[5 times quinn & katniss wake up together.]

[a/n i kinda love them so. it's happening.]

drag open the drapes and heave us back into our blinding, bright lives

.

this great evil. where does it come from? how'd it steal into the world? what seed, what root did it grow from? who's doing this? who's killing us? robbing us of life and light. mocking us with the sight of what we might've known. does our ruin benefit the earth? does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? is this darkness in you, too? have you passed through this night?

—terrence malick, the thin red line

…

1

The skin above your ribs hurts. It's not a rare occurrence, especially as it gets colder and damper—you live at the northern end of District 4, and winter is setting in. You fumble around a little in bed, rolling slightly to ease the taught pull over your sternum. And then you see tangled brown hair around a face with soft cheekbones and wonderful lips.

You almost want to start laughing because you slept with Katniss Everdeen, and the very same girl has stayed the night, and in no version of any outcomes of the war did you imagine this. But then you remember how sobering everything is, Katniss' dead sister, your dead sister, your shared scars probably taking up a whole body. You remember watching Katniss get burnt in the first Games, get poisoned in the Quarter Quell. Even when she was in couture dresses that lit on fire, makeup darkening her already stormy eyes, you never thought of her as anything less or more than a girl your age. Maybe this is a gift you never even knew you gave her. Because she was the Mockingjay, sure, but she is also someone who cried when you touched her gently the night before, someone who has lost people just like you, someone who has nightmares even when she's awake. It's deadly, this war you've both lived through.

So you let Katniss sleep for a little while, snuggle into her chest a bit further because despite being hurt, she is soft and warm and lovely still. After a while you kiss her softly to wake up, and she looks scared for a moment before she sees you, and then everything in her body relaxes.

Neither of you say anything for a while—you wonder if her skin sometimes hurts too; you just tangle your legs together and don't let go of anything, and it's important for both of you to be safe.

It's snowing outside, just barely, this white coating along the beach behind your house, the rocky shores and tide pools.

Quinn? she says quietly, voice rough.

Yeah?

I didn't know it snowed by the ocean, she says.

You smile and kiss her cheek softly. I suppose you still have a few things to learn, then, don't you?

She ducks her head but you see her smile too.

Let me make us some coffee and we can sit on the porch out back, you say. She nods and stands, back toward you, wings of burnt skin there, and then you tell her, It's beautiful when things like this happen, and you mean her alive body as well as the salve falling outside.

2

Your nightmares are not nightmares.

They're flashbacks: When they killed your family in front of you, everyone was just trying to get away from the air raids. You were sitting on the beach with Santana, and she went to look for starfish in the tide pool, and then she wasn't there any longer, and neither was the tide pool, and you couldn't hear or see, really, with all of the sand in your eyes. There's ringing and your balance is all off—nothing of a dancer left in you now—and you didn't even realize you were crying until you stumble back to your house and Frannie sees you and grabs you frantically, tries to brush blood and sand from your face but there's so much, and she pulls her toward you, crushes you against her chest.

Santana, you say, but you don't know how to continue explaining.

Oh, Quinn, Frannie says, and your parents don't know but she does, and she says, I'm so sorry, Quinn.

And then she takes your hand gently and says, We have to go now.

You nod and you let your well-trained limbs follow to the boat where your father and mother are already waiting. You think you might actually get away but then men are dropping down onto the deck, and they rip you away from Frannie and pull her to stand with your mother and father. You know you're screaming but you still can't hear, and Frannie is yelling something, something like maybe, She's so young please don't hurt her. You scream and scream and they force you to watch as they make your family kneel down, and then they shoot them. It's all their blood and salt spray and you should be dead.

They take you away.

You still can't hear.

You wake up with a start, gasping, and in some ways that's not even the worst of it, and you can hear now but you have absolutely no idea where you are. But then a strong, soft pair of thin arms is around you.

Quinn, she says. Hey, you're okay, you're okay, you're here.

You look around and it's pretty blues, and then Katniss' face is so close, and you remember you're in District 12, at her house.

I'm sorry, you say, and you try to hiccup back tears. I didn't—

Quinn, she whispers. Baby, she says. She kisses your forehead and you cling to her, focus on her eyes and the way she smells—like clean clothes something like cinammon—until your body starts to relax. She knows by now what had happened, she knows about Santana exploding in front of you and your family being killed. You've been seeing each other for months now, back and forth between your districts—neither of you really have anything to keep you in one place, and she's been staying more and more at your house; she likes the ocean—but this weekend you're in District 12.

She waits for you to calm down a little, for your breathing to even out and your tears to stop. She doesn't try to make it better by telling you anything but small reassurances that it's no longer that moment, that you're in bed with her, that it's spring.

Is it morning? you ask once your voice isn't soaked with tears.

She smiles. Yeah.

We almost made it through the night, you say.

She laughs. That'd have been a record, the two of us with no nightmares.

You start making jokes, then, which is something you've gotten good at together—Katniss is clever and dry and you sort of absolutely love her very off-kilter humor.

You end up having toast and coffee for breakfast and then you both put on short sleeved t-shirts because it is warm and you've earned the sun on your damaged skin. You hold hands and she leads you to her woods, and the whole place is blooming.

That's why I wanted you to come here today, she says, kissing you softly in a field of wildflowers.

3

A year after it happens—and Katniss knows—she convinces you to sleep outside on the beach with her. It's cold but she sets up a tent & builds a large fire.

Good to see you've not lost a step, you say, and she laughs.

Like riding a bike, she says, handing you a cup of tea and putting out her arm.

She doesn't ask if you're okay, and you don't ask if she's okay. She snakes a hand under the thick jacket and thicker sweater you have on, trailing along your scars. You've done the same to her many times, to remind her that she's here, that you'd never hurt her, that the damage she's survived doesn't make you want to run away.

You've only talked about what happened once; neither of you can really put certain things into words, and both of you know that pushing doesn't help. Katniss might understand what happened to her more than you do, because they tortured you for what seemed like the hell of it for days and then dropped you off—a year ago—on the steps of a healing center in the largest, wealthiest part of District 4.

You don't remember that part. You remember bits and pieces of the next few weeks: You'd had an infection, a fever; they'd tried to stitch all of your gashes as neatly as possible; when you woke you were swathed in bandages and constantly out of breath and no one was holding your hand.

There are times, you know, when Katniss still feels like this—this senselessness—was her fault.

Times like tonight, maybe, underneath the stars and with the gentle roar of waves below you. The ocean will always be your home but you're beginning to think it's becoming Katniss' refuge as well, and maybe this is because of you.

On the quilted blanket by the fire, Katniss kisses you, tugs on your bottom lip with her teeth, and reaches down your pants.

You say, I love you.

She says it back.

When you wake up the next morning with the dawn, Katniss is holding you tightly, and you'd had a few nightmares but they were easily calmed by the cold open air and the waves and Katniss' breath, and you roll over.

She stirs, blinks hazily and then smiles gently. The sunrise is a bruise—blues and greens and purples—over the water, which in the early morning looks like ash. Like Katniss' eyes.

She traces the scar that runs from your eyebrow to your jaw softly with her rough fingertips, and she says, You're stupidly pretty, you know that?

You're sure you're blushing and you duck your head.

You really are, she says. Just thought I'd let you know.

You nudge her shoulder playfully and kiss her.

I used to be an asshole, she says. Like, very terrible at romantic stuff. But then I met you and you just mess everything up because you're so cute.

You roll your eyes.

No, I'm serious, she says. Like, if anyone would've told me a few years ago that I'd have set up a seaside picnic sleepover with a blonde from District 4 I'd have probably tried to shoot them.

You both start laughing, and you both ignore the fact that a few years ago she'd never killed anyone and no one had set her on fire and no one had tortured you to send a message to someone else.

This morning you're young, and you're on the beach with a beautiful girl, and there are no more bombs.

You take her hand a little later and wander around the tide pools; you even find a few starfish.

4

Nineteen months after you met that day—she'd stood by you on the beach for hours, and you'd not known what to do because this was Katniss Everdeen but in person she maybe had ten pounds and half an inch on you, and her eyes were all ashes, and you loved that she didn't know what to say—you wake up tucked into her sprawled form. You both sometimes sleep erratically, scars and nightmares preventing you from staying still. She's essentially living in District 4 at this point, and she bought you a camera for your birthday which you have fallen in love with, and she's been learning all sorts of new things, reading books and picking up instruments. You know she loves the sea and getting to be near Annie, and you're pretty certain she's in love with you.

This morning, you realize that for the first time in over a year and a half, neither one of you had had any nightmares. You'd made it through the night.

Katniss, you say, rousing her gently.

It takes her a few groggy, gentle seconds to wake up. Mmmmm?

I'm in love with you too, you say.

Her eyes get big and then she smiles.

.

5

You've started to think maybe you could make films. You've started to think this would be an important thing. Katniss agrees, you know, because she keeps getting you cameras. She'd spent more and more time with you in District 4 since you met, and it's almost been two years, and you adore her. Lately Katniss has fallen in love with taking care of animals at a nearby sanctuary, and it seems so fitting because for so long she was forced to kill, and now she gets to heal. They don't talk like humans, either, which you know she appreciates.

Somewhere between the second time she came to visit and now, you've realized that you're building a life together. That you've spent so much time helping each other heal. You can't imagine you'd have survived this time after the war without her, and you think most likely the same is true for her. You are together.
So she knows it's really teasing when you brought up the fact that essentially she moved into your house without warning, although you'd never minded in the slightest. Your house is your family's house, so it's inherently filled with ghosts, but it's warm and just by the ocean. You'd never been wealthy but you'd never wanted for anything either.

But today when you come home from the beginnings of shooting what might be your first film, Katniss is sitting on the steps outside. She kisses you hard, and then she grabs your hand.

There's a car waiting around the corner, and she doesn't say anything so you don't either. You drive for over an hour, into the largest city in 4. There's a bay that runs along one edge, and you drive to a beautiful set of houses, and the car stops. Katniss gets out, and you can tell that she's trying to hide a smile, and she leads you to one painted a gentle yellow before she hands you a key.

We can keep your house, too, she says, and you have no idea what to say because you open the door and the house is completely redone and beautiful—mahogany floors and pale walls and soft, simple furniture. The kitchen is huge—you've started to love cooking together—and the bedroom has floor to ceiling windows overlooking the bay.

Katniss, you say, this is—I—

Finally ineloquent, she says, leaning happily against the bedroom doorframe. I thought it'd be nice to have a place in the city for your films and— She catches sight of your face, and you're about to start crying, so she quickly says, If you don't like it, that's fine, we can look at some more, I just saw this one and—

You walk toward her quickly and kiss her. I love it, you say. I love you.

One corner of her mouth quirks up in a smirk. Sometimes I think you forget I have more money than god.

You're a moron, you say, with surprisingly sophisticated taste in home furnishings.

She laughs into your mouth and it's unspoken that she's moved to be with you officially because the house is fully furnished and most of her clothes are already here, as are a few pictures of Prim and some happy ones caught of the two of you.

You make love that night for hours, languidly because you can, because this is the first place that belongs to just the two of you, because this is the first place that you ever get to be in that begins happily.

You wake up late next morning, and Katniss is still asleep in front of you, your arms wrapped firmly around her and your mouth pressed against her neck.

She'd had a bad nightmare early that morning, but her breathing is deep and steady now.

You've both lived lifetimes in your twenty-one years, haunted and ghastly ones, but this morning is bright, and Katniss is warm and safe in your arms.

The sun outside glints off the bay, and it is blindingly bright, so you kiss the back of Katniss' neck, and you close your eyes against the glare, and you tug her just a bit more tightly to you. It's still early, and you both deserve a bit more rest.