Start Again

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The house was still, the house was quiet, so quiet. The house was hauntingly empty. It had been like this for months now. The only sound that could be heard throughout the house was the steady beating of a fragile heart, the sound of a rapid chest rising and then falling again, breathing in and out. Because that's all there was she could do.

Breathe in and out, each day, every minute, and every second. And as long as she continued to do that, she knew she was alive.

A layer of dust decorated most surfaces of the victor's house in district 12. Rooms lay untouched, her room lay untouched. She could not; she would not open that door.

Yes, rooms lay untouched, for Katniss Everdeen slept on the couch each night. Well when she did sleep. When nightmares were not plaguing her soul and ghosting her dreams.

She'd gotten used to the nightmares. In fact, most nights she welcomed them with open arms. She'd rather hear the screams and cries her nightmares brought her, for otherwise she would be faced with the other option. The silence. And nothing was worse than the deafening, howling, screams of the silence. Time seemed to have halted to a standstill for Katniss.

It had been many months now, well over a year since everything had come to end. Months since the war was over, months since President Snow had been assassinated.

It had been many months since her mother and Gale had moved away and it had been many months since Primrose Everdeen had died.

But she couldn't move on, she didn't want to move on, because if she did then it would make everything more real.

But deep down she knew, she knew very well that Prim was never going to come back.

Katniss lay on the couch curled up, her knees curled up to her chest. Heavy dark bruises took a permanent residence under her grey eyes, she was terribly thin, her ribs were prominent against the tatty shirt she wore.

She didn't really hunt anymore, there was no need to, there was no Gale here to go with her and there was no Prim or her mother to bring back food to.

Peeta had visited her each day, bringing her things he'd baked, but she was unresponsive. She ate enough to survive and soon he stopped visiting, he'd stopped trying to talk to her, he'd taken just to leaving the food in the kitchen and then retreating silently.

Because Peeta was also still recovering from his own deeply buried wounds and he was just as lonely as she was. He also lived in his own victor's house, alone. He didn't have any family anymore, he didn't have any friends anymore, he didn't have anything except burns and scars that were still openly bleeding from the inside out. But he had a different method for surviving than Katniss did. He got up each and every single day and baked and painted until the day was over, he did that every day. He'd take food to Katniss and to Haymitch. These were the things that would occupy his day and each night he dreaded sleep. Because sleep bought no relief, sleep brought nothing but nightmares that were imprinted so deeply into his mind he was sure they would never fade. Sometimes he'd lose control and he'd go back to that capitol controlled boy who saw Katniss as the enemy but he knew how to control it now, to some degree. He vowed he'd never let that side take over again, he knew he was healing and he knew it would take time, he just wished it'd hurry up.

Winter was fading, ebbing away slowly and the primroses that were planted outside were starting to bloom again. To others, that may be a sign of hope, a sign that wherever she was she would always be there with her, a sign that everything was going to be okay someday but not to Katniss. To Katniss it was just a sign that she wasn't here anymore, and whilst the flowers died and came back to life, she never would.

At first, things seemed okay. The flowers were planted and memories were shared and a few months later when Peeta had been released from the capitol they had made a book together, a book to honour all of the tributes who had died in the games, to tell the story of each of those who tragically lost their lives.

But after that was finished, what was there left to do? What was she supposed to do now? How could she just forget and move on with the rest of her life?

She knew that Prim would have wanted her to move on, she wouldn't want Katniss to sit here and mourn her loss forever, but how could she just move on?

How could she just forget about her and carry on with the rest of her life and pretend she was okay and everything was okay and was going to be fine.

Katniss knew that if it were she, if it was her who had died she wouldn't have wanted Prim to be in this position she was in now. She'd want Prim to always remember her, keep her in her heart forever but she'd want her to move forward, live a full and happy life.

And so it was with a heavy heart and aching soul that Katniss found the will to pull herself up from the couch that chilly morning and get dressed.

She didn't know exactly what she was getting dressed for, but she knew that this was the start of it. This was the road to recovery.

And it was funny, that even through all of this time, even through all of the pain and the hurt Katniss had never cried, she hadn't cried once. She'd kept that perfect calm façade, that loyal, never wavering poker face. When inside, deep inside, her insides were twisting and screaming in agony wanting to scream out and lash out and cry and wail. But she wouldn't do that. She'd remain strong.

So much for strong she laughed to herself bitterly, once with no humour. She hadn't even made it halfway up the stairs before she had collapsed again, her knees going weak. She buried her head in her knees, taking deep breaths in and out, trying to calm herself.

I can do this, I can do this she told herself, hoisting herself up and continuing up the stairs. With shaky hands and steady breaths she opened the door to her bedroom.

It wasn't like she hadn't been in here, of course she had but that didn't mean it took a great deal of effort. Reminders of Prim lay in here, she could only wonder what it would be like to step into her bedroom, she didn't think she could, she didn't think she was that strong yet.

She got dressed quickly and slammed the door shut, not wanting to linger unnecessarily.

And then she could see it perfectly, just a little down the hallway. Her name in pink letters hung prettily on the door. Her breathing hitched as she unconsciously took a step towards the door, and then another, followed by another until she was right outside the door.

'Prim' she choked out, as if Prim was doing her homework on the other side of the door or something, as if she would come bounding out any second, her golden hair fanned out and her face bright and smiley looking to feed Buttercup. As if she was actually here.

Katniss collapsed to her knees right in front of the door, and tried to control the strange breathy, gasps, the horrible hyperventilating that seemed to be coming from her mouth. She raked her fingers through her hair, trying to steady herself and suddenly, suddenly she didn't want to be alone anymore.

She didn't know how she got off the floor and made her way down the stairs, she didn't know how she found a jacket and put on her shoes, she didn't know how she opened the door and started to walk and she certainly didn't know how she ended up outside Peeta Mellark's door.

She inhaled deeply before slowly knocking the door.

Because she knew that Peeta was just as alone, just as scared, just as tired as her. She was tired of it and she couldn't fight it anymore, she didn't want to be alone anymore, she was tired of everything, she was tired of the sleepless nights, she was tired of fighting this war by herself. She'd won the physical war, but the real war was buried deep inside of her, and she knew Peeta was in exactly the same position.

That was okay, they could be lonely together.

And maybe, just maybe, they could fight this war together aswell.

She waited patiently for Peeta to come and open the door. It was several minutes before she finally heard footsteps approaching and the door opened wide. Peeta stood there, his clothes were smeared with paint and he had a brush in his hands. He looked at Katniss expectantly, blinking several times to make sure that she was actually there and he wasn't just imagining it.

'I thought you could use some company' Katniss said, her voice flat as she dropped the hand that was raised. 'I'm sorry if it's a bad time' she finished.

Peeta blinked again once more and shook his head

'No it's fine, I was just finishing something up actually' he confessed, moving slightly out of the way to allow her to come through 'come in'

Katniss smiled quickly and walked past Peeta into his house. The interior and structure of Peeta's house was exactly the same, identical to hers. That's how all the victor's houses were. However there was only one thing that made Peeta's house stand out in comparison with her and that was from all of the paintings he had all over the walls. Mostly abstract art, a random observer would guess at but Katniss knew exactly what was hidden in all of these pictures even If it were not obvious to others. For example, a red and golden sun setting, a beach with Fresh Ocean blue water in the front, and a palm tree. But hidden you could see the little bird tapping away at the palm tree, you could see the trees dotted with flecks of red, you could make out the monkey, perched with a snarl on his lips in the right hand corner in the distance. Katniss found all of this to be very disturbing; she wanted to ask Peeta why he did this. Why did he keep these awful pictures in his house to remind himself of his horrendous past each day? But she also knew that this was not the time. If she wanted to try and reconcile what she and Peeta once had it would probably be best to start with something light.

Peeta gestured to a chair for her to sit on in the living room and she sat down.

He set his brush down and sat down on the chair across from her. They both looked at eachother and then their eyes darted away again. A spot on the wall suddenly seemed to be very interesting to Katniss. An awkward silence washed over the cold room and Peeta breathed heavily before speaking.

'Would you like anything to eat…or drink?' He asked

'No thank you' Katniss answered a little too quickly and the room was silent once more.

What had happened to him? She thought. Her brave, strong Peeta, always so brilliant with words was now tapping his foot nervously on the hardwood floor and avoiding her gaze as he twiddled with his thumbs.

We're so broken, she thought.

'I'm sorry I haven't been over or anything-'she started to say but he cut her off.

'It's okay, I understand' he said quickly.

She nodded once before breathing deeply.

None of them knew what to say to eachother. What was there to say? There was nothing to say anymore. There was just nothing. Everything was empty. Houses were empty, streets were empty. They were empty. Just shells of what they used to be. Empty vessels.

But it doesn't have to be like that forever, Katniss thought. There had to be hope right? They couldn't just live out the rest of their existence in this hollow state. There had to be something more. Something good had to come out of all this mess.

She loved Peeta. She knew that much.

And if she was capable of love then there had to be hope. Because love was an emotion. The most powerful, the rawest kind of emotion that existed. And if she could love, then she knew that she could feel. And she needed to feel. She needed to feel everything. There was no denying it anymore. She had to feel all the hurt, and the despair and the pain in order to heal and in order to move on. And in order to love. But she couldn't do it by herself. She didn't want to do it by herself.

'I know this is hard Peeta' she said softly. Well as softly as she could manage. 'But we can't go on like this anymore.'

'I know' he said quietly back.

She nodded again and took a deep breath.

'So how about we start over?' she finally said.

This time he looked up and finally met her eyes. His eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

'What do you mean?' he asked

'My name is Katniss Everdeen' she said confidently looking him in the eye as she extended her hand out.

He looked at her for a moment before a small smile played on his lips.

'It's nice to meet you. I'm Peeta. Peeta Mellark' he said reaching his hand forward.

Their hands touched and Katniss finally let out that breath of air she'd been holding in.

And finally she could sense hope.