad," I tell him. "They captured me out of the arena when Katniss blew it open. I wouldn't have said those things that I said, but they made me. They tortured me, messed with my mind, made me believe disgusting lies to make it seem as if I was on their side. But I never really was, Dad." I feel this urgent need to explain this to him, so he understands, even though I'm not wholly sure of it myself.

"I know, son," Dad replies quietly. This is all he says, but I know, at least, that it means he knew something wasn't right about those interviews. Never as talkative as any of his sons, Dad listens as Marko recants the rest of their tale.

They had been there for about a month as the rebels planned an attack on a hydroelectric dam. Soon after they had taken it out, the Capitol discovered them and raided their headquarters, killing several people and taking a few dozen more, Dad and Marko included, as prisoners.

"Where did they take you?" I ask

"Well, we didn't get to find out," Marko says. "They put us on a train bound for who-knows-where, but only a few minutes after we left the station, it jumped the track and everything was pandemonium. Turns out the few who had escaped the night of the raid had devised a plan to derail the train and free us. It worked. The three of them – Kert and Morris from 3, and Aelyn from 7 – had gathered some essential supplies, and we were on the run."

Marko tells of how they had survived in the wilderness. To evade capture, they were constantly on the move. As winter approached, they sought lower ground to avoid heavy snowfall, ending up on the border of a broad plain that had long ago been agricultural land, but now is so contaminated with chemicals that the water is poisonous.

Their group managed to avoid discovery by the Capitol, but in doing so had lost contact with the outside world. By spring, when they were able to travel again, they found themselves lost, unable to trace their way back from where they had come.

"We didn't even know if the war had ended yet, although some people thought it must have," my dad says. "But once the radio started getting a signal again, we knew for certain. We also knew we were close to civilization."

"District 6," says Marko. "It was summer by the time we got there. And none too soon, either, because Dad was sick."

"I don't think I'm cut out for a life in the wilderness," says Dad. "It was hard on a body that's spent a lifetime behind the ovens. And we were filtering the water, but I don't think the equipment was working as well toward the end there."

"He was in the hospital for a while, Peeta, or we would have come home sooner," Marko says. "I thought about writing, but I didn't think you'd really believe it was me unless I showed up in person."

"You're probably right," I reply. "It's all a lot to believe even with you here. I'm so glad you're home." I hug them both again, overjoyed to have them back.

"Good to be back, bro," says Marko, and I know how much he means it.

I almost believe Katniss when she tells me she'll be just fine sleeping alone tonight if I want to spend the time with my resurrected family, and because I so desperately do, I don't protest. "Call if you need anything, and I'll be right over," I say as I accompany her to her door.

After catching up with Dad and Marko late into the night, they go to sleep and I go to Katniss'. She's lying awake in her bed. "I didn't call."

"You didn't need to," I say as I slide beneath the blankets.

The next morning, my brother, father, and I easily fall back into an old routine, mixing, kneading, and baking in the familiar way.

"So, can I ask about the situation with you and Katniss?" my father asks.

"We're…friends," I say.

Marko grunts. "'Friends' don't usually give each other good night kisses and treat a night apart as if it were a year," he says. "If you even did spend it apart. Don't imagine for a minute that you could ever only be 'friends' with that girl."

"You think I don't know that, Mark? You know complicated things were after the first games. They haven't gotten any easier. The arenas, the war, they've taken a horrible toll on both of us. The Capitol tainted my memories to the point where I honestly thought Katniss was an evil muttation bent on destroying the world, and that I needed to kill her."

Last night I gave Dad and him the basic rundown of the past year and a half of my life – my capture and torture by Snow, being rescued and taken to District 13, my involvement in the battle for the Capitol that had landed me in the hospital – but there is still so much that they don't know. That I don't think they ever can fully understand, these men who know me better than anyone else in the world. Yet they are here now, by some unknown act of fate, and I know they can help me even if they'll never really know what I've been through.

I know Marko's sharing a similar thought when he says empathetically, "I can't even imagine what it was like, to experience what you have."

"You don't know the half of it." I instantly resent the unintentional bitterness of my tone.

"But I know how you've always felt about Katniss, and you don't have to tell me that you know you still do. I can tell by the way you look at her."

Of course I know how I feel for her, but I still wonder if Katniss ever did love me. I can hardly dare to imagine that she loves me now, but I'm certain there's something there. Real or not real? Sometimes, I still don't know.

But now that my memories are clearing up, I can remember vividly certain moments in which there was a very real connection between us, fleeting instances where all pain and terror and hatred were forgotten and the only thing that mattered was each other. And for some reason, when I find myself remembering that sensation, I also recall a cave and a beach, and a feeling that no one had the right to televise such an intimate moment so publicly.

I don't realize how long I've been silent for when Marko speaks again. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"It's not that," I say as I finish sliding a pan into the oven and grab a chair at the table. "It's actually that there's so much to tell you, I don't even know where to begin. Of course I love her. That's why I'm here, because she needs me, and I need her. And I know she cares for me, and I'm pretty certain that I've mattered to her in some way or another since the first arena. But she has a lot to sort out and she needs time, so all I can do is wait and love her the best I can in the mean time. She's all I have left. I mean she was, until you two came back."

"Is Katniss still in touch with Gale Hawthorn? I hear he has a job with the Defense Department in District 2 now." Dad asks. As we had so many times in the past, Marko and I have carried on an entire conversation while Dad mostly just listened. Not that we mind much. There's very little I'd tell Marko that I wouldn't want Dad to hear.

"I know he's written her a few times, but I don't know if it's anything more than that. She won't talk about him with me. I think they had some sort of argument or falling out sometime last year, but it wouldn't surprise me if she still has feelings for him she's working through."

Marko just shakes his head. "You're a patient man, bro."

"I can wait," I reply with a smile.

"I don't think you'll have to wait much longer," says Marko. I'm about to ask him why he thinks so when Katniss walks in much earlier than usual, apparently having had a successful early hunt. So it is that my usually companionless bread delivery is completed by a party of four.

Everyone wants to hear the tale of Dad's and Marko's escape and homecoming. Most of those who have returned to the district thus far are men, former coal miners turned construction workers laboring to restore our home. While the majority of them had never been able to afford my family's bread before, they know us nonetheless and are awestruck by Dad's and Marko's adventure.

I had thought to tell Dad and Marko of all the new developments in the district, but those we meet today are all too happy to do the job for me. Thom and his cousin Allen, who've become friends of mine, fill us in on the progress of the new houses being built, as well as plans for a school. Allan speaks of his fiancée from District 13, Aimee, who will join him here soon. Others expound on plans for new industry and commerce, and Mica Hamilton takes us on a tour of the new Central Square, much of which is yet to be built. Mica is one of the few merchants who have returned to the district; his family had owned a clothing and textiles shop, and in the few years between his school graduation and the war, Mica had held a position in Mayor Undersee's office.

"This way, everyone," I say after parting with Mica, deliveries finished. "I've saved the best for last." Having visited here with me on our evening walk last week, Katniss knows where we are going and smiles. As we walk up to the partial frame of the building in front of us, my father scans the shop name scrawled in chalk on the foundation: Mellark Family Bakery.

Marko whoops in contrast to Dad's expression of silent satisfaction. "It's twice as big as the old bakery!"

"A bit more, actually. I'm planning on having tables and chairs over here," I say, gesturing to the side of the floor where the location of the front door is marked, then to the other side, "and a big display counter here. I'm ordering these amazing electric ovens and all new equipment from a supplier in the Capitol-"

"It's Denver," interjects Marko.

"That's right, I keep forgetting." The Capitol people had recently voted to change the name of the region to that of a large city that once stood nearby. "Anyways, the new bakery's going to be great."

The mood is light as we head back home. Dad and Katniss walk ahead, sometimes chatting with each other, sometimes silent, while Marko and I fall some dozen paces behind. "You must miss Belinda," I say to him. Marko had been dating the oldest Cartwright sister for two years; their relationship began on the Reaping Day a year prior to Katniss' and my own fateful day.

"I do," he replies. "Especially now that I'm back home. Everything seems to remind me of her somehow."

"Delly survived, she was in District 13 with us. She's married now, to a scientist from Thirteen, Wenton Bloom. They're moving here in March."

"That's great. I always liked Delly; she was such a sweet girl."

"She still is. She helped me so much when I was in Thirteen. She reminds me of a different place and time, when things were normal."

"What's 'normal'?" Marko retorts. "Life's always been messed up, just in different ways."

"But I think it's better now," I say, not even fully realizing that I hold this belief until the words have left my mouth.

"Do you?"

"I do. I know it's come at a great cost, but I do think we've gained a lot, as people. And I've gained something too, in spite of what I've lost."

That afternoon is spent quietly, as we all find ourselves exhausted after lunch. Dad spends several somber hours studying our memory book, but manages to brighten up by dinnertime. Greasy Sae cooks up her best food that night, and the meal has a bright, festive feel to it.

Later that night, having wished my family good night, I lie with Katniss tucked into my arms. Maybe everything really will be okay, I can't help but hope as hold her tightly to me. Wishing I could give her so much more, I gently kiss Katniss' cheek and rub her back as we both fall into the easiest sleep either of us has felt in months.

A/N 12/26/11: Chapter 6 is definitely in the works, but it's taking a little bit longer than expected because I'm having to work backwards from Chapter 7, so I'm essentially writing two chapters at once. Since I'm off for the rest of the week (yay!), I hope to have both chapters up soon!

Love, LilD