What little time we have left in District 4 passes quickly and awkwardly. By the time we get back to the house, Gale has already shut himself away into his room. After hearing about what happened, Johanna refuses to join him in their shared space, but rather curls up to sleep on an armchair in the living room, in what she refers to as "an act of solidarity". Annie seems a little bit shaken by the conflict, which causes Peeta to apologize profusely, but she assures him she's fine. I don't think he really sleeps at all that night. I'm pretty restless in bed myself, tossing and turning in the remaining dregs of my anger, and each time I wake up I find him awake beside me.
The next morning is tense and more uncomfortable than I think any of us would have wanted for the end of our time together on this trip. Johanna jokes around all throughout breakfast in an effort to ease the tension, but Gale's refusal to partake in the eggs made by Peeta that everyone else was eating, and instead only have a piece of bread from the cabinet, did not go unnoticed.
I don't talk to him at all, and try to avoid even looking at him directly if at all possible. I know Peeta feels guilty about having hit him, but the more time passes between the event and now, the more I am confident it was the right decision. I am still incredibly angry at what Gale has said, and I don't see that changing any time soon. I don't really want to make amends. It isn't kind of me, but while it may not be the best thing I've done, I know damn well it's not the worst.
There are several trains at the station in 4 when we arrive. Some are pulling in to deposit supplies and orders, but we are informed that three are here for us, heading to 2, 7, and 12, respectively. We all say goodbye at the platform. Annie is a bit weepy as we all part, but Peeta soothes her as best he can. He is at least able to make her laugh by tickling Finn and bringing a little gummy smile to the baby's face. I hug Annie and wish her well, assuring I'll keep in better touch now than I have before. I make similar promises towards Johanna, and she assures me that she will not let me get away with "dropping off the face of the earth" again.
As Peeta says goodbye to Johanna, I make direct eye contact with Gale for the first time since our fight yesterday. I try to read his facial expression, but find that I can't do it nearly as well as I used to. He doesn't seem all that angry or sad, though. He just seems tired.
"Bye, Catnip," he says simply, not much emotion in his voice either way.
"Bye, Gale," I reply. He gives me a small smile, and with that he turns around and heads onto the train that will take him back to 2.
Soon enough, Peeta, Haymitch, and I are all on our train, watching us roll away from District 4 through the open windows.
"It was a good visit," Peeta offers as we all gaze out in the lounge car. "I mean, last night notwithstanding. But, other than that, it was a good visit." I nod and give him a small smile.
"It was," I say. "And you don't need to feel bad, Peeta. Please don't feel bad." He sighs and sits down on the couch. I take a seat next to him, leaning my back against the arm of the sofa and stretching my feet out to rest in his lap.
"I know," he says, exhaling again. "I just...it isn't me. Or, at least, I don't think it is. Punching someone like that, it's not something I would have ever done before the Games. I think that this change was sort of inevitable after having to kill people to protect you and myself. I think it's just another unsurprising byproduct of the Games. But part of me wonders if I still wouldn't have done it, even after the Games, if it hadn't been for the hijacking turning me into a more violent person. It's stupid, really, because in the scheme of things you're right; it could have been a whole lot worse than just punching someone. But I just hate feeling like I'm anything resembling the weapon he turned me into." I lean forward so I can rub his arm.
"You're not, Peeta," I say, as gently as I possibly can. "If it does anything, what happened last night only further proves that you're not. You were trying to stand up for me and help me, and that is you. That's not anything Snow did to you."
"Listen to your girl," Haymitch says, standing at his spot near the small bar in the corner and nursing a drink. "She knows what she's talking about on this one." Peeta gives us both a smile, not quite as bright as his usual one, but more confident than the sad, self-deprecating ones I sometimes see when he's trying to hide his pain. He's getting there.
"Thanks," he says, running his hand up and down my leg in his lap. "I appreciate you both so much."
"We love you," I say, unwavering in my confidence because I know it is true. He gives me an even stronger smile at this, and I relax back against the sofa's arm again, knowing that we're all headed in the right direction.
The rest of the ride back to 12 is fairly uneventful. Normalcy returns between Peeta, Haymitch, and I. We're all so used to each other's company at this point that being together is just second nature, and it's easy. I loved being with Annie and Johanna, and I have a feeling it will get easier and easier each time I see them, but I am not an outgoing person by nature, and I do feel a little more tired from this trip than I generally do from similar time in 12. The three of us spend the evening playing rounds of that gambling game. Peeta and I seem to have improved slightly from watching Haymitch and Johanna, though we still never win. It's fun, though. Things feel light and easy. We spend one night on the train and pull into 12 sometime the following afternoon.
Having come from 4, it's incredibly disconcerting to remember that it's actually winter, and that seasons do exist, even if not in that district by the sea. While the weather in 4 was mild, probably in the 60s or 70s during the day, there's thick snow on the ground here in 12. I'm grateful that I shoved a coat in my bag before we left, because the air is frigid when we get off the train. I really don't mind it, though. I always sort of liked the cold, finding it invigorating and refreshing. I like snow, too, in most cases. I think the only real reason I hated winter for so long was because of what it meant in terms of my family's food supply and potential for starvation. Without those concerns, I find myself appreciating the beauty of the district blanketed in snow. 12 looks almost magical right now, actually, as the snow is far whiter and cleaner than it ever was when coal dust polluted the air.
Haymitch, Peeta, and I all grab our bags and start making our way back through town toward Victor's Village. I can say completely truthfully that the district looks as good as I've ever seen it. More and more of the town has been rebuilt, to the point where things almost look normal. With rebuilding and the influx of people from different districts, more life has come into the town too. Gone now are the stark divisions between Town and Seam, and instead an intermingling of homes of different styles are dotted throughout 12. Kids of all different appearances and wealth levels play together in the snow. The district just looks...happy, in a way I've never seen it before.
We see some familiar faces as we head towards our homes. We run into Thom and Leevy, who both welcome us back with hugs and assurances that we all came off very well in the interviews in the Capitol. I give as genuine of a smile as I can at this. I don't really care what the people of the Capital or of Panem think about me anymore. No part of me wants to be a public figure like that if I can avoid it. Still, people having generally positive feelings towards us rather than negative ones can only help. Hopefully them being satisfied will buy us some privacy.
Peeta and I head into our house and Haymitch into his, although not without Peeta promising him that he'll cook dinner. I drop my bag unceremoniously on the floor in the entryway, which makes Peeta smile and shake his head slightly as he picks it up and places both mine and his at the foot of the stairs, ready to be taken up whenever we go up next.
"Well," he says, turning to me. "Home sweet home." I laugh at him a little for his use of the colloquialism, but it doesn't stop me from walking into his arms and kissing him. I can feel both of us trying not to break this kiss by smiling too hard, and eventually we fail and just end up laughing.
"It's good to be home," I say when we've finally regained composure.
"It's good to be home," he confirms. He goes to start a fire in the hearth while I brew some tea for us on the stove. As we move so naturally and seamlessly around our shared space, it occurs to me that this house has never felt more like home than it does now that I share it with Peeta. Even when I was here with my mother and Prim, there was always a strange sort of tension. The house in the Seam always felt like our real home then; it was the place Prim and I had grown up, the place my father had lived, the place where we could enjoy what little we had without fear of the Capitol listening in. Now, though, this place feels like home, as much as any home I've ever had. I like that thought more than I would have really anticipated. It feels good to be so secure and comfortable in the concept of home, maybe for the first time since I was 11.
I make two mugs of hot chamomile tea and join Peeta on the couch in front of the fire, handing him his mug before curling up into his side.
"Thanks," he says, pressing his lips to my hair briefly before sipping the tea.
"Of course," I say with a smile. We sip and we chat and we enjoy just the act of being. Being, together and in our home. Between the tea, the fire, and the warmth of Peeta, I'm feeling extremely cozy, and I'm just about to stretch out and take a nap when there is a hurried knock at the door.
Peeta gets up to see who it is, and the minute he opens the door there is a blonde flurry, as Delly Cartwright bounces through the doorway and wraps her arms around him.
"You're back!" she exclaims. "I was just in town and Leevy mentioned you were home! How are you? How was the Capitol? Did you actually go to 4?" In her typical fashion, Delly is over the top in her exuberance and energy. She is entirely the type of person that I feel should drive me crazy, and yet for some reason I find myself utterly endeared to her. Things like this are confusing, sometimes.
"Hi Delly," I say with a smile, getting up to walk towards the pair. Delly beams at me.
"Hi Katniss!" she exclaims, wrapping her arms around me in turn. "Oh, I'm so happy to see you both! I want to hear everything about your trip, and I have so much to tell you!"
"What is it, Del?" Peeta asks curiously as we all move to sit around the table. Delly is practically buzzing with excitement in her seat; it is clear that she is bursting to share whatever it is she has to say.
"Well, I should really let you all talk first," she says. "But, since you asked...Maxwell and I got married!" I register shock and this, and I'm sure it must show on my face. Peeta looks surprised too, but more than anything else he looks absolutely thrilled for his friend.
"What?! That's amazing Delly!" he says. "Congratulations!"
"Thank you!" Delly says. She is absolutely beaming, her eyes bright and her cheeks ruddy. It is rare that I have seen someone look as happy as she looks right now. I have about a million thoughts running through my head right now, excited for her but surprised at how quickly this all seems to have happened. Still, I genuinely am happy that Delly is happy, so I owe it to her not to let my own personal feelings about marriage interfere with her joy.
"How did it happen, Delly?" I ask. She looks utterly thrilled at the opportunity to talk more about it.
"Well, Maxwell and I have just been so happy together," she starts, a bright smile on her face. "I love him so much, and I know he loves me too. Neither of us have much family anymore, and so we have sort of filled that role for each other. We were talking about it, and about how much we love each other, and how we might even like to start our own family soon, and then it just...happened! He proposed and we just didn't want to wait any longer. We had the toasting that night!"
"That's incredible, Del," Peeta says. "I'm so happy for you."
"Oh my gosh, thank you so much Peeta!" she says. "I know it's a little fast, us having only been together for about six months and all. But we've been through so much together, and healed together...it just felt right."
"All that matters is that you do what feels right, and what makes you happy," I say, and Delly gives me one of the widest smiles I have ever seen in my entire life.
"Oh, Katniss!" she squeals. "I wish you two could have been there. But don't worry, you didn't miss much. No one was there, it was just the two of us. We went to the justice building for the certification the next morning. The whirlwind of it all honestly felt so romantic!" Peeta and I both laugh at this a little; it is very Delly.
"I'll tell you what, Del," Peeta says. "First thing tomorrow, I'm going over to the bakery and starting on your belated wedding don't have to pay for it, I want to do it."
"Oh, Peeta!" Delly cries. "I couldn't possibly -" Peeta shakes his head.
"No, you absolutely can," he says. ""Consider it a wedding gift." She wraps him into another hug and squeals in excitement.
"Oh, I can't wait! Your cakes are so beautiful! But..." she pauses, seeming to catch herself, and takes a deep breath. "Enough about me, I want to hear about you two! How was your trip?"
We fill Delly in on the events of the past week or so as best we can. It feels like we've been gone even longer than we have since so much as happened, so there's a lot to say. We tell her about the stresses of the Capitol, and I have to give it to Delly, she is an incredibly empathetic listener. She chimes in at all the right places and says all the right things. I see why she and Peeta were friends, even before things got complicated by the Games and the war. We tell her about the panel, the interview, the party, the meetings. She takes it all in and seems genuinely interested.
We tell her about the impromptu (and drunken) decision to go to Four, and about what it was like to be there. She seems utterly fascinated and excited by the idea of swimming in the ocean, pondering if she and Maxwell could afford a trip to Four as a sort of honeymoon. We tell her about our day at the beach, my talk with my mom, our night at the bonfire, the catharsis of swimming and screaming under the night sky. Peeta seems to shift the conversation away from the confrontation with Gale, and I have no issue with not mentioning it, so I just let him take the lead.
"Well, I'm really glad you both got to spend time with the people who are very important to you," she says. "But, I'm even more glad that you're home."
"We are, too," Peeta says, and I nod. Delly gives the two of us a radiant look before standing up.
"Well, I should get back home," she says. "I have some lesson planning to do for my classes tomorrow. You all should stop by for lunch sometime this week!"
"We would love that," Peeta says. "Tell Maxwell congratulations for us."
"I will!" Delly says, and with that she's out the door. Peeta and I head back to our original spots in the living room.
"Wow," he says, and I nod, unable to think of exactly what else to say. "I can't say I was expecting that," he continues. "But she seems so happy, so that's all that matters."
"I agree," I say, nodding. Peeta looks genuinely happy for Delly, which isn't surprising given his nature as a person. I don't know exactly how I feel. I think I'm happy too. No, I know I'm happy. Delly has grown on me so much, and she's been a big source of support for both of us, especially for Peeta. I'm happy that she's happy.
I just...I sort of hadn't thought about toastings in a while. I guess they kind of slipped my mind. Just like with kids, toastings are sort of a hard thing for me to assess my opinion on, just because my automatic response for so long was to be opposed to the very concept of it. I feel less nervous about toastings than children, I think, because the Games were less directly relevant to the former, but it still makes me a little anxious. The idea of tying yourself so closely to someone, and then potentially losing them...I can only think of my mother after my father was lost. She lost herself completely, and in turn Prim and I lost both parents. I would never want to do that to any future child, if I were to have one.
But, a part of me thinks, would it really be that different with Peeta and me, toasting or not? We aren't married, and yet there is no doubt in my mind that I would be a wreck if anything happened to him. We're too dependent on each other in every way. I really don't know how I would go on, and it scares me to admit how much I need him. Too many people like that have been lost for me. Still, though, we've been together a while now I guess, or at least in comparison to Delly and Maxwell. I just hadn't really thought about the possibility of anything changing.
"Katniss?" Peeta asks, and I realize that he had been saying my name repeatedly, trying to catch my attention as I sat lost in thought. "You alright?" I nod quickly.
"Yeah," I say. "Yeah, sorry. I just...got distracted." Peeta looks slightly concerned he wants to ask me about it further, when Haymitch walks through the door.
"It doesn't smell like food in here and I am not happy about that," Haymitch grumbles, clearly a little tipsy.
"Ah shit," Peeta says, looking at the clock. "Lost track of time with Delly's visit. Well, I'll get started right now." He gets up to throw together a fast dinner while I entertain a slightly inebriated Haymitch. It doesn't prove to be that hard because Plutarch is on on of the news channels holding some sort of press conference, and berating him with every insult we can come up with is a fun activity for us both.
Dinner with Peeta and Haymitch restores most of the calm that I was feeling before Delly's visit and the thoughts of toastings and marriage that came with it. It's casual and it's comfortable and it's just...supremely normal. I feel a sense of security in falling back into our old routine, and it helps keep my anxieties at bay. Nothing remarkable happens, it's just a nice, normal family dinner. I love it.
Haymitch doesn't stay too long after dinner, and Peeta and I return to our spots on the couch that we were forced to abandon twice. This time, though, Peeta stretches out against the arm and I lay against his chest between his legs. He's undone my braid and is playing with my hair, a favorite activity of his in positions like this. It's incredibly soothing, and I find myself feeling serene and relaxed. I let myself close my eyes and lean my head back so it falls under his chin.
"Katniss?" Peeta asks.
"Mhmm?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course," I say, opening my eyes to gaze up at him. "What is it?"
"Did talking about toastings with Delly make you...uncomfortable?" he asks hesitantly. He seems nervous, which is not particularly common for him. Even when we have to talk about hard things, he's usually pretty good at keeping his composure and getting through whatever it is he wants to say. I can tell he's feeling extremely vulnerable here, and I know that whenever I start talking I want to make a conscious effort not to say anything stupid, because that seems to be all too easy for me to do. "I just...I don't know. I thought you seemed a little...off." I take a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts before I start talking.
"No," I say slowly, because I think that's the right answer. "No, I don't think it's exactly that talking about toastings makes me uncomfortable. It used to, for sure, and I think that there's still a lot of me that is working to unlearn that feeling, but hasn't fully succeeded yet. It was never something I wanted, or even thought was really possible. I'm not inherently against the idea, it's just not one I have a lot of experience thinking about. So I guess it's less that I didn't like talking about it, and more that I didn't really know how. I'm not sure how to approach it, I guess. Part of it still scares me, having seen what happened to my mom after my dad died. But I also loved seeing Delly so happy. So, I guess I still feel like I'm figuring it all out. Trying to sort through the conflicting feelings, and whatnot."
I've been rambling for so long at this point that I am utterly unsure if I've answered his question or not. Wanting to look into his eyes and try to read what he's feeling, I flip over so I'm lying on my stomach on top of his chest. I prop my head up on my hands and look at his face, and I see a broad, stupid grin plastered all over it.
"What?" I ask, a laugh in my voice.
"So, you're not inherently against the idea?" he asks, trying to keep his voice casual but failing miserably with the smile on his face. "Of toastings, I mean?" I roll my eyes.
"Oh my God, shut up," I say, laughing, as I knock the side of his head with my hand. "No, I'm not inherently against it. Doesn't mean I couldn't be against it if given the right reasons, though," I tease.
"Good to know, good to know," Peeta says, chuckling. "That's all very important information for me to have." He has that look in his eyes that he gets when he has a bold idea, and I feel the need to shut him down, at least for the moment.
"Do not propose to me right now, Peeta Mellark," I say with a laugh. "I will say no." Peeta laughs at this too, before wrapping his arms around my lower back.
"Oh I have no doubt about that," he says. "I'm just glad to have collected the data on this very important subject."
"You're so dumb," I say, but then I can't help myself, and I bring my lips to his.
As Peeta and I relish each other on the couch that night, all thoughts or concerns beyond our immediate joy feel distant and irrelevant. After, though, as I lay in his sleeping embrace, still sated and sweaty from the evening's activities, I find my mind wandering to places it never used to go. Places with pretty white dresses and pieces of warm bread. Not now, no. I don't want it now. But the thought of someday stays with me as I drift off to sleep.