Work Text:
Merrilee misses the beginning of the name so that she only hears –lee and Donner and in a dull animal panic she hopes it’s her, it has to be her, she has to be the one who gets to go and die and be done and gone, she can’t be the one who has to stay and watch.
They say Prim’s name and the future unfolds in front of her in an awful glowing path. She will walk to the stage and stand on the stage and they will see her weeping, because she will be weeping. They will send her to the Capitol and know that she will not be coming back. They will make Mama and Katniss watch her on the screen sitting with Caesar Flickerman, who will look at her how he looks at all the twelve year olds, with a kind of dreadful knowing pity in the corners of his eyes. They will send her to the arena and know that she will not be coming out. They will make Mama and Katniss watch her on the screen as she dies. They will make her die alone, far away from home.
Prim takes one step. Two steps. Small steps. Stay upright.
She sets her shoulders straight as a statue — there are two of those in Twelve, built in some long ago time before the district’s fate was sealed, and Merrilee thinks they’re beautiful, though they’re crumbling, though Maysilee disagrees — and starts preparing what she’ll say. She was holding her sister and Asterid’s hands so hard her fingers ached, and now she’s holding Asterid’s hand so hard her fingers don’t feel the ache anymore. Her free left hand won’t uncurl. Asterid is sobbing, and Merrilee knows she’s crying too, but her face is as numb as her hands as her body.
Sometimes when she’s walking Merrilee will see a rabbit — the fence is supposed to keep them out, but the rabbits are smarter than the people who put up the fence — and the rabbit will see Merrilee, and the rabbit will stop like a statue. Like standing still is its only defense. Like if it doesn’t move for long enough maybe the predator will forget it’s alive.
Twelve is a place made up of prey animals. Merrilee is no exception.
Prim doesn’t hear her name at first because she doesn’t hear anything; she’s too focused on one foot after the other, one foot after the other. Fists at her sides. Mama told her once that the first time she walked she was walking toward Katniss. Fitting that her last steps should be walking away. She wants to look back but she can’t because if she looks back she will run and if she runs they will shoot her and if she makes them shoot her they will take Katniss and Mama too.
She hears the second scream — ugly, ragged — Mama screamed that way when the foreman came to the families clustered in front of the mines with his hat clutched to his chest and shook his head, but Mama’s scream was noise and this one is a word. “Prim!”
This is the second time today that Prim’s name has reached into her insides and torn something precious out.
No goodbyes for these people, snarls Drusilla Sickle, and Merrilee wants to — to tear off that hideous hat and rip out her hair at the root, to bash her face in with a rock. She doesn’t know what to do with the anger. Merrilee has never had anger of her own; Merrilee lets Maysilee carry their anger; Merrilee didn’t know till now how heavy and hot anger is.
Katniss says I volunteer and Prim wants to kill her. “No, Katniss!” Prim wants to kill her so she dies on her own soil, so she can hold her as she dies. Prim is making animal noises now. Sounds she didn’t know could come out of her, a language she just learned to speak. She is clinging to Katniss’s back and holding her back and she can feel Katniss’s anger on her skin but that’s fine: if Katniss is angry, Katniss isn’t gone; if Katniss isn’t gone, Katniss isn’t dead. “No! You can’t go!”
“Prim, let go,” Katniss says, sharp. “Let go!”
Prim won’t, Prim wouldn’t, if Prim could she would hold Katniss forever even if Katniss dragged her to the Capitol, but then there’s Gale and his strong arms, lifting her up and holding her fast. Gale has hugged her, has carried her, has held her up so she could reach a higher branch on the peach tree. Gale is her big brother by all but blood. Prim will never forgive him for this, for taking her from her. “Up you go, Catnip,” says Gale, and Prim would bite him if she could reach; she’s sure she’s raising scratches on his arms.
Katniss walks up the steps. Katniss walks away from Prim.
Merrilee doesn’t rush past the Peacekeepers because she wants to say goodbye. Merrilee said hundreds of words to her sister in her head while she was waiting — while Woodbine ran, while Woodbine died, while they took Haymitch, Woodbine who was fast and Haymitch who was funny and none of this is fair — and not one of them was goodbye.
She wants to tell her sister you can survive, you can, I know you can, you’re fast, you’re a knife, you can come home to me. She wants to tell her sister you have to come home to me. She wants to tell her sister run, let’s run let’s turn and run, let’s leave, I don’t care if they catch us I don’t care if they kill us, as long as you die out here, as long as you die here where I can hold you while you do. She wants to tell her sister if you leave me alone I will kill myself, if you make me watch you die I will kill myself, I won’t move on, I swear I won’t move on, not ever, do you really want to do that to me? She wants to tell her sister they can separate us but never part us because your bones are my bones and my blood is your blood and our breath is our breath.
Instead Merrilee holds her sister silently, wordlessly, close as they were in the womb, and Maysilee shakes, and Merrilee shakes, too. One organism.
The Peacekeepers wrench them apart. “I love you,” Maysilee says, or maybe she doesn’t say and Merrilee only reads her lips, or maybe her mouth doesn’t move and Merrilee only knows in her heart. “I love you,” Merrilee says, or doesn’t.
One last look over her shoulder as they sweep her inside. One last locking of eyes.
The door shuts so softly. No noise to imprint itself in Merrilee’s memory, to haunt her dreams in the days to come. Only open one minute and then closed.
Prim crawls into Katniss’s lap and presses herself as close as she can. Katniss is holding her just as close, her hands hurting where they wrap around Prim. Prim hopes they bruise into handprints, something smarting to remember her by.
She tries to keep track of Katniss’s instructions — keep on as usual, minus Katniss, minus their cornerstone; Gale will bring them game and Prim will go to market with her goat milk and cheese; no tesserae and no skipping school — but her mind is a blur, her mind is a terrible snowstorm. She buries her nose in Katniss’s neck and breathes deep. She needs to commit the smell to memory: the slight smoke of homemade coal tar soap, the warmth of summer sweat, the memory of grass and ground, the sweetness of the skin underneath.
Katniss is saying something to Mama, rising into a shout, but Prim barely cares. Her world will end when the ticking clock runs out and they take Katniss away.
“I’ll be alright, Katniss,” she makes herself say, clasping Katniss’s face in her hands. “But you have to take care too. You’re so fast and brave. Maybe you can win.”
“Maybe,” says Katniss, but Prim can read her doubt as easy as a book, the draw of her eyebrows. That makes her mad, so mad, but she crushes it into a secret place in her chest because she can’t be childish, she has to show Katniss that she can be brave. If Prim can be brave, Katniss can be brave; if Katniss can be brave, Katniss can come back home. “Then we’d be rich as Haymitch.”
“I don’t care if we’re rich. I just want you to come home.” She holds Katniss’s face so hard her fingers start to go white. “You will try, won’t you? Really, really try?”
“Really, really try. I swear it.”
Prim and Mama and Katniss hug, aching hard. The Peacekeeper is at the door now, impatient; the clock is running out. Katniss keeps saying “I love you” like she’s worried that they don’t know, kissing it into the top of Prim’s head. “I love you both.”
“I love you,” Prim says, swallowing a sob. “I love you I love you I love you.”
And she keeps saying the words, dropping to a whisper, well after the Peacekeeper orders them out, well after the door closes after them.