Seasons of Wither, Chapter 24
When I awaken, our home is dark and eerily quiet. The only sounds I can hear come from the ticking wall clock and the slow, steady creak of one of the kitchen chairs. It seems like a lot more should be happening right now, and the only reason I can tell that my mother is still here is by her shadow that casts on the wall in the kitchen.
I roll out of my bed, padding across the room and into the kitchen where she sits. I expect to find her reorganizing and sanitizing her medical supplies as she always does after seeing a patient. If not that, maybe reading, knitting, mending clothes—anything, really, besides sitting there almost completely still and staring blankly at the wall in front of her. I'm terrified because the way she doesn't even turn her head to acknowledge the fact that I'm now in the same room feels all too familiar.
"Where is everyone?" I ask her with no reply.
"Where'd Gale go?" I ask again. "He didn't already leave did he?"
She still fails to answer my question. Becoming agitated with her, I speak more loudly.
"Where'd they go!" I demand. "Where's my baby?"
I look around room desperately, but there's no sign of the tiny infant I'd just delivered hours ago. I should be feeding my daughter right now, not standing here asking my mother where the hell my baby is at. Surely Gale and his mother wouldn't attempt to carry a newborn clear across the Seam in several feet of snow in the wintertime. And what reason would they have to do so in the first place?
A terrible feeling begins to build in my gut.
"Where's my daughter?" I demand, sinking down to grasp my mother's shoulders. "Where'd she go!" I scream, jostling her roughly as I shake her shoulders.
Something's wrong; I can feel it in my bones. There's a reason why she refuses to answer me, why everyone has suddenly disappeared.
Finally, and thankfully, she looks up to meet my tearful gaze.
"I'm so sorry, Katniss," she finally whispers.
"Sorry for what?" I ask her, trembling slightly as I dread her response. "What do you have to be sorry for?"
"I tried to save her. I did everything I was capable of," she goes on. She's looking at me now, but her eyes still don't quite meet mine. I'm shaking my head as she tells me, "She was just too small."
I double over, feeling like someone has just punched me hard in the stomach.
"No," I say. "You're wrong."
"She was just too small," my mother reminds me again. "I'm so sorry, Katniss."
I take a step back so quickly that I back into the shelves where we keep the medicines and send many of them crashing to the floor in the process.
"She was fine when she was born!" I scream. "She was breathing!"
"I'm so sorry," Mother tells me again, almost mechanically.
"Where's Gale?" I demand. "I need Gale."
My mother just shakes her head.
"Where is he!"
But I don't give her a chance to answer me before I'm tearing across the room and out the door, leaving it swung open behind me. I can't even stifle the gasp that leaves my lungs when I look around me. Somehow, during the duration of my sleep, the several inches of snow that had accumulated over the past two days is gone, melted. The dirt streets of the Seam have turned to mud, sucking my bare feet down into it as I make for Gale's house.
My mother is confused, she has to be.
I look up at the sound of a train whistle, and suddenly I'm in the square. I don't even know how I've gotten here. I'm still in my nightshirt and bare feet, and I'm wedged in a crowd of kids all dressed in their Reaping Day clothes. But it's not Reaping Day, it's January.
I feel claustrophobic as they begin to close in on me—the sullen eyes of those who are waiting to hear their fate.
There's a loud squeal that comes from the stage sitting in front of the Justice Building as Effie Trinket taps one of her elaborately-painted claws on the metal microphone.
"Primrose Everdeen!" her voice chants excitedly over the speakers, my little sister's name echoing over the square.
My eyes snap up and I catch sight of a set of blond braids being led towards the stage by a Peacekeeper.
"Prim?"
"Stop!"
"Prim!" my voice cracks as they lead her away.
Even though I'm screaming at the top of my lungs in an effort to grab her attention, she keeps walking. The children surrounding me don't allow for a break in the crowd so that I can get to her, and I find myself forcefully pushing through them, toppling a few of the smaller ones down onto the ground. When I finally manage to break through the crowd, I just catch a glimpse of Haymitch Abernathy leading her up the stairs to the train.
I'm at the top of the steps when the doors slide shut in my face and the train goes speeding away.
"No!" I scream, falling down onto my knees at the top of the splintered steps as I watch the train quickly disappear beyond the trees. I close my eyes as I punch against the wooden planks beneath me, my fists bloodying in the process.
When I open my eyes, I'm standing at the side of a gallows which has somehow appeared in the center of the square overnight. Cray is standing atop the platform, reading off a list of crimes being charged—burglary, trespassing, and theft—while two other Peacekeepers hold their rifles on the tall man standing with his hands bound tightly behind his back and a noose draped around his neck.
I know who it is before he even turns his head to meet my gaze.
"I'm sorry, Catnip," Gale mouths to me as they slip the dark bag over his head. Instantly, I begin to make towards the platform, but a pair of hands grab me by my arms before I'm able to do so. I struggle to free myself of his grasp, but his hands tighten around my wrists as I attempt to break away.
"Katniss, no!" he hisses. "There's nothing you can do," Peeta says, trying to calm me as I use what little strength I have to try and wrench out of his grasp. "They'll just kill you too," he tells me when I finally manage to slip from his hold on me.
I'm just at the bottom step when Cray pulls the lever that sends Gale swaying slightly by the tightened rope around his neck, and I fall to the muddy ground in a heap at the sight.
And in an instant, everyone that I love is gone.
There's a pressure in my chest that has been building. and I wonder if this will be my demise—death by a broken heart. What do I have to live for anymore, besides?
There's a warm tickle on my neck, and as I open my eyes, they strain against the morning sun and I find myself back in my bed. A heavy arm is draped across my chest—it's weight the source of the pressure, obviously. I feel the scratchy sensation of the unshaven jaw buried in the back of my neck and the slow and steady breath of the person sleeping behind me. I look down at the arm that's wrapped around me—muscular, tan, and riddled with various scars.
I feel like I'm too weak to move at all, especially with his arm wrapped so protectively around my torso, and my body feels like it's been through hell and back.
"Gale," I say, my voice strained and frail from fatigue and disuse. I doubt that it's loud enough to wake him until he stirs in his sleep and suddenly his face is looming over me.
"Katniss, you're awake," he says, clearly relieved. I open my mouth the reply to the obviousness of his statement, but he leans down to kiss me before I can. His lips linger over my chapped ones for a moment, and I finally manage to wrap a tired arm around his neck. His beautiful, unscathed neck. After the dream I'd just had, the last thing I want is for this kiss to end, but eventually he pulls away. "You were out for so long. I was-" he frowns, shaking his head. "You we're really sick, I was so scared that you wouldn't wake up."
"What happened?" I ask him, groggily. The last thing I remember before passing out was my mother stitching me up.
"You lost a lot of blood," he tells me, his voice quivering slightly with emotion. "Your mother says that you tore pretty badly during labor. We thought it was something worse, something internal, but she managed to sew you up and stop the bleeding. You bled so much though, and there was nothing she could do but wait. Your heart started speeding up so fast. For a minute-" Gale pauses, closing his eyes and nuzzling his face against my hair. "I didn't know if you would ever get to hold her."
My eyes widen when I finally realize someone else is still missing.
"Gale, the baby!" I begin, attempting to sit up, but I'm still too weak and dizzy and there's a sharp pain that shoots through my body when I move. "She was so small. It's because I didn't eat enough; I should have eaten when you told me to. She was too little. She's sick, isn't she? She was born too early, and-"
I begin to panic, but Gale firmly grasps onto my shoulders, shaking his head.
"No, no, no..." he says, trying desperately to reassure me. "Catnip, calm down."
"I didn't take care of myself enough when I was pregnant," I tearfully admit. "All that time in the woods. getting stuck outside the district. The poison, Gale! I exposed my baby to some unknown toxin from the Capitol!"
But Gale doesn't answer; he is too busy getting up and making his way across the room. My eyes fall on the small, white cradle in the corner that must have been pulled out of Hazelle's storage some time during the night. Gale leans over the edge with a smile, gently scooping up a tiny, pink-swaddled bundle before settling down next to me on the mattress.
"Hang on," he tells me, holding the baby in the crook of one arm as he uses his other to prop my torso up with an extra pillow before laying her in my lap.
I look down, and my breath is instantly taken away.
Her hands are balled up in tight fists next to her face, which scrunches up slightly as she begins to fuss in my arms. She lets out a small wail as I loosen the blanket around her before reaching down to stroke the back of her tiny fist. Her skin is so incredibly soft and delicate, like flower petals. I'm still too weak to trust myself to hold her alone, and Gale's arms wrap around both of us as he helps me hold her in my arms.
"She's small, but she's so healthy, Katniss," he tells me. "Came out screaming and cried through the better part of the night," he tells me as I stifle a laugh. "Your mom said she's the healthiest she's ever delivered, though she might be a bit biased about her first grandchild."
She's still crying, but even crying she's easily the most beautiful child I've ever laid eyes on.
"I also changed her first diaper while you were out, and you officially owe me for having to deal with that mess alone."
I pull the tiny white hat that she wears away from her head curiously, passing my fingers over the soft, black tuft of unruly hair at the top of her scalp.
"She's perfect," I whisper in disbelief, because it almost seems too good to be true. I'm terrified the joy that I'm feeling right now might just be another dream that I will awaken from at any moment and reality will come crashing back.
"She is," he agrees.
Not being able control this new emotion that hits me so strongly, tears begin to flow freely as I let out a small sob. After everything that's happened to us over the past several months, I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted. And, even though that heavy, menacing weight still looms over our heads, maybe it's going to be okay after all. Because after all the pain and hardships Gale and I have lived through over the period of our very short lives, this little piece of us is the single shred of hope we'll always have to hold onto.
Gale rubs my back as I cry. I want this to be a happy day, and I am happy. But behind that happiness is a constant fear that will probably always plague me. My little girl doesn't understand yet the kind of world that she's been born into—the challenges she will face for the rest of her life. She won't know them for awhile. I wish that she would never have to.
The sound of my own sobs are easily drowned out by her small, needful cries, and I find myself laughing despite the tears in my eyes. I don't even know how to make her stop crying, though her wails remind me of how very much alive she is.
"I don't know what to do," I admit as I bring my wrist up the wipe away my tears, my breath still shaky.
"Talk to her," Gale says. "She'll know your voice."
I attempt to wrap her in her blanket a little more tightly before drawing her up towards my chest. I don't even know what I'm supposed to say to a baby that is only hours old. I never knew that someone so small could be so intimidating.
So instead I begin to sing.
Her cries begin to die down immediately. I continue humming softly until they have all but dwindled away and she is staring back up at me in wonder. I'm sure I look like nothing but a giant blob to her at this age, but she seems to know who I am. I gently pat her bottom with the hand that supports her back, remembering seeing other mothers do the same with their infants. The combination of my voice and the steady rhythm of my hand patting simultaneously seem to soothe her enough to stop crying. It isn't long before she's nodding off again, her fists stretched up alongside her face.
"She sleeps with her hands up," Gale says with a smile, and I laugh.
"Must have been the way she slept inside me." I look up at him, realizing neither of us can go on calling her "she."
"What did you name her?" I ask him, remembering the agreement made by the lake halfway through my pregnancy.
He smiles.
"I, uh...I actually thought that you'd might want the honor," he tells me sheepishly. "After how hard you had to work to bring her into the world after all."
It's funny, but over the past several months I'd never actually spent any time trying to think up names, not even one for the boy that I was certain I would have. I was too busy worrying that he or she may never even get the chance to be born. I had joked about naming the child after Gale, but neither of us really took that idea seriously.
Gale sits quietly, running his calloused fingers over the downy-soft hair of our daughter's tiny head.
"No one will expect you to come up with something right away," he assures me. "Though my mother may want to put her two cents in if she doesn't have a name by her first birthday."
I laugh, but I don't need that long.
"Phacelia."
The name leaves my lips before I even realize that I'm naming her; it comes to me instantly. I'm reminded of the purple-colored wildflower every time I'm in the meadow.
When I was young, I remember my father buying irlip bulbs for my mother to plant in a flower garden she kept in the backyard. They were Capitol hybrids—"mutt flowers" if you will, genetically altered to produce giant, fragrant blooms that don't wither until well into late summer. Mother always kept her garden in pristine condition, weeding it daily and keeping it watered. Back when she was nothing but a homemaker, it was the one extravagant hobby she allowed herself. Through droughts and harsh winters, the flowers bloomed early every spring without fail because they were scientifically altered to do so.
One day Father spotted a few Phacelia flowers that had somehow popped up in mother's garden. When he went to pull them, she'd stopped him.
"Leave them," she had said. When he asked why she would want to bunch of weeds growing in her garden, she'd told him that there was something beautiful about something so unplanned. They weren't purchased from the general store with the promise of everlasting blooms resistant to insects and weather. They just popped up through the soil only when and where the temperature and elements were just right. A "happy surprise" she'd called them.
"Phacelia," Gale says thoughtfully. "It's beautiful."
"I guess we've settled on a name then," my Mother says from doorway with a knowing smile. She crosses the room, leaning over to kiss my forehead before smoothing her hand over Phacelia's head.
"A beautiful name for my new beautiful granddaughter. How are we feeling?" Mother asks, taking my wrist in her hand to check my pulse.
"Tired and sore," I admit with a sigh.
I feel like I must be swollen between my legs, and every time I adjust my position on the bed, I swear I can feel my stitches tearing. I wonder how long my mother spent stitching me up last night. Then again, given my squeamishness about blood and illness, maybe it's best not to think about it.
"You're heart rate is getting back to normal," she tells me, dropping my wrist and patting my arm.
"What about the baby?" I ask.
"Healthy as a horse," Mother answers with a smile. "Good color, breathing well, crying extremely well. I don't see how you could ask for a more perfect daughter."
"Shouldn't I be feeding her though?" I wonder out loud. "Isn't she hungry? How long was I even out?"
"About 14 hours. Don't worry, she didn't go hungry while you were asleep. We had to supplement a bit, but the sooner you can nurse her, the better. But first we should get some fluids into you. I have some tea boiling that should help you start to build your blood supply back up," she tells me, disappearing into the kitchen before returning with a large glass of orange liquid and placing it into my hand.
"What sort of tea is this?" I ask, wrinkling my nose. It's cold and smells acidic, like something familiar I can't quite put my finger on.
"Not tea. Orange juice. Also good for rebuilding your blood supply."
"Where did you get orange juice at?" I ponder as I look down into my cup. Oranges are an extravagant expense here, forget being able to afford enough to make juice with.
"The Undersees sent a gift basket this morning," she informs me as I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "News travels fast."
"Just don't tell Gale," I tease, knowing well that he's still sitting right next to me.
"Considering the circumstances, I think I'll let this one slide," he says, taking our daughter from my arms so I can finish my drink.
"Since when do the Undersees send gift baskets to new Seam mothers?" I ask, taking a swallow of juice. It's sweeter than anything I've ever tasted, and I try to drink it slowly even though I'm parched.
"I don't think that they do," he answers, shifting the baby in his arms. "Madge may have had more to do with it than her father."
"She wasn't even at school yesterday," I say, curiously. "I wonder if it was Peeta that told her."
Gale nestles Phacelia down into the crook of his arm again, and I can't help but to smile at how quickly he's taken to fatherhood. I'm sure he'd gotten plenty of practice with Posy, but it's nice to know at least one of us knows the basics of caring for a newborn.
"The Mellark kid saved your neck last night," Gale acknowledges, glancing up at me curiously. "He carried you all the way home from school?"
"Most of the way, yes," I answers. "Why? Are you jealous?" I tease with a smile.
"Ha, ha," he answers with a smile. "That might actually be funny if it weren't for the fact that he's been pretty into you for awhile."
I almost choke on my juice.
"Into me?" I ask him, lifting my wrist up to wipe my lips.
Gale rolls his eyes. "Come on, Katniss. You really didn't see it? The way he always looked at you when we went to trade. The two loaves of bread for a scrawny squirrel. A surplus of freshly-baked goods? Yeah, I bet."
I think about my history with Peeta Mellark. There isn't much of one, to be honest, but he has gone out of his way to help me on numerous occasions. What had I ever done for him except sell squirrels to his father? I don't want to believe that what Gale says is true. Maybe Peeta is just a good human being. But then I remember that look on his face as Gale carried me away from his arms—the look of envy. Was he jealous of Gale? Was he jealous of what I had with him? It all makes too much sense for me to dismiss.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" I ask Gale. "If you knew that Peeta had a crush on me all along?"
He smiles. "Couldn't have the baker kid stealing my girl, right?"
I blush.
"You never had much to worry about. Not with Peeta or anyone else," I tell him, but at the same time my stomach lurches at the thought that I had most likely—albeit unintentionally—hurt Peeta. He had put his reputation, as well as his heart, on the line to help me even though we both knew I'd never be able to return whatever feelings he has for me.
I will never be able to thank him enough, let alone even begin to repay him.
"Good to know," Gale says, turning his attention back towards the baby.
"I'm sorry for blowing up the other day," I tell Gale when I realize that I still owe him an apology about our falling out. "I was miserable and hormonal and just...well, scared."
He shakes his head as I try to word my apology appropriately. It seems that things are fine between us now, but I know what it's like to feel desperate to protect the ones you love. It was a poor use of judgment on his part—stealing from a merchant—but I can't say I wouldn't have done the same if it meant keeping the people I care about alive.
I remember how it felt in my dream watching Prim being Reaped, watching them execute Gale, finding out my baby hadn't made it. I realize now how quickly I would have taken any of their places in such a dire situation. The only thing worse than dying is watching the people you love die.
"No," he tells me. "It was stupid. I have a daughter who needs me and a family to support. I'll be no use to either of you dead."
I take his left hand into mine and he easily holds the tiny newborn in his right arm. When I lean down to place a gentle kiss on the back of his knuckles, Gale arches his eyebrows in surprise.
I don't want to think about anybody dying right now, not when I had just cheated death hours ago. I want to know that, no matter what happens after this, I didn't let the prospect of our uncertain future keep me from living my life today. Keeping myself from loving Gale isn't going to solve any of our problems.
After my father died, I told myself that I would never fall in love because I didn't want to become my mother. I told myself that I'd never have children because I wouldn't stand in the crowd on Reaping Day and watch them be taken away. Somehow, over the past year, I've managed to do both. However, I can't look at it as if it were a huge mistake—loving Gale or having Phacelia.
"I want you in my life," I tell him, and his expression softens. "I never want to let you go again, no matter what stupid things you do."
He nods, offering me a sheepish grin. "I'm here."
I bring a tired hand up to cup his jaw, and Gale wraps his arm around me, leaning in so that I can kiss him while being mindful of the baby sandwiched in between us.
"I love you," I finally tell him just under my breath. He hears me, because I feel his body stiffen against mine. "I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to say it."
It's still not easy for me to admit, scary almost—the concept of loving someone else so much and knowing that there's a possibility that one day one of us might end up alone and brokenhearted. But I must be feeling brave today.
"Better late than never," he says softly, leaning in to kiss me again.
XxX
AN: There's one more chapter left after this one. And sorry for the delay, again.