A/N: I wrote this for the Movies in the Month of May Everlark Challenge on tumblr. There is more to come. The banner is by the amazingly talented loving-mellark.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
- "Mad Girl's Love Song" by Sylvia Plath
The air is thick with heat, but as Katniss lies in the grass, clothes and hair damp from the lake, she doesn't notice its weight. An hour ago she cursed the unwavering sun, but now it feels like a luxury, soothing her to sleep.
Go back in, a voice says. I'm dying here.
A blast of heat from the ovens hits her face. Sweat beads on his forehead and slips down the bridge of his nose. She traces the dampness of her face, and for a moment, it is his skin that she touches.
(She has never touched him though. Not really.)
She drops her hand back into the grass.
"The water's cold," she says.
I'm going to pass out. Probably burn myself in the process. Do you want that on your conscience?
She throws her arm over her eyes, as if this will block out the uncomfortable warmth of the oven. The scent of baking bread drifts over her, and despite her recently eaten lunch, her stomach rumbles.
There's a cupcake in it for you.
She lets out an exaggerated sigh as she stands. "You don't need to bribe me."
She pushes her braid off her shoulder and adjusts the tank top that clings to her body, pulling it down over her underwear.
Oh god, now I really am going to pass out.
"Peeta!" She jerks her chin up so she now stares at the lake. "Don't look!"
I'm sorry! I didn't know you were going to look down!
Blushing, she keeps her eyes forward. She sees the lake as she wades in, but she sees the kitchen in the back of the bakery too. Her view of the latter shimmers, but when she focuses the picture is as vivid as the forest around her.
Peeta begins frosting a three-tier cake sitting in the middle of the worktable. She can feel his shoulders relax, hear his relieved sigh.
So much better, he says. Thank you.
She stands knee deep in the water, mesmerized by his hands. He is so careful, so focused. His talent never ceases to amaze her.
She remembers the time before Peeta's voice, when she believed the merchant class had it so much easier than the people in the Seam. She assumed a boy like Peeta, outgoing, popular, the son of a baker, went to bed with a full stomach every night. She imagined decadent dinners of freshly baked bread and extravagant desserts.
Peeta was always so shy, so reticent, when she came to the back door to trade squirrels with his father. She couldn't stand looking at Peeta, not with jealousy and hunger burning holes in her stomach. Not with the vivid dreams she had of him at night: his flour-covered hands kneading dough, his long, lean body tossing and turning in bed, his mother's cruel words falling like daggers onto his shoulders.
But she knows better now. She understands that happiness isn't just a roof over your head and a little food to eat. And she knows no matter how much cruelty there is in the world, even in one's own house, people are still capable of astonishing beauty.
Peeta taught her that.
A branch breaks behind her, and she whips around.
"Hey, Catnip."
"Gale! Don't look!" Without any of her usual finesse, she scrambles out of the water and grabs her pants.
He slaps a hand over his eyes. "Sorry!"
Peeta laughs. She scowls at his amusement, muttering for him to shut up as she quickly dries her legs and feet. After pulling on her pants, she begins to lace up her boots.
"You can look now," she says.
She spent the morning hunting and fishing with Gale. They visited the Hob to trade and eat lunch and parted ways almost two hours ago. Katniss didn't expect him to return to the woods.
It isn't that she's unhappy to see him, but she was enjoying her quiet afternoon.
Peeta still hovers in the periphery, his hands hesitating over the cake. She is tempted to shut him out, but Gale's serious expression makes her nervous.
She lets Peeta stay.
"Hey," Gale says again. "I was hoping you'd be out here."
"Yeah, I was just cooling off."
"I need to talk to you about something. If you're not busy?"
She is clearly not busy. Today has delivered a rare gift: a carefree, lazy Sunday afternoon. They collected more than enough food this morning and traded the majority of it. Her mother is home, treating a patient with Prim's help. Everything feels calm and still. There is so much to worry about in the coming week, but today, she pushes it all aside.
Gale's reappearance makes her heart speed up. He invites the worry back.
"Can we sit?" he asks, gesturing to the grass.
"I'd rather stand."
Gale takes a deep breath, and she knows what he is going to say. She hoped this conversation would never happen, that Gale would find someone else, someone who could reciprocate his feelings and give him the life he wanted. She knew she would lose him when he married. His free time would belong to his wife, a child, and she would miss her best friend fiercely.
But she wouldn't miss him enough to give herself away.
"I know you don't want to get married—"
"Gale," she interrupts. "Don't."
"Wait, you need to hear me out."
She crosses her arms and looks down at her boots. Despite the sun overhead, despite the heat of the ovens, goosebumps cover her skin. She knows she has reached a crossroads in her life. At eighteen, she has finished school and must soon choose a means of survival: disappear into the mines or continue risking the woods.
There is enough to worry about without throwing a husband into the mix.
"It's been just the two of us for years. You and me taking care of our families. Why should that change? If we married, we could continue on just as we are now."
He knows her well enough to use logic and practicality instead of a declaration of love. But she knows him too. If they marry, things won't continue as they are now. They can't.
She swore she'd never marry, that she would never end up like her mother. If she wed Gale and he died, she'd mourn him, but she's certain she would not shatter as her mother did. She loves Gale, but it's different from the kind of love he feels for her.
Maybe that's a good enough a reason to say yes, but she knows it isn't fair, not to him or herself.
"I don't want a husband," Katniss says. "And I definitely don't want children. You know that."
"You might change your mind in a few years," he says. "Ma's been dropping hints about a wife, and I'm not sure how much longer I can put it off, but I want it to be you, Katniss. I want to marry you."
Her chest aches at his hopeful tone. A part of her wants to give in because she cannot stand to see him hurt, but another part grows hateful, makes her hands curl into fists. She will not change her mind. She made this decision seven years ago, and she hates that Gale thinks he can talk her out of it.
She knows he's had girlfriends before, and there are plenty of girls in the Seam—even some from town—that would jump at the chance to be his wife. He's handsome, strong, and loyal. He's the kind of man you'd want to marry.
If you wanted to marry.
"I just want to get through this week," she says, careful to keep the fury out of her voice. "It's all I can think about right now."
"I understand." He rubs the back of his neck. He's worried too. About her, his brothers. Prim. "It's your last reaping, and then you're free."
Yes, free to starve, free to watch another generation of children be sacrificed for entertainment, free to worry about Prim for another four years. What a freedom to have.
"I guess."
"So you'll think about what I said? After it's over?" Gale asks.
Before she can answer the scent of burning bread drifts over her, like smoke before a fire. Her gut twists with dread, but she isn't sure if it's from their conversation or the smell.
She looks past Gale. The ovens are in front of her, and then Peeta's hands removing a tray of burnt loaves. Anxiety perches on her shoulder and pecks at her with its beak.
"Katniss?" Gale asks. "Say something."
The ovens disappear, and the trees return, but the apprehension lingers. Gale's hand is on her arm. She didn't notice him get closer.
She pulls away. "I'm sorry, I'm not—"
It's not as much the pain as it is the surprise of the blow that knocks her to the ground. No sooner does she land on her hands and knees than another push sends her face first into the grass.
"Katniss?" Gale drops to his knees and touches her shoulder. "What happened? Are you all right?"
Her mouth fills with the metallic taste of blood. She touches her lips, and finds her fingertips tinted red. Did she bite her tongue? She stares at her hand until her vision shimmers. Then it's a different hand, a larger, stronger one dotted with blood.
The fury that has been building inside of her erupts when she feels the grip on the back of Peeta's shirt. Now that she is focused, she's able to stay down even as he's yanked backward.
His mother orders him to his feet.
Gale says something, but she can't hear him. She's barely there in the forest. She's filled with the scent of fire and blood, and the boiling heat of anger.
She stands in time to see Mrs. Mellark pull her arm back. On instinct, Katniss's hand shoots up to block the attack, and Peeta's hand does the same. While Katniss clutches empty air, Peeta holds his mother's wrist.
Katniss has never seen Peeta fight back before. He always apologizes or covers his head, but he has never laid a hand on his mother. Ever.
Mrs. Mellark's mouth drops open. Her gaze burns.
What do you think you're doing, she spits out through clenched teeth. Her voice is low, and her arm trembles.
Peeta's hesitation sweeps through Katniss.
"Don't," she said. "Don't back down." She conjures up strength, bravery, hope. She sends it out through the forest, across the space that separates them and squeezes her hand into a fist.
For a moment, it works. For a moment, Peeta squeezes his hand just as hard. Katniss can feel how thin his mother's wrist is, how easy it would be to break. But Katniss also feels his resistance, his fear. It's as if she is moving his limbs for him, forcing him to act against his will.
But that's impossible. That's never happened before.
"Katniss? Are you okay?" Gale is desperate now. "I think you're having another episode. We need to get you to your mother." He grabs her chin and forces her to look at him.
She loses her focus, and Peeta's resolve crumbles.
"No!"
The ferocity of that single word startles Gale. He takes a step back.
"What the hell? Katniss?"
Peeta's mother is cursing, seething. Her face is the color of Katniss's fingertips, the blood on Peeta's skin.
You think you can lay your hands on me? I'm your mother!
Katniss has never seen Mrs. Mellark this angry. Not in the four years she has been privy to every part of Peeta's life.
You don't think you deserve to be punished?
Peeta apologizes over and over. Katniss wants him to shut up and run out the back door, disappear until his mother cools down, but he is rooted to the spot, held there by a childlike fear he will never grow out of. His mother has warped his mind with her cruelty, made him feel deserving of punishment, unworthy of love, and now he will always crumble in her presence no matter how tall or strong he grows.
Mrs. Mellark grabs the rolling pin off the counter and swings. Tears sting Katniss's eyes, and she covers her mouth as if she can stop the pain. Peeta slams into the oven door. The hot metal sears his palms, the side of his face. He spits blood onto the floor.
"She'll kill him," Katniss gasps.
"Who?" Gale demands. "What are you talking about?"
But she's already tearing through the forest. When she reaches the fence, she hesitates for a split second to make sure it is still turned off before diving underneath.
She runs faster than she's ever run before, including the time she was nearly killed by a pack of wild dogs. She had no idea she was capable of such speed.
Mrs. Mellark continues to scream at her son, but for now the rolling pin hangs limply at her side.
How dare you lay your hands on me! I am your mother! I put food on this table, I put a roof over your head, and you're nothing but an ungrateful, lazy, worthless—
Katniss doesn't want to hear another word, but she can't leave him alone. Not when Mrs. Mellark's eyes burn with such intensity. Not when she emphasizes each insult with a slap.
Katniss reaches the center of town as another blow from the rolling pin sends Peeta to the floor. His fear and helplessness are too strong. They make her hesitate in front of the bakery. She can't do anything. She can't save him. She is useless, worthless, pathetic—
"Peeta." She has nothing else to offer him, no words of encouragement, no urgings to run. She only has his name, the reminder that he's not alone.
It's enough, at least, for her to remember herself. She isn't weak or useless. Mrs. Mellark has no idea the kind of strength she has.
Mrs. Mellark raises the rolling pin once more. Katniss spots a rock the size of her fist lying nearby. Without another thought, she picks it up and hurtles it through the storefront window. The glass shatters, and the rock lands in the middle of a display cake, splattering frosting all over the walls.
Mrs. Mellark rushes out to the front of the store. Peeta hesitates a moment, dazed from the pain, before diving out the backdoor.
"You piece of Seam trash!" Mrs. Mellark shrieks as she bursts onto the street. She pushes Katniss, and Katniss is startled enough that she hits the ground.
"How dare you! I'll have you arrested for this. I'll have you whipped!"
Peeta appears a few feet behind his mother. His face is a mess of blood and bruises and burns. The sight makes her sick.
He moves toward Katniss, but she shakes her head, and stands on her own.
A crowd gathers as Mrs. Mellark continues her rant. Two peacekeepers arrive and demand an explanation. Katniss stares at Peeta. She can't separate her feelings from his, and while the helplessness is overwhelming, it is the guilt that hurts the most. It is sharp, jagged. It shreds her insides with every breath.
"She would have killed you. I couldn't let her do it," she whispers.
Even though Peeta stands several feet away, hidden by noise and people and the screech of his mother's voice, he hears her. He always hears her.
I'm sorry, he says.
She was eight when the scent of freshly baked bread pulled her out of a deep sleep. She slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Prim who slept beside her. It was early. The miners, including her father, had not yet woken for work.
She crept into the kitchen, her stomach a gaping hole of hunger. There had been little to eat for dinner the night before, and she had given the majority of her stew to Prim when her parents weren't looking.
Her father hadn't eaten at all.
But this was a miracle! She was certain she'd find fresh bread sitting on the kitchen table, cooling in the early light of the morning.
The kitchen was dark, empty. There was no baking bread or any other food. There was nothing. But the smell lingered.
Katniss slammed through all the cabinets before she slumped to the floor and cried hot, angry tears.
Her mother found her, scooped her up into her arms, and tried to calm her.
Later, Mrs. Everdeen labeled the outburst as Katniss's first "episode" of whatever illness she struggled with. The official word had been lost some generations ago, but her mother explained that the scent was a hallucination, and it was nothing to be afraid of.
Katniss wasn't afraid. She was hungry.
Peeta doesn't bother to tend his wounds or wash the blood off his face, so when he yells at the peacekeeper, flecks of blood land on the white uniform.
He receives a backhand for his trouble.
"Peeta, stop," Katniss says. Cray's second in command has already tied her to the whipping post and ripped open the back of her shirt.
Five lashings. She can survive five lashings.
When Cray announced her sentence, Mrs. Mellark stomped her foot in a childish burst of outrage. "Five!" she screeched. "She deserves ten at least!"
Prim stands nearby with their mother and Gale, begging them to tell a peacekeeper that Katniss is sick. Mrs. Everdeen refuses to tell anyone about Katniss's illness, afraid they will deem her crazy and take her away. Turn her into a freak to entertain the Capitol.
Only Katniss knows that her "episodes" aren't hallucinations at all. They started off as glimpses of Peeta's home life: scents and voices and textures. Now they are conversations held at inopportune times, or abuse Katniss is too unfocused to fight off.
Gale, well aware of Katniss's legacy of strange behavior, argued with every peacekeeper in sight. He even tried to take the blame, but Mrs. Cartwright corroborated Mrs. Mellark's complaint. Everyone else claimed not to have seen the culprit.
When Cray threatened to have Gale whipped in addition to Katniss, she begged Gale to stand down.
"This is ridiculous!" Peeta shouts. "She didn't do it."
Mrs. Mellark grabs him by the shirt and yanks him close. She speaks low enough that no one but Peeta—and Katniss—can hear.
If you don't stop your hollering, I'll see that you're whipped too, whether it's in the square or back at the house. Do you understand me?
"Peeta, please," Katniss whispers, her face pressed into her arm so no one could see her lips moving. "You're going to feel this too if you don't focus on something else. You need to get out of here."
I won't leave.
"Take Prim home. Ask her to clean you up. Distract her. Distract yourself. Please."
His absence is sudden, like a bird taken down by an arrow. One moment it's airborne, wings stretched to catch the wind, and the next, it is dead on the ground, an arrow through its eye.
She didn't know he was so good at severing their connection. She realizes then that he has never really done it before. It has always been her that shut it off. When she needs him, he is always there, waiting.
The emptiness that fills her is worse than the fear. Despite the crowd of people, despite the presence of her family and Gale, she feels terribly alone like she could scream and scream and no one would come to her aid. A strange kind of sadness, one she hasn't felt in years, not since her father died, since before Peeta's voice found her, creeps up on her. Her throat aches from the tears she refuses to shed.
She forces herself to keep her eyes open, to focus on the pain in her wrists to keep herself from passing out. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Peeta leading Prim away. They look like siblings as they walk together, hand-in-hand. Prim looks back, but Katniss shakes her head.
Prim is out of sight by the time the whip comes down.
Katniss is on her stomach in bed for twenty-four hours before her mother allows her to move.
And then it is only to sit up, careful not to rest her back against any surfaces.
It's been a day and a half, but Peeta has remained silent, and she is too stubborn to speak first. This is the longest time they have gone without talking since their connection manifested.
Before their connection, they never spoke at all.
They still haven't spoken face to face. Peeta has tried to visit or catch her eye in school, but she ignores him every time. The problem is that he knows more about her than anyone else in her life. More than Gale.
More than Prim.
It's not as if he can read her mind, but he experiences everything she does by tapping into her senses. And she tells him everything anyway.
(Well, almost everything.)
It's not just that he saved her life when he tossed her those burnt loaves of bread seven years ago, or when he talked her out of her stupor when faced with a pack of wild dogs. He's her best friend. For four years, he has been a constant companion, an encouraging, hopeful voice, full of kindness and compassion.
She takes him everywhere she goes.
Seeing him in person, having a conversation, seems crazy. Terrifying. After everything they have said to each other, after all the secrets they have witnessed firsthand, how they can possibly interact?
Still, she should have known he would try to visit her again after everything that happened in the square, but she is still surprised when Prim leads Peeta into the bedroom.
Their mother isn't home, so Prim shuts the door and leaves them alone.
Katniss can't look at him. How can this beautiful, kindhearted boy who could have any friend he wanted, any girlfriend he wanted, be standing in her bedroom? She is sullen, antisocial, angry.
She scowls more than she smiles.
How can he want to see her? How could he ever want…
"Stop."
It's the first word Peeta has ever spoken to her face.
"What?" she asks. She looks at him, finally. No matter how many glimpses she gets of him, he always takes her breath away. Even now, with his red, blistered cheek, the bruising that nearly swallows one of his blue eyes, he is the most handsome boy she has ever seen.
When he is just a voice, a feeling, she can pretend he is hers. But in person, she is reminded not only that he doesn't belong to her, but that she doesn't want him to.
"I can feel that," he says. "You're feeling worthless. You can't really believe that."
"Peeta, I think you should go."
"I had to check on you. Make sure you're okay."
"You could do that without coming all the way over here," she says.
"I wanted to come all the way over here. I wanted to see you, not see through you."
He approaches the bed, reaches for her. She slams her back into the wall in her haste to dodge him. Tears fill her eyes as pain scorches her back.
"Don't," she says, holding up a hand. "Don't touch me."
The only thing scarier than seeing him is the idea of being touched by him. She cannot take both in the same night.
"I don't understand," he says. "I wasn't going to jump on you or anything. I'm just concerned."
"I'm fine, Peeta. Really." A sudden thought occurs to her, and she frowns. "Are you trying to avoid your mother? Is that why you're here? Because I'm sure my mom will let you sleep on the couch."
"No, it's not that." He sits on the edge of her bed, a good two feet from where she hovers in front of the wall. "I'm here to say I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry for," she mumbles. Her gut twists with nausea. She can't tell if it's the conversation, the pain, or merely Peeta's presence that makes her feel so ill. "You didn't do anything."
"Exactly. I didn't do a god damn thing."
"I know why. I understand. I think I understand more than anybody why you didn't."
He looks up at her, and she forces herself to maintain eye contact. She grows warm under her gaze. A shudder passes through her, and she looks away.
"Throwing the rock was my decision. Not yours," she says.
"You shouldn't have done anything."
"She could have killed you! She was going to slam that rolling pin into your head! She was so angry, so…hateful." Katniss doesn't bring up why Mrs. Mellark was so much angrier than usual. She doesn't want to consider that she forced Peeta's hand. He almost broke his mother's wrist, and it was probably her fault.
Peeta stares down at his lap and rubs the back of his neck. "I'm still sorry. Knowing you were hurt because of me…I can't stand the idea of you hurt, Katniss. For any reason."
"I'm fine though. Really." She forces a smile. "My mother is taking really good care of me."
Peeta nods. "Good. There's just one more thing." He stands and pulls the back of his shirt up.
There are faint red lines running up and down his back, almost like lashes from a whip.
Her hand shoots forward, but she catches herself before she can touch his skin. "She whipped you? I'll kill her. I swear, Peeta…"
"No, that's the thing. She hasn't touched me since Sunday. I think these are…I think they're from what happened to you."
"But that's impossible! That's never happened before." Katniss had been a victim of Mrs. Mellark's attacks in the past. If Katniss wasn't completely focused, if she was taken by surprise, she often hit the ground when he did, felt the same pain he did. But it never left a mark.
She thinks of the blood on her fingertips after Peeta fell, of the way she tightened her grip and suddenly he was doing the same to his mother's wrist.
"But you weren't even there. I mean…" She touches her head. "You were gone."
"I didn't even feel it. It wasn't until after Prim fixed me up and I got home that I realized there were marks."
Katniss shakes her head. "That's impossible. You must have hit your back when you fell. Or maybe it's an old injury from wrestling."
"Katniss…"
"I think you should go now. I'm exhausted. I need to rest before tomorrow."
"Right. Our last reaping."
"Goodnight, Peeta. Thank you for coming by, but I would rather you didn't."
"Alright. If that's what you really want."
She doesn't say anything or look his way. He lets himself out.
Long after Peeta leaves, he lingers in her mind: his words, his injuries, his scent. She knows he often smells of flour and cinnamon. She can detect it whenever they communicate, but it is so much more intoxicating in person.
Later that night, after her mother and Prim are asleep, she hears him.
Hey. Are you still awake?
Despite the tension of their earlier conversation, she is thrilled to hear his voice.
"Yes," she whispers. "I can't sleep."
Me neither.
Katniss slips out of bed, and wanders into their kitchen. A paper bag waits in the middle of the table.
Look inside.
She parts the top of the bag and finds a fresh loaf of bread.
"Oh my god," she whispers.
For breakfast tomorrow, he says. For good luck.
She smiles so wide, she forgets the pain that still lingers, the concern over Peeta's injury. For a moment, she even forgets her fear of tomorrow.
"It looks delicious," she says, except she really means something else, something she doesn't know how to say. "Thank you."
You're welcome.
He understands what she means, how she feels.
He always does.