AN: For hotpielookedlikehotpie who submitted this prompt ("It was her death that played in his head over and over, and Peeta Mellark is sure that he'll never get over Katniss Everdeen. Until he starts seeing her throughout his day. But are ghosts real?") to SF and I just couldn't get over it so I wrote this (with her permission).

"The mind is tricky. The mind is fragile. The mind can't handle a dead line. Warning: MCD, this ain't a happy one folks. Also, this one deals with suicide and difficult themes, if you want to talk, I'm always available through PM or I highly recommend IMAlive which is an online support service or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)


"Pick up, pick up, pick up."

It's a chant that's almost religiously ceremonial on these dark nights. The ones where the moon light doesn't quite reach the chair he perches on against the kitchen wall.

The loneliness starts to creep in and he can feel how cold his toes are as they touch on the ceramic flooring that the Capitol laid with such precision all those years ago. The house creaks its haunting rhythm as the line rings repeatedly and the clouds pass in the night sky.

"Pick up," he moans weakly, his palm grasping his face and his fingers pressing into his eye sockets. He sees red through the pressure and sighs heavily, dropping the phone back into the latch and running his hands along the back of his neck before squeezing until the skin reddens.

He sits for an hour, breathing steady and body prone, before heading up to his room and curling into his cold sheets.


"Ten coins for the chicken."

He hands over twelve coins and nods to the woman with greasy skin and greying hair. He's learned not to judge here in the Hob – or at least what was rebuilt of the Hob - the old one burnt with the district and his family so long ago now.

"Boy, you're setting a bad standard here. You'll get a reputation," Haymitch warns from behind him. He wasn't sure the stink of liquor was his old mentor or another resident of the district who was still managing to drown themselves in the clear liquid.

Things had changed since the bombings. Since the war. Since everything. People had come back from District 13 like expected, but they'd come back hollowed out. There was still a particular Seam thread but the Merchant kind was gone, nearly wiped out by the bombs and the ashes stomped down by bitter survivors. Now the Hob thrived, struggle was the norm, and the ache of living could be seen in everyone's gaze.

The Capitol had fallen. That much was true.

"It's not my fault they waste their government coins on me. The least I can do is not store them away." He responds and pulls the strap of his bag over his shoulder. "What are you doing out today?"

The old man shrugs listlessly and stares over his shoulder, never quite making eye contact.

"Needed things."

It's then that he catches sight of the familiar long braid snapping through the small crowd of people. The owner has her back to him, their frame hidden beneath a thick worn leather jacket while they stand stock still and speaking to no one in particular.

He takes a step forward and the harassing buzz from the dropped line hisses in his ear.

Looking around the kitchen he replaces the phone and cracks his neck to the side trying to rid himself of the kink that's paining him and the dream fogging his mind.

"Just fucking pick up," he mumbles and stomps from the kitchen like a petulant child.


"What are you doing here?"

She sits at his kitchen table, her hands clasped before her and her hair dishevelled as it coils around her thin frame. She doesn't look at him and he doesn't step towards her.

There's a line between them now, a cavernous distance that can never be crossed. It's like every time he sees her the room fades from his vision and it's only her there, waiting but never acknowledging. It's been like this since the Capitol. Since Snow and Coin and the whole filthy mess at the end of the war.

"I can't deal with this today." He murmurs and returns to his bed and his cold sheets and the room with its lock where she never shows her face.


Every night she comes to him in his dreams. Some nights they're from the train, others from the Quell, some foggy from the war. Those are the worst because he's just not sure. Is she real? Did that happen or has the Capitol tainted it? He can't tell because there's no one to test – no one alive who knows the answers that plague his dreams.

Some nights he doesn't sleep at all, just to hide from himself.

It seems like the biggest tease, the sweet release of sleep to sink into when your body is so tired of hurting, but for him it's never what he expects. The pain only intensifies, pulling him under and holding him there as though he was once again drowning at the Capitol's hands.

It never stopped. There was no escape.

Sometimes on days where he'd walk past her house he'd see her shadow in the window, haunting him and taunting him. Those days he'd lie in bed for hours, debating whether the memories he would have while asleep would be worth the inevitable dreams. Sometimes it was worth the risk.

An hour of happy pleasure before the water-boarding of her at her worst kicked in.

He'd wake up wet, as though actually drowning in his memories, but really only covered in his own sweat. Other times he was paralyzed until he watched it all play out – every last bitter second.


The beeping of a dead line threw him into a panic that he could barely remember. If he had, he'd be ashamed to recall lurching off the stool on which he was perched before clawing at the phone and ripping it from the wall with a flourish. His hands would toss the plastic to the floor before his metal foot would come crashing down, severing the casing with a crunch.

He'd probably remember the way the feeling had vibrated up his leg and into his heart, forcing it to beat wildly as the air disappeared from his lungs.

The memory of crashing across the grass towards Haymitch's house would inevitably be forgotten. Nor would he think of how he'd looked pounding against the heavy wooden door with tears streaking his cheeks.

The look on Haymitch's drunken face, the way it had contorted into indescribable pain, would always flash in his mind's eye no matter how much he longed to forget it.

"I broke it!" He might recall screaming into his mentor's shambled front room. He wouldn't think about the way he'd be barefoot and tracking blood across the hardwood from his torn up feet.

"Broke what?" Haymitch would probably think to ask if they were conversing about this in the future. The man couldn't think it from that night himself – he'd been too far gone to notice anything but the frantic way the boy was moving through the room – but when they talked about it later he'd still want to know before he finished the memory.

"Where is it?" The recollection in Peeta's mind would include the way his voice moaned the question, almost too painful to form words.

"Look kid, I don't – "

"I need it!" He might remember screaming as he burst into the kitchen. Clear as day, he would always think about how the phone had looked as it reflected the moonlight off its sheen.

He'd probably forget how he'd fallen asleep with the ear piece near his head as he lay on the cold floor with the old man watching him from a chair. He definitely wouldn't think about how Haymitch had finished a whole bottle of liquor watching him sleep against the wall, or how he'd cursed the boy and the way he suffered so openly. Or the way he'd been tortured just as much when every groan would be the boy asking her to pick up.

She'd never pick up. That was something he always seemed to forget as well.


Sometimes, on good days as he walked the district he'd see her hiding just beyond the trees. He'd call out to her and watch her braid swish in the light. She'd never answer, but he didn't expect more. Without a thought he'd start talking about his day and how he spent his hours since coming back to the district.

Every breath would be laced with positive thoughts, so distinctly out of character for him now that any passerby would assure others he was crazed and gone mad like poor Annie Cresta from District 4.

But that didn't matter much to him anymore. He waited for these days, for his moments of confession with her hiding in the shadows. They were like cathartic release the way painting had used to be before his images were more violent than anything.

Today he was tossing pebbles against the trunk of a tree as he faced out towards the slowly rebuilding district.

"Why don't you ever pick up anymore?" He asked pitifully under his breath. Never before had he dared to ask point blank but today it had just slipped. No answer came, much like any other question he asked. But he didn't feel anything for it today.

Today he simply pulled himself to his feet and wandered back home.


The day after he woke up on Haymitch's floor with the press mark of the phone in his cheek he came home from the Hob to find a new phone installed on his kitchen wall. This time it was a pale orange, still plastic and still fragile.

He wanted to pick it up and dial her number, just to see if she'd pick up, but he told himself to wait. Instead he prepared dinner for himself and Haymitch, delivering the crudely cooked meat and potatoes to the old man who was already passed out drunk for the night.

Returning to his home Peeta kicked off his shoes and froze, his body paralyzed at the shadow before him.

She was here.

Stepping closer he tried to inspect but was distracted by the cool touch of her fingers on his arm. Before he knew what was happening they had dragged themselves to the guest room at the top of the stairs where he pulled her close and curled her thin frame in his arms.

"I miss you," he whispered into her hair as his hands slipped along her ribs. It was dark as he pulled her against him and let his body heat surround her. Making slow work of her clothes he laid her out before him and tugged at the thin grey sweats she always wore. When only her under garments remained he slid his nose along her stomach, its tip tracing between her breasts as he kept his eyes closed tightly.

It wasn't until his lips pressed against her neck that his hands found the kinks marked there in her skin and he pushed backwards in surprise. Tumbling off the bed he let a grunt out as he hit the floor. When he sat up and looked towards the top of the mattress once again she was already gone and the phone was ringing.


Returning from the Capitol after the war had been a shock to his system. For the first week he hadn't even really been able to function, not alone. He'd been deposited at his house in the Victor's Village and left to his own until breakfast the next day. Greasy Sae had arrived with a prepared plate that she'd set on the counter and left for him to consume alone.

He hadn't even gotten out of bed yet.

Breakfast went cold.

It was a few days after his return that he saw her in the shadows of her windows. He'd picked up the phone, a rare action for him, only to dial her number and listen to the tolling on the other end of the line.

That's when his habit started. The line would ring and ring, teasing him as he watched her form in the windows from his house. He never really got up the courage to go over there and see her, not after everything he'd done in the Capitol. No, it was much better to hide out here until he went a longer time without a hijacking episode.

But he missed her, desperately.

They hadn't talked since the day she'd been taken to the prison after her assassination of President Coin. He'd been locked up with doctors and she'd been on trial for treason. It hadn't been possible. All he wanted right now was to talk to her.

She never picked up though.

Until one time it was around breakfast and he picked up the phone just because he hadn't tried this time of day before.

"Hello?" Her voice crackled on the end, distant and tired. His lips fluttered helplessly as he tried to think of something to say. Anything. At all. "Just let me go." Her voice whispered desperately into the line. He sputtered against the dead air before the line on the other end clicked down.

She'd hung up. The sound of the dead line made him fall into a chair at his kitchen table, keeping him there late into the evening as he fought through the demons in his head. When finally he could see through the ghosts, he moved himself to his feet and slowly pulled on his coat as his muscles protested the simple movement.

In a few quick moments he was across the yard, his heavy steps crunching against the crisp grass before settling heavily on the porch wood. He knocked once, twice, his knuckles rapping against the heavy wood. When still no one answered after a moment he glanced through the window off to the side and gazed into her living room.

It was only a shadow that he saw there.

But it was enough.

Heart in his throat, the door was busted off of its hinges as he forced his way into the house. He couldn't breathe, not while his shoes slipped on the tile as he lunged towards the living room.

"Oh, Katniss, no," he whispered, his voice croaking as his arms wrapped around her legs and lifted her body up. It didn't work, not how he'd expected and he shattered, his desperation clouding him as he rushed to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and a chair.

He didn't let her fall.

Holding her close as the last tether of the rope gave out under the blade, he lowered her to the floor from where she'd hung from the rafters of her home.

She was cold to the touch.

She was a slight blue.

She had lines on her throat from where the rope had pressed against her flesh.

He thought she'd had tears on her eyes but those were his tears, pouring from him as he sobbed over her.

The man who took her body away from him when Haymitch found them said it'd been a day or two.

"But I just talked to her!" He'd screamed at the man's words.

Nobody had believed him.

Nobody.

Not even Haymitch.

So every night he called her, hoping that just this one time she'd pick up. Maybe say how much she missed him. Tell him where she was. Tell him why she'd done it. Tell him when he could join her.

Every night he called. And she hasn't once picked up.