Hunger Games fic - "A Fraction of the Light that Remains" (1/?)
I'm not dead, I'm writing. And reading. And teaching (sometimes). And job hunting (see last statement).
But, you won't believe it! Fic! But, don't worry, it's weird fic like usual...Also, there's math. Also, Also...multi-chaptered. So there is MORE.
Enjoy!
Spoilers through Mockingjay. This takes place after the epilogue.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games. I could be witty about not owning it, but that seems awfully clichéd by now.
Beta'd by the lovely yatsuka and dearest BookstoreCat. :)
A Fraction of the Light that Remains
sciathan file
Part 1
The truth is that even though she doesn't much like school to begin with, she might have tried to pay attention had it not been for the blue sky outside and the promise of dandelions blooming in the meadow. Really, she just wants to be away and "away" means out in the fields, running. So when the teacher calls her up to the board and hands her the piece of chalk, everything is just numbers separated by lines that mean nothing to her. Time drags on and the only move she makes is to frown more, eliciting a few quickly stifled giggles from classmates wriggling in their seats.
Finally, because she is sure that it won't make sense and because she doesn't want to figure it out, she sets her jaw and places the chalk on the ledge of the board.
"I don't want to do it," she announces.
The whole class is laughing now and she feels her cheeks flush. Avoiding Mrs. Argall's stern expression, she marches back to her desk. She doesn't so much as glance at anyone else. She simply spends the rest of the day stubbornly staring out the window. She thinks she hasn't done anything wrong, although her teacher doesn't see it that way. Unfortunately, while her behavior would normally merit a note she could "lose" on her way back to the Village, the school and her house are two of the few places in District 12 that have phones.
And apparently Mrs. Argall intends to take advantage of that fact.
Mrs. Argall directs her to remain seated at her desk while she fumbles to find the paper where her father wrote her home number at the beginning of the year. Then Mrs. Argall fumbles with the number pad before shouting too loudly at whoever happens to pick up the phone in her house (She hopes its not Uncle Haymitch. He gets even grumpier when people yell at him. Especially in the morning.).
The teacher then tells her to wait until someone comes for her and she's instructed to go over her work again. It makes no more sense on paper than it does on the board, though. Instead she uses the worksheet to draw pictures of plants and birds and Uncle Haymitch's geese chasing after her little brother.
It's her father who comes.
He's tired from the walk and there are traces of green paint under his nails-it's still splattered up his arm and stains a rolled cuff of his shirt. She knows from the paint that she's interrupted work on the Plant Book, which means that it is definitely not a Good Day. ("Therapy" is what Uncle Haymitch calls it. But that must be an Uncle Haymitch only thing because the one time she talks about the book this way with her parents Uncle Haymitch got in trouble. And she hates getting in trouble because Uncle Haymitch doesn't let her play with the geese.).
Mrs. Argall calls her Daddy "Mr. Mellark" and talks to him in the quiet way adults do when they want something from you but won't ever tell you what it is. People always seem to talk to her parents this way, though. Her father is polite, as always, and smiles at Mrs. Argall even though she can tell he'd rather be at home painting. They talk about her in serious adult voices as if she isn't three desks away, but their conversation is full of explanations and questions that bore her. It's the type of conversation that Uncle Haymitch says she should stop listening to while she still can because, in the long run, she'll be a happier kid…not that she knows what that means.
She's about to finish shading the wings of a butterfly perched over problem #4 when a glance at her father's face distracts her. At first, she thinks he looks very tired. But then she remembers last night and thinks that maybe it is not just that.
Last night she was awoken by the familiar sounds of her mother's muffled shouts and the soft murmur of her father's voice. Nightmares, she knows, like the ones she sometimes has. Only Mommy's seem worse. And this morning it was only Daddy who brushed and braided her hair into its two neat plaits and only Daddy who sat with her, quietly eating left over orange rolls-her favorite-as her little brother babbled. Her mother only waved from the door, her hair loose, as Daddy carried her little brother to Uncle Haymitch's house and she left for school.
His grip on her hand as they walked to school together this morning had been just a little bit tighter than usual. Kind of like how his grip on the desk in front of him is tightening now. It strikes her that she really should have known it is not a Good Day sooner. She has the good grace to glance over her doodles with a little remorse.
Not caring about the content of the adult conversation or even if she is interrupting, she stands up and announces, "Daddy, it is time to go home now."
Mrs. Argall has stopped mid-sentence and is frowning, glancing from father to daughter.
In the force of her teacher's glare, she remembers her mother's warning that she does not want to end up like Uncle Haymitch, so she should have some manners. In deference to decorum she turns to Mrs. Argall and says, "I'm sorry for my behavior Mrs. Argall, but I need to go home now."
Her little brow furrowing at the concession she is about to make, she adds, "I promise I will be better tomorrow."
Before the teacher can argue-Mrs. Argall seems to like arguing-she grabs for her father's hand and he just shrugs at the older woman and says, "You can hold her to that."
He gives his daughter a meaningful look.
"I'll make sure she keeps her promise, too."
As they pass the newly sprouted shops in the Town's square, she notices that her father keeps a tight grip on her hand all the way home. Almost, she will think much later in her life, as if he knows that the solidity of her hand in his means that she is really real.
He pauses once, releasing her hand in order to cling to an old fence. She waits patiently, as her mother has told her to do when Daddy gets tired, watching as he shuts his eyes tightly for a few moments and takes several deep breaths. Again, she feels bad because she thinks that his leg probably hurts from walking all the way to the school in town. But without explanation, he seems strangely fine again and they walk on.
When they get home, her mother's hunting jacket is not hanging on its normal peg, so she knows she is out in her woods somewhere. Her brother, too, is absent and probably still at Uncle Haymitch's house.
Her father still says nothing. She wonders if, for a second, he might scold her…or, worse, show that he is disappointed in her.
She'd rather have the anger than the disappointment.
She bites her lip as her father roots around the kitchen and deposits various items into an old cake box. For a moment, she fears that he has forgotten all about her and that is her punishment. But then, he places the box on the table with a small sack of flour and turns to her.
"You'll need your schoolwork," he tells her seriously (but she breathes a sigh of relief because in his voice is only a hint of disappointment), "you made a promise today. Don't you think it's important that you keep it?"
She retrieves the doodle-covered page-he raises his eyebrows when he sees what she's drawn-and then, without comment, he is pulling out a chair from the table and gesturing for her to come sit on his lap. For the first time, she notices that the box is full of baking equipment. But there must be some mistake: cakes only happen on Special Days when she has behaved herself.
Then, one by one, he pulls out the set of metal measuring cups and puts them in a line in front of her from small to large. He picks up the largest one.
"This is one whole cup. When we bake a birthday cake this is the big measuring unit we use for things we need a lot of, like flour."
He turns the doodle-covered paper over and writes a "1."
"But," he continues, "Even if your little brother tries, we don't want to put a whole cup of sugar into our cake because then it wouldn't taste very nice."
She nods and tries to follow where he wants her to go.
"So we need to put less…" She says haltingly. "So…that's why you have to use the small cups."
Her father turns the paper back over and for the first time she sees that the numbers and lines on her schoolwork are the same as the numbers on the sides of her father's measuring cups.
"We need a fraction of the amount of the flour," he explains, using the same word that she's heard Mrs. Argall fling around. She gathers it means the small pieces and it is because that is #5 (just visible under the geese flying through it). Her father dips the "1/4" cup and the "3/4" cup into the bag of flour and then, raising a small cloud as he does so, he carefully dumps them into the big 1 cup.
She stares for a moment, scrutinizing the numbers on the sides of the cups. Combined, the two smaller cups hold the same amount as the big whole cup. She has to think very hard about lines and numbers and what it all means for a moment.
"So," she tries, "even if we break the cup into pieces, we can add the pieces back up to make a, um, whole one."
He squeezes her shoulders.
"You've got it. Do you think you can do these?" He gestures to her schoolwork, his fingers come to rest over her butterfly. "I think Mrs. Argall would be happier if you'd copy it onto a new sheet, though."
Together they go through each of the problems, her father explaining when she gets stuck, and her filling up the measuring cups when she needs to see it. (Small hills of flour are testaments to the ones she gets wrong). When they finish, he brings out the top layer of a new cake flavor he's been perfecting and after dividing it up they eat exactly 2/8ths of it.
As she works her small family comes back together.
Her mother returns first. She's better than this morning and it is her who scolds her daughter for her behavior in class. Then her mother turns and scolds her father for giving her cake before dinner. Both father and daughter both pretend not to notice when a further 1/8th of it goes missing while a rabbit stew is still simmering on the stove.
Uncle Haymitch and her brother are the last to arrive, her brother riding piggyback on his uncle's shoulders. Both have feathers in their hair from chasing the geese during the course of the day. Her mother relays her behavior in disapproving tones and Uncle Haymitch just laughs and receives a dirty look from her as she stirs the stew.
"Sounds like someone else I know, sweetheart."
Uncle Haymitch takes a piece of cake before dinner with no remorse whatsoever.
"4/8ths" she states smugly, feeling very wise.
"1/2," corrects Uncle Haymitch, his mouth so full that crumbs fly out. "Kids these days sure are getting stupid."
She would protest that she's not-she's smart-but her mother protests for her. There's a resounding thwack as her mother smacks him. A moment later her brother says "Not 'pposed to hit people, Momma."
Her mother stirs the stew as if it is an enemy.
"Uncle Haymitch is an exception."
She notices that her father is trying very hard not to laugh and that her brother's face is screwed up in confusion at the changes in the Rules of Life as he knows them. One day, she knows, her mother will regret saying that because if she knows her little brother-and she does-it'll come back to haunt her.
"Don't worry," her uncle winks at her brother, ruffling his hair. "Not the worst your mother's done to me…once she threw a knife at me."
Retribution from her mother's hand is swift and loud. For a moment, she has no doubt that her mother once threw a knife at Uncle Haymitch, but all he really does in response to his punishment is to laugh all the harder. Eventually, as he always does, her father intervenes and somehow they all sit down around the kitchen table civilly and eat stew and big fluffy rolls.
And, just like this, the Bad Day ebbs away and is replaced by something not quite Good (she knows Good Days are in her mother's singing and her father's frosting and Uncle Haymitch's clear eyes, most of which aren't here today), but something better.
Stay tuned for more...
But, you won't believe it! Fic! But, don't worry, it's weird fic like usual...Also, there's math. Also, Also...multi-chaptered. So there is MORE.
Enjoy!
Spoilers through Mockingjay. This takes place after the epilogue.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games. I could be witty about not owning it, but that seems awfully clichéd by now.
Beta'd by the lovely yatsuka and dearest BookstoreCat. :)
A Fraction of the Light that Remains
sciathan file
Part 1
The truth is that even though she doesn't much like school to begin with, she might have tried to pay attention had it not been for the blue sky outside and the promise of dandelions blooming in the meadow. Really, she just wants to be away and "away" means out in the fields, running. So when the teacher calls her up to the board and hands her the piece of chalk, everything is just numbers separated by lines that mean nothing to her. Time drags on and the only move she makes is to frown more, eliciting a few quickly stifled giggles from classmates wriggling in their seats.
Finally, because she is sure that it won't make sense and because she doesn't want to figure it out, she sets her jaw and places the chalk on the ledge of the board.
"I don't want to do it," she announces.
The whole class is laughing now and she feels her cheeks flush. Avoiding Mrs. Argall's stern expression, she marches back to her desk. She doesn't so much as glance at anyone else. She simply spends the rest of the day stubbornly staring out the window. She thinks she hasn't done anything wrong, although her teacher doesn't see it that way. Unfortunately, while her behavior would normally merit a note she could "lose" on her way back to the Village, the school and her house are two of the few places in District 12 that have phones.
And apparently Mrs. Argall intends to take advantage of that fact.
Mrs. Argall directs her to remain seated at her desk while she fumbles to find the paper where her father wrote her home number at the beginning of the year. Then Mrs. Argall fumbles with the number pad before shouting too loudly at whoever happens to pick up the phone in her house (She hopes its not Uncle Haymitch. He gets even grumpier when people yell at him. Especially in the morning.).
The teacher then tells her to wait until someone comes for her and she's instructed to go over her work again. It makes no more sense on paper than it does on the board, though. Instead she uses the worksheet to draw pictures of plants and birds and Uncle Haymitch's geese chasing after her little brother.
It's her father who comes.
He's tired from the walk and there are traces of green paint under his nails-it's still splattered up his arm and stains a rolled cuff of his shirt. She knows from the paint that she's interrupted work on the Plant Book, which means that it is definitely not a Good Day. ("Therapy" is what Uncle Haymitch calls it. But that must be an Uncle Haymitch only thing because the one time she talks about the book this way with her parents Uncle Haymitch got in trouble. And she hates getting in trouble because Uncle Haymitch doesn't let her play with the geese.).
Mrs. Argall calls her Daddy "Mr. Mellark" and talks to him in the quiet way adults do when they want something from you but won't ever tell you what it is. People always seem to talk to her parents this way, though. Her father is polite, as always, and smiles at Mrs. Argall even though she can tell he'd rather be at home painting. They talk about her in serious adult voices as if she isn't three desks away, but their conversation is full of explanations and questions that bore her. It's the type of conversation that Uncle Haymitch says she should stop listening to while she still can because, in the long run, she'll be a happier kid…not that she knows what that means.
She's about to finish shading the wings of a butterfly perched over problem #4 when a glance at her father's face distracts her. At first, she thinks he looks very tired. But then she remembers last night and thinks that maybe it is not just that.
Last night she was awoken by the familiar sounds of her mother's muffled shouts and the soft murmur of her father's voice. Nightmares, she knows, like the ones she sometimes has. Only Mommy's seem worse. And this morning it was only Daddy who brushed and braided her hair into its two neat plaits and only Daddy who sat with her, quietly eating left over orange rolls-her favorite-as her little brother babbled. Her mother only waved from the door, her hair loose, as Daddy carried her little brother to Uncle Haymitch's house and she left for school.
His grip on her hand as they walked to school together this morning had been just a little bit tighter than usual. Kind of like how his grip on the desk in front of him is tightening now. It strikes her that she really should have known it is not a Good Day sooner. She has the good grace to glance over her doodles with a little remorse.
Not caring about the content of the adult conversation or even if she is interrupting, she stands up and announces, "Daddy, it is time to go home now."
Mrs. Argall has stopped mid-sentence and is frowning, glancing from father to daughter.
In the force of her teacher's glare, she remembers her mother's warning that she does not want to end up like Uncle Haymitch, so she should have some manners. In deference to decorum she turns to Mrs. Argall and says, "I'm sorry for my behavior Mrs. Argall, but I need to go home now."
Her little brow furrowing at the concession she is about to make, she adds, "I promise I will be better tomorrow."
Before the teacher can argue-Mrs. Argall seems to like arguing-she grabs for her father's hand and he just shrugs at the older woman and says, "You can hold her to that."
He gives his daughter a meaningful look.
"I'll make sure she keeps her promise, too."
As they pass the newly sprouted shops in the Town's square, she notices that her father keeps a tight grip on her hand all the way home. Almost, she will think much later in her life, as if he knows that the solidity of her hand in his means that she is really real.
He pauses once, releasing her hand in order to cling to an old fence. She waits patiently, as her mother has told her to do when Daddy gets tired, watching as he shuts his eyes tightly for a few moments and takes several deep breaths. Again, she feels bad because she thinks that his leg probably hurts from walking all the way to the school in town. But without explanation, he seems strangely fine again and they walk on.
When they get home, her mother's hunting jacket is not hanging on its normal peg, so she knows she is out in her woods somewhere. Her brother, too, is absent and probably still at Uncle Haymitch's house.
Her father still says nothing. She wonders if, for a second, he might scold her…or, worse, show that he is disappointed in her.
She'd rather have the anger than the disappointment.
She bites her lip as her father roots around the kitchen and deposits various items into an old cake box. For a moment, she fears that he has forgotten all about her and that is her punishment. But then, he places the box on the table with a small sack of flour and turns to her.
"You'll need your schoolwork," he tells her seriously (but she breathes a sigh of relief because in his voice is only a hint of disappointment), "you made a promise today. Don't you think it's important that you keep it?"
She retrieves the doodle-covered page-he raises his eyebrows when he sees what she's drawn-and then, without comment, he is pulling out a chair from the table and gesturing for her to come sit on his lap. For the first time, she notices that the box is full of baking equipment. But there must be some mistake: cakes only happen on Special Days when she has behaved herself.
Then, one by one, he pulls out the set of metal measuring cups and puts them in a line in front of her from small to large. He picks up the largest one.
"This is one whole cup. When we bake a birthday cake this is the big measuring unit we use for things we need a lot of, like flour."
He turns the doodle-covered paper over and writes a "1."
"But," he continues, "Even if your little brother tries, we don't want to put a whole cup of sugar into our cake because then it wouldn't taste very nice."
She nods and tries to follow where he wants her to go.
"So we need to put less…" She says haltingly. "So…that's why you have to use the small cups."
Her father turns the paper back over and for the first time she sees that the numbers and lines on her schoolwork are the same as the numbers on the sides of her father's measuring cups.
"We need a fraction of the amount of the flour," he explains, using the same word that she's heard Mrs. Argall fling around. She gathers it means the small pieces and it is because that is #5 (just visible under the geese flying through it). Her father dips the "1/4" cup and the "3/4" cup into the bag of flour and then, raising a small cloud as he does so, he carefully dumps them into the big 1 cup.
She stares for a moment, scrutinizing the numbers on the sides of the cups. Combined, the two smaller cups hold the same amount as the big whole cup. She has to think very hard about lines and numbers and what it all means for a moment.
"So," she tries, "even if we break the cup into pieces, we can add the pieces back up to make a, um, whole one."
He squeezes her shoulders.
"You've got it. Do you think you can do these?" He gestures to her schoolwork, his fingers come to rest over her butterfly. "I think Mrs. Argall would be happier if you'd copy it onto a new sheet, though."
Together they go through each of the problems, her father explaining when she gets stuck, and her filling up the measuring cups when she needs to see it. (Small hills of flour are testaments to the ones she gets wrong). When they finish, he brings out the top layer of a new cake flavor he's been perfecting and after dividing it up they eat exactly 2/8ths of it.
As she works her small family comes back together.
Her mother returns first. She's better than this morning and it is her who scolds her daughter for her behavior in class. Then her mother turns and scolds her father for giving her cake before dinner. Both father and daughter both pretend not to notice when a further 1/8th of it goes missing while a rabbit stew is still simmering on the stove.
Uncle Haymitch and her brother are the last to arrive, her brother riding piggyback on his uncle's shoulders. Both have feathers in their hair from chasing the geese during the course of the day. Her mother relays her behavior in disapproving tones and Uncle Haymitch just laughs and receives a dirty look from her as she stirs the stew.
"Sounds like someone else I know, sweetheart."
Uncle Haymitch takes a piece of cake before dinner with no remorse whatsoever.
"4/8ths" she states smugly, feeling very wise.
"1/2," corrects Uncle Haymitch, his mouth so full that crumbs fly out. "Kids these days sure are getting stupid."
She would protest that she's not-she's smart-but her mother protests for her. There's a resounding thwack as her mother smacks him. A moment later her brother says "Not 'pposed to hit people, Momma."
Her mother stirs the stew as if it is an enemy.
"Uncle Haymitch is an exception."
She notices that her father is trying very hard not to laugh and that her brother's face is screwed up in confusion at the changes in the Rules of Life as he knows them. One day, she knows, her mother will regret saying that because if she knows her little brother-and she does-it'll come back to haunt her.
"Don't worry," her uncle winks at her brother, ruffling his hair. "Not the worst your mother's done to me…once she threw a knife at me."
Retribution from her mother's hand is swift and loud. For a moment, she has no doubt that her mother once threw a knife at Uncle Haymitch, but all he really does in response to his punishment is to laugh all the harder. Eventually, as he always does, her father intervenes and somehow they all sit down around the kitchen table civilly and eat stew and big fluffy rolls.
And, just like this, the Bad Day ebbs away and is replaced by something not quite Good (she knows Good Days are in her mother's singing and her father's frosting and Uncle Haymitch's clear eyes, most of which aren't here today), but something better.
Stay tuned for more...