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Plutarch Heavensbee.
She hasn’t thought of him in years. So much life has happened since she’d last seen him on that hovercraft. But his words have never left her:
“We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”
A breeze skates through the open windows of the quiet bedroom. The curtains flutter softly in its wake. Peeta mumbles in his sleep, turning to face her. To look at him makes her heart twist in her chest. It has always been that way, ever since the bread. The twisting ache has meant many things: guilt, longing, sorrow, determination, pain, loss, and, eventually, love. She wants to curl into him, feel his warm, sleepy breath in her hair, and hear the steady rhythm of his heart. But Plutarch’s words haunt her, and her lungs seem to not be able to take a full breath.
The rumors had begun to spread shortly after the fifteenth anniversary of the last reaping. It was now a national holiday of remembrance to memorialize all the lives that were lost to the Hunger Games and the war that followed. Katniss hated it. She hated the sympathetic looks, the well-meaning hugs, and the way some people looked at her and Peeta and still saw the Capitol celebrities and war heroes that Snow and Coin tried to turn them into. She usually stayed in bed, sweaty and miserable and utterly unable to move from under her mound of blankets. She liked the weight on her, even if it was the middle of summer and far too hot. Peeta had stopped trying to coax her out of the bed years ago. Instead, she found fresh glasses of water and plates of food waiting for her whenever she dared to peek out from under the layers.
But, this year, when she had awoken on that day, she hadn't felt the desire to hide. The look on Peeta’s face as she entered the kitchen had made the decision to get out of bed worth it. His smile had been nearly as bright as the sun already shining on their small backyard vegetable garden and the primroses in full bloom on the side of the house. He hadn’t known that she’d been silently standing in the doorway for several minutes before he'd noticed her. She had watched him – lost in his baking, his arms dusted with flour – as he hummed a nameless tune to himself. And at that moment, she didn't think about everyone they had lost or the significance of the day or weight that never seemed to lift from her shoulders. All she could think about was him.
She crossed the room to that dazzling smile, swallowing his surprised laugh as her mouth claimed his, not caring at all about the mess of flour and dough he left when he hoisted her onto the countertop and settled between her legs. In between the sounds of their harsh breaths and clothing falling to the floor, she had told him she was ready. That it was time. That she could finally agree to the question he had only asked her a handful of times. And then his smile shone brighter than the sun. Her heart felt like it would burst. They were safe. They were happy.
It was an unbearably hot day when they got the news. Haymitch had crossed the distance between their two houses, his geese squawking at the disturbance. His eyes were hard, and his face was tight as he told them: Paylor was dead. It was tragic and sudden, and the nation she helped to free mourned. It was ruled a natural death, a blood clot that found its way to her heart. Cabinet members began vying for position, lobbying to take Paylor’s place. An attractive, charismatic man originally from District Two somehow became the new president. There was no vote, and Katniss didn't know how it happened, but one day Paylor was president, and a week later, it was an unknown man who spoke the right words and smiled for the cameras. A feeling like molten lead formed in the pit of Katniss’s stomach.
Yet, life returned to normal, and she busied herself with hunting, the woods, Peeta, and the bakery. She let herself believe that nothing had changed, and for a time, that seemed to be true. But, as the humid summer air gave way to the brisk winds of autumn and simple bakery supplies they had been able to get without any problem for years were suddenly unavailable, she started paying more attention to the whispered rumors. She saw the pained expressions, saw the way the light began to dim in everyone's eyes. She noticed Haymitch's face and the way his gaze drifted to the space where the fence used to be, to the forest beyond. The news of the Peacekeeper forces being reinstated in District Two made her finally come to terms with what she had known for months: they were on the brink of another rebellion.
Peeta inhales deeply beside her. His eyes blink open, glassy and unfocused from sleep. His fingers brush down her arm, finding her palm and entwining their fingers together.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispers, brushing a blonde curl behind his ear.
He shrugs. “I wasn’t really asleep yet.”
“Liar,” she teases. “I’ve been listening to you snore for at least thirty minutes.”
He puffs his bottom lip out in a mock pout. “I do not snore.” She snorts, and he struggles against the smile forming on his lips. “Okay…I don’t snore that loud.”
She rolls her eyes, and he pinches her hip right where he knows she's ticklish. She squeals and squirms, but he wraps his arms around her, and they settle back into the dark quiet. For a long while, the only sounds in the room are the breeze and their breaths.
She breathes in his scent, collapsing into his solid warmth. Her joints loosening, her heartbeat slowing as a single, determined thought solidifies in her mind. "We need to leave. We can't stay. Not now. I – I can't…."
He hums in agreement, but the sound is woven with resignation and mourning. They've fought and scratched and clawed their way to the life they have now. They've built it – literally in some cases – brick by brick. It will be painful to leave, say goodbye to their home, bakery, district, and life.
“I know,” he whispers into the dark. “In the morning, we'll send word to Annie, Johanna, and your mother. We’ll pack and get as many people we can trust and that want to come. Then, we’ll go. I won’t lose you. I can’t lose you. Either of you.”
The baby nestled safely inside her gives a swift kick as if it agrees.
A baby wails somewhere near the front of their group, and even as she cradles her own growing belly, Katniss cringes. This forest must be teeming with game, but there's no chance they are anywhere near all this noise: thirty-eight sets of heavy footfalls, the constant drone of quiet chatter, the random high-pitched shriek or disgruntled whine of a small child, and the cry of an infant. Thankfully, she's not the only hunter in the group. They take turns wandering away from the racket, deeper into the forest's canopy, to keep the thirty-eight weary, road-hardened, hungry mouths fed.
They travel, heading north into the rugged, uncharted territory of the wilds for nearly a month. A group as large as theirs with people of varying ages and abilities moves slowly. Still, they traverse well past the known border of District Thirteen, and Katniss breathes a sigh of relief, knowing they are outside of any land under the control of Panem. Winter presses in on them harsh and fast. Bone-chilling winds whip through the layers of clothing on her body. Haymitch’s shoulders hunch, the collar of his jacket turned up against the icy breeze as he maneuvers a small wagon carrying two caged and bundled geese, and a few chickens. Thom leads a mule pulling a wagon of supplies, two goats tethered to the back, and Delly braces against him with a tiny infant bundled to her chest. Peeta carries their toddler daughter in his arms, his coat fastened tightly around them both, her face presses into the warmth of his neck.
A rogue early winter snowstorm forces the group to take shelter against the rocky hillside in an indent in the mountain with coverings on three sides. They light a large fire and huddle together as snowdrifts pile just outside the mouth of the hidden cavern. It is damp and chilly and smells overwhelmingly like the moist earth beneath them. It reminds her of another time, another cave. She keeps a watchful eye on Peeta that night. It's been ages since he's had any kind of episode related to his hijacking, but if she's drowning in memories, then she doesn't doubt he is as well. He falls asleep with his hand gripped tightly in hers and splayed over her abdomen. They both sleep fitfully, wracked with nightmares from another life.
Glenn, an older man, near his mid-sixties, who had lived with them in District Thirteen and later oversaw the running of the various booths in the reopened Hob, dies. It happens suddenly, a week after the snowstorm. He collapses onto the frosty ground, fingers clutching his chest and gasping for breath. A woman, who looks to be around the same age as Katniss, pushes their way through the group crowded around Glenn and tries to help. Katniss recognizes her as one of the District Three transplants, but she can’t remember her name. The woman has been medically trained, but she’s young, relatively untested, and stranded in the wilderness with limited supplies. She’s certain Glenn is having a heart attack, and there is little she can do. His death is mercifully quick, if not painless. They bury him beneath snow-covered pines. Peeta helps to dig the grave.
It’s after the new year when she sees it. A bright, crystalline lake, frozen solid and bracketed in the distance by low, forested mountains. The land for miles in every direction is relatively flat. Bits of green dot the otherwise frozen landscape, and Katniss knows that they have finally found a place that can sustain them. It seems that others have thought the same as the group stumbles upon a small cluster of wooden shacks set on top of a raised bit of land not far from the edge of the lake.
The shacks are little more than two-room dwellings with a small fireplace for cooking and warmth. They are old and weather-beaten like they haven't seen human touch in decades. The roofs are full of holes, and the walls are in desperate need of repair. Surprisingly, Haymitch is quite knowledgeable when it comes to making the shacks livable. He tells Katniss and Peeta, as they gather one night in front of the fireplace in one of the shacks they currently share with him, that his father had built their Seam home himself using only the barest of supplies. But he had made that little house into a place that was warm and inviting and special. He passed that knowledge onto his sons, and Haymitch had never forgotten it, even if he hadn’t really had the chance to use it until now.
Winter is unforgiving. The air around the lake is icy, and the temperatures fall far below what they are used to in District Twelve. But the woods are thick with wildlife. Katniss and the other hunters are able to bring in deer and other larger antlered beasts that she's never seen before. She moves slowly, tires quickly, and her large belly is a constant nuisance making it nearly impossible to climb high in the trees as she prefers. But the woods are calm, the lake is peaceful, the people are warm and fed. And they are truly free.
When the spring air thaws the vast blanket of snow covering the ground and the thick sheet of ice on the lake, Peeta learns to fish. Katniss can no longer see her feet, and bending over makes it nearly impossible to breathe. She sits on the lake's edge, watches him work or wades into the water, and teaches him how to swim. She feels enormous and lazy, and the rustle of new leaves in the trees calls to her. Still, she can hardly walk fifty feet to the edge of the lake to watch Peeta and the other fishermen, let alone stalk an animal through the woods. Peeta wraps her in his arms, marvels at her body and at the life within it they created together. He tells her that she's beautiful even when she feels anything but.
On a mild spring day that smells like lavender and makes her think of the soap with the flowers pressed into them that Prim loved so much, Katniss learns that the medically trained woman from Three is named Alice. Katniss is unable to get out of bed. She's too tired to do anything anyway. All she wants to do is sleep. Or find a way to murder Peeta. He did this to her, made her so huge and uncomfortable. This is his fault. She stares at the wall and cries as the baby kicks painfully against her ribs. She misses her sister. Prim would be so excited about the baby. Prim would chastise her for being angry with Peeta and remind her of what an amazing father he will be.
Alice arrives with a kind smile and freshly picked blueberries. She endures Katniss’s sullen mood, unafraid to dish out an equal amount of attitude as what Katniss throws at her. Alice doesn't coddle her. She speaks with knowledge and a touch of sarcasm as she exams Katniss's stomach, the position of the baby, and whether or not Katniss will go into labor soon. She reminds Katniss of Johanna. By the end of the visit, Katniss thinks Alice could be her friend.
Nova Mellark makes her way into the world on a wet and miserable afternoon nearly four months to the day they left Panem and District Twelve behind. Through all the long and painful hours, Peeta never left Katniss's side. As he places a shaky kiss on her lips and tearfully smiles at the baby in her arms, he asks what they should name her. They had debated and puzzled over so many different names, but none of them had felt right. In the end, it is Haymitch who chooses the perfect name.
“Her eyes are like stars in the night sky,” he says as he cups Katniss’s cheek and pats Peeta’s shoulder.
And as Katniss gazes down at the tiny girl curled against her chest with her dark, downy hair and startling blue eyes, she knows Haymitch is right. He tells them that there used to be people who studied the stars and that the newest stars in the sky were called novas. After that, no other name seems quite as perfect. Little did they know at the time, Nova would be a shining star for their entire small, lakeside village.
Summer beats down on the lake with an unforgiving heat. To Katniss's surprise, the small band of refugees from District Twelve is thriving. It isn't easy, and plenty of arguments have ended in raised fists and hurt feelings. Still, they're figuring it out, and a real community is forming. People have taken up roles. They have a doctor, a teacher, farmers, hunters, and fisherman. Children laugh and run through the trees and along the flat, fertile ground, and no one fears bloodshed or a new war or the reinstatement of the reaping.
Sweat trails down Katniss’s collarbone and past the pearl dangling from a chain around her neck. Peeta had commissioned the piece of jewelry to be created ten years ago from the pearl he'd given her in the Quarter Quell arena. He had nervously handed it to her as they sat in front of their fireplace and toasted bread. They had no other jewelry to signify that toasting, but she cherished the pearl necklace, and she never took it off. The scorching heat of the summer sun pushes down on her – even beneath the shade of the trees – and she longs to submerge herself beneath the cool water of the lake. Maybe after Nova is asleep, she can sneak into the water with Peeta, and they can swim beneath the stars.
The baby wiggles against the binding holding her to Katniss's chest, looking up at her with those fathomless, blue eyes – Peeta's eyes – and smiling. Nova likes the woods – the rustle of leaves in the trees, the quiet hush the falls when they wander into the forest's depths – and she adores her father. Katniss smiles down at her. They're so similar that it makes her heart hurt. It makes her want to cry. Nova reaches her chubby arm up and grasps onto the pearl necklace. She likes the feel of it between her fingers and often holds it while she nurses or is wrapped against Katniss's chest. It's another way that they're similar. Katniss leans down and kisses Nova's dark curls, not noticing the clasp on the necklace break. She doesn't realize the cherished gift from Peeta is gone until that evening when Nova reaches for it and cries. Katniss cries with her, and they scour the woods looking for it, but it remains lost.
Ash Mellark is born in the dead of winter, the icy air making the snow drift against the windows and door. It is their fourth winter on the lake, and the community has grown by eight people in that time. They've sent out scouts, combed the nearby lands, found and domesticated animals for farming, milk, and furs. They've used ingenuity and sheer force of will to create textiles, mill grains, build structures, and become what can only be considered a self-sufficient, growing town. Ash blinks his Seam gray eyes at the snowy world around him, taking it all in.
Where the creation of Nova was something that Katniss thought and worried about for years, Ash was created on a hot spring night when that hunger that she always seemed to feel where Peeta was concerned took over. Peeta’s calloused hands and strong arms had held her as she burned and gasped and sighed with him. As he made her come undone. She had held him close, keeping him buried inside her as he fell apart, knowing the possibility of what they had done. But they were so in love with Nova, and life was good. She was no longer frightened of the future or herself as a mother.
Ash's tiny, red face snuggles against her breast. He's smaller than his sister – arriving earlier in the pregnancy than Nova – with a head full of dark, blonde waves. Katniss had worried how she would ever have enough room in her heart to love another person as much as she loves Nova and Peeta, but as she looks down at her sweet baby boy, she feels it. Her heart expands, making a space just for him.
They are at the lake for six years when it happens. When the past finally catches up to them. Nova and Ash are running through the grassy meadow on the eastern side of the lake, their peals of laughter drifting on the autumn breeze. Peeta lounges on the grass beside the picnic lunch he packed. Katniss lays her head on his chest, her fingers idly traveling up and down the length of his arm. She's content listening to the sound of his heart beneath her ear and the delight of their children when a low murmuring sound begins in the distance. It is at once foreign and familiar, like a long-locked away memory. Peeta tenses under her, his hand finding hers before shooting up and yelling for the children. Nova and Ash's smiling faces glance at them, and Katniss watches as Ash's eyes go wide. He moves behind his sister, grabbing the hem of her worn shirt. They are out in the open and too far away. There's nowhere to hide, and Katniss has left her bow in their home.
The hovercraft emerges over the distant tree line, its shimmering, silver body like a nightmare against the backdrop of their new, quiet life. Every fear she thought was dead and gone resurfaces in an instant. She can’t think, can’t breathe. Suddenly, she is sixteen and being taken away to her first games, or she is seventeen and heading into what she knows is certain death in her second games, or she is eighteen and being returned to a district that has been razed to ruins and a life without her sister.
Peeta is still screaming beside her, scrambling to his feet and crossing the distance to their children. She shakes her head. Shakes the thoughts, the fears, the dread that covers her. She scrambles across the ground, finding her feet and catching up to Peeta. He gathers Ash into his arms as Nova practically climbs up Katniss's body, tucking her face into her neck. The hovercraft slows in the open field. A ladder starts to descend, and Peeta puts Ash in Katniss's free arm, positioning himself in front of her and the children. He has no idea what they are about to face, but he's ready to sacrifice himself for her, for their children. He is still so giving, so selfless. He's still that boy with the bread.
Boots appear on the ladder first. Military-style boots. Katniss sucks in a breath. Her hands tighten around the children, and her eyes sweep toward the distant tree line. She wonders if she will be able to move fast enough to escape and if Peeta will be able to keep up. Because as much as the fear is making her want to run, she can't leave him. She won't leave him.
The person that emerges on the ladder is the last person Katniss thought she would ever see again. Although years of political maneuvering, a military lifestyle, and countless unknown hardships line his face, he's still ruggedly handsome. He steps from the ladder and moves towards them. He’s weaponless – as far as she can tell – and the sheer relief in his eyes makes some of the tension melt from her shoulders. She expects the anger to rise up inside her. She waits for it to wash over her. To see Prim’s face. To feel that pain open up like an old wound. But when she looks at him now, all she feels is a lingering sadness at the loss of her friend.
“Gale?” she says when he is close enough to speak over the constant whir of the hovercraft.
A breath whooshes from him as he looks her over, his eyes darting to Peeta and the children before meeting hers. “Katniss.” He breathes her name like a sigh. “You have no idea how long we’ve been looking for you.”
We? Her brows crease in confusion, and it's then that she notices the figure behind Gale. Peeta's face goes slack with surprise.
“Johanna,” he says, taking a step away from Katniss, a smile beginning to tug at the corners of his mouth.
Johanna marches towards them, the soles of her boots digging into the soil from the force of her footsteps. Peeta's arms fall open ready to embrace the friend he hasn't seen in years, the friend that both he and Katniss have worried about. Johanna stops with a foot of space between them, rears back her arm, and smacks Peeta across the face. Katniss gasps, charging forward even though she’s still reluctant to let go of her children. Johanna turns in her direction and points a finger in Katniss’s face.
“Fuck you both,” she spits, her cheeks crimson with rage and her eyes glassy with unshed tears. She pushes against Peeta’s chest as he stands, arms still spread and face aghast. “We have been looking for you for years. Years! The new Peacekeepers they...they did terrible, unspeakable things to anyone they found that had anything to do with the former rebellion. And we thought – “ Tears flow down her cheeks. Gale reaches out, gripping her shoulder and smiling softly at her. She hastily wipes away the moisture on her cheeks. “We thought you morons were strung up somewhere, rotting in the wind.” She pushes into Peeta's chest once more. "I'm so fucking glad to see you both, but I want to throttle you," she says through clenched teeth before taking a deep breath. Her eyes go soft as she takes in the children. Nova's face buried deep in the crook of Katniss's neck, and Ash staring at Johanna with wide, gray eyes. “Hi,” she says in a soothing, quiet voice Katniss didn’t know she possessed. “I’m Johanna. What’s your name?”
Ash looks between his parents. His fingers – still chubby from toddlerhood – reach for Peeta, and his father scoops him into his arms. “This is Ash,” Peeta says, lovingly stroking the boy's blonde curls, "and that is Nova."
Johanna's smile as she looks at the children turns into a smirk when her eyes fall back on Katniss. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Brainless,” she says. But then her gaze lingers on Nova, gauging her size and age. Johanna nods and adds, “At least now we know why you disappeared.”
The hovercraft pilot, a boy barely older than Katniss had been when she fought against Snow, stays behind as Gale and Johanna follow Katniss and Peeta back to their small village on the lake. The villagers – the people who have become more than refugees and friends – are curious and wary and full of questions about the world they had left behind. Katniss has many questions too, but she sits quietly beside Peeta with Ash asleep in his arms and Nova asleep with her head in Katniss's lap and listens as Gale and Johanna explain what has happened over the last six years.
The newly self-appointed president quickly reinstated the Peacekeepers, installing units in every district. He claimed that it was to quell a rise in crimes that had been an ongoing problem since the Peacekeepers were abolished when Paylor took office.
“Total bullshit,” Johanna mutters under her breath.
Within a year after their group had fled, fences were erected again under the guise of district citizen safety. By the second year, Peacekeepers actively and openly hunted anyone with known ties to the previous rebellion.
Gale sighs, his hands clenched tight behind his back. "At best, former rebels were flogged or beaten in district squares. At worst, they were tortured, mutilated, and hanged. Their bodies left for public view." He looks at Katniss, and she can see the pain of all the things he had witnessed shining in his eyes.
"It was bad," Johanna adds, looking to Katniss and Peeta. "I got your letter saying you were worried and that you thought it was time to leave, but by the time it got to me, it was too late. Then, there was a national address where they claimed that you and Peeta had been found, that you were building an army, that you had stolen from the Capitol and killed innocent people in the name of revenge and retribution. We were told that you were dead, and the Mockingjay was no more."
“They never showed your bodies,” Gale says. "And many people still see you as symbols of freedom and peace. They were angry and scared, and the announcement of your deaths did nothing but fuel that anger. They fought back. It was like going back in time. The people stood up and fought back and...and we lost a lot. Again. But it's over now. We won. The fences have once again come down, and the people of Panem are free." He looks at Katniss. "I never gave up hope that you had truly escaped, that the news of your death was a lie. And after I got in contact with Jo and she told me about your letter, I knew you were out there somewhere. So, we started looking for you, hoping to find you and tell you that it's safe. That you can come home."
Home. It has been a long while since she thought of District Twelve, of their house in Victor’s Village, of the primroses lovingly placed against the side to catch the morning light, of all the years of memories and life they had created there. Peeta reaches out, intertwining his fingers with hers. She looks at their joined hands, the sleeping children in their arms, the blue of the lake, the rows of buildings and houses that they’ve helped to create, and finally at Peeta’s face. She is home. If they went back to Twelve, she would always fear another rebellion, another attempt to grab power that would ultimately end in her losing her life, or worse, in the loss of Peeta, Nova, and Ash.
She can tell from the tightness in Gale's lips and the slight sag in his shoulders that he knows what she'll say before she says it. Maybe there will always be that sort of connection between them, or perhaps it's because she still wears her emotions and thoughts out in the open. Her fingers tighten around Peeta's, and she smiles when she says, "I am home."
Gale and Johanna stay for two days. Gale tries to convince her to return. He hasn't changed in that way. He tells her that her mother survived the conflict and would like to see her. He says that Annie and Finnick's son played a significant role in helping to end this last rebellion and restore peace. That he would love to meet the Mockingjay he's heard so much about, the Mockingjay that inspired him to be who he is today. Katniss doesn't know what to say about that. Even after all this time, thinking about Finnick and the gigantic void he left behind when he died is too painful. She's happy that Annie is well and that her son has become a leader and a fighter like his father. Still, she doesn't know if she would be able to bear seeing Finnick's sea-green eyes staring back at her.
Surprisingly, Johanna doesn't say much. Katniss spies her sitting by the lakeside or roaming through the trees or closely watching how the people of the village interact with Katniss and Peeta and one another. The close-knit way of the town – like more of an extended family than acquaintances – seems to perplex Johanna. Early on the morning of their second day, Katniss wakes up alone to find Peeta, Haymitch, and Johanna sitting together under the large shade trees that adorn what they consider to be the town square. Later, as Gale packs his bag and says his goodbyes, Johanna lingers behind.
"I – I think I want to stay. The only thing waiting back there for me are broken pieces and haunted memories," Johanna says.
A look of pain flashes across Gale's face, and he opens his mouth to respond but then thinks better of it. He steps forward and kisses Johanna lightly on the brow, cupping for cheek, and turns to leave. He throws one last look over his shoulder before boarding the hovercraft. Katniss looks to Peeta who’s eyebrows are lifted into his hairline.
Johanna catches the look, and her eyes narrow. "Not a word out of you, Mellark." She points a finger at Katniss and wags it between the two of them. "I had to put up with the 'will they, won't they,' between you two for so long I thought I would never stop being nauseous. So, not a word…from either of you."
She turns to walks away, and Katniss can swear she hears Johanna say something about war making her do stupid things. But, Katniss doesn’t miss the glance toward the sky or the look of longing that lingered in Johanna’s eyes.
Ash may look like Peeta with his soft, blonde hair and stocky frame, but he has a stubbornness inside him that Katniss recognizes all too well: a fierce, quiet determination that simmers in his grey eyes. When Ash turns three, Katniss takes him with her to hunt. She creates a small bow that reminds her of the one her father crafted for her as a child. She shows Ash how to hold it, how to nock his arrows, how to aim, how to be still, how to shoot. He picks it up quickly, and soon, his stealth and raw talent have him felling squirrels and rabbits. He's solemn with his kills, but the pride of his achievements almost glows from him. Katniss recognizes that too.
Nova is quiet, introspective, and wildly intelligent with bursts of wit and humor that make Katniss laugh until her sides hurt. She sees so much of Peeta in their daughter, even though he claims Nova's personality is more like her own. But he's never seen how wonderful he truly is. Nova takes after his artistic abilities too. By the age of seven, she is drawing nature scenes in the dirt and sand that are so realistic, it steals Katniss’s breath.
On a harsh winter morning when Nova is eight and Ash is five, Katniss awakens to the hazy light of dawn and the warmth of Peeta at her back. His leg is wedged between hers, and his arm is slung over her waist. His even breaths tickle the fine hairs on the back of her neck, heating the exposed skin against the chill that has settled over their home. The fire had died to embers hours ago, and she knows she needs to get out of the bed and stoke the flames back to life. The cold is bound to wake the children, but she is too warm, too safe, enveloped in Peeta's arms. She turns, pressing the icy tip of her nose to his throat. She feels his chest rumble in surprise and his arms grip her tighter. She strokes her hand up and down his back, listening to the winter wind whipping across the lake. And she realizes, for the first time, that she is entirely at peace.
There is no threat of starvation, or reapings, or tyranny or war hanging over her head. No one needs her to be anything more than who she is. She doesn't need to motivate a crowd or be a symbol of peace. Here, in Peeta's arms with the sounds of her babies' soft snores drifting in from the other room, she can be truly and completely herself in the home they built together. She is utterly happy. The sensation is strange, like a bubble of bliss expanding inside her, just waiting to burst. Her hand glides down Peeta's back, slipping into the waistband of his underwear. His hands curl against her, the tips of his fingers pressing into her skin. And the dying fire is the furthest thing from her mind.
“We need to go back,” Peeta murmurs, his voice strained.
Worry lines crease his forehead disappearing into the blonde waves resting there. Gray hairs are lightly interspersed at his temples, and in the facial hair he has yet to shave. Sometimes Katniss forgets how old they are as if in her mind she will forever and always be seventeen. But she knows gray dots her hair too, and tiny lines appear around her mouth and eyes when she laughs.
She chews her bottom lip as she looks at their son. "No," she says, and Peeta's head snaps up, his eyes red-rimmed from crying. "I need to go. You need to stay. We can’t leave him here alone.”
“Katniss,” Peeta begins to argue but then stops. He looks back down at Ash and heaves a heavy sigh. His fingers reach out and interlock with hers. “I know,” he breathes. “I just don’t know how I’m going to let you go. I’ve never been able to do that. Not willingly.”
She leans her forehead against his shoulder and stifles the sob crawling up her throat. This was her fault. Ash had been begging her for months to be allowed to hunt by himself, and today she had finally agreed to let him go. At ten, he was only a year younger than Katniss had been when she had ventured into the woods to feed her family. Ash had promised to stay close and to keep the lake in his sights at all times, but he spotted something that drew him deeper into the woods.
When he didn't return by late morning, and the other hunters hadn't seen him, Katniss knew something had happened. She threw her bow and quiver across her back and sprinted into the trees with the echo of Peeta’s worried calls ringing in her ears. When she had found traces of his blood on the trunks of trees and the leaves covering the ground, an eerie sense of déjà vu washed over her. She'd done this before, tracking a blonde-haired, stocky boy who had been fatally wounded. Her heart had seized in her chest at the thought as images of Peeta laying on a muddy riverbank, the wound on his leg festering and poisoning his blood, filled her head.
She pushed herself harder – faster – through the dense trees, her side cramping at the pace. The traces of blood became heavier and closer together. The sight of a small, bloody handprint nearly caused her to fall to her knees, but then she heard him. His cries finding her, pulling her towards him.
It had been a bear. Katniss had only ever seen one in all the time they had been at the lake, but every hunter knew they prowled the woods. She hadn't thought Ash would go deep enough into the trees for there to be any worry. She had let her guard down and forgotten how small he was. He was just a child. This was her fault.
When she broke through the tree line cradling his small, bloodied body against her chest, Peeta was there. He scooped their son from her numb arms, racing to Alice’s for help, and she collapsed into the grass. As she watched Peeta run into the village, she noticed the chain dangling in Ash’s closed fist. It was the pearl necklace she lost years before.
She didn’t know how she had managed to carry Ash back to their home by herself. His breathing had been shallow. Deep, jagged slashes gaped open on his side. The bear he encountered had swiped at him, striking and then leaving him lay in the undergrowth. Katniss knew that if the bear had wanted to kill her son, it would have. She didn’t blame the bear. It had most likely acted in self-defense. She only blamed herself.
Alice does her best to stitch the wounds, but she fears internal bleeding and the onset of infection. And Katniss knows she needs to leave, to race back to Panem and beg for medication to save her son before Peeta even says it.
Peeta kisses the top of her head, bringing her focus back to the room they've been huddled in for the past twenty-four hours. Her hands are still stained with Ash's blood. "I know you can take care of yourself, but I still can't help but wish I could go with you," he whispers. "What if something happens to you and you're alone?"
"Let me go with you," a small but confident voice pleads from the doorway.
Nova. At nearly thirteen, she is almost as tall as Katniss, and while she has never expressed a desire to trek through the woods or hunt, Katniss recognizes the steely determination in her blue eyes.
Peeta's eyes grow wide as he looks at his daughter. "No," he says, his features hardening although his eyes remain glassy and brimming with fear because he knows his daughter. He knows his wife, and he knows they are both about to walk away from him. Katniss touches his arm then moves her hand, so her palm caresses his cheek. He closes his eyes. "I can't bear the thought of watching both of you disappear into the woods and never seeing you again," he says.
"We'll come back to you," Katniss replies, stroking her thumb across his cheekbone.
"You can't promise that."
“She can’t, but I can,” a rougher voice responds from the hall outside the room. Johanna appears behind Nova, planting a kiss into the girl's hair. She looks at Katniss. "I'm going too. It's been too long since I've been on an adventure." She tips her head at Ash. "And you know I love that boy." Johanna turns to Peeta. "I've got pull with people in the government, and I know how to reach out to them once we cross the border into Panem. I promise you that we will get Ash the medicine that he needs and that I'll make sure to bring Katniss and Nova back to you."
Katniss remembers the last time she had said goodbye to Peeta with so much uncertainty hanging over their heads. They had been children. She had truly started to fall in love with him, although she wouldn't have admitted to it then, even when she thought she was going to die. She had kissed him at the lightning tree and promised to see him at midnight. The look he gave her then is the same one she saw on his face as she had turned out of his embrace and followed Johanna and their daughter into the woods. That look will haunt her forever. He doesn't know if she'll make it back. He thinks he might lose them all. For the first several hours, every noise she hears makes her look back, thinking he's behind her.
The pace they keep is brutal, and they can't stop for long. Ash doesn't have that much time. The trek that took them over a month to make with their large group, Katniss, Nova, and Johanna, will need to make in a matter of several days. It's possible. The larger group was much slower and often stopped setting up camp for several days. Besides, they only need to make it to the border of Panem and not all the way back into Twelve. They can do it. Or, at least that’s what Katniss keeps repeating to herself when her limbs begin to shake and her mind fogs from exhaustion.
Nova doesn’t complain. She keeps her head down and pushes through even when Katniss feels like screaming. Katniss isn’t entirely surprised. Nova is so much like Peeta. She has his good-natured attitude and the ability to see the best in everything. In all they have ever been through, Peeta has rarely complained. Katniss doesn't know how they do it, especially during the tough times when all she wants to do is rage.
“Will we go back home on a hovercraft?” Nova asks late into the second day of their journey. Johanna had been speaking about her hopes of getting in touch with someone who could get a hovercraft to them. They would be able to fly from the border of Panem to the lake in less than two hours.
“Possibly,” Katniss answers. “We might only be able to get the medicine sent by hovercraft. In that case, we’ll walk back.”
"Fuck that," Johanna mutters through her ragged, uneven breaths. "As long as the same people are in charge as when I left, then they owe me. They can fly us back."
Nova nods, and the only sound that stretches between them for several minutes is the leaves crunching under their feet. "I remember the hovercraft in the field," Nova says quietly. “The one that brought Aunt Jo. I remember the man who came with her. Who was he?”
Johanna adjusts the pack on her back, her fingers sliding up and down the straps. "His name is Gale. He and I…fought together in both rebellions. But your mama can tell you more about him than I can. They grew up together."
Nova’s head swivels to Katniss in surprise. “You did?”
Katniss nods. “He was my best friend.”
“But he’s not anymore?” Nova asks.
Katniss starts to shake her head but stops. "I don't know. We were very young the last time I spent any significant time with him. I wasn't much older than you are now. And after Papa and I were reaped for the Hunger Games, things between Gale and me became complicated."
“Because of Papa?”
“Because of him, yes, but also because I didn’t feel the same way about Gale that he felt about me. And then, after the rebellion, things never were the same between us. So, I don’t know, baby. I hope he still considers me a friend.”
"He does," Johanna says softly, and something that feels like peace trickles down Katniss's spine.
They drag their worn-out bodies over the border into District Six in the late afternoon of the third day. There is no fence, but the concrete structures that once held the fence remain. People gawk at them as they stumble into the square, and when Katniss catches a glimpse of them in the window of a storefront, she gasps. They are a mess. Filthy, sweaty, with dirt caked into every crevice. She hardly recognizes her face or the frantic, desperate expression she is wearing.
The mayor finds them, instantly recognizing Johanna and eyeing Katniss with a bewildered expression like he is looking at a ghost.
"I told you everyone thinks you're dead," Johanna whispers as they follow the mayor into his study in order for Johanna to reach out to her government contacts.
“And I was completely fine with that,” Katniss sighs.
Johanna sits at the mayor’s desk and dials numbers that Katniss doesn't know how Johanna remembers after nine years. Nova drifts around the room, her fingers running over the rich, dark wood, the stacks of books, the baubles, and the television. Katniss and Peeta have told their children about life away from the lake. Still, it's one thing to hear about it and a complete other to actually be standing in it. Katniss shudders as the feelings of a life that was, and a life that is collides inside her.
Johanna speaks with authority, getting transferred to various people on the other end of the phone until she slams the receiver down with a satisfied grunt. "They'll be here in a little under three hours," she says. "We'll be back with medicine for Ash by nightfall."
Katniss's heart stutters, and the world tilts beneath her feet. She crashes to her knees on the expensive, woven rug covering the wood floors. A strangled sob escapes her lips. They did it. They are going to get back to the lake, to her boys. They are going to save Ash.
The hovercraft appears in the sky outside the district border nearly two-and-a-half hours after Johanna ends her call. A ladder descends from the belly of the craft, and Katniss grasps Nova's hand tightly in hers as the ladder lifts them off the ground. The barrage of memories rains down on her as she steps into the hovercraft. The interior is nearly identical to the crafts she had been on in her games and after. Part of her feels like she should take a seat and wait for the tracker to be implanted into her arm. She has to remind herself to breathe. Nova clings nervously to her arm.
When the shock of copper hair appears from the cockpit, Katniss has to reach out to Johanna to steady herself. The man is tall and handsome with a dimpled smile and sea-green eyes that look so very much like his father. He has Annie's nose and her timid personality, though. He ducks his chin, a blush coloring his cheeks as he sticks out his hand. "I'm sergeant Adrian Odair. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. My mother and Commander Hawthorne speak very highly of you."
Katniss takes his hand, clasping it in both of hers and fighting the intense desire to pull him into a fierce hug. Even after all these years, the pain of losing Finnick has never faded. Like Prim, his death will always be one that Katniss can't bear. A deep voice clears its throat behind Adrian, and Katniss looks to see Gale coming forward. His hair has begun to gray, and he is sporting a neatly trimmed beard, but he still reminds her of the Seam boy he was when they were children. For an instant, Katniss feels a pang of sadness that Gale has spent his life alone. But Johanna drops her hand, sprints across the belly of the hovercraft and into Gale's arms. She wraps her legs around his waist, and he buries his face in her neck. And Katniss realizes then that he was never alone, that he was loved and still is.
They spend the couple hours it takes to travel back to the lake catching up. Gale and Adrian tell them about life in Panem. The last rebellion seems to have worked. Life has returned to the way it was under Paylor. People are happy and fed. Peacekeepers were disbanded, and the people are free. Yet, as Gale looks at Johanna and at Nova, now asleep with her head and Katniss's lap, Katniss can tell that his thoughts on living out his life in Panem have changed. He doesn’t once ask if she will consider returning.
When her feet touch down on the fertile soil of the meadow beside the lake, Peeta is there. He sobs, lifting his daughter into his arms and pressing kisses into her dark hair. She throws her arms around his neck and then drops to the ground, directing Adrian toward the medical clinic building where Ash is. He follows, a crate full of medicines and supplies in his arms. Peeta watches him pass with pain and awe reflecting in his glassy, blue eyes.
And then Katniss is in his arms, and the steadiness that he has always brought her is there. She could live forever in his embrace, his scent and his love wrapped around her.
“Ash?” she asks into his neck.
“He spiked a fever overnight, but you made it back. He’ll be fine. You saved him, Katniss. You did it.”
She smooths her fingers over the dark smudges under his tired eyes, and his eyelashes flutter close. He releases a long breath, his shoulders sinking as the weight of all the worry he's been carrying melts away. Standing in his arms, in the life they've made, with the children they created happy and safe, she begins to wish she would've let herself love him from the beginning. These days away from him have only reaffirmed the words she uttered to him on the beach during the Quarter Quell. That need for him has never gone away. With his eyes still closed, she pulls his lips to hers in a kiss. It's a promise to never stop loving him and an apology for any time that he thought she didn't. Because she always has. Always.
By summer, Ash splashes in the lake with his sister and the other village children, blatantly ignoring the indignant looks thrown his way by the people trying to fish. The looks don't last long, though, as the peals of the children's laughter fill the air tugging smiles on everyone's lips. Katniss leans against the doorframe of their home and watches Peeta grin at the sound of his children while pulling a trap full of fish onto the bank of the lake. The low murmurs of a heated argument float through the air from the woods at her back. She turns and spies Gale and Johanna sulking out of the trees, Johanna's hands braced on her hips defiantly. Katniss watches Gale throws his own hands into the air in frustration when Jo stomps away only to see him run toward her a few seconds later and pull her into a deep kiss. They disappear together back into the privacy of the woods minutes later.
Nova wades through the water and playfully splashes Peeta's back while he hands off the fish caught in the trap. Katniss smiles when Peeta pretends to ignore the splashing, and Nova turns in disappointment. Then, Katniss's smile turns into laughter when Nova's scream pierces the air. Peeta tosses their giggling daughter into the lake, chasing the children as he pretends to be a monster. It's a silly game, but it always makes the children shriek with joy. Peeta will complain later about how he’s too old for such games, but he’ll be back in the water playing tomorrow because, like Katniss, he knows that there are much worse games to play.