A/N: My long story drought interrupted, just in time for Mockingjay Part 2 premiere day.
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It isn't long after they've started this – well, whatever they're doing – not dating, they've been through too much to use labels like "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" and go out on dates and smile shyly at each other from across the couch to call it that. And it isn't growing back together – they've already done that, already found each other and solidified what they have is real (real, god, if he'd ever known as a child that that word would become the most coveted word in his world).
But whatever it is they're doing, as long as they keep doing it, Peeta doesn't need to sort out a label – anyway, it isn't like anyone is asking them to qualify what they have together. No one would dare. They're all just glad these "crazy kids" are settling into the peaceful happily-ever-after everyone thinks they deserve.
And a lot of times, Peeta agrees with them. When he wakes up to Katniss's dark hair in his face, her smell on his skin, he thinks, I deserve this. As he walks out of the Victors' Village (that still only boasts three residents – as much as they beg for others to populate the empty homes, no one takes them up on it) and breathes in crisp autumn air and heads to his bakery, one he's building himself with a crew from the town, he thinks, I deserve this. As he guzzles down water during a lunch break and jokes with the others, everyone covered in sawdust and flecks of cement and optimistic in only the way you can be after losing everything, he thinks, I deserve this.
But he still isn't so removed yet from the horrific years of the Games, the hijacking, and the war to always have such sunny thoughts. Sometimes when he wakes up in the night with Katniss sleeping beside him he thinks, I don't deserve this, pulling her closer to him. Sometimes as he's working on the new bakery and looking over his plans he thinks, I don't deserve this, trying to wipe away memories of his family, dead because of him. Sometimes as he sits in a group of hearty, laughing locals he thinks, I don't deserve this, looking upon faces he's known almost his whole life, thinking of all of the faces that aren't with them anymore.
How did he survive when so many good, worthy people didn't?
Sometimes he says exactly that to Katniss. She'll look at him in bewilderment. "Peeta. You are good and worthy."
Sometimes he believes her.
And then one night not long after they've started the – well, whatever they're doing; this thing he thinks (hopes) is laying the foundation for a lifetime as partners, in every sense of the word – the undeservingness of it all hits him again, a wave of loathing crashing down and drowning him. How can she, she of all people, allow him not just into her home and her bed, but her heart? After all he's done to her?
"You're thinking pretty loudly there," Katniss tells him, lifting her head from his chest to take in his face.
He can't even meet her gaze. "I just don't… understand."
"Gonna have to be a little more specific," she teases, but the smile fades quickly when she sees how sullen he is.
"The things I did to you…" he starts. She's already shaking her head against the coming words. "How can you ever forgive me? How can you love me?" Some moisture gathers in his eyes and he blinks it away.
Katniss sits up and scoots against the headboard, and I do the same, wrapping my hands around my knees. She doesn't say anything for a while, just watches me. Finally she says: "Because you've loved me after everything I've done."
Peeta frowns. "It's not the same," he insists, gesturing. "Everything you did… was to protect people. To protect me. The things I did… Katniss – I attacked you. More than once."
"I remember," she injects, a touch sarcastic.
Nothing like a good shame spiral to make a person one-track minded. "My hands… around your throat… and when we were in the Capitol, with the gun…" he creates fists and tightens them against his thighs. "And I know what you're going to say. That that wasn't me." He glances at Katniss and her expression confirms his guess. "But it was. It was my hands at your throat."
Katniss adjusts so she's on her knees, taking his face in her hands, palms against his jaw and thumbs brushing the tops of his ears. She brings her face close to his, like she does when she's really trying to get through to him, like when he's on the verge of an episode. "Peeta," she says firmly. "I trust you. I trust you, and that is why I forgave you."
"But –" he begins, but she shushes him.
"Stop."
She brings his forehead to her lips and holds him there. He snakes a hand up her spine, onto the back of her neck, her delicate neck he had once tried to snap. They stay in this embrace for a while, long enough for Peeta to feel his thoughts slow, for the horrible feelings bubbling in him to subside.
Their positions make it easy for him to press his lips against her neck. He never saw the after effects of his assault, but his imagination has created plenty of images that he will never be able to erase. He peppers kisses across her collarbone, up to her jaw, back down the other side. Needs her to feel the apology with every touch. She sighs into his hair. He wonders: Do I deserve this?
It's like she reads his mind. Her breath is in his ear as she murmurs, "You know, Haymitch used to tell me I could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve you."
He feels her shiver as his laughter fans across her neck. "He said that to me about you, the first time I had an episode after coming back to Twelve."
He'd been triggered by something, a loud sound or particular sight that set him off, and Katniss had rushed to his side, had stayed with him while he said terrible things to her that he didn't mean. Eventually he'd passed out, maybe forced himself to actually, and when he woke Haymitch was sitting nearby picking his nails with a knife, Katniss making tea in the kitchen. The old man had looked Peeta up and down and let out a humorless chuckle before telling him what he already knew.
"Guess we're even," she says, pulling his face back up to hers so she can kiss him properly.
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