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Katniss’ heart had been reduced to ashes that day that Peeta returned to her. Well, that wasn’t quite the truth. What had been given back to her was the human equivalent of a shadow, complete with glassy bloodshot eyes and a weary torso with its skin clinging to bones—speckled with bruises the gray hue of rain and of deep plum wine.
Truth be told, too, it wasn’t the fact that he had mangled her, nearly killed her with his weakened fingers in a vice grip around her neck, marking her with the same shades of purple and blue, it was the sight of him that had ruined her. Ever since she had regained consciousness she had prayed that those memories would die. That the drowsy haze of a coma could wash them away, like the solid sway of a sea that could bury them.
They could not die. Every night as Katniss closed her eyes, Peeta’s stare swallowed her. The image followed her like a ghost. His sunken cheeks. His jaw set, as though poised to spit. His dark eyes that once flooded her with warmth rendered into cold, black stone. His weakened frame poised face-to-face with her, gaining strength from somewhere unknown lunging at her as though programmed to kill her. Every ounce of muscle and force Peeta’s body possessed was thrown at her own with a feverish passion.
Katniss felt everything—the furious chase of Peeta’s heart, the pulsing force of muscle throughout his body. Peeta moved with his shoulders as he thrust all his weight forward into her windpipe. Peeta’s body became a force of nature despite how much it had been starved.
Katniss clawed, trying to break free as she felt her throat close up. The hands around her neck pressed tighter and tighter. She swore she could feel Peeta’s fingers bruising hand prints into her flesh, relishing how it drained the life from her. Her thrashing began to slow; her arms only ribboned in the air as they succumbed to weakness, and her torso sank like lead. Her world went black.
Gone were the memories of being flush with Peeta’s body on the train, the rhythm of his breathing the only remedy for a sleep tormented by nightmares. Gone was the rushing relief of finding him alive, of the warm comfort of being at his side, of even the prospect of his kiss. Gone was his golden light. Every morning, Katniss awoke drenched in sweat with a scream past her lips.
She avoided the window into the sterile room until she could no longer bear the weight of keeping her head bowed and her eyes low. If she looked, she knew that she’d catch him thrashing around, trying to break from his restraints, screaming until he burst a blood vessel, darkening his already bloodshot eyes. So in days she busied herself with healing, in making sure her mother and Prim were well-fed and safe. She could pretend Peeta died a long time ago for her own sanity. But in brief solitary moments the window into his room bore into her brain. A reminder of its existence was its own genre of torment, a looming reminder of Hell on Earth.
Yet despite her best efforts of excising him from her mind, she prayed that the boy with the bread could return to her. Because she missed him. Because she didn’t know how she had survived any of these days without Peeta at her side. Because deep down, she knew he was still in there. If nothing else, she swore to have one moment more with him before his torment at the Capitol kicked in again. She begged whatever entity would listen to have one night, one secret night that was worth her death. She couldn’t help herself. That was her weakness.
Tonight, she had decided, is when it would be.
Darkness peacefully swallowed the halls of District Thirteen, save a few emergency lights that flickered like fireflies. Katniss hadn’t gone to sleep that night. Instead, she swathed herself in the dark, getting her eyes once again accustomed to lack of light. Katniss sat up in her bunk, her spine erect as she listened intently to the breathing patterns of those in the barracks, waiting to recognize the even breaths of sleep. As a safeguard, she counted seconds up to minutes in her mind, letting the time tick by so as to assure a lack of traffic in the night. That’s the third hour, Katniss thought as she reached sixty once more. Her body was too rigid to doze, her mind too preoccupied. She had planned out this night as soon as she was back up and moving again, gradually slotting together the pieces. It had to be perfect if she was going to risk her death. Typically, that wouldn’t jostle Katniss’ mind much. But if she was risking death by Peeta Mellark’s own hand…
Once Katniss reached the fourth hour she slipped coolly out of her bunk. In her initial devised plan she had considered changing into clothes that Peeta would recognize, whether by sight or by scent. However, she thought against it upon further introspection. If the Capitol truly had hijacked Peeta—and she had no doubt that they did everything in their power to ensure that—the possibility of wearing clothes that reminded Peeta of the Games could trigger violence in him. Violence toward her. Therefore, she wore fresh, clean garb that was soft to the touch. Perhaps it would remind him of his amenities on the Victory Tour: the velvety bedding in the train cars, the knits and furs they were dressed in that winter.
Every movement towards the ward took a lifetime to complete. Her insides jittered with adrenaline, but long ago she had trained her limbs to remain silent when needed. She drifted slowly from the sleeping quarters, turning a tender eye to her mother and Prim before leaving. The two had parallel bunks and slept heavily. Wisps of light hair rose and fell against Prim’s cheek as she exhaled lazily. Katniss resisted the urge to place a hand at her sister’s temple. If Prim had stirred, what would she say of Katniss leaving? It tired her to lie to her sister anymore, and Prim would warn her, filling her head with logic and concern. Katniss couldn’t shoulder the weight of apprehension anymore either. She had to see him.
Katniss skulked through the halls on the balls of her feet, her breath trapped in her throat. Outside of the sleeping quarters she pressed her back against the wall, her knees wobbling with apprehension as she paused to survey the area. No one. Her shoulder blades relaxed.
Katniss vowed not to think about Peeta until she saw his face again. This pursuit was purely methodical, one step in front of the other. If she thought too long… her eyes would flash with doubt. With memory. Pretty soon he would appear, strong and broad and golden, his clothes clean and his dark eyes shining. He would smile, his eyes crinkling a little, and it would set off Katniss like a bomb.
The hallways stared back at Katniss ominously the closer and closer to the ward she got, venturing further into darkness. They all were the same ugly gray, their corners offering little cover. But she slipped through them carefully as though cloaked in the darkness herself. She waited at every turn, using her pulse to keep time before moving in case she spotted someone. Katniss pressed on, her eyes set.
A sliver of light drew angles on the concrete floor, and from it Katniss’ gaze was drawn upward. The nightlights in Peeta’s room blinked back at her, flashing a blue-white light into her eyes. Her heart buoyed in her chest. Through the glass lay Peeta on a hospital bed, but Katniss didn’t see him.
Katniss simply bowed her head, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. Before she could stop herself hot tears trickled down her cheeks, flowing like the steady streams did in Twelve. Katniss covered her mouth to conceal her raucous symphony of sobs, her ragged breath fogging up the window. She had made it all this way to fulfill her own needs, to cleanse her conscience, to bring Peeta back from the brink so that she could die happy if this meant her death. Katniss had only focused on what she had lost through Peeta’s hijacking, Gd forbid fathoming Peeta’s own trauma and abuse.
What had Peeta lost? Katniss’ molars sunk into the flesh of her cheek, breaking the skin.
Peeta had lost everything.
Peeta had no home, no family, no clear sign that anyone loved him or missed him or cared. While Snow tormented him, starved him, rewired his brain, stripped him of his kindness and compassion, there was no one to tell him to hold on. Peeta spoke to a one-sided screen, hoping, praying for Katniss’ safety—and risking his life for it—while no one made an effort to save him until it was nearly too late.
She tasted the warm release of blood on the edge of her tongue and let it sink in between her teeth and gums.
She prayed she could hear him through the thick pane of glass. Her hands uselessly dragged across the pane, still controlled by the violence of her tears. I’m so sorry, Peeta. I’m so sorry.
For what felt like hours, Katniss kept her forehead against the now fogged-up window, running her throat raw and making her eyes swell like balloons.
It should’ve been me, Katniss thought.
And then the thought crashed full impact into her brain. She was being so stupid. What would Peeta want from her? He would want her to stop berating herself, to recognize her importance to this cause, to the survival of so many, to him.
And perhaps most of all, Peeta would want to see her. Avoiding him couldn’t do anything for either one of them except prolong more misery, it had to happen eventually. Instead, Katniss knew—knew for the Peeta that she knew inside and out, knew for the Peeta who saved her life a thousand times and endured torture for it, who had always, always loved her—it could alleviate his pain. She wanted that, more than anything else.
So Katniss straightened up, pressing her shoulders and back into the right place again. She rubbed her eyes out again, then wiping off her permanent frown. She took a breath from deep in her stomach and let it travel up into her chest. She held it there, then in her throat for a few moments. She relished the reset it brought her as her eyes fluttered closed.
Once her eyes opened, she turned towards the door. Not for herself, but for Peeta.
The handle to the room was ice cold. Katniss tried not to think about it too much, so she just kept walking towards him. Her heart beat in her chest to the rhythm of his name. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta.
She kept her footsteps light so as not disturb his sleep. Although he was heavily sedated, the risk was still there, and Katniss wouldn’t forgive herself if she unwittingly disturbed his rest.
The room was devoid of anything beyond a bed and the machines monitoring Peeta’s vitals. There was a little en suite with a bathroom complete with a shower, but that was virtually invisible as the door was camouflaged neatly with the white wall. It was virtually silent in there, and looked completely untouched. In a flash of worry Katniss wondered if Peeta was even regularly fed.
Of course he was, she reassured herself. She knew people in charge of his care monitored him, and that even without them, those helping with his readjustment looked after him.
Finally, fully, as she reached his bedside did Katniss look at Peeta completely. He looked like the Peeta from her nightmares, mostly.
She noticed how hollow his cheeks were, how the skin around his eyes was a faded purple and blue from past bruises, which only added to how sunken in they looked. His hair was slick against his forehead, it clearly hadn’t been washed for days. But it was him, and although she hated how much they had taken from him, he was still here. They couldn’t make a stranger out of him.
Katniss’ voice wavered in her throat as she stood still, watching over him. Peeta slept seemingly heavily, his features even more gentle in sleep. Although she must have looked at him a thousand times these past few years, only a handful of times it seemed like she had truly looked at him. His skin was paler than it usually was, but she didn’t put it past the Capitol to deprive Peeta even of sunlight. Selfishly, she remembered the Peeta on the Victory Tour, and although it was winter he had looked tan and broad and healthy. She remembered the first time she had seen him then, after the games, handsomely dressed and using his prosthetic leg for the first time publicly, figuring out this new way of movement with a cane. He looked so happy to see her.
She knew she loved him then, undeniably.
And the world snapped back into reality, with her hovering over Peeta, almost too afraid to touch him. Her hands itched to close in on him and smooth away his strands of blonde hair from his forehead. Instead, she hesitated, drawing into herself for comfort.
“Peeta… it’s me. I missed you. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but maybe it’s better this way, huh?” Her voice sounded foreign to her ears, airy and small. Maybe it had been so long since she had spoken to Peeta that she’d forgotten how.
She tried again. “I don’t, um, know how much you know of what’s going on here. We’re in Thirteen now. Well, they’ve probably told you that much. And, um, I’ve been doing a lot of stuff that all feels pretty useless without you and—”
“You know, I,” Katniss laughed nervously, stroking the hair from the nape of her neck that led into her braid. “I don’t think I’m very good at this.” She bowed her head. “You know I’ve never known what to say.”
Katniss nearly stopped herself from swallowing her next sentence. “Just, well, know I’m here. If you need anything. I’m here.”
Katniss stood and continued to study him silently for a while.
But in a bout of a feeling half-courage and half-weakness, she climbed into the hospital bed and pressed herself against the worn, weary figure of Peeta. She knew the risks she was taking, even as he laid supine in sleep. But it didn’t dissuade her longing to just be next to him again.
She kept her body to herself as best she could, tucking her knees to her chest. But soon enough, Katniss felt stiff, and she couldn’t stand another second curled up. Eventually, her muscle memory kicked in. First, just her elbow touching Peeta. Then, as she stretched to ease her discomfort, her torso was flush against him, too. While it reminded her too much of their past—a past she wasn’t sure they could return to again—she couldn’t help but relax against him.
The body next to Peeta was warm, like dying embers. He had stirred nearly imperceptibly, but he felt a warm, breathing body next to him. And strangely, it didn’t startle him.
It was unlike the stuffy feeling of being crammed into bed with his brothers in childhood, more like wrestling than sleeping. Then there would always be an elbow jammed into his side, a foot trying to wrangle for space under the covers.
This body cocooned next to him breathed gently, smelling like fresh rain and pine. Katniss, he breathed. It was Katniss. It had to be Katniss.
Suddenly, he noticed it all. The rhythm of her breath, the familiar feeling of her torso against his chest, the gentle tickle of her dark hair. And she had noticed his stirring, so he looked at her.
“Peeta,” Katniss’ heart pounded in her chest, like a flittering bird trying to escape its cage. “is it you?”
Peeta’s voice was hoarse and leaden with sleep, and his eyes fluttered closed out of weakness. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Peeta. Oh, Peeta. My Peeta.” She couldn’t delay her weeping as her fingers leapt to tangle themselves in his hair. “I thought I lost you.”
And Katniss cried. Katniss cried for herself, Katniss cried for Peeta. Katniss cried because she missed Peeta, because he was here, cried for their days lost and the days taken from them, and Katniss cried because she was happy. And Peeta softened against her.
Katniss had another flick of worry, like a stray ember. She couldn’t stop it from floating past her lips. “Peeta?”
“Hm?”
Katniss cradled him closer instinctively, a little like a child with their blanket or favorite toy. “Do you know that it’s me?”
He looked back at her, his eyes wide with understanding. “I know it’s you, Katniss.”
“Is that okay?”
Peeta hummed, shifting his weight. “There are good things… and bad things. But I... I can’t think of the bad things right now.”
Katniss released a sigh she didn’t know she was holding in. Of course, it ached that these “memories” were real to Peeta, and she couldn’t simply erase them. Nobody could. The process was slow and agonizing, because he had to unlearn it all. But after all he’d been through, she couldn’t blame him for anything. Besides, she had done things that had hurt him, and if that was how she was paying for them, then she would pay.
She had a million questions, a million things she wanted to reassure, a million things she could say. But she didn’t want to burden Peeta, to exhaust him, so she quieted her mind and focused on the fact that he was in her arms.
Although she hadn’t planned it—same as she hadn’t planned on climbing into Peeta’s bed, either—her head slumped against his shoulder and she slept. Their rhythms of breath twinned in the darkness, and they were embraced there for hours.
Outside, unknown to the two sleeping in a hospital bed, outside of the wreckage of a district, a gentle sunrise rose over the horizon. The orange light pressed across the worn earth, and even the little patches of greenery that tried to make a new life out there. It lit up the sky, drenching the world with a precious glow made of a golden orange haze lined with pink clouds. In the hours the two slept—peacefully untouched by nightmares—Thirteen was comforted with a steady, rising light.