So... I recently picked up The Hunger Games for the first time...
Let's just say that I finished the entire trilogy in two days. And I would have been done earlier, except that I was sort of on a trip and couldn't read much due to the activities my parents had planned...
I digress. The Hunger Games trilogy is amazing. I've not enjoyed a book that much since... ever. This is my first foray into this universe, and I certainly hope it won't be my last. This is my attempt at getting into Peeta's mind post Mockingjay and post epilogue! So if you haven't read that far, I wouldn't suggest reading this. Though really there aren't blatant spoilers. Only implied ones. Nevertheless, they're spoilers.
(ignore the rambling, I am writing this at midnight.)
Disclaimer: The wonderful characters mentioned here are property of Suzanne Collins.
It is twilight in District 12 again.
Peeta Mellark looks up from his work, tired eyes scanning the bakery where his employees are packing up, ready to go home to their families. "Thank you," he says in response to them saying goodbye, and waves as they leave the bakery, exhausted but satisfied with their work in the shop. Peeta dusts his hands off and glances at the wedding cake that he's working on, white with beautifully frosted flowers. He's become expert at this, almost sure he could do this in his sleep, but something is off. He tilts his head, but decides that he's too tired and he'll finish it in the morning.
Outside, sounds pour in-laughter of children as they run around and around, chasing each other with the shrieks of mingled laughter and fear that accompany games like tag. Peeta wanders over to the door, smiling gently as his children trip over one another into a heap out in the Meadow. Katniss Everdeen turns from her conversation with Delly Cartwright, sees her husband watching, and smiles at him before turning back to Delly.
Peeta is nothing if not an artist, so he notices that she's wearing the cotton green dress that Effie sent over last Christmas. Green like the emeralds that adorn the mockingjay pin sent over by Katniss's prep team, green like Katniss's favorite color divulged to him so many years ago in a hazy memory. Peeta prefers not to revisit those times because it reminds him a little too much of what he's been through at the hands of President Snow, but the memory of them both sitting by the train tracks reminds him of a better time. A time when his love for Katniss was unquestioned. Unparalleled.
He thinks that green is in some ways fitting for someone like Katniss. Someone accustomed to the bright, vivid green of the Meadow, someone who enjoys the dappled green sunlight streaming down through the trees of the forest. Green reminds Peeta of safety, like his family now with Katniss and his children. But Katniss was not always safe to be around, or maybe that's his memory acting up again. Peeta frowns, trying to remember as he struggles with the hallucinations that still haunt him at sporadic moments, like when he sees a white rose or cuts himself and sees the blood ooze out of his arm. That is when he flies for safety.
A touch on his cheek and a sigh of his name brings him out of his dazed reverie, and Peeta's glazed eyes focus in on a concerned Katniss, the children still dancing around outside. "Peeta," Katniss repeats in a gentle tone, taking his hand and leading him inside the bakery. "It's me. It's Katniss."
She kisses him, slow and comforting on the cheek before giving him a long embrace, resting her head on his chest. Peeta notices suddenly that the dress she's wearing is embroidered with tiny orange flowers on the hem, orange like the sunsets he's missed out on, orange like the sunrises he's been fortunate enough to see. And now another memory surfaces, a memory of a girl with a bow telling him his favorite color is orange. Peeta has no doubt it is Katniss. It has always been Katniss, drawing him back, making him discover new things about himself, helping him remember the old.
Orange. And he remembers why he chose orange all those years ago. It was because he saw her and knew that they both shared the same sort of determination. Even when they were younger- before the Games, before the horrors that followed, before the war- she reminded him of a steady flame, burning with passion for her family, burning with anger at her father's death, burning with determination to keep her family alive, then burning to keep him alive, then burning with the intensity that fuels a rebellion. He sees her in his mind's eye now, leaping and shooting and slashing and leaning over him in a cave, somehow procuring for him medicine that saves his life and time and again he sees her anger work itself into determination to overcome whatever stands in her way. Even if it is him. Even if it is herself. Even if it is Gale. And he does the same for her, vowing to protect her at all costs- because she is and has always been his life.
"How is Gale?" he asks, because he does, in some ways, consider Gale an ally still.
"Still alive, though I'm sure Johanna is planning to kill him still," Katniss quips dryly.
Peeta is momentarily distracted by his children as they run up to him, clamoring to be held. Katniss comes to his rescue, laughing softly as she chides the older one to take the youngest and go bathe and come down for dinner, and Peeta feels his heart swell with love again as he looks at his wife.
There was a time not too long ago when the orange threatened to overtake the green and stifle it forever; and Peeta winces, knowing that that time is altogether too real. Too fresh. Still too painful to be touched. But the memories cascade still, filling his mind with angry hisses, with mockingjays that he tried to silence, screaming children in the Capitol, with mutts that chase and tear and snarl at him- and Peeta collapses into a chair, suddenly unable to block out the real from the hallucinations.
A pair of arms encircles him, and through his haze, Peeta can barely make out the green dress that Katniss now wears. "Peeta," she is saying soothingly, "it's okay. It's okay. I'm here."
The green that saves him, once again. Peeta holds on to Katniss as the hallucinations wear off, inhaling the scent of woods and musk that she always brings back. The smell he has come to associate with safety, with triumph.
It takes a few minutes, but finally Peeta lets go of Katniss, hands going up to cup her face. He says nothing, and neither does she. They do not have to. They have stared down death together for long enough that they do not need to know what the other is thinking.
He finally breaks the silence. "I'm almost done with our wedding cake."
She grins, amused. "Our second wedding cake?"
"Technically our first, but let's not let anyone know that," Peeta responds, remembering how their first wedding was a lie designed to throw the Capitol off. He gestures to the cake in the middle of the room. "What do you think?"
She observes it with an eye that Cinna once tried to teach fashion to. "It's beautiful," she says eventually, turning to look at him.
"It needs something else, though," Peeta says thoughtfully.
She comes up to stand beside him, slipping her hand through his. "Maybe a little green," she suggests. "Stems."
He makes an understanding ahhhh when he processes her suggestion, and she can't help but smile when he turns to press a kiss to her cheek. Peeta does not say it, but he wonders how he could have missed it. He adds the green stems that anchor the bright orange flowers, smiling all the time as he thinks about how Katniss is the green that anchors his orange.
Instead, he adds the final dab of frosting and sets the bag down. "I love you. I have always loved you," he says to Katniss, who looks up from the letter from her mother. "Real or not real?"
She does not answer. She does not have to. Instead, she steps over and encircles him in a hug, her head resting over his heart. And Peeta smiles into her hair even as he presses a kiss to her head.
He's content as long as Katniss is safe. And he knows that if he remembers that, he'll be just fine.
So. Yeah. Uh. Reviews as always, greatly appreciated!