He wanted it to be real. Needed it to be real.
It was all he could think of as he was pulled out of sleep, his hands reaching on the empty bed. Maybe it had all been a dream. It couldn't have been.
It was too soon, too rushed. He had known it then and he saw it all too clearly in the light drifting through his window. It wasn't regret – he'd have done it all the same – he just wished he could move it down their timeline. They still had so much work to do on themselves, together, and he'd gone and rushed and... If that all was even real.
He felt alone again in his thoughts. He needed to know. But she wasn't there, like she usually wasn't there, in the bright light of day. It was almost as if she didn't want to admit it herself. He hated where his thoughts had taken him so quickly. It was barely dawn and he was already travelling a path he didn't want to go down.
He opened his eyes and looked around the room. His mind was foggy as he saw his clothes crumpled in a ball beside the bed. He didn't feel like moving today. He had to.
Pushing his way loose from the sheets he stumbled into the shower, ridding himself of the cobwebs from the night.
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The sun was hanging low in the sky as he prepped dinner in his kitchen. She still hadn't come back from wherever she'd gone. His mood was dark, having been distracted with concern as he burnt the loaves of bread he'd been preparing earlier. It was as though she could haunt him without actually being dead.
He looked at the single clock in his house, 19.40. Where was she?
When she didn't come in for dinner, he wrapped a plate for her and left it on the counter, moving upstairs to his painting room. His time spent here always seemed to blend together as the hours past with a brush in his hand.
Grabbing his charcoal and sketch pad, he sat back against the wall on the mattress and began sketching the cabin in the woods. The charcoal made it appear darker and more ominous. Or maybe that was him. He ripped the page free and began sketching out his memory of Katniss with her hair spread out on the pillow.
He couldn't face it.
Ripping it free he tossed the pad aside and stood to pace.
His mind raced with each step. Maybe she'd run after last night. Maybe it hadn't happened at all. Maybe she'd left with Gale and his family, off to District 2, and he'd imagined everything.
That thought made his heart clench in agony and his breath ran out. As the tears came he fell to his knees on the floor.
It was too much. It was like he'd backfired against the black and the anger and the hate and had ended here, with finding her, finding his love again. And now it was threatening him, smothering. He was caught in a vicious cycle of hating and loving.
He crawled onto the mattress and pulled the quilt that was stuffed into the corner around his shoulders. He was exhausted. It was dark out. It was acceptable to sleep. And so he did.
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Peeta woke with a start. It wasn't his typical suffocating terror that he felt but the small frame of a girl beside him, shaking slightly. She'd come back. She was cold and her skin was damp. Where had she been?
He watched her face, scrunched tight, across from his as his fingers traced her skin.
"Katniss?" He called. He thought she was awake but she didn't open her eyes. When had she gotten here? In his mind he could feel the black slink out and he slammed it back down – he wasn't playing that game. "Katniss, where's Katniss?" His voice was almost sing-song as he shifted to hold her closer.
Her body shook in his arms. She was so cold. He heard the gentle rain prattling on his rooftop. She must have been outside recently. Obviously, his mind scolded. He didn't know how to wake her from this silent nightmare – the only thing he could do was be there when she woke.
When the sky lightened outside it was as though an alarm clock had gone off within her. She had stopped shivering as her clothes had dried and then she had seemed to settle into a more peaceful sleep. He'd watched her all night and now he was tired and sour. His mood was dark and he was struggling to make sense of everything.
Later when she moved to pull herself free of his vice grip around her he didn't let go. She screamed, a short burst of anger and fear, when she realized she was trapped. Peeta released her and scuttled back, a shiny memory popping behind his eyes before he could stop it. It was gone again, so quick, as he focused on her kneeling on her hands and knees in front of him.
"Katniss?" It was a question to judge the room, to see the mood. He didn't know what to expect from her and the uncertainty was returning an anxiety to his bones. He could see her back rise slightly with the starving gasps she was taking as she came back.
"Peeta, I'm sorry, I was caught in a tree and then it was raining and it was like the storm in the arena and then I got lost in time and I..." She held up her scraped palms and he gripped his hands together. She was explaining something but the context was unclear. He was so confused. He hated being confused.
"Stop! Fucking stop." His hands gripped the sides of his head, covering his ears. He wasn't drowning in the black but his mind was racing with clear and shiny memories. He just needed to catch his breath. She stopped talking but remained kneeling.
They were both too broken right now, as though the happiness that had been so close was a distant memory. But at least now, he thought, at least now they were repairing together. He wasn't bruising her skin. He wasn't tearing her apart. He was coming back to an even level.
When he opened his eyes she was sitting on the end of the mattress, staring at him. Her hair was wild and her hunting outfit was rumpled and torn. His hands ached for her to be closer as he lowered them to his lap.
"What happened the other night?" He wanted to know what was real. Needed to know.
"We..." She paused. Could she even say the words? "We had sex." It sounded so plain to him. Sounded technical on her lips. He nodded, taking her answer.
"I'm sorry about that," And he was. It had been too soon, he realized. Her gaze never shifted from his.
"I'm not." It was simple. He felt a weight lift from him that he hadn't realized had been there.
"Where were you?" He wanted to ask her more about their night but he couldn't bring himself to do it. They'd save it for another time when their wounds weren't so open. When he wasn't so close to letting the floodgates of black open.
"I went for a hunt. And then I lost some time when I was in a tree. It started to rain. When I tried to get down to come home my hands slipped and that how I got these." She held up her hands to him and instinctually he grabbed for them. She stuffed them back into her lap, keeping her distance.
"What do you mean you lost time?" He'd shifted forward with the effort of reaching for her. She looked to the doorway; he could see her calculating the escape. "Katniss, please," it was a plea.
"Sometimes I just disappear. Remember how I said sometimes it gets to be too much? I saw yellow finch birds and I remembered how much she loved yellow." She wrapped her arms tight around herself. Peeta didn't need to ask who loved yellow.
"I'm sorry you were alone," he whispered. He somehow felt guilty for all of her suffering. The black was pooling at the base of his skull. He reached out for her again and let his hand hang in the air. Slowly, she inched towards him and then all at once she was there, in his lap, crawling into his chest.
"Stop being sorry." She mumbled into his chest. He held her close and focused on breathing down the black as it closed in.
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She didn't go hunting that day. She didn't go for the rest of the week.
They spent most of their days sitting together on the porch with the fall weather rolling in. They'd talk about the small things mostly, different techniques of bread, how to tie a slip knot in a snare line.
When they restarted work on the book their conversations changed to memories and things that they couldn't say out loud to anyone else. It was harder than they both had imagined it would be.
After a particularly difficult night he could feel a fit coming on and he went to the basement. It wasn't the first time he'd been overtaken by the black again, but it wasn't as bad as before. The walls were colder in the basement than it was in the summer months. Katniss had sat with her back to the staircase door, rope fiddling in her hands. It had lasted all night.
When Peeta emerged, they spent the day tangled in the sheets of the bed. They hadn't again made love and he was okay with that. He really hadn't been ready before. He didn't ask Katniss about it.
After dinner, she pushed the book again. He stared at it, blaming it for all of his relapses. Why did it have to be so hard?
"It's good to remember, Peeta. We have to or else...Or it wasn't worth it." Peeta knows this but still isn't convinced. He doesn't want to be filled with black and spend his night raging against cement blocks. Why doesn't she know this? His shackles are raised in defence as he looks at her. She's not paying attention as she begins work on a page about Finnick Odair.
He slips to his feet and escapes upstairs to his room, grabbing the bottle of medicine he had nearly forgotten, from his bedside table drawer.
She's followed him in a flash and see's him as he clutches the bottle.
"You can take it. But it won't stop it. It won't make it better. You'll just feel more trapped. It's not a magic cure."
Her words are sharp and he knows they're true. He hates her and her honesty.
"Peeta, we can do this. Just stay with me, here," she points to her head and Peeta nods. He needs her. He loves her.
"Always," his voice whispers out. He remembers a time when this conversation happened before. He wants so bad to go back in time. She grabs his hand and leads him back downstairs to the book.
