A/N: Welcome, welcome, to my very first Hunger Games fanfic. As much as I love the books and the characters, I'm always hesitant to write for a fandom I haven't written for before. It's always so easy to keep writing for the characters you know, but this idea randomly entered my brain and it would not leave. So I decided to give it a shot and I hope you like it, even though it doesn't have the kind of ending I usually write.
Disclaimer: I wish the HG were mine. But happily for you, they're not or I would've kept Peeta all to myself. This plot however does belong to me.
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Out of Smiles
Part I
Peeta wakes up with a gasp, immediately sitting up in the unfamiliar bed, in the unfamiliar room. He's ready for a fight until he recognizes the interior of the train. He's not in danger. Not physically anyway. In his mind, however, he's drowning.
He can't remember the district he visited today or where he's headed. The train takes him from one place to the next, every stop bringing a new round of festivities thrown in his honor, the victor of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games. He despises it. He shouldn't have been the one standing there. He was going to die for her. The plan was that he would die for her and she would survive. Why couldn't she ever stick to a damn plan?
The sight of her last few moments alive haunt him, day and night, though the nights are the worst. The way she'd been giving him one of those beautiful yet rare smiles one moment, her eyes wide in shock the next as she coughed up blood, the tip of a knife sticking out of her stomach.
He didn't even remember breaking Cato's neck. He did it in a fit of rage, pure rage and hatred. Just a second and the damn bastard was dead.
Katniss, however, had to suffer for a while longer. He sat by her, holding her closely, all the time repeating how he loved her and how he didn't want her to leave. He couldn't let her go, not even after the cannon fired and someone happily announced him victor.
He refused to let go of her body, probably sat there for hours, until eventually one of the hovercrafts just picked him up with Katniss's limp body locked in his arms. They injected him with a sedative the moment he boarded and he was out within seconds. When he woke up, she was gone. Forever.
He gets out of the bed, even though it's only 3AM, but he knows he won't get any more sleep tonight. He decides to take a shower so he can safely fall apart and let his tears mingle with the clear water. Just to torture himself a little more, he pushes the button so the scent of her shampoo fills the room. For a brief moment, he can smell her and a smile graces his lips. Then he crumbles.
When Effie knocks on his door in the morning announcing a busy day, he pulls himself together. He's glad for his prep team, knowing they'll make him look at least somewhat presentable. All the crowd wants is him smiling and waving at them. And that's exactly what he does for the remainder of the tour, though his smiles never reach his eyes anymore.
