When I find her, she's covered in sweat, an ineffectual navy blue bandanna that must be borrowed from some member of her crew tied around her forehead. It's a warm day for late March, and she works only in a t-shirt and denim pants that are slung low around her hips. Her hair is done up messily in a knot at the back of her head. I've brought her lunch today, and it hangs in my hand in a pail at my side—bread and cheese, hardboiled eggs, cold tea—but I linger at the edges of her construction site for awhile, just watching. I think Katniss is beautiful at any moment, but there is a particular sense of strength and confidence about her when she's working. They put her on a crew shortly after I mentioned it to her last week and she acquiesced. It was immediately evident that this was a good decision. She's one of few women on the crews and it doesn't seem to bother her at all—she can keep up just fine after all those years of running around, fighting in the Games, hunting. Even as I watch the muscles in her upper arms are visible as she swings a sledge, knocking old chunks of stone out of the blasted-out walls of what once was the tailor's storefront. They asked her if she wanted to pick a crew, but she'd only shrugged.
"Same purpose," she'd pointed out astutely.
It's true, the majority of the crews have the same basic purpose—to demolish ruins that can't be saved and erect new buildings, or else to repair those that can be repaired. She's on a crew with Delly's oldest brother, who's just barely fifteen but solidly built, like Delly. Her foreman's name is Fabius and his neck is as thick as a tree, his head like a great stone perched on top of it. He towers over us both, but he has a heart of gold. I know he's looking out for her, and I suspect he's also giving solicited updates on her progress to Haymitch—taciturn ones, since this would, of course, piss her off to be monitored in another fashion, even though Haymitch has her best interests at heart.
She pauses midswing to swipe the back of one arm over her dripping forehead, and that's when she spots me hanging around and gaping. She smiles and immediately it brings a smile to my own face. I see her turn to her foreman and ask something, and he nods and puts a hand on her shoulder. She smiles again and then she's swinging down off the long wall, by far the most graceful member of the team. Her moves are always fluid, painted in broad strokes, deliberate. She has a way of moving that makes her stand out amongst others. I admire it as she walks over to me. I lean in to kiss her and she wrinkles her nose and ducks me.
"I must smell awful," she says. "It's hot."
"I don't mind. You're working hard," I say. She nods.
"It was a good choice," she replies. "It feels good to be helping out." Behind these words, I know, is the residual guilt that she feels for what she sees as her part in the bombing, even after all these months. She doesn't really talk about it, but one night a few weeks ago I awoke to hear her talking in her sleep.
"I'm sorry," she moaned, "I didn't know! I didn't mean it!" When I woke her, she did not remember talking, and I didn't remind her. We've resigned ourselves somewhat to the reality that the nightmares may never end, though they're better with company.
I hand over the pail to her and she takes a peek. Another thing I like about her working now is that her appetite has become more consistent; before it was a toss-up whether she'd eat much each day. Sometimes she did, and sometimes not. But now, her eyes light up when she sees the eggs. "Thanks," she says gratefully. I sneak a kiss on her cheek before she can protest.
"Do you have some time to sit?" I ask her, and she nods. There's a park near here that remarkably, came out unscathed from the rubble. We wander over to it and Katniss flops down in the grass without a second thought under a big old oak tree. Strands of dark hair are working loose from her hasty bun and they drift in a light breeze. She sighs.
"That feels good," she says as she begins to pull food out. She offers me a slice of my bread, cranberries and nuts today, but I shake my head. I picked at it as I baked this morning. Not without irony, the upcoming Capitol trek has my stomach twisted into knots, though not for the original reasons. The bottom dropped straight out of my stomach right after Gale's letter came, and even after she moved in, even after the night that she reaffirmed our existence as a duo, it took several days before the anxiety in my belly began to abate. But now it comes and goes, out of anticipation. I don't know what to expect; can't even deduce much from the past, because so much has changed. We've had good reasons to keep our distance, and among them is the fact that even simple things still seem challenging sometimes—sleeping, eating, even showering, for Johanna. Complexities have seemed impossibly daunting, but what we're going to have to do now is walk a delicate balance. Primarily, what Katniss is going to have to do now. Still, the Capitol wants things of all of us, and they may be things we don't want to give or do, totally separate from the facts that I'm returning to the scene of my torture—a thought that constricts my throat when I let it linger too long—and Katniss, her sister's death. Totally separate from the fact that she and I are presenting ourselves as a truly united pair for the first real time since we left 13, and the accompanying tension that will be sure to rise because of it. Oddly, I feel comforted by the fact that Johanna will be there, even though she's about half as tall as I am and can't weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet.
It only took her a few days to write back after Katniss sent her letter. She sounded about as enthusiastic as any of us to go back, even though she assured Katniss that any opportunity to spend time with us is appreciated, but she didn't hesitate in her affirmation that of course, she'd be there with us. I admire her for that, because she neither has to go nor necessarily should. I'm sure her doctors are throwing a fit, but Johanna will walk if that's what it takes—her iron will is outstripped only by her stubbornness. I saw the relief pour into Katniss' eyes when she read the returning letter, scrawled in a crooked half-script hand, and I know what it said without her having to tell me. She's bringing her dog. The same train that will take Katniss, Haymitch and I will pick her up on the way too, so we'll be presenting a united front coming in. Our date is still tentative, and Katniss has to confirm it with her on the phone once she receives Gale's letter back, but it's looking like we'll be shipping out sometime at the end of next week.
Katniss is quiet while she eats and I wonder if these are the thoughts that are encroaching on her, too. It feels like a heavy hand pressing down on us some days, especially when we're not working or curled together at night. "Penny for your thoughts?" I ask her, plucking out blades of grass absentmindedly and shredding them. She raises one eyebrow at me.
"Yeah, I know," I sigh. We've improved at this sort of communication, the kind that doesn't need to be spelled out, over time. But it doesn't take clairvoyance to guess what's in her head today. Her letter to Gale went out over a week ago. His reply is due back any day now, and she's restless and tense. At night it takes her a long time to sleep, and when she does, it's fitful, even if we make love beforehand. This makes me sad and angry, too—both of our sleep was improving for awhile after she began spending more time with me over the winter. All this was inevitable, I remind myself over and over. Haymitch and Johanna both have said as much. We can't run from past or future forever. Maybe it's a good thing to just get it over with—or it would be if, in my heart, I could believe that this visit will be the last of it. One of my bigger fears is that they'll expect it to spark further visits, pressure her into it. At least they'll have a tougher time of it with the rest of us there holding our ground. On the train I'm going to suggest a caucus between the four of us before we reach the Capitol, if it doesn't unfold organically. We don't know how much uninterrupted private time—if any—we'll have to talk. If Haymitch is right, we haven't ever really escaped surveillance from the Capitol, not even now. There's no telling exactly what they know or who is feeding them information, no way to tell if we'll even have a secure place to talk on the train, which may well be monitored, too. Just the thought of all this interference makes me itch. Sometimes, I think resentfully, it does seem hard to tell where the old Capitol ends and this one begins. They still treat Katniss like she's a circus act. I'm sure they'll even appropriate our genuine love for one another as evidence of some point they already want to push, like that we're all completely recovered, which will make them the second regime in my lifetime to do so. I wonder at what point in time will we be free to just live our lives out in peace. No cameras. No watchdogs. No spies. No interference from the Capitol and their little minions. Gale. The thought streaks through my mind so fast I hardly even catch it. Katniss is talking.
"Sorry, what?" I ask. She looks reproachful but it vanishes quickly. She knows that I, too, am having difficulty focusing on everything that isn't this upcoming trip.
"I said, Haymitch is drawing up a battle plan," she says around a mouthful of food, with a touch of irony in her voice.
"A battle plan?" I ask, still tugging myself back into the moment.
"Yeah. A strategy, or something. He was a little vague on the details. I think it's the whole united-front thing."
Unsurprisingly, Haymitch's thoughts have outstripped mine; call it a 25+ year advantage of being a Victor. Certainly this will not be a controversial idea. What else are we doing besides assembling a united front already?
"When do we get to hear all about it?"
"You know Haymitch," she says. "He'll figure that out, when he's ready. I think he's playing it kinda close right now until he can work it out for himself." She looks sad for a minute, uncharacteristically so for a conversation about Haymitch. "You know, the other day I caught him watching the old Games tapes again. Raving drunk, of course. I shut it off and he pitched a fit about how they can't be trusted. But I only got to hear about half of it before he passed out."
"I've seen them on in there, too," I say resignedly. "I wonder why he does that?"
"Therapy," she says wryly, and with a touch of bitterness. "It's not like we can stop him. But he makes me worry…" She trails off. She's gnawing on the corner of her mouth, another thing she does when she's thinking or stressed, like chewing pens. The skin on her lips looks raggedy and chapped, patchy. I reach out my hand and run my thumb over her lips, and she winces. Sore, too. She stops worrying them for a minute.
"Worry what?" I prompt gently.
"Worry…that we'll never get over it." Her eyes are sad and soft and frightened. "I mean, it's been how many years? …And he's still stuck on it. It's stolen everything about who he is. We don't even know what he would have been like without the Games. He'll never be the same person."
I react to the last part before I work my way back to the first.
"Katniss, none of us will ever be the same people as we were before all this. Not even Delly and the ones who were never in the Games. Especially not us. I'd probably never even have talked to you if they'd never picked us."
This causes a small smile, which is a start.
"But Haymitch also chose this," I say, as gently as I can, because I know how cruel these words sound, even to me. They're ones I've considered for a long time, weighing the truth of them inside my head. "He could give it up, but he's doing what he feels he needs to do. We're free to choose, too. So is Johanna. Do you think she's gone forever?"
She immediately shakes her head. The distilled essence of Johanna's personality might be less gone than any of us. Johanna grew harder, tougher, more ruthless, through all of this, but she was never not Johanna, as far as I can figure. Strong, clever, funny, independent, skeptical, resourceful. She, too, relies on drugs, but she's become increasingly self-aware about it since the days when she used to unhook our IVs in 13. After she got clean for military training, she never went back to relying on what she absolutely doesn't have to. She takes more than us, but as much as we've been through—surviving the Games, surviving their aftermath, surviving the war and the torture—she's been through two rounds of it, both of them directly in the Games. None of the rest of us can claim that. Katniss and I didn't have enough time after our first Games to really feel the extent of Snow's wrath the way the others did. Johanna's been through most of the aspects of what Haymitch, Katniss and I have all been through, just by herself.
"Plus, there are two of us," I tell her, and she nods. "We're lucky, Katniss. How many people that lived through this ended up with someone that could really say they knew how it felt?" The answer to that is, of course, none. Just us. I see her visibly relax as the thought hits home. I lean in and kiss her lightly, just once, closed-mouthed. She brushes my hair back from my eyes.
"Thanks for the lunch," she says sincerely. "I really should get back, but I get off at 4, so I'll head back then."
"Okay," I say. "I'm going to work on some things around home and I'll make us something to eat. Chicken sound good?" Even my mouth waters a little as I say it. The chickens were store-bought, of course. When we get back home, I'm planning to begin acquiring us some of our own. Tonight I have some I can fry up with potatoes.
"Sure!" she says, and re-ties her hair as she straightens. She kisses me once more, and I see her smile as she turns to head back to work. I sling the empty pail over the crook of one arm and, as the sun slowly begins to creep west, turn for home.
As a matter of habit, on my way up towards our house, when I pass Katniss' mailbox, I open it up reflexively to check. And there is one thin, white, square reality that I don't want to face, staring blankly back at me. If the first one brought on a flood of resentment and fear, this one brings on a flood of unexpected defiance. It takes me a moment to place the source. In its newness, Katniss has of yet not informed Gale of her change in living quarters. Or maybe she's even deliberately held that information from him, wanting to save it for our meeting in person. But seeing that letter sitting solitary in the disused mailbox, at the end of the flagstone path that so rarely sees our steps these days, unlike the well-trod one up to my front door, inside which hang my jacket and Katniss', together, gives me a flare of righteous anger and satisfaction. This is one thing their spies don't know, or haven't deigned to share with Gale. In that moment, I'm not afraid of the hand I know will stare up to me when I pluck it out. Because, as I pointed out to Katniss, we are together. Not just she and I, but all of us. Four Victors, and none of us having won by accident except, perhaps, me.
But of course, the hand is there, and of course it's his, but there's nothing I can do with that but wait, since it's not mine to open. I place it carefully against the salt and pepper on the table and busy myself with cooking. The tasks that Katniss finds so tedious and frustrating are comforting to me in their repetition—kneading bread, sweeping floors, mending, washing dishes. I begin to make breadcrumbs with old bread and herbs, roll chicken in eggs, fry it up. The smell of thick grease and sizzling herbs fills the small space. The cat comes over to waooooooow against my ankles. I break off little pieces and throw them to him, since Katniss isn't around. I boil potatoes with dill and cream. By the time the front door opens, dinner is well on its way to completion and the kitchen looks okay, too, since I'm cleaning as I cook. Buttercup disappears around the corner without a trace, having been satiated. She's whistling, and as I turn, drying my hands on a cloth, she appears in the doorway, grimed from nose to toes. The corner of my mouth twitches. She's completely indistinguishable from a boy except for her physical size and those delicate features. My fingers ache to bury themselves in her hair, but I know she won't settle in for dinner without a much-needed shower. She makes it partway through a wave before her eyes, of course, alight on that small square of white that seems to sap all the color from the room around it. She doesn't have that still, shocked look that the last one brought, but one of dogged resignation. We've adjusted nicely, I think cynically. But the fact can't be left unrealized; we all have rallied rather quickly in light of the initial information—Haymitch is planning, Katniss and I are strengthening our alliance with one another, and Johanna, of course, has moved with both speed and grit. But then, I guess, if we were an easy group of people to intimidate, we wouldn't have made it this far to start with.
She crosses the kitchen in her socks and flips a chair around with one smooth movement to lie her arms across the back—looking uncommonly like Haymitch, who sits similarly, as she retrieves the envelope. Unlike last time, there's no waiting period—she tears it open and pulls out a single sheet bearing only one long paragraph. I lean by the sink and wait, watching her eyes. She reads fast, and I see them harden the further down she gets—steeling herself, rather literally, given their color. When she finishes it, she tosses it onto the table amongst the breadcrumbs and rests her chin on her crossed arms.
"Guess that's settled," she says finally. I make a motion towards the letter and she waves me on. I retrieve it and read:
Katniss,
Didn't take him long to dispense with the "dear," did it?
Of course we have expected that you might want to bring along company and have anticipated such in our planning, so by all means, Haymitch, Johanna and Peeta are welcome to join you. We may have some difficulty finding quarters for Johanna's dog, but since you have insisted, we will do the best we can. I have also indicated to the others that among your conditions is that we find you temporary housing that is separate from our base of operations and leadership housing. President Paylor is not thrilled with this; we prefer to have you all in the safest space we can procure which is, naturally, close to the site of the previous President's living quarters, however, again, at your insistence, suitable arrangements will be made by the time you arrive. We will have them ready for you by the 12th of April
…this is next Wednesday…
so you will be welcome to join us at any time after that date. Please do call to confirm when you are arriving; we are anticipating you by the end of next week. Among other things, to answer your questions, we will be planning strategic meetings to assess the viability of having a 76th Hunger Games, as well as to discuss disciplinary hearings for the former Ministers and Chiefs of Staff. President Paylor has requested that you make yoursel(ves) available to speak with the people of Panem through televised spots and interviews or those that can be recorded to play at later dates; though she acknowledges that she does not have the capacity to force your hands in this matter, she has encouraged me to strenuously encourage you to do so in order to aid us in rallying the peoples' spirit and creating support for our new efforts.
What a practiced politician he's becoming, I think snidely, before I can help it.
Lastly, I am aware that you have stressed, as a part of your conditions for coming, that you cannot guarantee a return date, however, we strongly encourage you to consider the fact that many important matters must be discussed and this may be time-consuming. However, again, we must acquiesce to your request and will therefore be as flexible as possible in our procedures during your stay. Thank you. Please keep me informed, and I will be seeing you soon.
Gale
The cool tone of this letter reflects her response, I know, which I saw before it went out. It was little more than a list of statements and conditions with very little personal touch.
"It helps me," she told me at the time, "To keep it at a distance for now. This isn't really about he and I…not the nuts and bolts of it."
The coolness also belies his resentment at being bossed around, though, I know. Haymitch had particularly encouraged Katniss to be assertive from the beginning in her response, not that she needed much pushing. "Better to start out that way," he'd growled. "Come out swinging, you know." The reality is, they can't force Katniss to do anything without making a giant public scene and creating a lot of hassle for themselves; the most they can do is ask. And if she has conditions, and they want her bad enough…which they clearly do…all they can do is acquiesce, no matter how inconvenient or ill-thought those demands are. Katniss had developed her conditions very quickly after her letter to Johanna went out: room for all of us, including Johanna's dog, away from the center Capitol, and freedom to come and go as we pleased, including to return home. She'd also made clear that she was not committing to any one specific role; that the outcome of her visit would be determined by herself with the implied support of us. They're in a tricky position, because the four of us, particularly Katniss and I, are beloved in a way that they aren't. One of the more pleasant consequences of being a national revolutionary whose much-touted romance was, in the end, perfectly timed. No one has needed the pick-me-up of true love more than they have since the war. Paylor may deal with her resentment over this with more grace, but like Coin, she nevertheless must feel the screws turning on her to strike a conciliatory balance with us. Katniss' letter wasn't hostile, exactly, but it was deliberately uncompromising. No doubt it set the tone for what they're expecting when we arrive.
Katniss' eyes look far away again, and she's chewing the end of her braid thoughtfully. I place the letter carefully back on the table and then whirl to catch the chicken, which is hissing ominously in its grease, before I lose this batch. I pull them just in time and shut off the stove. Plates are already laid out. The smell of the food must draw Katniss back in, because she shakes her head as if to clear it and then looks up to me.
"Do I have time to shower first?" She asks. Her voice is steady and I'm glad. There is none of the drama that came with the first, unexpected letter. Her eyes are a little unreadable, though. I lean down and kiss her forehead.
"You had better, you smell terrible," I tell her. This isn't really true, but she whacks my shoulder in mock outrage.
"You know, you don't have to get near enough me to smell me at all," she sniffs. I smile.
"Go ahead," I tell her. "Do you want to show this to Haymitch tonight?" She mulls this over, but then shakes her head. "It can wait until tomorrow. Things are settled. There's not much to debate now, really. I'll confirm with him and Johanna, and I guess we should begin to pack." She sighs. Not that there's much for us to pack.
She turns and leaves the kitchen but the letter lies face up on the table, staring back at me with its detachment. There is Gale, so high-and-mighty, begrudgingly informing us that yes, even though we're such a pain in the ass for asking, he guesses they can arrange living somewhere outside the center Capitol. As if he were the one who watched his sibling burn to death. As if he were the one who couldn't step onto each paving stone without thinking about the maze of chambers and tunnels where the man who saved his life was killed in the most horrifying way possible, where he was caught and tortured and hijacked. For Gale, the Capitol is those last few hours fighting our way through, but that is all it will ever be, all the trauma that will ever come to mind. I'm angry with him; angry enough to have words, even, and for once, they're not over Katniss. I'm angry at the sense of entitlement that makes even this letter sound like he's doing us a favor. I'm angry because we have a right to own our pain, and no one has a right to take it away from us, minimize it, pretend it doesn't exist. I'm angry because, like Haymitch, I already see the patterns that stretch from Capitol to Capitol. I know Katniss voted yes to the Games, but if I had to suspect, that vote is going to change. Other than hunting, she's lost any bloodlust she might ever have had, as the past slowly recedes. I don't think she has the stomach to stand up now and condemn other kids to yet more death. She leads a quiet life here, one that seems to suit her, helping rebuild the place that was our home, accepting the love of those who will give it. I know I could be happy here for the rest of my life, rebuilding our town and our friends and each other, maybe even having children one day, not that this is something I could mention to Katniss. We don't ask for much.
Katniss' shower is fast; while I'm lost in my thoughts, picking tiny bits of breading off a chicken wing on my plate, she's come down the stairs, wrapped in a faded yellow cotton robe that's too big for her; the sleeves far over her hands. Her hair is damp and unbound and falls in a sheet past her shoulders. "That's so much better," she exhales. Even from where I'm sitting, I can smell her shampoo. "I'm starving," she announces, and crosses to the stove to dish up food. Before she reaches it, I catch her hand and she turns, looking impatient.
"Just a second," I implore her, but now she rarely ever tells me no. She willingly steps over into my arms and perches on my good leg as I wrap them around her and pull her in. I bury my face into her damp hair, breathing in those good smells of shampoo and warm sun-kissed skin. I speak into her hair. "Grow it out more," I whisper. She laughs.
"Like yours?" She asks me, and runs her fingers through my waves. They fall to my own shoulders now, so long I have to tie them back for the first time in my life when I cook. I kept growing them when I realized they tantalized Katniss, back when hers was still singed off. She couldn't keep her hands out of my hair, teasing me as she braided little braids into it, brushing it sometimes after we showered, bury her hands deep in it when we make love. I shiver a little thinking of that, and she must feel it, because she leans in and kisses me gently. It has the feeling of one that could be opened up if I wanted to, but I don't, since she should eat after working all day—me too, since I haven't, much. I pull back and kiss her nose lightly.
"Come eat," I say, and shift her up so that I can fetch us chicken and potatoes. She positively wolfs it, which is nice to watch. I make a mental note to carry some over to Haymitch afterwards; maybe it will tempt him into eating. I even manage to eat some myself. In a way, I'm glad the letter came today, one more step towards getting this over with. I'm glad that we're handling it with even some sense of grace. It could be a lot worse, I think. If it weren't all of us, together. If we weren't Victors, and strong.
Katniss washes dishes while I make a quick trip to Haymitch's. He's mostly passed out on the couch, but I leave the food in the fridge with a note, and I'm glad at least to see that he's not watching those stupid Games tapes again. I add in the note that we've received Gale's response and we'll keep him in the loop tomorrow. Haymitch approves of the fact that Katniss is living with me now—so much so that he hasn't taken the opportunity to rib her about it, for which I'm glad. It's better to tread lightly; head off her periodic fits of uncertainty and self-doubt, fear and temper. When I return, the lights are turned down on the lower floor already, and when I climb the stairs to our bedroom I find her sitting up, her arms around her knees, wearing a long old t-shirt, the sheet wrapped around her hips as she stares at the rising moon.
"Full moon," she says quietly, watching the enormous bulk of it hover, flooding our yard with light. In 12, the superstitious, like Sae, believe that full moons are fortuitous, that they bring good fortune when they rise. Though I don't believe it, nothing can possibly hurt at this point, so I'm glad to see it. I undress and carefully detach my leg, which is a little sore today and which I'm glad to be rid of. I lie it on the nightstand and crawl up next to her. I sit beside her and wrap my arms around her as we watch it together. It's stars that you're told to make wishes on, as little kids, but this time I figure no one but me will know if I make a wish on a moon instead. So I send one more thought out into the universe and wish on the silver orb in the sky that no harm will come to us in the tasks we need to fulfill in the next few weeks. That we'll make it through unscathed and be able to come home, together, and return to this life here, so simple but filled with love. The moon, of course, is inscrutable, gives away nothing. It fills Katniss' eyes and reflects back from them, turning them silver instead of grey. I cup one breast gently in my hand and kiss the sweet spot where her shoulder meets her neck. Her skin is almost unbearably soft. She makes a tiny sound, and then turns to look at me.
"Are you okay?" She asks me. Her hand strays up and she cups my face, stroking my stubbled cheek with one thumb. I nod. I'm preoccupied; I can't say this hasn't affected me and I know she doesn't expect that it hasn't—how could it not?—but I feel like myself, yet. The comfort of her beside me is like a warm ocean lapping all around me. And I know I will defend her, once we get to where they're waiting. We are growing together at the same time as we are growing up.
"You should make a wish," I whisper in her ear. She smiles.
"I already did," she says, "Do you think it will come true, on a moon?"
"Maybe just this once," I say. "What did you wish for?" I know that she won't tell me.
"If I tell you, it won't come true," she says, still smiling. Katniss' secret heart exists only for her, as it should. It is as wild and free as the wind. But as she leans up and kisses me, as those chapped lips I love meet mine with all the lightness of flower petals drifting down, I hope that she's included me in it. Somewhere inside, I believe that she did.
"Maybe I'll show you, though," she says, in a teasing voice. She snuggles down into the covers, beckoning me, making her best come-hither face, and I'm still laughing when she throws the blankets up and over our heads. The silver moonlight lights them for us, and underneath them, of course, we light each other.