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He found me. What is even more amazing than that; I didn't hear him come up. I looked back at him, wondering if he had taken one step at time, careful not to scare me off like game running in the woods. I stood up straight from my crouching position, my bow in my hand and looked at him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked back and we just stood there, staring at each other. The look on his face made me want to run to him, grab him in my arms and feel his around me, but those days were dead; just as dead as everyone else around me was. His eyes searched me, almost as if he was looking for something to say, which was rare for Peeta. Finally he took a step forward, placing one foot neatly in front of the other as to not spook me. I wasn't going anywhere; he was the only thing I had left of a good memory.
"I thought you might like a hunting buddy, although I won't ever compare to Gale." He said, coming towards me more confidently now. I stood on the rock Gale and I use to meet at and looked down at him. I scoffed, thinking about Gale and sat down, placing my bow against it. A small smile played on his lips but it quickly faded away when he sat next to me.
"You miss him…" he said hurtfully, his blond hair almost covering his brilliant blue eyes. I just laughed a little, not at all comfortable with the subject. I raised my hand to move his blond curls from his face, but quickly decided against it and awkwardly placed my hand on my leg.
"Why did you take my nightlock?" I asked him, something I'd been wondering since I killed Coin. This time he laughed, the sound echoing through my body like a distant memory.
"I told you then, I couldn't let you go." He said, his eyes pouring into me like a dam over flowing. I began feeling quite relieved I didn't push his hair away, his gaze would have been too intense for me. I smiled a little, my muscles in my face feeling stiff and forced.
"Everyone else has let me go Peeta. There is nothing else left of me." I told him, my heart breaking as I thought about everyone I'd lost. They'd left me here to rot and die in their wake. I wanted to be with them, I wanted to hear their voices. Now not even the echoes of birds in the woods can sooth me.
"Nobody left you Katniss. Even in death they still root for you. Everyone you lost died because they loved you. That didn't end when they died." He said, his voice kind and gentle. I didn't know what to say so I bit my lip, fighting back tears that plagued me.
"Why didn't you kill me? I begged you, over and over again and you couldn't do it. Gale would have killed me gladly, yet you wouldn't let him. Had you done that I'm sure he would be by your side now, but you chose to let me live. After all I'd done…" he said quietly. He got up and picked up a small stone and chucked it into the woods, hearing it hit and crack into threes. Most people would have seen stone throwing as an act of boredom, but I knew Peeta. He was upset just thinking about Gale and I.
"But I couldn't let Gale kill you." I said to him, and he turned to look at me before chucking a large rock into the woods. He didn't say anything, he just kept throwing, his mind else ware. I had nothing left but this man, and he was just a shell on his own. All I wanted to do was save him, and here we were, more broken than any two people could be. But he was mine, the boy with the bread. Even if we never spoke again he'd always be mine.
"I heard you. I heard you and Gale talking about me in Tigris's store." I said. His attention was back on me, his eyes flash with worry before they soften. He looked at me for a few seconds, then turned back to his stone throwing, willing me to continue. I wasn't going to catch game with him here anyway, so I decided now was as good a time as any to tell him how I felt. I was never going to have the courage again, so it was now or never.
"You both agreed I would choose the man I couldn't survive without…" I said, recalling the conversation. I felt the all too familiar feeling of hurt in my chest.
"Katniss, we didn't mean it like that. We just meant…" he said trying to make me feel better, but again for the second time he was speechless.
"No, it's alright. At first I was hurt by the comment, thinking 'I can live without either of you' But when I really looked back at it, needing another person to survive is almost like loving them." I said. He turned back to me, dropping the stone in his hand to the ground.
"Almost…" He corrected me. I looked down at my feet, hurt by his clarification. What was I thinking? I would never get him to believe anything I say on the subject. I just sighed, trying to regain my courage.
"Do you remember when you ran into the force field at the Quarter Quell?" I asked him. He gave me a sarcastic look, of course he remembered. He died.
"No I mean the footage." I clarified. He nodded, almost as if he was recalling the memory from his mind.
"Finnick saved my life, real or not real?" he asked, squinting at me like he was fighting off a headache.
"Real," I replied.
"And you cried for me. Mourned me even…" he said, less strain in his face.
"Real," I told him, my voice sounding strange in a whisper, as if I couldn't say it out loud.
"Yes I remember. When they replayed the footage I couldn't listen to you. It was too heartbreaking." He says, sitting down next to me.
"There was a moment when Gale and I were trying to get to Snow, Right before Prim…" I said, remembering the sight of my sister's body on fire, her screams echoed in my ear. Peeta didn't say anything, he just grasped my hand in his and waited for me to continue.
"Gale was captured by peacekeepers, and he begged me to shoot him. Of course I couldn't…" I said, waiting for Peeta would take his hand from mine, but he didn't.
"I thought Gale was as good as dead, he wouldn't ask for a swift kill from me if he didn't think so also. And what did I do? I ran; I ran head on towards the mansion ready to kill Snow. When I thought I'd lost you, I died a little, unable to breathe unable to speak. I couldn't function." I said to him. He looked away from me, his hair blowing lightly in the wind that had picked up. When he looked back at me I had full access to his eyes. He was so beautiful to me, in a way Gale wasn't.
"You can survive without anyone. I don't want to be your oxygen Katniss." He said shaking his head a little. I frowned at him.
"All I've ever known was survival. You are what my soul needs. What my lungs need. What my heart needs." I told him. He studied me, looking me up and down, searching for a hint of lie. His eyes sting as they scan me, hurting the very core of me. I can't be trusted with matters of the heart.
"You love me, Real or not Real?" He asks, his voice steady but I know he is inner turmoil.
"Real" I said confidently.
I threw my empty game bag down on the dining table while Peeta made his way to the kitchen.
"You don't have any food in here…" he commented, and I just shrugged. Maybe that's why my pants weren't fitting anymore. I should make a more conscious effort to remember to eat. He closed the refrigerator and leaned up against the counter, resting his leg. I could tell it still ailed him, but he never complained.
"Want to put more into the book?" I ask him, walking over the bookcase and pulling it out. He nods and I place it on the table while he rummaged through the drawers in the kitchen for his pencils. I needed a distraction from what we had just confessed to each other, unable to function properly with this new revelation. I loved him. I actually loved him like a normal person. Maybe that is what I needed, to be broken down to beauty base zero as my prep team would call it and rebuild myself into learning to love him. He sat down next to me, a smile forming on his lips.
"What?" I asked him, laughing a little at his goofy grin.
"The next time we kiss, it will be ours." He said. I thought about his words, and found myself smiling too. We were free, to love each other in any way we wished. Smiling felt so foreign to me that I had to rub my cheeks a little.
Our next entry was for a personal favorite of ours, Finnick Odair. I loved Finnick in my own way, his humor keeping me focused and alive. He was much like me, tortured by the capitol, unable to love how he pleased. I thought of Annie as Peeta drew his picture into the book. How was she functioning without him? At least she gave birth to a little piece of him. I make a mental note to call her, for Finnick.
After a few hours poring over memories of Finnick we closed the book, our hearts too heavy to continue. I was pleased with how we represented him, knowing he was thinking of us while we were thinking of him. Peeta and I sat on the couch, listening to the fire roar, his hands running down the length of my braid. He slowly removed the tie, running his fingers through my hair until it was freely flowing around us.
"I always loved your hair." He said. I looked up at him from his lap and smiled.
"Do you not love it now?" I asked him sweetly. He smiled and ran his fingers down its length again.
"Of course, what I meant was that they never took that memory from me. Even when I hated you I still wanted to feel your hair." He said, tangling his fingers in it and brushing the knots out. I smiled and rested my head on his thigh.
"We should visit Annie, see how she is doing…" I suggest, and Peeta nods.
"Not just yet, I don't want to interrupt her grieving." Peeta said. I nodded back in agreement, but wondered if I had lost Peeta if I would want to be alone. If I had actually lost him, I would cease to be me. A failure in the only think I promised myself to do; except for taking care of Prim, which I failed to do already. I nuzzled my head into his thigh, his closeness giving me comfort as I freely thought about her. I usually just forced myself to forget her, but with Peeta here I felt like I could actually let go, knowing he'd be there to repair my broken pieces.