"Thank you for staying," I tell my mother for what has to be the hundredth time. The sun peaks over the horizon, but it's still a few hours until the first train arrives to take her home. Despite my protests, she feels she's outworn her welcome and politely declines our offers of breakfast and refuses to stay for a few more days. "Newlyweds don't need a mother hen clucking about," she tells me softly, cupping my skin in her soft palm for a moment.
"Peeta and I have been married for years," I remind her with a grin.
"Of course," she plays along. "Even so, I'm afraid I must be going. I need to get back to work. The opening of the factory will only mean more work for development and more patients we can hopefully help." She pauses, as if she's forgotten what she was going to say next. "You look so much like him," she sighs, her voice far off and remote.
"Mother." My voice catches on the word, the word catching in my throat. I've worked so hard not to constantly think of him and Prim, and now we're threatening to throw my hard work away.
Leaning towards me, she kisses my cheek in reply. Her hands feel worn, aged as she holds my elbows. She looks older and tired. But she almost looks happy, if I had to read the expression on her face. A little sad, true, but happy all the same.
"Come visit," I ask, trying to get her to promise though I know she won't. She won't promise or come. That's the way things are, I have to remind myself. Peeta is my family now, and her job is her life. All encompassing, for both of us, or it is for me when we add Haymitch to the mix.
"We'll see." It's far from a promise, but more than I thought I would get. If I wasn't such a pessimist, it would give me hope.
"Let me know when you get home." It still feels weird, calling somewhere else home. Nowhere by Twelve could ever feel like home. Nowhere but the house I grew up in could ever deserve the word, not even now. Not even with the rubble and the ashes gone, the house torn down and built up by someone else's family.
"Yes, Katniss," she replies, as if she is the obligating child to the overprotective parent.
Without further ado, she leaves. I stand at the door awhile, watching her back as she makes her way through the silent and empty walkways of the Victors' Village. Even as she heads into town, I stand in the open doorway.
What comes next? I'm not sure. It feels as if everything should be different, but like nothing has changed. My mother still went home. Effie went back to the Capitol, Haymitch locked himself back up in his house alone, save our weekly dinner. Peeta works in the bakery, I hunt in the woods. Nothing has changed. Nothing at all.
"Come inside," Peeta says from behind me. I didn't hear him approach. His newer leg is much quieter than the old prosthetic. He's even stealthier now than he was when he has two real ones.
"Why?" I ask, not really paying attention.
"Because." Resting his chin on my shoulder, he sets his hands on my waist and pulls me back against him.
"Because why?" I ask again, still staring out along the way though she's disappeared into the early morning shadows.
He kisses my neck. Softly, at first, then with a growing sense of urgency, or lust, or both.
I lean into him, inclining my head to the side as I reach behind me to run my fingers through his hair. I'm a lot more flexible than I used to be. It's a characteristic Peeta greatly appreciates. "You still haven't answered," I prod him, but my breath is becoming slightly irregular and I have to concentrate on the words.
"Because everyone finally left," he answers, pulling away just long enough to speak the few words.
"Everyone left," I repeat, staring into the empty early morning outside the house.
His nose brushes against my neck. His lips press against the hollow of my neck. His chin settles on my shoulder once more. "What's going on in that head of yours?" he asks. I feel his gaze on the side of my face as he studies me, waiting for a reply.
"I don't know," I mumble. My arms reach blindly for his hands, snagging them and pulling them around my waist. He obliges, wrapping them securely around me as I mold into his chest. We've been reborn, our bodies scientifically remade, and yet we still fit together as if by design.
"Yes you do," he presses. His breath is warm in the cold morning air as it tickles my skin.
"Hmph." No longer denying, but still not agreeing.
"Twelve is still her home," he says, like he can read my mind. I'm not entirely sure he can't. "It's still home for us all. She may not stay here, but she'll always eventually come back."
"We'll see." Agree to disagree.
His hands release mine. Skimming across my stomach, they flint lower. Any thoughts rambling in my mind fly out as my skin tingles. All sensations rush to the nerves in my lower extremities.
"Maybe we should go inside," I say, not trusting my legs to carry me backward.
"Yes please," he murmurs against my ear, pulling me back with him.
Before the door closes behind me, I turn into him. Pulling him to me, my hands turn to fists, clutching skin, hair, cotton, whatever it can. His nimble fingers slide under my thighs, lifting me up, and we're off.
Those who don't know Peeta might be foolish enough to think him weak, malleable to my will. Sometimes, I think that is his greatest defense. He puts on an innocent, affable persona for everyone so they underestimate him. I realized it during our first Games, and even still he wears that mask.
But when we're together, like this, I know with unwavering certainty. I am the weak one. Every inch of my skin that he touches melts. His movements, while chaotic and unpredictable in the heat of the moment, are strong and true. His fingers will leave bruises on my skin as his hands drag across my body, forever trying to pull me closer.
"I really like this tie," I tell him with a small gasp as I try to wrestle it from his neck. My back hits the wall, knocking the air from my lungs. I lose concentration for a moment, then have to start on the knot all over again.
He drops me onto the end table by the door. I wince from the surprise of the impact but manage to yank the tie off. It was a present, I think. From Haymitch, or Effie. He hates wearing ties at all, yet he dressed up this morning to see my mother off, though she begged us not to accompany her to the station.
"Not the time for talking Katniss," he complains as he reaches the hem of my shirt and begins to pull it up. Something clangs against the tile, a fallen picture frame or decorative piece from the table. I don't pay enough attention to the decor to guess what it might be, but from the sound of it, it didn't break.
I smirk, because now it turns into a challenge. I like to talk, to tease, to release some of the tension that builds inside me that I don't think I'll ever get used to. Peeta is more the silent, brooding type. Not something I ever thought I would say.
"Maybe we ought to eat breakfast," I comment into the fabric of my shirt as he lifts it up over my head and chucks it to the ground. My fingers twirl light circles around his shoulders as I slowly push him back. "Last night you promised to make me cheese buns when we got up."
He leans in to kiss me. I apply more pressure to his shoulders, keeping him at bay. My smirk grows.
"Seriously?" This game I like to occasionally play is not entirely fair, but I think that's why I enjoy it so much. It's my own little revenge against the teasing and the mocking of my naivety over the past several years. It's the small power I wield, and it's fun to make him squirm a little after all the times he's made me uncomfortable.
I shrug my shoulders, skimming my arms down his sides to collect the hem of his shirt. As I pull it up, I playfully tap the back of his legs with the heels of my feet. He uses the opportunity to take a step closer as I pull off his shirt and throw it in the general direction of my own.
"I am rather hungry," I say as I scooch to the edge of the table. His leans towards me and places his hands on the edges of the sides, presumably to hold to table from tipping under me. His face hovers in front of mine. I decide, for my own sake and his, to end my little game early this morning.
Leaning forward, I give in to him. I let myself melt against him as I grab for the belt loops of his pants and pull him closer. His hands remain planted on the table, but his mouth more than makes up for their stationary positions. Though he leans in and I pull him closer, it doesn't feel close enough. It's never enough. I fumble as I reach behind me, cursing myself that I even bothered to put on a bra this morning. If I had been privy to his intentions for the agenda as soon as my mother left, I certainly would not have wasted the effort.
My fingers, my entire body, shake too much to get a good hold on the clasp behind my back as his tongue swirls with mine and my lungs scream for air. We're both wheezing for air through our noses, neither one willing to break the kiss, refusing to release the intensity. He's probably afraid I'll start talking again. I'm afraid I'll explode.
He steps further into me, pushing me back on the table as our bodies mold together. Then he releases the edge with one hand and bats away my fumbling hands to easily snap the clasp open with one flick of his fingers. He has gotten amazingly good at that.
I shrug the garment off, never breaking the kiss though I have to put a small gap between us for a fraction of a second. As soon as I pull him back to me, I shiver from the combination of the cold of the air mixed with the warmth of his bare skin against mine. Again, I think I will never get used to these feelings that only he elicits from my traitorous body.
I pull back for a second, gasping for air. "Upstairs," I whisper, barely able to find my breath. My chest pounds and my lips ache.
"Here's fine," he says instead. The suggestion is so unlike either of us and so unexpected that I can think of no objection. I can feel the restraint he's trying so hard to control.
My head nods like a rabbit hops, quickly up and down in agreement. "Yeah, fine." I don't want to waste any more time talking. So we don't.