Katniss fidgeted nervously. She knew Peeta deserved to hear her story, to understand why she wasn't someone who could easily love. Or be loved, frankly. But the idea of tearing down the walls she'd built around herself, of opening all of those old wounds… he was right, she was afraid, terribly afraid.
But she was more afraid of losing him without at least trying to fix her mistakes. Not this time. She couldn't let it happen again.
"Do you mind if I change?" she asked quietly, gesturing to the scrubs she still wore, rumpled and smudged with soot. She hadn't put on her civilian clothes at the hospital, had only let go of Peeta once the whole time they'd been in emerg, only while he was being x-rayed, and even then she'd waited just outside the room. Afraid to let him out of her sight.
"Help yourself to whatever you need," he said. She had no clothing at his house, she'd been so careful not to let their lives get entangled. Yeah, that had worked out well. She took a pair of his shorts from the drawer and turned away to change into them. She was wearing a tank under her scrub top, and even though it didn't smell particularly good, she left it on. A conversation like this needed clothing.
Peeta coughed behind her. His lungs had looked clear in his x-rays, but she imagined his throat and chest hurt. Katniss glanced over her shoulder and met his eyes. He was watching her, and even in his exhaustion and wariness, she could read his interest. It was comforting to know that he still wanted her, even after everything.
She wasn't sure how long that might last.
"Let me make you tea," Katniss said, buying herself more time. Peeta tried to protest, but she slipped away.
She took several deep, cleansing breaths in his kitchen while she gathered what she needed. Bottom line, she reminded herself, she trusted Peeta. She trusted that he would listen, and even if they were truly over, if there was no repairing the damage she'd done, he wouldn't judge her. He was a good man, the best she'd ever known.
He was sprawled across the bed when she returned, propped against the headboard. From her vantage point, she could see the marks on his handsome face that his breathing gear had left, marks that would bloom into bruises she knew. His bare torso gleamed damply, another bruise forming on his shoulder, muscled forearms littered with scrapes. Exhaustion practically oozed from his pores. But he was there, he was whole and alive.
His blue eyes opened when she walked in, and he smiled, small but genuine. "Thought you might be running away," he said lightly.
Katniss knew she deserved the jab, she'd done nothing but run right since the beginning. But she was done with running. "Didn't want to give the neighbours a show," she said, waving a hand in front of her tank top and oversized boxer short ensemble.
Peeta's grin widened, and she relaxed a little more.
She perched beside him on the bed. "Here," she said, handing him the mug. "Honey and lemon. It'll help sooth your throat."
"Learned that in med school, did you?" he joked. Katniss's smile fell slightly.
"No," she said, looking down at her lap. "From my mother."
She heard his raspy intake of breath. She'd surprised him, she knew. In all of the months she'd been here, all of the time they'd spend talking and growing together, she'd never mentioned her mother, not once, not even when he'd prodded.
"She's the reason I went to medical school," Katniss said softly. She knew Peeta assumed it was because of Haymitch, everyone did. But truthfully her own mother had sown the seeds many years earlier.
"She was a doctor too?"
"No," Katniss said. "She could have been. She came from a family of doctors, and she had an incredible understanding of natural medicine. But she chose my father instead."
She glanced up from her lap to find Peeta watching her, tea forgotten on the nightstand, a droplet of shower water slipping down his temple. His expression was openly curious, but also soft and affectionate. Patient. She knew without him saying that he'd wait while she fumbled the words out. He was so good, it was too painful to look at him.
"They never should have even met." Katniss spoke to his bedspread, but could feel all of his focus on her. "She was from a wealthy family, fresh out of a private all-girls' school. He was an inner city kid who'd dropped out in tenth grade. But they both liked to escape into the woods, to forage for medicinal herbs. And once they found each other, they were inseparable.
"My grandparents, my mother's parents I mean, they were outraged." Katniss snickered. "I never met them, but they sounded like real pieces of work. They gave my mother an ultimatum: stop seeing my father, or they'd kick her out, cut her off. She was only eighteen, I'm sure they thought she'd dump her summer fling in a heartbeat."
Katniss fell silent, lost in her memories. "She didn't though?" Peeta prompted.
"No." Katniss shook her head. "They moved in together, my mother with only the clothes on her back, my father with barely more than that himself. My grandparents involved the police, tried to have them haul their daughter back home. So my parents got married. Spouses have more rights than parents, even very wealthy parents.
"I used to think it was so romantic, that my mother gave up everything to be with my father." Katniss laughed, she'd been so naïve. There was nothing romantic about the hardships faced by two teenagers, utterly impoverished and pretty much alone in the world. Her father's mother had been alive then, but he'd had no father of his own and no siblings, and none of her mother's large extended family had ever reached out. "I really don't know how they made it, but by the time I came along they'd been married six years and had a little house on the edge of the forest, a life together. If anything, they were even more in love."
"It sounds beautiful," Peeta said softly.
"It was." It hurt to unpack those memories, shoved down deep for so long. She'd had a happy childhood, before it all fell apart. Loving parents, a home full of music and laughter, the illusion of security. Katniss took a deep, cleansing breath. "It all ended when my father died."
Beside her, Peeta made a soft sound of sympathy, but offered no platitudes. She appreciated that.
"I was eleven when he died," Katniss said. "It was a car accident. Winter, icy roads, bad visibility. He was dead on impact." As a doctor, Katniss thought it was better that way than teetering between life and death, better than suffering. But as a daughter, she wished that he'd hung on until they'd had a chance to say goodbye. Maybe her life would have been different.
"Prim and I were devastated, of course," she said, though devastated hardly scraped the surface of how their father's passing affected them. "But my mother…" Katniss trailed off. She'd never told anyone this part. Haymitch had known, Annie had figured it out. But she'd never once given voice to it.
"You don't have to—" Peeta started, but Katniss shook her head vehemently.
"No, you were right. I didn't let you in. I need to now." Her breath shuddered out. "I want you to know me, to understand why I'm so screwed up."
"Katniss," Peeta admonished, and she shook her head.
"Just listen," she whispered.
He reached for her hand and held on tight, and she allowed it, the warmth of his grip grounding her.
"My mother," she said again, "absolutely fell apart. It wasn't even that she cried or screamed, that would have been better. She just disappeared into herself. She went to bed, and she didn't get back up."
Peeta nodded, but Katniss knew he didn't understand.
"I mean literally. She didn't get up. She wouldn't take care of us, wouldn't even eat except what Prim forced into her. She just laid there, vacant eyed. We were terrified." Katniss was shaking, Peeta gripped her hand harder. "We didn't have anyone we could call for help. I tried so hard to keep everything together, to feed myself and Prim, to get us to school and help Prim with her homework. But I was only eleven, Peeta.
A lone tear slipped down her cheek, for the little girl she'd once been.
"We toughed it out for nearly three months," she said, and Peeta swore softly. "Then the authorities stepped in and took us away."
"You went to live with your uncle?" Peeta guessed, but Katniss shook her head.
"He didn't even know we existed then. We went into foster care." Katniss laughed, a bitter sound. "It took them another half year to find him. We didn't know any of our mother's family, and she was still just staring at the walls." She knew she sounded bitter, but how could she not? Her mother had abandoned them, plain and simple.
She glanced at Peeta then; he looked stricken. She rushed to reassure him. "We weren't mistreated, there was no abuse. But the whole experience wrecked me. I know, I know it doesn't sound that bad—"
"It sounds plenty bad," Peeta interrupted, frowning, and she smiled sadly.
"In the grand scheme of things, I know it could have been so much worse. But what she did? Abandoning us like that? Even at eleven, I knew that my dad didn't choose to leave us. But it felt like she did. It… it broke me." She looked down at their entwined fingers.
Peeta did as well. "I don't think you're broken, love," he said, and the pet name was almost her undoing. "Scared and hurt, understandably. But not broken."
She sniffled loudly. "I've spent my life since pushing people away, never getting close to anyone. Until now, anyway. I used to think that love was destruction."
"It's not." Peeta was fervent in his denial.
"I had no other examples of a healthy relationship, growing up. Haymitch's only long term relationship was with a bottle of scotch. I just internalised the idea that love was going to destroy me, like it destroyed her."
Peeta shifted, pulling Katniss into his side, strong and warm and so solid. His big hand came up to cup her cheek. "I don't know your mother," he said. "But love didn't destroy her, I'm certain of that."
"I know," Katniss whispered, allowing herself to sink into his touch. "She was mentally ill. She came to live with Haymitch later, after a stint in a psychiatric facility. I was in my first year of high school. She tried to make things right with me and Prim. But I couldn't trust her anymore. Prim tried. I kept my distance." Katniss laid her head on his shoulder. Peeta pulled the elastic from the end of her braid, then carded his fingers through her hair. Soothing.
"Where is she now?" Peeta asked after a while.
"Dead. She hung herself in Haymitch's attic that summer, when Prim was away at camp." Left her daughters again, that time for good. Katniss still blamed herself for it.
"Oh, love," Peeta murmured against her hair.
"She wanted our forgiveness, but I couldn't give it. I couldn't let her back in. It was safer that way. She could never hurt me again." Her matter of fact tone was at odds with the pit of grief and regret her mother's loss had left in her soul.
"That's why you keep yourself closed off," Peeta whispered. "They can't hurt you if you don't let yourself love them."
Katniss laughed, a sound more tears than mirth. "You're a better shrink than my psych prof." But she sobered quickly. "I'm sorry for shutting you out, Peeta. You deserve so much better than this."
Peeta pulled back, held Katniss by the shoulders, forcing her to maintain eye contact. "I love you, Katniss. Nothing you said changes that. I love you, and I think we have something special together. Something real."
Her heart slammed in her chest. Her every instinct was to run. But she was tired of running. Tired of hiding, tired of keeping things bottled up.
Tired of being alone.
"I'm going to screw up," she said. "A lot, probably."
Peeta smiled, like dawn breaking, illuminating every inch of his gorgeous face. "You think I won't?" he chuckled. "I have never had a real relationship before. But love, we can learn together. I want to learn together. I love you. Just be with me, the rest we'll figure out as we go along."
"Okay," she sighed.
"Yeah?"
"Yes," she said. Then his lips were on hers, kissing her and laughing against her mouth. Loving her. "I don't know how we'll make the two countries work," she admitted when they broke apart. "My contract expires in May.".
"We'll figure it out together," he said.
"They might kick me out of Australia." Her visa was employer sponsored.
"I'll come with you to Canada. I don't care where I live, Katniss. I just want to be with you." He pulled her down so she was laying beside him, pressed against his hot, golden skin, wrapped in his strong arms. Safe. Loved.
"What if they won't let you?" Her protest was more for show at this point.
"Then we'll live on a boat in international waters," he joked. "You're stuck with me, Dr. Everdeen, I'm in this for the long haul."
And Katniss trusted him. Believed in him. "Me too," she whispered, the hardest words she had ever said.
Peeta's arms tightened. "My Katniss," he whispered against her hair.
Katniss tensed, but then relaxed again, and pressed her lips over Peeta's heart.
It was terrifying, but also thrilling, and she wanted it, wanted him, more than anything she'd ever wanted before.