stillplaying | 12th Game [voice/action]

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12th Game [voice/action]

[There are some nights where she can't sleep. Can't fall asleep to begin with, can't stay asleep once she's there. The nightmares become too intense. She awakes crying, screaming, gasping for breath. Curled up in a ball, clutching her knees to her chest in as tight a fetal position as she can get. And alone. So very, very alone in the dark, dark room.

Those kinds of nights have grown more and more common since Peeta's departure, since her death. Even Buttercup's plaintive mewling in the night hasn't made it any better. The pain and fear doesn't fade. It lasts long, long into the morning on the nights she's unable to go back to sleep. Turns into another fitful nightmare otherwise.

In one short month, there's been a lot to think about. Too much to think about. She's been stuck here a year now. Seen various shifts and experiments. Fallen in love and then lost that love. Died. In the most recent shift, while she hadn't been forced to fall in love against her will, she had watched it happen, even observed it first hand in once case. All of it, more than anything, had made her think of Peeta.

Think and mourn until she thought that she would burst from all the heartache.

During the early morning, she awoke screaming, thrashing in her bed as her nightmares played Prim's death out for her again. Prim's death followed by that of Rue's. And Peeta's electrocution in the clock arena. How she had screamed and rushed forward, how he would have been dead if not for Finnick's quick thinking.

So, so many deaths. And all because of her.

As she moves about in the bed, screaming and crying, she knocks the journal down on the floor. Buttercup mews and she just screams again, a wordless, animal scream. Whimpering and sobbing, she does eventually come to her senses. Her body remains cocooned in the sheets as she reaches for the journal, face tear-stained and lost.

She misses him. Maybe more than that, she misses having someone to comfort her in the night when the memories get to be too much.]

Gale was right. [The words are whispered, an acknowledgment to words long past that she once overheard. It's never going to be about love for her. It'll only be about who will extend her longevity in the end. Who'll make her life easier to bear. And if Peeta's not here, how could it possibly be him?

She stares at the journal a few minutes more before clearing her voice and finally speaking, wiping away any lingering tears.]

I know that when you die here, they'll take things from you. And they'll change things during the shifts. Hijack you and alter your memories.

Can you get them to do that even outside a shift? How would you contact them? I-- I want them gone. The memories of Peeta being here. I don't want to miss him anymore, miss--

[Being in love. Being loved. But she doesn't know how to say that part aloud. She wishes for a brief moment she had kept some of that candy from the spa. The stuff that made her open up more. It'd make this all the more easier.]

Is there a magic? Please? Something, anything? I don't have much to offer, but I am a good hunter. I'll trade game and pelts. Anything you want.

I want to move on. I want to forget. And I don't know how else to do it. [Richard's advice comes to mind. She's already thrown herself in hunting, thrown herself in anything and everything she can think of to distract her. It hasn't worked. Not at all. So that leaves only the other thing he recommended: moving on.] He might never come back. I might never go back. I-- I don't want to be lonely anymore. I want to move on.

[With that, she closes the journal to go get dressed. Her hair is pulled back in a messy braid before she heads out. Not to hunt. Not today. Instead, she goes to the library. She has research to do.]

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.[With the back of her hand, she wipes at the newest tears. Sniffles some as she tries to stop herself from crying. She would have thought by now that she had no more energy left for tears. No liquid left in her system. But apparently she did. Apparently, the tears were not yet through with her.

She wriggles back against the pillow, clutching her sheet tighter around her body. Pepper's right and Katniss almost despises that. Despises how it slowly breaks down her earlier rationalizations.]

I don't want to forget everything. [The words are said slowly, clearly thought through before spoken.] Just his time here.

[It’s clear that Katniss is in too much pain to be thinking her requests through, her demands all laced with desperation and anguish. Pepper can’t blame her, because she has her own list of memories she’d love to forget, as does anyone who has suffered even without loss involved. It’s why she keeps her voice even, gentle, attempting to advise without judgment.]

Do you understand what else you would lose? Not just your memories of him, but all the ways he made you grow and change. You wouldn’t be the person you are now. You’d be giving up a part of yourself too, along with that part of him.

[She makes a face at that, even if the woman at the other end of the journal can't see it. The person she was now. Was that really so much a different person than she had been before allowing herself to love Peeta? She wasn't certain. Maybe she had more friends now, but wouldn't that have happened anyway?

But the rest of it? The love part? The relationship part? The sex part? Did all of that really matter? Did that really change her in any kind of significant way? How could she even tell?]

I... I don't understand.

You can’t love someone like you love him and not change. [Though Katniss hasn’t said as much, Pepper feels safe making the assumption. Whether it be as a dear friend or something more, the strength of what Katniss feels for Peeta is all too clear.] Maybe you’re willing to take a risk you weren’t before, or acting more cautiously because you don’t want to hurt that person.

Or maybe you can actually cry because you miss them so much, if you were the sort of person who kept everything bottled up inside. [She hesitates, her voice softer when she speaks again.] Maybe you became the sort of person who could tell someone that you love them, when they’d never thought they’d hear those words from you.

I know it hurts. But do you really want to lose what you have left of him?

[She wavers on the edge of uncertainty until Pepper's final suggestion. It's easy to dismiss the first few. But telling Peeta that she loved him... being capable of saying those three words allowed? That was something she had thought she could never do. Not in reality, not outside of the charade established for the Hunger Games. She had heard Peeta tell her that he loved her repeatedly. But she had never, ever been able to say it back.

Until that night they had made love for the first time. When she really, truly saw the love he held for her. He hadn't been repulsed by her scars, hadn't been repulsed by her stand-offish nature. He had held her instead and made that moment into a memory she never expected to have. Not the girl who wanted to grow up to live a life alone. To ensure that she never had a family of her own.

She swallows hard and gasps a little for breath.] Wouldn't it be better? To be that person who doesn't say those kinds of words?

It might seem easier, especially now. [Katniss focuses on the last suggestion Pepper offers, one that Pepper has personal experience with--but from the opposite perspective. She remembers so many moments, pauses where certain words were almost said, only to be swept away by fear or doubt, or whatever other reason Tony had for deciding not then.

And Pepper also remembers what it took for him to break through that wall, to confess to her a truth she'd long known, but felt such delight in hearing.]

But I don't think it's better. I think that hearing you say those words, and knowing you felt so strongly, you overcame every reason you had not to say them brought Peeta incredible joy. It takes a lot of strength to do that.

[She remembers the way he had lit up when she found the courage to tell him that first time. Remembers how happy he had looked to hear her whisper those three words. And she remembers how it pleased him whenever she said those words after. They had been rarely uttered - Katniss couldn't bring herself to be as free in voicing her affections as Peeta - but they had been uttered at times nonetheless.

And how he had smiled. How he had kissed her or held her or repeated the words in return. Somehow, those words had been joy enough for Peeta.

But she does her best to play it off. To act nonchalant regardless.] It's just what he deserved.

Believe me. To him, it was much more. [Pepper speaks with certainty despite knowing neither Peeta nor Katniss well. She just understands from her own relationship, how dear she finds those words every time Tony chooses to say them now, and how many things they've come to mean. Promises and hopes and comforts all; Pepper thinks it would break her heart to discover Tony had gone back to being unable to say those things.

Even if it happened because she had gone.]

Edited 2013-03-24 03:17 (UTC)

[The little that the camera expresses makes clear the doubt on her face. Eyebrows are raised and her lips are quirked to the side in thought. Pepper knew Peeta, yes. Works at running the art gallery Katniss knows he would have given more to if he had stayed here longer.

But none of that gives her any reason to believe the woman. How can she possibly know what it would have meant to Peeta?]

You don't know that.

Actually, I do.  [The skepticism is understandable, and Pepper keeps her calm.  She’s no less certain in the face of Katniss’s disbelief.]

The person I’m with couldn’t tell me he loved me for a very long time.  Even after we’d been together for over two years, he just couldn’t get the words out.  Not until I nearly died on the last draft.  [She hesitates then, not only to find the right words, but to keep back the emotion that accompanies the memory.  It had been one of the worst experiences of her life, yet also one of the best, and she smiles faintly as she describes it.]  I was infected, but they gave me the protocure so I wouldn’t lose my mind.  It meant that I was aware of everything happening to me:  all of the pain, and the…hunger.  [She swallows, hoping that Katniss knows enough about what happened to understand what that means.  Pepper isn’t willing to explain it.]

We found out the Malnosso were going to bomb Vaskoth to end the infection, and Tony—Tony refused to leave.  [Adamantly refused, and Pepper remembers all too well the conflicted feelings that overwhelmed her, along with the sense of helplessness.]  He could have, because he wasn’t infected.  He just would not let me die alone.

Then he helped me dance.  Dancing together is something very special to us, and he wanted to help me forget everything that was happening, even for a few minutes.  That’s when he said it, and just hearing it made me happy.  In spite of everything else, all of it—I really was happy in that moment.

And that’s how I know Peeta was too, when you said it, and why I think it’s better.  That you’re better, for being able to trust another person that much.

[She listens quietly to everything that Pepper has to say. She doesn't know who Tony is - hasn't made that much effort to remember the names of every single person in the town. But she can understand the man's motivations. That was what being in love was, wasn't it? Sacrificing your own survival to make certain that the person you cared for would be all the better for it. Not letting them die. Or die alone.

Maybe she does know how Peeta feels then. But she has no idea if that makes all of this worse or better.

It takes her a long time before she replies.]

Is he still here?

He is. [And in this Pepper is much more fortunate than Katniss; the pain of a lost love isn't one she's had to endure, though it remains one of her greatest fears.] I can't say that I know exactly what you're going through now. But we were close, even before we were together--and there was a time when he disappeared for three months. So I might have an idea.

[She had dealt with Peeta's disappearance before. Although it hadn't really been a disappearance, had it? She had known where he was the entire time. Captured by the Capitol and tortured. That had been before she realized she loved him. Before they were ever really together.

She hadn't handled that very well, either.]

It's not easy.

Not at all. [Thinking that Tony could’ve been dead, or tortured (as had turned out to be the case)—those three months marked one of the worst times in Pepper’s life. Could she say she’d handled it well herself? Maybe. Although she hadn’t let herself cry until the very end, after Tony had been found. Some people might think that was a poor way of dealing with things, by suppressing them all.]

But people come back, sometimes, and they remember. What if Peeta does, and you’ve forgotten?

[That's the same question so many others had been asking her. What if Peeta came back? What if he remembered? It was nearly four months now. She had watched others come and go from Luceti. But never once had she seen him among the new feathers.

She sighed.] He has to come back first.

I know. And no one can say for certain if he will or if he won’t, or if he’ll remember. [She won’t do Katniss the disservice of trying to sugarcoat it, or making promises she has no way of keeping. The truth is simply that there is no way to know what will happen.] Hoping for the best isn’t easy, and the loneliness you feel seems like it can drown you. But when they do come back—it’s worth it. I honestly believe it’s worth it.

[It's a service she appreciates. Nothing in her life had ever been sugarcoated. Not the Hunger Games or her father's death or even her own odds of survival when she found her reality spinning out of control. To have that start now would be foreign. Would probably anger her and end a conversation going relatively well.

But the conversation halts anyway. At least on Katniss' end. Because she remembers the last time Peeta had come back to her. Hijacked. Courtesy of President Snow.]

It's not always worth it.

[The certainty of Katniss's reply catches Pepper off guard, and there's a longer pause than she means for there to be before she can speak again.]

Did...something happen, before? [A question asked carefully, because Pepper knows there must be a reason for so curt an answer. She doesn't know if Katniss will tell her; considering the nature of their conversation, some of the things discussed, it's possible she won't.

Regardless, there is something else Pepper can add.]

I'm sorry, for whatever's made you feel that way.

[All the apologies in the world don't make up for the torture Snow inflicted on Peeta. For the hijacking. A part of her will never forgive Haymitch for leaving Peeta in the arena when they had agreed to get him out of there alive. His livelihood was far, far more important than her own. Haymitch had known that. They had all known that.

Though Dr. Aurelius' work with Peeta had shown some progress, she still had worries that he'd never be that boy who had once loved her - the boy that had been here - again.

She stared at the journal for a little while, unsure how to respond. Unsure as how much to respond with. Ultimately, it was easier to retreat back into her shell.]

I don't want to talk about it.

No, that's okay. You don't have to. [Pepper is quick to back off, especially considering the apology doesn't seem to offer Katniss much comfort either. Pepper sighs softly, trying to return the conversation back to its original point.]

Just, really think about it before you do anything, okay? What you'd be losing with your memories.

And, if you ever do decide you want to talk, you can find me. [Katniss may never take her up on it, due to stubbornness or simply having people she's closer to, but it's still better to at least make the offer, Pepper thinks. To try and help the girl believe that she isn't completely alone, even if the one person she wants most isn't there.]

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12th Game [voice/action]

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