Confession
"The locket didn't work, did it?" Peeta asks me. I glance at him.
"It worked." I tell him.
"Yeah, but not in the way I wanted it to." He says.
"Peeta." I say and I grab his arm, leading him away from everyone else to a spot they won't be able to hear us.
"What the hell is your problem?" I ask. "Why are you so keen on dying?" I release his arm from my grasp and it falls to his side.
"Katniss," He starts and I see tears pool in his beautiful blue eyes. "Your life has value, mine doesn't. You have your mother and your sister who love you more than anything and you need to get back to them, because Katniss if you died..."
Peeta lets out a sigh and I watch a tear fall down his cheek. It takes everything inside me not to wipe it away.
"Katniss, if you die and I live, I would have nothing." He tells me. "Nobody else that I care about. Nobody else that cares about me."
In the next second, Peeta is holding his cheek where I slapped him.
"How dare you say that about yourself." I tell him. "You don't see it, do you?"
"See what?" He asks, looking into my eyes.
"How much my family loves you." I tell him. "Prim, she adores you and she sees you as her older brother, as someone to look up to. She loves talking to you and she loves it when you come over every morning with a basket of cheese buns for breakfast. She loves you the way she loves me, I promise you that. And my mother? She may as well be your mother, too, because that woman sees you as the son she never had. She loves you, Peeta. She loves making you smile and seeing you happy and I know damn well that she looks forward to your visits to our house."
A tear falls from Peeta's eye and he wipes it away quickly.
"What, did you just think that nobody would miss you if you died? That our little sister or our mother wouldn't miss you?"
Peeta looks into my eyes, but says nothing.
"Did you not think that I would miss you?" I ask. "Because I would."
"Katniss, nobody needs me-" He tries to say, but I cut him off.
"I do." I tell him. "I need you."
Peeta hangs his head, but I'm not finished.
"I would miss seeing you smile, and hearing you laugh." Peeta's head snaps back up to look at me. "I would miss watching you bake, and I would miss your bright blond hair that I love to run my fingers through so much." I smile a little and so does Peeta.
"I would miss how you make my nightmares go away and the warmth of your hands." I continue. "I would miss the spark I feel whenever you touch me, even if it's accidental. I would miss your kindness and your understanding, because you understand me in a way that Gale doesn't."
Peeta nods, knowing I'm talking about our shared understanding of the Games.
"I would miss the safety I feel whenever you hug me. I would miss the way our hands fit together like puzzle pieces. I would miss the electricity that I feel whenever you kiss me. I would miss all of you."
This time, I feel a tear slip from my own eye and I let it fall as I stare into Peeta's blue eyes that give me so much security.
"When you hit the force field, and nearly died...I was already planning on joining you if you had stayed dead." I confess. "If Finnick hadn't saved you and gotten your heart beating again, it would of only been a matter of time before I snuck of to finish myself off."
Peeta looks shocked at my confession, I walk closer to him and look him right in the eyes. This was not how I imagined my first time saying this to him to go, but I need to get my point across.
"Because I love you, Peeta." I tell him, his eyes widen. "And if you died, so would I."
"Please tell me I'm not hearing things." He whispers to me. I smile at him and say it again.
"I love you, Peeta Mellark."
In the next moment, my lips are on Peeta's in a passionate kiss. I feel the electricity along with that thing I felt on the beach. Our lips move together in sync and we pull apart when we need to breathe. Peeta rests his forehead on mine and we look into each others eyes. Grey to blue, blue to grey.
"I love you, too." He whispers.
"We're in this together, right?" I ask him, softly. He pulls me into his arms and I cling to him tightly, nestling my face into his neck.
"Always." He whispers into my ear.
We stay in each others arms for a few minutes before pulling apart.
"We should probably get back to the group." Peeta says. "We don't want them to think we've gone rogue."
"Yeah, we probably should head back." I say. "Let's go."
I grab his hand and intertwine our fingers as we walk back to the group. We find Finnick standing on the shoreline and Johanna watching over Wiress an Beetee as they sleep.
"Where did you two sneak off to?" Finnick asks when he sees us coming towards him, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Not to do what you're thinking." I tell him, smacking him on the shoulder, hardly.
"Ouch!" He yelps, bringing his hand to his shoulder.
"You were asking for it, Odair." I tease him. "Get your mind out of the gutter."
"You're lucky you're a lady, Everdeen." He teases back.
"Yeah, whatever, Finnick." I say. "Why don't you get some sleep? Peeta and I can stay on watch for a while. Tell Johanna to sleep a little, too."
Finnick only nods and then walks off in Johanna's direction, Peeta and I sit down on the shoreline.
"We'll check on on them every few minutes." I state, and Peeta nods. We fall into a comfortable silence.
I think to myself about everything I confessed to Peeta today. Normally, I wouldn't even say all that if he and I were alone together and talking, let alone in the arena for the Quarter Quell.
Something I definitely didn't expect myself to do was tell Peeta I love him for the first time in an arena. I'd figured I'd tell him back home in District 12, but the Quarter Quell did mes with that. But, as I look over to him and watch the breeze slowly dry his wet, blonde hair...
I have no regrets.
A/N: I felt like I could add more to this, so I'm rewriting it. I don't know if I want to leave it as a one-shot though or make it an actual chapter story, because I'm starting to get my inspiration back for my Hunger Games fics. Do you guys want this to be a chapter story or do you want me to leave it a one-shot? Let me know, muchachos.
~Charlotte