Home Fanfics Go Back
Katniss sits on the porch, like always, sipping tea as she listens to the sounds of Peeta baking in the kitchen. There is the usual clanging of pans as he arranges everything, the creaking hinge of the oven door, and his familiar sigh as he settles down, probably for a sip of water or a bite to eat now that he has a few minutes while the loaves bake. But there's always more work. He has the loaves that are finished cooking that need to be moved to accommodate the ones in the oven right now, and there's more dough behind ready to be shaped.
Sometimes she helps, joining him in the kitchen, though her loaves are the ones they end up eating or making into breadcrumbs as they're too misshapen to sell to anyone. Sometimes she just cleans up so he has less work to do. But usually she just sits, because the kitchen is hot, hotter still now since it is warming up into summer, and the heat hurts the burn scars that run all up and down her arms. Besides, Peeta insists he enjoys the work, that it doesn't feel like work to him, so long as they're together and they have the house and he can take breaks whenever he chooses.
It's his house that they live in, of course. She couldn't go back to her house in the Victor's Village, nor could she bear to go back to her family's house in the Seam. She bites the inside of her cheek to even think about it. She had proposed they move even further away, out of the main village, away from the mines and everyone they knew, away enough that they could start again, but without leaving District 12.
"Ok," Peeta had agreed, "But let's wait until they've built it back up a little." He couldn't bear the idea of running away when he was still needed, of the people who were spending every day building District 12 back from the ground up going without bread.
Speaking of, it is quiet this morning, without the usual banging of hammers and shouts as the crews of workers over in the market district worked to erect new buildings. It is now the second summer after the war, and the first was mostly spent clearing out the land ruined by the bombings and pouring foundations, but now they were framing buildings to make new houses and shops to make District 12 into a proper district again, and not just a Victor's Village, a collection of houses in the Seam, and several temporary structures the Capitol had donated, which is where a majority of the district was currently living. The metal structures were cramped and poorly insulated, and the winter had been harsh, so most of the people spent any time they could putting up the new buildings. Katniss had grown used to the sound of the construction, which is why the absence of those noises was so noticeable this morning.
As the sun passes into the afternoon sky, Peeta comes out onto the porch to take his lunch break. He hands Katniss a sandwich made on his fresh bread, and is holding a second for himself. He comes to sit beside her on the swing, both of them swinging lazily as they eat. He's sweating a bit, she can see, but she knows it's only going to get warmer.
"People will be coming soon to pick up," he says.
She nods. It's the same every day. As work lets out in the afternoon, or as people get a break, they stop over and pick up a loaf of bread. Some send their kids over as they get out of school, not that there was much more to school than an all-ages classroom that took place in one of the houses that survived the bombing. Sometimes Haymitch stopped over, but usually not. Peeta had taken to bringing him two or three loaves at the end of the week, and that was that. Katniss found she didn't mind so much: that they had seen quite a bit of each other at the end of the war, and maybe the distance wasn't so bad.
Peeta sighs, closing his eyes as his head lolls back against the back of the swing. The sun is bright overhead, shining down on him, despite the variety of plants they had planted to surround the porch. Katniss tries to look at the plants instead, but her eyes catch on the primroses, so she turns to Peeta, her Games partner who had turned to a man when she wasn't looking. They're 19 now, somehow, and Peeta is a different person than he was three years ago, with a chiseled jaw, a more assured way of speaking, and he had guided her from the emptiness of the end of the war back to the semblance of a normal life through routine and his endless patience. But despite it all, she can see it, the little tremor of worry in his forehead that never quite leaves, no matter how safe the world seems to be now.
Later, once Peeta returns to work, one of the girls from town comes running up the path, out of breath. She's named Daisy, Katniss knows, and she's about 13 years old. She's usually chatty, but not so excitable. "Katniss!" she says, trying to catch her breath. "Katniss, she's here!"
"Who?" Katniss had been standing to go inside and get the loaf of bread for Daisy's family, but now she pauses, waiting.
"President Paylor arrived this afternoon on the train from the Capitol!"
Katniss pauses, looking at the girl. Daisy and her family had escaped the bombing, they had come to live in District 13 at the end of the war. She understood what the election meant, what it meant that Snow was dead, that Paylor was elected, that there were no more Games. But at the same time, there is an innocence in her face that makes Katniss's chest ache. It reminds her too much of Primrose. Daisy's face lights up with a visit from the President, she doesn't understand that this couldn't possibly be anything good. "Did you hear what it's about?"
The girl shakes her head. She's hopping from one leg to another, eager to get back to the town center, where the action is.
"Let me get your bread, and then you can go."
Once Daisy leaves, Katniss tells Peeta what she's reported. Peeta takes off the thick oven mitts he was wearing to handle the hot pans and leans back against the counter, his eyebrows raised. "She's here? Like, right now? No warning or anything?"
Katniss shrugs. "I guess. This is the first I'm hearing of it, too."
"We'd better go," he says, like she knew he would.
She's biting her lips, her scars itching even though the skin is technically all healed over. She wants to be left alone. She doesn't want to do anything for the President, she doesn't even want to see her. She wants to sit on the porch, watching the days slowly pass while absolutely nothing exciting happens. She wants to be in District 12. "She hasn't called for us."
Peeta sighs. She can see he's already turned the oven off, the day's work over. All that was left was to hand out the bread, and they could easily leave the bread out on a table on the porch with the moneybox. Half their customers were running on credit, anyways. "You know if she's here she'll want to see you," he says.
She wants to protest, to say that maybe she's just on a tour, to see how the rebuilding is going. Maybe this is why she hasn't heard the sounds of construction: because the work crews have been socializing with the President. But another part of her knows that there's too much happening in Panem for Paylor to come just for a celebratory or social call. Something was wrong, and when something was wrong, she would turn to the same people Coin had turned to. "Ok, we can go," she concedes, only because she knows that otherwise Peeta will go alone, and she doesn't want to be left behind, waiting.
They set the bread out for people to pick up, and change into nicer clothes to meet the President. Then, just as the sun is starting to fall enough that the sky is a pinkish-orange, they walk into town, about ten minutes away.
They see the crowd soon enough: dozens of people gathered around the train station hall, one of the only large buildings left in District 12. "Oh! Katniss! Peeta!" someone shouts, and they're ushered forward, through the building, and up onto the platform.
Plutarch Heavensbee is standing there, looking older than Katniss remembers. "Katniss! Peeta! We were hoping to see you," Plutarch greets. "I was just speaking to Ms. Rollins and she was telling me how you're keeping everyone fed."
Peeta laughs humbly. "Bread is only a part of the meal, but I'm happy to do it."
Katniss looks around, trying to see where President Paylor is. There is certainly the pomp that surrounds the president visiting, but she only sees Plutarch so far. But then, she sees a group of men and women exit the train car, and President Paylor and a woman who appears to be her assistant exit behind them. They all look rather serious, a contrast to Plutarch's bright smile. Paylor turns to Katniss. "Come in," she says, and steps back into the train car.
Katniss and Peeta follow her inside, and Plutarch comes along as well. The four of them sit at a long table in what appears to be the dining car, with its wide windows for viewing the scenery while the train is moving. Paylor's assistant pours them tea and then comes and sits as well, a sheaf of notes before her.
"Thank you for coming," Paylor says. "If I didn't see you soon enough, I would have sent Chambray along to fetch you."
Katniss assumes this is the name of Paylor's assistant, though the woman doesn't even look up at the acknowledgement. "What's going on?" Katniss asks. Her mouth is dry, but she doesn't sip the tea. She can't relax until she understands what's happening.
"There is a strike happening in District 7," she says. "It's a bit of a delicate situation, since we desperately need lumber for all the rebuilding projects in Panem."
"What do they want?" Peeta asks.
Plutarch clears his throat. "It's not so much what they want that's the issue, but how they're asking for it. With the strike, they're holding all of Panem's lumber supply hostage to get their way. They have a choice to vote for policies they prefer, to request changes to legislation that benefits them in session in the Capitol. But the work stoppage doesn't just hurt the Capitol, it hurts the other districts." He sighs, as if this is a problem he's been trying to solve for quite some time. "And even if we were inclined to just give them what they want to keep the projects moving, which is mostly more money, we can't. The war has cost us a tremendous amount of money, there's not a lot of discretionary funding to just throw at workers who think they're owed more."
"Plus," Paylor says, her expression serious and shrewd as always, "Appeasing them might give other districts ideas. That a work stoppage is good for extorting the Capitol out of money."
"So what are you going to do?" Peeta asks. "Go and force them to cut down more trees?"
Paylor smiles sadly, shaking her head. "I hope it doesn't come to that." She sips her tea. "I would very much like to avoid any use of force in this situation both because of the optics, and because of the unstable situation with the military. The reason I wanted to speak with you is to request that you travel to District 7 on my behalf to try to negotiate. I cannot go myself right now because there are rumors of there being loyalist uprisings within the ranks of the military in District 2, and I must attend to that."
Katniss can't help but think of Gale when she thinks of District 2, after seeing him on television once last winter, reporting from there. She pictures him in charge of soldiers still, after everything, and her blood boils, a certain rage fills her that she can't even put words to. It temporarily fills her throat with a ball of anger, and puts static in her ears. Because of this, it takes an extra moment for her to realize the other part of what Paylor has said: that she wants Katniss and Peeta to go to District 7. She sees Peeta staring at her, waiting for her reaction.
"Just us?" she asks. She has too many thoughts to count, really, but she knows they're expecting an answer, so she delays it with a question.
"No." This is the assistant, Chambray. "Plutarch will attend, as a representative of the President's office." She checks her notes, her finger running along a line. "And we're hoping to speak with Haymitch Abernathy as well, to request that he attend."
"Haymitch?" It's too late, Katniss realizes. She's speaking from her heart, with instinct, instead of the disciplined thoughtfulness the Capitol politics required and rewarded. "I'm not a kid anymore, I don't need a babysitter."
She realizes her mistake as soon as she speaks, the implication that she would be going. She wants to take it back, but Plutarch is already replying. "No, you misunderstand," he says. "We are certain you can take care of yourself, in fact, you and Peeta are the first ones we thought of for the job. The people of District 7 are not violent. They didn't fight in the war, their only weapons are axes, they mostly keep to themselves. But they need someone to listen to them, and to help them understand the position of the other districts as well. The reason we want Haymitch is because we have tried and failed to get in touch with Johanna Mason, who we believe is living up there. We think she might be on the side of the workers. Our sources indicate they have a past relationship, so perhaps he can help change her mind, if needed."
Katniss almost wants to laugh out loud at the idea of anyone changing Johanna Mason's mind once she's made it up about something, but that thought is currently competing with unsolicited images in her mind of Johanna and Haymitch as a couple, and that thought is making her want to retch. "What do we get for going?" she asks.
Peeta shoots her a look, like "what the hell?" and she knows he would go out of the goodness of his heart. But she won't. The people in the government are being paid to do their jobs. She wants to stay here, in District 12, where her home is, where the people and things she's familiar with are. She doesn't want to represent anyone or anything other than herself, and if she has to, she wants compensation.
"All your expenses on the trip will be covered," Chambray says, "Travel, lodging, food, of course. You'll have a modest discretionary budget as well. With the successful resumption of inter-district lumber trade, you will be entitled to-"
"I want this to be it," Katniss says. "If I do this, then you will leave me alone, and not ask me for anything else again. You won't come call me for help just because another district is causing trouble. If I fix this, you'll hire people for crises, and figure out what went wrong to prevent this from happening again."
She feels hot and nervous, and she's met with silence when she finishes speaking. She has no idea if she has enough clout to speak to the president in the way she just did. But that is truly what she wants. She doesn't need money — there's nothing to buy here. She doesn't need more food or a new home, or anything really. She has everything she needs. She just wants peace.
To her surprise, Paylor nods. "We couldn't have won the war without you," she acknowledges, "So if that is your wish, I would be grateful for this one last request."
Katniss leaves the train car hand-in-hand with Peeta, wondering how exactly this is going to go. She can see the half-framed houses in the market district, and realizes now that the work had stopped because they were out of materials. All around them, people are chattering, and it seems the news had spread about the reason for the president's visit, and the news out of District 7.
Chambray follows behind them, her notebook under her arm. "Can you point me to Haymitch Abernathy's house?" she asks.