Mockingjay, a symbol of hope and the sole spark that had managed to set the whole of Panem ablaze.
The girl on fire, a facade convincing enough to gain infinite fame from the blind Capitol and base the foundation of their miraculous survival.
Katniss Everdeen, a mess who was left after her sister's inevitable death. Not only as a mental avox for quite a long period of time but also a weak, unstable 17 year old left by everything that she had taken care of.
Peeta lifted the skinny girl from the empty living room's sofa with practiced ease and threaded up to her room, his attempts of silence immediately dying at his own heavy footsteps against the tiled floor. It wasn't like she would wake up after all, he bet her old self would.
The blonde male stared at his ex-counterpart and sighed in exasperation. Her cheeks had never been a healthy curve, but now he felt that he could easily poke a hole through the thin skin covering a sorry excuse of her cheeks and cheekbones with one of his fingers.
He could simply point out every inch of degradation on her physical body without missing a spot, but none of the insides he could state without missing anything. They were too much even for him sometimes. In times there would be snow, Prim's death which will never fit right in her mind, Finnick, Cinna and everyone who lost their life as her stepping stone, Effie, her mother and the list goes on. Oh, and don't forget Gale somewhere in there too.
It still surprised him that hunting would eventually make her dead on the bed like this, not waking up at his loud walk when usually she would have noticed him from a ten meter radius except if she was drugged. Or was she? Nah, the morphling should be out of her system by now and there was no way that she could get much down here.
A low hiss took his immediate attention from his forever crush and Peeta immediately found himself staring at a pair of yellow glowing slits just outside the window.
It took him awhile to realize that he wasn't staring at a new kind of wild mutt and offered his open palm to one of Prim's most prized pet instead. " Don't make too much noise." He whispered and watched as the still slightly scrawny cat mocked his own warnings by jumping and curling on Katniss' feet with soundless, practiced ease.
Buttercup received the blonde's petting nevertheless and growled in slight annoyance as the raven haired girl shuffled and slightly jerked her legs against him.
She was definitely starting her life over again, talking to her mom, Dr. Aurelius, sometimes Greasy Sae and accepting his own company again. But how long will it take to be even near her old self was the question itself.
He wasn't clearly complaining about it, he had regained almost 80 percent of his undying love for her and it wasn't bull for him to say that he would wait on her for another forever again, now that he was certain at least she got a little feeling for him. How much he could retain his sanity was the problem.
Even though he had recovered most of his original memories, the distorted images given by the tracker jacker's venom was still imprinted in his mind as if everything had just happened yesterday. And as much as he wanted to get rid of it, they still haunted him as soon as he was out of focus and off to nightmare land.
Peeta laid himself on his sides before enveloping the anxious girl with his strong arms, immediately calming her down even without him cooing comforting words.
Their bodies were already familiar against each other even though a lot of lonely, fretful nights had passed between the nights they used to sneak in and used each other as a comforting pillow. Maybe her, most of the time, but at least he also got some decent night's sleep every once in a while.
Her skinny form felt a bit weird but still fits well with his body, when he thinks about it now, this would be the first time that he had held her again since the quarter quell. He wondered how her reaction when she woke up would be. Something not involving a hand stroke or her well trained fist would be nice.
Not more than a year ago, they were as near as strangers, maybe not for him but yes for the girl who was lying on his arms and snuggling to his warm chest. Now look where they were, together on a bed...his old self would call him crazy if he had even hoped for this scene.
In a moment he was reminiscing his old, normal days in district twelve and the next thing he knew the scar ridden cat was snarling in protest before it jumped somewhere away as Katniss was flailing her arms and trashing as if her air supply had been cut off by an unknown force.
It took more than a few strokes of her hair and reassuring whispers from the blonde to wake her up gently, not wanting her to react reflexively on her first attempt of running from the bad dreams invading her every night. " Ssshhh, Katniss. Hey, it's me."
" Peeta?" She whispered softly between her harsh breaths. He could feel her muscles slowly relaxing under his gentle touch and her hands clinging to his arms. "What are you doing here?"
"You'll catch a cold if you keep sleeping on the couch, so I carried you up...and decided to join." Well, at least her hands weren't complaining. "What did you dream this time?" The artist asked without any hesitation. They were used to this routine in the past after all, him asking and listening while he himself relieved himself that the nightmares weren't just haunting him alone and sometimes vice versa.
"It's nothing new, just the past making an appearance." Katniss replied nonchalantly as she evened her respiration and almost had to force her hands from stopping his arm's blood circulation.
Peeta watched in new fascination at her distress and raised an innocent eyebrow before inquiring with an equal innocence in his voice. "Gale?" And surprisingly, the raven haired girl replied with the same vigor, for once.
"Gale?"
"Yeah, our old friend." Believe it or not, he didn't say this in a sarcastic tone. He had pretty much befriended the older male when they were infiltrating the capitol. Even had some late night, heart to heart chat about the girl they loved, who was ironically the same girl and luckily the one lying beside him too.
"No, it wasn't him. For your record, if you're jealous, I haven't been thinking much about him." She ducked her face down and covered her mouth with one hand as if she was trying to catch the words which had been said.
Then I'm allowed to be jealous? He almost caught himself asking if only he didn't think twice on threading the topic. It would be best if he didn't, never knew when she would get annoyed with her own uncertain feelings and kick him out of the room. Better change the topic then. "Okay then, just spill, Katniss. You know it always makes you feel better after letting it out."
It was a long pause and Peeta almost came with another comeback, when she finally lifted her head and stared straight at his blue orbs. Damn those gray eyes, it was quite a common one in the seams but her eyes just seemed different... stronger in a way, but now what he saw was a pair of glassy eyes which never fails to make his heart drop and knees go weak.
"It wasn't really a nightmare...there was Prim...mother and father back at home. We were having dinner when the peacemakers started to barge in and then" She took a deep breath to steady her faltering voice before continuing. " And then Snow was there and he just, he just started to choke me and I couldn't moved or feel anything except his cold hands...you woke me up at the right time."
By the end of the story, Katniss had buried her face against his chest, and he just regretted not stripping his shirt before joining her on the bed. To be honest, he missed their touches back in the games. It wasn't that he was happy that she was pretending the whole time, but after all those not so humble contacts, the long absence of her skin was something that had made him crave for her than anything he had ever felt.
"He's gone. He'll never be able to control and disturb our lives again."
" I know, Peeta. I just wished I had shot him before shooting Coin, they should've had less confident in me and gave me more arrows." He actually scoffed at this one and they stifled a short laughter before everything fell silent again.
"I miss them..." The huntress finally broke the silence, her voice barely a whisper.
"Me too." He was certainly missing a lot more people, his father, brothers and even his mother who was frankly not the best for the role.
When no more words were being exchanged and he himself had not bothered to cover his yawn with his busy hands between her long, braided locks, Peeta assumed that not one soul would be listening to his last question for the night. "We can do this every night again, real or not real?"
He wasn't sure if the answer was really real or just his hazy mind's trick. Well, he'll just have to find out tomorrow.
" Real."