Thanks for all the favorite-ing I'm getting all over the place, lovely people- it makes me so happy.
ilikebread1: he's come out of his episode at the end, and is just making sure she's comfortable with him lying on her. Thanks for checking.
I feel like things pick up a bit after this chapter, and like I should apologize for how slow it's going. I just feel that Katniss wouldn't get her sanity or her feelings for Peeta back overnight (as a couple of you have mentioned). So, thanks for sticking with me!
I do not own the Hunger Games.
When he's pieced himself together enough to get off her, she's brave enough to ask, "What brought this on?"
They were happy this morning, she remembers, but she made that stupid comment about being a couple and in the back of her mind, she's wondering if this is her fault. He looks at her, weighing her, then pulls her to her feet. He doesn't let go of her hand, and she feels it again: this thing, this swooping in her stomach that makes her heart beat faster and her face go red. She focuses on these physical signs, because if she makes it all about her body it won't hurt as much as when it's really all about her heart.
He walks her to his studio and whispers, "Close your eyes."
"Hell no," is her response, immediately. She doesn't close her eyes anymore: that's how nightmares happen.
"Trust me," he whispers, putting his fingers on her eyelids, and she obeys because she's shocked to find that she does, she trusts him. She's even more shocked by this than his echo of the words she used when she pulled out the berries. She doesn't want to trust him, but she does. After all, he's always been the trustworthy one: she's the liar.
"Okay," says Peeta, after he's bumped around a bit and he puts an arm around her waist, to guide her. She's blushing again at his touch, her heart racing. She doesn't know where this has come from and can't decide if she likes it or not.
"Okay," he says again, and he points towards a sheet in the corner draped over what looks like a pile of canvases. The sheet has one word painted on it: Games.
"Those you can't look at," Peeta tells her. "Those will give you nightmares, and bring you back into the arena, and…" He trails off, but she's looking at him, wondering when this happened, when he became the strong one who has to hide things from her weakness and fear. But she nods, a puppet on a string, a string that's tied to him and will do anything to make him smile. He looks like a different person when he smiles.
"This is what brought on the episode," he tells her, and he points to the painting on the easel. It's of Finnick and Annie on their wedding day. They're looking happy and vaguely scattered. She remembers how hard Plutarch pushed for a Capitol wedding, how their genuine love kept it from becoming Capitol-esque, how mixed-up and beautiful all of it was. She reaches for it, wanting to touch Annie's cheek, Finnick's eyes, which he's captured so perfectly, but Peeta stops her.
"Still wet," he reminds her, and she nods, looking at how his hand engulfs hers, makes her look weak and beautiful.
"I was painting him and I couldn't stop remembering," he whispers, and she's drawn into his blue eyes. She can't stop remembering either.
"What it was like, when he was screaming, and how different his eyes looked—"
"Stop," she begs, and she actually puts a hand over his mouth because she can't handle even one more word. He pulls her hand away, nodding, understanding. Then, without a word, he kisses her hand, gently, but it sets her on fire. She gasps again, feeling this welling of emotion over this boy. Her boy with the bread.
"We should have dinner," he whispers, and she nods, not trusting her voice. She trusts her voice about as much as she trusts her heart.
They talk while they eat, carefully skirting around the difficult topics and focusing on the mundane: what the next shipment of supplies will bring, what they will cook for Haymitch when it comes, whether they should do laundry tomorrow or the day after. Safe topics, topics that don't hit too many sensitive spots: though of course, food is a sensitive spot, Haymitch always will be, supplies are, now that they're living together. Why are they living together again? Because she could've sworn she was surviving just fine on her own without any of this blushing and having feelings all over the place.
She lies alone in bed that night, cold, and thinks of his heat as he hovered over her, as he laid on her. He's always so warm and he's so big; when she cuddles into him it feels as though she disappears, as though they can't find her because she's hidden against his chest. She remembers feeling this way in the first Games, as though no one could hurt her when he was protecting her.
She's lying in bed alone, wondering if she loves him, wondering if she wants there to be two victors, if that's what she wanted all along. Or if she is as heartless as Gale supposed, if she is incapable of love, if they've burned that away along with everything else. If she so desperately wants to be the only victor that she would let him swallow the berries without her.
Reviews make me smile.