Chapter 20
I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. The first time we kiss again since the mission it feels as if we've reversed roles. Me, somehow knowing where I stand. But deeply wondering about Peeta's feelings. If he's finally coming back to me.
Peeta's holding me after wiping away my many tears. He'd had a flashback just earlier that evening, flailing about in his own version of my nightmares. I'm surprised to see how lucid and calm he is right now. His embrace is strong and welcoming. Protecting me like nobody else's arms ever could. No other person understands the pain shooting through my body. Prim and Rue. Playing catch. Running. Then running faster. And screaming. Spears and fireballs coming alive in their pursuit.
"You'll be all right," he whispers in my ear. The sound of his words is reassuring and I believe him for a moment. Then my brain fights it. It tells me these memories will never rest. Peace is unreachable and Peeta's wrong. We can't be okay when we're haunted night and day by death and the stench of roses and blood. How can he not see it?
"No, Peeta. It won't be all right," I tell him, my voice broken and distressed from the daily fight we withstand. From the sinking premonition that we might lose the final battle, regardless of it all.
"But aren't we all right? When I look at the big scheme of things, I see we've come such a long way," argues Peeta. "Our lives will never be perfect, Katniss. They never were, after all. We were scarred even before the games, even before we had the actual scars become visible on our skins. This is how it works, and we learn to overcome obstacles and find meaning again. It won't be easy; nothing ever is."
I know he's right, but a feeling in the pit of my stomach begs to differ. The fear that there's no meaning left. That all that could be has already been taken away from us, forever. "How can you be so sure?" I ask him. "You and I. We've been ripped to shreds. I can't afford to let myself believe that things could be different only to lose it all again."
"But we don't have to lose it all again. We've won, Katniss. We're here and alive. I'd like to think that even the ones we lost have won through us. Our commitment to move on helps them live on, doesn't it?" He pauses, as if perusing his mind for a specific memory. "And remember Prim's locket? The one your mother found and sent it to you?" he asks me and I nod.
"Well, that's how I'm sure." He continues, "Once, when you were away at District 2, Prim came to visit me. The doctors didn't want me to see her, at first. They feared that, being so closely related to you, she could trigger my violent side. But she insisted and they let her in. I was still really bad back then, but I listened to her. At first, I kept repeating that you volunteered in her place for the games because you wanted all the glory. You had been training as a hunter. You wanted the opportunity to kill me and win."
"I didn't know that," I say, considering how twisted tracker jacker venom really is if it painted me as a career.
"It's really weird to think about it now. The venom made me irrational. You have to become a very deranged person to distort reality that way. Still, Prim argued it out with me. She didn't talk directly about you, because that would have been dangerous, but she helped me see things better."
"What kind of things?" I ask him.
"Things like the locket, but simpler. Less symbolic. She told me nothing's ever lost as long as you hold on to it. Everybody kept telling me what kind of person I used to be, but they didn't understand how they were just words in the head of a paranoid person. I didn't know who I could trust. Of course there was Delly, sometimes even Haymitch. But whenever they mentioned you, I'd kick and scream. Horrified that they could be such manipulated fools. Prim was different because she never told me who I used to be. Instead, she reminded me it didn't matter what people told me. I was the one that had to search myself, purge the venom from my mind by looking deeper. When I became hopeful that I could find out who I was on my own, things got better," he concludes. Peeta's eyes are tired, though they gleam from the reflection of the full moon, its light illuminating the room through the open window. I'm caught up on how silver the moonlight makes his lashes look, when he straightens his back on the mattress and brings my head to his chest. The shirt he's wearing is damp. Maybe from sweat, but most likely from the tears I shed as I woke up sobbing desperately.
We're silent for a long time. I consider his revelation about Prim, the way she gave him hope. I assume Peeta's tired and has fallen back asleep, but I keep my eyes open. Bothered by how none of this explains if we'll really be all right. While Prim's words ring true because I'll never let her go and her life continues within me, they stop making sense when I think about all that has changed. I am and will always be, inevitably, broken. As much as I try to put myself together, some pieces cannot be found. Buried along with those Snow and Coin destroyed along the way.
"You're still thinking about it," Peeta says. He wasn't asleep, after all. "Can't you just take what I say and accept it? It will be okay, Katniss. I promise."
"You shouldn't make promises that can't be kept," I counter.
"I believe they can. If they couldn't, you wouldn't be right here in my arms." He strokes my cheek and I lose myself in his touch for a second. Content that I am indeed in his arms. Only after, I consider what his words imply. I don't have to voice it, though, as the question is visible in my eyes, begging him to elaborate. He grimaces, almost as if upset I don't already know what it is. "I promised to keep you alive the day I threw you the bread, Katniss. My cowardice of not handing it to you consumed my days and nights. So I promised that, if need be, I'd do anything in my power to help you out, to keep you alive." He sighs and I realize this is something I already knew. Only, I had a hard time accepting it.
"When you volunteered for your sister, my heart sank. A million thoughts passed by me. I could find a way to sponsor you. I could even volunteer to replace whoever boy got reaped next. Then my name was called and I learned that sometimes you do get what you wish for. Now, don't get me wrong, it had tragedy written all over it. I could die, we could both die. Since my previous life hadn't been much, with happy moments limited to baking with my dad and watching you at school, I knew I had to face the alternatives fate had just presented me with. I could either live haunted by your death in the arena, or I could honour my earlier promise to keep you alive. You know which option I chose. And I stood by it every second. Even as the promise struggled with venom in a battle for my soul. I almost failed once, the attempt to strangle you." His voice catches and he stares at the ceiling for a long minute. Something else still hanging at the tip of his tongue. "But Prim was right. I held on to the promise and here we are. I'll keep it as long as I'm around."
Peeta Mellark. The boy with the bread. The yellow dandelion. Still holding on to a silent promise to help me survive at the cost of his own sanity or life. If there is such a thing as fate, it is cruel and it plays tricks on people. I remind myself that I once made a similar promise. I'd keep him alive, no matter the circumstances. I had my reasons, as impossible to decipher as they were. He also had his, I reckon. Love, he used to say. Though why he claims to continue to uphold this vow I'm not sure. So much has changed, I think again.
"You don't have to keep it anymore, Peeta. You don't owe..." I start to argue him out of it when his lips stop mine. Quiet. Soft. Warm. Moist. Steady. Familiar, yet new. Stirring up all the feelings I kept for too long. Letting me know there's no use disguising them with my stupid obsession with debt. The one kiss multiplies. My hands on the back of his neck. His on my back, securing me in place, even if he doesn't need to. I couldn't possibly run away from what I'm feeling in this exact moment. But in a split-second decision, I let go. My eyes examining his face. Contemplating what we were. Amazed by where we are.
"Finally. I thought you were never going to kiss me," I instinctively blurt out, clasping my hands against my mouth immediately after I say it. Too late to drown out the confession of my longing. Thinking out loud may just have been my awkward attempt to rationalize my feelings for Peeta. Discovering that the fear of never tasting his lips again had lied hidden deep inside my chest. I turn away from his eyes, so intimidating now that he's aware of my deepest wishes.
He kisses me gently on the corner of my mouth, his breath so warm against my skin. Then, close to my ear, he discloses the thought he's withheld from me all along. The one thing I realize can bring me back to life. "Patience, grasshopper," he says. "I've needed to kiss you so much, sometimes it hurt. But waiting was important if I wanted to savour every moment of falling in love with you again."
He comes back to me. His kisses intense and dedicated. The only way to prevent me from over thinking his words. Teaching me to surrender, something my survival instincts never let me comprehend. But I don't have to analyse it, because this is no surrender. It's sweet victory, every ounce of my being elated to just be. I am awake and alive. Peeta loves me again. I know we can survive despite the nightmares and flashbacks. The sensations running through my body are the only force left to contend with. Peeta loves me again, I tell myself. The poisoned shell has broken to reveal that, maybe, he never actually stopped loving me. And now, his lips have returned to mine. All my might and strength concentrated in ensuring they never leave me again.
"Katniss, I'm happy," he says. A blend of glee and resolution registered in his eyes as he strokes the hair falling on my forehead. I'm mad at him for breaking his grasp on me, though we had to come up for air at some point. Even if breathing seems like a waste of time. A more interesting activity requires my attention, paired with a most pleasant feeling I strongly hang on to. I pull him closer to me, eager to learn the meaning of his confession at a whole new level. I, too, want to savour every moment. So I tell him, "Me too," before resuming what we started. I'm not ready to let go.
Some kisses are gentle, others unrestrained. We discover each other's lips in a way we never did before. No arena, no cameras. Only Peeta and I in the comfort of his room and the safety only his love can bring.
We kiss for what it seems to be a lifetime, until we're both too tired to go on. We fall asleep slowly but in unison, and wake up the same way. Tangled and delighted to check in to reality.
"Good morning," Peeta whispers. Something close to euphoria registering in his face. Although I can't see myself in the mirror, I'm sure I'm carrying the same foolish expression. "Shhhh," I whisper back. I don't want the day to begin. Lying in bed with him after last night is all I need for today. No talking, no thinking. Just savouring.
"Katniss, we can't be in here forever. It's Tuesday," he reminds me, though he regrets it the moment he says it. "Okay. Ten more minutes. Then we have to get up. Dr. Aurelius worries if we don't report for our sessions in the mornings."
"I know, I know. He might get so concerned he'll have to come over here to check on us." I agree with Peeta, almost hating how sensible he is.
"Yes and we know how much trading the Capitol for District 12 might horrify that old man."
"Who knows?" I tease. "If Effie could do it, he can too." I think of the bubbly ways Effie had devised to deal with the poorest district and what likely made our tributes the most hopeless too. But Dr. Aurelius is not a buoyant person. Just an observing, serious man, that sometimes refers to District 12 as such a far away land that it might as well be in a different dimension.
"That's not funny, Katniss. I can hear the man flinching every time I mention what a hot summer it's been without air conditioning. He's a good man, but when you're born in the midst of Capitol luxury and privileges, it's hard to imagine a life without it. Look at yourself, for example."
"What about me? I don't care for luxuries!" I protest, ready to snap at Peeta for making such an absurd comparison.
"Yes, but you bragged so much about that lamb stew that even Greasy Sae imported the recipe." He grins at me. "It's okay. I can't live without hot chocolate and Haymitch will never let go of fancy liquor from the Capitol."
"Fine," I accept, mostly because arguing with Peeta is pointless. His words ten times more elaborate than any I could come up with.
"Good," he says. "Now would you please be quiet? I'm trying to spend our ten minutes before I have to talk to Dr. Aurelius without actually talking about Dr. Aurelius."
I shake my head at him. "But you were the one who started..."
"Shhhh." A playful Peeta brings his index finger to my lips, and with a smile hanging from his mouth he kisses me again to restore our quiet time. "I'm trying to savour a few moments here."
A/N: Thank you again for the past reviews and please continue with them. Nothing makes me happier. I also wanted to let you guys know I sometimes make some graphics for this fanfiction for my tumblr if you want to see them. The one many of you mentioned of Peeta and Katniss in the woods for Chapter 13 is one of my favourites (odairling . tumblr . com)
So, this chapter lets you know where we are now and it brings me to the dilemma I've been facing. To change the rating of this fic from T to M or not?
THG is a T-rated series, so this fic also is T-rated and I've kept the storyline and language that way even as I write the next chapters. However, my idea of T-rated may not be exactly the same idea held by the administrators of this website. So even though I won't be dealing with anything explicit and only hint at things, I might change it to M to avoid a crack down. So M just to be safe, I think, and allow me a bit of flexibility with the plot. (Because if we just wanted a plain subtle hint at something, we'd be fine with just the one sentence Collins gave us, right? But since I'm reading in between the lines here I need to say a bit more. Just a bit.)