I don't talk for sixteen days when I get back to District 12. I go through the motions of life, my head full of cotton that has no intention of blowing out anytime soon. I sip soup that is placed in front of me, I don't pay particular attention of where the food comes from, I just know I should eat it. I don't flinch when the hot broth flames on my tongue and slides down my throat. I'm only vaguely aware I should care about this, but I keep ladling the liquid passed my mouth, it tastes of air, after my taste buds have been scorched, not that it tasted like much more beforehand. At night I crawl into bed, my fingers curled around the thick blankets, each night it seems like another is added, more weight presses down on my empty shell of a body, but I cannot be crushed anymore than I already have in the past years.

It isn't until I have gone through several days of eating whatever is set in front of me and being smothered under my own weight, which has dropped considerably recently, in blankets, that I notice a figure, presumably the one taking care of me. The day a cheese bun in placed in front of me I notice the fingers on the edge of the plate, they connect to a heavily scarred arm, leading to a soft gray shirt, my eyes follow, my head moves, and the figure freezes. It must be the first time I've made any motion other than eating and sleeping. I look up into wide blue eyes.

Peeta

Memories flash in front of my eyes, rain, mud, thrown bread, names called, fighting, loving, maybe the last one isn't true, maybe it is. I don't know. My head is still muddled with cotton. I don't say anything. He doesn't say anything. His mouth opens slightly, as if to talk, I stare at it. I look back to my cheese bun. I revert back to normal. Whatever that is now, eating, if you can call it that, sleeping, if you can call it that. My eating hasn't been great. I can feel my ribs trying to rip through my tightly stretched skin. I can feel my shirts becoming baggy, as though I'm wearing my father's old clothing. It's not the first time I've been so thin, though it is perhaps the first time I do not mind. I don't feel my stomach rumble in protest, trying to fill the emptiness with anything possible. I don't feel the fatigue all my limbs are weighted down with. My sleeping hasn't been great. The nightmares come, every night. I've lost energy to wake screaming, instead I wake silently, feeling my heart race with pain, staring at the ceiling, my mind as blank as my room walls, which I have never bothered to decorate. After the day Peeta gave me the cheese bun I've become slightly more intuned with the fact that he's here, leading me down the stairs in the morning, preparing me food, quietly urging me to eat more. "Please Katniss, you've gotten too thin, please eat," he pleads, pushing bowls of food I cannot taste into my hands. He starts fires and wraps me in thick blankets, feebly trying to get my body temperature up. When I fall asleep in front of the flames, I feel his arms wrap under my body, carrying me to my bed, layering more and more blankets every night.

This routine must have been happening since I got home, I assume.

Our procedure goes on happening for days and nights that I cannot keep count of.
One night when Peeta lays me in bed the crushing weight on my body becomes too much, and it's not from the excessive amount of blankets Peeta has tucked me into. I am broken, and the pain is hitting me full force, after my time of numbness. I want it to stop. I need it to stop. I need someone. I need Peeta. I say my first word since coming back.

"Stay," my voice is cracked with disuse, the word pushes itself up my throat and out of my lips like the soap bubbles I saw the capital kids blow while on the Victory Tour. It comes out below a whisper. Peeta's head turns, as though he's not sure I actually said anything. He begins to leave again, and I know if he does tonight will be the night that I'm crushed. Crushed by the void so heavily left after the war. So I muster up another word, pushing it from my stomach up to my mouth and out, another bubble, more urgent and round than the last.

"Peeta," my mouth is paper dry, and it takes all my strength the utter his name. This time he does not doubt I have spoken. He sits in the edge of my bed, checking if it's alright. I want to wrap my arms around him, make him stay, make him hold me together, as he did before the Quarter Quell. Even after all this time I'm still using him. This realization almost makes me push him out, but I am selfish, and I want him, I need him. I try to move my arms, it feels like I have fifty pound weights strapped to both arms. I manage to get them to Peeta's wrist, before they fail and fall into the cotton sheets, my fingers managed to keep hold of him. I repeat myself, "Stay" my eyes plead with him, "Stay with me."

He does not take much convincing, and unfolds next to me, he keeps me wrapped into the blankets. I lay my head on his chest, and as I drift into another nightmare and I wonder if I really hear him whisper "Always."

Our routine continues, I only speak at night, asking him to stay, even though he knows to now.

I cannot say if a day has passed or a week or a year, the schedule is monotonous and I fit right in. After in immeasurable amount of time I wake in the night, this time is different than the past silent fits I've woken too. This time my throat is itching, and feels like sandpaper, I hear screaming, my head thrashes wildly, they're hurting her, "PRIM!" I cannot see her, but I can hear her screaming. The screaming gets closer and closer, until it's on top of me. It takes me minutes to realize the noise is coming from my own mouth, I am the one screaming, this is the first time I have woken up, not mute, since being back home. Peeta's arms are wrapped around me like the vines we saw curled around the jungle trees in the clock arena. My screams sound odd now, I stop.

It becomes eerily quiet, and I can hear my heart beat, as well as feel it in my throat, in my ears, and in the tips of my fingers and toes. In the dark silence I am all too aware of the fact that Peeta is so close, his eyes full of fear that I am not okay, which I'm not, he knows. It's just more apparent with the lights off and the volume of my scratchy voice turned up. All at once I seek comfort in him, impulsively, my cold chapped lips press against his soft warm ones, he doesn't react for a moment, then he's pushing me off, it's over in two seconds.

"Katniss," he whispers quietly, I try to kiss him again, "Katniss, stop" his hands press against my waist softly.

"No," I mumble into his chest. "I want you," I myself can hear how pathetic I sound, like Buttercup when I tried to drown him. That's how I feel now, like I'm drowning with no way to find the air that promises my lungs the relief they so desperately need. I hear him sigh, one of his hands runs down my hair, the other holding me protectively.

"No, you're confused Katniss, you're still in shock, you're not... in the right mindset," Another person is leaving me. I don't know whether to cry, or give up, to let the water completely submerge me. No one wants me. I am broken and rough, no one wants to get near that. I roll over to my side facing away from Peeta. I don't cry, but another piece of me becomes hollow, I am utterly empty now. "Katniss," Peeta's voice is full of sadness, and maybe pity, which brings up a hot flame in my stomach, the first emotion I've felt other than pain since the war.

"No. You can leave."

"Katniss, no, it's just-"

"GO," my vocal cords strain as I scream, flipping towards him, it's the fastest I've moved in such a long time that my body protests the simple action.

My cheeks are hot and wet, his thumbs, which are soft like his lips, wipe my tears away. "Katniss," I'm not sure I like my name on his lips, "I can't," I know he is not talking about himself leaving.

"Why not?" my voice bounces as small hiccups rack my abdomen.

"Like I said, you're not in the right mindset, you're looking for an output, you don't really want that." his voice is quiet and sad. I realize the sad tone comes from the "you don't really want that." he wishes I wanted it. But right now I do want it. I think. Maybe I don't. I'm not sure. I stop crying but the hiccups bounce through my body, much like the feelings inside of my head. I curl into his side, his shirt is wet from where my tears slid off my face. He murmurs to me until I stop hiccuping, I don't fall asleep.

The next morning Peeta goes about his normal routine, making me breakfast, pancakes today, urging me to eat more, making me a fire, wrapping me into a pile of wool. He is about to go about the rest of his day, I'm not sure what he does really, bakes? Paints? He has to do something other than take care of crazy old me. Before he leaves I speak up, the first time I've talked in daylight, and the first time I've put together words in complete sentences. I don't want to have this conversation in particular, I embarrassed myself enough the night before, but I have to say something.

"Peeta?" my voice is getting better, although still thick.

"Yes Katniss?" he stops in the doorway, his hand on the frame. The next words don't come out easily,

"I'm sorry," I stare at the wooden floor when I say this,

"It's okay, I understand" his voice is soft, and caring. He leaves after saying this, leaving me to stare at the fire and think about my actions, and his words. He understands, does that mean he tried to seek comfort in me before? Did I miss it? I think about before our first games, no, our contact before then was limited, to stories everyone has now memorized as the beginning of our "epic love story." After the first games? I crushed him, but then we became friends, I knew he wanted to be more, but respected my choices, is that what he was referring to? Perhaps.

We go on pretending nothing happened, I begin to speak a little more, saying thank you when he prepares all three of my meals each day. I notice he sits and eats with me, something my brain blurred out previously. I pick my head up now, not keeping my gaze exclusively at the bowls and plates set under my nose. Eventually I talk more, "What do you do?" the question comes off vaguely.

"What do I do?"

"When you're not..." I pick at my cheese bun, searching for words, "making our meals, or building fires, or wrapping me in blankets?"

"Oh, well, usually I paint, or bake," I wonder what he does with what he bakes, we certainly can't be eating all of it, it seems he has to force me to eat more than a few bites every few hours.

We eat in silence for the rest of the meal. When he is about to start my fire, I interrupt his action, "Will you show me?"

"Hmm?" he vaguely acknowledges me, stacking branches strategically in the stone fire place.

"Show me the paintings?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." he sets the wood down, he stands and offers me a hand up. I accept it, leaving my cocoon behind, and without the shell I realize for the first time that I am cold. I pull the baggy shirt I'm wearing tightly around myself, trying to keep my nonexistent body heat wrapped into my shirt. Peeta gently leads me down the hall into a room I'm not sure I've ever been in, even though it is technically my house. The room has several easels with different canvases on each one. The first painting I lay my eyes on is that of a young girl, eating bread, I can't recognize her, so I figure she used to be a customer at Peeta's family bakery. I turn to see three paintings are lined in order, and my eyes widen as I recognize the scene, it is me, in my white wedding dress, on stage with Caesar, the next is me engulfed in flames, with black smoke rising around my body, the third is me again, this time standing with my arms outstretched, a symbol of the revolution, a symbol I try to run away from during the day, yet run straight into the arms of the cruel memories at night. I turn away, hoping for a different scene, one that doesn't involve me or any part of my past. I look to a safe unfamiliar scene I cannot recognize, it's warm and I assume it's the inside of Peeta's family bakery, or what used to be his family bakery, before the war. The war ruins everything, even Peeta's beautifully painted scenes, that have exquisite brushstrokes and mixed colors.

He seems to sense my anxiety about the flashbacks the scenes provide, his voice comes softly from the door, "Maybe we should go back to living room..." I stare for a little longer, painfully reliving my past year, before turning wordlessly back to Peeta, and walking back to the safe familiarity of my blankets.

"How can you paint those things?" my voice is a strained whisper. It takes him so long to speak I begin to wonder if the sound makes it outside of my safe blanket pile.

"It helps me," Helps him how, I wonder, although not for long, because he elaborates after a moments pause, as though he is recalling a memory. "The things that I paint... they help me differentiate what's real and what's not real... the fake memories always come out a little odd when painted,"

This leaves me wondering again, how do the fake scenes come out differently than the real ones? He certainly hasn't played the "real or not real" game with me in ages, so he has either gotten tremendously good at telling the "shiny" memories from the real ones, or is asking someone else. This of corse leads me into another train of thought, who could he be asking? It's not like there are a whole lot of people left to talk to, the war took almost everyone we cared about, only two names come to my mind, Johanna, and Haymitch. Out of the two I'd have to assume Haymitch would be his verifier, seeing that Johanna is thousands of miles away, and remembering the past year doesn't settle well with her either.

Peeta watches me carefully while I put it all together, or at least what I think is together. I don't remember the last time I spoke to Haymitch, but I can't say I'm in a hurry to see him, too many bad memories. I decide that's a conversation for another day, and steer the conversation away from our drunk neighbor, "What do you have planned for today?" Peeta looks slightly stunned, usually plans are limited to eating, sitting in front of the fire, and screaming when my demons visit at night. His mouth opens for a second, considering the possibilities of what to do with me. "I mean what were you going to do?" I figure I can hang out with him, like we used to.

"I have a new recipe I was going to try out..." his voice trails, knowing I don't have a particular interest in baking, but he's been far too good to me I cannot be even more of a burden to disrupt his plans.

"What are you making?"

"Banana pudding," this peaks my interest, I have only heard of bananas, never seen one or tasted one, I think they come from district three or four, somewhere where the weather is hot and sticky year round. Pudding on the other hand I have had, once with Cinna, in the capital, it tasted pretty good, despite it's off putting appearance and consistency.

"Well lead the way," this puts Peeta off again, I doubt he's had any company at all in the kitchen since the days he worked with his brothers at his family bakery. I push off the floor, bringing a pale blue blanket draped around my frail shoulders, and follow an almost hesitant Peeta into the large kitchen I was entitled to after the games. Peeta begins pulling out ingredients I can't name out of cupboards, he reaches into a large painted bowl and pulls out curved yellow things, bananas I assume. He works quickly, measuring and mixing and pouring. He's picking up the bananas when he notices my silent evaluation of the new food. He peels the skin back,and breaks off a chunk of the paler inside food, and hands it to me, cautiously I raise it to my mouth. It's soft, and tastes like it's color, but maybe a little more forthcoming and bold than the paleness would suggest. I decide I like it.

"It's good," I offer from my place on the counter, where my blanket has acquired a white powder lining from being around Peeta's baking supplies. "When can I have the rest of it?"

"Well it has to sit for a few hours, then we can eat." I look outside to the sun to see what time it is, I can't find a clock anywhere in the kitchen. It's about 11 in the morning, I gather from the shadows. While we wait for the pudding to set we lay on the sofa in silence, my head on his lap, him playing with my hair. It's the closest I've gotten to peace in as long as I could remember, I don't mind spending the following hours like that. Eventually my stomach interrupts the serenity with a rumble and Peeta insists we eat, he looks down to my stomach, where my sweater has pulled up, revealing my prominent hip bones. I know he's right, that I have neglected my body in the past weeks, months, however long it has been. I help myself to a plate of pasta mixed with herbs and meat and for dessert, three bowls of banana pudding, the whole process puts a wide smile on Peeta's face. My face however is uneasy after my third bowl, so much food in such a short amount of time does not settle well in my stomach that is acquainted with the emptiness it used to hold.

Quickly I am out of my chair, throwing up into the white tile sink, Peeta follows a second later, holding back my hair, rubbing small soothing circles on my back. Once I am done retching Peeta fills a glass with water and makes me drink, "So pudding isn't your strong suit huh?" he teases, and I roll my eyes. After all the excitement Peeta wraps me in blankets in front of the fire once again, a bucket close by, and feeds me crackers and pushes glasses of water into my hands. We sit in silence, him handing me crackers, me obediently munching on them, and I begin to think I could get used to this. Not the throwing up part. But the part where Peeta and I can sit in silence comfortably, or talk, if we want. It's not perfect, but he's all I've got left now.

I wrote this as a one shot but I feel like it can be expanded, please let me know if you would like more chapters to explore their relationship more. I hope everyone enjoyed the story, let me know what you thought in the reviews please! -MGB