Lay Me Down, Let Me Dream

Co-written by Katnissdoesnotfollowback & Titania522

Trigger warnings: Major Character Deaths, Minor Character Deaths, Suicide, Afterlife, Heaven, Hell, Reincarnation (Literally Everybody Dies).

Rated M for Mature Sexual Content.

XXXXX

Peeta

I visited Katniss every day in the hospital. I had lost, in one stroke, the two most important women in my life. During Katniss' convalescence, I was no better than a zombie, moving aimlessly from one activity to the next, whether it was the bakery or taking care of our home - nothing really mattered to me. The only relief for the incredible loneliness of my day to day life was painting. In that period without Katniss, I covered my studio walls with canvas after canvas of our lives together - Prim in the garden of our small home; Katniss traipsing through the countryside in search of her rare herbs and plants; our make-shift family at the beach; Katniss looking out at me from everywhere, peering at me from behind the film of memory, a face transported from a time when she had been happy.

Sometimes you have to break in half to love someone.

We were broken in half because of Prim. Even now, I became breathless with her absence. Katniss' love was a necessity and being without her was slowly killing me.

However, Prim's love had been an unforeseen bonus. She had been my friend, my sister, and, to some extent, almost a daughter. Katniss' single-minded determination to care for her had become my own and now I was left defeated and without purpose because I had failed to protect them both. My life had been constructed around their well-being and now I had a hard time figuring out how to move forward.

XXXXX

Katniss sat listlessly on the verdant grass as I approached, her eyes lost and unfocused. Her hair hung unbraided and limp at her shoulders, as if she hadn't washed it in days. Her nails were long and full of the dirt she was digging into. I made a mental note to myself to speak to the attendant about her hygiene.

She was also thinner than usual, the bones of her face more prominent, making the dark circles under her eyes stand out like giant bruises on her skin. My wife had been beautiful. She'd been strong. She'd been mine once. Now I could hardly recognize her.

Katniss didn't acknowledge me when I took my usual spot next to her and that small indifference, when I spent so much of my waking life thinking of and missing her, inflicted a physical wound on my heart. I reached my hand out to grasp hers but she flicked it away, balling it up into a fist on her lap. So today it's anger, I said to myself, trying desperately not to take her rejection personally. I focused instead on the pile of dandelions clumped before her.

My nose twitched at the sudden and unfamiliar smell of smoke and I realized it came from a small ashtray near her knee. Inside was a lit cigarette, it's tip crackling as the heat combusted the contents inside, the line of ash and fire traveling up the smooth paper that encased the tobacco. I furrowed my brow at it.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing at the black, worn plastic that held the cigarette.

Katniss looked down at the cigarette and picked it up, pursing her lips as she took a long drag before releasing the smoke in rings over her head. "I'm teaching myself to smoke. Dr. Aurelius calls it an affirmation of life," she said ruefully and I could almost hear the laughter in her voice. "Imagine cancer sticks representing my return to my life," she laughed mirthlessly at this and the laughter I heard in her voice turned to derision. "I've always fucking hated cigarette smoke!" She picked up one of the dandelion flowers, throwing it in the ashtray and stubbed out her cigarette on the stem, the fluffy white leaves curling darkly inwards from the burning of the fiery tip. She then grabbed the charred weed and tossed it under a pine tree that stood not two feet away from us and I saw, for the first time, the pile of burnt dandelions smoking underneath. Something in the way those flowers seemed to lie, assaulted and discarded with so much violence, made the small hope that I carried in my heart shrivel a bit further.

"I brought you cheese buns," I said quietly, placing the bag before her. "I didn't think you'd get any of those here."

Katniss glanced at the white spotted bag and I swore I thought I saw the edge of her lips twitch. I wanted so much to see her smile again that any sign of it, no matter how small, caused my heart to soar.

"Do you want to try one?" I said, digging the still-warm bread from the bag. "I just made them."

She stared down her nose at it, as if its very existence offended her and I realized my earlier impression had been mistaken. "Maybe later," she muttered, lighting another cigarette.

For the first time since Prim's death, I became impatient with her. "Can you not do that?" I asked, somewhat more harshly than I intended.

Katniss paused, looking at me pointedly before continuing to light the cigarette. "No."

I was taken aback by her abrupt refusal and left speechless, which was probably for the best because I'd need all my cool to process what she said afterwards.

"I think we should get a divorce," she said, her voice devoid of all emotion.

"What?" I burst out, unable to control myself.

Katniss jumped at the shock in my voice and for once, I was proud that I was able to get something more out of her than indifference. "A divorce. We're too...different to stay together."

"Katniss…" I whispered and I knew that my annihilation was complete. "You'll leave here one day…"

"How can you go on living?" she asked in accusation, as if I hadn't spoken. "I can't...I can't even breathe without wanting to die and you...you…"

"I thought I was supposed to be strong," I said, feeling irrationally ashamed, for perhaps not falling apart, for not being here with her. "I thought I had to keep it together."

"For me?"

"For me. For us. For Prim." I closed my eyes, trying to describe my pain without tapping it and scalding myself with it. "I hear the silence...in our house...and I remember what it was like to be happy. I remember what it was like...to have everything…" my voice broke and I reigned it in with all my might. "I had you and Prim and now I have nothing, and I keep thinking, if I can just pull it together long enough, something will come back to me. Something of what we had will return." I looked over at her and saw something that looked like emotion flicker in those gray eyes that once held my entire world in them.

"So you choose life?" Katniss responded, more of a statement than a question.

"I choose you," I reached my hand out to her again. She didn't jerk away this time but she did untangle herself gently, her hand resting limply on her lap. "You're my life, Katniss."

The wind picked up then, the burnt dandelions under the pines stirring to life, the remaining white puffs floating and dancing into the air and soaring up into the sky until they were no longer visible in the glare of the sun. Katniss didn''t say anything else and I walked away with my heart in shreds.

XXXXX

I parked our car in front of the bakery the next morning, exhausted from the nightmares and the lack of sleep. The silence of our home had become a creature that curled itself around me and suffocated me with its oppression. I'd taken to leaving the house and walking around our neighborhood at all hours of the night, the fresh air somewhat lifting the heaviness that was crushing me from the inside, because I carried that carnivorous python inside of me.

I walked up to the back door of the shop, tripping on the step that was a part of the building ever since it was built, before any of us was born. I knew it was there and usually compensated for it in an unconscious way. But today, I forgot. I felt like I was restarting everything, and the memory of my physical world was just beyond my grasp, hiding behind a haze of nondescript mist.

I opened the door and flipped on the lights, fully intent on getting everything ready for the day when I came to a full stop. I studied the bakery for the as if it were the first time - it's gleaming, metal and stone surfaces, the steady ticking clock on the wall, the low hum of the refrigerator motors whirring throughout the room. I looked past the kitchen and made my way slowly to the front, only partly illuminated by the neon lights coming in from the front windows. From the shadows, the door opened and in came Katniss, like the day I met her, healthy and happy, tapping her lip with her forefinger as she searched the display case for something to buy. Prim came in soon after, her blond hair bouncing on her shoulders, a cocky half-smile on her lips. She was wearing the same clothes she was wearing when she died.

Dead.

She's dead.

I turned and ran out of the shop, unable to breathe and only just making it to my car before I bent over, leaning against my knees to catch my breath. I kept saying their names, over and over, in a mad liturgy that called the memory of everything I had experienced with them down on me like a hail of brimstone. I couldn't escape it. The vile creature I held at bay exploded to life in my chest, wrapping itself around me to rob me of my every last hope. Was this what it felt like to lose your mind?

I pawed clumsily at my pocket and fished out my cell phone, dialing Finnick's number in the dark with shaking hands. After several false starts, it rang, a panicked, sleepy voice crawling across the line.

"Peeta?"

"God help me, Finnick!" I gasped, unable to say anything more because my throat was starting to constrict.

"Where are you?" he said as I heard Annie rustling in the background. "I'll come get you."

I think I managed to answer him because I later recalled a car and being coaxed into the passenger's seat. Somehow, I ended up in his house with Annie removing my shoes and tucking me into a strange bed. At least it isn't so quiet anymore. After that, I simply stopped thinking altogether.

XXXXX

I move through the shiny, unnaturally bright woods, following the sounds of screams as they pierce the silence of the forest. I cry out their names, "Katniss! Prim!" but the sound seems to drop to my feet and I know no one has heard me. I make my way through tangled vines and thorns, which seem to become thicker and more gnarled with each step I advance until I make it to a clearing off the main trail. That's when I see them both, clutching each other in fear. They are sinking into the ground and each movement they make causes them to sink further. I'm running towards them, as fast as my legs can carry me but it seems no matter how hard I push myself, I am unable to close the space between us.

As quickly and as horribly as it all began, it's over. Without warning, the ground opens up beneath their feet. I reach out to them but they are gone. My desperation to reach them turns into grief, then anger and suddenly, the forest explodes and everything including me, is on fire. I scream their names as tree trunks burst into flames, branches sizzle to ash and the whole world around me becomes engulfed in the furies of my loss.

I woke with my screams in my ears. Shooting straight up in bed, I struggled to regain control of my breath, which burned through my chest and escaped in explosive gasps from my lips. I grasped the spot next to me, looking for the comfort of Katniss' body but my hands came up empty and I remembered, in a sickening rush of madness, all the events of the past few weeks. Sweat ran down the sides of my face and I wiped it away with my forearm, mingling with the tears that streamed down my cheeks. Grasping handfuls of my hair and pulling hard, I tried not to howl into the night but I was unsuccessful because I heard the footsteps pounding down the hallway and my bedroom door burst open.

"Are you alright?" came Annie's soft voice like the tinkling of bells after the horrific cacophony of my nightmares.

Nodding absently, I didn't trust myself to speak. I knew that if I opened my mouth, what would emerge would be a sound of inhuman pain. I glanced around the room and briefly took in the classic elegance of Annie and Finnick's guest room before squeezing my eyes shut again. For their sake, I admonished myself over and over; I won't cry...I won't cry…

But soon, arms surrounded me and I was doing exactly that. Finnick and Annie rocked me as my grief thrashed me. Nothing made sense except that I no longer wanted to live in a world where Prim was dead and Katniss was beyond my reach. I had been as strong as I could, for her sake, for my family and for myself but on that night, I became empty and realized I would never be strong enough to live my life without her and that realization brought me to the edge of my sanity.

XXXXX

I couldn't go back to the bakery after that. Not right away. I even stayed away from visiting Katniss, haunting the rooms of Finnick's home like a ghost. I thought of Mrs. Everdeen, with irreverent irony, now she had company in the halls of her half-life, the three of us meandering around each other in our grief, never able to really see or understand one another.

Finnick brought my paints and canvases and I worked obsessively. At first, the dandelion fields were burnt and destroyed, the meadow of my imagination wilted beneath the dry, blazing sun. I drew Katniss and I, contorted in grief. We weren't people anymore but spirits that hovered balefully around each other, each needing the other but unable to cross the chasm of misery that separated us.

After a time, I couldn't stand to be silent anymore. The absence of sound that I'd been trying to escape was now taking up residence in my mind and something inside me sought to push it back out again. I searched for Finnick, who was in the kitchen, cutting bright green, red and yellow bell peppers into long strips.

"Divorce," I said to Finnick, startling him so badly, the knife clattered to the cutting board.

"He speaks!" he said picking up the knife, checking his fingers as if to ensure they were all still intact. "What about a divorce?"

"Katniss." I clarify, clearing my throat as if cobwebs coated it. "That's what she asked me for the last time I went to visit her."

"What do you think?" he asked tentatively, turning from the cutting board, satisfied that all his digits were as they should be.

"I think she's out of her fucking mind," I spat with real anger, the vehemence of my own feeling taking me by surprise.

Finnick smiled, nodding his head. "Well, she is the one in the loony house, right?"

I glanced at him, ready to bite his head off and tell him to be a little more respectful but the mirth on his face became infectious and I couldn't help but smile along with him. The emotional chrysalis I had built to protect me from myself shattered and for the first time, the heaviness of the last months lifted somewhat from me. But I was still broken and the thought of Katniss in that institution threatened to suffocate me again.

"This is killing me," I whispered, collapsing into one of the kitchen chairs, the brief glimmer of hope scuttling away from me like the scurrying of startled rats.

Finnick stood next to me, placing a hand on my shoulder, the warmth seeping into my skin. I had forgotten how good it felt to actually have contact with another human being.

"Listen, you can't take care of her if you don't take care of yourself. Take it one step at a time," he admonished. I listened to his words, searching desperately for the solution to my conundrum.

He set a dish down in front of me with what looked like potatoes, eggs and sausages and I felt the pangs of hunger rumble in my stomach for the first time in days. I thought of Katniss wasting away in that institution and almost choked on my meal. But I tried not to lose my appetite again as I thought of a way to get through to her and bring her back home to me.

XXXXX

On that overcast Sunday morning, I dressed carefully, wearing the button-down shirt Katniss had bought for my last birthday. She said she loved it because my eyes picked up the color of the deep blue hue and augmented them, making them blaze with an even more vibrant version of their natural color.

I picked up my wedding ring, having taken it off to polish it. I turned it in order to read the inscription, the twin of which was on her own ring - K & P Always - and slipped it onto my finger, the metal fitting into the groove of my skin which had been created from years of wearing the band. It fit the way Katniss and I fit together, each of us the key that could unlock each other's heart.

When I walked the hospital gardens, I found her in the same place, as if she had never left that spot, except instead of burnt dandelions, there was just her digging into the moist earth of the ground. She was humming a tune beneath her breath, a tune I didn't recognize. I knelt down beside her, trying to capture her eyes. She flinched when I reached my hand out to grasp her chin and my hand fell back as if stunned. Taking a deep breath, I placed the sheaf of papers at her feet.

"I'm here to talk to you," I said with a voice on the verge of cracking. She said nothing, simply staring at the folded pages and I wondered if there was even any curiosity left in her. I was taking a gamble and the stakes were all or nothing now.

"I know why you don't want to come home," I began. She stiffened at my unexpected words. My ability to surprise her gave me courage. "You think that if you try to recover, if you try to get better, then it proves that it wasn't your fault that Prim died." Her sharp intake of breath spurred me on; it was the most I'd gotten out of her in almost two months. "You think that if you choose to leave this place, you aren't really sorry. In your mind, it's your fault she's dead and anything less than your total withdrawal from life is a violation of her memory."

Her quiet weeping filled the air but I didn't let it stop me, for I had tears to match her own, "You can't come home because you're angry at me. I couldn't join you in your breakdown over your grief. I left you here alone, and, for that, I'm sorry."

"She was my sister," she hissed. "I watched her die. How could you understand!" she screamed as she clawed desperately before her.

I sank down to where her face was almost against the ground. "That day, she asked me to go with you both and I said 'no!' Don't you think I dream, every night…" I choked on my words, "that if I had made another decision, if I had gone with you, I could have saved her? Don't you know that I loved her too?"

Katniss looked at me, her pain so acute that, had I not been trying to fight through my own, I would not have survived the expression on her face. "No, Peeta, it was too fast! You couldn't have saved her!"

I wiped my face, feeling the dirt as I smeared it across it. "And yet it wasn't too fast for you, Katniss? How can you be so quick to excuse me and yet so hard on yourself?"

Katniss sobbed loudly and I saw she carried a beast inside her too, one that may have already suffocated her. "I was supposed to protect her! That was my job and I failed!"

"Then we both failed, my love," I whispered. "If you failed, I failed twice, because I couldn't protect either of you."

"No!" she hurled at me. "Not you! Never you!"

We sat staring at each other across our impasse, and I became despondent. Perhaps I would fail at this too and have to accept that I'd be forced to live this half life without her by my side.

I pushed the papers that I'd set down on the ground before her. "These are divorce papers. Just like you asked. Me coming here isn't helping you...and it's killing me." I wanted to tell her that I loved her more than life itself, that I would never be happy again without her. She was the only one I needed and I would be useless to everyone I ever met from here on out. I wanted to beg and grovel but I didn't want to hurt her with my insistence, couldn't bring myself to heap those things onto her, because doing so would only be for my benefit.

"Shoot straight, okay?" I said, touching her braid one last time before getting to my feet. As I turned, she captured my hand and pulled it to her lips. The feeling of her soft mouth on my fingers made me weak in the knees and I almost could not believe that this moment was real, convinced as I was that she would never leave this place again, the way her mother had not.

"Okay. Okay," she said as she pulled me down and hugged me to her. I could feel her bones through her dressing gown, smell the neglect of her body and I cried, for what we used to be and for what was left of us now.

At length, when we'd had our fill of tears, she turned her lips into my neck and whispered, "I'm ready to come home, Peeta."

XXXXX

Slowly, after many lost days, she came back to life. We slept together but most of our nights were spent keeping our nightmares at bay. She couldn't cross that chasm of intimacy right away so I continued to bake and paint. Katniss hiked and studied. We began to frequent our friends again. She finally visited her mother in the hospital, to speak of Prim and to grieve in their own silent, peculiar way. I had brought the news to Mrs. Everdeen when Katniss was too devastated to do so herself, but her mother didn't truly accept the truth of Prim's death and mourn for her until she heard it from Katniss' lips. It was a little death I died that day, watching Katniss and her mother together, but I felt somewhat closer to them both for it. I could say I finally understood them.

One day, as the last days of winter receded, giving way to green shoots and new life, Katniss came home to find me planting primrose bushes. At first, she appeared stunned but then sprang into action so quickly, I didn't believe anyone could move so fast. She leapt into the flowerbed in a rage to pull the plants out of the ground.

"What are you doing!?" she screamed as she reached into the dirt, grabbing clumps of earth and vegetation and yanking them by the roots.

"Katniss! They're for Prim!" I cried, battling with her wild hands. "I don't want to forget her!" Katniss settled immediately, staring at me in horror but I pressed on. "I think about how beautiful and fresh and young she was and I know it hurts, but that's who she was to me. I want to remember her the way she was." I uncurled her fists and pulled the plants from her, lowering my voice. "But if you really don't want them, I understand. I'll get rid of them."

Katniss' grey eyes went wide and hollow and I was sure, if I looked deeply enough into them, I would see the true depths of her grief and go mad from it. Slowly, she let go of the plant she was strangling and almost stood to walk away, probably to hide under the covers of her bed. But she hesitated and turned back to me, wrapping her arms tightly around my neck.

"I'm so sorry. Don't stop planting the pr...flowers…" she stuttered before pulling back to look at me. "I'll never be the same without my sister. But please, don't stop loving me."

I clasped her to me and rocked us gently. "I couldn't stop loving you any more than I can stop breathing and even then," I captured her head in my hands, caressing her cheeks gently, "Even then, I'd probably follow you like a dog for eternity."

"Always?" she asked, her vulnerability eliciting every protective instinct I possessed. I would be her ally, her friend, her lover - anything she needed, no matter what the cost to me.

"Always." I promised, to her and also, to myself.

Katniss' face broke into a small smile, something I so rarely saw in those months, before kissing me, and I almost believed that we might finally be alright.

XXXXX

Katniss

Peeta and I grew slowly back together. There were still bad days, like the day when Buttercup kept pawing at the door to Prim's room and I yelled at him before breaking down in the hallway and crying. When Peeta came home that night, he found a sight he'd never seen before; me lying on the couch napping, with Buttercup contentedly curled up on my feet. Or the day I found Peeta planting primrose bushes and screamed first, then asked him to stay with me and love me even though I was broken in a way no one could fix.

On the bad days, I found ways to help myself focus and distract myself from the pain. I made lists. Grocery lists, to do lists for work, a list of the flowers in our garden, or lists of all the good memories I had of Prim.

But there were good days, too. It took a long time, but eventually, the good days started to outnumber the bad. On one of those good days, I came home from work with great news. After almost a year of consideration, the university had accepted me into their PhD program. Soon after Prim died, they had put my application on hold until I was ready. Their acceptance and my joy over it felt like a huge step, and as I entered our house, I wanted nothing more than to share it with the people I loved.

Only they weren't there. Peeta wasn't home yet, and Prim…

I teetered on the brink for a few moments and started listing my favorite songs. It seemed an ironic thing to do in a silent house. Prim always had music going. Sometimes, she even fell asleep with it playing, and I would have to sneak into her room and turn her stereo off before I returned to bed myself. I couldn't remember the last time our house was bursting in song.

Impulsively, I turned on the kitchen radio, turning the dial until I found a station playing Taylor Swift, something Prim would have played on repeat until the lyrics were indelibly etched in my brain. Cranking the volume, I danced through the kitchen and sang, lifting my voice in the hope that somewhere, somehow, Prim would know that I was finding some happiness.

It was a silly notion, but it helped chase away the dark thoughts until Peeta returned home from the bakery, a dusting of flour still caught in his hair.

"You're singing," he yelled over the noise, his face scrunched in confusion and I nodded. The confusion melted into a brilliant smile as he swept me up in his arms, turning me about the kitchen, before setting me, laughing, on my feet. "What's this about? Or should I just kiss you?"

"Kiss me first and then I'll tell you," I teased. It's something the old Katniss would have said, and the words felt a little rough in my mouth but somehow right.

My breath hitched as Peeta pulled me closer, his fingers tangling in my hair and his warm exhales fanning over my lips. He paused, our mouths a fraction of an inch apart, noses brushing, his eyelids half closed. He was waiting for me, giving me the power and the choice. Warmth I hadn't felt in almost a year spread through me. Slowly, we had started to heal, weaving our lives back together one piece at a time. And while we had shared kisses, embraces, and soft caresses…this heat and hunger for each other had been glaringly absent.

So as he whispered my name, I heard it. A desperate hunger in his voice, and I felt the familiar pull towards him, only somehow deeper. The radio announcer started talking as the song ended and the station switched to commercials. But I was too focused on Peeta's lips to care. I nodded, hoping he understood what I meant and closed the distance between us, my arms and his hands binding us together in a tight embrace. We stumbled to the bedroom, refusing to let our lips part for even a second. I was afraid I'd break something between us if I pulled away.

Kissing Peeta like that again felt so impossibly good that I didn't want to stop. So we didn't. Not when we peeled one another's pants from our bodies, nor as we unbuttoned shirts and slid them from our shoulders. Not when we tumbled to the bed together, legs tangled. We kissed while his fingers drew soft moans from me that he tasted with his tongue, and while I jerked my hips against his hand and watched the stars explode behind my eyelids. Our lips remained fused when he sank into me, still trembling in release, and as our languid movements gradually grew desperate, seeking something we both thought we'd lost.

We found it again that night, in his hoarse groans and my stunned whisper of his name when our lips finally separated to give song to our shared pleasure. So when we fell asleep later that night, hopelessly entwined, with the radio still playing in the kitchen, I no longer feared my dreams.

XXXXX

I sang my way through the rough spots, even when I didn't feel the joy behind the lyrics; sometimes just voicing them helped. Peeta painted and drew at a prodigious rate. It took me a long time before I asked, but eventually, Peeta showed me the piles of sketches and paintings he made in the period between Prim's death and my return home from the hospital. Seeing her so young and fresh hurt, releasing a river of tears, but also relief. That night gave me an idea, an idea that required enough focus and work to keep me distracted from the ramifications of what I was offering.

Peeta had planted a memorial to Prim in our garden, a place that had become my favorite part of the house, oddly enough. I sang and found the courage to return to the woods, a place where I belonged anyway. Together, we had found ways to mitigate the pain left in Prim's absence. But while we had healed, we hadn't done much to recognise the rift between us and how we'd managed to grow back together.

"So what do you think?" I asked as we sat on the couch, Buttercup pawing at his toy mouse across the room. Peeta stared thoughtfully at the typed up lists and printed brochures.

"Lake Tahoe?" he asked skeptically.

"I know it's expensive," I said, tucking my hair behind my ear and preparing to launch into my arguments for this trip. "But I think maybe a change, something new...a different lake and a different set of woods. I think it could be good for us."

I picked up one of the brochures and glanced over it, even though I already had every word of it memorized. I could feel his eyes on me, and finally, I dropped the brochure in my lap and handed him one of the lists, pointing out the dates I had already penciled onto my calendar.

"It's kind of an important date, you see. And I thought, since we've been doing pretty good, we should take a vacation. And sort of celebrate."

He sucked in his breath as he realized what day I was referring to. "I brought you divorce papers on that day," he whispered, his words slow and deliberate.

"And I ripped them up," I answered. The papers in Peeta's hands fluttered to the floor as he held my face delicately in his palms. His eyes glowed with the sheen of unshed tears, and I knew this was the right thing to do.

"Okay, Katniss. Let's do it."

XXXXX

Shoot straight, he'd said the day he gave me divorce papers and a staggering understanding of my thoughts. I'd spent months in that hospital with professionals who hadn't managed to voice so concisely what Peeta did that day. And I'd barely spoken more than three civil sentences to him in that time. He came with a confession that he was hurting and near the edge, too, something that I'd desperately needed to hear.

Shoot straight.

They were the same words he'd said to me the morning that I went in to defend my thesis, a reference to one of my hobbies and joys. He'd meant them as a way of telling me "good luck," but they eventually came to mean so much more.

Be brave. Forthright, open, and honest. Chin up and don't give up.

So I thought it was fitting for me to return to archery and for him to try it with me while we were on our trip. It brought me a strange sense of peace as I honed in on the target until the rest of the world melted away, leaving just me and the arrow. I reclaimed this as I had the woods.

Peeta was terrible at it. He had no aim at all.

"Stop laughing," he'd grumbled as we made our way back to our cabin after one very bad afternoon archery lesson. "Not my fault you had a head start on me."

I laughed and linked my hand with his. The pressure of his hand as he squeezed mine told me that he wasn't really mad at me.

"No, I'm just a quick learner." Peeta made a face at my words. "Besides, I think Dr. Squirrel-Face would not approve of me handling any form of deadly weapon."

"Probably not," Peeta stopped and turned so that we faced each other, twining our free hands together. "I was thinking. Maybe we should find you another therapist. If you aren't happy with him-"

"I'm fine with him, Peeta. Just taking out my resentment that I need therapy at all on him," I said with a shrug.

"If you're sure," he persisted.

"I am," I stated firmly. "Besides, I doubt we'll ever find a shrink I can get along with." Peeta chuckled and as we reached the cabin, leaning down to press a sweet kiss behind my ear.

"You up for a swim after dinner?" he asked in a low tone and I nodded eagerly.

After we ate and changed to swim clothes under our pants and t-shirts, Peeta and I set off for our favorite spot along the lake. A short hike later, Peeta pulled a blanket from his backpack, spreading it out about ten feet from the shore under the shade of a tree covered in late-blooming wisteria vines. I reached up and stroked one of the deep purple blooms before peeling off my clothes and striding towards the lake. We swam and splashed for a time, until Peeta said he wanted to draw for a few minutes before the light faded.

I lay on the blanket, absorbing the last rays of sunshine while Peeta's pencil flew over the pages of his sketchbook. At one point, he caught me staring at the water droplets still clinging to his lashes and hair. He'd donned his shirt again, and it clung to portions of his torso, the fabric damp with lake water that Peeta hadn't dried off completely.

"Care to see?" he asked, jiggling the sketchbook in front of me.

"Yeah," I said, propping myself on one elbow and turning my body to face his. I smiled at his rendition of me with a bow. "I look so serious and accomplished."

Peeta just smiled and flipped the page. My heart lurched at the image of the very tree we sat under. "I think I want to paint this one," he whispered and reached out to trace a finger down my cheek.

"I'd like that," I tilted my head to take more of his touch. "We could hang it over our mantle."

A soft flush spread over his cheeks, and my belly flipped. Warmth began to build low in my middle. I was formulating a plan to ensure Peeta would paint that picture. Then he turned to the next page and I tried not to flinch at the image.

"Katniss," he said cautiously. "Can I ask you something?"

I swallowed thickly, but nodded. Shoot straight. We weren't supposed to keep things from each other anymore. But from his tone, I didn't think I was going to like the question.

"I started drawing dandelions after this day in the garden. A bunch of them had cropped up in the spring, and I had asked you what was the best way to get rid of them without killing everything else. Do you remember that?"

I nodded again and sat up, hugging my knees to my chest. I remembered. It was before Prim had died. Before the sight of them sent me spiraling into grief and anxiety.

"Don't kill them, Peeta. I admire dandelions."

"They're weeds, Katniss."

"They're survivors. Hardy and difficult to eradicate. They have remarkably deep, strong roots. And they are not only edible, but actually pretty nutritious. Plus, they bloom in the spring. Everything is always better in spring."

"Okay," Peeta shook his head at me. "I won't try to kill the dandelions if you don't want me to."

After that, Peeta did start to draw dandelions all the time. He scribbled them in the corner of notes he left for me, drew them in chalk on the driveway with Prim one lazy summer afternoon, and filled pages of them in different mediums. Everything from Bic pens to oil paints.

"They always made me think of you. Strong. Survivors," Peeta whispered into the evening air, and I bit my lip, holding back the tears. "And I thought you used to like those drawings. But something's changed."

And finally, I spilled out the story of how Prim had noticed his thing for dandelions and tucked them into our hair the day she died.

I'd barely gotten two sentences of the story out before he had me in his arms and on his lap. Peeta's entire body cocooned me while I waited for sobs, but all I got were a few scattered tears and the steady beat of Peeta's heart against my palm.

When I finished my explanation, Peeta shifted our bodies so we could watch the sun as it set. It was his favorite time of day. And I wondered if, when he added color to the image of the wisteria-draped tree, would he paint it at sunset?

A chill grew in the air but not in me. Gooseflesh raised over my skin as Peeta's hands rubbed over my back. I'm sure he meant the gesture to be soothing, but it was having another effect entirely on me. As the sun dipped behind the trees, bathing the world in soft orange light, I pressed feather light kisses to Peeta's neck, up to his ears.

"I thought you were angry with me and I didn't know why. Katniss," there was a slight question in his voice that my hands answered as they pushed his damp shirt up over his head.

"I've lived through hell and yet you're still here," I said to the bare skin of his shoulders. "Sometimes I feel like I'm still going through hell. You stayed even when I meant to push you away."

"Always," he said, tugging on my chin to get me to look at him, to make me understand how deeply he meant this promise. You're stuck with me for always, he'd whispered on our wedding night. I'd follow you like a dog for eternity, he'd almost sobbed the day I tore up the divorce papers. And at sunset by the lake, he made one more promise. "I'll stay with you, always."

I couldn't wait any longer. I was already burning away from the need to have him inside me, and his words only stoked the flames. His hands trembled as they helped remove my still wet bathing suit and he flung it aside with a boyish grin.

"You really want to do this here?" he asked, but he was already tugging on my legs to position me and pulling one side of the blanket over us to hide us from any prying eyes.

"Yes," I gasped out. "Here under the tree you're going to paint."

Peeta's hands ran lovingly over me, his lips following in their wake, and I shivered under his light touches, arching my body towards his to gain more of his heat. His skin was still cool from the lake, but as his mouth joined mine, I splayed my hands over the smooth expanse of his back. I felt him warming under my palms in the same measure as the heat gathering between my legs. Peeta's fingers curled inside me, drawing out moisture as he moaned softly against my lips.

"God, I love feeling you this wet," he whispered as the hand that was not pushing me quickly towards my peak fumbled with his swim trunks. With a soft smile, I ground my core up into his hand and then helped remove the damp garment. It joined mine somewhere in the grass as I rolled us and straddled him, the blanket now tangled over our limbs and my breasts exposed to the cooling evening air. The sky had turned indigo, the sun hidden behind the trees, as I took Peeta in my grip. I slowly lowered myself onto him and watched him bite his lower lip to keep from crying out, his hands gripping my thighs.

I writhed over him, chasing wisteria blooms and sunsets and the stars reflected in his eyes. They were bluer than the sky on a summer day, but when filled with starlight and want, they appeared almost midnight. Infinite and overflowing with love. I couldn't tear my gaze away while his hands drifted over me, an evening breeze that made the ardor grow until I fell into the depths of him and slammed my mouth to his to muffle my shouts of release.

My walls still clenched around him and my legs shook as he flipped us, tugging my legs high around his waist. Peeta dropped a hand between us, his mouth raining trails of molten heat over my throat, my shoulders, and my breasts while he rubbed frantic circles over my clitoris, sending me crashing over the edge before I'd recovered from the last. His hips drove into me and he chanted my name like a prayer. I was delirious and greedy, tilting my hips so he rubbed against my front walls. I could feel it when he pulsed inside of me, hips still thrusting, our skin slapping together loudly in the quiet night, and his groan taking me with him once more.

"Peeta," I moaned, biting down on his shoulder with my nails digging in his back while the whole world burst into bloom.

We lay there panting, Peeta brushing sweat dampened strands of hair off my forehead. An echo of laughter drifted across the water and we both froze. After a tense moment, he lifted his head and scanned the trees and neighboring areas. Unable to find the source, he shrugged and I started laughing, too, covering my mouth with one hand.

When the moment faded, Peeta handed my clothes back to me and we both dressed. Armed with a flashlight from my pack, we carefully made our way back to the cabin. We hadn't spoken since I'd moaned his name as I came. We would leave this place in a few days, with no concrete plans to return. Life and a dead sister's bedroom waited for us, and I tensed at the thought.

In the days leading up to our trip, Dr. Squirrel-Face had insisted that I was ready to clean out Prim's room. It was not a task I looked forward to, given my last reaction, but Peeta had promised to sweep the room for any triggers before I set foot in there.

At first, his promise angered me, and I yelled at him that he didn't need to baby me. Even after all that had happened, I still had trouble accepting help. Eventually, I gave Peeta a terse nod and a three word answer to let him know his idea was probably best.

As we stood under the shower and rinsed the lake and evidence of our lovemaking from our skin, I felt myself slipping a little at the mere thought of cleaning out and getting rid of Prim's things. So I made two lists in my head.

Those things of Prim's that I knew I could never part with. And all the things I loved about or needed from Peeta.

XXXXX

Our life wasn't always sunshine and rainbows. How could it be? We existed with a dark hole in our lives, one that nothing could ever really fill. But I started to believe that he had been right the night I broke down in Prim's room. We'd make it through somehow. We could face anything together. Things could be good again. And they were for a time, but I had no idea how wrong I was.

Thanks to abbythebear and solasvioletta for betaing this fic!