Disclaimer: Still not mine, sigh.

Watching 4

I didn't want to come here today, but a soldier follows orders.

I stepped off the train somehow surprised to find paved pathways instead of dust and ash, bones and shattered concrete. The air is filled with talking and laughter, not fire bombs and screaming memories, nor haunted silence.

Part of me resents that.

I mean, it's not logical. All things had to move forward, rebuild, renew. But the "me" who is trapped in a horrifying night in 12 can't quite grasp that they had the audacity to heal without me. That while I was moving on with my life, the people, the district, moved on with theirs.

It is almost a dream sequence, that I know this place but I don't. That I should know at least some of these people, but they too have moved on, grown older and they aren't frozen in time like they are in my memories, my dreams and my nightmares.

Why, I wonder for the tenth, hundredth, thousandth time...did anyone come back here? How can you walk streets where people you knew were incinerated? Aren't there sorrows on every corner? Didn't you starve here? Weren't you beaten here?

There hasn't been a coal mine here for just over a decade, but the dust still coats my mouth. I wonder, idly, if it still flavors the food here, tinges the water, seeps into the blood. Or have they been able to banish that as well?

With every official tour before this, I've been able to evade coming back. It was always the duty of a higher ranking officer, and I would find busy work, surprise inspections, *anything* so as not to board the train for 12. But I'm that higher ranking soldier now and an order is an order.

This isn't home anymore, I don't even like talking about it when some suck up new soldier brings up "the bombing that ignited the Districts."

Because the firebombs and the wasteland of 12 didn't unify anyone, it was just death and dust, screams then silence. An arrow shot at an arena started this, and a traitor's arrow shot at a President ended it.

I can't say such things aloud, of course. The Nation's "Song Bird" is still a national treasure, and Paylor and Plutarch guard her zealously. But they never understood President Coin's rage as I did, they never tasted the fire, and so they can't understand what a betrayal it was.

Late at night, when I'm alone, when there is finally quiet, a small voice buzzes in my mind that maybe that's not the real betrayal. That maybe arenas and pearls, kisses and broken madness caused by another boy's captivity has something to do with my unbending unforgiveness.

Morning banishes such thoughts.

I'm thankful today is not the big ceremony; I don't have to be here for the 10th Anniversary of the Rebellion. I will be in 2 that day, overseeing the Academy's celebrations. Today is just part of a tour of all Districts so Plutarch and Cressida can plan where and how to hold each District's part in the panorama, and 12 will be taking the lead role.

They can film three of the remaining Victors here, after all, in a rebuilt city, the symbol of the new life that the New Republic brings. It smacks of sentimentality and propaganda, and Plutarch loves it.

Not many people have come up to me today, with my Commander's uniform and stern visage, I don't look inviting. Purposefully. There might be old friends here, Thom amongst others, but I don't want to linger, to extend the time here. My shoulders ache with the tension of walking these roads, and not seeing what was, but rather what is. The Seam, as I knew it, is gone. With bungalows and small shops, parks and wide streets, all has been replaced. Did I ever walk there or have even the traces of what was been scraped away?

We're almost ready to leave, we've gone over security plans and photo op spots, and all we have to do is cross the Square to get to the car that will take us to the train that will bear us far from here.

The Merchant's Square.

With brightly painted businesses and its wide cobbled square, full of fountains and statues. I catch my breath at the bronze figure of a girl, young, with pig tail braids, with a cat and goat, shirt untucked. A plaque is underneath her feet, no doubt stating who she is so children who grow up in peace will know her name. I don't need to go over; she's another permanent feature of my nightmares and sorrow.

"Looks just like her, doesn't it?" says the always jovial Plutarch. (How can he always be so damn happy?)

I merely nod. Another reason I didn't want to come back here. Was it my bomb plan that lit her on fire? Does it matter anymore?

Movement catches my eye. Cressida is coming out of a big, two story building, with bright windows and cafe seating in front. Mellark's Bakery.

My mouth grows dry and I can feel my eyes narrowing.

"They've done quite well, you know," says Plutarch conversationally. Damn him and his comments. "I believe he has three bakers with him now, I'm told they're very busy. That building next to it, see," he nudges me to acknowledge the adjoining building with a blue facade, banners waving.

I nod again as he continues, "that's the new art gallery. Can you imagine an art gallery in 12? That was all *her* idea, you know. She wanted him to open a showcase in the Capitol, but he said 12 or nothing, so 12 it is! We're going to work that in to the festivities."

Plutarch keeps rambling about art and new growth, and I just watch. Watch the big bakery from across a crowded square of people laughing, people shopping, people living. As Cressida turns to say something to the open door, I see a man follow her out. Unmistakably him, with his baker's build and guileless, honest face. He's dusting off his hands on a towel, smiling and laughing at whatever Cressida said.

He looks good for someone who was almost a mutt.

Sometimes I still dream about killing him at one point or another in the rebellion; would that have changed anything? Or would it have been one more unforgivable offense she held against me?

The baker turns, as does Cressida, and like a force of nature, my head turns to the right as well, and I see *her* walking towards them.

Smiling.

She learned to smile in public. Smiles were once reserved for forest glades and morning meadows.

As she comes clear of the crowd, my gut clenches. And my heart twists.

She's pregnant.

She never wanted children. Was never going to marry. (I remember throwing up hours after Paylor mentioned casually that she heard that Katniss and the baker had toasted.)

Or maybe she just didn't want them with me.

She laughs and leans into her baker as he kisses her, his hand gently resting on her stomach. She's still dark haired, lithe and beautiful, and he looks at her as if she is a treasure.

She is.

"They look happy, don't they?," murmurs Plutarch. I don't even respond. Can't respond.

Because maybe she's not the traitor I tried to convince myself, maybe she was just a broken girl trying to end the madness of games after games, tyrant after tyrant. And I know, if I am honest, that Coin was as deadly as Snow...but I excused it, because I wanted rivers of blood on Capitol streets. Rivers to pay for mountains of ashes and bone.

And maybe I can't come back here not only because of memories of those ashes and bones, but because I cannot bear to look at her, when she is so openly his. And not mine.

They stand there talking, his arm possessively about her, and she keeps looking up at him with smiles and laughter and love. What I wanted and couldn't have.

"They deserve this, you know," Plutarch says with no smile in his voice. "They deserve this and anything we can give them. They deserve for others to be happy for them too." A thread of steel in his voice at the end.

I watch for a moment longer, then see Cressida lean in for a hug, and then motion back towards where we are.

"We don't always get what we deserve, Plutarch," finding my grim voice. "I'll be on the train," as I stride off.

Back to the train. Back to 2, back to life as I have built it. Where memories are for late nights, and song-birds have no place.