The Victor and Mockingjay
by vifetoile89
A/N: You've all been amazing. I own nothing, and there's nothing to remember.
Here It's Safe, Here It's Warm
As soon as the ground shook beneath their feet, Chell seized Wheatley by the front of his jumpsuit and hauled him into action, running down the hallway. Twice he stumbled, once he almost took Chell down with him, but they righted themselves quickly, Wheatley apologizing in meaningless syllables. Chell shoved him into the elevator first, then pressed 'Up' once, twice, thrice, then slammed her palm against the button. Another tremor rocked the facility. Chell's hands were shaking. She was afraid. They were leaving the Testing Facility, which was doing its level best to kill them on their way out; best case scenario, they enter Panem. A world where children's lives were gambled away as the national sport.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped. She turned and saw Wheatley, his arm settling across her shoulders, using her to support himself. But, she realized, she didn't resent it. Not in the slightest.
She leaned into Wheatley, and held her portal gun close to her with her other hand.
The tremors continued and halted their progress. Now Chell could feel Wheatley's nervousness in how he shifted from foot to foot and squeezed her shoulder.
The lights went out. Wheatley let out a shriek and then quieted at once. Chell, though, shut down her fear and let her eyes adjust to the small strip of light at the top of the elevator. It was enough light to stave off panic. She pointed it out to Wheatley, and when he saw it, she braced one foot on the railing surrounding the elevator's walls, to try and scale it.
At that moment, however, something entirely unexpected was heard: music.
Chell froze, trying to place its source. It had an echoey, sharp percussion accompaniment – and then she realized that was just Wheatley rapping the inside of the elevator in time. She pushed him on the shirt to tell him to stop, and listened more closely. The music seemed to come from somewhere up above, but that meant nothing; this elevator had speakers in it.
Then, with a hum, they started to move upwards once again. Chell's hand sought Wheatley's, and held it, as they moved through the darkness. She held it as the music became closer. It lilted up and down, in a steady time. The words were indistinct, but did not sound English. They moved faster and faster up, and Chell was shocked to find she was talking, whispering to herself:
"Run away, run far away from science, my baby—" she clamped her mouth shut and realized she'd been piecing together the fragmentary words she could understand. But the words didn't make sense, and what she was doing had no explanation, so she just squeezed Wheatley's hand even more tightly. She marveled at the idea that he was restored to his old body, to her, that he had been so changed – so had she. She had just reached this conclusion when the elevator slowed to a stop, and the door opened.
From darkness, Chell's eyes adjusted easily to half-light. To moonlight. The moon.
A breeze fluttered in, pushing at Chell's bare skin gently. Wind. It carried with it coolness and the smell of the dry earth and the sound of crickets. She heard Wheatley give a sigh of wonder, but it was Chell who moved first, who ran out of the elevator, pulling him along behind her.
One, two, three, four, five steps and she was out. Her shadow flickered before her on the ground, in a play of rose-colored light – then, with a slam, the light was gone. She and Wheatley turned to make out a dim, dreary, lopsided behind them.
"Grazie, Mimi," Chell breathed. Then she turned her back on Aperture Science and looked around. They stood in a field, perfectly silent and lit with silver. In every direction, tall grasses of a pale color swayed in a faint breeze.
"Come on," she said to Wheatley, feeling like even her voice was liberated.
He was staring around, totally dazed, and Chell felt her guard come down. She smiled at his wonder, and pulled him into a hug, glowing with joy and a tender possessiveness, the portal gun thudding his back. Then she broke away, and pulled at his hands, once more. Businesslike this time. Her heart would only beat easier the faster they left this behind.
As they pressed on through the night, her initial exhilaration was tempered by more practical concerns. How would they find food? How long could either of them last, considering Chell hadn't eaten in who knew how long, and Wheatley was still getting used to the concept of breathing? And most pertinently, where were they going?
They stopped to rest as the horizon in the east began to lighten, like kindled embers. Stray thoughts chased themselves and faint memories stirred – "Sleep by day, move by night, follow the drinking gourd" – but what drinking gourd? And who used a ladle as a reliable direction tool?
They rested in the field. Chell lady down, put her portal gun beside her, and let the long grasses sway over her head. "Wheatley?"
"Es?" He leaned over her. He was very proud of his ability to enunciate 's's.
"Do you mind keeping watch?"
"No." His voice was pitched too low; teaching him how to talk, that would have to happen soon. But not now. For now, the silence was good. The silence which held within it a dozen sweet, soft noises – the sigh of the wind, the twitter of birds, even the sound of insects. That large hum had to be a particularly loud insect – getting closer to them – ever closer –
Chell sat up and saw the hovercraft coming towards them. She reached for Wheatley and sprang to her feet, already too late. Whatever the hovercraft sent knocked her out cold, and Wheatley, panicking, felt his limbs and new body shocked out of his control, as he and Chell were pulled up into the hoverplane, and they were sealed inside. The hoverplane departed the territory.
When Chell came to again, she couldn't remember anything at first. She lay on a bed, comfortable, safe? And found that her arm was tethered to the side of the bed
"Don't fight it," said a rough, male voice beside her. "It's worse if you fight it." Chell opened her eyes. The light was artificial, but not Aperture lights. It was warmer and at least attempted to resemble sunlight. When her eyes adjusted and focused, she turned to her right side, to the source of the voice.
It took her another minute to process because there were two men there, and in such incredible contrast to one another that it was almost hilarious. The skinny shape, leaing above, was Wheatley, the bones of his face standing out in the shadows, and his thick, reddish hair surprisingly well-combed. His eyes filled with relief as she recognized him. The other man, seated beside her, was fat, balding, and studying her with knife-like grey eyes. It was the look in his eyes that told Chell who he was, let her recognize the man she had never seen before.
"Haymitch," she breathed, too surprised to be silent.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," he paused, "sweetheart."
Chell tried to sit up. "I'm not –"
"I know." It was barely spoken, and Haymitch was looking at her forbiddingly. 'Don't say another word.'
Now, for once, Chell wanted to speak, to ask as many questions as she could, but she held back. She tried. She looked to the IV tube, pincing into her arm. "What…"
"You've been out for three days, and even before then, you were starving. Not that anyone's surprised, with an Arena totally devoid of plant life."
"There were potatoes," she blurted, before she could stop it. She felt herself shaking, the words pressing inside her to get out. "I'm not –"
"You say one more word, a lot of people could die. A lot of more or less innocent people." His gaze pinned her. "Do you understand?"
Chell slowly nodded. The words she would say tightened into a knot, that might have been fear, anger, or hatred, or all three, but she clamped it down and looked at Wheatley.
Again, Haymitch spoke. "A District Twelve boy, obviously." He leaned back and relaxed. "He was trying to help you when they found him on the surface. I've taken him under my wing, you might say."
"… name?"
It was Wheatley who answered that. "Tay-sel," he said, his wide mouth stretching both syllables, with more aplomb than was strictly necessary. He smiled at Chell, but his eyes flicked uneasily to Haymitch. He seemed more than a little scared of the onetime Victor, and Chell did not blame him.
Wheatley swallowed, and his Adam's apple bobbed. "Oh-kay, Kee-at-niss?" He winced as he said it, and Chell felt the knot inside her loosen. At least Wheatley still saw her for who she was. His hand slid tenuously under hers, and held it.
She looked to Haymitch. "So. What happens next?"
"Well…" Haymitch stroked his chin, the picture of leisure while his eyes kept studying her. "Now that you're awake, President Snow would like to talk to you."
Here The Daisies'll Guard You From Every Harm -
Katniss thought she was dead.
She came to very gradually, to a world of complete darkness and silence. She wasn't sure where her body was or how her bones were arranged, and for a minute she entertained the thought. Katniss Everdeen, dead. No longer the Mockingjay, no longer the Victor, no longer a star-crossed lover, her fire extinguished. No more responsibilities to anyone. Maybe that wasn't so bad.
What would become of Prim?
She would never know what happened to Cinna, or the Avox girl, or Chell, or Gale, or anyone from District Twelve.
These thoughts occurred to Katniss, but that's all that they did – occur. They didn't impel her forward, or up. She let them fade. For now it was so sweet to just let everything go.
She drifted off again, and a pain in her side woke her. Her cramped legs protested, and she was sore all up her arms, especially her left. So she wasn't dead yet.
Now the darkness became unsettling and stifling. How much time had passed? How much time had she left?
'But I didn't die,' she thought. 'I went underground, I faced the explosion, and I didn't die. Fancy that. Look at me now, Dad.'
A light danced far above her. At first she thought it was a star, dancing as Katniss' mother had said stars used to do, back when the world was young and joyful. This star lowered itself to Katniss' level and approached her with a tiny squeal of gears. It was Mimi.
Katniss did not speak to her, but stood up, limb by stiff limb. The portal gun was heavy on her hand, but she held on to it. A District Twelve girl knew not to let go of anything that might come in handy someday. You never knew. She looked around, but the light offered by Mimi's flashlight was not much, only enough to see a clear path in the wreckage of fallen cameras.
The way out.
She followed the light. The ground was level, and rubble and debris gave way to smooth walkways, and echoing metal steps. When the flashlight illuminated an elevator, Katniss asked no questions, but stepped in. The doors closed, and she began to move upwards. Mimi's light vanished, replaced by the dimly lit cables that lined the elevator. But her voice only grew louder, clearer, and richer, singing in a language that Katniss did not know, but that to her sounded like twirling skirts and blooming flowers, and swooping colors of paints, all things beautiful for their own sake. She closed her eyes and let the music fill her – Cara bel, cara mia bella – and the elevator slowed to a stop. The last note faded. The door opened, and its light nearly blinded Katniss.
It was sunlight, and blue sky, and the sweet smell of earth and plants and – Katniss stepped out of the elevator and into the real world, with wonder and disbelief. It was so bright.
To her right there was a forest. That would be a good place to go – but she couldn't bring herself to move. The sunlight and wind were so good.
When her skin felt really warm with the sunshine, she stepped forward, putting distance between herself and the arena – she'd done it, she'd left the arena – and then she fell on her hands and knees, pressing the good earth under the palms of her hands.
She heard a door slam behind her, but didn't move. She lay herself out flat on the ground, soaking up the warmth, stretching out like a cat in the sun. She didn't know how long she lay like that, but she didn't fall asleep. She didn't want to forsake this moment for any other.
But, of course, it ended. When she heard the hovecraft, it was not with surprise, only a mild resignation. She looked up, blinded by the light, and only seized the ladder when she realized it did not bear the Capitol's seal.
Here Your Dreams are Sweet –
Chell tried hard not to resent the wheelchair. Her legs had all but outright refused to support her, despite – or perhaps because – of the Capitol's beauty treatments and massages. She didn't fancy meeting President Snow sitting down. But at least she could sit up ramrod straight, and try to stare him down in disciplined discomfort. She couldn't help but think of it as an inversion of her meeting with GLaDOS: one seated and rooted, the other drifting and scattered. It didn't help, but it was something to think about other than fear and disbelief at how her life had changed.
Katniss had told Chell that the Gamemakers, and the elite of the Capitol that they represented, were terrified of what would happen if the Games were to end without a Victor: all you'd be left with is an arena and twenty-four corpses, and no catharsis, nothing to show for it. It would enrage the Capitol and District citizens both. So desperate had they been for a Victor that they had allowed two, rather than zero; now, so desperate were they…
Chell gathered that there had been an official press release made the moment that "Katniss" had been recovered. Now the entire population of Panem was eager to see the face of their Victor, and so what had been a coincidental, but not extraordinary, resemblance, was now blown into full-on impersonation. Only the crew that had retrieved her, and the people in this room, had realized that anything was amiss. Her portal gun and tribute uniform had both been confiscated.
At the start, it had been Wheatley pushing her wheelchair, until the sixth time he directed her into the wall, at which point a silent servant – an 'Avox,' was the word – was called in to push Chell, and Wheatley now walked alongside her. Haymitch lumbered along on her other side, and behind him Chell could hear the trim clip-clop of high heels on the tile, and Chell caught a glimpse of Effie Trinket – mostly gold wig and manicured hands swinging fore and aft.
"Leave all the talking to me, Katniss," she said, "as usual," as they were brought to stand before a large set of double ebony doors. The Capitol logo was impressed upon it in a relief as deep as Chell's fist; the knockers were a small, personal seal of a two-headed eagle surrounded by snowflakes.
Two more of the unnervingly silent servants pulled the doors open, and Chell almost gagged on the cloying perfume of roses.
"Welcome," said President Snow. He wore a black suit and smiled to see them, his hands clasped behind his back. He nodded, and the servants and personnel in the room disappeared. Even 'dispersed' wasn't the word, they simply vanished. Now it was only Chell, Haymitch, Effie, Wheatley, and a woman slumped in a dark chair by the wall. This woman had a lean and haunted look, so defeated she nearly faded into the furniture by herself.
Chell felt someone pulling her wheelchair back by a few inches.
"Taysel," Haymitch said warningly, "You can leave now."
"Now, let him stay." Presidnet Snow said with a generous air. "He's not a chatty sort, is he?"
Chell's nerves were so strained that she very nearly burst out laughing, until she saw Snow beaming at them, and realized the ambivalence here: if Snow thought "Taysel" was merely a shellshocked yokel from District Twelve, that meant he didn't know that Wheatley, a part of Aperture Science laboratories, had come up to the surface. That fact had to be preserved…
"Katniss Everdeen," Snow said, stepping towards her. "The Victor of Victors. Two years in a row – who would have guessed you had the fortitude? Who would have guessed District Twelve could breed such a warrior? The world is amazed. Aghast. Gibbering with surprise."
Now he quite frankly loomed over her, like one who is much practiced in looming and saw this as a great chance to practice his skills. "I say, let them. As long as they're asking those questions, they won't ask questions like, what happened to her bone structure? The shape of her chin and the texture of her hair?" He indicated a poster on the wall to their right: a detailed profile of Katniss' face, making her look stern and passionate, with flames curling in the background. Her profile eclipsed that of Peeta, who looked insipid and confused in comparison. "For a people so taken in with images," he went on, ""It's astonishing what they won't notice – and, then again, what they will. Still, for someone to look so much like Katniss, to emerge from her arena forty-five minutes after her Victory was aired to the nation, wearing an outfit and carrying a portal gun identical to hers – your odds are either very good, or nightmarishly bad."
Chell said nothing.
"I don't know how you came to be wandering in that pathetic field – oh, yes, I know exactly where and when – but I don't think it was a coincidence that you happened, just happened, to be standing atop my arena, and outfitted like a tribute." He waited for an answer, and asked calmly, "How did you learn the location for the 75th Hunger Game? Who told you? What were you planning to do when you found it? And how did you have a portal gun?"
Chell lowered her eyes and realized what the had in mind – that he would think that she would look for the Aperture Science testing center – she just shook her head.
"I am asking politely. You are, to all intents and purposes, my prisoner. Your number is 134486, and your life is entirely in my hands. As," he added, "is his." He made only the barest gesture towards Wheatley. But Chell understood, and it was that which loosened her tongue.
"My name is Chell."
Snow raised his eyebrows, and she pressed on, "Chell S-Serafin. I have done nothing to hurt you or your country; I do not wish it hurt." 'Only completely transformed so that it's nearly unrecognizable, but let's not haggle,' she thought.
"Do you know where Katniss Everdeen is?"
"No."
"Where do you come from?"
"I forget."
Snow paused. "How did you enter the arena?"
"I forget."
A muscle near Snow's left eye began to twitch. "Forget. That's your only answer. No better lie, no coded message, just, forgetting."
"It's the truth."
He leaned over her and put his hands on the arms of her wheelchair, looming at full strength now. "I could have it out of you. There is no torture I wouldn't use, and believe me, Chell Serafin, we would get the truth out. We would drag it from you in small, bloody shards if need be." He stepped back. "But you are terribly lucky. You look like Katniss Everdeen, and that buys you and me some time."
"What do you want?" Chell asked.
"I want a bargain. Something for you and something for me, in the time it takes for your memory to percolate and reassert itself, and for us to find out exactly what has become of Katniss Everdeen, even if that means excavating the entire Arena. Since your own identity clearly doesn't hold much weight with you – you will take on Katniss Everdeen's name, as a poor girl from District Twelve who has won two Hunger Games in a row. Haymitch will help you embody her history. Effie Trinket will coach you in mannerisms and speech." If he wasn't looming over her so imperiously, Chell might have been able to see their reactions – the reactions of her allies, she realized with surprise. "And – well, Katniss' former stylist is unavailable. However, happily Peeta's stylist is now free to help you. Portia –"
At his words, the dark-dressed woman on the couch stood up, and looked directly at Chell for the first time. In her dark eyes there was a look like she was weighing up Chell, almost as intensely as Chell was studying her.
"She will be in charge of your wardrobe and grooming. She will dress you and make you up so as to render you indistinguishable."
He didn't say from whom, Chell noticed. Indistinguishable from Katniss, or indistinguishable from any other Capitol citizen? Chell kept herself silent, but then realized she was shaking her head. Even her self-control couldn't hide her fear at what future Snow was laying out before her. The life of a Victor – the life of a symbol – a Capitol puppet – a lie with her every breath. This was not was she had hoped for – this was not freedom, this was a test that she could never pass –
"Do you dislike this arrangement?" Snow asked.
"I do," said Chell. "It's insane." She wheeled herself backwards a bit, so he was forced to stand up rather than loom. It helped, she thought. She looked him in the eye. "Katniss and I might have looked alike – if you say so – but we're not identical. Everyone will remember how she really looks – her face is on every billboard, every street corner!" she gestured to the poster.
Snow shrugged. "It's amazing what they can do with surgery these days."
Chell's breath stopped, and her hand flew to her mouth, in an instinctive, protective gesture. If she woke up one morning to find that even her face had been stolen –
"Less drastically," Snow said, with a knowing look in his eye, and Chell cursed herself for that, now he had something to use against her, "it's amazing what people will remember with the right montage. This is my world. I can make them believe whatever I want –" he gestured to the windows, "District and Capitol both. It's an irresistible life, really – wealth, fame, the semblance of political clout, and permanent protection, if you play by my rules."
Chell's jaw locked tight. So this was the next level of the Game. She said, very quietly, "And what if I refuse to play?"
Effie gave a low exclamation of surprise: "I say…" But Snow didn't answer. Silence held sway in the room.
CRASH.
"Sorry! Sorry, sorry…" Wheatley said as he bent down, and nearly faceplanted onto the shattered vase of white roses and blue glass. He picked p the flowers gingerly, muttering "Sorry" to each one. He seemed to feel the collective gaze of everyone in the room. He looked up and smiled, painfully and apologetically, and the only time he looked anything other than mortified was when he looked at Chell.
Chell glanced at Snow, fully expecting him to be staring at her with a knowing gleam in his eye. But instead he was staring at Wheatley, as if in all his life he had never imagined a human being to be so incredibly incompetent. With a start, he remembered himself, and turned around to knowingly gleam at Chell.
Her thoughts had already reached the conclusion, the only conclusion. Permanent protection. For the Districts, for Katniss' family, and for Wheatley – as long as she played by the rules. Or else, some fate worse than arena for all of them, and Chell's own face would be cut up and changed –
She couldn't breathe. She wanted more than anything to leap up and run out through the glass windows, breaking them and bleeding out, going anywhere else.
But there was nowhere else. And – surprise, surprise – she had a test in front of her. As Wheatly stood up, white roses jammed inelegantly in his hands, Chell nodded to President Snow. She took the thorny flowers on her lap, and inhaled their odor.
So. Let it start.
Tomorrow Brings them True –
Katniss was somewhere else. Katniss was in a strange world, closed off from light, regimented, without flowers or singing or wind. Some days when she woke up, Katniss wasn't sure if she was in the Enrichment Center of District Thirteen.
In the days since her arrival, she had been unresponsive, preferring to be left alone, to sit quietly, rather than listen to what Finnick, or Wiress, or even President Coin had to say. Coin assured her that all would be well soon: Haymitch knew where she was and would send word soon; in the meantime, the portal gun she had brought from the arena would serve them very well, once the researchers had worked out the knots… soon as could be Prim and her mother would be brought to District Thirteen. Soon. The plans would begin soon.
Katniss wanted her sister there, and hated herself for wishing to see Prim living in his prison. But Cinna had been taken from her; Peeta had been taken from her; she needed Primrose, to know she was safe and whole, and here.
The absence of Peeta was a weight, heavy on her bones. It was as she predicted: without him she was anchorless, her mind still in the arena, trying to think her way out. How she could have saved him. How she could have saved Seeder, Chell, Quincy, Beetee, even Cashmere and Gloss.
Now that was done. She had lost. She wanted Prim. She wanted Gale. She needed someone to help her put her future together. She wanted to get out.
She slept seventeen hours out of the day. For the time being, no one in District Thirteen wanted to command her. That would change.
When she slept, she dreamed of Rue in her net, of Cato half-devoured, of Cecilia torn apart. But she also dreamt of Foxface, who had otherwise almost receded in her memories. In dreams Foxface wore a gown the color of nightlock, that Katniss knew Cinna had made, and from the long sleeves poked little fox paws, and she perched opposite Katniss and talked nonsense along the lines of, 'I may not be a bird, but at least I am not caged.' And then she would ascend out, past pipes and through grilles, and out of sight.
A few days after Katniss arrived in District Thirteen, she lay in bed, thinking of these dreams. A knock sounded at her door.
"You asleep?" asked Joanna Mason, in a loud voice.
Katniss didn't answer.
"There's a broadcast you might be interested in, downstairs," she added.
"I'm not."
"What are you even mooning over?"
Now Katniss turned over to look. Joanna leaned on the doorframe, her wild hair giving her the look of a wood-nymph. "Mooning?" Katniss asked.
"You heard me. Is it Peeta? What?"
Katniss didn't dignify that with a response.
"It's Peeta, isn't it? Look, now I know you saw him as a top-of-the-line ally; I don't know about that sweethearting stuff, but it was clear to anyone with eyes, he was yours, and you don't like people taking what's yours. I understand, Lord knows, but." She sighed, and asked, "You sure you don't wanna watch?"
"I failed him. I failed him, and Seeder, and Chell, and my district – are you laughing?"
"No. I just snorted. Listen. We've all failed someone. Finnick failed Annie, Wiress failed Beetee, I failed – I bet even Haymitch thinks he failed you. But you've got to shake out of it. You have a job to do, and no one else can do it."
"You want me to forget?"
"No. If you forget, that means you lost whatever made you the Mockingjay in the first place. You have to move on, because you're still alive, which is more than Peeta can say." She looked down. "If the dead could come back, they'd wonder why we spent all our time in grieving. Now, are you coming or not?"
"For the last time, no!"
"Good." Joanna knocked on the inside of the door, three times. "This'll be so much better with just us."
"Just—" Katniss' surprise stopped her. Wiress entered, followed by Finnick. Wiress held a small television in her hands, the screen as big as her two palms. Finnick checked the hall and closed the door.
"Coin's going to be pissed," he observed conversationally.
"Let her be," Joanna said. "It'll do her good."
"Signal could be better," observed Wiress, fiddling with the antennae of the TV.
"Who invited you in here?" Katniss asked.
"Me," Johanna said, at the same time that Wiress said, "You need to see this." She placed the screen at the end of Katniss' bunk, so they could all watch. "They've just finished the recap."
The applause quieted, and the shots of smiling audience members was replaced by the familiar interview stage. Caesar Flickermann was there, talking to – the Victor. The Victor whose face was covered in a transparent red mask, like molten glass. The Victor whose arms were sheathed in long black gloves, whose body was concealed behind a mountain of black fabric. No, mountain wasn't the right word. Katniss' mind supplied the word volcano, for a burst of red fabric and jewels surged out at the Victor's neck and heart, matching her mask, and flowing down the skirt in rivulets that looked like lava. Fire from below. Fire that destroys utterly, yet nourishes.
"Katniss, look who it is!" Finnick urged. "This is no time to be thinking about fashion!"
But Katniss wasn't there yet. Her brain had elected to process this one bit at a time. "That's not Cinna's design," she said. "That's not his style—"
"Katniss, it's probably Portia's design, that's not what matters, look who it is!" Katniss looked. It was hard: the hair piled up so as to change the shape of the face; the spray of red chiffon that just slightly obscured the chin and mouth. And most of all that mask, red and mocking – then Caesar stopped speaking, his question finished. And in the long, wordless instant between the question and response, Katniss saw.
"Chell," she breathed. She knew her by the set of her jaw, the look that she gave Caesar that not even a fragile little mask could disguise.
"Told you it's better we watched this by ourselves," Joanna said, but Katniss paid her no heed. Nor did she pay attention to Wiress' silent stare in her direction. Katniss' heart was pounding. She didn't know whether Chell was enemy, hijacked, coerced, or somehow an ally ('Don't kid yourself, Katniss') – but here was something alive to focus on, to work towards. Here was the puzzle to solve.
Oh, but there were so many steps. First, make sure Prim and Gale were safe. Then, find out if Chell is an enemy or an ally.
'Don't kid yourself, Katniss. Chell has just stolen away everything that you are—your name, your identity, your place in the world. There's only one thing that she hasn't taken from you…'
"Katniss?" Finnick asked. "Are you okay?"
Katniss meant to answer "I'm okay," but her brain's wires were crossed, dazzled by the living fire of not-Cinna's dress, wound tight by the sight of Chell and the only title that Katniss had left to herself. What she said was, "I am the Mockingjay."
And Here is the Place, Where I Love You –
With the Game concluded, and Katniss not yet returned from the final interview, there was nothing now to pull District Twelve from its complete mourning of Peeta Mellark.
Gale had, in life, wanted to punch Peeta in the face on several occasions, but he'd be damned if he failed to do the Victor respect now. So he stood beside Peeta's coffin, open to view, as mourners trickled past. He made sure that there was bread for everyone who waited in line, that Peeta's mangled artificial leg was replaced with a leg of pine, more as a gesture of respect than a practical investment,; he made sure there was a vigil even through the night. Most important of all, to his view, he made sure that Prim got some sleep. She was almost as vigilant as he was.
Gale saw almost all of District Twelve file through the house in the Victor's Village, with doors flung wide open. By candlelight and sunlight, Gale saw the grief of District Twelve. He also saw their anger. He saw how united they were. He wondered what his District, his seedy, sad little District Twelve, could be capable of in this unity, brought together as they were…
A more ironic part of him wanted to congratulate Peeta on having made such a terrific martyr.
On the third day after Peeta's homecoming, Gale decided it was enough. Soon Katniss would return. She'd be changed, but somewhere deep down would still be Catnip of the forests, and Gale would be there for her, and together they'd lead District Twelve…
When she came back. That was a few days yet to come.
He, Peeta's brothers, and three more boys from Peeta's school year picked up the open coffin to bear it to the Victor's graveyard, a long and slow procession following. The graveyard was a handsome place by District Twelve standards, lined with evergreen trees, with only one standing headstone at the moment – that of Taysel Sawyer's, the Victor of the tenth Hunger Games. Plenty of room in there, then. A nice quiet place to hear the birds sing, when the birds felt inclined to sing – like today.
Perhaps it was the mockingjays that did it.
To be honest, Gale had never much liked mockingjays. They were a symbol of rebellion, sure, but also mischief-makers and lovers of all bad news, according to the tales Gale's mother had told him. So he wasn't surprised to see them out in full force that day. They kept to their branches, repeating out bits of the songs that District Twelve's people were singing –wind in the barley, and hanging trees, and your father no more you'll see.
Gale hummed along, but didn't have the breath for more (Peeta, bless his heart, had not been a petite fellow). And someone among the pallbearers was shirking his load, because the weight was shifting. No, that wasn't right… the shifting was within the casket.
Gale froze, and turned to look. All of the pallbearers ground to a halt, and the coffin tilted, sending Peeta's feet earthward, which was just as well, for Peeta—
Peeta Mellark sat up from the lining of his coffin and gasped for air.
Those nearest to the coffin fell to their knees. As the hymns fell silent, the mockingjays grew louder. Peeta looked pale and drawn and like he was about to throw up, but Gale was one of the very few who could see that. Prim ran to Peeta's side and helped him out and onto his feet. Her hands were gentle but sure, and Gale found his place at Peeta's side, helping him stand tall and not lean too much on the sentimental gesture of a wooden leg.
Peeta, the graveyard at his back, looked out over the crowd. The sunset light hit his translucent skin and made him glow from within. His hair was dyed golden, and his eyes still shone with the vision of the place he'd been, and returned from. One hand rose unsteadily, not to make the farewell salute, but a gesture of blessing and welcome.
That was how the Great Awakening of District Twelve began. It was a moment that none who saw it would ever forget. Even the Peacekeepers took off their helmets, the better to see what was before them. Their weapons lay unheeded at their belts.
Gale privately wondered about what move to make next. Meanwhile, the mockingjays swooped overhead, cawing and crooning, for all the world like it was their show after all.
A/N: Stay tuned for one more chapter - an epilogue of sorts. Or, if you like cliffhangers, (and you likely do because you're a fan of The Hunger Games), you can stop here. In which case, thank you for reading! What a journey. And we're very nearly done.