Hey. This is my first Hunger Games piece so I really hope I do the character's justice as I highly respect both of them, and their creator. I've read quite a few FanFiction pieces about Katniss and Peeta growing back together, and I've loved every new insight and independent thought into those times between them. These have inspired me to try and switch it up, and hopefully do something that is original to growing together pieces, and share my own insight into Katniss and Peeta after the war. I have no beta, so all mistakes are my own.
Disclaimer: I have no rights to the characters, and therefore I make no profit from this publishing.
When Peeta planted the primroses, I had hope.
Even after everything we had gone through together, we still managed to form a routine with each other, and sub consequently: grew together in the smallest of ways. We started with real or not real and tentative smiles, and before long we began to draw out the ghosts of our past selves just by being in the same company as each other. I hunted, he baked and we lived through the days by beginning them at the crack of dawn and ending them tired but satisfied. We both spent so long locked away in our homes in the beginning that our bodies started to decay around us.
My back began to ache from the hunched position I took up in front of the fire and Peeta's leg needed the activity or he began to stare at it and go to a darker place. It was rough, and bumpy. We didn't always get in right and we were both still learning to function, always with the reminder that we survived when so many good people didn't, and we owed it to them to live a decent life. So after many weeks of our new found routine I began to settle into the idea that this would be it: what I would call life until I finally did die. It was peaceful, and really better than anything I could have ever dreamed of after two arenas and an uprising, and I knew Peeta felt much the same way.
But we were both war hero's and paranoia was in the deal you made when you survived something traumatic. You find it hard to settle and you always wait for the other shoe to drop, for the illusion of safety to shatter around you. Hope quickly becomes a very fickle thing, and unbelievably hard to hold on to. Yet the hardest thing, maybe even harder than the ghosts you see and the dead you talk to, or the hallucinations of every murder you've ever been the cause of, is the sorrow you see in another person's eyes when they glance in to the distance and lose themselves to something else.
I saw that in Peeta all the time, when he thought that I wasn't looking. The envious look that passed his face when he glanced at his missing leg, the agony that tightened his mouth when he walked on it for too long, and most of all the anger that made his whole frame tremble when he had flashbacks. They started almost immediately, although I suppose he must have been having them before he came back to twelve. I'd heard his episodes a few times since we'd began this dysfunctional routine of ours, and seen the destruction he could wreak when gripped by one.
Sometimes I walked into a room torn apart by his hands and he stammered apologies and blushed with shame, and other times he gazed at me with a feral smile and dark eyes and I remembered every imprint of his fingers on my throat. But the first time I truly witnessed one from its beginning to its end was when he was making cheese buns. We were moving into midday but the sun was barely shining. We were laughing about something, which was unusual for us, so I should have known honestly.
But Peeta's laughter abruptly cut off when he pulled out the cheese buns. I didn't understand, until I did. He had burnt himself. For a long time, he stared at the angry red mark on his skin, and my heart raced as I watched his face flicker between a thousand different emotions. I almost expected it when he turned to me, mouth twisted, eyes unfocused and burnt palm held out to me like an accusation. My breathing was fast and shallow, and I didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do because Peeta had always been the one who had a way with words, not me. He had a lot of them for me in that moment.
"Fire. Mutt. Katniss. Bombs. Fire bombs, in twelve. Because of Katniss. Mutt, she's a mutt. She's a mutt!"
I flinched, and it wasn't because he was shouting, or because he may have attacked me at any point, but because he seemed to be speaking to something else, to someone else. To himself. The other half of him, as if the hijacked Peeta was trying to convince my Peeta what I truly was. My Peeta. The baker, the painter and the boy with the bread.
I said those things aloud to Peeta, not daring to move a muscle. "You don't take sugar in your tea, you sleep with the windows open and you always double knot your shoe laces... Peeta," I whispered.
I'd said those things before, and it felt pitiful, that I only had the same handful of words as my defence. I should have run, or grabbed a weapon and protected myself. But I'd spent far too long fighting, and too long drawing blood, and too long causing violence so I didn't move, and that scared me the most.
Because while I didn't actively seek my death, I didn't actively try to hold on to my life either. Peeta was panting, eyes crazed, cheeks flushed when he suddenly careened forward. I flew out of my chair, tipping it back so that it clattered to the floor in the otherwise hushed room. I expected him to come after me straight away, but he only wrapped his fist around the chair in front of him with a white knuckled grip. I guess I was actively holding on to my life after all. It took a while, but he calmed down and returned to me.
He apologised, because he was Peeta but all I could find inside the swirl of emotions was hatred. Not for him, but for the Capitol; for Snow. Always for them, because Peeta was characterised by only a handful of things, and being a baker was one of them. He baked bread that saved mine and my family's life and cheese buns even when I didn't admit out loud how much I liked them. After the games he baked beautiful cookies for Prim, decorated in swirling icing that spelt out her name sake despite us having enough money to buy them straight out of the bakery.
But despite all those beautiful creations that he crafted with nothing but happiness as his objective, in that tense, terrible moment he couldn't even look into the open oven without wanting to kill me. Soon the hatred tapered away, because my body rejected adrenaline as much as it rejected happiness and in dejected silence we cleared up the kitchen and threw away the cheese buns. Soon after that I found myself in a state of near living that I had been in since my return to twelve. Peeta blamed himself, and I blamed myself and the sorrow, and the guilt, the shame and the crushing grief blended into one big mix until Peeta gave into it and joined me in my comatose state.
We were a mess, and I feared that we'd never be able to fix each other, because we couldn't fix ourselves. A week later and we were functional, and we tried again. More weeks passed, seasons blended into one another, although it was hard to tell in twelve where the sky still swirled with ash and kept everything awash in grey. We repeated the motions. I hunted, he baked and we smiled even when we didn't want to. Then we tried something new. At first it was sweet, and awkward. Love making. Full of promises and shy glances, hesitant touches and murmurs of reassurances, but then it became more primal, passionate and dirty.
It was something we had never done and soon we were doing things we would never have dreamed of doing. We never spoke about it during the day, but at night Peeta made new memories with me. It was during those nights that I spoke the most, that I sang. The raw intimacy was such a large step for us: the boy who was used for the girl's survival, and the girl who couldn't even look at a man naked without blushing to the roots of her hair. The fact that we accomplished it together, that we crossed such a large chasm of doubt inspired us continuously, spurring us on when daylight came.
Hope became so tangible, and I truly felt like the young girl I had always meant to be. I still didn't fuss with make up or hair, not that I could have done much with most of it still damaged and burnt from the bombs. All my clothes were simple and comfortable for my grafted skin, but I was flirtier and brazen. I would stroke a hand down Peeta's spine upon passing, or give him a suggestive look at just the right moment. But even those moments were not ours to keep or cherish. It became twisted and warped into something ugly, much like us.
I woke one night to Peeta screaming. He screamed into his pillow, face down and I sat up abruptly, woken by the tortured cries. Worry that he would smother himself battled with the anxiety to try and retrieve him from his nightmare. His voice became hoarse soon after and his screams died out. His back was tense, shoulders tight and I extended a shaky hand to touch his damp head, intending to stroke his scalp until he relaxed back into sleep. Peeta began to scream the minute my fingertips sank into his wet hair. I jerked in fear, trying to decipher if the sound was fear or madness.
Just as I was registering the scale tipping towards madness, I had been pinned before I could react, my wrists caught in one hand and his other spreading my thighs. "No!" I screeched, feet kicking.
I fought and clawed his face, bucked my hips and bit all the skin available to me. He blocked me, his chest heaving, his eyes pinpricks in the night. "No," I moaned softly, giving in, giving up.
Peeta's grin was feral; untamed. "Yes, filthy mutt. Filthy mutt whore! You fucked me for the cameras, you fucked Gale behind my back, laughing at me… always laughing…. you fucked Finnick in the arena..." he rambled.
Ridiculous as it was to be hurt by things he said in the middle of an episode, I still gasped out a whimper of agony at his accusations. His hijacked self only said things buried in his subconscious and exploited by the Capitol. Was that truly how Peeta felt about me? That didn't coincide with the image I had of Peeta. He had cried the first time we slept together. Barely touched my skin when my clothes were off, revered and distraught in the same measure by the different tissue scars and skin colours patching my body together. I lifted my knee with a scream and landed it hard in his groin.
He groaned and fell off to the side, his good leg barely keeping him from tumbling to the floor. Meanwhile I flew from the bed, a Mockingjay taking flight, tripping on blankets all the way down the stairs. I stilled in the dark kitchen, breathing heavy and nude after I had discarded the blankets. I found barely enough rational thought to curl up in the pantry. Peeta found me there the next day, face placid but eyes his own, and begged my forgiveness, because he's Peeta. Except I felt like he wasn't. Where had I gone wrong? Where had I missed the clues? When I gazed at him planting the primroses and thought my Peeta had come back to me, was I wrong?
He wasn't really my Peeta, was he? Not even the hybrid I had met in the Capitol, when he drove himself to insanity trying to balance the two personalities. He just seemed to be someone new wearing Peeta's skin. So that's where it started. My paranoia. My stalking. The constant staring at him for the next few months bringing us into December. When he moved, when he baked, when he laughed or smiled. I dissected every word, picked apart every action and suggestion. Before long all I could think when I looked at him, no matter what we were doing in that moment, was: who are you?
He wanted to have sex again, but I couldn't because even though I shouldn't have blamed him for the way he acted and the things he did, I couldn't help myself. He had hurt me. Truly tore me apart, ripping my new found confidence to shreds. It bothered me even more when he got frustrated with me, as if I wasn't pinned and helpless beneath his nude body being verbally torn apart by his insults. It came to a point where he glanced over at me and quite calmly asked, "you like being a tease, Katniss?
I sucked in a breath of hurt and the sound made him cock his head to the side as if he were perplexed to understand my emotions. In breathless silence we stared into each other's eyes, and still that question drummed through my brain, a pounding demand to be answered: who are you, who are you, who are you? He said nothing more and left for his own home that night. He didn't apologise the next day, because he wasn't Peeta and I was finally forced to debate: was he ever? More weeks rolled together, and I felt as I was going to burst at the seams from my paranoid.
I would wake to Peeta standing over me in the dark, lurking around corners as I turned them or catch him looking at me intensely. Sometimes, with lust and anger, sometimes with love and eagerness and it scared me. It scared me because l didn't know if it was my Peeta or the hijacked one, or this silent third party that he seemed to be developing into. I'd always thought of them as two people, my Peeta and the Capitol one, but were they always one? Did the Capitol bring forth a shadow who was already there? I wanted to tell Haymitch, but he was always out of it, and I knew he would only dismiss me.
I was being crazy. I was crazy. I knew that when I began to see the dead: all the people that have died in my name and because I was a naive little girl who thought volunteering for my beautiful little sister would keep her safe. It made me wonder if Peeta saw the dead too, because I caught him talking to himself often, and he always pretended like he wasn't but then I began to wonder if he talked to his other half, to the dead part of himself from before the games. My boy with the bread. Yet despite all the tension that gripped us for months and my paranoia, we managed to push it aside for Christmas day.
It was something new in twelve. A celebration we had always been aware about but never had the funds for decorations or gifts, or the hope to believe in a cherry cheeked fat man who delivered gifts. With Paylor as the new president, she was trying to instil hope and laughter into the new Panem and therefore it was a renewed holiday. So we put in our best efforts to have a lovely Christmas day, and we managed it. We started with breakfast and then opening gifts. Effie had sent us decorations a few days in advance to decorate a tree that me and Peeta cut down together the week before, but she still sent framed photos of us from the Games.
It was hard to determine how we felt about them. On one hand we had no photographs together, and it was a nice idea to populate the house. On the other hand, did I really want Peeta to look at them every day and be reminded of how he had been used for my survival? I shook off the paranoia, determined as I was to have a good day. Peeta seemed to be in silent agreement with me, because he didn't comment just placed the frames to one side. Annie sent us a small card photo of her and Finnick junior in the sea with a message inside.
My mother sent a framed photograph of my father, which touched me to the point of tears. Photographs were rare in poorer districts. That may have changed now in the new Panem as Effie had shown us, but with my father already gone, there was no chance to capture more of him. To part with even one photo was one of the most selfless acts a person could do in twelve, and the fact that my mother had parted with such a great treasure made my heart burn with gratitude. Gale sent nothing but I didn't send him anything either, despite myself and Peeta sending Annie, Effie, Haymitch and my mother a hamper of cookies and a drawing each from Peeta, and meat parcels from myself.
Peeta gave me a stunning painting of Prim that must have taken him hours and made me sob heedlessly for a long period of time. When I had calmed down and gathered my decorum together, I went to my hiding spot and retrieved for him something that made my stomach flutter with dread. It was a little morbid, but seeing that he had received no presents other than some sweets from district two from my mother, it gave me more hope that he would appreciate being acknowledged with the new Christmas cheer.
It was his family's ashes in four separate boxes inlaid with golden plaques bearing their name: his mother, father and two brothers. It was most likely there was other bits of ash in there too, but when picking bodies out of a fire you could never be sure. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn't think I was completely psychotic for handing over his family's ashes. I wasn't trying to be insensitive or cruel, but I wanted him to have closure and to be able to say goodbye to something instead of a lump of metal that used to be an oven.
He stared at the boxes for a moment, his fingers trembling as he traced their names. When he finally looked at me, I tensed. But his eyes were wet; not angry. "Katniss... Thank you so much," he breathed.
I released a gasping breath. "Is it okay? I know it's weird..."
He shook his head. "It's perfect."
That evening we had a feast, at Peeta's doing, though I helped by shooting down the meat. We shared a large pudding and when our bellies were full we sat beside the fire with Peeta's hot chocolate and the memory book. Peeta drawed his family in for the first time, and I wondered why he hadn't done it before. Why was he unwilling to remember them until now? I smiled and pondered on suggesting for him to come to bed, to try being together again when it finally happened. Like I should have known it would have, like I always knew it would in the end.
Peeta stopped drawing very suddenly, the pencil scratching harshly against the starchy paper, and the atmosphere became so oppressive I couldn't breathe. My mind was scrambled, wondering where the calm and happy feeling had gone that lay over the room. I was staring at Peeta, my fingers tight on my cold mug. His head snapped up sharply and I bit my lip to quell a cry of fear.
It wasn't Peeta. But it was. His eyes hadn't dilated, but his face was full of anger. "You're the reason they're dead," he whispered softly, the way he asked if I would like a cheese bun before bed.
I swallowed and shook my head, although secretly I had always agreed. I was the reason. "Snow sent the bombs, Peeta, you know that."
Peeta dropped his pencil and my stomach tightened, my fingers tensing even more on my mug. "You think it was funny, giving me my family in boxes, for Christmas?"
My eyes blurred and fear mounted in my throat, stopping my reply. I could barely squeak out, "no!"
Peeta shook his head in disgust and it was all so disorientating, so frightening, the clear look in his eye, the calmness with which we asked me questions. Hijacked Peeta flew into a rage, my Peeta apologised, so who was this Peeta? I didn't know. I was so scared I was sure I was going to be sick.
"Then why were you laughing Katniss? Why are you always laughing?" He hissed, and his cheeks were hot from the fire, from his anger; his outrage.
"Peeta I wasn't!" I shakily put down my mug, and his eyes followed the movement before looking back to me again.
"You're a liar, Katniss. You always lie. You lied about loving me, you lied about killing my family, you lied about trying to kill me, you lied about fucking Gale. You lie, you lie, you lie all the time!"
I jumped as his fist violently slammed into the floor. I didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do, again. There was no hint of my former self, my inner burn, no Mockingjay. No one to save me. "Peeta," I whispered, so desperate to bring him back. My boy with the bread. "I love you. Real or not real?"
His face twisted. "Not real."
Then he lunged. I screamed, tried to stand, tripped back on my blanket and landed on my ass. I tried to crawl, but he had already got me and I was soon pinned beneath his large body. His warm hands ripped at my clothes and slammed my head into the floor so much that blood pooled beneath my cheek. My vision exploded with stars. I was passing out. I was dying. Peeta was killing me. His fingers found my naked hips, his hands lifted my knees; I swallowed blood. It gurgled in my throat and dried on my skin. My fingers found my mug and I swung it with all my strength. Peeta dropped from my body, groaning and the cup smashed over the floor.
I staggered up, slipping in blood, embedding the soles of my feet with porcelain and ran whilst pulling my leggings back up. I was aiming for the front door but Peeta managed to hurl something at me and I dived into the kitchen to avoid the flying object. "You like being a tease, Katniss?" Peeta called.
I gasped into the silence of the cold kitchen, trying to formulate a plan but I wasn't quick enough. He rounded the corner just as I gripped something. I looked at what I had retrieved. A knife. My head pounded with agony. Blood dried in the cool air on my skin and my hair was soaked with it. The head ache was like a spike through my forehead, tearing me apart between worlds and times and memories. Clove throwing her knife at me and embedding it in that stupid orange backpack. Clove cutting my forehead with that wicked curved blade, taunting me with my impending death and the loss of Rue. Thresh killing Clove and letting me run.
Cato killing Thresh deep in the wheat fields. Me killing Cato with an arrow after endless hours of agony. It goes on and on. Death, so much death. When I looked at Peeta, he was smiling, perhaps realising that my head was splitting open, that I was dying and that I was more frightened right then and there than I had been in any Games, or during the war. Even more than when he was in the grips of the Capitol being tortured. I was going to be sick. Was I bleeding out? Were those white spots at the edge of my vision my impending death?
"Stopped pretending have we now? Finally revealing your plans to kill me?"
I gripped the knife tighter, so scared, so lost and trying to fight the urge to give into darkness. The strength he had put into pounding my head in and the amount of blood pouring down my face suggested I didn't have long left, and then it wouldn't matter. I would either die the moment I passed out or Peeta would kill me the moment I was vulnerable.
I wasn't going to survive this time.
"That's okay," he responded to my silence. "We've been talking, and we know just how to kill you now."
My stomach plummeted and I knew when he said we, he meant himself. He had been conspiring with himself. All those times he had stopped talking when I walked in to a room and kissed me instead. He was plotting to kill me. With himself. The room tilted and I gripped the counter for support, tightening my grip on the knife to keep myself in focus.
Again I was transported through time, to Peeta, to my Peeta: "our next move, is for you to kill me." I looked up through blood soaked hair and saw that Peeta was still watching me, and I didn't feel sick anymore. I felt empty. "I should have done this in the games," I gasped.
Peeta's eyebrow hitched as I balanced the knife in my palm. I could never throw a knife as well as I could aim a bow. Would I hit or miss? Did I want to? Did I really want to kill Peeta? I think of when I woke up on the hovercraft after taking down the force field in the arena and I had armed myself with a syringe, intent to kill Peeta and then myself to save us from the Capitol. Was this the same thing? A mercy killing? Peeta never spoke about who they had moulded him to be, never voiced how he felt to be warped into something violent and dangerous.
He only ever asked for my forgiveness. Had I got everything wrong? Had my paranoia been misplaced? Was I the crazy one? Peeta didn't deserve this, but I couldn't see another way to survive. I always survived. I threw it, and it missed. Peeta charged, and I didn't know if I was relieved or scared. My emptiness ebbed and flowed. Did I really mean to kill him? We charged each other and almost immediately tumbled to the floor, colliding with the ground. The extra bash to the head seemed to be too much for my brain because my vision went.
Blackness surrounded me, with only the sound of Peeta's insults meeting my ears and the feel of him wrapping his hands around my throat registering. It doesn't take long for me to die. As I slipped away, picturing blonde braids and a duck tail in a meadow, Peeta came back. He began screaming immediately, calling for Haymitch. But I was nearly there. My scarred hand reached out for Prim's outstretched one. She glanced over her shoulder at me and laughed but the musical sound was being ruined by the front door slamming open, and Peeta and Haymitch screaming at each other. I knew I couldn't be saved.
There were no healers in twelve, not any more.
I'm coming Prim.