Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Captured.

Tortured.

Snow.

District 13.

Katniss.

The words went around and around Peeta’s head, a mad carousel he was helpless to stop.

Captured.

Tortured.

Katniss.

Katniss.

Katniss.

The rebels had wanted their Mockingjay, but due to the insistence of President Coin they had instead rescued him from the hellscape of the arena.

They had saved him, a broken boy drowning in his grief, in his agony.

“They’ll keep her alive!” he was constantly reassured. “She’s no value to Snow if she’s dead - they can’t use her - they’ll figure out fast that she doesn’t know anything -”

But if she were dead, Peeta knew there was no way the Capitol would announce it. No, Snow wouldn’t give the rebels a martyr to die for, to hold high on their banners as they screamed her name in defiance, in fury.

No, Snow would not give them that satisfaction, that luxury.

And so, Peeta blocked out the words every time he heard them, his mind stuck in the arena; remembering the blinding flash of light, the screams, the heat, the crackle of electricity in the air as Katniss had pierced the arena roof with her arrow.

He had blacked out fairly rapidly, coming to in a hovercraft with Katniss’s name still on his lips - and assaulted with the knowledge of what had happened to her.

Beetee and Finnick were the only other victors they had recovered. Everyone else had been shipped off to the Capitol - Katniss, Johanna … and Finnick’s dear Annie Cresta, taken from District 4 against her will.

Finnick was just as desperate in his grief. Not that it made Peeta feel any better.

He drifted, time nonexistent. He was carried through the motions of the day. Haymitch often checked on him to make sure he was eating, but Peeta was still too angry to talk to him. Not when he had promised to keep Katniss safe; to get her out of that arena, no matter the cost.

Maybe none of them were good at keeping promises anymore.

o-o-o-o-o

Peeta couldn’t stop staring at her face.

After weeks of nightmares, imagining her bruised and bloody and screaming - cries of terror etched into his mind after endless nights on the Capitol trains - he almost couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t make those images fit with what he was seeing now.

Her glazed expression aside, a dullness in her eyes he hated, she looked fine. Not perfect, not in stellar health, but … not as hurt as he had pictured her to be.

He couldn’t help the sigh of relief that slipped from his mouth. It was better than what he had ever hoped for.

“I confess, I did,” Caesar was saying, pulling Peeta back to the moment. “The night before the Quarter Quell … well, who ever thought we would see you again?”

Caesar looked the same he always did with his painted face and sparkly suit, a warm smile on his face. It was … jarringly normal amidst the chaos surrounding Peeta.

“It was going to be my gift to Peeta,” Katniss said. “He fought tooth and nail to make sure I survived our last Games. It seemed only right that I return the favour.”

“Even if you would never get the chance to become a mother?” Caesar asked.

Katniss nodded, her fingers drifting across the flat of her stomach. “I would’ve sacrificed it all to make sure Peeta won the Quarter Quell and made it out of there alive,” she all but whispered.

“But the plan fell through,” Caesar said. Another seamless segue.

Katniss nodded, the softness vanishing from her eyes. “We were betrayed,” she said bitterly. “I should never have left him! And then we were attacked. I was trying to follow Beetee’s plan, trying to keep Peeta safe, but I failed. I failed everyone.”

“And you lost the baby, too,” Caesar said. He reached out and squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry, Katniss. So young, and already befallen by such tragedy.”

So. Either the Capitol had chosen to keep the truth from the public, or they truly thought she had suffered a miscarriage. Whatever the case, Peeta was relieved.

“Tragedy,” Gale scoffed under his breath, shaking his head. “As if being reaped twice doesn’t count.”

Tears slid down Katniss’s face. “It’s for the best,” she said shakily, wiping her eyes. “With - with the chance of war, I can’t - I don’t want to bring a baby into that.” She choked out a sob. “I wish it would all just stop.”

“I know, I know,” Caesar soothed.

Peeta suddenly understood, an icy chill spreading through him. The rebels adored, idolised Katniss. The Capitol wanted her to remain on their side. All for this.

They were going to use her against them.

“Do you have a message for your friends?” Caesar pushed gently, passing Katniss his handkerchief. “For the rebel fighters?”

Sniffling, Katniss nodded. “I do.” She looked into the camera. “People of Panem, I’m begging you to reconsider. Our numbers are fewer than ever. This war - it could wipe us off the map. Are we really going to spend the rest of our lives fighting?”

“What do you suggest?” Caesar asked.

“A ceasefire,” Katniss said. “We can’t fight one another. Please, please think about it. We can make this work, Capitol and Districts alike. All I’m asking for is a chance, a chance to make this a better world than what we have suffered.” She shook her head. “And we can’t do that if there’s no one left to rebuild it.”

Nodding understandingly, squeezing her hand once more, Caesar announced the return to the Capitol’s regularly scheduled programming and the screen turned to black.

The silence stretched, thick and heavy.

Peeta closed his eyes, gripping the edge of the table in an attempt to remain upright. “There can’t be,” he murmured.

A lengthy pause. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that,” Coin said.

Steeling himself, Peeta finally looked at her. “There can’t be a ceasefire. We can’t go back, not after everything we’ve done - after everything they’ve done.”

He realised that every single eye in the room was on him.

Peeta swallowed thickly. “Katniss … she’s never agreed with them before. She’s always harboured a terror - a hatred for the Capitol that I’m only now fully understanding. And if she knew what they had just done to District 12 … she would be ripping Snow’s throat out, and ordering the cameras to film every second of it.” He shook his head. “She’s speaking under duress, or she’s made a bargain, or something. The Katniss I know, she wouldn’t - she knows what’s at stake.”

Prim. Gale. Her mother. The countless children thrown into the Games. Panem.

Their whole future together.

He bit down on his lip, fighting back his emotions.

“So, what do you think we should do?” Haymitch asked quietly.

There was a note in his voice that made Peeta suspect he knew exactly what he was thinking. “I can’t control what Katniss says - what she might be being forced to say,” he began, “but I can control what I say.” He stood taller. “From where I’m standing, the rebels need a figure to rally around - someone just like them, to convince them that their struggles aren’t in vain. Until we can get Katniss back to lead the rebellion as our Mockingjay, I’ll put myself forward in her stead. Whatever speeches you need me to give, or meetings to attend, or training sessions to prepare, I’ll do it. I’ll be there. For Panem.” A tear slid down his cheek. “For her.”

No one applauded - Peeta would have been insulted if someone had - but there was a look of newfound respect on the faces of the others in the room.

Catching his eye, Haymitch nodded in approval, the slightest of smiles gracing his features.

“Excellent. Time to get this show on the road,” Plutarch finally said. “If you can follow me, Peeta -”

Show. “One more thing,” Peeta interrupted, his voice hardening as he turned back to Coin. “I need assurance that no matter what happens back in the Capitol - no matter what Katniss says, or does - she will be granted immunity.”

Gale scoffed. “Like they would hurt their Mockingjay.”

“Just give me that peace of mind!” Peeta cried, forcing himself not to break eye contact with Coin. “Her and the other captured victors. Please.”

There was a long moment of quiet. “All of them?”

“All,” Peeta confirmed. “Katniss. Johanna. Annie. Even Enobaria.”

There was a ripple of annoyance at the mention of the Career tribute, but he ignored it.

“Your word,” he said, begging. “I’ll rally the rebels, just like Katniss would, but this is all I ask in return. Please.”

Pursing her lips, Coin finally nodded. “Very well, then.”

o-o-o-o-o

Frightening couldn’t even begin to describe how the change was.

The camera focused on Snow, his mouth forming words Peeta could not hear, but displayed prominently off to the president’s right was his worst nightmare.

Katniss, perched atop a white marble throne, wearing a blood red armoured suit - a mockery of the very outfits Peeta knew Cinna had so painstakingly designed for their Mockingjay before his death.

“How could they do that to her?” Fulvia whispered in horror. “Why?”

Peeta swallowed thickly.

“Because what could be more powerful than the rebels’ Mockingjay on the president’s side?” Haymitch continued grimly.

“Like a lapdog,” someone growled. Gale.

But it was her face Peeta was drawn to, and for all the wrong reasons.

Katniss’s cheeks were hollow, her face gaunt in ways he hadn’t seen in years, not since they were children. Layers of hastily applied makeup barely covered the bruises smattering her features, her skin a sickly colour and beads of sweat clinging to her forehead.

But it was her eyes that haunted him the most. Angry and unfocused, devoid of the warm fire he so desperately loved.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Haymitch murmured.

Peeta couldn’t even speak, his hands balling into fists, every single instinct screaming to get her out of there.

But she was on the other side of Panem. And he was standing here, inches from the screen, utterly helpless.

Katniss began to speak in a strained voice, once again calling for a ceasefire, and Beetee’s bombardment of the Capitol stream began.

Flashes of images. Finnick, talking about Rue; Peeta, standing in front of the ruined bakery; Gale, standing at the entrance of what remained of District 12’s mines.

A ragged gasp tore from Katniss’s mouth.

Within moments, the broadcast turned into a battle between Beetee and the Capitol techs. Everyone in the room cheered, louder and louder with every breakthrough, with every second of control Beetee wrenched from Snow, the official presentation deteriorating into chaos as it was peppered by the rebel propo images.

They caught flashes onscreen, of Snow looking visibly taken aback, of officials running about in the background - of Katniss, staring at the off-camera monitor in shock.

Peeta didn’t doubt it. She had seen them; had recognised them.

The feed abruptly cut off, the Capitol seal showing once more. A flat audio tone filled the air.

“Come on, come on,” Finnick whispered, gripping the arms of his chair in a white knuckle hold.

After half a minute, the feed resumed to reveal the set in utter turmoil. Snow began speaking again, announcing that the rebels were attacking their stream in an attempt to stop the spread of critical information.

“And we’ll do it again!” Plutarch roared, grinning.

Peeta wished he would shut up, his ears straining as Snow asked Katniss if she would like to share any parting thoughts about tonight, about the rebels; about a certain Peeta Mellark who may be watching.

At the mention of his name, Katniss’s face contorted in effort. “Peeta,” she began through gritted teeth, visibly fighting to speak. “How do you think this will end? No one is safe. No one’s ever been safe. Not in the Capitol, not in the districts - and you, in Thirteen,” she ground out, “dead by morning!”

“Shut it down!” Snow ordered.

There was chaos across the screen; people shouting, running; the camera was knocked over, the shot askew - but not enough to hide the horrors unfolding before their eyes.

A thud, Katniss crying out in agony; blood splattered across the tiles, and the feed abruptly cut off - but not before a ragged scream split the air.

o-o-o-o-o

Ten minutes.

That’s how much extra warning Katniss had given them before 13’s own systems detected the incoming Capitol aircraft.

Ten minutes in which citizens were evacuated to the bunkers in the deepest levels of the district. Ten minutes in which countless lives were saved due to Katniss’s message.

The final stragglers were barely inside the vault door when the first bomb hit.

Ten. Minutes.

But at what cost to Katniss herself?

Peeta swallowed back yet another surge of emotion, his eyes burning for the umpteenth time that night, Katniss’s scream of agony burned into his brain.

For a long moment, he watched Prim, curled up with Buttercup. He had never understood why Katniss disliked the cat so much - but then, maybe the two of them were far too alike.

Prim shivered, and Peeta reached out and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. Sometimes, he was still in awe, remembering the moment Katniss’s desperate cries had echoed across the square, screaming that she would volunteer in place of her dear little sister.

It was a moment that now seemed a lifetime ago; that had set in motion a chain of events neither of them could have foreseen.

Events that had led to Katniss’s capture and torture.

Gritting his teeth, he clambered to his feet, moving across the bunker until he found the one person he knew would understand. One of the many people still awake, his fingers obsessively tying knot after knot on the string of rope in his hands.

Are you, are you, coming to the tree?

Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.

Peeta shoved the song out of his mind.

“Some would consider it suggestive to visit one’s bed so late at night,” Finnick said, but his voice lacked its usual humour.

Snorting quietly, Peeta sat down on the mattress beside him. Finnick wordlessly handed him another string of rope, and Peeta began tying it. Over and over again.

He was in the square in 12; he was in the training room; he was in the arena -

He wasn’t surprised when he found that his fingers had crafted a perfect noose.

“I guess now’s a bad time to tell you I hung Seneca Crane.”

Any other time, and the memory might have made him laugh. Now, though, it filled him with an excruciating pain that seeped into every part of his body.

That - that was the Katniss he desperately wanted back. All fire and heart and … her.

Actually, no. He would take her back in any state now. Anything to get her back from the Capitol’s claws.

Damn it all to hell, he never should have let her out of his sight that night.

“You had no choice,” Finnick said quietly, as if reading his thoughts. “We didn’t tell you about the plan. How could either of you have known what was at stake?”

Peeta gritted his teeth. There it was again, the grand plan that had utterly ruined his life within a matter of minutes.

“I should’ve put up more of a fight to keep her at my side,” he said bitterly. He shook his head. “Maybe what happened in the arena was a sign of things to come. She’s always been something - a figurehead of the rebellion, a pawn for someone to use; maybe she was never really mine to begin with.”

Finnick watched him carefully. “Do you really believe that?”

Peeta ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. There was a - a moment. On the beach, right before we left to set up Beetee’s trap.” He swallowed thickly. “She kissed me and … it was one of the few times it felt real.” He sniffled, shaking his head. “Truth is, we had to perform so much for the cameras that I don’t know how much was true on her part. Sometimes, I caught glimpses, like the nights on the Capitol trains, but other times … I don’t hold it against her, it’s just the way it was.”

Finnick was quiet for a long few minutes. “The star-crossed lovers routine was critical to the plan, to the rebellion,” he finally said. “No matter which of you we managed to save, we all expected you to continue whatever strategy the two of you had worked out.”

Peeta looked away.

“But back in the arena,” Finnick continued, his eyes glazed with memories, “when you hit that force field and your heart stopped - I finally realised. She really does love you. I’m not saying in what way,” he added as Peeta’s eyes widened, “and I don’t think she even knows herself. But she does care about you - and I think the old Katniss is still beneath the surface, somewhere.” He pointed at the ceiling as another bomb blast shuddered around them, dust falling. “That warning she gave is proof enough. She’s trying to find her way back to you.”

o-o-o-o-o

“They’re in the hospital,” Haymitch had said only minutes earlier. “That’s all I know.”

Never mind his prosthetic; Peeta’s feet were carrying him forward, faster and faster, his body hurtling through the corridors.

Katniss. Katniss. Katniss.

He burst through the hospital doors and was nearly taken out by a gurney bearing a barely conscious Gale, blood coating his shoulder and a piece of shrapnel clearly imbedded within the muscle.

Everywhere Peeta looked, there was chaos.

“Finnick!” a female voice shrieked with joy.

The next second, Finnick was entangled with someone against the wall. Annie.

Another bed was frantically wheeled past them, this time carrying an emaciated young woman with a shaved head. Johanna Mason.

“Shit,” Haymitch muttered.

“Katniss!” Peeta shouted. “Katniss!”

“She’s here!”

Mrs Everdeen burst through the crowds of medical staff, her face unusually pale. “She’s this way, Peeta.”

It was all Peeta could do not to run.

“She was knocked unconscious by the gas they used on the guards during the escape,” Mrs Everdeen explained as they hurried through the halls. “But she’s starting to come around now.” She gave a tight smile. “She’ll want you there.”

Even Haymitch’s mouth pulled at the corners.

They entered one of the many rooms, a sea of medical staff parting the moment they saw Peeta, leaving a path directing to Katniss.

Katniss.

Propped up in bed with tubes and wires attached to her, she was blinking dazedly, looking at her surroundings with a slight frown on her face.

Her eyes locked with his own.

Katniss stared at him, her expression unreadable - but then her lips were forming his name.

Charging forward, tears streamed down Peeta’s face. “Katniss,” he gasped, reaching out towards her, to pull her into a hug - a kiss - “Katniss!”

And that was when her hands clamped around his throat.

Chapter Text

“Prim is actually your best line of defence right now,” Haymitch said grimly. “She’s been in there the last few hours. Katniss trusts her enough to talk to her, and Prim’s been defending you like crazy every time Katniss has been so inclined to take a dive off the deep end.”

Grimacing, Peeta massaged his throat, wincing a little even at his own touch. He had forgotten how fierce Katniss could be when she felt backed into a corner. He hadn’t even predicted it, taken completely and utterly by surprise. One second, Katniss had been reaching for him - the next, her expression had twisted in fury, her eyes blazing; snarling, she had thrown herself off the bed - onto him - trying her damn best to force the life out of him, leaving him bruised and winded and his heart in pieces.

Unfortunately, Haymitch didn’t look much better. He had a deep scratch down his own face after barrelling in to help rescue Peeta - and finding himself at the receiving end of Katniss’s jagged nails.

“You promised!” she had screamed wretchedly, over and over again, tears pouring down her face. “You traitor! You promised you promised you promised!”

Even after she had been forced into sedation, her body limply falling back onto the floor, Peeta knew the damage was done.

Hijacked, he heard the doctors saying the following morning, staring at their test results in shock, at the high levels of tracker-jacker toxins still in her system. Another Capitol torture method, replacing all her good memories with terror and suspicion, making her see friend as foe and leaving her distrustful of everyone she came into contact with.

Including Peeta himself.

“Katniss’s sister is a ferocious little thing,” Plutarch chuckled. “It would almost be funny, if it weren’t for -” He caught their glares, and hurriedly cleared his throat. “Ah, it’s not funny at all.”

“No, it’s not,” Peeta told him in disgust.

He stared through the window at Katniss now, asleep due to another round of sedative. “I’m going in there,” he said quietly.

One of the nearby doctors protested, but Haymitch cut in, “Leave him be.”

It was as if there was no oxygen in the room.

Swallowing painfully, Peeta took one careful step closer to the bed, then another, and another until he was gazing down at Katniss.

In her unconscious state, she looked so small. Small and ragged and emaciated and gaunt and so many other words Peeta didn’t dare think about.

And, above all, only seventeen. Seventeen years old and already subjected to horrors beyond his comprehension - which truly said something, considering the two trips to the arena under their belts.

He didn’t want to believe that Katniss had truly been turned into one of the Capitol’s mutts.

Sighing, he reached out and brushed his hand across her cheek, her skin cool to the touch. “We’re gonna find you, Katniss,” he whispered. “I’m gonna bring you back, no matter what it takes; no matter how much you hate me right now, or how many bruises you give me or swear words you call me.”

He watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest for a long few minutes before leaning down and pressing a tender kiss to her forehead, just below her hairline. “Stay with me, okay?”

He turned away, tears sliding down his face, the deafening silence filling the void left by the word hanging in the air; a memory, a promise.

Always.

o-o-o-o-o

Despite the strict distribution of supplies of District 13, Finnick and Annie’s wedding was more than they all could have hoped for.

Food, drinks, clothing and decorations were allocated; children were called from all corners to sing the traditional wedding song of District 4. The vows were exchanged, kisses were given, and the room erupted into celebration. A fiddler struck up a tune, and the dancing began.

Smiling, Peeta clapped along to the beat as he listened to Plutarch raving about their latest round of propos the editing team had put together - when his gaze darted.

And he saw Katniss on the verges of the crowd.

Plutarch followed his gaze. “Oh! Yes, we invited Katniss to join the after-party. It’ll be perfect for the cameras.”

Gaping, Peeta stared at him for a long moment before he pulled himself together. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he hissed, eyeing Katniss’s apprehensive expression. “Here, when any number of things can set her off?”

Johanna swung out of the crowd. “Relax, lover boy,” she smirked. “What could be better revenge than President Snow watching a happy Mockingjay twirling at someone’s wedding?”

Peeta looked about anxiously. “But, she’s not -”

“Katniss!” Prim squealed joyfully, bounding out of the throngs of people to grab her sister’s hands. “You’re just in time, come on!”

But Johanna was right. It was an utter transformation.

For the first time, Peeta saw Katniss smile, saw her laugh with a joy he had yearned to see for months now.

Her eyes never strayed from Prim, as if blocking out the rest of the world, but it didn’t matter. She was here, and for a moment, she was her old self, weaving through the other dancers in time with the music.

And he could tell it was having an effect on everyone else, too.

There were exclamations of delight, some pointing, others beaming in her direction. Even Finnick was grinning madly as he and Annie joined the throng, both of them laughing with Katniss and Prim.

For a moment, just a moment, all felt right in the world.

And then the wedding cake was brought out, a gorgeous three-tiered masterpiece covered in water elements in a nod to Finnick and Annie’s district origins.

As the wedding attendees cheered, the smile on Katniss’s face fell, her features twisting into an unreadable expression.

She stared at the frosted dolphins and other sea creatures. “Peeta,” she whispered.

“That’s right,” Prim told her. “Peeta did this. Like he used to do at the bakery, remember?”

Katniss’s gaze lifted - and her eyes locked with Peeta’s.

She bolted for the exit, the two doormen and Haymitch on her heels. Peeta made to follow but Gale grabbed his arm. “Leave her,” he murmured. “Give her some space. She might’ve been triggered by a memory.”

Peeta swallowed thickly. “I saw her, Gale,” he whispered. “We all did. The old Katniss.”

Gale smiled sadly. “I don’t think she’ll ever come back completely. We just gotta ride this out with her while she figures this out. That’s all we can do.”

He slipped back into the crowd, leaving Peeta wondering if himself and Gale were more alike than he had originally thought.

o-o-o-o-o

“Alright, why don’t we play a game?”

Peeta winced as soon as the words left his mouth, and Katniss looked similarly cautious. “Like what?” she snapped.

Forcing himself to stay calm, Peeta smiled encouragingly at her. “Let’s call it Real or Not,” he said. “You ask me, or anyone else, about a memory at any time you feel the need to, and we’ll tell you if it’s true.”

Katniss grunted, pushing her meagre serving of food around her plate with her fork.

Peeta fought back a sigh that she was not in the most cooperative of moods. Every time he looked into her cold eyes, he had to remind himself what he was fighting for - even as he reeled from the news he had received earlier that day.

“At least she’s alive and here with us,” Plutarch had told him impatiently. “Snow executed your old stylist and prep team on live television. And we’ve no idea what’s happened to Effie Trinket.”

Portia. First Cinna, now her. And dear, dear Effie.

As he looked into Katniss’s grey Seam eyes, it wasn’t hard to remember just why he was fighting so hard.

Snow had taken everything from him. His home, his family, his friends. He wasn’t about to let him take her, too.

“Your favourite colour is orange,” Katniss said suddenly, taking Peeta by surprise. “Soft, like the sunset. Real or not?”

Finally, Peeta smiled. “Real. And yours is green.”

Katniss’s brow creased. “Green?”

“Like the woods, I guess.”

When Katniss frowned even harder, Peeta suddenly sat up in his seat. He had an idea.

o-o-o-o-o

“Gale,” Peeta called. “You should come.”

The hovercraft’s engines whirred, preparing for takeoff even as the very people leaving District 13 stood at the base of the ramp, talking.

Gale glanced over at Katniss, strapped into one of the seats onboard and talking to Finnick, who had offered his companionship for the outing. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I don’t know those woods,” Peeta told him, “but you do. The two of you were out there nearly every Sunday.”

There was no jealousy in his tone, just simple fact.

Gale suddenly realised that Peeta was a far better man than he was. Or, at least, he kept his emotions out of the way for Katniss’s sake. “You think I can help?”

“She needs a reminder of the memories that the Capitol didn’t know about - the ones they couldn’t use against her.” Peeta shrugged, but the motion was tinged with pain. “It could help us bring her back.”

Us. Realising that it was going to be a team effort if they ever hoped to get Katniss back to them.

Finally, Gale nodded. “Okay.”

“Let’s get a move on,” Haymitch growled, his features unusually pale as he strode past them. “Get this over with.”

Peeta had been surprised that Haymitch wanted to go anywhere near their ruined village, but one look at his face had revealed the truth. He wanted to keep an eye on Katniss, and no amount of arguing was going to change his mind.

“I would’ve skipped lunch, if I was you,” Gale called out to him. “Just a thought.”

A few hours later, they landed in the woods beyond District 12.

Peeta swallowed back his emotions at the thought of their charred village, just out of sight. He wasn’t going to put Katniss through the emotional torment of seeing that. Not yet. Not until she was ready.

He still wondered where his family lay. His father, his mother, his brothers … had their remains been entombed in the remains of the bakery for the rest of time?

Even now, weeks after his first visit, the memory of the bodies of those who hadn’t made it had been seared into his brain; the bodies of those who hadn’t been able to run from the firestorm that had consumed their homes. Men, women, children - none had been spared.

The ash, the smoke, still burned Peeta’s eyes.

Without another word, they headed into the Meadow as quickly as they could, plunging deep into the woods from there. Peeta watched Katniss closely - and he could tell the others were too - but her expression was eerily vacant.

It didn’t take them long to reach the first landmark.

“This is where we used to sit and eat before we went out hunting,” Gale said, gesturing to a large rock amidst the trees. “We - we were here the day you were reaped.”

Katniss nodded. “I remember.”

When she didn’t offer anything else, they kept moving until they reached the lake. They all sat on the verges beneath the shade of the trees.

“I learnt to swim here,” Katniss said suddenly. “My father taught me when I was younger.”

Finnick laughed. “And here I was thinking that it was that visit to District 4.”

“Like there was time,” Peeta laughed. He glanced back at Katniss; ever since her dive into the water at the Quarter Quell, he had wondered just where she had learned the skill. He knew it very well may have saved their lives - her life - by giving her the chance to take possession of a set of bow and arrows.

“I got my name here, too,” Katniss said. “The roots of the plants that grow in the lake. My father told me that if I could find myself, I would never go hungry.”

It was the most Katniss had ever talked about her father. From the detached look on her face, Peeta wondered just how focused she was on the people around her, or whether she was lost in her memories.

But if it was going to help bring her back, he didn’t care. He would follow that intricate thread of memories weaving its way around her mind, and let her lead him down whatever path she needed to take to find herself again.

“Look,” Cressida said, pointing.

Peeta raised his eyes, suddenly noticing the black birds with white-tinged wings flitting about the leafy canopy. Mockingjays.

Gazing up at the trees, Katniss whistled.

Peeta stared. He had been taught that same four note melody by Katniss herself in the arena, but now he knew from the recap of their own Games that it was Rue’s melody.

After a moment, the mockingjays echoed the note, whistling through the trees, and the barest of smiles traced Katniss’s lips.

“When my father used to sing, all the birds stopped to listen,” she said quietly. “Real or not?”

Peeta smiled. “Real.” He swallowed thickly. “They did for you, too.”

She frowned, puzzled. Peeta waited for another question, another outburst, but she merely turned her attention back to the lake, looking … peaceful. It was more than he could have hoped for.

“When we were in school,” he continued quietly, “the teachers asked if anyone knew the Valley Song. Your hand shot up, and you sang it in front of everyone. The birds were listening then, too.”

“You told me that story before. In the cave.”

Her voice was sharp enough to make him wince. Peeta nodded. “I did, Katniss.”

She glared at him. “We spent a lot of time there, didn’t we?” she asked, her voice borderline - and oddly - accusing.

Peeta wondered just what the Capitol people had done to those precious memories.

He forced a smile. “I was dying, remember? And after you got my medicine, the rain kept us under shelter. A few days of heavy thunderstorms didn’t help.”

She mulled that over. “The feast.” She paused. “Thresh saved my life. Real or not?”

The answer didn’t come from Peeta this time. “Real,” Haymitch told her. “For singing Rue to sleep.”

Grief rippled across the group.

The quiet stretched as they ate the cheese sandwiches in their lunch packs, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine. Everyone kept glancing at Katniss, cautiously, hopefully, but she didn’t say another word, a deep frown on her face.

Peeta was just about to suggest they start moving again, when -

“Are you, are you, coming to the tree?” Katniss sang. “Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.”

Oblivious to the awed stares, she didn’t stop there.

“Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be; if we met at midnight in the hanging tree.”

The woods were completely and utterly silent as the eerie melody swept around them, line after line, Katniss’s voice growing stronger with every verse. By the end of the song, tears were streaming down Peeta’s cheeks, and he wasn’t the only one.

“There you are, sweetheart,” Haymitch whispered.

Katniss jerked out of whatever stupor she was in, her expression clouding with confusion.

And that was when the mockingjays began to sing back to her.

Chapter Text

Day by day, the war raged on, and little by little, Katniss returned to them.

“Two steps forward and ten back,” Gale muttered one morning after Katniss stormed off, Peeta on her heels.

“It’s better than we’d hoped,” Finnick told him sharply. “Annie’s the same - and unless you have a magic wand to wave, I’d keep your mouth shut.”

Overhearing, Peeta wholeheartedly agreed.

They had tried, again and again, to capture the propo clips Plutarch so desperately wanted, all containing their Mockingjay in action. But Katniss was reluctant to participate. The scripted words - a rallying cry for the rebels - fell flat, and the live feeds from the Capitol across the screens in District 13 set her off more often than not, bringing back the horrific memories she tried so desperately to lock away in her mind.

“What do you expect?” Johanna commented quietly to Peeta when he mentioned it to her. “We were tortured. The number of times I heard her screaming - heard her screaming your name …”

It was something Peeta couldn’t bear to envisage.

“She cried a lot, too, but after a while she went real quiet. I didn’t hear from her for days - and when I did see her, she was staring at the wall -”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Peeta said firmly, starting to stand.

But Johanna grabbed his wrist, holding tight. “You might not want to hear it,” she hissed, “but she lived it. We lived it for weeks on end, before your darling President Coin thought us worthy of rescuing.”

“I didn’t - I wanted to -” Peeta stuttered.

Johanna jerked her head. “She. Lived. It. And you’re gonna have to, too, if you love her as much as you say you do. It’s part of her now. She’ll carry that baggage with her for the rest of her life, and you gotta decide if you’re in it for the long run.”

“Of course I am,” Peeta told her, his gaze unwavering. “I have been from the moment our names got pulled at the reaping.”

Johanna watched him carefully for a long moment before finally letting go of his arm. “Good,” she said fiercely. “Because if you’re lying, and she doesn’t kill you after all she’s been through, I might just do it myself.” She grinned wolfishly. “Nothing personal.”

Something about her smile made Peeta very nervous. He made a mental note not to let her anywhere near their axe weaponry. He gulped. “Understood.”

o-o-o-o-o

“I remember this,” Katniss said quietly as she stepped into the room with her bow in hand, her fingers near white around the weapon.

The glass door closed behind her, and they fired up the simulation, eyes and cameras alike fixed on Katniss, waiting, the seconds ticking by.

Plutarch himself had managed to swipe the tech from the Capitol before his departure, his plan being to put the training exercises towards the war effort as the number of soldiers across District 13 mounted.

However, Finnick came up with a much better use for it.

A low hum filled the air, and a golden figure pixelated into existence.

Just like with the dancing, an immediate change came over Katniss. Her breathing steadied, her eyes sharpening as she focused on the electronic humanoid hurtling towards her.

“Come on, come on,” Peeta whispered.

Katniss shot her target with ease, the figure crumbling into pixelating blocks as another figure darted out from behind a column, and another.

Katniss ducked into a forward roll as one of the figures threw an axe at her, and she fired back, arrow after arrow, target after target. After a few minutes, a smile began to stretch across her face.

Peeta stared in amazement, his heart racing. He had only seen Katniss shoot like this just once, in the Training Centre before the Quarter Quell. He had been impressed then, and was no less awed now, watching her dart about the simulation room, her bow and arrows a natural extension of her arms.

This was the real Katniss. This was the part of her that the Capitol, for all their torturing and hijacking methods, had been unable to touch, the exercise tapping into muscle memory - into years and years of hunting experience.

She was a blur, golden light showering down on Katniss as figure after figure exploded into pixels above and around her. One arrow - three arrows at her next targets, none standing a chance, all crumbling into nothing.

And amidst it all, Katniss herself, radiating elation even as her focus never slipped.

When the last figure tumbled into a pile of blocks and vanished, the darkness lifted. As the lamps blinked on one by one, Peeta took in the sight of Katniss’s heaving torso, sweat slipping down her face and her arms shaking with exertion as she flicked her fraying braid out of the way.

And he thought she had never looked more beautiful.

“Nice shooting, sweetheart,” Haymitch called with a smile.

A smile tugged at Peeta’s mouth at the memory his words brought - and he wasn’t the only one.

“Worth an 11?” Katniss called out cheekily.

Before anyone could answer, she frowned, turning to Plutarch. “I shot at that pig, and you fell into a bowl of punch. Real or not?”

“Definitely real,” Plutarch said, laughing good-naturedly. “My pride never fully recovered.”

There were chuckles all around, and the lines of tension disappeared from Katniss’s shoulders as fast as they had appeared.

The smile returned to her face a little as she gestured at the control panel. “Is that the best you can do?”

o-o-o-o-o

Katniss fell to her knees amidst the ashes of District 12, her features twisting in torment as a howl of misery burst from her mouth, a ragged scream of despair.

Peeta’s heart surged to his throat, choking him, tears burning his eyes. “Katniss,” he murmured, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder.

But she would not be comforted.

Katniss ran from building to shack to store, shouting names, coughing and choking on ash, on the remains of their fellow villagers that still hung in the air, screaming for the people who Peeta knew had once inhabited places like the Hob - many of whom had perished, like Peeta’s own family, now buried in the bakery.

He had never been privy to most of Katniss’s life before they had been reaped, having to content himself with the things he had glimpsed from the outside as he had passed by. Suddenly, he was seeing Katniss through fresh eyes.

This was the home that had made her into the person he knew her as today. It was the place she had nearly starved; it was where she had learned music from her father, where she had mourned him after he perished in the mines. It was where she had gone to school, traded her meat; where she had brought up her sister; where she had fought tooth and nail to ensure they both survived.

And now it was all gone.

They finally reached the Victors’ Village, the only part of the district to have escaped unscathed.

Katniss ran screaming from her Capitol allocated dwellings mere minutes after shouldering her way through the front door, white with terror and shaking violently.

“Katniss? Katniss!” Peeta yelled, hurtling forward, panic surging. “Katniss, what’s wrong?”

“Snow,” was all she got out before vomiting across the front path, Peeta catching her as she collapsed to her knees, sobbing and retching.

Immediately, their guards charged through the doorway, guns raised and loaded.

“Clear! Clear! Clear!” voices echoed eerily in the quiet. “Clear!”

Until -

“Hey, I think I got something!” someone shouted.

When Peeta finally entered the house, leaving Katniss in Gale’s care, he walked into the study only for a sickening weight to drop in his stomach.

There, perfectly placed on the desk, was a single, white rose.

o-o-o-o-o

“I want to fight,” Katniss said shakily. “I want to fight them. Fight him.” She looked up into the blinking red eye of Cressida’s camera, her voice turning to a low snarl: “I want to make Snow pay.”

Plutarch finally got what he wanted.

So caught up in her anger, Katniss had finally considered the camera crew worthy of her attention, and had given them plenty of usable footage, rife with angry words and the promise of death and destruction to all those standing against the rebels.

They had taken Katniss to a hospital in the ruins of District 8. It had been a miracle for the patients, both old and young alike, to see Katniss standing at Peeta’s side. At first, she had flinched back against him, the look of a trapped animal across her face - but then there had been exclamations of joy, laughs of relief; both volunteers and patients alike eagerly welcomed Katniss into their midst, and the chill had melted from her demeanour.

She remembered these people.

She was their Mockingjay. She was the person who had inspired them to rise up, to fight back no matter how horrific their circumstances. The moment Katniss had offered the berries in the arena, she had become their symbol of hope.

As Peeta stood back and watched, they embraced Katniss, held her hand, needing nothing more than her touch and presence to comfort them. It was astounding; it was beautiful; it was everything Peeta had wanted in that moment.

Katniss looked back at Peeta and gave him such a rare, genuine smile that Peeta could only helplessly return it, tentative and hopeful all at once.

And then the Capitol planes arrived.

It had been over within minutes. There were no survivors amongst the patients.

But the grief did not push Katniss down.

No. It ignited her.

“Do you see that?” Katniss yelled with a rage Peeta hadn’t known she was capable of, her eyes alight and determined and utterly fierce as she jabbed a finger at the burning hospital. “Fire is catching. And if we burn, you burn with us!”

o-o-o-o-o

There wasn’t much of an allowance for independence in District 13, not with Katniss under near constant watch; not when the timetable inked onto your wrist dictated your near every move from dawn until dusk.

But as her Mockingjay duties grew, little by little, she was granted more freedom. More time to move about the complex; training sessions granted at her request.

Particularly as the rebellion began to move again. Tensions and excitement were high; District 2, their last remaining obstacle, had finally been taken.

From there, all roads led to the Capitol.

Sitting in the hospital in District 13, Peeta winced, rubbing at his tender ribs, fresh off another round of sedatives. Cinna’s designs had been incredible, beyond belief - but not even they were completely immune to bullets.

“We are pawns, every last one of us. And look where that’s gotten us! Safe in the Capitol, Snow is watching us tear one another to shreds!”

Peeta remembered the BANG; he remembered hitting the gravel, agony exploding across his chest, the wind knocked out of him; a figure with dark braided hair screaming his name and clutching at his armour.

“These people are not your enemy!” Katniss screamed at the crowd, rebels and soldiers and District 2 citizens alike. “Turn your weapons on the Capitol! Turn your weapons to Snow!”

They were the last words Peeta heard before he was dragged into unconsciousness. And that was how he found out Katniss had been flown in to join them - join him.

Peeta was jolted from his thoughts as the door to his hospital room opened.

Words simply couldn’t encompass how glad he was to see her.

“How - how are you feeling?” Katniss asked haltingly, hovering in the entrance.

Huffing out a laugh, Peeta lifted his shirt to reveal the sizeable bruise on his torso, now an impressive collection of mottled blues, blacks and greens. “Gonna take more than a bullet to stop me.”

Katniss bit her lip worryingly, her eyes darting to the scar on his neck - one of the scratches she had given him upon their reunion in an eerily similar room.

Sighing, Peeta dropped his shirt back down and scooted sideways on the bed, patting the now empty space. Hesitantly, Katniss shifted forward and stiffly sat down next to him.

The silence stretched.

Katniss wrung her hands, visibly trying to hide how much they were shaking. Peeta reached out and gave her fingers a squeeze.

“I’m sorry you saw that,” he said finally.

Katniss gave a tight shrug. “Part of the job description, I guess,” she said, her voice just as quiet. “It’s just … I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. So fast.”

“Me neither,” Peeta admitted.

His fingers played with her own, tracing the lines of her knuckles, up and down each digit with a featherlight touch; he turned her hand over, gently brushing the life and heart lines across her palm.

Katniss’s gaze never left his own.

Peeta swallowed thickly, his eyes suddenly burning. “It seems no matter what I do, I can’t protect you. I can’t stop you from getting hurt.”

“We’re fighting a war,” Katniss reminded him. After a moment, she cleared her throat. “Coin’s approved me for training with the ground forces. Me and Johanna. As long as I pass all the tests, I can go.”

Peeta nodded, his jaw tightening. I should have realised that Coin wouldn’t let us storm the Capitol without Katniss in full view of the cameras; I should have realised Coin would use us, again and again and again -

“I have to be here,” Katniss said, pulling Peeta from his thoughts. Fire flashed in her eyes. “You know that.”

Peeta exhaled heavily, wincing as his ribs twinged, his own looming training schedule suddenly feeling impossible.

“Peeta?” Katniss prompted, an uncertain edge to her voice.

Finally, Peeta gave Katniss a small smile, a tinge of sadness to it. “I know you do. You kill Snow.”

“I kill Snow,” Katniss confirmed, repeating the words she had uttered at one of Coin’s meetings weeks and weeks before.

Except now, the moment was nearly upon them.

The silence stretched again, broken only by the low murmur of voices out in the corridor outside. Peeta wasn’t the only casualty from the District 2 takeover by far; not after Gale’s brilliant, almost entirely lethal trap.

Movement; a featherlight touch across his cheek. Startled, Peeta jolted, barely registering the movement before Katniss jerked her hand back.

She quickly avoided his gaze. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I don’t know why I did that.”

Peeta’s eyes burned with emotion, his skin tingling where she had touched. “It’s okay,” he murmured, his heart clenching. “It’s okay, Katniss.”

Shaking her head, Katniss pulled her sleeve up over her hands and wiped at her eyes. “How can I trust myself,” she whispered, “when every thought I have tells me to run away screaming?”

Peeta swallowed thickly. “If you can’t trust yourself, can you at least trust me?”

There was a long pause, and something softened in Katniss’s eyes. Nodding, she leaned into Peeta, and he wrapped his arms around her as she pressed her face to his chest.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Chapter Text

Everything had gone wrong.

Huddled against the wall away from the nauseating, gooey death trap clawing at the stairs of the Capitol apartment they were sheltering in, Peeta gritted his teeth, fighting back the anger threatening to take control of him even as his hands trembled with shock; fighting back the image of their commander being blown to pieces.

“Don’t trust them.” Boggs’s final words as he stared at Katniss. “Do what you came to do.”

The rumble of stone, walls closing in; a tsunami of lethal black tar crashing down the streets towards them, devouring all in its path.

Peeta had felt every single security camera in the area trained on them as they sprinted for high ground, Capitol citizens and rebels alike bearing witness to their fate.

The walls didn’t have ears, but they certainly had eyes.

Snow had known they would be there. Coin must have known.

Especially after they had been set loose in a sector loaded with unmarked pods.

“Think about it,” Gale said quietly. “She just about has the Capitol in her grasp. She doesn’t need you now. The only other thing you can do is -”

“Die,” Katniss snarled from the shadows.

Peeta reached out and squeezed her hands. Of course Coin would want to make martyrs out of them. It was one final act that would push the rebellion over the edge, that would give them that final incentive to storm Snow’s mansion and end the war.

They weren’t dead yet, but it wouldn’t be long now.

Tick tock, tick tock.

The clock, taunting them.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Just like in the arena.

Tick tock, tick tock. Tick tock, tick tock.

o-o-o-o-o

The smell of roses in the air.

A hiss in the tunnels, growing louder with every second, creeping under their skin and sending shudders down their spines. Katniss, Katniss, KATNISS -

“KATNISS!” Finnick screamed, monsters writhing over him, tearing him to pieces as they watched, wrenching him away from the ladder and leaving him scrambling for life in the sewer waters.

“Finnick!” Peeta yelled, tears streaming down his face. “Finnick, no!”

Beside him, Katniss was staring at the Holo, her hands shaking violently. “I can’t,” she moaned.

“Katniss!” Gale shouted. “Come on, we gotta go!”

Peeta seized her wrists. “Do it,” he begged. “Please.”

Katniss swallowed thickly, raising the device to her lips. “Nightlock, nightlock, nightlock,” she whispered against the Holo before dropping it down the manhole.

The moment it was out of her hands, Peeta seized the edges of the cover and slammed it down. “Go, go, go!” he screamed, already on his feet and shoving at Katniss. “Move it, come on!”

The tunnel suddenly rumbled around them, quaking and sending them crashing sideways into the walls against one another, dust and grime hailing down as heat surged into the passage.

“That’s the Holo!” Cressida gasped, coughing. “Come on!”

Another hallway, another ladder; another, another; a landing, a set of stairs - a door -

They finally burst out into the underground roadway - and all hell broke loose.

“There!” a soldier shouted, the squadron behind him turning to fire at them, bullets ricocheting.

Peeta ducked, flinching down. “Keep moving!” he yelled.

His hand snapped out - or maybe Katniss’s did first - and suddenly they were holding on for dear life, fingers locked in a death grip.

Without warning, more unmarked pods burst to life before their eyes.

Golden columns of light, beaming down from the ceiling in short, sharp flashes; the ground, tearing up at their heels, like a hungry monster devouring all in its wake as it chased them, relentless.

Peeta glanced sideways and saw how ashen Katniss was, how hard she was shaking. His blood ran cold.

She was losing control.

Another burst of gunfire over their heads. Peeta swung around and fired, again and again, missing wildly as his arm bounced with every haphazard step, his heart thrashing within his ribcage.

“Hurry!” Gale yelled, firing another round of bullets over his shoulder. “Katniss, come on!”

She jerked her head, tears streaming down her face as she wrenched away from Peeta, arrows suddenly flying through the air, a roar of pain and grief and fury tearing from her throat.

The Capitol soldiers dropped away into the distance, their gunfire no more than flashes of light and the sharp ricochet of a bullet, but the ground was falling, falling; falling -

Peeta grabbed onto Katniss again. “Just keep running!”

They sprinted after Cressida; another column of light, another of their team disintegrating into dust as he ploughed through it, unaware.

None of them stopped.

The mechanical teeth snapping at their heels, they hurtled around a corner, tiles exploding into the air as they threw themselves across the floor; suddenly, as if reaching a boundary line, the lethal trap ceased all movement in a great plume of dust leaving a path of destruction and a ringing silence in its wake.

Clutching at his bleeding neck, Gale grimaced, pushing Pollux ahead of him. “This way. Move it!”

His chest heaving, Peeta scrambled after them - only to realise Katniss wasn’t following.

Her bow tossed aside, she was curled up on the tiles, clutching at her head, her features twisting in agony. Swearing, Peeta sprinted back towards her. “Katniss!” he shouted, crashing down beside her. “Katniss, come on - we have to keep going!”

She gave a scream of horror, feverish and guttural, her torso shuddering with sobs. “I can’t - I killed them!”

Tears burned Peeta’s eyes. “You didn’t -”

“I killed them, Peeta!”

“Katniss!”

“Just leave me alone!” Katniss screamed.

“Katniss, please, look at me!” Peeta shouted, seizing her shoulders and wrenching her upright. “Look at me!”

“Peeta,” Katniss sobbed, begging him.

There was nothing else for it. Peeta grabbed her face and wrenched her towards him, crushing their mouths together in a desperate, searing kiss.

For a moment, time stopped.

It was everything he had ever felt, everything he had never said; everything Snow and the Capitol and their whole world had torn away from them; a precious moment they had left on the beach of a faraway arena, under a rigged tree mere minutes before midnight, the haunting bars of a song weaving its way through his mind.

Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free …

“Don’t let him take you from me,” Peeta begged when he pulled back. “Not again. I - please. Stay with me. Stay with me, Katniss.”

Katniss stared at him, the whisper of his name still on her lips … and something cleared in her eyes; a memory, a promise. “Always,” she gasped. “Always.”

o-o-o-o-o

Boggs, dead.

Mitchell, dead.

The Leeg sisters, dead.

Homes, dead.

Messalla, Jackson, Castor, Finnick.

Dead, dead, dead, dead.

“I killed them,” Katniss repeated.

Peeta’s eyes flicked to her. He wasn’t the only one, all of them hunkered down in Tigris’s cramped basement, cans of food scattered across the floor.

They would have to be on the move again soon.

Wanted posters, flashing across the city, the eyes of their dead following them beyond the tunnel exits. The Capitol didn’t yet know which of their team - if any - had survived, and Peeta was determined to hold onto their last advantage.

“You didn’t,” Peeta said finally. “The Capitol did. Snow did.”

It was as if she didn’t hear him. “Everywhere I go … I leave a trail of bodies.”

“That’s not true,” Peeta began.

Her head whipped around, her eyes ablaze. “The hospital,” Katniss snarled. “Our district. Every single person who’s lost their lives since we stepped foot in this place. Want me to keep going?”

Her words were met with silence.

Katniss jerked her head. “Snow was right,” she muttered. “They were right, they were right; a monster, I’m a monster -”

“You’re not -”

“I’m no better than one of their mutts!” Katniss yelled.

Frightened, the others glanced up at the ceiling, praying that the sheer amount of Tigris’s coats muffled the sound.

“Snow might as well have sent a loaded gun back to the rebellion,” Katniss cried angrily. “That was the whole plan, wasn’t it? I heard how easy it was to get me out of there. Almost too easy.”

Gale shifted guiltily.

“You’re not one of their mutts,” Peeta said emphatically. “You’re not.”

He reached out towards her, but she jerked back. “I am,” she growled. “Face it. Now give me those damn handcuffs.”

A long pause. “What?” Peeta asked cautiously.

Katniss’s expression hardened. “I told you to pack them in case I lost control.”

But she wasn’t looking at him. Sighing, Gale reached into his pocket and pulled out the cuffs, glancing apologetically at Peeta.

“No,” Peeta growled, wrenching them away. Even Katniss looked startled by his reaction. “No. You don’t need those.”

“Yes, I do!”

Suddenly, all of Peeta’s anger was gone to be replaced by the deep, harrowing sadness that had lurked at the edges of his mind ever since Katniss’s rescue. “You really don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?” Katniss snapped, so forcefully that Cressida flinched.

Peeta couldn’t stop now. “How brave you are. There’s not many who could stand the weight of being the rebellion’s last hope, but you still do, even after everything.”

Katniss’s nostrils flared. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“What would you have done otherwise?” Peeta asked softly, and Katniss clamped her mouth shut. “Even when you say you don’t, you’ve never thought twice about protecting these people; not at the hospital, not in District 2, not even in the arena. The same way you’ve never thought twice about protecting your sister.”

The fury suddenly faded from Katniss’s expression, confusion taking hold. “A dandelion in the spring …”

Peeta frowned. “Katniss?”

Blinking, she looked away. “You gave me hope. You give them hope.” She shook her head. “They don’t need me.”

“Yes, they do.” Carefully, Peeta pressed his fingers to her jaw, turning her to face him again.

This time, she let him.

“You’re their Mockingjay,” Peeta continued softly. “You, who defied the Capitol not for glory or - or to make a statement. When you held up those berries, when you sang Rue to sleep - Snow, he saw that as an attack on his empire, but you were just … being you. You weren’t fighting for some noble cause. You were just trying to protect those you cared about.” He swallowed thickly. “And those people, they saw you in themselves just as they do now, doing what they were too scared to for so long. You, not me.”

Katniss shook her head. “All I do is bring pain and suffering,” she said weakly.

Peeta jerked his head. “No. You never have, and don’t let anyone make you believe otherwise,” he told her fiercely. “Because we know you; the real you. The one the districts have never seen.”

“The one the cameras could never quite capture,” Cressida added with a small smile, Pollux nodding fervently in agreement beside her.

“They’re right, Catnip,” Gale said firmly. Katniss stared at him, silently mouthing the nickname. “We know you better than anyone. Believe me.”

“But -”

“Okay, look at it this way. Bad people don’t feel survivor’s guilt after the fact. You know that, right?”

“Stop being sensible,” Katniss complained, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

Peeta was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for everyone in the basement with him. He took Katniss’s hand, grabbing hold of her fingers tight. “All these people are following you because they believe in a better world; in what will happen once we win this,” he continued quietly. “You gave them the courage to stand up for that future.”

Katniss watched him carefully for a long moment. “And what about you?”

Peeta smiled slightly. “We’re in this together, no matter what happens. Wherever you go, I’ll be at your side every step of the way. Just like I always have been.”

And always will.

“You’re still trying to protect me,” Katniss said suddenly, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “Real or not real?”

Peeta swallowed thickly. “Real. Because that’s what you and I do,” he whispered. “We protect each other.”

o-o-o-o-o

“I was wrong about you.”

Peeta turned his head, looking away from Katniss’s sleeping form to look at Gale. “What?”

A long pause. “I was angry at you for a long time,” Gale said. “About what happened in the arena between you two. Jealous, even, for not taking the chance when I had.”

Peeta shifted uncomfortably.

“But I didn’t see it.” Gale shook his head. “Years of hunting with her, I never saw it. But you did. Still do.”

“See what?”

A small smile. “She needs hope. She needs someone gentle; she needs you.”

It was strange, both of them talking like this. Almost like friends. Peeta chuckled quietly. “She doesn’t need anyone. She’s strong enough to stand on her own feet.”

“But?”

The silence stretched for a moment. “But … it’s nice to be able to stand with her.”

Gale nodded. “I just … keep thinking about what Snow did to her. Did to all of them. And I don’t think we ever would’ve found Katniss again if you hadn’t been there.”

“I didn’t -”

“I was too angry,” Gale cut him off. “I was blinded by what had happened. All I thought about was winning this damn war; winning so we could fix this mess, fix her. But your patience, and your kindness - that’s what brought her back in the end.”

Peeta shook his head. “She was in there all along. She just … needed reminding.”

“But you never gave up on her. Not once.”

At that, he rolled over to face the wall, leaving Peeta alone with his thoughts. No, he supposed. He never really had.

o-o-o-o-o

No one was safe.

Capitol citizens, rebels, refugees, Peacekeepers alike; bullets in the air, blood on the ground, traps exploding across the streets as the panicked crowds surged towards Snow’s mansion, begging for sanctuary.

The streets had opened up, a gaping black chasm with the stench of death crawling out of its depths. Peeta lost sight of Katniss as civilians tumbled into the depths with ragged screams, only just glimpsing Gale being dragged into one of the buildings by two soldiers - and out of sight.

“You’ll shoot me if that happens, right?”

“Right.” A tight smile. “Didn’t think we’d ever make a pact to kill each other.”

A weight dropped in Peeta’s stomach. He was too late - and Gale’s nightlock pill was safely tucked away inside one of Katniss’s pockets.

Gale was on his own.

Gritting his teeth, Peeta powered onwards, stumbling through the mayhem, his body drenched with sweat beneath the layers of costume. He tore off his scarf, gasping as the cold air hit his neck, wrenching his focus back.

Get to the mansion.

He ducked another burst of gunfire, swearing. A Peacekeeper charged out of a side street - and stopped, staring at Peeta with wide eyes. “Hey!”

Jerking his coat aside, Peeta seized his gun and fired, the man crashing to the street with blood pouring from his knee.

Amidst the chaos, no one noticed.

Finally, Peeta reached the City Circle, Snow’s mansion just ahead of him; but before that, a barrier, desperate parents pushing their children through the gates as Peacekeepers seized them; protecting the future of Panem.

A thunderous roar filled the air, the whir of an overhead engine. Cowering down, Peeta’s gaze was torn skywards, memories of the arena slamming through him.

A hovercraft, parachutes falling from the sky above the mansion gates. Eyes shining in delight, little hands reaching up to grab the gifts raining down on them, frozen fingers clutching their new treasures.

All at once, half the parachutes detonated.

Thrown sideways, Peeta staggered into a wall, clutching at his head. Gasping, he glanced up blearily - and suddenly bent over again, retching violently.

No, no, no, no -

Children, lying across the bloodied ground. People screaming, wailing, shouting; Peacekeepers tearing down the barriers as they rushed forward to help.

A surge of white, medics swarming in. Rebel medics, Peeta realised with a jolt, their uniforms unmistakeable.

“Prim!” a voice screamed raggedly.

Peeta whirled about, his heart racing in panic. No, she shouldn’t have been - “Katniss!” he yelled, the name bursting from his mouth, unbidden.

Heads turned, but he ignored them, charging through the surging crowd after the dark-haired figure who was pushing her way forward, but there was too many - too many -

“Prim!” the voice screamed again. “Prim!”

He suddenly saw her.

There, at the gates amidst the crowds of wounded, a head of blond plaits whipped around, a red cross plastered across her chest, young, wide eyes focussing somewhere off to Peeta’s right.

“Katniss,” she mouthed.

And then the world exploded.

Chapter Text

Burning.

That was the last thing he could remember.

Holding onto Katniss as flames scorched the both of them, white hot agony tearing across his skin until he passed out; until he sank into the hazy, dream-infused state of morphine.

“And if we burn, you burn with us!”

“Katniss,” he whispered, reaching into the void, but she was already gone, and so was he.

Flying, falling … drifting, swimming …

Johanna’s face, looming out of the darkness. “You better hang in there, lover boy,” she snarled. “Because if you don’t make it, she won’t either.”

A cry for help, a burst of warmth; gone … he was gone again …

“Come on, boy.”

Out of space … out of time …

“Maybe we should get your Mockingjay in here.”

Peeta’s eyes snapped open. He immediately groaned, squeezing his lids shut again, nausea crashing over him, everything too bright, his head suddenly pounding; he was going to throw up, or pass out -

“Knew that’d do the trick.”

“Bugger off, Haymitch,” Peeta said, his voice barely audible, nothing more than a weak rasp. He groaned again, everything raw and aching. He cried out, his face contorting in pain, silently begging for the blissful darkness once more.

A gentle voice shushed him, a hand pressing a cloth to his forehead. “You’re going to make it,” someone whispered, the barest tremble to her words. Mrs Everdeen. “Rest up, Peeta. It’ll be okay.”

He felt another burst of warmth through his veins, washing over him, cocooning him like a blanket; felt himself falling, falling -

“Katniss?” he asked again, so weakly he felt ashamed.

Fingers brushed away the tears falling down his face. “She’s going to live. You both are.”

And with that, Peeta slipped away again.

o-o-o-o-o

Both of them were scarred, but they were alive.

They had become a patchwork of miracles, their torched bodies stitched back together by the talented Capitol doctors, regrown in ways Peeta never knew were possible.

Sitting at her bedside in his hospital gown and being careful not to damage the layers of replaced skin, he brushed his thumb across Katniss’s cheek. “Hey,” he whispered.

She stirred, her eyes opening to stare at him.

The silence stretched. Peeta was suddenly wrenched back in time to another hospital bed, Katniss’s fingers twitching mere seconds before she lunged for his throat.

He knew that wouldn’t happen now. He trusted her.

“Peeta,” she finally rasped, her voice wavering dangerously.

Peeta’s heart sank, the heat of the fire still so present on his own skin.

She knew. She remembered.

o-o-o-o-o

He had thought it was over. With the surrender of the Capitol, it should have been over.

Anger lashed through Peeta, his blood boiling in his veins. “What’s going on?” he hissed the moment the two of them were alone. “I - this isn’t you, Katniss.”

He could feel the bridge between them crumbling all over again, the chasm yawning as Katniss stared at him with her cold, grey Seam eyes. “I have to do this.”

He jerked his head. “No. No,” he said emphatically. “No, there’s always another way.” He swallowed audibly. “After everything we went through, why would you want to put anyone else in those arenas?”

A pause. “Revenge.”

“But is this the way to do it? Katniss … we’ve all suffered enough.”

The unsaid words filled the heavy silence. It’s not going to bring her back.

An even longer pause. “Do you trust me, Peeta?”

He stared at her. “Always.” He shook his head. “But I can’t stand by this. I won’t.”

He turned to walk away when a hand seized his wrist. 

“Coin killed Prim.”

The crack in her voice sent a splinter through Peeta’s heart as he looked at her. “Don’t believe a word that snake told you, Katniss.”

“As much as Snow and I hate each other, we’ve never lied to one another,” Katniss insisted, her voice a ragged whisper as the words rushed out of her. “Those bombers belonged to District 13, not the Capitol.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “And Coin … she would’ve been the only one with the authority to sign the order that put Prim there.”

Peeta stared at her. “Why would she do that?”

But he suddenly understood, a hollow feeling carving out his stomach. It meant Coin could take out both her most dangerous competitors in one stroke: President Snow … and Katniss Everdeen.

The war had been won, but their Games had never ended. They were still in them.

“What are you going to do?” he asked quietly.

“Trust me,” Katniss begged.

Peeta ran a hand through his hair. “Have you talked to Gale about this?”

It was as if a wall slammed down between them. Katniss folded her arms, her expression tightening. “Didn’t you recognise the trap?” she asked, her voice deathly quiet.

“I -”

It suddenly hit Peeta. An image of a faraway lab, all of them gathered around Beetee as he explained the different traps he and Gale had designed.

The first explosive maiming the enemy; the second detonation targeting the rescuers. It had Gale’s cunning written all over it.

“He loved Prim, Katniss,” Peeta said gently. “She was like his little sister.”

“Maybe.” Katniss’s voice shook. “But he doesn’t even know if the bomb was his or not. And I’ll never be able to separate him from that moment.”

With that, she turned away, leaving Peeta’s thoughts reeling.

“Katniss,” he finally got out.

She paused at the door, and Peeta swallowed against the lump in his throat. Today, no matter what, Panem’s future would be decided for good. “Shoot straight.”

o-o-o-o-o

Snow, dead.

Coin, dead.

The former by his own hand, choking to death with laughter on his own blood.

The latter, collapsing against the podium with Katniss’s arrow protruding from her chest.

Chaos erupted within seconds; screams, shouts; guards, charging forward. And amidst it all, Katniss’s fingers scrambling for the pocket on her shoulder.

Gasping, Peeta dove forward, shoving through the crowds - and snatched the nightlock pill away just as she pulled it free.

The utter betrayal on her face nearly broke him. “I’m sorry,” he choked out.

But she was already being torn away by the guards.

Haymitch found him later that evening, hunched over Snow’s personal bar.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, yanking the glass out of Peeta’s grasp. He paused, squinting at it. “You haven’t even touched this.”

Peeta shrugged. “He might have poisoned it.”

“That would be my lucky day, then,” Haymitch said, sitting down and taking a swig. Just as suddenly, he pulled a face and tossed the glass over the counter. “President of Panem, and he didn't even have the good stuff.”

But Peeta wasn’t in the mood. “Why are you here, Haymitch?” he asked tiredly.

“Well, I thought you might like a little update on your dearly beloved.” That got his attention. “She’s okay, but probably going stir crazy at the moment. No one’s allowed in to see her or talk to her - and trust me, I tried, with my devastating charm and all that.”

Peeta clenched his fists, wishing he still had the glass to fidget with. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“There’ll be a trial, no doubt about that.”

“That’s that, then.” Peeta sighed. “There’s no hope for her. She killed Coin in broad daylight; everyone saw. We can’t argue against that.”

“Maybe … maybe not. We could go with an insanity plea, but I don’t think the doctors would support it, given their compliments on her recovery. That’s good,” Haymitch added as Peeta’s expression twisted in frustration. “It means we can rule that one out and just go in proverbial guns blazing.”

“What do you mean?” Peeta asked, frowning.

A grin. “Coin’s treachery - we’ve got a whole pile of evidence against her.”

Peeta stared at him. “You knew?”

“Only after I caught Katniss sneaking around 13. She wanted to make sure there was an out; didn’t trust that lady farther than she could’ve thrown her, and it justified my own … concerns, if you will. Turns out we weren’t the only ones, either.”

“What have you got?” Peeta demanded.

“Testimonies, orders, you name it. The bitch buried it all under layers of code and security clearances, but there’s nothing Beetee can’t find. Even -” Haymitch suddenly sobered, his jaw hardening. “Even the command to post that poor little girl as a medic in the middle of a war-zone.”

Turning away, Peeta ran a hand through his hair, tears burning his eyes again. He thought of Prim dancing across the square in 12; thought of her running through the hallways of 13, laughing and chattering and her blonde plaits swinging, her joy touching the hearts of every person she interacted with.

Never again.

Haymitch squeezed his shoulder. “It’ll be alright,” he promised. “I can just about guarantee that today’s little execution was warranted. They won’t like that she took matters of justice into her own hands, but for now, we have a leg to stand on. Metal or otherwise.”

He glanced down pointedly, and Peeta rolled his eyes. “Hardy har.”

“Oh, look, a laugh! This day keeps getting better and better.”

Huffing, Peeta finally shoved away his harrowing thoughts of Katniss rotting in a jail cell. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing.”

“Haymitch -”

“Nothing,” Haymitch said firmly. “You take that transport tomorrow and go back to 12, you hear me?”

Peeta seethed. “I’m not leaving her.”

“You’re gonna be more a hindrance than a help, trust me. Of course you’re gonna take her side; you’re biased. You need to settle down and just wait for this whole mess to blow over.”

“In 12? There’s nothing there, Haymitch,” Peeta told him despairingly.

Nothing but the houses in the Victors’ Village, forever his own but still tainted by the touch of the Capitol.

Haymitch’s expression softened. “Give it time, and there will be.”

o-o-o-o-o

“Peeta.”

It was the softest of whispers, but he would know that voice anywhere.

He turned around, rising to his feet. “Hey,” he greeted, his own words just as gentle, trembling with emotion as he smiled. “You came home.”

Her face pale against the dark locks cascading about her face, Katniss nodded. “Yeah.”

Weeks before, Haymitch had called Peeta to tell him the news. Katniss had been released for the same reasons he predicted, and all talks of a final Hunger Games had ceased. With Commander Paylor now in power, things had begun to settle down in the Capitol and the districts as they buried their dead and started to clean up the mess  - a devastation both Snow and Coin had left in their wake.

Peeta had waited, and waited, the days slipping through his fingers like running water. He heard that Katniss’s mother moved to District 4, and Gale to 2; but there had been no sign, not a word from Katniss herself.

Until now.

Katniss’s gaze drifted to the yellow flowers in his dirtied hands, and Peeta cleared his throat. “I found these over by the edge of the forest,” he explained.

A beat, a flash of recognition. “Primrose?” she whispered.

Swallowing audibly, Peeta nodded.

A gasp, mingled with a sob; Katniss threw herself forward into his arms. The hand holding the flowers still crushed between them against their pounding hearts, he wrapped a warm, firm arm around her, pulling her close.

“I’m sorry, Katniss,” he whispered as she cried into his shoulder; because, even after everything, after every desperate effort, she still hadn’t been able to save Prim. “I’m so, so sorry.”

o-o-o-o-o

“Katniss?” he whispered, draping a blanket over her. “Love?”

Curled up on the sofa, staring listlessly at the barren landscape out the window, there was no response.

Little had he known that she was already disappearing, even before she had returned home, and it had become frighteningly apparent in the weeks that followed. As hard as he tried, Peeta was helpless to stop the life draining from her eyes to leave a haunted, hollow look he had seen too many times.

“Sometimes, things happen to people,” she had said once, “and they’re not equipped to deal with them.”

Struggling with the loss of her sister, Katniss withdrew from the world for a long while, locked in the same darkness she had hated her own mother for.

But just like he had before, Peeta coaxed her back, little by little, giving her the space to breathe and work through her grief in her own time. Whenever she cried, he was there. Whenever she awoke screaming from nightmares, his arms held her, strong and sure like they had time and again.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered to Katniss one night after she finally sank into another exhausted, fitful slumber. “Maybe not now, but you will be. I promise.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, holding his lips there for a moment. “I promise.”

Months passed, and life went on, their routines rarely straying. Whenever Katniss wanted to sit in silence, Peeta kept her company. And when she went off alone, he didn’t follow, knowing she would come back when she was ready - and that his own breathing space was necessary at times.

Because not even Peeta had escaped the conflicts of their journey unscathed.

Some days worse than others, he struggled with his own grief, haunted by the memory of those they had left behind, dear friends whose faces came to him in dreams, talking and laughing with him until they slipped away into the haze of his mind, Peeta awaking to the echo of their voices in his ears.

Slowly, they both began to heal again.

It was standing in the kitchen cobbling something of a meal together, or the two of them sitting out on the porch as it poured down with rain, their eyes closed as they breathed in the smells of the earth, the breeze rustling their hair as their fingers eventually tangled with one another’s.

Little by little, those moments grew longer; became more frequent, more certain, as the trust between them deepened and strengthened with the passing of time, nurtured into blossom by both of them; like the flowers lining the front of their house, the garden flourishing under Peeta’s careful watch.

And little by little, they began to talk about the people who hadn’t survived. A laugh here, a smile there amidst the tears as they remembered Prim’s little duck tail, and Finnick prancing around in the most unsightly of garments during their hospital stints. Peeta’s sketchbook began to fill with portraits, committing them to page before the lines of their faces and the colours of their eyes were lost to time.

Again and again, as his pencil danced across the paper, weaving a rich tapestry of memories, Katniss watched him quietly, a softness in her eyes. Eventually, her fingers began to comb through his hair as he worked, her movements slowly growing in confidence.

I’m here for you, the touches whispered. I just don’t know how to say it.

But, a contented smile growing across his face, Peeta understood. He could feel it.

One morning, as he returned from a long walk to clear his head, he found himself standing in the entranceway with his hand still on the doorknob, utterly still and completely entranced.

“Are you, are you, coming to the tree?”

His heart raced at the singing echoing through the house, the voice scratchy from disuse but beautiful and endearing all at once. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he fought back a sob of relief.

“Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be …”

He hadn’t heard Katniss sing in months.

“… If we met at midnight in the hanging tree.”

o-o-o-o-o

They were curled up beneath the sheets in ways reminiscent of their time on the Capitol trains, the two of them speeding across Panem to fates unknown.

But now, it was just them, pressed together amidst soft sheets as the hours crept towards midnight, Peeta’s arms cocooning Katniss and protecting her from the shadows of her mind, just as her presence alone did for him. The lamp flickered in the soft breeze sweeping through the window, a light neither of them were willing to extinguish.

Running his fingers through Katniss’s hair, Peeta glanced out at the night sky, looking at the stars shimmering overhead; like friends, like guardians.

All was peaceful, all was quiet.

“You love me,” Katniss whispered. “Real or not real?”

Peeta smiled, leaning in to press a kiss to her temple. “Real.”