A/N: Why did the goose cross the road? To nest in the yard of the alcoholic ;)
PEETA POV
It took me two additional weeks to recover enough from the burns in order to properly be fitted for my new prosthetic. I hated looking down at the angry scars that made up the stump where my leg used to be. I'd never feel anything on my right foot again. Not grass, not soil, not hardwood floors, not water. It seemed silly, mourning for a lost foot when I'd lost my brother, my friends, my child and, seemingly, my wife as well, but it seemed that every piece of me was all that I had left, and even I wasn't whole anymore.
Haymitch called me every day to update me on what Katniss was up to. Apparently, he forced his way into her house every night for dinner and made her talk to Dr. Aurelius, who wasn't getting very far considering how stubborn Katniss was. She wasn't telling him anything, only answering yes or no or giving very short answers. She never talked to me, nor did she want to talk to me.
Cailean thankfully didn't disappear from my life with his sister. He came to visit me a few times, as he was helping design the most comfortable and most efficient prosthetic leg for me that he could. "If I come up with any better designs, you'll be the first to know. I won't stop until you've got your leg back," he told me.
"That'll never happen, so I guess you'll never stop," I told him, attempting to be lighthearted but failing.
"Don't give up yet on hope, bràthair . I was experimenting with lizards and how they can regenerate limbs in Fourteen," he told me, calling me the Gàidhlig word for 'brother'. I supposed that I was his only brother left, even though I wasn't his brother by blood. He'd lost all of his other brothers, leaving just the guy who married his sister, which happened to be me.
"You are not giving me green lizard legs," I teased him, resulting in probably the first genuine smile I saw come from him since the end of the war.
"When you get out of here, where are you headed off to?" Cailean asked me. "Wherever Katniss is, I'm assuming?"
"She's in Twelve right now, so I'll be going there," I replied. "What about you?"
"I wanted to give up the position of Senator for Thirteen, but they wouldn't let me, said it's a bad idea to change up the senate so soon and before the elections next year. They said I don't have to live in Thirteen if I didn't want to, that I could live in the Capitol if I wanted to, but I said no. I don't want to live underground or underwater or in one of these damned sky high birds nest kind of places. I want to live by the sea, where I can walk outside and smell the salty air and not be trapped under the waves. I'll be going to Four in a couple of days. Already got me a house there. Carolina's coming, too. Said she loved what she did with Fourteen, but that Fourteen isn't going to have any residents once the people move back to Thirteen or even to the other districts so it'll be converted into a research facility. She said I'd have my own personal lab." He chuckled gently. "We're sharing the house. It has three bedrooms. When Katniss is better, you two should come and visit."
"I'd love to. Katniss wants to move to Four so we might be your neighbours," I told him with a smile.
It took almost three weeks for me to properly get adjusted to the prosthetic after trying model after model after model and then finally select one and learn how to walk on it. It was strange, at first, but I guess not all that different from walking with a regular foot. The only difference was, I now felt the pressure of each step about a foot up my right leg, while my left foot still felt the ground. Now that I was healed, my hair and my eyebrows were growing in nicely and I could finally walk properly, I finally felt fit and ready to go home to Katniss in District Twelve. It had been five weeks since I had last seen her, since she ran off to Twelve, and I couldn't wait to wrap my arms around her. I hoped she'd made some progress and wasn't so afraid of me anymore, but when I called Haymitch the day before I was officially discharged from the hospital, my hopes faded away.
"I told her you were comin' in a few days," Haymitch told me over the phone.
"And what'd she do?" I asked him, and he snorted.
"Locked me out of her house. I ain't seen her in two days," he replied. Suddenly, I heard the sound of honking coming from the background on Haymitch's side. "Hey! Get your grubby webbed feet off the damn table!" I heard him hiss at something.
"Haymitch," I said when he came back to the phone. "What the fuck was that?"
"I started raising a family of geese. Sue me," he replied nonchalantly. "And some chickens, too. Keep me fed by givin' me eggs." I couldn't help but shake my head and laugh gently.
"In your house? "
"It was rainin'!"
"They're geese, Haymitch. They like the water!"
"Not when it's thunderin' and lightnin'!" I couldn't suppress the laugh at the thought of Haymitch's house being basically an overgrown chicken coop.
"Can you get permission for me to bring Katniss to District Four? Her brother's there and she talked about wanting to live in Four. I think the ocean would be good for her, and so will being with her brother. He's all she's got left."
"That ain't true. She's got you and me, too, boy. But I'll try and see if they'll let us take her to Four. I wouldn't mind a nice little vacation by the shore." A couple of days later, I was stepping off of the train and onto the platform of the District Twelve train station, greeted by Haymitch, who raised his flask in the air. "Look at you, boy! The picture of health!" he said to me as we approached each other, and I couldn't help but hug the mentor that I had come to see as my father when I saw him there. "C'mon, let's go and get your girl."
Haymitch and I walked to Victors' Village, my gait slower and clumsier than his now that I had my prosthetic leg. I had a cane, but I hated using it, so I held it as I walked. As we approached Victors' Village, we both saw Katniss walking up towards her house and while I didn't want to startle her, I felt my heart start racing the second I saw her and became excited at the thought that, just maybe, when she saw me this time, she'd run to me and throw herself into my arms. "Katniss!" I called, and when she looked in my direction, I could see the utter look of terror on her face and she ran into her house as I ran towards her. I was just close enough to hear the door lock behind her and I let out a sigh as I felt Haymitch's hand on my upper back.
"I told you she ain't been well, boy... Do you wanna drop your stuff off at your old place or mine?" he asked me.
"I'm not leaving her doorstep until she comes out," I said stubbornly, and Haymitch snorted.
"This is the first I've seen her leave that house, boy. I don't think she's plannin' on leavin' anytime soon," he told me.
"She's gotta come out sometime," I said, sitting down on her front steps with my back to the door. I was angry now, but not with her. With the war, mostly, and what it did to us. What it did to her mind to make her afraid of me. The first day I returned to Twelve, I camped out in front of her door almost the entire day, falling asleep against her door and waking up to Haymitch throwing a blanket around me at dawn. A few hours later, he told me to come inside of his house and talk to Dr. Aurelius while he waited outside of Katniss's door.
"Have you seen her at all?" the man asked me.
"No. Well, I saw her when we first got here but only for about a minute. Since then, there's no sign of life in her house. All her windows and doors are locked and she hasn't come out. I don't know if it's me that did something or what," I replied to him.
"I don't think it has anything to do with you, Peeta, I think that all of this has to do with fear," Dr. Aurelius told me.
"But she wasn't afraid of Haymitch, or Carolina or anyone else!"
"Has she spoken to her brother, do you know?"
"Haymitch says he spoke to Cailean yesterday and Cailean hasn't heard from her, either. But they've seen each other since the end of the war."
"It sounds to me like she's become terrified of losing you to the point where her mind has convinced her that she needs to push you away before you leave her."
"But I'd never do that! I love her!"
"I know you do, Peeta. The mind works in strange ways. It's very evident that Katniss is fearful of something, but I don't believe it's you that she's afraid of. From what I heard of the legendary Katniss Everdeen, she faces the things she's afraid of, but she isn't facing you, which means you aren't what she fears."
"How do you know that for sure? I was quite the sight when she saw me in the hospital."
"But you're not now, are you? There was no reason for Katniss to love you before the war and fear you after it, not when you didn't do anything to her. There's something else at play here." I let out a sigh. "Keep trying to get through to her, and I'll keep calling, but don't try and force entry into her house unless this goes on for much longer. She'll learn to resent you. Leave that to someone who has room to be resented by her. Find a way to get her to open the door."
How exactly does one get the most stubborn girl in the world to open the door when she doesn't want to? I started brainstorming, writing down ideas on a list from something as innocent as inviting her brother to Twelve to something as drastic as starting a fire, and then I let out a sigh. There was no way I was going to get through to Katniss. She'd convinced herself that she'd lost me and now, I've lost her. One of Haymitch's geese started nipping at my prosthetic leg and I let out a sigh as I watched it waddle away. Perhaps Haymitch had an idea.
HAYMITCH POV
Of course Haymitch had an idea. Haymitch is a fuckin' genius. Haymitch was the one that came up with the star-crossed lovers idea that got those two idiots out of the Games alive. "Break down the goddamn door," I told the boy when he approached me for suggestions.
"Dr. Aurelius said not to force entry into her home. It might make her resent us," the boy told me as he struggled to sit down on the girl's front steps.
"She already resents me so I don't give a shit," I replied, making my way towards the door, but the boy stopped me.
"No," he said firmly. "We're not breaking her door down, or any doors! We're not going inside that house unless she invites us in!"
"Well, she ain't invitin' us in yet!" I exclaimed angrily.
"I know... Let me try talking to her." The boy turned around and knocked on the door, but there was no response, of course, so he knocked again. "Katniss?" he called hopelessly, pathetically. I let out a sigh as I watched this poor lovesick boy talk to a door. "Katniss, I know you're there, I can sense you..." Oh boy. I took a sip from my flask. "Honey, I don't know what's going on with you right now but I wanted to tell you that I love you and I really miss you. Please come out and talk to me. I want to help you, but I can't help you if you don't come out. It's not good for you to be locked up inside your house for days on end... Please? Talk to me." There was no answer, of course, and he sighed as I sat down on the steps next to him as he turned back to rub his leg.
"How's the leg?" I asked the boy.
"Sore. They said it would be," he replied.
"That contraption there looks sore," I told him.
"Yeah... Cailean invented it, said he wanted to go with the most comfortable design he could come up with. I don't know if it'll ever be comfortable though, it's a fake leg."
"I can't imagine havin' a fake leg. You're braver than me, kiddo." I took another sip of my flask, and we sat there in silence until the sun started to set. "I have an idea."
"For what?"
"For pissin' in the bushes. What else would I have an idea for? Gettin' the girl out, of course!"
"What's your idea?" I smirked and chuckled to myself, then dipped from my flask again.
"You'll see. Tomorrow, eight in the mornin', get one of them baskets from your old place and meet me at mine. This'll get her out."
PEETA POV
What. The. Hell. Goes. Through. That. Man's. Head. I gotta hand it to him, though. If what we were about to do to Katniss happened to me, then I would be out of my house in a heartbeat. In the basket that Haymitch had asked me to bring were breadcrumbs, and following in almost a militaristic formation behind us were all of Haymitch's geese and chickens. All of them. There were easily twenty chickens and maybe ten or fifteen geese. We approached the side of Katniss's house and at about chin level was the bottom of the window that overlooked her sink in the kitchen. "She's probably locked her windows," I said to Haymitch as I made eye contact with one of the chickens. It seemed to look straight through me.
"Not a problem," said Haymitch, picking up a rock.
"Haymitch, no! " I screeched, but before I could stop him, he'd already smashed the window.
"Haymitch, yes! " said the older man in response, highly amused with his seemingly genius idea.
"This is a serious invasion of privacy!"
"Do you want the girl back or not?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then start handin' me birds." One by one, Haymitch lifted the geese and chickens into Katniss's house through the now broken window until we were out of birds to put into Katniss's house. There were easily thirty birds waddling around her house now, and Haymitch dusted off his hands and brushed the feathers off of his sleeve. "Now let's head to the fountain and wait for little miss stubborn to come out." There was no way Haymitch's plan wasn't going to work - Katniss wouldn't be able to escape the incessant honking and clucking of the over thirty birds now occupying her house. As much as I didn't want to smile at the thought of breaking Katniss's window, I couldn't contain my giddiness.
Sure enough, twenty minutes later, the front door to Katniss's door opens and there she stands, dressed in pyjamas with steam coming out of her ears from her discovery of her unwanted guests. Haymitch and I, seated on the fountain that was outside of her home, looked up at her. I hid my smile, but Haymitch smirked and raised his flask to her. "Afternoon, sweetheart. Having a good day?" he asked her. A chicken seemingly came out of nowhere and landed on her head, and the fire in her eyes was almost comical.
"Get your fucking birds out of my house," she hissed at him in her Hebridean accent that I missed so much. She shooed the chicken from her head and continued to glare at Haymitch.
"Gladly, but on one condition: you gotta let the boy and I in to get 'em," Haymitch replied, standing up and approaching her house. I followed behind, but stayed a couple of feet behind him, and I watched her face as her eyes quickly darted to me before turning back to Haymitch, and she stepped aside. "Good choice, sweetheart. C'mon, son." The two of us walked into her house, Haymitch proudly and I nervously, and all three of us stood in the foyer of her home as Haymitch surveyed the damage. "Guess I got some wranglin' to do."
"And clean up all their shit when you're done!" Katniss snapped at him as he headed into her living room.
"Whatever the princess demands," I heard Haymitch say. He'd left both Katniss and I in the foyer alone. I cleared my throat, having prepared for the moment I finally saw Katniss. She looked ill, as if she hadn't eaten in days. She was pale, her hair was a mess, her clothes looked old and I won't even get into the smell of the place - it wasn't just the birds.
"Katniss," I said finally. "We need to talk."
"Not in the mood," she said, moving to go upstairs, but I stopped her by standing in her way.
"No. You're not running away, you're not hiding up in your room and you're not burying yourself in your bed sheets again. Katniss, this is getting ridiculous. I'm your husband . You married me two years ago and now you think I'll just let you get away with shutting me out and locking yourself in your room? No! This has to stop, and it's stopping now and you're not going to fight me on this. Do you understand?" I said to her firmly, and she narrowed her eyes at me.
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to? I'm not a fucking child," she spat back. She was so stubborn, but even her venomous remark was weak from fatigue and depression.
"Really? Because you're acting like it, Katniss. Running away from your problems and trying to pretend that they don't exist? That's acting like a child, so if you're going to act like a child, then I'm going to treat you like one. I'm not even going to ask you why you've suddenly started treating me like you hate me all of a sudden, so I'll just tell you this. Pack your things. We're going to District Four." She stared at me, her face devoid of emotion as my words cut into her. This was the face of a broken girl who didn't have any fight left in her, whether it be from the war exhausting her or her own mind causing all this fatigue. I wasn't going to let her push me away any longer, and frankly, I believed her to simply be exhausted from the effort of pushing me away.
"Why," she said tiredly, not as a question or a statement, but just simply the word.
"Why? Because you told me you wanted to move to Four after the war, to be near the ocean and all the familiar things of Hebridia," I answered her.
"Why are you doing this," she said, again without question or statement. Her voice was laced only with exhaustion, as she had used up the last of her energy trying to run away from me again, or yelling at Haymitch to get his birds out of her house. A goose waddled by and honked, and we ignored it as it passed us and waddled into the kitchen.
"You know why," I told her, and she shook her head. "Yes you do. You tell me why I'm doing this." She looked away, her eyes distant in some far away place in her mind. She remained silent, and I vowed not to answer her question until she could answer it herself. "I'm going to leave you alone tonight, but I need you to pack everything you need because we're taking the morning train out to Four. Take a shower, too. You smell like you haven't bathed in days." She sent a glare at me but I held firm. "I'm choosing to trust you. I probably shouldn't, but I am. I'm not going to take a key to this house. Leave that door unlocked. If you try to lock me out again, I swear Katniss that I will kick down that door and every door you put between us. Do you understand me?" She nodded quietly, staring down at the floor again. "Good. Now, I'll help Haymitch get all these birds out of your house, you go upstairs and start packing." It took her a moment to get moving but she did, and I watched as she went up to her bedroom and closed the door behind her.
She didn't lock the front door. When I came over at seven in the morning to cook her breakfast, she was awake, fully packed and freshly bathed, but the sad and distant look hadn't left her eyes. She sat at the table while I cooked her eggs and bacon and I buttered a piece of bread and set all of it in front of her, then made her a cup of tea the way I knew she liked it - well sugared with a splash of milk. I left her to eat while I went upstairs to collect her bags, only two, and set them downstairs to wait next to mine, and then I went to visit Haymitch to see if he was ready to go as well. By a quarter to eight, we were all standing on the platform.
"You really think gettin' her to Four will help her?" Haymitch whispered to me when Katniss was out of earshot.
"Yeah," I replied. "It's the closest to home she'll ever have." When the train arrived, we settled into a compartment, Katniss against the window and Haymitch and I as far as we could get from her to give her some space. She was silent for most of the ride, and about three hours in, Haymitch excused himself to find the bathroom and she glanced at me.
"So it's true," she said, now looking down at my right foot. Just under the hem of my pants, she could see the metal leg of the prosthetic. I let out a sigh.
"You heard?" I asked, and she nodded. "Yeah, it's true... Got blown off by one of those parachutes. Donnel saved me."
"I heard that too," she said, looking back out the window. She didn't say another word. When we arrived in Four, Cailean and Carolina met us at the station. The salty scent of the ocean air hit me as I exited the train and watched perhaps the first smile on Katniss's face as she ran into the arms of her brother, who held her tightly and spoke to her in Gàidhlig.
We settled into Cailean and Carolina's home. I slept on the couch while Haymitch slept either on the floor or in an armchair, Carolina had her own room and Cailean had his own room, while Katniss took the third bedroom. I wanted to stay with her, but given her current mental state, I didn't want to push her any further than I already have. That didn't mean that I didn't run to her when I heard her screaming from a nightmare. The first night we were there, she was screaming in terror and I ran to her, throwing the door open and taking her into my arms and she shook and cried into my shoulder. "Shhh, Katniss, honey, it's okay! It's okay, it's only a nightmare, it's not real!" I told her, rubbing her back and rocking her back and forth. I held her until she stopped sobbing and only gently shook with every hiccup, and then she looked up at me. "It's only a nightmare," I told her, wiping a tear from her cheek. She only nodded, then crawled back under the covers into a little ball. She hadn't asked me to stay so I didn't want to push her, but I stayed on the bench beneath the bay window while she slept, watching over her like a protector.
For the first few days, she kept to herself a lot, but would spend a lot of time speaking to Cailean in the language that they spoke, but none of us understood. Three days into our visit to Four, I woke up to the smell of eggs as Katniss and Cailean made breakfast in the kitchen. "Can I help?" I asked them, and they both looked at me. "I have a great recipe for pancakes."
"Pancakes sound great," said Cailean, and he looked at his sister. "What do you think, Kat?" She was silent for a moment before she nodded gently.
"Pancakes sound good," she replied quietly, returning to the onions she was chopping. I got to work throwing flour, sugar, eggs and every other ingredient needed for pancakes into a bowl and started cooking them in a pan. I felt a pair of eyes on me and when I turned to meet them, I saw Katniss look away towards the floor, but I sent a smile her way anyway. She must have felt it because a gentle blush formed on her cheeks and she turned back to the counter, her back to me. It was a step in the right direction, and I couldn't contain the smile on my face that didn't fade for the rest of the day.
"I think she misses you," Cailean told me one evening as I worked in the garden in his backyard. It was a small yard and was mostly a garden, but I loved tending to the herbs and flowers he and Carolina had planted back there. My back was to him and I hadn't heard him walk out, and I looked over my shoulder at him.
"How do you know?" I asked him curiously. "Does she mention me?"
"I mention you, and she goes flush in her cheeks whenever I mention your name," he told me.
"I don't know if that means she misses me," I said. "And besides, it's not like I'm far away. I'm literally in the next room over."
"Maybe 'miss' isn't the right word," he replied. "I know she longs for you. Everything you do for her doesn't go unnoticed. She sees everything and she misses you, but she doesn't want to lose you. She doesn't feel safe yet, and doesn't feel like the war is quite over. In her mind, Snow could come back at any time and take you away from her."
"Did she tell you this?" He nodded.
"Only the part about her not feeling safe yet. It doesn't take a genius to know that it's you she worries about the most. She's my sister, I've always been able to read her, but now that we're all that's left of our family, we know each other better."
"What should I be doing?"
"What you're doing is perfect. Giving her space, but being a constant presence in her life. Always being around her, loving her from a distance. I know how much she hates that she's afraid of her own mind right now. She wants to be with you but there's something in her that's preventing that from happening."
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"You know my sister, Peeta. She has to fight her demons on her own, but she will let you support her." We shared a simple knowing smile with one another. Katniss would come back to me, but it was hard to know when that would be, and it became harder and harder every day to resist taking her into my arms and kissing her.
She went to the beach with Cailean every day to be near the ocean, just for a few hours before coming back and busying themselves in conversation. Five nights into our visit to Four, there was an announcement on the newscast with the newly nominated President Paylor who was to give her first address as President of Panem. It came on very suddenly while Carolina and I were on the floor putting together a puzzle. She and I both scooted you against the same couch that Katniss had been sitting on to face the screen to watch the announcement when suddenly, I felt fingers in my hair. I looked up and met Katniss's eyes - she was playing with my hair, running her fingers through it. She and I exchanged a glance and held each other's gaze for several moments before she rested her hand on her lap and looked back up at the screen. Another step.
Early in the morning on the sixth day of our stay in Four, I went to Katniss's room to check on her, but she wasn't there. Knowing she liked to go for walks on her own sometimes, I left the house to walk along the boardwalk that bordered the sand, seeing her lone figure standing with her ankles in the waves. She was dressed in her pyjamas and her hair hung loose as it fluttered in the salty breeze. I wondered then if I should go to her and simply hold her, but I decided against it. Things were going well and I didn't want to upset her, so I simply returned to the house and worked in the garden. Maybe twenty minutes later, a voice startled me - her voice. "I know why you're doing all of this," she told me, startling me, and I looked up at her with a look of surprise.
"Katniss," I said when I saw that it was her who had startled me.
"You're doing this because you love me," she told me. My voice caught in my throat as I heard her words and it was the first time she had acknowledged our relationship since the end of the war, now going on eight weeks ago. It was early October and there was a slight chill in the air, and by slight chill I mean that the air in Four wasn't eighty degrees anymore.
"Yeah," I whispered back, unable to say anything more. She nodded, then turned to go back into the house. She closed herself in her room, but didn't lock the door. She wanted to be left alone and I respected that. She was in her room for the duration of the day, and in the time that she was in there, Carolina had convinced me to go with her and Haymitch to the market to get my mind off of my worry for Katniss, and when we returned, Cailean handed me a note.
"She told me to give you this," he told me, 'she' being Katniss, and I took it and read it:
Peeta,
Meet me on the rocks by the beach. I want to talk to you. - K
My stomach dropped, from what I'll never know. She wanted to talk to me alone. Was she going to tell me that she didn't love me anymore? That she wanted me to leave her alone and never speak to her again? I couldn't bear to be without my Katniss and vowed to off myself if she told me she didn't want me in her life anymore. A life without Katniss wasn't a life worth living, I told myself stupidly. "It's the girl, ain't it?" Haymitch asked me when he noticed how nervous I appeared, and I nodded. "She's finally comin' around. Go and get her back." Haymitch's words were comforting, if not fully making sense, and I swallowed my nerves as I made my way to the rocks to meet her.
The rocks she mentioned were placed there by man long ago meant to help prevent the erosion of the beach, as well as mark the inlet where the fishing boats came through. They were large, jagged, black and shiny from the waves that crashed up against them and I knew Katniss liked to climb them and get out as far into the sea as they could carry her. When I arrived at the rocks, I saw her standing on them, silhouetted against the setting sun, and she looked beautiful. Her chocolate brown curls were flowing free and she wore her mother's traditional Hebridean dress. She looked so perfect, so serene, so her . I couldn't resist staring at the beauty that stood before me and I made my way to her carefully, daring my prosthetic to slip and ruin the moment. As I finally approached the rather large rock that she stood on, I slipped, and her quick reflexes allowed her to turn to me just in time to grab my hand, preventing me from falling in between the rocks. She held onto my hand tightly and kept her beautiful grey eyes on mine and helped me back into the rock, refusing to let go of my hand.
We stood there motionless, staring into each other's eyes as the waves crashed on the rocks around us and the sun set over the ocean before us. It felt like an eternity before one of us broke the silence. "You... you wanted to talk?" I asked her, reminding her of the reason that we were there, and she nodded gently.
"Yes," she replied, and she turned to face the sun. "Another sunset... There were days that I didn't think I'd live to see another one. Granted, the sunsets looked different in Twelve... but it was always the same sun." I was confused now; why was she talking about the sunset? Did she bring me here to talk about the sun? "There were many sunsets that I saw because of you... maybe all of them. After you gave me the bread, I lived to see another one. And another one. And many, many more. I thought I'd spend the rest of my life watching them alone... but here we are, watching one together." She continued to hold my hand in hers, and then she turned towards me again and raised our hands together, placing her other hand over mine. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there, Peeta..." It was the first time she had uttered my name in weeks.
"You have nothing to apologise for," I told her, placing my free hand over hers, and she shook her head.
"Why are you always so kind and forgiving?" she asked me. "I've done nothing to deserve your kindness and yet, you never fail to give it to me. Of course I have to apologise. You've done nothing to deserve the way I've treated you these last few weeks. I should have been there by your side, and instead, I ran away from you."
"You were scared..."
"There's no excuse. I shouldn't have done it. I made a commitment to you the day I married you and I broke the promises that I gave you."
"Katniss..."
"You don't deserve this. You deserve someone who will treat you right..."
"Is that all you think that you do? Treat me badly?" I was waiting for her to say something along the lines of 'you deserve someone who loves you', but those words never came out of her mouth, because she knew it would be a lie to imply that she didn't love me. She looked down at our hands entwined between us, silent. "There is no one but you who thinks that I don't deserve you."
"That isn't true. Haymitch thinks I don't deserve you."
"He's never once said that to me."
"He said it to me once, before the Quell."
"That was before you told me you loved me." She was silent again. "Do you still? Love me?" She now met my eyes as she lifted her head to look at me.
"Of course I do," she whispered. "But I don't think that there is anything I could ever do to make up for what I've done to you."
"You've already done something, and it's more than enough. You love me, you married me, we almost had a child together..." Her eyes teared up at the mention of our lost child and I raised a hand to cup her cheek, and she opened her mouth to speak. "Don't apologise," I interrupted. "It's not your fault. It's no one's fault. Everything happens for a reason and it's a sign that right now, we aren't ready to care for a baby yet. We have to care for each other first before we can allow ourselves to care for a child." She nodded as I wiped a tear from her eye. "When the time is right, we'll know... and we'll have another chance." She smiled gently as she met my eyes again.
"You should go, find someone else. Someone better for you."
"I can't find someone better when I already have the best." I pressed my lips to her forehead and she let go of my hands to walk into my arms, embracing me tightly and holding onto me while I held her. "Don't ever leave me again, do you hear me?" I whispered into her hair, and she nodded.
"I love you, Peeta," she muttered, and I broke our embrace to look at her and caught her chin with my finger.
"I love you, too, Katniss," I replied, and I pressed my lips to hers.
We'd been through so much, this beautiful woman and I. The Games, the rebellion and our own personal demons kept pulling us together and pushing us apart, but now, none of those things stood in the way of our future together. That night, when I brought her back to the house, she refused to leave my arms and we laughed along with Carolina, Cailean and Haymitch. They didn't question us, only smiled and silently expressed their happiness for us both. As we were winding down, Katniss headed to bed before I did and I stayed up a little bit to talk to Cailean, Carolina and Haymitch.
"She's on her way back up," said Cailean of his sister.
"I knew she'd come back. She loves you so much, Peeta. She was so worried about you when she woke up after the bombs went off. She just needed to find her way back to you," Carolina told me.
"That she did," said Haymitch, and I noticed him throwing pillows on the couch and settling down as if he were getting ready for bed. "What?" he asked me when he caught me watching him.
"She didn't say I could stay with her yet," I told him.
"Because she thought it didn't need to be said," came Katniss's voice from the doorway, and I turned my attention to her.
"Ah..." I said, struggling to come up with something to say.
"Come to bed, Peeta," she told me, a smile on her face. I felt like a teenager again who was finally close to the girl I had been in love with since I was eight years old. We'd had sex before and of course, we've seen each other naked, but when she started to undress, I couldn't help but blush and look away as I sat on the bed, wanting to give her some privacy, until she drew my attention to her by sitting on my lap wearing absolutely nothing. She ran a hand through my hair as she held onto my shoulders with the other. "You're nervous?"
"'Course not," I lied, and she laughed gently.
"The colour of your cheeks says otherwise," she whispered to me, then she lowered her lips onto mine to kiss me. This would be the first time we'd made love to each other since a couple of days before the end of the war and it was a day that I was waiting for eagerly, and now that it was here, suddenly I found myself terrified. For weeks, I would dream of her beautiful, naked body and I dreamt of making love to her, finding satisfaction only from my own hand. It wasn't the same, but it helped a little. As she kissed me, she unbuttoned the shirt I was wearing and ran her hands all up and down my bare chest and I felt my pants getting tighter.
"Are you sure you want to do this so soon?" I whispered to her and I heard her chuckle gently.
"Do you not want to? We don't have to if you don't want to," she replied, running a finger up and down my cheek.
"I don't want to push you to do anything you're not ready to do, and I also don't want you to force yourself to do something that you're not ready for," I told her.
"What, do you not want me anymore?" she said with a tease in her voice, and I took her hand and brought it down to the bulge in my pants.
"Say that again?" I asked her, teasing her back, and she laughed, then brought that hand back up to my face.
"Peeta, I want this..." she said, returning to her serious tone. "And I think it'll help me. All this time, Dr. Aurelius and Haymitch were trying to get me to do all different kinds of therapy, but truthfully, I think the best form of therapy for me is you. I haven't felt this happy since before the war ended and it's because I'm in your arms, loving you and holding you tightly."
"Are you sure about this?" I whispered to her one final time, and she nodded.
"I want to do the sex with you," she said playfully, and we both shared a laugh before engaging one another in a deep, passionate kiss. She undid the zipper of my pants and started to slip them down my waist, but I felt my hands stop hers, and she broke our kiss to look at me.
"This is the first time we'll be doing this with me not... whole..."
"Peeta... I'll love you the same no matter much man or metal you are. So you're missing a leg - who cares? You're not missing your heart or your mind and that's what matters most, isn't it?" I smiled at her and nodded, then let her resume removing my clothes and she took me into her hand, startling me somewhat, and she pushed me back down onto the bed.
This lovemaking wasn't just celebrating the fact that she had been so unwell and was finally breaking free of that, it was so much more. This love celebrated the winning of the rebellion, it celebrated the life that we were both so privileged to still have and even more privileged to share together, it celebrated the certainty of the rest of our lives and it celebrated the start of the next step in our lives together. We loved each other dearly, closely, passionately, and we wouldn't stop until the sun began to rise, when we finally fell asleep still joined at our hips. It didn't matter that mentally, we were both still scarred from what the Games had done to us, and it didn't matter that I had half of a leg to work with. Our love was pushed to its breaking point and it still held strong - it was the kind of love that would last for all of eternity.
They say that life is a game, almost. You play to win, but in the end, we're all dead. It doesn't matter what we do to get to that point because the end result is all the same. But I suppose there are worse games that we could play - in fact, I know that there are worse games to play because I've played them, and I've won them. But winning those games brought about demons that hung around and brought storm clouds to rain on my sunny days. It's important to remember that when the storm clouds roll in, they may hang around for a while, blow shit around and rain enough to fill the oceans twice over, but in the end, those clouds will always float away and the sun will shine, leaving a rainbow in their place to grace the skies. Rainbows will always follow rainstorms.
The Games were my storm clouds and Katniss was my rainbow. I couldn't wait to see what treasures awaited me on the other side of the rainbow.