Let's just get to the story, shall we? Author's Note at the end.
Chapter 10 - The Ache of You Beneath My Skin
"No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away."
―Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
And for the Anon who suggested Rachel Taylor's Eternity:
Tired and I'm wanting
to embrace this haunting
Feeling deep within,
the ache of you beneath my skin.
You have my all.
You are my downfall.
Crush me, and keep me for eternity.
Break me in your hands, love,
where I will always be.
Crush me, into pieces, all of these pieces.
Crush me, and keep me for eternity.
Note: Italics are direct quotes from Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay. I own nothing regarding The Hunger Games Trilogy.
XXXXX
I escape Peeta's hospital room and his accusations, made more painful by the kernel of truth they contain. That conversation, and all the attendant loss it represents, crushes a budding hope in me. As a distraction from my troubles, I throw myself into my weapons training and whatever schedules and duties are assigned to me for the next several days. A black rage bubbles up past my grief and nightmares, spilling over into daily life, fueling a maniacal perfectionism to become as strong and lethal as I can. Where once I tasted only the desire for oblivion, I now thirst for blood.
In the confusing period after Peeta's emergence from his coma, I take account of all the tragedies that have taken place around me, starting with the most abstract and generalized injustices, ending with the most personal crimes against my people, my family, and finally me. From the decades of oppression and the Games, to the destruction of District 12, to Peeta's amnesia, there is a fuse of anger winding through each individual event. Peeta's outburst is the match that ignites that long fuse, chasing my inertia away and replacing it with an explosive need to act.
And yet, despite the anger that seems to radiate from me like a circular minefield, despite the compulsive training, the near-constant strategizing and talk of fighting, I still find myself outside his room, asking about his progress, studying his charts and sometimes just sitting, trying to reconcile that lost, wounded, boy with the boy who swore on his life that he wouldn't let me go under any circumstances in the Arena. I try to square the Peeta who now believes that I seduced him for my own benefit with the Peeta who vowed he would bring all the tributes down on us if I risked my life at The Feast to fetch his life-saving medicine.
Soon he will be released and I will have to let go of even this vigil and struggle to learn to live without his constant solidity in my life.
It's this torment that I carry inside as I go about my day. Gale comes with me to training and I can't ignore the fire of rebellion that burns in him also, a fire whose kindling already smoldered from the day he first understood hunger, through the thread that led to his father's death and eventually losing me to Peeta. His fuse is a living fire sizzling with combustion.
We meet daily in the training room, which looks like a giant storage building - benches line the walls over which hang every kind of weapon imaginable. In addition to guns and rifles, there are crossbows, knives, swords and mock grenades. At the moment, Gale shakes his head as he brings my rifle in preparation for our advanced, timed weapon assembly.
"Come on, Catnip. You can do better than that," he goads me. At first, he was faster than me and didn't let me forget it, but lately, I've been able to keep up with him. Except for today.
"You're going to eat your words," I grouse, feeling particularly aggressive this morning. Gale eyes me warily but chooses not to ask me what's wrong as I fumble the assembly of the firing pin on my rifle.
He wraps his long arms around me, only just barely touching me. "If you hold down the pin with your thumb like this," he presses the narrow, metal cylinder that will eventually make impact with a bullet, causing the projectile to burst out of the barrel and into the flesh of a waiting target, "and position the forefinger of the other hand over the trigger, it will slide in more easily."
He leans into my back as he reaches for another piece of the trigger and his proximity causes my concussion to throb, scattering my thoughts into a morass of confusion. I move up to relieve myself of the discomfort of being so close to him. He appears to sigh before pulling back but I cannot be sure because he returns to the business of his weapon with an impassive look of concentration.
I didn't tell him about the substance of my argument with Peeta because it is too humiliating and skirts the obvious elephant in the room, the reason my mother hounds me to get examined, the reason everyone in District 13 stares at me as I walk by. It seems the entire world understands somewhat the depth of my affection for Peeta except for the object himself, who has forgotten every embrace, including that most intimate one we shared on the beach. Gale hasn't said a word, as if by not acknowledging it, the fact of that fateful night might simply disappear from neglect. But I know a reckoning is coming and when it arrives, I fear that something will be burned away and what will remain afterwards will be something very different from what has been allowed to exist until now.
Meanwhile, I've assembled the rifle in dismal time and taken it apart to try again. Gale works quietly next to me, the pieces seeming to obey every command of his long fingers. Suddenly the air becomes heavy with thwarted desires and unsaid things.
"I looked in on Peeta yesterday," Gale announces abruptly as he sets his assembled weapon aside.
I can't help but feel shock over his sudden interest in Peeta but I strive to keep my voice even when I ask, "Really?"
He looks up at the ceiling of the weapons room for a moment, then closes his eyes, chest rising and falling as if holding in a monolithic thing - something so big, it will claw its way out of his heart and reach out to swallow me. "I needed to see what I was up against," he said quietly.
"What do you mean?" I ask in confusion.
"Catnip, I know things...happened...between you two. When Peeta said you were pregnant during the interviews, I honestly didn't think it was possible. But there is the fact that you...and him…well, there was no mistaking what you guys were up to on the beach." He rubbed his hands as if to wipe the sweat off of his palms.
"I'm not going to apologize for that," I whisper quietly.
Gale shrugs. "It wouldn't matter to me anyway. I just realized that I will never compete with Peeta the way he is right now."
His words confuse me and it must show on my face because he struggles to make me understand.
"As long as Peeta is as broken as he is, I don't have chance in hell with you," he says in exasperation. "As long as you feel the need to protect him because of what happened to him, you are never going to shake yourself of him. You're always going to feel wrong about being with me."
His words astound me and I am quick to snap at him. "Are you suggesting that I feel the way I do about Peeta because he is...weak somehow? That he needs protection?" I shake my head at him.
"That's the problem. I don't know. I don't know how you got from your mindset before the Victory Tour to where you can be intimate with a person on national television. That's a giant change. So it occurred to me that you respond to the fact that he needs you. That is why you love him. Because the Katniss I knew back in District 12 would not have loved him enough to, well…"
"Fuck him on live television? Are those the words you're looking for?" I said in annoyance. "Are you even listening to yourself when you speak? You are essentially telling me that I am with a person, risked my life for him, because I feel a need to protect him?"
Gale shrugs his shoulders. It dawns on me that my best friend in the entire world appears to believe me incapable of love without the crutch of compassion. While I am not averse to being described as a compassionate person - certainly, any positive description of my character is welcome - there is something profoundly insulting about this and my temper, which has been on fire since I argued with Peeta, burns hotter.
Gale continues, "See, I can't lose a leg, I can't lose my memory. But I know you better than anybody else…"
Katniss shook her head. "You knew me better than anyone else. But things happened and I'm not the person who left District 12 two years ago. This conversation tells me you no longer know me at all."
"I don't understand why you're getting angry…"
"That's it, isn't it? Of course you don't understand! Gale, Peeta and I have been through things together that you will never understand. I am not the same person I was before. And to insinuate that I only care about Peeta because he is somehow weak or in pain? He is strong in ways you will never understand! Things that aren't obvious to others - he is kind and compassionate and moral - these things count just as much as being able to hunt!" I said.
"Come on, Katniss! You wouldn't have had anything to do with his kind before the war! They were no better than the Capitol!" he exclaimed.
"His kind? Like, are they a different species now? Do you forget that my mother is that kind? Madge was that kind? We are all District 12! We were all one and the same when we were in the square, waiting to be reaped. Just because Merchant folk weren't starving doesn't mean they didn't suffer in their own way. And anyway, what the hell does that have to do with the way I feel about Peeta?" I feel that sense of power grow in me again, my rage sending me to a place where I feel more myself than this agonizing suffering I've endured these last days. "In fact, what are we even arguing about here?" I was close to shouting at this point.
"Nothing. Forget it." Gale picked up his rifle to put it back in its spot.
"No, it's not nothing or you wouldn't have brought it up!" I say angrily.
Gale turns around to look at me from his position near the bench. "You want to know what's eating at me? What possible advantage could you have gained in that arena by...doing what you did with Peeta? On the beach? What was the point? Because if you were doing it for the sponsors, then I could understand that. But any other reason makes no sense to me."
"So, the fact that maybe I did that because of my feelings for him, that makes no sense to you?" I suddenly feel an urge to run back to my room and burrow under the covers of my bed because my best friend thinks me incapable of being motivated by anything else but my own survival.
Gale looks directly into my eyes, which have become brighter and glassier than before. "Which brings me back to my original point. I can't compete with his suffering. I will never have a chance with you until he gets better."
"Gale…" I whisper feel something slipping away from me, something I don't want to let go of. In fact, it becomes so overwhelming, I feel the throbbing pain of my concussion rear up in my head. There are so many things to wrap my head around, most importantly the fact that he discounts that I could have feelings that would motivate me to do something as drastic as I did. He does not see me as a girl capable of those kinds feelings that everyone else in the world seems entitled to have - and yet he wants those feelings for himself.
I stand up to deposit the bits of my weapon on the table and only then notice that Gale, who I have never seen cry, has tears in his eyes. I forget the entire argument for a moment as something instinctive lurches inside of me. I move to stand before him, watching as he tries to push those feelings away but I know him better than that. To stem his sadness which has suddenly become unbearable to me, I move forward to press my lips against his despite his words of the last few minutes, grasping at that elusive thing as it floods my hands and dissipates between my fingers. We taste of heat, ashes, and misery. The feeling is so unexpected, it takes us both by surprise. Gale is the first one to pull away.
"I knew you'd kiss me," he says, his face ashen.
"How?" I say.
"Because I'm in pain," he replies sadly. "That's the only way I get your attention." He moves in the direction of the doorway and pauses, looking at me half-way over his shoulder. "I'll get over it." The doors of the weapon room swish open and he goes through them, taking the snapped thread of connection between us and leaving me more than just alone.
I remain standing there for what seems like forever, frozen to the spot, my mind a whirlwind of frenzied activity. I wanted to resist Gale's accusations, railing against the unfairness of his suggestion. But it strikes me that despite my protests, he is able to predict with such accuracy my response. I see his hurt and I respond by trying to ease his pain. Yet with that act, he has managed to throw into question every feeling, every decision I have made since the first Games.
And yet, there is that spark that ignites and swells up inside of me when I kiss Peeta that doesn't kindle when I'm with Gale. I may react to pain but I react to other things too, other things that I have only ever felt with Peeta. It is too simplistic to say I am only moved by compassion. It was not compassion that I felt the night on the beach or in the cave.
One thing is certain - I know it will be a long while before Gale speaks to me again. He is my best friend, after all, and one of the very few people I trust. The thought that he will stay away from me leaves me sadly adrift.
XXXXX
I go straight to bed after our exchange, ignoring the rest of my schedule. I don't check on Peeta. I don't eat. I don't even bother with training. I hide. And I try to sleep to numb myself. Because the world has suddenly become very complicated and I am too weary to try to make sense of it all.
I manage to fall asleep for the entire afternoon and evening. Even so, when Prim shakes me awake the next morning, I decide to ignore my schedule for a second day in a row.
I wait until Prim is done with her nursing duties and let her keep me company. She tries to engage me in conversation but I only respond in monosyllables. I realize that I have now lost my best friend in addition to losing Peeta and I feel utterly defeated. District 13 suddenly takes on the aspect of a living grave - tall, grey walls buried deep in the heart of the broken earth, so far down that the blood that spills from the revolution above will take a long while to seep down to where we are. But the blood of the dead will arrive and we will all be bathed in it.
I try to avoid being alone with my mother because I know she will want to examine me again and I just don't want to deal with that. I have this irrational conviction that I am not pregnant, as if my body is communicating this information to me in some magical way that is logical only to me.
So it is with a great deal of relief that I wake up to find I have spotted my undergarments with blood. One knot of tension in my heart loosens and I even go so far as to show my mother the evidence of my condition, evidence she receives skeptically.
"Katniss, that could be anything. You can't conclude that you are not pregnant from three drops of blood!" she says heatedly when she is finally able to get me alone in our living quarters.
"My period has been really erratic the last two years. Please, you're just being paranoid," I retort, the old resentment rearing up in me at her attempts to mother me considering our common history.
"What would it cost to have me or a doctor examine you?" she pleads.
I sigh with exasperation. "I'm due for another physical coming up after my next promotion. I'll ask specifically for a pregnancy test. But I am almost positive I am not," I grouse angrily. My mother had no choice but to throw up her hands in defeat, muttering about how she can't believe I would behave so irresponsibly.
After I've recovered somewhat from my argument with Gale, I resume checking on Peeta every day. It is a compulsion that I can't resist. I keep hoping someone will tell me that he has remembered everything, that he doesn't believe those awful things his brother has put in his head. It hurts too much to think that he sees me the way Gale does and it triggers all of my defensiveness and anger. I want - no, I need to make sure that he is doing well. Even though my pride won't let me go back to him, I continue to keep track of him as his discharge approaches. My greatest fear is that once he is released, he will disappear into the maze of District 13 forever and what I fought so hard to save in the arena, I will end up losing in this underground prison.
XXXXX
I resume my routine but with somewhat less enthusiasm than before. I complete my weapons drills and tasks, my progress very pleasing to Plutarch Heavensbee and President Coin. It amuses me that my well-being continues to be an object of attention for the rebels, a realization that I embrace with mean-spritness, because I understand that my utility to the cause is far more important than my good health. However, as I leave my training room one day to go to lunch, I freeze. Peeta will be released soon and if we take on the role that has been built for us, we will likely be forced to appear in propos together. Our days of acting will not be over - we will have photo shoots and scripts and likely, all manner of dress changes and make-up. I suddenly feel ill – it is even worse than him disappearing. It will be like the Victory Tour all over again, pretending that we are a couple when we most definitely are not. I lose all desire for food and instead of continuing my walk to the dining hall, I double back to my room.
Prim catches me outside of our room, and blocks my attempts to go inside.
"No, you're not," she says with her sternest voice.
"Let me inside, Prim!" I snap.
"Don't go snapping at me. We are going to eat something in the dining hall. You're wasting away. Look at you!" she says to me urgently.
"I'm not in the mood, Prim," I say, with my most threatening voice. Prim, however, is unmoved.
"I am not in the mood to treat you when you finally collapse from hunger. Let's go." She threads her arm in mine and I have no choice but to accompany her.
"Sometimes you don't realize just how much like mom you can be," says Prim with exasperation, but I feel the note of concern in her voice and I am suddenly ashamed of the way I've been treating Prim.
"How is that?" I ask but I know, if I excavate deep enough, I will know the answer.
"You get...discouraged...and then you shut down completely! It's so hard to talk to you when you're like that," she said quietly.
"I'm sorry. There's so much happening to me and I can't keep up…" I say, which is just enough of the truth without going into details, but Prim is not satisfied.
"You've been miserable for almost a month now! And you haven't spoken about Peeta at all. I work with the staff at the Recovery Unit. I know things." She says this a little too smugly and it makes me nervous.
"What do you know?" I ask.
"I know that you don't actually visit Peeta anymore, you just check in on him and read his chart. What happened between the two of you?"
The grey walls of the corridors pass us by in uninterrupted monotony as we continue our walk. I debate whether to speak to my sister and realize how much I welcome the idea of opening up my heart to someone, especially someone I know will not hurt me. For once, I want to depend on someone and if I can't trust Prim, I don't know who I'm going to trust. Without warning, I pull her into a supply closet and close the door behind us, which catches her by surprise. The metal shelves of the closet are bolted into the wall and everything is neat and tidy with all supplies clearly labeled. .
"Oh, this is going to be good, isn't it?" she asks wryly as she maneuvers in the small space,
"Sit," I order. We both take a seat over a large plastic container that lies along the far wall of the closet.
"It's a little complicated but Peeta and I had an argument," I start.
Prim looks at me, purely befuddled. "Really? How do you argue with a guy that doesn't remember anything?"
"Well, see, that's it. Rye's been filling his head with all kinds of stuff!" I blurt out and soon the words are falling out without filter. "Rye says I was using Peeta to keep myself safe but it isn't true. I was trying to keep Peeta alive! And so he told Peeta that I seduced him to keep his alliance and ensure my survival."
"You mean, when you guys were on the beach?" asks Prim. Her words make my veins turn to ice and I am so embarrassed, I can't look her in the eyes.
"I suppose you saw that?" I can't hide my mortification as a blush creeps up my neck.
"Well, it was required viewing but I will say that after I puked up my dinner, I had to go outside for some air," she chuckled as I stared at her in horror. "Katniss, please, it was dark on the beach and they weren't exactly going to put strobe lights on. The cameras pulled out so it looked like you were in the middle of a really long make out session. I mean, it was obvious what was going on but it wasn't all in our faces. Not that the announcers didn't go on and on and on about it but it wasn't that pornographic at all."
I feel somewhat relieved as I recall that moment on the beach, how Peeta had tried to protect me even then. The memory brings up the taste of bitter, salty tears that I quickly swallow. "Well, that's it. It just made me so angry that he would think that and I haven't been back since."
"Does Peeta think that or is that what Rye thinks?" she probed.
"Well, Peeta asked me if it was true, if I had only kept him with me for my own protection," I say slowly.
"So, he was just questioning you. He wasn't really telling you that's what he thought." Prim's brow becomes furrowed as if trying to understand.
"I…well…no. I mean, he wouldn't have asked if there wasn't a doubt…"
"...A doubt his brother put into his head, which he had the good instinct to explore by asking you. Katniss, you always assume the worst about people, especially yourself. It makes sense that he would ask you because he doesn't remember!" Prim enunciated the words as if I were soft in the head, which I admit I still am since the symptoms of the concussion come and go. "You lost it, didn't you?" she asked in irritation.
I just nod in shame. I am doing a remarkable job of feeling like shit today.
"You know, I bet you any amount of money he is so sorry he asked you that, he can't wait for the moment to get out and speak to you."
"If he wanted to apologize, he would have done so already. He could have requested that I come down to him anytime," I say petulantly, realizing at that moment how very much I desire just that.
"Katniss, you've never seen yourself upset? You probably intimidated him or made him feel like he didn't have a chance in hell to speak to you again. He should apologize for repeating his brother's idiocy but he is probably too ashamed to ask you to come to him."
"How are you so sure?" I say, surprised at her maturity.
"Because, Peeta is not very complicated. He lost some of his memory but he didn't suddenly become another person. He is not the type to say that to you and not apologize to you afterwards." Prim cocked her head to the side to look at her older sister. "You should just apologize to him for over-reacting."
I looked at her for a moment, considering her idea. "I'll think about it." No matter how calm and controlled I try to remain before Prim, the truth is that I start to feel a bit optimistic again. It isn't a solution, really. I don't know if I can do what she is asking. But I feel like I have options and that makes me feel suddenly so much better.
"I also had an argument with Gale," I blurt out, deciding to throw caution to the wind.
"Wow, you've been busy!" she laughed.
"Oh, trust me, I'm not done yet. But I think with Gale, there's no resolution to that one." I say sadly as I describe the exchange.
"I can't say that I didn't see it coming. I think Gale is in love with you and has been for a while. Watching you fall for someone else could not have been easy for him," Prim says gently.
"I know, but what can I do?" I ask.
"There's not much for you to do but give him space. He might come around."
"Maybe." I pause and decide to discuss one final thing. "And then there is the Mockingjay role I've been asked to take on. I can't do it without Peeta. In fact, I don't know if I can do it at all," I say with exasperation. "But the rebels... I was already their Mockingjay, long before I was even aware of what I was doing."
"You have to really believe that the revolution is going to make things better," said Prim quietly. I look at her - safe, well-fed, being trained to do something she seems born to do. I'm not sure about Panem but if everyone has the opportunities that Prim now has, there could be no doubt that it was something worth fighting for.
Prim continued uninterrupted. "If you can't make this decision without Peeta, you had best think about a way to make things up with him. You can't decide anything together if you're not talking."
I found myself pacing. I was no good at apologizing. I don't do remorse or regret very easily either. But beyond the emotional situation between us, there were things I could not do without Peeta. Besides his affection, his heat, and his goodness, I needed his clarity also. Like Prim, he could see to the heart of the most important things and articulate them in a way I could not. The lack of him struck me all at once and I tasted, like a bitter draught, the depth of how much I missed him.
"I've got some apologizing to do." I said as I went for the handle of the storage closet.
"Not so fast!" Prim lept up from her spot on the plastic box. "Before you go off on another mission, you are going to eat with me." When I protested, she put a finger over my mouth. "Not another word!" She pulled me along as she opened the door. "Everything is easier on a full stomach." Finding myself yet again at my little sister's mercy, I allow her to drag me to the dining hall.
XXXXX
We make our way to the dining hall to collect our tasteless meal of mush and overcooked vegetables and sit at our usual table, which is empty now because we are so late in arriving. Prim describes her morning training, which includes simulations and advanced triage, something that rivets her completely. Half of my mind wanders from the conversation, as I attempt to decipher the contents of my lunch, eventually deciding that it was simply safer to swallow it without trying to taste any of the lumpy, beige mass on my plate.
I raise my eyes from the tray and blink several times in shock, my mind refusing to compute what I see before me. At the doorway of the large room stands Peeta, blue eyes sweeping the tables, clearly in search of someone. Their restless trajectory ends when they settle on me. At that moment, I feel my entire body prickle to attention as Peeta strides awkwardly across the dining hall. Objectively speaking, he is a mess - his blond hair is struggling to grow in around the purple seam of his surgical scar. He has lost weight, having been in recovery for so long. Amongst the things he has forgotten is how to walk naturally with his prosthetic, rendering his movements jerky and uncoordinated. No, he is not the same boy who'd entered the Quarter Quell with me, nothing like the tribute who went down under Brutus' stone. He is different, in mind and body but I was not blessed with the gift of forgetfulness as he had been. He is still the same Peeta to me and though it is no longer permitted, I long for him in the same way as before, perhaps even more so given his weakened state, a fact that gives credence to Gale's accusation. His appearance does nothing but make more acute what I too have lost when his memories were destroyed.
Though I had come to the determination that I should speak to him, I was in no way prepared to actually see him at that moment, especially given the absolute irony of the situation, that I had just spent the last hour talking about him with my sister. My hair stood at attention at the sheer serendipity of it all and I wonder if the universe is conspiring with or against me at that moment.
I shift on the bench as he comes nearer, my face a furnace full of heat, people suddenly moving in slow motion around me. I am heady with a rush of adrenaline. I try to breath deeply and evenly to stem the onslaught of terror that is ready to choke me.
He looks at me with his deep blue eyes, eyes that arrest me as if I am seeing them for the first time. "Hey Prim, Katniss."
"Peeta!" exclaims Prim. "Have a seat. How do you feel?"
He sits down somewhat awkwardly, maneuvering his leg under the table. "Out of breath, honestly. It's hard to get around with this thing," he taps his leg, "even with the physical therapy. But I got used to it before, so I suppose I will again."
I turn from their banter and stare at some point in space. My emotions war among themselves, each one struggling to dominate - anger, terror, fear, longing, excitement - it is so riotous that I have trouble concentrating on any one thing except for this - that he is here and whole and so very much like himself, it makes my heart ache.
"Katniss," Peeta's gentle voice penetrates my thoughts.
"Hi." I respond, the word choking in my throat.
Peeta appears pale and I wonder if it is his convalescence or if he is as nervous as I am. "Can I speak to you a moment?"
I nod my head, completely uninterested in my meal. I push the tray towards Prim. "Finish this, will you? I don't want to get in trouble for wasting food."
Prim smiles, almost giddy, and scoops a spoon of my gruel. "Take your time. I'll meet you back at our quarters."
I give her a tight smile and turn to follow Peeta out of the dining hall. I trip a few times on the benches, finding I am completely unable to keep my equilibrium. The few people who still linger in the dining hall watch us, surely captivated by the Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12 so I keep my focus on Peeta's back to avoid their stares.
When the doors swish closed behind us, Peeta moves us off to the side, the gentle pressure of his hand on my arm sending a thrill of heat through my skin. I suddenly want to grasp his hand and pull him into my arms but I control the impulse for its complete inappropriateness. I might as well be Greasy Sae, as far as he is concerned at the moment.
"I couldn't get out before today. If I did, I would have found you sooner." he says with a slight tremor in his voice. "I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have said what I said and I'm sorry." His face is sad when he says this. "You saved my life. I know that now. You deserve so much more than to be accused of having ulterior motives."
I take a deep breath. "I was angry and maybe over-reacted so I'm sorry also."
The nervousness fled Peeta's face, softening his features. "You were right to get offended. It was an offensive thing to repeat. Please, Katniss. Let's start over again." He pulled a square plastic case out of his pocket. "I want to understand. I think of you and even though I can't tell you why, I'm happier when you are around. There is a feeling surrounding you that I can't rub away." He hands the disc to me. "These are the two Games we were in together – all the footage is here. Everything I've forgotten."
His words reach a tender place in my heart, a place I reserved only for him that I didn't think I would access again. "Why are you giving it to me?"
"Because I want you to know that I trust you. I don't know why – I can't give you any reasons but feel like I can trust you. Watch these with me. Make me understand everything." He reaches out to brush a wisp of my hair from my face. "It might help me to remember and end this agony for both of us."
I'm giddy with excitement. It was only a few hours ago, I was ready to mourn his absence from my life forever and now, I have him within my reach. My mind floods with images of our times together, washing over me so completely, I barely pull myself together to respond to him, "Of course I'll help you. I already told you I would."
Peeta smiles, the perfect combination of shyness and warmth and I melt inside. While I keep my face impassive, I swear that my eyes are speaking to him like two bright beacons, inviting him to get lost in them.
Recovering myself, I look at my schedule. "It looks like I have the afternoon off. How about you?"
Peeta laughs now, showing me his blank arm. "I have nothing but time, at least until they track me down."
"Let's go to my room, then, and make it as hard for them to find you as possible." I smile finally, my first real smile in so long, my facial muscles feel tense. Peeta eyes widen, becoming brilliant with emotion. I stretch out my hand in a silent plea for his and pull him towards my quarters. It is the most thrilling feeling in the world to have his large hand captured in mine and we interlock our fingers tightly as if we will never let each other go again.
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First of all, I want to offer my apologies. I let this fic languish too long. I have three WIPs that I started and a collaborative fic that never took off. That left me in the condition of having four WIPs altogether. I put Katniss Everdeen:Demon Hunter on hiatus and I am trying to finish Good Again so that I can dedicate my time to this fic and The Pearl of The Antilles. It was a bad idea to start so many things.
In addition, I get side-tracked by writing challenges which I feel stretch me as a writer but consume my time and slow down updates - I just completed a submission for Fandom4LLS called The Ivory Maiden (donations are possible until August 30th) and am completing a piece (maybe pieces?) called Know That Your Place Is With Me for Prompts in Panem. It's looking like a frame story but it may not be as long as If You Forget Me. I am also releasing a one-shot for the Everlarksongfic challenge called The Cloth That Feels Like Love Itself in September. Is it no wonder I don't get to updating?
A million thanks to solasvioletta, bubbles1425 and peetabreadgirl for working so very hard on this chapter. They are the best betas ever and no, you can't have them! I bow to the lovely nighlockinthecave for the beautiful banner and her incredible talent.