I awake to a tortured, almost inhuman cry.
Mutt, memory warns, and I'm crouched by my bed, bow in hand, listening furiously to the night. The sound comes again, and it's no mutt. It's my name, yes. But it's on Peeta's lips.
As I often do, I creep down the stairs. To watch, to wait. Sometimes, my presence is enough. This time, it's not.
"Katniss!" He's on his haunches, twisting himself in his sheets, reaching blindly. Reaching, but not finding.
I hunter-step closer, silently, unsure as always if I should wake him. He's cautioned me against coming too close when he dreams, when his grip on reality is tenuous at best. His eyes are open, staring, mouth working, arms flailing. His fists would bruise, and then who knows what he might do. Bunk up with Haymitch for another month.
"Peeta," I whisper, my hands raised as if to soothe. But as always, I don't touch.
He doesn't hear. He can't.
He's crying my name, breath labored.
"Peeta," I say again, louder.
His breath is too labored. More labored than I've ever heard it. Something's very wrong. With a gurgling gasp, he slumps forward, too hard, too fast. I catch him before he hits the ground, cushioning his fall with my own, grunting under his weight.
"Peeta! Peeta!"
But I'm calling to nothing.
Roll him over with effort. Bring my ear down close to his mouth, my good ear. He's not breathing. Check his pulse.
It's not beating.
His heart has stopped.
I'm clawing at his hands, slapping his face,
"No," I sob. "I won't let you leave me. Not again."
I think of Haymitch, of the phone on the wall that separates us. I think of Prim, of Mother, too far away to help me now. And when I think of them, I think of Finnick. He taught me many things. He may have taught me the greatest thing of all.
So I move like Finnick. Pinch Peeta's nose closed. Press my lips to his. Blow and blow. Then pump the chest, above his heart, above his lungs.
Then repeat.
Again.
And again.
I'm sobbing, crying his name, begging him to breathe.
Begging him to stay with me.
Stay.
Stay.
Stay.
"Always," he whispers between lips cracked and coughing, fighting for life.
His lungs, they breathe.
His heart, it beats.
Now that I've touched his lips, it's like I can't stop. This is not us in a cave, grateful to be alive, scared that this might be our last night on Earth. This is us in a home, our home, and I'm grateful that he's alive.
With the tips of my fingers, I explore his face—his lips, his nose, his eyelids. I swirl patterns on him everywhere, reassuring myself that he's okay, that this is real. Slowly, he comes alive under my care. I help him sit up, touching him all the while, fingers down his arms and across his palms.
He remains still, just breathing. Letting me feel him, leaning into my touch, eyes closed. He's still so very pale.
For the first time in a long time, he doesn't object when I lead him upstairs and pull him to my bed. He doesn't object as I wrap myself up in him.
"What happened?" I ask from where I've nestled myself in his arms, right where I'm supposed to be, my good ear listening to the warm lub-dub of his heart.
"The doctors warned me my heart isn't what it once was. I have medicine, but I can't take it when I dream like that." My gut clenches once. He hadn't told me. I almost lost him.
"What did you dream?"
"Of you. Dead. The only thing that can stop my heart is you."
I can't resist. "And force fields."
"And a host of other things," he agrees. "But you're the only one who can bring me to life again."
"Me and Finnick." His heartbeat and his breath have made me giddy, thoughtless. And I'm laughing and laughing and then I'm not laughing anymore because I'm crying because Peeta almost died (again), right here in front of me, and because Finnick. Finnick had.
His turn to hold me, and I'm not the only one weeping.
Then we sleep and—for the first night in a long while—we don't dream.
Ø
Later, after Peeta's better and I've allowed him out of bed at last, he putters in and around the house, tending to the primroses, which have opened to behold the world. He brings me a bud and tickles my nose with it, then reaches to nestle it in my hair, where the braid begins. As he withdraws, his fingers linger on my neck, a beat too long.
My breath catches.
Peeta's always been tactile, I remember that, but not like this. His hand on my shoulder as he leans in to see what I'm doing. His thigh nestling my feet as we sit to watch the nightly broadcasts, closer than before. His fingers brushing the inside of my wrist in the kitchen, just because.
This thing that he's doing, these seemingly innocent touches that are anything but, it's like he's drawing me tight, micron by micron. And when he comes to bed—my bed now—he shucks his shirt. So when he gathers me to him so that we can drift to sleep (so careful, so chaste), all I can think about is skin. It's maddening.
I can't sleep, this time for a new reason. That reason is lying next to me, warm and solid and snoring softly. Snoring, when I'm sitting here frustrated and wide awake and so incredibly warm, sheets clinging to my restless legs.
He's waiting for me, Peeta is, the way that he waited the day with the gun, like the three days he lay in the mud, the three days he gave me after Gale. The way he's waited for me all our lives.
Waiting for me to reach out and take him.
"Peeta," I say into the void.
His breath catches but then resumes.
"Peeta," I say louder, and I can tell that I've woken him because his breath evens and he shifts to his side, facing me.
"Sorry," he sighs, voice rough from sleep. He thinks I'm saying his name because of the snoring, as I sometimes do, when he's keeping me awake.
"No, I…" I start. Darkness swallows the rest. The night is very quiet, very still. Quiet for minutes or hours, I can't be sure. Quiet for so long that Peeta has probably slipped back to sleep. Yet I can tell somehow from the timbre of the silence and the cadence of his breathing that he's still here, still waiting. Patient as always.
"Katniss…?" he says at last, and that's what does it, my name on his lips.
I melt forward, crossing the sliver of cool sheet that separates us and hover above him for a moment, propped on my elbows, peering into a face that's too dark to see. Already his arms open, ready for me, reaching for me, as if he somehow knew what I was going to do before I did.
My fingers find his face, tracing his features. His hand curls against the skin of my lower back, careful and soothing. We stay that way for a bit, just stroking and swirling, balancing on the edge.
Then he says, softer still, "Please."
He's waited long enough.
I lower my mouth to his, following the trace of my finger along his lower lip. We've kissed before, but this feels like a first. This time, we go soft and unbearably slow, taking our time, learning the shape and the feel and the taste of each other, tucked away and safe in the deep dark. This isn't us kissing for the cameras or frantic from the shock of being alive. This is us kissing for us. Together, we spark a new type of fire.
"Teach me to bring you to life," Peeta whispers against my mouth.
And I do. We practice bringing each other to life.
This, this is what we were waiting for.
And it's good.