A week or so later, Peeta, Haymitch, and I are all in my house relaxing one evening, trying to cool down from the exhausting late July heat. We've finished dinner and just got off a rowdy phone call with Johanna. I've been talking to her a lot more regularly since our call during my and Peeta's fight. She's teasingly smug, saying that now we owe her our relationship, but I can tell she's pleased that we're happy, pleased that she was able to do something to cause it.
Sometimes she, Peeta, and I talk together, sometimes Peeta or I will talk to her alone. I know that there are times when either he or Johanna will suddenly need to call the other, with a sense of palpable urgency and panic. I'm genuinely glad that they can help each other. No part of me is jealous that sometimes he'd rather talk to her about what they went through than me, I completely understand. It comes from the same reason that trying to really talk about the trauma of the Games with anyone but another Victor would be more painful than helpful; you just can't understand it unless you've lived it, and though we are connected in so many ways, this piece of hell is one that Peeta lived through and I didn't.
There was one day where I know that Peeta, Johanna, and Annie were all on the phone together, just breathing through the pain and trying to find a way to lessen their grief by sharing it. I don't know exactly what they discussed, I made sure to give Peeta some privacy, but when I came to see him after the phone call he looked exhausted and his eyes were red from crying. I just held him and rocked him gently.
He tries to avoid crying in front of me, and he normally has far more success than I do in that regard. He's trying to protect me, but I've told him time and time again that he can cry, he can scream, he can get through his pain in whatever way he needs to. I'm here for all of it.
Tonight wasn't one of those emotional, painful phone calls with Johanna, though. Tonight she was drunk on the other end, and Haymitch, Peeta, and I all talked to her together. It was just an utterly absurd back and forth filled with jokes and teasing. Johanna revealed far more of the information I told her on the phone about Peeta and me than I would have ever wanted. I cursed her out for ratting on us while Haymitch guffawed with laughter and Peeta's face turned a vivid shade of pink. It seems that almost every interaction I have with Johanna she finds some way to embarrass me, and yet I don't hate her for it like I would with pretty much anyone else. Behind all the teasing and ridicule there's something familiar and loving. It's almost...sisterly.
After she hangs up the three of us make idle chit chat while fanning ourselves with our hands or with pillows. We have all the windows open and the fans blowing but it's still not enough to manage the heat. The air is still and sticky with humidity, and I keep finding myself thrown back into the Quarter Quell against my will.
I was a little worried about Peeta with weather like this - if I was having a hard time escaping memories of the Quell, I thought for sure he would end up trapped in some warped version of it and be unable to surface - but he seems fine. I think in some weird way the extreme extent to which they modified his memories of the Quell removed a lot of the physicality of it; they changed what he thought and what he saw in his mind, but in doing so they disconnected him from the physiological aspects. In any case, I'm glad he's ok right now.
"The air felt like this, in the clock Arena," Peeta mumbles all of a sudden. His voice is quiet, but not strained. It's not that he's upset or flashing, it's just a memory he didn't have before coming back to him. "Real or not real?"
"Real," I say, nodding. "It was worse, if anything. So sticky and hot. It was awful at first when we couldn't find water."
Peeta nods a bit, and it's as if I can see the memories clicking back into place for him. The expression on his face is very revealing, and he's told me before about the strange mix of emotions he feels when something falls into place like this. He says how it's mostly good, because anything he can remember for sure is one step further away from the Capitol, but that there's a weird tinge of sadness when he fully realizes how much falsehood he's been living with. He says he's aware of it every day, but that the moments of clarity throw light on how muddled the other moments are.
"You're welcome for that spile, by the way," Haymitch says jokingly, and we all laugh a little. It's strange sometimes, laughing about these sorts of things, but I think it helps.
When Haymitch leaves soon after, Peeta and I head upstairs to my room. The amount of clothes the two of us have accumulated at the other's home has only grown and grown. We change into pajamas - me in just a small tank top and my underwear and him in his boxer shorts - and slide under the covers. Even when it's hot, I don't like to sleep without a blanket of some sort. There's just something about the security of it that I need. It makes me feel safe, which is sort of ridiculous after everything. It's one of the few things that still remains in me from when I was a child.
Peeta and I are lying on our sides facing each other, and I can see a look in his eyes that I can't quite place as he strokes a piece of my hair in his fingers.
"What's on your mind?" I ask him.
"You," he says simply. I look at him questioningly. I was thinking he might still be feeling the effects of getting back a memory, or just stuck trying to escape the Quell in his mind like I've been. I don't know why he's thinking about me, or what specifically he would be thinking about. He seems to sense my question, because he starts explaining himself.
"I'm just thinking about how unbelievably, ridiculously lucky I am to be with you now. I mean, even before the hijacking, I never thought I'd really get to be with you like this. But then after...for so long I just didn't get it. I know I never stopped loving you, I know that, with all my heart. I just didn't understand it. I couldn't wrap my head around my thoughts and my feelings, they didn't make any sense. And even once I finally started to figure it all out, I was so scared of hurting you. I mean, I still am, and I still should be. The way my memory works...it isn't reliable anymore. I need to be cautious. But none of it seems to matter in the way that it should when I think about you. Being with you is what keeps me sane, grounded, happy. You're everything to me, Katniss."
I'm silent for a moment. Normally this type of deeply romantic declaration from Peeta would make me uncomfortable, and I'd want to hide or tease him to deflect. But I'm not trying to escape it right now, and I realize it's because I feel it too. Deeply. There are words trying to form on the tip of my tongue that I can't quite get out, can't seem to articulate properly, but they're close.
"You're everything to me," I whisper, deathly quiet. It's still not quite what I need to say, but it's closer, and even this is terrifying to me. Every "everything" I've had before has been lost. Saying it out loud, admitting that he's the new everything for me, it makes me terrified that I could lose him again. But not saying it out loud doesn't make it any less true. It's been true for a long time. He deserves to know.
He leans in to kiss me, slowly and deeply and passionately. I'm ready to escalate things, but he keeps it at just the kiss, and in a way it's the most intimate we've ever been. The amount of emotion I can feel passing between our lips is intoxicating in the best possible way. When we pull apart, he plants his lips once on my cheek before pulling me into him and shutting off the light. I rest my head on his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart as I drift off to sleep, thinking of the things that matter most. Thinking of him.
Things morph in sleeping. I find myself back in the Quell Arena, but right at the moment of its collapse. The air is the same hot and sticky stillness, but the smell is so wrong, as smoke and burning metal invade my senses. My vision doesn't seem to be working either; everything is flashing between total darkness and burning flames. My head spins and I can't focus, but I know I want to find Peeta. Getting up takes a tremendous amount of effort, and I'm groaning with the exertion, but eventually I'm on my feet. I fall down a couple times while trying to make my way towards where I last saw him. I see Finnick's body to the side of me, and I start crying. I can't tell if he's alive or dead.
"Finnick," I mutter. He doesn't respond, doesn't move. I force myself to keep moving. I need to reach Peeta. In the distance, I see him. He's slumped on the ground with his back against a rock. His blonde hair is streaked with red, he's covered in blood, but I can see his chest rising and falling. He's breathing.
"Peeta!" I scream, and I start running towards him. He looks at me, and his mouth forms the word "No," but I can't hear him. I keep barreling forward until I'm thrown back suddenly by a force field. I collapse onto the ground from the impact. How is this still up? Everything is falling down around us, it doesn't make any sense. The world is burning and collapsing, why can't I get to him? I shot that arrow so he could get out. Him. Why is he trapped?
I'm banging my fist against the invisible wall and screaming in frustration. He just looks at me sadly, like he knows something is coming. I can't hear him, but he mouths things sometimes. I can't quite make them out.
"Come on!" I scream at the wall. "Let me through, come on!" Nothing happens. The trees around me are all sparking as the electric fuses burn out. Everything is going to go up soon. I need to get to him.
That's when I see it. The roof of the Arena has been crumbling in bits and pieces this whole time, but a massive piece is about to fall onto him. He doesn't look like he can move.
"NO!" I scream, but it doesn't do anything. I'm helpless, watching the massive piece of metal crush his body. I blew up the Arena to save him, and instead I've doomed him. I'm sobbing now, but I realize that somehow, even after the impact, he still seems to be breathing. I test the forcefield again but it's unyielding. Suddenly a hovercraft comes down in front of him. It lands, and three men with massive syringes in their hands come out and walk towards him. The little bit of his body that has avoided the impact is injected by all three, and he screams in the most horrible cry of agony I've ever heard.
"NO!" I cry out again, with even more desperation this time. "STOP IT! What are you doing to him?! Please just leave him alone! Get me! Kill me! I'm right here!" I scream and scream and he screams and screams and nothing changes. I hear everything shifting around me, hearing pieces of the roof falling and plants catching on fire. I don't care what happens to me. I just want to get to him.
"Katniss, you're ok. It isn't real," I hear his voice and I'm confused. I don't trust it, because how could he be right here when he's being tortured and murdered right in front of me?
"It's ok, you're right here. You're with me and you're safe. Come back to me." It's the feeling of his lips on my forehead that bring me out of it enough for me to open my eyes. It takes a minute for me to make sense of my surroundings, and I let myself collapse into his arms, tears taking over.
It feels like we've been here a thousand times before, and really we have. I scream, I cry, he holds me, he brings me back. He is everything.
I feel life coming back to me as he holds me in his arms. I look up at him and see concern etched in his face as he looks at me. Frankly, I'm always surprised that he still worries about me when this sort of thing happens, just given the frequency of which I have these nightmares. But he worries about me and I worry about him. It's just what we do.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Peeta asks. I shake my head. I still don't feel normal, don't feel fully out of it yet, and I just want to ignore it as best I can. Even though talking might actually do more to help, I just don't want to live in it anymore than I have to.
"Ok," he says gently. He lies back and pulls me into him so I'm lying on my side with my head on his chest. He strokes my hair with his hand and leans down to kiss my forehead. I'm still crying, but I'm starting to calm down a little bit.
"Thank you," I mumble, my voice muffled as my mouth is turned in towards his chest.
"Of course," he says. "I'm here. Always." He keeps stroking my hair and after a long while I eventually calm down enough to fall back asleep.
When I wake up the next morning, I still feel off. The minute I open my eyes the bad feelings all come flooding back to me. This happens sometimes; not all nightmares stick with me like this, but this is by no means the first time the negative thoughts have lingered.
Peeta is still sleeping next to me. I have a feeling he stayed up for a good while after I fell back asleep, wanting to make sure I was ok and settled before he let himself drift off again. His arm is draped over my waist, and I try to get up without disturbing him but I fail. I see his eyes start to flutter open.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"No, you're good," he says through a yawn. "How are you?"
"I'm alright," I say, not wanting to worry him.
"Are you really?" he asks. I look at him. His hair is completely mussed with sleep, and he's rubbing his eyes, and yet I can tell he sees right through me. I don't know how he manages to be so sleepy yet so perceptive at the same time.
"I mean, I still feel off," I tell him. There's no point in denying it because he already knows, and besides that, I don't want to lie to him. "But it's ok. Some days are just like this."
"I understand," he says, sitting up and hugging me. "I'm here for whatever you need."
"Thank you," I say, kissing him gently. Soon after he throws on clothes and heads down to make breakfast. I dress slowly, trying to focus on every action I take to ground myself in reality. I throw on a sundress because it's way too hot for anything else, and I take the hem of the dress and rub it between my thumb and forefinger. Physical sensations help me with stuff like this, at least a little bit.
I head downstairs, my head still feeling a little foggy and the weight in my chest not having abated entirely. Peeta has made some eggs, and I sit down to eat with him. I eat slowly and only a little. Peeta notices and he knows what it means. He knows that my appetite goes when I lose myself.
"Is there anything I can do?" he asks. I shrug.
"I don't know. I'm just stuck in the dream from last night. It'll pass eventually, I think. I don't really think there's anything you can do to get me out of my head." He pauses for a second, and his face lights up like he has an idea.
"Actually, maybe," he says. "Come with me?" I nod, and he gets up and reaches out his hand for mine. I take it, and he leads me out the door and towards his house.
We head inside and up the stairs, and I realize he's taking me into his painting studio. I've been in here with him a handful of times, but only ever briefly. I don't spend a lot of time here. It's pretty private to him, as he paints his nightmares and his shiny memories and everything that terrifies him. If he wants to show me something he's working on, he will. I know that him inviting me in here, letting me see it, makes him supremely vulnerable. He's trusting me and he's helping me.
I look around the room at the canvases that are piled on every surface. There are stacks and stacks of them leaving up against each wall. Some show images that I recognize right away, scenes from the Games or the war that haven't been distorted too much. Other's I recognize as being from his flashes, even if I can't really place them. They all have that silvery glow about them that I know is from the tracker jacker venom. Some are entirely abstract, just splotches of color.
I'm having trouble removing my eyes from a hyper realistic depiction of a dingy cell. It's dark and dirty, and all that's in it is a bare cot and a chamber pot in the corner. The edges show an encroaching wave of silvery mist. I know this is where he was kept.
"Do you want to paint?" he asks me, and I bring my eyes back to him.
"I...I have no idea how," I say. "I can't imagine I'd be any good at it." He smiles at me.
"It's not about being good. It's just about getting the thoughts out of your head and onto the canvas. It helps, or at least I think it does. And I can show you how to mix colors or use the brushes, or anything else you want." I smile back at him. I have no idea if this will help or not, but he's letting me into the most private aspect of his catharsis. I appreciate it immensely.
"Alright," I say. "Show me how to get started." Peeta grins and sets a canvas up for me on one of the easels. He mixes some basic colors and lays them out for me on a pallet before handing me an array of brushes. He then starts setting up a station for himself and lets me get started.
I'm not sure exactly what I want to paint. I know I don't want to actually depict Peeta's body getting crushed and tortured in the Arena; for one thing, it would be far past my skill level, and more importantly I don't want to see it and I don't want him to see it.
I decide to focus on the sky of the Arena, it's distinctive pink hue sticking strongly in my mind. I dip my brush in the white and then the red that Peeta placed on my palette and start to mix pink. I bring the brush to the canvas and just start applying broad strokes. At the bottom of the canvas I try to create the top of the tree line, with the lushness of the jungle and the lightning tree sticking up above all the rest.
It takes me a long time and it's not at all neat or realistic, but he's right that it does feel good to get it down. I can't quite explain why, but seeing it laid out in front of me diminishes the power of the images in my mind. It's freeing.
When I take a step back, Peeta looks up from the canvas he has been focusing on and looks over to me.
"That looks great," he says, walking over to take a closer look. He's just being kind, because it looks completely childish in comparison to the works that fill this room, but I appreciate it anyway. "Is that the sky from the Quarter Quell?"
"Yeah," I tell him, nodding. "Can I see what you're working on?" He nods, although he looks nervous. I gasp when I see it. It's not finished, he's only covered about half the canvas, but in his expert hand it is entirely obvious what it is. He's painted the firebombing in 12. I see the town square on fire, the bakery burning.
"I dreamt about it last night," he admits, a little guiltily. "That's actually why I was up when you started screaming. You didn't wake me." I turn to look at him.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I ask.
"Well, at first it just took me a few minutes to calm down and get settled, and then you were so upset, I didn't want to add anything to your burden."
"Peeta," I mutter, putting my paint streaked hands flat on his chest. "You need to let yourself depend on me the way I depend on you. You aren't a burden to me at all. You're everything." I repeat my words from last night and look him in the eye. I hope he knows how much I mean it.
"Thank you, Katniss," he says quietly, and he kisses me. The kiss is loving and emotional and a little bit sad. When we break apart, I pull him into a hug, and we just stand there holding each other for several minutes.
We are still deeply broken people. I don't know if we'll ever be whole again. But we put each other back together, bit by bit, as we fill each other's canvases with life.