A/N: Glad everyone enjoyed the fluff from the last chapter! Hope you enjoy this chapter. There's some humor, some angst, some drama, and a touch of fluff. And things get discussed. You'll just have to read the chapter to figure out what things, hehe. Again, thanks for all the lovely reviews, comments, and messages! You guys are an excellent audience, I couldn't be luckier!
Though the construction of the Justice Building had halted for a few weeks due to the heavy snowfall, Katniss knew it wouldn't be put on hold forever. One day, sooner rather than later, it would be built and then she would be expected to make an appearance at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and do an exclusive interview – alongside Peeta – that would be broadcast all over the nation. Peeta had tried to outline the events for her, as he had been in fairly constant contact with Cressida and other involved parties since he returned from the Capitol, but she generally avoided the topic. As busy as he was at the bakery, she didn't see how he had time to coordinate such plans, but he did, and the phone at her house rang more now than it ever had. Peeta took the calls, unless it was her mother or Dr. Aurelius wishing to speak with her. She knew she had more free time, but she refused to help with anything to do with the filming. She didn't want to be filmed. She didn't want to stumble over her words in another interview. She didn't want to be broadcast all over the country as a symbol of survival and rebirth. No, she wanted to stay in her own little world that she had created in District Twelve, Peeta coming in from work to quiet meals with her, Greasy Sae and Haymitch and others joining them on occasion. She wanted to stay the Katniss she was in those snow-covered woods – a strong, skilled hunter – or the Katniss she was at home with Peeta – a quiet, yet ardent lover. She did not want to remember the Katniss she had been – the scowling tribute determined to forsake kindness, the lovesick victor who wasn't trying to defy the Capitol, or the symbol of a revolution she had been thrust into. Who was she going to play in front of the cameras? Herself, Peeta had assured her those many weeks ago. But she scoffed to think that they would want to even bother with her as she was now. The life she had now was rather boring compared to all she had been through.
Sometimes she didn't want to hear Peeta try to explain what he'd spent an hour on the telephone about, and so she would shut him up with a passionate kiss, and he would forget everything he had been trying to tell her and take his time to kiss her back. Haymitch was nosy, though, and on the nights that he stumbled over, sloshing alcohol from his flask onto the snow, Peeta would spend the entire meal answering their former mentor's questions. Sometimes it was all too much for Katniss and she would push away suddenly from the table, her chair scraping the floor loudly, and stomp off upstairs, where their voices were only deep murmurs. Peeta would come find her a few minutes later and patiently sit with her on the edge of the bed until she decided to talk or until she wanted to do anything but talk.
It was one such night, and Haymitch slurring on about how he was glad he wasn't the victor who was asked to make special public appearances any more was too much for her to bear. She was upstairs before she could even send a scowl Haymitch's way, her heart beating hard in her chest. She felt as if she couldn't breathe. She buried her head in her hands and almost didn't hear the slow, steady sound of Peeta climbing the stairs. She didn't look up until she felt the bed dip under his weight and his hip pressed against hers. Her eyes met his and she suddenly felt like she could breathe again with him present.
"I'm sorry," he said and covered her hand with his. She leaned her head on his warm shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief.
It's not your fault, she could have said, but she didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to talk at all. She squeezed his hand reassuringly and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She straightened up and turned to face him, her hand pulling away from his to cup his jaw. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, their mouths meeting somewhere in the midst of their movements. Katniss laid back on the bed and with her hands wrapping around his neck, coaxed him down as well.
She was enjoying kissing him, enjoying the feel of him lying flush against her, when the sound of someone clearing their throat caught her attention. In the doorway to her bedroom was Haymitch, one hand on his hip, the other paused in mid-action as he had raised it to take a swig from his flask.
"I…uh…just wondered where everybody went," Haymitch said, lowering the flask and averting his eyes after he had sufficiently stared at them. Peeta had moved and instead of lying directly on top of her, he was merely crouching over her.
"But I guess this explains things…" Haymitch spoke again in a gruff tone, this time actually taking a drink from his flask before he turned around and stalked off, cursing and muttering something about "just like a bunch of rabbits."
Peeta was still staring at the doorway, leaning over Katniss. She felt her cheeks color with embarrassment, but the humor of the situation took over and she laughed. Peeta gazed down at her and a wide grin broke out on his features before he too burst into laughter. He leaned down, pressing his forehead into the bed above her shoulder as their laughter finally died down. Then he was trailing kisses down her neck and her hands were on his chest. Katniss thought she heard the kitchen door slam shut a while later and the sound of someone cursing outside fading into the distance, but instead of pausing to listen, she pulled Peeta impossibly close and pressed her mouth to his.
Two hours later, they finally made their way back downstairs to find their half-eaten plates covered in tin foil and resting on the stove. Katniss reheated their food and they sat in front of the fire to eat. Peeta had hung a new painting above the mantle. It was a winter scene, a deep orange and gold sunset blazing against a world covered in snow. Katniss wondered if Cressida would want to film in their house, and she suddenly remembered the camera crews that had come to film them before the Victory Tour. She remembered her lame excuse for a talent – fashion design that wasn't even hers, but Cinna's. Peeta had been the gifted one, had always been, with his beautifully skilled works of art. She was glad there would at least be familiar faces there to film them, but she still didn't want to open up her life to anyone. The world she had built back in District Twelve with Peeta was still fragile, in her mind. On the edge of breaking. There could be an accident, a particularly violent flashback, anything. She knew her feelings wouldn't change, but she couldn't predict the exact turnings of the world.
They cleaned up the kitchen and then Katniss let Peeta rub one of the medicated salves on her skin as she lounged naked on the bed. Once her skin was generously covered in the cream, she rolled over and patted the bed to indicate it was his turn, but he didn't move. Instead, he was gazing at her figure, the look on his face showing that he no longer cared about the salve. She smirked at him and shook her head and he gave in, pulling off his shirt before he lay down on the bed. She smoothed the salve on his skin and he let out a contended sigh.
"There are some details, about filming, that still have to be straightened out," he said after quite a bit of silence. Katniss paused, and she wanted to tell him that she didn't want to talk about it, but she knew she couldn't avoid the topic forever.
"Oh?" She managed with as much inquisitiveness she could muster, and continued rubbing in the salve.
"Yeah," he started, tucking his folded arms under his chin. "They want to know where we'd rather do the interviews, in the new Justice Building or here."
"Here." Katniss answered without hesitation, not wanting to think about the old Justice Building and the memories it had once held, years of tributes saying their final farewells in the hulking structure. Even though it had been demolished and a new building would replace it, she still shuddered at the thought.
"Ok, I'll let them know." Peeta said.
"For the interview…" Katniss started, "do you know what kind of questions they are going to ask?" She finished. How was she supposed to do an interview and be herself if she had been touted as a lunatic and then acquitted for killing Coin? What kind of questions would they ask her? About the rebellion, the assassination? Or would they stick to the rebuilding of District Twelve? How would they portray her to the nation?
"Cressida is going to send a list of possible questions for us to go over before they come," Peeta said, rolling to his side to look at her now that she was done rubbing in the salve. "I think it'll mainly be about the district, you know. Since that's what Cressida and her crew have been going around filming – all the reconstruction that's been going on. How the districts have changed or are coping…" He trailed off, and Katniss realized he was staring at the pearl where it was suspended above her bare chest. She reached up almost unconsciously and rubbed the smooth stone between her fingers.
She didn't want to think about going through the districts at war with the Capitol, filming as thousands of lives were lost. She didn't want to think of Peeta coming along, his whole body and psyche strained to be near her. Compared to their peaceful life now, it seemed a lifetime ago. He was a new person compared to then, having recovered and grown. She suddenly wondered how much he remembered about the pearl. It had hung around her neck for weeks now, and she knew he recognized it, but she had never asked him just how much he remembered. She touched the pearl again and looked down at him watching her.
"Do you remember…?" She asked softly, holding up the pearl. Peeta stared at the pearl for the span of a few minutes, then almost startled her when his impossibly blue eyes locked with hers.
"There was a plan," he said slowly, matter-of-factly, his eyes never leaving hers. "Lightning…" He narrowed his eyes in thought. "I'm sorry, I'm just trying to remember instead of just going off the tapes," he added in quickly.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, but as he spoke she scooted closer and closer.
"We ate a ton of seafood – oysters." He smiled. "And I gave you that pearl."
"Mhmm," Katniss confirmed, "It was after you gave me the locket. After you tried to convince me to save myself," she said in a wry tone.
"Yeah, but when I gave you that pearl, I realized you were still going to try and save me…" He said as if there, half-clothed on her bed, he was realizing it for the first time. Of course the Capitol had tortured him into believing that she had tried to kill him. That she was selfish and evil and not even human. They surely distorted his memories of the quell and made him think she was only trying to save herself. So for him to now remember what he had truly thought back in the clock arena, it was a small miracle.
"Real or not real," he said suddenly, "you could really hear the force field?"
Katniss laughed at his question. Of all the things to ask…She knew he must have just remembered that, and she smiled as she shook her head.
"Not real," she said, still grinning. The corners of his mouth twitched up into something of a smile as well. "I made that up. Beetee and Wiress showed me how to see little, uh, chinks in the force field, at the training center." She explained.
"Oh…" Peeta said, and the look on his face told her that more of the puzzle pieces were fitting together. Of course she refused to watch the tapes from the quell, so she had no clue how the Gamemakers had edited it – what scenes they had included, what dialogue they had omitted.
"The pearl, Peeta," Katniss said and moved to where she was sitting beside him on the bed. She took his hand in hers and brought it up to her chest, closing his fingers around the pearl. She closed her eyes for a moment as the heat from his arm pressed against the bony part of her chest warmed her bare skin.
"I kept it with me," she continued, still holding his hand around the stone. "Always. In District Thirteen, after you'd been taken…it gave me hope." She didn't know if she was explaining it right. She didn't know if he would understand, but she knew that she had to tell him.
"It gave me hope that I would get to see you again." She said, and realized that her fingers were gripping his a little too tight. "It was all I had to keep going. To live. Was the hope that I would get to see you again." He looked confused for a moment and Katniss realized that her voice had begun to tremble and tears were welling up in her eyes.
"It was all my fault," she continued, trying to suppress a sob. "We should have never split up. It was all my fault…"
Tears were falling down her cheeks by that time and his look of confusion turned into one of dawning recognition, then muted pain. Of course he might blame her when he finally remembered what had happened in the arena. That, coupled with all the false kisses and caresses and confessions of love for the camera, and she wouldn't blame him for feeling that way.
Peeta let go of the pearl, and for a second she thought he would move away from her or even leave. But then his hands were cupping her face, his thumbs gently wiping away her tears. His face was close to hers, his blue eyes searching hers. And then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her impossibly close, her hair tickling his bare skin. She laid her head on his shoulder and let the lurching in her stomach settle. She had been so afraid that he would hate her. That he would reject her. Of course the hijacked Peeta had hated her, but he was more of a nightmare than a reality. This Peeta – her Peeta – was kind and strong, loving and patient. And she knew that Haymitch had been right all those times he had said she would never deserve him.
"It's not your fault," Peeta was whispering, one hand stroking her hair as it fell down her naked back. "You didn't know, you couldn't have known. And it's done. It's over." He paused and let out a sigh.
"It's enough just to know that the whole time, you were trying to save me…" He said softly. There was something in his tone that spoke of love, and a sense of wonder.
And as much as she hadn't wanted to admit it, as much as she had denied it – for whatever reason – she realized that she had loved him all along. Her love for him now was true and strong, and perhaps her love for him before had been different, but she realized that little by little she had come to love him. Even before she was fully conscious of it, it had begun to bloom and grow until she had to save him. Until he was everything good in her life, everything good in the world, and he had to be the one to leave the clock arena. If she had lost him, she would have lost everything.
"I love you," she said. And she knew it would never make up for how she had treated him before. A whole lifetime of kindness toward him wouldn't be sufficient atonement. But he didn't blame her. And she wasn't living her life for redemption.
"I never could save you…" She whispered, her head pressed against his shoulder. "It was you. You saved me…"
And she thought about how even before the games started, he had been trying to save her. Revealing his crush in order to win her favor with crowd. To make her desirable. And in the games, telling her to run after she had loosed the trackerjacker hive on the Careers, and even staying behind to fight with Cato. Then asking her to shoot him, to pierce his heart with an arrow so she could win the games. Her love for him had been a ruse for the cameras, a way to earn gifts and stay alive, and then a way to appease President Snow. But how could she have ever thought his love, his devotion toward her was just for show? She was the one who had not put the pieces together.
He pulled back then, just enough to press his lips to hers. And the kiss tasted like salt, and water, from her tears.
It was like the process of healing, how the two found their way back together, how their lives grew with one another. And like the process of healing any wound, any fracture, it was often times painful. Not every day was full of happiness. There were nights where the strain of the day took its toll on them and Katniss could only greet him with bitter words and he could only answer in a heated tone. She would grow silent and close herself off to him, which would only aggravate him further. And sometimes she would yell back at him until he would grab the kitchen counter or a chair not due to one of his flashbacks, but because she infuriated him so.
Like the night he found the birth control. It was deep winter, the coldest of months, and she had been out long past dark. She had packed a small battery-powered light to find her way back through the woods, her thick layers of clothing slowing her down. She had tried to hurry back, half-worried that Peeta would miss her or that a pack of wild dogs might find her. The only animals she saw, though, were an owl, a fox, and a few raccoons, their eyes glowing eerily in the darkness. She had been relieved when she saw the lights of the houses in the distance and sped up her pace, arriving breathlessly at her back door minutes later. She had climbed the steps and stood sweating in the warm kitchen as she pulled off layer after layer of clothing. That's when she saw Peeta sitting at the far end of the kitchen, the box that contained the tiny blue pills in their clear plastic coverings set beside him on the table.
She was unwrapping the thick scarf around her neck when his eyes locked with hers, a look of betrayal on his face.
"Can we talk about these…?" He managed, picking up one of the packages.
And suddenly she was angry with him. She had hurried home so that he wouldn't worry about her out there in the dark, had just walked in through the door, and without even a greeting he was asking her about the birth control pills? A bitter voice in her head wondered if he would have even been worried had she not returned. She let out a noise of exasperation, throwing the unwound scarf to the ground, and made sure her boots hit the wooden floor solidly with each step she took toward her bedroom – and away from him. He rose to follow her, though, the box in one hand.
"Katniss, can we please talk about this?" He asked again, his voice more forceful.
"I just stepped in the door," she answered, her tone strained. She sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced her boots. He stood in the doorway, the box of pills still in his grip.
"Just please explain this to me…" He said, his tone a tad gentler.
"What were you doing? Going through my stuff?" She countered, her voice filled with venom. She sat there, her arms crossed over her chest, and waited for his reply.
"I wasn't going through your stuff," he spat back. "I just found these, in the bathroom." He tossed the box toward her and it hit the ground, the pill packages spilling all over the floor.
She could have screamed at him. She could have pulled at her hair, she was so furious. She could have thrown her boots back on and stalked back off into the wilderness. But it would have been to no avail. She paused and took a deep breath, pressing her hands to her face.
"It's my body, Peeta," she said, her hands rubbing her eyes. Eyes that were tired from staring at the bright snow all day. She stood and carefully picked up each pack of pills that had landed on the floor, placing them delicately back into the box. She refused to meet his gaze as she walked past him and into the bathroom, setting the box back in the empty cabinet.
No, not every day was full of happiness. But they always made up. They always forgave each other, and sometimes even laughed over their spats. She would smile to think that he was the one who usually caved and apologized first. He would seek her out, admit his fault, and she couldn't stay mad at him. The way his blond hair fell over his forehead, the sincerity in his blue eyes, his attempt at a remorseful smile – she would narrow her eyes for only a second, then laugh to herself and make her apology as well. All would be forgiven as they embraced or kissed, and all would be forgotten as they lost themselves in each other.
"You're right, it is your body," he said after he had apologized over their confrontation about the birth control pills. He was sitting on the bed, next to her, holding her hand.
"I never wanted to have children, Peeta," she confessed. "Not when I grew up in the Seam, not with the games…" Her voice trailed off. Of course there were no more games, and the people of District Twelve were thriving, but she was still young and scared despite her strength.
"It's just…my family is gone," he spoke softly, breaking the silence that had settled in between them. "I mean my brothers, my mother and father." He corrected. She looked up from their hands and met his gaze.
"You're my family now," he continued. "And one day, I was just hoping we could expand it."
"Peeta, I – " she started, but he cut her off before she could argue with him.
"Not any time soon," he said quickly, and she didn't argue further.
She gave him a look, but he just sat there with such hope on his features that she was afraid this was an argument she was going to lose one day.