This fic is intended to be read on archiveofourown (same username). I recommend reading it there as fanfictiondotnet often introduces formatting errors. I update weekly on AO3 and post the chapters here when I have time.

This is a slowburn Katniss/Snow romance. It is about taking two characters defined by hatred and obsession, and asking them to reckon with each other as living creatures on whom they must mutually depend for survival. It explores forgiveness, loneliness, intimacy, and self-discovery.

This will have elements of Peeta/Katniss, Gale/Katniss, and Haymitch/Effie, but I haven't tagged these as they are relatively minor compared to the main pairing.

This fic is primarily inspired by the films but draws on the novels as well. Significantly, it assumes Katniss' trauma after Prim's death occurred as it does in the novel, including her suicidality and severe burns. Snow's characterisation is heavily informed by Donald Sutherland's comments that position Snow as in love with Katniss and wanting to make her his successor.

Warnings: violence (injury, torture), minor character death, sexual content


Part I: The Wilds

When Katniss wakes, everything is exactly as it was. Her room is still and quiet, save for Peeta's breathing beside her. The house beyond is silent. No mother. Dead father. Dead sister. Nothing has changed, and her skin is cooled by the late March air. It is nearly Spring — but not yet.

She rises, careful not to disturb Peeta, dresses, and walks barefoot downstairs. She often wakes in the night. Often has nightmares. Was she having a nightmare? Yes: about a rabbit and its kits, fleeing into the earth. But the earth was made of steel and blades, and the rabbits were cut up into pieces.

She shakes her head free of the memory. She has no sympathy for rabbits.

The clocks tell her it is nearly five AM, so she decides to remain awake. On the dining table she finds a wooden crate bearing the Capitol insignia, slightly modified from Snow's days to add the numeral 13 beneath the crest. A supply drop. The Capitol sends them every now and then. Her lip curls at the sight of it. Peeta must have brought it in last night, when Katniss was already in bed, but not bothered to open it. What's the point? Coin never sends them anything good.

From obligation more than curiosity, Katniss sticks her knife blade into the edge of the crate and eases it open. As the fastenings pop, she studies that familiar insignia. Prim's murderer, the President of Panem, ruling with bullets and steel. A reign of chaos and death that people are too tired to resist. She finds herself slipping into her favorite game.

Is Coin better or worse than Snow?

Everything is worse now, but that is not all Coin's fault. Her ruined District — that's Snow's doing. Their near-starvation, though, that's Coin's. Prim's death is Coin's. Rue's death and her father's death are Snow's. Snow is dead, but Coin lives: how does that affect things? So many elements to balance.

Some days, she is sure it was worse under Snow. Snow killed relentlessly, with intent and without mercy. But Coin wields death with ugly chaos. She is accustomed to ruling the disciplined subjects of District 13, so she doles out violence like cheap candy to everybody who can't fall in line. The war never ended, here or anywhere.

How funny that both Presidents should hate her so much.

Freeing the box lid, Katniss peers inside. She snorts with derision.

One tiny packet of flour. Five bulging sacks of dry dog food. Baby formula that Katniss can see is expired. How generous.

It's not the first time the Capitol have sent them baby supplies. A hint from Coin? Get pregnant, and then you won't be able to launch another assassination attempt. Spend all your time and energy raising children, and you won't be so keen to try to kill again. Have a child, and we'll have a way to control you.

Peeta would be happy, at least.

Coin will kill her eventually. Katniss knows this casually, without concern. The President is just waiting for the world to forget Katniss Everdeen the mockingjay, and then she can be disposed of quietly. Her days are numbered. It's been three years and she never sees her face on the news anymore. The time must be ripe.

She takes out the flour, leaves the rest. She has neither dogs nor children, and that isn't about to change.

The sounds of movement upstairs float down to her, and Katniss considers tossing the baby formula before Peeta makes it into the room. She would rather he didn't see it.

He greets her with a cheerful smile and a kiss on the cheek. They are, she supposes, sort of boyfriend and girlfriend. There's a lot hanging on that sort of.

'Anything good in the drop?' he says.

She passes him the hand-sized sack of flour.

Peeta takes it from her and peers inside. 'It's full of thrips,' he observes. 'Usable, though. Might give us some extra protein.'

Katniss offers a wan smile. Bug-filled scones are something to look forward to.

'Did they send anything else?' asks Peeta.

'Dog food. Sacks of it.'

He shrugs. 'Maybe useful for baiting, right? Was that all?'

Katniss chews her tongue and delays answering. 'Baby formula. But it's all out of date.'

She does not like mentioning anything related to babies and children to Peeta. It sets his mind on a track that she does not care to pursue.

'That's not the first time they've sent that,' he says. 'Maybe if there were actual kids around here, they'd send stuff that wasn't expired.'

She nods and does not answer. She does not want to encourage him.

Peeta wants children. Katniss does not. It is as simple as that. There is no compromise to be had.

She isn't worried about it happening. The Capitol never send contraceptives, but she has no need of them. She and Peeta shared some fumbling attempts to bring sex into their relationship at first, and they almost succeeded once. But it was sharp and unpleasant and Katniss had to make him stop, and after that she didn't want him touching her for a week. She has had enough sharp things inside her for one lifetime.

This is the sort of part of their relationship status. They sleep together. They share little kisses. It is pleasant. And that is all it ever is.

They spend the morning preparing food. Katniss gets a rabbit out of the freezer and sets to work dressing it. Peeta picks the worst of the bugs out of the flour and makes scones with some of their dried fruit. They've got some dusty mushrooms from the forest and potatoes for vegetables, so it will be a veritable feast. This is when Katniss is happiest. This is when it's simplest.

But nothing is simple for long.

They are setting the table for lunch when there comes a knock at the door. This is unusual, because there is no one else in the Village and the few refugees in the town give them a wide berth. Well, they give Katniss a wide berth. She's the lunatic who tried to assassinate the President. Peeta is still well-liked. If he didn't insist on living with Katniss, he could have friends. A community.

She dooms everyone who loves her.

Katniss draws her hunting knife to answer the door, ever ready to cut and kill. She yanks open the door, blade poised, then rolls her eyes at the visitor.

'Haymitch.'

Her old ally and friend raises calloused hands, mock-afraid. 'I see you haven't changed much.'

She sheaths the knife and accepts a clumsy hug. It's been a year since they spoke. He no longer smells of alcohol; now he smells of gasoline and gunpowder and smoke. War smells. They make her shiver.

It's good to have a dinner guest. Haymitch is talkative, but vague. He omits any details of the rebellion that could compromise his position.

'What I would give for fresh meat on the table every day,' says Haymitch. 'You kids don't know how easy you have it.'

'Is the rebellion not feeding you well?' says Katniss. Her tone is sarcastic. By rebellion she means the new rebellion, rebellion 2.0. The anti-Coin coalition, which is a miserable and diminished shadow of the opposition to Snow. Haymitch is second-in-command of the District 12 branch. Putting Haymitch second-in-command of anything is damnatory enough.

'We mostly eat unmarked tins of mystery meat and anonymous vegetables,' says Haymitch. 'Expired shit. It's all decades old. Some kids died of botulism last month. Idiots.' He seems unaffected by this and shovels rabbit and potatoes into his mouth. 'Living in a bunker underground, subsiding on scraps, waiting and hoping for one of Coin's conveys to drive past so you can jump them…' He shakes his head. 'It's a farce.'

'Why bother?' says Peeta. 'You don't stand a chance in bringing her down.'

'Nope,' Haymitch proclaims. 'Not a chance.' He stares into the middle distance for some time, his lank hair framing dull, yet determined eyes. 'But I'm less likely to drink when I'm hungry. And the rebellion keeps me hungry.'

'Why are you back here?' says Katniss, sitting opposite, her voice quiet. She knows why. There is only one reason Haymitch would come back to District 12, this ruined skeleton of a place he never liked in the first place. There is only one thing here he wants. Her.

Haymitch wipes his mouth on his sleeve. 'Peeta, could you give me a minute with the missus?'

'We're not married,' Katniss snaps.

Haymitch puts a hand to his chest in mock offense. 'Oh, don't tell me the engagement is off? You looked so nice in your wedding dress.'

Peeta is good-humored about it. 'We'll get the nuptials underway just as soon as the chapel has a free booking.'

He clears the plates and heads into the kitchen, and this leaves Katniss alone with Haymitch. She waits for the inevitable. Come join us. Join the rebellion. We could use you. It'd give you a sense of purpose. Don't stay here, waiting to die. Do something with your life.

But Haymitch says none of these things. He leans over the table. Interlaces yellow-nailed fingers. Instead he says: 'We have reason to believe that Snow is still alive.'

Snow. A white memory. A cavalcade of smiles. Pale blue eyes.

Emotions break upon her. Straightforward, animal emotions first: shock, fear. Then a more complex response: denial. It simply isn't possible. Then all of that subsides and another feeling takes its place, one for which she has no name. Nostalgia for a time in which things were worse, but simpler.

The world made sense to her, then. Snow made sense to her. After all, he never lied.

'But Coin had him executed,' she says. 'We watched it live.'

She remembers that moment like her most vivid dreams. After she loosed her failed arrow at Coin and threw what should have been Snow's execution into chaos, the former President was bundled away. She never saw where they took him. But one week later, when Coin recovered (Katniss suspects she cracked her sternum), Snow's execution was rescheduled. Gunshot, this time. Straightforward. Clean, except for the mess. Katniss watched his cold face explode into bits on the television. Ecstasy. She had felt high for days, after.

Haymitch shakes his head. 'They shot someone in the head, sure. And the camera was pretty far away, wasn't it?'

'It was him,' she says, unable to admit another reality. 'I recognized him.'

'They can do all kinds of things with cosmetic surgery in the Capitol, Katniss.' He shrugs. 'It could have been anyone.'

She does not like this. What she does not like is how much it thrills her. Snow alive? Out there, somewhere? Hers to hunt? Hers to kill?

'Why do you think he's alive?' She despises the crack in her voice. Her heart pounds. It isn't fear but excitement.

'Well,' says Haymitch, and then he places an electronic tablet on the table. He flicks on a map of Panem, crisscrossed with lines that Katniss cannot interpret. 'As you know, we've been trying to hack into Coin's systems for a long time. We finally had a breakthrough with one server. Most of it was useless data, but this… this was something. Trackings of hovercraft flights. This is from the day before the rescheduled execution. You see?'

Katniss' eyes rove over the map. It isn't hard to spot the anomaly. In the Capitol, the lines are a tight, tangled web. All kinds of crafts were flying back and forth, saving lives, killing people, rebuilding and tearing things down. But there is one line that stretches far beyond the Capitol, out across the Districts, into the depths of the country and beyond. Out to District 12. Not just in District 12: near their town, only a few dozen miles from where they are sat right that moment.

'Someone flew out that very afternoon,' murmurs Haymitch, finger tracing the route. 'All the way out here. And that's where they landed.'

'There must have been thousands of hovercrafts in flight during the war,' Katniss counters. She doesn't dare believe it could be true. 'What possible reason could you have to think Snow escaped on this one?'

Haymitch's eyebrows raise and he shrugs his shoulders. 'A hunch? Blind luck? Sorry, kiddo, I don't have much for you. But the rebellion doesn't have much of anything.'

Katniss stares at the tiny blinking dot that marks where the hovercraft touched down. Was Snow there? That close to her home, once again, without her knowing?

Did he come to her house? Was he inside her bedroom?

'Even if he did survive,' she says slowly, 'and escaped, and got on a hovercraft, and flew all the way out here… he could still be anywhere. There's ruins all over that area. How are you expecting to find him?'

'We're not,' says Haymitch. 'We can't. We're stretched too thin. And this is a wild goose chase if ever I saw one.' He scratches his cheek with a dirty fingernail. 'But, if there was ever a girl good at tracking down wild geese, it'd be you.'

So this is Haymitch's ploy. Recruit her to the rebellion by teasing her with the one thing she once wanted more than anything: the chance to kill Snow with her own hands.

'If he's alive,' she says slowly, 'you want me to find him and kill him?'

Haymitch shakes his head sharply. 'No. If Snow's alive, we want him. We want his knowledge. How to access Coin's systems, the weak spots in the presidential mansion, the network of secret tunnels and defenses, the political figures who'd be open to bribes, the locations of hidden missiles… The list is endless. If there's a way to take down Coin, he'll know it.'

'And what makes you think he'll help the rebellion?'

Haymitch does not like this question. He draws his fingers over his palms. 'My higher-ups… they have ways of persuading people to do things.'

'Hijacking?'

'Something a little more straightforward, sweetheart.' Haymitch shrugs. 'Interrogation.'

'Torture,' Katniss corrects. Her lips thin. She thinks of Snow's face: the zenith and epitome. The symbol of perfection. She could torture Snow. Oh yes, she could have a lovely time torturing Snow. 'Why do you want me to do this? I'm a good tracker, but my experience is with animals in a forest I know. This hovercraft landed in an area I've never been to, and it's been years. I don't stand much of a chance of picking up his trail.'

Haymitch frowns very hard. 'Honestly, sweetheart, I don't want you to do this. You're the last person in the world I want going after Snow. But if our theory is correct, it can't be… a coincidence… that Snow flew across the entire country and touched down a couple of days' hike from your front door.'

Katniss does not know what emotion this should provoke. Fear? Does Snow want to be close enough to hurt her? What would be the point? Revenge? But he's just one man, one old man. Would he really go to such lengths to kill her, the mockingjay who destroyed his country? Would he be that monomaniacal?

Oh yes. Of course he would.

'So you think he's here to kill me,' she says.

Haymitch blinks. 'That, uh, wasn't actually our conclusion. We thought he might try to ally with you. Get you on his side against Coin. Make another play for power.' He frowns. 'I hadn't really pictured an eighty-year-old man trekking across the forest to break down your door and kill you, kid.'

She smiles joylessly. 'You can do anything if you put your mind to it.'

Haymitch gives a concessionary quirk of his eyebrows. 'There's another reason it might be good for you, specifically, to take on this mission.' He flicks some more buttons on the tablet. 'We found some more data on Coin's server. It's about you.' He pushes the screen across to her.

Katniss studies the images. Images of her. Recent ones. Walking in District 12, hunting in the forest, sitting outside her house. Coin is watching her on Snow's old network of cameras. This makes her feel surprisingly little.

'So what? Coin is watching me. Not exactly news.'

'You know what the files are called?' Haymitch drags down the document properties and Katniss reads the file name of the current image, of her looking blank-eyed on her porch.

Target_006_2302923

'Target six?' She shrugs. 'I'm insulted that I'm only sixth on the list. Who could Coin want to assassinate more than me?'

'You're not that dangerous, sweetheart,' says Haymitch. 'But you are a loose end. She is going to come for you sooner or later.'

Another shrug ripples her shoulders. It is so hard to care much about anything. 'You know the Capitol keeps sending us baby supplies.'

Haymitch works his jaw. 'Maybe that's why you're not higher on the list. Guess she doesn't think you'll be dwelling on the past if you settle down with a family.'

'And it's much harder to plan an assassination if you're pregnant.'

They share silence for a long time. You can hear the birds loud as anything. There are so many more of them since the mines got blown to bits and there's no noise of industry to frighten them away.

Get shot or get pregnant. This shouldn't be a difficult choice.

Katniss flicks back to the previous screen, the map of the hovercrafts, and she gazes into the blinking star that marks where Snow might have touched down.

Or, option three?


Haymitch tells her to think about it. He tells her not to rush into anything, and it's probably a dead end anyway. Anyone could have stolen a hovercraft and tried to get as far away from the Capitol as possible. Snow is probably dead. Probably.

Probably.

Haymitch moves back into his old house and spends a few days running errands in town, trying and failing to recruit people to a doomed rebellion. There aren't many people left to recruit. Why go back to District 12? Most have travelled to 11, and some stayed to pick together the pieces of 13. Scraps of lives left from the war. 12 is a graveyard, and Katniss is its keeper.

Through the nights and days, Katniss feels like her veins are full of hot, orange melted glass. She is by turn sluggish or hyperactive, immersed in daydreams, thinking of Snow. She spends all her time in the study where he visited her. She retraces her steps. Her memory speaks to her through his mouth. Such bravery. I don't want to kill you. Convince me.

She wonders if, somehow, he is still watching her. There were cameras once all over District 12, some she knew of and some she did not. She becomes so paranoid about this that she removes the bathroom mirror to check if there is something behind it, but there is nothing but wall. This is oddly disappointing. When she showers that evening, watching her full body reflected by the mirror now leaning against the floor, she looks at the wreck of her skin. They healed most of the burns from the explosion that killed her sister. But not all. Coin was ungenerous with medical attention after the assassination attempt.

Water streaks her chimeric body, white scar and pink flesh, and Katniss thinks that she looks disgusting. It's probably a good thing that Snow cannot see her anymore, just for his sake. Perhaps he would be disappointed by what she has become.

Peeta doesn't mind her scars. He's got plenty of his own, after all, and a missing leg. But she is sore in ways that she wasn't before. She's unsure if the pain during sex is due to the clumsy skin grafts or her own psychological block. Or just the pain of virginity. It doesn't matter. Whatever the source, she doesn't want him to fuck her. And that's okay; Peeta wouldn't mind at all, if it wasn't for the lack of children.

Building a future and a family is all Peeta talks about. He talks about planting a vegetable garden, about pickling fruits, about getting some animals to breed for Spring. He talks about verdant possibilities bursting with leaves and color. He talks about repainting the front of the house and he talks about a new fence, and he talks about what a big empty house it is.

'Would it really be so bad?' he says over dinner one day. 'We can't keep living in this ruin forever, just the two of us. It's no kind of future. And Coin will come for you eventually.'

Katniss picks at food she doesn't want to eat. It should be such an easy choice. Peeta is a good man, and he loves her, and she in her own way loves him. Having someone to care for again would restore purpose to her life. Someone small and new.

A replacement for Prim.

She sees it like a photograph. A dream vision. Peeta playing with a golden-haired child. The mouth of a needy baby at her breast. A picnic in the meadow. Insects crowding the vibrant flowers. The sun so scalding and perfect it could immolate you.

Katniss feels bile and terror rise in her throat.

She leaves the table and packs a bag.


She packs as light as she dares for trekking across District 12. One change of clothing. One cagoule. Toothbrush and paste. Towel. Canteen. One tin plate and cup, one saucepan. Fork and spoon. Flint and steel. No paraffin: she will build her own fires. Tent, bedroll, sleeping bag. First aid kit. Nutrient bars. Compass. Map. Flashlight. Rope. Zip-ties. Ammunition. On her waist she wears her hunting knife and a handgun; on her back she hitches her bow and quiver. She needs nothing else.

Peeta does not ask her to stay. He asks her, 'Are you sure about this?'

She meets his eyes and nods. 'I am.'

'I can't go with you,' he says. 'My leg aside… I'm done with this. The war, Coin, Snow… I'm finished. I have to look for some other kind of happiness.' His smile pains her. 'I hoped I could have found it with you.'

'We want different things.'

'I want peace,' says Peeta simply. 'I want a life. I think you want that too. I think eventually you would have wanted a family.'

And the worst thing is that he is right. Even if it wasn't for Coin's threat, he would have worn her down eventually. Five years… ten… who knows? But she would have surrendered. He would have wanted it so superbly and she would have had so few reasons to deny him. And then that would have been her life: motherhood, a loving husband, and an open grave in her heart where a person used to be.

Will vengeance fill that grave? Perhaps. If not, there is always her old standby of suicide.

'I've made my decision,' she says.

'I can tell.'

And Peeta, to his credit, does not beg her to stay. He holds her and she relaxes into him: the warmth of his chest, the firmness of him, the boy who cared for her when no one else did. It's not fair. Peeta has suffered so much because of her. Is there some moment that things could have been different? If she had cared for him more, would he still have his leg? If she had cared for him less, would Snow have left him alone?

A thousand pasts jostle inside her head. Only one future: the trees and the earth and, maybe, a dead man at the end of it.

Peeta kisses her half on the cheek, half on the lips. He knows she doesn't like to be kissed much more than that. 'I hope you find what you're looking for.'

'Don't stay waiting for me, Peeta,' she says. 'Build a life without me.'

He shrugs. 'I'll try.'

She tries to keep her smile bright as she hauls on her pack. 'I mean it. Don't wait for me.'


Fifty miles of open sky. Three days of travel to reach the hovercraft site, she expects. Haymitch walks her to the edge of the town and he gifts her a block of chocolate. Black-market Capitol rations. She packs it and hugs him, and they hold each other until it's awkward, and then Haymitch ruffles her hair.

'You be careful,' Haymitch tells her. 'If he is still alive, that means he's still dangerous. He might still want you dead.'

'Obviously. Why wouldn't he?'

Haymitch shrugs. 'I never understood the man. I didn't know him. You did.'

Perhaps. She knew something of Snow, some glimpse of a man behind the polish and shimmer of propaganda announcements and coins bearing the imprint of his face. What did she know of him? Obsession. Hatred, perhaps. Uncanny politeness. Smiles. Blue eyes.

'I have the advantage. He's an old man and I am combat-ready.'

Haymitch nods. 'Just be careful. If he's alive, he'll try to manipulate you. Don't trust anything he says.'

This is one point on which she and Haymitch cannot agree. Snow never lied to her. Strangely, she trusts this constant to still be true.

They nod their final goodbyes, and then Katniss sets out. She does not look back at the ruins of her hometown, the place that buried her father and her community, where Peeta will wait for a return that she cannot think will happen.

If Snow manages to kill her, that might be a blessing.

The landscape beyond District 12 is unfamiliar to her, so Katniss relies on her compass and the nimbleness of her feet. It is forest first, flat pine needle floors that last for a mile, and then steeps she has to scrabble up on hands and knees. Birds carouse above her and she whistles a few notes, satisfied when she hears a group of mockingjays repeat them. Some things never change.

Beyond the forest is more forest, and then more, and Katniss starts when she rounds the top of a hummock and comes face to face with the wet eyes and nose of a bear. Her hands go to her bow and arrow reflexively and she aims at its dull face. The motions of her hands spook the beast and it lumbers a few steps away from her. It's young. Not much more than an infant. Still strong enough to kill her.

She wasn't much more than a child herself in the Games. She was still strong enough to kill.

Is she an adult now? Is this what adulthood is, twenty years old in the woods hunting a dead man?

The bear shifts its weight from one paw to the next, concerned and frightened by this weird new creature pointing sharp steel in its face, and then it turns and runs off.

Katniss does not lower her bow and arrow until it is out of sight. Stupid of her. Should have drawn the gun. The noise alone of a gunshot might have seen it off had it decided to charge. But it would also have advertised to anyone listening that she was out here.

She decides to stick to the bow and arrow if she encounters any more bears. They could be a problem.

Noon brings her a fortuitous crop of red chanterelles, and she runs her finger over the gills to check it's the right mushroom before settling down to eat them raw. She's had worse meals in the past years. She thinks of Snow. Is he out there, sitting in the dirt, eating mushrooms? Such an image seems ridiculous. It is impossible to picture him outside of pneumatically sealed bubbles, in gleaming white and gorgeous wine-red. She cannot imagine him crawling the woods like an animal, like she does. No, he must have some other way of living.

She is nearly out of the forest when dusk falls, so Katniss chooses to set up camp a little ways in. The tent is vibrant orange, the only one they had, and she wishes she could have found something a bit more inconspicuous. It has the unsettling shape of a kind of aerodynamic coffin, dipping low over the feet but giving you just enough space to sit up at the head. She doesn't bother digging a toilet or hiding behind a tree to relieve herself; it's not like anyone is going to come this way. She eats the rest of the mushrooms, cooking them this time, and supplements them with handfuls of chickweed. She regrets not killing that bear. It's hardly ideal game, but she's eaten bear before. Better than chickweed.

She chews the thin meal and a square of Haymitch's chocolate, and she unwinds her braid as she watches the stars. There are constellations she knows. There is the Big Lynx, just like her father taught her.

Everyone becomes a star, Katniss, he once said. Or did she dream that? She cannot remember. Her memories of her father fade more and more every day. So do her memories of Prim. Everything fades. Soon there will be nothing left.

Even in the sleeping bag and the tent it's a cold night, and it's only the exhaustion of the day that grants her good sleep. In the wet dawn she re-plaits her braid, takes down her camp, stamps out her fire, then sets off again. It is a less eventful day, bear-free and comprised of thick meadows and pleasant creeks, some of which give her some difficulty to cross. But even wet-footed and sore, Katniss finds herself feeling happy. Happier than she has in a long time. Lonely, but good. Striding over ditches and brooks is better than getting shot in the head by Coin. It's certainly better than getting pregnant.

A couple of squirrels fall to her arrows and she enjoys a more substantial lunch, and dinner is kind enough to present her with an especially fat quail. As she eats and watches the stars, she wonders how long she could survive out here alone. Her arrows will dull eventually, but she could make new ones; her father taught her how. She can survive out here off the memories of a dead man.

Thoughts of her father and thoughts of Snow meld vaguely, and Katniss thinks about the men who have defined her life. They do tend to die. She has this effect on people.

Day three brings her within sight of the mountains, what humanity once called Appalachia, and when Katniss emerges onto a hill and sees them for the first time she stops, paralytically thrilled. They are a colossal rumple of trees, seemingly infinite, and she wishes she could fly. It's been years picking through the skeleton of District 12, trying to build a life, and she had forgotten the world could be so beautiful. She feels, for the first time in years, not just willing but grateful to be alive.

This gives her an opportunity to get her bearings. She must be close to the site; perhaps this gorgeous cascade of mountains was Snow's last sight before a fatal crash into the dirt. That would be unfair. Her face should be the last thing he sees before death, her smiling face, just as it would have been at his execution.

Her eyes scan the hills, searching for a glimpse of silver, for a metal hull winking in the late afternoon sun. Snow's coffin could be right here.

There.

Near the tree-line, she sees it: not a craft, but a stretch of scorched earth. Something landed and skidded hard for a hundred yards, burning the ground so badly that nothing has grown there since. She stares at the burns for a long time. Of course Snow would leave a scar in the earth. The ground where he walked is probably marked by poison footprints.

She advances slowly, crouched in the grass, bow always raised, creeping up to the burn marks and then stalking in their wake. She will not be taken by surprise. If Snow is still alive, she will…

Kill him?

She can't kill him. That's not why she's here.

She has no idea what she will do if he's still alive. The bizarre image comes to her mind of hugging him. Oh look, you're still alive! How good to see you! Shall we murder each other now?

It does not take long to find her beached quarry. The hovercraft is a crash site. Katniss lingers at the edge of the trees, crouching in the brush, watching it for some time. But she knows no one has been here in months, maybe years, maybe not since it crashed. Kudzu chokes the open door and there's visible water damage from what she can glimpse of the inside.

She steps out gingerly, eyes on the ground, watching for traps. But none have been set. She cannot stop smelling the air, hoping for roses. She cannot imagine there would still be a lingering trace of them, but she is unable to stop herself. She is hungry for their scent.

The kudzu is thick against her palm as she drags the curtain back, exposing the craft's insides. It was not a luxury vessel when it was new, only room for one occupant, and now it's a wreck. Climbing inside, she looks around for any sign of Snow.

Nothing.

No pilot, no body, no bones. No blood stains. No animal claw marks on the seats. Nothing alive has been here lately.

She starts opening compartments, picking things over. Searching for something. Anything. Finding nothing. Snow is not here. Perhaps he never was. All of this was a stupid snipe hunt.

Exhausted and irritated, Katniss collapses in the pilot seat. It's the most comfortable she's been in days.

Expecting nothing, she flicks the engine switch.

She jumps out of her skin when it purrs into life. Immediately the purr gives way to a sickly crackle, and the lights that come on flicker in protest. A red battery symbol tells her the vehicle is nearly dead.

The navigation controls do not interest her. The craft won't fly again, and even if it could, she can't pilot it. She concerns herself only with the screen. It opens on a map, not the grand map of Panem Haymitch first showed her but a local map, and one that is strange to her. The place names are unfamiliar. This is an old map, one from before when North America fell. And it marks out only one hundred square miles. That's not much. Ten miles one way, ten miles another. A searchable distance.

The screen cuts in and out, more out than in, and Katniss' eyes rapidly take in the four locations marked at each corner: a town called Arborville, a green expanse called King Rocks, another town called Lincoln Crossing, and a school whose name she fails to catch before the screen and the engine both go completely dead.

Katniss scrabbles in her pack for her paper map and stares at it intently. Her map is new. Everything from before the fall of North America is marked with an unnamed ruin, and she does not expect to find strange words like Arborville or Lincoln on here. But the rocks? Rocks endure. Rocks might be marked.

She finds it. A collection of grey, unnamed squiggles. Her fingers draw out the ten miles west and south and find the vague shapes of the ruins that must have once been Arborville and Lincoln Crossing.

Is Snow contained within this square? If that map was the last thing he consulted before abandoning the craft, then it makes sense. But it's been three years since he came here; he could have long moved on. Could have tried to make it to District 12. Could have died on the way.

But it's the only lead she has.

The closest spot is the place called Arborville, the ruins of which lie just beyond the sparse forest. It is growing too late to make much ground, but she will go there and set up camp. In the morning, she will search. If Snow's bones are here, she will find them. Will they be bleached white and smelling of roses?

Thus far her route has been entirely rural, confined to the forests and hills, and she has had no need to detour through any of the ancestral ruins. She knows them only from glimpses out of train windows. When she emerges from the trees and beholds the fringes of Arborville, she stops in a sudden halt. The vague impressions of buildings, now filled with eager greenery, suggest that there was once a town here. There isn't much left. Mostly there are heaps of rotten wood where buildings once stood, but some stone structures remain. She walks silently, terrified of something she cannot articulate. Ghosts, perhaps. The road beneath her feet is long since reduced to potholes, but people walked this road, once. People long dead.

Some buildings that remain have purposes she can guess at. A shell of a building with many tables inside which she thinks must have been a restaurant. A big, low-roofed structure that has still-visible piles of rotting clothes: a store, perhaps. Something that might have been a school.

How fitting that Snow might be found here. A ghost among ghosts. If he belongs anywhere, this must be it.

She has no idea what she is looking for. Any evidence of human activity: lights, disturbances in the ancient trash, blood. Even if Snow made it this far, there is no guarantee he made it any further. A corpse might be the best thing she can hope for.

She doesn't hope for much anymore.

Perhaps it is the subject of her own hopelessness that draws her eye to it, or perhaps it is fate, or perhaps coincidence. But when she sees it, she stops stock still.

An ancient, faded sign in the grass, proclaiming the name of what she thinks was once an apartment building. She stands like a phantom and stares, entranced, her eyes flicking between the words over and over again.

Primrose Heights.

It cannot be a coincidence. It can't.

This is exactly the kind of thing that Snow would consider an amusing little joke. Like the rose left in her home. A whisper: Hello, Miss Everdeen. Will you come find me? Or will I come find you?

The apartment building behind the sign is tall and stone-built, still standing strong compared to the ruins of its wooden neighbors. It looks dark. It does not look inhabited.

The sky is starting to dim. Well, she will sleep here for the night, even if there is no sign of Snow to be found. It's as good a harbor as any, and perhaps the name of Primrose will watch over her.

It is only then, when she has surrendered any thought of finding Snow for the day and stepped towards the building, that she senses it. There is something here. Something nearby. Something alive.

Roses.

Her steps take her closer to the building, around the big sign, and there she meets them. First the smell, then the sight. A bush of white roses, bursting rudely from the soil. Fresh, gleaming, cultivated. She regards them as though she is in a dream. They are hateful and perfect, fat and well-fed, each like a floating skull.

Snow is here.

Snow is here!

She processes this rapidly. Alive. Nearby. The rose bush did not grow by accident; there are no other roses nearby. It is so beautifully and recently tended. There are fresh severed stumps of stalks where the plant has been pruned.

Her mind thuds out his name with fury and thrill: Snow, Snow, Snow. Has she finally been granted some luck? Surely she deserves some blood at last?

She approaches the building, then rests her palm against it. The door gives way, half-off its hinges, but it does not collapse at her touch. Someone else could have used this door before her. She pushes in and stares into the gloom. There is a skylight somewhere far above and it admits enough light to illuminate her way in dim, dreamy blue. There are stairs.

And there are footprints in the dust on the stairs.

She gazes in something like rapture. They are large, human footprints. Someone made of bone and blood walked here. She places a cautious foot inside one. Her feet look so small by comparison.

She draws her bow. Notches an arrow. This is it. Her heart is thumping like it wants to kill her.

The staircase holds well as she climbs, and the soft leather of her boots keeps her movements silent. The footprints go up and up. To the top floor, she is certain. Snow would never settle for anything less than the penthouse.

At the very stop of the stairs is a low, orange light. Not bright enough to be visible from the street, but here it is. The light of fire. Of humanity — or something like it.

And just when she is about to pull back her arrow, a face appears over the railing. There is no face she knows better. She knows it by her dreams. It is written in the stars of the firmament of her brain. The face is smiling.

When he speaks, the voice comes from the depths of her memories. She quivers.

'Miss Everdeen. What a pleasant surprise. Do come upstairs and join me for tea.'