Chapter 3: Katniss' True Talent
Although his nightmares were usually a quiet kind of terror, one night Peeta woke up screaming. "NOOOOOO!" He was sweating, his heart was racing. This dream was different from the others he usually had about losing Katniss.
In this dream, Peeta had watched his entire family get tortured until their blood covered the well-lit stage where Ceasar Flickman was interviewing him. He could not go to them. But that wasn't when he started screaming.
Katniss walked out on the stage, his beautiful, reckless, protective Katniss, and her eyes held only hatred for him. She was screaming at him, enraged. Blaming him for killing her father in the mine because their fathers had loved the same woman. Blaming him for her sister's name being pulled from the reaping ball, knowing she would volunteer and he could kill her without regret, maybe even with relish. The Capital had done something to her, had taken the Katniss from her, had made her forget all he had shared with her. She did not know how much he loved her; perhaps this Katniss had never known it.
It was worse than her being taken from him. That is what made him start screaming.
The scream woke Katniss up. Her heart began racing to match his, but her first reaction was to protect him. Protect Peeta. She bolted upright, and grabbed him, holding him close. She put her chin on his head, trying to squeeze him inside of herself, to compress him into a place in her chest where she might love him. "Shh, Peeta. I'm right here. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. Shh..." She pressed her lips to his golden hair, held him like she held Prim the day their father died.
"Katniss..." He was still shaking, but his heart rate began to slow. "Katniss, you were gone. I mean, you were there but..." He couldn't finish.
"I'm right here, Peeta. I'm not letting go until you say it's okay."
"You were there in my dream, too but... They took you from me. You didn't know me and it was... You didn't know me."
She took a breath and began calmly, "You are Peeta Mellark. You are from District 12. You gave me bread when I was starving. You have a good heart. You were a victor in the 74th Hunger Games. You," she swallowed hard and finished, "You love me."
"Yes." He untangled himself from her, sat up, and looked at her face for the first time since they awoke.
"You help me sleep. I usually help you, too," she finished.
"Katniss, this one was worse than the others. I woke up, and I saw you near me, and I was just more scared. I thought it was real, that you were gone, even if you were next to me." Peeta's eyes were filling but he closed them, and allowed Katniss to guide his head to her lap. He breathed steadily for half a minute, trying to relax but the dream was still terrorizing him. He whispered, "Can you make the dreams be quiet like you did the birds when we were five?"
"You want me to sing to you? To sing you to sleep?"
Peeta stayed quiet as Katniss began to stroke his hair, still wet with the sweat from his terror. She started to hum, softly, an old song from home, but it did little to help him; he could still hear her screaming at him from the dream world. Talking was better so he asked, "Why didn't you make singing your talent?"
"Singing is not for them," she replied. "It's for me. And my father. And for home."
"And for me?" He looked up at her as he asked, daring to open his eyes again.
"And for you." She sighed and settled in, making sure they were both comfortable. She cradled his head again. "This is the song my father used to sing to my mother when they first met. Then my sister and I came along and he'd sing it to all of us. He'd sing us to sleep. It's a song that's older than Panem, he would tell us, by a man called Bob Dylan."
Peeta smiled. "Bob Dylan? What sort of name is that?"
"A poet's name, I guess." Katniss smiled too. Then she began to sing:
"When the rain is blowin' in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love."
Peeta's eyes closed again and she felt him relax.
"When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love."
She began to stroke his hair again.
"I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong."
This is my song, Peeta thought. Then he realized Katniss' voice from the dream had finally stopped screaming. His dream was quiet.
"I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawling down the avenue
No, there's nothin' that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love."
Because we protect each other, Katniss thought.
"Though storms are raging on the rollin' sea
And on the highway of regret
Though winds of change are throwing wild and free
You ain't seen nothing like me yet."
Peeta's breathing was steady again and he was heavy with sleep in her lap. She finished the song quietly, really processing the words for the first time in a long time.
"I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the Earth for you
To make you feel my love."
Maybe it's true, she thought, before dropping off to join Peeta in sleep.