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I stand motionless as snow begins to fall on District 12. The air stings my lungs as I breathe in, but still, I don't go inside. Not back to my bed and the faces of the people I killed. I look across the courtyard of Victor's Village, where I know he's awake. Painting. Baking. I notice that his bedroom windows are open. I feel a pang of longing hit my chest, and I can't ignore it. Not tonight, when the night—so dark, but interrupted by long rectangles of light from his lit windows-is full of him. I close my eyes and let myself remember the blue of his eyes in the darkness of the cave. Full of light. Love. His eyes on the train, empty. Hurt.
My feet carry me to his door, maybe subconsciously, maybe not. They carry me to the last person with whom I felt safe.
"Peeta," I breathe. He stands in the light of the hallway, just staring blankly at me. There are smudges of paint on his left cheek. Gray paint. I don't know how long I stand in front of him, unable to breathe, unable to speak. But eventually, he stands aside, silently letting me in. I step forward hesitantly. I'm not sure if being here is good or bad, but I'm tired of the space between our houses hanging between us like an interrupted sentence.
"Katniss," he says, his voice hard. "What are you doing here?"
"I couldn't sleep," I respond. He chuckles mirthlessly, and I look at my feet.
"So you need me now, do you?" Peeta asks, looking at me like he finally sees me for who I am. I turn to go, because this was a mistake. Of course he's stopped loving me. Just when I realize the mistake I've made. Just when I'm ready to admit that I miss him. If I were him, I wouldn't love me either. "Wait," he calls, just as my hand touches the doorknob. "Katniss, wait," he says again, but his voice is gentler this time. I stand there, frozen, letting the sound of his voice warm my cold fingers. Letting the memories of five months ago work their way through me until my heart doesn't feel like a frozen block of ice in my chest. I smile to myself.
"I had a nightmare, and when I woke up, I—" I stumble over the words, because I'm not sure what I want to say and I don't know how I feel. But I have to say something. "I just want you to know that it wasn't fair to let you think that I loved you when I was just trying to keep us alive."
"So it was an act. That's it," Peeta replies, his voice devoid of any emotion. I finally turn around.
"I think I finally figured it out," I whisper. My voice is barely audible, but my eyes don't leave his. The space between us feels electric, and he looks up at me through his eyelashes. Something heats up in the pit of my stomach, and suddenly, his lips are on mine.
The months of lost time fade away to dust as his hands hold my face steady. As his lips move against mine. I don't see the faces of the people that were slaughtered in front of me. The only things I've seen since I've come back. Instead, I see him smiling up at me in our cave. I see his eyes on the stage after we won the Games. I see him bleeding to death on the Cornucopia. I see the doctors taking him away from me. Maybe I was trying to keep us alive during the Games, but there was a part of me that started to fall in love with him. A part of me that has been buried deep inside of me my entire life, a part of me that is stunted and malnourished, a part of me I wasn't ready to accept. I break away from him, trying to catch my breath.
I look at him, suddenly terrified of what I've discovered. Terrified of myself, of the damage I can do to people. Terrified that loving him will make me as weak as my mother. But his eyes are the same whether in the rain of District 12 or the shining lights of the Capitol, and my fears suddenly aren't so urgent.
"I'm afraid," I tell him anyway. "I'm afraid that loving you will make me weak. Vulnerable, or something. I don't know how to put it into words," I finish lamely. He smiles at me, and I flush a little. I'm not the one that's good with words. That's Peeta.
"I know. It wasn't fair of me to hold you to what you did in the Games. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be alive. And it wasn't fair for me to expect you to return my feelings that quickly, especially during the Games. I acted like a child. But I'm willing to start over if you are."
I laugh a little at this, because starting over is impossible. Not with the Games. Not with the unspoken history that linger between us. "We don't need to start over. We can't forget the Games, or what we've been through together," I say. "But I know that I need you. So I'm willing to try. To start off slow." His eyebrows knit together, and he opens his mouth to speak again.
"What about Gale?" He asks, and I almost laugh at the question. Gale, my best friend. The man that knows me better than anyone else. The man that has confessed his love for me and all I felt was uncomfortable. The man that will never understand me as well as Peeta does now. Now that the Games have changed me, after the Games left a level of psychological scar tissue that only a victor would understand.
"What about him?" is all I say back, shrugging my shoulders. He laughs a little bit, and throws an arm around me. I shudder a little, then lean into him and sigh. I'm starved for human contact, after months of waking up screaming in the middle of the night, greeted only by darkness and the echo of mockingjay songs in my ears.
"So the Victory Tour," Peeta says, and I roll my eyes.
"The Victory Tour is going to be unbearable," I mutter.
"You mean you're not excited to tour the country with Effie and Haymitch?" He asks, smile widening when he sees my scowl.
"Absolutely not." Peeta laughs at me, and my scowl deepens.
"You know it starts tomorrow, right?" Peeta asks, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
"No way. That can't be right," I say, and mentally count the months, the weeks, the days until I realize that of course it's tomorrow. "I've barely slept in weeks. My prep team is going to kill me. I should go," I say as I hurry to the door, but Peeta catches my arm. When I turn, his eyes are desperate.
"Please, stay. Please. I get them, too. I stay up all night painting to try and make them better. Please, Katniss," he begs.
So I let him lead me to his bedroom, where, for the first time since Prim's name was drawn from the reaping bowl, I fall into a dreamless sleep.