MOCKINGJAY: REIMAGINED

CHAPTER TEN - GOODBYE

****Since the last chapter the events of the original book where Katniss goes to District 2 have taken place where she is shot outside of the Nut. She then begins training with Johanna to become a solider and eventually go to the Capitol to kill Snow.

There's no point in me rewriting the war so from here in its mostly inserts of moments that would take place in this au amongst the original content of the book****

The Star Squad. All that training and we're not even going to be real soldiers. Too bad I have a very real mission of my own to carry out. To kill Snow. I promised Johanna when I went to see her in the hospital, I won't forget the pleading in her voice as she made me promise. I'll be doing it for me but I'll also be doing it for everyone he's ever stolen a life from. Dead or alive. If I get my way, the world will be free of him. Prim and Pearl can grow old in peace. I won't be there with them. I've accepted that. I'm entering my third and final Hunger Games. And I don't plan to win this one.

The message comes through just before lights out. We leave tomorrow. I scoop up Pearl out of her bed and hold her against my chest, trying desperately to soak in every inch of her before I put her back down.

My mother pulls me into a hug for a very long time, she allows herself to cry. Something she didn't do before the first games. I worry she's figured out my plans but I know she won't try to stop me even if she has. She knows she wouldn't win.

Prim's next. I hold her like I held Pearl, trying to soak her all in. "Be careful." She whispers. It's so different to that first time I said goodbye, she doesn't ask me to come back and I don't tell her that I will. Its unspoken but it's as if we all know. They've both seen what I've seen. Pearl has more than enough people who love her as their own. She even has Peeta. She's the only person who does. And they know I can't sit here in 13 and wait for it all to be over. They accepted that the day I started training.

We say goodnight and climb into bed. But I don't plan on waiting until the morning. I can't bear to see their faces as I leave so after a few hours when I know they're both asleep I slip out of bed and get dressed. I peer into Pearl's crib, she's far away in a dreamland all of her own. I pray that she's goes her whole life having nothing but good dreams full of meadows and hummingbirds.

I kiss her lightly on her head hoping not to disturb her peaceful dreams. I turn away heading for the door, making sure to slip the pearl from the beach onto my pocket as I go. Now I'll have a piece of them both with me for the rest of my days, always.