Adult-FanFiction.org : Books

Rebuilding In Spring	By : Oratorio Category: G through L > The Hunger Games Trilogy Views: 8038 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games or any characters within, and make no money from this work. All books belong to Suzanne Collins.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
My house has never been so tidy. I’ve been throwing myself into the housework all day, trying to forget what happened this morning, how Peeta kissed me, how I kissed him, how it felt, how I left him there and ran away. His face keeps creeping into my mind, lost and confused. I shake my head angrily and swear under my breath. I am not good company right now, but I don’t want to be alone with these thoughts as darkness falls. I decide to visit Haymitch. Maybe he will have some of his “medicine” which might help me forget for a while.
I push open Haymitch’s door. He never locks it; there’s nothing worth stealing anyway. As usual, I wrinkle my nose at the smell and step over what looks like several months’ worth of post, calling Haymitch’s name. He is asleep on the sofa, wearing only a grubby pair of pyjamas, gripping a liquor bottle and snoring loudly. I hit him with a cushion, and he comes awake with a roar. I leap back to avoid his swinging fists, calling out his name again. This is a customary greeting between Haymitch and I. He was lucky I didn’t pour water on him this time.
“Bloody hell, girl, what do you think you are doing?!” Haymitch spits.
“Sorry, Haymitch,” I am my usual contrite self, now I have succeeded in waking him. “I just needed someone to talk to, or something to help me forget myself for a while”.
“Well, now, that’s a dangerous game, sweetheart,” Haymitch shakes his head and pulls his liquor closer, away from me. “Besides, I thought you had Lover Boy to talk to now, huh? What are you doing here?”
I didn’t realise that Haymitch knew Peeta was back, and said so.
“Hah!” he snorted, “I found out this afternoon, when he turned up on my doorstep in a helluva state. Didn’t take long to find out the cause of that one, either. What are you playing at, eh, sweetheart?”
“I’m not playing at anything!” I fire, defensively. “He just turns up, out of the blue, still all about me and in love with me, or so he thinks… I don’t even know who I am any more, I’m not the Katniss he thinks I am… I’m ugly and broken… I don’t know how to feel and I hate him for making me feel… I don’t know. I don’t know.” I am horrified to find I have burst into tears in front of Haymitch; horrible, big, gasping sobs.
Haymitch passes me the bottle. I take a long pull. It’s disgusting; I cough for several minutes and am glad, as I try to pass off my continued tears as choking on the alcohol. I don’t think Haymitch is fooled.
When I stop coughing, I look at Haymitch, expecting to see sympathy. What I see is his mouth set in a tight line, as he shakes his head at me.
“You go around like the hero, the Mockingjay” – he says this with a sneer – “and people say what a brave warrior you are, what an inspiration to the Districts. People want to be like you, they risk everything because of you, they die because of you, you are an idol, a symbol of hope against the Capitol and you have made people truly courageous. But what courage do you have?”
I rise from my chair, angry, about to lash out, but he raises his bottle and cuts me off.
“Sure, you have the courage to fight when you need to, to shoot, to kill. But you don’t have the courage to love without fear. The boy has done all this for you. He’s fought for you, suffered torture for you, killed for you. A gentle soul like him, that’s not something that doesn’t have an unthinkable cost. But he has never once stopped loving you, or been afraid to show you – nay, the world – how he feels. Even when he wasn’t… himself… one of the things that brought him back was you. He’s come back here to District 12, whatever’s left of it, for you. It’s always been you. No matter what you say or do, however much you hurt him. And you’re too much of a coward to admit that you feel the same way about him.”
I stare at him open-mouthed, stunned and deflated completely by his words. It feels like it would hurt less if he hit me over the head with his bottle. I’ve never heard him speak this way to me before. And it dawns on me that every word he says is true.
I spin around and race out of his house before I start crying again, and I hear him laugh out loud behind me, “Yeah, that’s right sweetheart, run away. Always running.”
As I sit in the dark again in my barely furnished house, with only the cat for company, I decide I need to be brave. I need to stop running.
***
I wake abruptly from a nightmare in the early morning light, and immediately reach out for Peeta. How quickly I have fallen back into seeking him, needing him. The empty bed beside me brings back a quick and painful memory of Haymitch’s diatribe last night, the realisation of how badly I have hurt Peeta, and how I have been denying my feelings to him and to myself.
I’m on Peeta’s doorstep before the sun has fully risen. He opens the door bleary-eyed, wearing his dressing gown. He doesn’t look happy about being woken, and doesn’t offer me a greeting. I am thrown, unsure what to say, not sure where to look. He leaves the door open as he pads off down the hallway into his kitchen. I hesitate for what seems like an eternity, afraid I have damaged what we had, but eventually take the implied invite and follow him in.
He’s sitting at the kitchen table when I enter the room, breaking open a croissant. He doesn’t look at me, and still hasn’t said a word. I don’t know where to start, but I know it’s down to me. I have to make this better.
“Peeta…” I hate the sound of my own voice, it seems reedy and feeble. But I press on, “Peeta, I missed you last night. I’ve only just found you again and it felt like I had lost you already”.
He still doesn’t look at me, but I know he is listening.
“Peeta, I am not good at this sort of stuff. I know that, but I am going to try harder. I went to see Haymitch last night and he told me some home truths. And he made me realise something really important.”
I cross the room and sit down in a chair next to Peeta, touch his arm. He finally looks up at me, and an expression flits across his face. I cannot tell if it is disgust or hope. It is gone in a blink, and he looks at me impassively, a muscle twitching slightly in his cheek. I try to carry on talking, my voice breaks and I start to cry. I feel like I have done too much crying in the last couple of days.
Peeta lets me cry for a long time. He makes no move to touch me or comfort me, and has still not spoken. This makes me sob even harder. When I eventually cry myself out, sniffling and choking, I know that I have to say the words. I turn to Peeta, bright red and puffy with weeping, and wait until he looks me in the eye.
“I am so sorry Peeta. Sorry for all I have put you through, when all you have ever done is love me. I know I don’t have the words like you do, and I find it so hard to tell you how I feel. I can’t even tell myself most of the time, as I am so scared. Everyone I have ever loved has left me in one way or another, and I never wanted to fall in love with a man, never wanted that, I’m too frightened about how much it could hurt me…”
Peeta is looking at me gently now, reaching his hand across the table to touch my fingers, hold my hand, which is shaking.
“I would never hurt you”
“I know you’d never do anything that would, not on purpose. But this life, it’s just so fragile, I don’t think I could stand it if I lost you. So I’ve been pushing you away, I thought if I could make you leave me now it would be better for both of us.”
I look up at Peeta. He has tears in his eyes as he whispers, “It would be the worst thing I could possibly imagine, Katniss. I love you so much. I never want to be without you. You can’t do a thing to make me leave you. You have always been the only girl for me, the only one I have ever wanted. I will always be yours, and I just hope beyond hope that one day you might feel love for me too.”
I squeeze his hand, look into his beautiful blue eyes and take a deep breath.
“Peeta, I do love you. I love you with everything I have. It’s not much, not now, and I’m so scared that it won’t be enough, but I love you.”
The tears are flowing freely again as Peeta pushes back his chair and pulls me to my feet, into an embrace. I kiss his cheeks, wet and salty, and his soft, inviting lips. We devour each other, our breath and tears mingling as we press our bodies so tightly together it feels we are melded as one. We kiss, and we kiss, and I think I could die with the feeling it brings. Peeta is out of breath, shining with love, disbelief and ecstasy warring in his eyes. He steps back, cups my cheek in his hand.
“Katniss. I never thought… never dreamed…”
He chokes up, unable to speak through tears, and then we are kissing again as if we are the only two people left in the world. I feel the room around us fade out. I close my eyes and sink into Peeta, his mouth on mine, his hands running up and down my back, moving over my scars, as I push myself against him. He tastes warm and sweet, and I feel like my body has become transparent, is breaking apart. Everything I am is laid before him now. And he is still loving me. I finally understand what this means, and know that the love I have for him is true. I feel it bubbling up inside me, freed from my thawing heart, to finally be expressed and enjoyed. Maybe it had always been there, and it took Haymitch of all people to make me see it.
We spend the rest of the day lying on the sofa, kissing and holding each other, Peeta never quite losing the expression of wonder that makes my heart thump even more. “Stay with me?” he whispers, and I nod. I want to sleep beside him tonight, the man I love.
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Rebuilding In Spring