AN: This is my first! And apparently, I'm an unwilling fan of run-on sentences so beware! :D
At over 80 years old, Katniss Everdeen-Mellark had realized that she was just like her mother. The potential had been there all along; she just hadn't seen it before now.
Now she was broken; there was so much pain coursing through her she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, and had no desire to.
It had been like any other morning. She had woken before Peeta, her body wrapped around his, and thought that today would be one of those rare days where she made breakfast for him. She had scooted to the edge of the small bed (they could afford a bigger, better one, but as they'd aged and the lovemaking dwindled, they'd opted for a smaller one that allowed them to just be right beside each other). Her joints had protested as she slid her feet into her slippers and she ignored them, like always. She had shuffled, oh so slowly, to the closet with her mind a sleepy haze. She pulled her gray, worn robe from the hook before wrapping it around her body. As she was about to walk out of the bedroom door, her mind finally woke and came out of the fog. She was completely alert. She came to a sudden stop; she knew.
Unwilling to see, she had turned back into the room slowly, and refused to set eyes on Peeta until she was sitting beside him. Her hand, already unsteady with age, trembled recklessly as she reached toward his chest. Tears were running down her cheeks, unnoticed, before she even placed her palm over his heart. She couldn't feel anything, no heartbeat, no breath intake, and in sudden desperation her fingers rushed much more quickly to his mouth. There was no breath there either, and his lips were cold, gray. He had gone, silently in the night, while she had slept on unknowingly in his arms.
So that was how she found herself, dead inside; she was her mother. She was unable to see anything around her, unable to feel the numbness that usually settled in her toes from the diabetes, not feeling the shooting pains of arthritis, or even the way her chest was suddenly too tight and the way her arm tingled. She removed her slippers and robe without even thinking about it, tossing them uncaringly to the floor. 'I just need to feel his arms around me again.' It was the only thing she could think as she crawled over Peeta's lifeless form. Laying her feeble body back down next to his, she tucked herself into the crook of his arm, and pulled on both his hands until they were holding her. Just like they used to.
She was broken, torn to shreds, yet she still didn't make a noise. All she could feel was a horrendous shattering in her soul, and Peeta's body, so close to hers.
As she lay there, looking at his face, only a few moments passing, she finally took notice of the blackness rolling through her vision. It brought the pains in her arm and chest to the forefront of her mind, but only for the briefest second before that other bigger, crushing pain smothered it away. Dimly, Katniss was aware that her heart was giving out, but she paid no mind. The only thing that was real was him. She cupped Peeta's face in her hand lovingly, brought her mouth to his unhearing ear, and whispered, "Always."
ooooo
After a full day of no one answering the phone at the Mellark residence, Peeta and Katniss' grandson found them lying in their tiny bed, nestled into each other, unmoving, unseeing, lifeless.
Their family buried them just as they found them, in a double coffin, wrapped in each others arms.
AN the second: Please leave me a few reviews so I know how well (or how badly...) I'm doing. :)