I do not own The Hunger Games
Chapter Nine-
(Katniss)
Light poured into my room, waking me from my usual restless sleep. The second my eyes peeled open, the pain took over. Every morning it's like I'm grabbing onto those ladders that freeze you into place, but in my case, a rush of memories freezes me. The pain sears the worst in my chest and the back of my throat. Each person I've lost, each life I have personally ended, each person who died fighting stabs me, it takes a few minutes for me to remember how to make it stop. I begin to hum a song; it was one of Prim's favorites. The tune seems to unclench the muscles throughout my body.
"Katniss?"
Peeta. Why is he here? He never comes up here in the morning.
I choke out something like "Mmm?" and manage to tilt my head over towards the door. But I don't see him where I expected. Instead of standing at the doorway, he was sprawled out on a chair.
I try to say his name, but the pain is closing my throat, so my head just shakes a little and then he's by my side.
"Katniss? Katniss? Are you okay?" He asked as he scooped me up into his arms. The pain sparked in my chest as he moved me into his lap, but once I was there the sudden spark eased enough for words to leak out of my mouth.
"Peeta. Peeta, I…I'm fine." I say, how in the world can I explain this to him?
He holds me tighter and buries his face in my hair. I begin to hum and together we make the pain evaporate. The process goes twice as fast with him by my side.
I look up into his blue eyes, and notice they are streaked with worry.
"Good Morning." I whisper, in a tone that sounds almost defeated.
"Good Morning." He sighs, sounding relieved, and pulling my back into his tight hold. We sit there a while longer, and my mind goes kind of numb. He eventually loosens his grip and I lay back down.
"Breakfast?"
"Yes." I say trying to force a smile to my lips.
"Alright, I'll go make something and bring it up here."
No. I don't want him to leave. I grab his hand, and he almost laughs at the gesture.
"Katniss, I'm not going anywhere. It's morning not nighttime. No nightmares can come right now."
"No. I'm coming with you."
"Alright, well then get out of bed and come on."
I work myself out of bed, and he catches me as I fall a little when my feet hit the floor.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine."
He half smiled, and led me to the kitchen. I sit down at the table while he cooks.
"You didn't go home last night."
"No, no I didn't. I, uh, stayed."
"Good." I said as he brings me some muffins. I eat them quickly, shocked at how hungry I am.
"Want to work on the book?" I ask
"No. I want to talk to you about something?"
"What?" I ask suddenly a little nervous.
"This morning."
"Mm, yeah, sorry about that." I say standing up and throwing away my trash, not wanting to talk about my regular morning freeze spells.
"You have nothing to apologize for."
He walks over to me and puts one hand around my waist and his other on my forehead.
"Are you sick? Do you feel bad?"
I sigh, leaning my forehead on his chest.
"I'm fine Peeta…I'm not….I'm not sick."
He cups my face with my hands and looks me right in the eye. My heart speeds up and my stomach does the weird flip-flop thing again.
"Then what was this morning about."?
"It happens every morning Peeta."
"What does?"
"I mean, just when I wake up, I can't, I can't move. It's like when I wake up the same thing that happens to you in your nightmares, happens to me. I become paralyzed with fear, well and memories."
"What are you afraid of now Katniss? I understand the memories, but what can you fear now. We're safe, home in district 12."
I don't say anything.
"I'm not going to make you tell me, but you really should talk to someone about it."
I nod, because I know he's right. He nods back, and a kind of sadness over takes his eyes. I hug him and we stand there for a while.
"Alright, well we should do something today. Want to work on the book for a bit and then maybe go for a walk around town?"
"Sounds great." I sigh.
We try to work on the book, but we both seem to just not be that into it today. The stories aren't exciting and they are really only bringing up bad memoires. At one point Peeta had to grab the back of the chair and I sat silently as we waited for his nightmares to end. When he snapped out of it he grabbed my hand and just sat there.
"How about that walk?" He said breathing a little heavy.
"Okay."
We put on our shoes and headed out the door. When heard Haymitch shouting to himself when we walked past his house.
"Haven't seen him in a while, have we? We should stop by on the way back. It's rude not to, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."
I grip Peeta's hand harder, and sigh. We walk farther into town and I'm soaking in the air. It feels perfect outside. Spring. I love spring. I should go to the woods again tomorrow. When we get into the main square, memories bulldoze me. The reaping, the whipping, the other reaping, all the reapings, reapings, hunger games, death, Prim, Effie, Haymitch, the Victory Tour, Madge, the velvet in the justice building, Gale, Prim, the mayor, the mayors wife and her headaches, my mom, the children running around on parcel day after Peeta and I won the games. I sit down flat on the ground. I'm pretty sure I'm choking.
I don't know how long I was caught in my memories but I definitely wasn't fully here for a minute there. Peeta is kneeling beside me, holding both my hands.
"Katniss?"
"Peeta." I say standing up, and I'm suddenly soaked with a thankfulness that he's here, that he isn't another name on my nightmare list.
"Wha…What's going on with you today?"
"It's just the square, everything's happened here."
He takes me into his arms again. After a second I pull myself together, block the memories out and we keep walking.
"I wanted to show you something."
"What?"
We walked up to the windows of the bakery. Or I should say the rotting, singed, caving-in building that used to be his home and families bakery.
"I want to open it up again. It will be away of keeping my family alive. What do you think?"
"It's a great idea Peeta." I say turning to face him, I force a smile and he grips my hand tighter, nods with a half smile on his face too.
"Alright. We'll talk more about that later. Let's get you home, you seem like you could use a nap."
When he says that I feel how tired I am. On the way home, I become confused.
Yesterday, could that day of happy laughter and lamb stew have been yesterday? It seems like years ago.
The longer we walk the more I cling to his arm, the way to my room is blurry and the next thing I know nightmares are raging in my head and screams are consuming my mouth. They are all dying, horrible deaths. I'm in the arena. I'm calling out for Peeta, but I know he's dead. Gale is setting Prim on fire. I'm screaming.
My eyes bolt open, as they always do when I approach death in my nightmares. But this time is different. I don't wake to memories stabbing me from all sides. I don't wake up to the searing pains consuming my body. I wake up to warms arms, and a steady, strong heartbeat.
"Peeta?"
He crinkles his forehead a little bit and I notice he is asleep. I glance out the window, the sun's going down. I've never really seen Peeta sleep, but he looks a lot younger. I watch him for a while and ever so gently kiss his forehead. He sighs, but doesn't wake. It's a few minutes before he turns a little and his eyes slowly open. When he sees me he looks startled, scared even, but the expression vanishes almost as quickly as it came. He looks over my face with a frown etched on his lips. It makes me feel defensive, but his arms don't loosen and I didn't want them too.
"You always protected me, you have never hurt me. I protect you, I love you, and the capitol is bad. No, the capitol is gone. We won." He says, mainly to himself, but he keeps his eyes locked on mine. I nod, to show he's right. I understand now why he won't stay the night with me. He gets flustered and confused right before he goes to bed and right when he wakes up. It's a little troubling that he has to straighten that out every morning, but I guess I do too, in my own way. We both have our own nightmares to fight off.
After we eat diner, we sit on the couch for a while. Neither of us sure what to do. Both of us are confused on how yesterday could've been so hopeful, but today so painful.
"Today's been hard." He sighs.
I don't say anything.
He kisses my forehead.
"How about we read our book tomorrow? Let's read all the memories we've written so far?" Peeta suggests.
I nod, because that is exactly what I need.
Thanks for reading, PLEASE review. I'm not super happy with this chapter, I will probably update it, I'll let you know if I do though. The next chapter will be up (hopefully) this weekend! Sorry this update took me so long. The next chapter will include that night from Peeta's POV as well as all this stuff. Haymitch and a few others will be in the story soon. Sorry for spelling and grammar, I don't have time to proof this one!
