the train screams as it pulls into the station, metal grinding against metal, like the capitol built it to make sure no one could ever forget who owned their homecoming.

the crowd at the station blurs together — hands waving, cameras flashing, someone shouting for him to smile. the mayor’s voice trembles as he speaks about valor and sacrifice, every word rehearsed. banners hang limp in the heat, their gold edges already smudged with coal dust.

haymitch doesn’t really hear any of it.

the cheers sound far away, muffled by the ringing that’s never left his ears. the air feels wrong — too clean, too light. he stands there with the victor’s crown still heavy in his hand, staring through the people gathered in front of him like they’re ghosts. maybe they are.

past them, past the fences, past the gray rooftops and soot and smoke — he sees the horizon. the meadow.

that’s where he needs to be.

he slips away before anyone notices, ducking through the edge of the crowd, leaving the speeches behind. no one stops him. no one dares.

the further he walks, the quieter it gets. the noise fades until all that’s left is the hum of insects, the wind through the grass, the dull echo of his own heartbeat. he keeps expecting to hear a cannon — a rustle in the brush, a trap snapping shut — but the only thing that follows him now is silence.

the fence hums faintly when he passes it. he remembers how he used to crawl through that same gap as a kid, when the meadow still felt like freedom. now it feels like the only place that might still remember who he was before all this.

the grass reaches his knees, and the air smells like summer again — warm earth, wildflowers, the faint trace of rain that hasn’t come yet.

and then he sees you.

sitting in the middle of it all, back to the sun, hair caught up in the light. you don’t look real at first — just a piece of the memory he’s been clinging to for weeks. but you move, lift your head, and that’s when he feels something in his chest break loose.

he stops walking. just stares.

for a long time, he doesn’t move at all. he just stands there, watching you, the way your hand twists absently in the grass, the way the wind brushes strands of hair across your face. you’ve waited. he can see it in the way you look at him — steady, quiet, sure.

the boy who left wouldn’t recognize the man standing there now. his face is thinner. there’s a new scar along his jaw, a few more across his arms where the fabric doesn’t quite hide them. but the way he looks at you is the same. that hasn’t changed.

he steps forward, slow. the grass bends beneath his boots, the sound of each footfall soft against the earth. he’s close enough for you to see the tremor in his hands.