Please remember, I do not own either the characters/plots/words of either Suzanne Collins who wrote the Hunger Games Series. All rights belong to her. She owns and deserves all the credit for those. I am merely inspired by her amazing works.
Returning home was not what Peeta had imagined it would be. Living in his prior Victor home felt so different from before the war. Walking around it he felt loneliness and a void in it that he never felt before. It was stark and cold despite the vibrant paints that colored the walls. Maybe it was because his family would never walk through that door. Maybe it was because he was not the same person he was prior to his hijacking. The original Peeta with all of his romantic notions of love, goodness and hope had vanished. The last of it burning away in that square on that final day when he was unable to save those he needed to save. Since that day time has held little meaning for him. The days blend into the nights, the nights into the days. His nightmares intermingled with his dreamlike wanderings during the days.
He had rarely felt as clear as he did the day he planted those primroses. There were moments of clarity. They were becoming more frequent since they had begun the memory book. In fact, he realized the more time he spent with her the more the fog was beginning to lift. He began to notice the changes in her too. They were not the same scared kids they were the day of the reaping nor were they the happy pair they were the last day before the quell on the training center roof. They were somewhere in between or somewhere completely new. It was hard to tell most days. But there were moments when he saw it - the look in her eyes during her stolen glances. At times he sees her eyes searching for him and there is spark there. Every now and then he feels that fire that once used to burn. There is that desire he used to feel for her. And then it goes away as quickly as it comes. Fleeting moments of happiness ~ left to burn away in his memory. They are embers that flicker away before he can grasp their meaning which has long since been convoluted in misery and tension. He longs for the warmth and the comfort they used to bring each other. It ran so much deeper than just the actual physical warmth of their bodies on those nights they comforted each other through their nightmares. Now there were just the deep void and long hard nights. He wondered if there was a chance that things may ever improve if that void could ever be filled…
Gradually, the void began to fill. As the months went by Katniss and Peeta found themselves in each other's company more often than not. The days began to meld into the nights. Meals and sleep became a shared experience. Time was spent on their own endeavors. Katniss hunted while Peeta rebuilt his bakery. These routine activities did not stop the nightmares or the flashbacks but they were there for each other to minimize the damage. They worked through the memories, the guilt and the anger together. Haymitch would occasionally join them in all shades of sobriety and drunkenness. But anyone could tell that this was something that they were best able to help each other with. So much had been taken from them in the games and the war, but they had been given each other. And that was proving to be something neither seemed to be able to live without. After months of being alone it felt so good to finally not be lonely. They would often drift away into peaceful moments where they might even feel normal. It was during these times that Peeta would actually feel like he was home. He had wondered if he would ever be able to feel that after all he had been through. But it was a true home that he felt when they were in each other's arms ~ real security and love... It was a new, and yet an old sensation. Even the new Peeta was beginning to feel what the original Peeta felt and that was love. Slowly their love was resurrecting from the ashes. What he needed now was more than just the few kisses and embraces they had shared. What he needed was confirmation that Katniss was feeling the same things. He had been misled before by his misperceptions. What he needed was to remove that doubt that had haunted that filled his fears before. And so encouraged by the orange glow of the sunset he decided to ask her.
"Do you love me?" He said in an almost whisper to her as she rested in his arms.