CF pg. 277: "No," Finnick repeats. "Because whatever happened in the past is in the past. And no one in this arena was a victor by chance." He eyes Peeta for a moment. "Except maybe Peeta."
The days begin to feel like a dream. Not a nightmare. Not that eerie happiness that is there only to be destroyed by tragedy emerging in horrific and unlooked for ways. Just the good parts. The best parts of memories, all tied up in nostalgia, but with none of the loss.
In the mornings, Peeta rises as early as ever, but now, if she half-wakes and turns toward him the instant he moves (as she always does when this is her reward), he kisses her. Just a light press of his lips against hers, since neither of them have brushed their teeth yet, but it lights something warm and glowing in the pit of her stomach. Makes it easier for her to get up herself and meet him coming out of the bathroom, their hands brushing, his smile shyly peeping out at her.
By the time she showers and dresses, he usually has breakfast waiting for her. Katniss isn't used to eating as soon as she wakes (only in the luxuriousness of the Capitol's creative prisons was that ever a thing she did), but she eats because she's eager for the end of the meal: when Peeta stands to clear the plates, and Katniss stands to meet him, and she hugs him to thank him, and then, a moment later, they kiss. (She eats the jelly and the cinnamon and the sweetbreads, because if she does, then Peeta does too, and she loves the taste of them on his lips, sweet as he is.)
They separate then, him to baking and handing out loaves of bread to the people who come by his kitchen, Katniss to a new writing project she's begun (it's a secret, but not a bad kind, not decisions made behind his back, more akin to the gifts she once made for Prim, waiting for her little duck's birthday). At lunch, they snack on whatever leftovers Peeta has hanging around, Katniss fills up their water bottles, and they head into the woods.
She loves seeing Peeta out among the greenery. Now that he's not afraid (now that he trusts that he can depend on her again), he's so much more open to exploring. And it's not the game trails or the optimum places for snare lines that he looks for. It's the view of two trees growing around and through each other, their boughs accommodating the others, their leaves mingling. It's the sight of a nest, high up in the crook of a tree, and the parents coming back to feed their nestlings, homely and bigger than the adults. It's tiny moments of beauty and joy, and Katniss marvels that all these lovely things were out here all along, but they really only become real, become noteworthy, catch her attention, because it's Peeta who points them out to her.
He takes to bringing her plant book along, and they spend hours picnicking in the woods, him drawing plants or finding those already listed in the book, her writing down their attributes or telling him stories about how this or that saved someone's life. When he mentions that he wishes he'd known the roots of sarsaparilla could aid with burns, Katniss gathers as much as her game bag can hold. (She's noticed the tiny burns on his hands, the blisters on his fingertips, after a long day of baking; she should have thought of this before.)
By the time they come back to Victor's Village, Katniss almost doesn't even mind whatever sarcastic observations Haymitch makes as she follows Peeta into his house so they can make dinner together (if Peeta cajoles her into letting Haymitch come and eat with them multiple times a week, well, nothing's ever entirely perfect).
She knows they'll have to go back to the memory book eventually (there are still too many important entries to be made: Prim's), but for now, they both work on lists of things to be grateful for. Peeta seems to take inordinate joy in adding far too many entries with her name (he's always seen her as something so much better than she is), and Katniss finds that some few of her darkest, most jagged edges seem to be sanded down with each new reminder that there's good still in the world (in the people who've somehow kept kindness hidden inside them no matter how Snow tried to beat it out of them).
For the first time, really, since they began their writing nights, they even learn to laugh as they reminisce and share moments, memories, experiences.
"Madge used to bring us fresh strawberries for our pies. She never charged us for them, just asked that we give one of the tarts we made with them to someone who looked like they needed it. Dad loved picking out the perfect person each time."
"I traded her those strawberries," Katniss says, blinking. "Well, me and…"
Just in time, she falls silent.
Peeta must know what she meant to say, but he lets it go. He's perhaps a little quieter the rest of the evening, but he still smiles so softly at her, and Katniss breathes a sigh of relief.
"I'll show you where the strawberries grow tomorrow," she decides as they clean up for the night. "They've probably all been picked clean by birds and squirrels, but next year, we can gather the berries."
Though he ducks his head, Katniss spots the happy smile that spreads over Peeta's face at her easy reference to next year. He does this every time she mentions their future, and Katniss can't figure out what's made him think she's not staying here (those are the terms of her sentence, after all, and even if it weren't, she's fought too hard to come home to just up and leave it), but she's glad for anything that makes him smile. Especially when he also dares to slide his hand into hers on their way upstairs.
Katniss drags her steps in the hallway leading to the bedroom. For some reason, Peeta's reluctant to kiss her too much while they're lying in bed, but before they lay down? Well, that's fair game, and Katniss is learning every day that the hunger he planted in her in that cave in their first arena was only a tiny taste. What he sparks inside her now, with his gentle touches and his stroking caresses, is a voracious flame, one that licks up more and more of her body each successive night.
"Peeta," she says softly (he likes when she says his name).
With only the light from the bathroom spilling into the room, Peeta's blond hair glows silver and gold. His hand lifts, illuminated silhouette, and tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear. Katniss's blood sparks alight. Bouncing up onto her tiptoes, she slides her hands up his chest and onto his shoulders, then farther, back behind his neck, up into his hair (wanting to touch that molten gold and feel it drip over her knuckles).
Under her touch, he shudders, inadvertently (or not?) pressing closer to her. But still he waits, watching her (always waiting, for her lead, for her guidance, taking only what she wants to give).
(Katniss wants to give him everything.)
"I need to tell you something," she says. Her voice shakes. She's practiced this, alone, trying to sound as casual and earnest as he once did, but she's nervous and she wants too much, and so she sounds shaky and anxious (and maybe just a touch desperate). "Remember, we're together now, so it's all right to kiss me any time you feel like it."
Peeta laughs. And then he catches himself (or catches her staring, wide-eyed and in awe, at the beautiful sound spilling from him), and just looks at her. There's something in his eyes. A shadow behind the brightness. A question behind the contentment.
Patience, she thinks, about to finally run dry.
Katniss kisses him.
Her hands splay over his neck and tug him down into her, not that it's hard because Peeta folds instantly, melting like that liquid gold his hair resembles. She kissed him, but she's the one that has to hold on and try to keep up as his arms enfold her in an embrace so strong she never doubts its security (so gentle she knows instantly she could step away whenever she chooses) and he opens his mouth to her.
They've done this many times by now, but still it takes her by surprise, just how sweet he tastes. How cleverly his tongue twines with hers. How sensitive the roof of her mouth is. One of her hands drops to his chest, pressed against the beat of his quickening heart, while the other strokes up and down through his hair.
Her toes leave the ground as Peeta straightens, walking her backward, a sound emerging from his mouth that Katniss swallows eagerly. She feels the wall at her back and her feet touch the floor again, but only because Peeta sweeps his hand from her back to her side, to her ribs, then slides his thumb higher.
Gasping, Katniss arches up into him, glad for the support of the wall so she can both press tightly against Peeta and pull him into her with her hand at his nape. She abandons the touch of his heart (she can feel it in the flesh of his neck against her tongue as she tastes his skin) in order to drag her hand down to his hip, to the small of his back, fisting and pulling.
Another sound falls from his lips (Peeta's always been so much better at communicating than her, and this is no different), and that flame becomes an inferno, burning her up from the inside out, distilled to its purest, bluest essence everywhere Peeta's touching her.
"Peeta!" she whimpers against his throat, and his hand slides into her hair, undoing her braid, to tip her head up so he can slant his mouth once more over hers. Katniss pulls at his back again (this time it's her who makes the sound, a keening whimper) while she traces the contours of his face and presses her chest tight against his.
His tongue tests the line of her jaw, dips into the hollow of her throat, and Katniss nearly sobs with relief when he tugs at the neckline of her shirt to tickle her collarbone with his nose while his mouth drops lower. Lower.
Suddenly frantic and overheated, Katniss presses both hands against his chest and pushes him back.
He goes instantly.
Vaguely, she's aware that his eyes are wide, that he's saying something (an apology? That doesn't even make any sense), and then she rips her shirt off over her head and reaches for him again, desperate to fall back into his warmth.
Peeta goes utterly silent.
Jarred from her fiery haze, Katniss looks up at him and finds his eyes glued to her chest. Each flick of blue pupils as he traces her form with his sight scorches through her.
"Peeta," she whispers (still shaky, but no longer nervous at all). "Come here."
"Katniss," he breathes, awed and wanting and disbelieving.
He falls into her, but this time, his every movement is slow. Her breaths are paced, steady, as they acclimate to this new touch, this new intimacy. Finally, after a long moment of just breathing and feeling, Peeta's hands rise. His textured fingertips (no body polish for him; they left him a wreck and all the more beautiful for it, his endurance and his strength spelled out in every scar, every burn mark, every callous) drift like puffs of dandelion fluff over her skin: her face first, then her neck, her shoulders, and then lower, down her chest, along the swells, underneath, ghosting over her ribcage, caressing the dip of her stomach, then back up, as if unable to help himself, to new and undiscovered skin.
It's torture in the most beautiful, maddening way. Katniss feels goosebumps break out over her body, and she shivers with the feel of Peeta's breath whispering along her skin. His touch is addictive, inspiring, and she thinks that if someone were to put a paintbrush in her hand at this exact moment, she could paint masterpieces over his flesh.
Suddenly, Peeta clasps his hands over her hips and drops his head to rest on her shoulder. "Katniss," he whispers. "Is this real?"
"Real," she says. Her eyes flutter closed as she buries a hand in his hair, holding him to her.
"No, I mean… Is this real?" He shifts, as if he means to look at her, before he stills himself and lets his head rest heavier against her. "Is this really what you want?"
I've never wanted anything more.
The words sit in her mouth, ready and waiting, eager, to be released into the open.
But what about Prim? She wanted her sister to live more than anything in the whole world…and Prim died.
She wanted Peeta safe more than anything…and he was hurt so badly she'll never know the full scope of it.
She wanted Snow dead…and, well, he did die, but not at her hand and not before millions died in war and Coin had to fall too.
Katniss doesn't get what she wants. Every wish she's ever had has backfired in some spectacular way.
And she can't lose Peeta.
"It's all I have left to want," she says (Prim is dead and the world is ruined and District 12 will never be the same and Peeta's here, for now, alive, for the moment).
It's truth, even if watered down, but every muscle in Peeta's body goes rigid.
"Oh," he says. And then he's gone. Just pulled away, his eyes averted from hers, and disappeared into the bathroom with the door pressed so gently (incontrovertibly) closed between them.
Once again, she tried to protect him, and once again, she hurt him instead.
"Peeta," she calls, knocking on the door (but not before putting her shirt back on, feeling too vulnerable, too exposed, too cold without it). "Peeta, I'm…I'm sorry."
She always hurts him. She's not sure what it was this time (she'll figure it out eventually, too late; or Haymitch will have to explain it to her), but this isn't the first time and she doubts it will be the last.
(Why doesn't he ever give up on her?)
"I'm fine," he calls back after a long moment. "Just…go to bed. I'll be there in a bit."
But he won't kiss her one they're in bed. He holds her. He soothes her. He protects her from what nightmares he can. But he doesn't kiss her.
Katniss stands there for a long time, hoping he'll come out (hoping he'll kiss her again).
But he doesn't. And eventually, she goes to bed alone.
By the time he finally joins her, stiff and uncertain as he presses close, Katniss is already half-asleep.
"Katniss?" he whispers.
She doesn't answer (she'll only hurt him again).
"I don't want to be your last resort," he breathes out into the night-dark room, to what he thinks is her sleeping form.
Katniss squeezes her eyes shut and wonders if she'll ever deserve him.
CF pg. 351: "You're my whole life," he says. "I would never be happy again." I start to object but he puts a finger to my lips. "It's different for you. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard. But there are other people who'd make your life worth living."
The next morning, Katniss leaves before breakfast is over (if Peeta's not going to kiss her at the end of it, she doesn't want to have to face the rejection). She steps outside the front door, pulls it closed behind her, and then freezes at the sight that greets her.
Gale. Gale sitting on her porch three doors down, staring right at her. The distance and the harsh sunlight conceal his expression from her, but she has no doubt that he has some strong thoughts about seeing her come out of Peeta's house early in the morning. Gale has strong thoughts about everything.
For an instant, she's tempted to turn around and hide in Peeta's house. He'll let her (even if he's angry with her, which she's not sure he is, he'd never turn her away). He'd even come out and face Gale for her, hold him off until Katniss is ready for this.
But that's selfish, and she won't ask Peeta to do that for her.
Taking a deep breath, Katniss strides off the porch, down the street, and then comes up on her own porch (she hasn't been here in…weeks, maybe; everything inside must be dusty). "Gale," she says evenly. "What are you doing here?"
"You never answer your phone," he replies. "And President Paylor needed to get a message to you."
"They usually just tell Haymitch."
"Well, I volunteered to come. I thought…" For the first time, he looks away, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I thought maybe enough time had passed."
A flash of anger sizzles and steams into nothing before Katniss can even decide what she wants to say.
"It hasn't," she finally settles for.
Just the sight of him is bringing it all back. Not only the bright explosion that ripped Prim from her forever, but the months before that. The anger, the confusion, the expectations and the pressure; the disorientation, those months when she hoped Peeta was dead, knew he was so much worse, and it was all her fault; the way she had pick and choose her words, never wanting to set off Gale's temper—or sometimes, wanting to set it off just so she'd have something to snap at, to fight, to be angry with (something besides herself).
But Prim too. Always, always, Prim.
"I told you I'd forgive you one day," she says. "I never said I'd want to live around you."
"Come on, Catnip, don't—"
"How's your family?" she asks coldly.
Gale falls silent. (His whole family is alive, each and every one of them, not a single member lost to war, and that's not something she'd change, it's not something she blames him for, but it proves he has no idea what it would take to forgive someone for taking them away from him.)
"Please," he says. It's a word he's seldom said. She can see his pride leaking out of him, but it's a dispassionate observation, as if he's a stranger and she's a bystander, uncomfortable at this glimpse into the life of someone so far removed from her. "Can't we at least just go for a walk in the woods? Just for old time's sake."
"No!" she blurts. She is, quite suddenly, terrified of taking Gale out to the woods. They don't belong to him (to the ghost children he and she used to be, hunting survival and leaving traps for tiny glimmers of hope, stolen where they had no right to be), not anymore.
The woods now are where she and Peeta exclaim over hidden treasures, tiny beauties, mysterious wonders. It's where they walk hand in hand and he smiles his sweet smile at her and she watches him draw in her father's plant book and imagines how happy her father would have been, if he'd only known that one day this amazing, kind, strong man would love the daughter he prepared for a harsh, cruel life.
"No," she says again. "If you want to talk, we'll do it here."
"Here." Gale lets out a short noise that she thinks is supposed to resemble a laugh. "In this house you clearly don't live in?"
Katniss looks away. "I'm safer with Peeta," she says, her tone a sharp warning.
One Gale ignores as easily as always.
"Safer? So he's doing better then?"
"Better enough to have saved your life a couple times in the Capitol," she snaps.
Gale scowls. "Well, he doesn't answer his phone either."
Katniss feels a flicker of confusion (he has therapy sessions with Dr. Aurelius, and weekly conversations with Annie, and bi-weekly catch-ups with Johanna; for the first time, it occurs to her to wonder if he's always the one reaching out to them too—does no one call him first?).
"Never mind." Gale swallows and comes down off the porch to stand in front of her. "I'm not here to talk about Peeta."
"Then what are you here to talk about? The government want to shove in on our lives again? They want more updates on the star-crossed lovers? Trying to get more photos of the Victors they claim were just victims but are more than happy to take advantage of themselves?"
She's not serious, not really (Haymitch said if they did those last videos, they'd be done), but the look in Gale's eyes, all defiant discomfort and guilty insistence, clams her up immediately.
"No," she grits between lips that have gone white. "They can't."
"We're all rebuilding," Gale says. "It's a slow process, and it can be discouraging to the people when things don't go as quickly as they'd like. A reminder that everyone's having to take it slow could mean a lot to—"
"We're not doing any more propos."
Katniss sags in full-body relief at the sound of Peeta's voice behind her. There's a part of her that thinks she should feel guilty (he's always been insecure around Gale), another part that's afraid to see if he's hurt again (Gale being in her life has always hurt Peeta in some form or fashion), but most of her? Most of her wants to throw herself in his arms and let him close out the whole rest of the world for her.
She settles for just taking a step sideways and back so that her shoulder is wedged up against hers, her hand sliding immediately into his.
"Peeta," Gale says, stiffly, his shoulders ramrod straight.
"No more propos," Peeta says again. "We were promised that we'd get to live out our lives undisturbed. President Paylor said the Victors have all done their part. So we're done."
"A few minutes on camera isn't too much to ask in order to encourage a nation—"
"I'm sure that's what President Snow said too. A few lives out of the many aren't too much to ask for every year to keep the peace. A few moments of torture here and there. A few nights bought and paid for with a fresh new Victor. A few more lives sacrificed for the greater good." Peeta's hand tightens around hers. "I thought this government claimed to be different."
"It is," Gale grits. "But the people still want—"
"I'll do it," Peeta interrupts him. He looks down at Katniss and she feels panicky, tries shaking her head at him (I volunteer! it's all she hears, his voice so resolute and unflinching), but he looks back to Gale anyway. "Leave Katniss out of it. I'll go on camera for the new government. I'll speak to the people of Panem. All those Districts wanting a better life, watching these new leaders, waiting to see if they'll be different or just another form of dictator."
"You'll do it," Gale repeats. Wary. (He has a hunter's instinct, and a natural ability to sense traps being laid ahead.)
"I will. You know the cameras have always been easy for me." Peeta squeezes her hand once more and then lets go. "Did you bring them with you? Where are they? Back in town? Let's go."
"Right now?"
"Why wait? Is this going to be broadcast live?"
Gale stops mid-step. "Why?"
"Because I can't wait to tell Panem that this government is exactly the same as the last. I think they'll all be eager to hear that President Paylor is just as willing to use young children, battered veterans, traumatized victims, in just the way Snow and Coin were. What do you think the reaction will be when one of their precious Victors—one half of the Star-Crossed Lovers, the lover boy whose only mistake was loving too hard and too unwisely—stands up and says that he's never left that cell Snow put him in? That he's still taken out and told to play his part and read his lines and act out his script just like before? We're all still just pawns in the game, and I think the people should know that. I want to see what happens when I tell everyone that their Mockingjay is being used like a puppet—and they're next."
Narrowing his eyes, Gale takes a threatening step toward Peeta. Katniss stiffens, ready to leap between them (for the first time in ages, she wishes she had her bow, but she won't need it to stop Gale from laying one finger on Peeta). "You wouldn't dare—"
"What are you going to threaten me with?" Peeta asks. "My family's dead. My friends are gone. My home's already been destroyed once. What do I have left for you to take away?"
It's quick—so quick Katniss hopes Peeta doesn't notice—but Gale's eyes flick past him…to Katniss.
(As if she's something he can take away from Peeta.)
"I'll go too," she declares loudly, and she takes Peeta's hand back in hers. "I think I have a few things to tell Panem too."
Gales stares. He has no right to look as betrayed as he does. "Catnip…"
"We're a package deal, Gale, remember?"
It's cruel. Peeta told her, once, that she doesn't hate Gale. That she avoids him so she doesn't end up hurting him with harsh words.
Well, maybe she doesn't hate him. But Gale came of his own volition, and her pain slips out in ways she can't always control.
"Fine," Gale says after a long moment. "I'll tell President Paylor that you've respectfully declined to give an update."
"You do that," Peeta says. "But in the meantime, I think you should give me her number. I have a few things to say that might…get lost in translation."
"I don't have her number."
"You have something," Katniss says. "Come on, Gale, you know Peeta will get it one way or the other. Don't you want to help us out?"
Sighing exasperatedly, Gale pulls a card from his pocket. "This has a number where you can get ahold of one of her cabinet. If deemed necessary, they can pass you along to Paylor."
"Thank you," Peeta says, accepting the card. Then he pauses, his gaze somewhere between Gale and Katniss. "I'll…leave you two to talk."
His hand pulls free of hers.
Katniss watches him walk away, his head high, his eyes downcast, and thinks that maybe she kept distance to protect Gale, but no matter what she does, she can't seem to help but hurt Peeta. Involuntarily, her hand squeezes into a tight fist, and for just an instant, she almost thinks there's a cookie crumbling in her palm—one frosted with a tiger lily by the steady hand of a hurting boy. She remembers Snow in her study, staring at her, threatening her, and her hand closing around that proof of Peeta's undying care (even when he wasn't speaking to her, even when they were the most distant they probably ever were, he still left her beautifully decorated cookies without ever asking for anything in return). She remembers needing something to hold onto, and crushing that cookie in her grip, and thinking that no matter her intentions, it's always Peeta who ends up paying the most.
"I will forgive you one day," she says to Gale, not taking her eyes from Peeta as he retreats inside his house. He closes the door behind him so carefully (one day, she wants him to slam a door; she wants him to know he doesn't have to be afraid of scaring her off). "But not today."
And she walks away from him.
"Catnip!" he calls after her.
She doesn't want to turn and look at him, but she at least slows her step and half turns toward him.
"I'll keep the cameras away. I promise."
She wonders if she should say thank you. All she can manage is a slight nod.
Then she's reaching for Peeta's front door (it's not locked, at least) and slipping inside. She very nearly bumps right up against Peeta's back where he's stopped, stock-still, in the middle of the entryway.
"Peeta?" she asks.
His shoulders tighten.
Katniss doesn't need to come around to see his dilated pupils to realize that he's having an episode.
Slowly, she slides forward until the toes of her boots nudge up against his heels, then she wraps her arms around his waist and rests her cheek on his spine.
"It's okay, Peeta," she murmurs. "I'm here. This is real. We're really here. It's okay."
Gradually, a muscle at a time, he relaxes. Humming a quiet melody, Katniss feels his feverish heat cool to his usual warmth, and still she doesn't let go.
"Katniss?" he finally says, as if he's not sure that she's really there.
"I'm here," she murmurs into his shirt. It smells of cinnamon and sugar and grain. "Real."
"You…you didn't want to talk to Gale?"
"I have nothing to say to him."
"But…" His hands alight, ever so softly, on hers where they're clasped at his waist. "I thought…"
"Thought what?" she asks (hoping he won't answer).
"You told him one day. Isn't that today?"
It takes her quite a while to parse through that. It's only the fact that she literally just repeated this promise to Gale that has her remembering that phone-call from months ago, the sound of Peeta slipping away after she told Gale, One day, and the episode he was thrown into, the way she thought they'd talk about it later…only, they never did.
"One day," she says, "means that eventually I'll forgive him for his bombs. But that's all, Peeta. That's all it could ever be."
"Because of Prim?"
"Because he's not…" Katniss closes her eyes (thinks of an arena, and the perfect words that slipped out, and the feast that followed as reward). "He's not you, Peeta," she says.
Peeta turns in her arms and catches her up against him. Instead of a kiss, he hugs her, a long embrace that Katniss can't help but snuggle deeper into (it's better than any feast).
"Katniss," he says into her hair. His fingertips press tighter against her, a few of them on her bare skin where her shirt's rucked up. She can't help but think of that cave in their first Games, the night she slept beside him while he was feverish and unconscious, a million miles away; the night she slept in the same sleeping bag as him, and he was so immediate, so present, that she relished in the feeling of safety.
He makes her feel safe.
And loved.
"Katniss," he says again, and Katniss tilts her face up toward him.
But she doesn't kiss him (she wants him to take the lead; to know he can, she wants him to, he's not overstepping).
It takes him a long moment, but finally, like a parachute through rain, he drops the sweetest, most precious kiss to her lips. On his own. Of his own will.
Katniss rewards him immediately by wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him back (she doesn't endure his touch; she welcomes it).
By the time she lets him go, she thinks maybe he's starting to believe in her again.
Maybe, if the shine in his eyes is any indication, he knows that this isn't a part she's playing.
It's real.
CF pg. 361: "Why not?" I say. "If it fails, there's no harm done."
The next day (after he's watched the train carrying Gale disappear far out of sight and hopefully out of mind, out of heart), Peeta asks Katniss if they can go out to the lake.
Her smile is wide and beautiful, and he feels another piece of the thin wall he's built around his heart flake away. After he's packed a lunch and she's gathered blankets and towels and changes of clothes, they plunge into the woods for the long walk to the lake.
Peeta loves every bit of this walk. The scenery, the views, the air growing ever cooler as autumn runs headlong toward winter, the chitter chatter of squirrels busy hoarding nuts and acorns, the half-glimpsed sight of a herd of deer in the distance ("Don't shoot any," he asks Katniss, "not now," and she only smiles and says, "I wouldn't make you carry it back. Besides, we have plenty," a statement enough all on its own to leave her glowing and happy). He loves the lake and the way Katniss isn't afraid of him and the way they can just be themselves there.
But most of all, he loves the touching.
Her hand in his as they walk. The way she grabs his arm or nudges his head up to a flock of geese winging southward. The feel of her arm and elbow and hip shifting against him when they walk side by side. In the water, the touches are nearly overwhelming: Katniss helping him learn to swim, making sure he's steady, just brushing up against him in the chilled water. She rubs his towel over his shoulders when they finally emerge with chattering teeth. He gets to wrap her in a blanket and tickle her as she playfully ducks away. She lets him reweave her braid when it dries, her hair soft and silky in his hands.
Every time they come, there are new touches. Peeta loves every single one.
(They prove she isn't afraid of him. They provide constant reassurance that she wants to be here with him.)
But this time…this time, each one seems to mean more.
(Gale stood right in front of her—and she walked away from him. She came after Peeta. She let him kiss her. She stayed.)
The water's too cold to stay in for more than a half hour, but Peeta doesn't mind. Swimming will never be his favorite pastime; what he loves is getting to play so close to Katniss, getting to see her happiness so close to hand. Stripped down to their underwear, wrapped in blankets that are too warm until the brush of a breeze has them shivering again, Peeta dares to slide closer to Katniss and pull her into his arms.
It's too dangerous to do this at night. In the dark, nightmares are never more than a blink away. Screams are their lullaby more often than Katniss's beautiful voice, and there's a part of Peeta that's petrified this (them, together, entwined) will become nothing more than a nightmare-deterrent. He doesn't want Katniss to be his security blanket, any more than he wants to be her key to insomnia.
(Or maybe it's a different danger he's afraid of, the kind that has him shivering and wanting so badly that he's afraid it will only take one ill-advised kiss, one pull too many, one caress uninvited, to snap his control and have him breaching her boundaries and becoming the villain in her story.)
But now, out here at the lake, the sunlight beams down on them in amber and tangerine, the blankets cover rushes and reeds rather than a mattress, and there are no nightmares here stalking their steps.
It's just him and her.
And whatever they choose to make of it.
Rolling closer to Katniss, Peeta tugs his hand free of the blanket and ghosts a touch over her brow, her cheek, her chin, up the other side, down along her nose. He's painted her, sketched her, rubbed her form into charcoal, but there's something about the realness of her that he can never quite capture no matter the medium (it makes him happy, to know that she cannot be contained, locked away, pinned in place for all eternity).
"I'm glad you like this place," Katniss murmurs. Her eyes flutter closed beneath his touch, and he's reminded of a scene he thinks is real. No. He knows it is (Katniss told him real). The training center in the Capitol, paints in his hands, other Victors crowding around him, and Katniss trusting and still, so vulnerable, below him. In just the same way, she is pliant, loose, so unafraid as she leans into his caress.
"I'm glad you showed it to me," he murmurs back.
Her lips curve up in a smile he can't help but trace with a fingertip.
"Did you ever think this would be our life?" he asks her.
It's dangerous, most of the time, asking Katniss any kind of hypothetical. But in this moment, it doesn't occur to him to be leery of what he might rouse inside her pragmatic soul.
Katniss's eyes open to drink him in. In the dappled sunlight, her eyes are all silver and translucent gray. "I was never brave enough to wish for something this good," she answers him, and Peeta feels his own smile break free.
As different from him as night and day, Katniss doesn't choose to just touch his smile. She lifts her head, presses her mouth to his, and drinks it down.
There's no audience around. There never will be another audience (Katniss stood with him against Gale, against the Capitol, against the cameras that want to devour everything good and real in his life).
This is all her.
Because she wants to.
(She wants him?)
They kiss for a long time. It's intoxicating, this surplus of touch, of intimacy, when he has gone so long thinking it could never be his. When there were cameras, Peeta was always conscious of all the eyes that would judge their every move (her mother and her sister; his parents and brothers; Gale; all of District 12; all of them knowing just how much of a lie it was, and thus, knowing that every time he touched her, he was taking advantage of her and how much of a monster must they have thought him to be?). He was so careful, then, never to kiss too long, taste too deep, slide his hand too far, do anything that Katniss would hate him for (would regret).
But now…now, he doesn't have to limit himself. He never knew how much of a glutton he is until he's given free reign to kiss and to touch as much as he pleases—and what he finds is that there is no limit, no end, to what he wants. What he desires. What he craves.
So he keeps kissing her: because he wants to (and because if he's kissing her lips, he's not doing anything else that might be too much too fast).
They lay entwined together beneath a single blanket, her leg hooked over his, her arm resting on his chest as her hand guides his face first this way, then that, and Peeta keeps one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, desperate for her not to roll away.
He keeps waiting for her to grow tired of it. To decide they have other things they need to do. To call an end to it as she grows restless, her mind drifting to other, more necessary, more important things.
But she doesn't do anything but keep kissing him back.
He feels nearly drunk on her, drugged to an insensible mess, by the time the lengthening shadows propel them into productivity. Laughing and giddy, they pack up their things and head back for home. The squirrels have gone quiet, the birds are bedded down for the night, the trees are a canopy of blue and ebony topographies, but still Peeta and Katniss exchange quick smiles and happy laughter all the way back to Victor's Village. If Haymitch is out to see them, Peeta takes no notice of him, and together, they stumble into his house.
Well, their house. Katniss hasn't gone back to hers in weeks now (he's beginning to think, to hope, that she never will).
"Stay." He hears the word fall between them like a bucket of cold water, sobering him instantly.
It's too much (she'll run, she always runs when it gets to be too much).
Only…Katniss just smiles and twists her fingers through his shirt.
"I'm home," she says simply.
Peeta sweeps her up into his arms and hopes he doesn't trip over anything as he heads upstairs. His jaw is tired from all the kissing, his lips nearly chapped, but it's a small price to pay for a wish come true like this.
Maybe, he thinks, it wouldn't be so bad to give into this. Maybe it won't hurt this time.
That, too, helps sober him, and by the time he puts her to her feet in the bedroom, the giddy haze is mostly cleared from his mind.
(It will hurt. It always hurts, and he's so tired of hurting.)
With this reminder of reality, he's able to let his arms fall away from her. "You want the shower first?" he asks.
"We could share," she says, her hands twining through his, tugging him with her toward the bathroom.
A bolt of alarm spears through him like a burst of lightning hitting a tree.
"Uh, you…" He clears his throat and pulls his hand from hers as gently as he can. "I'll put the leftover food in the refrigerator and get the blankets into the wash, okay? You go ahead."
He's not stupid enough not to recognize that he flees the room like she's hit him rather than invited him into the shower with her, but Peeta's not sure he's ready for that level of intimacy.
(That's a lie: he's ready, but he can't trust that she is.)
By the time he makes it back upstairs, Katniss is out of the bathroom and brushing her hair. She smiles at him as he slinks toward the bathroom (not too upset, then), and Peeta wastes little time on his own. He just has to make it through lying down and letting her get comfortable (squirming and writhing against him, the little kiss she plants just at the corner of his mouth) and then he'll have made it safely through another day without frightening her.
Only…when he emerges in a cloud of steam, Katniss isn't waiting for him on the bed. She's standing just in the center of the room, the full moon peering open-eyed through the window to highlight her form, twisting her hands together.
"Katniss?" he asks. Surely she didn't already fall asleep and wake terrified and alone?
"I'm not stuck here," she says, quickly and almost defiantly.
Peeta blinks. "Okay."
"I mean…I didn't just…I'm not here because I have nowhere else to go."
"I know," he says. And he does. Katniss could go anywhere. Anyone would want her. Her mother in Four, or Annie and her baby. Even Johanna (in Seven or Two or Four or wherever she's ended up this week) would take her in. But Katniss loves District 12, and Peeta knows all she's ever wanted is to be happy and healthy (and live with her sister) in Twelve.
"They banished me here, but I don't even remember that most of the time because this is where I want to be," she says, unknowingly echoing his thoughts.
"It's home," he says for her to prove he's listening (he always listens, always pays attention; he just wishes he always understood).
"It used to be," she agrees. Before Peeta can puzzle that out, she takes a step toward him. "But now…now you're my home, Peeta. I'm here because this is where I want to be." She slides forward. "Here, this here, in this house, this room, this bed, with you. I didn't just end up here because there was nowhere else left. I'm here because I don't want to be anywhere else."
There's something caught in his throat. He thinks it might be his heart.
"I didn't hold up that nightlock because I wanted to beat the Capitol. Or because I didn't want to go back home without my District partner. I did it because I couldn't imagine living in a world where you were dead."
"Katniss…" He's nearly panting. "That was…the nightlock was a long time ago."
"The feast. The Games. You know why I volunteered for the Quarter Quell? Because I wanted to save you. And it's not because I owed you, even though I did. It was because I couldn't imagine a world without you in it."
The world is spinning around him. It's dark and there are shadows everywhere, but Peeta feels as if the lights are all turning on everywhere all at once.
"When the Capitol had you…I didn't want to live. I didn't live. They kept me drugged me up and I still kept escaping to hide and wait for you to find me. I only ever became the Mockingjay because Pr-Prim told me it was the only way to make sure they saved you. And I'll never forgive them for waiting so long. For rescuing me instead of you. The reason I ran from you in Thirteen is because I planned on dying. That was my whole plan, actually, to kill Snow and die doing it. That's why I didn't want you there. Why I was so angry when you showed up. I didn't want you to be there in danger when I died."
"But…" Peeta pauses. He shouldn't. Things have been going so well. They've been happy. If he brings this up…if he pulls this wound out into the open…it might take him months to rebuild himself.
"Peeta…" She's only a step away. Waiting for him. He can see the fear on her face (Katniss hates opening up, being emotionally vulnerable; this, for her, displays more trust than when she laid quiescent under his touch, her eyes closed, her breaths so steady).
"At the end," he says, "when Coin was dead and Snow was dying…"
His hands clench into fists as he fights his fear.
"You screamed," he says (feels the last of his self-defense instincts surrender the fight). "You screamed for Gale. I was right in front of you, my hand was bleeding where you bit it, but it's like you didn't even see me."
"I saw you," she says, her eyes silver and brighter than the moon. "Gale and I had a promise that we'd kill each other before we let ourselves be taken. I failed him when he was captured in the square. He failed me when he let me be dragged away for a trial."
Peeta stares at her.
"You would never kill me, Peeta," she says softly. "You would never make that pact with me—you made exactly the opposite one many times over—and I could never ask it of you. It would destroy you. You've always been able to find the hope in things. You'd never give up enough to die."
"I asked for a suicide pill," he hears himself point out.
"But you didn't take it. The whole place was on fire—we were on fire—and Prim was dead…but you didn't take it."
How could he have? How, when Katniss was burned and unconscious in his arms, completely defenseless aside from him? If he'd taken that pill, help would never have found them in time to save her from the fire licking at her skin. He'd screamed for help and ran toward the nearest soldiers in gray and even then, they'd barely been in time.
"I didn't want Gale at the end," she tells him. "I wanted to die."
This hurts in a new, unexpected way (not quite better, because he can't fathom a world where Katniss found a way to end herself; but different than his battered, broken heart was braced for).
"And now?" he manages.
Her eyes fall away, just for a moment, down to his chest where she lays her hand flat over his heart. "Now," she says, "I would never leave you alone. We're in this together. Real or not real?"
"Real," he says without an instant's hesitation.
Katniss nearly sobs, and then she's in his arms. They stand there hugging for a long time, while Peeta tries to sort these new revelations, slotting each into place and taking in the new picture they present.
She chose him all the way back in their first Games.
Back when he cornered her into a love story. Before Gale and cameras and Victory Tours and Snow's threats.
She chose him.
She chooses him.
"Katniss," he says (because if she can be brave, so can he). "I love you."
And this time, when he kisses her, he doesn't limit himself to just when they're standing. He doesn't force himself to rigid discipline when she tumbles back onto the bed and he follows her, groaning as she tugs him down atop her and he feels every inch of her pressed against every inch of him. He doesn't remind himself of all the ways he's already taken advantage of her when she keens and whimpers and tosses her nightshirt aside while pulling his shirt up and off of him.
Instead, he gives in. He hopes, like Katniss says he's so good at doing, and he doesn't let fear of the future (of the days when she goes quiet or runs or hides from him) keep him from learning the taste of her from every angle, every place up and down her body.
Katniss murmurs his name, pleads with it, sings it, and he lets it erase the memory of days long gone (not of white cells and red blood and scattered body parts; no, of different days, alone in his house, watching from afar, frozen out in silence, afraid and forgotten and abandoned).
"Peeta," she says, over and over again (his name, because she chooses him, she wants him), as she pulls him up and over her, as she touches every inch of him and gasps his name in ways he's never fully imagined.
Katniss becomes his whole world. The smell of her, oranges and pine. The sound of her breaths going shuddery and shrill in his ears before she says his name in the way he decides he likes best of all. The taste of her happiness and her pleasure on his tongue as he tries to catch his breath. The sight of her, eyes fluttering open, mouth curving in a sated smile. The feel of her beneath him, open and welcoming and accepting and his.
Only then, feeling the enormity of this moment, this decision, this choice, does he finally ask the one question he never thought he'd get to say.
"You love me. Real or not real?"
Her thin fingers slide into his hair and pull his lips to hers.
"Real," she tells him.
And he believes her.
CF pg. 387: "The others kept Peeta alive because if he died, we knew there'd be no keeping you in an alliance," says Haymitch. "And we couldn't risk leaving you unprotected."
In the morning, Katniss opens her eyes to sunshine and the sight of Peeta watching her, his cheek pillowed on his hands. There's a smile on his lips, but she doesn't have to wake up fully to see the hesitant question lurking at the back of his eyes.
"Real," she murmurs before she can chicken out (before she can ruin this all over again).
His smile grows, and he reaches out to sweep her up and on top of him.
Katniss laughs and stares down at him, wanting to freeze this image in her mind so she can always relive it: Peeta, so happy he's nearly glowing. Alight with giddy glee. So eager to reach out and ask for what he wants, so confident he can make her happy.
(It's Peeta in love without reservation, without doubt, without question.)
"Real?" he asks.
"Real," she says (it's the realest thing in her entire life).
His laughter is beautiful enough to forestall her embarrassment at being naked and uncovered in front of him even in broad daylight, and the way he tugs her head down to kiss her makes her more than happy to start their day out significantly later (he has this way of stroking down her sides and along her legs that she's already become addicted to).
They exchange kisses not just after breakfast (well, a late lunch), but throughout the meal, sticky jam and cold cheese for once not nearly enough to nab Katniss's attention. The sunlight makes Peeta's skin nearly glow, down here in the kitchen where the curtains are light and flowing, and Katniss can't resist checking to see if she can taste the sunlight on his skin (she can, and it tastes of cinnamon and dill and bread).
Haymitch notices the difference immediately, the stupid man, and makes no secret of how much he approves. Katniss ignores him and pulls Peeta along after her into the woods, where they go only deep enough that no one from town will see when she pushes Peeta up against a tree and sees how many ways she can find to kiss him (quite a few, but she's not done experimenting).
Still, one thing Haymitch says sticks with her.
"Good thing it's already official, huh?" he asks.
And the thing is, it kind of is. Peeta told the whole world they were married in a private ceremony, and everyone out there believed him. When District 12 burned to ash, whoever might have questioned it would have assumed that any paperwork of their marriage was destroyed. Which means that Panem as a whole thinks they're already married.
It takes Katniss by surprise how badly she wants that pretty little ceremony Peeta talked about on Caesar's stage.
That night, they're both exhausted, and though they kiss for a while, his eyes are heavy, his touch languorous, and Katniss falls asleep right after him. She wakes screaming, as she does too often, but Peeta soothes her quickly (this has long become rote habit for them both). He kisses her cheek, her brow, and then the crown of her head as she settles back against his chest, and it's that last kiss, for whatever reason, that puts the thought in her head (as if the touch of his lips to her head planted the idea there, his love growing up and budding out in a blossoming idea).
Katniss pretends to be asleep when he wakes up, and though he can probably tell, he lets her be. Probably thinks I need time to myself, she thinks, and is surprised that it's not true. Katniss has long been a solitary creature; but if the Games didn't cure her of it, then Peeta himself did. She likes being around him (knowing he's alive, he's safe), likes looking up and being able to find him instantly.
But this is important. This is for him.
It takes a certain determination not to grow embarrassed when she asks Sae for a loaf of bread. "You know your boy's the one who baked this, right?" Greasy Sae asks her with a twinkle in her eye.
Of course he is. Katniss wouldn't want someone else's bread for this. (She just doesn't want him to know she's planning this.) But still, her cheeks flush hot at Sae's gentle teasing.
"Fine, but you'd better bring me some cake one of these days in trade. My granddaughter has a sweet tooth."
"Deal," she says quickly, and wraps the loaf of bread up in a cloth before sticking it in her game bag.
Next, she visits town and barters for some candles, both of them as green as her woods, and an orange just because (this is a special occasion, and her father used to buy an orange for the most special of occasions). Besides, that covers both of their favorite colors.
Katniss wracks her brain for a while trying to think of something else to make it meaningful, but truthfully, for all his love of beauty, Peeta's not a material person. She thinks just the sight of her in front of the hearth with bread in her hands will be more than enough for him.
And she's right.
That evening, after their walk, after a lovely dinner she and Peeta make together and share with a myriad of sweet smiles and long stares exchanged, Katniss slips into the living room to light the fire while he finishes up the dishes.
It's just now getting cold enough that they brought in wood for the fire, and she doubts Peeta suspects anything when she lights a match and starts a blaze going. Carefully, she lights the two candles and places them on either side of the hearth. Then she pulls out the loaf of bread, waiting for them at the hearth.
"Smells good," Peeta's saying as he walks into the living room. His step checks at the sight of her. The instant he notices the bread, his breath audibly catches in his throat. "Katniss?"
"I want it to be real," she says. It's not mushy or flowery or really that romantic, but it makes his eyes go watery and so bright that the flames reflect in electric blue.
"That's all I want," he says. And with nothing more than that, he kneels beside her and breaks the loaf in two.
"Mine?" he asks.
"Of course," she replies, and he laughs, and she can't help but laugh too (even if a bit nervously) because this is really happening and she's still not good with words and he still can't fully believe this is real.
They're a mess. They'll probably always be a bit of a mess, she thinks, but who would have thought they'd ever make it this far and here they are.
"Together?" Peeta says.
"Together."
The bread burns in the uneven flames, Katniss singes the tips of her fingers, Peeta drops his piece as soon as she takes a bite from it—it's perfect. Exactly as she'd have wanted it (if only Prim were there to sing the song for them).
"I love you," he says, pulling her onto his lap and kissing her until she can't even taste the burned bread anymore. His hips are restless against hers, and Katniss presses as tight against him as she possibly can, making it incredibly difficult to rid them both of their clothes. But they manage. Somehow, together, they always manage.
It's then, looking down into his eyes as he gazes at her with that same look she imagines he wore when they were five years old and she was singing, that Katniss realizes she doesn't have to be afraid of this anymore.
(Her father died and her mother fell to pieces and Katniss has let that atrophy her heart for too long.
But she already thought Peeta was dead, and she already fell to pieces, and here they are anyway.
The worst has already happened, and if it happens again…she'll never regret whatever time they get together.)
His flesh is hot against hers (but not feverish, like in a cave) and her heartbeat roars in her ears like ocean waves (on a beach, a locket twisted between their fingers), and he's lost in a haze of her (but not hijacked, not Peeta, strong enough to build himself back up around her).
He's hers and he's in every single cell of her body and this is their toasting and there will never be a better time.
"Peeta," she says. He shudders against her, his hand on her spine pulling her tight against him.
"Katniss."
"Peeta, I love you."
He breaks into a thousand pieces, and Katniss kisses him back together and vows she will never leave him alone again.
A/N: We finally made it to the end of Catching Fire quotes - only Mockingjay left. I hope you all are enjoying, and thanks for sticking around for this long journey! Feel free to let me know what you think of where the story's gone, or just talk about how much we all love Everlark! :)