Chapter Text
Katniss Everdeen’s grey Seam eyes stare out the window for a very long time. When she finally looks back to Dr Aurelius, she has forgotten his question.
“Katniss?” Her far off, vacant gaze finds Dr Aurelius and he finds that he can’t stand to look at her for too long. Her stare makes him uncomfortable. It is the stare of someone who has seen too much. Someone who has been on the brink of death only to be pulled back into the clutches of life. “Did you hear me?”
She shakes her head, lowering it to her lap. She thumbs over the folds of her pants, feeling the stitches of the material under her calloused fingertips. She has very little concentration these days. Her mind simply wanders away from her present day life to a place where the Games never existed. Back to when she was only Katniss Everdeen, just another girl from District 12. Back when Gale was her only friend, and Peeta was too far away to be relevant. When it was only her mother and Prim that depended on her and not twelve districts that needed her to be the face of some rebellion.
“I asked you if you were sleeping much these days.”
Katniss scoffs. Sleep. Even before he was gone, she didn’t sleep much. Back before the Games, it was hunger, and worry about how she was going to feed her mother and Prim that kept her awake. After, it was nightmares of the tracker jack infected Glimmer and Rue dying in her arms. Now…...it is an entirely different matter.
Dr Aurelius doesn’t press her for an answer, simply writing something down in his notebook. Katniss hates when he does this. She hates not knowing what he is thinking of her. What is he writing that he cannot share with her?
“We’ve talked about my sleeping habits before,” she says softly. Outside the window, a mockingjay flies past and Katniss has to close her eyes. Mockingjays belong to another Katniss, a younger, less scarred version.
“Okay then. Let’s talk about this ‘other reality’,” he says, his voice dipping into disbelief on the last two words. Katniss sighs. She is used to the suspicion that surrounds her story. After all, anyone who knows what she has been through would argue for insanity. They would say stress plays a part too. But they know nothing of her. They do not understand.
“Why?” Katniss asks tiredly. She blinks to keep her eyes open. “You’ve made it clear you don’t believe me.”
“This isn’t about me believing you Katniss.” Dr Aurelius slips his glasses off his face and rubs his face. It is not difficult to see how exhausted he is of this subject. They’ve been over it for weeks now and Katniss is always insistent, always too stubborn to bother listening to his point of view. Sometimes, he wonders what the point of all these sessions are when Katniss rarely opens up. “This is about me trying to get you to speak. To express how you feel.” He sighs. “Explain how it works then. These two realities. You never have really explained it to me.”
Katniss swallows heavily but there still seems to be a lump in her throat that she cannot get rid of. It is too hard to speak these days. But she feels she must say something. “I'm awake with here with my daughter. I close my eyes, I open them and I'm awake with Peeta.”
“Two separate lives?” Dr Aurelius questions and there is a tiny jerk of Katniss’s head. “So you can't tell whether you are truly awake or asleep at this very moment.” She shakes her head this time, aware of her certifably insane she sounds. Below on her wrist, she catches sight of a red string bracelet. It has been tightly knotted together, so that it never leaves her skin. The red bracelet means many things. It means living in the Victor’s Village with Violet. It means hunting with Gale to pass the time. It means frequent visits from Johanna and letters from Annie about little Finn and her life back in District 4. It means Prim still alive. But it does not mean Peeta.
“When did this start?” he asks.
Katniss thinks back. Most times she tries not to. Because in either reality, what didn’t change is what started all of this. If she hadn’t insisted on taking them all on her stupid quest for revenge against Snow. If Boggs hadn’t transferred the Holo to her, she might not have kept going. But she dragged Peeta and Gale and Finnick and the others on a suicide mission anyway.
She wasn't even supposed to be there. Peeta had asked her, begged her to stay back in Thirteen but she had refused to listen and Coin hadn't cared enough about her safety to make her stay. After all, she had nearly completed her job as the Mockingjay. Her death, if it happened, would bring the final blow to the Capitol.
She used Coin's reasoning when Boggs was sceptical about letting a seven month pregnant Mockingjay on his taskforce. They were the star squad, just for show. They weren't going into any real danger. She was still quite nimble, could still use a bow. She wasn't entirely useless.
Katniss starts to shake in her seat, pressing her hands against her skull. They came out of nowhere – the mutts. The first one went for Finnick, who led from the front. Gale was backed against a wall, shooting at anything that moved. Then one broke through the front line towards Katniss and sunk its teeth into her torso. Peeta, in his own attempts to pull them off her, was brought down by one attached to his shoulder, then another taking his legs out from under him.
“Katniss. Come back Katniss, it’s okay.” But it’s not. She can still feel the pain, so intense and all-consuming. The pain that forced her to black out to avoid dealing with the mutts.
“Peeta. Peeta.” It was the only coherent word falling from my lips. Strong, scarred hands were wrapped around mine but they were not Peeta’s. They were Gale’s.
“Katniss, oh my God,” he says, kissing my forehead. “I thought you’d never wake up.” His grey eyes are bloodshot and he looks like he hasn’t slept for days. There’s a thin, jagged line down his neck but he looks relatively okay. I’m glad that he’s alive, I really am but all I can think about is Peeta. I can still see his eyes in my mind, finding me as the mutts tear him apart, and his lips mouthing 'I love you'.
“Where is he Gale?” No answer. Gale’s eyes turn glassy and the pressure on my hands increases.
“Katniss, I – I –“
I am distracted suddenly because I realise something is wrong. I yank my hands out of his and place them over my stomach, which is much flatter than when I saw it last. I lift up my gown and this is a large, pinkish scar running across my belly. I look up at Gale with fear on my face. “Where – what happened Gale?”
“It’s okay Katniss,” he assures her. “You lost a lot of blood and they had to take her out. She’s being monitored right now but she’s okay.”
“She?" I gasp. “It’s a girl?” A girl, my own flesh and blood. The thought is so incredibly frightening and wonderful all at the same time. For so long, the being stirring within me felt like a myth. Something so unreal and distant and scary. I didn’t want kids. I have never wanted kids. But I cannot deny a part of me. A piece of me that I love more than my own life. “Gale, where’s Peeta? Is he with her?”
Gale chokes out a sob. He looks like it would kill him to speak. “I never wanted to tell you this Katniss. I know, I know that he was what you wanted and I got that, and, and he wasn’t even bad. I couldn’t even hate him because he was so good and kind –“
“Gale!” My heart is hammering into my chest so hard I want to stop breathing. Because if Gale says what I think he will, then I will burst into flames. I will become the girl on fire and there won't be anything left. “Please, where is he?”
Gale buries his head in my sheets but I still hear his muffled voice. “He’s dead Katniss.”
Dr Aurelius speaks again when it realises it will be impossible to get another clear answer out of Katniss. “Your mind has done this because it is unable to deal with what happened. It is so traumatic and painful to deal with that you had to create these other reality where you are able to live with your husband as well. It’s guilt Katniss. It’s eating you alive.”
Katniss flexes her fingers and stretches out her legs. She is slowly returning back to her body, out of the tunnel, out of that memory. “You asked me to express how I feel," she says. "I feel empty.”
“All the time?”
“All the time. It doesn’t matter where I am.” Katniss shuts her eyes, not just to block out Dr Aurelius but to stop the tears threatening to spill over her blanched cheeks. “There is a piece of me missing all the time.”
“That emptiness will never leave you until you let go of him, stop pretending that he's still here. Until you let go of that reality. Until you accept that you are awake, right here and now. ”
Katniss doesn’t reply to this. Her gaze has disappeared again and Dr Aurelius knows she has gone again. It is minutes before she opens her mouth and words come out again.
“Do you remember what you used to tell me? When we were in District 13 after the Quell? You used to tell me to remind myself of things that were real, things that I knew for sure existed.” Katniss’s hands begin to quiver and she tightens her grip on the arm of her chair. “I can’t do that anymore. I can only say: ‘My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am eighteen years old.’” She looks to him again and she is openly crying now. “I don’t know how to finish that sentence anymore.”
Dr Aurelius leans forward, his hands perched on his knees. “Say it like this. My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am eighteen years old. I was the face of the rebellion. I am a survivor of the Games. I am a mother. Peeta Mellark is dead.”
Katniss stands up, dismissing herself from the session. There are still many minutes left but Dr Aurelius will not argue with her. Often Katniss will just walk out in the middle of their conversations, and it is a sign that she has had enough, that she can’t stand talking anymore.
She is at the door when Dr Aurelius’s voice calls out to her. “I assure you Miss Everdeen. You are certainly awake.”
“I don’t believe you,” she answers softly, and she is gone.
Dr Porter is surprised when Katniss Everdeen sits opposite her. After all, their last session ended in Katniss kicking several chairs across the room, destroying nearly everything in sight and Dr Porter having to call security to restrain her.
They don’t say anything to each other first. Katniss stares blankly into the air and Dr Porter pretends to make notes. She knows enough of the former girl on fire to know of her stubbornness. It is not easy for Katniss to admit she is wrong, and she will not apologise for last time.
After a while, Porter says, “As much as I love this peace and quiet, I’m sure Peeta doesn’t appreciate you wasting money by sitting here in silence.”
This provokes a response. There is a flash of fire in Katniss’s grey eyes but it’s gone too soon, too quick that it might never have been there; just a trick of the light. “He doesn’t care about money,” she replies quietly. “Only me.”
“And that’s why he sent you, no? Because he loves you and he just wants you to enjoy the life you still have instead of being caught up with some fantasy.”
The blaze ignites in her gaze and it holds much longer this time. “You don’t know…..anything,” she snarls.
“Which is why you’re here. So I can know. So I can understand.”
“I’ve told you everything,” Katniss says through gritted teeth. For some reason, Porter gets on her nerves much more than Dr Aurelius does. Dr Aurelius doesn’t force her to talk. He doesn’t challenge her. He merely talks and she tries to listen most times. “Not my fault if you don’t listen.”
“I’m listening okay?” She folds her legs over one another and sits back. “Tell me about the hospital again.”
A wave of nausea passes over Katniss. She presses the palms of her hands over her arms to self-inflict darkness. Every time she remembers the hospital, she remembers both parts. They conflict with each other in her mind; it is almost like her head is warring with itself.
When I awake, I don’t bother opening my eyes. My head is pounding and I know they’ve injected me with something to keep me calm. I feel a pair of lips brush over my forehead and my eyes flicker open for a second. In that second, I do not Gale and his grey eyes. I see a strand of ashy blonde hair tickling my skin.
My eyes snap fully open and I start to scream. Only when Peeta’s hand goes over my mouth do I stop. “Shh,” he croons. “Katniss, it’s okay. I’m here.”
I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming. Tears slide over his hand still on my mouth and he finally removes it to wipe them away.
“You’re a dream," I choke out. "This isn’t real. You’re dead.”
“Katniss I –“
“You’re dead,” I yell over the top of him. “Gale told me.”
“Gale huh?” An emotion passes in his eyes that I can’t decipher. He looks away for a moment and I can see him drawing the back of his hand across his face and sniffing. “Honey, you’ve been out a long time. The drugs…..they might’ve made you hallucinate. I’m here.”
He takes my hand and I can feel the warmth radiating off his skin. I turn and really take him in for the first time. His hair is messy, falling over his forehead. There are cuts and bruises over his arms. His shoulder is bulky from the amounts of dressing wrapped around it – right when the mutts got him.
He looks like Peeta.
“You’re alive,” I say slowly. When he nods, I half-jump out of bed into his arms. I’m probably hurting him, I know I am but he doesn’t say anything. My conversation with Gale was just a terrible dream. He’s okay. He’s real. He’s holding me.
When I lean back, I notice that one thing has not changed. The flatness of my stomach. My subconscious must have been informing me of the birth of my daughter. “Oh where is she Peeta? Is she okay?”
Peeta squeezes my hands and I see that he is crying. Not just a few tears sprinkled on his face, but a stream of water pouring down his pale white cheeks. “Katniss, listen –“
“Peeta.” His voice. For just a second then, he sounded like Gale had in her dream, when he tried to explain what happened…..
“You lost a lot of blood Katniss,” he gets out, the words so quiet and rushed he could have said anything. “They, they couldn’t - ”
I stare at him for the longest time. My brain has already connected the words together and they are rushing through my body. He is saying…..
I run my fingers across the slight bump of my stomach. They tremble as they ghost over the long pinkish scar that reaches right across my abdomen. Then I look up at Peeta, who is a shaking mess right now. “She’s gone isn’t she?”
Katniss closes her eyes and her hands go to her stomach. She feels for the scar under her satin top and imagines Violet, safe and sound in her mind. Somewhere where no harm can touch her.
“One of the hardest things to ever do is accept responsibility. But in your case, you seem to accept too much. You blame yourself for things out of your control. It is not your fault that the mutts attacked, and that you lost a lot of blood. It was just something that happened. You cannot blame yourself for losing your baby.”
Katniss hugs her stomach tighter. “I didn’t lose her entirely.” Violet is still alive, just in another place and time. When she goes to sleep next, when she awakes, she will be as real as the air they breathe. She will be in her arms, small, warm and alive.
“Katniss.” The word is said far too gently. “You trust Peeta, right?” Katniss nods automatically. It's one question she can answer with certainty. “Why don’t you believe him then? He told you that conversation with Gale was just a dream.”
Katniss pries a whisper from her lips. “But it wasn’t.”
Dr Porter sighs. She’s never met a more insistent and stubborn person in her life. “Your subconscious has created this entire world where your daughter is still alive, where you don’t feel responsible for not being strong enough to carry her. But this is real life Katniss. Peeta is real.”
“What if they’re both real?” she asks and Dr Porter throws her head back in exasperation. She’s never given up on a patient. But then again, she’s never had a patient like Katniss Everdeen. Being gentle and kind got them both nowhere at the start. Dr Porter had to result to being a little tougher, a little snarky, just to provoke a response out of the piece of Katniss that was still alive.
“She is gone Katniss. Your child. She didn’t make it. You need to mourn her, let her go.”
Katniss stands up and Dr Porter flinches. She just finished fixing up her office and getting new furniture after their last adventure and she is wary of the same thing happening again. But thankfully, Katniss does not kick any chairs. She strides over to the large window, simply staring out. “I’ve lost one of them. I don’t know which one and I’m not sure if I want to know.” She spins around back to Dr Porter. “What’s so wrong with that? I don’t when I’m dreaming or when I’m awake. I don’t what’s real and what isn’t but is it really so bad?” Katniss buries her head in her hands and Dr Porter stares at her. It’s the most she’s ever said at one of their sessions. She might have a point, Porter thinks. If it seems to make her happy, living these two realities, then why not? Then reason returns to her. Because it’s not normal, another voice inside her head answers. Because one cannot go throughout life deluded with fantasies.
“Believe me Katniss, this is not a dream. Right here and now, you are awake.”
Katniss looks down and there is just the faintest sign of a smile on her lips as she plays with the green bracelet on her left wrist. The green bracelet that means so much and still so little. “It’s funny. That’s exactly what the other shrink said.”