This story is the entry I gave for the charity A Candle for the Carribean, that helped raise money for the people that were deaffected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
It's a story of loss, and hope ... i hope you'll enjoy :)
Beta'ed with talent by xerxia31
the amazing banner was done by the absolutely awesome akai-echo
Thank you ladies, for your help :)
Peeta was exhausted.
Or rather, he was beyond exhaustion.
He wished he could find solace in the landscape in front of him. The endless blue of the sea, marked here and there with little puffs of white, meeting the sky, in a never ending palette of blues. It would be breathtaking if he could take his mind of the disaster all around him.
That wasn't reason enough to stop, though. There were still countless people to find and help, tons of rubble to clear, so many things to do in so little time.
Hopefully there were still people they could save too.
He swiped the sweat from his forehead, before securing his helmet again, grabbing a sip of water from his bottle, then turning back.
Instead of rows of white buildings covered with pink tiles, there were now broken stones, torn windows frames, fallen trees, crashed cars. Everywhere despair, sadness, mixed in the remnants of the island.
The worst though, was the endless silence, only broken here and there by the fall of a building, or the crashing of a tree.
Peeta sighed, taking his bag of supplies with him as he started walking towards the next destroyed house, where his team had already started removing stone after stone.
It was hours later that finally he gave into a bit of rest. Just like his teammates, he didn't bother walking to the Red Cross campment that had been set up as soon as transportation was available. Instead, he found a place under a palm tree that wasn't soaked, put his bag on the ground to use as a pillow and fell asleep.
He woke up to the smell of salt, a soft breeze relentlessly moving a lock of hair that stubbornly fell across his face, day after day.
Time passed, one grueling day after another. Time spent moving tons bricks or wood out of the rubble of the island, making a tentative way for the emergency units to come and repair.
To clean and rebuild.
His hands were soaked with blood and sweat. It didn't stop him, or any of his crew.
Day after day, they cleared each street. Night after night, he fell asleep, exhausted, under the same old tree.
Under the same old stars.
He volunteered to stay longer on the island, to help with the re-building. He had, after all, no family to go back to - his brothers and father could manage at the bakery without him for a few more weeks.
There was something about this island that caught his heart. The blue of the sky, above, that fell into the sea until he couldn't tell where one finished and the other started. The green of the trees, languidly swaying with the wind, when the coconut leaves barely touched the golden sand.
There was something in the smiles of the inhabitants too. Some had lost everything: their homes, members of their families. Yet they never lost their smiles.
Despite everything, they were willing to lend a helping hand, even when they spent hours on end queuing for some bottles of water, for some food, thanks to the Red Cross.
There was something about the one particular young woman who caught his eye every day. She spent long hours helping to clear the rubble of one of the houses down the street, stopping only for some water, grabbing here and there a bit of food when she could find it. Unlike the rest of the population, she didn't wear bright colors, didn't try to engage in any kind of conversation with anyone.
Every day, Peeta would watch her working alone, taking away stone after stone, log after log, finding here and there things she quickly put in the big leather bag she always carried with her.
Every day, he tried to go and talk to her.
Every day, she ran away before he could get too close.
She was fast, where he wasn't.
She was silent, when he wasn't.
She knew the woods behind the small pile of rubble that Peeta supposed had been her home. He didn't.
She was a mystery to him, to everyone.
There was so much pain in her eyes, he could tell from the few times she had looked at him.
He watched her, every day, as she moved stone after stone, log after log, her body getting thinner and thinner.
Yet, she only took a few bites of the food she had been given by the Red Cross, shoving the rest, carefully folded, in the worn-out leather bag she always carried with her.
Peeta noticed her already thin frame was becoming thinner with each passing day. Her movements became slower, seemingly more difficult.
Still, every day, she hid most of her food in her satchel instead of eating it.
He wasn't able to leave some food for her, even though he wanted to, because she was always there before them. It wasn't like he was keeping his baker's hours here, on the island.
He watched her weakening with every day that passed.
He started losing sleep, trying to wake up as early as possible to try to give her more of his daily rations, but she always beat him to the punch. He started wandering the camp they had settled in, trying to find things that could help her - the cleaning team was so far from the house she was searching, it would take them weeks to reach her. And Peeta was afraid that in a few days she would fall from of exhaustion, or hunger.
A solution came to him one night, late - or early in the morning.
He was a baker.
Bakers bake. Make bread. There was way too much flour being sent by the charities, an unlimited supply of water, thanks to luck the water treatment plant being still worked after the hurricane.
He could bake.
For the population of the island.
For her.
For a chance to help her.
He spoke with the crews around, and someone pointed out a house on the same street they were working, a place that still had a functioning oven.
Word spread. People came by, bringing wood to start the oven, asking if they could help, hauling the heavy sacks of flour, gathering baskets of water, found salt and yeast.
When Peeta took the first loaves out of the oven, he swore he could hear the gathered crowd take a collective breath. At the sight of the bread, a deafening clamor overtook the crowd. It was as if all of what remained of the inhabitants of Panem were there, waiting for the precious bread to be ready.
Even if by Peeta's standards the crust was too dark, the crumb not dense enough, the bread overall not what he was used to, he'd never felt as happy as he did handing the loaves to the people waiting for it. He watched as mothers cut pieces for their children, sending him warm smiles over the little ones heads. He was overwhelmed by hugs from men and women alike, thanking him for bringing them some kind of normalcy, some kind of hope that life could start again.
Peeta spent hours baking, and scanning the crowds of people who came for bread.
But he never saw the person he most wanted to see.
She never came.
Peeta was persistent, though.
He baked again the next day. And the day after.
He soon found people willing to learn to make bread.
So he taught them.
But he always looked out for her.
The girl with the dark hair in a braid. The one who came early in the morning and only accepted bread when Rue handed it to her. Who still ran away from him every time he tried to step in.
Peeta knew his days on the island were numbered.
Reconstruction was underway, power had been restored, materials and more crews had arrived, cranes were being settled.
Emergency units would be sent back home soon.
It happened on the beach, in the last minutes of the day, when the remains of the sun lapped the waves with fiery kisses.
Peeta was trying to capture the beauty of the scenery on his sketchbook, when she arrived, bathed in the orange light. She was like an apparition walking on the beach, her braid shining under the last rays of the sun, and she was heading straight towards him.
His breath hitched when he realized that he was her focus.
That she was coming to him.
He discarded his book and pen on the beach, standing up to face the girl the sun had set on fire.
He was mesmerized by the light in her grey eyes, tiny sparkles of diamonds shining in front of him, before she dropped her gaze to look at her hands.
"Thank you for the bread," she whispered in a breath of air, before she turned and started to walk away.
"Wait!" Peeta said, taking a few steps towards her. She stopped, turning her head to look at him. "You don't have to thank me…."
"You saved us. You saved us all," she said, as she moved to face the horizon, looking at the still setting sun. "You gave us hope."
"It was just bread." Peeta closed the distance between them, standing next to the young woman.
"It was more than bread. It was …. it was like this sun," she said, extending her hand towards the spectacle they were both witnessing. "It was warm and comforting. It was soothing. A balm to the body, and to our souls. It was good. It was hope, hope that life could be good again, one day. Maybe."
Her words left Peeta speechless. He had just wanted to make a bit of bread for the people living on the island - for her. He hadn't thought for a second it would have more meaning than simply feeding and helping the people.
He could feel the warmth coming from the young woman standing besides him. Or maybe it was the last rays of the sun, he couldn't tell. Peeta just knew he had to talk fast, or she would leave.
Even if the words seemed to escape him.
He wanted to tell her that her eyes were mesmerizing, two moons shining in the setting sun. That he wanted to touch the locks of hair escaping her braid, to see if they felt like silk. That her olive skin shone much brighter than any jewel he had ever seen.
He just couldn't.
So he said the first thing that came to his mind.
"See the sun? It's my favorite color."
"Orange? that's… particular."
"Not orange orange. Orange, like the sunset. When the red and pink melt together, with strands of yellow, of purple… I've never been able to paint it accurately."
"You paint?" she asked.
They spent hours talking on the sand, long after the sun had set. Long after the stars had started lighting the sky above them, until dawn basked them in her pink glow.
Her name was Katniss.
Her hair was like the softest silk.
Her eyes shone like the purest silver when she told the priest "I do," years later.
Her skin was his and only his to touch. Always.
As usual, please leave feel free to leave a message if you've liked this story :)