Notes:
Hi friends!
As the summary suggests, this is my attempt at a Grow Together fic, set in Peeta's perspective. It's Canon and Epilogue compliant, but please be warned that there will be some dark times before we get to the fluff.
Also, for anyone who's interested in my other on-going project (Fire in Their Veins), I promise I haven't given up on it! It's still very much active, but I had this idea rattling around in my head for weeks and I had to get it out on a page before I lost it. Comparatively, this one is going to be pretty short (10-15 chapters max) but I'll be updated both simultaneously.
Thanks for reading! Drop a comment if you enjoyed, please!
And you were a house on fire
And I couldn't understand why.
"Burn me all down to the ground," you said,
"The fire is on the inside."
Haymitch told me that she wasn't doing well, but his warning wasn't nearly enough to prepare me for what that meant.
Just the sight of her sends sparks burning through my nervous system. My synapses explode, sending wildly opposing signals all throughout my brain. They wage war on each other, battling for control over my autonomy. Half of me wants to embrace her, to gently coax the pain out and protect her from her own grief. The other half wants to engulf her, to snuff out the flame all together and stomp on the ashes. My fingers dig deeper into the damp earth where I kneel, grasping for something to keep me grounded as she approaches slowly.
I can't help but stare, even when she brushes matted hair out of her eyes and shuffles her bare feet, clear signs that my presence makes her uncomfortable. I don't blame her. I can't. The last time we were this close, I refused her an escape from certain misery, one that I had begged for not long before.
I can still feel the sting of her teeth burrowing into the flesh of my hand, the only obstacle standing in the way of peaceful oblivion. But I couldn't let her do it, even when the confusion in her eyes melted into a smoldering hatred. I held on, despite both she and the monster in my head that the Capitol created screaming at me to let her go. It was one of the most selfish things I've ever done, but I would do it again, a hundred times over. It's funny, but fitting I guess, that it would take the chaos of the world turning upside down to finally allow me my first moment of total clarity in months. In those seconds, mere heartbeats, when I realized what she was about to do and all that mattered was stopping her from succeeding in it, a razor-sharp realization tore it's way through my brain – more powerful, more profound, than all the tracker venom and therapy in the world:
In a world without Katniss Everdeen, the Peeta Mellark that was, would never be again.
But that was a long time ago, and we've been apart for so long now that the woman standing in front of me looks at me as though I'm a stranger – which I suppose I am, in many ways. The Capitol, the old one at least, stripped me of everything I knew to be true and replaced those truths with shining, sinister versions of their own. Most days, with the help of exhaustive hours of therapy and handfuls of medication, I'm able to piece together what was real and what was altered, enough that I can almost pass as a functioning member of the peaceful society we fought so hard for. On other days though, the bad ones, I wake up screaming. On those days, the only emotions offered are terrified, disoriented and so, so angry, and my reflection in the mirror is just another face I don't know. Dr. Aurelius says that things will get easier with time and continued treatment. I haven't decided if I believe him yet.
I've become distracted, so focused on the flickering reel of my last memories of her and I together that I'm still unabashedly staring when she speaks to me for the first time since then.
"You're back."
It's a statement, not a question. She says it as though she's always known that my presence back in this ghost yard was inevitable – it was just a matter of when. But there's no 'Welcome Home' in her voice. The words are brittle and monotone, spoken through a mouth that has forgotten how to smile. I wonder, shamefully, if my absence has had anything to do with her lack of recovery, and my response comes out in that apologetic tone I know she hates.
"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," I tell her. The smooth skin between her eyebrows creases. It's a warning – the impending interrogation forming behind it is clear as day. She wants to know why, and my pulse quickens at the thought of having to explain away why it has taken me months to get back to her. There's no easy way to tell someone that despite your best efforts, the mere mention of their name might still cause you to become a violent weapon without warning. It's taken me months to convince my circulating team of doctors that I am safe, no longer a threat, and it's taken me ten times as long to convince myself. But I'd never be able to lie to her if the question left her mouth, so I swing the conversation around before it ever leaves her tongue.
"By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending to treat you forever. You have to pick up the phone."
The forehead crease deepens. Her posture becomes a little straighter. I know I've succeeded in blocking her train of thought when she flicks her eyes away from mine, searching for anything else to focus on but herself. She lands on the red wheelbarrow full of bushes beside me.
"What are you doing?" she asks, with just a hint of accusation.
I turn to look at the wheelbarrow, too. Suddenly, I'm filled with doubt about my optimistic plans. Early this morning, when I saw them sitting there just beyond the meadow, outside the old fence line and untouched by the bombs, there had been no hesitation. The soft, pink buds dotted throughout the greenery were beautifully delicate, but I knew they had to have been resilient too, to make it through the fires that burned down so much of our district. When the name of the flower finally came to me, a rush of memories hit me square in the chest. A thin, blonde girl with her nose pressed against the bakery windows. The same girl screaming for her sister from the crowd below the stage. Of the girl who treated me with compassion and kindness, even when her own world was falling apart. Of Primrose Everdeen, the little girl who had to grow up far too quickly, but who had never lost her capacity to love. The memories burned my throat with unshed tears as they took form from the fog of my mind, because Prim would never have the chance to make new ones to replace the old. Still, I had to smile in the glow of the sun's first rays. She would have wanted us to think of her with happiness, and she would have been proud to know that not one of my memories of her was the least bit shiny.
"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her," I say gently.
I was halfway back to the meadow before my head had caught up with my feet. The wheelbarrow was full of gardening tools I'd taken from the shed in my backyard that I'd never bothered to open before, but my load felt as light as air. The primroses felt like a sign. A peace offering. Something beautiful to remind Katniss that life could still be allowed a chance after all the horrible things we'd had to endure. It had seemed like such an obvious action – to pull these bushes from their secluded woods and to re-home them out in the open, where we could see them flourishing every day. Where we could see her every day, smiling and laughing and encouraging us to heal.
"I thought we could plant them along the side of the house."
Originally, I had planned on doing this alone. When he came to pick me up from the train station, Haymitch had told me not to rush her. He'd said that she was still broken, needed time to pick up all the pieces herself, and that seeing me would only make the cracks more pronounced. I didn't mean to break the promise I'd made to him, that I would stay away until she told me not to, but I guess even after two arenas and a war, my body still refuses to be quiet. I wasn't overly surprised when she came to investigate, and it was somehow soothing to know that whatever was happening to Katniss in her mind, her hunter's instincts hadn't given up yet. But seeing her now, more broken and vacant than I could have imagined, it seems like a crime not to include her in this, my memorial for the sister she mourns.
I can see her mind working, turning gears over inside her skull as she sharpens her stare. When she hones in on the delicate blooms, her face contorts to that well-practiced grimace of fury and my stomach drops, horrified that my good intentions have done the opposite of what I'd hoped. But the fury only lasts a moment, replaced with one emotion and then another in rapid-fire succession. I stay silent, patiently waiting for her to decide how she feels, praying that I haven't caused irreparable damage.
Finally, without ever meeting my eyes, she nods her head once in assent, before spinning on her heel and disappearing back into the big, dark house behind her. I wonder, naively, if she'll be back out in a moment to dig her fingers into the dirt beside me, when I hear the scrape and click of the door locking behind her. I count to ten before letting out the air I'd been holding hostage in my lungs and continue digging. I suppose our first meeting after so long apart could have gone far worse than it did, all things considered.
I don't see Katniss again that day, although I hear commotion from inside for an hour or so after she leaves. I almost attempt to follow her inside when I hear a thud and the sharp sound of glass shattering, until I see her arms throw her bedroom window open and the soft sounds of water splashing from a faucet follow closely. I stay in the sun beside her house well into the afternoon, until the primrose bushes that she's given me consent to keep are waving in the wind in their new home. Greasy Sae, the matronly woman from the old Hob greets me before sundown, surprising me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She tells me that it's good to see me, and that I'm welcome to join her and Katniss for breakfast whenever I'd like. I don't accept her offer today, already feeling like I've intruded too deeply on a life I have no right to meddle in. But maybe one day, soon, I'll join Katniss in her routine and we can start the new war of getting better, together.
Against the backdrop of the setting sun, I stretch my arms above my head, reveling in the ache that means I've put in good work today. I start my retreat back to my own empty house, head full of questions and conceptions of an unknown future. I replay my conversation with Katniss over and over, searching for hints I might have missed about who she is now, the girl who used to be on fire.
She is no longer the two-braided girl who sang songs of valleys and hanging trees, who made my heart flutter and my hands shake. Time and circumstances have made sure to bury that version of Katniss Everdeen. She is not the Mockingjay, either. The ironclad woman who brought the head of a nation to its knees with her passion has none left to spare. The flame that sparked a rebellion has been blown out, tossed away like any other used matchstick. But most importantly, I can see now, more than ever, that she is not the Mutt I was made to believe she was. She is not perfect, and never was, but she is not some demon, hell-bent on destroying everything I know and love, except for maybe herself.
No, she is simply just Katniss. And, perfect or not, I will bring her back to me, whoever she is. I'll find a way to help her realize that she has not given all of herself away, that there is still more of her that's worth saving, because that's what we do. We protect each other. And if there's one thing that the Capitol hasn't taken away from me, it's the undeniable truth that whoever she is, I still love her.