A/N: First of all everyone, my apologies that the first time I posted this chapter the formatting was completely messed up. Here's hoping second time's the charm!
Secondly, I love to write because I love exploring people; placing characters I care about in interesting situations, and then watching what happens next - what they say, how they act, who they become. That being said, plot is definitely something of a struggle for me. For this story, I'd love feedback from you guys about where you'd like to see Katniss and Peeta go next. What type of situations do you think they'll encounter? Feel free to DM me or leave your ideas in comments. I can't wait to see where this story is going to go.
It's been months since everything ended. Everything that Panem as a whole cared about at least. The revolution officially over. Paylor installed as the president of our fledgling democracy. Freedom has been wafting like clouds of smoke across the country, uprooting old ideas, waving in new.
My own everything, however, is still slowly ending, day by aching day. My attempts at setting to rest the things that happened. Of letting go of Prim.
It was months before I bathed myself, left my empty house in the victors village, showed any interest in life. Without Greasy Sae coming by twice a day to feed me I'd have starved to death from indifference a long time ago.
But yesterday he came back. And suddenly I wasn't the only occupant of the village anymore.
He was weeding his wildly overgrown garden, planting neat rows of primrose. His blond hair gleaming in the sunlight. When I saw him, it jolted me. With what emotion, I wasn't sure. But seeing him always surprised me - he was eighteen, and his youth still lay in layers around him, in the slight round of his cheek, in his wide shoulders. But his eyes, they were old. He'd been through hell and back for being just eighteen. We both had I guess.
He looked up when the door of my house banged shut, and we'd just stared at each other for a while. Then he'd nodded at me and gone back to planting. After that, I'd taken my first shower since I'd moved back into the house.
Today I lie in bed, my heart pounding slightly. The nightmares are back. Although back may be the wrong term, since they never really left me to begin with.
I slowly get up, open my closet, sifting through the unworn clothes left here by a benevolent Capitol in what feels like a lifetime ago.
I pull on a soft gray shirt and black leggings, pausing for a minute as I contemplate my options. Is it hot outside? Cold? I don't know what month it is, or even what season, just that the weather hasn't been extreme enough one way or another for it to be obvious to me from inside my house. I grab a knit cardigan too, just in case, but then drop it back down on the floor of my closet. I've been cold before, and I can be cold again today.
A pot of oatmeal rests on the stove. I eat half a bowl, staring blankly out the window at Peeta's house. Who is he? The last time I saw him, he was hovering somewhere between wanting to kill me and wanting to love me.
I comfort myself with the thought that surely they wouldn't have sent him back here if he was an obvious threat to me. This seems like good evidence that his recovery has continued.
But my heart still twists, because I know that whoever I find in that house, it won't be the same Peeta that I promised to meet again at midnight in the arena a year ago.
I swallow another spoonful, but it's heavy on my tongue, and I drop the unfinished bowl in the sink.
I'm at his door, my hand lifted to knock, when I'm seized with fear so great that my hand falls back to my side, and I'm sprinting back to my house before I even really know what's happening.
It's just Peeta. It's just Peeta. I think to myself. It's just Peeta who tried to kill me. It's just Peeta who loves me. It's just Peeta who tried to save me again and again.
I let myself calm down, and then I'm back at his door, but still frozen. A cool breeze ruffles the edges of my shirt. Spring maybe? Early fall?
I stand on his doorstep for a while, unmoving. And then I guess he must take pity on me or something, because the door finally swings open without my having to do anything.
He looks so much better than the last time I saw him. Healthier, no shadows under his eyes, his limp less pronounced.
"Katniss," He's smiling, but cautious, "I was hoping you'd come by. It's always good to know who your neighbors are."
I laugh, but hollowly, because he knows me too well, knows that I've come because all I want to know is who Peeta is right now.
His face softens a little. "Come in. It's okay."
He steps aside to let me in, but I'm still frozen, still silent.
"I'm okay," he tries to reassure me, "I'm getting back to myself more every day."
He hesitates, but then he's crying, "We're gonna be okay,"
And now I know that he's really here, that he's actually back, so I step into his arms.
They fold tight around me, and suddenly I feel safer than I've felt in months.
"I missed you so much," I whisper in his ear.
His arms tighten around me, "I missed you too," he whispers back, "even when I didn't know how to miss you, I missed the fact that I missed you," he chuckles a little and takes a step back. And finally, I follow him inside.
Our house has the exact same layout, long front hallway, spacious living room, kitchen, and dining room. But somehow his feels lighter, more airy. He had it painted yellow when he first moved in, in an attempt to brighten thing up, so maybe it's still the paint at work. But maybe it's just him.
I sniff the air, "You've been baking."
"Bread and muffins, you interested?" He smiles again, rubbing his slightly red eyes.
I shrug, but he still seats me at his wooden kitchen table, pulls the steaming loaf out of the oven, and cuts me a slice.
We both sit there toying with slices of bread for a while, not quite managing to eat anything.
"I'm sorry about Prim." He says eventually, his blue eyes meeting mine.
I look away, my shoulders tense.
"She's gone." I say finally, focusing intently on a couple of dust motes drifting through a beam of sunlight coming through the kitchen window.
They're trapped there in that beam of light, falling up and down.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" Peeta asks me.
What I most want to do is walk back out his front door alone, curl up under my covers, and not get up again for a long, long time.
Instead, I nod.
"Okay, let me just get a coat." He walks out of the kitchen.
I steal another look around. Slide the knife he was using to cut bread underneath a plate because it's making me nervous.
I don't know how he came back here. He's lost more here than I have, this is the place where his whole family was killed. I don't know why he came back here.
"Katniss," he calls from the front hall, "let's go!"
It's cool outside. He was right to bring a coat. I tug down the sleeves of my shirt and burrow my hands into my pockets, trying to be subtle.
It doesn't work though, because a minute later he's still shrugging of his coat, draping it around my shoulders.
"It's fine," I mumble, trying to give it back to him, but he won't take it.
I leave it on my shoulders as we continue walking, not willing to put my arms in the sleeves. It feels like too much of a commitment to this situation. To him.
We skirt around the edge of what remains of District 12. Faint sounds of construction fill my ears. The clanging of a hammer, the roar of a drill.
From what Greasy Sae has been telling me every morning while she cooks, a couple dozen people come back each week. Mostly refugees from 12 who ended up in 13 after the bombing, but some new people too, looking for a fresh start.
"Do you ever go back?" Peeta asks me, nodding towards the remains of town, as we pass by the main road.
I shake my head. I don't want to talk about how this is the first time I've left the village since I came back.
I'm starting to get overwhelmed. I forgot that outside there's just so much of everything, trees, sunshine, even air.
The breeze picks up, ruffling our hair. In spite of myself, I draw the coat tighter around my shoulders.
We're near the edge of the woods now. The place that's always felt safest for me.
I look up at Peeta's face again. It's so familiar and so foreign all at the same time.
"Why did you come back Peeta?" I finally ask him, "what do you think you're going to find here?"
A shadow flickers across his face, and he laughs, harshly.
"Where was I going to go Katniss? Stay in the Capitol, haunted by the thousand nightmares of everything we saw there? Go back to 13, and forever be the insane boy who should probably be locked up for everyone's safety?"
He's angry. I'd almost forgotten that the latest iteration of Peeta can be angry and bitter at times in ways that remind me uncannily of myself.
I take a step back, wary.
In an instant his face has softened back, his forehead crinkles in concern. He holds up his hands.
"I'm sorry. Sometimes I just... get so angry. I don't know what to do." He crouches down, runs his fingers through the dirt.
"I didn't know where to go next." He says finally. "I guess this is the last place I lived that felt like some kind of home."
He sits down on the ground, leaning back against a tree. Then he buries his face in his hands and groans.
"It hurts to be back here. I didn't think I ever would come back. But this is what I have left for now."
I crouch down next to him, tentatively placing a hand on his shoulder.
"I missed you," I say softly.
He turns his face towards me, covers my hand with his for a moment, before letting it slide away.
"Katniss," he says finally, his eyes serious, "I don't know what we're going to do next."