Lay Me Down, Let Me Dream

Co-written by Katnissdoesnotfollowback & Titania522

Summary: Katniss and Peeta share a bond so strong, even death cannot defy it. When tragedy threatens to separate them forever, Peeta risks his soul to save Katniss from an eternity of despair. Inspired by the book, What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson and the movie by the same name, starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Annabella Sciorra. Written for Prompts in Panem, Real or Not Real: Everlark Dreamscape Week.

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

Rated M for Mature Sexual Content.

Day 4. Howls

Peeta

Four Years Later

"Hmm...that's nice…" she murmured as I ran my hands along the length of her back.

I brought my lips down to her ear and whispered, "Do you like that?" The aroma of her shampoo mingling with her own special smell made me heady with a sudden rush of heat that almost robbed me of reason.

"Very much," she said before picking up her head to look over her shoulder at me. "I don't see how this can be part of your birthday present. I should be giving you a massage."

I pressed her muscles further, which became more pliant beneath my fingers, careful to straddle her legs without sitting down on her as I worked. I rolled my knuckles into the small of her back, eliciting a hiss of pleasure, before I responded, "It's not the massage, but what comes afterward that's my happy birthday."

"Is it really, now?" she asked huskily, bucking her hips upwards so that her bottom ground impatiently against my groin. I slapped her bare cheek lightly, becoming more excited with every moment I had her beneath me.

"Patience. You'll get what you're looking for soon enough." I said this playfully as I let my oil-slicked fingers glide over the curve of her bottom, dipping between her thighs, spreading her legs slightly apart. I had to adjust my position somewhat, so that one knee was between her legs but I still kept myself under control, massaging her cheeks, perhaps a little bit harder than I'd done with the rest of her. When my hands moved to her thighs, she gave a whimper of protest which made me smile, and I let my hands run up to the heavy curve of her bottom again, kneading it. Her moans of pleasure were more than my system could handle and I knew I would not make it down to her calves.

Moving to kneel between her now splayed legs, I pulled her hips slightly upwards and touched her wetness. She was ready for me and this made the throbbing between own my thighs almost too painful to endure. I leaned over her, kissing her shoulder before sinking into her. It caught her by surprise but instead of protesting, she bucked backwards again. Holding myself in place with both hands on either side of her, I plunged into her and reveled in the beauty of her back, shiny with oil, beneath me. She would always be the most beautiful woman I'd ever known, and she was mine.

I slowed down, taking my time, drawing out those delicious moans of hers that belonged only to me, for those sounds told me she was nearing her own release. I had a sudden desire to look at her and pulled out, earning a mutter of protest.

"Turn over," I said gently as I helped her onto her back. I kissed her, capturing her clear grey eyes and holding their gaze as I settled between her thighs and sank into her still warm depths again. We had sex in every way - especially the last few years, when Katniss seemed to revive like a plant coming back to life and was more interested in physical intimacy again. But nothing compared to laying face to face with her, kissing her as I rocked her upwards, watching her every move, listening to every sound she made as she fell apart. It was more than just sex with her, just like being married was more than marriage, living with her was more than life. Even after all these years, I still felt like I did that day in the bakery, trying to entice her to stay a little longer before she disappeared into the wind.

"Peeta…"she began and I knew she was close. She gripped my shoulders, moving in time with me - and I felt myself reacting to her frantic breathing, her head tossing, her mewls and moans. She was soon gasping and shouting as her back bowed beneath me. I reached between us to touch her, spurring her higher, her nails scratching at me until the last wave rippled through her. I quickened my pace and caught up with her, my release shuddering through us both.

I lowered myself slowly onto her and felt her wrap her arms and legs around me in a cocoon of warmth and satiation. Her fingers splayed through my damp hair and her lips left tiny kisses along my temple and cheek. It was bliss and I wondered briefly if there existed a person on this earth who felt for another the way I felt for Katniss. Was it normal to be so attuned to a person that their every pain and pleasure became your own? Was I really a separate person from her or were we two halves of a whole, who had wandered the world alone until we stumbled onto each other?

I rested my head between Katniss' breasts, letting her have her way with my blond curls. She played with them often, usually leaving a mop of disarray on my head when she was done. But that didn't bother me. Her fingers soothed me and her proximity made all those small existential crisis to which artists were given melt away.

She stirred, causing me to look up at her in question. "What are you doing?"

Katniss gave me a mischievous grin as she gently disentangled herself from me, to which I responded with a groan of protest and an attempt to catch her and bring her back to me. However, her sinewy body slipped easily out of my grasp.

"Come back," I mumbled against the now cooling pillow.

She smiled down at me as she threw on one of my t-shirts. "Nope. Can't. I have to set up your birthday gift."

"I was already enjoying my birthday gift!" I said petulantly as she went briefly into our bathroom to wash up. Upon her return, she barely avoided capture when she came to leave a small peck on my cheek, her dark hair brushing against me like the tip of a fluttering bird's wing.

"Give me a few minutes," she said as she slipped out of my reach and left the room.

I lingered in bed, thinking of nothing in particular before curiosity got the best of me and spurred me to seek out my wife and my gift.

XXXXX

She'd made breakfast, which she was setting on the table when I entered the kitchen. I could feel her pride at having done everything so well all by herself, down to the centerpiece of fresh flowers. She'd picked dandelions again - she wasn't avoiding them anymore - and that filled me with more hope and happiness than anything else she could come up with.

Without warning, I picked her up and swung her around in circles, covering her gasp of surprise and laughter with a full kiss. When I set her back in place, she swayed slightly, though whether it was from the spinning or the kiss, I couldn't be sure.

"What was that for?" she asked breathlessly, when she was was finally steady on her feet.

"No reason except that I love you," I said as I watched her from my place at the table where I was now seated. "So, where's my gift, woman?"

"Now who's impatient?" she asked as she poured the orange juice and sat to the left of me. She'd made bacon, eggs and homefries but also french toast, strawberry shortcake and a fruit compote.

"You went all out!" I laughed as I scooped a spoon of strawberries and whipped cream, savoring the burst of tangy sweetness.

"I did," she said as she took out a small, white box, decorated with an orange bow. "Here," she said with shaky hands. "I hope you like it."

Careful not to damage the box or the bow, I opened it and peeked inside. It was the empty plastic holder for her birth control. I must have been the picture of confusion because Katniss laughed, and even though I learned to never underestimate that lovely sound, it did nothing to lessen my confusion.

"Well," she started nervously, "I'm being considered for tenure and…" she closed her eyes and moved her lips as if talking to herself. "Remember that talk we had, about kids?"

"Which one? We've been talking about kids a lot lately," I said, though my heart started to race. Katniss had been resolute about not starting a family, especially after what happened to Prim. We only discussed it theoretically, though deep down inside, I started to pine after the fantasy of being a father to a child who looked just like Katniss, especially now that we had passed the 30-year old milestone. Only lately had those discussions moved into the realm of possibility.

"It doesn't matter," her chest rose and fell, and I knew she was dying of nervousness. "I'm ready."

I straightened in my chair. "Ready? You mean…?"

"Let's do it! We aren't getting any younger and frankly, if anyone deserves to be a parent in this world, it's you," she said excitedly.

I wanted to jump on the table and punch the air. A baby! I already saw two or three in my mind's eye but in the middle of my joy, something gave me pause. I pulled her to sit on my lap, taking her hands in mine. Shoot straight. "Katniss, you would make an amazing parent also. This isn't just for me, is it?"

A pained look crossed her face. "For a long time, I thought that I would make a terrible mother. I couldn't take care of Prim and she died." Her shoulders sagged and I ached for her. However, she lifted her lovely eyes, clouded but not haunted as they had once been. "I'd like another chance, you know, to take care of a child. Your child. I loved Prim so much and I know I'd love our child very much, also. That has to count for something, right?"

"That counts for everything," I said. "But you understand that her death was not your fault, don't you? You have to make that clear in your mind, because sometimes, the things we believe in our minds become far more real than any truth. It was an accident," I said, rubbing her arms as she shivered from something other than the cold.

With a flicker of doubt in her eyes, Katniss nodded. "Of course." She waved her hand as if to brush aside the argument, taking up her discussion of before, "I want to do this. I want to have a baby with you."

I grinned idiotically - it was what I wanted most out of life. Yet as she clung to me, her doubts haunted me and I hoped that she would truly forgive herself one day, not only in word, but in deed. I hoped she would grant herself this absolution, one that comes from being free of self-hatred and guilt and finally seeing herself as she really was.

XXXXX

It was a Friday afternoon, like any other. I was returning home from the bakery, cheese buns and warm rolls sitting like old, familiar friends in the passenger side of the car. I chuckled to myself when I thought of all the hundreds of cheesebuns I'd made for Katniss over the years, how they had all shared the same fate.

Finnick and Annie would be coming by for dinner, and Katniss was handling the cooking all by herself. Normally, this was not an issue if it was just the two of us, but she always felt extra self-conscious when cooking for others, even though it was not the first time Finnick and Annie had joined us for a meal. Katniss was this intoxicating mixture of brashness, irony, strength and vulnerability that never failed to set my blood on fire. I suddenly wanted to hurry home and have her one more time before our guests arrived, which would throw her entire cooking schedule in disarray. I shrugged mentally, not really caring.

The phone in the cup holder rang, the sound of chirping birds filling the cabin of the SUV. It was the ringtone I had set for Katniss' calls. It never failed to startle me how my thoughts of Katniss could lead to her materializing out of thin air.

Changing lanes carefully, I picked up the phone, holding it to my shoulder as I steadied the steering wheel. "Hey!" I answered, my stomach flipping at the first sound of her voice after a day away from her.

"Peeta, have you exited the turnpike yet?" she asked breathlessly.

"No, but I'm close. Why?" I asked, glancing in my rearview mirror at the traffic hurtling past me.

"I forgot to get the wine. Can you go by the shop and pick up a few bottles?" she asked and I could imagine her dashing across the kitchen, getting things in order. "I'm just not sure what to put with the venison…" she trailed off as I heard the loud clatter of metal followed by a string of colorful expletives. "Sorry...I got home later than I thought from work…"

I chuckled to myself. "Don't worry. I'll be home in no time and help you, okay?"

I heard Katniss take a steadying breath through the phone. "Okay. I don't know what I'd do without you," she said with real feeling and I heard every nuance and every subtext in that statement.

"Well, let's not find out, okay? I'll be home soon," I was momentarily distracted by cars honking ahead of me and groaned inwardly. I was hitting rush hour traffic and it would only take me that much longer to get home to her. "Oh, and Katniss?"

"Mmm…?" she asked.

"I love you."

"I love you t-" I didn't get to hear the rest of her sentence. A sustained squealing of tires grew behind me, drowning out Katniss' words, before I perceived the powerful impact. I was surrounded by a burst of light, the sound of grinding metal, multiple explosions, and a howl of grief so loud, it permeated the entire living world. For a brief instant I thought I saw myself shattered and bleeding in the midst of mangled car parts. A flash of Katniss in our kitchen appeared before my eyes, filled with the sounds of boiling water and sizzling herbs, while she sat crumpled on the floor, screaming into the phone, howling my name, Peeta! Peeta! Then I hit my head and what was left was only darkness.

XXXXX

I wake to excruciating pain. The sky is bright and warm above me and every now and again, I see bobbing heads that block the light of the sun - a red-haired man with a trimmed beard; a blond woman with a nose ring working furiously over me. I feel their hands on my chest, pinching my nose, forcing air down my throat. I choke on something viscous, tasting of iron and struggle to breathe. When it becomes an unbearable burning, I begin to recede. The thought enters my mind...Peeta, you're dying...but I push it away, clinging to the fire in my skin, the excruciating drowning of my lungs. I'm not ready, not ready! I hear crying in the distance, my name being called. Katniss! Katniss! Don't let me go!

I'm fierce, perhaps prolonging the agony unnecessarily but I hold onto the pain, knowing that pain is life and I want to live more than anything else. But something more powerful than me pulls me away and I can almost hear the detachment, feel the process of disconnecting. Suddenly, I'm no longer prone on the ground and choking. I turn my head to see overturned cars; charred, smoking metal randomly littering the pavement and me, laying on the ground, blood running out of every natural opening in my body and some that are not. I look behind me to see gentle tendrils of light connecting where I float to where I lay but they are weakening. I grasp at them, intuiting that if I hold onto one, I won't float away but they flow through my fingers like the warm running water of the brook in Lake Tahoe so many years ago.

Soon the web of iridescent light dissipates and I watch the red-haired man bark at the woman. She scurries to fetch a metal box and I recognize it as a defibrillator. Someone is calling to me, just behind my shoulder, telling me Come, it's time, but I'm not ready. I refuse to go.

As the charge surges through the body beneath me, a flash of the magical web explodes from that broken version of me and, with relief, I let myself be yanked back downwards but it is momentary and disappears. I try to approach again, try to come back to the pain, to life, but it's no use. After something like time passes, the man shakes his head, looks at his watch and writes something down on a chart.

In that moment of disbelief, I shift my objective. I have to find Katniss. She should be at home. She should be making dinner for Annie and Finnick and waiting for the wine. That's it. Then something snaps and I am immersed in life again. I'm careening in the car, back to our home that morning, where I'd made love to Katniss at the most ungodly hour, my birthday, Lake Tahoe, the institution...No please, I know what's coming...Katniss' breakdown, Prim's death...but I wasn't there…

But Katniss was there. Is it possible that I'm seeing things through her eyes also?

Wedding, meeting Katniss, every stupid fight and beating at my mother's hands, Katniss' mother's breakdown, her father's death, my father's sad, ineffective eyes, grammar school, learning to ride the bike, to walk, to crawl, to breathe...every second of every moment, every thought and every feeling flashes through me, so quickly I can't keep up. Some of those feelings and events are not mine; they belong to Katniss alone but they are there too and I have no explanation for that. And sometimes, it's better that certain memories race by. But some moments, I want to linger. I fall in love with Katniss in reverse and it is glorious and painful and melancholic and joyous all at once and in that moment of departure, I have never felt more alive.

XXXXX

Katniss! Katniss!

My mind is a beating drum with only one rhythm. All I can think about is Katniss. I want to see her. At the moment, I can't see around me - everything is blurry. There's someone in this strange space with me, a woman who is amorphous, friendly and luminous. She's someone I know but I can't recognize because my vision is blurred.

"Who are you?" I call out to the mists that surround me.

A soft, familiar feminine voice answers me. "You'll realize who I am when you are ready." She is full of kindness and benevolence, a purity I sense instinctively. "But we need to go, now, Peeta. Your time here is finished."

I suddenly lose my patience. "I can't go yet. I have to see Katniss."

"Katniss is where she needs to be. It's you who are not progressing to where you must be."

This person's sweet speech does nothing to quell my determination. I hear her sigh before acquiescing. "Just think of her and you will find her," she says, her voice nothing more than a breeze against my ear. "You are so very attuned to her already, more than anyone could have anticipated."

I ignore the cryptic words and close my eyes. There is a powerful sense of humor in addition to the kindness from the woman next to me, almost a flavor that I can taste in the air. "You will soon learn that the mind is everything. Whatever you envision can be constructed and made to come to pass. Now, where is your Katniss?"

I focus on the distant sound of her voice, more a memory than the actuality and soon I am in my home. I don't question how I've gotten there, and the woman next to me chuckles warmly, her blond curls and voluptuous figure becoming more defined. "You are almost ready. When you realize you have died and exist in this different plane, you will see me better and move on."

I ignore her commentary and move through the living room, filled with people. There are Katniss' university people, Dr. Willis and Dr. Frank and her graduate assistants. Serving drinks from the kitchen is Johanna Mason, Prim's once babysitter and Katniss' friend, with an expression that is both heavy and serious. Finnick stands off to the side, red-eyed with a very pregnant Annie, rubbing her swollen belly, swatting tears that drip from the corner of her eyes as she speaks to Phillip and Rhea, my brother's wife.

I turn to watch my father in a corner, talking quietly to Rohan while my mother leans her head against the double glass of the patio door, staring absently at nothing at all with a face carved from stone. The eyes reflected in the glass are furious, but unfocused, and I'm overwhelmed with a childish love for her.

It's all unbearable and I want to run to each of them and tell them that I am here, I am alive. Because even though they don't say so, I know that they are here for me.

I think of Katniss again and I am compelled to move to our bedroom. Reaching the door, my hand slides through the wood as if I were as corporeal as smoke. This, more than anything else, unsettles me and I step through the wood with a growing sense that I will not wake from this dream. I glance to see the blond woman has followed me and the invasion of privacy gives me pause. However, I don't react because at that moment, I see Katniss and now my every sense is filled with her.

She lies curled on her side in a fetal position on the bed, her hands crossed over her knees. Buttercup sits like a watchmen at her feet. As I approach, the cat's tale begins to switch back and forth, the yellow eyes boring as if seeing me. This encourages me and I instinctively reach out my hand to pet him. However, the cat's hisses fill the room and I pull back, the sudden movement startling the cat, who escapes under the bed, where his muffled mewls, perhaps of fear, can be heard.

Katniss does not notice or appear to care. She's shivering and staring at the wall where pictures of us hang - a motley, asymmetrical collection of our lives, held together by one theme - that we are together in almost every single picture. I love staring at that wall and thinking of the circumstances of each photo. Now Katniss stares at them and the hollow look of her eyes makes my knees buckle.

She doesn't speak or move but tears run unchecked down her face, landing in fat droplets on the bed. She's dressed in black and her hair is braided and neat but there is something wild in her eyes that comes close to looking deranged, a look I've only ever seen once before - when Prim died.

For the first time since the start of these strange events that landed me in this condition, I feel the weight of what has taken place fall on me. Katniss' pain convinces me that I am either dead or trapped in the worst dream I've ever had. I suddenly want it to stop. I can't take her pain. I can handle my own - I can suffer indefinitely. But Katniss' pain undoes me and I sit next to her on the bed, willing her tears to stop as mine begin to flow freely.

"Katniss," I groan, "Baby, don't cry. I'm here." Reaching out to touch her tear-stained face, I concentrate on my hand not passing through her and I almost feel the tender soft skin of her cheek as I pass the back of my fingers over her cheek. Her eyes shift and I feel her stiffen, which makes me pause in my caress.

Remembering my companion, I wipe my nose and ask, "Can she feel me?"

The blond lady comes into view. "Yes, she can, but only as the wind glances over the surface of a leaf. She will sense you more than anything, depending on how sensitive she is and how much she believes in your existence."

This gives me pause. Katniss is a scientist, through and through, and at best, an agnostic on matters of the soul. I turn my attention to my wife again.

"Shhh, don't cry," I whisper. "I exist. I'm real." I concentrate on her cheek again, this time cupping it, moving my finger slowly as if to wipe the moisture away. This time, Katniss raises her hand and touches where my hand rests, a hiccuping sob bursting through her lips.

"Peeta?" she whispers in a voice so small, so vulnerable, I want to wrap her up in my arms and put her in a safe place where she'll never be hurt again.

"I'm here, sweetheart," I say, choking on my words.

"Peeta?" she asks again in her broken voice. I watch her as she slowly raises both hands to her head and moans in pain, her dirge lancing me through my heart, robbing me of my breath, my will to continue existing.

I want to wake up. Now. This is a nightmare, I say to myself, going so far as to pinch myself, even slapping myself in the face. But nothing changes. Katniss is still rocking in pain and I'm a pathetic poltergeist who can do nothing for her but watch her as she falls apart.

"She thinks you're gone for good. She does not believe in the persistence of the soul."

"I don't care!" I bellow, taking my horror and anger out on this apparition who won't leave me alone. I climb into bed behind Katniss and hold her as best as my phantom arms will allow. "I've got you, Katniss. I've got you," I whisper sweet nothings as I caress her hair, though I don't always feel those soft, dark tresses. I concentrate hard on the solidity of her beneath me and feel Katniss visibly relax. It's less about touch than comfort and I will every feeling of strength and love to cocoon and sustain her.

"I did this to you. It's my fault and I'm so sorry," I whisper as I weep, attempting to kiss her, with the same uneven results. However, when my lips caress her neck, I feel the shiver run through her and I am convinced, even if she does not understand, that she knows I'm there.

The apparition thankfully leaves and I stay with Katniss into the evening. Johanna and Annie come to check on her, undressing her when night has fallen and tucking her into bed. She does not sleep that night - not really. I hear my name in the whimpers of her half-sleep, embedded within the monstrous grief that pins her in place and gives her no relief. I focus all of my energy on comforting her, on making her feel me next to her and finally I become exhausted, drifting off to sleep with her.

XXXXX

When I regain awareness, it is sudden and complete. One minute, I was unconscious, the next moment, I'm back in the mist, searching wildly for Katniss' body next to me. I glance around me, still hoping that everything that had happened till now had been a dream but this hallucination is persistent, determined to destroy me. I remember Katniss' pain, hear it beyond this twilight land where I now find myself and long to follow its song until she is in my arms again. I sense the presence of my companion nearby so I talk to the air.

"You want me to believe I'm dead, yet I sleep. Why would I need to sleep?" I ask defiantly. I'm angry and the anger makes me feel suddenly heavy, like I'm moving through molasses.

"Your mind still believes the body is still alive. You will feel hunger, long for sleep, and generally behave as if you have a body until you fully acclimate to your new condition," she explains patiently. I look down at myself and notice I am wearing the same clothes as when I left for work that fateful morning. My hands appear corporeal but I also saw them passing through the bedroom door earlier. I'm a mist but I appear solid to myself.

"So I'm dead?" I ask warily, the mist around me clearing slightly.

"Yes, Peeta. You're dead. Your soul still hovers in the mortal plane but you are dead. When you are ready, you will rise upwards and leave this place behind."

"I need to see Katniss," I interject, filled with apprehension and ready to leave that place and join my wife once again.

"You will," the specter said. "Travel here is a matter of the mind. I'm going to take you somewhere now. I warn you, though. The place where we are going is often very hard on the newly deceased. Be prepared and stay focused on your own feelings."

I nod, my focus really only on Katniss. In the blink of an eye, I'm inside a large church and recognize it as St. Alosius. That would have been my mother's doing, having been a practicing Catholic for most of her life. I had discussed cremation with Katniss, the idea of rotting in the ground being repugnant to me but I had never done anything concrete to bring that about. How could I have known that I'd be dead in my thirties?

Rows and rows of solemn faces fill the church, heads attached to the endless black attire, like lint puffs on a large black comforter. I see my friends and family, their pain rising up like a giant tidal wave suspended in air, ready to crash down on me. I know that if I excavate there, I will find blackness beyond what I have ever experienced. There is only one mourner I worry about and search for her in the front pews. She sits alone and the line of her shoulders and back tell me that she sags under the weight of her agony. Her suffering fills me with an anxiety that does not allow me to sit still.

I nod in the direction of the coffin, a giant white bullet closed to the public, no doubt because of the condition of my body at the time of the accident. The priest speaks but it sounds like bees buzzing in my ear. I am by Katniss' side, her face weary and tired from her restless night. I place my hands on her, attempting to brush away a strand of hair, the proof of my intention in the barest displacement of tiny tendrils at her neck. Katniss raises her hand to touch the spot and I want nothing more than to drag her out of that horrible, closed space and take her to our bed, to make love to her and comfort her, to make her feel good again. I touch her face and her eyes flutter closed, more tears streaming down her face.

"You feel me, I know you do," I say to her. "I exist and I'm not leaving you alone. I'm here." I choke on my own feelings. Katniss' face crumples in agony, her sob filling the empty space in the church. I look at the host of mourners in accusation. "Why won't anyone sit next to you?" But knowing Katniss, she was probably sick and tired of the company and wanted the pew to herself.

I sit with her throughout the ceremony, following the mourners to the cemetery where the ground has already been cut open to admit my body and add it to the pantheon of the dead who have been shoved deep underground. I hover near Katniss, watching with pity for all the other people in my life who are now actually sorry that I'm gone. But it's always Katniss who draws me back, only Katniss who remotely matters to me. As in life, so in death - I can't let Katniss go.

XXXXX

Katniss

Today was your funeral...

I stare at the drying ink and then rip the page from the leather bound journal. I shred the hateful words until they are nothing but scraps and fling them to the floor. I'll clean them up later. Maybe. My feet carry me to the one room I always feel him. He's in the heavy scent of oil paints and fresh canvas stretched over wood frames. Running my hands over the bristles pointed skyward, waiting for their owner to return and turn them into dancing beings that bring light and life to the world.

"I can't do this. I…why should I write to you when it feels like you're still here? But you're not. And Dr. Squirrel-Face…he thinks I shouldn't write to you at all. Just write to that infernal book. Use some 'Dear diary' bullshit like I'm fourteen and dealing with a crush or when my parents will extend my curfew. But…I can't even do that. You were the only person I could ever trust, really trust, with my thoughts. Sometimes, I think you knew them before I did."

I scoff at myself and stare at a half-finished canvas. Draping wisteria in succulent shades of purples and undertones of blue. It isn't our tree from Tahoe. That painting hangs in our living room. This painting is of blooms from another place. Reaching out a finger, I trace the flowers, wondering if there was another layer of color he planned to add to it. Then I search for the shadows, the concealed dreams and mystical elements he always hid in his paintings.

I run a finger over some of the vines, awed by the textures he created. Then I drop my hand and step back. One step. Two. Three. I can't see it. Maybe he didn't do it with this one…Maybe he didn't have the chance.

This is probably the kind of thing my shrink wants me to write down in that stupid book. A book won't bring Peeta back to me. It won't change what happened. Won't make it better. Except, Peeta would want me to try. So I return to the kitchen table and snatch up the hated diary, lug it back to his studio and sit cross legged on the floor before the weeping wisteria.

Dear Diary, I buried my husband today. And I've never felt so lost or alone, even with the droves of people who came to mourn him.

Whenever I looked into Peeta's eyes, I saw hundreds of silent worlds, locked away in his mind. I always loved watching him paint, watching him release those hidden worlds. Sometimes I could see myself in them. As if Peeta had made a permanent place for me in his subconscious or in his soul. That sounds silly.

There were days when exploring one of those worlds was the only thing that got me out of bed, kept me going. The possibility that there was more to this life than the crushing emptiness left in Prim's absence. We were a family…and now I'll never know what other worlds he'd imagined. Just one more thing to add to the list of what I've lost.

"No soul is permanent." The air around me shifts. Not in any current or movement, but in mood. It feels…saddened. It's not something I understand or even believe. Spirits in the air? What nonsense. "You're not real."

Cold dread runs through me, a vise on my lungs, and my hands begin to tremble.

"Your mother was there today," I announce to the whispering air around me. Then I put pen back to paper.

His mother was there today. I wanted to slap her and tell her she had no right to mourn him. Not after all the things she said to-

I take a shuddering breath and leave that thought hanging. Cross it out in violent streaks of black ink that wobble with my hands. Peeta will know what I mean. And those events aren't mine to give to the shrink.

Shoving the journal away, I stare up at the painting, tilting my head and there, I see it. A shadow almost in the shape of two figures running, extended arms holding blankets as capes. I can almost hear Prim's laughter in that moment.

The memory makes me curl on my side, cheek pressed to the cool tile floor, knees bent up and hugged to my chest. Shadows change. Time lengthens them into fingers that curl in my hair and caress away the teardrops that leak from my eyes. One. Two. Three.

The room darkens and I push myself off the floor, head pounding and heart aching. Shuffling to the kitchen, I gulp a glass of water and then lean against the doorframe leading to Peeta's studio and survey the place. And it's a tickle. A whisper or a sigh, but it draws me back to the diary, opening it to a blank page. Words words. Where are these words coming from? My hand jerks across the page and a shadow demands that I read it.

I'M STILL REAL. ALWAYS.

A mournful howl fills my ears and chills me to the bone. When I realize the dreadful sound is coming from me, I shove myself away from the table and pace. Spasmodic sobs wrack my body, an attempt to expunge whatever torture this is that my mind or the drugs have chosen to exert over me. Every muscle in my body tenses as I try not to dissolve into screams. I hold it in and keep moving, imagine myself clinging to the edges of the cracks forming across my heart. I can't break this time. There's no one left to pick up the pieces.

I am not sure how long I pace. Hours maybe, with lungs heaving but no tears leaving my eyes. I think I may be fresh out of tears at this point. Eventually, I make my way to our bedroom, falling onto the mattress fully clothed and waiting for sleep to take me.

It never does. At least I don't think it does. My eyes itch in the morning and I think I must have slipped into some kind of hallucination. I thought there was a shadow that followed me yesterday. A feeling or a glimmer of hope or disease. Whatever it was, I felt it climb into the bed and stay with me all night. Someone held my hand.

Maybe I do need to ask the shrink to adjust my meds.

Breakfast is a chore. I end up gulping down half a cup of coffee that tastes like it must have gone stale ages ago. We don't drink coffee. Never have. Just tea. But this was something we kept on hand for guests, and after the night I had, I think I could use the kick.

The phone rings. Dr. Squirrel-Face's secretary. Calling to confirm my afternoon appointment…

XXXXX

Dear Diary, I am not crazy. I know what I felt. But the shrink is crazier than me and so here I am again, scribbling in your bullshit pages and shaking because whatever drug he's stuck me on now, it isn't working. This wouldn't happen if Peeta was here. He always researched every drug name that passed Dr. Squirrel-Face's lips. Side effects, usage, how it was affected by my favorite wine. If you stood on your head for an hour, would it keep the blood rush headache at bay or make it worse?

Peeta looked out for me, always. Especially when I didn't think I deserved it. It was what we did. Protected each other. That smug little squirrel wonders if losing my sister could land me in a psycho ward, what will I do with this? What an idiot. He thinks that he got me through my first trip down crazy lane. But it was Peeta. Always Peeta.

So it's selfish of me to wish he could take care of me now. Now that he's gone because...

I flinch and brush the tickling cobweb from my shoulder. Maybe I am crazy.

I glance around the room, searching for the shimmering shadow in the air, barely noticeable unless you look at it from the right angle. Then I shake my head and stare at the diary pages while the words swim and my mind dashes from one thought to the next.

Because of me.

Peeta is dead because of me. Yes, someone hit his car, but he would have been able to react, maybe even avoid the crash altogether, if he hadn't been talking on the phone with me and had instead been focused on the road.

Don't drive while distracted.

It should be obvious, but Peeta never thought to put himself over me. The police said it was lucky no one else died, although several of the injuries were severe. I nearly scratched the man's eyes out when he said that. Don't tell Dr. Squirrel-Face. An outburst like that, even the possibility of one could land me right back in the facility, a place I can't bear to go again. Not without the hope of Peeta waiting on the other side. Or swooping in to bring me home when their methods do more harm than good.

It's all my fault.

I slam the book shut on the words and the pain that the truth of them brings. Turning my back on it, I go into the kitchen, putting the kettle on so I can have a mug of tea before I have to go to work.

Work. Today is my first day back since…

I shake my head and focus on small things. Little tasks to get me through the day. Annie calls while I pour the steaming water over the tea bag. I tell her that I'm fine. Still seeing the shrink, taking my meds. And yes, I'll call her when I get home from work.

Things shouldn't be this way. I don't need a babysitter.

Is it strange that I feel the shadow all around me? Everywhere I go, whatever it is seems to follow me. At times, I think I feel a fingertip on my cheek or my lips, a caress over my back. And I have to tell myself fifteen times an hour that it isn't Peeta. Even if it feels like him.

Peeta is dead. Cremated and his ashes buried in a stupid coffin his mother insisted on six feet under the traitorous soil that first took Prim and has now claimed Peeta, too.

As an added reminder to myself, I cut flowers from our garden after work – canary colored daffodils that jitterbug in the breeze – and take them to his grave. Weeks or months? I cannot be sure, although the grass has taken root and flourishes in almost blinding hues.

Kneeling before the stone, I trace the word that belonged to Peeta. The only person allowed to give me that word. That promise.

Always

And now I've made him break it. This isn't something I can do alone.

The graveyard isn't far from the woods. Our woods from before Prim died. The trees adjoining the cemetery belong to those woods. The place we used to picnic and once made love under the canopy of trees and stars. He called me a woodland goddess there and insisted that he be allowed to worship me.

Peeta said things like that all the time. Things that would threaten to overwhelm me with the intensity of his love for me, if I didn't feel the same way about him.

There's a storm approaching and the wind whistles through the pine boughs, rustles the leaves. Thousands of silk skirted ladies of the forest announcing the arrival of rain. I smell it fresh on the air. A promise of a clean start tomorrow.

"Peeta," I call to the sky. Why do we always look to the sky to speak to the dead? I never understood. We bury the dead in the ground. Shouldn't we look down? He had the sky in his eyes, though. "Peeta."

Kneeling in the tall grass, I feel it. Even here. Or maybe especially here. It can't be Peeta. It's just some fake mutation of him. Some twisted apparition born of the wreckage of my heart.

But I swear I feel Peeta's arms around me. His voice in my mind.

I'll stay with you. Always.

It's an illusion. A dirty trick. I can't have him anymore so why do I try to keep him? My wails join those of the wind and I clench my hands over my temples, nails digging into my scalp. Maybe physical pain will remind me that I am alive and he is dead. Whatever this is, it isn't him. And it isn't real.

My voice is hoarse before I stop. There's a stabbing pain in the general vicinity of my heart. When I finally fall silent, I am filled with...emptiness. No shadows or lurking spectres. Just my own misery.

XXXXX

Peeta

I'm only killing her.

I watch as Katniss howls before my grave and I realize what a fool I've been. The force of her screams are enough to push me back from her.

"I'm sorry." I repeat over and over, my path finally becoming clear and no amount of defiance can change it. "I said I'd never leave you. But for your own good, I have to."

I rise from my place behind Katniss, stepping heavily away, wanting nothing more than to cling to her, even if she never acknowledged my existence again. To be close to her. To love her, even from a distance. To know that she will be alright. That would be enough.

"At least, I got to tell you that I love you. Each day was always better than the last. Even the bad days with you were better than the best days I experienced anywhere else." I say, over her sobs and the grief that set her to rocking on her haunches.

I turn then to join my companion, whose figure has become almost discernible. I guess that's what acceptance looks like.

In a moment, the woods are gone and so is Katniss - the woman of my heart and soul. I may be a spirit now but I carry my love for her inside of me like the most solid, three-dimensional thing in the entire universe. I leave her behind but it is only for a moment, for my love is of infinite density and eternal persistence. It is more real to me than death, heaven, or hell, whatever those look like. I'll move on to the next plane, if that is the natural order of things, but nothing will ever break in half the love that tethers me to her. Even now, as I move upwards, her voice is still in my head like a bird with a song that will never stop singing.

XXXXX

Katniss

Dear Diary, My shrink would call this progress. How can it be progress to wander the house searching for a shift in the air that was nothing but a figment of my mind? To say the most outrageous things to the air in the hopes I can repeat the change in currents, in the feel of the air around me that seemed to come from without instead of within?

Whatever it was, it's gone now. I should be happy. Progress. So why do I feel as though I've lost him all over again?

In sleep, I find myself trapped in the woods. Sometimes I see the lake where he and I once swam naked together. Or the clearing where the three of us would picnic after a long hike. Then I remember that these woods betrayed me and took my sister from me. That's when the wolves come. And the rats. An old standby from the time after Prim passed. It's almost comforting, in a way, to wake screaming for the rats to get off of me. Off of her. This pain is familiar.

But then I turn to shake Peeta awake, wondering why he didn't notice I was having a nightmare. He usually does. And I remember that he's not there anymore.

On the worst nights, the wolves aren't quite wolves.

They pace in the woods as I watch, helpless, while the earth swallows the only two people that I'm certain I love. But before the rats swarm over me, before I can even reach the hole, the wolves begin to howl. Only the mournful wail of wind and beast sounds more like Peeta. And I can't differentiate the noise from my own screams when I wake. The sound from my throat in eerie harmony with Peeta's cries that still resound in my head.

After a week of this transformed nightmare, I give up on sleep and wander back into Peeta's studio, hoping for some comfort here. Dr. Squirrel-Face suggested I start slowly going through Peeta's things. Cleaning out as a way to physically show that I am moving forward.

I snort as I finger the porcelain ballerina figurine that Peeta kept on one of the shelves. One of the few things of Prim's that remains five years after her death. Smug Dr. Squirrel-Face had demanded an inventory of everything of hers that I kept and why. He'd made a face when I'd mentioned the ballerina figurine, a gift from our father. But I couldn't bear to part with it. Peeta had carefully placed it on the shelf and smiled at me.

"There," he said. "It's in my studio. So you didn't really keep it."

Tonight, I ignore the weeping wisteria, still perched on the easel. Instead, I flip through several canvases leaning against the wall. Paintings he planned on resurfacing and starting over. Others he had stalled on or hadn't had time to finish. One by one, I pull them out, propping them up on tables and against the wall until I'm surrounded by Peeta's creative process.

It's almost too much to bear, so I sit in the kitchen and sip a mug of tea. Write in my diary.

Peeta spent five years telling me that it wasn't my fault. Even had me almost convinced most days. But without his arms to reassure me, I begin to wonder...I caused his death. How can I continue to believe her death wasn't also my fault?

I make plans to meet with Annie for lunch. Or go shopping with Johanna. And then I cancel them, hiding behind illness as an excuse. After awhile, they stop asking. Then the phone stops ringing. What do you say to someone who has no idea how to speak to you anymore? I don't blame them. I wouldn't know what to say to me either.

Dear Diary, I have become a ghost in my own life, haunted by a remnant of a feeling. Dr. Squirrel-Face would probably give me some psycho-jargon babble about the shadow being a manifestation of my subconscious desires for Peeta to still be alive and with me. Whoa there, doctor. Easy on the genius theories. But does it have to mess with my head so horribly? Why couldn't my brain conjure a polite ghost who respected my boundaries and doesn't torment me with things I can't have? Oh right…because I killed my husband.

I wanted to stop feeling it, the constant reminder of what I lost when you died that night. And now that it's obeyed my wishes, I can't seem to stop thinking about it. Or wishing it would reappear. Anything would be better than this loneliness.

"What do you think, Peeta?" I ask the air around me. More often now, I find myself standing in his studio wearing socks and one of his old pajama shirts, hair a tangled mess from failed attempts at sleep.

I run a hand over the craggy cliffs, clouds skidding across the sky, half obscuring the light. Then I eye the colors. Something bright. Something obvious. A banner to announce my presence. Carefully, I dip the bristles in fawn-hued paint and apologize to them. Peeta was the artist. I was the music, he often said.

Usually, he'd work with music weaving through the studio. Tonight, I paint in silence.

I take a deep breath and concentrate on memories. How did he do this?

"Right here? Do you think?" The first brush stroke is the most nerve wracking. But once I start, I can't seem to stop. Curves and gathered clumps of bark, crooked lines for branches. The paint smears a little because I am impatient, unable to wait for one layer to dry before moving on to the next.

I add a tree on the edge of the cliff, a bright red scarf floating on the wind, lost by an unseen woman. Fuschia flowers to a field of tall grass at sunset. Bright orange fish leaping from the rippled water at the base of a waterfall. A lavender bird soaring over a portrait of me reclining in the grass of our garden, eyes closed with the sun bathing my face in tones of gold. My additions look terrible and nothing like they would if Peeta's hands created them. A tree I attempt to add to another canvas is smeared so badly I give it up for lost, but as I lift the canvas and turn to discard it, the image reaches me. A blurred face. A shadow.

Setting the painting back down, I stare at the figure, then take my fingers to it, rounding out the edges and turning the leaves into a gauzy wrap. Add a little black with feather light strokes. There. It's me.

Now I've painted myself as I am now into your world. They say we live in our minds anyway. And if that is what is real in life, then I guess this is my reality. A woman disappearing into grief and guilt and her dead husband's paintings. You were my hope. My own dandelion in spring. And keeping myself here, in your creations, keeps me calm.

When he was alive, Peeta believed that art transcended existence, and he included music as an art form. They were channels that we loved each other through, used to keep each other going. So I sit on the floor of his studio and sing to his paintings. If there is another plane of existence, I've sent messages in his language. And now in mine.

We owe a huge thank you to solasvioletta and abbythebear, who have been working tirelessly to beta this fic and slogging through the heavy material with us. Thank you, ladies. Your help and friendship is invaluable.