Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I only know by the steady movement of the moon across my window that time passes, illuminating the mangy yellow cat that keeps me guard through the night. His eyes watch the room, as if he alone could fend off the nightmares and thoughts of dead children that keep me company. Try as he might, I don’t think anything could make those truly go away.

The sky lightens and I begin to stir, giving Buttercup a tentative stroke which he doesn’t refuse. Despite my screaming and awful words directed at him last night, he has not abandoned me. Maybe for her sake, or maybe he can’t stand being alone with the ghosts lingering everywhere either. He allows this until I brush over the cuts and thorns on his paw, which causes him to finally recoil and hiss at me. Much more familiar territory. Contact with him, the first I’ve really had with another creature in months, grounds me and I can’t stand to see him in pain. So I force myself up and toward the bathroom. I fetch some wipes and pull him into my lap, ignoring his indignant hissing as I gently start to clean the cuts. He tolerates this for a while, but when I get to the thorns he starts whining which then turns to full blown crying. This pierces somewhere deep in my shattered heart. I remember how she’d always patch him up when he got into a street fight, how she’d shower him with kisses and hugs whilst I lamented his unnecessary waste of supplies as we scowled at one another. Now, I hold him tight to me as we weep together.

We remain like this as the moon continues to drift and the sky starts to turn a pale pink. Buttercup starts meowing different now, in the way I remember means he needs feeding. This activates some instinct within me, one forged long ago when I was a child, and I get up. I pad downstairs and find some entrails left from what Sae made me yesterday. I sit at the counter and watch him lick his plate clean; when he’s satisfied, he jumps up onto the table and sits next to the letter with my mother’s neat scrawl across it. He stares up at me expectantly, daring me to do what I’ve avoided for weeks. Just to spite him, I rip open the letter.

Katniss,

I don’t know when you’ll read this, if you choose to at all. I’ve been offered a job in District Four to set up a new hospital there. I’m writing this and heading out the same day that the trial finished. I think it would be easier to explain everything on the phone - my new number is at the bottom of this. Please call me as soon as you get back to Twelve, if you can. I might be on shift, so try again in a few hours if I don’t pick up.

Mom

My eyes trace the neat loops of her penmanship, the perfectly formed numbers. I expect feelings of anger to course through my veins but fail to find them. So I head to the phone, and punch in the numbers before I can think about it twice. It rings for what feels like forever, and I am just about to give up and sit in my chair in front of the fireplace when there is some sharp static, and then her voice.

“Hello? Asterid speaking,” she says, her voice bleary and confused as if she’s just woken up. There is silence between us for a beat; how do I start to unravel everything that has built between my mother and I for the last few years? I know I have to say something, or she’ll hang up on me and I won’t get the courage to do this again. So I start with something simple, with what’s in front of me.

“Buttercup’s here,” I hear myself say.

“What?” she asks, tired confusion, and then a rustling like she’s suddenly sat up, “Katniss? Is that you?”

I nod, then realise she can’t see me. “Did I wake you?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry, I’m just so glad to hear your voice again,” she says, a nervous and relieved laugh escaping her. “What did you say? Buttercup’s there?”

“He came back yesterday,” I say, and I can feel the water spring to my eyes again, somehow. “A right mess though. Covered in scrapes and thorns and all sorts.”

There is silence, and I worry this was the wrong thing to say. Maybe this will somehow make her shut down again, and then she’ll be lost forever too.

Instead, she says quietly, “I always thought you two were alike.” I think she means it as a joke to lighten the mood, but her voice catches at the end. This breaks the damn, and I am washed away again, my body sinking down. This is where she will leave me again surely, like she has so many times. But instead she follows me under. Buttercup jumps down and curls up into my lap and against my chest, trying with all his might to fill the aching hole in my heart. We all cry together for a while; the sky grows lighter as the sun peeks up above the trees.

“Katniss … I’m so sorry,” I hear my mother say, after our sobs have quietened down. I let her words ring around my head. There is a weight to them, and I know she is not just apologising for our current physical distance, .

“I know,” I reply. Again, I wait for the anger to rise in me, for the fire to spark, but nothing comes.

We talk some more about Four and the hospital she’s working on setting up with the new government there. She tells me she has a small apartment to herself, and that she can walk to the ocean in ten minutes. She starts asking me what I’ve been doing since I got back to Twelve, and I don’t know how to tell her about my days in the chair. Just then, there is a knock at my door, which is Sae’s way of warning me of her arrival.

“Sae’s here with Breakfast,” I say.

“Okay. Could I call you again soon?” my mother asks. I think I trace some fear, nervousness in her voice.

“Yes. Maybe in a few days,” I say. We exchange goodbyes and I put the phone on the hook as Sae walks in with her granddaughter on her hip.

“Oh good. You’re up,” she remarks. This is the only fuss she makes as she puts Eula Mae down and starts getting out the pans to fry up some bacon.

Sae turns, just as I hear the other set of footsteps come down the hall, “Your boy’s here,” she gestures to the front door, and then there he is. His ashy blonde waves are messy, but his eyes are clear, and he carries a warm loaf of bread in his hand. He pauses in the doorway, and I know I’m staring.

“C’mon you two, sit on down,” Sae says, cracking two eggs into the pan. He looks from Sae to me, his eyes asking me for permission. I nod, which seems to assure him. Sae makes us some mint tea whilst Peeta slices the bread, and Eula Mae sits next to Buttercup.

Sae and Peeta exchange small talk about who has come back so far and the clean-up work on the town. I nibble on the bread Peeta brought and some of Sae’s eggs, but all my bacon goes to Buttercup. An offering for our new found friendship. Once I’m out of bacon, he heads over to Peeta and jumps right in his lap. Peeta looks slightly bemused but doesn’t object as Buttercup settles there.

“How’d he get back?” Peeta asks.

I shrug, “No idea. Just turned up yesterday.”

I want to say something else to him, but I don’t know where to start. Sae washes up, and just as quickly as she came by she heads out the door again, her granddaughter back on her hip.

Peeta finishes his tea in silence, then coaxes Buttercup off of his lap so he can wash up the mug. He turns back to me, “I’d better head off. I’ve got an appointment with Dr Aurelius.”

I nod at this, a small pang in my chest that I can’t quite place. “Have you called him yet?”

I shake my head. I want to tell him about my conversation with my mother earlier, but I can’t find the words. It seems I’ve lost my ability to speak again. I expect him to reprimand me, but he just nods, and heads out too.

Once the door shuts behind him, I feel myself collapse against my chair, tension seeping out of me. I sit there a while, staring at Buttercup as he cleans himself. At some point, I end up in another chair by the window. I keep telling myself I’ll get back up, that I’ll head out and go to the woods again, but I never seem to manage it.

I sit there most of the afternoon, just watching the birds fly from tree to tree and the odd person walking to one of the occupied houses or down to the rubble. About mid-afternoon, Peeta emerges from his house and heads over to Haymitch’s. He doesn’t knock, just walks in the front door. I wonder what he’ll find of our mentor, who I haven’t seen since the day I was brought back.

Several hours later he emerges, his face flushed and his jaw set as he rubs at his wrists. He runs into Sae on the green and they talk for a few minutes. They soon go their separate ways, Sae and her granddaughter heading to my house.

Eula Mae heads straight to the kitchen, but Sae comes and finds me by the window. “No hunting today?” I shake my head from side to side.

She just nods, “Let’s see what I can do then.”

She does pretty well; Plutarch or somebody must be ensuring my cupboards are stocked up enough, as she delivers me fried chicken and potatoes in my chair.

“We saw your boy on our way over,” she says as I start picking at the potatoes. “Seems like he had a run in with Haymitch. He tried to play it down, but his wrists looked mighty sore.” I think of the way he was holding them to his chest, almost cradling them.

After Sae and Eula Mae have gone home, I am still in the chair thinking of Peeta holding his wrists. It’s then I remember a salve my mother used to use for inflammation. My feet carry me to her cupboard which is pretty bare. Luckily, one of the few pots left is the salve and then I’m knocking on the house three doors down. I’m starting to think this could be a bad idea, that he will freak out if I am standing in his doorway unannounced, that he’ll close the door as soon as he sees me. Maybe I should go back to the chair. But then I hear his tread and the door opens slowly and he stands there looking at me like he can’t quite believe I’m real. Now I’m up close, I can see the blooming bruises that adorn each of his wrists.

“Are they okay?” I ask, gesturing to them. “I saw you going over to see Haymitch.” His eyes register confusion for a moment, before he shakes his head slightly.

“I’ve put some ice on them, I think I’ll be alright. He didn’t take kindly to me trying to shower him,” he says. His face then takes on the same expression I remember seeing in the Capitol, where he’s trying to sort through his memories. “We’ve showered him before. Real or not real?”

“Sort of. We both carried him to the shower, but you actually cleaned him. Before our first games.”

He nods. I try not to think about what kind of state Peeta must’ve found Haymitch in.

“I brought you something for it. It’s got witch hazel in it. My mother used to use it for inflammation,” I say, holding it out to him.

“Thank you,” he says, tentatively taking it. I nod and turn around before he can start telling me things I don’t want to hear about our mentor. I go back to the chair and watch as the sun turns the sky a soft orange.

I can’t remember going upstairs but I must have done at some point because I wake up screaming in my bed. Buttercup sits silently guarding me at the end, but there’s nothing much he can do about what I see when I close my eyes. I lay in bed and watch the night slowly fade into sunrise. Only Buttercup’s hungry cries get me up again. Sae comes by at her usual time, closely followed by Peeta. His wrists look less swollen than yesterday. We sit in silence whilst Eula Mae moves quietly around the kitchen, playing some game in her own world.

“Dr Aurelius says he’s gonna call you today, by the way,” Peeta says, as he gets up to wash his mug. I nod, although I have no intention of picking up.

Once Sae and Peeta are gone I take up my position by the window again. I must fall asleep at some point, because I jump awake when I hear the phone ringing. I start to tune it out automatically, but then I remember what Peeta said this morning. How his eyes have been clear every time I’ve seen him since I’ve been home. I find myself moving toward the phone and picking it up.

There is a confused silence for a minute – I don’t think Dr Aurelius expected me to pick up. But, to his credit, he just says, “Good morning, Miss Everdeen. It’s Dr Aurelius here calling for your appointment. How are you?”

There is silence for several seconds, because how on earth do I answer that? I am about to put the phone down when the doctor seems to realise his error, and asks another question. “Rather what have you done this morning?”

This at least I can answer, “I had breakfast.”

“And what did you have for breakfast?” I don’t see where the doctor is going with this, but Peeta said I should talk to him. And he’s asking questions I can more easily answer, so I go along with it.

“I had some toast and eggs.”

“Who did you have breakfast with?”

“Sae was there, I used to trade with her. Peeta was there too.”

“Ah yes, he told me he’d made it back Twelve,” he replies, before moving the conversation swiftly on. We talk a little about what I’ve done since I’ve been back – which doesn’t take long as there isn’t much to tell. I keep expecting him to ask me how everything makes me feel, or to reassure me that I’m safe now, but he doesn’t do that. Instead, we make a list of some things he would like me to do each day, what he calls ‘going through the motions’ – at least half an hour outside, bathing, brushing my teeth, taking the medication I’ve been ignoring, eating three times a day, going to sleep in my bed. He arranges to call in a few days in the afternoon and then hangs up.

I stand by the phone for a moment, contemplating what to do. I could easily ignore the doctor’s advice and go back to my usual chair. Peeta asked me to talk to him, not that I had to do whatever he said. I find myself putting my boots on anyway, grabbing my bow and arrows and heading out the door.

I have to shield my eyes the sun is so bright. I decide to avoid town and the meadow today, and duck under the fence in a weak spot near Victor’s Village instead. This part of the woods is a little away from my usual hunting grounds, but there is still plenty it offers. After about a half hour, a squirrel darts out in front of me – almost on instinct, my arrow is knocked and flies straight into its eye. I put it in my bag and decide to head home before my energy dissipates.

Sae is delighted that evening when I hand over the skinned squirrel. And so I follow the doctor’s orders, and keep to his list over the next few days. Buttercup’s hungry cries get me out of bed. I begrudgingly take the pills sent by the doctor. Sae’s wishes for fresh game keep me going out to the woods, always by Victor’s Village though. I don’t go out every day – one day a cold rain holds me inside, another day even Buttercup cannot rouse me from my bed, and Sae has to bring breakfast and dinner up to me. But each day I do make it outside, I am able to stay out a little longer, go a little further, gather a little more.

Peeta comes by every morning for breakfast, his wrists healing up nicely. The day after I spent all day in bed, he shows up with a bag of cheese buns. “Your favourite,” he asks. His brow then furrows. “Real or not real?”

“Real,” I say, as he hands them to me. He sits down and nods to himself, shaking his head slightly.

“I thought you said so … in the Capitol,” he says, his eyes unfocused as he tries to sort through his memories. I try not to let my mind go back to those tunnels whatsoever, so I’m surprised this detail stuck in his mind. I try to save some of the cheese buns for later, but they smell so good I dive in immediately after I finish my portion of biscuits. Eula Mae stares at me, so I offer her one. She seems unsure at first, weighing it in her hand and inspecting it from all angles. She takes a tentative bite, and her eyes light up, finishing the rest of it in no time.

After she finishes, she becomes particularly fixated on Buttercup, who is sitting in Peeta’s lap like he does every morning. Her stare then turns back to me.

“Why doesn’t the cat ever sit on your lap?” she asks. Eula Mae’s question takes me aback, not least because she hardly ever speaks, certainly not to me. There is a prolonged silence as I try to figure out how to respond.

“I mean, I wouldn’t be sitting in the lap of someone who tried to drown me,” I hear Peeta say, and my head whips up, because what I had dreaded has finally happened. He has gone back to thinking I’m a mutt, a cold-blooded killer, and when I look at his eyes they will have that clouded, stormy gaze full of hatred and venom.

But I don’t find that; his eyes have almost a twinkle in them, recalling a memory from about a year ago. We were in the living room, the television on whilst he kept me company when I hurt my foot. He asked me a similar question, and I filled him in on mine and Buttercup’s longstanding feud.

I can see the doubt start creeping into his eyes, “Real or not real?”

“Real,” I respond. Eula Mae looks at me again, frowning.

“Well no wonder he doesn’t like you,” she states. There is something about her tone, and the way Peeta catches my eye that makes the corners of my lips turn up for what feels like the first time in months. Sae lets out a chortle at her granddaughter’s words, and then we’re all laughing. Eula Mae stares at us all bemused, and then Buttercup jumps down from Peeta and comes over to my chair, putting his paws up on my legs. I think maybe he’s decided to prove them wrong. I mean he has guarded me every night since he got back. But then I realise he just wants the leftover bacon on my plate, and this earns another round of smiles and laughs.

“Clearly bacon is the way to forgiveness,” I mutter.

Peeta catches what I said even if the others didn’t, and shoots me a small smile before getting up to wash his plate and mug and heading out to check on Haymitch. I decide to head out not long after, grabbing my game bag and putting my boots on. Sae has just enough time to call out her request for wild dog before I’m halfway down the steps, my door swinging shut.

The sun shines bright overhead, giving Victor’s Village a warm, golden glow. My gaze slides from the primrose bushes to the house of the boy who planted them, who has turned up at my house every day with bread and cheese buns since he got back. I’m not sure what to make of it. I keep waiting for him to disappear, but he never does.

I start on the path towards the wood, going through my mental checklist of what I want to get from the woods today. I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts that I almost miss it, but then the sun catches them. I frown, because there's still several weeks before they usually start sprouting. But there they are. Next to a scraggly dead brush near the fence is a bright patch of yellow amongst the green. The first dandelions of the spring, reaching up out of the ground.

Chapter Text

I am sitting at my kitchen table watching Buttercup lick up the entrails in his bowl, when I hear just one heavy set of footsteps instead of the usual three. When I look up, Peeta is in my doorway, his expression reflecting the confusion that I feel.

“Has Sae not arrived already?” he asks, looking around the kitchen. I shake my head, panic coursing through me. I don’t even put my boots on before I am out the door and running across the green to one of the newly occupied houses. When the door opens, Sae answers looking exhausted.

“Eula Mae’s been up half the night with a fever. I didn’t want to bring her over in case it’s catching,” she explains.

“Why didn’t you phone?” I ask.

“Haven’t really learned how to use it, didn’t see the point. I knew you’d figure it out and be over here,” she says. There is a brief pause between us, as I try to figure out what to say next.

“I’ll ask my mother, see if there’s anything we can get her,” I say. Just then, I hear a fit of coughing start up from the next room. It’s like there’s something stuck in her lungs she just can’t get rid of. Then she starts crying and wailing, and Sae’s face falls. She nods in thanks to me and closes the door.

I head back to my house, where Peeta’s fixing some toast and eggs. I tell him about Eula Mae whilst we eat. “I’ll check my mother’s cupboards; she might have something that can help. If not I’ll check the woods – it’s still early but some things might have started growing,” I say, biting into a cheese bun. I make sure to leave one aside to take over to Eula Mae later.

Peeta frowns, an expression I am learning means he is trying to recall a memory. After a couple of minutes he says, “There was one we worked on last year, in your mother’s book. I think it had white petals and a sort of orange flower in the middle. Real or not real?”

“Real. I think,” I say.

I remember the afternoon now; it was snowing lightly outside, my foot propped up. Peeta spent at least an hour trying to find the perfect shade of white for the petals. He was so meticulous working on the family book, ensuring every last detail was perfect. In answer to his question, I go and find the book on my mother’s shelf.

“The flowers are yellow though, not orange,” I say, showing him his illustration. He examines it carefully for a few seconds and nods. We wash up together, him washing and me drying and putting things away. The kitchen feels quiet without Sae opening and closing cupboards, and Eula Mae wandering around in her own world.

As Peeta is gathering up his things, he glances at the book on the table, which has fallen open on a much older entry that he simply added a bit of colour to when we were working on it last year.

“Who did this? Your mother?” he asks.

I glance at it. “I think it might be my Grandmother’s. I’m not sure, I never met her properly. But that’s definitely not my mother’s handwriting.”

Peeta’s eyes don’t move from the book, as he flips to another page with entries in the same cursive, “It’s nice, to have this. I keep trying to recall my father’s handwriting, but I can’t quite remember how he wrote his g’s and j’s.”

I frown. Surely, the Mellarks wrote their recipes down somewhere. But I realise, any of those would be burned to ashes now, laying in the former town square, ready to be moved to the meadow if they haven’t been already. I’m struggling to know what to say, but then Peeta looks up, picking up the cheese bun and half a loaf we didn’t finish and heading toward the door, “I’ll go drop these off at Sae’s and check on Haymitch.”

I check the cupboards but can’t find anything for coughs in what’s left of my mother’s supply. I ring her to see if there’s somewhere else she stored her medicines, but she doesn’t pick up. I’ll just have to make do with what’s in the book. I put on my boots and check the book before I go; both Blood Root and Solomon’s Seal are said to help with coughs and might have started growing, although it’s a bit early. I write down a brief description to refer back to, and head out to the woods.

I manage two rabbits, and then decide to focus on finding the plants for Eula Mae. Near a fishing pond that I’ve frequented over the years, I find some Blood Root near the base of a tree; I pack as many in my bag as possible. Not too far along, I spot a few tentative flowers of the other plant poking out of the ground. I pack what I can for now, and note the location in case I need to come back. The air is getting warmer now, unseasonably warm for late March, and I pull the ragged pieces of my hair that are sticking to my neck from out of my collar. It’s still been fairly cool since I’ve been going to the woods that I’ve not bothered to do anything about it. I doubt it’ll braid well anymore; I might have to ask Sae to cut it when Eula Mae is better. I drop by hers again on my way home, giving her the plants and the directions of what to do with them. I mention bringing by some dinner for her later, but she waves her hand, saying she’ll manage for today, and thanks me for the plants before retreating inside.

When I get home it’s mid-afternoon. I skin the rabbits and start preparing them for dinner along with some early spring greens I found. I’m feeding some entrails to Buttercup when I hear my door open and the sound of two footsteps in my entry way.

“Why’d you bring me here, couldn’t you just-”

The voice of my mentor rings down the corridor, but Peeta cuts him off. “Sae’s busy looking after her granddaughter, and I’m not cooking in your mess of a kitchen.”

“Never asked you to,” he grumbles. I stand in the doorway, which Peeta doesn’t notice, but Haymitch does. “Ah, she’s up then.”

“No thanks to you,” I hear myself say, my tone cold. I expect Peeta to tell me I’m being too harsh, but he just stares intensely at the clock on the wall.

“I see you’re just as pleasant as you’ve always been. Listen, boy, I’ve no interest in being where I’m not welcome,” Haymitch says, turning back toward the front door, but Peeta grabs his arm and although Haymitch tenses and his jaw sets, he seems unable to move. It’s then that I really notice how thin and frail he looks – it’s like he’s barely eaten since we got back. This shifts something within me.

“I’ve got enough for three anyway,” I say, turning my attention back to the rabbits in the kitchen. I hear Peeta and Haymitch exchange a few more words, and then their footsteps shuffling toward the kitchen. Haymitch sinks down into a chair, immediately getting a flask out and taking a drink. Peeta gets to work on dinner and I let him as it means that I can avoid the kitchen. I take the opportunity to tick bathing off of Aurelius’ list for today.

At dinner Peeta attempts to keep conversation going but neither Haymitch or I are willing to play along and we end up sitting in an awkward silence. I can feel Peeta’s eyes flitting from me to Haymitch, his frustration palpable. As soon as he’s finished eating, his jaw sets and he pointedly puts his knife and fork on his plate before standing up.

“Look, whatever you two have to say to each other just do it. You’re both here and not going anywhere, so you may as well,” he says, going to start the washing up. Both Haymitch and I refuse to look each other in the eye.

But after a couple of minutes, I hear him say, so softly I almost don’t hear it, “I’m sorry I didn’t come by, sweetheart.”

There is something in his tone, in the use of that old nickname, that pushes down any sarcastic or scathing retort. I look up at him properly, and see him hunched over his plate which is still only half-eaten, his hands shaking ever so slightly. His bloodshot eyes meet mine. There is so much we need to say to each other. But not tonight, when our wounds are both still fresh. So I just say, “You’d better finish that up before Buttercup gets it.”

He grimaces, and I know something has thawed between us now. It’s a start, at least. He picks at the rest of his food whilst Buttercup dances around the legs of his chair. As soon as he’s finished, he’s out the door without saying goodbye.

“Thanks,” Peeta says to me after he’s gone, “I was getting worried about him. We’ll come by tomorrow for breakfast, if that’s okay?”

I nod, and we say goodnight before I am left alone again. I am contemplating whether to go and sit in the chair by the window or head straight to bed when the phone rings, which is unusual. It usually only rings in the morning when my mother calls me before she goes to work or early afternoon for my appointments with Dr Aurelius.

“I saw you called. Is everything okay?” she asks. I tell her about Eula Mae’s cough and fever, and she says she’ll get some medicine sent on the next train. We catch up for a while, until I start yawning and she lets me go to bed.

The next morning, only Haymitch and Peeta arrive for breakfast. I check in with Sae after, and if anything Eula Mae sounds worse. I let Sae know about the medicine coming in on the next train, but share her concern that it could get worse before that turns up. I head straight to the woods and find the same patch as yesterday, gathering as many plants as I can fit in my bag on top of the squirrels I manage to shoot down. The day warms up again, and by midday I don’t need my jacket anymore. I try to braid my hair so it’s off my neck, but it just falls out within half an hour.

I get home and get to work, putting together a salad for lunch, leaving some aside to take over for Sae later. I then make a stew out of the squirrel, leaving aside some broth for Eula Mae. The air in the kitchen feels particularly oppressive, the clumps of my hair sticking to my neck again. I get frustrated and try braiding it again, but it falls out in less time than it takes to put it in. The stew needs a little longer, so I put the heat on low and grab the scissors, immediately going to the bathroom mirror downstairs. I cut away at the ragged pieces of hair, having to guess as much as possible for the back of my head. I had to cut Prim’s hair a few times when my mother’s depression took over, but it’s much easier when it’s not your own. Black tendrils fall to the floor in quick succession, and a few minutes later I feel so much lighter. I examine my work in the mirror; it’s slightly uneven in some places but it’ll do, my hair now ending about half an inch below my ears.

By the time I’ve cleaned up all the hair in the bathroom, the stew is bubbling, so I take it off the heat and pack it up to take over to Sae. I find some honey and lemon, as my mother suggested on the phone last night, which with the other plants I’ve gathered should hold them over until the train arrives. “That’s mighty kind of you,” she says as I hand over the stew and supplies.

“It’s the least I can do. How is she?”

She grimaces, “It’s not getting any better, that’s for sure.”

I nod, grimacing with her as Eula Mae starts up another round of coughing. It does sound worse – it goes on for several minutes and when she calls out for Sae her voice sounds hoarse.

Peeta raises what’s left of his eyebrows at my hair when he comes over for dinner later, but doesn’t say anything. Haymitch complains about my cooking when I serve up the stew for both of them, but eats it up just the same. I don’t think it tastes too bad, especially with the fresh loaf of bread that Peeta brings over from his house. With the leftover salad, it’s the biggest meal we’ve probably all had since coming back to Twelve.

“What’s with the hair?” Haymitch asks once we’re washing up, gesturing to his own which is probably longer than mine now.

“It got hot when I was cooking earlier,” I reply curtly.

“Did Sae do it?” Peeta asks.

“No, I did.”

“Well, that explains why the back’s a mess,” Haymitch grumbles into his bowl.

I scowl at him, and I notice Peeta’s lips turn up out of the corner of my eye. I suddenly feel self-conscious.

“Is it?” I ask him. He glances at the back of my head.

“A bit,” he says chuckling slightly, which he stops immediately upon seeing my scowl. “But it’s really not that bad.” he adds, shooting a glare at Haymitch who looks like he’s about to say something else sarcastic at my expense. After they leave, I check a cupboard in my mother’s old room that I’d forgotten about and find some pills that help with fever, which I drop off at Sae’s. It’s only when I crawl into bed that I feel how exhausted I am, and I fall asleep immediately.

My dream leads me down an unending corridor, with plinths of white roses placed between the doors on each side. The doors are all different designs, some plain and some incredibly intricate. I walk for a while and eventually can’t help but open a door that seems familiar to me. I walk through it to find a room of glass, with President Snow sat in a chair looking out the glass. When he turns to me, he starts coughing, blood spilling from his lips and I run back into the corridor. It’s only then that I realise the door looks just like the one to his greenhouse, where we had our last conversation. I continue walking, until I hear her voice calling out, and my feet carry me through another door that reminds me of our house in the Seam. She sits on the other side of the meadow from me, her hair in two blonde braids. She turns, and starts coughing too, blood spilling from her lips as she reaches for me, calling my name desperately. I try to get to her, but no matter how fast I run she doesn’t seem to get any closer. Then the jabberjays arrive, picking up her cries and taunting me whilst I watch her convulse and vomit blood. Somewhere, it feels like all around me, I hear a snake-like laugh.

It takes several minutes to realise that the screams that fill the dark room come from me and that I’m awake. Buttercup cries next to me but doesn’t leave my side, and at some point he ends up in my arms. We stay like that for hours until I can’t produce any more tears, and then I just lie in bed and watch the sun rise. I hear the door of Peeta’s house shut and his footsteps as he heads over to Haymitch’s and then my house. I hear them come in and head to the kitchen. There’s several minutes of low voices and movement around the kitchen before a pair of footsteps climbs the stairs; the tread is heavy, so it must be Peeta. He knocks on my door, but my throat is too sore from screaming to answer him. He opens it gently, his head coming round the side and taking in the sight of me. I must look awful, but his expression doesn’t give much away, only his eyes that seem to fill with relief when he sees me.

“I’ll be right back,” he says. True to his word, he reappears a couple of minutes later, with some water, cheese buns and my medication. He leaves them on my bedside table and lingers in the doorway, like he wants to say something. He decides against it, and I hear his footsteps grow quieter as he descends back downstairs and out the door. I wish I could yell after him to come back.

I stay in bed all day. A weight sits on top of my chest, the souls of all of those I’ve watched die pressing down on me and taking the air out of my lungs. Their faces are all I see every time I close my eyes to try and escape the world, so I end up just looking up at the ceiling. My bones ache, and my eyes are puffy. Buttercup slinks off at some point, probably to get food, because he reappears after half an hour licking his lips in satisfaction.

I watch the sun move across the sky as I remain still. I hear the movement of people leaving or coming to Victor’s Village, the sound of the birds singing to each other as they fly through the trees. At some point, my stomach rumbles so loudly I can’t ignore it and force myself to eat a cheese bun. That’s one thing ticked off of Dr Aurelius’ list. Everything else feels insurmountable.

Peeta comes by around dinner time, bringing up a plate of some greens and bread as well as a honey and lemon tea. He forces me to sit up and eat, and then eats his own dinner on the chair next to my bed. I force myself to eat a bite, and then take a sip of tea, which does help soothe my throat. I notice his hair is still damp, like he had a shower just before he came over here. After he leaves, I force myself out of bed, and crawl into my shower, letting the warm water fall all around me and wash the sweat and tear stains away.

My dreams tonight are unsettling. I wander through a wood devoid of colour, the mockingjays humming the tune to The Hanging Tree all around me. But I don’t have to watch any of my loved ones die, and when I wake up the weight pressing down on my chest doesn’t feel as heavy. I get out of bed, Peeta and Haymitch come around for breakfast, and it’s almost as if yesterday didn’t happen. I don’t go out to hunt though; a rainstorm decides that for me. Which is good timing, really, as I’d forgotten my appointment with Dr Aurelius until the phone rings early in the afternoon.

We go through the usual questions; I don’t see the point in lying so tell him about Eula Mae and my day in bed yesterday. He listens, asking a few questions but mostly letting me talk at him. I conclude my recap with, “So, I appreciate your time, but I’m not sure this is working.”

“Why do you say that?”

I frown, “Well I stuck to your lists and I’ve been taking my medication but yesterday was bad. As bad as … before I started calling.”

“You just have one phone in the house, correct?

“Yes, why?”

“Is this phone located in your bedroom?”

“No, in the study downstairs. Why?”

“So you’ve gotten out of bed today. Have you had breakfast?”

“Yes, Peeta made it. But I haven’t gone out today, and I haven’t bathed either,” I reply.

“Look, the list is a helpful structure for you to use. You won’t be able to get everything done on it every day. It’s remarkable really how well you’ve been doing the last few weeks. It’s normal to have days when your symptoms flare up again, particularly if you encounter something that triggers those thought patterns and feelings.”

“What do you think might have caused it?” I ask cautiously.

“I can’t say. The break in your routine will naturally be difficult to deal with – but the more it happens the easier it’ll be to cope,” he replies. His words, the implication that this will happen again, don’t particularly comfort me. “It does seem though that you find it helpful to have some direction, something to work on.”

“I’ve been hunting,” I say.

“Which has been working well so far, and I think you should keep doing it as long as you enjoy it, and it helps. I just thought it might be good for you to have a new project, one that is not so connected to your past or reliant on the weather.”

His words register in me an idea that I realise has been forming in my mind for the last few days. I think of how much my family’s plant book has helped me in my ventures into the woods, not just now for Eula Mae but over the years, since I was eleven. Peeta’s words from a few days ago echo in my mind about his father’s handwriting. I think of yesterday, when the memories swirled around me, but I couldn’t quite recall the exact shade Prim’s hair turned in the summer sun, how the lines on my father’s face often slip away if I haven’t looked at his picture in a while. So many of those lost I have no picture of, no record of what I know my memory can’t hang on to forever.

“There’s this book,” I hear myself say.

“A book?” Dr Aurelius asks openly.

“It’s been in my family for a while. It helps us remember plants that are edible or useful for healing,” I pause. “It’s up to date with everything I know, but … but I’ve been thinking it might be good to have another one. For people. To remember them.”

My voice is small on my last sentence. There is a pause whilst Dr Aurelius takes in my idea, and I am suddenly worried I shouldn’t have said anything, when he says, “Well that sounds like a good way to occupy yourself, and it might be a helpful way to process some of what you’ve been through. I’ll send a book and parchment down on the next train.”

It seems I’ll have quite the delivery on the next train, whenever that comes in. My time is up now, so we arrange for our next appointment and I hang up the phone. The rainstorm has stopped during our conversation, and I decide it’s not too late to head out to the woods. I spend a few hours, gathering more plants and I manage to pick up a wild turkey on my way back to the fence. As I’m walking back through Victor’s Village, I run into Peeta who is heading over to Haymitch’s house.

“It’s good to see you out,” he says with a genuine smile. “Did you have an appointment today?”

“How’d you know?”

“I had mine this afternoon, figured it made sense if he did ours on the same day.”

“Oh yeah, that does make sense,” I hadn’t thought about it much, to be honest. He goes to leave, but I don’t want him to. “Why are you going to Haymitch’s?”

He gestures to the bag he’s holding, that looks weighed down by something, “Haymitch ran out of liquor yesterday. I found these two stashed away in my cellar but once they’re gone he’ll have to wait for the train. I don’t think it’ll be pretty.”

He goes to walk up the path to Haymitch’s house when I her myself blurting out, “Wait, Peeta!” He turns back to me, his expression confused and then curious. “Can I ask for your help with something?”

“Sure, what is it?” he replies.

“You remember my family’s plant book? That we worked on last year?”

He nods, “The one we were looking at the other day.”

“Right. Dr Aurelius thinks I should have a project besides hunting to work on, and I was thinking of doing a sort of memorial book I guess …” I trail off, trying to read his expression and frustratingly find him unreadable. More words tumble out of me. “I was wondering if you’d draw some portraits. I’ve only got photos of a couple people who I want to include. Of course, I understand if it’s too much, or you wouldn’t want to or-”

“I’d be honoured,” he cuts off my rambling.

“You’re sure?” I can’t help but ask.

“Of course. It might help as well with my … memories,” he says, his eyes losing the warmth they had a second ago as he retreats back into his mind. He stays there for a few seconds before focusing in on me again. “When do we start?”

“Aurelius is sending a book and some parchment on the next train,” I reply. Peeta nods, thoughtfully.

“Well, even more reason to hope it comes in soon then,” he says with a small smile, holding up the bag of liquor in his hand. Just then, a crashing sound comes from Haymich’s house making us both flinch. Peeta’s shoulders slump slightly. “Guess I’d better get up there and see what’s happened. See you for dinner?”

I nod, holding up the turkey I got earlier, “I’ll get it started. Don’t tell Haymitch.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he chuckles, heading up the path to see what state our mentor has gotten himself into.

Chapter Text

It’s a relief for us all when Leevy and arrives in Victor’s Village to let us know that the train has arrived. It’s been five days since I asked Peeta for help with the memorial book, and I’ve been anxious to get started. Haymitch has been in withdrawals for several days now, with Peeta checking on him, taking him food, and generally trying to avoid his violent outbursts. Eula Mae’s on the mend with her fever broken but the cough still lingers. And the warm weather we were having has been replaced by a freezing week-long downpour, meaning I’ve barely been to the woods. I’m just bringing my first haul in a week back when I see their cart pull up.

Peeta offers to keep an eye on Eula Mae so Sae can head down to the station with me and finally get out of her house. Before the war, all deliveries from the train went to the Justice building or the Capitol store, not that many people besides the merchants ordered directly from the Capitol anyway. Now, everything arrives straight to the train platform. Food and basic supplies are being assigned to everyone in Twelve for now, and are to be collected directly from the train station. You let an attendant know what you’re picking up, they check it off a list, and then you check with Thom about any personal orders like mine and Peeta’s medication. Everyone is meant to pick up their own assigned supplies and orders, but Thom doesn’t really mind. Sae tells me on the walk down that this isn’t the case everywhere - in some larger Districts and the Capitol there have been instances of violence when folks tried to claim supplies not meant for them. Since then, the provisional government’s been focusing on implementing ID checks in those places. Not here in Twelve though, where there’s only a couple hundred people and everyone knows everyone. We’ll get them eventually I suppose, but right now it’s not worth intervention.

I spot the temporary tents near the train station– most people stay in these, despite half of Victor’s Village being unoccupied. This means that by the time Sae and I make it down, ours are the only packages left. We check in with Thom and the train attendant and I sign for Haymitch’s liquor, Peeta’s baking supplies and medication as well as my own orders. Thom’s offer to take us back up to the village is initially welcomed given our load, but I soon realise that sitting in the cart makes it more difficult put my head down and ignore the sight of the inhabitants of Twelve loading up the other carts with ash and burnt bodies.

When we make it back to the Village, I drop off the liquor on Haymitch’s doorstep with a knock on the door and head straight back to mine before I have to face whatever state he’s gotten himself into. By the time I see him at dinner though he’s clearly managed to have a drink and wash himself up. I show Peeta the book and parchment Aurelius sent whilst we’re waiting for Haymitch to finish his food.

“What’s that for?” Haymitch grumbles between mouthfuls, eyeing the parchment suspiciously. I explain the idea for the book whilst Peeta washes up.

“You could help too, if you wanted,” I add quietly at the end of my explanation. Haymitch sits silently for a minute, staring at the glass in his head, before he suddenly gets up and storms out, the glass shattered on the floor. I hear him ranting under his breath, and I think he says he, ‘can’t think of anything worse’. Peeta and I stand frozen, staring at the glass on the floor.

“I mean, a no would’ve got his point across just fine,” he says, and our eyes meet at the same time. I can’t help but smirk back at him, then sigh as I grab a broom at the same time he reaches for a towel. We clean up the mess before parting ways for the evening, Peeta promising to bring his paints tomorrow.

The next day I am greeted once again by the sound of rain hammering on my bedroom window – it’s so bad I can hardly see across the village. Haymitch avoids breakfast, so Peeta takes some bread over to his after breakfast, and then we get set up on the couch.

“Who do you want to start with?” He asks as he gets his paints and inks set up.

“I don’t know if I can start with Prim,” I say. Peeta’s eyes meet mine.

“We don’t have to. I don’t know if I could face doing my family right now,” he says.

I nod, unsure what else to suggest. It is quiet for a few more minutes, when the idea comes to me, and I pick up my pen, “Let’s start with Rue.”

Peeta eyes me warily, “Are you sure?”

I nod, “It feels like so much started with her. It’s right that the book does too.”

Peeta nods and picks up his pencil and sketchpad where he’ll do a rough draft before doing the final piece in the book. Unlike when we worked on the plant book, Peeta won’t need my instructions or direction for most of the paintings, and so I leave him to work whilst I cast my mind back almost two years. I can feel my body tense, my heartbeat picks up and I have to do a few of the deep breaths Dr Aurelius has talked me through. Part of me, the cowardly part, wants to run away and forget about this idea entirely. But then I remember sweet Rue following me around the training centre, and I know I have to continue, even if it’s painful. The alternative, that the details that made her so alive could be forgotten, is unbearable. When I open my eyes, I see Peeta has paused his sketch and is looking at me, concern all over his face.

“I’ll be fine. Just needed a moment,” I say. He nods and picks up his pencils again as he works on Rue’s curls. I pick up my notepad and find the memories and words come more easily than I thought they would. Her impressive training score, how she’d fly from tree to tree and her delight at getting a whole leg of meat to herself. How she told me she liked apples best, how she’d always climb to the very tops of the trees and felt like she was on top of the world. Her love of music and how she wanted me to sing her to sleep.

“She was lovely wasn’t she?” I hear Peeta say softly. I look up, and see he’s finished his sketch. I assumed he’d draw her as he briefly knew her in the training centre, but he’s drawn her in the arena, poised on her tiptoes on a tree branch, with her arms extended like a bird about to take flight. His ability to capture her likeness is impressive, but what is really remarkable is how he’s captured her spirit in the bright curiosity of her eyes and the delicate, graceful way that she moved.

“She was,” I say, my voice catching. I take some more deep breaths before I speak again. “It looks perfect Peeta. Thank you.”

He nods, but his gaze lingers on me. I straighten my shoulders and try to hold myself together, so he doesn’t worry, pulling the parchment towards us. He eventually looks away, and gets started on the copy that will go in the book. I make us some tea and sip on it whilst I pull my notebook in front of me, trying to come up with any details I’ve forgotten. Peeta is locked away in that world he goes to whilst he’s paints now, his eyes hard in concentration as he moves his hands in soft strokes across the page. The rain falls more softly against the windows now as he works, and I watch as he brings Rue to life beneath his fingertips. At some point around mid-afternoon, my stomach rumbles and I go and fix us some sandwiches. We take a break and eat in silence, before Peeta dives back in to finish off the scenery surrounding Rue. Once he’s done an hour or so later I print my memories of Rue in my most careful handwriting on the page opposite Peeta’s beautiful rendition of her.

I finish my last sentence copied from my notepad, but don’t put the pen down – it feels like something’s missing.

“Katniss?” I hear Peeta next to me and feel his eyes on me. Before I can second guess my decision, I continue writing at the bottom of the page:

Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes
And when again they open, the sun will rise

Here it’s safe, and here it’s warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you

Now the page feels complete, and I put the pen down, staring at our work. I don’t realise I’m crying until Peeta is handing me a tissue as the tears track down my face.

“You sang that song to her when she died. Real or not Real?” he asks.

“Real,” I reply, and I hum some of the tune. This seems to register somewhere in his mind, and he nods.

“Thank you. I remember watching a tape of you with her, but I don’t remember you singing,” he says, his eyes glazed over in a look that I know means he’s sifting through his memories, trying to discard the ones that Snow planted there. “Now that I think about it, that one seems shiny.”

He stares up at the ceiling now, looking as exhausted as I feel. A part of me wants to reach over and run my hands through his hair, to bring him out of his mind and back to me. Suddenly, his eyes flick to mine, and I feel embarrassed, like he caught me staring, which I suppose I was.

“How are you feeling, now you’ve done a page? We don’t have to do any more if it’s too much.”

I do feel emotionally drained, but it feels good to have Rue remembered in this way. There is a satisfaction as well, to having spent the day working on something and being able to see the finished piece at the end of it. And it’s been nice spending time with Peeta again and getting to watch him work.

“I want to continue. If you’re happy to,” I reply.

“I’m happy to. It might be good to have a day between working on the pages though,” he suggests, and I nod in agreement. Peeta starts packing away his paints and I take our mugs away to wash up. He heads over to get Haymitch whilst I start on dinner.

Haymitch looks wary as he comes in. “Look, see, I’ve already packed my stuff up and the books been put away. I promise I just brought you here to feed you,” Peeta tells him, gesturing for him to sit in his usual chair whilst he takes the simmering pot of grain over from me. Haymitch relaxes slightly at Peeta’s words as he surveys the room, eyeing me suspiciously. I ignore him throughout dinner, which is mostly a quiet affair. Haymitch leaves as soon as he can, but not before Peeta assures him we won’t be working on the book tomorrow so he can turn up for breakfast.

Surprisingly he does, although there’s no sign of Peeta. Even Sae and Eula Mae show up, who is just excited to play with Buttercup after being separated for so long. She uses some of my mother’s yarn to get Buttercup to chase her around the room. They have most of the room captivated, but my gaze keeps landing on the door to the hallway, waiting to hear Peeta’s heavy gait announcing his arrival. But he never shows up.

As I’m finishing the washing up the phone rings – my mother calling before she goes to work. We discuss our usual topics of hunting and her job, after which she suddenly pauses mid-sentence, remembering something.

“Oh! I meant to tell you that I saw Annie Cresta yesterday. She wanted to send you something, so I gave her your address – I hope that’s alright?”

She seems slightly nervous to ask this question, but I’m mostly just confused. Whilst we spent some time together at meals in the District Thirteen dining hall, it was always in the company of Finnick and others. The only time we really spent together was when she came to Twelve with me to pick out a wedding dress, which was fine, but I hadn’t thought of us as particularly close.

“Why was she in the hospital? Is she okay?”

“I … it’s not really for me to say,” my mother replies, and there’s something in her tone that tells me to drop the subject. I guess I’ll just have to wait for her letter.

We talk for a little longer, and I tell her about the book idea. I hadn’t been sure how she’d react, but she seems positive about me having something to work on. We hang up soon after that as she has to go to work and I’m keen to get back to my usual routine now that the rain has finally cleared.

I knock on Peeta’s door on my way out, but he doesn’t open it. Maybe he had a bad nightmare and is catching up on some sleep now. In the woods I spend most of my time trying to catch some fish at a nearby pond as requested by Haymitch but my mind is occupied worrying about why he didn’t show up this morning. I am only pulled out of it on my way back to the fence when I hear an unmistakably familiar sound. There she is; Rue is flying around my woods, singing to me but just out of reach. I blink and shake my head. When I look up again, I see it is just a mockingjay, flitting from tree to tree and singing its tune. I run away from it, only stopping when I am back to the fence. I slide to the ground and start taking deep breaths to try and slow my heartbeat. This takes some time, but the clump of dandelions I spot in my peripheral vision gets me up again.

On my way through the village I stop by Peeta’s house again, but still no answer. I walk around the side and look in through the windows where I see him lying on his couch, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling above. For a second it feels like the world has stopped and the wind has been knocked out of me, but then I notice the rise and fall of his chest, the twitch of his hands. I focus in on his eyes again which only reflect back confusion and pain. I notice the room around him, the dirty mugs on the table, a discarded piece of paper, the open paints and half-finished canvas that shows a dark chaotic scene that must be from his nightmares. I try to place it, but it doesn’t seem to be from the arena; a shadow that is just out of frame looms over the small child who is crouched into a corner, bruises painted up and down their arms and legs.

I walk in through his back door into the kitchen and find some pastries he must have made yesterday and take them to him along with a big glass of water. I notice him shivering so I get a blanket which I wrap around him as I kneel by the couch. I remember Boggs doing something similar for me in Two when I was lost to memories of my father, when I thought Peeta was lost to me. I can’t stand the pain in his eyes that stare vacantly past me now, so I reach out and stroke his waves off his forehead. It’s the first time we’ve touched since the Capitol, and I’m worried I’m crossing a line, but he doesn’t pull away. I repeat the motion several times, and his eyes close briefly as he leans into my hand. When they open again, the pain is still there but they’ve lost that vacant look from before. He looks at me questioningly.

“Make sure you eat and drink something,” I say, gesturing to the glass and plate on the table in front of us. I get up and collect the dirty mugs and dishes from around the room and wash them up in the kitchen. When I return to the living room, he is still staring at me bewildered.

“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“You hate leaving a mess,” I reply, finding a box that seems to have paints in it and packing the ones he was using away. I turn and survey my work – it’s not much, but it’s better than before. “I’ll bring some dinner by. It’s fish tonight.”

His eyes continue to bore into mine, as if he’s trying to figure something out. I turn to leave, unable to hold his gaze any longer. I’m nearly out the room when I hear him whisper, “Thank you.”

The next day, it is my turn to lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling, held captive by what I see every time I close my eyes. I tell myself this is a small progress from the days where I can’t get out of bed. Everyone comes by for breakfast, and the noise of the cupboards closing and Sae’s chuckle at Buttercup’ antics provide some comfort. But then they are all gone to get on with their days or fight their own nightmares and I am left alone with mine. Peeta comes by around lunchtime with more cheese buns, and makes sure I’ve had some water and taken my medication. He returns again with Haymitch for dinner, which I eat on the couch; simple sandwiches with some leftover fish and bread Peeta baked.

We finally sit down on the couch the next morning to start a new page.

“Is there anyone you want to work on?” I ask Peeta, seeing as I chose last time.

He puzzles this for a minute, then just says “I don’t want to go back to an arena today.”

I wonder if this has to do with the way I found him two days ago. And then I remember the pain in his eyes as I covered him in a blanket, as if to protect him from the world and his mind. “What about Boggs?”

Peeta agrees to this and we get started on his portrait together. Peeta’s outline is generally accurate, but I help him with the details like the lines on his forehead and the scar on his neck. Whilst Peeta draws the final sketch in the book, I write down everything I can remember about our squad leader. His comment about Finnick to Fulvia that made me like him. How he carried me back to the hovercraft in Eight, and carried on taking care of me and others even when I’d thrown up on him. The smile he tried to suppress when we were all laughing at Mitchell’s awful attempts at acting. How the green light of the Holo illuminated his face as he reprogrammed it. That he told me he wanted me to live a long life. I’m still not sure about that myself, but I suppose each morning I get out of bed I am at least trying to fulfil his wish.

Peeta reads these details as I copy them carefully next to his portrait. “Did you have anything you wanted to add?”

“I didn’t really know him. I mean, I know he led the team that rescued me from the Capitol, but I don’t remember seeing him except in passing in Thirteen. I mostly just remember him being angry when I arrived in the Capitol” he says, shrugging. “Not that I blame him.”

“He wasn’t angry at you, Peeta,” I say, feeling the need to clarify this. “I think he was angry more so at Coin for ordering you there.”

“That makes sense. I thought that he was like her at first. But later on I figured that couldn’t be true with how much you seemed to trust him.”

“I didn’t trust him at first either. But he wasn’t like her. He always … looked out for me.”

I had felt so lost at times in Thirteen, with everyone I trusted seemingly far away, even if not physically. Boggs had always been a steady and protective presence during my time there.

“I think I would’ve liked Boggs. I’m glad you had him” Peeta says quietly.

“Me too,” I say. Tears swim in my vision agin, and I try to blink them back, which Peeta catches.

“Don’t. It’s okay,” he says. His kind blue eyes and the way he wordlessly hands me a tissue makes my heart ache. The tears fall in full force now, and I feel his hand, tentatively start to rub my back. I don’t pull away, and his movements become surer, steadying me as I navigate my grief for the commander who reminded me so much of my father.

I sit up and look at him, and his hand freezes, “I’m sorry if I-”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Of course,” he replies, and there’s something in the gentle, matter-of-fact way he says this that reminds me of all he’s done since he’s returned to Twelve. From planting the primroses, to bringing me bread every day, to agreeing to help me with this book even when it haunts him too. Before I can overthink it I throw my arms around him for the first time since Tigris’ basement. He hesitates at first, I think slightly shocked, but then I feel those strong arms wrap around me and pull me to him. He’s not as steady as he once was, but I cling to him all the same, breathing in the same cinnamon and dill scent I remember from over a year ago when he’d carried me up to bed. I feel myself relax against him, as his hands start softly rubbing soothing circles into my back again.

We stay like this for several minutes, until my phone starts ringing, which makes us jump apart. I look at the clock, confusion turning into realisation, “Oh it must be Dr Aurelius, we have an appointment now.”

Peeta nods, and starts putting his paints and pencils back into his bag. “I’d better go then; he’ll be calling me after. I’ll see you for dinner.”

He gives me a small but sad smile as he leaves, and I run over to the study before the phone goes to the answering machine. I watch as he tries to leave quietly down the corridor, a part of me wishing that the phone hadn’t rung at all.

Chapter Text

My conversation with Aurelius is fairly positive –  I talk about our work on the memory book so far, which he’s overall supportive of, but he does express concern at the disruption to our routines and the emotional toll of working on it all day. So that night, Peeta and I agree that unless it’s pouring outside to spend the mornings separately baking or hunting, and then work on the book together in the afternoon. We go our separate ways after breakfast, and I spend my morning checking the local pond for fish and scavenging the early spring flowers.  

When we sit down after lunch the next day to complete a new page, I have no idea who to suggest. Luckily, Peeta does.

“I found these yesterday when I was reorganising my cupboard,” he says, pulling out a box of paints. I stare at them blankly; they don’t look particularly different to the others he’s brought over before. He chuckles at my expression, putting them on the table. “Portia and Cinna got them for me.”

“Portia and Cinna?” I ask, curiously.

“Yeah. I didn’t know where to get the right paints or inks or brushes when I was starting out, so they helped me by ordering the first few things so I could see what I liked.”

I frown. Cinna and I used to talk on the phone regularly between the 74^th and 75^th Games, and he didn’t mention anything. And I’ve definitely seen Peeta use these paints before, I recognise the packaging and the white and yellow stains across the top left corner of the box. But I guess when this was all happening, Peeta and I weren’t on speaking terms. He certainly wouldn’t have mentioned it to me at the time, so why would Cinna?

“I thought we could use them to do their pages?” Peeta finishes.

“It’s perfect,” I nod, and we get started on Portia’s page. I didn’t know Portia well, so it ends up taking longer than usual. We both learn quickly that Peeta trying to recount memories and sketch at the same time just leads to him becoming agitated and frustrated with his work. So he puts his pencil down and stares straight ahead of him, trying to dig through his memories whilst I document them. He tells me about her calm and pragmatic approach to everything that he found so grounding. I recall her reassuring words to me whilst I bemoaned shooting the apple at the Gamemakers and note it down. Peeta goes on to talk about how she helped and comforted him when I pushed him into an urn after our first interviews. I wince at the memory of Peeta’s hands made bloody by my assertion that he was trying to sabotage me, when really he was just trying to protect me.

He notices and says quietly, “Katniss, I think after everything we can let that go.”

I know he’s right, so I try to fix my face so he can continue telling me about Portia. It turns out that they used to phone each other regularly, more than Cinna and I did, their conversations focused on developing Peeta’s artistic talent. His voice gets quieter, as he starts recalling the careful way Portia took in his clothes for his appearances on camera when he was being held in the Capitol, how the squeeze of his shoulder or a fleeting hold of his hand was the only gentleness he experienced in those weeks.  The guilt rises again, as I remember Plutarch telling me about her execution live on television along with Peeta’s prep team immediately following his rescue.

I don’t let myself be consumed by the same grief as I was when I was first told the news of their murder. Instead I focus on the boy beside me, who is shaking slightly as he tries to hold back his own sorrow. After a few deep breaths his eyes find a spot on the ceiling and fix there. I say his name a couple of times, but he doesn’t respond. I lay my hand on his arm then, trying to find him however I can. His eyes don’t move, but he does stop shaking, so it must help in some way.

After about half an hour, Peeta’s eyes suddenly flit down to his sketchbook and he picks up his pencil and gets to work again, so I go and make tea for us both. When I come back in, Peeta’s outline is starting to take shape. I expected him to draw Portia perhaps during one of the interview nights or when we were presented as Victors for the first time. But instead, he has drawn her as she was at dinner in the training centre, her make-up light and smiling softly, eyes alight with curiosity and kindness. I watch him as he finishes the draft off, and we agree to stop for the day, both too wrung out to transfer everything into the book today.

After I’ve printed the last memory alongside Peeta’s portrait the next day, I notice him still staring at the page like he’s contemplating something.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I thought it might be nice to have one or two of her sketches in here. I’m not even sure where they’d be though, if they haven’t been destroyed already.”

I wince – it is very possible that either under captivity or after her execution, anything she created would’ve been destroyed, especially if it was a design for Peeta. But then I remember Cinna’s sketchbook of my mockingjay designs kept in District Thirteen. I explain this to Peeta, who seems thoughtful. 

“I’m not sure anything like that existed for me though,” he says shrugging.

“Why not though?” I reply. “The plan was to get us both out.”

“I guess it’s a possibility,” Peeta says. Then a realisation dawns on his face, just seconds before it hits me, “But to even ask we’d have to talk to …”

“Plutarch,” I finish for him. We both exchange a look, and I know we’re on the same page about staying as far away from Plutarch Heavensbee as possible. Knowing him, I’d ask for one of Cinna or Portia’s sketches and it’d somehow bind me into being on his new singing show.

“I’ll ask Effie if she knows anything,” Peeta mumbles rising to get started on dinner.

The next day I wake up to rain again, and so Peeta offers to stay after breakfast to work on the book. Eula Mae wants to stay too, but Sae ushers her along out the kitchen once she’s finished the washing up. Peeta ends up having to promise to do some art with her another time to get her to leave, with Sae mouthing a tired ‘thank you’ as she closes the front door.

“I’m surprised you’d let her near your sketchbooks,” I say.

“Oh, I wouldn’t. I’ll take her to Haymitch’s and let her have free reign on the house whilst he’s asleep,” he replies, and then we’re both laughing at the image of Eula Mae running wild with a paintbrush around Haymitch whilst he snores passed out on his couch.

He then appears from the bathroom, scowling at us which sends us into even more laughter. He just shakes his head, muttering something along the lines of ‘at least someone’s happy’ and he leaves too. We head to the living room and manage to calm down eventually, my stomach aching slightly from our amusement.

“What kind of portrait do you want?” Peeta asks me as he pulls out his paints and pages. It’s this that almost immediately sobers my mood, and I wrack my brain for any idea, flustered at the question – it’s the first time he’s directly asked me for my opinion on what he’s doing other than to check if a detail is correct.

“I liked what you did for Portia,” I reply, unsure what else to say. “Not from an interview, but something more … real, I guess.”

I start to describe Cinna when I first met him. In a simple black shirt and trousers with his signature gold eyeliner, I remember being taken aback by how understated he looked. Peeta nods and gets to work as I pick up my notepad and start writing down everything I can about my friend from the Capitol.

“He always seemed different to the others.,” I recount our first meeting, about how quickly the food came and Cinna’s comment about how we must find them all despicable. Peeta, who usually works quietly whilst I recount memories and write them down, raises his head slightly, pulled out of his world.

“I mean, that’s pretty much all I could think about. How quickly it came, how much of it went to waste,” he muses.

“Yeah. I think I was just surprised. I had always thought people from the Capitol were never really aware of how much they had compared to us,” I reply. Peeta nods, turning this over in his mind.

“That’s what made you trust him,” he says, halfway between a statement and a question.

“Partly, I think. I always felt like I could be myself around him,” I say quietly, thinking of the hours of conversations on the phone with Cinna.

Peeta puts his pencil down and reaches around to squeeze my shoulder comfortingly. I lean into him and his touch, but all too soon he takes it away and goes back to sketching, looking thoughtful. “Did I ever tell you about when he showed me the roof?”

I shake my head, as Peeta recounts what happened. Whilst I was playing with the different buttons in my Capitol room, ordering goose liver and zooming in and out on different areas of the city from my window, Cinna knocked on Peeta’s door and asked him if he had explored the apartment yet.

“He showed me the dining room and the living room and then we ended up at the staircase. The sun was just starting to set, I think, when we got to the top. I remember the city almost didn’t look real to me. We walked around the rooftop for a bit; I remember how loud the windchimes were. And that’s when he started asking me questions.”

I frown, “Like what?”

“I can’t remember all of them. At the time it just felt like generic stuff. If I had any siblings, what my family did, what I thought of the garden and the food and the costumes. I remember when I told him my family owned a bakery he said I should be good with fire then.”

“And what did you say?”

“Keeping one going is another thing to making it a Capitol fashion trend. But I told him how grateful I was that we weren’t covered in coal dust, and that the crowd seemed to love it, especially you.”

I can almost hear the crowds now, chanting my name as we rode through the streets with the flames illuminating our faces. I remember how breathtaking he looked, how we both looked. “Then Portia came up and told us dinner would be ready soon.”

Peeta’s story about Cinna is fascinating, but leaves me with more questions than before. “I remember being confused about why he showed me up there, and why all the questions, given he was your stylist. But I guess, looking back, maybe he was trying to figure me out.”

“Whatever his reasons, I’m glad he showed you the rooftop,” I say, before I can really think about it. I immediately regret it, until a small smile forms on Peeta’s lips.

“Me too. That was one of my favourite days,” he says, and his words bring a warmth to my chest that slowly spreads through me as I remember lying in the sun, my head in his lap as he played with my hair and we forgot about who we were and where we were, just for a few precious hours. “That was before the Quell. Real or not real?”

I nod, “Real.”

“That wasn’t the first time we went up there though,” he says.

I nod again, “Two times, before our first Games. We went up there after I recognised Lavinia, and then the night before the Games.”

Peeta’s lost in his memories, sorting through what’s real and what’s not. After a few minutes though his eyes lose that faraway look, and he just nods, picking up his pencils again as he says, “Thank you.”

He manages to finish his draft sketch before lunch, which we eat together before settling back down to put Cinna’s entry into the book. We work on this quietly, me watching Peeta as he paints Cinna laughing in what looks like one of the dining cars of the train. I try to emphasise his kindness and his talent and his belief in me. How he could turn a length of silk into a piece of art. How he always knew what I needed and reflected that in what he designed for me; the soft yellow candlelight dress after the first Games, the jumpsuit that turned me into someone as unformidable and deadly as fire itself for the chariots at the Quell.

“I could’ve done without the earmuffs though, on the tour,” I mutter.

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t have minded them whenever Effie started talking about the schedule,” he says these last words accented slightly to sound like someone from the Capitol. There is a pause for a moment, and then his eyes catch mine and we’re both chuckling at the memory of our escort becoming frazzled over a delay of one minute that would apparently ruin the next three days of the tour.  

We finish up Cinna’s entry and get started on dinner when Haymitch comes in, stumbling slightly but with news from Thom that there should be another train coming in the next few days. Peeta and I exchange a look whilst Haymitch gets settled, and I know he’s also grateful for the news – from what he said, Haymitch’s liquor supply is starting to get low again.

That night, my dream starts off in a wide-open grassland that I immediately feel uncomfortable in – no trees, no shelter. The sun beats down on me, scorching and unrelenting in its heat, the sky a deep blue. I wander aimlessly for a while, trying to find any break in the landscape, but I may as well not be moving at all – the horizon and everything around me doesn’t change no matter how many steps I take. I feel like I have been wandering for hours when I hear it; a howl of pain that is seared into my memory no matter how hard I try to forget it. I look all around me, but I can’t see him – and then I see it. The bird, with the unmistakable markings of a jabberjay, circles above me, repeating the sounds I could never forget from when I was lifted up into the jungle arena. My feet move and I try to get away from it, to find any kind of cover, but there’s nowhere to run. No trees, no buildings, no caves. The bird follows me wherever I go, and is soon joined by more repeating the screams of my sister at the reaping, the gargled yells of Finnick as he was attacked by the sewer mutts, the grunts of pain as life faded from Boggs. At some point, I try to move away from them again, but now I am frozen in place. None of my limbs will respond – I can’t even sink to the ground or cover my ears. I am suspended in place and forced to hear the screams of the dying all around me as the birds circle overhead.

After what feels like hours, the birds suddenly break from their unending loop. Their screams grow louder, and they descend toward me – this somehow breaks my paralysis, and my eyes flutter close, ready to let this torture end. When they open again, I am back in my room, panting heavily and covered in sweat. Buttercup glares at me from the floor – from the way my sheets are tangled, I’ve clearly been thrashing so much I’ve made him fall out of the bed. It is early morning; the sun I can see peeking over the horizon, the sky starting to brighten into a beautiful day. A bird lands on the windowsill outside, the markings slightly too similar to that of the ones from my nightmare, and I bolt to find shelter.

I can’t truly escape what my mind has decided to conjure up, but I do the best I can and end up in one of my closets. Buttercup meows and scratches at the door for a while, but my limbs are frozen once more. At least now I can’t be forced to see anything, and soon enough he gives up and I am left to the quiet and the dark. It’s all-encompassing, and I let it wash over me. Above me, dozens of dresses designed by dead hands hang. I hide in their folds, hoping that maybe if I just stay here my nightmares won’t find me.

At some point, I hear loud, heavy footsteps that are surely his. Their pace is frantic, his voice getting closer as he repeatedly calls my name. I try to open my mouth, but nothing comes. I hear him move across my room, and I finally manage to shift my position slightly which he must hear. A burst of light replaces the darkness, and he stands above me basked in the warm morning glow. Wordlessly he sits beside me, stretching his left leg out in front of him. I immediately lean into him, my cheek ending up pressed into his shoulder. I breathe in his scent and feel a wave of calm wash over me. I concentrate on this as I close my eyes and try to match my breathing with his.

We stay like this for a while, and I watch the light shift in my room as the sun creeps its way higher in the sky. At some point Peeta puts his arm around me, holding me steady as he rubs soothing circles into my arm. His eyes wander after a while, until they lock on something and his eyebrows bunch together in confusion.

“What did that dress ever do to you?” he asks, and I follow his gaze to a pretty orange frock I wore on the Victory Tour in Eleven. It’s hardly recognisable now, the material ripped and torn so badly it would be unwearable now. Just then, I spot the top of a bushy tail entering the room, the culprit of the crime giving himself away.

“You’ll have to ask him,” I nod towards Buttercup as he saunters towards us and unceremoniously plants himself in Peeta’s lap. Peeta strokes him gently and then begins to scratch his ear, which sets Buttercup off purring.

“What was that for huh?” Peeta says to the beast playfully. “I always liked that one.”

“I thought you would,” I smile slightly. Peeta turns to me, and I feel the need to explain. “I thought you’d like the colour I mean. It’s your favourite.”

He nods, and his lips turn up, his eyes thoughtful as he scratches Buttercup’s chin. I remove my cheek from his shoulder and sit up, examining the damage done. Looking at it closely, I don’t see a way it could be salvaged without hours of work.

“I wasn’t planning on wearing it again, but it still feels like a waste,” I say, mostly to myself. Buttercup seems to grow bored now and wanders off, so Peeta shifts and takes some of the fabric in his hands. I can see him trying to work through the problem, his eyes clearing all of a sudden.

“I have an idea,” he says, and he takes my hand to help me get up.

After lunch, Peeta runs over to his house and comes back carrying a tie he wore in District Three that got stained with some wine that I accidentally knocked from his hand. He explains his idea to me, cutting pieces of fabric from both my dress and his tie.

“It’s not exactly what we talked about but …” Peeta trails off, examining his work.

“It’s perfect,” I say. That afternoon, we press the fabrics of the dress on to Cinna’s page and the tie on to Portia’s page. We decide the rest of the scrap can go to Eula Mae who can use it to make new outfits for her doll with the help of Sae.

The next day, Peeta and I take a break from the book and pack away all of the outfits that Cinna made into some boxes he finds in the basement. I don’t know what I want to do with all of them yet, but I know I want to make the decision later, rather than leave the cat to tear them to shreds and waste them. I pointedly close the door to the closet when we’re done and move a small table in front of it. I’m almost sure Buttercup frowns at me as I smile triumphantly and head downstairs to make dinner with Peeta.

Chapter Text

“Who’s the letter from?” Peeta asks as I put the pile of goods from the train on Sae’s table. It came in this morning, so we headed down mid-afternoon whilst Peeta stayed back to watch Eula Mae. We arrived back to find the floor covered in an assortment of scrap pieces of parchment featuring a bizarre array of shapes and colours I can hardly make sense of.

“Annie, I think. She was asking my mother for my address a couple weeks ago,” I reply, but before Peeta can respond Eula Mae grabs my hand and pulls me after her as she explains that the nonsensical shapes are actually the different houses and people of Victor’s Village. She points out the person with patchwork skin and hair that sharply cuts off, and I realise that’s me. Next to it is a bright orange splodge that I guess is meant to be Buttercup.

Once the tour of Eula Mae’s art is over, Peeta and I head back to mine to get started on dinner. I should really join Peeta in cutting the vegetables, but I can’t contain my curiosity for the letter any longer and rip it open.

Katniss,

I hope you don’t mind me asking your mother for your address. You were so kind to me back in Thirteen and I know that you and Finnick were close. Which is why I wanted you to know before you found out from Plutarch or anyone else. I’m pregnant. Lots of doctors have spoken to me about scans and tests but it still doesn’t feel real to me at all. It’s like some odd, awful dream that I want to wake up from at any moment.

I ran into your mother in the waiting room of the new hospital for one of those scans a few weeks ago, and she was an awfully big help, talking me through what medicines and diet will help me and the baby. And she’s been checking in on me since – it helps a little, knowing that, because I’m terrified.  

I hope you don’t mind me writing and letting you know – I just felt like you should, given how highly Finnick spoke of you. I hope your recovery in Twelve is going well. I’ll leave my address and phone number at the bottom; in case you ever want to talk.

Annie.

I have to read the letter over several times to make sure that I’m comprehending it right. Annie, pregnant. With Finnick’s child.

“Katniss?” Peeta’s voice is cautious; I hear him say my name several times again, but it sounds so far away. I can feel my legs growing weaker beneath me, seeing Finnick’s life before my eyes again – the boat and Mags and Annie and now his unborn child. The images crash over me until it feels like I’m sinking in on myself.

Then, I feel an arm around me that I cling to desperately as it tethers me back to the world. I focus on the rise and fall of his chest and try to match my breaths to it. This takes a while, but slowly details start to fill in – the box of supplies on the table from the train, the dishes from breakfast that need to be put away, the rough feeling of his shirt against my cheek. I blink several times as the world comes back into focus, and I can finally see his panicked blue eyes inches away from mine.

“What happened?” he asks. Wordlessly, I reach for the letter and hand it to him. I watch him read it and see in real time as his expression shifts from way curiosity to shock and horror.

“What do we do?” I whisper, the waves threatening to engulf me again.

“Not much we can do from here,” Peeta grimaces. “But we can write back. She’s got your mother and the new hospital to help look after her and the baby. And maybe … maybe this will help her.”

My expression must match the disbelief I feel at his words because Peeta continues. “I mean, it might not. But maybe getting through this pregnancy and then looking after the baby will give Annie something to focus on. And it might help her knowing that … that a part of Finnick will live on through their child.”

I consider Peeta’s words for a moment – he might just be saying them to calm me down. But there is something to what he is saying, I think, about having something to focus on. And the part about Finnick living on his child – well that can only be a good thing.  

“We should do Finnick’s page,” I say quietly. Peeta turns to me.

“You’re sure?”

I nod slowly, “Maybe one day, Annie might visit. And I’d like to show it to he- their – child.”

I watch as Peeta processes this, his eyes glazing over at one point. But then he shakes his head, coming back to me. “I think she’d like that.”

I am exhausted when we settle down to start Finnick’s page the next afternoon, having been up half the night after I watched Finnick being ripped apart by the sewer mutts as he tried to rescue a bronze haired boy from their clutches. I stare at my notes page for at least ten minutes, but am overwhelmed with where to start. Luckily, Peeta has a plan.

“Why don’t we start from the beginning – your first impression of him. And then work from there? You can talk it out before you write anything down, if you want,” he suggests, and I don’t have any better ideas, so I try it. I cast my mind back to first meeting Finnick as I waited by the chariots, the crunch of his sugar cube ringing in my ear.

“I didn’t trust him at first. Being a career and the way he was … I don’t know. It was like he was trying to flirt with me,” I say, wrinkling my nose at the thought now of how close he got and how uncomfortable I felt. I remember wishing Peeta were there with me, who is trying to suppress a smile now. “What?”

He shakes his head, “From what I understand, he was trying to flirt with you. He also didn’t make a very good first impression with me either.”

“Why? You weren’t jealous were you?”

“A little,” he admits, and his openness to this as well as the flush of his cheeks takes me aback slightly, but he moves on quickly. “So what did make you trust him?”

I ponder this for a moment, but as soon as I start the answer seems obvious, “When he restarted your heart. It made no sense for him to do that. And then he kept helping us over everyone else. It was hard not to after a while. Especially in Thirteen,” I pause, but Peeta looks confused. “He- he was the only one who understood how I felt. ”

Peeta’s eyes meet mine, and I find that I can’t look away – it’s like he’s searching for something. I’m not sure myself what he’ll find, but I can feel heat creeping up my neck which feels ridiculous. But as suddenly as his eyes met mine, he blinks and looks away like nothing ever happened. He gets to work on a scene of Finnick on the beach, his hair damp as he stares out at the waves. In Peeta’s hands, he is not the Capitol’s glorious young victor or sex symbol but simply a young man, observing the world before him. It could be a scene from anywhere really, but the details Peeta includes tell me quickly it’s meant to be the arena. The bangle round his wrists, the ugly healing blisters on his hand and face from the ointment we used to treat our wounds from the fog. The thought of him slathering the dark stuff all over him as he turned gray-green and bemoaned not being beautiful for once brings a smile to my face.

“You know another thing that made me trust him? When we woke you up to tell you about the ointment,” I say, trying to suppress a laugh as I remember Peeta’s reaction. I expect to see him laughing with me or looking at me with disdain, but I am greeted with neither. Instead, his pupils dilate as he retreats into his mind, dragged into whatever flashback or nightmare he can no longer fight off. Soon, they are squeezed shut, and it must be bad because his pencils fall out of his hands as he puts them to his head and starts rocking back and forth. Instinctively, I reach for one of them and squeeze it hard, to the point of pain. It takes a while, but it seems to help. His breathing becomes less erratic,  and eventually when he opens his eyes, his pupils are almost back to normal. He collapses back against the couch, looking exhausted.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and he shifts himself away from me slightly. “What you said … I remember you waking up pretending to tell me about an ointment, but then you and Finnick attacked me and tried to drag me back to the fog. Real or not real?”

I shake my head, trying to keep my voice steady, horrified at this alternative version of events the Capitol have planted in his mind. “Not real. We were just joking around – we both looked pretty terrifying with it on. You were frightened for a second, but then you realised we were just messing around.”

Peeta is still as he takes this information in. “I guess it makes sense that they decided to use that.”

I want to cry, horrified that one of the few moments of levity in that arena has been twisted like this. “I’m sorry, I should’ve thought more about what I was saying. We don’t have to continue, you should rest.”

“No let’s keep going,” he insists, and I know there’s no point arguing with him. We work in an awkward silence for a while longer, whilst Peeta steadily transfers his sketch and I add to my notes. Peeta’s flashback and our conversations have made us fall behind though, and Peeta’s only just adding colour to the painting when Haymitch arrives for dinner. I go and shower whilst he puts together a dish of grain paired with a goose I shot down this morning. We are quiet throughout dinner too, apart from Haymitch who asks what the meat is. When I tell him he makes an odd face, but he eats it up the same as always, so he can’t hate it.

Peeta and I wash up together, after which we usually part ways for the evening. But I don’t want him to go yet, not so soon after his flashback.

“Our appointments with Aurelius are tomorrow right?” he nods, washing the soap from his hands. “So we probably won’t have much time to work on the book tomorrow and finish it based on where we left off.”

I let this hang in the air, trying to get a read on him, with little success. The silence has gone on too long now, so I turn away, and start putting dishes away. “It’s fine actually, we can pick it back up in a couple of days-”

“Let’s finish it now,” he says, drying his hands and heading back to the couch. When I sit down next to him, he’s already working on the bronze in Finnick’s hair. He takes his time filling in all the details about Finnick, and at some point I go and get some blankets and tea as the living room feels chilly. Once his portrait is done, I get started on filling in the details about my friend that I could never forget. Finnick collecting water in the arena and feeding it to Mags. His hands tying endless knots in Thirteen. The way he dived in and out of the water like it was his home. Posing in the hangar in his underwear to make Boggs and I laugh. Peeta chips in some memories of his own, things Finnick told him before he decorated the cake for his wedding, or how he’d talk to him for hours on watches in the Capitol to help him parse out what was real what wasn’t.

“He’d have been a great father,” I hear Peeta murmur beside me. I feel tears springing to my eyes.

“The best,” I reply softly, overwhelmed at the unfairness of it all. Anger courses through me with the thought that Finnick’s child will never know the kindness and laughter and deep love of their father. If I hadn’t been so bewildered and focused on Peeta and myself, it could’ve been me pulled apart by the sewer mutts, and he’d be here to meet them. The wave crashes back over me again as my body succumbs to the guilt and grief. But his arms soon anchor me, holding me close to his shoulder. It’s not until I feel a trickle of water down my ear that I realise that Peeta’s crying too.

We hold each other for a while as we cry and mourn the man who saved us both time and time again. I know I should get up and let Peeta go home, but I am so tired, and his arms are the only thing holding me together. I yawn and close my eyes, just briefly, breathing in his familiar scent as I feel his breath on my cheek. Just a few more minutes and I’ll get up and let him go …

The world is tilted when my eyes fly open and I panic, trying to take in my surroundings. What I see calms me down almost instantly, but it doesn’t make any sense. I’m lying on the couch with Peeta, tucked under his chin. I can see his pale stubble coming through, his right arm thrown over my waist. His heart beats sure and steady against my ear, his breath in my hair. So many nights in Thirteen I dreamt about this, wished desperately to sleep in his arms again. I try to keep my eyes open, terrified that this will be taken away from me if I so much as blink. I am so warm and tired and content though, that eventually I can’t fight my lids any longer and slip back into darkness.

Buttercup is lying by my side when I wake up in my bedroom the next morning. Confusion immediately sweeps over me. The last thing I remember is sleeping next to Peeta on the couch. Did he bring me up here? He must’ve, because I can’t recall making my way up here myself. Which means we must’ve both fallen asleep together on the couch, and he must’ve woken up after I did and carried me up to bed. The thought makes me feel both warm at his care and annoyed that he didn’t stay the full night. Still, I let myself relish in bed for a few moments at the feeling of waking up because of the warm morning light and not because of nightmares.

I feed Buttercup before everyone arrives for breakfast. Sae relays news from town to us all; there’s talks of a memorial service happening in July to remember the children that were reaped in the Games, and Thom’s been told he needs to pick up the pace on clearing. Haymitch shakes his head and grumbles something incoherent. I look at Peeta, expecting him to say something, but he stays silent, avoiding my gaze He’s barely looked at me since he arrived.

He’s quiet for the rest of the meal, only responding to Haymitch who says, “Saw you out walking just after midnight.”

Peeta nods, “We were working late.”

Haymitch frowns, “On that book?”

Something about the way Haymitch says this annoys me. “We were doing Finnick’s page. There was a lot to add.”

Haymitch scoffs, “I don’t see why you both insist on reliving it all so much.”

This really goads me, and I lean across the table and throw Annie’s letter at him which hits him square in the face. He glares at me, but picks up the paper and starts reading. Whilst Peeta’s face grew more and more shocked as he read, Haymitch’s just increasingly fills with more and more pain.

“Poor damn girl,” he says under his breath, before getting up and leaving his toast half finished.

Sae takes Eula Mae away soon after, leaving Peeta and I alone. We start our usual routine of clearing up, when I check the living room and see our mugs of tea left from last night, confirming what I was already fairly sure of.

I decide to press him on it anyway. “We fell asleep on the couch last night. Real or not real?”

He hesitates slightly, avoiding my eyes again, “Real.”

Another awkward silence. It makes my skin crawl. Since Peeta’s been home it’s remarkable how easy it was to fall back into our routine, into being close again. But it feels like that ease has suddenly been ripped from underneath us.

“Why didn’t you stay?” My tone sounds more accusatory than I meant it to. I wait for him to respond, but he just continues scrubbing. “Peeta?”

At this, Peeta’s head finally turns and he puts the pan he was washing up down too hard, water and bubbles flying in the air. “I’m sorry, I just- it shouldn’t have happened Katniss.”

My heart aches for some reason, and I pull my arms across my chest to stop it from aching. “Why not?”

“I had a flashback; the worst one I’ve had in a while. I was wrong, I should’ve gone home as soon as that happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“I could’ve hurt you!” he bursts out so loudly that I jump a little. His eyes close in frustration immediately, and then he looks at me apologetically, “I’m sorry. It’s just- I told myself that if I came back here that I’d do everything to make sure I didn’t hurt you.”

“But you didn’t hurt me.”

“I could’ve Katniss, easily!” he says, exasperated, and something about his tone makes me annoyed again.

“Did you have a nightmare last night? Because I didn’t. It’s probably the best I’ve slept since … since …” But the way he looks at me tells me he already knows. That he remembers those nights before the Quell, and how happy and safe we felt tangled up in each other’s arms.

He sighs, turning fully towards me, “No, I didn’t.” I expect him to continue arguing with me, but he doesn’t, just staring at me, and I’m captured by his eyes, unable to move or look away.

We both jump as the phone rings – it must be my mother. I think about ignoring it for a split second, but I know she’ll worry, so I step away from him toward the study.

“We got Annie’s letter,” I tell her once we’ve said hello. “How is she?” She updates me on Annie’s recent scans and the vitamins she’s been put on. She sees her every other day at least, and Annie’s started talking to Dr Aurelius too. He must be a busy man, dealing with all of us. I feel a pang of what can only be described as irritation as I listen to my mother talk that I can’t place. I let her talk for a while about Annie and the hospital and how it’s coming along.

“How’s that book you said you were working on?” she asks finally, when she’s done relaying all of her updates.

“Fine. We started working on Finnick’s page yesterday,” I say shortly, for some reason fed up with this conversation. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. I promised Sae I’d try and pick up a wild dog so I’d better get out as soon as I can.”

I don’t wait for my mother to reply before I put the phone down and head out toward the woods. But even out here, I can’t enjoy myself because I can’t get out of my head thinking about

everything from this morning. Peeta leaving last night and his insistence that it was the right thing to do this morning. How he was hardly able to meet my eyes over breakfast. My mother’s detailed descriptions of helping Annie and how her pregnancy is going that rubbed me the wrong way. My haul ends up being pretty mediocre on account of the noise I’m making stomping around.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I almost don’t see Thom walking across the village green on my home. He heads over toward me and starts telling me about the clean-up work.

“Sae said something about a memorial service?” I ask.

“Yeah, Plutarch’s been talking about it on the news. Wants to make it a proper regular memorial day by the sounds of it. Whether or not that actually happens, we’ll see. But he’s ordered for the old square to be cleared and camera ready by July.”

I hadn’t thought much about what would happen on what used to be reaping day. But having the district ready for Plutarch and his cronies already feels all sorts of wrong.

“What’s Paylor said?”

He smiles ruefully, “I don’t think it’s the top of her agenda right now, she’s been dealing with some unrest in the other districts,” I frown at the word unrest and Thom continues, “Not like that. Just lots of folks arguing about how to run things now and some not taking well to the changes.”

I nod, remembering what Sae told me a couple of weeks ago about the supplies in other districts.

“She wants the district cleared as soon as possible, whatever Plutarch’s plans are. Last we spoke she’s trying to put something in place to get more people out here. We’ll see if anyone actually takes her up on it.”

I don’t disagree with Thom – the idea that anyone would move out to a tiny, burnt out town in the mountains filled with ghosts seems improbable.

“What brings you up here then?”

“Well, it’s related – I wanted to check some of the houses, see if they could house any newcomers. And I wanted to check in on Peeta, but he wasn’t in. We’ll be clearing his folks’ place next week and he’s not been to see it since he got back.”

I frown, “He might be at Haymitch's or Sae’s. I thought he brought you all bread in the mornings?”

He nods, “Sometimes, but he always drops it off with the first person he sees in the Seam and heads straight back here. Nobody’s seen him in town at all.”

This seems odd to me initially, given how Peeta is usually so social and practical in how he deals with things. I realise now though that he’s never mentioned going to town – and every time I’ve been to collect supplies from the station, he’s stayed behind.

Thom checks his watch then and says he has to hurry back for a meeting, and I let him go, stepping into my house just in time to hear the phone ring for my appointment with Dr Aurelius. We go through the usual questions about my moods and medication, and then we get on to my routine.

“Are you still going hunting?”

“Most mornings. And then I work on the book with Peeta most afternoons.”

“What have you been working on recently for that?”

“We were working on Finnick’s page last night.”

“And how did you find that?”

“All of them are hard in their own way. But Finnick’s … we were close,” I hesitate on what I want to say next, before I remember my mother telling me that Aurelius was treating Annie too. “And we found out about Annie’s baby this week.”

“I see. How’ve you felt about that, as you’ve worked on the book?”

I force myself to not roll my eyes at his therapy questions. “Upset, obviously. I find out in a letter from my dead friend’s widow that he won’t meet his baby and I’ll probably only get updates from my mother because I’m stuck here for the rest of my life.”

“For the rest of your life remains to be seen Miss Everdeen. If you keep attending these sessions I’ll do my best to see to that,” Aurelius reassures me. “I want to circle back to what you said regarding your mother.”

“I just meant that it’s frustrating to get updates mostly from her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes and if you keep asking me that I’ll put this phone down right now,” I say through gritted teeth. Aurelius knows when to take hint and moves on.

“Okay. So how are you feeling about working on the book with Peeta?”

“Fine. Why?”

“You’ve both obviously shared a lot of experiences over the last two years. And as you know I’m treating Peeta, so I’m aware of what happened to him regarding his hijacking. I suppose it would feel natural if you felt perhaps uncomfortable spending so much time with him again after all that’s happened.”

His words spark an anger that courses through my veins, so much so that I spit out my reply to him, “I thought you said we weren’t to discuss Peeta for ‘patient confidentiality’.”

“I cannot discuss what Peeta and I talk about in our sessions or personal details that I’m not clear he has shared with yourself,” Aurelius replies in a measured tone. “But he is clearly a part of your life again and will impact your own mood and recovery.”

“Well it’s fine. Peeta’s my- my friend,” I reply, stumbling slightly at the end.  

I think I hear him sigh at the other end of the line, “If that’s how you feel Miss Everdeen, then that’s good, that you can work through what you’ve been through with a friend. I’m just wondering … are there any other friends that are a part of your routine?”

I almost laugh at him, at how clearly he doesn’t know me or what’s left of Twelve. I see Haymitch twice a day, but only so he doesn’t starve. Sae and Eula Mae still come by sometimes, but less and less in the last couple of weeks. Most of the people I’d call friends or would spend any significant time with are dead or far away. And why would any of the ones left, including my mother, come to this place, which is really just my prison and a graveyard for my people’s corpses?

“No doctor, not really. I’m actually feeling a bit under the weather, so can we end our appointment here for today?” I don’t wait for his reply before I put the phone down. I stomp back to the couch and throw myself on it, scowling at the ceiling and thinking of all the insults I will hurl at my therapist if he dares to call back.

But as I lay there, his annoying voice whispers that I should try and name my emotions. There’s anger for sure – but confusion and frustration too, like I told him. Anger at my mother for helping Annie almost every day thousands of miles away but ringing me barely more than once a week. Confusion about why Peeta left last night and why he’s been avoiding town and not talking to me about it. And frustration at myself for not having noticed it. I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to unravel everything swirling inside me, with no success.

Peeta arrives after his appointment, about an hour before dinner. His usual heavy gait announces his arrival, and he wears an easy expression as he sits down to finish off Finnick’s entry from last night. But all I can think of as he watches me work and starts dinner is: why exactly is he avoiding Thom and town? And why won’t he talk to me about it?