Chapter Text
Was this how Peeta had felt?
I knew he cared for me, but what if it was only the way I’d always cared for him?
Maybe I’d known ages ago.
When I kissed him in the cave, I knew I wanted to protect him, and maybe that was a sort of love. When I shared his bed on the train during the Victory Tour, he was my greatest comfort and my greatest friend, which was surely a sort of love. When I kissed him on the beach, I felt desire flare up inside me, then tamped it back down. Then, when I lost him to the Capitol, I couldn’t let myself love him. It hurt too much to admit it, even to myself, because I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again. And when Peeta was rescued, I found myself loving a ghost. Snow had taken him from me, just like he’d taken everything else.
Peeta came back slowly. When I kissed him in the tunnels beneath the Capitol, I knew I was kissing someone who still wasn’t all there; but it was the first kiss that wasn’t for the cameras. That had to count for something.
When it was all over and I went home to District Twelve, Peeta stayed in the Capitol. The doctors from Thirteen wanted him to continue his therapy. They didn’t trust that he was well yet. So Haymitch and I went home alone. We kept to ourselves, mostly. Buttercup found his way home, somehow, to keep me company. I barely left the couch.
I mourned my sister. I mourned Finnick. I mourned my mother and I mourned Gale, even though they were both alive. I mourned Peeta. Haymitch got updates from the doctors in the Capitol. They said Peeta was improving, slowly coming back to himself. But there was no guarantee he’d ever come back completely; no guarantee he’d come back to loving me. And what if he never came back to Twelve? What if I never saw him again?
I couldn’t let myself love him.
But when we sat on the beach and I confessed that I needed him, it was the truth.
Peeta came home in the spring.
I was returning to Victors’ Village from the woods when I saw him. He was kneeling in the dirt in front of a small patch of freshly planted flowers. He turned at the sound of my footsteps on the gravel, and I stopped walking as he stood.
“Peeta,” I breathed, like he might disappear if I spoke too loudly. “You came home.”
“Yeah,” he said, matching my tone.
He looked like himself again. His bones didn’t press through his skin like they did at the end of our Games, or when he was first rescued from the Capitol. He looked like the boy who held me on the train. Battle-scarred, but not hollow. There was a spark of life in him again.
I looked down to the plant he was holding. White and yellow petals.
“It’s primrose,” he said softly. “I thought you might like it.”
I let my empty game bag slip from my shoulder as I stepped towards him. I was in his arms before he could see the tears pooling in my eyes. His hands were on my back, his head leaning on mine. For the first time in months, I felt like I was awake again.
“I’m so sorry, Katniss,” he whispered.
I don’t know how long we stood there. I was memorizing, once again, what his body felt like against mine.
When we finally broke apart, he gave me a small smile. We didn’t try to say anything more. Not yet. I went back to my house. He went back to planting flowers.
There was a feeling washing over me—it was familiar, but I couldn’t quite name it. I was warm inside. I felt like I might burst into tears at any moment. The feeling grew over the next few hours. I realized what it was as I lowered myself into the bath that night.
Love.
I loved him.
I loved him, but I didn’t know if he felt the same. I didn’t know if he’d ever feel the same for me again.
At least I had him. It was more than I could have dared to wish for that morning. He was with me again, and that was enough.