Chapter Text
I wake up and hear him. He is screaming. I had awoken to his screams before. He had arrived back to district twelve 8 months ago. We barley talked. He would sit with me and Old sae every morning for breakfast. But we always sat in silence, almost as if we didn't have anything to say. But their was so much I wanted to say. So much I needed to say. I missed him. I wanted to feel his arms holding me tight, I wanted to have him their when I woke up screaming from nightmares. Images of Rue, Cinna, finnick, prim…. The sound of their screams, their desperate cries for help. My sleep is flooded with the faces of all those I didn’t save, Dr. Aurelius always tells me I shouldn’t blame myself for their deaths, but how can I not?
Rue died because I wasn’t their to help her, only 12 years old, and her life ended in such a horrific way. I should have saved her.
Cinna died because he cared about me, he helped me and then he was killed, murdered. I should have saved him.
Finnick died fighting in the war. The war I started, the war I was the face of. He had only just married Annie, She was pregnant with his son when he died, that little boy will grow up without a dad because of her, Annie without a husband, a soulmate. They had both gone through so much and deserved a happy ending, a happy ending they would have gotten if not for her. I should have saved him.
Prim... prim wasn’t supposed to die, none of them were but prim was why I had volunteered, why I had kept fighting in the arena when all I wanted to do was let my body succumb to fate, to the death that would have ended the living nightmare of the games, but I didn’t let myself die. For her. Prim had died helping children when she was just but a child herself, she shouldn’t have died. I should have saved her.
I snap back to a state of continuous at the sound of another one of his pained screams
I cannot expect Peeta to hold me. He had gone through so much because of me. It would not be fair to expect that of him. I longed for him, I don’t know if i love him, I don’t think I have ever felt that type of love before ever and I don’t know how it would be possible to love after everything that has happened. He deserves to be taken care of. I cant stand his screaming. He sounds in pain. What if he Is in pain? At that thought, I race for him, leaving my house in pyjamas, despite the freezing weather. I reach his front steps and try to open the door
Its locked.
Shit.
I run to the side of his house, relieved to find his kitchen window slightly ajar, my rushed breaths freezing in the cold winter air. I start frantically trying to climb in through the tiny gap. My shirt gets caught on a loose screw and I try to rip it free. After what feels like a lifetime of tugging, the fabric tears and I land on the hardwood floors with a soft thud. I hear Peeta scream and then I remember I am inside; I don’t have to time to think before I realise I am running up his stairs and bursting in to his bedroom. I see him laying on his bed, he is sobbing in his sleep, thrashing his head back and forth, I let out a pained sob before I race towards him. Kneeling next to his bed, holding his face in my hands.
I cant stand seeing him like this.
“shh Peeta your safe its okay, your in twelve and your safe it just a dream”
My words choked in the sea of tears that are swarming behind my eyes.
His eyes shoot open and they immediately lock on my face. Oh no Maybe I shouldn’t have just come in here. We hardly even talk and hear I am, sitting by his bed in the middle of the night wearing pretty well nothing. But my attention darts to him immediately as I hear his voice,
“Katniss, they were back, the mutts, they were back and they were hurting you”. He looks at me, his typically endless ocean blue eyes now filled with so much fear, and so. much. pain. The look of utter, paralysing, gut-wrenching terror that takes over his features causes me so much anguish, and I wish more than anything I could do something—anything to alleviate his pain<
I squeeze his hand and try to reassure him that he is safe, that were safe.
He’s looking down at his hands when I can here a muffled “can you sit with me?” I nod immediately curling into his side and resting my head against his chest. He pulls me in tighter and rests his chin on my head. and then I hold him as he sobs, crying from the memories of horror that I know all too well.
After about 10 minutes he seems to calm more, his breathing slows and he stops crying.
But I don’t stop holding him. we sit there, my arm around him his around mine. My head rests against his chest. The steady thrum of his making me relax. We sit there in this embrace, and I feel safe. At home. I could have stayed like this forever, just me, and him. No having to perform for the cameras, no threat of death. Just us at peace. I feel his breathing steady even more and I slowly look up to his face. He has fallen asleep. And soon after I follow.