A/N: I sincerely apologize for the unannounced and unintended hiatus of this story, but I'm glad to announce that it's back in full force. As always, please and thank you for reading, reviewing, loving, and enjoying.
LilD
Songs: "Feels Like Home" by Chantal Kreviazuk
"Time Has Told Me" by Nick Drake
Chapter 9 – Confessions - P
The morning after my birthday, I awaken with a sense of sadness. It had been a fun day, by far the best birthday that I'd ever had. But in the end, it seems only a strange holiday, made all the more real when I realize I have to once again depart in the early morning and resume my daily work. While I don't think Dad would mind if I showed up late this morning, I can't in good conscience let him shoulder so much of the work a second day in a row. Katniss continues sleeping as I lean in to kiss her goodbye, and in the purple light of predawn I notice the dried tear tracks running from her eyes. Gently rubbing them away with my thumb, I wonder what it is that makes her cry in the night, feeling my own eyes well up slightly at the thought of her private pains.
The day is spent happily, if quietly. Marko and Katniss arrive right on schedule for lunch, the latter bearing the bundles of herbs and string of silver fish that are the products of her morning. That afternoon Dad and I both rest before we both review the final plans for the new bakery, while Katniss returns to her own house, saying she has some things to take care of.
Although we all seem tired by dinnertime, I notice that Katniss is rather quiet. This in itself is not unusual, but there's something about the mood her silence takes tonight that causes me not to worry, but to wonder. Whatever it is that's keeping her mind occupied, it doesn't seem to be distressing her. Katniss' eye catches mine, and I realize I've been staring. Instead of turning away, as I had become so accustomed to only a few short years ago in this circumstance, I allow our gaze to hold, and the small smile she gives me seems enough to calm any lingering concern over her reticence. Returning her smile, I take her hand under the table and squeeze it gently, and we both go back to our stew.
We are both happy to go to bed early that night, and Katniss is quick to drift into an easy sleep. This is how every day should be, I think as I pull her close to me, tired in my own right. Before I fall asleep, one more thought surfaces, one of the many buried so deeply in my mind that the venom couldn't touch it: I want to marry Katniss.
This thought stays with me all through the next morning as Dad and I bake, and I decide that I'll talk to Marko about it as soon as I get a chance. I don't even realize how quietly I've been working until late in the morning, when Dad asks, "So, what's on your mind?" Somehow, he always knows. So much for waiting to talk to Marko.
"It's Katniss," I begin, joining Dad at the table. He raises his eyebrows in question. "Everything's fine. Better than fine, everything's perfect. She seems so happy and well, and I know I am. And I feel so healthy, Dad, like my mind is finally working right again."
"Then what is it that's bothering you?"
"I want to know she'll always be here, Dad. I want to marry her."
"But you're afraid to ask her?"
"I really think she needs more time. But I can wait until she's ready. At least I now I feel like we have a real relationship," I say. "I'm so grateful for that."
"That's good," Dad replies. "Learning to appreciate what I do have has allowed me all the contentment I've had in life. Even though your mother and I never had a perfect marriage, I was always grateful for you boys."
My father has never discussed his happiness, or lack thereof, in his and my mother's relationship, but I rarely saw them do much more than tolerate each other. I've long wondered what drew them together, and I'm almost surprised to discover that I don't actually know.
"How did you end up marrying Mom?" I ask him. "I know you grew up in town together, but you've never told me how it happened."
"Well, you know I had wanted to marry Katniss' mother," Dad begins. "We knew each other, but only in the way all the town kids did. Calla Perkins – her name before it was Everdeen – was a few years younger than me, so I didn't notice her right away. But when I finished school and went to working full-time in the bakery, I began to pay more attention whenever she came in to buy her family's bread. She was so sweet and good-hearted, and after I time I realized how taken I had become with her. By the time she was also out of school and working in her parents' shop, we were still only friends. One day, I decided that this was the day I would ask Calla to be my girl."
"What did she say?" I asked. There's something amusing in the thought of my father as a love-stricken young man.
"I never had the chance to find out," Dad says. "She didn't come in to the bakery that day. Or the next. Came to find out she had secretly been seeing Anders Everdeen. She had run off to be a coal miner's wife and live in the Seam."
I would understand and forgive my father for sounding bitter at this, but he speaks of the memory only with a faint and tender sadness.
"It wasn't long after that when your mother began showing up to the bakery just before closing time, finding reasons to stay late, coyly asking me for favors while plying me with compliments. And even though I knew that I was heartbroken over Calla and not acting sensibly, I gave in to her attentions. It was only a few months later when we were surprised to find out Lucca was on the way, so we quickly married, and that was that.
"She was pleasant, for a time, your mother," Dad continues. "She took well to baking and was a good mother to Lucca. But my parents were not in good health by then, and they died within weeks of each other. Now that the bakery was officially ours, she took it over, and her true personality began to come out. I felt so trapped, son. I know you got the worst of her, as the youngest. I'm sorry for that. The best I could do was try to keep my head low and do the best I could by you boys."
"You did alright, Dad," I say sincerely, my hand on his shoulder. His body, once so broad and strong, now seems diminished under my touch.
"You just…" His voice falters. "You just do what you need to do to keep her, Peeta. If that means waiting to marry, then wait. She's a good girl, and you deserve each other."
"Thanks, Dad. Why don't you go rest, and I'll finish up here and make the deliveries?"
"Sure, son. I- I hope you don't think any less of me, in regards to your mother."
"No, Dad," I reassure him. I've never blamed Dad for Mom. Even though we never talked about it at the time, I always knew that he did everything he could for us.
That afternoon, after we've all had lunch and Katniss and I are finishing the dishes, she asks me to go walking with her.
"Sure," I reply, although something in the way she asks today makes me think that there's more on her mind than a stroll in the woods. She stays quiet, though, until we reach the flat rock near the stream that has become a regular destination on these little hikes.
"So I've decided something," Katniss starts as soon as we've sat down.
"What's that?" I ask. It shouldn't surprise me that Katniss wants to talk about something, but even still, a strange feeling forms in the pit of my stomach. I take a deep breath, unsure of what to expect next.
"You know that Plutarch is coming soon, and that I've consented to his request for an interview. We both have." Her voice is unreadable.
"He'll be here less than a week from now. The ceremony's on Saturday, but I imagine he'll get here a day or two before. We can back out of the interview, if that's bothering you," I add quickly, suddenly realizing that this might be what's been on her mind lately. "No one's going to make you give an interview if you don't want to, Katniss. Not even Plutarch."
"No, Peeta, it's not that," she replies, and I'm confused. "It's actually the opposite. I...I've decided that I really want to do this interview." There's an odd edge to her voice that sounds almost excited, and now I'm really confused.
"You do?" I ask, the shock evident in my voice.
"I do, and I want you to help me still, if you will."
"Of course I will." As if it's a question.
"Peeta, I've thought about this a lot. You remember what you said about doing the interview on my terms? I've decided that's exactly what I need to do." What is she saying? The measured, calm tone in her voice makes me believe that this is indeed something she's been thinking about, probably the only thing judging by how she's been acting lately.
"What do you mean?" I ask, genuinely interested in what she plans on doing.
"I…I'm not exactly going to do an interview. I'm going to tell everyone the truth, Peeta. Everything I could never say before because they wouldn't let me. About how we were used by Snow and by Coin. About everything." Katniss grows more impassioned as she continues. "Throughout this whole thing, the more I realize I've been lied to, and lied about, the more it makes me realize how important it is for me that people know the truth. I know…" Katniss steels her jaw after a sharp intake of breath. "I know I never asked to be a public figure like this, a TV personality, the icon of a revolution, a public martyr, whatever it is I ever was to anyone. But I feel—and the doctors think so too, I talked to them yesterday—that since I already am, because people will talk whether I do or don't, that I may as well tell them the truth. For once."
This onslaught of words leaves me slightly stunned. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I don't think it was this.
"I'll help you in whatever way I can, Katniss," I say, squeezing her hands and kissing her forehead. It seems like a crazy idea, but I think I understand it. After all, plenty of lies have been told about me as well, and I've put my own versions of the truth out there, whether by my own volition or not. "But will they let you?"
Katniss smiles wryly. "I was on the phone with the President's office yesterday, too. Calling in a favor."
"Does Plutarch know what you have in mind?"
"That's the beauty of it," Katniss replies, smiling wider and with much more glee. Glee. Not an emotion I'm used to associating with Katniss, aside from my feelings toward her in recent weeks. "He's going to think that the change in the interview format is a request from Paylor's office, and that they've convinced me to go along with it, not the other way around. Plutarch can't refuse her, and he'll feel like he has more control of the interview than he actually will. But this is my idea."
"What can I do to help?" I ask, becoming more convinced that this might actually work, and that it's actually a good idea.
"Do you remember when we rode in the chariot before our first Games, and we were holding each other's hands so tightly it felt as if we would fall and be trampled by the horses or worse if we were to let go of each other?" I nod. Of course I remember. "I think it might be like that."
I pull her into an embrace. "Except this time, we know what we're doing," I assure her, not wholly convinced myself. Katniss needs to believe me, though, and I need to be strong for her and help her through this. It's what she's asking me to do. I hope she would understand that she doesn't have to ask things like that from me.
Then it dawns on me that Katniss must know, and that her asking for my help has nothing to do with Katniss being able to rely on me and everything to do with her letting me know that she welcomes my assistance, that she needs it.
We need each other, now as much as ever, I think as we walk home with our arms intertwined and our conversation full of ideas for the interview.
The day before Plutarch Heavensbee is scheduled to arrive, I am working in the rich spring light of a brilliant afternoon sun that pours in through the window of my art studio. I chose this bedroom of the house to convert into a studio for precisely this reason. Many painters prefer the soft, bright light of dawn for working, but being a baker, my early morning hours aren't conducive to painting. Instead, I've always appreciated the warmer glow that sunlight takes on in the later part of the day, and nothing compares to the muted, golden orange of sunset.
I carefully inspect the newest additions to the town: houses, shops, community buildings. From the outside, with their clean lines and muted palette, they are unassuming, but I know they are much more sophisticated than anything in the old District 12. My nose almost touches the canvas, my small, stiff-bristled brush applying the fine details of windowpanes and shutters, doorknobs and roof tiles.
Stepping back, I take in the painting as a whole. Measuring over twelve feet long and more than half as tall, it's the largest single piece I've ever attempted, and it takes up nearly the whole length of my studio. I've been working on it for over a year now, off and on. When I returned to the district last spring, it was so strange to have the place that had always been my home, Katniss, my own self, all turn so foreign to me. All of this, coupled with the renewed grief over the loss of my family, made District 12 seem so very unlike home. But in her usual way, Dr. Aceso had prompted me to find the strength within myself, suggesting I paint my home as I wish it to be, and in doing so I'll find it.
I can't help but notice the new sense of balance it's taking on. For so long, the only buildings it contained were the houses of Victor's Village perched on a hill, a rolling forest and sweeping meadow occupying the back and mid grounds. Preceding months have brought increasing amounts of people and buildings, both in my painting and in the actual town. The first structure I had painted there, long before the blueprints had been drawn up, was the new bakery. Beside it, before they had even returned, I painted Dad and Marko. I've yet to make any more prophesies, but the way the brushstrokes of Katniss' fingers intertwine with mine and the softness in her oil painted eyes seem more real and intimate than they did when I first created them, although no changes have been made by my brush.
A soft knock on the open door of my studio brings me out of my painting. "Hey," says Katniss.
"Hi," I reply, turning to look at her. Her clean clothes and tightly braided damp hair tell me she's showered since lunch, and as she closes the door and walks forward and I lean in to kiss her, the delicate scent of her skin and the soft feel of it under my lips making me want to touch more of her.
"Don't you get paint on my shirt," she says playfully as she makes an ill attempt to remove my hands from under that garment.
"It's okay, it's dry," I say, although I'm not entirely sure that's true. As I kiss her Katniss smiles, no longer bothering to try to stop me, and I swiftly pick her up and deposit her gently on the chaise in the corner of the studio. I remove my shirt before lying beside Katniss, and the feeling of her skin against mine becomes novel all over again when experienced in this new location.
I can't help but have her as much as she will allow, now that I finally can after so many years of pining for just this. Once again, as I have nearly every time we've been intimate with each other since the first (was it only a few weeks ago?), I experience a brief unease that this might not be real, that this is too good to be true, that Katniss' love is only another hallucination. And, as in every other time, I find that being with Katniss is the most real feeling I've ever had, before the hijacking or after, and I trust that it's true.
It's occurred to me how well Katniss must be feeling lately to be making the decisions that she has, and yet still I can't help but wonder, in my weakest of moments, how permanent our happiness might be. It's a thought that makes me appreciate the present all the more.