Chapter 9: Debugged
(or For Peeta's Sake)
Author's Note:
Thanks for all of the amazing reviews. It means a lot to me.
Remember this story is rated T (not anything lower) in case you're the squeamish, giggling, blushing or lock-yourself-in-the-closet type…
Hint for the next chapter, I went to a bakery to do some research (taste-testing) for it.
Put me down!" I scream, punching Peeta's back with my fists. "People are going to think I'm drunk."
This only makes him laugh harder. "That might be an improvement."
I would glare at Peeta if he didn't have me thrown over his shoulder. Instead I ram the sharpest point of my elbow into him.
"That hurts," he complains. "Are we even now?"
"Almost," I grumble. I consider throwing another elbow, but don't. The jab was never about getting even for my foot. That was an accident, one that I'm not at all mad about.
I do wish Peeta, with all of his one-legged grace, would learn how to walk without crashing all of his weight down. Then, my toe might have been spared. I'd offer to teach him to walk more stealthily, if I didn't think he was a lost cause.
This just leaves me with a smashed toe—the result of Peeta's glee for the lightning bugs. Running after one, and not watching where he was going, his boot crashed down on my foot—hard. I'll be lucky if it's just a black toenail. I'm hoping it's not worse.
The elbow was for embarrassing me and not taking 'no' for an answer.
Even though I let out an inadvertent yelp, I tried to brush off the toe stomp as nothing. I was wearing boots after all. Peeta wasn't buying it. A couple of hobbles in, he offered to carry me. I almost threw him an elbow then but continued on carefully placing my weight on the inner part of my foot so my walk would appear normal. If I let my mind wander, I'd place my weight wrong and limp a step or two. I made it to the entrance of Victor's Village and I was counting the steps until I could take my boot off. One unsuspecting pause later and I'm loaded up like a sack of flour. I should have known he wanted to get his chivalrous way.
"You're just drawing attention to yourself," he comments when I yell at him. He's holding on a little too tightly for me to jump down without hurting him. And really, I'd rather not be dropped on top of everything else and there's no point in adding to my embarrassment.
We're almost to our houses anyway. Haymitch, who only comes out of his house to buy liquor, play chess and occasionally finagle dinner, wouldn't blink at the sight. Greasy Sae would tell Peeta not to hurt his back, and her granddaughter would probably ask if she could play too.
We approach the doorframe and I brace myself for a good knock to the head, being slammed sideways or some kind of awkward fumbling where I get dumped to the ground and end up with even more bruises.
"Peata! I can walk." It's my last ditch effort to spare myself a goose egg to my head.
"Limp. You can limp. I've got this."
One hand turns the knob. He moves to the side and we navigate through the frame without so much as a bony elbow getting grazed. The motion is practiced and precise. Then I get it. This is Peeta showing off. I keep a tiny laugh to myself and give Peeta my best impression of being mad at him as he deposits me on his eyesore of a couch.
He leaves for the kitchen and I yank off my boot. I'm curious to see the damage, but for Peeta's sake I keep my sock on and decide to wait until I'm alone.
Peeta's house is the same as we left it earlier this evening—only it seems like days have passed. His notes are scattered by the phone, there's a sketchbook on the coffee table and now I notice a pile of folded laundry on one the chairs. His socks are balled up in the customary way for the District 13 troops. I'd almost forgotten how neatly he folds everything. If I had clean laundry, he could help me fold my laundry. But today I'm hanging on to mismatched socks until I absolutely have to do laundry. That's one of the perks of living alone and a task I do as little as possible.
"You know I'm sorry," Peeta reenters the room and hands me a yellow plate of shortbread cookies.
I scoot over to make room for Peeta on the far cushion of the couch. He doesn't take my hint and he sits down on the next cushion over, his hand dangling dangerously over my socked foot.
"How bad is it?" he looks as of he's about to pinch the toe of my sock to pull it off.
"Fine," I fib. "Getting the boot off helped." That, at least, is the truth.
"So, you'll live?"
A bad joke about not needed it cut off stays firmly clamped in my jaw. "I'll manage." With that I curl my legs to the side so my foot is off limits.
The cookies are rich and buttery, and something I'm still not used to. I get crumbs all over my shirt and the couch.
"Thanks for getting me out of the house, Katniss. I had fun."
Do I remind him I had to order him out of the house and that I'm the one who got hurt tonight? "No problem."
Sitting so close to Peeta in the light, I can see his scars, the bags under his eyes, the slight cowlick he has at his temple. He'll probably need a haircut soon and I wonder where he'll get it done with so few people in District 12.
"Do you think that we could go out there again? I'd really like some greens. But if you could bring me some, that would be—"
My hand goes to his cheek and Peeta stops midsentence.
It's hard to spot, the blonde hair against his skin, but it comes off at my touch. I hold it out on my index finger, examining it. On my finger it's golden and almost white at the tip. Even the merchants' eyelashes are different than the ones from the Seam.
"Eyelash," I hold out the interrupting stray.
Peeta gives me an amused smile. "Make a wish," he says, not even bothering to finish his previous thought.
I shrug, offering it to him instead. I wouldn't know what to wish for. That hadn't been my intention. It was simply out of place and bothering me.
He blows it off my finger, concentrating hard on some thought tucked tightly behind his scrunched eyes.
"You didn't have to wish for me taking you to the woods again," I tell him. "I will."
He pokes my nose. "How do you know what I wished for?"
"Good morning," a blonde-haired boy chirps as he stands over my bed.
I throw the covers over my head. It muffles something that's supposed to sound like "Go away."
This is my reward for making peace with Peeta—his annoying habit of making sure I'm out of the bed in the morning. Peeta has his good qualities, but being cheerful in the morning isn't one of them. It's simply too early for that.
He waits a few minutes then folds the covers down. "Come on Katniss, you always complain about getting a late start."
"Mmmmpph," I say into the pillow under my face.
He sits in the chair. It might as well be his chair as often as he sits in it. It used to be more often, but I've generally gotten better about getting myself up. He's also gotten more strategic about getting me out of bed.
Several more minutes go by. "Katniss," Peeta taps his foot.
Just when I think he's left, he comes back into the room carrying Buttercup. I rub my eyes because I think I'm dreaming. Feisty Buttercup doesn't let anyone, except my sister, carry him. He hisses, spits, shreds any arms that come near him yet he's perfectly content in Peeta's embrace. I think he's even purring.
"He likes me," Peeta boasts before he plunks the cat down next to me. I reach up to pet the cat and think this is a rather tame attempt of Peeta's. He could do better. I think this until he snatches the pillow out from under my head while I'm leaning up toward the cat. Buttercup runs off after about two pats. Even without my pillow I try to go back to sleep. So Peeta yanks the blanket away from me and folds it neatly at the foot of the bed. This is pretty typical. Nonetheless the trick makes me more determined to stay put.
As Peeta arranges the folded blanket, I feel his hand near my foot. "Oh." I can hear the cringe in his voice. He must have seen his handiwork. I'm relieved when he leaves, I can get out of the bed and get a late start hunting. My toenail doesn't really look that bad. It's going to fall off, but the toe is fine.
I'm sitting at the edge of the bed when Peeta comes back in. "Katniss Everdeen," I hear Peeta say. It's loud, almost a yell but more of a scold. He's not playing this time.
"I'm up!" I launch myself out of the bed. "I'm up, Peeta. You win," I stomp toward the bathroom. He blocks my way.
I forgot. I'm using the guest bathroom these days. I take a step towards the hall and Peeta grabs my arm and opens the bathroom door. "I didn't know Haymitch was decorating for you these days."
Yes, the mess is still there. I should have cleaned it up days ago, not just shut it away to deal with later. I fetch a broom and dustpan from the storage closet and wonder if Peeta is going to ground me. I certainly feel like a child on restriction, maybe because I know if my mother were here she wouldn't let me get away with it.
It's my mess so I go to pick up a large piece of glass closest to the door.
"No," Peeta stops me. "You'll cut yourself." I deposit the shard into a paper bag.
"I'm serious," he steps toward me. "There aren't doctors here. If you cut yourself, I can't stitch you up. You're the only one who knows how."
Peeta carefully cleans up the bathroom. He starts with the glass. He picks up all the large pieces and sweeps all the small ones up. The shampoo comes up with water and a mop. I feel guilty as I watch him. When he's almost done I go to brush my teeth and change in the other bathroom. He's still waiting for me when I come out. Doesn't he have bread to bake?
Peeta holds a small bandage. My first thought is that he cut himself on the glass. He doesn't look like he's bleeding. "Are you okay?" I ask.
"Fine." He tilts his head like he's puzzled.
"Do you want me to put that on you?"
"It's for you," he tells me.
"I'm fine," I go back to my bedroom to try and wrangle two clean socks. One black. One grey. Good enough.
"Here," he says and moves toward me with the bandage. I have no idea what needs bandaging but apparently Peeta's in the mood to mother me this morning. It could be worse.
"Your toe," he glances downward. "I didn't want you to be mad at me every time you looked at it."
My toe is in no need of a bandage. The nail won't fall off for weeks or months. I take a deep breath and try to figure out the best way to deal with it. "Peeta." I choose my words carefully. "It was an accident. Don't worry about it. I'm not mad."
"Are you sure you're not mad?"
I resist the urge to say depends on who you ask. I'm sure most of Panem thinks I'm mad, and maybe I am. But I'm not angry about the injury, though Peeta's insistence on bringing it up is annoying. It's not the first time something like this has happened and won't be the last. But deep down I know Peeta is the type to worry about these kinds of things.
"Look at me." I show him the back of my head. "I have bald spots where the hair won't grow in, my entire body is burned and scarred. I don't think it matters."
"It matters to me." And then I get that this is more for him than me. He doesn't want to be reminded of hurting me.
"If it will make you feel better," I oblige.
Four squirrels, two rabbits, several handfuls of milky cap mushrooms and lots of greens for Peeta—that's my haul as I come back to Victor's Village. My plan was to deliver them, but Peeta is sitting glumly on my doorstep. His posture is hunched and he's nervously sorting through the sheets of paper Buttercup isn't lounging on.
"Hey," I sit down next to him.
He always looks so happy to see me, but today his expression doesn't change. He has bad news, I can tell. "Spit it out."
He hands me a fistful of the papers, lodging a few out from under a defiant tomcat. They're hand-drawn sketches of rooms with certain areas pointed out. There's something familiar about the rooms, and then it dawns on me: These are drawings of my house, which is so very similar to Peeta's house and Haymitch's house.
"Your problem from yesterday," he says softly. "I called Beetee. He had these sketches rushed over."
"So it's true?" I gasp. Of course it's true. Of course I'm still being spied on. I don't know why I ever thought otherwise, but to see the look on Peeta's face and to hold the proof in my hands makes it seem so much more real.
Peeta moves his head to my ear. "For now. I thought you might want to get rid of a few of them."
Is he serious? I will do whatever needs to be done. I don't want my private conversations ending up on the nighttime news. They're probably piecing together a special on my ongoing murderous streak because I killed a wolf spider in my kitchen the other day. Peeta told me to take it outside. I said my boot was a faster way to deal with it, especially since Buttercup seemed to want it for a playmate.
"It's supposed to storm soon," Peeta says pointing to the few cheerful-looking puffy white clouds overhead. "I don't know, if your house were to get hit by lightning, frying all the electronics—that would be a shame, wouldn't it?"
"A crying shame," I agree and wonder if this isn't my favorite side of Peeta. Perky-in-the- morning Peeta defintely isn't in the running.
"Make sure you tell Dr. Aurelius about the storm," he instructs. "I doubt they'd put new devices in, and if they try, we'll figure it out." This part is so quiet that I feel the words he says into my ear more than I hear them.
For taking the time to help me with this, I'm so grateful I could kiss Peeta. I mean this in the figurative sense. Literally, that would cause all sorts of problems.
"So what do we do?" I ask. I want this over with. I'm tired of being in the Games.
He hands me a hammer and a tiny screwdriver. "Find them."
Last night was a distraction. Now, it's back to the world I live in: zero privacy and constant plotting. I'm certain the listening devices were not part of my release. I tolerate Dr. Aurelius: the phone calls and pills. Spying is unacceptable. The war is over. I'm just a mad girl who wants to be left alone.
The devices are hidden in the walls, baseboards, kitchen cabinets, bathroom fixtures, closets—even the basement. Peeta tells me we're lucky the houses are older and we don't have the new glitter-sized devices that would be impossible to find.
I hold the flashlight and Peeta tries to wrench them out with as little damage to the house as possible. Sometimes we resort to tweezers. Peeta finds a camera under the desk in the room Snow visited. I haven't been in there since I threw the roses out.
"What about your house, Peeta?" I ask while he's prying a disk out of the top drawer of a bathroom vanity.
The screwdriver scratches the bottom of the wood drawer and the metallic coin pops up. Peeta plops it in the sink and runs some water over it.
"Learned this from Haymitch," he motions to the filling sink. "I'm down at least one listening device thanks to his spills. That certainly saved us some trouble. I think he had it figured out all along and that's why he kept his house so messy. Those stray shirts and blankets muffled the noise."
"Don't you get any ideas," he tacks on.
I smirk, thinking of great heaps of laundry strategically piled around a house. What fun Buttercup would have sunning himself on piles of towels, hiding behind sheets and shirts only to pop out to attack defenseless ankles. "We'll see," is all the response I give him.
In my bedroom, the diagram shows that the listening device may be in a secret compartment in one of the bedposts off the headboard. This device must be operable if my doctor found out about my nightmare. I wonder if he heard Peeta's voice from the nights he slept over, or if anyone else is listening. Peeta and I have discussed so much in this house. Not my one secret, though. That one is safe.
Sitting on the mattress, I take the screwdriver and wedge a round fingernail size disk out of my bed. "Can you imagine?" I blush and laugh at the same time, thinking about what the Capitol must have been listening for in a bed. I sincerely doubt they were listening for victors who talked in their sleep.
Peeta doesn't share my laugh. He stayed away from the bed when we entered the room, but now he's backed up against the wall with his hands jammed in his pockets. The color has washed from his face. "Actually," he trails off. When his eyes meet mine, he looks lost. I've seen the expression before; he wears it when he wants desperately to remember something.
"Oh," and the revelation of what he's saying sucks every drop of laughter out of my body, leaving only the dry, grim truth.
Maybe he can't imagine—not without knowing what's real or not. Peeta knows what he's seen in videos and is slowly getting memories back, but his memories of me are the most tampered with. I don't know what the Capitol made him think or if the fragments he does have makes him think more happened than actually did.
I hear the clunk of the screwdriver hitting the floor. I should have expected this. Of course it would come up just like the sleep syrup or the berries. He asked about the nights on the train, but I never got past the nightmares and lighthearted stories before one of us fell asleep.
Peeta fishes the screwdriver out from under the bed and takes the device from my fingers. "I know what will make you feel better," he whispers like it never came up.
He's the one with holes in his memories. I have some of his answers But I can't find my voice to simply tell him no, nothing happened, but my head is reeling with the right way to phrase it. And really, with our history, it's not that simple.
He offers his hand and leads me out of the room to the concrete sidewalk in front of the house.
Not much is paved in the district, but the sidewalks in Victor's Village are. I'd rather have grass or a dirt path, but this makes them look a little more like the Capitol, even if the paving isn't the purple or orange I'd seen there.
Peeta dumps the listening devices we've collected out on the sidewalk. The sidewalks were originally paved white, but have turned grey because of the coal dust.
He hands me a hammer and gives me a smile so dazzling and full of teeth I know he's not faking.
"Yes, please!" I finally find my voice.
The first hit is for Peeta and the memories he doesn't have. As hard as it to remember some events in my past, it must be harder for Peeta to not remember. The hammer comes down hard on the silver disk. I ground the disk to dust thinking about what would have happened if Peeta and I had been forced to marry. I take my anger for the Capitol out on the remaining devices. I hit them all with too much force, ground them all into the sidewalk too long. And when I've used up all my energy Peeta hits what's left with a surprising ferocity. The Capitol has hurt him too, maybe he's been damaged more than me, but it doesn't matter.
And it's done. Every last bug is smashed and swept up into a bag to dispose of tomorrow. Tonight, we're exhausted.
I could collapse right here on the sidewalk, but I go inside and wash all traces of the Capitol off my hands before falling onto the couch.
Peeta comes and sits on the chair closest to the couch. There's a question he needs answered. I've avoided it long enough and we sit in silence as I piece together what to say.
I haven't spent much time thinking about Peeta in that way, but I can't say the thought never crossed my mind. Surely, that's what the others thought we were doing all those nights on the train and in the training center. And we were supposed to get married.
"I'm sorry I have to ask," he says softly, urging me to speak.
Still the words don't come.
He leans toward the couch, piercing me with an expectant gaze.
No. It's the word on the tip of my tongue. It reaches my teeth but never escapes my lips. All I can do is stare at Peeta, which probably makes him think something did happen.
"So here's what I do know," he starts. "I know we were engaged. It might have been for show, but I know we spent lots of nights together and you've told me that wasn't for show. I have these memories of us…. I don't remember."
"Just sleep," I finally manage to get two syllables out in a sincere enough tone before his speech gets any longer. "Nothing more."
The conversation should end here. Peeta should say thanks and make his way home for the way for the night. But he bites his lip. He does this when something about the past doesn't make sense or wasn't what he expected.
"Did you think we had?" I ask before my brain can filter this question. He doesn't even have to answer. I can see it on his face and I have the sudden urge to lock myself in a closet.
"I didn't know," he tries to meet my gaze, but I duck under a throw pillow. "Haymitch didn't know."
He was talking to Haymitch about this? If the couch were to collapse through the floor and crash down into the basement, it would do nothing to distract from how horribly embarrassed I am.
"Of course we didn't," he says this like he's trying to convince himself. I clench the throw pillow tightly over my ears afraid of what's coming next. "I wouldn't….you wouldn't…. There were some things….maybe it's not real…that made me think we were more than—"
"Peeta!" I throw the pillow at him as hard as I can to interrupt wherever that was going.
"I hate having these gaps in my memories!" He's talking with his hands again, wildly motioning. "Walking around not, knowing…I'm sorry, Katniss. Really. It's better this way. So much better." He's grasping his head like he's trying to push his shiny memories out. "It's kind of like they gave me a chance to start over."
He keeps talking, every word making me cringe a little more. His foot starts to do that nervous twitching thing again.
Think, Katniss. What can I do to make him stop talking?
I clamp my hand over his mouth and the words stop flowing. Only then can I clear my head and figure out how to deal with this.
"Peeta," I say with all the composure I can summon. "You didn't know. It's okay."
I remove my hand from his mouth. He takes the hint and doesn't immediately plow headlong into an apologetic soliloquy.
Whatever he was made to think, I can't be mad at him. All I can do is set the record straight. It's up to him whether he wants to believe me or not. I might be a liar. I lie all the time. But I don't lie about memories to Peeta and I do want him to believe me.
So I give him one more memory of our nights together. "Peeta, if you were feeling especially brave, you might kiss my forehead or cheek—but only if you thought I was sleeping. Trust me, that's all that happened."
I meant it to prove to him that our nights were innocent, but as soon as I say it I wish I could take it back. I don't want to keep memories from him, but given the last few days, it's not something I should bring up.
He takes a few deep breaths as he processes the news. His foot steadies and I regret telling him a little less.
"One more question?" he asks.
There is nothing more I'd like than to change the subject. "Sure." After all, what could possibly be worse than asking a girl you once loved if you forgot something important?
Peeta takes a throw pillow off the other end of the couch, waiting for an invitation to sit down next to me. I sit up and make room for him. The way he looks at me makes me think he's going do something both nostalgic and stupid. I feel a knot in my stomach and cringe at what I think is going to happen. Then I feel his hand on my stomach. It's warm and the knot begins to melt.
"So there was never a baby?" His voice is slow and hushed.
I put my hand on top of his. "No." I expected this question to come up. In fact, I've been waiting for it, so I'm not shocked into silence again.
"Haymitch told me there wasn't one, the doctors in 13 did too. I wanted to hear it from you."
I'm thinking about how it should have been me to tell him, but I wasn't there for him. I wasn't well enough to help him.
"The memory just doesn't feel right and I don't know why. I've seen the tapes, I can almost remember why I lied, but some part of me was hanging on to the fact that maybe it wasn't a lie. I know there was a never a baby, but I can't shake this empty feeling, almost like I wanted it. Does this make any sense to you?"
I trace the lines on his hand, where each bone is. No one else in the world can have this conversation with him. He might not remember that night perfectly, but he remembers the emotion. "Perfect sense, Peeta."
This is the point where I'm supposed to continue to tell him why I understand, but I just play with his hand. I'm not stalling on purpose, it just happens. And all the while I'm thinking about a tiny version of Peeta: a little boy he could teach to wrestle, a little girl he could show how to knead dough. That's what he deserves, not clinging to the memory of a baby he made up on live TV, a baby I'm sure he wanted. I try to tell him without saying the words. "You would make the best dad," I whisper. It's the only thing I can think of that won't break his all-too-fragile heart.
Peeta lays his head in my lap. He doesn't ask for an invitation, not in this moment. He stares up at me. "What about you? Wouldn't you be a good mom?"
The worst. For me, there won't be any children: no children to inherit my family's depression, no children to ever be reaped should the games ever resume, no children to tell about the deaths I caused in the Games and the war. There would also be no children to teach to hunt, to sing or to pass my family's plant book down to.
It doesn't change my mind at all and we're both careful not to even imply a shared future. But it gives Peeta something to look forward to. He's curled up with me and we're talking about babies. Two years ago I would have been mortified by this situation, but it doesn't bother me. Not after all that's been said and done today. In fact, I feel like a weight has been lifted.
I'm lost in thought when Peeta starts to snore lightly. He did look so tired so I leave him where he is and try to keep my hands out of his hair.
I hear the front door open and I know it's Haymitch. The way he closes the door isn't as thoughtful as Sae. He rustles around where his screwdriver set has been left.
"Getting my tools back, sweetheart, if you're here," he calls.
"Thanks," I half yell, half whisper this.
I thought he would just leave, but he walks to the living room. He's probably looking for dinner. "Food's on the counter," I say as loudly as I dare, but the footsteps continue to the back of the couch.
He peers down at the snoring baker. "Good to know you're on better terms," he scoffs. "I was getting tired of burned bread."
He turns to leave. "What's wrong with it if it's a little burned?" I ask.
"Apparently nothing," he mumbles and is on his way again.
Absently, I'm running my fingers over Peeta's scarred arm. It's too much, though. He wakes up.
"Uhmmm, I must have fallen asleep, I'm sorry," he stretches. "Give me a minute and I'll go home."
"You could….," I stop myself. "Napping is okay. You looked tired."
"The nightmares are worse."
I wasn't expecting such a blunt response from Peeta.
"All those terrible things they confused me with mix with my nightmares from the games and our last mission. Some nights I don't even want to go to sleep."
I can see the horror in his eyes. "The sleeping pills don't help, do they?" For me at least, it makes it harder to escape the nightmares. Instead of snapping upright in my head, I'm left in a foggy limbo somewhere between fiery explosions and my bedroom, not really awake and not really asleep. My willpower bursts and my hands find their way to his head in a gesture that's meant to soothe me more than him.
"No. I'm okay, Katniss. Don't worry about me. I'm sure the nightmares will go away soon."
Peeta saying this only makes me think he's not okay. He checks on me. I barely check on him. "Does anything help?"
He looks at me for a long time. "I get a good night here and there."
Peeta's not the only one who's tired. My eyelids start to get heavy and I can't stop yawning. Peeta's taking up the length of the couch, and I'm slumped against the arm on the far end, nodding off only to jerk myself awake.
Blink. Peeta's asking me a question. Blink.
"Hold on," he says. He smells like rosemary today. I'm vaguely aware of being shifted. Why is the couch moving?
"You can let go," he tells me. "Or not," I think that's what I hear when it's still again.
"Peeta." Blink. Try to stay awake for a few more minutes.
"Ssshh, I'm right here." He rubs my arm. Blink.
My head is on my pillow now. It doesn't smell like rosemary.
The blanket is pulled up to my shoulders, folded over. Blink. Peeta is putting my boots in their usual spot under the chair in my room. Blink. The lights are off. His footfalls approach my bed. "Sweet dreams, Katniss."
