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promptsinpanem · 2 years ago

Text

you really got a hold on me

Summary: After the death of Leeg 2 in battle, instead of sending a replacement soldier to Squad 451, the Mockingjay is sent home. Hijacked!Peeta, Mockingjay-au.

Rated: M for sexual content.

Prompt: Grow Together

On the fourth morning of Squad 451’s mission, Soldier Leeg 2 hits a mislabeled pod. It doesn’t unleash a swarm of muttation gnats, which the rebels are prepared for, but shoots out a sunburst of metal darts. One finds her brain, and in the instant it pierces her skull, Katniss swears she hears a cannon fire. Instinctively, she looks to Finnick who is also staring with wide eyes.

The following evening, Boggs gets the call. “Everdeen, Odair, pack your things,” he says. “You’re heading out on the next train.”

“Train to where?” Katniss says. They’re already at the last station.

“Back to Thirteen,” Boggs says.

“What about the mission? We’re not even close to the mansion yet!” Finnick demands.

“Squad 451 has been dissolved. Everyone else is being reassigned,” Boggs says. “The pod mishap with Soldier Leeg has Plutarch a little shaken. They want the Mockingjay home.”

Katniss shoulders her weapon defiantly. “I’m not leaving. They need me here.” It’s a lie, of course, she’s hardly been allowed to fire her weapon since she’s arrived. But she can’t leave now, not when she’s so close. “That was the deal,” she says. “I kill Snow. You call Coin back and remind her of that!”

“I’m not going to change her mind,” he says, sounding tired.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s take a walk,” he says.

Katniss falls in step with Boggs and they weave around the encampment, outside the earshot of the others.

“You’re a wildcard,” he tells her. “You’re too unpredictable, and as this war comes to an end, you become a bigger and bigger threat to her.”

“I’m not vying for the presidency, if that’s what she’s worried about,” Katniss deadpans.

“True, but there will be a lot of people waiting for your endorsement. It’ll carry a lot of weight, especially if you’re a respected war hero.”

“How can I be a war hero, when they won’t even let me sniff the front lines?”

Boggs stops and gives Katniss a knowing look. “She doesn’t trust that you won’t sneak off into the night with my Holo, and storm the Capitol by yourself.”

Katniss presses her lips together tightly, and tries not to look too guilty at the accusation.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to capture Snow alive,” Boggs says. “We’ll be sure to save him for you when you get back.”

It’s a long three days on the train back to District 12, and when they disembark the hovercraft in Thirteen, Katniss heads straight to Haymitch’s door. He seems to be expecting her, and hardly looks up from his reading when she storms into his compartment.

“The propos weren’t being well received,” he tells her. “The districts are united. Everyone’s seen enough of you blowing things up with a bow and arrow. The focus now is getting the people of the Capitol to lay down their weapons and surrender, and we all know who speaks the Capitol’s language better than anybody else.”

“Peeta,” she admits reluctantly.

“Yes, and they don’t know you’ve had a rocky reunion. No one has seen you two together since the rescue.” He sits back in his chair and glances out the door to make sure no one else is around to hear. “There were two options discussed. Bring you and Finnick back to show the Capitol all the happy times to look forward to, or send Peeta to the Capitol in a Squad 451 uniform.”

Katniss pales, remembering what Boggs told her before she left. That she was a threat to Coin. “She wanted to send Peeta to kill me?”

“You know as well as I do that the boy wouldn’t be coming home either.”

She scowls. Of course he wouldn’t. Boggs would put a bullet between his eyes before he got off the train. If not him, probably Gale.

“Peeta’s already dead,” she says darkly.

“Could be, but I’m not ready to give up on him yet.” He sighs when she’s unmoved. “He’s made a lot of progress. Sending him to the Capitol with all of those bad memories? He might never recover from that.”

“He’s gone, Haymitch,” she says, and she’s even angrier now because she feels she might cry. “You have to let him go.”

“You and me, we made a deal to try and save him. Remember?”

She sets her jaw and looks away. Outside Haymitch’s compartment, she notices a name has been added. Beneath H. Abernathy reads P. Mellark.

“He’s out of the hospital unit?” she says, surprised.

“Yes, he’s been reassigned to my bunk.”

“He’ll kill you in your sleep,” she says with a humorless laugh.

“And I’ll probably deserve it, since I left him behind.”

******

There’s a strategy meeting on her schedule for the day, and she heads down to the command center early, since that’s the only thing on her schedule for the day. When she arrives, she finds that Peeta, Plutarch, and Beetee are already there, speaking quietly over a map similar to what was projected with Bogg’s Holo. She steps back into the shadows, recognizing this isn’t a conversation she’s meant to hear.

“This is the tunnel,” Peeta says, pointing to a path that runs at the bottom of their field of view. “It connects the prison cells to the mansion, that’s how they’d take us whenever we needed to film something.”

“This might be our best entry point,” Beetee says. “Since Boggs and Hawthorne are already familiar with it from the recovery mission.”

“The entire place is booby trapped. Even worse than what’s in the streets,” Peeta says. “You can’t send soldiers in there.”

“Maybe if we can send in something armored to hit every possible touch point to guarantee we trigger any traps ahead of time,” Beetee says.

“No there are cameras,” Peeta says. “And if there’s anyone left in the control room watching, this will definitely be the place they’re looking.”

Beetee nods. “So the cameras will be our first target. What’s the fail safe for surveillance?”

“Biometric sensors,” Plutarch says. “A pulse needs to be detected to mobilize the weaponry.”

“So send in a robot,” Peeta says dumbly.

“It’s also needed to activate the doors,” Plutarch says. He pauses, realizing something. “Hawthorne’s squad caught a pack of mutts this morning. They have them trapped in a school building. We may be able to use them.”

“Snow’s going to surround the mansion with refugees and threaten to blow the place sky high,” Peeta says. “You need to get all the civilians evacuated and convince them to seek shelter elsewhere.”

“We already have something in mind for that,” Plutarch says. He pulls out his pocket watch to check the time. “I’ve got to go prep for our next meeting,” he says. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Katniss scrambles back toward the door to pretend she’s just arrived. “Plutarch,” she greets.

“Oh Katniss, it’s so wonderful to see you back safe,” he says. “It’s such a shame what happened to Soldier Leeg. We were so worried about you.”

“I only wish I could have stayed behind,” Katniss says, it’s a long shot, but there’s no harm in at least trying. “To avenge her.”

“And you wouldn’t be our Mockingjay if you didn’t feel that way,” he agrees. “But we have more use for you yet.”

Plutarch leaves along with Beetee, leaving Katniss alone with Peeta and the guard she now notices posted in the far corner.

“Sorry they’re not letting you storm the Capitol,” Peeta says from his seat, but it’s obvious he’s indifferent by his tone. “It must be really hard for you, not getting to play hero for once.”

“They brought me back, because they couldn’t send you!” She says harshly. She knows it’s not fair to blame him, but everything about him frustrates her.

“It’s not like they give me a choice.”

She folds her arms over her chest. “Wouldn’t have mattered. Peeta wouldn’t have cowered in a bunker, he would have been the first volunteer to lead the charge.“

“And it would have been stupid,” he says with a scoff. “A high profile target on the brink of insanity shouldn’t be on the front lines. Every resource left in the Capitol would have been aimed right at you. It puts everyone around you in danger.“

“They know what they signed up for.”

“That’s easy for you to say. They’re the ones who’d be skinned alive and tortured to death so your face stays pretty for the camera. Me? I don’t have the stomach for it anymore.”

She stops short. How many people did he watch die while he was being tortured? Suddenly she feels selfish and small, and hates him all over again for exposing what a terrible person she is. “I have to be the one to kill him,” is all she can say in response.

He looks like he pities her for a moment, but it quickly passes. “The only one who will kill Snow, is Snow himself, and he won’t be going out alone.” She doesn’t break his gaze. She never planned on coming home, he must realize that. He shakes his head, growing frustrated. “This sick game you two are playing. Don’t you see the path you’re on? Nobody wins”

“Aren’t you angry?” She spats back. “After everything he’s done to you?”

“Sure I am, but I try to funnel it into something productive. Me going to the Capitol is not productive.” He frowns, like he hates to admit it when he adds, “Sending you isn’t either.”

“Well neither is me sitting here.”

“The rebel army isn’t going to lay down their weapons because the Mockingjay isn’t on the battlefield,” he says flatly.

“You don’t get it.”

“Of course I don’t. You think you’ve suffered the most, so you’ve earned it,” he says. “But last time I checked, you still have your sister, and your mother, and Gale. Hell, I’m still here, even though you haven’t a clue what to do with me.”

“Don’t,” she says lowly. “You’re not him.”

Snow took him and sent a mutt in his place. She remembers him on the beach, telling her that no one needed him. The absolute dread that filled her at the thought of losing him. A part of her died in that arena when he was left behind, and she’s fractured more and more, every time she’s faced with this imposter. The only fire she still has burning within her is vengeance. Killing Snow is all she has left.

He studies her face carefully, like he’s working all her thoughts out on his own. As if he has any clue. He shakes his head, and sighs dismissively.

Plutarch enters then. “Oh good, you’re still here,” he says. “We’re meeting next door.”

He leads them to another room where all the victors and Coin are already gathered. Katniss takes a seat beside Haymitch and Peeta sits on his other side.

“First we’d like to welcome back Soldiers Everdeen and Odair, and commend them for their bravery in the Battle Against the Capitol,” Plutarch says solemnly.

Katniss’s eyes meet Finnick’s across the table, and they both roll their eyes in unison. Based on the way Annie is wrapped around his arm though, the odds of Finnick stowing away with Katniss on the next hovercraft out are about as likely as Haymitch deciding to tag along.

“We have a problem,” Plutarch continues. “It seems we have to reevaluate the focus of our propos. People of the Capitol enjoyed the fighting when it was happening in the districts, but now that it’s moved to their backyard…”

"It never bothered them before,” Finnick argues. Back in the Games, the Capitol loved that sort of suspense.

“No one wants to worry that the Mockingjay herself will break down their door and fire an arrow into their chest,” Plutarch says. “We have their attention at least, and we plan to use it. If anyone can convince the people of the Capitol to join our cause, it’s the Victors. They feel like they know you. They trust you.”

“They couldn’t care less if we were dead!” Johanna says with a roll of her eyes. “Besides, the propos are pointless to them. They’d rather die than surrender to a life of drab gray and standard issue rations.”

“Not if we put drab gray in style,” Plutarch says. “So far all of our footage has been about joining the war effort. We need to change our focus to what Panem will be when the fighting is over.” He’s pacing around the room now, flashing his hands around each victor with a buzzword. “Strength!” He says beside Johanna. “Hope!” He says along Beetee. “Rebirth!” Between Finnick and Annie. Then, when he gets to the District 12 side of the table he concludes with, “Romance!”

Peeta goes stone faced. “No. We had a deal,” he says. “I give intel and I run training drills for the camera, but no more star crossed lovers. We’re through with that.”

Plutarch looks like he’s getting nervous, like he expects Peeta will launch across the table ravenously at the first sign of showing any emotion.

“You’re in a unique position here, Peeta,” he says. “The Capitol used you as their mouthpiece in the early days of the war, and they haven’t heard from you since the rescue. Snow has tried to discredit you, but that’s hard work, since it makes him look like a liar.”

Peeta rolls his eyes. "You want me to smile and pretend like I agree with everything you say? I’ve done that enough already and I’m done. I’m not some piece in this damn game!”

Katniss’s eyes snap toward him, and for a minute she forgets how to breathe. She waits for a sign, some kind of proof that he remembers that quiet talk before their first Games, but he never even looks at her. It was just a coincidence. A cruel coincidence.

“They need to see that you’re okay here. That you’re not some prisoner too,” Plutarch says, which is almost comical, with the armed guard lurking over Peeta’s shoulder. “We’ve held off on the reunion long enough. We need to show them what happily ever after looks like.”

Peeta stands from his seat.

“Where are you going?” Plutarch demands.

“Home. Back to Twelve. Thanks for the rescue. I’ll be sure to pay my taxes, or however you work all of this out, but that’s where my civic duty ends from now on.”

“We can’t sustain any more mass casualty events, Mr. Mellark,” Coin finally says, her voice always so calm and calculated. “But I suppose there are other ways to persuade the citizens of the Capitol to lay down their arms. Another Hunger Games, perhaps, pooled from families who are unwilling to surrender.”

He sits back down, and glowers at Katniss, as if this were all her fault. It’s not like Katniss is crazy about the idea either. In fact, it only reminds her of what Boggs told her before she was sent back. Coin’s not just interested in convincing the Capitol to join their side. She’s interested in erasing Katniss as the brave warrior leading the charge, and recasting her as that naïve little girl, too dumb with love to cause any problems. When the dust clears, they’ll remember that the Mockingjay called the people of Panem to fight, and then abandoned them on the battlefield.

She’s seething by the end of the meeting, and hardly pays attention to Plutarch’s brainstorming ideas. While Peeta has been able to turn all of his frustrations on Katniss, she has no problem redirecting them to him in the same way.

As they stand to leave, she stops Peeta before he can pass.

“It must be really hard for you,” she says tauntingly, mirroring his earlier tone. “Having to smile pretty for a camera."

"Play nice, kids,” Haymitch says in a warning tone.

Peeta shakes his head. “Aren’t you angry they keep using us like little play things?”

“I try to channel it into something productive,” she says coolly. “Besides, what do I care? I’ve kissed you hundreds of times, and it’s never meant a thing.”

******

While hunting with Gale in Thirteen, they’d occasionally drift outside their allotted quarter mile radius. The animals weren’t aware of their hunters’ restrictions, and Katniss and Gale would often find themselves following tracks that led them two to three miles away from the bunker.

It was on one of these trips that she’d stumbled upon a lake, similar to the one she used to visit with her father back in Twelve. It even had a cabin, although it had been blown to bits, leaving only the ruins of a foundation behind, but the dock that stretched fifty feet into the water was still in reasonably good condition.

Katniss had been reminded of the lake when Johanna mentioned some of the therapeutic methods her doctors were discussing to help her overcome her fear of water. Katniss had even gone so far as requesting the lake be tested for radiation, and it had been deemed safe for swimming.

The lake seemed like the perfect setting for Plutarch’s new propos, and Finnick, who’d never gone more than a few weeks without access to water, was thrilled with the suggestion.

Cressida and the rest of her crew had stayed back in the Capitol to collect war footage, so a new team is assembled with Fulvia as director, a slew of amateur photographers from Twelve handling the cameras, and Katniss’s prep team tirelessly tailoring an assortment of District 13 jumpsuits into something sleek and stylish catered to each Victor’s best assets.

A blanket is set out on the docks and filled with foods from each district. Now that the supply lines have matured, there’s a bounty of fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables. The feast practically screams: Not from a can! Which is probably the only thing people in the Capitol have had access to in the last few weeks. There’s even a bottle of white liquor tucked away discreetly, which was probably placed after hours of debate, to show that the new Panem will still imbibe.

They’re all deemed too pale from living underground for months, and her prep team airbrushes them shades of bronze, before sculpting their hair into something windswept and fresh.

It’s autumn, but it feels like spring. The leaves on the trees are warm yellows, oranges, and reds, and the air is warm too. Katniss stretches out on the dock beside Johanna, and soaks in the heat from the low hanging sun.

Johanna presses the bottle of white liquor into Katniss’s hand and smiles wickedly. Katniss sits up enough to take a swig, and grimaces as the liquid burns down her throat. “That’s terrible,” she says, passing the bottle back.

“It gets better,” Johanna says and takes another drink.

Finnick is already stripping naked and jumping into the water. He crows when he breaks through the surface. “It’s a little chilly,” he shouts, but seems to be acclimated after a few laps.

“Where’s Lover Boy?” Johanna asks lazily.

Katniss had seen him arguing with Fulvia earlier, probably over the fact that her direction notes stated “Peeta should kiss Katniss” and not “Peeta should hit Katniss with an oar.” After that, he went for a walk with Annie to cool down, and the last time she saw them, they were skipping rocks off the water from the shore.

She takes the bottle from Johanna and takes another drink. “Probably trying to empty his stomach now, so he doesn’t vomit on camera when he has to touch me,” she says. She sits up and dangles her feet over the edge, letting her toes comb through the water.

“He’s just embarrassed,” Johanna says, sitting up to match Katniss’s position. She hesitates before her toes can touch the water though, and instead swings her feet through the air. “He knows he’s still attracted to you, and he doesn’t want to give you that sort of power over him again.”

“He’s not attracted to me,” Katniss argues. “He told me I wasn’t even pretty.”

“Believe me, he is. We have group therapy together. It’s all he talks about."

Before she can process it, Peeta approaches, with his hands buried deep in his jumpsuit pockets. Two people with cameras follow closely behind, and position themselves at different corners of the dock to capture the right angle. Peeta presses his lips together and lets out an annoyed sigh, before sitting down on the dock beside her. “Fulvia says I should talk to you,” he says, sounding bored.

“Mission accomplished.”

“That’s what I’d say.” He leans back on his hands to stare out at the water. “What are you two up to?”

“We’re racing,” Johanna says.

“To the bottom of that bottle?” He shakes his head when Johanna offers it to him.

“Johanna’s winning,” Katniss says.

“Did Haymitch teach you that game?”

"No, he’d never share,” Johanna says.

Katniss isn’t drunk, but she’s feeling a bit light headed, and she gets up to pick through the picnic before she loses her wits, especially now, knowing what Johanna has just told her. When she turns back, Peeta is stripping down to his underclothes, and preparing to launch himself off the edge of the dock.

“Where are you going?” she says.

“For a swim,” he says dumbly.

“You don’t know how.”

He looks unconvinced. “I survived an arena full of water, of course I know how to swim.”

“The belt was a flotation device,” she says. “You would have sunk without it. The only thing you know about swimming, you learned from me. I gave you a lesson once.”

“In that case, I must not be very good at it,” he says wryly.

“I could teach you.”

He smirks. “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”

Maybe it’s the influence from the white liquor, or maybe it’s something else, but suddenly she begins to strip down to her underclothes and steps up to him. Lifting an eyebrow in challenge, she says, “Let’s find out then.”

Peeta narrows his eyes skeptically, like he thinks he might be walking into a trap. Then he grips her by the waist, and tosses her off the dock. The water is freezing, nothing like the tropical waters in the arena, and it takes a moment to get her limbs to start moving. She breaks through the surface, teeth chattering, and lets the light current drift her back into the sunlight.

"If I can trust you not to kill me just now, you can trust me this far,” she says, splashing the water in front of her.

He jumps in after her, and bobbles uneasily to the surface. The lake isn’t too deep, and within a few strokes toward the shoreline, she can already feel the bottom.

She goes over a few basic things, like treading water and how to float. He picks up on them right away, and they practice some simple strokes. It’s all very clinical, and boring to watch, and Katniss knows they’ll want better footage than this.

“Is it okay if I splash water at you?” she says.

“What do you mean?”

She flicks a few drops at him with the tips of her fingers to demonstrate. “I wasn’t sure if… like Johanna…” she tries to say diplomatically.

“No, it’s fine.”

She splashes some water at his face, and he does the same. They splash back and forth a few times, and again, it’s all very superficial.

“I think they’re getting impatient,” Peeta says, nodding towards Fulvia who is making get on with it! gestures from the shore. “We should probably just get it over with.”

She hasn’t kissed him since the arena, and she’s certain there are snipers up in the trees, ready to neutralize him if he has a psychotic break and tries to drown her. She flinches when his fingers brush her neck, and he draws his hand away quickly, flexing his fingers behind his head, while he debates a safe place to touch her.

She’s always depended on Peeta to take the lead, but that won’t work now, so they just kind of circle one another, with their chins touching the water, neither willing to make the first move. His eyes keep flitting down toward the surface, and she realizes that her underclothes are pretty much translucent from the water. His smile is almost sheepish at being caught staring, but then his expression darkens, and she realizes how she must be looking at him. Cheeks flushed, lips parted, shallow breaths. She looks like she wants him to kiss her.

And then he does. And the floodgates open.

She remembers the night of his rescue, as she approached his hospital room. She was so excited to see him she felt dizzy, trying to picture what they’d say. What they’d do. She was certain he would kiss her, and she wondered if it would feel like those kisses on the beach. The ones that left her wanting more.

When he kisses her now, she feels it again. That stirring that leaves tingles to the tips of her fingers. That guides her arms around his neck to pull her body flush against his. That leads her legs to frame his hips when he urges them there, aided by the buoyancy of the water. And then she feels it. But it’s not her this time, it’s him. Firm between her legs.

They’ve slept beside one another dozens of times and she’s always been aware of the effect she’s had, but he also went to great lengths to hide it. And now, feeling him pressed where her body seems to be calling for him most, her hunger turns to starvation when his hips roll against hers.

She’s too overwhelmed, and she breaks the kiss, swimming away, and climbing back on the dock where Finnick, Annie, and Johanna are gathered. Finnick drops a towel around her shoulders, and she wraps it around her body. She knows she’s shivering from the cold, but she can’t ignore that buzz still humming through her.

Peeta wades back to the dock a moment later, but only pulls himself up enough to lean on his elbows. He rests his head on his arms while he catches his breath.

“You getting out bud?” Finnick says with a teasing lilt.

“In a minute,” he says shyly.

She feels his eyes on her for the rest of the afternoon. It cools down quickly after the sun sets, and they build a fire near the shoreline for warmth. Katniss sits beside Johanna, nibbling on the remnants of their picnic, when she feels Peeta sit beside her.

She can’t quite look at him after their kiss, but she doesn’t protest either, when he directs her to sit between his legs, and she leans back against his chest, soaking in the wonderful familiarity of being wrapped in his arms.

She offers him a bite from the apple she’s eating, but he waves it away, and catches her chin with his finger before she can look away.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he says, and she’s already nodding before she fully comprehends what he’s said, and then they’re kissing again, framed perfectly behind the flickering flames from the fire.

“You need some privacy?’ Johanna says, throwing a dinner roll at Peeta.

He catches it then rips off a bite with his teeth and throws it back at her. "Yeah, you mind?” he says. And for a second, it reminds her so much of Peeta, the real Peeta. The one who nudged Caesar Flickerman aside after their first Games when he tried to interrupt their kissing. When he returns to kissing her, she pretends it’s still him, letting herself melt completely against him, holding onto that feeling for as long as she can.

******

They’re called into the command center the next day to preview the propo, but as they watch, Beetee informs them that it’s already airing in the Capitol. As expected, the primary focus is on Katniss and Peeta, with some extended shots of Finnick swimming, and a few clips of Johanna and Katniss laughing over the bottle of white liquor. Annie’s barely in it at all, which isn’t surprising, since the news that Finnick Odair is off the market, is not popular among the Capitol Elite.

Peeta walks out of the room before the propo finishes playing, leaving Katniss to face the images of them kissing alone. She sinks into her seat, hoping to become invisible, and is grateful when it’s over and the meeting is adjourned.

She returns to the command center later in the evening, when she knows that Gale will be calling in to deliver his daily briefing. They linger on the line after the rest of the senior personnel have left.

“You all seem to be having a great time back there,” he says coolly.

She feels the color drain from her face. “You’ve seen the propo?” She’d told him about Plutarch’s plans to film one, but she hasn’t spoken to him since they shot the footage.

“Yeah, it’s been on an almost endless loop here,” he says. “Men, women, and children were weeping in the streets at the sight, begging to be rescued,” he adds flatly.

“Funny,” she says. “You know I’d rather be out there with you.”

His laugh is tired, like he’s done repeating this same conversation again and again. “Let’s not kid ourselves,” he says. “Sure, you want to be here, but you couldn’t care less if I were around.”

“That’s not true.”

“Right. As your hunting partner.” He sighs heavily and rests his forehead in his hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard seeing you kiss him like that again.”

She touches her lips without thinking, and then quickly lowers her hand. “It’s nothing,” she reminds him. “He still hates me.”

“Didn’t look like it.”

Her knees snap together tightly at the memory of Peeta moving against her, and she looks away from the screen.

“I’m doing whatever I can to end this,” she says. “That’s all I want. You know that.”

“I could think of a dozen ways to end this war tomorrow, but you wouldn’t like any of them.”

She can’t shake the image of the Nut. The mountainside crumbling as those trapped inside scramble through the chaos in search for a last gasp of air they’d never reach. She doesn’t want to think about the horrors Gale would be able to unleash against his true enemies.

“Just stay safe out there,” she tells him, still unable to look at him.

“You too.”

It’s late, past lights out, and she runs into Peeta wandering the corridors on her way back to her room. Peeta used to do the same thing on the train, but it’s another connection she’s unwilling to acknowledge.

“You’re up late,” he says.

“I had a call,” she says, her eyes staying trained on his feet.

“Gale?”

She hates that she feels guilty at the implication, like it’s something she’s trying to hide from him because she’s doing something wrong, when she knows that she isn’t. “They just finished supper out there, it’s usually when they send back their status for the day.”

“You want me to talk to him?“ He says, and that edge has returned to his voice. The one he’s used around her ever since his return. "Let him know you’re still being faithful.”

“I don’t owe him anything, or anyone else either,” she says.

His laugh is humorless as he shakes his head. “Ah, yes, there she is. Classic Katniss Everdeen.”

She scowls at him, eager to change the subject. “What are you still doing up?”

“I had a dream,” he says. “It was unsettling.”

“A nightmare?”

“Not quite.” He puts his hands in his pocket and tilts his head thoughtfully. “You were in it though.”

“Did I get to kill you?” She says in a tone that’s disturbingly hopeful for the thought.

“No,” he says, and the smile he flashes looks genuine. “But you were implementing some unconventional torture methods.”

“Like what?”

“You wouldn’t want to know.” He lifts his eyebrows smugly. “Gale might be interested though.”

“What are you talking about?”

He stares at her, hard, like it would take a novel to explain it to her, then lets out a loud breath. “I don’t like you,” he says bluntly.

“You don’t like me? Join the club.”

“I’m still trying to figure you out. Sort out a lot of things up here,” he adds, tapping a finger against his temple. He takes a few steps to close the distance between them. He’s looking at her like an animal hunting prey, and she knows she should be scared, that she should probably run. But instead, all she can feel is that stirring in her chest. The one she gets when he kisses her. It doesn’t help when he says, “I don’t mind kissing you though. In fact, I kind of like it.”

“I could tell,” she says, aiming for indignant, but she doesn’t sound at all convincing, the way her voice is trembling.

He smirks tilting his head to the side, so that their faces are impossibly close. “I didn’t hear you complaining either.”

“If it seemed like I liked it, it’s only because I miss him.”

He lets out a quick rush of air that sounds like the wind getting knocked out of him, but covers it with an incredulous laugh. “Gale?"

She should leave it at that, and let him think it. Then she can walk away and be done with whatever this is. "No,” she admits instead. “Peeta.”

There’s no hesitation before his lips crash into hers. She welcomes them, her arms circling his neck so he can’t stop. He stumbles forward, propping his arm against the wall behind them to keep them upright. She could kiss him forever, she thinks, but then she’s reminded that this isn’t Peeta. It’s like Gale told her back in Two. Kissing Peeta now is like kissing a drunk person, it doesn’t count.

“I shouldn’t be…” she says, pulling away.

He sets his other hand on the wall so that she’s caged between his arms. “What? Using me because you’re lonely? I get lonely too, you know.”

They kiss again, until she can clear her head.

“Kissing you now is different…” she says. “Then before."

“What do you mean?” He humors her, but it’s obvious he isn’t interested in talking, because he immediately steals another kiss.

“It’s like kissing is just the start of something else,” she says.

He grins wickedly. “Isn’t that the point?”

“There are plenty of other reasons to kiss a person.” She has kissed Peeta a thousand times before, and it never turned into this.

“Yeah? Want to show me?” He leans in for another kiss.

She turns her face away before he can. “I’m done here,” she says.

He sighs heavily, and pushes away from the wall when he recognizes he won’t be getting anywhere otherwise. “I used to be terrified every time I kissed you,“ he admits. "I can remember that now. I think that’s why it was so easy for the hijacking to take, since there was so much kissing.”

“Why were you scared?”

He shrugs. “I was afraid I’d fool myself into thinking you’d love me back. But now, I don’t really care what you think of me. That’s probably why it feels different.”

Katniss realizes that’s the biggest difference between Peeta and Gale. With Gale there are expectations of how well she’ll love him back, while Peeta couldn’t care less if she ever loves him at all. Even before.

“That doesn’t seem fair,” she says.

“Fair?” he says. “Isn’t it the same thing you used to do to me?”

“I’ve always cared.”

“Have you? Is that why you’ve been sitting vigil by my bedside since my return?”

“I was a little preoccupied by a crushed larynx, if you can remember,” she snaps back.

He glares at her.

“Nobody touched my memories,“ she says. "And even I can’t make sense of half of them. So, sorry for the way I’ve treated you. I’m still trying to figure things out, same as you.”

“Yeah, well I’m sorry for a lot of things too, but it doesn’t seem to do us much good.”

“It does if trying to strangle me is on your list,” she deadpans.

He laughs, but it isn’t that cold, dismissive one. It’s a quiet and amused snort that even he seems surprised by. “Goodnight, Katniss,” he says, and the moment has officially passed, because now he’s backing away.

She’s not done though. “You brushed against me before,” she says, before he can turn away completely. “In the lake. And I felt it.”

He stops, and lifts his brows curiously. “Yeah?”

“You’d never done that before either.”

Even with the distance between them, she can see the shift in his eyes as they narrow, his pupils dilating until they turn black. He lets out a slow, deliberate breath that seems to suck the air from her lungs. “Did you like it?”

She leaves without answering, but when she returns to her compartment, she sits on the shower floor with her legs spread, and touches herself where she felt him before. Her fingers circling until she captures that sweet release she’s been craving. And when her eyes flutter open after her pleasure has waned, she realizes she was picturing him.

******

Training now is different than it was for Squad 451. There’s still target practice, and enough running to make Katniss puke, but now the focus is also on medical training to aid in relief efforts. The plan is to send the Victors in after the final offensive line reaches the City Center, when the Capitol is already secured, as a part of the liberation.

Katniss hates the role, but is happy that medical training means she gets to spend time with her sister.

Delly, Peeta, and Prim have been playing a game called “Real or Not Real,” which Annie introduced them to. It involves Peeta describing a memory, and then Delly or Prim tell him if it actually happened. When they play around Katniss, it’s mostly superficial. Peeta asks about former school teachers, or what kind of food was served at the harvest festival. Occasionally he’ll ask about events from the Games, but never anything involving Katniss.

Over reflection the other night, Prim admitted that when Katniss isn’t around, the questions are almost exclusively about her.

Ever since the incident in the hallway, Katniss has been avoiding him. It doesn’t help that, according to Haymitch, Peeta had another setback yesterday that required him to be sedated much of the day. Katniss doesn’t admit what happened between them, but by the way Haymitch talks, he already knows. Either because Peeta told him, or they caught it on the security cameras.

Whatever his setback was, it must have passed, because Peeta’s almost cheerful today. Cracking jokes with Delly and Prim, and no longer staring at Katniss like he’s going to devour her at any minute.

Katniss doesn’t mind the reprieve, and she sits idly off to the side, practicing her stitches, while the three play their game.

"Hey Katniss,” Peeta says, catching her attention. “Pearls come from coal. Real or not real?”

She lifts her eyes to meet his. He’s smiling at her, which means he must already know the answer, and she can’t help but smile back. "Only in the Capitol,” she says.

He furrows his brows, like he’s still stringing pieces of the memory together. “Effie told us that, we used to joke about it.”

She nods. “You gave me a pearl once too. On the beach.”

“I did,” he says in a tone that’s a mix of a question and an answer at the same time.

“I still have it,” she admits.

This seems to have unlocked a new memory and he presses his lips together, his eyes scanning across his workspace like he’s reading words off a page. “I gave you a locket too, didn’t I?”

“It was your token,” she says encouragingly. “It had a picture of my mother and Prim… and Gale.”

He nods. “I guess I already knew then, about you two.” He looks unsettled for a moment, and Katniss wishes she could take back what she told him. He’s quiet, his expression almost settling into that broody look he’s always sporting now, but then he scrubs his hand over his face to clear it away. He flexes his fingers a few times in front of him and lets out a heavy breath, which reminds Katniss to breathe again too. “Your favorite color is green,” he finally says.

She’s surprised when he says it. Because it’s less about remembering something she’s told him, and more about why she had told him in the first place. It was the conversation they had on the train, after they’d argued over her keeping secrets. In that moment they had called a truce, and decided to become friends. He’s doing that again now, and all she has to do is get over her pride and accept his kindness, something that has always felt impossible for her to do.

“And yours is orange,” she says.

“Like Effie’s hair,” he agrees with a smile, like they’re keeping a secret. And just like that, she recognizes it. That Peeta really is still there.

******

She hears him in the hallway every night.

Peeta’s always walked with a heavy gait, and his footsteps are unmistakable at night when he roams the halls in search of sleep. She usually ignores it, but things feel different now, and this time, when she hears him stomping by, she opens her door.

“Another unsettling dream?” She says.

“Unfortunately not tonight, no,” he says. “Well it was certainly unsettling…” he shakes his head, unwilling to humor her. “I probably won’t be sleeping tonight.”

“What do they give you?” She asks, leaning lazily against the doorway.

He scratches behind his ear sheepishly. “They’re trying to wean me off the heavy sedatives, because I was forgetting how to breathe on them. So now I just get sleeping pills.”

“Which make the nightmares worse,” she concludes.

He looks at her with uncertainty for a moment, then nods.

“You want to come lay down?” She says and gestures over her shoulder toward her bunk. “It used to help – for both of us.”

“I probably shouldn’t,” he says, but he doesn’t make a move to leave. “Is Johanna in there?” She nods, although Johanna’s dead weight at night, since she swipes Katniss’s sleeping pills on top of her own. The morphling she siphons while “observing” in the hospital wing probably doesn’t help either. “Maybe that’s okay then, since we wouldn’t be alone.”

He climbs into her bed, and she settles beside him. The bed is small for one, and they have to tangle their limbs to fit, like when they shared a sleeping bag in the first Games. She hardly sleeps, because she can’t stop watching him. He looks just like Peeta when he’s sleeping. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest is the same, and his long tangle of lashes flutter against his cheek the same way when he drifts between sleep cycles. He even smells like him, she notices, as she tucks her chin against his chest.

She rolls onto her other side, so her back is to him, hoping that it will allow for her mind to rest. When sleep finally takes her, she dreams of their last night on the beach, when he’d lovingly tucked her in and she imagined that beautiful meadow from the song she’d always sing.

When she wakes, she’s immediately aware of the weight of his arm draped across her waist, and the firmness of his chest against her back. She peers at him over her shoulder, where his nose is nuzzled between her shoulder blades.

It’s always hard to tell what time it is in Thirteen without windows, but they at least set the lighting system to simulate the sunrise and sunset, which they claim optimizes a person’s circadian rhythm. The overhead lights are starting to glow faintly, which means the morning alarm will sound in the next hour.

She doesn’t want to disturb Peeta, but she needs to stretch her limbs from the cramped position she slept in. Her hips tip back, ever so slightly, bumping into his in the process, and she feels him, hard against her thigh. That dull ache strikes her again, creeping from her chest to low in her belly. She tucks her cheek back against her pillow and tries to ignore it, hoping to catch a few more minutes of sleep while she still can. In her lucid haze, she feels curious, though, and she swivels her hips back more deliberately.

This seems to wake him, and he takes in a sharp sort of breath that’s caught in his throat. His arm tightens around her, hand splaying flat across her stomach to press her pelvis into his. He swells against her back, with an almost imperceptible thrust, while his breathing grows heavy in her ear.

She remembers the feel of her own fingers circling between her legs the other night. It’s all she can think about with his fingertips brushing so close to the elastic of her sleep pants. It’s embarrassing how much she wants him to touch her, and while he wears his arousal fairly obviously, she can feel her own starting to dampen her underclothes.

His hand dips lower, touching the bare skin from where her shirt rides up. She angles her hips toward him, and her legs fall open in invitation. He’s still moving against her, picking up his pace when she hooks her thigh over his. His fingers stretch, palm bracing her against him, as he ghosts over the fabric of her pants. So close.

Her breath hitches in anticipation, and her hand covers his to urge it lower, but then his fingers start to flex, slipping from her hand, and he pulls himself out of bed abruptly.

“I should go. The wake up call will be soon,” he reasons, as he hurries toward the door.

She feels like she’s had the wind knocked out of her, and she slumps back on the mattress, haunted by the heat he’s left behind. She closes her eyes tightly and tries to calm the current humming through her body, but she’s still wound tight when the morning bells start to ring 30 minutes later.

The next night, she sits in bed watching the door and waiting for the sound of his footsteps. She practically pounces when she hears him approach.

“Can’t sleep?” She says casually, bouncing lightly on her heels to hide how eager she is to see him.

“Haymitch is snoring,” he says, and the light in his eyes, and the way his body seems to follow her every movement, like he’s caught in her magnetic field, makes her think he was just as eager.

“Is that what it is?”

He drops his voice an octave, tipping his face toward her slightly to maintain discretion. “He’s been fermenting grape juice in the closet. The first bottle was rancid, but he said the next bottle was good. He finished them both.”

She steps aside so he can enter, and follows him into bed. There’s no pretense after that. She listens for him, opens the door, and then they sleep. Just sleep.

People must know. There are cameras in all of the corridors, and Peeta sneaking into her room should draw concern, given that he’s tried to kill her. She wonders if maybe that’s why Coin allows it.

During the day, they don’t talk about it. They play Real or Not Real, skating around mostly safe topics, and she even shows him the plant book they’d been working on, pointing out all of the sketches he did. That night he brings her a pile of scrap paper with all the various plants he remembers from the last arena, and the next day they find spaces for them, getting help from her mother, Finnick, and Annie for the ones they’re unable to identify.

She goes nearly a week without a nightmare, but one night she dreams she’s in the Capitol with Squad 451. Boggs steps on a landmine that blows him in half. Mutts whisper her name as they chase her through the streets. One catches Finnick and he’s ripped to shreds. Prim stands at the gates of the President’s mansion and catches a silver parachute, just as it explodes.

She’s trapped and can’t wake up. She feels like she’s underwater, paddling desperately toward the surface that only seems to drift further and further away.

“Katniss,” she hears her name whispered just like the mutts in her dream. She can’t escape it. “Katniss,” she hears again.

And then she feels his lips on hers. Firm and familiar.

“Katniss, it’s not real,” he says, and then he kisses her again. “Not real, Katniss. It’s not real.”

“Peeta?” She says, finally coming back to herself. She’s crying now because he’s here. Peeta. He came back to her.

“Sorry,” he says, referring to the kiss. “You wouldn’t wake up.”

They’re both sitting up now. Her at the head of the bed and him in the middle. She’s still struggling to catch her breath from outrunning her nightmares, and she wants to keep them behind her, a thousand miles away if she can get there. She rolls forward on her knees to close the distance between them and kisses him again. It’s one of those kisses. One that awakens everything inside of her. One that will linger in her thoughts for months — maybe longer.

Whatever hesitation there was last time vanishes in an instance, and he pulls her into his lap, spreading her legs so they frame his hips. She’s the first to grind against him, and he pins her there with a hand on each thigh. She rolls her hips achingly slow along his length, separated by layers of sleep clothing, and she feels him harden beneath her. It makes her feel powerful, so she does it again, repeating the movement until he’s bucking up to match the motion. He urges her to lay back against her pillow, and his body blankets hers. He kisses her again, his tongue sweeping into her mouth with every thrust of his hips, like he’s making a map of her, in search of every place that makes her tick.

He shifts his weight onto one arm, and his other hand sweeps down her body and under her shirt. He finds her breast, nipple pebbled within his palm, and when he pinches it between his fingers she hisses. He grins at the way she seems to unravel, and continues to massage her breast experimentally, to draw out new sounds until he’s satisfied.

Johanna stirs in the bed beside them, and they freeze. Their eyes meet cautiously, waiting to be caught, but then Johanna just rolls over with a heavy sigh, and gives back into sleep. It doesn’t matter though, the spell has been broken.

“I should go,” Peeta says, sitting back on his knees.

Every nerve in her body seems to be thrumming. “Stay,” she insists.

His lips are swollen from their kisses and his sleep pants are still tented in his lap. He breathes deeply while he considers her request, but it’s obvious he can’t think clearly when all his blood has settled elsewhere. Eventually he nods, swiping his slick chin with the back of his hand and moving to adjust himself to effectively erase the impact of their activity, then he stretches back beside her.

She rolls onto her side to face away from him and stares at the wall. She knows she won’t be sleeping tonight, she’s too wired from her nightmares and now from the kissing too.

She tips her hips back, hoping to find him again, but he’s facing the opposite way, pretending to be asleep. She can’t stand it anymore, this tension she feels around him that leaves her starved for release. If he won’t help her, she decides she’ll take care of it herself. She closes her eyes and tries to remember the feel of him hard between her legs, her toes curl in anticipation, as her hand dips beneath the elastic of her pants and underclothes. She gasps when her fingers sweep through her damp heat and circles her sensitive bundle of nerves.

Peeta rolls back over at the sound. “Katniss?” He murmurs, sounding exasperated when he realizes what she’s doing. His hand follows her arm to between her legs, where his fingers find hers. “Let me do it,” he grumbles in her ear.

His breath hitches in the back of his throat when he touches her arousal, and he moves his fingers experimentally through her folds. “Have we done this before?” He whispers and she only shakes her head. His breath shudders again, sending a shiver down her spine, especially when she feels him tug her hips back to bump against his groin. “I couldn’t remember,” he says, and he must be talking about the other morning, when he was so quick to leave. “I thought I was having an episode.”

“No, this is real,” she says, her head lolling back against his chest, as he teases her center. “Keep going, I want you to.” She’s so wet that his fingers just slip around aimlessly, but when they finally find her clit, she lets out a strangled sounding cry before she can stop herself. He closes his other hand over her mouth to silence her, and then repeats the motion again with more confidence.

His hips are moving against her from behind, while his fingers circle around her clit with fervor. The sensation is overwhelming and she tries to anchor herself to anything she can wrap her hands around. The rigid muscles of his forearm as it flexes between her legs. His hand over her mouth. She reaches backward to touch his face, buried in the crook of her neck. His cheek is smooth, save for a short patch of stubble he must have missed while shaving. Her fingers tangle through his hair then settle around the nape of his neck to hold him steady.

He lavishes the sensitive flesh along her throat. His teeth grazing lightly before his tongue swirls around her pulse point, sucking it between his lips. There will probably be a mark in the morning, but right now it feels too good for her to care.

The pressure on her clit stills when he moves to dip a finger inside her. Her walls stretch then tighten around the intrusion. “More?” He murmurs, then grins against her neck at her eager nod. He adds a second finger, pumping them effortlessly through her arousal while using the heel of his hand to catch her cleft.

It all feels so good, so impossibly good, she bites into his hand to keep from making a sound. He seems to like it, so she bites harder, until she breaks the skin. They’re practically feral as they move together in a frenzy of thrusts and strokes. She’s so close to cresting something when something strikes Peeta.

“Get off of her!” Johanna is shouting, standing over them with her History of Military textbook, which is the closest thing to a weapon within reach.

Katniss realizes how it must look, Peeta’s hand around her neck, while she shudders with desperate gasps. He rolls away quickly, and leaves their compartment without a word.

“We were just sleeping,” Katniss says defensively.

"Who cares if you were fucking?” Johanna says. “You can’t be alone with him like that, he could kill you.”

At lunch the next day, Katniss can hardly look at anyone at the table. Her hair is down, and she smooths it over her neck constantly to hide the marks Peeta left across it. Peeta sits across from her, and she feels him watching her while he flexes his bandaged hand on the table.

“What happened to you?” Delly asks Peeta.

“I had an episode last night,” he lies, or maybe he isn’t. Maybe they both had a momentary lapse in sanity. “Bit my hand too hard trying to break out of it.”

“Good thing no one got hurt,” Johanna says pointedly. She turns her glare to Katniss. “So Katniss, hear from Gale recently?”

Katniss hunches further over her stew. “Yeah,” she mumbles. “They’re keeping count of all the pods they shoot down. Gale’s ahead of everyone else by nearly 100.”

“Must be killing you to not be there with him,” Johanna says coolly.

Katniss looks at Peeta and then looks away. They’re silent through the rest of the meal.

As they exit the cafeteria, Peeta pulls her aside to say, “Johanna’s right. We probably shouldn’t be doing this.”

*****

The rebels will be taking the Capitol any day now, and it’s decided that a Liberation Tour will take place. The surviving victors will stop at each district, en route to the Capitol, to distribute rations and gifts in celebration. Peeta volunteers to decorate sweets, and takes over the kitchen in Thirteen to do so.

Ever since he decorated the elaborate cake for Finnick and Annie’s wedding, people are fascinated to watch him work, and he’s in no short supply of assistants, starting an assembly line that at one point, Greasy Sae even joins.

Katniss is almost disappointed that his decorating has become so popular, because it means she never gets to see him. He’s always too busy demonstrating tasks and supervising others. And she misses him, now that he doesn’t sleep in her compartment anymore.

On the last evening of prep, when he’s putting together the final touches, she finally catches him alone, and helps him clean up and pack the tiny boxes of chocolates.

“Where do you think you’ll go after all of this is over?” Peeta asks.

It’s a weird thought to have. When this is over. She never pictured making it to this point. “I don’t know,” she says. “Back to Twelve, I guess. There are too many rules here.”

He frowns. “Have you been back? Since…”

“A couple of times. Your house is still there in Victor’s Village. We went inside to borrow one of your suits for Finnick and Annie’s wedding. There’s a group of people who’ve already moved back. They’ve been sifting through the rubble before the ground freezes.” She takes a deep breath, dreading her next words, “Giving people a proper burial.”

His expression is impossible to read, and she doesn’t push it. She changes the subject instead. “What about you?” She asks brightly. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. Wherever they’ll let me,” he says. “I’m not sure the doctors in Thirteen are through with me yet, and there are some Capitol doctors from the hijacking program that are willing to help fix me, under the terms of their surrender.”

“You’d stay in the Capitol?” She asks, and the thought makes her sad, because even though there are so many bad memories there, Peeta always seemed to flourish in the Capitol. He could be happy there, now that they aren’t trying to kill him.

“You think Gale will go back?”

“To Twelve?” she says. She tries to picture the Gale from Thirteen, going back to making rabbit snares in the woods. “Probably not. I don’t see him being happy there. He’s too good at the whole ‘war thing.’”

“So are you,” Peeta argues. “You’re the Mockingjay, after all.”

“My abilities as a soldier start and end with my ability to shoot straight. You can ask Boggs, he’ll be happy to tell you all about it.”

“You’ve been begging to get back into the action for weeks now,” he reminds her.

Ske keeps her head bowed while she focuses on her work. “Because I wanted to be the one to kill Snow. For a while, that felt like the only thing I had left. If I cared about anything else, it might get taken away again.” She blinks rappidly to stop the tears threatening at the corners of her eyes, covering it with a half hearted laugh.

“But you don’t feel that way anymore?”

She meets his eye for a moment, then looks away. “I don’t know.”

“Is that why it’s been so hard? To choose?”

She rolls her eyes and pushes the box away once it’s full. It always comes back to this. She sets another empty box on the counter and begins to fill it. It's the last box left.

“What? Between you and Gale? Not you too,” she says flatly. “Why would you care? You don’t even like me.”

He ducks his head sheepishly at the remark. “Yeah, but I’ve got a lot of money riding on this.”

“Ah, the frivolous riches of a Victor. Sorry to say, but I’m not choosing anyone.”

The way he looks at her leaves her paralyzed beneath his gaze. “Good,” he says. “That’s what I was betting on.”

“In that case…” she says, trying to relieve the tension. It takes a moment for her knees to stop trembling, and she leans her entire weight on her elbows instead. “You should come back to Twelve. When this is over. You know, for Haymitch. We’re the only family he’s got left." She pauses, the words sitting like ash on her tongue. "We’re the only family you’ve got left.”

His smile is sad, as he returns his attention to his work, and she senses it’s time for her to go. “I’ll be okay,” he says.

She turns to leave, but he stops her before she can reach the door when he says, “Hey, Katniss. You loved me -- before. Real or not real?”

It feels like all the air has been sucked from her lungs, and she stands there motionless. She turns, only enough to meet his eye from over her shoulder. “Real,” she finally allows herself to admit.

He nods thoughtfully a few times then returns to his work, and Katniss rushes out of the room before she does something stupid like tell him that she still does.

******

They leave the next morning. The remaining victors: Katniss, Peeta, Finnick, Annie, Johanna, Haymitch, and Beetee. They’re the only victors left. They take a hovercraft to Twelve, where a train is waiting. Not the cargo train that transported soldiers to the battlefields. This is the same train that took them as tributes to the Games.

While in Twelve, they deliver aid and assist in the recovery effort. Katniss holds Peeta’s hand after he digs through the rubble, and locates a piece of the old bakery sign. He doesn’t say anything for the rest of the day, and he excuses himself as soon as they board the train, skipping dinner to retire to his private car.

Katniss considers going to him, but Haymitch shakes his head. “It’s a lot for him to process at once,” he says. “I’ll keep an eye on him tonight.”

The train zigzags through the districts, and each night, Katniss has to remind herself that this is a good trip. That all of this will be over soon. During the day, she revels in the smiling faces who welcome them, knowing they’ll all sleep safely tonight with full bellies, and no worries of the Capitol’s wrath reaching them again. She finds herself sharing a train car with Johanna most nights, and they whisper over their fantasies of Snow meeting his final demise.

When they visit District 4, they stop at the ocean. Even Johanna steps into the water, ankle deep, to absorb the salty air, and the blissful calm that comes with it.

Finnick pulls them both aside on the beach. “We’re not leaving,” he tells them. “Annie and I, we’re staying. She’s pregnant, and the stress of going back there? She just doesn’t need that right now.”

Katniss hugs him tightly, and when Johanna hugs him too, she hears him tell her, “Give him hell for me.”

That night, Johanna is the one to lock herself away, so Katniss sits with Peeta and they linger in the dining car long after the meal has ended.

Haymitch enters. “The rest of the tour has been postponed,” he tells them. “We’re heading straight to the Capitol?”

“Why?” Peeta says. “What happened?”

“Snow’s dead,” he says, and lets the statement linger into silence for a long moment, while the news sinks in. Katniss knows that both Peeta and Haymitch are waiting for her to respond. To laugh, to cry, to blink even, but she can’t seem to do anything at all.

Peeta picks up the conversation for her. “How?”

“A suicidal banquet was held after the rebels breached the mansion tonight,” Haymitch says. “They’re pulling his body in the morning.”

“Why wait?” Katniss says, finally finding her voice again.

“They set the room on fire after, there might not be much left.”

“Were any of our soldiers hurt?” Peeta asks.

“No,” Haymitch says, giving Peeta a reassuring grin. “We had some good intel.”

“So it’s over then?” Katniss says slowly.

“They’re currently checking the line of succession as we speak. We’ll have to identify everyone who was in that room, then cross names off the list until we find the first one left alive. Hopefully, whoever that is, they’ve already been captured. But I know I’ll be sleeping better tonight.”

Katniss returns to her private car and orders a bouquet of white roses. She spends the rest of the night plucking each petal one by one until there’s nothing by bare stems left in the vase. She still doesn’t know how she feels. She’s not even numb, she’s just lost. They won, she should feel like they’ve won, but she doesn’t. It’s not even the fact that she wasn’t the one to deliver the killing blow. It was never a game. None of it. Nobody was ever going to win. It was no way to live.

When there’s a knock on her door, she doesn’t even have to guess who it is on the other side. “You okay?” Peeta asks.

She shrugs. “Are you?”

“Will any of us ever be?” He replies. “Can I? Could I?” He asks shyly, nodding into her compartment. “Would that be all right?”

She steps aside wordlessly to welcome him into her bed. She couldn’t imagine spending this night beside anyone else, and they spend it like they have every night before, wrapped around one another to fend off the unknown horrors that could lie ahead.

In the morning, they arrive in the Capitol, where Boggs is waiting to escort them.

“You decided to sweep in at the last minute to take all the credit?” He teases. Relief swells in her chest, and she doesn’t care if it’s against protocol, she hurls herself into his arms to hug him tightly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my word, about Snow,” he says into her hair. “We couldn’t get to him in time.”

She’s still conflicted by the news, but she’s too elated to see that Boggs is safe. “Who cares, the bastard’s still dead, right?” He looks at her warily. “And let Coin know, I have no interest in being a king maker. So long as you and Haymitch support her, I won’t stand in the way.” She leans forward to lower her voice. “I’m not telling her who I’m voting for, though.”

Boggs ruffles her hair affectionately. “Get out of here and go be a kid for once.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” she says with a mock salute as she backs away.

Gale’s arms circle her a moment later and he swings her through the air. “About time you showed up. How was the vacation?”

“Vacation? More like giving you the opportunity to finally pull your weight around here.”

A hovercraft flies low overhead, showering silver parachutes below. One floats into her hands and she recognizes the intricate decorations on the packaging. It’s the sweets Peeta made in Thirteen, mixed in with the ration packs that are being supplied. She hands it off to an empty handed Capitol child, and searches the crowd for Peeta, but he’s already slipped away.

******

It’s the first day of spring, her favorite day of the year.

Katniss wakes up at dawn and pulls on her father’s old hunting jacket. The morning air is still brisk with the bite of winter, but she doesn’t mind. She pulls out her thermos and warms her chest with a sip of pine tea.

The fence is never charged anymore, but it still stands as a fortress around the district. Thom installed a few gates though, including one at Katniss’s request, right outside of Victor’s Village, and she slips out into the woods with ease.

She checks her snares, then picks off a goose with an arrow. There’s a patch of mint that’s turned purple in the winter months, and she fills her spare satchel with it, picking off a few leaves to add to her thermos before she heads home.

As she cuts through the meadow, she pauses at the gaping hole in the earth that they hastily cleared out before the ground could freeze. They’ve filled it back in, best as they could throughout the winter, but the ground is lumpy and uneven. She notices the perimeter is dotted with a few dandelions, and she plucks them from the ground to lay upon the mass grave.

When she returns to Victor’s Village, she drops off her game bag, where Sae is eager to unload the day’s offerings, quickly putting her granddaughter to work prepping a stew to serve the volunteers later in the day. Katniss isn’t sure how this arrangement worked out exactly, Sae and her granddaughter moving into the spare bedroom in her house, but since there’s always a meal waiting for her whenever she comes home, she doesn’t mind it.

The only part of District 12 that was left unscathed by the firebombs was Victor’s Village, and since the houses are huge, there are two to three families bunking in each one for now. That’s why it isn’t surprising to see smoke billowing from Peeta’s chimney across the way. Delly’s been living there along with all the other orphaned merchants who decided to return.

Peeta’s house has a special oven that the Capitol installed when he moved in. It’s made of stone, the same type they had at the bakery, and can heat things at over 1000 degrees, twice as hot as standard kitchen ovens. Delly has been too nervous to get it started, and all of Katniss’s offers to figure out how to light it have been politely rebuffed (as if Katniss has a history of blowing things up), so every attempt at baking bread has been pale and lumpy. Judging by the thick smoke coming out of the chimney though, it looks like that may have changed today.

"Are we finally going to get the good bread today?” Katniss calls out as she crosses the courtyard toward his old house.

She’s stunned, stopping short at the base of the porch steps when it’s Peeta who opens the door. She hasn’t seen him since the liberation of the Capitol a few months ago. There were a few events they had to make appearances for, like the signing of the Treaty of Surrender, but then she went back to Thirteen, and eventually Twelve, while he stayed behind for treatment.

“It’s been a while,“ he says. "We’ll have to see if I still have it in me.”

She’s rendered speechless, and can only blink dumbly in response. He looks good. His hair looks freshly cut, his skin looks clean, and he’s even put some weight back on, which was near impossible on Thirteen’s rations. He looks more at ease than she’s ever seen him, even before the first Games. His smile is bright, and he’s lost any trace of that clouded look he had before.

“You’re back,” she finally manages to say.

His smile widens. “Guess I am.”

“Since when?”

“The Capitol released me last week and my train didn’t get in until this morning,” he says.

“Delly didn’t mention it.”

“I kind of asked her not to. I hadn’t decided if I was coming back for sure, until I got off at the train station.”

“Does Haymitch know?” She says

“He’s the one who picked me up, actually.”

“Typical,” she says, folding her arms across her chest. “That man, always keeping secrets.”

“It was probably my fault,” Peeta admits.

“Don’t worry, I get it.” She shifts her weight between her feet. She can’t think of anything to say. All she knows is that she doesn’t want to leave. “How are you?”

“Better.”

“You look it.”

“Thanks, I think,“ he says with a laugh.

“No, I mean it. You’ve lost that,” she waves her hand in front of her face, “look.” She grimaces and shakes her head, she always says the wrong thing, but he doesn’t seem bothered. “It’s good to see you smiling again.”

He takes mercy on her by changing the subject. "Are your mother and sister back too?”

“No, they stayed in Thirteen to finish her doctor training. She has a few more years left in the program.”

“You didn’t stay with them?” He says, looking surprised.

“Well, now that I’ve lost my Mockingjay privileges, I’d probably only last a week before they kicked me out for disobeying orders.”

“You think they’ll come back when she’s finished?”

“I hope so. Otherwise, I’m the most experienced healer in all of District Twelve.”

“We’re doomed.”

She laughs. “Hey, I treated you once, and you didn’t die, remember?”

“A ringing endorsement, if I’ve ever heard one,” he says wryly. “We’ll just have to strategically hide the fake leg.” Their laughter fades in the warming spring air, and they linger in silence.

She doesn’t want to go, but there isn’t a reason to stay either. She rolls her lips together, and gives him a formal nod. “Well I’ll let you get back to it,“ she says.

“Hey, you want to go out sometime?” He says abruptly, before she can step away.

“Like on a date?”

“If that’s what you want to call it,” he shrugs. He leans against the porch railing, tracing his finger along the worn wood while she mulls over the question.

“Seems kind of formal. Aren’t we technically married?”

His nose scrunches and he scratches behind his ear, letting out a nervous laugh. “I don’t know. Are we? That’s been a point of contention with my therapy. No one knows the answer for sure.”

“Not real,” she says.

"Good,” he says, nodding a few times before the corner of his mouth twitches into a small smile. “That’s probably something I’d want to remember.”

She’s caught off guard by the statement, when she shouldn’t be. He wanted it to be real, she’s always known that. What surprises her, is even considering marrying him some day, and thinking she wouldn’t mind it.

It’s too much to think about, so she quickly changes the subject. “Why would you want to go out with me anyway? You don’t even like me,” she reminds him.

He flashes a contrite smile, like he realizes he’ll never live that comment down. “Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, and he tilts his head to the side to avoid the late morning sun. “But I think I could be persuaded.”

“Wow, that must have been some therapy,” she says dryly.

“I don’t know, the objective was to make me sane…”

The statement hangs into silence, and he frowns, probably thinking she’s been deflecting his original question, and maybe she has.

“You can say no, too,“ he says quickly, as if he senses the growing tension. "That’s kind of the point of asking. If you’re not interested I’ll buzz off. I don’t want you to think I only came back because I assumed I’d win by default.” He grimaces. “Because it’s not winning. You’re not some prize…”

"You doing anything right now?” She says, interrupting him.

“Aside from surgically extracting my foot from my mouth, not much.”

She grins. “I hope you don’t need a healer for that.”

He laughs, his smile bright and again at ease.

"You want me to show you around?” She says.

His eyes cut across Victor’s Village, and then past the gate where the town used to be, before it was turned into rubble. “It didn’t look like there’s much to see, based on the last time I was here.”

“That’s because you don’t know where to look.”

While most of the area around the square is still piled beneath dense rubble that’s hard to clear, the structures in the Seam were all made of thin rotting wood, saturated in coal dust. When the fire bombs fell, there was barely even ash left behind, that’s how easily it burned. That’s where most of the rebuilding efforts have been focused since the end of the war. It’s a blank canvas.

Of the eight hundred District Twelve survivors, fewer than two hundred have returned so far. Most have stayed in Thirteen. Others, like Gale and his family have relocated to other districts, since people are allowed to move freely between them now. While Twelve has started to rebuild, a lot of volunteers from other districts have come in on the train to help. They stay for a week or two at a time to offer spare tools and a helping hand. Now that the damage to the Capitol has been mostly cleared, they’re starting to ship heavy duty trucks, capable of moving a couple tons of stone and dirt at a time, far more than the fleet of horse drawn carts Twelve was initially using.

The Seam is close to the train station, because that’s where the tracks run — where the coal is. So they’ve set up some temporary trailers and tents for volunteers to stay, and a pop up market, made up of simple, covered stands, where they sort out goods for distribution. It’s also become the natural spot for trading basic services.

Katniss has her own stand, where she prepares pelts and deerskin leather when she has it. Delly joins her most days and helps her sew the smaller pelts together into something more usable. Unfortunately, deerskin isn’t great for shoes, but Delly has designed some fur lined work gloves that Katniss is getting pretty good at making too. Sometimes they make salves and herbal remedies using whatever plants Katniss has collected in the woods, and treat whoever is in need of it, since they both had extra medical training in Thirteen. It’s a real catch all kind of stand.

Delly’s the only other familiar face in Twelve to Peeta, so Katniss figures she’s the only other person he would be interested in seeing, and that’s where they go first.

Delly squeals when she sees him. “You made it!” She says, launching herself into his arms. Katniss becomes painfully aware that she didn’t think to hug him back when she first saw him. In fact, they’ve been hovering just out of the other’s reach through the mile walk over here.

“I made it,” he confirms.

She pulls away. “Did you start the oven?”

“Nice to see you too, Delly,” he teases.

She ignores him and guides him a few stands over, where there’s a paltry spread of Delly’s pale, miss shapen loaves and a plate of neglected cookies.

“What is this?” Peeta says, trying not to sound too horrified, although he obviously looks it.

“The bakery,” Delly says.

“I made cookies,” Katniss chimes in weakly.

He touches her arm and smiles at her gently. “You made something,” he agrees. She should be annoyed with him for being condescending, but this is the first time he’s touched her in months, and all she can do is smile at him dreamily in response. He turns back to Delly. “Well you seem to have this covered, what do you need me for?”

“Fill this stand,” she says, unamused.

“I was planning on helping out with the cleanup effort,” he says. All Katniss can focus on is his hand leaving her arm and tucking loosely into the pocket of his slacks. She misses his touch already, even with him standing right next to her.

“And what do you think all those volunteers are going to eat?” Delly says.

“There aren’t any bread bushes in season,” Katniss adds. “I checked.” This earns her another smile, and it emboldens her to brush his arm this time.

Peeta takes notice, watching the tentative path of her fingers down his forearm while he rolls his bottom lip between his teeth. “I suppose I can find the time to do both,” he says, catching Katniss’s hand in his, and their joined hands hang between them.

“Funny how that worked out,” Delly says, a knowing glint in her eye.

“Well seeing as you and Katniss are able to clothe, feed, and heal the entire district on a daily basis, it’s the least I can do.”

Delly is distracted by something over Peeta’s shoulder. “There’s Thom,” she says. “I’m going to check to see if we’re still on schedule for today. Katniss, is Sae working on supper?”

“Goose and rabbit stew,” she confirms.

“How do I look?” she asks Peeta.

He looks perplexed. “I don’t know? Cold?” he says, noting her flushed cheeks.

She rolls her eyes and turns to Katniss for approval. “You look great,” she says.

“What was that about?” Peeta says as Delly saunters away.

“You of all people have to ask?”

His eyebrows lift with understanding. “Oh,” he says, looking embarrassed for not recognizing it sooner. He looks down at their joined hands, and brushes his thumb over her knuckles, then retracts it to comb his fingers through his hair. “Well it sounds like I have to get started on a couple dozen loaves of bread for tomorrow, so I should probably get going.”

“You’ll need supplies for that, right? I can get you a cart and show you the storage warehouse.”

Thom gets them a spare cart and Katniss helps Peeta fill it with flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. He jokingly asks if there’s an industrial stand mixer stashed away, and she knows he isn’t serious, but she’s pretty sure she can pull a few strings through Sae or Boggs or Prim to get one shipped in from kitchen in Thirteen. “Give me a few days,” she says.

“How’d I know you were going to say that,” he says, loading the last of the flour into the cart.

The ride back to Victor’s Village is long, since the cart constrains them to only the cleared trails. Peeta looks awkward behind the reins, lifting and pulling on them occasionally, even though the horses know the paths well enough to walk them on their own.

“It’s kind of a dark thought,” he begins, after they’ve been riding in silence for a while. “But you would have made a good mentor.” She looks at him quizzically. “You’re resourceful,” he elaborates. “You know exactly what’s needed and how to get it. You took a district made only of ash and figured out a way to thrive.”

“I hardly did it on my own,” she says.

“Take the compliment,” he says, his grin teasing. “It’s a part of my therapy.”

“Being nice to me?”

His eyes don’t leave the road. “Identifying the qualities that explain my feelings towards you.”

She purses her lips while she studies his face. “I have a list too,” she admits. “I started it kind of late — later than I should have. And hadn’t even realized I had started it at all, but while you were…” she trails off with a sigh. “Not at your best. I made a list of the qualities you still had. To remind myself that you were still in there somewhere.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Well, you decorated Finnick and Annie’s wedding cake so beautifully, so you were still a painter, and a baker. And you wandered the corridors at night because there were no windows in the Thirteen compartments. You could never sleep without opening a window, it always made you feel suffocated. There were smaller details too. You never took sugar in your tea. And you double knotted your shoelaces,” she finished, nodding toward the laces on his boots.

They sit in silence for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “For giving up on you.”

His smile is easy, but strained. “I don’t blame you. I said some pretty awful things to you.”

“Nothing that I didn’t need to hear.”

“You didn’t deserve it,” he says adamantly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Neither did you.”

The cart pulls up to Peeta’s house and she helps unload it. “I’ll go bring this back,” she says, taking the reins.

He stops her with a hand on her hip, and she pauses on the step of the cart, turning to face him. “Well, goodnight Katniss,” he says, lingering shyly.

She stays there too, waiting. Finally he works up the nerve, and brushes a chaste kiss against her lips. It’s over almost before it begins, but somehow it leaves her feeling like she’s flying. She can’t stop smiling, and he can’t either. They’ve shared hundreds of kisses, thousands even, but she thinks this may be her favorite kiss of all.

******

When she wakes, the other side of the bed is still warm. Her fingers stretch, tickled by the coarse hairs that pepper his chest. Her palm flattens across the broad expanse, where she can feel it rise and fall rhythmically. She lets her hand drift lower, the muscles in his abdomen tensing beneath her touch as she brushes past his belly button, to where the blanket is draped over his lap.

When they started sleeping together a few weeks ago, he teased her for immediately getting dressed after. She was always worried about something happening in the night that would require a quick escape. “What if you were naked,” she’d asked, and he only laughed and said, “Then I’d be naked outside.”

Sae’s got her granddaughter downstairs though, so now he puts his undershorts back on to sleep in, so he can remain decent, just in case.

“No nightmares?” He says now, his voice still husky from sleep.

“Not today,” she says. Today is the first time in seventy six years that there won’t be a reaping. "Today is a good day.”

She tugs on the elastic waistband of his undershorts to free him, then wraps her fingers around his velvety skin. He hardens quickly within her palm, and she shifts in the bed, sitting up to hover over him.

“A very good day,” he agrees, his eyebrows quirking upwards and his smile lazy when she takes him into her mouth. He hums his approval. “I think I could spend the whole day right here.”

She hitches a leg over his waist to straddle him, and he catches the hem of her nightgown as it rides up, stripping it up over her head. “They’re having a celebration in the town square this afternoon,” she says, hissing when he weighs one of her breasts in his hand. “At two. We should be there.”

He groans. “We can sleep in then.”

She leans forward to kiss him, and he takes advantage of this new position, tipping her hips back to roll her center against his length.

He grins, carding his fingers through her loose hair to push it behind her shoulders. She loves when he smiles while he kisses her. His lips are pulled tight, so it’s shallow and full of teeth, but he’s happy. A few months ago, it felt impossible that he’d ever feel that way around her again, so now she revels in every sign of it.

She breaks the kiss and smiles apologetically. “My mother and sister are coming for it. Their flight gets in this morning.”

He grimaces, checking the sunlight trickling into the room to gauge what time it is. “When? Am I going to have to sneak out the window?”

“At least you’ll be decent,” she teases.

He pins her hips and bucks his off the mattress to thrust against her a few times. “Hey now, you started this,” he reminds her.

“Under much duress on your part,” she says, biting her lip when his fingers dip between her legs. His thumb swirls through her slick heat, circling her clit lazily.

“Exactly. I’m not sure I even like you.”

She arches an eyebrow as she poises his hardened cock at her entrance, his want for her clearly evident. “Still?”

She sinks down onto him and his eyes slip shut. He smiles, content. “No, I think it might be something else.“

“Something else, huh?”

As they move together, she knows this would have happened anyway. That her fire always needed his gentle strength to survive. That she could live a hundred lifetimes, and always find herself right here.

So after, she asks him, “You love me. Real or not real?”

And he tells her, “Real.”

#promptsinpanem #specialchallenges #fivetenfifteen #submission #absnow

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sunsetsrmydreams · 4 years ago

Text

This began as a prompt posted by @mellarked-katnisseverdeen "What would've happened if Peeta went to work in the Mine?"

It was preread and beta'd by @awkwardeverlark @justajjfan and @lovely-tothe-bone. Thanks so much guys!

All mistakes are mine!

For @promptsinpanem and kika.

The Mine. Rated M

Peeta and Katniss grow together in the shadow of the Mine.

Katniss Everdeen elbows her way through the group of miners clogging the large metal building at the edge of District Twelve.

Diminutive stature notwithstanding, Katniss was now considered a full fledged adult as her last reaping was just over two months ago.

When the vividly pink woman from the Capitol pulled another girls’ name from the reaping bowl, she had been almost underwhelmed. Katniss had been prepared to go, knowing deep down, it was meant to be.

But it was a different Seam girl dragged to the stage that day.

She couldn’t figure out why it felt like the hand of fate sweeping the board clean. She continued on with her work, feeling strangely detached. Hunting, making her trades, caring for her family. It’s all just the business of living but she can’t help but feel that something is missing in her life, though she’s afraid to examine it further.

As she makes her way up to the worn wood counter, her thought is interrupted when she catches a thread of conversation that makes her drop onto a nearby chair.

“Peeta Mellark, the bakers kid, is working in the mine.”

Katniss can feel the color leach from her face.

“Yeah. I saw him comin’ out of the Justice Building with a hardhat.”

The very idea of it makes her sick to her stomach as she listens closely to the gossip spreading around the Hob. Every account is different, ranging greatly from person to person.

Every set of eyes caught a different view of the story and rushed to relay their parts. Katniss hung on their words, her brain trying to turn each recounted scenario over in her mind.

“Peeta refusing to marry the cobbler’s daughter before storming to the Justice Hall and signing up for the mines.”

“Peeta being tossed out on his ear by that harpy Mrs. Mellark as she rants how glad she is to be rid of him at last.”

“Peeta finally hitting his witch-of-a-mother back and being dragged away by Peacekeepers before being banished to the Seam.”

The tales grow more fantastic as she listens. But one thing’s for certain; people are saying that Peeta is now contracted to slave his life away in the same darkness that killed her father.

Katniss can’t repress a shudder as she hauls two unwanted squirrels off of Sae’s counter.

“You goin’ to be alright, girl? You ain’t lookin’ so hot,” Sae asks kindly.

“I’m fine,” Katniss states, shoving the remaining game into her bag before she darts out of the Hob and walks at a brisk pace until she reaches the Merchant quarter. Her stomach lurches as she treads closer to the bakery, stepping quietly up the back steps to knock.

The door is pulled open and a blonde head peeks out. Her heart thumps loudly...but it’s only Bran, the oldest Mellark son. With wide, disbelieving eyes, Katniss looks over his shoulder to find Mr Mellark peering at her sadly and with a small shake of his head, he returns to his work.

She takes the two small loaves in return for her squirrels and stumbles back down the stairs, lost in a haze as she walks the main road back to the Seam.

Peeta should’ve handed her that bread. He would’ve smiled at her and wished her a good day in the same warm voice as he had every trading day for the last two years.

Katniss looked forward to each and every one of those moments. He was the one person who had cared enough to save her after her father died and over time, Peeta had become something more to her...something special. Always with a kind word, smile or deed, Peeta made her hard days a little brighter.

Cheeks flushed with anger, Katniss kicks a stone across the dirt road. How could this happen? How could Mr. Mellark allow his youngest son to be removed from the bakery?

Still absorbed in her thoughts even after the walk home, Katniss absently calls to Prim as she steps through the door and into the kitchen to prepare the rabbit she had saved for dinner.

“Prim, I’m home.”

Shaking, Katniss attempts to make the required cuts to remove the pelt and though she hears Prim’s soft footsteps, she doesn’t turn around trying desperately to get a handle on her emotions.

“Is everything okay?” Prim asks, eyes following Katniss’s jerky movements with concern.

“Yeah, it’s fine,”she says, a weak attempt at normal.

It’s so rare that a Merchant ends up in the mine that the knowledge would’ve spread like wildfire through the district. Prim’s next words shouldn’t have surprised her...yet somehow they did.

“I heard Peeta Mellark started at the mines today.”

The words were said softly but they caused Katniss’s stomach to twist anyway, her movements frozen with the knife in hand, fingers clenched so tightly the knuckles turned white.

The reaction was not lost on Prim and her sweet sister hugs her gently, making her eyes sting.

“I know Peeta always liked you, he was always staring at you in school,” Prim smiles. “You can really keep a secret Katniss, because until this moment, I didn't know you liked him too.” Katniss chuckled weakly, unable to summon the words to dispute it.

“You should talk to him.”

“I can’t.”

“I know you’re scared, probably even more so now, but Katniss...some things are worth taking a risk.”

Katniss smiles at her little sister, who all of a sudden, doesn’t seem so little. “I’ll think about it,” she murmurs and returns to her work.

******************

The talk dies down, no one has the energy to gossip for long.

Katniss is out a whole hour earlier than usual after another terrible night. Nightmares have plagued her since her father’s death and now they feature Peeta trapped in the dark. A constant reminder of why she should never seek him out.

But it’s out of her hands today.

Lost in her own head, Katniss didn’t see the stocky form walking down the path until she was practically on top of him. Her eyes met his and even through the layers of soot and grime she knows it’s Peeta. All blue eyes and dusty rumpled curls, but really it’s his smile that sets him apart. Shy and sweet..and always aimed at her.

Blue eyes take her in, and her own move over him in turn.

“Good Morning, Katniss.” His voice was low and gentle and the way he says her name makes her melt...it’s been too long.

“Hi Peeta.” Still of few words but she just can’t stop herself from returning his smile. She clears her throat, “are you just off your shift?” It’s a roundabout question that will confirm everything and he doesn't disappoint.

“Yeah, they put all the new recruits on the night shifts,” he confirms. “I live five houses down to the left. Moved in last week,” he points to an identical row of shacks to the side of them.

“Are you..okay?” She blurts.

“I’m feeling pretty good right now,” Peeta grins at the blush that stains her cheeks. “You can come see me if you want,” he scuffs his toe in the dirt and peeks up at her shyly.

“Maybe,” Katniss whispers and it’s enough to make him grin wider.

“I should go,” she says as her heartbeat kicks up.

Peeta must notice her pulling away but he doesn’t hold it against her. “Yeah, me too. Have a good day Katniss.” And with that, he turns and walks down to his new home.

Her eyes follow him the whole way.

**********************

Katniss avoids him for the rest of the week. Though she still leaves early enough to prop herself against the corner of a house, just out of his view, needing to see with her own eyes that he makes it home safe. By the end of the week, she sees that he’s already losing weight and his shoulders are starting to slump.

Guilt burns through her. Peeta was there for her when she was at her lowest and now she can’t even drop by his house to make sure he’s okay? She has no idea if he knows where to get food or supplies. Surviving in the Seam is very different from living in town.

With a sharp nod to herself, Katniss continues to the woods with one thing on her mind. She will be visiting Peeta tonight with something worthy of settling the debt of her childhood.

The woods are plentiful. Boasting wild apple trees and the last berries of the season. The snare lines gives her two rabbits and she shot a few squirrels with her bow. Just then the wind turns and she hears it, a faint gobble coming from the other side of the hill and Katniss grins to herself as she rushes silently to the covey.

A turkey would make a fine gift indeed.

She lets her arrow fly.

****************

Tired from the hunt but flushed with pride, Katniss carefully made her way out of the woods with her bounty of not one...but two turkeys, stuffed in her large game bag. She was forced to shed her father’s old flannel shirt so she could tie it into a sack for the rest of her haul. Shrugging her jacket back on over her undershirt she pulls the bags over her shoulders.

She moves slowly toward the bustle of the hob, muscles straining under the weight of her game bag. Sae is more than happy to take one of the turkeys and both of the rabbits. It’s a fair amount of coin that she quickly places in her pants pocket.

Katniss heads off to town for the rest of her trades. Two squirrels to the baker for two loaves of bread. The scowl was free.

Berries to her friend Madge, the Mayor’s daughter who was never one to gossip but does ask about Peeta. “Is he alright?” “Have you seen him?” “Is he really working in the mine?” All Madge’s questions were met with her quiet but affirmative answers. It reminds Katniss that she has somewhere to be and with a quick goodbye, she hurries off her destination.

With her load lightened, she makes good time. Turning up in front of the fifth house on the left, she scuffs her boot not quite ready for this moment. The night shift doesn’t begin for at least two hours so she bites her lip, hoping she’s not about to wake him and reaches out to knock.

Katniss hears a ruckus inside before the door flies open, startling her. When her eyes focus, she’s met by a solidly muscled chest, pale with just the faintest sprinkle of blonde hair. A white, unbuttoned shirt frames it perfectly.

“My eyes are up here, Everdeen.”

Katniss feels heat rushing to her cheeks as her jaw snaps shut. Peeta’s amused tone doesn't help the situation as embarrassment flows through her. She is seconds away from running when his soft voice coaxs her to meet his eyes.

“I was just kidding, Katniss,” he adds, hurriedly buttoning his shirt closed. “Would you like to come in?”

“Okay.” She brushes past him as he holds the door open for her.

The inside of the tiny shack is sad and bare and she shouldn’t be surprised but she is. Not a single remnant of his town life can be seen. A threadbare couch, rickety table and chair are the room’s only occupants.

The Baker might get more than a scowl from her the next time she sees him.

How dare they send Peeta away with nothing but the clothes on his back! A throat cleared behind her and she turned quickly. Now it seems he’s the embarrassed one with streaks of pink highlighting his cheeks and it makes her heart kick hard in her chest.

“I know it’s not much…” Peeta trails off, because what else can he say?

She scrambles to think of something to lighten the mood. “I guess it could use a little color.” It makes him chuckle and Katniss beams.

“Can I get you some water?”

“No. I just ...I brought this for you.” she says, pulling the large bird from her bag.

His sapphire eyes are wide and glued to the turkey, “Katniss, I can’t accept that, I have nothing to trade.”

“It’s not a trade. It’s for you,” she tells him stubbornly.

“Why?”

She wonders how he could ask that. “You gave me food once, when I needed it.”

“You mean the bread, from when we were kids? I think we can let that go.”

“It’s not just because of that. I just... want you to have it.”

“Katniss, it’s killing me to admit it, but I don’t know what to do with a bird that size,” he says ruefully. “You should take it home to Prim.”

This is not going the way she pictured. Katniss would hand him the turkey, he would be grateful and smile then her debt would be paid.

Then it dawns on her. He doesn’t know how to process the bird. All his family’s meat had come from the butcher and her squirrels were only a single meal and were already prepared for cooking by her own hands. Peeta hasn’t learned how to parcel it out, canning soup and drying jerky so he’ll have food for later. A process she happens to be familiar with after years of winter preparations for her family.

Katniss knows what she needs to do.

“I’m not taking this turkey anywhere Peeta Mellark. We have over an hour before you have to get ready for your shift and you’re going to help me gut this bird,” she shakes it by the neck for emphasis. At his raised eyebrows, Katniss realizes this is probably the most she’s ever said to him.

A smile stretches across his face followed by a bark of laughter. He flings his arm towards the kitchen and offers gallantly, “after you.”

By the end of the hour they have the turkey parted out into several meals. The bones soaking in water for broth, and a large portion cooked for his dinner and breakfast tomorrow. The meat and soup pot takes up most of the banged up coldbox, seeing all that empty space made her glad she had come by today.

Katniss closes the metal door and turns, catching Peeta watching her thoughtfully, “I’ll be back tomorrow, same time.” She states as she loops her game bag over her shoulder and starts for the door.

“Katniss...” she hesitates as Peeta carefully takes her hand. “Thank You.”

His large hand envelops hers and a quiet, “you’re welcome,” leaves her lips before he pulls away and she walks outside.

The skin of her hand tingles all the way home.

**********************

The following day Katniss gathers all the herbs she can find, along with more apples, mushrooms and acorns. The snares yielded four rabbits and she shot as many squirrels, making it a good haul. She made her way through the meadow with a skip in her step, rushing through her trades, selling all but two rabbits to Sae so she could skip the bakery.

Katniss walked briskly home to drop off a rabbit and collect all the unused jars, and supplies she could find before going straight to Peeta’s.

His door swings open at the first knock, a grinning Peeta stands before her wearing a smartly buttoned grey shirt.

“Hello Katniss,” his eyes darted to her game bag which was full to bursting.

“My eyes are up here, Mellark,” she blushes when he laughs at her joke, causing her to chuckle a little herself.

“Please come in,” Peeta says through a smile, ushering her through to the kitchen. She can feel the warmth of his hand hovering over her lower back, wishing for a moment he would let it settle there.

Weeks go by in the same fashion, and to her surprise, the comfort and ease she feels around Peeta continues to grow. They talk, more and more and Katniss is sure she’s never said as much in her whole life. And he laughs when she makes a joke even if it's one he’s heard before. She lives for his smiles, lucky for her they are plentiful and cause her own.

*********

The woods have been generous, allowing her to fill her family’s winter stores as well as Peeta’s. The beauty of the turning trees and fragrant cool air infuses her with energy. So, while winter is always on her mind, this year, it doesn’t loom as fearfully as in years past allowing her to enjoy her days and evenings with Peeta.

Now, most of the time anyway, she arrives empty handed...but he’s no less happy to see her. They talk and laugh, small innocent touches become the norm, and while she can see the exhaustion in his face, Katniss can see joy there too, it makes her giddy to think she’s the cause.

One day, they’re diligently canning more soup and he suddenly stops, looking at her intently, his usual smile is absent and it makes her frown.

“Katniss…” Peeta glances over to his rapidly filling pantry, “why are you doing this?”

She shrugs, dipping the ladle back into the soup pot.

“Is this all about some imagined debt? Because you don’t owe me anything,” he says gruffly. Peeta reaches out and stills her motions, setting her work to the side. And when he turns the full force of those big blues eyes on her, she caves.

“At first...it was about repaying a debt,” Katniss offers, her voice just louder than a whisper.

“And now? What is it for you now, Katniss?”

“It’s for me,” she answers simply.

Moving another step closer before standing on her tiptoes, Katniss leans in quickly and presses a quick kiss to his cheek but she finds herself lingering there, nuzzling his jaw gently. Peeta brings his hands to her waist to steady her. Pulling away slightly, she meets his eyes as they darken, a sigh breathing out as he moves forward to return a kiss to her cheek.

Peeta leans away, his hot eyes fixed on her, waiting. He would never take more than she allows and knowing that is enough to give her courage to lean up and meet his lips.

The kiss is her first.

It’s soft and warm and she moves nearer just as he drawers her closer. He breaks the kiss sooner than she would like but soothes her with a flurry of tiny pecks across her face, making her chuckle.

It is the first of many days spent this way.

************

It’s been more than a week since she’s seen him. Katniss had to spend every last minute she could in the woods, taking advantage of the temperate weather to gather as much as she was able before the cold blew in, sending her quarry to their burrows.

She’d missed him.

Just seconds after her knock Peeta swung the door widely, his smile falling into confusion as Katniss jumps into his arms, knocking him off balance. They crumple to the floor and her flurry of desperate kisses makes him laugh and their teeth clink. Katniss tries to refocus him to the task at hand and is successful when she slips her cool hands under his shirt. A low groan vibrates his throat and makes her shiver.

Peeta’s head thumps lightly back to the floor as he studies her with heavy lidded eyes.

“I missed you too.” Peeta runs his hands up her arms and over her back. She doesn’t know if it’s his words or his wandering hands that cause her entire body to flush as heat settles in her core.

Still atop of him on a dust covered floor, and Katniss knows there’s no place she’d rather be. She carefully moves her legs to straddle him and his eyes go wide.

“Katniss-”

She can feel him hard beneath her and gives into the urge to press against him. A gasp rises unbidden and Peeta moans in return as his hands drop to her hips. The pressure of his grip is euphoric and she moves again.

Katniss sits up, gaining the leverage she needs, and not to be outdone, Peeta follows. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kisses him deeply, grinding her center against him, chasing that burning pleasure. His hands loosen their grip and move up her sides until he brushes the underside of her breasts. At her nod, those hands cup over her breasts. The sensation is as overwhelming for her as it is for Peeta who can’t stop his hips from thrusting up, her loud moan is all the approval he needs as he does it again and again

“Katniss..sorry..I’m already close,” he grunts in her ear. The feel of his lips at her ear, hot and soft is enough to send her flying to her peak. As she gasps and shakes through her release, Peeta wraps his arms around her tightly, thrusting harshly twice more before coming with a loud groan that she can feel vibrating through her chest. They collapse onto the floor in a breathless heap, the occasional shudder still running through them.

“I’ve loved you forever you know...”

Peeta’s voice was sleepy, hardley a whisper. She probably wouldn't have heard it if her face wasn't tucked into the crook of his neck. She pulled away minutely and his muscles went rigid as he cautiously met her eyes.

Katniss waited for a wave of fear to roll her under but it didn’t come, having drained away, drop by drop over the months they’d spent together.

She wasn’t quite ready to return the words though, so instead, she leaned up and kissed him. His body slowly relaxed, a grin lit his face as he hopped up and offered her a hand up off the floor.

******

The beauty of fall was gone, giving way to the somber notes of winter. Grey permeated everything in the district, lowering Katniss’s mood.

Quotas had been extended at the mine so her evenings with Peeta were also cut short. Many afternoons he barely had the energy to eat before laying his head in her lap.

“I’m so tired, Katniss.” he whispers before falling into a fitful sleep for their remaining time together. After seeing the purple hollows under his eyes she can’t begrudge him that extra hour of much needed rest. Katniss contented herself with his presence, running her fingers through unruly curls, pressing light kisses to his forehead until it was time to wake him.

****************************

A distant rumble of thunder wakes her out of a sound sleep. Katniss leans up slowly, scanning the dark room, trying to explain the feeling of dread welling in her chest. She's warm, she'd bundled herself in every layer she owned before bed, it makes her groggy and sluggish and she shakes her head to clear it.

A horn blast wales through the night. He heart leaps into her throat, it only takes her seconds before she’s flying off the bed and racing out of the house, leaving her hunting boots sitting lonely by the door.

Her panic forces the air out of her lungs. Faster, faster until she reaches it.

The Mine.

Body numb with cold, Katniss stares at the gaping maw before her. The entrance is dark and unforgiving, if there are other people around she doesn’t see them...can’t see them.

Katniss’s eyes are trained on the mouth of that unforgiving beast, begging it silently to release it’s jaws and relinquish its prey. Finally, there’s movement and the clang of metal as men heave out onto the frozen ground.

But none of them are Peeta.

She wants to scream.

Katniss claws her way through the crowd to get a closer look, but all the forms are rangy and unfamiliar. She moves closer, gliding right through the mine guards as they try to hold back the crowd. Walking ever closer to the black of her nightmares.

To get Peeta, she will go down there herself.

Just as she reaches out, another metal bang vibrates her eardrums, and another load of men spill out into the dark. She looks them over but can tell immediately they are Seam. The wail has just started to build in her throat. Her eyes swing to the back frantically searching, eyes catching on a crumpled form on the steel floor. Blonde hair peeks through the soot but his eyes remain closed. Katniss starts to leap in after him but is grabbed from behind and hauled back fighting and screaming, but a voice from her past breaks through.

“Katniss, calm down, I’m going to get him. Run to your mother and tell her to get ready.” Gale says. She hasn’t seen him in years, not since he started in the mines. She’s not sure she can trust him with this.

“I’m not going to leave him! I’m not going to do that!” She screams and tries to shake herself loose.

“You’re wasting time he doesn’t have. Go now. We’ll be right behind you.”

His words finally register and she meets Gale’s eyes.

“Go! Run!”

As soon her feet hit the earth, she’s running. Back to the Seam. Back to the shack she calls home.

Katniss throws open the door, screaming for her mother. Giving her what little information she has as the words shake out through dry sobs.There’s a commotion only minutes later, four miners carry Peeta on an old wooden door and move him quickly to the table Mrs. Everdeen has prepared.

Peeta is awake now, but she almost wishes he wasn’t. The sounds of his agony breaks her heart, sending streams of tears down her cheeks. She watches her mother spring into action, looking Peeta over carefully before using shears to cut the fabric away for his mangled leg. Even that caused Peeta to cry out and her mother moved quickly to the head of the table, sorting through different vials until she found what was needed.

Katniss moves closer to his side and his pain filled blue eyes meet hers. Tears cut trails down the dust on his face and she feels so helpless, like all she can do is hold his hand and cry. Her mother tips a vial into his mouth and he sputters weakly. Katniss watches his eyes blink slowly, then they remain closed.

Her mother pulls her away and tries to explain but the jumble of words doesn’t quite make sense. Words like crushed, blade, sleep syrup, amputate. Time speeds up and Katniss turns to the side to cough up bile on the floor.

“I’ll ask Gale to hold him down.” Her mother says.

“No.” Katniss chokes.

“Katniss, it has to be done, the longer we leave it, the higher the chance a blood clot will kill him.”

“Can you wait...just...wait. Please.” She’s begging now.

Her mother frowns, “I’ve dosed him with sleep syrup, he’ll be okay for now but it won’t keep him out when we remove the leg.”

Katniss gathers all the strength she has left.

“Don’t do anything...I’ll be right back.” And with one more longing look at Peeta, she heads for the door then breaks into a run.

Sprinting across town to the richest house in the district, it’s after curfew but she can’t bring herself to care. It feels like she’s been darting through shadowed streets for hours but it's only been a handful of minutes.

Katniss pushes herself harder.

She arrives at Madge’s dizzy and heaving but she bangs on the door as hard as she can and when it opens, she’s surprised to see her friend standing there instead of a servant.

“Katniss! Was he down there?”

Breathless, she can only nod.

“Is he hurt?” Madge asked worriedly.

“Please,” Katniss managed to weaze. “They’re going to take his leg….do you have anything?”

“Wait here.” Madge shuts the door quickly, leaving Katniss to slump against the wall for support, her legs shaking so badly she can hardly stand, the shock setting in.

She hears a creak and Madge is holding out a small box full of glass tubes, “It’s morphling. It will help.”

Katniss stares at the box.

“Take it Katniss!” Madge’s words wake her and she snatches the box before racing back, through the dark and deserted streets.

She doesn’t remember returning home or handing the box to her mother. All she knows is that she’s standing over Peeta, watching his chest move as he breathes. Katniss lifts her hand and gently pushes the curls away from his face. If he wasn’t so pale, he could just be sleeping.

Her mother approaches with a syringe full of morphling and injects it into his vein. “Katniss, you should go outside. You don’t need to see this.”

“I can’t leave him.”

“He’s going to need you to be strong when he wakes up. Go outside and Prim will come get you when it’s done.”

A hand is at her shoulder, pulling her away. She tries not to resist as she’s dragged outside and propped against the wall, a heavy blanket shoved into her hand. There’s a heavy chill in the air as a wave of exhaustion hits her, sinking her down onto the rough wooden porch. She notices for the first time that her bruised and bloody feet are visible through large holes of her woolen winter socks, she tucks herself under the ratty quilt. Crying, Katniss drops her face into her hands and tries to think of anything other than what’s going on inside.

She begins to think of Peeta, the first time she made him laugh, the first time she kissed him. Katniss gets lost in memories of his smell, his sweet smile, his warmth and the feel of him under her hands.

An hour ticks by, then two. The sun was just starting to crest when Prim came outside to fetch her.

“Katniss?”

She tries to scramble up but her frozen muscles creak with the effort, tripping and almost crashing into her sister. Prim stays calm, grabbing Katniss’s shoulders firmly.

“He made it through the surgery.”

Katniss begins to gasp for breath until a relieved sob breaks free.

Prim hugs her tightly, “He’s going to be okay, Katniss. We were able to save his knee, that will make all the difference when he starts to walk again.” Prim says as she releases her grip.

“Can- can I see him,” Katniss manages through tears.

“Yes, of course,” Prim says, quietly leading the way inside.

In a daze, Katniss walks across the fire warmed room, ignoring the instant pins and needles that prick her skin after being in the cold for so long. She sidles up to the table and takes Peeta’s hand. It’s warm. So unlike the pale coolness when he was first brought here. Taking note of the sheet draped over him. Noticing the empty space on one side where his lower leg should be.

It doesn’t matter. Not to her.

Her mother sets a stool nearby and Katniss gingerly sits at his side, gently stroking the skin of his hand, leaning up to brush the curls away from his face.

Katniss can’t seem to stop touching him. Needing to reassure herself that he’s alive. She wants to see his eyes, but can’t begrudge him this deep sleep. Safe from the pain and their reality as he starts the long road to recovery.

A hand perches on her shoulder. Her mother is looking at her kindly, “We have to keep him asleep for the next three days, that should get him through the worst of the pain and give the incision a headstart on healing.”

“Thank You,” Katniss squeezes her eyes shut, causing a tear to run down her cheek. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if…”

“I know, honey.” With a final squeeze, her mother wanders back to the kitchen to speak to Gale.

Katniss watches her mother walk away, the last vestige of her harbored anger evaporates. Because her mother does know.

She knows exactly what it’s like when the thought of being without someone makes you want to stop breathing... but she saved Peeta last night, now Katniss would not suffer her fate.

Peeta’s face is relaxed, his breaths are deep and rhythmic, the gentle cadence makes her eyelids start to droop. Bone weary but not wanting to leave his side, she leans down and softly kisses Peeta’s cheek before laying her head beside him as sleep rolls her under.

********************************

On the third morning her mother shooed her out of the house so she could check Peeta’s incision and change the dressings. Katniss meanderes her way through the Seam, she doesn't realize where she’s going until she’s standing in front of Peeta’s house.

She half expects him to throw open the door, a wide smile and a joke on his lips.

But he can’t.

Because he’s laying on the kitchen table in her house, drugged to sleep and missing a leg.

She shakes herself. He’s alive. That’s all that matters. It’s no secret that he will be staying in the Everdeen home for the foreseeable future. Pushing open the door, Katniss quickly walks inside, taking note of the dried dandelions on the table and she promises to bring him more in the spring.

Moving over to the pantry, she starts packing up the food that they had made together. Stopping to stare at a jar of turkey stew for an obscene amount of time, long enough that her eyes started to sting and water.

Shaking her head she continues to load her game bag with as many provisions as she can carry. She’ll have to make at least two trips to move it all, Peeta had been well stocked for the coming winter.

With the top shelf of the pantry nearly empty, she can’t help but see it.

It’s a little green paper box that has been carefully constructed by a loving hand. Like something you’d see at a merchant shop in town. It would house a bauble or trinket, maybe a special sweet.

It seems private, but she can’t stop herself from reaching for it.

Katniss stares at the box in her shaking hand as she carefully removes the top. Inside, nestled on a bed of velvety dried moss is a small silver color band most likely made of tin.

The design, that has been painstaking and lovingly carved.

Tiny katniss flowers.

Her knees buckle and she slides to the floor, tears spilling down her face as Katniss clutches it tightly to her chest.

****************************

She returns home much later to a groggy but awake Peeta.

Her mother had had him moved to Katniss’s room once his incision was no longer in danger of reopening. But it's been so long since she's seen his eyes. They were duller than she remembers but the elation that must show on her face makes him smile, it may be small but it means everything. It means he’s alive, it means he’s still with her.

The beginning of his recovery is difficult but he bears the strain with dignity. Katniss is truly shocked when not one of the Mellarks show up to check on him. They must’ve heard by now, surely.

In her disbelief she slips up and mentions it, immediately wanting to kick herself when Peeta's face falls.

“They won’t be coming, Katniss. Not now, not ever.”

“How could they not at least stop by after what happened?”

“I was disowned the day I left the bakery. I have no doubt my mother went directly to the Justice Building to make it official so I’m no longer part of that family.”

“But why?”

“My mother had arranged for me to marry.”

A chill courses through her.

“I refused. I didn't want my parents' marriage, a lifetime of misery. I suppose my mother thought she could beat me into submission. This time I couldn’t let her and when she tried, I caught her hand and flung it away. She started screaming about calling Peacekeepers but I told her I’d save her the trouble... so I left. Walked around the district and then headed to the office to apply for the mine, when I got there, a box of my clothes was waiting.”

The tears came unexpectedly and she quickly wiped them from her cheeks, but of course he saw.

“Katniss...don’t cry...not when I’m getting to the good part.” He begs as he pulls her hand away, cradling it between his own.

“The good part?”

“The best part, I think.” He says sweetly. “When I left that life I felt free for the first time. Whatever choices I made were my own. I had planned to save up for a year or so. I wanted to woo you, show you I could be a worthy partner but you ruined my plans Katniss...and you made me happier than I ever thought possible.”

She fumbles through her jacket pocket, then places the small green box on his chest.

“I found it. When I was packing up the food.”

“How do you know it was for you?” He jokes and her eyes go wide before narrowing with her scowl.

“I seem to remember you saying that you've loved me forever.....I think you want to marry me someday.”

“Supposing I said something like that, what would your answer be?” Peeta stares at the small box that now rests in his hand.

“Yes.”

“What?!” It’s almost a shout.

“My answer...it’s yes.” She shrugs, as if it was inevitable, as if she would have always said yes.

“I don’t...I don’t have anything to offer you now, maybe we shouldn’t.” He looks to the place where his lower leg should be.

“Peeta Mellark, are you taking back your proposal?” Her scowl is back full force.

“NO! But..”

“I said yes and that's the end of it.” Katniss unceremoniously removes the ring and places it on her finger before carefully cuddling into his side.

“Whatever you say Everdeen.” Peeta murmurs with sleepy eyes and an adoring smile. “So...does this mean..”

“That I love you?” She can hear the breath hitch in his chest. “Yes, Peeta. That’s exactly what it means.”

He gathers her closer and she can feel his smile when he kisses the crown of her head.

“I love you too, Katniss.”

*****************

The first snow had just begun to fall when their whole world changed.

Katniss was packing up the last of Peeta’s supplies, loading the last jars into her bag. Thinking over the events of last night, and this morning when they had quietly announced their engagement.

Mother and Prim were happy for them.

Katniss hummed as she let herself out of the little shack. The sound cut off by a loud siren blast.

Not for the Mine…..but for the Reaping.

People, startled and confused, started making their way to the square. She could hear crying children, followed by the angry raised voices of adults.

What could the Capitol possibly want now?

With her family safe at home, Katniss decided to find out.

She moved into the throng, bumped and jostled until she finally stood shoulder to shoulder with the people of Twelve as the screens in front of the Justice Building lit up.

A gasp echoed through the crowd as they were addressed by a serious looking man dressed in grey military garb.

The words that followed made her heart pound so hard she could barely hear over the sound.

“People of Panem.” His voice boomed. “Today We Celebrate Your Freedom!”

*********************

#pip #promptsinpanem #kika

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