Lovely people: thank you so much for the reviews! I'm so honoured by the number of people who have put this on their list of favourite stories. Thank you!
I do not own the Hunger Games.
Things are awkward when they pull themselves together and head to the kitchen. She makes coffee, he spreads butter on rolls, but neither of them speaks. They stay at the table, long past their usual time, and she should go hunting and he should paint or bake or something. But they stay seated, trying not to look at each other but unable to look away. Finally, she speaks.
"Real," she tells him, and though her answer is far too late, she knows he'll know what she means.
"I thought so," he told her, "I have so many memories of that—kisses and hand-holding—did we get engaged?"
She can't help it; she giggles at the question, and then he is laughing too. She isn't sure why she's laughing: she doesn't laugh anymore. But she feels so much relief that he's focusing on the charade, on the silliness the Capitol enforced, and not the fact that she was faking the whole time. She was faking the whole time, wasn't she?
"Most girls would be a little put off if their fiancé couldn't remember that," she teases him and he grins.
"You've never been 'most girls'," he reminds her, and she has a fleeting moment where she feels like she needs him, but it passes.
"I should go, hunt, you know—feed us?" she tells him, still teasing. She likes teasing him because she likes his smile. He looks like a different person when he smiles.
"You do that," he tells her, clearing their plates and cups. "I'll just be here, baking and doing dishes, all day long."
"We're not your average couple, are we?" she asks as she heads out the door, and then she realizes what she's said but she doesn't need to go back, the door is closed and she doesn't have to see his face.
Stupid, she thinks, one of the stupidest things she's done. They are not a couple.
She wanders the woods for hours, not wanting to go back because she'll have to face Peeta and her stupid, stupid comment. They are not a couple: they never really were, even when they were mostly whole, so why the hell would they be now? She checks all of her snares, walking too far until she's aching from exhaustion because she usually takes a break halfway through her snare line. She's too frantic and anxious to sit still. She finally heads back as the sun is setting, turning everything a beautiful, glowing orange, Peeta's favorite. She needs to go back because her woods don't feel safe in the dark. It's like a graveyard and she's not ready to dig anything up yet.
Peeta has already baked a meat pie when she gets home, and though one glance tells her he used two birds to do it, she's still grateful because it smells amazing. Her mouth is watering just looking at it on the counter where it's cooling, and then she sees that he's poured water and set the table, but she doesn't see him anywhere.
She's on edge in an instant, her dinner forgotten, bow and arrow in hand, and she's sure, again, that they're going to take him from her. She knows that they remember how to hurt her; they still know his piece of their Games is tangled inextricably with hers, that nothing else hurts her as much as his pain. She knows that they know her secret, the one she holds close to her heart and never says aloud: that her survival would mean nothing without him.
There's no one on the main floor, so she ascends the stairs silently, seeing Peeta's door is open. She's barely breathing as she rounds the corner, her muscles taut, ready to let her arrow fly into Snow's heart.
But of course, Snow isn't there: he's dead, that was real. It's just Peeta, shaking, curled into a ball, sounding as if he's swallowing a razorblade. He's covered in something, paint, she thinks, and he's trembling so violently she wonders if he's having a seizure, like her mother's patients did sometimes. She drops the bow and arrow, goes to him, sighing because she knows that this is stupid, knows he was brainwashed to hurt her, but she just can't watch him fall apart like this.
She touches his shoulder.
She's underneath him in an instant, just like last time, his body hovering over hers. He touches her cheek, her lips, her neck, just one finger, running down her throat, and she knows she should be scared but she isn't. The thought of losing him, even this shell of him, is what haunts her, not the thought of him hurting her again.
"Real," she tells him, since she knows where this is going.
"Yes," he whispers, his hand on her cheek now. "I lost my leg, real or not real?"
"Real," she tells him; she can feel the prosthetic just above her own leg.
"I almost died, real or not real?" he whispers, and though she's not sure which occasion he's referring to, she whispers back, "Real."
His finger runs along her throat, and it makes no sense, because what she feels is the opposite of fear. She feels this thing, this attraction, welling up in her, making her warmer than she was a second ago. His finger leaves a tingling trail of fire on her throat and she gasps in pleasure without meaning to. He's too busy sorting memories to notice.
"I tried to choke you," he whispers. "Real or not real?"
"Real," she tells him, he sighs, collapsing on her again. He looks up this time, whispers, "Is this okay?" and when she nods, he buries his face in her chest. She strokes his hair absently, wondering what the hell is wrong with her that she still feels something for this broken boy, who she should never have fallen for in the first place.