I don't see Katniss get shot live, but they show me the footage the next day while Plutarch talks over her voice in the recording, reassuring us she is completely fine, just a little beat up. Caspian watches me watch her, and once we're dismissed, he gives me a look I wish I didn't understand. I roll my eyes because Katniss should be coming to me and not the other way around, but a few days later, I go to the hospital anyway. I find her in a bed, talking with Johanna, who is attached to her morphine drip. I raise my eyebrows at Johanna, who shrugs and unhooks herself. But she looks a little embarrassed as she disappears behind the curtain.
I stand at the head of Katniss's bed, trying to keep my eyes off the morphine drip. Without looking at me, she tips it my way. An invitation. A peace offering. For a second, I'm desperate to accept. I can imagine the relief that would spread through me, soaking me to my bones. But I think of the bed in the Riveras' compartment and how I really don't want to go back to the hospital. I look away and she hooks herself back up.
"Hi, Kitty," I say lightly. "You just missed me, I got out a few days ago. But if you were this desperate to see me, you could've sent a message. I'm sure they're all falling over themselves to help you." It looks like the words hurt her and it turns out I can't hold a grudge, so instead I sit beside her on the bed. "Never mind that, they need their Mockingjay, right?"
This doesn't seem to cheer her up, but she looks less guilty and instead observes our proximity. "You're not completely unhinged at seeing me?"
"You being so hard to keep alive has driven me a little crazy, but you're nothing I can't handle." Her lips twitch and, victorious, I answer her real question. "I guess there wasn't much point pitting me against you, I never had an opportunity to kill you. And they didn't have the time. So instead they just made me even more of a burden to everyone."
"But Johanna said you're fine around Finnick and Caspian and his mother," she insists. I can see her holding back, vulnerability barely kept at bay. I haven't used my talent with words in a long time, but now I know exactly what I want to say.
"Ask me what you want. Tell me what you're feeling, even the ugly, painful parts," I tell her, and she shakes her head. "Katniss... I know you have to be strong for your sister and your mother and Panem and maybe even Peeta, that you have to take care of them. Right now, I have to be weak for Coventina and Malila, even Caspian, Annie and Finnick. I have to let them take care of me. But maybe you can be weak with me and I can be strong with you."
Desperate, angry tears fill her eyes. "How are you so much better? How did they do it?" she blurts out.
"For a start, they didn't run away," I say and she flinches.
"I can't. I can't watch him hate me like he does. Especially when he's right."
"No, Katniss," I say quickly, and any anger I have for her evaporates. "Peeta suffered so much. More than I did. They didn't use hijacking in the same way on the two of us. They gave me completely new memories, so it clashes more in my head. For him, they took reality and modified it. Vilified you. He's scared and angry and confused. He'll need more time and more support. But what happened to him is not your fault. If you have to blame someone, blame me."
She shakes her head. "You did what you could to keep him alive."
"I could've done more, I could've taken his tracker out," I tell her. "You couldn't. But you can help now. People think that the hard part is letting go, but they're wrong. Letting go gives you freedom, it makes you lighter. It's easier to accept that he's lost, to put him out of your mind and move on. But be brave. Do the hard work. The rebellion needs you. The people of Panem need you. But, Katniss... Peeta needs you too. And you need him. I think you know that."
"Do you think he'll ever come back?" she whispers. She leaves off the "to me", but I hear it anyway.
"I think he will," I say. "Eventually."
She takes a deep breath. "Do you know how you came back?"
"My family. And perseverance. But Katniss, I am far from whole, far from fully healed."
"But you're better than he is. How?" she pleads.
"I don't have a perfect answer, I'm sorry. But I guess... I try to remember as many of the real memories I have. The good ones, mostly, but sometimes the bad ones too. It helps ground me. Reminds me that I do know things, I do know myself." I pause. "It could help Peeta, but maybe you should try it yourself sometime." She nods absently. I hesitate. "Okay, Kitty, you want to know the one thing that I needed above all else? The thing I still remind myself every minute I'm with Caspian or Finnick or Coventina? It's that I want to recover. I want to get better. From the start, some part of me was desperate for my life and my family. Even though I was hijacked into hating them, I could tell they loved me. Peeta is desperate too. He loves you and there is a part of him trying to find you. Don't give up on him. Please, Katniss, he doesn't deserve that. He is so good. You know him. You love him. So, help him. Like he would do if he was in your place."
Finnick and Annie's wedding isn't just a big event for District 13, although they do seem starved for any kind of entertainment. It's important for our family. Although Finnick and Annie had chosen to be together despite everything - unlike Caspian and me - a wedding had never been imaginable. And now they are only days away.
Katniss offers to give Annie one of the dresses she has back in District 12, and Annie excitedly agrees, as long as I can come along. I'm a little uncomfortable about the whole situation: sharing Annie with Katniss, discovering a part of Katniss's life I never thought I would see, looking at all the dresses Cinna designed when I know Diana and Helen are dead, and having Katniss's prep team circle Annie and poke at me. I remember Adonis, Persephone, and Hebe's gentle hands and unexpected comfort. I wonder if Snow had them executed on live television and I just didn't see it. I wonder if everyone is keeping it from me. But then Annie emerges from the closet wearing a silk green dress, and I'm too pleased to think about anything else. It's simple, but it looks like it was woven from the colour of her eyes.
"You look incredible, Annie," I say softly, and she beams. I take her hands, suddenly overwhelmed with joy, and for a moment we just smile at each other. When we break away, I realise Katniss is watching us, so I say, "Thank you for this, Kitty."
While Caspian and Annie work to piece together the traditional wedding song from memory, Finnick asks me to help him weave the net that will be used for the ceremony. We're assigned an empty room for wedding preparations. Annie and Caspian hunch over the desk, Finnick and I sit cross legged on the floor. When Annie and Caspian explode into laughter about some lyrics that mean entirely the wrong thing, Finnick pinches my arm to get my attention. "We wouldn't have done this without you."
I blink, startled. The thought is both painful and heart-warming. "You shouldn't have waited. But I am really glad you did."
"I've adored Annie for years," Finnick says simply. "Getting married is wonderful, but we don't need a celebration and a certificate. This is about our family, all of us, and how far we've come. It's proof of how much we all love each other."
I smile, clutching the net in my hands. "Well, I love you a lot, Finn."
"Me too, Sapph," he says back. For a second we hold our gazes, and then he leans over and ruffles my hair and I swat him away. We go back to weaving the net with grins on our faces and Annie and Caspian still laughing in the background.
Coventina is so caught up in the hurricane of preparation that I barely see her until the big day. In fact, Coventina is the hurricane. She has been the carer of our family for so many years now, the pillar and leader of our household, that I realise she must have been feeling lost here in Thirteen, where we are taken care of as a community of hundreds, not a family of six. But the wedding is something she can do and will do and she has done. Right before the celebration, I find her in our compartment, where she is getting herself ready.
I come in with a small smile and a hairbrush. Coventina stops fussing with her wrinkled dress and looks up. Nervously, she smiles back and pats a spot on the bed. I sit down and she stands behind me, taking the brush from me. Carefully, her hand touches my head. There's a jolt of discomfort, but I manage to stay still, and she gently starts running her fingers and the brush down my hair. It's still shorter than it was, but it's grown since I've been in Thirteen.
"It feels like a long time since I've done this," Auntie Tina says thoughtfully.
"Since the morning of the reaping," I agree quietly. "I'm sorry I haven't come."
"No, gem, it's my fault."
"You've been busy with the wedding," I say. "It looks amazing, by the way-"
"It's not the wedding," she interrupts, and I still. I had suspected there was more than that, but it hurts to hear it out loud. "You're not my child, Sapphire, but you're as good as. And the way you looked at me when you came back from the Capitol... It wasn't your fault, I know that. But there's nothing worse for a parent who loves their child as much as I love you to be looked at that way. I've been so scared I'll see it again."
I'm suddenly reminded of Katniss, and what I told her about letting go being easier than the pain that comes with the work. I realise now that I had spoken from experience.
"It was my fault too," I admit, my fingers nervously pulling at the skin on my right wrist. "After Talise died, I thought I had lost everything. And if I'm honest... I was almost relieved. I didn't have to care about anything or anyone, and that was easier. But then you brought me into your home and your life and your family, and you gave everything and everyone to lose all over again." I feel her hands still against my hair. "Back then, I wanted to hate you for it. But instead I loved you. The Capitol brought all those feelings back." I turn around so I can look at her. "Auntie Tina, you represent everything they tried to take away from me." Coventina is close to tears, but my eyes are surprisingly dry. It's like a weight off my chest, admitting this to her. "You've been like my mother for longer than my mother was. I love you both, but she and I will never know each other the way you and I do."
Coventina gives a watery smile and cups my face with her hand. "Your mother would be proud of the life you've made for yourself and how strong you are. I knew her, Sapphire." The world halts and the air leaves my lungs. "Cordelia used to fish with us - Adrian and me and Finnick's parents."
Cordelia, Cordelia, Cordelia. How many years has it been since I've heard that name? Since I've thought it? "You never told me," I whisper, turning back around. My two families have always been very separate, or so I had thought.
"I know," she says quietly, and takes my hair in her hands again. Gently, I feel her start pulling it into a braid.
"Is that why you helped Talise? Always buying and trading with her?"
"Your sister suffered more than anyone from your mother's death. She couldn't afford to disappear like your father did, because she had to take care of you. I helped her because she needed it, not because of my friendship with your mother. And for all her wonderful qualities, Talise hated asking for help. You're quite opposite in that way, you're worried that you've accepted so much help that you've become a burden. The one thing your sister ever truly asked of me was someone to talk with about Cordelia," Coventina sighs. "Your mother's death didn't affect you as badly as it did her. You were younger, you didn't remember her as well, and Talise had been taking care of you from the moment you were born. That's why she and I never told you, and we've barely spoken to you about her. Because she knew it would be easier for you to let go than hurt trying to remember her."
What had Talise said in the Justice Building, in our last moments together? "Remember our mother for me." For me. My mother's death was to me like a scar, a wound that had healed so well, so long ago that I could barely remember the pain. But for Talise, it must have been like a gash to the chest that she had to live with every day for years. She had put the weight of it on her heart alone, until she couldn't anymore. Until she needed someone to shoulder the burden, because she couldn't let the memory disappear.
"Is that - is that why you took me in? For my mother and my sister?"
"No, gem. Everything I have done has been for you." I feel her tie the end of my braid off and gently pull it a bit loose. "And if I could change anything, it would only be that I had taken you in earlier. You've been family from the moment Caspian brought you through our door."
I wonder if Auntie Tina knows the depth of my gratitude. It has been too long since I have even begun to try to express it. I turn around to look her right in the eyes, so she can see how this is what I am most sure about since the Capitol wrecked my mind. "Thank you. For everything."