It was seasonally warm. Though my skin prickled with bumps, my entire skin glowed with heat. It was a different type of heat, of fire, than I was accustomed to. Flaming arrows and carefully crafted outfits had never had the same kind of effect on me as I felt this close to his skin. It did not take me long to realize that this proximity was exactly what set the heat dancing across my skin.
"Katniss." The way he said my name was so much more intimate than I had ever imagined possible coming from him. And when his strong hands came up to cup my cheek and pulled me closer, I couldn't resist. I had resisted him for so long, but no longer now. "Catnip," he whispered then, the words leaving his mouth a breath away from my own. As I inhaled, I breathed him in completely.
My hands moved on their own accord, pulling him closer. I had never been afforded the luxury of the concept of romance. I had been too busy caring for my mother and my sister. The mere thought of Prim sent my stomach squirreling, but I pushed the unease aside. I shouldn't feel guilty about wanting a life of my own, of trying to find my own happiness. And he wanted to give it to me. It was written so clearly in his expression.
"Oh, Catnip," he breathed again and as he did, his lips brushed across mine. "I'm sorry." His hand stroked my cheek as his forehead fell to my shoulder. "I am so sorry. I never wanted it to end this way. I wanted you. You and freedom. Freedom for our families. It's all I ever wanted for us."
Then the world truly was on fire, and it wasn't just my proximity to him that burned me inside. I felt flames licking my skin. Looking down I staggered back in shock, pulling free from his embrace. My skin danced under the flicker of the flames, and burns pulsated in unnatural waves impossibly across my arms.
"No," I whispered, the word lost in the crackle of fire. I could see over his shoulder, and my stomach plummeted as I pushed forward. My feet moved as if stuck in tar; the faster I tried to move, the slower I went. "Prim!" I screamed, for I knew what happened next all too well.
His arms caught me around the waist, preventing what little progress I could make. "It's too late, Katniss," he said as I stared forward in horror. The planes flew overhead, the loading bay doors dropping open and the little tinkling boxes descending daintily in the sky.
"Prim!" I screamed again, the volume rising until it scratched my vocal chords. I felt like I was back in the town square, volunteering to take her place when she was selected as tribute. I clawed against his grip, trying to pull away. If only I could reach her, I could save her, I thought.
"It's too late for all of us," Gale murmured against my ear before spinning me around and pulling me into his chest just as the bombs exploded.
Her name caught in his shirt, muffled by the fabric as I sank hopelessly against him. There was no point in fighting him, I knew. She was gone. My little duck, taken so violently and senselessly from this world.
When I tried to pull away, he caught my face again. But instead of the calloused hands from working in the mine, they were the seasoned hands of bread and paint. As his fingers traced my neck and cheeks, they felt soft and comforting. And when he dropped his face to mine, I didn't pull away. If anything, I brought him closer. For if I could close my eyes and lose myself in him, I could block out the reality of what stood behind me, forever lost at the hands of the one person I had trusted to keep my family safe.
When I opened my eyes, I thought for a moment the world was truly afire. Red light danced across the walls and windows and for a startling moment, I wondered it if hadn't all been a dream. I wondered if the Girl on Fire was destined to die a fiery death, even in the aftermath of the war. Then my wits returned and I saw the light for what it was - the morning sunrise just starting to peak above the horizon.
As soon as I started to shift in the bed, I froze. The warmth emitted behind me and the weight across my stomach alerted me that I was not alone. Rolling my head slowly to the side, I saw Peeta's peacefully sleeping profile though the red light.
The pieces of reality took a moment to settle into place, but then I remembered. He had returned from the Capitol, we had gone to see what little remained of the bakery, we had come back to the house. I had asked him to stay and he had obliged. As all the thoughts processed through my head, slowly I came to realize I was not in danger of the world bursting alight around me, and my heart rate gradually decreased.
Head settling back against the pillow, I forced myself to concentrate on my breathing as I worked to calm down. I took a little comfort in the fact that I had not awoken screaming, as I had every other night up until that point. The details of the dream differed slightly, but the main premise was always the same. I would think about the possibility of a life with Gale, and then I would relive the most horrible moment of my life. Gale would morph into Peeta, and I would be shielded from witnessing what happened next, even though nothing could stop me from knowing.
Somedays, I wished I didn't. Ignorance promised bliss, or so they said. I didn't think I would be able to find bliss, but I thought perhaps I might at least be able to dream of a slightly better outcome, if I had not witnessed it with my own eyes.
My eyes dampened and moisture rolled across the bridge of my nose and down my cheek, pulled hard by gravity, before I realized I was crying. Shifting slightly to free one arm, I wiped furiously at the tears. Crying would not bring her back; I'd found that out the hard way over the past several months. Nothing would bring her back.
The room suddenly felt too warm, and the urge to get outside and escape the confines of the house overpowered me. Pushing back the sheets, I halted my movements only when Peeta's arm tightened around my waist. He muttered something incoherent, and I couldn't tell if he was awake or asleep. Pausing my irrational flee, I rolled onto my other side to face him. Though his eyes were closed, his arm shifted in a way that told me he was at least partially conscious.
"Don't escape just yet," he murmured as he pulled me closer. As my knees bumped against his, I couldn't help but muse at his choice of words. How had he come to know me so well as to know I needed to escape?
"You had a dream about Prim, didn't you?" he asked. His eyes fluttered open, though they were still weighed down by the drag of sleep.
"Yes," I admitted, since there was no point in lying.
"And Gale?"
Here I hesitated, as I could find perhaps a reason or two to lie about Gale. For starters, I wasn't even sure why I couldn't stop dreaming about him. I certainly didn't spend my waking hours thinking about him. I had declined all attempts on his behalf to reach out, and I staunchly refused to go visit him once he settled down in District Two. "Yes," I finally said, but this word was much more softly spoken than its predecessor.
Though sleep still clouded his mind, I could see the million questions that flinted across his face. Not all of them would have to do with Gale, but a lot of them would. Mercifully, they remained unspoken, at least for the time being. Instead of taking the opening and forging ahead, Peeta closed his eyes and dragged his fingers lazily across the fabric of my shirt.
"Sorry I didn't help," he spoke after a moment.
It took me a moment to understand his words. The fact that he could somehow blame himself for my nightmares felt absurd. "Don't say that," I insisted as I stared into his shirt, no longer able to close my eyes for fear of what I might see. "You do help. You've helped every day since you came back. You'll keep helping every day that you're here."
I should have said that I didn't deserve the help or the attention. I didn't. I was too selfish and too thankful to have him back to want to say anything that might jeopardize it. "It'll just take time." Time. Would I ever be able to forgive Gale? Would time and distance ever dull that pain in my heart that I felt when I thought about him and what he had done? I wasn't certain, though everyone seemed to tell me it would and I was pretty sure it wouldn't.
"Time," Peeta mused, eyes still closed. "I guess we have an abundance of that now."
"I guess we do." I agreed. And instead of escaping into the woods, I laid in bed a little while longer, comforted by his presence and no longer so desperate to flee.