CHAPTER 13: Alive

The first thing Peeta registered when he woke was the smell of some type of biscuit. Peeta knew a lot about bread, but even so, it was difficult to place the specific scent. Usually, the smell of any type of bread brought vivid memories - where he had been when he first tried it, what it had tasted like, his first successful batch or his most recent unsatisfactory attempt. Many times, it would bring up memories of his family, his brothers or his parents. This smell brought an empty, young feeling; he had nothing to tie it to. For a moment, he pondered the possibility that the Capitol's poison had inadvertently ruined some of his childhood memories.

He took another deep breath as he sat up, and finally opened his eyes. Relief set in as he realized his position on the couch in Katniss's sitting room, the daylight streaming in, and recalled the events of last night's dinner:

Married. Real. Stay with me. Always.

Blearily, he judged these to be positive developments. He could see the sun streaming in through the windows, clean and clear. It was going to be a beautiful day. His mind turned back to the biscuit smell. Unwilling to waste the time and effort it would take to think through the breads of each district or to imagine the front of the late Mellark Bakery, Peeta sought out the source of the rich earthy scent. When he smelled it again, he felt that same feeling- youth. Youngness. Childhood. Longing?

When he saw the bread, it clicked. Of all of the things he had tasted in his life, all the fresh and stale bread, from each district, from the Capitol, from his family's store, he had never had these. Peeta had smelled, but never tasted, the biscuits made from grain rations- the kind Katniss had eaten her whole life in the Seam. He came to the realization, watching her cook the squat, dark biscuits in a pan, that he had not been so young at all the last time he'd smelled Seam biscuits - 16. It felt like an entirely different era, an entirely different life.

He had last smelled it the last time he watched Katniss walk home from school. It was the closest he ever got to the Seam. He reveled in the clarity of it all. It made sense. Real.

He surprised himself when he asked her, "Where did you get that flour?"

"I had it from before-" Katniss seemed to be fumbling for words. "I dug it out. I wanted to make you breakfast, but I don't know how to use yeast."

Katniss' face was flushed red, and for all outward appearances, she seemed to be mad at herself that, all the things she could and had done in her life, she had never learned how to bake bread that rose. Peeta's heart rose into his throat as he looked around the kitchen. She had indeed made breakfast. A small dish of berries, 2 glasses of goat milk, and some meat had already been laid out on the table.

"That's okay," Peeta reassured, "I'm sure they're great. Thank you for making breakfast." Katniss looked into his face, searching it intensely, and seemed to come up with the answer she was looking for. She relaxed and took the last biscuit off the stove.

Peeta's first seam biscuit was rough and grainy, but he saw how it actually made more sense for seam folk to eat them this way. In reality, the dark seam biscuit was much more nutritional than the fluffy golden ones his family had sold to the other townsfolk and peacekeepers.

"Peeta?" Katniss asked gingerly.

Peeta shook himself out of his bread-induced reverie. "Sorry. No, I'm fine. Just thinking about bread," he said with a derisive chuckle. Her shoulders came down and she popped another berry into her mouth. He took her in for a moment, as she methodically enjoyed her breakfast. There had been many times in the past year when he had wondered what was wrong with him that made him love Katniss Everdeen.

If Real or Not Real had taught him anything, it was probably that the truth was even more confusing than the lie. From what he could muster, Gale had been at once completely right, and yet totally wrong about Katniss and her choice of mates. Katniss could have killed Peeta a very long time ago, and everyone's life would have been much less complicated. She didn't.

When he looked at her now, she was as beautiful in his mind as she had been on the first day of school. Her dark chestnut hair tied back in her efficient braid, her slate-gray eyes in the sunlight, her hands, much smaller than most people would imagine but by no means delicate. She had been eating better, he knew, rather than saw, that her form was perfectly curved, strong and soft.

Even her scars were special. They helped Peeta remember, in those dark moments, that Katniss was a normal human - no, not normal. Extraordinary. It seemed to him that each scar told a story of her bravery and selflessness. Though he knew he was unusual, many men would take issue with the incredible patchwork of scars that made up Katniss' skin. But Peeta had always tried not to be a normal boy.

The boys at school had made lewd remarks about "the Everdeen girl." The round girls from town were blonde and blue-eyed. Katniss was different because she fed herself, her dark hair and sharp eyes only set her ahead of the town girls in looks. She was the only powerful girl in school. She was the only Seam girl with a figure, the only Seam girl whose breasts were ever a topic of conversation. He thought for a moment what Katniss might have said if she knew the town boys made bets on whether she and Gale were having sex, whether or not it was good, what she did for him. By the time Peeta was reaped, the other boys had already coupled with the merchant girls. Peeta's brothers told him stories about the girls in town. Though he had listened closely, Peeta had tried his entire life not to look at Katniss and the other girls like they did.

Some days, he remembered, before the world had fallen apart, he would daydream of her. Of her soft skin, of her lips, of feeling the perfect curve of her body from top to bottom. His young self had only imagined that he would get the chance to hold her, kiss her, dance with her. Now he had done all those things and more - hell, he had married her.

He could remember, lying in his bed at night, his thoughts would stray to her, but he tried, oh, how he had tried, to keep those thoughts focused on her face - but how old had he been? He had been a teenage boy, so there were nights when his thoughts strayed to what it might be like to hold her against him, to kiss her breasts and run his hands through her hair and to hear her low, throaty voice say his name in the darkness.

Sometimes, after the reaping, she would come to him in a dream. Wearing only flames, wearing only pearls, wearing only scars. Peeta still had these dreams on occasion, but it was easier now. Sometimes.

Peeta shook himself back into the present and took another bite of biscuit, willing himself not to blush. Katniss had a tiny smile on her face. Peeta felt his own face forming into a sad smile as he considered that the merchant boys would never have realized, and he would never get to tell them, that food might be the only thing that could consistently please the most beautiful girl the Seam had ever produced.

Katniss hummed quietly as she finished off another few berries. The light hit her face just so and Peeta realized how strangely good he felt today. He knew that this feeling might not last, that some shiny, terrible memory might sneak in at any moment. That the reality of her soft hair and tiny smile might be replaced by something shiny and sharp.

"How are you today?" Peeta asked her, wondering if she was feeling, as he was, inexplicably good. Katniss looked at him quizzically. "I mean," he tried to explain. "I feel like I'm going to have a really good day... a clear day." Katniss set her biscuit down and stared at him with a question, and just a flicker of hope, in her eyes. He knew his bad days were as hard on her as they were on him, maybe harder. "I thought, maybe if you were feeling okay too, we could do something together? Take a day off from baking and hunting?"

Katniss, who had until this moment only been focused on getting breakfast to happen, thought about the idea. She frowned to herself. Really, there was no reason for them to bake and hunt every single day. Food was more than abundant. What would she want to do if she had some time? What should she do with the rest of this time she'd been given? It was too big a question. It made her feel... not guilty, but responsible maybe - made her think about all those who would never have another day.

What would Prim have done with just one day? Take Lady to the pasture? Help her mother with a patient? Probably she would spend time with Katniss. The thought hit Katniss hard, but she shook it off. What about Rue, what would have she done, if given another day? Katniss had no idea what Rue had liked and disliked. She knew that she worked in an orchard, and that she loved her family... but she didn't know. What would Finnick have done? She was surprised when that answer came to her easily. Swim with Annie.

"Swim?" she ventured after a long while. The meaning was not lost on Peeta.

"Okay," he nodded and wiped his hands, "Only, you'll have to finish giving me those swimming lessons, otherwise, it will be a little more like... splashing." Katniss surprised him, by smiling at his lame attempt at a joke. He realized how tight and unnatural her smile looked, and at first worried that he had somehow already ruined this good day, when he realized - there was nothing wrong with her smile, it had just been so very long since she smiled that the muscles in her face were unaccustomed to the effort.

After the meal was finished and the dishes were done, Katniss and Peeta made their way to the cabin in the woods. Katniss poked fun at Peeta's boots crashing through the wilderness. Peeta carried a pack weighed down by towels and food and Katniss led the way, seeming to enjoy the forest for the trees. They took the long hike mostly in silence, though Katniss told Peeta in short sentences broken apart by long pauses that the lake they were going to was something of a "secret spot" that she and her father visited often when she was young.

As they neared the lake, Katniss slowed, feeling branches, reaching down to the ground. Peeta watched her carefully, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The startled look in her eyes and the sudden swiftness of her movements put Peeta on edge. He didn't know if he was ready to see Katniss the hunter without it triggering some sort of fit or flashback yet.

He looked around carefully, and tried his best to listen, but nothing struck him as out of the ordinary. He was beginning to consider that maybe Katniss had also suffered from flashbacks. Certainly, they would not be as vivid or mind bending as his, but it was quite possible nonetheless. Just as he was opening his mouth to say something, she stopped moving as immediately and entirely as if she had been frozen in the electrical current from one of the Capitol's hovercrafts, though this was obviously not the case.

A quiet "oh," escaped her lips.

"What?" Peeta took a few steps closer to her, and then, tentatively, he reached for her elbow. She was stone still for a moment, but then leaned into him, for support.

"I haven't been here since... this is where he brought the survivors after..."

Peeta's eyes widened, he looked around, trying to see the world as Katniss did. He looked carefully at the trees, the leaves on the ground. Nothing.

Not a single sign that nearly one thousand refugees had been in this spot for three days before being airlifted to 13; at least not one that Peeta could see. However, he knew he couldn't see the woods as she did. Katniss seemed to take in every detail.

"I feel like," Katniss said quietly, reaching out for a branch."I should feel something."

"You don't have to feel anything; the people who were here last are safe now." Peeta watched her face carefully as a strange look of surprise crossed over it.

"Alive," she said wonderingly. The people who had been here had survived. Gone to live in 13 or another District of their own choosing. Some even returned, like Thom, to District 12, but they'd survived. They were out there, living their lives, moving forward, starting businesses and raising their children. Alive.

Alive; except for one. Except for her sister, Primrose Everdeen. Wordlessly, this personal tragedy was acknowledged, and accepted. Though it didn't make Prim's death less heartfelt, it was easier to bear if they could think about all the others. Peeta offered her his hand and a shy smile. He was a little surprised when she took it, and responded in kind with a gentle squeeze. Linked, they finished the trek to the lake in step together.

By the time they reached the shore, both of them were warm. Sunlight streamed through the treetops, speckled in some places and blazing in others. The overabundant light reflecting off the water, gave everything an almost glowing, soft quality. Though her hand felt hot and sweaty in his, Peeta held on until she gave him a quiet look and a little touch on the arm.

She began to undress.

In her usual fashion, she removed her clothes carelessly - over her head went her shirt, down came her pants, and into the water, smoothly, went Katniss Everdeen in just her underclothes. Scars could not hide her long, well-muscled legs, the strength in her arms and back, the firmness of her bottom, or the roundness of her breasts. Peeta had to remind himself to breathe, as he watched her dive underneath the calm of the lake.

When she resurfaced, Peeta felt more forgiveness for his young self, unable to control his urges when thoughts of Katniss came at night. The sight of her, hair clinging to her face, water glistening off of her chest, and most notably, a smile radiating from her face- she was incredible. With a small start, Peeta could see that her soaking wet undergarments didn't do much to hide some of the nuances of her naked form, things even he had never seen before - her nipples, the darkness of the hair between her legs.

Cold water suddenly seemed very appropriate.

"Are you coming in or what?" Katniss called.

Arching his eyebrow at her, he unbuttoned his shirt and pants, folded them carefully, and waded into the water in his underclothing. Peeta had only swum the once in his life, during the Quarter Quell, but today, it felt like a good day to learn. The sun was warm, and Katniss floated right into his arms.

Being in the water gave the two reluctant Victors a strange, but welcome, sensation of weightlessness. They floated on their backs, took turns seeing which of them could hold their breath longer, and attempting to launch one another out of the water. Katniss taught Peeta how to bring his arms up and around to propel himself forward in even strokes. He learned quickly and soon they were chasing one another down, fighting lightheartedly. Hours passed like this, enjoying the sunlight, the water and the songs of the birds. Playing, for once, like the children they never had the opportunity to be.

Though he had learned the basics quickly, Katniss was a much stronger swimmer than he was. She was no Finnick Odair, the way he moved as if the water were an extension of his body, rather than something to pushed and pulled through with difficulty, but she could dart around underneath the water, quick as a fish - something she learned it was fun to take advantage of, in fact. She started a game where she would duck under the water and swim around until Peeta lost track of where she was, then pop up and spit a big mouthful of water in his face, or his back, or his shoulder - pretty much whatever was facing her at the time was fair game.

Though he wasn't good at darting around, Peeta Mellark had always been broad chested, and therefore, his lung capacity was nothing to scoff at. He started to catch on to the timing of her game, and soon, he was able to duck down a few seconds after her, popping up right as she did and spitting water at her. When she figured out his angle, it got to be this ridiculous game of chasing one another around, with huge gulps of water in their cheeks trying to spit faster or further to get the other one first. At one point they both popped out of the water, and they looked so ridiculous with their cheeks round with water that they both started laughing and choking on the water, rather than spitting it out.

It was about this time that they realized how chilled and hungry they were getting, so they climbed out to enjoy the picnic they had brought. Peeta readied the meal and Katniss sat on the shore, wrapped snugly in her towel, allowing tiny fish to nibble at her toes.

"Doesn't that hurt?" he asked, sitting beside her, splashing his feet into the water, scaring the tiny fish away. He handed her a cheese bun.

"No, they're just tickling. Hold still, they'll come to you too," she put a hand on his leg and helped him wiggle his feet slightly under the sand. Soon enough, a single tiny fish approached his feet. He resisted the urge to splash out of the water, disconcerted by the strange sucking on his toe. But her hand on his leg and the look of concentration on her face as she shushed him kept him still. Soon, the fish were all around their legs, nibbling and biting.

"What are these things?" Peeta asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Weird, right?" Katniss whispered conspiratorially.

"It's like wearing very hungry socks." Peeta decided aloud. Katniss began to laugh. She leaned back in the sand, one of her long legs flew out of the water and the fish disappeared in a silver flash. Loud, enthusiastic noises Peeta was sure he had never heard bubbled from her mouth - he realized that he was much more familiar with the different types of cries that she was capable of making than her different laughs.

She laughed, and soon Peeta was laughing with her, the both of them laying in the sand, parts of their lunch abandoned in the beach, laughing a little hysterically. Tears streamed down Peeta's cheeks and Katniss held a stitch in her side.

"Peeta," she gasped, choking down more laughter. "Peeta," she insisted, as though his attention had ever left her face. "We're alive."

Their laughter subsided slowly as the sun moved toward the West and the light on the beach became dappled through the trees. They spent the rest of the day with their hands clasped together, for the entire walk home and even after, until Katniss headed to bed upstairs.

And that night, as Peeta settled into the guest bedroom in Katniss's house in the Victor's Village, cheeks still warm from the sun of the day, he felt more complete, more fulfilled than he had since he could remember clearly. When thoughts of Katniss smiling, laughing, wet and glowing from the water and the sun crept into his head, Peeta was not ashamed.

Not even when he imagined his own rough hands were hers.