A/N: Thanks for reading ...
In my dream I'm on a battlefield, my friends in military uniforms around me - not just Katniss and Gale, but Spinner, Rose, Bear - carrying guns, targeting Peacekeepers, being attacked by enemy fire. They're not nightmares exactly, but are laced with fear all the same. I wake up on the couch, with a painful ache in my back. I admonish myself for succumbing to the temptation of sleeping in the front room - I really can't make a habit of this.
Bear must have noticed me wake, because I hear his voice, "Sorry if I woke you," and feel his fingers trail over my knee.
Sleepily, I wave him off. Images from my dream still haunt me though, and I pick up my head from the couch to ask him worriedly, "Are you going to the Capitol?"
He seems surprised. He replies, "What? No. I'm staying here with you."
"You're staying?" I ask him again.
"I'm staying," he repeats quietly.
"Because of me?" I ask.
"Not just because of you. I don't think command would send me even if I wanted to go. They think I'm too reckless." The Bear I know thinks everything through five times over. I'm about to tell him how preposterous he sounds when he leans down for a quick kiss. Two. Make that three.
As we break apart, I sigh happily before suggesting, "... or maybe you're too valuable here. Rose told me about the trains."
"Not me," he disagrees amiably. "I'm just a cog in the machine."
It's useless to try and argue with him, but I'm still thinking about his answer.
"You think I should stay here?" I ask him, more alert now.
"Of course," he says quickly. "You have to stay here. You can't sign up to go to the Capitol. Do you know the scrutiny that would put on you?" He perches himself on the couch in front of me.
"Oh. Good. I don't wanna go, even if I'm a coward," I admit, dropping my head back to the couch.
"You're not a coward." he says. "You're one of the bravest people I know." He brushes the hair from my face, looking down at me. I still feel like a coward.
I ask pitifully, "You know the others are all going?"
"They've all signed up to go. We don't know if they'll be sent yet," he corrects me.
"What are we going to do?"
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"Are we really just going to sit around here while they go back into the war?"
"Sick of me already?" he asks, eyebrows raised.
"You know what I mean," I argue.
"And you know there's plenty of work to do here. We can't all take down President Snow personally, no matter how much we want to."
I guess he's right, but I still feel guilty about it.
"Besides," Bear says, "you can't leave Mick and me here alone."
I grin, remembering his teasing from last night. "You're right," I tell him, "Mick needs me."
He gives me a withering glare that just makes me laugh.
It's a busy day at the provisions center, but the day still passes slowly. I chitchat with Tad some, and Naiya talks both our ears off. When I get home, Bear is still asleep in the back room. Johnny's spending all his extra time at the clinic in hopes of impressing the supervisors, so for now it's just me. I putter around in the front room, getting a snack and watching the rebel broadcasts. They're showing new propo spots of rebels in training. There are even shots of Gale and Finnick on a shooting range. Will they be going to the Capitol, I wonder? I'm sure they will. Gale was probably the first to sign up in district 13, and we all know now why Finnick would be eager for revenge. I wonder how Annie feels about it, coming so soon after their wedding.
Spinner shows up and joins me on the couch. As we watch the propos, I keep my eye out for other familiar faces, but don't recognize anyone else. Spinner seems more focused on what types of training are being shown in hopes of getting ideas for what he and Rose should expect at their trainings, which will start tomorrow.
Bear's awake in time for dinner with us, and after we've eaten and cleaned up, Spinner decides to head to bed early; he says he needs his beauty sleep before training begins, but waggles his eyebrows at us suggestively before disappearing down the hall.
It doesn't take long before I'm wrapped in Bear's arms, receiving more of his delicious kisses. Vaguely I hear the sound of a door, but I assume it's Spinner until Bear pulls away suddenly. Johnny is standing in the doorway.
"Is this what I'm coming home to from now on?" Johnny asks. I blush furiously while Bear clears his throat and says, "If we knew when you'd be home..."
"Never mind," Johnny grumbles, storming off toward the back room. I look at Bear, half amused and half concerned. I don't want to make either Spinner or Johnny uncomfortable in their own home. "Are we overdoing it?" I ask him.
He brushes my hair out of my face and kisses me again.
"He'll get over it. It's not like I've never caught him with a girl."
"Really? Johnny?" I ask, intrigued.
He chuckles. "Well, yeah. So don't worry, okay?"
"Okay," I hum, leaning in for another kiss.
Bear seemed distracted this morning, maybe because Rose and Spinner start their training sessions with command today. Even Naiya seems quiet at the store, which is really unusual. I'm sure she's just concerned for Rose.
When I get home, Bear is waiting for me. He's holding a fresh mug of tea but it looks like he hasn't slept a wink. "Are you okay?" I ask, ruffling a hand through his hair. He ducks away unsmiling, and leads me over to the kitchen table, sitting us down across from each other. I don't like it; it feels like a wall between us.
He looks at me seriously and says, "When we were on our date, you asked me about my family. You deserve an answer."
I don't like the pit growing in my stomach as he averts his gaze, staring intently at some point on the wall.
"It's okay. I didn't ... I - I'm sorry I asked -," I stutter.
"Don't!" He says angrily. Instinctively I flinch away, and the anger in his expression melts into regret. Quieter, he tells me, "Please, don't apologize. I'm sorry I yelled. It's not your fault, it's mine." With a sigh he adds, "If you don't want to listen ... I understand."
Whatever it is, I've never seen him upset like this. I don't know what could do this to him, but I have to hear whatever it is he's decided to share. "Tell me," I insist.
Fiddling nervously with a scrap of paper on the table, he takes a deep breath, and begins dully, "I had a good childhood. Loving parents, older sister. We weren't rich or anything, just - normal. But when I was eight, my dad's boat left on a routine fishing trip, and never came home. Nobody knows what happened to them. At least, nobody told us anything. Mom did the best she could. She sold off what she could, that helped at first. She worked long hours. Me and my sister, we were on our own a lot. That next year Finnick won the games - I think it saved us, the extra rations. I don't know, I was just a kid."
It's sad, but I can deal with this. Losing a parent isn't so foreign - my mother was sick not dead, but the accidents in the mines had left so many parents in the Seam struggling to get by. I hated the Capitol for it, for how little they cared about the safety of the district citizens. Just one more way the Capitol terrorized the districts. I wonder if the Capitol is just as flippant about safety when it comes to the fishermen. I reach out to take Bear's hands,but at my touch they drop the paper and retreat, folding together.
Bear continues, "Mom worked in the processing plant. My sister took out tesserae. They made it work - kept us going. Two years."
He falls into silence, tears in his eyes. I try my best to hold my own tears back, to be strong for him. I can tell that's not everything. My hands reach out again and this time rest on his.
He sighs, "There's more, but ..."
I'm afraid to ask, but I do anyway. "What happened?" I whisper.
"The games," he chokes out. "My sister ... got reaped. She was thirteen." His voice shakes as he tells me, "she didn't last an hour." His hand breaks free from my grasp and goes to the bridge of his nose, too late to stop the sobs escaping him.
"Oh Bear ..." I wish I could remember her, one tribute lost in a sea of children killed for the Capitol's amusement. Tears well in my eyes as I witness his pain.
He stares up at the ceiling, eyes red and still wet with tears. "I can't ..."
I squeeze his hand and tell him, "Don't then. It's okay. You don't have to -"
"No," he insists in a raw voice, briefly meeting my eyes. "No. I want to." He covers my hand with his and fixes his eyes on them as he breathes another shaky sigh and continues.
"After that, mom would break down all the time. She had problems at work. I felt dead inside, and I started getting into trouble at school. I'd always been a good student, but I just shut down. I couldn't help her. It seemed like I was just a reminder of everything we'd lost. I was just a stupid kid. I started staying out late, avoiding home. I thought she wouldn't be so sad if she didn't have to see me. I got in a lot of dumb fights. Like I needed the pain. I don't know. It was stupid, there's no excuse for it."
He takes his untouched mug of tea to the sink, dumping out the now-cold contents as he continues. "They blamed my mom. They just took me from her, sent me to the orphanage as if she was dead," he laments. "I haven't seen her since. I don't even know where she is, or if she's alive. I've looked for her, but ... I don't know. It's like she disappeared."
A/N: Appreciate any reviews! Next update soon.