Chapter Text
When I get my wrist marked in the morning, the first item puzzles me, “Meeting with Citizen Haymitch Abernathy”. It lists a room and a time so I make my way there after an unappetizing breakfast.
When I finally make it to compartment 0916, I step inside to find two couches in an otherwise bare room. Haymitch stands between them sipping from a mug that smells like the sludge they call coffee in 13 while Peeta sits on one couch and Gale and Delly share the other. Haymitch looks as surly as usual but I can’t read anything else in his expression as I nervously sit down next to Peeta.
As he turns to Peeta and me he plasters a huge, fake smile on his face, lifts his coffee mug in a gesture towards us and sarcastically shouts “Welcome to couples counseling!”
I glance around the room apprehensively and he says “You can relax, sweetheart. There aren’t any cameras here. We’re here to have a nice, open, honest talk.” Haymitch pats himself down with his free hand, obviously seeking his flask, before his pickled brain realizes that he’s in 13 and it’s as dry as a bone.
He shakes his head in irritation and sweeps his arm towards Gale and Delly. “I heard about the prize-fight in the woods yesterday so I made sure we had a couple of referees.”
Peeta rolls his eyes and replies “You brought her boyfriend and the president of her fan club.”
“Only because you stepped down, boy. Or do you not remember those times you begged me to save her, every time you tried to die for her? Goldilocks here doesn’t hold a candle to you.”
I almost add that Gale and I aren’t like that, that I don’t have a “boyfriend” before I decide that anything I say is only going to make things worse.
Peeta sighs and leans back into the couch before he speaks up, tired and faint. “This is a waste of time, there wasn’t any fight. She just shoved me and ran off. I can remember her doing a lot worse.” I have to hold back a gasp when he gestures towards his artificial leg.
Delly springs off the couch and yells at Peeta, “Those memories aren’t real, Peeta! Katniss would never hurt you!”
Haymitch dismissively motions for her to sit back down and says “Let him believe what he wants. The point is that a lot of kids are going to end up in a really bad situation if Mutters and Scowls here can’t pull this thing off.”
The silence that follows is eerie but Peeta breaks it with a calm, controlled voice. “Fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut about our sordid past. But she’s got to do the same; I’m sick of being reminded of what a fool I was.”
Gale scowls and leans forward. He can’t keep the frustration from showing when he says, “She’s trying to help you. It’s hard for her.”
Peeta’s answering laugh echoes in the small room. “Don’t kid yourself; she’s never given a damn about me. And you’re a fool if you think you mean anything to her either. She just needs a warm body to stave off the nightmares from everyone she’s killed. When you’ve outlasted your usefulness, she’ll leave you behind and crawl into bed with the next guy in line. Believe me, I should know.”
Suddenly Peeta and Gale are nose to nose and I take hold of Gale while Delly grabs Peeta to try to pull them apart. Gale doesn’t resist when I pull him back but he looks directly into Peeta’s eyes and says “You don’t fool me, Mellark.” He gestures towards Haymitch. “You’re over her like he’s over white liquor. So keep talking tough; you can’t make it on your own any more than she can.”
Peeta seems frozen, lost in contemplation as he lets Delly lead him back onto the couch. Haymitch looks down and rubs his forehead as I hustle Gale out of the door with tears brimming in my eyes.
O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O
I lose track of time after lunch and spend so long under a nice warm laundry room drainpipe that I’m an hour late for training. I can remember when I used to blow off training all the time, but now I’m kicking myself. I need to keep up appearances for Coin; which means not only showing up for training on time, but being nice to Peeta at training and I’m not much good at either.
I worriedly think about the time table that Plutarch suggested and realize that we’re supposed to be married in less than a month. Our fake romance had better heat up soon.
When I arrive at our training grounds and mutter some weak excuse for being late, Gale and Homes are demonstrating techniques for safely setting off pods to Mitchell and the Leeg twins while Jackson and Finnick speak with Peeta.
I sit down next to them and take Peeta’s hand in mine. I can see that it makes him nervous, but his eyes flicker towards Cressida and her camera crew and he doesn’t pull away.
I listen to their conversation and find that Jackson and Finnick are playing a game with Peeta called “Real or Not Real”. He mentions something he thinks happened, and they tell him if it’s true or imagined, usually followed by a brief explanation.
“Most of the people from 12 were killed in the fire.”
“Real. Less than nine hundred of you made it to 13 alive.”
“The fire was my fault.”
“Not real. President Snow destroyed 12 the way he did 13, to send a message to the rebels.”
It’s not a steady conversation. Peeta spends a long time considering even small pieces of information, like where people bought their soap back home. Gale comes over and fills him in on a lot of stuff about 12; Finnick is the expert on both of Peeta’s Games, as he was a mentor in the first and a tribute in the second.
This seems like a good idea until I realize that I’ll be the only one who can confirm or deny most of what weighs on him and we can’t possibly do that in front of the cameras, if I can do it at all. Instead our exchanges are painful and loaded, even though we touch on only the most superficial of details. The color of my dress in 7. My preference for cheese buns. The name of our math teacher when we were little. Reconstructing his memory of me is excruciating. Perhaps it isn’t even possible after what Snow did to him. But it does feel right to help him try.
Eventually we take a break and Finnick and Jackson take part in the pod discussion while I shoot at glass targets with my bow. Peeta is trying to read from a sheaf of papers about the Capitol’s military capabilities but he seems preoccupied with watching Pollux, to the point where it’s getting a little worrisome, when he finally puzzles it out and begins to speak with agitation.
“You’re an Avox, aren’t you? I can tell by the way you swallow. There were two Avoxes with me in prison. Darius and Lavinia, but the guards mostly called them the redheads. They’d been our servants in the Training Center, so they arrested them, too. I watched them being tortured to death. She was lucky. They used too much voltage and her heart stopped right off. It took days to finish him off. Beating, cutting off parts. They kept asking him questions, but he couldn’t speak, he just made these horrible animal sounds. They didn’t want information, you know? They wanted me to see it.”
Peeta looks around at our stunned faces, as if waiting for a reply. When none is forthcoming, he asks, “Real or not real?” The lack of response upsets him more. “Real or not real?!” he demands.
“Real,” says Boggs. “At least, to the best of my knowledge… real.”
Peeta sags. “I thought so. There was nothing… shiny about it.” He wanders away from the group, muttering something about fingers and toes.
I move to Gale, press my forehead into the body armor where his chest should be, feel his arm tighten around me. We finally know the name of the girl who we watched the Capitol abduct from the woods of 12, the fate of the Peacekeeper friend who tried to keep Gale alive. This is no time to call up happy moments of remembrance. They lost their lives because of me. I add them to my personal list of kills that began in the arena and now includes thousands. When I look up, I see it has taken Gale differently. His expression says that there are not enough mountains to crush, enough cities to destroy. It promises death.
We can’t go back to training with Peeta’s grisly account fresh in our minds. Instead we break for “reflection” early and go our separate ways. For me “reflection” has always been “sit in a closet and try not to think about how awful everything is” but I have no idea what Peeta does. So I decide to take another tiny step on the path to helping him and ask him.
“What are you going to do with your ‘reflection’ time?”
He still seems a little dazed from his visions of tortured Avoxes. “I was going to go visit Prim in the medical wing, you?”
“Um… I don’t know. Why don’t I come with you?” I’m as nervous as I was trying to flirt with him in the cave and I can’t keep the tremor out of my voice.
Peeta gives me a wide smile that will no doubt look great on camera and says “Of course, she’ll be thrilled to see you.”
Peeta’s not wrong. Prim seems to be simply ecstatic to see both of us, particularly since we’re holding hands. I never talked to Prim about my one visit to see Peeta a few weeks ago, right after Finnick and Annie’s wedding. I don’t know what to say about my second forced romance either. Prim’s optimism about Peeta’s recovery is boundless. She’s constantly working with him in therapy, finding something new to try, making every effort to get through to him. Does she understand that Peeta still hates me? That the only reason he’s being civil to me is that Coin threatened her?
Prim’s always believed in happy endings; particularly when it comes to Peeta and me. And when I saw the look on her face when we walked in together, I can see that nothing has shaken that. All the things that have come between us, my deception, Gale, my inability to fall in love and even the hijacking are just minor bumps in the road toward Prim becoming an aunt. As much as I love her, I can’t help but resent her unfailing confidence; it makes me feel so guilty that I can’t share it.
Peeta and I are mute as Prim prattles on about her medical training for a little while before she announces that she needs to get back to work. But she leaves us with cryptic parting words. “After dinner, you should go to Section 5, compartment 8. It’s the best surprise ever! You’ll see.”
I’m still working her statement through my sleep-deprived brain when she gives us both a quick hug and runs off.
O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O
As we walk down another empty grey hallway towards the cafeteria, I glance over at Peeta nervously. We have to move faster if this marriage is going to be convincing, but every time I touch him, I’m afraid that he’ll go crazy. It hurts too much to think about. I ache for my Peeta, for the way I felt so safe in his arms.
When I finally speak, I’m afraid that my words are too quiet for him to hear. “We need to be more… convincing. Coin’s going to want more. At dinner, do you think you could… kiss my hand or… or something?”
His head snaps towards me and he licks his lips before he responds. “We’ve done this before, planning kisses… for an audience, for the cameras, real or not real?”
I gulp loudly.
This is exactly what I was afraid of, the old Peeta and I were partners; he would never abandon me by giving the act anything less than his best effort, no matter how much he hated it. But how does this Peeta feel about the way Snow and I both used his love for me? To survive. To try to quell the rebellion. To sleep through the night. I used him for everything I needed and everything Snow wanted and now I need to do it again.
It’s only the barest whisper when I say “Real.”
Peeta’s expression is angry. He trembles as he closes his eyes and presses his palms up against the wall, his hands still trying to curl into fists. After a minute, he opens his eyes. He looks tired and his voice is hoarse when he replies “We have to do this, for Prim, Rory, Cord, hundreds of other kids. Real or not real?”
I nod. “Real.”
Peeta nods in return but bitterness drips from his voice as he says “I’ll try to give the audience its money’s worth.” And then in a more serious tone. “But sometimes I remember things, from before… more than one way, or there’s not even a whole memory... just… pieces. And I don’t even know if they’re real. If I start say something that’s not real, you squeeze my hand. That’ll be the sign, okay?”
I nod hurriedly and turn away to hide the tears in my eyes. I try to imagine not being able to tell illusion from reality. Not knowing if Prim or my mother loved me. If Snow was my enemy. If the person whose hand I’m holding saved or sacrificed me. With very little effort, my life rapidly morphs into a nightmare. I suddenly want to tell Peeta everything about who he is, and who I am, and how we ended up here. But I don’t know how to start. Worthless. I’m worthless.
We put on our happy faces during dinner, chatting away about nice safe topics like what Prim is doing in her medical courses or how Peeta sculpted Finnick and Annie’s wedding cake. Eventually Jackson breaks the mold by asking something about the past.
I don’t know how much Plutarch or Coin have told her, how much she’s figured out on her own, how much she knows about my sudden romantic rekindling with Peeta. But whatever her motivations, the question she asks turns out to be perfect.
“I’m curious Peeta. You said you loved Katniss for years before you were reaped, but you never spoke to her. Didn’t you ever try to?” she asks.
Peeta takes my hand and I can feel the nervousness radiating through him, but his voice is firm and warm when he replies.
“A lot of times, it just never quite worked out. I guess I was a bit of a coward. Um… the year before we were reaped, I made it to the final match in our school’s wrestling competition, during the Harvest Festival. We have to make our own fun in 12 and the festival is a big deal, pretty much everyone comes. So I was sure Katniss would be there.”
He gains confidence as the story goes on. “My opponent in the final was one of my brothers, Rye. He had two years on me, probably an inch and a half and ten pounds, but I knew I was stronger than he was. And he was overconfident. So I told myself that I was going to beat him and then I was going to stride right up to Katniss and ask her to go celebrate with me.”
This earns an appreciative smile from Jackson and a wolf-whistle from Johanna. Peeta turns beet red and stumbles a bit when he says “I didn’t mean… not celebrate like that. I… I meant maybe she’d let me buy her a mug of cider at Yearner’s tavern… or something.”
I risk a glance at Gale, fearful that he’s going to lose his temper, but even he is entranced by the story, smiling just faintly. Peeta eventually continues “It didn’t end up mattering. I got distracted and lost. I shook hands with Rye and then immediately went home and sulked while Rye was out celebrating with his friends. He kind of thought I was sore loser about the whole thing.”
Mitchell looks genuinely interested when he asks “What distracted you, Peeta?”
Peeta swallows and looks straight into my eyes. “I… I think it was Katniss. I remember she was there watching and she had a dandelion tucked behind her ear. I’d… I’d never seen her wear one like that before and I kept trying to figure out why she did then, what it meant. Anyway, my mind wasn’t on the match.”
I can’t breathe. Peeta noticed. But he didn’t know that it was for him. He couldn’t know what it symbolized for me.
I snap out of my trance with everyone at the table staring at me. I look Peeta in the eye and say “I’m sorry I distracted you. I would have liked… that mug of cider.” I tilt my chin up as I rush the last words out, trying to preserve a little dignity.
Peeta smiles but his eyes are full of confusion when he brings my hand to his lips.
O- - - - - - - - - - - - -O
After dinner we head over to Section 5 just as Prim told us. We stand outside of the door of Compartment 0508 for an uncomfortable period of time, trying to figure out what Prim has in store for us, before I get impatient and reach for the door. It’s unlocked. We step inside hesitantly and I gaze around the unfamiliar room until my eyes lock onto a painting on the wall.
It’s the forest from our first arena and standing on a tree limb and looking out into the distance is Rue, her whole body poised to leap onto another branch at a moment’s notice. This was one of the few of Peeta’s paintings of the games that I could stand to look at. I brought it back from District 12 when I was getting clothes for Finnick and Annie’s wedding. It wasn’t just to remember Rue; it also helped me remember the old Peeta, my Peeta. ‘I wanted to hold them accountable, even for just one moment, for the death of that little girl.’
I jump when I hear a girlish voice call out “Surprise!” and turn to find my mother and Prim standing in a doorway leading to another room.
Prim’s smile is as wide as the sky and as bright as the sun but I’m still dazed. I smile back reflexively and ask “Mom, what is this?”
Prim answers for her. “Since we’re about to officially be a family, they gave us a family compartment! Isn’t it great? We brought all your stuff from your old rooms. It’ll be like having a home again!”
She hesitantly adds “I think Johanna’s going to miss you though.”
Peeta’s jaw is clenched and his pulse is pounding when I risk a look at his face. He says “Prim, no. I… I can’t. I can’t sleep here.”
My mother looks sympathetic when she tries to calm him. “I know that we can’t replace your family, Peeta. That’s not what this is about. But after everything you’ve done for my daughter, we’re your family too.”
She glances towards me before she continues. “I know things are still confusing for you, but you’re a lot better now than… when you first arrived. And well, Mr. Heavensbee told me that appearances are important and that since you and Katniss were used to sharing a room, on the Victory Tour and in the Training Center, it only made sense for you to share one… here.”
Peeta’s pale skin blushes easily. I gape at his bright pink skin as he tries to respond to my mother. “Mrs. Everdeen… I… We… we never… What I said in the interview… that… that wasn’t real.”
My mother cuts him off. “Peeta, I loved your father, though I chose to marry another. I love you as my own son. But I absolutely do not want to hear about what you and Katniss have and have not done in bed. Ever. Do you understand me, young man?”
Prim covers her mouth in a poor attempt to hide her giggle. I wonder just what shade my olive skin is right now. Peeta can’t even look at me.
My mother doesn’t bother waiting for a response before she continues “There are two bedrooms; the larger one has two beds, the smaller only a single bed.”
She pauses a moment to let the implications sink in; one room for my mother and Prim, another for the Star-Crossed Lovers. Does Plutarch really think that Peeta and I would share a bed when he thinks that I’m a mutt?
My mother flicks her gaze back and forth between Peeta and me and says “What I think would be most comfortable for everyone is if Katniss, Prim and I share the larger room. Prim and Katniss are also used to sharing a bed. That leaves the smaller room for you, Peeta.”
Peeta looks around the common room distractedly. His gaze fixates on a spot on the floor before he turns towards my mother. “Thank you for the offer, Mrs. Everdeen. But that’s silly. You and Prim work so hard to help people in the hospital, you should have your own beds. Katniss can have the smaller room, give me a couple blankets and a pillow and I’ll sleep here in the common room.”
Prim stamps her foot and glares and Peeta before shouting “Peeta! The floor is concrete! What’s wrong with you?”
Peeta manages a wan smile. “So was my cell in the Capitol, Prim. But they didn’t give me a blanket or a pillow. Trust me. To me, it’ll be like a feather bed.”
Prim looks hurt and her tone softens. “You aren’t in the Capitol anymore, Peeta. You’re safe here.”
“In the Capitol, they used to dress me up like a doll, force me to tell lies on camera. I don’t think it’s that different here, Prim.”
The conversation ends on that note because none of us really want to think about that. I move all of my things into the smaller room and bring Peeta’s tiny box of possessions out to him.
I find him on the floor playing with Buttercup. He glances up to find me staring at him while Buttercup shamelessly rubs up against him. His tone is apologetic when he says “Prim brings him by my cell in the psych ward sometimes. He’s the perfect company for me; he doesn’t expect me to remember anything, he never gets mad when I say something not real, he doesn’t care how worthless I am because all he wants is to be petted and that’s one thing I can still do.”
“I’m surprised he lets you. He loves Prim, but he doesn’t like most people.”
“Like you, real or not real?”
I can’t help a small smile at the characterization. “Real.”
I lamely continue “I brought your things.” A new sketchpad, colored pencils, an old storybook and several lengths of string, everything he has in the world. I set the box down next to him and sit on the floor. This is the perfect opportunity to help Peeta remember things, to try to help him get better, but I don’t know what to say, I still can’t figure out where to start.
Peeta breaks the silence first. “You make… noises, thrash around, during your nightmares, real or not real?”
I try to read his face as I reply “Real.”
He nods in response. “You would have woken Prim and your mother. They need to sleep.”
He’s right, of course. I hadn’t thought about why Peeta wanted the floor of the common room instead of the bed in the smaller bedroom and now I feel guilty that I’m sleeping on a nice bed while he sleeps on a concrete floor. I finally manage to choke out “Thank you.”
He nods again before he asks another question. “You’re afraid, with me here… while you’re sleeping, real or not real?”
I want to tell him no, to tell him I only sleep well in his arms. But he’s right, I’m afraid that he’s not my Peeta, that my Peeta is never coming back, that something will trigger a psychotic episode and he’ll strangle me again. I’m afraid that if it weren’t for my unfinished business with Snow, I’d want him to. So I lower my head to hide my face and gently say “Real.”
“Me too.”
We sit in silence for a long time afterward. It’s getting late when Peeta turns to me again. “Your favorite color… it’s green?”
“That’s right.” Then I think of something to add. “And yours is orange.”
“Orange?” He seems unconvinced.
“Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset,” I say. “At least, that’s what you told me once.”
“Oh.” He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. “Thank you.”
But more words tumble out. “You’re a painter. You’re a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.”
Then I jump up, bolt into my room and shut the door before I do something stupid like cry.
Notes:
Katniss observing the Peeta/Peeta’s brother wrestling match with a dandelion tucked into her ear is stolen from “Inquisitio” by justadram (which you should really check out). One of Peeta’s brothers being named Rye is stolen from approximately every Hunger Games fanfiction piece ever written.
My natural writing style (such as it is) is very different from Suzanne Collins. I notice it a lot when I try to blend in passages from Mockingjay. She favors short declarative sentences and fragments a lot more than I do.