Here's chapter two everyone! Reviews would be much MUCH appreciated. Enjoy! Donna x
Chapter Two
The following day is one of my darker ones. After Peeta leaves this evening, I sit quietly in the kitchen, no longer flipping through the plant book but still clutching it in my hands. With nobody else in the house, I slip once more into my usual state of inertia. I stare into space, and my mind beginning to wander, not quickly, but with the same weariness that now accompanies all of my actions.
I think of what Peeta has said, that this is what we have left. But is it really enough of a foundation to rebuild a life from? To rebuild anything from? Aside from each other, we have lost absolutely everything. And it's not as though we even truly have each other, both of us are shadows of our former selves; suffering separately from the effects of too much horror to comprehend. All we are doing now is existing. And at times I can't even seem to manage that.
Like now. After hours of utter stillness, it is a sharp meow from Buttercup that snaps my head up from where it has been resting listlessly on the arm of the sofa. I don't even remember how or when I moved into a lying down position, but this doesn't faze me. What causes me to make the strange, strangled noise from my throat is glancing down at my hands and realising that I've been clutching our plant book so hard for so long that the tight skin is now a ghostly white, my veins a deep, prominent purple.
Without warning, the image of Foxface's cold, dead face flashes before my eyes, hijacking my vision, the deep purple of the deadly berries in contrast to the sickening white of her slack face. Next is the picture of President Snow's puffy lips coated in the brightest red blood, the smell, tinged with roses, consuming all of my senses. Image after terrifying image bursts through my mind, and I feel myself slipping more and more out of control. My heart is racing, my head pounding, it's possible that I'm screaming, but I'm so far removed from my own body that it's hard to know or care. Peeta's soothing words never cross my mind once. Nothing exists but pain. Misery. Loss.
When I finally become aware of myself, I am lying flat on the concrete floor of the kitchen, unsure whether or not I have been unconscious. A glance to the window reveals that dawn had already broken, but more importantly the action invokes a sharp pain in my head. When I raise my hand to the spot above my eye, it is covered in blood. It takes every single inch of my self control to drag myself upstairs rather than simply collapse back onto the floor, and as I crawl across the kitchen I acknowledge, even if I don't think on, the plant book lying open across the room, several of its pages badly ripped.
Finally, I reach my bed, ignoring the blood erupting from my head, and this is where I remain for the best part of a day. At times, I slip into a nightmare-wracked state of unconsciousness, and at others I lay in a blissfully ignorant waking coma. I am vaguely aware of Greasy Sae's voice calling up the stairs at what must be mid-morning, something about leaving me breakfast but needing to get back to town so not staying. It suits me.
She's back, though, later in the afternoon, and this time she's bursting into my room, cursing me for not moving or eating all day. I give her little thought, keeping my eyes closed and willing her away – but I've forgotten entirely about the unexplained wound on my head. Sae is alarmed now, and tries to force me into moving, but I don't cooperate. I thrash, I make myself as heavy as possible, I even scream, anything to get her hands off when I physically can't stand anyone touching me. Finally, after much shouting and even a sharp slap to the face to try and snap me out of it, she gives in, marching out of the house, and I am alone again.
I should have known, though, that she won't give up that easily, as not long after there is another presence in the house, a somehow gentler one. I remain motionless in my position facing the wall as Peeta enters my room and calmly sits down at the other end of my bed. He doesn't touch me.
At first, him being there does nothing to change my state of mind. Everything still seems hopeless, all reason to live still gone. But eventually, just as it happened last night, I begin to feel slightly more inclined to be active. Slightly foolish, even, for the way I have acted. Still not sitting up, and ignoring the pain, I finally turn my head to face him.
"Hey," Peeta says kindly, "How are you?"
"I'm ok." My voice is almost a whisper. And even though he doesn't ask: "I guess I hit my head."
"I guess so. Is it hurting you?"
"Yeah." And then, because I know he's too caring to touch me when I don't want him to, and because Sae has undoubtedly told him of my resistance, I'm the one to ask him. "Will you help me?"
Peeta nods. "Of course I will. With everything."
When he's finished cleaning up my head, my eyes move to the mirror in the bathroom, and the thin, exhausted looking girl with blood matted into her too-short hair that stares back at me.
"I don't recognise her." I say, as Peeta joins me, and we take in the new versions of ourselves.
"Or me. Either of them." He admits, "It's going to take some getting used to, isn't it."
"How do you do it?" I turn to face him rather than look at the stranger in the mirror any longer, "How do you handle being in your house by yourself?"
"I don't, really." He shrugs, sitting down on the edge of my bathtub, "I guess… Well, even after the Games, my family didn't want to come and live with me, so I've always been alone in there. You haven't been in this house before, having had your mother and Prim."
My eyes fill with tears, but I know it wasn't said to hurt me. While everybody else has skirted around the topic, Peeta's mind doesn't work like that since everything. He's honest until the end, and he knows I'm the person he can say anything to. I find I don't mind it, that I almost appreciate hearing her name come out of someone else's mouth. It makes her more real, somehow.
"The story you told me about how she got her goat," Peeta's browless eyes crinkle, "In the cave. Real or not real?"
"Not real." I admit, "If I'd told you the truth in the arena while they watched, I would have got everyone into trouble."
"Gale?"
"Well, yes. And Greasy Sae, and our old Peacekeepers, and lots of other people; they'd know we were hunting and trading illegally."
"So tell me the real story." Peeta slides down so he's sat on the floor leaning against the bath, and holds out his hand to me. I don't take it, unsure.
"Now?" I falter, "But I-"
"It'll help you." He insists, "Both of us. I have…" He swallows with difficulty, "I have some memories of that cave. Shiny ones. Awful ones, which I'm sure are full of lies they've forced into my head. If you tell me your story, well, it'll help me know what exactly is real. Don't worry," He adds hastily, seeing my expression, "I know the awful parts about you aren't. But if I can secure the rest of it, the real stuff in my head… Well, I'll just be a lot happier. And I'd like to hear you talk about Prim. So we can remember her together."
I know he's deadly serious. And I want to help him in any way I can, so I take his hand, and I sit down facing him on the soft bathroom rug. It takes me a minute, but after another reassuring squeeze, I start to talk. The real story of how Gale and I got Prim's goat. Afterwards, he tells me about he and his brothers' cat, despised by his mother, which of course only made them grow fonder of it. We move back into my bedroom, uncomfortable on the bathroom floor. I tell him more about Buttercup, the way I've sort-of adopted him now but how begrudging both parties are with Prim gone.
We talk until it's almost morning again. We shed a few tears. We also laugh, just a little, which I haven't done yet, and I'm surprised it can still feel almost good. He's telling me now how little he sleeps, how hard he finds it in that house all alone, and with so much to haunt him.
"When I close my eyes," I agree, "All I can see is them. All of them, everyone we lost. And they follow me. Sometimes… Sometimes you're there. And you're telling me it's all my fault, and you still think I did it all on purpose, and you-"
"Katniss." Peeta stops me, but not harshly, as he can sense me getting worked up. "Please don't worry about that. Please. We both have nightmares, and we both know they make every night unbearable. But maybe… Maybe if we can help each other make the days a little more bearable, then we'll get better."
"Slowly." I say.
"Slowly." He agrees. I manage a small smile, studying his face. I can tell he's right, that he's barely slept recently, and I think maybe I can help.
"Lie down." I whisper, and while he sits looking a little surprised, I swap the bloody pillowcase on the bed for a clean one. "Please. I want to help you." Finally, Peeta nods, and as he lays down, I rest my hand very gently on his forehead. He blinks at the new contact between us, before sighing and leaning into it.
"Thank you for helping me today." I say simply, "You knew just what to do."
"So do you." Peeta's voice is already tinged with drowsiness as he closes his eyes, "Thank you, Katniss."
I know, as I reply with "Goodnight, Peeta. Sleep well," that he is already asleep. I sigh, almost happy that I've helped him, even a little, in return for today. I silently fetch a blanket, settle down on the couch in my room, and find that I, too, fall into sleep just a little bit easier with him here.