Hi dear readers! I'm SO sorry for the delay in update. I went on vacation and I was hoping to have time to write and update but I didn't. Now I'm back and I've got to writing as soon as I could! I want to dedicate this chapter to my friend XNERDYX who always gives me something to think about and inspires me with her feedback. I appreciate all of you so much and all your follows. Thank you for those who have recently followed! It made me smile to come on and see I've gained some follows. If any of you have any suggestions or just want to chat my pm is always open. I would love to hear what you think and hear any suggestions for ahead. Thank you once all so much! Sending you all wishes for a great weekend. I love writing this story and hope you love reading it.
I want to sleep but I can't. I'm only drifting in and out. In and out. I'm in the darkness, but I can hear the hooting call I heard earlier, and my mind keeps racing. The vision of Katniss' house dark and sombre haunts me especially so after the conversation with Haymitch. My mind is spinning with everything he's told me. His words chase me at every thought. She's unreachable. She just watches the wall. We can hope we don't lose sweetheart one of these days. Unreachable, unresponsive, devastated, defeated…I can't get my thoughts to stop racing.
I can't do this any more. I need to know. I need to know she's alive. Actually see that she's breathing, that she hasn't left this world. I need to see it for myself otherwise these thoughts they wouldn't leave me. My mind would never stop racing with images of her eyes still and her body cold to the touch, cold under the touch of my fingers. I practically jump of the sofa and speed to the door that I hear her scream. Katniss's scream.
A chill runs down my body. She wants to kill me. She hates me. She wants me dead. This is all a set up. A set up, a trap for me to walk into. No, no. Not real, not real. She's had so many chances. And taken none of them. I'm the one who tried to kill her. My hands. I was going to kill her with my two hands. She was choking and I wasn't letting go. I just kept tightening my hold and closing my hands around her. I wanted to kill her. I was programmed to kill her. Real. It was me who wanted her dead. Real.
Another scream rings out into the night. It fills the darkness and it echoes. This is a scream of utter and absolute terror. She's hurting. It sounds feral like a wild animal would make. I stiffen with dread and familiarity. She's hurting. I've heard her scream before. A memory comes to me, I'm watching her flail around in her sleep and she's screaming. Her face is distressed. I'm holding her. I'm talking to her. I get her out of it and I hold her. She falls apart in my arms. I stroke her hair making no attempts on the tangles because I don't want her to feel self-conscious. She's so small in my arms.
She needs me. Haymitch was right. She needs me to save her from the nightmares. I can't let them win. I will be there for her in whatever capacity she needs me.
I push at the door and it opens. The door is unlocked. I'm inside Katniss' house. It feels empty. Anybody could walk in though I know nobody would with Katniss being a victor. Whose now a revolutionary as well. Nobody would dare. I wonder if this is this a sign she wants me to go to her? I doubt it is considering her state of mind. Locking her door is the last thing she'd ever think about. She screams again. It penetrates every part of me. It fills the house. It bounces of the walls and the furniture. My heart is racing. I bound up the stairs. Her screams get louder and more chilling.
I'm pretty sure she can be heard all the way in the Seam. I know Haymitch has heard every scream in his house and he can't do anything about it. No wonder he's got those dark shadows under his eyes. All of the time I've been gone I imagine most of their nights have passed like this. Katniss screaming every time she attempts sleep. Haymitch awake hearing every agonising scream and unable to do anything but face Katniss' pain over and over again. Her screams a constant reminder to him and adding fuel to his nightmares. There's no escape even in sleep from what we've done, what we've had to do. Every day and night is a reminder that we are alive at the cost of others. This is what being a victor is. Haymitch knows that very well.
Her scream makes my heart tremor.
I'm standing at the white door, the door of her bedroom. I hesitate in the silence between her screams. I compose myself. I put my hand on the handle and just like that I'm inside. I don't know what I was expecting but I see her tangled in her sheet. I sigh. She's alive. I see her arms thrashing from side to side. I move towards the bed and see her. I gasp. She's all skin and bones. Her hands are thin like branches. I collapse onto the edge of the bed and put my face in my hands. It's as bad as Haymitch described and at the same time so much worse. Her scream makes me jump. I should have been expecting it.
"I've got you Katniss. It's a nightmare, just a nightmare." I hear myself say.
I tug and twist the sheet from around her legs. I struggle somewhat as she flails around but I unwrap it from around her. Her trashing slows somewhat compared to before. Maybe it's from being freed from the sheet, or maybe it's my voice. It'd be nice to think it's the latter.
"I'm here with you. I hope you don't mind. I wish you don't, you know." The words spill from my mouth without a thought.
I want to cry but I can't. I can't cry now because I don't know if I'll be able to get myself out of that state and the last thing I need is to fall into an episode right now so I focus on the task before me. I smooth the sheet and put it over her. I'm afraid to touch her. She looks so frail.
"I'm sorry. About what you may ask…that I've hurt you and caused you pain. And I'm sorry for everything you've lost and for the devastation you're facing now. I'm sorry" I repeat it again like it would make a difference but I know it can't. I know it can't change anything. Those things that have happened can't be undoing.
She's just swaying slightly now. I sit near the top of the bed and despite my fear to touch her moments earlier my fingers seek out hers. It's a mixture of courage and of the magnetism of my love. I gently slide my fingers and wrap them around her bony ones. I wouldn't call it intertwine because to me the word carries the implication of a voluntary act between two people and it's just me doing this. I'm holding her hand. It's seems so slender and small. She's alive. I will help her. I will do it. I can't stand to never see her smile again, but right now it appears like a real possibility, and I feel my heart tighten with the realisation. I might to be late. I probably already I'm but I'll try anyway. I will try. I wouldn't and can't give up on her. I can't give up on the girl I love.
"I promise you, Katniss."
This might be the only chance I have to sweep her into my arms as Effie puts it, but Katniss wouldn't have a choice, and I don't want it to be like that. My heart sinks into an ocean of melancholy and sorrow. I want to hold her but not without her consent, her knowledge. It wouldn't be right. It doesn't feel right to sweep her into my arms after all this time so I just stroke her hair. I stroke her hair and try to commit the texture of it to memory because I'm afraid. I'm afraid I wouldn't get this chance again and this is the last time. The last time I get to do this. I have the intense urge to cry.
"I'm here. I'm holding your hand. I always will if you let me. You must know. I'm not quite sure what it'll do with myself if you don't want me. I really don't know. But I'd do it if that were what you'd wanted. If that's what you wanted from me."
My fingers slip from her and I cradle her hand. Her body seems still and her arms relax so her fingers are no longer stiff. I let out a deep sigh. The sound of my voice must have reached her. My heart jumps in excitement but I realise I'm acting on impulsive. I maybe of comfort to her but it doesn't mean that she wants to be with me. I don't know what to expect. Nothing turned out the way I wanted and it's the same for Katniss. To think that the desire to save her sister started all of this and now her sister is gone from this world. Katniss couldn't have done any more. Hell she did everything she could and still she lost her, we lost her. Her body curls into the sheet and I can't help, but smile weakly. Tears swell in my eyes and threaten to break free which they do. They roll down my cheek and hit the sheet.
Why did all these things happen to us? Didn't we both suffer? Didn't we suffer enough? Didn't I suffer for the both of us? Apparently not. All I wanted was for her to live and live she did, but she's lost everything.
She's so small and so hurt. Her sister, her axis is now gone. All the people she once loved are gone. Her father, her sister, Madge, Gale and his family. I guess her mother in a way despite their conflicting relationship. What she has is Haymitch and I. She didn't choose us. More accurately she didn't get a choice. None of us did.
I think she does love me, did love me. I wipe the tears from my eyes.
Everyday she wakes up to all the loss, the loss of Prim and this house empty. The house silent, quiet and still. Her hours are idle and dark. Before she walked Prim to school every morning, went hunting in the woods for Gale's family and traded at the Hob. Now all of that is gone too. Just gone. Everything she knew she'll never have again. I can't imagine how the hollowness hits her anew before she's even left her bed. What is there to get up to and for when there's nothing she's got to do and nobody waiting for her. The absence of those things she had and did before. It's no wonder she doesn't want to come out. To journey outside would only serve as a reminder, no just another affirmation of her loss and of the reality that's the present. .
"Oh Katniss. I'm sorry. Sorry for being so selfish. I'm happy you're still alive so I have a reason yet you've lost everything. How can I feel lucky and grateful your alive?" I press her hand to my lips and kiss her it gently.
"I need a reason to live Katniss and that's you. It's always been you. You don't know but seeing you got me through the days of my mothers abusive. Seeing you with your dad and then your sister."
Tears drop onto her hand and roll some way down her arm.
I feel her stir and my heart quickens but she carries on sleeping. I'm thankful for this. I don't have any energy for any more emotions today.
I know why these things happened to us and still I ask myself why they had to. Snow's gone yet our lives are full of the devastation, full of nightmares and pain. The war is over and we've faced more loss and devastation.
"No more children will die every year." The words take me by surprise. It's only now the realisation hits me. No more children will die. All the implications of this new world haven't fully sunk in yet. It will take time.
"We get to live for yourself now. We don't have to pretend. There'll be no more cameras'…we aren't who we once were neither are our lives but at least our lives belong to ourselves. We wouldn't have to be mentors and live with deaths of innocents. It's something." I brush her hair feeling the knots in it. I lean down and kiss her forehead. She's warm and alive. How I wish she didn't have all this hurt.
I take a look at her and I take her in, filling the gaps left in my mind, in my memory. There's the arch of her eyebrows, her cheekbone and the curve of her neck that I etch into my memory. I wish I could hold her. I want to, I really want to but I can't. It would be so easy to lie down and curl up besides her but I can't.
"Now you have the choice to love me or walk away. There's nothing at stake now, no lives at risk." I say
"Just my heart." I realise that's true. My heart is at stake. It's been that way for a long time.
It wouldn't be the first time she's hurt me. I see her eyes burning with anger, she's got me backed into a corner, and she cuts my hand open. Not real. Not real. I bleed. She hisses at the sight of my blood. Not real. The memory vanishes but is replaced by another. She holding me, smiling at me, kissing me but she's simulating. It's a trick. She tricks me into think she loves me. Not real, not real. She didn't do it because she wanted to or because she wanted me. I squeeze my eyes shut. I feel the strands of her hair under my fingers. Another memory pushes through. Katniss ignoring me for days, that turn into weeks, which become months. She doesn't say a word to me. It's like I don't exist to her. It wasn't like that. I hear a murmur and feel the tremble of her fingers. The memory lifts like a fog from my mind. My eyes open and I see her.
"Peeta" her fingers curve into mine. Her breathing is continuous and rhythmic. She's asleep.
I'm taken aback. I get the urge to lie down besides her again so I get up.
She never wanted to hurt me and didn't intend to if she did. She cares about me. Maybe she loves me. My heart flutters. Don't get too hopeful Peeta, I tell myself.
I don't want to leave. I wouldn't get a wink of sleep tonight if I do. I notice the armchair in her room and eye it cautiously. She wouldn't know I was here and I'm not going to have an episode while I'm sleeping. It's safe. It would be so nice to sleep.
Katniss continues to sleep peacefully. I don't have to worry tonight. She's alive and I'm going to try to get her back. What we need to do is adapt to our loss and accept that these are our lives now. This is what we have. This brokenness is what we have and we must learn how to live with that. I don't know if she'll regain the will to live. I can only hope. Just like I can only hope she loves me. I will not worry about that tonight. Not tonight. Tonight she'll have a restful sleep and so will I. We're alive and we're here. We're both here.
I drag myself to the chair and fall into it. I take off my prosthetic. I catch her burrowing her fingers into her pillow. It's so tender…it's like I imagine a baby squirrel nestles into its hole or a baby badger burrowing into its sett. My eyes are closing out of their own accord. I wouldn't let you slip out of life into death Katniss. As long as I'm here I wouldn't let that happen. I promise.