Spoilers: Major spoilers for the Hunger Games series.
Disclaimer: I still don't own the Hunger Games. Considering what's happening to some of the characters in this story, maybe they are grateful for that.
A/N: As always, I also thank my Lord Jesus Christ for his incredible mercy and grace and his many blessings. I would be utterly lost without him.
Ignition Point
Chapter 2
"Seems like we're in for a storm soon," Old Man Harker said.
Gale looked up at the other man to see him rubbing at his arthritic hands and grunted in response, too tired this late in the day to bother with actual words.
But he knew the old man was right. He could feel it.
His bad arm had ached all day, and his bad leg had too, pain shooting from his toes all the way to his hip. It was even worse than usual...not that the "usual" was very good.
Aster had told him early on that he was lucky that he hadn't lost both the arm and the leg completely.
Gale never felt very lucky. The mine collapse that had nearly killed him eighteen years ago had crippled him instead; his left arm and left leg had been pinned under one of the mine's fallen timbers. Any closer and it would have hit his ribs on that left side as well. Then he would have been dead.
It hadn't been an accident, he knew that much. Well, his survival might have been an accident, but the collapse itself sure wasn't.
The Capitol had tried to kill him, just like they'd killed his baby sister.
Posy. Posy who'd loved hair ribbons and dollies and hugs from her big brothers.
Katniss had tried to warn him after she and Mellark had come back from their honeymoon. She'd said they were all in danger, that the Capitol was angry with her and Mellark for winning like they had, but when she'd insisted that she was just doing what she had to try to keep everyone safe, Gale had accused her of selling out.
He just hadn't known what to think, what to believe, because in every interview, she was smiling. Laughing. Living in luxury and wearing clothes that cost more than the entire shack he shared with his family.
It was hard not to hate her. To blame her. To wonder where the girl he'd loved had gone.
He should have listened. He should have known that they'd come after his family...his siblings. They killed twenty-three innocent kids every year. What was one more?
(The last time he'd seen Katniss in person – and not just from a distance or on television – it had been at Posy's funeral. She'd choked out that she was sorry, not meeting his eyes, and then she'd clung to Mellark as he led her away. They'd been on the first train to the Capitol right after that.)
It was food poisoning, they said. That's what had killed Posy. Gale hadn't really believed it, but a part of him had tried. If it was true, then it would mean that his little sister hadn't died because of some Capitol vendetta.
The fire at the Mellark bakery eight months later had squashed any doubts he'd hung on to. The flames had been so intense that the glow had been visible all the way from the Seam, and it had taken all night for a cobbled-together group of firefighters to finally put out the blaze. News came the next day that the remains of Peeta Mellark's oldest brother had been found in what was left of building.
So, four years down the line, when the tunnel he'd been assigned to had started crumbling around him, Gale's last thought had been, "Guess it's my turn now."
Forty-eight hours had passed before the rescue crews were able to pull him from the rubble.
He'd spent months laid up at Aster and Prim's place – the house in the Victor's Village that they had been allowed to stay in after Katniss and Mellark moved to the Capitol. Aster had done her best to set all of the breaks in his arm and leg, but she'd told him that breaks as severe as his really needed surgery, with metal rods or plates inserted to hold the bones in place. That wasn't an option for him, though, and he knew it. Only a Capitol doctor could do that kind of work, and even if he could have somehow afforded it, they weren't about to send one for the man they'd just tried to kill. Aster had warned him that without that kind of treatment, the bones wouldn't heal right, and he'd likely be facing nerve and muscle damage, numbness, chronic pain, and weakness. Her predictions had been right and then some.
Still, when Gale had recovered from the collapse as much as he ever would, he'd dragged himself back to the mining office and begged for a job, any job, because he wasn't going to live the rest of his life as a burden to his family. (His ma had insisted then that he would never be a burden to her, but that didn't change his mind.) Gale couldn't work down in the mine itself anymore, but there was always other work too, simpler, less demanding tasks that were left to the old, the sick, and the injured.
The foreman had signed him on again, and since then, he spent most of his days dumping slag into the slag heap. He only needed one hand to pull the lever on the machine, and he could sit on a stool to do it, though his left leg gave him fits if he stayed there too long. He and Old Man Harker shared the majority of their shifts, trading places when one of them needed a break. The pay wasn't as good as it was when he'd been a miner, but it was certainly better than nothing.
The whistle blew, drawing Gale from his dark thoughts and signaling the end of the shift. He took off his hardhat and stuck it back in the small locker that had been tacked up at their station, then he halfheartedly tried to wipe off some of the dust that had collected on the the denim trousers and canvas jacket he wore. He gave up pretty quickly and pulled himself to his feet with another grunt, reaching for the wooden crutch he always kept propped up next to him. His left knee didn't really bend anymore – the ankle wasn't much better – and his lower leg had bowed a little, but his bad arm was too weak to take his weight, so he had no choice but to use the crutch on his right. But, over the years, he'd figured out an awkward, shuffling gait with the crutch that didn't look pretty, but it still got him where he needed to go.
Gale parted ways with Old Man Harker, saying that he'd see him tomorrow, and then he grimaced up at the sky when another spike of pain raced down his leg as he limped forward. He hated days like this, and this was an especially long day on top of it.
Capitol law required that anyone who got "special accommodations" on the job needed a health check every six months to prove that they hadn't experienced a sudden and miraculous recovery, and that they still qualified for those "special accommodations." The mine kept a medic on staff, and the health checks needed to go through him, but the appointment couldn't happen on company time, so Gale had to fit it in during his lunch. Lunch was only half an hour to begin with, and by the time the medic had finished with him and handed over his signed report, Gale had barely had time to eat anything before he'd needed to get back to work. And now, instead of heading straight home, he had to take the medic's report to the Mining Liaison's Office in the Justice Building.
His leg throbbed again, but Gale kept moving until he reached the large, crumbling cement slab that had once been an old equipment yard. It offered a clear view of the mine's entrance, but was far enough away to keep him out of everybody's hair, so that was where he usually waited for his brothers. He didn't have to do it – Vick and Rory both reminded him of that often, worried about him pushing himself more than he had to. But, though he'd never admit it out loud, Gale needed to see his brothers walk out of that mine every day. (Their father never had. He hadn't either...not really.)
Only a few minutes passed before he spotted them, filtering out from the elevator with the rest of their crew, covered in a thick layer of coal dust from head to toe. They were both tall, like him, and they looked enough alike that, coated in the gray stuff as they were, it was would have been hard to tell them apart if it weren't for Rory's lean build and Vick's stockier one. Rory liked to tease Vick that the difference was because of Sarah's cooking.
Vick had been the only one of them to marry and give their ma grandchildren to spoil, saying he wasn't gonna live in fear. Gale loved his nieces and nephews, but he dreaded the time when they were reaping age, and little Lanie was just a year away from that, the others not far behind. He wasn't sure how his brother did it. After Posy, Gale had known it was a risk he could never take himself, not with the targets on their backs. He wouldn't have done it even if he'd been in any sort of condition to support a family of his own.
Gale wasn't alone in feeling that way. Rory certainly agreed with him, and everyone in the District knew that Primrose Everdeen was as single as she'd ever been, and not for lack of offers. Mellark's remaining brother, the middle one, was actually married if memory served, but he and his wife had never had any kids.
Rory was the one to reach him first today; his greeting was a cheerful but tired, "Hey, Gale," and a swat to the arm that hit more fabric than skin. He was always careful when he did that. Gale hated that he needed to be.
"Hey," Vick echoed a moment later, sounding just as tired as his brother, but his smile was warm too.
Gale returned it, though his own smile slipped off his face pretty quickly as his gaze turned again to late afternoon sky. Darkening clouds were already proving his and Old Man Harker's predictions right. His left leg gave another sharp throb, and he winced, tightening his hold on his crutch.
"You okay?"
He turned to see Vick watching him, a crease between his brows.
Rory, who'd taken his helmet off to run a hand through his hair, trying in vain to shake out some of the coal dust, stopped to look at him too, concern flitting over his features.
Gale bit back a sigh.
"I'm fine," he said a little more gruffly than he'd meant to. "Storm's coming in, that's all."
Neither of his brothers looked like they believed him, but they must have picked up on his mood because they didn't press.
They talked for a few minutes more, mostly about the kids – Aiden had just lost a tooth – while Vick and Rory enjoyed the fresh air and open space with the same sort of eagerness Gale remembered from his own days spent down in the tunnels. Vick invited them all over for Sunday dinner, saying as usual that their ma didn't have to bring anything, though they all knew she'd never arrive empty-handed.
It wasn't long before they started making their way down the familiar road that led away from the mine, and a short time later, it was Vick who left them first, headed for his own house, waving as he went. Gale and Rory kept going for a ways, though soon enough, they reached the junction where the road split off towards Town.
Rory, who already knew about the medic report he had to hand in, gave him another, gentle clap on the back.
"See you at home."
Gale nodded. "See you."
He watched for a moment as his brother carried on to the Seam, then shuffled his feet to make the turn towards Town, gritting his teeth again when his crutch almost skid on the hard-packed earth. He'd made this trip more times than he could count, but it never got any easier. The road wasn't particularly rough, but the loose dust that covered it made for slippery terrain for him, and there was just enough of an incline to tire him out pretty quickly.
He got there, though, reaching the edge of Town just as the darkening clouds above hid the setting sun behind them. The Justice Building came into view, and Gale stared at for a moment, feeling a muscle twitch along his jaw. He'd always hated the place and what it stood for, but these days, he could never look at it without thinking about everything he'd lost.
He pushed those feelings down as far as he could and kept going. The peacekeepers at the entrance watched him as made his way inside. There were a lot more of them now than there had once been...and none of them were familiar. Darius, Purnia, and the other peacekeepers who'd frequented the Hob had all been transferred out of the district. That had been just one of many changes after the 74th Hunger Games. Security had been tightened everywhere inside Twelve, and the fence had been running 24/7 for over two decades, so hunting had become impossible long before Gale had been injured. (That hadn't made it hurt any less the day that he'd realized, inside or outside the fence, he'd never be able to tie a snare or hold a bow ever again.)
Another group of peacekeepers was stationed just inside the door of the Justice Building, and they patted him down before waving him through. His feet carried him to the Mining Liaison's Office automatically. There was a line, though thankfully it wasn't a long one, and soon, it was his turn.
He shuffled forward, leaning on his crutch, then dug into his pocket and pulled out the medic's report. When he looked up, it was Madge Undersee who was standing behind the counter, dressed in a simple blue sweater and black slacks, her long, blonde hair falling around her shoulders in loose waves. He wasn't surprised to see her, exactly. He'd never kept careful track of her hours, but she'd worked in the Liaison's Office for years already, and he saw her fairly often.
He'd gotten to know her a little during Katniss's Games. She'd hung around every time Aster and Prim had watched from square, which meant, by extension, that she'd hung around him too, and...well, he supposed he'd learned to live with her. She wasn't quite what he'd imagined her to be, and it had gotten harder and harder to resent her for the things that neither of them could change. Besides, life in Panem had given them both a raw deal in the end.
Mayor Undersee had died of a heart attack, right at the height of the Capitol's crackdown on the district, and though he'd never come right out and asked Madge, Gale was willing to bet that it hadn't been a coincidence.
The new mayor and his family had moved into the house she'd grown up in, and Madge and her mother had been given a small house of their own in Town, almost on the border of the Seam. Her mother was sick, had been for a while, apparently, and from what he'd gathered, most of Madge's pay these days went to morphling for her...morphling which was a whole lot harder to get ahold of without the connections her father had enjoyed as the mayor.
There'd been a time once when Gale might have been happy to see her struggle like the rest of them, but Madge...she never looked at him like he was broken, not like some of the others. He just didn't have it in him to hate her. Not anymore.
Madge smiled when she saw him. "Hi, Gale. What can I do for you?"
"Hey, Madge." He slid the report across the counter. "I'm here to turn in my proof of disability."
She nodded and picked up the report, scanning through the contents with practiced ease. "Looks like you've got everything you need. I'll add this to your file. Do you want a copy?"
"Yeah, I do."
He trusted Madge, but he didn't trust the Capitol, and records were easy enough to tamper with.
Madge nodded once more, then headed off to the back room. She reappeared a minute or so later, carrying two pieces of paper. She set them on the desk, then quickly stamped them both to show they'd been received and approved.
She held his copy out to him. "Here you go."
"Thanks," he said again, accepting it from her.
He was about to fold the copied report, planning to put it in his pocket, when the stamp at the bottom caught his eye. Instead of the usual stamp with the Capitol seal, there was a small, black mockingjay. A mockingjay like the one Katniss had worn in the arena...the symbol the Capitol had hated for decades.
His gaze flitted over Madge in surprise, but her smile never wavered.
"If you have any questions, just let me know. I'm always happy to help."
Gale stared at her for a moment longer, then nodded slowly. "...Right. Thanks again."
He folded up the report and shoved it in his pocket, then turned to leave, his mind whirling as he walked past the peacekeepers again and back out into the Town square. The dark clouds he'd seen earlier now filled the sky, but he didn't stop to look at them for long, not wanting to draw any attention to himself, all too aware that the Capitol had eyes – and more than a few cameras – around the Justice Building. His copy of the report felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket, but he couldn't risk taking it out a second time, not here, tempting as it was.
He'd have to talk to Madge, and soon. That was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? She'd hinted at it, anyway. He'd have to figure out somewhere to run into her where it would look natural and unplanned...some place the Capitol didn't monitor as closely.
A mockingjay, he thought, just as the first few drops of rain started to fall.
She'd stamped his copy with a mockingjay.
He had to know why.
Katniss had never liked the parks in the Capitol.
Their vibrant, green lawns, stone-lined paths, and carefully tended blossoms were a stark contrast to the thick, rugged undergrowth, deer trails, and wildflowers she'd known back in Twelve. In the Capitol, the parks were perfectly neat, flawlessly maintained. Nothing was completely natural.
It was all about appearances. About control. Then again, in the Capitol, everything was about control.
The park she found herself in today was one of the larger, more popular ones, right in the center of the city. She wasn't there by choice. It was a "scheduled outing" – all of them were – and the location had been chosen with a purpose: the wide, open spaces made it easy for the press to spot her, and she was expected to be available for "candid" photos for the entire two hour block.
Despite having done this for over two decades now, the knowledge that so many people would be watching her made Katniss feel like she was suffocating even in the open air, the weight of all those stares heavy on her shoulders. It didn't help that she was alone, either, and she kept finding her eyes sliding to the empty space beside her, expecting Peeta to be there with her. He had desperately wanted to come, she knew, because she was meeting Helena, and they'd barely seen her since the wedding two months ago. But their handlers had decided that Katniss should go alone. (The public needed to see mother and daughter together, they'd said.)
She had longed to fight them on it, to argue and shout and demand that they change their minds, but of course she couldn't, and Katniss had long ago learned to separate what she was feeling from how she acted. She knew how to smile and laugh and give them whatever they wanted even if she was screaming inside. It would never come as naturally to her as it did to Peeta, but her acting skills were vastly improved from what they had been after they'd first won.
So, she'd let them put her in a dark green, A-line dress with chiffon sleeves – thankfully one of Cinna's most recent designs – and she'd watched as they pulled her hair up into an elegant twist, and then she'd slipped on the pair of green, leather sandals they'd chosen for her.
Now, as she strolled through the park, her stride was easy and confident; she walked the way that Effie had taught her so long ago, gently swinging her hips with each step to "add a touch of feminine allure," as Effie had said. She ignored the sharp pang of guilt and regret that always followed thoughts of their former escort, keeping her expression relaxed and content as she reached the fountain where she was supposed to meet Helena.
Helena arrived exactly when she was expected to because her own handlers saw to that, and Katniss quietly took in the changes in her daughter.
They'd cut her hair so that it rested only a couple inches below her shoulders, instead of hanging down her back, with several shorter layers around her face. It made Katniss wince internally because Helena had always liked her long hair, and it couldn't have been her choice. Her stylists had dressed her in a sophisticated, more formal style than Katniss was used to, placing her in a light blue suit jacket with matching, pleated slacks, her feet in a pair of silver high heels. She knew – from years of listening to Cinna – that the shift in Helena's style was meant to reflect her new role as a political socialite.
It was the subtler changes that worried Katniss most.
There were shadows in Helena gray eyes that hadn't been there before, along with a faint tension in her limbs and something stilted in her smile. (If anyone noticed that Katniss hugged her daughter harder and longer than a happy, carefree mother would, she would claim it as all for the benefit of the photographers who were watching.)
Helena hugged her back just as tightly.
They left the fountain and walked down one of the long, winding, stone paths of the park together, pretending to ignore the collection of press in the distance that was still growing as news of their arrival spread. They chatted for a few minutes about nothing important, sticking to the shallow sort of topics Katniss hated but found useful anyway because they usually satisfied the Capitol. Helena dutifully played along, but the carefully cultivated cheer in her voice was strained, at least to Katniss's ears.
Katniss felt a rush of relief when they rounded the far bend of the path they were taking, meaning they were as far from the press as they were going to be. She reached down to straighten one of the sleeves of her dress, her fingers finding the button Cinna had sewn onto the cuff. She pressed it carefully, pinching it between her thumb and finger, feeling it warm faintly in response before she let it go.
It was working.
"We can talk now," Katniss said softly. "They'll still see us but they won't hear us."
Helena's eyes flickered in surprise, but she had spent her whole life having to hide from the Capitol's careful scrutiny, and the reaction was quickly subdued.
"How...?" Helena asked, her voice filled with the confusion she'd kept from her expression.
And Katniss told her.
About the rebellion...about everything they'd learned in Haymitch's hospital room a few weeks ago. They had longed to tell her since then, anxious for her to know the truth, but it had been impossible. The few times they had seen her, it had been at dinners with Tiberius, all of which had also been arranged for the benefit of the press.
It had been a new sort of torture for Katniss, having to pretend that she didn't know what that man was doing to her daughter...having to kiss him on the cheek and play the doting mother-in-law. She'd found that the only way she could smile convincingly at Tiberius Beaumont was to imagine all the ways she would kill him if she had the chance, her fingers begging to pick up the bow she hadn't been allowed to touch since moving to the Capitol. (Peeta had been stiff beside her, even as he laughed lightly at Tiberius's jokes. It had been a wonder that his glass hadn't shattered in his hand, given how tightly his fist had clenched around it at the table.)
The only good thing about having to wait to talk with Helena was that it had given the rebellion time to respond to the request that Haymitch had sent on their behalf. Cinna had arrived at the house a few days ago, with three new designs he'd said he "was excited about and wanted to share." Since Cinna was no longer her personal stylist, and hadn't been for years, he had no say in what she actually wore, but thankfully, Cinna's designs were always popular, and her current stylists wanted her to be a trendsetter. It hadn't taken them long to gravitate to the new pieces he'd brought when deciding what she would wear today.
Katniss was just as glad that it wasn't at all unusual for Cinna to supplement her wardrobe, so no one thought twice about it, but considering the particular enhancements in the clothing, she knew it had been a risk.
The risk, though, hadn't been solely for her. The rebellion had the Star-Crossed Lovers now, and they wanted Helena, too.
"She's uniquely positioned," Haymitch had said with a grimace that showed he wasn't happy about it either. "She could be a real asset as Beaumont's wife."
An asset. Katniss hated that word. To the Capitol, they were valuable playthings at best, and "asset" didn't seem much better. Something was only an asset as long as it was useful, and being useful to the rebellion would be dangerous. Their lives were dangerous enough already. It didn't matter to her if her daughter was "uniquely positioned." Katniss just wanted her to be safe.
They would never truly be safe, though, not as long as the Capitol was in control, and Helena had always been a part of this – she had been born into this. Katniss couldn't change that, and her daughter had already had far too many choices taken away from her. She deserved this one.
"I'll do it," Helena said immediately. "Whatever they need, I'll do it."
The fierceness in her voice caught Katniss off guard; when she glanced at her daughter, her pleasant expression hadn't wavered, but her gray eyes held the same intensity that her voice had. Helena drew a deep breath before she spoke again.
"I'm pregnant."
Katniss's stomach lurched.
"Tiberius didn't want me to tell you yet. He wants to take us all out on a night on the town next week so the press will speculate about what we're celebrating."
Katniss's throat burned, and her hands trembled at her sides. It took everything she had to hold on to the calm, cheerful expression she needed to wear.
Helena blinked a few times, her own eyes turning glossy for a moment, though subtly enough that no one else besides Katniss would have been able to see it.
"I'm going to love this baby," Helena said. It had the feel of a promise. "This baby is innocent. They didn't choose their parents anymore than I did."
Katniss almost flinched at that. It felt like an accusation, even though she knew Helena hadn't meant it as one.
She had never wanted to drag a child into this life. After she and Peeta had won, she'd hoped that their marriage alone would be enough to keep the Capitol happy, but the calls for them to have a baby had followed soon after.
They hadn't taken them seriously enough in the beginning.
After what had happened to Posy, they should have known that "no" wasn't an answer the Capitol would ever accept.
Then Bannock had died.
Peeta blamed himself. He'd never really been close to either of his brothers, and Bannock had been especially quiet, Peeta said, so in a way, he'd been the most distant. But, when they were young, and their mother had hit either him or Rye, Bannock had been the one who would risk her wrath all over again by getting some ice for their bruises.
After Bannock's funeral, she and Peeta had understood the Capitol's unspoken ultimatum. They could either keep losing people they loved, or they could sentence a hypothetical child to a life under the Capitol's control.
Having a child hadn't seemed like the right choice, but it had been the only choice that would spare them and their families pain, at least for a little while, and it was easier to face the possibility of a loss sometime in the future than it was to face the certainty of many losses in the present. That had been true the second time, too, even if she'd started to realize, by then, how agonizing that eventual loss would be.
It had only gotten worse. The future had become the present, and those two, hypothetical children hadn't been hypothetical anymore. They were living, breathing people that she and Peeta loved more than their own lives, and they'd condemned them to this.
She could never regret having her children – she loved them too much for that – and she knew that it was the Capitol that really deserved her hatred. But the guilt never left, and it was hard not to feel like she was to blame every time her children suffered.
Katniss wasn't sure how many of her thoughts were visible on her face. She was still desperately clinging to her mask, and she hoped that sheer muscle memory was enough to keep the emotion at bay, at least enough that the photographers in the distance wouldn't pick up on it.
But even if she'd succeeded, her children had always been able to read her, and as they kept walking down the winding path, she felt Helena's hand brush against her arm in the way she remembered from when the children had been little. It had been part of a silent language that had sprung up over time, one they used at various events, under the watchful gaze of various handlers. From the outside, it looked casual, thoughtless. It was anything but.
"It's alright," the simple gesture said. "I'm here."
She and Peeta had used it to comfort the children when there had been no other way.
Helena using it now made a different sort of ache take up residence in Katniss's chest.
"I've never blamed you or Dad," Helena said softly. "Sage didn't either, and we saw what it did to you both. You were put in an impossible situation." Her lips quirked faintly, though Katniss could still see the subtle sheen of tears in her eyes. "And I know even more about impossible situations these days."
Katniss silently brushed her arm in return, and Helena swallowed hard, just as they reached the turn in the path that would bring them closer to the photographers once more.
"I'm going to love this baby," she said again. "And if there's a chance that I can keep my baby safe...that I can keep them from having to live through what we have...then I'll take it."
Peeta couldn't imagine what his life might have been like without painting.
It had been one of the few good things he'd found in the immediate aftermath of the Games.
He had loved to draw for as long as he could remember, but paper and pencils were expensive, and growing up, he hadn't always been able to get them outside of school. As a Victor, though, he'd been able to afford whatever he wanted, and he'd bought stacks of sketchbooks and sets of drawing pencils right away Originally, he hadn't planned on anything else. But, then he'd seen the colorful tubes of paint in the catalog that the Capitol had sent to his house, page after page of them, available in every shade he could imagine, and he'd bought those too, eager to experiment.
There was something special about paint, he'd realized then. He still loved to draw, but painting let him lose himself in a new way. When he painted, he could forget everything for a while, even if he was painting to try to rid himself of the horrors he'd seen. The world narrowed to just the feel of the brush in his hand, the texture of the canvas, and the image he wanted to create.
But then he'd become a father, and painting had turned into something else. Something more.
Helena liked to draw, and she could happily spend an hour with a piece of paper and a pencil at the kitchen table or in her room, but Sage...
When Sage was a toddler, Peeta had often sat in front of an easel with him on his lap, Sage's little fingers covered in paint. Sometimes, Sage had just giggled as he spread the color over the fresh, white surface at random, and sometimes he had wanted Peeta to show him what to do, and Peeta had held those little fingers in his much larger ones and guided them gently over the canvas.
After Sage died, Peeta hadn't been able to pick up a paint brush without thinking of those days.
He still had to paint something, though, because he was expected to, and the Capitol auctioned his work a couple times a year. Of course, whatever he painted belonged to the Capitol, just like he did. Like his family did.
But he did what he had to do.
The subjects of his paintings, thankfully, were usually his choice, unless it was a commissioned piece, though that rarely happened. His handlers had said something about his fans wanting to see his "authentic self-expression," which had almost made him laugh at the irony.
These days, he painted a lot of landscapes for the auctions – places around the Capitol that caught his eye, or sights he remembered from District Twelve. Every so often, he painted a still life or something from his imagination. (He'd stopped painting scenes from his Games when he'd realized that there was a group of collectors in the Capitol who found the gruesome, bloody images "thrilling" and "evocative." The last thing he wanted was to satisfy that crowd.)
The Capitol's next auction was scheduled to take place a few days from now, and he was almost done with the pieces they wanted. He didn't usually cut things so close, but these paintings had needed more calculation than most. The rebellion had no way of knowing which bidder would wind up owning which painting, but they had to make sure that the coded message they wanted Peeta to deliver wound up in the right hands. The only solution Peeta really had was to paint the coded symbols into each and every piece, and he'd had to be careful to keep it from being too obvious. Though, even if someone realized that he was including a flower, a triangle, and tree in each painting, no one would guess the significance.
Still, it was better that they didn't notice in the first place, and he was trying to make each symbol feel like it belonged in what he'd painted, including them in different places, sometimes in the foreground, the background, or as the focal point, hoping to make it all feel natural and unplanned. He'd been happy with the overall effect so far, and hopefully, no one would comment on the strange theme running through his latest series.
If he was being honest, though, it wasn't only the coded message – or even Sage's ghost – that had slowed him down.
It was a letter. Aster's letter.
She usually wrote to them about once a month, mostly about how she and Prim were doing or what was happening around the district. Nothing that would make the Capitol look twice. That hadn't changed. Not on the surface, at least.
In reality, a lot had changed after their visit to District Twelve for the Reaping of the 98th Hunger Games. Katniss, at the insistence of their stylists, had worn one of the most recent dresses Cinna had given her. Peeta knew that he was the only one who'd seen the wry edge in Katniss's smile every time someone told her how lovely it was. It actually was lovely.
And useful.
After the Games, they'd simply had to wait for word, and Aster, who was regularly in touch with them anyway, had seemed like the best person to send along the message when the time came. (Prim, who wrote even more often that Aster did, had volunteered for the job first, but Katniss hadn't wanted her to risk it, and Prim, who understood her sister's protectiveness better than anyone, hadn't pushed.)
I was at Madilyn Undersee's house last week, Aster had said, her looping, graceful handwriting as neat as ever. Her headaches have been getting worse, and Madge asked me to stop by to see if there was anything I could do for her. I brewed some tea with a few herbs I thought might help. It's not morphling, but it seemed to do her some good. Madge says hello, by the way. I'm sure you remember her. She mentioned that she saw Gale the other day, and that they talked for a bit. He seems to be doing fine, all things considered. I know you worry about him.
It was good news...or at least it should have been.
They'd been the ones to suggest Madge to the rebellion, after all, though Peeta knew how hesitant Katniss had been to mention her. But Haymitch had been the rebellion's main contact in District Twelve for decades, and they'd had to think about who was going to replace him. Madge, with her experience as the mayor's daughter, knew how the Capitol worked, and it seemed like she might be able to fill the old Victor's shoes.
Haymitch had agreed. "The Undersee girl?" he'd said, his lips turning upwards with a faint look of satisfaction that neither he or Katniss had understood. "Yeah. Yeah, she'd do."
They just hadn't expected that Madge would want to bring Gale in along with her.
Aster's carefully worded letter confirmed Gale's acceptance, though. That wasn't really much of a surprise – Gale had as much reason as anyone to want to see the Capitol destroyed, for his little sister, and for himself – but Katniss had gone still at the news.
Peeta didn't have to guess what she was feeling. He wasn't close to either Madge or Gale, but he knew how much they meant to Katniss, even if she'd had to cut them both out of her life years ago. Both he and Katniss had just spent so long trying to protect the people they loved that it was terrifying to see those same people willingly stepping out into the line of fire now.
And that list seemed to be growing all the time.
Helena had joined it too...Helena, who'd been the talk of the Capitol since the announcement of her pregnancy, an announcement that had left Peeta's own emotions in a tangled, painful jumble that he hadn't been able to sort out yet, even though a few months had passed since Katniss had first told him the news. Now, he had even more reasons to worry about his daughter and his unborn grandchild.
With all of those thoughts running through his mind on a loop, maybe it shouldn't have surprised him when they'd started spilling onto the canvases as he worked.
Strawberries...bright, red strawberries – like the ones Katniss and Gale had sold to Madge and Mayor Undersee – wound up in one paining. In another, he painted the ridge that overlooked the entrance to the mine in District Twelve. A third painting included a blonde woman with her back turned to the viewer, keeping a protective, watchful eye on her son as he played in a lush, green meadow.
He picked up a fourth canvas and stared at it for a moment, once again thinking over the symbols that the rebellion wanted in each piece, and then his hand was moving, a vibrant, yellow blossom slowly taking shape at the canvas's center.
A few days later, Peeta was standing just outside of the gallery that the auction organizers had set up to display his paintings for prospective bidders. His job, as it always was at these things, was to glad-hand anyone and everyone, answering the questions they had and talking up his work. He never enjoyed it, but at least this time he could entertain himself by trying to guess which vain, snobby, or irritatingly bubbly aristocrat was actually working for the rebellion. Was it the man with the green mustache? Or the woman who wore her hair in purple ringlets? In all likelihood, he would never know, but it made the whole thing a little more bearable than usual.
A short lull in the incoming crowd was Peeta's signal to wander through the gallery, checking for anyone he might have missed while talking to others. Soon enough, he spotted a dark-haired woman he didn't recognize, standing in front of a painting with a familiar yellow bloom at its heart.
The woman turned as she heard him approach, and she raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow in question, her chin lifted and her lips pursed.
"I don't believe I've seen this type of flower before, Mr. Mellark," she said. "What do you call it?"
Peeta stared at the flower for a moment – a flower that was forever blooming where it could never fade.
"A posy," Peeta told her. "It's a posy."
Haymitch hated the oxygen mask.
The docs had switched him to that instead of the nasal cannula a few weeks ago, and even if it delivered more oxygen, it sure didn't feel like an improvement.
It pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed at the skin around his mouth. Plus, his ears hurt where the straps rested above them to hold the mask to his face. Haymitch wanted to roll his eyes – it seemed ridiculous that with all the incredible medical tech the Capitol had at their fingertips, they couldn't make a comfortable mask.
He would have been tempted to just rip the thing off and refuse to wear it again, but as much as he loathed to admit it, he wouldn't have lasted long without it.
Though, he wasn't real sure how long he was gonna last with it, either.
His clock was winding down and there was no denying that anymore. Digging his heels in and listening to the docs had bought him a little more time like he'd wanted, but stubbornness could only keep a failing body going for so long. He barely had the energy to move most days, and the simplest things, like turning his head or raising his arms, felt like they took just about everything he had.
The kids had seen the change in him, he knew. Every visit, they stayed a little longer...seemed a little more reluctant to leave. Helena's visits were the same way, though Snow's lapdog kept her pretty busy, so he didn't see her as much, but that just meant she was even more hesitant about leaving when the time came. Once, out of sheer impatience, Haymitch might have just booted all of his visitors out of his room anyway, but maybe dying was making him soft because he couldn't bring himself to do that now.
The kids were...well, they meant something to him. And if there was anything he felt proud of in his life, it was those kids. That pride had only grown as he'd watched them step into their roles in the rebellion these last few months. They gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, it hadn't all been for nothing.
So...he let them hang around when they wanted to. He used the jammer as often as he could without making the Capitol suspicious. He told the kids anything he thought might be useful, and he offered his advice when they asked for it.
And he waited for the end.
The waiting didn't really involve a whole lot. Mostly, when the kids weren't around, he slept, he wallowed in regrets (he had plenty of those), or he watched Capitol television.
Today was one of the days where nobody was visiting, so he was left with the exciting alternatives.
He'd just settled on watching a documentary about logging in District Seven (though they made the whole thing seem a lot safer and a lot more glamorous than what Johanna had described to him once), when the Capitol Broadcasting seal cut in, filling the screen.
A news anchor appeared a moment later, his solemn expression contrasting with the bright, lilac suit he wore.
"We interrupt this program to bring you a breaking news update," the anchor began. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is with a very heavy heart that I announce the passing of President Coriolanus Snow..."
Haymitch stared at the television for a long moment.
Dead.
Snow was dead.
Haymitch blinked, half wondering if this was some kind of hallucination spurred on by a combination of wishful thinking and the many drugs running through his system, but the television screen didn't change, and the news anchor was now droning on about all of Snow's supposed accomplishments.
Snow was dead.
Haymitch started to grin.
He'd outlived Snow. He'd actually outlived him. Maybe not for long. But for a little while, Haymitch Abernathy got to live in a world where Coriolanus Snow wasn't breathing.
It wasn't the revenge Haymitch had pictured – his fantasies about that usually involved his favorite knife and a day alone with Snow in his office – but he'd take it. He'd definitely take it.
It was still a far better end than Snow deserved...though, from what Helena had said about her meeting with him late last year, Snow had practically been rotting in place in that gilded wheelchair of his, so it hadn't been pretty, either.
And now he was dead.
A laugh bubbled up in Haymitch's throat.
He didn't have any breath left for laughter, but he laughed anyway, feeling lighter than he had in decades.
Free. He was free.
He laughed some more, and laughed more still even as the monitors around him went crazy, and he kept laughing even when one of the docs came running, urging him to calm down.
He didn't stop until the doc finally gave up and injected something into his IV.
The darkness started to close in, but Haymitch was still smiling as he relaxed.
He wondered idly, as his eyes drifted shut, if the same doc was gonna wind up being the one to call it later, when that clock of his finally ran out.
(As it turned out, she was.)
Finnick hadn't been allowed to attend Haymitch's funeral.
He'd wanted to, but it had been held in District Twelve, and while Victors could travel back and forth from the Capitol to their home districts, Victors were forbidden to travel between districts outside of official Hunger Games functions.
Attending a funeral didn't count as one of those "official" functions.
Finnick had been required to attend Snow's funeral, though. All of the Victors had, as a demonstration of their loyalty to the government and as living proof of Snow's "great legacy."
Snow's funeral had actually taken place a couple weeks after Haymitch's, the government needing the extra time finalize arrangements and organize guest accommodations and security for the influx of Capitol dignitaries who'd traveled to the city. Naturally, the funeral itself had included all the pomp and grandeur one would have expected for Panem's "beloved President."
Finnick had spent the whole time wishing he could dance on the man's grave. (Mags would have loved to see it – she would have danced with him, he was sure.) He'd had to remind himself that he couldn't risk dancing, though – not yet, anyway. Maybe someday. And that was starting looking like an actual possibility again. Paranoia had prompted the Capitol to clean house pretty thoroughly after the 74th Hunger Games, and the rebellion had lost quite a few valuable contacts in the process. Snow had been far more cautious about government appointments after that, too, enough that he'd still had some unfilled positions left at the time of his death. They were low-level positions, mostly, but if the rebellion could get its foot in the door while the bureaucracy was trying to adjust to a new administration, they might just be able to regain some ground. It was the best things had looked for them in almost twenty-five years.
After Snow's funeral, every Victor had been required to stay for the inauguration of the next President of Panem, Tiberius Beaumont. He'd been Snow's choice, of course, rather than being nominated by his peers, but no one had dared make a peep in protest. Beaumont had accepted the honor with a lofty speech, his heavily pregnant wife, Helena – and his in-laws – at his side, a clever bit of political theater that was clearly designed to tap into the audience's unfailing love for two of their favorite Victors.
The Star-Crossed Lovers were too good at playing their parts to let any cracks show, but from his seat on the stage with the other Victors, Finnick had seen they way they'd clung to each other as they held hands, listening to their son-in-law's speech.
He envied them that. Not the position they'd found themselves in (he doubted that their daughter had gotten any say in who she'd married), but he envied the way that they could lean on each other, even when the eyes of so many were on them. With Annie...when they were in public, even if she was right next to him, Finnick had to keep his distance. He had to pretend that she didn't mean anything to him...and that had been especially hard this time.
It had been years since Annie had been to the Capitol, and she'd been almost catatonic on the way to the train. She'd had to be heavily medicated for both the funeral and the inauguration, and she'd needed to be carefully watched in the District Four Suite in the training center. It had been a relief to finally be able to send her home, even though he hadn't been allowed to go with her. No, Finnick had been ordered to stay in the Capitol for a few more weeks because there were too many powerful people who wanted some "time" with him.
It could have been worse, he supposed.
After his breakdown three years ago, his handlers had been a lot more selective about the clients he had, and they'd starting scheduling a day or two off in between, which made things a bit more bearable. He didn't even really mind that they'd taken to drugging him to the gills when he was working, either. It made it harder for him to remember secrets, but Finnick wouldn't have wanted to tell them to stop, even if he could have. It was easier not to feel. (The drugs always took a few days to leave his system when he got home. Annie was patient with him every time, sitting with him as he rode it out, running her hands through his hair, humming her favorites songs and telling him what their son had been up to while he was gone. He didn't have the heart anymore to tell her that their son wasn't real. Besides, sometimes Finnick was sure that he saw him too.)
For the most part, Finnick spent his time after the inauguration drifting in a welcome haze, only really surfacing when he had to. During those brief moments of clarity, though, he'd seen a handful of the other Victors who were still around the city. The Star-Crossed Lovers were doing the rounds with the press, continuing their PR blitz on their son-in-law's behalf (undoubtedly at Beaumont's orders). The latest Victor from Eleven, a nineteen-year-old kid who'd had the truly terrible luck to be styled "his generation's Finnick Odair," had made a few appearances too, always on somebody's arm, and Finnick had even seen Johanna once or twice, though he never caught more than a brief glimpse of her.
Finnick frowned. Almost every time he saw her these days, Johanna had a glassy look in her eyes that made him wonder if she was being drugged too. He worried about her. Johanna had always just barely toed the line as far as the Capitol was concerned, and she'd disappeared for a while, a couple years ago, right after the 96th Hunger Games. Finnick only knew about that because one of his clients happened to be dating District Seven's escort, and the escort said that Johanna had been taken away by peacekeepers just before the train had left to head back to Seven. Finnick had done all he could to try to find out more, even calling in a couple favors, but whatever had been going on, the Capitol had kept it hidden.
Johanna had reappeared for the Games the next year, but she'd been far skinnier than she'd ever been before, and her hair had looked like it was growing back from being shaved. She'd been much quieter, too. She'd never told him what had happened, and every time he'd tried to subtly broach the subject, she'd brushed him off, insisting she was fine. It didn't help that the only places they could meet these days were some of the most heavily monitored in the Capitol, and as far as the rebellion was concerned, "checking on a friend" wasn't a good enough reason to risk using a jammer in any of those areas.
Feeling helpless was hardly new for Finnick, but it never got any easier, and that was what had driven him from his room tonight, even though he had the night off. He'd been hoping that he might catch Johanna at the Victor's Lounge, sitting at her favorite table in the back corner or playing pool the way she sometimes did. (They couldn't talk about anything that really mattered, but just seeing her in one piece would have gone a long way to easing some of his worry.) When he arrived at the Lounge, though, it was empty.
Sighing, Finnick turned to leave, but he paused when his eyes landed on the bar. Haymitch had spent a lot of time there over the years, and it wasn't hard to imagine the older Victor sitting there now, nursing a whiskey.
A faint smile tugging at his lips, Finnick walked over to the bar, then claimed a stool for himself and flagged down one of the nearby Avoxes, ordering a whiskey of his own. (He didn't have to worry about mixing the drugs in his system with alcohol, thankfully – his handlers had been very specific about that, since some of his clients liked to wine him and dine and him and pretend that their "time" with him was more than a paid transaction that he had no say in.)
The whiskey arrived a couple minutes later, and Finnick raised the glass in a silent toast before he took his first sip.
It wasn't the sort of send-off Finnick had wanted to give him, but well, Haymitch probably would have liked this better.
TBC
A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think! Once again, I'm planning to post the next chapter on Thursday of next week.
Take care and God bless!
Ani-maniac494 :)