In the Meadow

by melissaeverdeen13

Growing Back Together fic. Peeta and Katniss try getting to know each other all over again, coming across their fair share of obstacles along the way.

The clouds are low and the sky is an overcast gray when I walk down the front stairs of my home in Victor's Village. The bite of the air is beginning to lessen. It's still crisp but I can smell the warmth of it coming back; I can feel it in my bones as well. My shoulders feel strange without the burden from the weight of my bow, but I roll them back and set my neck straight even as I stare down at my shoes scuffing the gravel. I'm not out to hunt today.

I clear my throat, lifting my eyes to the sky and then humming low in my throat as I walk. I haven't used my voice in days, not since the last time Greasy Sae stopped by and even then, my words were scarce.

I see Peeta occasionally, but only in passing. Looking through my kitchen window into his as he washes his dishes every night after dinner in the yellow light, as he walks to and from town, when he watches Haymitch's geese from his backyard. I don't know what's left of town anymore and I don't really care to find out. Peeta probably goes there at least once a week and without fail, I watch him until I he disappears from view. And I don't feel settled moving away from the window until I see him return. It's stupid.

I practically trip over my own feet when I hear my name spoken and the cool silence is broken. "Katniss?"

I stop; my right foot coming up to meet my left so I'm standing even. I don't turn around. I don't need to look to know who that voice belongs to. I don't say anything.

"Where are you going?"

It's the first time he's spoken to me since he moved back and I don't know what to make of it. I'm at the edge of the woods now, the meadow is in view and I need to go alone. I could never go to her grave with anyone else.

I don't look at him when I say, "Nowhere."

"Be careful," He says, "It looks like it might rain."

"I'll be fine," I spit, and then continue on my walk with my eyebrows furrowed together in an angry scowl.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

I turn around finally and see him standing there looking wary. His hands are callused and rough but clean, and his eyes are cloudy not unlike the sky. He can hardly look at me, most likely because of my scars.

"No, I don't," I say, and then turn back around and walk faster, with a purpose, until I know for sure that I've left him behind.

I cross my arms in front of me and zip up my jacket, feeling goosebumps rise up on my bare legs. I'm wearing my heavy hunting boots and a shapeless dress with nothing underneath it; the only thing I have on to keep me warm in the cool spring breeze is my jacket that's beginning to get threadbare. I need to make a new one, but I can't find it within myself to do so. I'll probably just wear this one until it falls apart on my body.

I lift up my head from my scuffed boots and narrow my eyes to see ahead of me. I carefully step over the place where the electric fence used to be, still wary of it even as it's burnt to dust, and make my way through the woods until I come out on the other side to the meadow. I can't believe he asked to come with me.

I find my way to the tree that I designated as Prim's grave a few days after I got back to 12 and lean against the trunk, resting my hand on the soft soil next to it. I thought about using a rock as a headstone but ultimately decided against it, coming to the conclusion that her grave didn't need one. No one knows that it's here but me, and this grave was more for me than anybody else. I need to keep a piece of her.

I close my eyes and let the spring breeze sigh over me, making my singed hair bristle and fall away from my shoulders and onto my back, and hum the lullaby I always used to sing to her when she had nightmares. By the time she died, she was too old to hear it anymore. But now, it's for my benefit instead.

I stand up from my spot next to the tree when fat raindrops start to fall on the top of my head, and my muscles creak in protest. I ignore them and traipse back through the woods and when the row of mostly-dilapidated houses come into view, something else does too. Or rather, someone.

Peeta is outside, doubled over and digging. When I get closer, I can see that he's planting the primroses again, which makes my throat clog up and I have to look away. I want to go inside, but it feels wrong leaving him as it pours – and the rain isn't warm, either. It's not a pleasant summer shower, it's an angry spring rainstorm. The temperature has dropped and my hair is blowing around my head so much that I can hardly see him or the muscles rippling underneath his thin t-shirt anymore.

"Peeta," I call out, but my voice fails me. I can barely hear myself, there's no way he heard me over the rain pummeling the earth. "Peeta!" My voice makes him jump, and he drops his shovel as he turns around. "Come inside. It's freezing."

"I'm fine," He says, picking up the shovel again and planting one more bundle of flowers.

"I don't care," I call out again. I'm getting soaked to the bone and I can feel the chill starting. I'm going to have to leave him out here soon if he won't follow me. "Come inside with me or you're going to get sick."

He looks up at me and straightens his shoulders, and for a long moment we just stare at each other through the rain like we did all those years before when he threw the bread to me.

When the door slams behind us, my house is noticeably quiet in comparison to the pounding sound of the rain outside and we're both drenched to the core. We just stand there in awkward silence for a few moments before I turn to him, hair dripping onto the floor, and ask "Why were you planting flowers in the rain?"

"It wasn't raining when I started," He says, directing his statement towards the ground. "They were the primroses I showed you."

"I remember," I say, and my voice is clipped. "After everything...you're still like this."

"Still like what?" He asks, looking up at me with defensive blue eyes.

"Better than me," I whisper.

He shakes his head and runs his hand through his wet hair, sending sprinkles of droplets down onto the hardwood floor. "You're already more than enough, Katniss. Don't...don't say stuff like that."

I study him for a while, the chisel of his jaw, the smattering of facial hair that's begun on his cheeks and chin. I find myself wondering when the last time he shaved was, and then wondering why I'm thinking about it.

"Take your clothes off," I say, watching my hands clench and unclench. He's dripping all over the floor and so am I.

"Wh...what?" He stammers, but his fingers lock around the hem of his shirt even through his confusion. "You...?"

"We should change," I say, and then look back out the window to see the rain coming down harder now, in sheets. "I have some things that'll fit you. I have...something. You can wait here."

I go upstairs and change my clothes; thermal pants this time to keep warm and a thick cardigan. I braid my hair back wet and tight and bring down clothes for him to wear, and I hand them to him without looking him in the eye. He puts them on; baggy pants that would never dream of fitting me, and a chunky knit sweater that has somehow stayed with me after all these years.

It never fit me right, but it fits him okay. The arm seams are a little off, and it's too loose around his neck, less than it was on mine, though. "Prim is bad at guessing people's sizes when she knits," I say, my voice hardly above a whisper. "Was. I guess...was bad at it."

He responds much too fast. "I like it fine. It's good. It's warm. And it's a nice color."

I flit my eyes over to him, looking at the sweater and its awkward fit on him. "Orange," I say, and I can feel the corners of my mouth playing at a smile. "Your favorite."

"She must've known," He says, and I can feel myself shutting down. He must be able to see it too; my eyes growing dark, disappearing within myself. "Katniss, we don't have to talk about her."

"I should start a fire," I say suddenly, pulling away from him as he's grabbed my forearm.

I kneel in front of the fireplace and situate the logs over one another much too meticulously as I feel his eyes on me from behind. He's just standing there watching me. "You can sit," I say, my statement directed at the logs and the weak flame. I hear the couch creak with his weight and then lower myself down onto my knees, hovering over the fire and blowing on it to keep it alive. It works, and it grows slowly and consistently in front of me as I back up and watch it with my arms crossed.

"You sit, too," I hear from the couch, and I turn around to look at him. The sweater makes me smirk with the way it looks on him, riding up on his stomach and pulling taut at his shoulders. "What's funny?" He asks.

"You look funny," I say, taking a step closer to him.

"It's nice to see you smile," He says. I can always count on him to say exactly what's on his mind and I wonder if I should hate him for it. Right now, I don't.

"Even if it's at your expense?"

"Even so. It's not, really." He straightens his arms out and the ends of the sleeves go to the middle of his forearms.

"Stop, stop, you'll stretch," I say, and hover over him as I situate the sweater on his body to pull in the least way possible. "There. Now it'll be okay." I find myself with my cold hands braced on his neck and I can feel his pulse through my fingertips, synchronizing with my own. I let a shaky breath out of my mouth. "Sorry."

He doesn't say anything. When I sit next to him, he extends his arm over the back of the couch and I find myself craving his warmth more than the fire's. The heat from the fire is nice and I want it, but I need his. I let myself rest back against him and he lets his hand fall to my opposite shoulder, rubbing the thick fabric of my dark green cardigan between his thumb and first finger.

"You can stay until your clothes dry," I say, looking at our clothes on the handmade drying rack I made and set by the fire. "Or...anytime. You can stay."

He makes a noise of approval in his throat.

"Are you comfortable?" I ask, afraid to let my voice rise above a murmur.

"Mm-hmmm," He says, "This couch is much nicer than a hard cave floor. When I held you like this for the very first time."

I don't know what to say. I never do, so I keep my mouth shut.

Peeta inhales shakily; I can feel his chest shudder behind me as he does so. "They made that up, didn't they?" He asks, and his voice his trembling. "Not real. That's not real."

I swivel my torso so I'm facing him and look deep into his blue eyes, my hands anchored on his sturdy shoulders. "No, Peeta, it's real. Real. We laid in the cave together during the first Games."

He lets out a sigh of relief, his body relaxing against mine once again. "Are you sure?" He asks me, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth until it turns a shade of bloodless white.

I don't think before I act, I just do it. I hold his face in my hands and I kiss him with my eyes closed, our lips mashed up against each other in a way that isn't out of romance, but out of innate need. "I'm sure," I say when we break apart, my eyes still closed.

He opens his eyes a beat or two after I do, and a dumb, boyish grin breaks onto his face. His cheeks are flushed pink and his pulse is thrumming hard in his neck. His eyes are shining and his hands move from his thighs to lace around my waist to lock around the small of my back.

"You're annoying," I say, breaking eye contact. I can't bear to look at him anymore, it's making me too nervous. I concentrate on the stitch of his borrowed orange sweater and as he pulls my body onto his lap, I can't help but let myself smile. He's always made me feel like this, the way I do right now; since my father died and my mother disappeared into her work and Prim is gone...no one's arms have made me feel this safe.

He tugs on the end of my stiff, wet braid and I'm still finding it hard to look him in the eyes because of the kiss. The last time we were in a position like that, we were in the middle of a war.

"Katniss," He says, and I can feel his breath on my jaw and it makes the muscles in my lower abdomen tighten up. "You can stop scowling."

I lift up my eyes to see that he's still grinning, and when we lock eyes he situates my body so I'm tucked under his arm with my head on his chest and our legs intertwined on the cushions, our backs supported by the arm behind us.

As I try to get comfortable myself, his elbow jabs me in the kidney. "Ouch," I say, and flinch away from it.

"Oops, sorry," He says, and tries to get out of my way but only ends up bashing his forehead against the back of my head. "Oh, god."

I rub the spot where it's throbbing and purse my lips, picking up my hips so I can lay on my side instead. We both keep fidgeting; forgetting what it's like to sleep in such close proximity to each other, but when we eventually stop moving, sleep comes easily.

I wake up to Peeta trying not to wake me up, carefully unlacing his arm from my grip and pulling his leg back from where it had slung over both of mine. I feel something hard and insistent prodding into the small of my back, and in my bleary state of near-consciousness I don't know what it is.

"Peeta?" I say, my voice raspy and low. The sun has sunk below the horizon now; I have no idea what time it is. It might be close to dinnertime or it could be midnight.

"I have to go," He says, using the way I sit up as an out to stand. But he won't stand up straight all the way and his eyes look unfocused and nervous. "Bathroom. I gotta...mmm, bathroom."

"Are you okay?" I ask, standing up as he hurries away to a room out of view. I follow in his footsteps, noticeably slower and quieter in my thick socks. My hair's come unwound from its braid, something it's never able to do on its own, which makes me think he untied it himself just to run his fingers through it.

I knock once on the bathroom door and hear a struggled grunt from the inside. "Peeta?" I call again. I'm starting to worry if he might be having an episode...I've only witnessed one and it was while he was outside in his own garden, picking vegetables. He fell on his knees to the ground in the blinding sunlight and held his head between his hands so tight that I could see his arms shaking all the way from my front window. There was nothing I could do to help, and I don't want to feel that powerless again.

"I'm...fine," I finally hear, then the lid of the toilet slams shut and the water runs, and then the door is opened in my face. We're standing centimeters apart and his eyes still won't stop flitting all over the place.

"What happened?" I ask, backing away from him as he walks through the hallway towards the living room again. He's wearing only socks too, but his walk is much louder than mine.

"I'm just...I'm having an issue," He says, making his way towards the door. "I'm sorry, Katniss, thanks for having me over and letting me sleep but I have to go now, I...I just have to go."

The front door slams behind him and I'm left standing in the entryway with my hair in waves around my shoulders and my cardigan slipping off, the fire dying in the next room. Through my kitchen window, I watch him hurry home and he almost breaks into a run before disappearing through his front door.

Later that night after I boil the soup that Sae left for me over the fire, I start to get angry as I stare at Peeta's stuff hanging on my makeshift drying rack. His stupid clothes are still here; he left so fast that he couldn't even be bothered to grab them. I thought we had been having a nice time, I was happy at least, so I don't have any idea why he wanted to get out of here so fast. I refuse to believe that it was something I did, because all I did was wake up. It bothers me that he won't tell me, but I guess it's like getting a taste of my own medicine.

Later, I fall asleep in front of the fire and wake up in the middle of the night with it burnt down to ash before me. I sit up, achy bones and all, and wrap my arms around myself in the freezing cold. I follow my first instinct and pull Peeta's clothes from the rack and layer them over my own, feeling instantly comforted. Even after the soaking rain, they still smell like him. Flour, cinnamon and dill.

In the middle of the following week, I find enough energy within myself to go hunting. I come back from the forest with a few birds and a squirrel; not a huge haul, but it's enough for me. I can finally stop depending on Sae for all of my meals and start paying her back for all that she's done for me.

As I walk up the path leading up to our houses, I see him for the first time since we fell asleep together more than a week ago. Peeta is outside planting the primroses again with his back facing me, finishing up the circle of flowers that he's created. I stop where I stand and watch him as he moves, patting the dirt so it returns to its original state and then he moves over to my house, where he starts to dig little trenches in front of the bushes to plant the primroses there, too.

His back is still to me when I get to the first step leading up to my porch. So when I open my mouth and speak to him, he visibly jumps. "Your clothes are still at my house," I say.

He flips around with such surprise that it almost makes me laugh, but I don't. His face softens when he sees me, and he drops the bundle of flowers in his hands. I don't know where he's finding all of these. They just seem to sprout up out of nowhere, and he finds them for me. For us, I guess.

"Careful, the neighbors will hear you," Peeta says, glancing around at our painful lack of neighbors.

I can't help but laugh, the edges of my mouth turning up and the sound starts as a buzz in my throat, but ends up as a loud, musical sounding thing.

"I like it when you laugh," He says, focusing down on the holes he's digging again.

"Why did you run away last week?" I ask him. "Were you having...an episode?"

Now it's his turn to laugh. It's not as boisterous as mine was, but I can tell he finds this amusing. "No, Katniss," He says, and his cheeks blush. "I was..." He gestures to his crotch area and widens his eyes, and only just now do I get it.

"Oh," I say, and look away. "I...I didn't know." I try to meet his eyes, but I can't. "You've probably guessed, but I've never..."

"Stop," He says, "It's not something I...I expect from you."

My breath rattles in my chest. "You don't want it?"

A few moments pass where neither of us say anything, and that speaks more than any words could. "I didn't say that," He murmurs.

He wipes the sweat from his brow and when the birds start slipping from my hands, I realize how badly I'm sweating, too. Whether it's from the late afternoon sun or my nerves, I'm not sure.

"I brought home dinner," I say suddenly, diverting from the subject, "If you want to join me."

"Of course," He answers, "I'm going to go...get, um, cleaned up. And I'll be back around."

"Okay," I say, "And Peeta?"

He turns around as he's halfway to his house with raised eyebrows.

"Can you bring the cheese buns?"

Before Peeta comes over, I take a short bath and braid my hair back as I skin the birds and prepare dinner for the both of us. After Peeta comes through the front door, he comes clambering into the kitchen with an armful of ingredients in tow.

"I thought I'd just make them over here, with you," He says a little cautiously. "Maybe teach you how?"

I chuckle and say, "I'd like to learn."

After the birds are in the oven and the squirrel meat is wrapped for a stew on a different day, Peeta shows me what ingredients to put together and just how much of each should go into the mixing bowl. His biceps flex as the dough thickens underneath his hands, and I can't stop watching the way that his fingers are moving. So steady and sure, yet so gentle with the dough at the same time.

"Do you want to try?" He asks, probably noticing my intense stare.

"I...I don't know," I say, "I don't want to mess it up."

"It's impossible to mess this up. You're just kneading dough, Katniss."

"You underestimate me," I say, poking him in the ribs.

"Okay, then, let me help you," He says, "Come here." I stand in front of him at the counter and he wraps his arms around mine, covering my hands with his own. "Just like this," He says, directing the movement of my fingers to push against the soft, floury dough. "Until there aren't any lumps. It's easy." He holds onto me much longer after I've gotten the hang of things, pressing his hips forward gently to trap mine against the countertop and leaning his chest against my shoulder blades. I'm not complaining. This is the first time I've ever enjoyed feeling confined.

As I continue to knead the dough on my own, thoroughly enjoying that I've learned something new, he takes his hands away from mine and winds them around my waist. He rests his chin forward on my shoulder and just watches me work while holding onto me, pressing slow, warm kisses to the side of my neck every now and then.

The buzzing between my legs is getting hard to ignore now.

After I've broken apart the dough in the right shape for buns, Peeta starts to pull away. But I spin around with his arms still locked around my waist so we're chest-to-chest, and lay my hands flat on the hard plane of his sternum. "Wait," I whisper, "Stay with me."

He meets my eyes – blue against gray – and kisses me slowly, holding the back of my neck with one of his broad, sturdy hands. Baker's hands. When he pulls away, my lips are tingling and my heart is beating a million miles an hour. "Always."

He only lets me go to put the bread in the oven, and then turns back around after setting the timer. I've busied myself with cleaning up the small mess we've made together, but I'm cut off when I feel his arms link around my waist again and pull me right up against him.

The first kiss is slow and tentative. His fingers find their way around to the back of my head where he undoes my braid and buries his fingers inside the tresses of my wet, fragrant hair. He pulls his lips from mine and lifts me onto the counter, where he stands between my legs and keeps his hands steady on my hips, his thumbs right at the points of my bones coming through my lounge pants.

His lips remind me of the cakes that Prim and I could never afford, but would always stop and look at. I never knew what they tasted like, to this day I still don't, but by kissing him I can only imagine. I'm taking as much of him as I can get, as much as I can handle, but I'm so greedy that I only want more.

When he parts his lips and my tongue finds its way inside his mouth, it surprises me more than anything. I pull back away like I touched a hot stove and feel my face turn a violent shade of red. I cover my mouth with one hand and use the other one to steady myself on his shoulder, noticing only now that both of his thumbs are very close to the center of me; the buzzing hot space in between my legs that's getting more and more unbearable by the second.

We haven't kissed each other like that since the beach.

"Keep going," I say, and open my mouth against his. I admittedly don't know much about technique, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing, but we figure it out together. We have all the time in the world to figure each other out. "Oh, Peeta," I breathe as he moves his lips away from my own to lay them on my neck, ghosting a trail all the way down to the hollow between my collarbones.

He moans slightly, a low vibration in his throat. I feel it all the way to the tips of my toes. "I like it when you say my name," He says, right against my skin.

"Peeta," I say it again with a smile, and he presses a deft kiss on the skin of my chest that's exposed in the subtle V in my shirt. He rubs his hands up and down my arms, which both warms me up and riles me up. "Peeta, Peeta, Peeta," I say. I feel like I could say his name a thousand times and never get tired of it.

He lifts his lips from my neck and opens his mouth against mine again, and I take my turn weaving my fingers through his hair. It's a bit longer than I've seen it before, they always kept it so close-cropped in the Capitol, and I like it this way. It gives me a little more to grab onto.

My lips are starting to feel puffy and numb from all the kissing, but I'm not done with him. When I come up for air and press my face into the crook of Peeta's neck, one of his hands sneaks along the hem of my shirt and goes underneath, touching the scarred, rippled skin of my belly. Where the worst of my burns were. His touch makes me jump, but I try not to flinch away from him.

"Can I touch you?" He whispers, his voice unassuming and heartfelt.

I nod, swallowing hard, and say "Yeah."

"Take it off?" He asks, gesturing to my shirt.

I convince myself that the oven is making me hot anyway, and it would feel better with it off. I'm wearing a bra, it's not like I'm going to be completely naked.

"Do...do you want to?" I ask him, "Take it off?" He blinks quickly and then ultimately stares down at his socked feet.

He clears his throat and in the process, lets out a helpless sounding involuntary noise. "Yeah," He says, and I lift my arms above my head so he can slip my shirt off easily.

Once it's off, he blinks slower and slower, just openly staring at me. He presses a line of kisses over my collar, from one side all the way to the other, and then pushes my bra straps down my shoulders and kisses the round slopes there. He brushes the hair away from my neck and I tilt my body closer to him my slinging my arms around his neck, and his face is level with my breasts.

"You...you can touch me there," I say, "You know. If you want."

He chuckles a little bit. "If I want? Katniss, you still have no idea..."

Before he can say anything else, I pick up one of his hands from the cool countertop and place it over my right breast. We both let out sighs in unison and my eyelids flutter shut as he runs his thumb over the rough cotton so my nipple perks up to a hardened bud in the center.

I gasp when he touches me like that; my eyes widening, thighs tensing, and meet his eyes desperately. He smiles smugly and keeps rubbing his thumb in circles until I'm to the point of discomfort. I pull his other hand up from the counter and place it on the corresponding side of me, and he goes to work on my other breast as well.

"I'm still waiting for the cameras to interrupt," He says, dipping his head to kiss me slowly. His words are laced with memories, real and fake, of everything he's been through.

"I know," I say, because it's true. It's hard to feel like we completely belong to ourselves, even though we do now. I belong to him. He belongs to me. Neither of us belong to the Capitol anymore.

"Oh, my god," I moan, letting my head fall back to make a hollow sound on the cabinet behind me as he covers my breast, over my bra, with his mouth. "Peeta..."

Jarring us both out of our senses, the oven timer dings which tell us that the cheese buns are done and the bird probably is, too. He stops touching me abruptly and I feel my mouth turn down in a scowl as I grapple and reach for his wrists, directing them back to my chest.

"Katniss," He laughs, "If you want dinner, we have to..."

I let out a huff of air from my nose and put my shirt back on, not missing my nipples pushing their way through the thin, gray fabric.

I slide down from the counter and set the table for two, sitting down in my spot at the head of the table as Peeta brings us both plates that he made up. "Thank you," I say politely, and don't waste time digging in. I'm ravenous.

"Fresh," Peeta says, in regards to the meat that I killed earlier today.

"Fresh as you can get," I respond, taking a bite out of a cheese bun. "Oh, my god, these are perfect."

"Well, you did most of them," He says, his eyes on his plate.

"Lie. All I did was press it down."

He shrugs, cutting up more meat. "Still. Counts as something."

I cross one leg over the other under the table in attempt to quell the insistent urges that are happening inside my body. I don't know how to control myself all of a sudden. Peeta's left hand is resting near his plate and I don't know what makes me do it, but I reach over and grab hold of it and stay there.

He looks up at me, smiles for a second, and then continues on eating. I didn't want him to make a big deal of it, and he didn't. I only take my hand away from his when I need to steady my plate to cut my meat, and even then I return to it after I'm finished.

We don't speak much during dinner, to me it's almost like the little tryst on the countertop didn't even happen...but the prickly feeling on my lips assures me that it did. When we're both done, Peeta cleans up the plates and I follow behind him with the leftovers we couldn't finish and package them up to put in the refrigerator. Even though we will always have more than we need, nothing will ever go to waste around here.

"It's going to start getting warmer soon," Peeta says, his back facing me as he washes the few dishes we used. "It'll be nice."

"Mm...yeah," I say, piling cheese buns in a wicker basket and then placing a towel over the top of them so they won't get spongy and stale.

I can't stay away from him for much longer. I take the few steps necessary to close the distance between us and then wrap my arms around his waist just like he had done with me, though my arms don't reach quite as far.

"What're you doing?" He asks, his body tensing.

I rest my forehead between his shoulder blades and push my fingers beneath the hem of his white t-shirt, touching the soft hair on his stomach that leads lower. I've only seen the trail once, when I was cleaning him up by the river. I had tried not to look, but the sun had caught his blonde peach fuzz just so and I couldn't help myself, just like I can't help myself now.

"You don't have to wash those," I say, "I'll do it later."

"Katniss, I..." He spins around and holds my face in his hands, curling my hair behind my ears and looking at me hungrily. I can spot the hunger in his eyes anywhere, I recognize it all too well from seeing it in myself. "I really want you. And you're not making this easy."

"I'm making it perfectly easy," I say, throwing my arms over his shoulders, "Let's just do it."

"Do it?" Peeta asks incredulously, but I don't answer him with words. I press my lips to his rapidly, desperately, like if I don't kiss him I'll die. And in actuality, it does feel like that. When we're connected like this, I feel electricity throughout my entire body that I don't know what to do with. During the couple times that I kissed Gale, there was never anything close to this.

This is a hunger of an entirely different kind.

He anchors his hands on my hips and nudges me backwards so my tailbone hits the kitchen table, different and sturdier from the one we had just been sitting at to eat. The few clean dishes that he had washed are sitting on it to dry, and they make a soft clinking sound when the weight of my body pushes against the wood. He continues to kiss me, tilting his head to the side and I get the hint to do the same so we fit together better. He presses his lips to mine like he's starving for me, and when he takes my bottom lip between his teeth my knees wobble and my body goes weak.

To counter this, he tightens his grip around my hips and lifts me up onto the table, standing between my legs like he had been before dinner. We pull apart and take a long moment just looking at each other; my eyes wander to all the parts of his face...his clear blue eyes, his thickening hair, the stubble edging along his jaw and upper lip, his pulse beating through his pressure point.

"What?" He breathes, and I notice for the first time that his chest is heaving with exertion and that mine is, too.

"Just..." I shrug and pull him back down by his neck. "I don't know. Looking at you."

Peeta presses his forehead to mine and brushes tendrils of my hair away from my face, the broken ones that don't really fit into my braid. The way he's looking at me, with his lips playing at a half smile and his long eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks after every slow blink, it makes the words that Haymitch said to me ring back through my mind. You could live one hundred lifetimes and never deserve that boy. I knew he was right from the moment he said it, but I didn't know to what extent. Now I feel like I might be getting an idea of it.

"Looking at me?" Peeta repeats, his voice rumbling in his chest.

"Yeah," I say, suddenly feeling nervous when I hadn't before. This sort of intimacy is different than kissing; the way he's looking at me right now makes me feel stripped bare when I haven't taken off a single article of clothing.

"I like it when you do that," He says, "Look at me. It makes me feel like...it makes me feel like I'm here. Real. With you."

"Real," I whisper, and nod slowly at first and then more surely. "You're here with me."

We kiss again, our mouths hungry against each other and our hearts hammering in unison. I hold his shirt in bunches in my fist, and as I pull it off he leans us forward so I'm pushed down to lay on my back on the firm, sanded table. The breath is stolen from me as he leans his weight against my thighs, and because he can't reach quite far enough he scoots me forward so my shirt rides up my back. We giggle a little bit at the awkwardness of it all, both of our faces turn pink, but I forget about it quickly because this is the first time I've seen him without a shirt in quite a while.

I run my hands down the plane of his chest; over the contoured muscles, the dusting of hair, the pricks of his nipples. As I touch him, his eyes flutter closed and he lets out a desperate sounding moan so low that I struggle to hear it. "Katniss..." He whispers, and lifts up the small of my back so he can take off my shirt, too.

My bra isn't nice like the ones from the Capitol. It's one that my mother made for me years ago and I've never given up; the cotton is rough, worn, and pilled, but until now I haven't had someone to impress. I don't feel self-conscious, though. I know Peeta doesn't care what my bra looks like, but he is staring down at me again with intensity that makes the heat drain from my face.

"What?" I ask, mimicking him just moments ago. I cover my belly with my hands, wary of the map of scars there. The skin is raised and thicker than the rest of me, spanning all the way around to my back as well in rivulets of scar tissue. "What?" I ask again, this time with more venom.

"Stop," He says, moving my hands away by touching my wrists gently. "I have them, too." He lifts up his arms and I see long, jagged stripes knifing down his sides from his armpit all the way to the waistband of his pants. I'm admittedly a little shocked; I expected his exterior to match his interior by being unmarked and pure, but I'm wrong. The scar tissue is mottled and a deep red, just like mine is. I assume it's from when they tortured him, but I don't ask. I don't want to talk about my scars, either. Maybe someday, but not today.

I relax with my arms lying above my head and he positions himself over me with his hands putting pressure on my wrists, holding me down. I don't mind; I actually find that I like it. I like it when he takes control instead of leaving everything up to me.

With his lips everywhere on me; my mouth, my neck, my chest, my belly, I'm finding it hard to contain myself anymore. I wrap my legs tight around his waist and can feel his erection pressing insistently onto my core, but both of us are constrained by two layers of thick clothing. I let a shaky breath escape me as he sucks on my neck, and I arch my back to press my hips closer to him to try and get the friction that I so desperately need.

"Katniss..." He says again, pulling his face away, "On the table...we can't. It can't be on the table." He's usually so fluid with his words, but he's struggling now. Almost stammering, like he can't get his thoughts straight in his head. He stands up away from me and rubs the back of his neck with one hand, staring down at my kitchen floor.

I scoot to the edge of the table and then hop off of it, feeling disillusioned and shafted, but also incredibly embarrassed. I had thought he wanted to, but I guess I was wrong. Were we going too fast? I want to jump to that conclusion; that neither of us are ready for this, but I know that's not the reason. I'm desperate to feel something after being numb for so long, and he's the only one who can do that for me. But maybe I was taking too much from him.

"Oh, I...I'm sorry, I thought...I didn't..." I clear my throat and find it impossible to look anywhere but my bony hands. "Did you want...? I'm sorry. Stupid. That was...I'm sorry."

As I'm staring down at my hands, I hear him start to laugh. Slow at first, but then more joyful. "Katniss, what are you talking about?" He asks, tipping my chin up, "I want to. But not on the table. I can't...do much with..." He gestures down to his leg, which had stupidly slipped my mind.

Of course. Once again, I was being selfish and forgetting about his needs and caring only about my own. "Oh. Your leg," I murmur.

"I don't have the range of motion you do. At least not on this table. If you want...we could go to your bedroom, I could..." The apples of his cheeks flush red and he rubs the back of his neck again. "If you want to. Do you want to?" He asks, his voice still very cautious. "Have sex?"

"I do," I say, quietly at first but then louder. "I do want to."

We make eye contact and smile, and then start to laugh uncontrollably. His blue eyes have lit up his whole face from the happiness exuding from them, and the smile on his face is a mile wide. When I'm with him I can forget about everything that's always on my mind and just be. Being with him takes me back to a much simpler time, and I don't want this feeling to ever go away.

"Let's go," I say, and race ahead of him, but he goes around the opposite way and meets me at the foot of the stairs and we both clamber against each other when we try to go up at the same time, and end up in a pile of giggles on the floor.

Peeta's lying on his back, half on the stairs and half not, and I swing my leg over his hips so I can straddle him and kiss him through both of our smiles. He rubs my back softly, tracing his finger over the ridges of my scars, and kisses my bare shoulder once our lips break apart.

"You look beautiful like this," He says, and I dip my head back down to kiss him again, our teeth clicking together since both of us are unable to stop smiling.

"Stop," I breathe, and push my hips lower so I can feel him poking against my inner thighs again. "Peeta...maybe the stairs can be our new bed." I start to laugh after what I've said, and he rolls his eyes, that smile still on his face.

"Shut up," He says, and lifts my body off of him.

Without warning, he picks me up and slings me over his shoulder and I pretend to beat his back to be let down, but I really don't mind. When we get to the top step, his bad leg misjudges it and it sends us down to the floor in with a heavy thump, both of us landing on our butts.

"Peeta!" I shriek, and immediately get concerned that he's hurt himself. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," He says, his face flushed, "I'm fine. My pride's a little wounded, but," He knocks on the titanium of his leg and it makes a solid sound. "Better than ever."

We get into my bedroom and suddenly the atmosphere has changed because I think we both realize that this is actually going to happen. I haven't been this close to someone in my entire life, and the thought of breaching that barrier is daunting. I know there's no one I'd rather it be with than Peeta, but still...my insides are jumping and my heart is beating wildly.

"Should we...?" I ask, turning to face him and getting cut off by the fact that he's already stripped down to his boxers. "Oh," I chuckle and then push my pants down, stepping out of them carefully once they're around my ankles. "Beat me to it."

We're much quieter now, standing a strange distance away from each other without any laughter or smiles. It feels much more serious now, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. I'm standing in my bra and underwear in front of him, absolutely all of my scars are visible and I've never felt so exposed in my life.

But I can see his, too. His leg, the fluid continuation of him from the first Games. He sits down on the bed and I sit next to him, and when I reach down to touch it I find out that it's the same temperature as the rest of him; warm.

"How?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Some Capitol technology. It always matches my temperature." I continue to look at him, at all the parts that were covered and are now exposed; his thick, muscled thighs, the rounds of his biceps, the fluid ripple of the strength in his back. "You're staring at me," He says with a chuckle.

"Sorry," I say quickly, and dart my eyes away.

"You should hardly be the one staring," He says bashfully, "You're even more beautiful than I imagined."

His sentiment makes me blush, but it doesn't make me feel self-conscious because I know that his words are genuine. It makes me feel good about myself for the first time since Prim was alive, when she used to tell me how pretty I was. They are the only two who I would ever believe, ever in a thousand years. It makes me feel like maybe...my scars aren't so bad. If he still thinks I'm beautiful, they must not be horrible.

I'm almost glad not to be "pretty" anymore. I'm done with the Capitol's standards and expectations for me. No more makeup, no more intricate, fancy dresses. Just me.

"I'm cold," I say, wrapping my arms around myself.

"I'll start a fire," He offers, standing up from the bed and kneeling in front of the fireplace in my room. Once it's crackling to life, he comes back to my bed and I get under the covers and lift them open for him to join me.

Our first kiss under the tent we've made is slow and tentative; the air about us has definitely changed because this is all becoming so real. His lips are soft against mine and when he threads his hands though my hair I gravitate closer to him, our bare stomachs pressed right up against each other. I can feel him breathing heavily, his belly pushing out against mine with each breath, and soon he sits up so that he's straddling my hips and looking down at me.

He looks otherworldly; the shimmering light from the fire silhouetting him and casting shadows over his face and chest. I let my arms rest above my head again and he bends at the waist, kissing my neck and the undersides of my arms, showering me with affection that I would normally spurn. But with him, I need more. So much more.

When he takes my breast in his mouth, his saliva soaking the cotton through, I practically yell out. But I don't; I dig my fingernails into his back and feel them sink in lower when he moves the underwire to the side and encloses my bare nipple in his mouth. He swirls his tongue around the bud and my eyes roll back into my head as my body writhes underneath his weight.

"Oh, Peeta," I breathe, and pull his hips down so they're flush against my own. His erection is very difficult to ignore now, so I build up the courage and snake my hand in between us and cup it in my palm, stroking him slowly at first and then speeding up as his hips start to buck against me.

The sound he makes sounds like he's choking and his breath comes much quicker and shallowly. His reaction was instant and visceral, and his skin has heated up so much that it feels like he's on fire on top of me, crushing me under him now. "Peeta?" I say, my voice laced with nervousness. "Are you okay?"

He sits back on his heels, covering his face with his hands. He's breathing heavily through his nose, I can hear each inhale and exhale like it's right next to my ear. His weight is still pressed down on my pelvis, and I just lie there and watch him confusedly until he starts pounding the side of his head with a closed fist and starts to growl, "Not real, not real, not real..." over and over again.

"Peeta," I say, my voice wavering as I pull myself out from underneath him. My eyes start to feel hot, and I'm rendered helpless.

He's crying. The tears are running down his cheeks and dripping below his chin, mixing with the saliva that's leaking out of his mouth. He keeps pounding himself on the head and saying words under his breath that I can't quite hear, and I know I have to do something but I don't know what to do.

"Mutt. She's a mutt," He growls, "I'm a mutt. Kill her. Kill me. It's all a lie!" His arms rocket to his sides and stay there, completely rigid, as he stares at the wall at nothing in particular. His blue eyes are bloodshot and clouded beyond recognition.

"Peeta, please," I beg, "I'm right here. I'm not a mutt and neither are you. You're a painter, you're a baker, you always sleep with the windows open..." My voice trails off and I stand up from the bed and open the window, where the cool spring breeze blows in and ruffles his hair and my own. I manage to get him off the bed and to sit on the floor near the window to breathe in the fresh air, but his body is still stiff and taut. "You always double-knot your shoelaces. You never take sugar in your tea. Your favorite color...it's orange. Mine's green."

His breathing is still incredibly loud, but it's coming slower now. "Green," He says, meeting my eyes for the first time since he slipped away. "Like the meadow."

I hold his face in my hands and sit down on his lap, getting as close to him as I possibly can. I'm not afraid of him and I want to show him that. His eyes dart everywhere around the room, unable to focus on anything, and he starts to rock back and forth which ends up moving both of us.

"The Capitol did this to me," He says, his voice strained, "Real or not real."

"Real," I say, still stroking his hair back from his face.

"You're trying to kill me," He rumbles, "Real or not real."

"Not real," I say, and my voice trembles, "We protect each other. We keep each other safe."

He looks at me with hooded eyes and low-set eyebrows. "You wouldn't let me come with you to the meadow."

I sigh and look away with regret. "Real," I admit.

He doesn't say anything else until he starts bashing his head again, this time with both fists. I do the only thing I can think of that will bring him back; I start to sing the lullaby.

"Deep in the meadow, under the willow...a bed of grass, a soft green pillow..."

He looks up from the floor and starts to tremble, his grip tightening on my upper arms where he's holding me.

"Lay down your head, and close your eyes and when they open, the sun will rise..."

Tears leak out of his blue eyes and I see more parts of him coming back. His eyes don't look so foggy anymore, and his jaw isn't set so tight.

"Here it's safe, here it's warm...here the daisies guard you from every harm..."

He lays his head down on my chest and clutches at my back with strong, knifelike fingers, and starts to sob like a child. I stroke his hair and rock with him, slower and gentler this time.

"Here your dreams are sweet, and tomorrow brings them true, here is the place...where I love you."

After a few repeats of the song, he quiets and falls asleep and I hold him on my chest until morning.

When the watery sunlight peeks in from the windows over the horizon, I blink my eyes open and tighten my arms around Peeta, who's still asleep on my chest. I pull the blanket closer around us, the one I got from the end of the bed in the middle of the night when the fire died out, and press my lips to the top of his head.

With the slight movement, he wakes and my name is the first word out of his mouth.

"I'm right here," I say, comforting him by running my hands down his arms. He has goosebumps; it's freezing in this room. "Oh Peeta, you're cold."

"I'll get the fire," He says, and starts to move until I stop him.

"Let me. Get into bed, and I'll fix it."

"Katniss..."

"Let me," I say firmly, and go over to the fire to tend to it. Once I liven the flames up again, I turn around and join Peeta under the covers. His body is already radiating heat, but his eyes are staring off at the far wall; unfocused. I study the distance between us and wonder if I should do something about it, wonder if it would make things awkward, and wonder if he's even ready to be touched again after what happened last night.

But he soon stops my thoughts when he meets my eyes and extends one arm, welcoming me to his side.

"I'm sorry, Katniss..." He trails off, "They usually don't come on that fast. I was just...overwhelmed, and it was a lot..."

"You don't have to apologize to me," I say, relaxing my body against his with my head on his chest and my open hand on his belly.

"I didn't want to scare you," He admits quietly.

"You didn't," I say, stroking his warm skin with my thumb. My cold feet find his shins under the covers to warm up against, and he jolts when they touch him because of how freezing I am. "I still have the nightmares, too. I know how it can be. I know it's not the same, but..."

"It's still horrible."

"Yeah," I say, feeling myself start to tense up as we talk about our past and what the Capitol did to the both of us. "It is horrible."

We fall back to sleep to ease our aching muscles from the night on the floor, and wake up past noon to go downstairs and make a late breakfast. Once we're finished, the sunlight that had been shining all morning eases away to let in low-hanging gray clouds that split open and rain down on us. We open the front door and sit with our backs on either side of the frame to take it all in, just watching it come down in heavy sheets, bouncing against the dry dirt that won't be so malnourished after this.

In a way, I feel like it's rejuvenating me, too. Last night was exhausting in so many ways, but watching the rain comes down makes me feel refreshed. When I go to steal a glance at Peeta, I find that he's already looking at me and by the smile in his blue eyes I know that must be feeling like himself again, too.

"I don't want to give up," He says, his voice raising just a bit so I can hear him over the pounding rain.

It takes me a moment before I realize what he means, but I eventually get it.

"I don't want to do it if it's going to hurt you," I say.

"It'll get better," He says, "We just have to go slow."

So we go slow. We take things in steps, the tiniest steps that our bodies will allow us. We only kiss for the next few days, and chaste ones at that. After that, I let him touch me. Not inappropriately; but when his arms wind around my waist as I skin squirrels for dinner, I like the weight of them there. I like the feeling of him in my house; our house. It's starting to feel more like something we share as the days, weeks, and months pass.

There are some days when we don't want to stop. We get close on the floor by the fire more than once, but the skittish expression in his eyes always warns me that he's close to the edge and shouldn't be pushed any further, so I pull back.

We choose a day where his thoughts don't wander and he stays completely present through everything, all day. We know we're both ready. Summer is going to find us any day now and the air is warm and sweet. There isn't so much rain now.

The earth is coming back to life, and so are we.

It starts when I'm upstairs in our bedroom, changing into my nightclothes. I feel his lips on my neck as I'm facing the window wearing nothing but my bra and underwear, and the nightgown I was going to pull on over my head drifts down to a heap on the floor by our feet.

"I want to," He breathes, his lips moving against the shell of my ear. "Do you?"

I cover his hands with my own where they lie on my hipbones. "More than anything," I say, and spin around to kiss his lips.

I get lost in the feeling of his body pressed tight against mine, trapping me against the wall. As he kisses my neck slowly, I pull his shirt up over his head and ruffle his hair forward in the process, and we both laugh about it. Nothing is rushed. Everything is carefree and easy, like it should be.

I lie down on the bed and watch him as he rids himself of his pants, and then he grins from where he stands, just looking at me before joining me on the mattress.

"We've waited long enough," I finally say, reaching my arms out for him, "Come here, would you?"

His face breaks out in a grin as he covers my body with his own; his scarred skin pushing and grazing against mine, flesh torn from the same wounds that we're trying so hard to forget. But they're ours, and they always will be.

He pulls my cloth bra off over my head and kisses my breasts, which makes my back arch from the mattress. He doesn't yet use his tongue; but he makes sure that he touches every inch of my chest with his lips as he peppers it with kisses. My nipples harden as the breeze blows in from the window, and I feel him smile against the spot where my heart beats.

When he parts his lips and encloses them around one of my breasts, the whimper that escapes my mouth is high-pitched and sounds very unlike me. It sounds helpless, which is something that I can admit to feeling when he's got me in the palm of his hand like he does right now.

"Peeta," I breathe, and he sucks harder. He loves hearing me say his name. "Oh, Peeta..."

His hands drift down my ribs, over my belly, until he's tracing the waistband of my underwear with his finger as his mouth is still attached to one of my nipples.

"Can I take these off?" He asks me, his voice raspy as his lips move against my skin.

I nod shakily and swallow loudly and he pushes his weight off of my body so he can sit back on his heels and straddle me as he pulls my underwear off. Once they're gone, I feel extremely bare, but it's not necessarily a bad feeling. My knees stay clenched together and my thighs are tensed; even though I want this, I want him, I'm still nervous because it will be my first time. I don't think it's Peeta's, though, and I trust him, but I've heard stories of it hurting.

But it's Peeta. And I know the last thing he'd ever want to do is hurt me.

"You're so beautiful, Katniss," He says, pressing a straight line of kisses along my belly to the apex of my ribcage. One of his hands ghosts over my upper thigh and I flinch involuntarily, so he rubs his thumb in small circles to relax me. "You don't have to worry. You tell me what you're ready for."

"I'm ready for you," I say, feeling more relaxed as he kneads my tight muscles with his strong hands. "I want you."

He presses his lips tightly together and makes a low sound in his throat. "I want you, too," He tells me, and kisses me long and slow. "Can I touch you?"

I nod, and the hand that had been on my upper thigh slides between my legs and makes me jump. "I'm okay, I'm okay," I say, my words coming out jumbled and pushed up against each other, "Keep going."

He coaxes my thighs apart until his hand can fit between them, and then strokes my folds slowly, which makes my eyes roll up into my head. I've never been touched like this before, and I know he knows that. I can see the tent that his erection's making out of his boxers, he's not doing anything to hide it. And I'm glad.

As he continues to touch me, I bend my knees and try to widen them out further. He pushes one finger inside of me and finds a place that I didn't know existed, but makes his name come flying out of my mouth in a strange, forced-sounding shout.

"I'm sorry," I breathe, after the yelp, "That just..."

"Felt good," He finishes for me, "It's supposed to. And you're..." He clears his throat and meets my gaze. His eyes are clear and steady and by the look on his face I can tell he's incredibly aroused. I know that I'd be lying if I said I wasn't.

"I'm what?" I ask.

"You're ready," He says, "You're wet." He bites his lower lip and pulls his boxers down, and I see him bare for the first time in a very long time.

"Please," I say, widening my knees further as he positions himself above me.

"I'll be gentle," He says, holding my hips, "Tell me if it hurts. I'll stop."

He pushes his way in and I feel an incredible amount of pressure. He's not small by any means, and he fills me up in the complete sense of the word, and once he's all the way in the feeling is one that takes some getting used to.

"Okay?" He asks, "Is this okay?"

"It's getting there," I say, "Keep going."

He pulls out and then pushes back in, and as the pattern continues he starts to go at a faster, more graceful rate and I find myself getting used to the feeling even though it doesn't last for very long.

"I'm sorry," He says, only after a few minutes since we started, "I'm not gonna make it. I'm gonna come, Katniss."

I blink rapidly, thinking about what that might mean. Once I piece my thoughts together, I say, "I haven't had my period in months."

Once those words escape my mouth, I feel his warmth fill me up from the inside and his hips buck against my pelvis erratically. He moans right into my ear, a low, husky, delicious sounding thing that I wish I could bottle and carry around with me, and then his arms collapse and his weight presses down on my top half.

"I'm sorry," He sighs, "But I knew I couldn't..."

"Shh," I whisper, "We have plenty of time."

He smiles at my words and lifts himself off of me, making his way down my body until his face is in between my legs. He presses a kiss to my core, which makes tingles buzz up and down my body, and then connects his mouth to me in a way that I didn't know was possible.

When I come, it's intense and extremely loud. I grab a fistful of Peeta's hair and feel him smile against me as my hips tremble and desperate, hoarse screams come from my mouth. When it's finished, he kisses my mouth and I ask, "Is that what I taste like?"

He nods.

I say, "I kind of like it," and watch him grow hard all over again.

We hardly sleep that night due to the new ground we've covered with each other. We close our eyes in spurts, only to wake up no more than an hour later just because we want more of each other. It doesn't end even when the sun comes up; it goes late into the day and we don't get out of bed until it's past lunchtime and close to dinner, and our muscles are sore and achy and our bodies feel boneless.

Peeta is overtired and I am, too, and I can see the fogginess threatening the corners of his eyes when we make our way down to the kitchen to eat. He holds the back of a sturdy wooden chair and clenches his jaw, not talking, until it passes.

For dinner, we walk over to Peeta's house to get some ingredients for bread and Haymitch calls out to us along the way. "You kids need to learn to keep it down at night. Either that, or close your goddamn windows. Some of us are trying to get some sleep."

We smile to ourselves and ignore him.

After we eat and just before the sunset, I convince Peeta to come back outside with me to get some fresh air, that maybe it will help clear his head. When we're standing by the newest primroses, I touch his arm and look up into his eyes. "Do you want to come with me somewhere?" I ask him. He nods, so I take his hand and pull him along the path that is so familiar with my footsteps.

As we walk through the darkening dirt on the way there, I can hear him muttering under his breath: You're a painter, a baker. You never take sugar in your tea. Always double-knot your shoelaces. You sleep with the windows open. You sleep with the windows open.

I don't say anything in regards to it. He's trying to get through it on his own, using the words that I taught him, so I leave him be.

"You're taking me to the meadow," He says when we're to the edge of the forest. I turn back and smile faintly, not necessarily a happy smile, but an assuring one.

"I want to show you," I tell him.

"But it's your spot," He insists.

"It's going to be our spot," I say, and then continue on walking. There's no sense in arguing, and he knows this.

When we get there, the sun is just beginning to set. I show him to the tree that marks her grave and sit down with my back against it, leaving just enough room for him to join me. When he sits, he intertwines his fingers with mine and stares out at the sinking sun that's casting brilliant orange light onto his face.

Breaking the silence a few moments later, he says, "You love me. Real or not real?"

I tell him, "Real."