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When Katniss first returned to D12, she never went upstairs. What was up there for her? Just ghosts from her past waiting to taunt her. And a bed. It had been so long since she'd slept in one, she wouldn't know what to do with it, anyway. So she stayed close to the downstairs, never venturing far from the kitchen rocker. As she sat and rocked, she would drift into some kind of sleep, only to be awakened by dreams she never wanted to remember. What hurt more than the dreams- though they were excruciating- was knowing she was alone. No one to put their arms around her, to remind her that everything was OK. That “it”, all of it, was over. She tried not to think of Peeta’s arms, of Peeta’s voice telling her it was fine, of Peeta himself. She knew she was alone, and that this life was going to have to be lived alone. If only she could stop the dreams.
Winter slipped into spring, and still she rocked on. This dance of hers, wake up, eat, sleep. Wake up, eat, sleep continued.She ignored the phone, she ignored Sae, she ignored it all. She ate, but only to get rid of Sae. She used the bathroom, because that’s what happens when you live. You may not like it, but the world continues, and the body responds.
Until that day...
A nightmare woke her. Her dream of being buried alive carried on even after her eyes opened. Who was tormenting her? And why? Where were they and why won't they stop? She charged out of the chair, and out the door. But something happened that stopped her short. He was here. Digging. But not a grave? Surely not! Then what were those flowers for? If not to decorate a grave…
"I found these, just over in the woods. I thought we could plant them… for her"
And that's when she started to rise again. That's when her dance changed. From her own grave and Into life…
KPKPKPKPKPKPKP
Three years of work with Dr. Aurelius brought them to this point. Their friendship was solid. They had struggled through flashbacks and depression, nightmares and terrors. And they did that together.
Lately, though, their friendship began to turn, to change, to deepen, to settle. At one time, their dance was halting, stepping on toes, but now they moved like a well oiled machine. They would glide over the floor in synchronicity to the music they created with their life together.
They knew each other's ins and outs, comings and goings. Peeta knew when it would be a quiet day that Katniss would stay in bed, and Katniss was able to tell when a flashback was coming on- sometimes even before Peeta realized it. They coaxed each other through these days.
They kept seperate houses, but shared the same bed. Some nights they stayed at his house, sometimes hers. Some days they wouldn’t see each other from the time they woke up until they fell into bed together- always together. Fighting the monsters was so much easier when you had a partner to fight them with. The monsters under the bed were nothing compared to the solidarity on top. It wasn’t long before Katniss knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Peeta was the one, had always been the one. Their relationship was inevitable, not because of the games, not because of the revolution, but because they understood each other. They complimented each other- he was the cool to her fire, she the light to his darkness.
“We used to dance, you know,” Katniss said one evening as they sat out on the back porch swing looking at the moon. It had been a mild autumn, and sitting out, even though it was a bit chilly, was a welcome calm for the both of them.
“I sometimes have fleeting memories of it, but nothing solid,” Peeta confessed. His memories were starting to come in a bit more. They started off as whisps and echoes but eventually they became solid, real.
“There was this one dance we would do,” Katniss continued, wistfully. “We could do it on a pie plate. We just moved to the music and turned.”
“I remember that…”
After a few moments of silence, of internal warring with herself, Katniss gained the courage to ask, “Will you dance with me? Like, now?”
And then, that inevitable night their dance changed and intensified once more, “You love me, real or not real?”
“Real.”
The sounds of the wind through the trees, the howl of the coyote in the distance, the crackle of the fire in the kitchen fireplace. Those were their first soundtrack of this new dance.