What if?- A Mockingjay Story

Chapter 88

What if?

What if the train crashes? What if the snow blocks the way? What if the ice makes the tracks dangerous? What if the weather will make this a very rough journey? But what if I need to stop working myself up here? What if I need to stop thinking about the negative possibilities of this journey?

What if? What if? What if...

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Peeta laughs as I tell him. Sophie looks at him, confused by his sudden burst of laughter. He tells me, bouncing Sophie up and down on his lap

"I don't think that's going to happen Katniss"

"It might though"

"Very unlikely"

"We'll see"

This sets off his laughing again. Sophie crawls from his lap to mine, not appreciating the noise. For the next 15 minutes we are silent. Peeta fiddles with the train tickets in his hands, tapping his fingers on the paper. Sophie mumbles things to her bear, occasionally bouncing him up and down on his lap. Me on the other hand watch outside the window, watching the empty tracks and the snowflakes that flutter down on top of them. My stomach flips at the thought of our train on those icy tracks, so much I feel nauseated. I try to focus on something else. Like the fact that Christmas is in only 3 days.

Its been nearly an hour of sitting in the deadly cold station when the noise comes and everyone floods out onto the platform. The screeching of the train coming to a stop is heard in the distance before anyone sees it and then it comes. The huge train. Sophie squeals of excitement in my arms. Minutes later everyone gets on and floods the carriages in a blur of humans.

Finding your room is like trying to find a pin in a haystack. The train is huge, over 8 carriages. It took us a while but eventually we ended up at the room. Its quite nice, double bed and a cot just as we asked for. There is also a small wardrobe and cupboard, a couch and a TV. Peeta places the suitcases upon the bed and lets out a loud sigh, as if he had been holding it in for ages. He then reaches down for Sophie who is down by his feet, arms up begging to be lifted. He sits her on his hip before looking to me and saying

"I don't know about you but I can't do another thing without eating"

I nod and reply

"I agree, I am starving"

So the three of us make our way to the dining car. After we eat the rest of the afternoon is simply sitting in our room and watching the world go by.

When we arrive at district 4 its late at night. We arrive at Annie's past 10. Sophie is immediately put to bed and falls asleep almost instantly. After that Peeta offers to unpack while me and Annie catch up. Once he's gone she asks me

"So how are you? How's everything?"

"Great. What about you?"

"Brilliant"

"Your weather seems a bit better here"

I say gesturing out the window in which its raining lightly. She raises her eyebrows at me

"This is better than 12?"

"We've got snow"

She laughs

"Okay that's fair enough"

We talk until about 1am, even Peeta is gone to bed long before us. At 1:30am I finally go to bed, I climb in beside Peeta and almost instantly fall asleep. The next morning it is lashing rain, the force of the raindrops so hard that you can hardly hear yourself think. We all sit by the fire today, Finn and Sophie put a blanket down beside us and play with their toys. At one point whilst talking to Annie Finn looks up at me and I see it. A trace of his Father. A trace of the man I watched die.