In my mind, faces keep returning

[impaledqueen]

Who| Peggy and Linden
What| Linden's mother is dead. Peggy owes Linden a lot, and she's ready to support him with this.
Where| D6
When| After Linden's surgery and the discovery of where the liver came from.
Warnings/Notes| Possible discussion of bidding, discussion of death and medical procedures and so on.

Peggy isn't entirely sure what to do--what can a person do in this situation?--but that doesn't mean she won't try to do something.

In District 10, it was traditional for neighbors to try to make a meal for families that were grieving. A meal sometimes meant something as small as a few well-butchered rats, but as long as it could feed a person, it was acceptable. It was a way of showing support and sparing the family the fear of starvation in their time of need. The meals were supposed to support the family for at least a week, but in the impoverished areas Peggy had lived in, they couldn't always.

She's most used to preparing meat, but Linden doesn't like meat. She should make him something healthy and substantial, but she knows she's not very good at cooking things other than meat and animal products. Instead, she bakes cookies, which she had never even had before coming to the Capitol. They were far too expensive for her poor family to buy in District 10, but in the Capitol, they're worth little to nothing. Even so, she wants to give him something, and he likes sweets, so she learns how to make them. It takes a while.

Once she has a tin of warm, not-ruined cookies, she puts it, a loaf of bread, and a small wheel of cheese in a basket before going to D6. "Linden?" she calls as she walks in, stepping lightly and hoping she won't find him drunk or high.

Comments

[dead_black_eyes]

Linden is alert and clear-minded, free from the influence of even the mildest of painkillers as he rips another cigarette to pieces in his slender, trembling fingers. There's a dark-haired Avox in the suite who is every bit as dead-eyed as the former Victor and bears an uncanny resemblance to him. He belongs in District 9, but today Linden doesn't actually care about being discreet and following the rules, considering how much good it's done up to this point.

The Avox dutifully reaches down to pick up the scraps of paper and tobacco, and continues doing so even as Linden attempts to knock his hands away.

He glances up at the door with eyes that are dry but red-rimmed when Peggy enters. They're black ice, but not glazed over with drugs or alcohol. Today, it's an escape that Linden doesn't feel like he deserves even faintly. "He doesn't understand," he says dully, knocking the Avox's hand aside again with slightly more force and frustration. "No matter how I explain it, it isn't getting through."

[impaledqueen]

This should be better than what she was expecting. It should be better that he's completely sober. Somehow, it's not.

"He might come to understand later." Once his conditioning wore out a little more. Or maybe he does understand, and he just doesn't have it in him to care anymore. That's too horrible to say out loud, though.

"I brought food. Am I right to assume you haven't eaten?"

She walks up to the couch and sits next to Linden, settling the basket on her lap. She recalls traditions and manners expected from neighbors of grieving families in District 10, but she doesn't know how they correlate with District 6. She wishes she knew something about what they were.

[dead_black_eyes]

A numb and glazed Linden is at least a familiar sight in the Capitol, and has been for years. Seeing him sober is probably like seeing an exposed nerve, which can't be helped by the careful, sore way he moves after a recent abdominal surgery without even an Advil to take the edge off. His eyes swivel back to the Avox, but he can't look at the man for long, and then he shakes his head in a brisk, truncated gesture of denial.

He won't. Of the two of them, he's the most broken and thoroughly programmed. She's the one who still had a trace of herself left.

"You're right, but I'm not supposed to eat this soon after the surgery."

It's a lie, and even though he doesn't even try to make it sound earnest, it's better than the truth, which is that he has no appetite, when his insides squirm to think about the death he directly caused with his health and his habits. When he thinks about the series of events that led up to his transplant, he's not sure he could keep food down, anyway.

"Is that what you do in 10, though? Bring food?" he asks, wincing as he leans back into the couch. "That's very kind. Can I see...?"

[impaledqueen]

She's suspicious about the idea that he's not supposed to eat so soon, but it's plausible enough that she's not going to directly challenge it. Hopefully, if he's lying, she can coax him to eat.

"It's what we do in 10, yes. It's so people don't have to worry about starving for a small while. Between a whole neighborhood, we can usually scrape up enough food." She opens the basket to show him the cookies, fresh bread, and fresh cheese. "Normally we bring meat, but I know you're not particularly fond of it, so I made these instead. Let me know how the cookies are; I don't make them very often. The cheese and bread should be good, though." After all, she made cheese all the time back at District 10, and she still makes her own cheese and bread in her own home.

A part of her wants to offer some to his avoxed father as well. Even if he can't understand what happened, he deserves food as well, just as a baby unaware of a family member dying deserves milk from the neighbor's pantry. She knows not to do it, though. It would lead to punishment for all of them.

Typically, it's considered polite in District 10 to sit quietly and wait for the grieving party to either choose a topic of conversation or dismiss them. Peggy wishes she knew what was right in District 6. It's hard enough to lose someone you care about without being away from home where people understand what you're comfortable with.

[dead_black_eyes]

He cants his head, peering at the pleasantly arranged contents of the basket. There's thought, kindness and gentle wishes nestled in the wicker and cloth, and even though it's not really what they do in 6, what's customary and expected, he appreciates it deeply. Her request to know how the cookies turned out does actually prompt him to reach for one, and though he nibbles on it more like a neurotic mouse than a hungry human, he gives her a few jerky nods to confirm that they are very good, despite her uncertainty.

"Thank you for sharing this part of your District with me. It's a good tradition... helpful," he comments, stunned at what an effort it is. Usually, words come easily to Linden, but today they're grinding and sticking in his throat.

"I wish I had her hands," he says quietly. "In my District, we have a common funeral rite. The ground's too hard to bury our dead, even after it rains, so cremation is customary, but the hands are saved, left on a hot stone in the sun until the insects and elements have stripped them to bone. Then the grieving gather and the bones in the fingers get divided among them."

He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, withdrawing what looks at a distance like four large, painted beads, strung together with twine. Each bears a name, etched in small, clumsy letters.

"These... Shawford and Karem, died in factory accidents when I was younger. This one's Arta, my District mate, and this is Scorpii."

You know Scorpii; everyone knows Scorpii.

"I think they all get cremated here, but even if I was able to secure what I wanted, I don't even know what her name was."

[impaledqueen]

She's managed to get him to at least take a bite of the cookies, so she considers that a win. Maybe she can get him to eat a little more if she pretends to think he doesn't like them if he doesn't eat more. She'll keep the trick in mind if he stops eating for too long.

Peggy nods in acknowledgement of his thanks, internally wincing at the way his voice grinds. He appreciates it. She knows he does. It's just that his voice is all wrong, thick with grief. "That sounds like a beautiful tradition." The thought of divvying up the bones in the hands is different, but it doesn't strike her as at all discomfiting like it would a Capitolite. It sounds like a natural way to preserve a memento of the person you loved.

She leans to look at what he takes out of his pocket. Bones, she can infer. As a butcher, she dealt with many bones, and it is nice to now see them used for something better than just being cracked open for their marrow. "Do you paint them yourself?" It would probably be more personal that way, she figures. Mark their bones with your own hand to leave some kind of representation of your love on them.

It makes sense to her that he would want her hands. It makes sense that he wants something to remember her by. "Do you know which Avox company was in charge of handling her? Perhaps you could call them." She doesn't know if they've ever had a request like this. Even if it's against regulations, maybe a little bit of Victor money could grease their palms.

[dead_black_eyes]

He loses interest in the cookies fast, but it isn't for lack of them being good. It's entirely to do with the fact that his appetite fled with the spirit of someone who literally died for him, giving him life for a second time that should not have been necessary. He hates that he was kept in the dark about it, not told until he prodded and pressed and snooped after noticing that District 9's suite was minus a familiar face he had just started to take comfort in.

"Thank you," he responds hollowly. "I think so, too. My District is very ugly in a lot of ways, but this isn't one of them."

He nudges the talisman toward her in case she wants to examine them more closely. Though he doesn't handle them particularly roughly, they've clearly been touched a lot over the years, wearing the paint thin in places. "Everyone who gets a bone paints it themselves," he answers. "I'm not particularly talented at it, not like some in my District, but it's not about that."

He starts to smile as he speaks, but it fades quickly when she suggests trying to call. "I wasn't supposed to even know about her death," he says quietly. "I really... don't think that they would let me, even if she wasn't already ash by this point. But a lot of bodies in District 6 don't have recoverable knuckles, so... we have ways around that. I'm buying some clay tomorrow."

[impaledqueen]

Peggy tentatively runs one finger along the smooth ridges of Karem's bone, worn down by Linden's handling. It would feel wrong to her to hold a memento of a person she'd never met, and it would also feel wrong to touch the bones of dead tributes somehow. Someone once told her that only the people least worthy of victory won the Hunger Games; she's not sure if she would have considered Scorpii any more virtuous than Linden, but it still feels wrong for her, an unrelated Victor, to touch his and Arta's bones.

"It's not the skill that makes them beautiful." Perhaps the inexperience in his painting makes them more beautiful. It's the heart behind them, the desire to remember. It hums with feeling, and it's not all grief. It doesn't have to be grief. The food given by neighbors--that's full of care, but it's also full of grief, because it's given with the understanding that you may be too stricken or impoverished to prepare food for yourself or your family. It goes away after a set amount of time, and you were supposed to stand up and move on with just the scars on your heart to remember.

She wishes she could help. She wishes she could call in favors or grease palms, but she doesn't have any connections sizable enough in Avox companies. Instead, she just says softly, "I'm sorry." Clay wouldn't be the same, but it would be something. It's the memories that matters the most, anyway. "Is there anything I can do?"

[dead_black_eyes]

Some people, those few Capitolites who have actually seen Linden's talisman, have assumed that he keeps the bones as trophies. Nothing could be further from the truth; he's not outwardly sentimental, but has clearly handled these often, perhaps almost as often as he's dwelt unwholesomely on his obsession with the departed Scorpii.

The scars they share makes him listen to her words in ways that he wouldn't if they came from the mouths of others. The faded smile gains strength as it stretches again from the corners of his pale lips as she calls it beautiful, implying that it's simply because of what it means and how it's handled.

"Grieving for a stranger is enough to make me feel like it matters and the world is different now. That's what I need, and of everyone I know, I think you knew that before I did."

[impaledqueen]

"The world is different," she agrees. "I suspect it's only going to get more different in the next few years."

Or even months. Peggy doesn't know when the tension will come to a head in Panem, but she wouldn't be surprised if it happened soon. She knows that before it does, she'll probably be caught by the Capitol, or she and all the other Victors will be swept up and killed to try putting down rebellion. It gives her a curious sense of serenity to know in her heart that it's possible she won't be alive in a month.

She fingers Karem's bone once more before moving her hand away from the knuckles. She doesn't have to ask to guess that he probably died from one of the hazards inherent in Districter life, anything from starvation to being ground to paste by factory equipment. It's people like that that this upcoming war will be for.

"I'm here if you need me, Linden." Maybe that goes without saying, but the life of a Victor is a lonely one. Sometimes being told that you don't have to be alone is the most important thing.

[dead_black_eyes]

That statement, about the world growing even more different and changing, gets a slow glance that Linden is careful not to let linger. He doesn't think that it sounds like it could be taken badly; aren't the Offworlders, themselves, heralds of a great change? Anyone listening would surely think that, he rationalizes, and not anything resembling treason.

They can't afford that right now, can they?

"I hope you know the same," he says earnestly. "Victors need to stick together, don't they? We're of two worlds, changing or not, and for all that the masses love us, they can only imagine what it's like."

[impaledqueen]

Anyone who's even vaguely aware of current events could legitimately say that change is coming. The offworlders have changed the Hunger Games as they know it, rebel activity is rising, and the Capitol is cinching back the collar on the Districts. Hell, District 3 is no more. Especially coming from a woman with a track record of patriotism and subservience to the Capitol, no one will interpret it as treasonous, at least so she rationalizes.

"I know the same," she says quietly, flashing him a wan smile. There are some things she can't share with him, if only because she can't really trust anyone that D13 hasn't confirmed to be on their side (and even then, trust is iffy), but she knows he's there for her. "We stick together. Not even the offworld Victors really understand." Peggy gets along with most of the offworld Victors, but for the most part, they came into their place by luck with almost no sacrifice. They don't understand what it was like before the Quell.