Straight on 'til morning
She's not quite sure how Peeta found the book, how it even survived the bombing, the rebellion, the war, the Dark Days, but somehow it did and somehow, it found it's way into their house at the edge of District Twelve, the Meadow unfurling around it like a canvas of springtime. She is sitting on the sofa, staring into the fire that dances to the tune of crackling and popping, a girl spinning with skirts a cloud of sparks and hair aflame under the lights and the eyes. It's been a long time since she was that girl. She's a woman, now, a mother. So much has changed.
Peeta comes in then, flour streaking his blonde hair still, and he settles himself beside her, takes her hand, curling his fingers through hers. "All asleep," he says.
"Good," she murmurs, turning her head to look at him. He kisses her, gently, sugar and spice and all things nice. That's what her father used to say about her, but it suits Peeta better.
"Come to bed," he says, kissing her again, and then it's just the plain fact that she's tired of resisting sleep, when has there ever been any point in resisting, that she lets him pick her up and carry her into their bedroom where their sheets await, white and warm and welcoming.
...
In the morning Willow and Rye are animatedly playing around and under the clothes horse as Katniss tries to wash their sheets. She's never been one for housework, but with Peeta out at the bakery, training his apprentices, she's got no choice. In any case, she's getting a bit old for roaming the woods with a bow and arrow, silent and bold and deadly, and since the fence was taken down after they won the war she's less than likely to ever be alone there. It's not her place anymore, not like it used to be, her's and Gale's, crinkling leaves at their feet and fresh, free air at their fingertips. It's public, now, and Gale's never coming back. Peeta sometimes suggests it, but she shrugs and says, Maybe when the children are older. So he doesn't press, and lets her get on with the housework, which she hates, and playing with the children, which is one of the best parts of her day.
That day, though, they have a new game, and Willow is chattering on about something called Neverland.
"What's that, darling?" Katniss asks as she rinses the white material over and over again.
"You've never heard of Neverland?" Willow asks indignantly.
"No, why would I? Is it something you learnt at school?"
"No," her daughter says in a don't-be-so-silly tone. "It's from the book Daddy's reading to us. I'm an Injun and Rye's a Lost Boy and we're in Neverland. Do you want to be Captain Hook?"
Katniss sighs, confusion rattling around her brain. Who on earth is Captain Hook? "Of course," she says. "When I've hung these out to dry."
...
She and Peeta are sitting and idly watching the TV after the children are asleep, listening to some chat-show with a much toned-down Caesar Flickerman, who almost looks like a human being after a short spell in prison. Then again, his freakish look was always achieved by paints and dyes that washed out as easily as dirt, and he was always the most sympathetic of the Capitol to the children who died, year in, year out. The hook Katniss held in her sleeve as she pretended to chase her children around the garden is lying abandoned on the coffee table.
"I see you're having fun," Peeta had said when he'd come in to see them running and screaming together, the Injun, the Lost Boy and a toy crocodile that Willow made to snap at Katniss' heels.
Katniss had greeted him with a breathless kiss, before Willow had pulled on his hand and demanded that he join in as Peter Pan, the apparent hero of the story. It had all ended with a mock sword-fight between her and Peeta with a pair of sticks, and collapsing laughing on the grass, even though it reminded her a little too much of the arena and what fighting for your life really feels like, blood rushing and it's-him-or-me and please-dear-God-I've-got-to-get-home, I Have Got To Win This.
"They're really taking this whole Peter Pan thing to heart," Peeta says as the TV goes to commercial.
Katniss hums, and rests her cheek against his shoulder. "It's better than questions about the memorials."
"I suppose."
But when they go to bed, Katniss lies awake, watching the hours tick by across the ceiling, because the pretend-fighting has brought the memories to the forefront of her mind. It's been years since she's had a proper screaming-the-house-down nightmare, but suddenly she's afraid, and so at one in the morning, she gets out of bed, careful not to wake Peeta and pads into her daughter's room. The book is on the shelf above her bed, and Katniss takes it carefully, goes downstairs into the sitting room and settles down under a blanket, the book open on her knees. She's never been a great reader either, and it takes a while to get going, but soon enough she's sucked into it, magic and fairies and mermaids and pirates and Indians, and a land where children never grow up.
When she's done, she stares into the spaces in the air and thinks about all the children who've died because of her actions, because, let's face it, pretty much every death in the war was because of her. Her defiance started the whole thing off, and whilst she doesn't feel guilty for the deaths of the Peacekeepers, the oppressors, guilt weighs down her bones, a lead weight in her chest for all the children, for the children in her first Games who died by her hand or because of her, Glimmer, that girl from District Four, Marvel, Rue, Foxface, Clove, Cato. It was a survival thing, they had to die so that she could live, but they were only children, no matter how well-trained or weak they were, they were children who didn't deserve to die. And then there's the ones in District Twelve, the ones who burnt from living breathing flesh and blood into nothing but piles of ashes, the sick kids in District Eight, the Capitol kids at the end of it all, Prim, Prim, Prim…
It hurts even more now that she's a mother. She could never imagine Willow and Rye having to kill or dying of the fierce bite of a sword or the searing, roaring, screaming flames. It hurts to even think about it, it hurts to think what their mothers went through, all those people when they realised they'd never see their beloved children again.
It's almost four in the morning when Peeta finds her, huddled up on the couch under a blanket and sobbing like she hasn't for ten years. He doesn't ask what's wrong. He just holds her until the tears have dried up into a dusty indent in the ground, and then kisses her forehead gently.
"Katniss."
She doesn't look up.
"Katniss." He says her name five times or fifty and eventually, she does, her grey eyes dull like a storm that has worn itself out with growling and thundering, a storm with no more white-gold-flashes left over to fling down at the world in a fit of rage.
"Yes?"
He takes her hand and pulls her up, takes her to the window where the sky is faintly lightening in the east, paler shades of darkness spilling up into the heavens. "Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning."
"What?"
"Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning," he repeats, pointing into the sky. "That's where they all are. In Neverland. In your memories. They don't have to grow up, but they like it that way. Can you imagine Prim running about and trying to mother the Lost Boys? Or the Careers taking on Captain Hook?"
For the first time all night, Katniss smiles. "Or Rue, with the fairies."
"And all the children being looked after by Peter Pan." He smiles, a wide, bright thing with no teeth and just the right amount of sweetness to make Katniss forget about the nightmares, the thoughts, to bury them firmly in her past again.
"Thank you," she says.
Somehow, he always knows how to make it all better.
A/N Just something I thought of, randomly. I'd love to hear from you.