Chapter 2

The first time I saw the X on the door, I thought I'd be prepared for it and able to handle the emotions that came with knowing behind that door, Peeta was suffering a hijacking episode and I couldn't go to him to make it better. I wasn't.

Aside from the episode that first brought the red X into existence, those first 3 months since Peeta had returned to District 12 had seen us growing slowly but steadily back together. Dr. Aurelius had suggested we develop routines (when I finally started taking his weekly phone calls at Peeta's insistence) and so we did. Peeta began to bake again, I hunted and of course Haymitch spent most of his time working his way to the bottom of a liquor bottle. When the liquor ran out, he began raising geese in his yard to bide the time until the next train full of supplies arrived. Luckily, the geese took pretty good care of themselves.

Sae stopped feeding me breakfast after Peeta had been showing up to the meal for a month. She said she had enough faith in his baking skills to know he'd keep me well-fed in the morning and I had enough skills to put together something for the two of us at dinner time. Haymitch, who was usually just beginning to sober up by that time of night, began to stumble over a few and then several nights a week to be fed. He'd never admit it, but I'm sure even Haymitch had some need for human contact left and if he had to be around anyone, Peeta and I were the most acceptable candidates to fill that role for him.

None of us expected anything from the others save for a general acceptance of who were, and who we'd each become as a result of the tragedies faced together and alone. The ones shared we sometimes would talk about during an ill-advised session passing one of Haymitch's bottles of white liquor back and forth in front of a fire when inhibitions had been lowered and lips loosened beyond the normal.

The tragedies too painful to speak of, even in those fireside exchanges, we dealt with on our own in our own private ways.

It was during one of those times when my own demons were nipping at my heels that I went to Peeta for comfort only to find that red X on the doorknob.

Things had been going pretty well since the introduction of the letter. Peeta and I came up with the idea for working on the memory book, Haymitch helped us with it when he was sober enough and when he wasn't, Peeta and I re-learned how to laugh watching him stumble around his yard trying to herd his geese.

Peeta reluctantly returned to sleeping in my bed to help us both keep the nightmares at bay. He had initially said no when I brought it up but he couldn't deny that the best either of us had slept since our first games was when we were together and he eventually conceded.

The 'law of the red X' as I had jokingly begun to call it, still applied; if Peeta felt an episode coming on, he said he would need to sleep in one of the spare rooms and the X would be placed on the door.

We had gone to bed as usual, wrapped in each other's arms when a few hours into the night I became caught up in a horrifying nightmare. A Prim nightmare. On the scale of nightmare severity, the Prim nightmares were the worst. I awoke in a cold sweat, my arms swinging around wildly as I searched the bed for Peeta. He was gone.

Hoping that he had just gotten up to use the bathroom or to get a drink, I scrambled out of bed and threw the door open, wanting only to find Peeta and have him wrap me in his arms and tell me everything would be okay again. I was beginning to feel as though I wanted more than that in the nights leading up to the nightmare and for some reason the new feelings paired with the same old feelings of safety I'd always felt with Peeta made my need for him almost unbearable. I wasn't sure I wanted to put a name to these new feelings yet, but the strength of them was unsettling to say the least.

As I looked wildly around the hallway and my eyes fell on that evil red letter hanging from the door opposite mine, I couldn't help but fall immediately to my knees, breaking down in tears. How far I'd come from the girl on fire to this sniveling, emotional wreck. The Katniss Everdeen I was before the Games would be embarrassed by this girl.

"Peeta!" I sobbed, crawling over to the door and reaching for the knob. I gave it a hard turn and of course, it was locked.

"KATNISS!? What are you doing!? Get away! Go away, damn it!" he howled back at me in a voice that made my blood run cold.

This was not my Peeta on the other side of the door. I backed away a little bit and laid my head down on the floor so that I could see under the door to the room.

I wrapped my own arms around my shivering body and squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying to imagine that it was Peeta holding me instead. I continued to listen to him shout vicious things well into the early morning hours until I couldn't stand it any longer and clapped my hands over my ears.

It was in this state that Peeta found me a little after the sun had come up in the morning. Asleep but restlessly so. He scooped me into his arms and carried me back to the bed we shared, folding me once more in his loving arms. Before I fell back into a more restful sleep, I heard him crying softly as he placed a feather light kiss on the back of my neck and whispered hoarse words there.

"I love you, Katniss…real…I love you."

When I woke again it was because I was too warm. The sun was blaring through the window telling me it was afternoon and Peeta was the reason I was too warm. I tried to turn over onto my back and he only crowded me further, entwining his legs with mine and pulling me closer into his chest with a yawn.

"Peeta…" I whispered, reaching up to brush his blonde bangs back from his closed eyes. He mumbled unintelligibly and nuzzled his nose straight into the crook of my neck.

Despite the heat of his body on mine, I felt a chill run from the base of my skull to the tip of my tailbone that had nothing to do with temperature. I tried to stop the sudden moan that bubbled up from my belly when Peeta nuzzled me, but it would have been like trying to stop Haymitch from sucking the last dregs from a bottle of his white liquor.

I turned my face more towards his and as if watching my actions from outside of my body, I saw my head tilt forward just enough to first touch my lips gently to Peeta's, and then mold to themselves to his when they began to move as well. Placing my hand on his chest, I propped myself up on an elbow and deepened the kiss.

I knew Peeta was awake when I felt one of his hands slide up the length of my back to my neck where he held my head in place and kissed me deeper still.

"Katniss..."

"Peeta…"

An unspoken question lay between our mumbled names but neither of us was ready to break the spell of this moment. I finally had to when Peeta rolled me onto my back more and moved to straddle one of my thighs.

"Peeta…Peeta wait…" I murmured between kisses and placed both hands on his chest to get his attention.

His eyes opened in confusion and I could see it slowly dawning on him that we were in quite a scandalous position. "Oh, jeez…I'm…I'm sorry…" he said rolling off of me quickly and burying his reddening face in his hands.

I knew this was it. This was the moment where I was either going to tell Peeta about the feelings I was having or I was going to plant us firmly in the friend zone forever.

"I'm not sorry…" Sharing my feelings obviously won.

There are few moments I can recall before or since the Games that I would have loved to have a camera handy. To capture the look on Peeta's face when I said that was definitely one of those moments.

"yuh…you're not?" he asked swallowing a huge lump in his throat as he turned back towards me slightly and I scooted closer to him. I shook my head slowly and reached out to touch the bright specks of blonde hair that had sprouted on his chin overnight.

We held each other's gaze for what seemed like the longest moment of my life before Peeta reached out and stroked the knuckles of one hand from my shoulder to the tip of my elbow.

That was all it took for me as I felt that shiver course through my body again, telling me that I should get closer to Peeta as quickly as possible.

"Katniss…" The loving way he said my name, so different than the way he'd said it the night before during his episode erased any remaining doubt in my mind that my Peeta, the Peeta who loved me since he was five-years-old, was still somewhere in this man before me.

"Peeta." I whispered back and closed the distance between us, seizing his lips with a hunger I hadn't truly felt since that night on the beach in the Quarter Quell.

Confident in my response to his advances, Peeta folded me in his arms as our kisses became slower but no less passionate.

It was in the midst of these passionate kisses which led to shy touches, that our mentor, friend and the only family that either of us had left decided to ruin the moment.

"Hey! Do either of you plan on feeding me or do I have to go fight the geese for a spot at the trough!?"

We startled apart, me with a gasp and Peeta with a hiss of pain I somehow instinctively knew was the result of his needs being left unfulfilled. I groaned and turned my angry gaze towards the open bedroom door.

"It's mid-day you silly old DRUNKARD! Come back when it's supper time and I'll feed you then!" I bellowed and waited through the following silence as Haymitch slowly put together that he was a bit early for the evening meal we usually all shared together.

"Oh." He called back with the slur and edge of confusion that told me he had woken up before his morning bottle had worn off. "Ooops." He hiccupped with a giggle and I heard him stumbling back (hopefully) towards the kitchen door that led to outside.

"Well…well what're ya doin'? You could help me get the geese together in the meanwhile…" he grumbled and Peeta dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and groaned.

"GET OUT AND GO TAKE CARE OF YOUR DAMN GEESE YOUR DAMN SELF, HAYMITCH!" I yelled from where I had moved to the doorway.

Haymitch's answering laughter told me he had some idea what we were up to and I heard the kitchen door open and close without another word from our neighbor.

I turned back around slowly to see Peeta with his head down, his back shaking from what appeared to be laughter.

I folded my arms over my chest, fighting the smile forming on my own lips. "I'd love you hear what you find so damn funny Peeta Mellark!" I whispered with a chuckle and gave him a shove.

Peeta lifted his head, still laughing and I couldn't help but get caught up in his infectious laughter. "I'm sorry…it's just…our typical luck…" he said holding his stomach as he turned and threw his legs over the side of the bed. I snuck a peek at the clock on the bedside table and realized it was closer to late afternoon than I'd thought.

"Well, I guess I better go get dressed and start on dinner before drunk and grumpy comes back here drunker and grumpier." I mumbled sliding off of the bed. Before I could take a step towards the bathroom, Peeta grabbed me by the hand and tugged me back to stand between his legs at the edge of the bed. I smiled shyly, placing my hands on his shoulders to steady myself as Peeta reached up with one hand to stroke my cheek. He's always had a way of staring straight into my soul and that moment was no different.

"I'm really sorry that Haymitch interrupted us…" he whispered glancing at the door and then looking me up and down pointedly. "…really REALLY sorry." He sighed and I chuckled and kissed the top of his head.

"Me too." I said resting my chin on top of his head. And I was. The first forward progress Peeta and I had made in trying to figure out what romantic feelings we might have for each other without pressure from the government or the people of the districts, and Haymitch had to ruin it.

At least the encounter told us one thing; those feelings were most definitely there. We held each other's gaze for another few moments.

"You okay?" I asked with a wince. I knew how difficult it was for me to stop when we heard Haymitch but I suspected it was even more difficult for Peeta.

I knew by the way his cheeks reddened that he was quite aware of what I was asking. "Nah…" he admitted with a short laugh and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "But I will be."

I smiled and stroked my fingers through his hair once more before heading into the bathroom to change. I headed downstairs to start dinner a little later just in time to hear the shower turn on in the bathroom attached to the bedroom we shared.