A Million Pieces - Hunger Games (Catching Fire & Mockingjay)

Chapter 46

Katniss shifts. I'm barely surprised when the arrow flies towards the balcony. Everyone screams when President Coin collapses over the balcony and falls to the ground below her. I don't.

I know three things. The first is that Coin is dead. My half-delirious suggestion to Caspian was Katniss's plan. The second is that Snow is dead. The way he spews blood and life in a fit of laughter and then disappears under the crowd makes it a certainty. The third is that Katniss is not dead. While everyone watches Coin and Snow, I look at her. I see her reach for the nightlock pill. I break my silence, shouting her name. Peeta gets there first. I don't see the pill fall, but she screams as the guards take her away. At least for now, she is alive.

The next few weeks, we hear nothing of Katniss. The whole of Panem is in a flurry of action, and although her assassination of Coin is talked about, it is mostly reserved for the evenings at home, when discussions and plans for rebuilding and leadership are done for the day. Soon, Auntie Tina suggests we leave. We all agree. I ask Peeta if he wants to come with us, but he refuses. He wants to wait for Haymitch and Katniss. I say goodbye to Peeta, Haymitch and Beetee, but I avoid Johanna. To my surprise, Nurse Everdeen joins us. Something about setting up a hospital in District 4. I'm sure that's true, but I think she also wants to make up for almost leading Malila to her death. I suspect I'm right, since she appoints herself as our family doctor. Someone arranges a train, and within hours, Auntie Tina, Malila, Caspian, Annie and I are back in our house in the Victor's Village.

District 4. Home. It's been months since I left. It's bustling with the activity of reconstructing not only buildings, but also our way of life. Still, it's quieter than the Capitol. The hijacking took so many of my memories away, that I get lost in the streets and when an old neighbour greets me, I can't remember their name. And there's a crucial piece missing. It's painfully obvious, too, since we all take turns sleeping with Annie, to make her bed a little less empty.

A week after our return, I bring out the length of rope that Peeta pushed into my hands the last day of the war. We stand together on the jetty - the same one where I dispersed Talise's ashes - and watch the rope burn. When it's completely reduced to ashes, we each grab a pinch and sprinkle it into the water.

We stay on the jetty, and slowly our silence turns into quiet conversation, and eventually into laughter. Caspian and I had remembered hundreds of stories the night of his death, but there are thousands more. Annie, perhaps more than any of us, smiles brightly. Tears shine in her eyes, and she wipes them on the large shirt she's wearing. It's one of Finnick's. She finally reads us what she's been writing on all those sheets of paper. It's Finnick's story. And our story. For an evening, we forget about everything except him. And us. Our family.

Many long weeks later, Peeta calls. He explains that they've had him under careful surveillance, he tells me about Katniss's trial, asks after Nurse Everdeen, says that he and Haymitch have officially buried the hatchet, lets me know that Johanna apologises in her own way, and wants to know how we are doing. I tell him that we had figured out he wasn't able to answer our calls, that I'm relieved Katniss is going to be okay, that Nurse Everdeen is having dinner with us twice a week and spending every spare minute at the temporary hospital, that I'm glad he and Haymitch are helping each other, that I've forgiven Johanna and Cas especially wants to see her, and that we're all well. Annie is a little more on edge than the rest of us, but that's normal pregnancy jitters, according to Auntie Tina. Even over the phone I can tell that this news rejoices Peeta. He rambles on excitedly about how he can come and paint the house - perhaps a special mural for the baby? - and bring anything we need from the Capitol and has Annie discussed names yet? Annie takes over the call because I'm grinning too widely, and there's a look on Caspian's face that makes me want to kiss him even more than usual.

It's months before Katniss gets in touch. Peeta, since returning to District Twelve, calls regularly and always lets us know that she is okay, but it's different when we receive a handwritten letter from her. She tells us about the book she is creating with Peeta and Haymitch. We write back with three pages worth of things about Finnick we can't and never want to forget, as well as a copy of the pages Annie has written. Two months later, we send another two pages along with a photo of the newborn baby.

Another year passes, and for the first time in our lives, we start travelling. To Johanna in District Seven. To Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch in District Twelve. Even to Beetee in the Capitol. Eventually, it's not even to visit people. It's to see Panem, our country. Within four years, we've been to every district.

The pain never truly goes away. I still wake up in tears. Sometimes I have to sit away from Auntie Tina and Caspian. Every morning I carefully choose my soft, real memory for the day, to combat any bad ones that may come my way. It works, though. Caspian still trembles sometimes, often in his sleep. His limp makes him less agile. But he is still just as graceful in the water. Malila will never run like she used to, and she refuses the new eye that Beetee and Nurse Everdeen offer her. Sometimes I catch her running her fingers down the right side of her body. Her burned skin is healed there, but never quite the same. It matches my arm and Caspian's leg. But she learns to move again, so fast that she can almost catch up with the rest of us, and her smile becomes as bright as it used to be. Auntie Tina gets a look sometimes, one of such deep sorrow that it feels like it drowns me with her. But a tug on the hand or a soft word are enough to pull her out. Annie still spaces out, loses herself in her world. But it doesn't seem as scary as it used to. Sad, maybe. Nostalgic. When she resurfaces, she's okay. Sometimes, she's smiling. Even as she reads her pages to her son.

As deeply as the wounds run in all of us, they all eventually become scars. Still delicate, sometimes, sensitive to touch, but bearable. Life keeps moving, and before we realise, we are moving with it. The days become less difficult and more enjoyable. We learn how to function as a family of five, like we learned before, with every person we lost. We relearn when we become six again, with the baby always in someone's arms.

We keep learning, every day, to live. And to live well.

A/N: This was the last chapter before the epilogue. I'm in my feelings now. <3