Chapter 3
What Hides Beneath

Author's Note - Been abroad for a very long time. I'm just getting back to my fanfictioning work now. Hope I haven't gotten too rusty. Enjoy.

~The next few months for both Peeta and Katniss were relatively easy. They spent much of their time together, mostly out of need, the cameras from the Capitol were ever watching and came unannounced at times the closer to the Victory Tour they came. But there were quiet moments where Peeta came to the house in the Seam and watched Katniss clean fish or gut caught animals. For being only a baker and a cook upon occasion when need arose, Peeta wasn't squeamish like Prim or her mother. Katniss just chalked it up to the games that took away their bit of childish innocence.

~When they weren't at the Seam house, they spent time at his in Victor's Alley. They never went to his old home in the market. He would show her his various baking skills that encompassed everything from cookies to honey drizzled pound cake. To Katniss, there wasn't anything he couldn't make or do, except teach her. Even if she followed every one of Peeta's instructions without deviating, her cookies came out burned and her cakes looked deflated.

~"You really are a horrible baker," Peeta teased, carefully icing a cookie with vanilla topping and giving it to her to test. He always chuckled when her eyes rolled into the back of her head at every mouth watering bite.

~"And you have the hunting skills of a wet, heavy-footed blanket." She focused her gaze on him and gave him a sly smile.

~"Hey, I didn't call you any names."

~"It doesn't make it any less true."

~They stared at each other for a moment, a stalemate of jests until further notice, but they continued to grin at each other whenever one was caught looking at the other and they would quickly look away.

~Katniss sat back in her seat overlooking Peeta's kitchen, the only thing she could think of about this place was how warm and inviting it felt, reminding her of the nights her father was still alive. They had been poor, something she wasn't now, but there was warmth and love in every corner and crack of their home. Peeta's house reminded her of those times and it made her nearly forget the blood and gore of the games. Almost.

~"All right, the icing needs to set," Peeta stated matter of factly, wiping his white dusted hands on his equally dusted apron. It was comical how the gesture didn't seem to actually clean his hands at all, it seemed to only turn them whiter.

~"So, what now?" Katniss asked, wondering what other sugary confections he was going to whip up and let her eat.

~"I think I'm done baking for today, I need to order more flour."

~"What baker doesn't have flour?" They were back to teasing, but the humor dropped when Katniss noticed the serious expression lining Peeta's square jaw. "What?"

~"I want to show you something." He went to the sink and ran a warm tap to wash his hands, untying his apron to chuck it to the nearest laundry basket.

~A kind of cold feeling knotted in the pit of Katniss' gut, an almost slithering cold feeling that spread throughout her body until she shivered involuntarily. She allowed herself to be lead to Peeta's stairs, hands cupped together as they made their way up, every step taken making the arctic feeling of icy dread shock wave up and down her spine. This was the part of Peeta's house she hadn't been in. Aside from the mental blocking of impropriety of going near his bedroom and what that would imply to them both, Katniss hadn't wanted to come up here. There was something almost living, breathing in the upstairs of Peeta's house. A monster of kinds, filled with haunting memories of things Katniss wanted to bury.

~Peeta steered his charge away from his room, a relief Kat couldn't fully enjoy as he was pulling her towards the end of the hall. He placed his strong hands on the doorknob and turned it, giving the barrier a little push. Sunlight poured through the opening and blinded Katniss momentarily, but as she gained back her vision she suddenly felt the coldness in her belly explode and transported her back to the world she fought to hide from.

~Aside from baking, Peeta had another talent, one Katniss didn't know he'd honed so well. Painting. Peeta Mellark was a brilliant painter, of that no one could deny, not even Kat, though it was what he painted that brought to life the girl on fire's worst nightmares because Peeta Mellark painted images from the games of things she didn't want to remember, but that he couldn't forget.

~It took some pulling, but Peeta managed to yank Katniss inside, pulling her hard enough that she lost her balance and crashed into him. She had her eyes closed, refusing to open them until she felt a warm hand grab her chin and a hot breath fan across her face. Her eyes sprang open and there were a pair of concerned water blue eyes that stared back into her storm cloud gray.

~"It's all right," he murmured, "I'm here. I won't let you go."

~Katniss nodded and took a deep breath to calm herself, moving her gaze around the room. She heard about Peeta's talent from Haymitch, had seen it first hand at the games and while he decorated his cakes, but this… his paintings… there weren't even words in her vocabulary to describe it.

~He had done her a favor, covering up the more grisly paintings and left uncovered the ones that made her almost cry. There was Rue, comfortably lying in death, surrounded by the pretty white flowers Katniss had plucked for her, and even in death the small young girl was smiling, as if only sleeping in the hands of a happy dream. It was the picture that had startled Katniss to tears.

~Prim's picture came next. It was the day of the reaping, but Peeta had painted her from behind as she walked next to her older sister, their hands clasped together tightly. There was Prim's little ducktail poking out from the back and Kat laughed through a choked sob.

~The pictures were piling on top of themselves, too many to count. There was Peeta's brothers from the reaping, the unelectrified fence with the meadow beyond, someone walking back, dirty and coal dust riddled from the mines. Every aspect of life here in District 12 had been covered from Greasy Sae in the Hob, to children playing in the school yard. They were fantastic paintings, nothing like anything Katniss had ever laid eyes upon before.

~"They're beautiful," she hiccuped and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

~Peeta was smiling tenderly, holding her close to his chest, "these weren't what I wanted to show you." He pulled her to the corner of the room where a few covered pictures sat silently and one stood on an easel draped with a white sheet. Giving Katniss a reassuring squeeze, he left her side to pull on a corner of the covering, revealing the canvas beneath. There, hiding beneath was a person Katniss didn't recognize, although she knew who it was. It was herself, standing before Caesar Flickerman in her flaming dress as she twirled, the all too real fire licking up her scarlet red garment in a shower of sparkling embers. And plastered to her ethereally too pretty to be real face, was a small smile that betrayed her feelings that night on the well lit stage.

~"That's not me," Katniss argued, still in awe over the radiant colors and careful drawing.

~"Of course it is," he whispered and took her hand to bring her closer, "it's how I see you."

~Katniss haltingly reached her hand out to the canvas, looking to Peeta for permission, which he gave with a half-cocked grin. "You made me too pretty. I don't look like this for real."

~She turned, startled as the sound of more sheets being yanked away was all around her. There were more of them, more paintings that captured her in a light that she didn't know existed within herself. One of her sleeping in a tree in the Seam before the games. One with her body poised and ready to let a knocked arrow fly at her prey. Every shot carefully captured by the eyes of a young man whose impeccable memory wouldn't stay confined to his mind. Every painting bringing fourth an expression Katniss didn't want anyone to see of herself. She was left exposed and naked in these pictures, fully clothed, but exposing the deepest, most secretive part of her soul to any who looked at them. The delicate array of mixed colors was beautiful, no one, not even Katniss could deny that, but it was difficult to know that Peeta could see through the masks of cold indifference straight down to her soft and vulnerable core. It shook her to know that if he showed anyone these portraits that they would knew her inner most emotions, and with the Capitol at odds with her for her innocent and noble acts of defiance, she suddenly felt that everything could crash down around her at any second.

~"You… you can't show people these," she said suddenly, giving him a deadpan look that borderlined anxious terror.

~Peeta's tender smile faded and confusion crossed his features, "what are you talking about, Katniss?" He asked, "of course I'm going to show them, it helps our star-crossed lovers role. Haymitch thinks it's a great idea."

~Taken aback, Katniss glared at Peeta intensely, "you can't show any of the ones with me in them."

~He crossed his arms over his chest and returned her harsh scowl, "why? Why can't I show everyone what you really look like? What's so wrong with that?"

~" Because it's how I really look, Peta. You remember what I told you about the Capitol, how we… I made them angry."

~"Of course I do and that's why I'm drawing these. I don't want them to think that we aren't their star-crossed lovers. Isn't that what you wanted?" His stance on this whole thing was unwavering, he had put his mind to it and he wasn't going to back down. His stubbornness was where Katniss found he and her butted heads the most. It was the same back in the games and it remained unchanged now. It was his gift and her curse.

~"They'll use it against us, Peeta."

~"The paintings? How? Katniss, tell me."

~She drew closer, coming to stand at his side. Her hands extended towards the image of her twirling around on fire, "because they'll find out that this indifference isn't real and I really am scared of them. That they make me feel things no one else can." Her hand fell back down to her side and she turned from the room to leave. Behind her she heard Peeta sighing and picking up a can of paint. As the door closed behind Katniss Everdeen, she noted the wet splash of liquid slamming into a hard surface and felt her heart clench. Peeta was destroying his hard work for her. Yes, she was scared. Yes, it was selfish, but that's the kind of person she was, selfish.

~Katniss slept in the cold that night, under a soft glow of midnight moon. She dreamed of the nights before the games and in the dreams she caught on fire. All the while she screamed in pain, and all the while, President Snow smiled like a maniacal madman.

~"I heard that Peeta destroyed a lot of his artwork last night," Haymitch began, sipping on some iced tea that Greasy Sae had left for him that morning, but by the way he cradled it, Katniss thought there was an extra ingredient Sae hadn't thought to add.

~Katniss shrugged, if Peeta had told Haymitch that he did it for her, the old man would find some needling remark to prod her with before she'd even sat down.

~"You know his collection of you was his pride and joy, right?"

~Again, Katniss just shrugged without a word. She didn't know what to say. She was exhausted from her nightmares and hadn't worked up enough nerve to apologize to Peeta for yesterday, though she wasn't sure it would have helped her case. Her unchecked emotions the day prior and not thought through words were anything but logical to anyone that wasn't her.

~"The Victory Tour is in a month and a half," Haymitch said, drawing Kat from her distracting thoughts to pull her into a more fruitful conversation. "Have you found anything you're especially good at to do?"

~"No. I can't do what Peeta does and the only thing I can do well is kill things with my bow."

~Haymitch nodded, "you are pretty useless." It wasn't an unkind joke, just a poorly mannered one. "What about…" He paused to think, but was coming up empty-handed.

~"She can sing," Peeta's deep voice chimed in as he came to sit on the opposite side of Kat's bench. The bags under his eyes made Katniss realize he probably hadn't slept either.

~"No, I can't," she automatically started.

~"Loverboy's got something. You sang to Rue and I remember the entire square stopping to listen."

~"She makes the birds stop singing so they can hear her."

~"Will you both stop, I'm not going to sing for the Capitol."

~Haymitch took another sip off his spiked tea, "you may not get a choice, sweet cheeks." They began other conversations, mostly about what to expect on the tour aside from constant media attention and costume changes. They were warned how some, if not all of the districts would hate them and how this was the place to express more than ever just how much in love they were. He went on to-after a few more glasses of tea-that a sex scandal couldn't hurt them either, but changed the subject when Peeta couldn't stop coughing on spit he'd inhaled or how cherry red Katniss' face was becoming.

~"Wow," Haymitch mumbled, "still virgins." There was more coughing and blushing until Peeta remembered he had something to do and excused himself, leaving Katniss to her mentor's conniving schemes.

~When the youngest Mellark son was out of earshot, Haymitch muttered something under his breath, but Katniss caught it.

~"You could live a thousand lifetimes and still not deserve him."

~"I know..."

Author's Note - Another chapter on its way.