The colors of her house in District 12 feel so dull compared to the capitol and Katniss has never been more relieved in her life.
Upon her return home, she crawls into her covers and sleeps for nearly two whole days.
Prim comes and sits on her bed and asks her a thousand questions, but Katniss can only half-answer them. She longs for a friend to confide fully in; about the Districts, about Cato, and what Snow will do with her…she wishes Gale would return.
But she's always been stubborn and she will not wave that white flag first, no siree.
Besides, he'd just be angry.
She doesn't want anger, she just wants to talk to someone.
Madge comes to see her a week after her return. It's the only girl Katniss has ever struck a friendship with, and now, she's desperate for someone. So they form something of a bond; they take walks along the Victor's Villages and along to the Mayor's house.
She doesn't ask questions Katniss isn't ready to answer but lets Katniss tell it herself. And slowly, Katniss opens up about most of it. About how uncomfortable all of it was, about how the dinners were terrible, and about the other Victors that Haymitch is so friendly with.
She doesn't ask about Cato, but Katniss can tell she's curious. The average District person wouldn't know what game they were playing, but being the mayor's daughter has given her reach beyond the Seam kids. She's heard whispers but doesn't know much.
But she doesn't pry.
Katniss tells her what she can about Cato without lying or speaking badly of him. He's clever, a bit arrogant, and is nicer than he may seem. All true things.
"And you and him together?"
Katniss swallows back a frown. It's the only time she's ever nudged to get more out.
"I don't know what it is."
That's the truth.
In her spare time, other than wandering with Madge, Katniss starts cooking.
She can kill a deer and gut a deer but she hadn't ever bothered with the 'next steps', such as cooking the deer. Or turkey. Or birds. Or rabbit. Or whatever she catches; it all has just appeared as food the next time she wanders back in.
She feels good cooking. It allows her to support business in the Hob; she can buy dried herbs and salt and fresh bakery items. She has the money to do so now.
Something is soothing about the ritual of cooking. Besides, a kitchen as beautiful as this should not go unused.
Is she a good cook?
The first time she is confident to feed a dish to her family, Haymitch, and Madge, she sees Primrose cough out her portion into a napkin. Madge swallows it down. Her mother gives her a watery smile. And Haymitch?
"Shit, girl!" He coughs, "Did you use all the salt in District 12 in this thing?"
But Katniss laughs out loud.
This feels like progress to her.
Her next dish will be better.
With each day, with each page of her cookbook dog-eared and marked up as she works through it, she's starting to gain a better grip on who she is post-Hunger Games.
Maybe it's because, in a metaphorical sense, using cooking to banish her demons, feels like a 'fuck you'. A defiant stane. A scream about all the times she was worried about food, all the reasons her name went in that fucking dish only for Primrose's to be called out instead.
But Katniss is still hungry.
Not for food, for something that itches beneath the surface.
She still can't riddle out what that is.
Maybe she'll always be like this, she thinks as she stirs cheese into a dish, maybe that's just how victors feel.
XXX
She's passed the Mellark Bakery thousands of times since she came back but hasn't gathered the courage to go inside quite yet.
Finally, a month before the announcement of the Quell, in early spring as the buds are just starting to unfreeze, she pushes inside.
There's a woman there. Peeta's mother.
She knows very little about her, other than that she's stern. Her face is twisted into a perpetual scowl. Katniss can't forget what she said about her; that there might be a District 12 victor this year. And there was, and even though Katniss should feel honored that some people believed in her, it put a bitter taste in her mouth.
There are some boys in the back.
One, in the profile, looks so much like Peeta that for a second her stomach falls to her feet and her mouth goes dry and she's insane enough to think that maybe she's been living in a dream all this time. But he turns fully, summoned by the bell above the door, and she realizes it's not him. His jaw is too narrow, his eyes aren't the right color, and his face is older.
But maybe that's what Peeta may have looked like if he had lived longer.
"I just need…" Katniss stands, staring at the rows of bread. She sees one about the shape out of the corner of her eye. It's the same type that had saved her life, the one Peeta had thrown to her all those years ago. Without him, she wouldn't have even been around to win the Hunger Games.
He saved her life…why couldn't she have saved his?
"Our sourdough is very widely loved," Mrs. Mellark offers. Her expression is impossible to read.
She must know who Katniss is, right?
"Yes, that, some of that," Katniss says, her shoulders slumping. She's not sure why she's here, actually. On the surface, yes, to get some bread. But past that? She has no right stepping in here.
"And maybe some blueberry bread?" Mrs. Mellark nudges, starting to wrap up the sourdough.
"That looks good too." Katniss' voice is pitiful, "And do you have anything with chocolate?" Prim would love that as a dessert.
"Pick what you want," Mrs. Mellark waves to a dessert section, "The top is all chocolate."
Katniss wanders over, pressing her fingers against the glass. She feels her heart thud as she examines them all, not really focusing on any of them. She's too focused on the shop around her.
Peeta's brothers are whispering.
Why didn't any of them volunteer? Why wouldn't any sibling, Katniss wonders, if they were older? If they had a better chance?
But, if Peeta hadn't been there with his clever manipulation of the Capitol's heartstrings, Katniss would have died early on with no sponsors.
"What looks good?"
Katniss jerks her head up. Mrs. Mellark is right in front of her. She starts to point to a few, but her fingers quiver and drop.
"I'm…" She breathes out, tears gathering on the edges of her eyes, "So…sorry."
Mrs. Mellark sucks in, taking out one of each without Katniss' direction, methodically putting them in a paper bag.
"It was only ever going to be one of you," She said after a moment. Is she angry? Resigned? Numb? She's impossible to read. Peeta had always been an open book. Where did he get that from, his father?
"I tried to save him."
"And for what?" Her expression was grim, "To have to kill each other when he made it up there?"
"But…the gamemakers…" Katniss furrowed her brow, "Two of us could win."
Mrs. Mellark huffed, "If you think they would have allowed that, well," She snorted, "There have never been two winners and there never will be." She blinks at Katniss like she's seeing her as a young child in here unattended, "He did well. He did the best he could."
In the back, Peeta's brothers are looking at the ground.
It's acceptance.
They've been beaten down so much into the ground of this world that they aren't even upset at the girl who lost them their son or brother. They've just…turned around to believe there isn't another way.
In some ways, Katniss wants them to be furious with her. She'd rather they yell her out of here, ban her from ever stepping inside, scream profanities about her. She wishes that they hated her guts and spat on her front porch steps.
It would feel like she deserved it.
She did, didn't she?
But this…this emotionless resignation?
Katniss can't fucking stand it.
Peeta is the sort of person that District 12 should have been mourning in the streets over. They shouldn't forget his name, ever. She's angry no one else is as upset as she is, but some part of her wanted to be consoled that his family was remembering him too.
But no.
Life continues to move on here in District 12 and his family is being swept along right with it, giving up and letting themselves move with the current. It's as though his place is being washed away until there was never any part of him left at all.
All of a sudden, the smell of yeast and oil is making her feel ill.
She has to get out of here.
"What do I owe you?"
"Oh, it's on the house," Mrs. Mellark blinks, as though shocked she'd offer to pay. The brown bag, filled with far more than she asked for, is shoved into her arms.
"I couldn't…" Katniss is angry at this too. There was never a time when if Katniss had wandered in here, prior, Mrs. Mellark would have never given her free anything, even if she were ten seconds away from death. But now that she can pay, she's getting so much free stuff she isn't sure they'll finish it all.
Katniss should be held to pay, more than anyone else. So Katniss shakes off her uncertainty and stands firmly, pushing her shoulders back.
"What do I owe you?"
They blink at her.
Mrs. Mellark finds her words, giving out some total that Katniss knows is a far cry from what is in here. She fishes out more than she's been told to give and hands it over, balancing the bread in her arms.
"Oh, Rye, get Katniss some change-,"
"No," Katniss says cooly, detached, "Save it. And the next time someone comes into your shop, starving…" She blinks, "It's on me."
Then, feeling like she wasn't absolved of what she wanted, but got something out of this she needed, Katniss turns on her heels and goes home.
She shoves the bag marked 'Mellark Bakery' far into the trash bin, setting the bakery items on a doily, and when Primrose asks her where the croissants came from, Katniss says she made them herself.