Take It All Away: The Return [Chapter Four]
Title : Take It All Away
Author:
Summary: What if Katniss didn't have the berries at the end of the 74th Hunger Games? Would there be two victors, or one? Victory isn't so sweet for the winner of the 74th Hunger Games. Katniss/Peeta, rated T for PG-13 content and depression.
Rating: T
Pairing: Katniss/Peeta
Category: Romance/Tragedy
Hey everyone! Here's Chapter Four! This is basically a stepping stone to the rest of the chapters taking place in District Twelve. I think I enjoyed writing the previous two chapters more, tbh. But, this chapter is really sad. Really sad.
~~~
For the past two days, all I have done is sleep. Sleep into oblivion to make the pain go away. Sleep to feel alone and at peace. Sleep so I can see Peeta, safe and healthy in a drug-induced dream world. Sleep, so that I don't have to face the district and the country that hates me. I would've slept the last two weeks away too, but they were spent being trailed by the press, who followed me to District Twelve. I was forced to attend required celebrations for my victory in the Games, where only high-ranking district officials were invited. Haymitch told me to look depressed as ever for the cameras, which wasn't hard in the slightest. So for two weeks, I only stayed awake for the cameras, the interviews, the food and the dancing at the feasts.
There were only two bright spots since I arrived back in my district. Parcel Day happened three days after I arrived back in District Twelve. It was a day when the children of the district were showered with gifts of food from the Capitol. Seeing the kids excited, seeing their cheeks filling up with food, carrying food home to their families, was the only time a true smile came to my lips since I arrived home.
The other good thing was seeing Madge again. Madge Undersee, the girl who gave me my mockingjay pin, the girl I would truly be making a friendship with now if not for her letting me sleep through what was supposed to be my preparations for the feasts. It didn't matter that I only ended up having ten minutes to actually get dressed and ready, but just having Madge there, holding me as I wept, stroking my hair as I cried out, was better than anything.
And now finally, the press have all packed up and gone home, the feasts have finished, and now there is no other official business for me to do. My mother, Prim, and I have moved into our house in the Victor's Village right next to Haymitch, and they have moved everything out of our old house in the Seam and into our new, large, richly furnished house. I would probably feel uncomfortable settling into a new house so different from my old one, but I don't even pay attention to it because the only thing I have become acquainted with is my bed.
And now, I should probably thank Haymitch for my current state of living. Because he was the one that immediately called Ripper, the one-armed trader in the Hob, asking for a box load of morphling drugs every month for one year. And now here I am, in bed, continuing to take morphling tablets. I have been taking them every few hours for the past two days.
XXX
Back on the train, Haymitch had told me about the morphling after I had woken up from my slumber, the following morning after leaving the Capitol. He had nudged me awake, and with the help of a Capitol attendant, led me out of my bed, from my bedroom, out into the hallway, and into the meal car. They set me down, and then Haymitch sat opposite from me and downed a glass of spirits.
"Want some?" he asked.
"Please," I replied. If I couldn't sleep, all I would want to do was drink myself into oblivion. He filled up my glass, and I took a long swig. After I had finished drinking the entire glass in a matter of seconds, Haymitch leaned across the table and offered me a bread roll.
"Hungry?" I nodded, and reached out my hand to take the bread from him. But before it was placed in my palm, the roll slipped out of his hand and fell onto the floor. Haymitch exchanged a quick glance with me, as if saying, We need to talk. Now. I assumed this had nothing to do with the bread roll now, and something that had to be whispered quickly and in secret under the table, because the train was probably bugged by the Capitol.
"Oh shoot," I said, already crouching down to grab the roll.
"Stupid girl, I'll get it," Haymitch said gruffly, then lowered himself onto the floor. As we searched for the roll, he whispered quickly, "That thing in the hospital I said was taken care of, it is. When you get home, there'll be a month's worth of morphling. And then another load every month for a year. Thank Ripper." And with that, I grabbed the roll near my feet, and climbed back up the side of table. We sat down, ate our food, and didn't say another word, which suited the both of us.
And now, as I wake up from another drug-filled coma, Haymitch would be the one to thank for giving me a way out of the world, but I can barely do it since I cannot even get out of my bed.
XXX
I groan as I wake up. I move my hands to my face, and rub my eyes. I shift my head around, but immediately shift it away from the window because the afternoon sunlight glares down on my face through the curtains. I lean down, trying to reach inside the box under my bed for some more morphling, but the door to my room opens. The person climbs up next to me on the bed, and leans her head on my shoulder. I do not even need to ask who it is; it's my younger sister, Primrose Everdeen.
"Katniss." Her voice is soft, beautiful like bells.
She strokes my hair. "Katniss, please talk to me." I just shake my head into my pillow, and take a deep breath. I feel terrible for shutting her out, but I can't let Prim in. I can't even open up to my younger sister, the young girl who I volunteered for at the reaping, the one girl I gave everything to protect, the girl who I have looked after all these years. I cannot even talk to her.
She kisses my forehead, and stops stroking my hair. "I'll talk to you later. Just go back to sleep now." As soon as she leaves the room, I grab a packet of morphling tablets, force them down my throat, then drift off into oblivion.
XXX
This goes on for another week. All I do is lie in bed and take morphling tablets, barely moving. I may not be functioning in the real world, but in the dream world, I am fully alive, constantly moving, always happy. We're back in the clouds again, me and Peeta. None of my family or Gale or Rue are there; it's just the two of us. It feels like years go by as we chase each other across the clouds, as we talk about everything and nothing at all, as we look around us at the clouds, as we look up as the sun rises in the morning and as the stars come up at night, and as we lie down next to each other, touching, caressing, and even kissing each other. I cannot stop looking into his blue eyes, I cannot stop touching him as we lie down, entwined as if we are two vines climbing up the side of a building. All that matters is that we are together, safe, and healthy. I don't think about anything, don't register anything else while I am with him, while I am consumed by the morphling.
Sometimes, when the effects of the morphling dissipates and I am drifting between both worlds, my mother comes into my room and coaxes water, fruit, some crackers, and anything else she can into me, but then I realize Peeta is there in the room with her as well, smiling at me, and then I feel like I'm just hallucinating.
During the week, Prim comes to my room every now and then, sleeping in my bed at night, trying to talk to me, or just stroking my hair. Since she is here for so long sometimes that I cannot take the morphling near her, I begin to realize that Haymitch hasn't called the house, and neither has Cinna, and that Madge hasn't come to visit, and neither has Gale.
Gale. Gale Hawthorne, my hunting partner. The boy who has been my best friend for four years, the boy I have exchanged all my secrets with (and vice versa), the only person who could get a smile out of me in my darkest hour. The boy I left behind in District 12. My right-hand man. He doesn't even come to my house to visit me, to see how I am doing. Sometimes I get the thought that maybe I should ask Prim why he doesn't come, but actually opening my mouth and letting out words is a whole other task to even try to fulfill.
The week melds into another, and another, and another, until a month has passed. All I have done for a month is lay in bed taking morphling tablets, the only real life I lead in my dreams with Peeta.
XXX
One morning, when the sun is shining too brightly on my face, when my clothes are sticking to my skin and I think my hair and body is beginning to stink, I hear the front door of the house opening. I think my mother answers the door, and she exchanges a few words with someone. I hear footsteps coming up the staircase, and then before I know it, the door to my room is opening. I don't turn my head, but the crunch of the boots on the floor says it all.
Gale's hands lightly turn me over on the bed so that I am facing him. I try not to look at him, and try to stare at the sunlight bursting through the window. But his gaze is too strong, the smell of the woods too strong, his presence too strong, until I finally have to look up at him. One look at his face, and I begin to cry.
Gale envelops me, holding me as I sob my heart out. I cry for Peeta, for having to kill him in the arena. I cry for the children in the arena who had to die, even if they were my foes. I cry for my father, and Gale's father, blown to bits in the mines. I cry, for I cannot get out of this bed, for I am stuck in this depression, for I am wishing I can die and be with Peeta, to be out of this horrible world and away from the terrible things in it. I cry for my guilt at killing him, and I cry for his family, who will never see him again, who had to watch me kill him on a television screen. I cry and cry and cry, sometimes choking on my tears, unable to breathe, my eyes bugging out of my head, gasping for air. I hold onto Gale as the waves of sobs rack my body so hard that I am wailing, so hard that my muscles and bones ache, so hard that I am making the sounds of my heartbreaking moans echo across the entire house. At one point, I scream out that I wish I had died in the arena, and Gale just grabs hold of me harder, stroking my hair. I embrace him back, holding on for dear life as I continue to sob my heart out.
After what seems to be like hours, I finally stop crying. Only little hiccups come out of me now, but my face and clothes are drenched in my salty tears, and I am coughing from sobbing so hard. Gale pushes me back a bit to give me some air to breathe, but still hugs me. His shirt and hunting jacket are drenched with my tears too, but he doesn't seem to mind. My mother opens the door and comes to me, removing me from Gale's embrace, but I begin thrashing around in her arms because my impulses are still as if I were in the arena, thinking another enemy has come to kill or torture me. But all she does is carry me to the bathroom, Gale helping her as I continue to thrash around. Once I am settled, he steps out of the bathroom and closes the door. When the door closes, I pick up my arms and let my mother remove my shirt, revealing my protruding ribs. After I am completely naked, she leads me to the bathtub, where the foamy water looks calm and inviting. As I lay in the water, she shampoos my hair, and sings a mountain song my father used to sing with me. I join in with her at one point, but I immediately stop because I am thrown into another round of coughing. After I am dried off, she puts me into warm pajamas and feeds me eggs and pancakes in bed. Gale is not in the room any longer, but that's okay, because I fall asleep in my mother's arms.
XXX
For the following week, I lie around in bed taking morphling tablets, eating, singing, crying, and sleeping. My mother sees me everyday, but doesn't force me to leave the room. She just comes to bathe me, feed me, and coax me into sleeping. She doesn't know that I have a supply of morphling under my bed, and hopefully she won't find out for a while. Gale visits me once during the week, and then on both Saturday and Sunday. During those times, my mother sets up a tray on my bed and together we skin the game and clean the greens he has gotten in the woods. We never talk, but just having each other there is enough. He doesn't ask if I'd like to go hunting in the woods like old times, because I think he knows that I will not be up to it; hunting deer or making snares will remind me too much of hunting tributes in the arena.
My sister visits me every day, and she reads to me from her history textbook she uses in school. I don't know why she reads that and not some story, but I don't care, because her voice lulls me to sleep most times. Madge finally has come by during the week, but I don't talk with her either. She usually brings along bowls of strawberries Gale has brought from the woods for us to eat, and some knitting supplies of her mother's to pass the time with. It is relaxing whenever Prim, Gale or Madge come to my room; sometimes, I feel more at peace with them than I do in my dreams with Peeta. It is refreshing, but not enough for me to truly leave this room and go outside to face a district that is angry with my last choice in the arena. I am still broken, and who knows if I will ever truly heal.
One day in late July, Prim asks me, "Katniss, do you want to read the rest of the chapter?" She moves the textbook slightly towards me. I shake my head, but she just asks again. "Do you want to read from the textbook?" I shake my head again, but this time, she says, "Please read it, Katniss. Read it for me." She points to a picture of an old map. I look up at her, her eyes pleading with me. And without further questioning, I take the book from her hands, but only because the look in her eyes remind me too much of Rue's as we talked on the day we became allies, eating groosling over the fire.
I smooth out the page and begin reading. My voice is croaky at first, and I go through a fit of coughing, but finally, I can speak, even if my voice sounds hoarse. "The government of North America was different than the government of Panem…" I keep reading, wanting to know more details about this different kind of government, but of course the textbook does not give further information. I don't know if it's because people can't remember what exactly the government was like, no one cares, or the Capitol doesn't want dissent among the districts if this government actually was a better system than the one we have now. I suspect it is a combination of all three.
I lose myself in reading, because I don't feel like myself anymore. I am enraptured by the book's words; my depression, stress, and the weight of living through every day have seemed to be lifted off my shoulders. I only know what the textbook tells me, and I don't think about the problems facing my life right now; I almost feel happy. When I am done reading the chapter, Prim cuddles into my shoulder and sighs before closing her blue eyes. But for the first time since she has read her book to me, she falls asleep before I do.
~~~~~~~
Yep, sad, right? Okay then, Chapter Five should be up soon!
Author:
Summary: What if Katniss didn't have the berries at the end of the 74th Hunger Games? Would there be two victors, or one? Victory isn't so sweet for the winner of the 74th Hunger Games. Katniss/Peeta, rated T for PG-13 content and depression.
Rating: T
Pairing: Katniss/Peeta
Category: Romance/Tragedy
Hey everyone! Here's Chapter Four! This is basically a stepping stone to the rest of the chapters taking place in District Twelve. I think I enjoyed writing the previous two chapters more, tbh. But, this chapter is really sad. Really sad.
~~~
For the past two days, all I have done is sleep. Sleep into oblivion to make the pain go away. Sleep to feel alone and at peace. Sleep so I can see Peeta, safe and healthy in a drug-induced dream world. Sleep, so that I don't have to face the district and the country that hates me. I would've slept the last two weeks away too, but they were spent being trailed by the press, who followed me to District Twelve. I was forced to attend required celebrations for my victory in the Games, where only high-ranking district officials were invited. Haymitch told me to look depressed as ever for the cameras, which wasn't hard in the slightest. So for two weeks, I only stayed awake for the cameras, the interviews, the food and the dancing at the feasts.
There were only two bright spots since I arrived back in my district. Parcel Day happened three days after I arrived back in District Twelve. It was a day when the children of the district were showered with gifts of food from the Capitol. Seeing the kids excited, seeing their cheeks filling up with food, carrying food home to their families, was the only time a true smile came to my lips since I arrived home.
The other good thing was seeing Madge again. Madge Undersee, the girl who gave me my mockingjay pin, the girl I would truly be making a friendship with now if not for her letting me sleep through what was supposed to be my preparations for the feasts. It didn't matter that I only ended up having ten minutes to actually get dressed and ready, but just having Madge there, holding me as I wept, stroking my hair as I cried out, was better than anything.
And now finally, the press have all packed up and gone home, the feasts have finished, and now there is no other official business for me to do. My mother, Prim, and I have moved into our house in the Victor's Village right next to Haymitch, and they have moved everything out of our old house in the Seam and into our new, large, richly furnished house. I would probably feel uncomfortable settling into a new house so different from my old one, but I don't even pay attention to it because the only thing I have become acquainted with is my bed.
And now, I should probably thank Haymitch for my current state of living. Because he was the one that immediately called Ripper, the one-armed trader in the Hob, asking for a box load of morphling drugs every month for one year. And now here I am, in bed, continuing to take morphling tablets. I have been taking them every few hours for the past two days.
XXX
Back on the train, Haymitch had told me about the morphling after I had woken up from my slumber, the following morning after leaving the Capitol. He had nudged me awake, and with the help of a Capitol attendant, led me out of my bed, from my bedroom, out into the hallway, and into the meal car. They set me down, and then Haymitch sat opposite from me and downed a glass of spirits.
"Want some?" he asked.
"Please," I replied. If I couldn't sleep, all I would want to do was drink myself into oblivion. He filled up my glass, and I took a long swig. After I had finished drinking the entire glass in a matter of seconds, Haymitch leaned across the table and offered me a bread roll.
"Hungry?" I nodded, and reached out my hand to take the bread from him. But before it was placed in my palm, the roll slipped out of his hand and fell onto the floor. Haymitch exchanged a quick glance with me, as if saying, We need to talk. Now. I assumed this had nothing to do with the bread roll now, and something that had to be whispered quickly and in secret under the table, because the train was probably bugged by the Capitol.
"Oh shoot," I said, already crouching down to grab the roll.
"Stupid girl, I'll get it," Haymitch said gruffly, then lowered himself onto the floor. As we searched for the roll, he whispered quickly, "That thing in the hospital I said was taken care of, it is. When you get home, there'll be a month's worth of morphling. And then another load every month for a year. Thank Ripper." And with that, I grabbed the roll near my feet, and climbed back up the side of table. We sat down, ate our food, and didn't say another word, which suited the both of us.
And now, as I wake up from another drug-filled coma, Haymitch would be the one to thank for giving me a way out of the world, but I can barely do it since I cannot even get out of my bed.
XXX
I groan as I wake up. I move my hands to my face, and rub my eyes. I shift my head around, but immediately shift it away from the window because the afternoon sunlight glares down on my face through the curtains. I lean down, trying to reach inside the box under my bed for some more morphling, but the door to my room opens. The person climbs up next to me on the bed, and leans her head on my shoulder. I do not even need to ask who it is; it's my younger sister, Primrose Everdeen.
"Katniss." Her voice is soft, beautiful like bells.
She strokes my hair. "Katniss, please talk to me." I just shake my head into my pillow, and take a deep breath. I feel terrible for shutting her out, but I can't let Prim in. I can't even open up to my younger sister, the young girl who I volunteered for at the reaping, the one girl I gave everything to protect, the girl who I have looked after all these years. I cannot even talk to her.
She kisses my forehead, and stops stroking my hair. "I'll talk to you later. Just go back to sleep now." As soon as she leaves the room, I grab a packet of morphling tablets, force them down my throat, then drift off into oblivion.
XXX
This goes on for another week. All I do is lie in bed and take morphling tablets, barely moving. I may not be functioning in the real world, but in the dream world, I am fully alive, constantly moving, always happy. We're back in the clouds again, me and Peeta. None of my family or Gale or Rue are there; it's just the two of us. It feels like years go by as we chase each other across the clouds, as we talk about everything and nothing at all, as we look around us at the clouds, as we look up as the sun rises in the morning and as the stars come up at night, and as we lie down next to each other, touching, caressing, and even kissing each other. I cannot stop looking into his blue eyes, I cannot stop touching him as we lie down, entwined as if we are two vines climbing up the side of a building. All that matters is that we are together, safe, and healthy. I don't think about anything, don't register anything else while I am with him, while I am consumed by the morphling.
Sometimes, when the effects of the morphling dissipates and I am drifting between both worlds, my mother comes into my room and coaxes water, fruit, some crackers, and anything else she can into me, but then I realize Peeta is there in the room with her as well, smiling at me, and then I feel like I'm just hallucinating.
During the week, Prim comes to my room every now and then, sleeping in my bed at night, trying to talk to me, or just stroking my hair. Since she is here for so long sometimes that I cannot take the morphling near her, I begin to realize that Haymitch hasn't called the house, and neither has Cinna, and that Madge hasn't come to visit, and neither has Gale.
Gale. Gale Hawthorne, my hunting partner. The boy who has been my best friend for four years, the boy I have exchanged all my secrets with (and vice versa), the only person who could get a smile out of me in my darkest hour. The boy I left behind in District 12. My right-hand man. He doesn't even come to my house to visit me, to see how I am doing. Sometimes I get the thought that maybe I should ask Prim why he doesn't come, but actually opening my mouth and letting out words is a whole other task to even try to fulfill.
The week melds into another, and another, and another, until a month has passed. All I have done for a month is lay in bed taking morphling tablets, the only real life I lead in my dreams with Peeta.
XXX
One morning, when the sun is shining too brightly on my face, when my clothes are sticking to my skin and I think my hair and body is beginning to stink, I hear the front door of the house opening. I think my mother answers the door, and she exchanges a few words with someone. I hear footsteps coming up the staircase, and then before I know it, the door to my room is opening. I don't turn my head, but the crunch of the boots on the floor says it all.
Gale's hands lightly turn me over on the bed so that I am facing him. I try not to look at him, and try to stare at the sunlight bursting through the window. But his gaze is too strong, the smell of the woods too strong, his presence too strong, until I finally have to look up at him. One look at his face, and I begin to cry.
Gale envelops me, holding me as I sob my heart out. I cry for Peeta, for having to kill him in the arena. I cry for the children in the arena who had to die, even if they were my foes. I cry for my father, and Gale's father, blown to bits in the mines. I cry, for I cannot get out of this bed, for I am stuck in this depression, for I am wishing I can die and be with Peeta, to be out of this horrible world and away from the terrible things in it. I cry for my guilt at killing him, and I cry for his family, who will never see him again, who had to watch me kill him on a television screen. I cry and cry and cry, sometimes choking on my tears, unable to breathe, my eyes bugging out of my head, gasping for air. I hold onto Gale as the waves of sobs rack my body so hard that I am wailing, so hard that my muscles and bones ache, so hard that I am making the sounds of my heartbreaking moans echo across the entire house. At one point, I scream out that I wish I had died in the arena, and Gale just grabs hold of me harder, stroking my hair. I embrace him back, holding on for dear life as I continue to sob my heart out.
After what seems to be like hours, I finally stop crying. Only little hiccups come out of me now, but my face and clothes are drenched in my salty tears, and I am coughing from sobbing so hard. Gale pushes me back a bit to give me some air to breathe, but still hugs me. His shirt and hunting jacket are drenched with my tears too, but he doesn't seem to mind. My mother opens the door and comes to me, removing me from Gale's embrace, but I begin thrashing around in her arms because my impulses are still as if I were in the arena, thinking another enemy has come to kill or torture me. But all she does is carry me to the bathroom, Gale helping her as I continue to thrash around. Once I am settled, he steps out of the bathroom and closes the door. When the door closes, I pick up my arms and let my mother remove my shirt, revealing my protruding ribs. After I am completely naked, she leads me to the bathtub, where the foamy water looks calm and inviting. As I lay in the water, she shampoos my hair, and sings a mountain song my father used to sing with me. I join in with her at one point, but I immediately stop because I am thrown into another round of coughing. After I am dried off, she puts me into warm pajamas and feeds me eggs and pancakes in bed. Gale is not in the room any longer, but that's okay, because I fall asleep in my mother's arms.
XXX
For the following week, I lie around in bed taking morphling tablets, eating, singing, crying, and sleeping. My mother sees me everyday, but doesn't force me to leave the room. She just comes to bathe me, feed me, and coax me into sleeping. She doesn't know that I have a supply of morphling under my bed, and hopefully she won't find out for a while. Gale visits me once during the week, and then on both Saturday and Sunday. During those times, my mother sets up a tray on my bed and together we skin the game and clean the greens he has gotten in the woods. We never talk, but just having each other there is enough. He doesn't ask if I'd like to go hunting in the woods like old times, because I think he knows that I will not be up to it; hunting deer or making snares will remind me too much of hunting tributes in the arena.
My sister visits me every day, and she reads to me from her history textbook she uses in school. I don't know why she reads that and not some story, but I don't care, because her voice lulls me to sleep most times. Madge finally has come by during the week, but I don't talk with her either. She usually brings along bowls of strawberries Gale has brought from the woods for us to eat, and some knitting supplies of her mother's to pass the time with. It is relaxing whenever Prim, Gale or Madge come to my room; sometimes, I feel more at peace with them than I do in my dreams with Peeta. It is refreshing, but not enough for me to truly leave this room and go outside to face a district that is angry with my last choice in the arena. I am still broken, and who knows if I will ever truly heal.
One day in late July, Prim asks me, "Katniss, do you want to read the rest of the chapter?" She moves the textbook slightly towards me. I shake my head, but she just asks again. "Do you want to read from the textbook?" I shake my head again, but this time, she says, "Please read it, Katniss. Read it for me." She points to a picture of an old map. I look up at her, her eyes pleading with me. And without further questioning, I take the book from her hands, but only because the look in her eyes remind me too much of Rue's as we talked on the day we became allies, eating groosling over the fire.
I smooth out the page and begin reading. My voice is croaky at first, and I go through a fit of coughing, but finally, I can speak, even if my voice sounds hoarse. "The government of North America was different than the government of Panem…" I keep reading, wanting to know more details about this different kind of government, but of course the textbook does not give further information. I don't know if it's because people can't remember what exactly the government was like, no one cares, or the Capitol doesn't want dissent among the districts if this government actually was a better system than the one we have now. I suspect it is a combination of all three.
I lose myself in reading, because I don't feel like myself anymore. I am enraptured by the book's words; my depression, stress, and the weight of living through every day have seemed to be lifted off my shoulders. I only know what the textbook tells me, and I don't think about the problems facing my life right now; I almost feel happy. When I am done reading the chapter, Prim cuddles into my shoulder and sighs before closing her blue eyes. But for the first time since she has read her book to me, she falls asleep before I do.
~~~~~~~
Yep, sad, right? Okay then, Chapter Five should be up soon!