PART TWO: Peeta

Sometimes the want to touch Katniss overwhelms me.

The first time I gave into it was after we had started on the memory book. We sat, cross legged on the floor around the coffee table, adjacent from one another. If we shifted at all, our elbows would knock together. The memories we would re-create on the pages of parchment often left us quiet; like one mention out loud of anything would crumble us into a million pieces. She would stop a lot in between writing, sigh and look at the pen in her hands for a long while. And then, eventually she would continue. Sometimes I would break the silence to ask her about the shiny memories in my head and she would answer 'real' or 'not real' and that was that. This particular day, we worked on the pages for Finnick.

Katniss stopped to look at her hands not very long after starting, fidgeting with her fingers and sniffling. I glanced over to the page to see she had been writing of Finnick's love for Annie. My chest clenched at the thought of Annie alone.

"I'm really glad you're here Peeta." she said, peering out from the tendrils of hair that have fallen from her braid. The sentiment is overwhelming and I cannot help myself. I lean over, take one of her hands from her lap, bring it up to my lips and softly place a kiss just above her knuckles.

"I'm glad I'm here too." I let my breath dance across the spot I've kissed, my lips hovering.

It was especially difficult to say goodbye to her that night. A dream I used to have years ago surfaced when I had finally drifted to sleep. In my trance, her body was soft against mine. I wrote to memory the sounds I could pull from her lips when I touched her breasts and the gasp she let out when I circled my fingers inside of her.

I woke to a familiar tightness in my pants and for the first time in a very long while, I indulged. I pressed into the mattress, a hand down my pants, thinking of the sounds she made in my reverie. And I desperately wanted to know how accurate they were.

We would walk in the afternoons to watch the town being built, taking advantage of the milder weather before snow came and we would be trapped inside all the time. The Capitol had sent extraordinary machines that erected buildings in half the time. With gold and red leaves still littering the ground, we would sit in the meadow and watch, hot chocolate that Katniss had learned to make in hand. We would bring paper cups and canteens full of it to give to the workers. Once the sun had warmed up the day, she would sprint to the woods and I would travel back home to paint, a pastime I had just recently picked up again. Greasy Sae taught us how to can fruits and vegetables.

Johanna started calling around that time too. Katniss giggled a lot on the phone with her.

The first time we slept in the same bed in this new life happened on a whim.

The beginning of snow was looming. We had recently begun to read books we had bought at a shop in town. They were considered a luxury these days to have since most citizens watched people read the books on television or stared at a glowing device that had books projected from them. In the old District 12, the only people that really had them were school children and people in Town. We sat across from each other on her couch, socked feet overlapping, our noses stuck in the worn pages.

Katniss eventually drifted off into exhaustion, as she usually did from days of restless sleep.

But I roused her when I lifted her up into my arms. Her head lolled around, her eyes opened for just a moment and then she was out again.

In that moment of complete and utter weakness, I climbed in next to her, pulling the blankets up to our chins.

I woke before she did, warm and rested. And for a while, I just watched her chest rise and fall with each breath. She woke up softly, on her own accord; not thrashing and crying from a nightmare.

"Good morning" she greeted, stretching her arms above her.

"Good morning." And still high on a wonderful night's sleep, I tucked her hair behind her ear. "I thought I'd fix you breakfast. I mean, if that's okay?"

And she nodded, smiling at me.

From that day forward, it's like we had an unspoken agreement: we did not face the nightmares alone.

I started bringing a bag over every night like it was a teenaged sleepover. But as the snow started to bury everything in sight, I found it difficult to return home after breakfast.

So one day, Katniss wrapped herself up in layers of clothes and jackets, a scarf covering everything but her eyeballs and trudged home with me.

"Why don't we pack a few things up to keep at my house?"

I stared at her, "Like move in with you?"

She's thoughtful for a moment, "Yeah. I guess so."

And so I did. I moved in with Katniss Everdeen.

And it got easier to knit ourselves back together every day.

I can barely remember our kisses. I know they happened but I can't remember the feel of her lips or the taste of her breathe. While I cling to these particular memories with everything I have, I feel like they are tarnished. I have overthought them and the thread that the thought hangs from is frayed.

I want to recapture it.

The first time I feel bold enough to do it is when the first signs of spring start to appear. We've been home for nearly a year. Katniss is planting herbs in little painted pots on the back porch, telling me what we can use them for when they start to sprout. She looks like the old Katniss; dirt up to her elbows, braid falling apart, cheeks pink from exertion. She rubs her forehead with the back of her hand leaving a streak of soil. My hand moves under her chin before I can process what I'm doing, tilting her head towards me. Her eyes grow wide as I sink my lips down to meet hers. The spade she is holding clinks to the floor and she turns her whole body towards me, fisting her hands into the front of my shirt. Minutes pass before I pull away, her mouth gaping, eyes still closed and whisper with a smile into her ear, "I'll go get dinner started."

We did not speak about the kiss. I was certain, though, that she acted just a little differently. I would catch her staring and she would not immediately look away. The feeling that would flutter through my chest would send me back before my hijacking, to thoughts of young love and adoration. And these old feelings made me want to start the bakery back up and so I spent many afternoons in town with contractors when the tress became green again.

The first time Katniss faced her demons was on her own.

I came back home after a productive day in town, a few new herb plants in tow for her. I stop at the threshold of the open front door. Boxes of all shapes and sizes cover the living room. A disassembled bed leans against the hall wall and linens are folded on the steps.

"Katniss?" I place the herbs on the kitchen table and inspect down stairs. I ascend the stairs to be greeted by a dresser and a rolled up rug in the hallway. I call her name again but still get no answer. There at the end of the hall, Prim's bedroom door was open. I hesitated, preparing myself for a crumpled Katniss in the middle of the floor.

Instead, I found her in sweatpants and one of my paint-stained t-shirts scrubbing the baseboards in her sister's empty room. She was humming very quietly.

"Katniss?" I asked again.

She turned, smiling at me, "Oh! Hey…I didn't realize how late it was."

"What are you doing?"

"Just cleaning out this room, donating some clothes to the families that just got back, moving forward…" Her words sounded a bit unsure but she continued, "I thought Jo could come to visit and stay in here. I cleaned the study out too and set up your paints in there so you can see the garden. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all."

She shifts on her feet uncomfortably, darting her eyes around me. "I just, I wanted to get rid of the ghosts. I have a lot of happy memories too. And, well, ever since you kissed me, I-I wanted to make some new ones…"

I stride to her and kiss her again, after weeks of wanting to. I kiss her until we both can't breathe and even when she's come up for air, my lips shift down to her neck, never breaking contact. She whimpers when I press her back against the wall.

I kiss her for everything I've forgotten and everything I can remember.

And because I am but a man and the woman of my dreams is pinned against me, I let my hands roam.

The noises she makes when my fingers find the warm wetness between her thighs are far better than any I could make up in my dreams.

When we've settled into bed that night and I pull her tight to my body, she kisses me without hesitation. Without a doubt, I know that I would go through everything all over again to end up here.

"You love me, real or not real?"

In the moonlight, I see her smile. "Real."