One-Shot: Saving and Sucking Face

I trudge through the Merchant section of the district, about mid afternoon one fall day. Even after a month or two of living on my own, I startle at the near silence where hustle and bustle once used to be.

Before the Rebellion. Before the end of the Hunger Games.

Unfortunately, I know a thing or two about the Hunger Games. I was the female tribute for them, representing District 12, for two years in a row. I won the 74th Hunger Games amongst two dozen other teenagers, only the third Victor for my district. My district partner, Peeta Mellark, and I pretended to be lovers to curry favor sponsors, but I sadly lost him at the end. Then, last year, I won a special 75th Hunger Games filled with previous Victors. My mentor and winner of the last Quarter Quell, Haymitch Abernathy, got me to the end, and that sacrificed himself so that I could win. My survival twice inspired an entire Rebellion to rise up and destroy the Capitol.

By now, I have reached the Victors' Village of District 12, where I now live alone in exile. There is only one other Victor - District 4's Annie Cresta - who survived the war; she sends me letters and pictures of her little boy now and again. Even so, with all my friends and both my mother and sister dead, it has gotten pretty lonely existing in an entire Village all by myself.

I enter my mansion, leave my game bag in the foyer, then clean and skin its contents in the sink. I am not home for very long when I hear a knock at my own door. Now, who could be calling on the half-crazy girl? I almost never get visitors...

I gasp and nearly collapse in shock. With his chiseled face and chest and flaming red hair down to his shoulders, clashing horribly with his ripped clothing belonging to a prisoner, his is a face I thought I would never see again alive...

I don't usually make a trade in town wearing this faded blue dress. But if I hurry, I can snag a few more coins and be back to Mother and Prim before I have to register for the Reaping for the other 16-year-olds...

I find him back behind the Peacekeeper Barracks, stationed as a guard in front of the armory. His face lights up with a smile when he sees me.

"Hello, Katniss."

I shrug. "Hello, Darius," greeeting probably the only Peacekeeper in all of District 12 whom I actually enjoy being around. I procure one rabbit pelt from my game bag, as promised. Darius receives it gratefully.

"Now, how about a kiss for good luck at the Reaping in exchange?" he grins, putting his arms around my waist and pulling me against him; his hands grope down to cup my ass through the folds of my dress.

It is an old joke between us - Darius has been begging me to kiss me as payment for years. But I have to admit the joke has gone a little too far even for him as I register where his hands are. Nevertheless, I give a little laugh and hitch my leg up to his hips, my blue skirt hiking high up my thigh. Then, I shift it slightly to the right so I can knee him in the groin, just hard enough so that he lets me go.

"No, thanks," I grin tightly, even as I seethe. Why would Darius touch me like that? I thought he was different from other Peacekeepers...

I can still see the Peacekeeper commander aiming his gun at me, the new Victor, as I block him from Gale. I can still observe with gratefulness Darius diving for the whipping post to release my hunting partner, Gale Hawthorne. Even if it is too late to save the young Seam miner from his injuries...

I can still vividly see Darius's hollowed face as I realize, with horror, that he has been turned into my personal Avox for my second arena, likely as punishment for interfering that day... And maybe he did get a little handsy the day of my first Reaping, but I wouldn't wish this on anyone...

Both of these flashbacks race through my mind in the second it takes me to gape at the presence of Darius on my doorstep.

"The Capitol... how did you escape?" I ask.

Darius does not answer. He can't, with his tongue having been cut out. But he still understands my question. He sign languages (I became close to fluent in sign language in communicating with Pollux, another Avox, during the war) that his prison was damaged heavily in the Rebellion and he slipped away in the confusion. He alternated between taking the train and walking all the way back to Twelve.

I actually find myself smiling in grateful relief. "I thought I'd never see you again." Darius's safe return allows me to say what I always wanted to say to him. "I'm sorry this happened to you. It's my fault that you were punished like this."

Darius furiously shakes his head and silently replies, I'm sorry I touched you inappropriately before your first Reaping. It brought you bad luck.

I actually chuckle. "I think I produce bad luck on my own." Then: "I forgive you." I hold my front door open wider. "Would you like to come in?"

Darius stays with me for many weeks. It takes some getting used to, but it feels nice to have a male companion again, as I still feel the deaths of Peeta and Gale and Haymitch painfully.

The trauma I have experienced brings rounds of severe depression, exacerbated by the changing of the seasons. Winter is the worst time of year, but Darius helps me through my wallows of grief admirably, encouraging me to go out and hunt. And then making sure I return to the house safely so as not to get frostbite.

The fifth time he does this, I whisper, "Thank you."

The eleventh time he does this, I tell him, "You're the only friend I have left."

Many more weeks pass. One morning, still deep in winter, Darius comes downstairs to find me waiting for him clad in a coat and boots. "Can I walk with you?"

He nods. We stroll side by side through a district that is still quiet and only just starting to come back to life again. I find myself glancing to Darius often, thankful that he is here. With me.

I tug on his hand to stop him, and he turns to look at me expectantly. I peer at him for a moment before stepping closer. "Can I kiss you?"

I am glad Darius can read facial cues, for he nods dumbly at my question. Silently, I take him in my arms and Darius reciprocates an embrace. Holding his gaze, I close the gap between us and capture his lips in a dreamy, passionate kiss. A kiss he has waited long enough for and that I should have bestowed on him long ago.

Darius closes his eyes and kisses me back. Soon after, my eyes droop shut too. His lips part for mine and I slip my tongue into his mouth, trying not to think about how he has no tongue to intertwine with mine.

At long last, I break the kiss tenderly, stepping back out of his embrace. My kissed lips are red and puffy, and my cheeks are not just flushing from the winter's chill. I have decided that I must let the past die; none of that matters anymore. I have to live the best way that I know how. And I hope Darius can too.

"I choose you," I stare up into Darius's eyes. And then, even though I once vowed it would never happen to me, I propose, "Will you marry me?"

Darius beams before pulling me back into his arms and sucking my face with a deep kiss of his own.

That is a Yes.

I don Mother's wedding dress that very night, and Darius and I conduct a Toasting over a crude fire in my mansion, sealing it with a kiss.

A few years later, I become something else I never thought I would be, after a bride. I become a mother, falling pregnant with Darius's child. A daughter. Carrying him, our son, was easier, but not by much.

Our daughter now plays in the Meadow on this spring day, as I watch from where I nurse my son. My family's frolicking only reminds me of how there are much worse Games to play.