Cris♀️ || 26 || Spanish || Currently in the Cosmere pit, not wanting to get out. I also post about Heartstopper, The Owl House, TLoZ, Akayona, Inuyasha, FMA or Jojo's || Art Blog || Pokémon sideblog || Instagram || Twitter ||
Summary: Peeta is trying to figure out what made him want to return to District 12. Thankfully, he has Katniss to help him.
Word count: 2700+
Rating: T
A/N: Finally I get to post this thing! A while ago I saw some posts saying that the lyrics of Taylor Swift's song I Knew It, I Knew You fit post MJ Everlark very well and got inspired. The events of this fic take place a couple-ish months after Peeta's return to District 12 when K&P haven't established their relationship yet.
Thanks to the lovely @criis55 for the help with betaing! And shoutout to all the supportive people here on tumblr! This one's for you.
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...
And I remembered I loved you
Came back when it mattered, I saw you
Standing there in the light of the window wearing that same smile
Man, it's been a while
But I knew it, I knew you
The sunset was dyeing Victor’s Village soft orange as I was walking down the road towards something. I wasn’t quite sure what. But I wanted to find out.
It had been a couple of months since my return to District 12 but even now I was a little lost on what exactly it was that I was looking for from here. My family was gone and so was the home I had lived most of my life in. So what force had kept pulling me here? Sometimes - especially when I saw the steely gray of my neighbor’s eyes - I thought I was close to an answer. But my moments of clarity were followed by many moments of insecurity during which I couldn’t do much besides taking a hold of the closest back of a chair or hiding my head against my arms to get my muddled brain to stop showing me the shiny images. Luckily, there were less of those images now than earlier, but still I suspected I’d never fully get rid of them.
Talking with Haymitch and Katniss and the ”real or not real” questions usually helped some even though especially at first I was terrified of letting Katniss stay close to me when I was suffering from one of my episodes. What if I hurt her? Katniss was adamant on staying, though, and she seemed to have some almost supernatural skill of knowing what I needed at some specific moment. Sometimes she sang, sometimes she just talked in a quiet voice about something that we had experienced together. Usually they were simple things, like the tone of our math teacher’s voice when he reprimanded me for doodling in my notebook instead of taking notes. Or how warm the two loaves of bread that I threw at her had felt on that cold, rainy day many years ago.
Sometimes I asked her things – especially about our earlier relationship – she didn’t have direct answers to. Often after a question like that she shut down for hours or in the worst cases for a few days, her reaction only leaving me even more confused than before.
One of my questions – what exactly happened between us during the Victory Tour – was followed by probably the longest silence so far, three days. It also led to one of my worst flashbacks since my return to 12. When Katniss tried to get into my house as it was happening, I firmly told her to stay away because I couldn’t guarantee how I’d react to her proximity. Katniss tried her best to ignore my command, but finally, after Haymitch came to witness our yelling match, I won the battle. Katniss didn’t leave silently. Now, a day after that incident, I was both tired and ashamed. I had said a lot of things I hadn’t meant. All I had really wanted was to make Katniss understand I was not safe to be around.
And now I finally knew where my feet were trying to take me. To apologize to her.
I was already so close to Katniss’ house that I could see her form through her kitchen window. Curiosity got a hold on me; I tried to make out what she was doing but her back was towards the window. Most likely, she had just returned from the woods and was now cleaning her catches. A thought of food reminded me that I hadn’t properly eaten since yesterday. I figured Katniss would probably be grateful for some help in the kitchen, so I started moving again.
As I got closer, I realized she didn’t have dead animals on her kitchen counter, but instead one of my old baking bowls I had given her a long time ago. Katniss knew how to prepare meals from the meat caught by her quite well, but according to her, baking was not exactly her strong suit and she preferred my bread. Maybe I could try to teach her some time in the future.
So why was she currently hands deep in the dough? I tried to remember when the last time I had baked us bread was, and realized it must have been several days ago. Maybe Katniss was too embarrassed to ask for more after our recent fight.
Soon I noticed another surprise: under her apron Katniss was wearing an orange T-shirt. One of my old favorites, that she had shyly admitted she liked because it smelled like me. Hope stirred in me because surely she wouldn’t be wearing it if she was still mad at me…?
As I was still pondering the shirt situation, I started hearing humming from Katniss’ open window. It only took me a moment to recognize the melody: the Valley Song. In the past few months I had noticed that Katniss was singing more now, to my delight. She still didn’t like doing it near other people, but sometimes she made an exception for me when I wasn’t feeling well. Most often she sang when she was in a good mood and thought there was no one nearby. I knew because her voice reached my art room some evenings when the window was open. This time, her song choice was surprising, though. I don’t think I have heard her sing this particular song since we were 5.
Mesmerized, I stayed in my spot, watching her continue with her tasks. She kept humming as she kneaded the dough. I couldn’t stop a small smile from forming on my face when I saw that the dough wasn’t quite submitting to her. She didn’t give up despite her slight frustration but continued until she was happy with her results. Her adorable signature scowl disappeared and the corner of her mouth lifted as well when she took a container of raisins into her hands and put a couple in her mouth (a proof of how much everything had changed). There was a box of nuts next to her as well. I’m pretty sure my mouth opened involuntarily as the puzzle pieces started connecting themselves in my brain.
The bread, the song, even that shirt… Katniss had never been very easy to read, and the hijacking hadn’t exactly helped my case, but this time I felt I couldn’t be wrong about this. All those three things had something to do with me. And apparently they also cheered her up. I really didn’t want to assume, but maybe Katniss wasn’t making that bread for herself, after all.
Until now I had tried to avoid thinking about the whole thing because, well, there was a lot we still needed to deal with. But now I felt a spark going down my spine as for the first time since my return I allowed myself to think that maybe not all feelings between us had been reduced to ashes by the Capitol or District 13 after all.
As I kept contemplating the meaning of Katniss’ actions, she got to the part in the song that said ”birds in the heavens know I love you”. Katniss didn’t sing those lyrics aloud, though, but she kept humming as she started handling the dough more gently now. There was something so soothing about her voice, and suddenly my vision became slightly blurry. I had to swipe the wetness away with my hands, but once I could see again, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her. It wasn’t until then that I fully realized that my heart had started fluttering like mockingjay's wings and my face felt heated despite the breeze the district had that evening.
Even though sometimes the flashbacks caused similar symptoms, I knew this was not one of those because I could see everything clearly, there was no shininess in sight. I hadn’t felt like this since… the last night of the Quarter Quell, maybe? Or that time in the tunnels of the Capitol… but I hadn’t had time to stop and analyse what it had meant because of how dire our circumstances had been. They had shown me what had happened in the Quarter Quell back in District 13 when they had tried to convince me that Katniss wasn’t my enemy but back then I hadn’t remembered yet what it had felt like. But now… it was like I was 5 years old again. The same boy who had heard a girl with two braids sing and decided at that moment that he wanted to marry that girl.
My trance was broken by the sound of small twigs breaking under my shoes as I accidentally stepped over them. Even I got startled a bit at the sound they made. I looked up and noticed that Katniss too had heard it. Of course she had, being an experienced huntress and all.
”Hi.” I awkwardly raised my hand in greeting, my face likely red from embarrassment.
”Hi yourself. Well, are you coming in?” Katniss finally asked after realizing I wasn’t going to move from my spot.
”Yeah, sorry, of course,” I stuttered and was finally released from my full body bind. I took some deep breaths before going inside, to get some clarity into my head.
When I opened the door, the familiar, kind of home-y smell of bread flooded my nose, and besides that something that was characteristic to Katniss’ home. Something that had allured me even during those lonely months after our first games when I had tried to fight my feelings towards her. I stepped into the kitchen and found Katniss setting her dough back into a bowl and covering it with a towel.
”You’re… baking,” I stated the obvious, gesturing towards the bowl.
”Yes… I was thinking that it was my turn to make something for us, since you’re the one who bakes almost every day… But I fear I know nowhere near as much about this stuff as you do. How long should that dough even rise? Is half an hour enough?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle a little at Katniss’ adorable nervousness.
”My father always said the longer, the better, but because we were running the only bakery in town, there usually wasn’t plenty of time for that. So yeah, I'd say 30 minutes should be enough.”
”Okay…” Katniss said still a bit unsurely.
Silence fell between us. I was just going to ask Katniss something simple about her day but she beat me to it.
”You know, it’s not exactly hard to notice you,” she said with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
I processed her words for a moment. It seemed my heart understood their meaning before my brain did because it started drumming even faster now.
”So, when you sang, you knew that I was out there…” I managed to get out.
”Think what you want,” Katniss rolled her eyes, but the smile that she cast towards the ground after that betrayed her true emotions.
”Oh, I will,” I threw back with a playful smirk. A warm feeling spread from my finger tips to my toes as I registered that I had made her smile.
Our eyes locked for a while. I couldn’t help but admire the way the orange shirt looked really nice against her skin. Like sunset against toasted bread.
”It seems you’re having a better day today,” Katniss said more seriously.
I nodded. ”I am, at least now.”
To my surprise Katniss continued: ”I’m sorry about yesterday. I should have respected your wish rather than pushing it…”
”Katniss, no.” I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. It’s just that I still worry for your safety when I…”
”I’m not afraid of you,” Katniss stopped me sternly. “Not even when you’re having one of your episodes. I trust you. And I hope you trust me enough that you can be honest with me. Or have me around when you need help.”
”Katniss…”
”Peeta. Let me do the talking this time. I want to help you like you have done to me so many times, more often than you probably know.”
She took a breath. ”I know that things are still complicated. There are still days when I have a hard time getting up from the bed. But when I’m around you, it’s like I can breathe more easily. I feel more optimistic about the future when I remember you are a part of it.
After clearing her throat, she continued: “But as someone once said, um, whatever it is that we have can only work if we are honest with each other.”
”Yeah, that does sound vaguely familiar.” I smiled back. I tried to keep my response light but in reality I had a hard time keeping my hands still, not knowing where Katniss was going with her talk.
She was twisting her hands now, but despite her discomfort she had a determined fire, the one I had fallen in love with years ago, in her eyes when she said: ”I know I haven’t been the best at giving you answers to some of the questions you have… but I’ll try to be better. If you also promise to let me know if something is bothering you and let me help when you need it.”
Hearing Katniss’ concern, the words came out of my mouth before I had time to even consider them: ”OK. I will.” She seemed to visibly relax after hearing my promise.
”Can I ask a question, though?” I said. ”Earlier, you said, ‘whatever it is that we have’… What is it that you want to have?”
She seemed suddenly quite interested in her finger nails.
”I… I know I just said I’m going to try to give you more answers, but I’m going to need more time with that one,” she admitted. ”Here is something I can say, though. I know that for a long time… maybe since our first games… you have meant more to me than just any friend. When we were in the Quarter Quell arena, I…” She reconsidered her words, shaking her head. ”But a lot has happened since then, of course… The thing is, I don’t know if I’m mentally ready, um, to deal with anything besides friendship yet. If that's something that's even on the table. But I need you to know that you are so important to me. You give me hope even when I feel hopeless. You’re one of the reasons why I’m still here, still alive. So, please, consider this,” she gestured to the bread and a stew she had prepared, ”a thank you for all you’ve done for me already and probably will do in the future too.”
”Katniss…” I said slowly, not able to fully process everything that she had just told me yet. There were no words for the feeling that started bubbling inside me as I considered the possibility that some day we could maybe be more than friends. And that’s when I knew it for sure. I still loved her. I loved this brave, reckless, hot headed, selfless, impossibly caring, emotionally and physically scarred woman in front of me from the bottom of my heart. That was why I had returned to this district. Somehow, despite all that the Capitol had done to me, she was still the magnet that pulled the needle of my compass to her direction. It took a very special person to be able to do that, if you asked me. I couldn’t bear the physical distance between us anymore, and so I asked: ”Can I hug you?”
Katniss laughed at my awkward question. ”After all we’ve been through? You don’t have to ask.”
”I didn’t want to assume after all that you have been through.”
”Come here.” She extended her arms and pulled me closer to her. My arms automatically wrapped around her waist and I couldn’t help but sniff her hair when she dug her head against my shoulder. The scent of the woods and the shampoo she used almost overwhelmed me. I was quite certain that so close to my heart she could hear it, that’s how hard it was beating. But in a good way. A way that told me that I was still alive. And happy to be here.
"I hope you won't mind if I think of you as a friend."
thinking about Hatchling discovering Grace & Rocky's story hundreds of thousands of years after it happened when there are no more Eridians or humans to tell it :')
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