The crew get to work right away, setting up camp in a house with three standing walls and a roof, and going into the streets with hand-held cameras. Effie introduces them to the builders and residents, pointing out the changes that have come to pass since last week. Some of the builders take it further, discussing the several smaller structures that they have recently completed and are now inhabited.
"The couple living in that house are having a baby soon," says Oliver, a lean man whose hair has just begun to turn grey. "It'll be the first child born here who's born free."
"Goodness, she was pregnant through the entire rebellion?" Effie shakes her head, staring at the little house. "That must have been so difficult for them."
"They found out when we were in District Thirteen," Oliver says. "All they wanted was for their baby to have the chance to grow up somewhere safe."
"They got their wish."
Oliver indicates the next building to be completed soon, and the people working on it throw in some anecdotes about what it used to be and how now it will be better. Their obvious pride lights up their faces when they talk. If it's this touching in the raw, it will be spectacular in the final cut.
It's almost dark when Effie is finally able to get away and go through her hastily dropped off things for the gifts she'd promised to bring back. She leaves a set of paintbrushes and a fancy knife with Peeta, and then, bag in hand, she heads to Haymitch's house.
She knocks loudly on the door before letting herself in. "Only me!" she calls, just in case, but there's no need. Haymitch is standing in front of the stove, glaring at a pot as if it's personally offended him.
"You're late," he tells her, not looking up.
"I had a busy, busy day." Setting the bag on the counter, she waits for him to turn to her, but he is adamant on staring his cooking ware down. "You do realize that a watched pot never boils, don't you?"
"Bull," he says at once. "They boil just fine, watched or not."
"All right. What are you doing?"
"Contemplating whether or not I can fit a goose in here."
"Haymitch! Those geese are your pets! They trust you!"
"Relax," he says, finally looking up at her as he shuts off the stove. "I was waiting for water to boil. Felt like coffee while I waited. No point now." She sighs, and he motions to the bag. "That it?"
Grinning proudly, she reaches inside the bag and produces a bottle of liquor. "This should be enough, I think."
He shakes his head. "You don't know me at all."
"You should cut back," she says as he gets them glasses and fills them with ice. Sighing, she fills them both.
As if in protest of her suggestion, he downs his first glass in one gulp, shutting his eyes against the sting. In that moment, she realizes his grimace is less about discomfort and more for relief. He doesn't waste a moment, setting the glass back down on the counter for a refill, which she does not deny him. It wasn't too long ago that she had found herself seeking solace in a bottle, after all.
"You know," she begins, taking a seat at the table, "you were right."
He plops into the chair across from her. "About what?"
"About why I came here." She looks down into her glass. "I really did just come here for me at first. I thought I would go insane if I stayed there. No one really understands, you know - sorry. Of course you know. You know better than I do. But what I mean is that, well, the people I interacted with, none of them could even begin to imagine what it's like to-"
"Not unless they've been there," he interrupts.
She nods. "Anyway, it was very selfish of me to do what I did, but things have changed. Now that I've been here a while, now that I've been getting to know the people here, I really want it to go well."
"Well," he says, half smirking, "isn't that just touching."
"It's true," she insists, smiling, and she leaves it at that. He believes her. He would have told her so otherwise.
She drinks one glass to his three, doesn't stop him when he goes for number four. He makes addiction look easy, makes the memories look that simple to ignore. It can't be true, though, not for him with his victory, with dozens of children lost under his mentorship, with having helped orchestrate a rebellion that killed hundreds, thousands before succeeding.
"Thank you, by the way," she tells him.
"For what?"
"For last week. For keeping me company over the phone."
He shrugs.
"I mean it," she insists. "It's been a long time since I've had a friend."
He quirks his lips as if beginning to scoff, then shakes his head and reaches for the bottle. Lifting it in her direction, he holds it over her glass until she shakes her head. "It won't make you sick to keep sharing with me," he tells her, the smallest of smirks tugging back his mouth.
"It's for you," she says. "Besides, I have to be up early tomorrow."
"You and your schedules." He snorts. "Some things never change."
"Some things are better left the same." She stands, smiling, as he sets the bottle down.
"Well, at least it'll do your project good." He takes his glass and lifts it to her in a mock toast. "To tomorrow."
"To tomorrow," she repeats, nodding. "And to a good night."
For lunch the next day, Effie meets Peeta at Katniss' house. She brings over a pitcher of ice cold tea, a meager contribution in the face of his baking, but it's enough for him. They sit out on the back porch, watching the branches of the evergreens sway in the breeze.
"How did you like your gifts?" she asks, glancing at him as she leans back in her seat.
"The brushes are great, thank you. Katniss took the knife with her into the woods today, so she'll be able to tell you herself tonight or tomorrow, but she's definitely grateful."
"Good, I'm glad." She looks at their empty plates, at the nearly empty pitcher of tea, at the party cloudy sky. This small amount of downtime is a treasure, especially here, where even the wind knows to take a little break in the middle of the day. Nothing can be wrong here, "You seem as if you're doing very well."
"I am," he answers without a moment's hesitation. "I had a lot of help after I was rescued."
"I don't like to say this, but for a while, hearing what they did…" She trails off as the sounds and the screams come back to her, and she shakes her head quickly to push them aside. "I was afraid it would take longer, or-"
"I think everyone thought that," he says. "But even if they did, they never gave up on me."
"Of course they didn't. No one would."
"Johanna might have."
"I disagree. But then again, I don't know her. I know you."
He chuckles, shaking his head. When he quiets, he says, "I don't know why Katniss didn't."
"Because she loves you. She's the last person who'd give up on you. You never gave up on her."
He shakes his head, shrugging, the weight of things she'll never know almost visibly settling on his shoulders. "It doesn't matter, though. What's important is that we're here now." She nods, and he adds, "You look a lot better, too, even better than that first week you were here."
"Thanks to all of you," she says with a smile. "Even the people in town. I keep thinking about how things used to be, how we were taught not to bother with you because taking care of you was the government's job." She shakes her head, memories of school books and teachers' lessons, propaganda in the guise of education, passing before her mind's eye. "You here are all so much stronger than we ever were."
"It wasn't your fault. Most of you never had the chance to know better."
But Effie had, coming to the poorest of the districts every year; she had known the truth, and she had allowed herself to try to share it, and she had discovered why ignorance truly could be bliss in a world like their old one.
Shuddering, she looks at the sky, memorizing the bright blue and the fluffy clouds as she counts and breathes. "Thank you for having faith in me," she tells him quietly. "For not pushing me away after you came back here. I don't have very many friends anymore."
"I couldn't do that to you," Peeta says, his voice low now as he journeys back to that dark place with her. "I wouldn't."
"I wouldn't have blamed you if you had, you know. I did so many terrible things."
"You had to." He clears his throat, but the rough note to his words remains in her mind for when she replays it in her head later, when she needs comfort to dispel despair. He continues, "I don't know what it was like growing up the way you did, but I bet it was debilitating in its own way."
"You have no idea." She balls up her hands in tight fists. Her nails dig into her palms, the pressure keeping her focused, present. When it turns into pain, she stops. "I went to see my doctor last week. He said the change of setting might be good for me, but that he's worried about my having to skip so many appointments."
"You could still call him, though, right?"
She nods. "It isn't the same, though." Biting her lips, she takes a slow, deep breath. "Sometimes I spend half the time just sitting there. He says that's important, too, to… to remember, and to know there's someone physically there if it gets to be too much." And it does, sometimes. She remembers one session where she had lost herself so completely in the memories of darkness that it had taken at least fifteen minutes for him to help her come back, to convince her he was only there to help her and remind her that the past could not touch her. "I can call him, yes, but it should be all right. There's a lot to be done."
"Keeping busy is good," he remarks, nodding, looking out at the trees. "Katniss is good at that."
"She's good at so many things." Effie glances down at her boots and smiles. "Does she sing much these days?"
"Not really," he says, shaking his head. "But she hums sometimes."
"Plutarch asked me to try getting Katniss to sing for the documentary, but I'm not going to."
He is quiet a moment, no doubt imagining the alternative, the look in Katniss' eyes if she were asked to perform again. "Thank you."
Peeta is looking at her when she meets his gaze, smiling faintly as the present clears the fog of recollection from his mind. The promise to protect Katniss from the last vestiges of the Capitol hangs between them, unspoken but almost palpable. The age of forced compliance is gone.