Three hours later, I'm dropped into 12 with nothing but a backpack. I didn't say goodbye to Haymitch, and I definitely didn't say goodbye to Gale. I gave Haymitch a note to give to Gale, but who knows if it'll get to him at this point. I can only hope at this point.
Once the hovercraft is out of sight, I finally look up from my feet.
The district is still blackened in some places, but for the most part, things have stopped burning. There's even hints of life in random little places that I can see, but it doesn't cover up the stench of the bombs and decaying bodies.
I take a sharp breath and step forward further into the district. They didn't drop me near the village. I can't identify where I've been dropped off. Everything looks so different, so charred. Things are so quiet, so unlike the district before all of this happened. Everything was always bustling, always moving. Someone was always doing something. It was our way of life. I get a lump in my throat when I think about how this was my fault. The district getting blown up was my fault. I'm the reason nine-thousand people are dead.
I swallow thickly and continue my trek through, keeping my head down the best I can. I don't look up when I pass through the square, and I barely can hold in my tears passing my old home, now brought down to rumble. I'm reminded of the moment Gale held me here, the first time I let him. The lump in my throat grows larger.
There are only a few other people circulating the district. I know Plutarch was sending in clean-up crews. I know they're native District 12 miners from the way they shuffle along, stopping every few feet to look at another old monument. I don't recognize any of them, but they barely pick their heads up. It makes me think of Bristol and Thom, and their choices. I don't know what they'll do. They have a son to worry about now. He can't be raised here with the district like this.
The Victor's Village looks exactly like it did when I visited earlier. Nothing else has been bombed, nothing else has appeared. The houses that were rumble are still rumble. The seven that remain, still remain.
I stumble up to my house, and open the door slowly. They key still works.
The first thing I notice is the stuffiness. There's dust everywhere. As I venture further into the entry way, the smell lingers. The smell of roses seeps in from the study. I step closely, and find a single, dead rose in the vase.
I vomit on the hallway floor.
Someone was here at some point to deliver this. It wasn't here last time. Someone was in my house. I choke out some more stomach bile, and then shakily let out a few tears. I stagger into the kitchen to find something to clean up my own vomit.
I stalk angrily through my house for the first 48 hours I'm in District 12. I clean to the point my fingertips bleed. I scrub up my puke and burn the rag. I burn all of the remainers of flowers in the house, regardless of if they're roses or fake. I scrub the floors. I scrub the walls. I scrub the baseboards and the grout and the bathrooms. I wash every fabric in the house. Clean the couches. Wipe down all surfaces. I make the house liveable.
After six days, things so sour.
I run out of things to do to keep myself busy. I've cleaned everything. I can't hunt. Everything is dead, so I can't find things to eat. I can't cook. At first, I survive off of the tactics Gale would tell me about on how his family survived winters in the Seam. I run out of those options, too. There's nothing in town, so I don't go to town. There's no one here, so I keep to myself. I don't leave my house.
Days, weeks pass.
It's hard to get out of bed. I'm hardly sleeping anyways, as I'm too concerned about Gale and the trial, but when I am lucky enough to drift off into sleep, it's laced with nightmares. The Games, the prisons. Everything is amplified this time.
More often than not, I wake up having panic attacks, and it sits with me all day. I'm twitchy, always on edge. I lock the doors and windows several times every day. I have to know I'm safe, that nothing can get me here. I keep a knife in my nightstand, just in case. I know how to use it. I would use it.
I sit on the floor of my bedroom a lot, staring at the wall. I can't even find the strength or the drive to shift my eyes sometimes.
Eating is hard. There's no one in town to buy food from. I can't hunt. I try my best somedays, and venture out into the woods and set a few traps that Gale and Katniss taught me, but I never feel safe enough to stay long. I pick the berry bushes clean, and collapse into tears on the forest floor when I find the strawberry bush. Grief is weird sometimes. Sometimes I snack on stuff I find in the pantry, not even caring if it's old. Sometimes just a few crackers is enough to fill me up.
It's been weeks, and no sign of anyone, no word about the trial. Surely, I would've heard if they killed Gale. Somehow I would've know. But then I think about it. Who else knows I'm here besides Haymitch and Plutarch? How could they even know to get the word to District 12, when Gale's family is in 13? The thought sends me into a panic attack, before I finally pull myself out by thinking that Hazelle would march herself right into District 12 to tell me.
No word on the Hawthorne's, either. I assume they're staying in 13 until the trial is done, but I also suppose they'll stay there forever if they kill Gale. I know Hazelle doesn't like 13 in the slightest, but deep down, I know it's the safest for the kids, even if selfishly, it's safer for me if they're here.
The days tick by, and things get harder here.
I have no energy. I don't want to get out of bed or off of the floor. A dark, stormy cloud hangs above me, but I don't want it to go away. Being miserable reminds me that I can still feel something. I'm just basking in my sadness. Everyone's dead, or dying, and it all goes back to the 74th Hunger Games.
On a rare occasion I emerge from my bedroom and go into the kitchen, I find a knife in one of the drawers. I stare at it for a very long time, and spin it slowly in my hands. I killed Marvel with a knife just like this. Mercy killed Finch with a knife just like this. Murdered Cashmere with a knife just like this.
I almost do it.
I put it back down after a long while, and lock the knives up in a closet. I toss the key on top of a dresser where I'd have to be really desperate to go looking for it.
After two months, I've just about had it. I need information. I need to know what's been going on. I don't have any energy to demand anything, but I stand anyways. My head pounds from dehydration and starvation, and my vision swims. I steady myself against the wall and trudge down the stairs, stumbling the last few.
It takes me ten minutes to get my shoes on. My body is weak and I'm so tired. I'm so hungry. If my last attempt at anything is trying to find Gale, then so be it.
I open the front door, and freeze.
Peeta is standing at the bottom of the steps.
Neither of us say anything for a long minute, just staring at one another. I take in his pale skin, shining with a thin layer of sweat from his walk. He takes me in, my too thin frame and sunken cheeks. I'm down the steps faster than I thought I could move, and fling my arms around him. He stumbles. I remember the leg. "Peeta—" I choke out, stepping back abruptly. "I'm—"
"Don't you fucking dare say you're sorry," he grunts, stumbling back. He's on crutches, a blank spot where his lower left leg used to be. "This wasn't your fault. This was the Peacekeeper who threw the grenade. You did not do this, Madge."
"I'm—"
"Don't," he says, staring me down, and I back off. "Do you–do you have room for one more?"
Instantly, Peeta becomes my roommate.
It takes us several minutes to get inside, given his crutches and my weak body, and we collapse onto the couch, huffing and puffing, sweating profusely. He tosses his backpack on the ground, and we sit there for a long moment, letting ourselves sink into our newfound company. "I'm glad you're here," I whisper, and he turns to look at me.
"I'm glad I am, too."
Peeta explains his last two months. After he woke up in the Rebel hospital with Mrs. Everdeen looking over him, it took a month for him to be able to walk. Mrs. Everdeen was a diligent doctor, sticking with him every step of the way. Katniss kept getting called too and from meetings, and I'm dying to ask the question, dying to know, but I wait. Mrs. Everdeen sent Prim back to 13. She's staying with the Hawthorne's now. "I bet Rory's not complaining," I huff out, and Peeta snorts.
"No, not at all," he chuckles, and continues on. After he learned to walk again, they fitted him for a prosthetic. It's here, but he doesn't like it. I make it my personal mission to help him out with it. They weren't quite sure where to send him. He didn't want to go anywhere without Katniss, but Katniss was still needed by Plutarch and Haymitch. So he asked Haymitch where I was, and Haymitch gave him a one-way ticket to 12. "And uh, here I am, your new house guest with a quarter less legs than when you last saw me," he grunts, and in spite of myself, I crack a smile.
"And here I am, your host, with a quarter less sanity than when you last saw me," I say back, and Peeta laughs.
He stares at me for a moment and then sighs. "I don't know anything about the trial. They've kept it pretty tight. Katniss can't even tell me much, I hardly saw her, it was so hectic. She knew I was coming here and said she'd follow as soon as she could. I think–I'm sure he's still alive. No one's seen him, but… if they had done something word would've gotten out fast."
His words reassure me, but only a little. The fact that Katniss isn't even budging on sharing tells me it's serious. "We would know, right?"
Peeta nods. "We would know."
From there, Peeta becomes Priority Number 1. I have to sheepishly explain to him that I have no food, or ways to get food, or any way to cook, and he just stares at me dumbfounded. I tell him I haven't been eating much, and he stares at me with sadness.
We have to go through it all right then. Everything that's been going on here and going through my head spills out of me. Once I start talking, I can't stop. I tell him everything, from the panic attacks to the knives. He's alarmed at the knives. I tell him I locked them up and tossed the key somewhere I couldn't reach. I can visibly see him relax, but he's still on edge. I tell him about my eating habits, or lack of. My sleeping habits.
Peeta sends me into the woods with a very clear list of things to get. "Katniss told me where to find some stuff. She knew there weren't going to be many people here, definitely not shopkeepers," he says, hanging me a bag to put things in. I'm to collect as many berries as I can, check the snares I had put out the last time I had been out, reset the snares, and then gather roots and other plants we can eat. He tells me in great detail what the plants look like, and then I'm off. I'm slow and I don't get back until nightfall, but I do it. I manage.
It takes time. I'm very slow moving the first few days Peeta is here. He is, too, so neither of us can complain. I move to the downstairs master bedroom as it's closer to Peeta. He's decided to stay on the couch for the time being, until he's more comfortable with his prosthetic. I work with him on that. He works with me on enlarging my stomach again.
Peeta bakes. He finds unopened ingredients at the back of my pantry from when he stashed some here during our training for the Games. He makes fresh bread, and the smell makes my mouth water. I make jam to put on our bread, mashing up berries and adding sugar for a touch of sweetness. My snares caught one rabbit. We both struggle through skinning it, but I painstakingly remember the steps Gale and Hazelle taught me.
We're both a little green that evening.
But, we feast. Fresh bread and rabbit stew with katniss root. Peeta found it funny, and I just managed a smile. "I haven't seen you smile much," he muses.
"I haven't really had anything to smile about," I admit.
Peeta brings me back to life.
He teaches me how to take care of myself again. It's not perfect, and it won't be for a long time. But I'm eating two meals a day. Sleeping a few hours a night. I'm still waking up screaming and paranoidly walking around the house checking windows and doors every night, but it's something.
In turn, I make him get stronger. We work on the prosthetic. It's Capitol grade, so it's fitted perfectly to his leg. I make him practice with it until he's comfortable.
It's a joint effort.
Neither of us can do this without the other.