It starts the day we go to the bakery. Or rather the ruins of it.
There is nothing there, really. Some rubble left over, the foundations barely intact. Just an empty space, where once had stood the home where he'd taken his first steps, eaten his meals every night, did his homework. Now nothing more than a layer of ash covering the ground.
I hadn't been sure about him going, but he hadn't had a chance to say goodbye. And it went without saying that he needed me there – the look in his eyes when he asked me 'please' was enough to sway me.
We walk hand in hand to the town, or what is left of it. People mill around, picking apart rubble, throwing remains into trucks to be buried in the surrounding area. We quietly manoeuvre without much notice; so much for the famous star-crossed lovers from District Twelve. Now we are nothing more than a pair of broken teenagers trying to piece our lives back together.
We've recently been spending more time together. He'd come over for breakfast and dinner, and then started staying longer into the evenings. We'd watch television, on different sides of the couch at first, but it didn't take long for me to find myself hesitantly curled up in his lap whilst he absent-mindedly stroked the charred remains of my hair. It's been about a week since we started sharing a bed again – tentative at first, but I remember waking up this morning to the sound of his heart, and I remember being so thankful for it.
When we arrive at the bakery, we stand in silence for a while. I used to be able to read him so well, but he is a blank canvas to me now. I don't realise I am staring at him until he turns to me, his blue eyes shining with the ghosts that lived here. His face crumples, his shoulders sagged, his body erupting into a fit of sobbing. He kneels on the floor, tears streaming down his face, and I kneel beside him, wrapping my arms around him. They shook with his body, and I feel him clinging to me, as if I am the one thing keeping him from going over the edge. We kneel in the ashes of his loved ones and lament everybody we've lost in the last two years.
Eventually his sobs begin to quieten, his body stills, his breathing deepens. He turns to look at me, his blue eyes ringed with a violent red. I don't even realise I am crying until his fingers stroke across my face, wiping the tears away. I feel his arms slide around me and pull me close, so I am able to faintly smell the cinnamon he must've been baking with this morning. I feel his lips touch the joint where my neck and shoulder meet and am taken back to the middle of the night, on a train when I couldn't sleep and wanted nothing more than him to hold me and chase away the demons that plagued my conscience. Warmth radiates throughout my body, a welcome sensation, and I hold him tighter to me if that's possible. He whispers in my ear that he misses them and I promise him that we'll remember them. That we'll make their deaths count by living well. He pulls away to look at me, the ghost of the boy who held me in the cave lingering in his eyes and in the hint of a smile on his lips. He leans forward and I meet him halfway. We kiss for the first time since the mayhem of the Capitol, sealing our promise. I then place a kiss on his forehead, before weaving my fingers through his and pulling him to his feet. He takes a last look at the ruins of his childhood home, of his old life, and then follows me to start a new one.
A/N - This was originally supposed to be a one shot written on a high after watching the Catching Fire movie, but after many late nights, I've managed to produce an almost 10,000 word document that's still in progress! This is the first in a series of one shots depicting Katniss and Peeta's life after the war and how they grew back together - rather one shots than chapters just because there's no particular link between the chapters although they will be posted in a specific order. If that makes any sense!
Also if you read my fanfiction 'Little Notes' I'm afraid I'm putting it on hold for now - I don't particularly have the inspiration to write it anymore so I'm taking a break from it. I'm not sure if I'll return to it, but I'll let you know if I do!
This fic should be updated on a weekly basis, and feedback and reviews keep me going and are always greatly appreciated, even if it's a couple of words. Thank you! xo