A/N: Hi! I am back from my Las Vegas-UT-AZ vacation with the BF! It wasn't relaxing at all because we camped at the national parks. Except Las Vegas. We lived it up there! But the parks were beautiful, the canyons were awesome, the hikes were tough but I survived! The places were almost extra-terrestrial. Anyway, on to the story...
It is quite a sight as I walk into my morning class and all my students are already sitting down and well behaved, each one turning to look at me in synchrony, smiling. It stopped my tracks completely, and I gauge if I should run back out of the classroom because something feels off, and I don't want a part of any of it. I feel like I'm walking into a trap.
"Good morning Miss Everdeen," they say altogether. This is surely continuing to freak me out. A student sitting in the back has started to snicker.
"Hi everyone…" I greet with uncertainty. That's when I swivel my head towards my desk and see a vase full of white tulips. I approach it and place my bag down on the desk, and smile at the flowers.
"Anybody know who put these nice flowers here?" I ask, playing innocent.
Nobody twitches a muscle, and I have never heard the ticking of the clock sound this loud in this classroom.
"We're not supposed to say, but it's a guy," the brattiest, and also happens to be the oldest student of mine I strategically assigned to sit on the front row blurts out. Some girls behind him start to hiss at him.
"Alright. Let's play Question and Answer," I declare. Almost everyone nods at me. "Do I know him?", is my first question.
"Yeah!" they answer enthusiastically.
"Is he cute?" I am trying to look stoic but I am simple minded and I find this somewhat fun.
"Yeah!" only the girls seem to respond to this one.
"Do you like him?"
"Yeah!" the classroom almost shakes in agreement, and some students are giggling.
"Do I like him?"
The class pauses and they seem to be studying me, and I suddenly feel small standing in front of the room.
Once again, the brattiest kid is the first one to talk; crossing his arms behind his desk and has a defiant look on his face. "More than you like to admit."
I am welcomed by Pebbles yipping away at the door as I enter my house. I have never seen anything this excited to see me, as she stands on her short hind legs, begging to be picked up. I cradle her and start to coo, her tail wagging even more uncontrollably as soon as I scratch her stomach because it's her favourite. I lean down and blow a raspberry in her tummy and she tries to bite my hair with her little mouth in retaliation. I tell her that biting my hair is bad and I point a finger at her but she just dismisses what I say and begins to lick my finger instead.
Wanting a dog as a pet has never crossed my mind until around a year ago. Same sentiment can be applied when I was left with Buttercup. I never liked the cat. After the war, she was my companion, along with Peeta and Haymitch. It was a comforting feeling to have another living, breathing thing inside the house. I had grown to like her somehow. But one night she passed away, perhaps of old age, curled up inside her favourite cupboard in the kitchen I always forbade her from getting in to. A year after that, Haymitch followed into the dark. All the drinking binges had finally taken a toll on him, claiming his liver. The man can never take care of himself, and it was unbearable to see him deteriorate.
My guilt and that nagging feeling of defeat from losing Buttercup and Haymitch was gradually replaced with the need to prove to myself that I can maintain and nurture life. I need to keep the circular motion of life going. I felt there were too many deaths that went through my hands and something needs to change.
And all of these thoughts are supported by Peeta as my foundation and my wonderwall. He is the positive reinforcement of my life, helping me see the good in everyone and in all things. In order to elongate life, this life I fought hard for just to live it, I must diminish the negative to make room for the positive.
I put Pebbles down on the floor and she sits there and looks up at me. Something in the living room catches my eye. I walk to the coffee table to place my bag down and I see a stem of yellow tulip displayed in the middle of the table. I smile as I pick it up.
I slide the hallway closet door open to grab dog food and I am distracted by more tulips, pink this time, placed on each shelf. I gather them one by one with a growing realization. I find another flower on the dining table. On top of the TV. On the kitchen counter. The closer I get to different furniture and surfaces in the house, the more flowers I discover and pick up.
I run up the stairs, excited to uncover more tulips, and I do. They are in my drawers, on the vanity, on the end tables, a number of them scattered across my bed. The last tulip I actually almost overlook, for it sits right on the window ledge. It's the only red tulip Peeta has ever arranged for me to find. There is a note sitting underneath the flower.
Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature
I take the tulip and admire its rich red colour, and graze my fingertips against its petals. I have become pensive over the note, and I feel suddenly gloomy, and I can't help but think about Prim. My father. Peeta's family. The many lives lost over the recklessness of the war.
Prim would have loved Pebbles. She would have liked all these tulips too.
I gaze out the window and the see that the sky is losing its colour as more gray clouds roll into the horizon. I cast my eyes downwards and see Peeta walking on the stone pathway approaching my house. He is wearing old jeans and sneakers, and judging by the football jersey top he is still wearing, he just finished practice.
He tells me autumn is a good time to plant trees as he opens the gray bin he lays down on my front porch, revealing five maple tree saplings inside. Tree planting, another item on my bucket list. The first sapling I choose to plant in front of my house, many feet right before the steps.
I pick up the sapling and study the slender trunk, the small leaves, and the roots hiding in the pile of soil. There is life in these tiny roots. Along with nurturing and maintaining life, I also want to create life, something that will grow tall and strong for years and years to come, radiantly changing colours as seasons change.
He hands me a small shovel before I stoop down, not caring about the dirt I'm about to accumulate on my knees, and start to dig into the earth.
The second sapling I plant in front of Peeta's house. The third one right beside his bakery. The fourth one in the back of one of the schools I teach in. And the last sapling I decide to plant somewhere Peeta has never been to before.
At first Peeta's reaction is half a laugh, followed by a bit of concern, when he realizes we're entering the woods.
"Oh well, at least we're not hunting," he casually says, shrugging his shoulders then double checking the last maple sapling inside the bin as he crushes dead leaves, leaves that were plucked off due to cooler weather, underneath his shoes at an impossibly loud footing. It seems like he does not lift his feet at all when he walks through the woods. I cringe silently as I see birds scampering to fly out and above the tall trees ahead of us.
The main trail disappears in front of us and I lead him away towards the bushes where a fallen oak lays, old and still solid and thick roots upturned. We hop over the dead tree and continue on a hidden path. We duck under many sharp branches hanging low, some have managed to scrape Peeta's face, and we are finally presented with a clearing, littered by big, unfriendly rocks. And beyond the rocks is steady, small body of water.
I point across the lake where my father's war-battered, little summer house is still partially sitting, and partially covered by evergreen trees. "I spent a lot of my childhood there," I tell him, "It's where I learned how to swim." I had deserted this hideout for years, wanting to ignore or perhaps erase memories with my father. Today I felt a sudden need to revisit him and to also open up to Peeta a little bit more.
I think it's a perfect place to plant my last sapling.
Peeta is surprised, and suddenly interested.
First things first, I choose a patch of soil before I mark off where I plant. I emerge minutes later from hunching over the ground and crack some bones on my back, stretching my arms and legs. Gardening is quite exhausting. I subconsciously bring a hand up to my forehead and realize I am now covered in dirt and earth, small dry twigs sticking in my hair. Peeta is standing by the main door into the cottage, his gaze fixated at me.
"You're filthy. You should shower inside," he suggests and disappears into the house. I call out to him, wiping the soil further across my cheek.
"I will give you a tour of the house first."
I am surrounded by nostalgia as soon as I step through the door, the scent of old, damp wood floods me, taking me back to a time buried deep in the recesses of my mind. I close my eyes and shiver at how powerful some of these memories are, and if I try a little harder, I can almost smell my father. I shake my head and blink at Peeta, who is studying me up close again.
"Are you alright?"
I shoot him a smile because I don't like the worried look on his face. I take his hand and lead him around the cottage. There is not much in here, just a living room, a small kitchen, and a small bathroom. Most of the furniture is broken down by time, and an awkward chunk of the roof is missing, most likely grazed by giant passing bullets or bomb.
I stop near the back door and spot a picture frame, front side down flat on the floor. I tread carefully towards it, and I'm not sure why I almost feel hesitant to see which picture is in the frame as I turn it around. Peeta pulls up behind me and looks on as I reminisce over my parents' picture, stained and watered down.
"If only my dad could see how much everything has changed," I whisper into the frame, my hands gripping its sides, "…and how much I miss him."
I feel Peeta's hands rubbing my back, then he lightly kisses the side of my temple. He's trying his best to comfort me, telling me that my dad is in a better place, and that he would have wanted me to continue being happy even if it's not with him. And eventually, everyone will go as they have come, and it's just a matter of time. And I finally turn to look at him and his sad, blue eyes, reflective of the hurt and suffering he is feeling himself from losing a whole family.
I hug the picture close to my chest and lean back on Peeta, his arms wrapping around me from behind, supporting me, like always.
We march outside and spend the rest of the late afternoon watching the faraway sun set behind the trees, cross legged on the huge rocks bordering the water, making jokes and bouncing rocks off the surface of the lake in front of us.
He suddenly stands up and stretches, his hands swiftly taking off his shirt as his arms fly up. I remain unaffected and confused.
"If you're not going to shower and get all nice and clean, I will," he declares. He is now reaching for his fly and zips it down without batting an eyelash at me. He then gestures and points a finger at me to remind me of all the mud that has now solidified on my face.
"Peeta, that is lake water and it is cold," I warn him, emphasizing on each word.
He is now in his underwear and he completely ignores me as he allows himself space to back off of the lake shore and run towards the water at an increasing speed, hops on a big flat rock, arms locking around his legs as they lift up off the rock, and makes a grand, graceless splash into the water.
I stand up and inch forward, propelled by worry when I don't see his head pop up over the water. Somewhere in the middle of the lake, his blonde head emerges and whips back water off his hair, teeth clattering, and screaming his throat off.
"AAAHHHH! CCCCCOLD!"
I hear more birds flapping their way out of the woods.
I chuckle as I walk towards the end of a flat rock, looking down at him while he is flailing his arms, trying to remember how to swim.
"It's been a while since your last dip. Remember the quell?" I ask as I start to reach for the bottom of my shirt and hike it over my head.
He has stopped flailing and is now just floating, shaking like wet duck. I try to suppress more chuckle as his face reacts to me stripping off my pants after I flung my shirt away.
"Teach me again!" he is grinning like a fool and his initial shock to the cold is starting to subside. His grin disappears into a straight line as he watches me get rid of my bra, and lastly my panties.
I stand above him, arms on my hips, totally naked. I try not to show how cold I really feel.
"I could use a scrub first, if you don't mind?"
He is looking me up and down, nodding at me fervently, and he seems to have been frozen in his spot. I smile before I charge, off the same flat rock he launched from, and into the water. The cold of the water is almost paralyzing that it almost numbs me, and I push my head up to try to find Peeta. It is now dark, with mere stars in the sky illuminating us.
I swim up towards him; both our arms crossed in front of us as an attempt to keep some heat in, and laugh together as we tremble. He reaches out and grabs me by the shoulder to pull me close, his hand caressing down the goose bumps on each of my arms.
He backs away and scoops water in both his hands and brings them up to my face, slowly wiping the dirt off my forehead, and ladles more water to gingerly clean my cheeks. And in between the wipes, he makes sure he kisses me, his lips cold and wet, some kisses linger longer, and some very quick.
I close the gap between us and let him embrace me as we drip with water, skin to skin, goose bumps colliding into each other's. One of his hands snake up to cup my breasts as my eyes automatically shut, the roughness of his fingers sliding off my damp skin. I have always known that Peeta loves my breasts, and I love that he does.
He stops fondling, much to my dismay, and encircles me with both arms, his chin resting on my shoulder as we remain floating, dimly lit in the water. And even though the air is chilly, his breath is warm against my skin.