calvinbox | open post | 3

[ The nightmares don't stop, and they won't fade into a somewhat detached haze of terror for years still. Not until their baby girl is one, maybe two years old, will reality truly start to outweigh the past. That is a long ways away yet, and his nightmares are vivid, startling. They blend real memories with that burn in his skull from tracker jacker venom that takes control and has him kicking, screaming, clawing for his own survival when he wakes.

Katniss told him that once upon a time he had taken care of her when she needed it. He can remember it now, how ever distant and dreamlike it may feel. He can't touch it, the memory always slips from his grasp, but the memory exists in his nerve endings despite the present reality of it all: that she takes better care of him now than he does her, for as hard as he tries.

He wakes in a panicked state, the first in a week of easier sleep, sweat dripping down his back and soaking his shirt. He wants to kick and run, untangle himself from his sheets but he can't. He's trapped, in his sheets, in his skin, in his nightmares. He can't even scream, only whimper horsely at the dream which, like all the rest, felt so real, and remains stronger than the world around him for that endless instant.

[ There's a ceremony for Finnick once the dust has begun to settle, back in District 4. One of many, broadcasted throughout the country, in memory of fallen heroes. The idea was fishy, uncomfortable, too close for some to the trials they had suffered for so long, but perhaps it was for the best. It had been suggested by Plutarch and caught on, the idea of creating unity in memoriam, in a format that would give the former districts power without alienating those comfortable in the capitol, and it seemed to be working. They could remember together, rebuild together, begin again on the ashes of those who gave their lives for this grand idea.

And for their credit, they let the districts respect their fallen heroes their own way, without the pomp and flash the Capitol was used to, because it wasn't for the Capitol.

He notices that Annie is gone half-way through the ceremony, when Milo starts shrieking and is silenced not by his frantic, unsteady mother but by an elderly woman who reminds him of Mags. He tells Katniss that he's going to go find her, and that he needs to be away from all of this for just a moment, and his feet take him to the water's edge. He sees her in the distance, sitting in the surf, and takes his time to get to her. He needs to breathe himself, knows better than to rush on her. ]

You know, this beach is actually really nice.

[Annie has always gone to the beach, to the water, to try to get away from the ghosts inside her head. There are far too many here. The house she long since shared with Finnick stands as empty as the house that was put aside for her own family. They're occupied by ghosts, and Annie herself feels as if she is one of them.

It had taken time, for the funeral arrangements to be planned. Long enough that Annie had been able to give birth to their son, beautiful Milo Cresta-Odair (hyphenated, of course. He was the son of both his mother and his father). Milo had his mother's messy mop of hair, but his father's eyes. He was calm and loving, pulling on his mother's hair when he recognized her getting upset. When he had been in utero, he kicked her to get her to come back from wherever it was she had gone away to.

The funeral itself was lovely, the traditional violin music of District 4 playing. Finnick's mother and his younger brother played the role of doting family members, when they'd long-since been estranged. His father was not with them, having died some time ago. Annie's family, as well, was not there. They had been killed, the three of them, punishment for Annie's insanity. For the frantic, terrified mutterings of a young woman who had been pulled from the arena just days before.

She didn't like the games. She'd said so. And her family had suffered.

And would continue to suffer.

She'd handed Milo to one of the women that Annie had grown closer to in District 13, one of the women that had come to make sure she was okay, when news of Finnick's death had reached them. The few that had stuck by her side when she'd retreated further into her head.

She'd taken off, running in her bare feet down to the beach, desperate for the surf, for Finnick. Perhaps her family, who had been buried at sea, as was customary in District 4. Finnick's body had never been recovered, or they would have done so. Instead, they gave him the memorial for those who had been lost.

Annie had swum until she was tired, before crawling back up to the beach, bedraggled as always, curling in on herself. She was 22 now. Far too young for all of this to have happened. They all were.

When Peeta speaks, she has her eyes trained on the horizon.] It's wrong. [She wastes no time in telling him.]

Edited 2014-01-07 01:41 (UTC)

[Alan comes back to the flat just as Liam's putting Chronos down for a nap, bearing groceries. This is always a hard time of year, just after January first, because one of them has got to be with Chronos at all times. He can't feed, dress, or bathe himself, so they become like more than just minders. They become sort of fathers.

Liam has always been better about dealing with Chronos this time of year. Alan tends to just be awkward and clumsy and prone to make the poor boy start crying, so he lets Liam handle all the delicate chores and defaults to, say, cooking or running errands.

He stomps his boots on the mat just inside the door, and drops the bags of groceries to take of his coat.]

Christ, it's bloody freezing out there!

[ January used to, when he was new at this, be his least favorite month to deal with Chronos. With all the pooping and shrieking, and the constant need for attention, his previous supervisor (and he'll call him that, not master, thanks, he's not a twat )had more often than not sent him away. He couldn't handle it, he got the groceries, he did the cooking, he ran errands when he wasn't, at that early stage in his transition from coked up druggy to decent human being, accidentally setting fire to anything he tried to put near the stove. Babies, he thought, weren't for him.

That had been the first year, and the second. That had been forty years ago now, and somehow January had become one of the better months. It was less complicated, with a cycle that could be monitored. He didn't have to do anything but take care of him, hold the only person dear to him to his body and rock him to sleep. It was nice, being needed, without any catch or any lip thrown his way. It was comfortable.

They had a bath while Alan was out, and it had been a trial and a half to get Chronos to go down to sleep. He managed, he always did, and when that was done he headed to the kitchen to pop open a beer. Maybe some quiet was in order.

Nope, definitely not quiet. He winced and glared, that tired glare he always had as if he were on his last straw ( his ungodly patience, of course, being the irony ). ]

Yeah, wake him why don't you. Shout to the whole bloody building.

[Alan winces, apologetic.] Sorry! Sorry. Just put him down, then? [He busies himself with putting the groceries away, trying to make as little noise as possible.]

[ There's no argument in him, no logical devils advocate reason to present. She's right, it is wrong. All of it, everything that has happened and everything that continued. Any of them even being alive when some weren't...it was wrong. Entirely.

Even with good intentions, he knows how wrong it can be. In twelve they had toasting for weddings, and in Four they had whatever funeral tradition they had. It couldn't possibly be what was presented, what was best to feed to the masses.

So he doesn't argue. He just sits down in the surf with her, letting his pants can get and sand to sink into his shoes. ]

I know. What would you have done, if we could have it our way?

[What would she have done? So many things differently. If they could have it their way, nothing would be as it is now. Not a damn thing.]

We'd have his body. Burial at sea. [An old District 4 tradition, the sea gave to you, so you gave to the sea. That, and the cliffs would erode over time, tumbling any graves down below.] Wouldn't be alone. Have people.

Would be a pretty day out. Would still have my family here. My friends. We would be happy. There wouldn't be anymore sad. Milo would understand. Would never have to learn why his mother is so wrong. Milo would have a father. [Her words were gaining momentum as she kept looking out to sea, salt water stinging her eyes. Both hands were twisting their way into her hair as she kept speaking, louder and louder.] He would be here. He wouldn't be dead. He would have- he would have turned around! He wouldn't have gone! He would have stayed! Stayed with me! He shouldn't have gone!

[ When Melkor had first entered his forge, the air around Mairon chilled. Atoms slowed and came closer together when his own presence would normally push them faster and further apart. The change in the air sent a chill through him, as if he could never be warm again, never be hot. It makes him want to escape that thin layer of form that he took to at his Lord's example and dissipate into the ground below where the cold could not find him. The flame of orange hair that he had chosen remained wrapped around itself and out of the way of his craft, but for that moment he wished it had been down to cover the flickering instability that discomfort brought to his neck, with surface giving way to the glow of ember.

Melkor was dangerous, they all knew that. The Valar might have been deaf to the whispers concerning their brother but together the Maiar spoke, murmured of foul intentions. He was not to be trusted, and yet he was so beautiful, so radiant, and spoke truths Mairon hadn't wanted to admit.

This peaceful tranquility was becoming boring, and the tasks he achieved for his lord Aule too simple for his talent and ambition. He could do so much greater than the menial task of compressing stone until it glittered.

A long while had passed under the light of the trees, before Mairon put down the bright new diamond created from pressure in his palm, before he let down the halo of heat in the shape of flowing locks. The chill of Melkor was like the crackle of lightning in the sky, electric and burning.

He says nothing when he enters Melkor's abode. He's not sure why he came, when there had been no invitation. It was as if he needed to be struck again, to be cold for a fraction of time before the atoms cracked forward again and set him into a raging heat. He wanted to hear what else Melkor had to say. ]

Melkor's hall was a mockery of the light and air and purer beauty with which his brothers and sisters made all things. The vast columns were never quite the same, when one passed; they might be as delicately-carven bone one night, beautifully shaped ice the next. The floors might be a mosaic of teeth or memories or gems or coals, the thousand lanterns small, so that they winked like watching eyes in the dark. Perhaps they were; for of all the Ainur, only Melkor could claim the long Sight of their father.

And the vala himself was cold and beautiful, as all harsh truths are, dark and shining all at once, like the reflection of light off shards of obsidian, black ice, untempered steel. And he slipped with snakelike elegance into the the radius of Mairon's heat, and light, noiseless enough that he caught the far smaller form by surprise.

"I passed you today, at the tasks which Aule sets you," he murmured, almost as if confiding a secret. His voice was low, low enough to pass through flesh and bone like the rumble of distant thunder.

[ It's a goodbye tour of sorts. A real one, he thinks, not just one for a new face and a new walk. He's on his twelfth now, whether or not he wants to admit it, and there's nowhere to go from there. He saw Sarah Jane once more, and Jo, and he even went back to drop in on Barbara and Ian. How he had ended up in the rain in Shanghai, where he knew Jack would be at this point in his timeline, was another thing all together.

He feels bad. Deeply bad for how he left things with Jack, and yet he's not sure he actually wants to see him at all. Jack unsettles him the way River unsettled him, the way Jenny unsettled him, the way Donna when she knew too much or Rose when she pushed too hard settled him. Time wasn't to be messed with and it twisted his stomach into knots.

He'll wait five minutes in the rain, he says to himself. If it's meant to be, Jack will be there. ]

[Maybe it is meant to be. Maybe it's not and Jack's just never given a damn about meant to be and should be and has always just charged forth, guns blazing (metaphorically or otherwise) into will be.

Whatever it is, it takes four minutes and thirty-six seconds to set into motion.

Jack sees him from across the street, standing in the rain, getting bedraggled. Though the face is different, the eyes - those impossibly old eyes in that impossibly young face - still look out at the world the same way. His heart skips a beat (or two or three or) and he moves, quickly, shifting his umbrella to cover both of them.]

Need an umbrella?

A ripple akin to a shudder goes through his being when Melkor speaks so close, so dangerous to his ears. It doesn't echo in the form he's chosen, but that is no matter. He knows Melkor will feel it. Sarcasm sits on the tip of his tongue, and so often he swallows it in knowledge of his place. What he should say, Yes Milord, I took notice seems even more inappropriate, as if Melkor could see through polite falsehood in an instant.

When he does speak, back straight and being crawling, he's chosen a different approach. One more careful, more questioning, than either.

"Did you see something that you liked?"

No, I just happen to be holding an invisible baby and a beer.

[ Sarcasm is a great defense, and when he doesn't hear any whines from the other room he sighs in relief, shooting Alan a warning glance, and dropping down on the couch. ] Have fun out there, in the real world?

[Merlin's always had a morbid sort of curiosity with the Arthurian legend courses. There's something about them that just amuse him so greatly that he'll take one every chance he gets.

It must be at least his fourth time through college; he's starting to lose count, honestly. He likes to learn and keep busy, so going to school seems a good choice. And it helps him keep an eye out for Arthur. The Once and Future king is bound to return soon, after all. It's been centuries of waiting.

Merlin finds a seat a few rows back in the lecture hall and settles himself down, pulling out his notebook and tucking his pencil back behind his ear. He's curious as to this teacher's perception on Arthurian "myth", after all. It's with a sense of both excitement and foreboding that he waits for class to start.]

[Alan expects the sarcastic response, so much so he doesn't even acknowledge or react to it anymore, just continues putting groceries away.]

I wasn't gone that long, was I? Just popped off to the shops.

[When he's finished and everything's put away and the kettle put on for tea, he sits on the opposite end of the couch from Liam.]

I'd hardly call that "having fun."

[ As her words, her breath, her pacing gained momentum and became more erratic, Peeta's body tense and his own heart began racing. He knows his own triggers a little better now, and seeing another person in a manic state of panic never did anything good. His hands shot up to grab her arms, firmly and (he hopes) not too tightly. ]

Hey--Hey, Annie, Annie, Shh, calm down. Listen to me, okay, you need to calm down.

Todl him! Told him! Asked him, begged him to stay! Know he had to- propos- but shouldn't have! Husband-! Finnick! FINNICK! [Annie tries to move from Peeta's arms, to dash into the waves, trying to find solace in the water, somewhere, anywhere near him. She only gets a few paces away, before the water trips her up and she comes to fall on her knees, sobbing.]

Finnick... Finnick...

[ He's come a long way, from what he remembers to be the truth. A few months prior her struggle away from him might have caused him to lash out as well, but now he taught himself well. He taught himself to breathe again, to be reasonable, and while when he goes back after her his grip might be slightly too tight, it's not without control and calm.

He gets down into the water with her, wrapping his arms around her and stroking her hair. His mother never did this for him, but he had seen so many mothers and fathers comfort their children, had done the same for his siblings. He's no stranger to the pain of sobbing.]

I'm sorry...Cry it out.

Edited 2014-03-12 21:08 (UTC)

[ BEFORE I REPLY TO THIS--I know, making it take even longer--any preferred or preferred canon points? ]

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Peeta

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