"Sometimes there is no darker place than our thoughts, the moonless midnight of the mind." - Dean Koontz
Fire exploded before Katniss's eyes, and she startled awake, the yell of Prim's name still on her lips. Her eyes had opened upon the dark ceiling that she had spent way too many hours memorizing, and her ears rang from the remnants of her yell. Katniss focused on her breathing as she came down from the adrenaline rush that had shot through her in the dream. The images were still flying through her mind, all crystal clear in a way that only real memories could be. At least imagined nightmares began fading as soon as you opened your eyes. These would always be there.
Katniss had been having these nightmares regularly ever since returning to District 12 ten months ago, so she wasn't sure what caused her to throw aside the covers on this particular night and stand up from her bed. She was tired of the routine, she supposed. Waking up in terror only to lay there for hours with everything still running through her head. She wanted something else. A distraction.
She wasn't sure what she was doing as she wandered down her stairs. Katniss was used to dressing for the day as soon as she was out of bed, and even being downstairs in her night clothes felt odd. That didn't stop her from opening her door and stepping outside. She was still barefoot, but luckily, the April weather provided only a slight chill.
Katniss hesitated slightly as she raised her hand to the door. Peeta would be asleep, of course, so there was little chance that he would even hear her. What really frightened her though was not knowing how he would react to her presence on his doorstep in the middle of the night. She steeled herself and knocked a bit louder than she would have during the day.
Her nerves increased as she waited. The slight wind was starting to leave goosebumps along her arms, and she wrapped them around herself for warmth.
Katniss heard him before the door opened. His prosthetic leg still made far too much noise in comparison to her own light walking and even more so when he was in a hurry. She stood up straight and squared her shoulders as the door opened.
Peeta appeared surprised at her presence, although Katniss wasn't sure who else he could have thought it would be.
"Katniss?" He was looking behind her, as if he expected to see a house on fire or some other emergency that would explain why she was there.
Katniss wrung her hands as she thought about what to say. She didn't even know what exactly it was she wanted. She just didn't want to be alone, laying in bed while thinking horrible thoughts, but she wasn't sure how she wanted Peeta to help with that.
Something on Katniss's face must have revealed her emotions because Peeta's expression had softened as he watched her.
"Couldn't sleep?" Peeta asked as he stepped aside to let Katniss into the house. She walked passed him and hovered in the entrance way.
She shook her head as she looked at a place low on the wall facing her. She took a deep breath. "Nightmare," she finally said.
Peeta nodded, and Katniss wondered why she had been so reluctant to say the word at first. It wasn't as if he didn't understand. She was watching him closely now, and she didn't think he'd been asleep when she knocked. There was something about him that seemed too awake for that.
"Do you want to stay here?" He asked hesitantly. "We could sit in the kitchen and talk, or," he struggled to continue, "We could go upstairs if you wanted? Like we used to do on the Victory Tour. If that would help you sleep."
Katniss could feel a slight heat on her cheeks, and she wondered briefly if she would see red on Peeta's if it weren't quite so dark. She felt an odd sensation that she couldn't describe in her stomach as she realized he remembered those nights she had just assumed were forgotten. He'd been doing that a lot lately, mentioning things Katniss had thought were lost to everyone but her. It was giving her a foolish hope that he could fully recover. A hope that she constantly had to squash.
"Sleeping would be nice." It came out as little more than a whisper, but Peeta smiled and took her hand gently.
As they went up the stairs, Katniss realized that she had never actually seen the upstairs of Peeta's house. It was laid out much like Katniss's own with the same number of bedrooms in the same places. Katniss almost expected Peeta to turn where her own bedroom would be, but instead, he continued down the hall to the master bedroom, the one that, in Katniss's house, had sat untouched since her mother was last in the district.
The room was larger than Katniss's own, of course, but Peeta didn't seem to be using the space. This was clearly a room used for little more than sleeping or laying awake at night, and much of it was bare just as Katniss's was. Katniss had almost expected to see paintings or drawings, but she supposed the other bedrooms provided plenty of storage for those, not even one had been put up to grace the walls. It was a bare, unimpressive room, one that seemed to show off the fact that time spent in it was dreaded.
Katniss walked towards the side of the bed opposite to where Peeta had gone. The covers were pulled back to show the bed's recent use, and Peeta slipped under them again. It took him a few moments to get comfortably situated with his leg, and Katniss watched the scene that she had never fully expected to see again.
Peeta looked up to see her still standing awkwardly above him.
"Come on," he urged, flipping the covers back to make room for her.
Katniss hesitated just a moment before stepping forward and getting into the bed. She pulled the covers over herself in one quick movement and laid back onto the bed, unsure how to position herself. She thought back to how comfortable she and Peeta had gotten with physical contact while sharing a bed on the Victory Tour. Katniss wasn't sure how Peeta would react to that sort of thing now.
"Katniss."
She was pulled from her thoughts to look over at Peeta, who was also lying on his back. He motioned for her to put her head on his chest. She hesitated for a moment, but his encouraging smile erased any doubts.
Katniss scooted across the short distance to fit herself into Peeta's side. Peeta's arm wrapped firmly around her, and Katniss immediately felt comforted. She no longer hesitated to snuggle as close as she could, and soon, she found herself drifting off to sleep easier than she had in more than a year.
It took Katniss a few minutes to take in her surroundings the next morning. Before even opening her eyes, she could feel that she was resting against something that wasn't her pillow, and there was no light landing directly on her eyelids. Her brain was quick to figure out that it was Peeta she was laying on, and Katniss was careful not to jolt him awake as she opened her eyes and craned her neck towards the window. Peeta's bedroom had two, and one had sunlight currently streaming through it over a chunk of the floor, causing her eyes to sting as she opened them to the light. She raised herself up as far as she could without startling Peeta in order to see the clear blue sky.
Her movement must have rustled Peeta awake despite her efforts because she felt his body stiffen as his breaths became less regular. Katniss looked down from her perch above him as his eyelids fluttered open and his eyes focused on her face.
"Good morning." Katniss heard the groggy croak of her voice as she smiled down at Peeta. For some reason, the sunlight seemed to bring confidence with it, which was probably the exact opposite for most. Katniss knew Peeta in the daylight, had spent countless hours with him. Daylight was heavily charted territory.
"Good morning." Peeta echoed back. He was smiling at her brightly. "For a split second there I thought I had dreamt up last night."
"I don't think I could have dreamt of last night in any of my dreams." Katniss frowned.
"Me either. That's why I thought it was a nice change."
"Sorry to disappoint you then." Katniss let herself fall back onto the pillow that she hadn't used the night before.
"Believe me." Peeta raised himself up on his elbow in a position similar to the one Katniss had just been in. "You didn't. Not at all."
He had locked eyes with her, and Katniss had suddenly begun to feel the same strange fluttering in her stomach that she had felt last night.
"Um, breakfast?" she asked in a slightly squeaky voice. She hurried out of bed, only to remember that she hadn't brought anything with her other than the nightclothes she was wearing. She headed out of the bedroom and down the stairs anyway as she heard Peeta moving about in his room, no doubt getting his clothes.
"Come over when you're done," Katniss called as she hurried down the stairs. She heard Peeta's affirmative as she stepped out the door and began hurrying towards her own house. She would get dressed and be ready to meet Peeta when he arrived, and then the routine would be back to normal. Except it wouldn't be because, what Katniss didn't know yet, was that this was just the first night of many that would quickly follow. Before she knew it, it was Peeta's house she was eating breakfast in and even Peeta's house that she was getting dressed in, while her own house sat mostly unused.