Snowdrop

Chapter 20

"Bailey, you've got to wear this. President Snow ordered it."
"No, she's not wearing that. This is bullshit."
"Ember, she doesn't have a choice. I don't like it either, it's absolutely awful, but maybe we can find a way to hide the rose without anyone noticing." Spindle holds the dress up like it might bite her.
It's a soft white thing, sleeveless and silky. There are no sleeves, so you can see every scar she's got from the Games. It falls down to just past Bailey's knees, and it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the blood-red rose pinned to her chest. Another way of punishing them for defying the Capitol. For their Victory Tour posters they must re-enact Melia's death.
Ember looks down, clenching his fists. No. No, they can't do this. It's not fair. It's not fair on Bailey. She's not even sixteen, it's not even been three months yet, but the Capitol is making her re-enact her best friend's gory murder.
Behind him, Haymitch sighs, pulling at the pale blue collar of his shirt. "Let's get this over with. It'll be difficult enough for Ember and Bailey." He's absolutely livid. So angry that the Capitol is doing this; punishing the others for something he did. It's not their fault, but they're being dragged into it as if things aren't already hard for them.
But the photographers, candy-coloured people in crisp white uniforms, drag it out for as long as possible. The Alliance is posed to portray specific incidents from the Games. Standing back-to-back, glaring defiantly into the camera. The boys huddled protectively in front of Bailey. And then of course, because how could the Capitol forget, Bailey lying back in a bed of crimson roses, Haymitch and Ember crouched on either side of her. Her chest is tight and dread courses through her veins, but Ember is so stricken with grief that he falls silent halfway through the shoot and doesn't say a word until he's back home. And that night, he wakes screaming for his sister to run.

Haymitch takes up drinking after years of mentoring boys only to watch them die. Ember joins him sometimes, and though he hates to admit it, he likes the way it burns on the way down. Bailey just sighs and wipes the vomit from his chin whenever she finds him passed out on Haymitch's floor. She's used to his weakness by now.
She and Haymitch mentor Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the victors of the 74th Hunger Games. The first time they've worked together since Melia, though Haymitch does most of it.
Bailey's strong now. Strong enough to stand tall while Katniss volunteers for her and Peeta volunteers for Haymitch. Strong enough to watch her victors go into the Games again.
And strong enough, that when Katniss destroys the arena and the bombs begin to rain down on District Twelve, she helps Gale Hawthorne herd several hundred people into the woods. She saves them.
She watches while Katniss falls apart. She, combined with Haymitch's snarkiness, helps her become the Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion.
Burnet looks after Posy well into her teens, because what else can he do when he couldn't even protect Melia? He works in the Hob, selling the food his family doesn't need. Then at night he walks the streets of the Seam and sits by that mangy old tree in the Meadow, because he doesn't want to go home. Not that it's really home anymore, with his younger sister who cries at the smallest thing and doesn't know why, his half-dead mother and ghost brother. He's man of the house, and he's failed them all. He finally meets a comely young woman but they don't marry, instead settling down in the old Cressview home in the Seam. When his home is destroyed, he becomes a weapons tester in District Thirteen and helps create some of the deadliest weapons in the rebellion, all to avenge his sister.
Posy works in the hospital in District Thirteen alongside Mrs Everdeen and Primrose. She knows now. Worked it out a mere two years afterwards. But she doesn't dare mention it. Instead she tends to the wounded and makes it her job to ensure nobody else dies as a result of President Snow's tyrannical rule.
Kaitlynn becomes a teacher, as she had always planned to. She has two beautiful children now, and a husband who understands why she can't watch the Games. When they're evacuated to District Thirteen, she shows the children there why President Snow should be removed from power. In her own quiet, unassuming way, she lights a fire in the hearts of those children that burns until long after the rebellion ends.
Their mother lies in bed, shutting out a terrible pain. She's tended to by Katniss' mother, who bathes and feeds her, then wheels her along the corridors during the day. She's greeted by the people of Thirteen who don't really know who she is, but who see her as a mentally ill but kind woman. Dear old Mrs Cressview. She doesn't say a word, but there's a tattered old picture always tucked in her hand. Nobody ever gets to see who it's a picture of.
So many die. Men, women, children.
"If we burn, you burn with us!"
It's true. Many of the districts perish. But the victors get revenge. Oh, Haymitch makes sure of that.
They kill so many Capitol citizens. The victors make them pay for what was done to them.
But when the Capitol children are targeted in an air raid arranged by District Thirteen, a girl's face flashes in Ember's mind. He wakes from a terrible nightmare that night, and Bailey is there to hold him.
"Let's never forget," she whispers.
"I don't want to forget," he replies.
And nobody thinks he's mad.

The war ends when Katniss aims her bow. Ember sees Bailey smiling slightly as the Mockingjay lets the arrow fly and President Coin collapses over the balcony.
It's then that he begins to smile again, too.