Written for the Prompts in Panem: Holidays in Panem 2013.
Thank you to my wonderful beta Lbug84!
Canon - set in Catching fire, before the victory tour.
It's dark outside. She's sitting in front of the fireplace, trying to fight sleep when the doorbell rings.
Who could it be? Katniss looks up at her mother, who's sitting on the couch with Prim. They are going through an old medical text book. Her mother frowns as she hears the doorbell. They don't get a lot of visitors. In fact, they don't get any.
It could be someone requesting her mother's help, of course. She can see from the tired look on her mother's face that that's what she's thinking. Her mother was up late last night, helping deliver Mrs Tanner's baby boy. She's probably hoping to get some sleep tonight.
Her mother starts to get up. "I'll go," Katniss offers. Perhaps it will wake her up. She needs to try to stay awake.
When she opens the door, she's surprised to see Peeta there. There's snow in his hair. He has dark rings under his eyes, like her.
She looks over his shoulder, to his house. It's just across the street from hers. It hasn't been snowing since last night, and there is only one set of footprints in the snow from Peeta's house: His own, going towards her house. She feels something strange in her belly, a feeling she can't quite place.
"I, uh… I made these for you."
He's all alone.
He hands her a brown paper bag. She frowns – she's never been good at accepting gifts. Charity. He knows, of course, and doesn't comment on the less than thankful expression on her face. Curiosity wins out, however, and she opens the bag. It smells delicious, of ginger and some other spices she can't quite place. To her surprise, there are cookies inside. Brown cookies with frosting. They look like people and stars and hearts, there's even a pig.
She looks up at him questioningly.
"They are gingerbread cookies," he explains. "My family's been baking for six generations, and this recipe has been passed on from one generation to the next for more than a hundred years." He takes out a cookie from the bag, a man. She automatically opens her mouth as he lifts the cookie towards it. She does love cookies. She bites off the cookie man's head. She can't suppress a moan as the rich flavor somehow seems to radiate to every part of her body. He shifts slightly as he hears her moan, and she thinks she may hear a faint, stifled gasp. But Peeta doesn't say anything.
"It's good," she says, hoping she's not blushing.
"Do you know what day it is today?"
She shrugs. "Friday?" The day of the week has stopped having any real meaning to her since she became a victor. She's not required to go to school anymore. The only days that are different from the rest are Sundays. That's when she's hunting with Gale.
"It's December 24th."
"Oh."
"Do you know what day it is today?" He repeats, and she rolls her eyes. He sees that she doesn't understand, and so he answers his own question. "It's Christmas Eve."
"What's that?"
"Christmas was a holiday they used to have before, long ago. Before Panem became Panem. Christmas Eve was on December 24th." Talking about the days before the Great War is dangerous. She sends him a warning look. She suspects that the house is tapped. "Anyway, they used to make gingerbread cookies. My grandfather made them, when I was a kid. I haven't had them since he died, but today I just wanted to… taste them again." He smiles. "I made so many, much more than I can possibly eat, so I thought perhaps you'd like some." He pauses, and she doesn't know if he expects her to say anything. "Goodnight, Katniss."
He turns around without waiting for her answer and starts to walk back to his own house. She looks at his broad shoulders, slightly hunched. She looks at the footprints in the snow.
He's all alone.
"Why don't you come inside?" The words are out of her mouth seemingly before her brain even has time to process the thought. He stops, turns, and looks at her. He looks surprised.
"Uh… okay."
"I'm sure Prim will love the cookies." She will. She certainly has a sweet tooth.
He smiles, he looks… relieved? "Sure, I'd love to."
He takes off his winter boots in the hallway, and she hangs up his coat.
They go to the living room. If her mother is surprised to see her daughter's fake boyfriend at this time of the night, she hides it well. "Hi Peeta."
"Hi Mrs. Everdeen."
"Peeta made us cookies," Katniss says."Gingerbread cookies."
They are all small pieces of art, of course. She puts them on the table, laying them out side by side so she can fully appreciate their beauty. Her mother's fingers trace the outlines of a beautifully decorated heart. "Is that me?" Prim asks, pointing at one of a girl with blonde hair.
"It sure is," Peeta smiles. Katniss can't believe he'd do this. He thinks of everything. He made a cookie specifically for her little sister.
"I've heard of gingerbread cookies, but I've never actually tasted or even seen one," her mother says. She doesn't say anything else, but she doesn't have to. The Mellarks weren't allowed to sell them in the bakery. They couldn't sell cookies made for a forbidden religious celebration. And even for her mother's merchant parents it would have been hard to get hold of all the ingredients needed to make them. Only the Mellarks had access to the ingredients, and only they kept the recipe, if only for their own personal use.
Her mother makes them tea to enjoy with the cookies. Katniss doesn't say much. Peeta and Prim do most of the talking. He asks her about school, and she asks about his painting.
"How are you doing, Peeta?" Her mother asks as Prim excuses herself to go the bathroom.
"I'm fine." He hesitates for just too long before answering. He looks down, flustered, as he realizes. She knows her mother has seen his pale skin and the dark rings under his eyes. Just like hers. Her mother also knows he's living there all alone in the big house. He's only 16. His parents and his brothers didn't move to the Victors' Village.
Her mother nods, and doesn't press the issue.
They eat the cookies, having their fill, and saving some for the next day. There are plenty to go around. She's sitting on the couch with Peeta, while Prim and her mother are sitting in the armchairs. She's not quite sure how or why they ended up on the couch, as Prim and her mother were sitting there before. But she's warm and full and so desperately tired that she doesn't give it another thought. Her mother is knitting, Prim is reading in the medical text book. Aside from the occasional question from Prim to her mother, it's quiet.
It's snowing again outside.
Next to her, Peeta's eyelids are closing briefly as his head lolls to the side, and then his eyes snap open again. He's sitting closer to her than she'd realized. She knows that look. He's fighting sleep, just like she is. She can feel the heat radiate off his body.
She stifles a yawn. It's so warm. She doesn't even notice that her head is lying on his shoulder as she falls asleep.
She wakes with a start. Not because of a nightmare, the way she usually wakes, but because somehow she has registered that someone's moving in the room. She reaches for her bow, instantly ready to kill, but it isn't there.
Then she sees her mother. She's gotten up from the armchair, and she's standing by the fireplace. Prim isn't there anymore. Disoriented from her sleep, she looks up at the grandfather clock. It's nearly midnight. Prim must have gone to bed hours ago. She must have been asleep on the couch for…
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Her mother knows about her nightmares. She hears her daughter's screams at night, but she can't do anything about them. "You seemed so… peaceful."
Katniss looks over a Peeta, who's still asleep. She was lying with her head in his lap. There's a wet spot on his thigh where she's drooled on him. Without really knowing why, she blushes.
She hasn't slept this well since before the Hunger Games.
There's an odd look on her mother's face. "Do you think we should wake him, or do you think he'd prefer to sleep on the couch?" Her mother asks. "It's getting late."
She looks at him. He looks so young and peaceful when he's asleep. She knows he doesn't have nightmares now. It would be a shame to wake him. Stay with me, she thinks. Don't leave me alone.
Stay with me.
She knows he would, if she asked him. She doesn't think her mother would allow it, though. She made it very clear what she thought of her 16-year-old daughter having a boyfriend when they returned from the Capitol. She was relieved then, because Peeta wasn't really her boyfriend. Right now, though, she realizes she'd give anything to get several hours of uninterrupted sleep in his arms. It scares her.
Neither of them sleeps.
She doesn't know what she's feeling.
If he stays in this house tonight, on her couch, she knows she will go to him. That scares her, too.
"I guess we should wake him," she says. "His back will be killing him tomorrow if he sleeps on that couch." She pauses slightly. "I'll just let him sleep a bit longer first."
Her mother nods. "Okay. I'm going to bed now. Please thank him for the gingerbread cookies from me?"
"Sure."
Her mother goes upstairs to go to bed. She hates having to wake him from his peaceful sleep. She doesn't know how he will react, if he will be scared or even angry, and she thinks it's better to wake him when they are alone, just in case. But most of all, she doesn't want to interrupt his dreamless sleep.
Instead she just sits there, not daring to sit closer to him than a yard. If she's too close, she'll be drawn into his heat again, she'll fall asleep with him on the couch, and she doesn't know where that will end. What her mother will say the next morning. What Peeta will think. How she will deal with waking up with him. Instead of trying to answer the questions she can't bring herself to think about, she just looks at him. The blond stubble on his chin. His eyelids, moving slightly. His relaxed features. His hand, it's so large, full of scars from the bakery ovens. His nails are short and clean. And his eyelashes… His eyelashes. They are quite dark and almost impossibly long. Do men even have eyelashes that long? She wonders.
It was never like this in the cave. She slept so close to him then, but someone was always watching them. Plus he was dying. And when she got him that syringe at the feast, the one that almost got her killed and certainly saved his life, she had to try to play up their romance. A romance that was non-existent – only he didn't know that. She was so close to him physically, but she didn't truly notice him. Not the way she does now.
She still hasn't decided whether or not she'll actually wake him when he suddenly opens his eyes. To her relief, he's not scared or alarmed when he wakes up, only disoriented. He blinks a few times, probably trying to focus on her face. She can't stop looking at his eyelashes. "It's late," she says. "You should probably go home?" She hadn't intended for that sentence to become a question.
The clock on the wall strikes. Twelve times. "We fell asleep on the couch," he says. That's not a question. She nods. "I haven't slept that well since…" He doesn't finish his sentence, but he doesn't have to. She knows.
There are a hundred things she wants to tell him, one thing above all: Stay. Stay with me.
Help me fight the nightmares.
But she doesn't.
"I should go home."
She nods. She follows him to the hallway, and watches as he puts on his boots and his jacket.
"Do you know what day it is?" He asks.
"Saturday?" She answers.
He chuckles. "It's Christmas Day."
"Oh."
"The children used to get presents on Christmas Day, early in the morning. From a fat man dressed in red and white clothes. He'd come in a magic sleigh, pulled by reindeer. One of them had a red nose."
"Seriously?"
He opens the door, looking out at the snow. He seems… peaceful. "It sounds crazy, I know. But that's what my grandfather told me."
He looks at his house across the street. The windows are dark. His footprints are still clearly visible, only covered by a thin layer of snow. He hesitates, and then he says: "Goodnight, Katniss."
"Goodnight."
She could still say it. She could still ask him to stay. But she doesn't.
She looks at his back as he walks down the steps. At his hair. She knows what that hair feels like under her fingers, what his skin smells like. Still, she doesn't ask him to stay.
He stops briefly, and for a second she's afraid that the word slipped out of her mouth after all. He smiles at her, and nothing in his eyes betrays that she did. "Merry Christmas, Katniss."
"Huh?"
"Merry Christmas. That's what people used to say to each other. When it was Christmas."
"Oh." She hesitates. "Merry Christmas."
He smiles, and turns around without a word. She watches him leave through the snow. She doesn't close the door until he closes his, on the other side of the street.