A.N. So my friend and I did a photoshoot this past weekend with our dogs, and I thought I might share one of the pics! This is me and my black lab, Joanna.
"It's okay to grieve, Katniss. Loosing a child is something I wish you would've never had to endure, but it's happened. And it's time to try and move on, it's been 2 weeks." My mother says but I hardly listen. Instead I press the same small button I rely on to put me asleep.
"You're promo was a huge hit, we have two more districts that have joined our side. You're a real star now, Katniss." Plutarch tells me and I simply turn over, pressing the button for more medicine to put me into a hazy state.
"I'm sorry, Catnip, I'm so sorry."
"Please try and eat, Katniss you need to keep your strength up for the baby."
"Peeta wouldn't want this for you, so come on. Please just get up, Rosy Posy."
"Wake up, Sweetheart."
Everyone's comments run together and blur into one huge paragraph of motivational words, that don't motivate me at all. No one can understand the pain of loosing someone you helped create. This baby, was what Peeta and I fought so hard for. Maybe I'll just lie here in bed until he returns, until he can come back to me.
Loss: the fact or process of losing something or someone. And yet the definition doesn't even do it justice, it still can't fulfill what I'm feeling right now. The feeling of something being ripped from you, taken from you, and yet you never even get to say goodbye. Or in my case, I was never able to say hello.
Rye will come and sit next to me when he knows I need the company, Prim will lay beside me when I need to cry, and even Gale will come and stand across the room when he thinks I'm asleep. But out of the people that come and try to help me, no one can help me the way Peeta does. His whispers they help me through the day, his face in my dreams, they help me through the night. Everywhere I turn, he's there, waiting for me to need to him.
Everyone I love is sitting around my bed, and instead of pressing the red button that will relieve me of talking, I open my mouth. "I want a funeral." My voice is raspy and sore after not speaking for weeks.
My mother looks up and her eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep and worrying over me.
"I'm afraid we don't do funerals here, we cremate the bodies." Plutarch speaks up and I about throw up at the thought of them burning my baby boy. He must see it on my face because he quickly replies. "We haven't done anything yet, we figured you would like to say goodbye."
"I don't want it here. I want it in twelve, in the meadow." Plutarch bites his lip and sighs. "You can film the burial." I'm surprised by the words that have just come out of my mouth.
"Katniss, no." Prim says softly and she wipes a tear away from her cheek.
"Peeta deserves to know, we'll make sure the Capitol sees the broadcast."
The room is silent and then Rye smiles sadly. "I guess I should go find something black to wear instead of grey." The room laughs softly, but I don't.
I can't laugh, I no longer have it in me.
I suppose I should have expected the stares I receive while walking towards the hovercraft hanger, but it still rattles me. No one knows the truth of why the mockingjay was in the hospital, only that I was. And now I'm out.
"I was sorry to hear about what happened to you." Boggs whispers to me and I look at him sadly.
"Me too." I reply dryly and I don't feel the need to say anything else.
When I take my seat, the silence in the hovercraft is unnerving, it's almost as if everyone is afraid to say the wrong thing. Afraid that the word baby may set me off and cause them to put me in the psych ward. But in reality I'm not going to break down, and I'm not going to struggle trough the rest of my life. I've cried my tears and I've made my peace, or as much of peace as a mother can.
"Thank you," I say and everyone turns to me. "For coming." I clarify.
"Of course, girl on fire." Finnick says and I appreciate him now more than ever.
"Plutarch can I ask you something?" I whisper to him quietly and he turns to face me. "Where is he?" I struggle to ask and his Capitol face softens.
"He is already there dear, we took him ahead of time." He answers politely and I nod.
"When we land, I want to go alone. I want to say a few things to my son, without the cameras." I tell him and he nods as if he understands. But he doesn't, he couldn't.
The landing is much softer than when I was being rushed back from district 8, although I guess that was a whole different circumstance.
Rye takes my hand before I walk away from the group and reaches into his pocket. "Peeta gave me this before you went into the games." He hands me a small faded envelope. "It's for your child, but I guess I thought you should decide which one it goes too. Just remember that Peeta would have loved your baby whether he was alive or gone." He whispers and I nod my head.
"Should I read it?"
"No, it's best if some fathers and sons have secrets of their own." He replies and I smile just barely.
"I'll see you soon," I say and squeeze his hand tightly before letting go.
The walk is long, but maybe it's because I go to the village first and sit on the swing that hangs on my front porch. I told Mr. Mellark that I was pregnant here, and yet the memory is still fresh in my mind. I open the door and walk towards the kitchen. But instead of the clean table that is in front of me, I see Peeta lying on the table with a shredded back, smiling up at me.
"We are going to raise this baby with so much love, it'll spill over on to other people. We're going to be a family"
"I'm sorry I let you down, Peeta. I'm so sorry."
When I leave my mothers house and head towards the meadow I imagine a boy with blonde hair and grey eyes walking beside me. His hands would be small, but would soon become large and look much like a bakers hand. His smile would be a lot like his father's but his soul would be fiery like mine. And when I reach the meadow, he runs ahead of me, but disappears into the flowers. The dandelions to be exact.
There is a small brown box that sits on a stand in the middle of a bed of flowers. I've been to funerals, I know what lies inside of it. But for some reason the thought of walking closer doesn't send me running.
"You would have been such a beautiful little boy." I place a handful of flowers onto the casket along with the envelope and run my hand along the wood. "I know that your father isn't here, and maybe it isn't fair of me to do this. But I've been thinking of a name for you." I pause and look at the woods.
"I love you Aden Peeta Mellark, and I always will."
Aden, it means little fire, and I'd like to think that if he had made it he would have been a little fireball.
"I'm sorry I let you down." I spread my hand out along the grains in the wood and kiss the cold coffin silently.
"Are you ready?" I feel a hand on my back and I nod my head slowly while my fingers fall from my son.
We all stand around his coffin and watch as they lower him into the ground, Aden such a pretty name that won't be spoken of very often. When they cover the last bit with dirt, I look away, not wanting to see him disappear all together.
"I'd like to say something." I say to Cressedia and she nods her head while motioning for Pollux to turn on his camera.
"A lot of people deal with grief in their own way, and I'd like to think that struggling to comprehend a loss doesn't make me weak."
Katniss, you are not weak. If anything you are the strongest person I know.
"But when you loose a child, people say that it's normal to curl in a ball, they say that it's fine to cry with your spouse. My husband isn't here with me, and I had to go through the loss of our son. Alone. What district would still support the Capitol that made me endure that alone? My family is barely hanging on, but I want you to know that this isn't going to stop me from fighting for my husband."
I place a dandelion on the ground where my son lies beneath. "I lost my son, but I still have a child to fight for." I say and place my hand on my stomach. "But I can't do this alone, so I need everyone to help us. And if not for me, then for my son, Aden."
On the walk back to the hovercraft Gale walks beside me and I can feel the tension from him. "Are you okay?"
He looks at me and his eyebrows knit together. "This shouldn't have happened to you."
"Gale, I know that, we all know that. But we can't let that hold us back."
"It's just that I thought you were going to turn out like your mom, always in a haze never really waking up."
I stop and look at him. "Gale, I'm not my mom. Sure I might have a few moments in life where I need to be isolated or in a haze but I won't live in it."
"You can't stay like this." He tells me.
"Stay like what?" I ask irritated.
"You can't keep glueing yourself back together. You and I both know that the only person that holds you together isn't here right now."
"What are you saying, that I'm going to shatter into a million pieces?"
"I'm saying that you can only live with half of yourself for so long."
"Before I break." I finish for him.
"You need Peeta," he mumbles and walks ahead of me.
When we reach the bakery Rye and I stand together in front of it, memories of flower fights and wrestling matches fill our minds. And we cling to each other as the thought of loosing another Mellark fills our heads.
Pollux taps on my shoulder and I look up from the ashen grey earth.
SING
He has it written in the dirt, and I wonder why he would want me to do that. "Me?" I question and he nods. I think back to before I lost my father and remember a song he used to sing with me, that is until he said it was to dangerous.
"Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
They strung up a man
They say who murdered three.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree."
The song itself is a traitorous thing, the lyrics meaning all rebellious things.
"Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Where dead man called out
For his love to flee.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree."
"Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Where I told you to run,
So we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree."
But as a child, I always wanted to sing it and I suppose now that I know what it means, I can see why it was forbidden.
"Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Wear a necklace of rope,
Side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree."
"Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Where I told you to run,
So we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree."
"I swear that as you sang, even the birds fell silent."
When I finish I listen closely and note that the birds in the air have fallen silent, just like Peeta said they always did.
A.N. Hey guys so hopefully this chapter wasn't too depressing. I promise that her life will get better, but it's going to be down for a little while. Anyways star and comment! See ya next week.