We sat on the couch and I pulled out the parchment paper. "Where do you want to start?" I asked, "Can we start with my family?" So we begin. He tells me stories and I write them down. I write down stories of my family and he draws according to what I describe to him. We write and draw quickly, laughing at funny stories and tearing up when painful memories come back. Eventually we look and it's well past midnight. Realizing the time we begin to yawn and laugh at each other's less-than-attractive yawning faces until Peeta stands up to leave. I pull his hand and, having lost my better judgment from lack of sleep, ask him to stay. He sits back down and puts his arm around me. We both lean to the side of the couch and fall asleep on the couch for a second night.
The next morning I wake up to the sound of cooking and open my eyes to see Peeta making breakfast. He turns around and greets me with a smile, inviting me to come eat. "What happened with Sae?" I asked. "Well, I was up anyway so I told her to go back home and get some rest. I can cook breakfast, right?" We smile and eat breakfast and thus begins our routine. For several months things run smoothly as the fall turns to winter. We eat breakfast, Peeta goes to finish up the bakery or paints at his house, I hunt or go watch him at the bakery, we eat lunch together with the workmen and after dinner, spent with or without Haymitch depending on how sober he is, we work on the book. We've called my mother and other friends we had lost touch with requesting pictures. We receive several back including one of Finnick and Annie's little boy Finn. He looks just like his father with bright green eyes and a mess of bronze colored hair.
"I want one of those someday," Peeta said as he looked at the picture. A pang hit me as I knew what he meant. Peeta wanted children. I did not. Even if Snow and Coin were gone and the Hunger Games were over, Plutarch Heavensbee even said that the stability of our country was very iffy. I didn't want to bring children into a world where they could face the same the same difficulties I had or worse. I tried not to dwell on Peeta's statement and got up to use the bathroom. To leave the room and think about it. Could I ever want children? Would I even need to? Peeta hasn't really shown any romantic interest in me, he's just my friend. I would never push the issue.
As I walked back to the room I noticed Peeta's head was down. I tried to make a joke but he looked up at me with dark eyes and I knew what that meant. I braced myself to see what would happen. It had been several months since Peeta had had an attack. In a split moment he was up on his feet coming towards me. With a rush of adrenaline I pushed against him as he pushed me into the wall. He wasn't screaming but he was calling me mean names and pulling at my hair. I kept craning my neck so he couldn't get a grip on it and looked into his eyes. "Peeta, Peeta, it's just me, Katniss. It's just me. It's not real. Whatever you're seeing, it's not real." "You killed the baby. You lied to me to get you pregnant and then you killed our baby." I fought back as his grip on me tightened around my shoulders and stared back at him, "Peeta, there never was a baby! There wasn't a baby!" I pleaded for him to understand there was never a baby and suddenly his grip loosened and he fell to the floor, crying.
"Katniss, I'm so sorry." I knelt beside him and put an arm around him. "Peeta, it's okay. You didn't hurt me. I'm okay, see?" And I showed him my lack of scars. Sure there may be a bruise tomorrow and my scalp hurt, but he didn't need to know.
He hugged me back and we knelt there in the hallway. As Peeta stood up he avoided looking at me and said he needed to go home to sleep in a real bed and not make me sleep on the couch. Once again I grabbed his arm and led him upstairs. I could feel his arm tense up as he realized we were heading and reassured him, "It's okay, I've slept in your bed before and you've slept with me in the train. Shoot, we've been sleeping on the couch for how many weeks? The least we can do is sleep in a bed like normal people."
I change in the bathroom and when I come back Peeta is lying in the bed, facing the wall. "Do you want the windows open?" I ask. He nods gently as I open it a crack to let the cold winter air come in. As I climb back into bed he softly says thank you. I scoot closer to him so I can feel some of the heat radiating from his body and this is how we sleep for several months. When I have nightmares, we rolls to face me and holds me in his arms until I fall back asleep and the opposite happens when he wakes up screaming. Eventually we start to just fall asleep holding each other. Nothing romantic. Just two friends realizing it's just the two of us in the world and we need to look out for each other.
Peeta's bakery opened at the beginning of the year. He didn't let me come see it the last few days before it opened. He said he wanted it to be a surprise. The day before it opened he wanted to show it to me privately. "You know, since you're my best friend I figure I could at least leave you with some perks and let you see the finished place first." And so he led me up the stairs, "Eyes closed, Katniss!" and surprised me, "open them!" It really was what he wanted. There were places for people to stay and eat their purchases, an area for kids to watch the bakers, and beautiful cakes frosted in the window. I looked at the beautiful paintings on the wall. Most were artistic renditions of pastries and such, but a few were people enjoying them. A family is eating cake at a party, a little boy who looks like an older version of Finn is taking a big bite out of a sugar cookie, and two girls are looking in the bakery window at the frosted cakes. I know who the last two are, even if you only see their backs. The little one is blonde and the taller one has dark brown hair.
"What do you think?" He asks, anxiously. "Wonderful. This place looks amazing, Peeta!" And it really did. He led me upstairs to show me the classrooms and they are also equally impressive. The bakery classroom has a long table and several small ovens along the wall. The art room has several of Peeta's paintings that I'm more familiar with. They are more abstract that the ones below, but they are still impressive. "You've really outdone yourself, Mellark," I said. "Maybe you can come take some classes here. Maybe then you can bake your own cheese buns," he says with a laugh as I playfully slap his arm. He leave the bakery bundled up and arm and arm, wandering down the road and talking about what he plans on making for the grand opening tomorrow.
That night as we are finishing a page on a victor Haymitch unexpectedly comes by drunker than a skunk. "I've lost the mother goose!" "What?" "The mother goose, I can't find her. I brought all of them in from the cold but she's not inside." For once Haymitch is showing sincere emotion as he weeps over the loss of his goose. "We'll help you find her," Peeta says, putting an arm around our inebriated friend. I get up to put my coat on and we head outside calling for Haymitch's goose. We separate each of us searching around the other abandoned homes in the Victor's Village. With no luck I head towards Peeta to see if he found her. While walking towards him I see him fall on the ground and let out a faint gasp for air.
I run to his side and see that he has the dark look in his eyes. Before he has time to realize I'm there with him I spring into action. For some reason the first thing I do is straddle his chest and pin down his arms and legs. I can feel him struggling underneath me but I say, "Peeta, look at me. Look at me. It's not real. Whatever you see, it's not real." He struggles some more under my weight until finally giving up and going lax underneath me. Haymitch heard the struggle and comes over crying with his mother goose. "Are you okay? Is he okay?" "Yes," I reply, "but we need to get him inside the house. Since we were closest to his house we each took and arm and dragged him inside. Well, I did. Haymitch struggled with a goose under one are and Peeta under the other.
Setting the goose down he asks what happened. As Peeta comes to he realized what happens and begins apologizing. "Peeta, you didn't do anything. Look, see?" and I show him my neck and arms to prove he didn't hurt me. As he relaxes I reassure him that I beat him to it this time and he didn't hurt anyone. "I just thought y'all were doing to weird lovers thing," Haymitch jokes towards Peeta. Before he can continue I throw a towel at him, "Get out of here, Haymitch, we found your stupid goose!" He covers the goose with his coat and stumbles out of the door, "She's not stupid. She just has a poor sense of direction."
Peeta's mood lightened up with Haymitch's inappropriate comment. "What DID you do, Katniss?" he asks jokingly, rubbing his wrists where I had held him. "Hey, I had to defend myself and I did. Don't question my methods," I laughed. Not wanting to head out to the suddenly falling snow I suggested we stay here tonight. We sat there for a moment until Peeta broke it, "Thank you" he said.
"I told you that if you let me know what to look out for I could be better prepared for this," I said going upstairs. He sighed acknowledging the fact that I was right and we headed upstairs. As he changed into his pajamas in the bathroom he indicated where I could find something to sleep in. As we swapped rooms so that I could change I could hear him crack the window open to let in the cold air. With the sudden drop in temperature I sprinted back to the bed and pulled the covers up around me, trying not to shiver to death. He climbed in and scooted closer. And closer. Until we were closer than we had slept before. I laid my head on his chest and he pulled me in tight. And we slept.
I don't remember waking up so refreshed, but when I did the window was closed and there was a lingering smell of sweet bread. I headed downstairs only to see a note from Peeta on the table saying:
Sorry I left early. I wanted to get started on everything with the bakery opening tonight. Thanks again for your help last night. ~Peeta
I ate the sweet roll and quickly headed back home to change for the day.