Chapter 24

Katniss

She finally let out the breath it felt like she had been holding and stared at Peeta. He hung his head with an exasperated sigh and shook his head. It was the first time she'd ever seen him look so angry. It was new and she wasn't sure how to feel about her calm, sensitive baker boy all fired up and agitated. When he looked up her suddenly she saw a fire in his eyes that she'd never seen before. He leaned against the back of the chair and hung his head in exasperation.

"I can't let you do this."

She bit back a smirk. How endearing that he thought he could actually stop her.

"How do you know I'm going to?"

He lifted his head and stared at her. "Because believe it or not, this past week has let me know you," he paused, reaching across the table. He twisted their hands together so effortlessly it made her heart skip a beat. She would have chastised herself for acting so inane and childish but she was too busy staring into his bright, sky-blue eyes. "The real you. And I know that you didn't even have to think twice when Haymitch asked you to go and talk to those miners."

Katniss leaned back in her chair. Silver tongue indeed, she thought with a smirk. "Fine, you think you know me now," she stated calmly. His hand burned against hers. She watched him clench his perfect square jaw and it made her shift in her chair.

"I do."

She lifted her chin defiantly and kept her hand in his. "Then if you were me and you could save that many lives – what would you do? There are hundreds of miners Peeta. To you they're just laborers, but to me…they're friends, neighbors-"

"Neighbors that used to let two little girls starve without batting an eye?" he snapped suddenly. "Don't tell me they helped you when you were hungry?"

"Fine," she shrugged. "One of those miners is someone's dad. Or husband. I couldn't take away someone's dad Peeta. Not because I was afraid."

"Katniss," he began, "There's nothing wrong with having fear. There's no shame in admitting you're scared."

She exhaled sharply. "Then maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do Mellark."

After her heated exchange with Peeta, sleep didn't come easily.

She was irritated and full of questions as she rolled onto her side. Peeta might have gotten to know her that week, but her certainly didn't know her know her. Wrapping the blanket tighter around her body, she willed it to get warmer. She was tired of freezing, tired of being hungry, and tired of worrying so damn much. At this rate she'd be better off dead.

The rebellion needed to happen. End of story. So why did she still feel a pit of dread in her stomach at every mention of the word?

Prim had given up trying to sleep with her nights ago because of Katniss' tossing and turning and she missed her sister's warmth. The worn mattress on the beat up box spring was especially cold that night; she imagined she could feel the cold metal of each bedspring poking her in the back. She couldn't sleep and she wasn't even sure she wanted to. Each time she drifted off, she tried to will herself awake to avoid the bad dreams. Prim usually woke her when the nightmares got too bad. It wasn't unusual for her to have dreams about her father entering the mines only to have them collapse with an earth-shuddering boom before they crumbled into a giant sink hole in the ground. No, that was a common night terror. But now that her life had changed so much, it was like it was magnified. Too tired to fight it any longer, she felt herself slipping into a dreaded deep sleep. She wondered what waited for her in her dreams that night….

It happened quickly this time. The deep sleep didn't taunt her with pictures of pleasant things or even nothingness. No, it was like she slipped into the darkest corners of her mind right as her eyelids slid shut.

The blackness of her mind made her a prisoner in her sleep.

She kept seeing images of miners pouring into the mines while she stood outside and screamed soundlessly for them to please stop. She tried to get them to stop going in and warn them but her voice didn't seem to work right. Black, sooty smoke hung in the air of District 12, constricting her lungs and making them burn in protest as she begged them to listen to her.

They weren't even faceless; no, she recognized each one of them. Gale, Haymitch, her father…she realized with a strangled sob – Peeta.

But he didn't hear her. In he went, the obscure smoke swirling around him until he was gone into the blackness. Realizing it was hopeless; she turned and ran down the hilly terrain, stumbling miserably with fear. She turned around at just the exact moment in time to see the mines explode, sending piles of earth into the air. Rocks and pieces of coal rained form the black sky, hitting the ground around her in piles of smoky ash. The earth shook with explosions as the chain of hilly mountains overlooking District 12 gave an awful shudder and finally collapsed into the sink hole with an earsplitting crash.

"No!" she cried. "No!"

"NO!"

"Katniss!"

She awoke with a start, gasping for clean air as the blackness from the explosion in her dreams still seemed to linger in her lungs.

The bed. The chipping whitewash on the walls. The cracked window…

She wasn't outside the mines. The sky wasn't raining flaming ash. She sighed and looked over with another start. Peeta had slid into the bed beside her, his thick arm slung across her shaking her gently. She fell back against the pillow and tried to catch her breath as she stared at him.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered once she could speak.

He stared down at her in the darkness, his blonde curls illuminated from the window behind him. "I could hear you downstairs. You've been tossing and turning and then I could hear you crying…I'm surprised you didn't wake the whole house."

She swallowed and tried to form words as she became aware that Peeta had somehow hobbled up the steps and slid into her bed in the midst of her nightmare. His body was leaning halfway off the narrow mattress, but she could still feel his chest pressed up against her side. Traces of the warmth he must have absorbed from sleeping on the couch next to the stove was apparent. It seemed to seep through his shirt to her arm for a moment, effectively rendering her speechless.

"My m-mom is a heavy sleeper and…Prim is used to it," she managed to stammer. She was suddenly hyperaware that she was in a thin nightgown and a pair of holey wool socks. Pulling the blanket up a little, she realized that Peeta's arm he was using to shake her shoulder was still lying dangerously close to her chest. Glancing down, she realized she wasn't wearing a bra or any type of concealing garment other than her threadbare nightdress and her cheeks began to flame.

"Sorry," he muttered, pulling his arm away. "I just wanted to wake you up."

She nodded and tried to look nonchalant in the dark. The thought of Peeta slipping back downstairs into the darkness didn't make her particularly happy. He would be alone down there and she would be alone up here and it was just so cold….

The winter wind whipping around the corner of the house brought her back to reality. Was she honestly trying to justify asking Peeta to stay in her bed with her? Of all the inappropriate, awful thoughts she'd ever had, rationalizing this was one of the worst in her mind.

"Well…if you're alright, I should go," he said slowly, sitting up. He gripped the sheets and grunted softly as he tried to move without irritating his stitches that were due to be removed the next day. She watched him pause on the edge of the mattress, visibly debating something.

"Peeta?"

He turned to look over his shoulder, but his eyes were unable to meet hers. She felt his hand tremble slightly before he slid it over the worn mattress and grasped hers. She felt her heart jump inside her chest as he stared down at the bed and the small space between them as he wove his fingers with hers.

"What is it?" she asked softly, her voice still scratchy with sleep.

His eyes flicked down to hers in the dark and he shook his head slightly. "I don't know. I don't want to leave you."

Katniss blinked, turning her head up to the ceiling. "Why?"

He snorted softly, shaking his head again. "I don't know. It's stupid."

"Tell me?"

He heaved a sigh. "I…I feel like you're slipping away."

"Are you worried about me talking to the miners?"

He nodded. "Maybe. I'm just…I wanted this rebellion. Or I thought I did. I saw the way you lived and even…just everyone. I guess I'm just like every other person – I watch television and I see how things are for those Capitol people. I think…I think why do we have to live like this and they get to live like they do? Isn't that silly?"

"It's not silly," she insisted quietly.

"Well…I wanted this to end, that's the point. But then today when I realized what they wanted you to do and that…that it could put you in that much danger I…..I don't want it anymore."

"Peeta…"

"In fact, I'd do anything I could just to stop it."

She felt his hand tighten around hers. "This is bigger than us now though. I don't think we get to make that decision anymore."

"I guess," he shrugged. He looked down at her again and clenched his jaw. "What if something happens to you?"

"It won't."

"You don't know though. It's the uncertainty that's killing me."

"Why?" she asked.

He paused, sighing deeply as his shoulders slumped. He suddenly couldn't look at her. "Katniss…I've watched you for so long. Every day I just…I used to watch you walk home. I guess I….I feel like I just got you. What if something happens to you? What if you get ripped away before we even….before we even get to see? It's selfish but…"

"I…I feel the same way," she admitted, sitting up on her elbow. "If that makes you feel any better."

He sniffed and nodded, looking over to the frosty glass of the window. "I just wish we had a way to know what was going to happen."

"But we don't. There's no way to know what will happen in a few days and we have to accept that."

He was quiet a moment; so quiet she could hear the wind as it whipped around the corner of her room. He swallowed and looked back down at her. "Katniss…I'm scared."

She offered him a weak smile. "That makes two of us."

They gazed at each other in the darkness, the silence comfortable and their hands bursting with warmth where they were joined. She ached to know if he could make her feel that way all over and it almost felt silly – of course he could. Peeta might as well have been the sun.

"Stay," she whispered, her voice cracking.

He looked at her questioningly and she nodded in affirmation.

"You're sure?"

"Of course I am."

He slowly lowered himself on the thin mattress, shifting to his side to face her. With her free hand, she pulled up the blankets around them and sighed as his body lined up with hers, just inches apart. He was bigger and had twice as much mass as Prim, so she wasn't surprised when she soon felt the heat his body was giving off warm her legs under the blanket. It was nicer than she could have ever imagined. Her toes curled in appreciation as he settled onto the edge of her pillow and pulled their joined hands up between their bodies She mirrored his position on her side, their faces inches apart.

"I shouldn't be here," Peeta smirked and pulled the thin blanket up over their heads to create a tiny tent. Katniss inhaled greedily, trying to be quiet but also trying to savor the warm, flour and cinnamon scent that somehow still seemed to linger on his skin. Her eyes met his in the darkness and had to strain to focus on him.

"I wish I could stay here like this…with you."

"But we can't," she said softly, giving him a weak smile. "This is going to happen Peeta."

He smiled his crooked smile and nodded. "I know."

Katniss blinked slowly, trying to separate herself from this wonderful daydream – it didn't seem real, but it wasn't a nightmare either. She was just there, with Peeta, enjoying a stolen moment in her too-small bed and allowing herself a few butterflies over a crooked smile form her boy with the bread.

She knew she couldn't afford to think like this, but she couldn't help herself.

Opening her eyes, she saw him staring through the small, dark space between them. It was so small, yet so large. Peeta stared at her with wide, worried eyes as she sighed and tried to say something – anything – that would make this all alright.

She felt like she was standing in front of a firing squad with no hope for an appeal. There was nothing to say. They were staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, but it was something much much more dangerous than any gun. The rebellion was happening whether they were ready or not.

She felt the sudden need to brace herself. This needed to happen for the entire district – for any semblance of hope they had left.

It felt useless and farfetched to hope that she and Peeta were both left standing when the smoke of it all cleared.

If they were standing at all.

"Don't be afraid," she whispered slowly, lifting her free hand. She touched his face and watched as he blinked leisurely.

"Are you?"

She nodded slowly, trying not to smile. Admitting she was terrified seemed cowardly, but she felt like she could admit it to Peeta. Only Peeta.

"Nothing was ever accomplished with the absence of fear."

He watched her as she let her hand fall back down to the mattress. He squeezed her hand and stared at her.

"We need this Peeta."

He sighed, pulling their joined hands against this chest. Her stomach fluttered as his chapped lips skittered across her knuckles with their fleeting warmth.

"I wish I could see the bigger picture like you can but….but all I can see suddenly…..is you."

Hope you all had a happy Hump day!

Voting has begun for the Everlark Smut Awards! The link is on my profile AND on my Tumblr. Go vote! Please? My life will be complete if I can add to my twitter profile that I write 'award winning smut'. I just...I can't even...I would be a happy girl.

"I write award winning smut."

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