The Unrecorded Hours, Part II

[hollycomb]

In the morning her head aches, not as badly as it did when she drank white liquor with Haymitch but badly enough to make her feel confused and irritable. Peeta is lying on his stomach, snoring, the blankets pushed down far enough to show her that he's naked. She flushes and pulls them up to cover the small of his back.

She gets out of bed, nervous about facing him and annoyed with herself for thinking she was sober when she obviously wasn't - what did she say, exactly, anything too revealing? What, even, did she say to Delly? Dawn is just breaking as she dresses, and when she thinks of breakfast her stomach lurches. She pulls on her boots in the kitchen; she never forgets to bring them down when she leaves the bedroom, now.

In the study, she walks past Peeta's paintings without looking at them, not wanting to know what he's working on. He accused her of being jealous. Of Delly! Well, she is. She's jealous of everyone, everything, that's the problem. Of Peeta and these paintings more than anything, his outlet. The only thing she's ever been good at is being wanted, and here she is at the end of the world with the person who always wanted her most of all. Maybe. She grabs a pen, paper, postage, and flees to the woods.

The letter to Gale is simple. He won't expect her to have anything profound to say, which was always part of his appeal. She just asks him to come, seals the envelope and walks to the old train station to throw it into the box that has appeared for Interim Mail. The Interim being between regularly functioning government services, presumably; nobody tells her what's going on with the current leadership, at her insistence.

Haymitch's house is dark, and she doesn't bother to knock. She clears a space on his kitchen table and skins a rabbit that she pulled from one of her traps after finishing the letter to Gale. By the time Haymitch appears the rabbit is already boiling with some potatoes and carrots.

“Do you even eat?” she asks as he slumps into the kitchen to glower at her in the blinding morning light.

“Presumably,” he says, patting his stomach, which is as bloated as ever. “What are you doing here? Your dinner party didn't go as planned?” He laughs to himself as if he expected as much.

“I'm looking after you, you overgrown infant.” She gets bowls for the stew, her stomach growling now. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“Are you?” Haymitch says, eying the scar on her wrist. He scoffs. “The boy came running over here - what was that, last week?”

“Try last month. And don't call him 'the boy.'”

“Out of his head with worry. What should he do, he asks? She's cutting her wrist, he says. I say, only the one, huh? I told him, look. I can mentor you in a lot of things, but not her. I have officially resigned when it comes to telling you what to do about her.”

“Congratulations on your retirement,” she says. She shoves a bowl of stew into his hands.

“Am I supposed to drink it?” Haymitch says.

“Am I your maid? Get your own spoon, if there's anything clean. Get me one, too.”

They eat on the back patio, which is cleaner than the house. The stew is good, simple, an effective hangover cure. Haymitch has three bowls of it, Katniss two.

“I may have done something stupid this morning,” she says, thinking of the letter box.

“I'll alert the media,” Haymitch says, his mouth full of stew. She smirks, though, really, how could that be funny.

“Do you think - if I wrote to Gale and asked him to come - he actually would?”

Haymitch rolls his eyes, dropping his bowl of stew into his lap. She bristles at the disbelieving look he gives her, and wonders what her father would have thought of him if he'd actually been able to know him the way she does.

“Don't even think about inviting me to that dinner,” Haymitch says.

“I wasn't going to,” Katniss says, scowling at him. “And he won't come, anyway.”

“What passes for your thought process really wears on me,” Haymitch says. “Annd, here comes the boy. Right on schedule.”

Peeta looks furious as he walks into Haymitch's backyard, and it's a relief - back to square one! - but only briefly. His shirt is untucked and buttoned wrong, his collar poking up against his chin.

“What are you doing?” he asks, looking back and forth between them.

“That depends on which of us you're talking to,” Haymitch says. “I'm stuffing myself. Her - it's anybody's guess.”

“I woke up early and I brought him a rabbit,” Katniss says. The anger that coats her ribs isn't as comforting as it usually is, infused with guilt and memories of last night. “Do I need your permission to leave the house?”

“You've missed Delly leaving,” Peeta says, ignoring the low blow: permission, no, but she might have been kind enough not to make him worry. “She was on the early train.”

“Oh - I'm sorry,” Katniss says, and this is true, though she would rather be sulking with Haymitch than fawned over by Delly on the train platform. “I'll write to her, to apologize - they are, ah. Collecting the mail from that box at the station, aren't they?”

“Yes,” Peeta says. “How do you think I arranged for her visit?”

Haymitch actually snorts a laugh, maybe still a little drunk. It's always a safe bet. Peeta gives him a suspicious look.

“Remember what I said about that dinner invitation,” Haymitch says as Katniss stands, leaving her bowl on the ground beside him.

“Noted,” Katniss says. She walks past Peeta, embarrassed by how fresh from bed he looks as he follows her back to their house.

“What was he talking about?” Peeta asks. “What dinner invitation?”

“I'm trying to get him to eat with us one night, that's all,” she says, avoiding Peeta's eyes. “He refuses, of course.”

Back in the house, Peeta goes to the kitchen and begins cleaning up after last night's dinner. She thinks of disappearing upstairs, or back into the woods, trying to muster up actual outrage over the fact that he was worried and hurt when he woke up alone. When she can't manage anything but regret, she walks to the sink and turns him by the shoulders until he's facing her. He doesn't bother to feign annoyance when she carefully unbuttons his shirt.

“What are you doing?” he asks. He sounds so weary, and she knows it's her fault, but there's almost nothing in the world that isn't, these days.

“You had it buttoned wrong,” she says, straightening it before redoing the buttons. When she gets to the one that's just two from the top she dares a look at him. He sucks in his breath, pushes his forehead against hers and parts his lips for her tongue when she leans up to kiss him.

“I thought you ran away,” he says.

“I did,” she says. “Sorry.”

“That's okay,” he says, pushing the words into her mouth, kissing her more deeply. “You came back.” She tries to lose herself to it as he picks her up and sets her on the counter, settling between her legs, but her mind goes back to that mailbox. Well, it won't matter. Gale won't come.

She's tense over the next few weeks, except when Peeta's hands are on her, and then she's as soft as dough, pulling him down onto her and nodding when his fingers push into her. There are days when her back hits their bed five times, one when he actually lays her across the kitchen table, and it starts to feel like he's teasing her, though she knows he's just waiting for her to ask for it out loud. She does have some pride left, wants him to break first, and is aware that he won't. She tries to beg without words, doesn't trust herself to form anything intelligible while she's so wet and ready that it feels like he's holding her wholly in his palm, but he won't push her thighs apart and fall between them, won't give her anything more than two thick fingers that aren't thick enough.

Her epiphany comes one morning in bed when he's still waking. He's mouthing at her neck while she toys with his hair, wondering if she should cut it. It's so suddenly obvious that she sits up like a shot has been fired, and he blinks up at her with alarm.

“I never told you,” she says, slapping her forehead with the heel of her hand, laughing. “Peeta,” she says, leaning down to him again, pressing her nose against his. “I haven't - I don't have a, you know. Cycle - anymore. Stress, or something. So. I wouldn't get pregnant.”

He looks so confused that she moans with sympathy, kissing his cheeks. In the Capitol, there were birth control options in every toiletry set, but she wouldn't know where to get them now, and certainly Peeta wouldn't, either. She can feel his understanding surfacing in the heat that floods his face, and she kisses him everywhere, already trembling with relief.

“Oh,” he says, softly. “You - you want -”

“Don't you?” she says, not letting him finish that thought. Before he can interpret this as some sort of pity she flattens his shoulders to the mattress and leans up over him, kissing his jaw, his neck. Her mouth is wet, her thighs still slick from last night, the afternoon already warming as the sun rises outside. She wants Peeta to take over now, to grab her the way he did in the kitchen, putting her across the table after she leaned up to lick some flour from his cheek. That was the first time he used his teeth on her breasts, just gently, just on the points of her nipples, and she wants that again now, wants to shout loud enough to startle a flock of birds from the backyard. It had made her laugh wildly, hearing their wings beating away in a frantic blast: Peeta, always scaring away the game.

But Peeta isn't wild now, and he seems almost stunned as she makes him hard, his hands resting just lightly on her sides. She's not sure what she needs to do to spur him into action, and bends down to try using her teeth on his nipples, but this just makes him cry out as if he's in pain. Finally, wound up and tired of waiting, she settles the tip of his cock between her legs and begins to lower herself down onto him. He gasps and arches, his chin tipping back, his neck on offer for her kisses. She's impatient at first, choking the breath from herself when she drops her hips too fast. She remembers this, the burn that scared her at first and set her alight just seconds later, and she hides her face against his neck as she sinks down onto him, panting. Feeling him in her hand is one thing, and this is another: he's so big, maybe bigger than he was the last time they did this, and she can't feel anything but how full she is. His hands move across her back tentatively, as if this is the first time he's touched her.

“Oh,” he says, right in her ear, very soft. She moans, nuzzles his jaw. They stay that way for awhile, Katniss feeling stupid, like she should have planned a next move beforehand, unable to think of what to do now. Peeta still seems half-asleep at first, though his breath is coming very hard, his pulse pounding against her cheek. He takes her face in his hands and makes her look at him, rubbing his thumbs over her blush.

“Your turn, okay?” she says, her voice shaking. She wants to move but is afraid to try, feels too small on top of him, her legs spread too widely around his hips. He kisses her, just once on the lips, and nods.

“Okay,” he says. He sits up, his hands sliding down to her ass as he lifts her up, into his lap. She gasps at the shift inside her, clinging hard to his shoulders. She hopes he won't expect her to do this sitting up, and lets out her breath with relief as he lowers her to the mattress very carefully, until she's on her back. He's leaning up over her, still deep inside her, on his knees and elbows, his eyes dark, pupils very fat.

“Peeta,” she says. Because he likes it when she says his name. His breath feels like it's coming from inside her, and every little twitch of his hips makes her gasp.

“Last time we did this,” he says, his voice tight, eyelashes brushing her cheeks. “I thought I would die. I thought I was going to die for you.”

She's not sure if he's being figurative, talking about the sex, or referring to the Games. It doesn't matter much now: she moves her hips and he moans into her mouth, answering with a thrust that makes her cry out and nod wildly.

“Don't be so gentle,” she whispers when he moves too slowly, trembling as if he's trying to hold himself back. He whines, his hips twitching faster but still just shallowly.

“I have to,” he says, whispering. “Or - I'll - go off, I'll finish -”

“It's okay,” she says, stroking his cheek with the backs of her fingers. “We can do it again.” She smiles at the wonder that pools into his eyes, strangely innocent. “We won't have to wait so long between - ah.” She leans up a little, puts her lips against his ear. “Peeta,” she says, purring his name as he begins to thrust more deeply, melting her spine. “I want it so - so many times - today, every day - every time you get hard for me.”

He whimpers and starts thrusting faster, his hands lifting her hips, her legs unwinding from his back and opening until his stomach is rubbing her just so, the friction inside and outside making her soaking wet. She's not quite there when he comes with a cry, shoving in deep and spilling down onto her, but she ignores her own arousal for the moment, petting him and hugging him against her. His eyes are wet when he lifts his face, but he's grinning, sighing, nosing at her cheeks like a puppy.

“Wait,” she says when he starts to pull out. She holds him by the elbows, keeping him on top of her, inside her. “I want to - while you're still -” They should have taught a class in school: how to articulate what you want during sex without dying of embarrassment. Peeta raises his eyebrows when he catches on, and reaches down between their bodies.

“You're so wet,” he whispers, and that goes a long way toward finishing her off, his fingers doing the rest.

They stay in bed, half-sleeping, lazy as the heat of the afternoon peaks outside. Peeta folds up a piece of paper from his sketchbook and fans her with it, which makes her laugh. She expected to have sex again, at least three times before dinner, but he doesn't seem to be in a hurry, perhaps in reverence to the moment, which felt more like their first time than their actual first time did. At midday she pads downstairs in her robe to get some of the tiny blue grapes that she picked the day before, wishing she had ice so she could juice them and make a cool drink. She's arranging things on a plate for Peeta - the grapes, some shortbread cookies that are just a little stale, some mild white cheese that Greasy Sae brought by the day before - humming to herself, feeling like a girl playing house, when she hears the knock on the door.

Her bow is in her hands and strung with an arrow before she can even consider that it might just be Haymitch. Still, she gets the feeling that it's not as she moves quietly toward the front door, ready to fire. Haymitch wouldn't be here in the middle of the day unless it was an emergency, and if that were the case he would have burst inside without knocking.

“Who's there?” she shouts, not daring to give the intruder the upper hand by showing her face in one of the windows that frames the door.

“Me,” Gale says, and for a moment his voice seems so normal, such a part of her world here, that it's as if he was never gone. “I got your letter. Are you alright?” He tries the door and finds it locked.

Katniss lowers her bow. She can feel Peeta on the stairs behind her before she turns, though she was too focused on the door to hear his footsteps. He must have heard the knocking. She's afraid to turn, sure that he heard what Gale said about the letter. When she does, he's standing there in only his shorts, breathless, the look on his face actually drawing a mostly inaudible squeak of pain from her breast.

“Peeta,” she says, but he's already hurrying back up the stairs. She expects him to slam the bedroom door, but he closes it very softly, as if that's all he has energy for.

Gale is pounding on the door, becoming agitated. Katniss hears another voice, someone asking a question, and she frowns, only half-recognizing it. She hides the bow around the corner in the sitting room and pulls the door open, already mad at Gale, though he hasn't done anything but what she asked him to.

“Are you alright?” he asks, immediately grabbing her shoulders, stepping into the house, ready for a fight. She stares up at him, at a loss - he looks so much older than he did when she saw him last, and she imagines that she does, too. She wonders if he can smell the sex on her skin, and when her eyes dart to Johanna, who is standing behind him, she scoffs. Johanna is grinning as if Katniss' robe and disheveled hair have told her all she needs to know.

“What did I tell you?” Johanna says, punching Gale's arm as she walks past him, into the house. “She's fine. Already being taken care of, by the looks of it.”

Katniss looks back to Gale, whose eyes have changed. She reads betrayal there, which is hilarious, then fondness, apology, and finally just general awkwardness. He takes his hands from her shoulders and looks at the stairs. Peeta has reemerged, dressed now. His shirt is tucked in, and he's fastening his belt as he walks toward them. Subtle, Katniss thinks, though she's actually kind of proud of him for the gesture, as adolescent as it is.

“Gale,” he says, stepping around her to shake Gale's hand, acting as if he's not at all surprised to find Gale on his doorstep. Johanna is already in the kitchen, eating the cheese and shortbread cookies.

“I was worried,” Gale says. He's still breathing a little hard. “Her letter was so vague.” He glances at Katniss as if he actually expects her to give him some kind of secret hint that will inform him that she's being held hostage here by hijacked Peeta. She rolls her eyes.

“I need to get dressed,” she says. “Help yourself, Johanna,” she calls, glad that Gale didn't come alone for roughly two seconds before the jealousy sets in. Johanna grins and waves, her mouth full.

“Long train ride,” she says. “Hiya, Peeta.” She salutes him. “Keeping busy, I see?”

Katniss glares at her and bolts up the stairs, her face on fire. Inside her room, she slides down against the closed door and brings her knees to her chest, listening to the voices down on the first floor. Johanna's boasting laugh, Gale's grunted questions, Peeta's strained hospitality. The bedsheets are still wrecked, and the room smells like their come, their sweat. She puts her hands over her face and wills herself to wake from this nightmare, especially the part where she's very glad to see Gale and horrified to find that he's brought Johanna along.

She's learned to fake composure, and though doing so again might crack her in half for good, she descends the stairs as calmly as she can, dressed in a long skirt and a loose t-shirt, her hair braided as neatly as possible with shaking fingers. Johanna is seated at the kitchen table, gulping water, and Peeta and Gale are both standing, Peeta leaning against the oven and Gale against the cabinets, neither of them willing to be the first to sit down. So that's a great start. They watch her enter the room with almost identical looks of annoyance and expectation.

“I'm glad you guys came,” Katniss says, trying to be the cheerful hostess that everyone here knows she's not. “It's good to see you. How's District 2?”

“Fine,” Gale says. “What are you doing here?”

“Excuse me?”

“What are you doing in 12?” he asks. “There's nothing -” He stops himself. Peeta is smiling darkly, staring into space. Katniss looks at Johanna, desperate for help. Johanna looks as if she's struggling to conceal how entertained she is right now.

“Um,” she says. “I think it's cool.”

“Cool?” Gale says. The way he narrows his eyes at her makes it Katniss certain: they've had sex. Recently, too. Or maybe she's just projecting. She wishes they'd brought some brandywine; they don't even seem to have bags.

“Yeah, it's cool,” Johanna says, turning to glower at Gale. “This is their home. They're sticking it out. There aren't a lot of other places worth being right now, and it's kinda nice here.”

“Kinda nice.” Gale scoffs and starts pacing, exasperated. “Nobody's even cleaned up - the mess.”

“You offering to help us do it?” Katniss says sharply. He meets her eyes and it's like traveling back in time, making her feel twelve years old again.

“Maybe,” he says. “If you're determined to stay.” He glances at Peeta. “There's a lot going on, in 2 and in the Capitol. We could use -”

“We're both a little tired of being used,” Peeta says, the edge in his voice making Katniss' fists clench with dread. She doesn't want them throwing punches. They got along so well when bombs were falling.

“You're speaking for her now?” Gale asks. He mutters this, not putting much force behind the accusation, and doesn't look to Peeta for an answer, instead going to the back door and looking out at the yard.

“Katniss can do what she wants,” Peeta says, and he leans up to open a cabinet over the now-useless refrigerator. Katniss scoffs when she sees what he's keeping up there: bottles of the white liquor Haymitch favors.

“What are you doing?” Katniss asks when he sets one in the middle of the table before turning to get glasses.

“Having a drink,” he says. “Anyone who wants to join me can feel free.” He plunks down four glasses and Johanna grabs for one, grinning.

“Sounds like a most noble course of action,” she says.

“Are you sure that's a good idea?” Gale says, looking at Katniss. “Drinking in the middle of the day?”

“I'm pretty sure it's a great idea,” Peeta says as he pours some for himself and Johanna. Gale scoffs and opens the back door, walking out into the yard.

“I'll get us something for dinner,” Katniss says, going to fetch her bow. It's a thinly veiled excuse to be alone with Gale, but there's no sense in pretending now that Peeta knows she wrote to him. She tries to catch Peeta's eye on the way back through the kitchen, and when he ducks her gaze she walks to him, grabs his chin, and kisses him hard between the eyes.

“Any requests?” she asks, already able to smell the liquor on his breath.

“Huh?”

“For dinner,” she says.

“Deer meat, please,” Johanna says. Peeta just stares at Katniss, his lips twitching. She kisses them, then walks out into the yard, following Gale toward the fence.

They don't speak until they've reached their old meeting place. Katniss has never worn a skirt while hunting, but she's not sure that's really what they're doing, anyway. She sits at the base of a tree and watches Gale survey the woods, his hands on his hips.

“So I guess you're with Johanna now,” she says.

“She wanted to come,” he says, not really answering the question. “She talks too much, but. I trust her.” He turns back to her. “Which is more than I can say for him.”

“You don't know him,” Katniss says. “He hasn't had an episode in a week.”

“An episode?”

“It's just - lingering effects of the hijacking -”

“Great.” Gale kicks a pine cone. “That's exactly what I was afraid of. What are you doing here? Pretending everything's okay? Nobody's watching anymore, Katniss. You don't have to go through the motions with him. You don't owe him anything.”

“Yes, I do,” she says, wanting to retract that, because he'll take it the wrong way. “I owe him my life. But that's not why I'm here.”

“Then why?” Gale throws his arms out. “Your mother's not here -”

“My mother?” Katniss scrambles up from the ground, almost spitting with rage. “What good is she to me? I remind her too much of my sister. She doesn't even call. I might as well be dead, too, for all she cares.”

Gale walks to her and she flinches away, flattening herself against the back of a tree. She knows that she wants him to try to kiss her, but she doesn't know what she wants after that. He only touches her shoulder, squeezing her there.

“You look a little better than you did at the Capitol,” he says. “If he's helped you - great. But who's going to protect you if he goes rogue again? Who's to know how long he can fight these - episodes.”

“I know,” Katniss says, throwing his hand off. “He can always fight them as long as I'm here.”

“Why?” Gale asks. “Because he loves you? It wasn't enough before.”

“I wasn't trying to help him before,” she says. “I was a coward. Now I know -” She stops herself before she can tell Gale that she knows how to calm Peeta now, with her song. No, Gale can't know that. It doesn't belong to him.

“It's sad,” Gale says, shaking his head. “Taking care of him - it's like you're still serving their agenda. Picking up the pieces.”

“He's more to me than that,” she says. She lifts her bow and Gale smirks. She thinks of the moment in the Capitol when he asked her to kill him, so overcome by the memory that she feels herself teetering, still in danger of falling into that pit that opened in the middle of the street. When she drops the bow and throws her arms around his shoulders, he hugs her hard, letting out his breath against her shoulder.

“I missed you,” she says, squeezing him. He gives her braid a light tug.

“Me, too,” he says. “I hate thinking of you here. With all the other ghosts.”

“He's not a ghost.”

Gale sighs and steps back, holding her out by her shoulders. She'd forgotten how big he is, or maybe just how small she is. He chews his lip, obviously working up the courage to say something. She steels herself, afraid to hear it.

“Is he fucking you?” Gale asks.

Katniss scowls and shoves his hands from her shoulders. She's planning to deny it before she even realizes that doing so would mean lying to him, and why should she? She's not ashamed, except that she is, for some reason. She's not ashamed of the act itself, just by how much she likes it.

“Are you fucking her?” she asks instead. She doesn't like the taste of the word, doesn't think it fits what she had just a few hours ago in the bed that has come to belong to Peeta just as much as it belongs to her.

“You know - when he said you were pregnant.” Gale scoffs. “On television. I thought it was true.”

“It might have been,” Katniss says, furious. “We'd already fucked, when he said that. It was all my idea. The fucking, not the fake pregnancy.”

“Stop saying it,” Gale says, pushing her back against the tree again. “It doesn't - it's not right. You saying that.”

“You shouldn't have brought it up if you didn't want to talk about it,” she says, her breath coming fast as he looks at her like she's a lost little girl, someone who still needs saving. “And why shouldn't I say that - we're both adults now, aren't we? I'm not embarrassed. What do you think we were doing before you trampled down the door like a Peacekeeper? Why do you really think I'm here, Gale? For the woods? The great memories? I'm here because he's here, because he fucks me so well, makes me come so hard-”

“Stop it!” Gale shouts, loud enough to awaken her old fear about getting caught with him in the woods. He's got her pinned to the tree now, looming over her, his jaw set, eyes dark. Heat snakes down through her as she listens to his harsh breathing, waking up the past like the fear that they could be arrested for poaching here, but those days are done. She shoves him away with a scoff.

“Well,” she says, walking away. “You asked.”

He follows her through the woods, and gradually their angry footsteps quiet. She doesn't want to be mad at him, even for that question. She was wondering the same thing about Johanna. Weaponless, he carries her arrows, and passes them to her when she spots a grouse and then a pheasant. They find a felled log to sit on while they clean them together, and for awhile it's like the hell between the distant past and the aimless present has been erased.

“Sorry,” Gale mutters after awhile, and Katniss grins down at her almost naked pheasant, because it seems like something he probably learned from being in Johanna's company: apologizing.

“She's a good match for you,” Katniss says, not looking up. “She won't let any of your bullshit slide.”

“You were a good match for me,” Gale says. “Until you weren't. That's a compliment, by the way.”

“What is?”

“The fact that you - grew out of me.” He laughs at himself, embarrassed. She bumps her shoulder against his.

“Anyway,” she says. “We're cousins. So it's probably for the best.”

“Probably,” he says. He's smiling, sadly, but it's real.

Back at the house, Johanna and Peeta are drunk. They're laughing hysterically, Peeta's sketch paper spread out on the table, playing a game where one has to guess what the other is drawing. Peeta's sketches are a little sloppier than usual but still obvious: a dog smoking a pipe, the moon, a mouse wearing suspenders. Johanna's drawings are abstract at best, and she's calling Peeta an idiot for not recognizing that one of her scribblings is a plate of spaghetti.

“Maybe that's what our servants brought us for dinner,” Johanna says, leaning on Peeta to squint at Gale and Katniss as they come through the door. “Spaghetti? Oh, hell. Dead birds.”

“So, hey,” Peeta says, slurring, rubbing at one eye with the back of his hand while he watches Katniss with the other. “Did'ya guys have fun? Catching up?”

“That's a pretty good Haymitch impression,” Katniss says, snatching the half-empty bottle from the table. “Have you thrown up yet?”

“Not yet!” Peeta says cheerfully, and Johanna cracks up. Gale shakes his head and tugs on her hair when he crosses behind her. It's almost to her shoulders now: she must have used some kind of product to help it grow faster. She looks pretty, even sloppy drunk like this. If Gale still wants kids - did he really want them, or did she only imagine he would? - Johanna could give him handsome sons, beautiful girls. Katniss doubts that's in her plans. Johanna is like her, burned too many times by loss to want to make new people to love.

Johanna passes out on the couch while Gale makes a fire to cook dinner, and Katniss helps Peeta upstairs when he starts muttering, making her nervous. She's not sure, but it's possible that drinking alcohol could unlock memories that might bring on an episode. He's irritable with her when she tries to help him to bed, pushing her hands away.

“So, that worked,” Peeta says, laughing as she bends down to take off his shoes. “You got what you wanted, right? Both of us - or is it just him you want?”

“Don't be an idiot,” Katniss says. “You're drunk, and you don't know what you're talking about. Sleep it off.”

“I'm not tired,” Peeta says, though his eyelids are drooping and he sinks onto the pillows easily when she presses his shoulders down. “Guess what," he says as she strokes his damp bangs from his forehead. "Bad news. Johanna told me she's with him. With him, like you and me. Or not, since I guess you're just faking it again, still paying me back for a couple burned loaves of bread.” He laughs, mirthless and mean. She should hate him right now, should want to escape to the kitchen, have a few shots of that stuff herself and help Gale cook, but she's never felt more protective of him.

“If I told you I loved you right now,” she says, “Would you remember?” Half the reason she's considering confessing now is the chance that he wouldn't, but she's not sure why she's afraid to let him know. It's not as if Peeta is the one who will use this information against her - it's the rest of the world that's always done that.

“Would I believe it,” Peeta says. “That'd be a better question.” He's holding her arms as she leans over him, taking deep breaths and looking like he might cry. She kisses the corners of his eyes.

“You're the one who's faking,” she says, leaving her face pressed to his cheek, which is burning, his temperature almost feverish. “You pretend you don't know how I feel about you. You wouldn't be here if you didn't know.”

“Katniss,” he says, sobbing her name out, petting her hair clumsily. “Oh - I thought - why is he here?”

“Because he's my friend, and I love him, too.” She sits up, combing her fingers through his sweaty hair. “I just don't want him in my bed.”

“Why not?” Peeta says, sniffling. “He's handsome, isn't he?”

“He's okay. But he doesn't have your hands. Or your eyes. He's not you, Peeta. That's why I don't want him in my bed. Can you not understand that? Oh, God - why am I even trying to talk to you? You're so drunk.” She sighs and gets into bed with him, cuddling up to his side while he moans, his arm sliding around her shoulders.

“The room's spinning,” he says, making her think of the island with the Cornucopia in their second Games. So many bad memories everywhere she turns. She clings to him and thinks instead of the beach, that kiss that made her want to pull him on top of her, even with the whole world watching. She closes her eyes and listens to the sounds from the house, somebody fiddling with the old radio, somebody else opening the pantry door. It's nice, having other people here, but it will be nice when they're gone again, when Peeta can put her across the table if he wants to. His heartbeat still holds the title for best sound in the world, steady under her ear.

She showers and dresses for dinner while Peeta sleeps. He only moans when she tries to rouse him, so she kisses his cheek and goes down alone. Johanna is spry again, chopping carrots, laughing. The radio is playing. Gale is wearing one of her mother's old aprons.

“Is he down for the count?” Johanna asks, tipping her chin toward the second floor.

“He just needs to sleep for a little longer,” Katniss says. Gale gives her a look, like even drinking too much after being ambushed by her ex-whatever is a sign that Peeta isn't fit to coexist with her. She helps herself to some liquor, which Johanna has placed on the table again. It doesn't taste as bad as she remembered.

Dinner is fun, though she's worried about Peeta and checks on him twice. He's still in bed, his brow knitted as she mops at it with a cold cloth. He shakes his head when she offers to bring him food, so she opens the windows and helps him out of his shirt and pants; he's soaked with sweat, but it's a hot night, and she remembers her body temperature rising when she drank the stuff herself. Downstairs, Johanna is searching for music on the radio. It's hard to come by, but when she finds some she makes them both dance. Katniss enjoys herself until she thinks about Finnick and Annie's wedding. She flops onto the sofa and watches Johanna try to seduce Gale into dancing more enthusiastically than he is, but he can't be swayed.

“What's the matter?” he asks, twirling Johanna, looking at Katniss.

“Annie is pregnant,” Katniss says. “Delly told us.”

Johanna crashes against Gale, the glee draining from her face, but Gale smiles.

“Good,” he says.

“I'm not sure about that,” Katniss says.

“Why not?”

“I'm with her,” Johanna says, dropping onto the couch beside Katniss, out of breath. “The world's not exactly all sunshine and rainbows again. As if it ever was, or could be. I wouldn't want to raise a baby here.”

“Here?” Gale scoffs. “In District 12?”

“In Panem,” Johanna says sharply. “In reality.”

“Me either,” Katniss says, though she doesn't feel as certain about this as she used to. She likes having other people in the house, cheerful noise that feels like a family. But a family, ha, no - that's over. She won't give the world the chance to take another one away, and she's already got Peeta to worry about. She stands, heading for the stairs to check on him and stopping when she sees him descending, wearing a t-shirt and rumpled pants, yawning.

“Hey, back among the living?” Johanna says when she sees him.

“I feel terrible,” he says, mumbling. “Katniss - have you got anything for an upset stomach?”

“Of course,” she says, going for her herbs. She's conscious of Gale's gaze, which is locked on Peeta as he leans against the doorway, looking like the walking dead.

“Been feeling alright?” Gale says. “In general?”

“Yeah,” Peeta says. Katniss is pretty sure that he's too out of it to know what Gale is talking about. She hurries in with some peppermint tea.

“This will settle your stomach,” she says, pushing the mug into his hands. He bends down to give her a wet kiss on the forehead, and it's pretty obviously for Gale's benefit. She hears Johanna suppress a laugh. Gale has his arms crossed over his chest, his expression unreadable.

“I watched you try to kill her,” Gale says, and only then does Katniss remember that he had quite a bit of the liquor himself, before and after dinner. “As someone who cares about her, I'm sure you can appreciate my concern.”

“It's not like that anymore,” Peeta says. He seems unsteady on his feet, and Katniss wishes he would sit, but she knows he won't unless Gale does.

“How about dessert?” she says, looking to Johanna for support, but her eyes are locked on Gale.

“Are you certain?” Gale asks Peeta. “You're sure enough to bet her life on it?”

“You want me to kill myself just in case?” Peeta says.

“No, just -”

“It's okay, I get it.” Peeta gulps the last of the tea and pushes the mug into Katniss' hands. “I understand. Sometimes I think one of you should have done it while you had the chance. Sometimes I still think I should probably just do it myself.”

“Peeta!” Katniss says, horrified. He glances at her just briefly before looking back to Gale.

“If you feel that strongly about it then you shouldn't be here,” Gale says. “With her.”

“It's not your responsibility to protect me,” Katniss says to Gale before Peeta can drop another bombshell. She's still shaken, praying that he was exaggerating. “I want to be here with him.”

“Badly enough to die for it?” Gale says.

“I'd die without him!” Katniss says, so intent on shutting Gale up that she doesn't hear what she's said until the words are out, trembling in the room's humid air. She thinks of their first Games, when she screamed out Peeta's name and clapped her hands over her mouth. Peeta's eyes got wet when he saw it in the recap. She feels his hand on her back and turns to press herself against him.

“You can't think that,” she says, looking up at him, touching his face. “You can't think you'd be better off dead. I won't let you.”

“I -” Peeta says, and then his mouth just hangs open.

“Well,” Johanna says, clearing her throat. “I don't know about you guys, but I'm beat. Gale? Bed?”

“You - you two can stay in my mother's old room,” Katniss says, feeling dizzy, the flames that jump on the candles they've used to light the room making her seasick. “It's down here on the first floor.”

She doesn't bother to make sure they have towels. Upstairs in the dark bedroom, she listens for the sounds of Peeta down in the kitchen, getting something to eat or cleaning up, she has no idea. She could barely look at him as the scene in the sitting room broke up, the tension in the air setting off her flight reflex. When she hears him coming up the stairs she flings off her clothes and gets into the bed, turning toward the wall.

“Katniss?” he says, his voice soft. When will she be above pretending to be asleep when he comes in? Not yet, it's too much, what she said about dying without him, what he said about wanting to die. Why did she think that he wouldn't? She does, doesn't she? Or she did, before she learned how to cling to his body for dear life. She hears him toe off his shoes by the bed, and he kneels beside her without straightening them. She can't pretend anymore when his fingers sneak under her braid to caress the back of her neck. A sob trembles out of her, audible and visible, and he moans as he wraps himself around her.

“I didn't mean it,” he says, whispering the words in her ear.

“I did,” she says. “I did, I did.”

He rolls her onto her back, and the kiss that she opens for, the breath he pushes past her lips, feels like a continuation of what was interrupted on the beach that day, the unstoppable thing that heats her from the inside and burns all the way down to her heels. They're locked so tightly together, her body arching with his, that it takes some time to work her underwear off, his t-shirt, pants, shorts. By the time they're undressed she so ready for him that she pushes his hand away, pulling at his thighs and opening hers for him.

“Please,” she whispers.

It's the first time they've started with him on top, his hips doing all the work, and he's trembling hard. She pets him as he sinks in deeper, tiny noises catching in the back of his throat, his eyes pinched shut against her cheek.

“I,” he says, his lips moving on her ear, shaking just as badly as his limbs. “I'd die without you, too.”

“I know,” she says, and he laughs.

There's no stop and start, no hesitation, no more trembling once she's biting her hand to keep from moaning loud enough to shake the walls, clawing at his back. He's huffing with every thrust, tilting her hips up with one hand spread open over her tail bone. When his mouth goes to her breasts, teeth and tongue on her nipples, she holds his head there with one hand, reaching down to touch herself with the other, coming with a shout that she has no third hand to muffle. Well, let them hear it: she's already told Gale as much, and Johanna saw it on her as soon as she opened the door, one recently satisfied woman to another.

Peeta's mouth moves to her neck, his breath so hot and his body damp, sweat dripping from the ends of his bangs. She opens her mouth to try to catch it, wanting to taste every part of him, to know him like she knows every plant that grows in the woods, which parts to press to her tongue when she needs to be healed.

He buries his scream in the pillow when he comes: like a gentleman, she thinks, as she soothes him through it. He's panting, his eyes closed when he presses his face to hers, his back still shuddering, legs shaking. She holds him so that he stays inside her, can't imagine a time when she'll want to let him slide free.

“Mmph,” he says when his breath finally begins to slow, his head on her shoulder. “It's about a thousand degrees in here.”

“Want to get some water?” she asks.

“No,” he says, clinging.

They fall asleep like that, but just for a few sweat-soaked minutes, rolling apart once they're delirious enough to seek another kind of comfort. Katniss gets out of the bed, stretching her arms up over her head as she walks to the bathroom. She comes back with a cool cloth and a glass of water, which they take turns gulping from. She mops the cloth across her own sweaty skin and then offers it to Peeta, who drapes it over his forehead and drops down to the pillows.

“Damn,” he says as they watch the moon through the window, the insects singing in the trees.

“Yeah,” she says, in agreement. “Productive day.”

He wakes up first, and when she finally blinks awake he's undoing her braid. She laughs, because he seems to like her hair down, and she wonders if it's the effect of seeing her beautified in all of Cinna's costumes.

“What's funny?” he asks, arranging her hair on the pillow.

“You,” she says. “Casting your vote for how I should wear my hair for our wedding.”

“Is that what you think I'm doing?” he says, grinning. “I'm just untangling it for you. But if you want my vote, well. Call it grim, but I loved the way you had it on the day of the reaping. The first reaping, I mean. In those fancy braids.”

She expects Gale to already be awake when they dress and go downstairs, but there's no sign of him or Johanna. Peeta shows her how to make crescent rolls, and humors her suggestion to tuck some cheese into their centers. When Gale finally emerges he's wearing flannel sleep pants and a t-shirt, his feet bare. Katniss hides her laugh in her hand, not sure why this is such a hilarious sight. Johanna is following close behind, yawning languorously and tying the belt of her short silk robe.

“Is that breakfast I smell?” Johanna asks, dropping into a seat at the table. Gale sits beside her, though Peeta is still standing, pulling rolls from the oven. It's a good sign, maybe.

“Moon-shaped cheese rolls,” Peeta says, presenting them for Johanna's examination. “Katniss' invention.”

“Only the cheese part,” she says. She glances at Gale, not sure how to treat him on the morning after that confrontation. He smiles, looks very tired.

“Well,” he says. “Am I the only one who's still hungover?”

“I'm not exactly ready to run a marathon,” Peeta says, plating up some rolls for him while Johanna grabs them straight from the pan.

“You two are lightweights,” Johanna says. “Me and Katniss are fine. Right?”

“Right,” she says, sitting down across from her. And it's true.

Gale and Johanna leave that afternoon, despite Peeta and Katniss insisting that they can stay longer if they like. They have business in District 2; Katniss doesn't ask for the details. She hugs Gale hard at the train station, and Johanna, too, though she warns Katniss on the approach that she's not the hugging type. Despite saying so, she squeezes Katniss hard, like she's a long lost sister.

“There's no mad science on Panem that could make that boy hurt you again,” she whispers before pulling back. She winks and tugs on Katniss' ear, probably aware that she's telling Katniss something she already knows. Still, it feels good to hear that Johanna believes it. Maybe she can work on convincing Gale.

“Take care of my woods,” Gale says as he's backing toward the train.

“You can count on your cousin,” she says, saluting.

Part III