who you are; Katelyn oneshot

k a t e l y n .

You can't run when you're holding suitcases
It's a new day throw away your mistakes and open up your heart
Lay down your guard, you don't have to be afraid

Katelyn hated the Games Museum. It was a macabre insult to the things that she and the other victors had suffered. Their triumphs and failures, their pain, put on display for anyone to peruse, to leaf through like a book. It was wrong. There was a wrongness to it that she couldn’t put into words. But sometimes, reliving the past was the only way to move forward, and she couldn’t deny that for all the nightmares a place like that could generate, it could offer catharsis as well.

It hadn’t taken long to find the display’s dedicated to the sixty-ninth. She’d been there before. And she activated the holograms she needed to see. It was better this way, putting faces to the thoughts. She could have a conversation with herself without feeling alone. And this was something she needed to be alone for. Something that been weighing heavily on her mind, ever since her moment with Opal on the train platform. But longer than that, if she was being honest with herself.

“My friends,” she said quietly, feeling misty-eyed. Friends that felt like family, even now. It had always been difficult for her to make friends when she was young, but they’d accepted her almost immediately. “I’ve tried so hard,” she went on. “Tried so hard to live for you.” Marchello. Ellexias. Velocity. She stared into that girl’s eyes and searched for something. Something that was speaking to her.

“You trusted us, and we let you down. But you saw the good in us, didn’t you? And you,” she said, turning to the image of Marc. "You protected us. You didn’t know me. But you gave everything to help me. How could I ever do anything less for anyone that needs my help?” She turned to look at the simulacrum of Lexi. “You, you never gave up. You couldn’t. You kept fighting, despite the loss of your limbs. Despite losing Marc. You were strong and fierce. You were everything I wasn’t, everything I wanted to be.”

And she had tried to model her life after the lessons the three of them had taught her. Trust. Compassion. Inner fire. Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions. The mantra she’d spoken over the shrine they’d encountered. She’d been a lion. But she never would have gotten to the end without them. And at the end—

“I killed them, you know.” “Yeah,” Katelyn said, a rueful and tired smile forming on her lips as she turned to face another phantom. “And then I killed you.” She sighed, pausing for a moment. “I’ve never forgotten your final words to me. Enjoy your time living in a world of dead men walking.” Over time, it had weighed on her mind less, though it reared its head occasionally. “There have been times in the past where I wondered if it would have better if that first spear thrust had killed me.” Katelyn shrugged.

Those were the darkest times in her life. When she felt like a burden, a curse upon everyone and everything around her. She’d been told she’d been a blessing to many people, but it was hard to see it that way. There’d been so many over the years. So many ghosts. So many children that came home in boxes. So many relations to the family she’d built. That had claimed her as one of their own. “But I’ve been the walking dead too, afraid of living. Just surviving day by day.” Paranoid about the next thing the Capitol was going to do to the people she cared about. Worried if tomorrow would be the day they put her back in chains.

“I’m afraid of being happy, I know that.” she said, her voice threatening to break. “Because every time I am, something happens to knock me down. And I get back up, I always get back up, but the hits just keep coming.” There were times when she’d wanted to give up, but she couldn’t. She never could; not while she could make a difference. Even if it left her threadbare and bleeding. Even if the consequences left her holding the bag. But it hurt sometimes. God, it hurt. To be the senior victor in the district was to feel like everything was on her shoulders. The hope of the district, their children’s lives. It was her responsibility.

“But I’m happy now. And it’s because of her. I feel safe. Just seeing her face stirs something in me that I can’t express. I can talk to her, I can share my deepest feelings. I can just be me.” She could just be Katelyn. Not the victor, the mentor, the pawn, the hero. Just, Katelyn. “If this a dream I don’t want to wake up, because if I do—” Katelyn wiped at the tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. “If I fuck this up again, I’ll never forgive myself.” Second chances in life were rare, but they did happen, and she couldn’t deny that there had been something there before. Something that could have been, if only she’d seen what she had meant to Opal. What Opal meant to her. Her best friend.

Her rock.

Her miracle.

Another specter materialized, and she let out a strained laugh. Of course. Who else would it be?

A seventeen year old Katelyn Persimmon stared back at her.

“My name’s Katelyn, It’s nice to meet you.” It said.

“My name too,” she responded, putting out a hand to touch her younger self’s shoulder. Her hand passed through it with a shimmer. “We did it. We made it out. We survived. And now we’re moving on. Now we’re living.” She turned around again and looked at trio of digital ghosts smiling at her before nodding resolutely. “I can’t live for you anymore. Any of you,” she added, thinking of all the funerals she’d been to. “I’ve got to live for myself.” She stared at the scene in front of her a moment longer, watching the holographic snow swirl around them, before leaving and walking through the exit towards her future.