Chapter 7
(Part 2)
A Single Ray of Light
Peeta fell into a light doze soon after we spoke, and soon after that Haymitch came to begin the morning routine. Peeta does not wake fully when he is lifted from the bed, and the small flutter of his eyes and ragged breathing are the only signs of life. The morning happens as ever, and I begin to feel like one of the sparrows sold at the marketplace to rich children. I was once wild and free, but now I watch domestic life with complete resignation.
Haymitch brings Peeta back in and tucks him into bed again. Peeta never fully woke I take it, and continues to dance the line between asleep and awake. Haymitch is in and out of the room all day checking on Peeta and trying to coax food into him. But even with the frequent visits, I have plenty of time to sit and observe the boy I married.
In certain lights he looks young again, some might say handsome. And in others, he looks like the bodies discovered in bogs when people cut peet too deep. I cannot help but have my mind wander to Gale. They are about the same age I think. Though in all of Peeta's questioning, I'm still not sure how many summers he can claim to be.
Gale has always reminded me of the time I accidentally stepped in a recently extinguished fire. The embers didn't glow hot, but the sooty earth held intense heat. The land had not forgotten where the fire was hot. Gale is the same. To those who don't know him, he seems as passive as still water, but there is a hidden fire in him that runs deep. He smolders inside over every wrong ever done to him or his family.
I look to Peeta, the broken boy who should be in his prime. Through every conversation, I have not picked up a hint of resentment over his circumstances. Perhaps it is not a fair comparison. I learned long ago that rage eats up too much energy. All fires must burn on something.
Yet it is strange that Gale from the stagnant, ever suffering village I came from, is tall and whole. And the son of the golden man, the one God anointed, is battered, haggard and waiting for death. It never occurred to me that life could be brutally unfair to all in its own twisted way.
My mind slips into what he would be like if the injury had never happened to him. If he stood I think he would be a half head taller than me. He'd be broad like his father, too. I have felt his frame and it is sturdy and reliable despite it all. I wonder what else would change besides his physical traits. Would his words still be as soft? There is no fire in Peeta. Fire is so destructive. There is something of equal strength and just as lively. There is growth. Like a gentle spring chasing the ice off the trees and turning everything green.
How strange it all is. Wounds eat Peeta, anger eats Gail, and I am a passive observer to it all. Hardly alive if an outsider would give an opinion. If anything drove me to keep going it was my sister Prim. Without her, I seem to lack any and all existence in my mind.
I shift in the bed and am given a sudden reminder of my existence. Pain. My feet are still bloody and bruised from the night Haymitch caught me trying to escape. I've become so good at ignoring certain signs of life within myself. Hunger no longer feels sharp, just a constant, dull pain. Watching the ones you love die, and become as good as dead yourself no longer stings, but rather has become the expected end result. But physical pain is so different. It commands your attention and demands to be experienced.
I fold my legs towards me and cradle my left foot first in my hands and finally work up the courage to look. The sole of it is cross-hatched with bloody gashes and it looks like the back of a man who has flogged himself for a month in order to perform penance. These wounds are my penance for not being humane. For lacking the spark to care for others, and for my skills only leading to the destruction of life. The shame of it all is it won't do me any good. I don't know how to help Peeta. I lack any of the supplies or skills it would take. Maybe in another life where things were softer, I would have stayed by my mother's side and seen how to patch up wounds and coax back life. But life was harsh and made me a killer, so the ones I loved didn't die. I can't heal him, but I must do my best to heal myself, because if I am left lame then I will no longer serve any purpose.
I trace a bloody line in my right foot gently with my finger and hold back a hiss of pain. Small shards of pottery are mixed in with my healing wounds, and though I am not a skilled healer I know this will not do. It will cause the wounds to rot from within and fester. I can't help but glance at Peeta and my stomach lurches. My eyes break away. This isn't like his affliction. All the damage is shallow and I can fix this. It is only a small hurt. I can heal small things.
Besides, scraping your fingernail along a shallow wound, again and again, isn't exactly a skill of a trade. The wounds open and flow crimson and I begin to pile the small shards off to the side. It will hurt to walk for days, but I am giving my feet a fair chance at binding the wounds correctly. I can't help but let out a small sound of pain when I'm forced to remove a particularly big piece that had already closed under my skin.
"Katniss?" Peeta's soft voice calls from the behind me.
I turn to him and force a smile. This is a mistake since it's so far removed from my character he knows for certain something is wrong.
"Katniss, what's wrong?" His eyes are wide, and the blue of them shifts in the faint light. I cannot tell if they are pooling with a few tears.
"Nothing is wrong. Go back to sleep." How do you explain scratches to a cripple? There is no way for him to have sympathy for me. If I say I cannot walk well for a few days he would laugh, because walking would still be possible for me.
"Katniss, I heard you make a sound. Is all well?" He tries to sit up but fails to raise himself more than an inch up, before falling back into the pillows. He shouldn't be using whatever strength he has left to look after me.
"I just scratched my foot a little. That's all."
His eyebrows pull down and I can tell he doesn't believe me.
"Let me see."
I force a smile. "It's a small scratch. Don't fret."
"I still want to see."
He won't concede and I do not want him troubling his mind over this. I turn my body towards him and move my less injured foot where he can see it. Then I pull it back as soon as his head starts to turn.
"There. See, I told you. It is nothing."
"You moved it too fast. I caught only a glance of it."
My face fills with color for some unknown reason. I do know, however, that there is no escaping this battle.
I move my foot back and keep it there as he slowly rotates towards me. As his eyes study it I can see what paltry color he has left in his face drain away. And I feel like a dog for making him think of such meaningless and upsetting things.
"Katniss, it's dreadful! Who did this to you?!"
His eyes are swimming again, but there is a strange unfocus to them. I can think of nothing to answer him with and stay silent.
"Was it him, Katniss? Did he do this to you?" His head lolls in a strange circular motion now, like a snake considering a strike, and his eyes drift shut.
"Tell me, Katniss. I know he is a true fiend and guilty of much." His body seems to lose all tension and he sinks down into the bed. I realize his eyes were swimming with delirium. I should have never shown him my wounds, but I am glad that he only saw the one foot.
Finally, I work up the courage to answer him. "It is nothing Peeta, only a small accident. Just rest now."
"If he hurt you, you must say… I am your husband. I ought to know… ."
His words trail off and I am unsure if he is sleeping or too weak to carry on this conversation. The odd thing is that the word that stood out to me the most in all of this was 'husband'. He sees us as married. I never think in those terms. My mind flits back to the golden man, and how desperate he was for us to wed. For the first time, I see a reason behind his desperation. I bring this boy some kind of comfort, some kind of hope. It is a strange understanding and for the first time, I can find a way to forgive the golden man in a very small manner.
Peeta drifts in and out of sleep for the rest of the day. He doesn't try to speak with me again, but I catch his gaze upon me once or twice. I try and discreetly attend to my wounds, and I bite my lip every time I touch them to ensure no sound escapes me to startle Peeta.
Haymitch comes in later with food. Peeta takes a few bites of bread, but not much else. He is then carried away for a few minutes and I take a slice of bread for myself. No one seems to care if I eat except for Peeta, but he is too far gone to see to it now.
When Peeta returns he looks at me with a sense of urgency when Haymitch closes the door on his way out and I try my best to give him a reassuring smile.
"Katniss, I have something for you."
He carried nothing into the room, and I don't know how to react to this. Long illnesses lead to madness. I feel like he would be kind even if he lost his sense of reality, but I still don't know how to treat him. Prim would know. But this kind of knowledge escapes me.
"Perhaps show me later," I smile again and hope this will be enough to soothe him into sleep.
"No, it is important." He reaches towards his neck, and I do my best not to gasp in fear of what he intends to do next.
Then to my great astonishment, he produces a chain from under his nightshirt and pulls it over his head, forming a split second of a halo.
And I realize there is something that demands more attention than pain; light.
From the chain hangs a pure gold cross with a pearl in the center. It flashes in the darkness like a pure and perfect ray of light. My eyes can't break away from it. And my soul longs for it as if it might somehow mean my salvation from this place.
Why has no one ever told me how beautiful true gold is. The closest I have ever come to seeing it are thin lines of it painted into my parish's Psalter. It is a paltry comparison I see now.
"It is for you, Katniss."
My heart stops. Me? I don't deserve to even see something like this, let alone own it. My eye catches the pearl placed in the center. If I ever escape and am caught with something as precious as a pearl I can be put to death. For masquerading as someone other than who I was born as.
"Peeta. I can't."
His face falls, and I can tell I have brought down his spirit and probably further unbalanced his humors.
"Take it, Katniss. I can't change much about the circumstances here. There is not much I can give to you. But you said you miss the light. This is the best I can do."
He reaches towards me with the cross in hand. And I put my own hand out to accept it. I won't keep it forever, but I can hold onto it for now.
"Thank you, Peeta." I give him a smile to reassure him, and I hope I can restore his spirits again.
He smiles back, and his smile is good and true and pure. A small dawn after the longest of nights.
We don't speak much after this exchange and Peeta drifts off again to his own realm, that is placed firmly between wakefulness and sleep. And in the quiet, I am left to consider the great mysteries of life as I study every inch of the cross and gold chain again and again. It is not my place to hold such a thing. And this is not the life I ever imagined to live. I look to Peeta. He probably feels the same in his own way. The world is a strange and dark place, and yet it shall always fascinate me how quickly darkness fades with even a single ray of light.
Author's Note: After a strange turn of events, I'm back. I know it's been years, but sometimes life happens. I would like to thank everyone who left such kind reviews, even when the story seemed to be abandoned. That kind of feedback is crucial for all fic writers because reviews are the only gratification we get out of this.
I must extend a very special, and warm thank you to misscyn. She so graciously agreed to edit this fic for me, and is the driving force behind why it will be updated again. I can't thank her enough!
I plan to start posting the updated chapters, within the near future so if that sends out thousands of alerts to your email I apologize in advance. I also plan to cross post this fic to AO3, so if that is the site you are more comfortable with, keep a watchful eye out.
Some small updates about me: My life isn't necessarily better, but many things have changed drastically since I last updated. I am a full time college student and working part time. I have carved out a little time to write, so updates should keep coming. I really am sorry for keeping everyone waiting so long, I made an earnest attempt last year to try and update, but life rudely interrupted. (Trying to convince a university that a man who: is following you around campus; waiting outside your classrooms; shoving notes under your door in the middle of the night; constantly referring to you as "the one"; and is capable of writing a 6,000 word email in less than an hour after you finally tell him to leave you alone, might be a threat to your safety is unfortunately a full time job.) All of that nastiness is over with now, and I am so ready to write again.
Happy Friday everyone! Thanks again!