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Disclaimer - all the characters etc belong to Suzanne Collins not myself.
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Peeta didn't let go of my hand throughout the journey back to Thirteen. No words were spoken between anyone on-board the hovercraft – but could anything have been said to lighten the mood? Peeta's hand had always been my rock when I needed someone to hold onto. I was surprised by how stable Peeta had been throughout the visit – I would be sure to inform Dr Aurelius on his progress. Even though he'd managed the trip without a flashback, I could see the pain behind the façade he had put up. It was unlike Peeta to be so cold and distant with his feelings, but I was scared that asking him about how he was feeling for fear it would breach an emotional barrier that Peeta couldn't handle.
Once we reached Thirteen Annie was practically scooped up by Plutarch who insisted they had much work to do in preparation for the wedding, which was a couple of days away. Haymitch had insisted he had much catching up to do with his 'old friends' and had quickly stumbled off in the direction of his cabin before anyone could stop him, taking Buttercup with him – I just hoped he remember to take him back to Prim otherwise he'd get a nasty surprise when he woke up from his alcohol coma. Although I couldn't say the image didn't fill me with some satisfaction. Peeta's grip on my hand remained as firm even when we were back in Thirteen, so I accompanied him back to the hospital ward. I wasn't going to abandon him now that he'd opened himself up to me.
I still couldn't muster up the courage to speak to Peeta on the way back to his room; I didn't want to ruin any kind of attachment he'd made to me today. Plus I had to admit, I was secretly enjoying the feel of his hand in mine again, and I wasn't going to do anything to stop the feeling anytime soon. As we reached Peeta's room Dr Aurelius eyed our joint hands inquisitively, I just stared back at him challengingly until he turned away. Fern, however, was beaming at us before she opened up Peeta's room. I followed Peeta into his room; it was much less bright than before – obviously Dr Aurelius felt he didn't need to observe Peeta in as much intensity as before. At the site of his bed, Peeta suddenly dropped my hand before throwing himself onto it, sighing heavily as he positioned himself. As I forced myself to look at his face for the first time since we'd left district Twelve, I noticed the strain our visit had impacted on him. He seemed more drained of colour, and bags were already forming under his eyes. Peeta must've been putting up much more of a fight to keep his emotions at bay than I had realised.
I found myself standing awkwardly at the end of the bed, no quite sure what to say or do. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt like this in front of Peeta; the feeling made me wish things could go back to normal now more than ever. I watched as Peeta closed his eyes and began to breathe heavily, today had drained him and he deserved a rest so I quietly made my way to the door.
"Katniss, wait." Peeta called as my hand reached out for the doorknob. I turned round to him now sitting up on the bed. "Can you stay?" He asked, eyes brimming with hope.
"You're tired Peeta, you should rest." I urged, although I didn't move back towards the door.
"I can't rest, there's too much going on in my head." He scowled to himself.
"Anything I can help with?" I asked moving back to his bedside, hoping that this was an invitation into Peeta's bottled up emotions.
"I'm not sure," he answered honestly, giving me an uncertain glance. "I can't really remember much about the time we spent time together in Twelve."
I sighed, knowing that although we had spent a brief amount of time together before the Quarter Quell, the truth was I and Peeta had led separate lives. "I'll help with what I can." I added, feeling almost as useless as I had when Peeta had said nothing at all. "Delly might be more help though; I can get her if you want." I added begrudgingly, I hated that I couldn't answer all Peeta's questions – and because of my selfishness I hadn't even been there with him after our first Games.
"No," Peeta reached out and clasped my wrist gently. "I've asked her so much before. She's answered what she could, but she could never explain why I thought about you so much."
"You loved me, that's why." I smiled gently at him, wishing I'd never taken his love for granted before. I'd never appreciated how much Peeta had devoted himself to me, even before we had met, and now he could barely even access those memories.
"I must have," he smiled back at me. I tried to uphold my smile but felt it faltering. He didn't love me still, he couldn't. The Capitol had made sure of that. "I remember when I gave you the bread." He added lightly, looking into my eyes questioningly.
"You do?" My smile grew stronger at this, "you saved my life Peeta." I added, wanting him to remember what he had done for me – and hopefully he'd remember the reason.
He nodded eagerly, even blushing lightly when I mentioned him saving my life. He was always the most modest of us all. "I saw you the next day, after school." He added breathlessly, as if the memory was flooding back to him as he revealed it to me.
"Yes, I wanted to say thank-you. But I could never muster the courage." I sighed, wishing that I had managed to speak to him all those years ago. Maybe I could've had the opportunity to meet Peeta without having to go through terrible circumstances.
"I tried to catch your eye, but you wouldn't look at me." Peeta laughed lightly, as if he knew this would be a typical Katniss thing to do. "Then for some reason, I think you picked a dandelion." He frowned to himself, as if the memory didn't make sense, but I nodded to him eagerly.
"That's exactly what happened." I clasped his hand in-between mine. "You gave me hope Peeta, without you, I'd have given up on life."
"I couldn't let you starve to death." He interjected, once again down playing his role in my survival.
"Not just that once Peeta, you've saved me so many times." I looked into his blue eyes as they searched mine – as if trying to remember every moment we'd spent together. I felt my own eyes watering but quickly blinked the tears away.
I stayed in Peeta's room for a long time after that, simply answering any questions he had about District Twelve, and then moving on to any questions about me. I found myself putting off the more intimate questions, not ready to delve into whatever I felt towards Peeta – and I didn't think he could handle it yet either. During our conversation we invented a game – Real or Not Real, in which Peeta would simply ask me a question and I would tell him if it was real or not. It was a quick way to get through his confused memories. After a while he began to see patterns between his memories. According to Peeta the Capitol created memories, were 'shiny' and unclear. Eventually he began to decipher between them himself and only needed me for confirmation.
Eventually we found ourselves moving off the topic of memories and just talking about things in general, mostly about me filling Peeta in on what life had been like since we'd moved to Thirteen and what had been happening out in the field.
"Finnick asked me to make his and Annie's wedding cake," Peeta mentioned after a while, I could see by his expression that his excited him.
"You're going to do it?" I asked, although I knew the answer.
"I think so, it might be nice to actually have something to do other than sit in this room all day." I instantly felt guilty for Peeta's limited lifestyle; although it wasn't my fault I hated to think of him being driven insane by boredom.
"You should, I know they'd love anything you make." I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "It'd be nice to see you baking again as well." I added, feeling my cheeks redden slightly.
"You'd come with me to bake?" Peeta asked, seeming perplexed at the thought of me spending time with him during an everyday task.
"If that's okay with you," I replied, giving him a small smile before looking away from his face. He didn't realise that what I wanted more than anything was a glimpse of the old Peeta – the baker's boy who had saved my life and had never been hurt by the Hunger Games or the Capitol.
"That'd be nice," Peeta murmured. As I looked up at him I noticed his eyes were slightly glazed over as he thought of something. "I wish I'd been brave enough to look around Twelve more." He sighed; I knew he was thinking about his family. Baking would always be something that would bring back memories of them.
"You can't force yourself if you're not ready." I took both his hands in mine and stared directly into his eyes. "You're one of the bravest people I know Peeta, it wasn't you being a coward, it was you trying to heal."
"What if I never get the chance again though," his eyes were welling up with tears and I clasped tighter onto his hands.
"I'll make sure you do, and I promise I'll be there for you next time." It was a promise I planned to keep, I shouldn't have left Peeta to explore Twelve on his own – his mind wasn't capable of dealing with the emotions yet. I was just too afraid of rejection if he didn't want my support. Peeta gave me a small smile and ran his thumbs over the back of my hands. I felt the warmness spreading over them again and my whole body seemed to flush at any touch from him.
"Enough about sad things," he quickly blinked away the watering in his eyes. "I have a cake to plan." His smile grew instantly and he dropped my hands to pull out a notepad from the bedside table. As he opened the pad I noticed there were already some sketches inside. They looked like rough plans for the cake.
"Will you come to the wedding?" I asked as Peeta began muttering to himself about ideas for the cake. He looked up at me and paused for a moment as I he were weighing up the pros and cons in his head.
"Do you think I should?" He asked, eyeing me cautiously as he waited or a response.
"I think it'd be good for you, you'd get to see people but it wouldn't be formal." Peeta nodded at my response but he didn't seem satisfied, I knew a lot of people would like to see him about and well, but I also knew the reasons why he was hesitant. "I'd like you to be there," I added quietly, I wasn't sure he'd heard until I saw a small blush on his cheeks. The pink flush made me smile to myself; it was good to see Peeta showing some emotion – and even better to see some colour back in his cheeks.
"Well I suppose I shouldn't let anyone down." He smirked at me quickly before returning his attention to his notepad, as if the moment had never happened.
Finnick and Annie's wedding was a smash hit, despite Coin's reservations that it was too lavish and Plutarch's that it was too drab. The only thing that mattered was the happiness radiating from the couple, for whom this would've once been an impossibility. The pair of them practically glowed, both outshining the glamorous clothes they had borrowed from Peeta and I. Luckily for the rest of us we were allowed to wear our own clothes. I had convinced Annie to take full advantage of my Prep team who had done a brilliant job making her look striking without going over the top as they would've done back in the Capitol. However they had insisted after finishing with Annie that they would come and do my hair and makeup. I of course refused, but they never could take no for an answer. Compared to everyone else I felt mortified at my appearance, even though my mother and Prim had both exclaimed about how beautiful I looked before we left for the ceremony.
A few unique touches from District Four were added to the ceremony; a net woven from long grass which covers the couple as they make their vows, the touching of each other's lips with salt water, and an ancient wedding song. It was truly beautiful, and I didn't have to pretend to be happy for the couple at all because I couldn't keep myself from smiling for the duration of the ceremony. My mother began to cry during the proceedings and I forced myself to take her hand in mine. I knew it was hard for her during weddings; it often brought back memories of my father – and during all this war and sadness, this piece of happiness hit home harder than anything else.
Once the fiddler started playing, the dancing began. Twelve may not have been the biggest or richest District in Panem but we sure knew how to dance and it wasn't long before the floor was filled with the residents from district Twelve – finally able to let their hair down after weeks of Thirteen's rules and regulations. My mother and Prim were amongst the first to join in the dancing and I clapped happily from the side in time with the music. It was so good to see the happiness on their faces, although I still protested when they called me to dance. Soon after however, I was interrupted by a sharp jab in the ribs.
"Are you going to deny Snow the opportunity to see you dance?" Johanna smirked before winking exaggeratedly to me. At first I was taken aback from the shock of seeing her out of the hospital – obviously the doctors had deemed her finally healthy enough to explore Thirteen. She looked much better in herself, her hair had begun growing back thick and healthily and her skin held much more colour than it had done while she was cooped up in the hospital ward. I hoped this wasn't a one-time thing for her as she looked so delighted to finally be free. Johanna was right though, now was the perfect opportunity to show Snow that his reign of terror was coming to an end. If the Mockingjay could still enjoy life, so could everyone else.
I quickly bounded across the floor towards Prim and lined up opposite her, Johanna joined us and stood opposite my mother before the next song began and the dance resumed yet again. It was easy during these moments to forget about all the dark things going on around me and to just enjoy life for what it was. I still had my family, I had more friends than before I had been sent to the Games, and Peeta was slowly coming back to me. Yes, we had lost many and times were hard – but those who had died wouldn't have wanted us all to squander the rest of our lives.
We all danced until Plutarch made an announcement for everyone's attention, claiming he had a surprise for the bride and groom. Once he had everyone's undivided attention, in wheeled the largest wedding cake I had ever seen. It was dazzling, covered with blue-green, white-tipped icing waves which were swimming with fish, sailboats, seals and sea flowers. It was perfect, and I could see by the look on Annie and Finnick's face that they completely agreed. Peeta had only allowed me into the kitchen during the baking stages of the cake, stating he wanted its design to be a surprise. I never could've imagined it would turn out so breath-taking. The sight of it made me ache for Peeta - where was he? I hadn't seen him all night. I quickly began looking round the room as everyone moved towards Peeta's creation, applauding at the mere sight of it.
A voice suddenly interrupted me before I could locate Peeta; "He's not here." I froze when I heard Gale's voice. I hadn't seen him all night, and hadn't tried to either. Things still hadn't been natural between us since our break-up.
"I… Hello," I murmured pathetically as I looked up to meet his gaze.
"I know you're looking for Peeta," he replied blankly, obviously not open to conversation. "He's in his hospital room."
"How could you know that?" I asked sharply, getting agitated by his tone.
"He had an episode, Haymitch had to leave early to go and see him – I was talking with him when he got the message." I couldn't help but notice the small smirk that played on Gale's lips before he quickly regained his composure.
"Oh," I sighed, looking to the ground. In all the happiness it was as thought I'd forgotten that there was a boy who was still fighting the demons within him. "I should go…" I walked back to my table to gather my things, my mind set on the hospital. Gale followed me to the table, sighing loudly as he did so.
"How can you pick him, Katniss?" He asked, I turned to look at him with narrowed eyes, but the look of exasperation on his face made me calm slightly.
"What do you mean?" I asked, almost bored of people questioning my motives with Peeta.
"Just look at tonight for example, this will never stop. You could be as happy as could be, then suddenly something will happen and he'll be the Capitol-mutt Peeta again." I could tell he wasn't trying to be hurtful with his words, just truthful. But it didn't mean they didn't sting. It hurt to think of Peeta's future plagued by flashbacks and doubts over his memories.
"Well, that's why I'm going to make sure I'm there every time they happen. So if he needs me, he won't have to go through it alone." The look on Gale's face told me that my point had hit home, and the conversation was over. I quickly gathered my bag before heading towards the hospital ward.