The next few days are some of the busiest I've had since returning to 12, but it's all in a good way. I have a couple of meetings for the medicine factory, and spend most of the rest of my time with Peeta, helping him on projects for the bakery. Haymitch and I gladly "taste test" at breakfast every morning, which now comes with some sort of new baked good every day. Peeta and I visit the site of the bakery; it's hard for him, but he's filled with a sort of determination and purpose that pushes him through it. We order supplies from the train and buy everything that we can in town; Peeta wants to support the local merchants in 12 as much as possible. It's busy, it's hectic, but it's good.
Between the two projects, we're really building things that will help people. There's more than that, too. The look in Peeta's eyes when he's focussed on what he's doing is just unmatched in the amount of joy it brings me. I am watching him heal right in front of me. Of course not everything is perfect, sometimes the painful memories are hard for him to get past, but it feels empowering to actually take some control back. I think it helps him, and he helps me.
When I wake up one Thursday, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest to find Peeta absent from bed next to me. He tends to wake up earlier than me anyways, and since he's started baking more and more complex recipes every morning he's only gotten up earlier. I get out of bed and slip on a sundress; normally I don't opt for dresses, but I can already feel the heat of the day. We're nearing the end of June, and the weather is hot and sticky. It feels nice not to have the material of shorts or pants sticking to my legs.
I braid my hair quickly and head downstairs soon after. Peeta is at the counter, slicing a brown loaf that smells delicious.
"Good morning," he says, smiling.
"Hi," I tell him. "What is that? It smells amazing in here."
"This is banana bread," he tells me. "I've never actually made it before, because before the Games we couldn't afford bananas and after the Games it just felt too frivolous to order fancy food from the Capitol while people were starving, but I'd read about it in one of the cook books Effie gave me and it seemed really good. Let me know what you think."
He slides the plate of bread towards me, and I take one of the slices he's cut. It's so good. I decide very quickly that I like banana bread.
"I love it," I tell him. He grins at me and takes a slice for himself. A couple minutes later, Haymitch walks in through the door. He's started coming over in the mornings even more regularly since Peeta's been baking these sorts of delicacies.
"What've you got for me today, kid?" he asks, smacking his hand down on the counter.
"Oh yes, because he's doing this all entirely for you," I say sarcastically.
"Good morning to you too, sweetheart," Haymitch says with his mouth full of banana bread. He nods in approval at the taste. "This is a winner, boy."
"Thanks, Haymitch," Peeta says with a chuckle. We're strange and over the top, but Peeta loves feeding his little family. I can see it in his eyes.
"So, what's the plan for the day?" I ask him before stuffing my mouth full of another slice of bread.
"Well, I was thinking of going into town today to pick up some supplies from the market. Want to come?" I nod. I don't have anything planned for today, and it's too hot for me to want to go out and hunt.
"Haymitch, you're welcome to join if you want," Peeta offers. Usually Haymitch would refuse this sort of offer, but today he gives a sort of noncommittal shrug.
"Eh, sure, what the hell," he says. "I could stand to pick up some more liquor, and the geese are being particularly annoying today." I muffle a snort and make eye contact with Peeta, both of us wondering how on earth the constantly loud, honking creatures could be showing different behavior today than any other day.
Soon after, though, the three of us head into town. The weather has only grown hotter during the time we spent at home this morning. I'm sweating just from the walk after a short time.
When we reach the market, Haymitch leaves us temporarily to go seek out his favorite types of liquor, while I follow Peeta over to the stall that sells things like sugar, flour, and yeast. I listen at first as he makes polite conversation with the older woman who runs the stand; I think she moved here from 9 after the war ended, and Peeta likes her very much. I'm distracted soon after, though, by a stand I notice a couple tables down from us that I haven't seen before.
It's overflowing with flowers of all sorts of colors and shapes. I know almost instantly that these plants are not native to 12, and I'm curious as to how they ended up here.
"I'll be right back," I say to Peeta, who nods and squeezes my hand briefly as he continues his conversation. As I walk closer to the stand, I feel myself having some sort of physiological reaction that I cannot place or determine the offending stimulus for. I feel my heartbeat quicken and my stomach feels very queasy. I don't know what I'm responding to right now.
When I finally approach the stand, the feeling is almost unbearable. I'm only spurred on by curiosity. The woman behind the counter has dark skin and kind eyes.
"Hello there!" she says. "Interested in buying any flowers today?" I'm distracted by the feeling in my stomach. Something in the back corners of my brain is pinging, recognizing what the problem is and telling me to run, but I can't sort it out.
"Huh? Oh, I was actually wondering just if you could tell me a little bit about all of this," I say eventually. "I don't recognize any of these flowers as growing in 12."
"You're quite right!" the woman says, seeming happy to talk to me even if I'm not a paying customer. "I'm from 11 originally, and many of these beauties grow well in the climate there. After the war ended, I got my hands on some books and manuals as to hybrid flower breeding, and have been working on starting new lineages as well. I thought it might be a nice idea to travel around Panem, since that was never an option before, so I'm selling for a week or two in each district. Eventually I'll go back to growing in 11, but it's been lovely to have a change of scenery."
11 makes sense, I think to myself. A lot of these plants would grow well in the warmer, wetter climate. I notice violets, and periwinkle, and...and...oh.
It all makes sense now, as I see that the entire back shelf of this woman's stand is covered in roses of different varieties. It's the smell of the roses that have been invading my senses and sending my brain into overdrive.
Identifying the source of my anxiety doesn't seem to calm it now that the response has been triggered. I try to convince myself that these roses are just sitting there, and that this woman seems kind and gentle, entirely unlike Snow. It doesn't work, though. I smell the perfume and I can't help but smell blood too, smell death.
I think the woman is still talking to me, but I don't hear her over the sound of ringing in my ears and the feeling of bile rising in my throat. Quickly, I dash away from the stand and towards a trash can a couple stalls away. By the time I get there, the anxiety and nausea and adrenaline have become too much, and I bend over and throw up into the bin. After a minute or so of heaving and coughing, I feel my hair pulled back into someone's hands, and know Peeta must have found me.
"Katniss, are you alright? What happened?" he asks, holding my hair in one hand and rubbing circles on my back with the other. Once I'm confident I'm settled, I lift my head from the trash can and wipe my mouth. I see that Peeta and Haymitch are both here, and are sporting remarkably similar looks of concern on their faces.
"I'm fine," I say, my mouth still tasting of acid. "It was the roses."
"What?" Peeta asks. Haymitch looks at me with a confused expression too.
"There's a woman over there who's selling flowers, and she has roses and the smell just got to me. It's too tied to Snow in my brain. The adrenaline response just made me too nauseous. I'm really ok, though." Peeta's brow is still furrowed in an expression of deep concern.
"I'm so sorry, Katniss," he says.
"There really isn't anything to be sorry about, Peeta," I say, slightly annoyed that he's making a big deal out of this. I know he's just trying to help, but I want to forget it. "This sort of thing happens to me. Remember when we were under the Capitol and there was that rose smell? I was hacking then too, I even had everyone worried it was poison. It just gets me."
"You shouldn't need to be reminded of that here, though," he says softly. "Let's go home."
"No, I'm fine," I tell him. "I don't want to interrupt anything."
"I got what I need, and by the looks of it Haymitch did too," says Peeta, gesturing to the crate Haymitch is holding in his arms, which is filled with bottles of varying colored liquids.
"Yep," Haymitch confirms, nodding. "I've got enough here to make myself a whole lot sicker than you just were, sweetheart." I roll my eyes at him, but acquiesce, allowing Peeta to take my hand and lead us home.
I'm frustrated at myself for letting such a simple thing impact me like this. I know it's not really a big deal, because I'm fine now and I didn't do any major harm, but it's just a reminder that I don't want.
These past few days have been good. I've been able to enjoy myself and be productive without feeling defined by the past. This is just another reminder that I'm not free from it, nowhere near so.
When we get back to my house, Peeta tells me to lie down on the couch, and immediately starts making me tea and taking care of me. In all objective meanings, he's being incredibly nice, incredibly sweet, incredibly caring. I'm just annoyed, though, because I don't want this to be seen as a big deal. I don't want it to derail his day, or even have any impact. I want to avoid getting bogged down by these sorts of things. I am really only annoyed at myself, but the feelings are manifesting in me being a little annoyed at him too, which isn't really fair.
"I'm fine, Peeta," I repeat as he brings me tea and buttered toast. "You really don't need to worry about me."
"I know," he says gently. "I just want to take care of you."
Haymitch is near me, and when Peeta walks back to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of tea I hear him mutter under his breath "Just let the boy take care of you, it's easier than fighting it."
I laugh a little under my breath. Haymitch is right; if my biggest problem is that Peeta cares too much, I really don't have much to complain about.
Haymitch heads out soon after, and Peeta sits down next to me on the couch, draping an arm around my shoulders.
"How are you feeling?" he asks.
"I'm totally fine," I say. "Thanks for the tea, it helped." He smiles and nods.
"Listen, I appreciate everything you're doing to help me with the bakery so much," he starts. "I love working on it with you. If you ever need some time though, or if you need me to be there with you or do anything, know that you never have to be afraid to ask." I roll my eyes at him, the feeling of frustration coming back.
"Peeta, I don't want you to run your life around me. I can take care of myself, you don't need to drop everything whenever I have a bad day, or even just a bad moment."
"Katniss, think back to just a couple days ago, where I flashed and didn't get you, and you told me I should have gotten you. This is just what we do for each other. We've been through too much and seen each other get lost too many times to be ok letting each other suffer, even if only briefly."
I fall silent for a minute. He's right, we literally just had this argument but in reverse a few days ago. We've seen each other go through so much pain, and we just have this instinct now to make sure we're here whenever the other person could possibly need us. It might be annoying at times, but it's only because of how much we care about each other, and how much horror we've seen. I've been too harsh on him for trying to take care of me, when I want to take care of him in just the same way.
"You're right," I say, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him into a hug. "I'm sorry."
"It's ok," he says into my hair. When we pull apart I can see he's smiling.
"What?" I ask, smiling back at him.
"I have an idea," he says. "What do you think of us doing absolutely nothing tonight? We can just relax, make a bonfire, and look at the stars? I feel like I've never really had a good summer. They were always defined by the Games, even before we went in to them. It might be nice to just enjoy it."
"That sounds great, Peeta," I tell him. We kill a couple hours relaxing and talking until it gets dark out. After dinner, Peeta takes some of the wood I have stacked by the fireplace and moves it outside to create a bonfire in my backyard. I run upstairs to grab a blanket for us to lay out on the grass.
When I meet Peeta outside, I see he's created a roaring fire. The air is still warm, but it has cooled enough from the heat of the day that the fire's warmth isn't overwhelming. Peeta sits down with his legs stretched out in front of him, and I sit between them so that my back is leaning against his chest. He wraps his arms around me and I kiss his muscled bicep.
"This was a good idea," I tell him. He kisses the top of my head and I make a little humming sound at the combination of the nice sensations of his lips and the warmth of the fire.
"You're the best thing in my life, you know that?" he says to me. I smile.
"Yeah, I might like you a little bit, too," I say jokingly, and he laughs. I stare into the fire for a little bit as he undoes my braid and plays with my hair; it's always held some sort of interest for him that I don't fully understand, but I love the feeling of his fingers on my scalp and neck so I'm not complaining.
I'm admiring the way all the colors of the fire sort of blend together, the red embers and flames charring the brown wood until it all glows golden. The destruction of the wood is creating something beautiful and warm, and both states are living together at once. It's the in between that Peeta has talked about before, the greyness that exists between the light of love and the dark of pain.
I don't think I realized until I had Peeta how much of this world falls into that in between, but I definitely never noticed how the in between isn't always just grey and dull, but that it can be golden. The uncertainties that I've always hated, the in-betweens that are confusing and painful, all of it is ok when I'm with him.
I lean my head back onto his shoulder so I look up at him and at the sky, which is strewn with stars. I see them through the fluttering of his blonde eyelashes.
The stars are golden too.