Chapter Text
Find Lucy Gray. That is my only thought. I leave the things with the Covey, warning them to hide them well. They see my panic, but I don’t tell them my suspicions.
That she left with Snow.
I don’t know for sure yet, I remind myself.
Snow would never abandon his ambitions. Yes, he killed a person and then got his friend killed as well. If the guns aren’t found, he doesn’t have to run anywhere. But he knows that Lucy Gray is in danger. And with my talk of Thirteen she believes she can escape now.
I pull myself together. First, I must look for her everywhere here in Twelve. If she isn’t here, I’ll start worrying.
As the sun starts to rise I check the town. First everywhere at the Seam, then at the still empty Hob. I walk around the government building. Around every merchant she ever visited.
She is simply not here.
I realize with dread that she could have been apprehended by the Peacekeepers. With no concern about the potential danger, I move my body towards the base. Finally, luck is on my side. I spot a familiar face among those keeping guard. My Peacekeeper acquaintance is shocked to see me approaching so openly. I don’t care if he never buys from me again, I need to ask.
“Have you seen Lucy Gray Baird?” I ask forcefully.
“The singer? No. Why are you here anyway? I’m on a post-“
I’m already walking away. I don’t care. I don’t want to waste any more time.
The news is both good and troubling at the same time. She wasn’t arrested. Good. She is already probably halfway to the lake.
The lake.
The lake is the last chance to convince myself she just went on a date and didn’t decide to escape without us. The thought of her alone with that monster is choking me, making it harder to breathe. I can’t allow my panic to take hold. I move out towards the lake.
Rain starts, threatening to slow me down, but I don’t let it. I can’t help the small ping of hope as I pass the meadow. She is not here either. I search a little longer, hoping that I just can’t see through the rain. Hopeless.
I move through the woods. The rain stops. The sun is peeking out of the clouds. I want to take it as a good sign. Please, for all that is good, please let it be a good sign. Let her be okay.
I make sure not to slip on the wet grass of the forest. The lake is closer and closer. I hear a bang. And another bang. Then many more gunshots echo into the sky.
No.
I run even faster, begging not to be too late.
When I reach the lake, I see a lone figure. It is crouched over the water. There is something bright in its hand. It’s him. With her shawl.
My heart stops.
He found the guns. He must have, how else would there be gunshots? I know I should have given them as evidence to the Peacekeepers. Then it would have been Snow and not Sejanus who died yesterday. Then Lucy Gray would still be…
No. I can’t think that.
I feel my whole body taken by an urge to hurt him. To kill him. To avenge all the people he took from me. Now and in the future both. I find myself shaking with helpless rage. I don’t care if he has guns and I don’t. I’ll rip him with my bare hands.
As I take a step forward to do it, I slip on the ground. When I stand up and move, he is already halfway across into the treeline. I want to run. To chase him. I feel my body obeying the urge and jerk forward. Then the thought strikes me. I chose the rebellion over her then. I’m choosing revenge over her now.
I find that I’m crying as I approach the lake. Snow is gone. I look into the water, trying to find any sort of trace of her in it. If she is wounded I only have seconds left. I shake my head in disbelief. Maybe I can still bring her home.
Without realizing it, I dive into the lake.
I try to reach as deep as I can. My lungs burn and I have to take another breath. On the surface I find that I’m weeping now. I don’t know what has gone over me, but I can’t stop diving over and over again. I vow that I won’t stop until I find her body.
I must find it now. Before it bloats and becomes unrecognizable. I feel a mouthful of water fill my lungs from the sob that shakes me.
I don’t stop diving.
I think I can see a glint of something and go further down than my body thinks possible. My lungs ache. I let out a breath from how unbearable the pain becomes. I push through. I am now getting lightheaded from the lack of air and exhaustion from the events of the last two days.
I reach the bottom. My hand touches the guns. Not her.
I feel another bubble of air leave me as exhaustion takes over. I finally feel just how hungry, tired and unwell I truly am. Even then, the most prominent feeling is relief.
She might be alive.
I don’t know whether that is the hopeful thought of my dying body as it shuts down.
But she is a victor. A survivor. If anyone can find a way to live on, it’s her.
I lose the fight with water as unconsciousness overtakes me.
***
It’s cold. How strange. Never would I have thought how cold it is in the hereafter.
I open my eyes. There is snow around me. My eyes catch onto an open fire that does nothing to change how cold I am.
I try to make sense of what happened. I am back in my time. And not dead.
I look at the lake. It looks the same as it always has, with a significantly larger hole in the ice than I remember. It offers no hint or answer to my unasked questions. It keeps its secrets.
Was it a dream? Were none of them real? My family, all gone from me in a matter of minutes. Or is it me, gone from them?
I feel too empty, too exhausted to cry about the loss of the life that I just started to enjoy.
What a cruel trick my mind seemed to play on me.
“Awake now, are you?” I hear a familiar voice. It takes a moment for me to place it.
“Haymitch?” I hear myself say weakly. I turn towards the voice to find his butt-naked form. “Ah!” I startle and evade my eyes.
I notice that my soaked clothes are laid out by the fire. As are his briefs. I seem to be lying on his dry clothes and pine boughs, and covered by his coat. The fire is blazing hot but I’m still shivering from the cold.
“If you wanted to sober me up like that, sweetheart…” he trails off for a second, “well, you did it.”
“What happened?” I ask tiredly.
“I should be asking you that. All I know is that Gale comes over from the train and says he can’t find you. Next thing I know, I’m in the ice-cold water, fishing your ass out. You’ll be lucky I don’t die from hypothermia.”
He must have been so frightened. I feel guilty for making him dive into freezing water, especially considering the drunken state he was in only hours prior. He could have died today. “I’m sorry,” I say, still pointedly not looking at him.
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s hope Gale finds us soon. We split but he’ll know to come here eventually.”
We dry off. When he grabs his briefs I finally find my courage to look at him. I didn’t realize I’d missed him before I saw him in what feels like a lifetime. He looks bad. Not just from a recent dive, but in general. I don’t like the realization of having left him alone to fight off his demons. I should have been there. Like he was for me, those first few weeks after Prim. Like Lucy Gray and the Covey were for me.
Was I so desperate for human affection as to make them up? It all points to that. And now I’m back to where I started. Alone.
“Alright, sweetheart, let’s get you dressed now.” He starts handing me my dried clothes as I quickly put them on. When I do so, my eyes catch onto something. My bracelet. The one that definitely didn’t exist before, because Maude Ivory made it for me.
I stop moving. My heart flutters with hope.
It was real.
I speed up my movements, putting on everything but my jacket, which still needs to dry.
“I want to go to the town,” I say to Haymitch and stand up.
“Sit down. We’re not going anywhere before we fully dry off.”
I know he’s right in my mind, but my heart screams at me to do something. To confirm it somehow.
“What do you know about the Tenth Hunger Games?” I ask before fully realizing it.
Haymitch pauses. “Not much. A Covey girl won them.”
A Covey girl. Lucy Gray, he means. My heart beats faster in hope as I sit back down by the fire.
“Covey?” I prompt him.
He makes an expression that I can’t fully read. “Traveling singing folk. I knew a few.”
“Did you know any by the names of Lucy Gray, Tam Amber, Barb Azure, Clerk Carmine or Maude Ivory?” My voice shakes.
He looks at me in astonishment. “Yeah, Tam Amber and Clerk Carmine, I knew them.”
This means they’re real. That they survived. I can suddenly breathe easier.
“I could show you to the Covey graveyard, if you’re interested,” he says somewhat sadly.
“Yes.” I find myself saying. “I want to go there.”
***
We go the next day. We take the morning to recover from the ordeal. He never questions my reason for jumping or my knowledge of the Covey. I know the questions will come sooner or later. But now he is willing to play along. He doesn’t leave me out of his sight though.
Gale takes up all afternoon to get rid of. We don’t tell him what happened for his peace of mind. Still, he worries. I can’t bring muself to care.
So we end up going at dusk. On my way there I think about my journey. About what has happened in the past. It hurts. I made friends, only to lose them all. I found a family that is no longer there. I couldn’t save them in the end. Could I find strength to move on without them?
Most of all, I muse, I found a certain calmness there that I never thought I would. Can I find it now? I will have to manage everything alone, it seems. Maybe with Haymitch, but he’s more of a hindrance on most days. The thought of waking up tomorrow without them hurts more than I want to admit. Lucy Gray would probably laugh at me for moping. She never wasted much time asking whether life was worth living. She just lived it.
Lucy Gray would say that whatever destiny brought me there, it knew what it was doing. I find I can mourn them, my loved ones. Knowing that they weren’t ripped from me, but lived long, possibly even happy lives. I wonder whether Lucy Gray did too. And now they’ll live on in my memory, as I’ll never forget them and their kindness.
As we walk through the rebuilding town, I hear something quaint. Familiar. I speed up my steps. It gets louder and louder as I search it out. I dare not form a continuous thought around it, led by pure instinct. As I make a turn, I see him.
An old man sits in a wooden chair at his porch. He is holding his fiddle. From it I hear…
The Song.
My song. Played by my CC.
Haymitch reaches me and I turn to him with tears in my eyes. “Do you know this song?”
“Yeah,” he answers, confused. “Ask Clerk Carmine over there, he’ll tell you all about it. And show you to the cemetery.”
With that he turns and walks away.
I turn to the old man on the porch. My CC. He plays The Song, as if for himself. And then he notices me and turns.
My breath catches. His face is so recognizable despite the old age.
He smiles at me mysteriously.
And for the first time since I came home, I smile back.