Archive of Our Own

Katniss woke to the steady, gentle thump-thump-thump beneath her ear. She sighed, letting the rhythm sink into her, wrapping her in a sense of comfort she hadn’t known she could still feel. Without thinking, she buried her face deeper into the warmth of his chest, inhaling the scent of cinnamon, dill, and something else that was simply, unmistakably, Peeta. Her arms tightened around him, and her leg slung lazily over his hips, holding him close as if her body refused to let him slip away.

And he was as he always was in the morning.

The first time she’d discovered that, he had jerked away immediately, stammering an apology before darting into the bathroom. She hadn’t needed him to explain—she wasn’t ignorant. She knew it was natural, especially for a young, strong man like her husband. What she hadn’t understood was the sharp stab of disappointment she felt every time he pulled away, as if it was wrong to want him to stay pressed against her, to want him close in every possible way.

Katniss buried her face in his neck, pressing her cold nose into the heat of his skin. He shivered, and she felt the shift of his body when his eyes blinked open. She knew the moment he realized—because he turned, hips subtly shifting away from her.

Heat flooded her own face. She wanted to whine at him, to tell him he didn’t have to do that, that she actually liked the way it felt. But shame twisted inside her. Who was this Katniss? This wanton girl in their marriage bed, so far from the starving teenager who once dug through bakery scraps, so different from the stone-faced huntress who could keep her family alive with nothing but her bow, so unlike the broken girl who had crumbled when her sister died.

And yet—here she was. The same Katniss who wanted nothing more than for her husband to stay against her in the mornings, who dreamt of his feverish kisses on her lips, her neck, her chest.

“Good morning,” Peeta murmured, his voice still rough with sleep.

It was Sunday. No reason to rise early. No reason at all. Yet, as always, they were awake before the sun.

Katniss couldn’t hear his words over the rush of blood in her ears, but she nodded when he leaned down, brushing a kiss against her nose, then her forehead, before slipping carefully from her hold.

She watched him stand, smiling faintly as her eyes traced the easy ripple of muscles along his back, shifting as he stretched his arms high above his head. The thick pajama bottoms he wore hung low on his hips, teasing her eyes with skin. Even in the coldest winter, he refused to wear a shirt to bed.

Her sigh of disappointment was soft when he reached for the thin shirt he’d discarded last night and pulled it over his head.

Before leaving, Peeta crossed to the window, nudging it closed where it had been left cracked. He always made sure she stayed warm, even if it meant he could not be there in the bed to warm her himself.

Peeta brushed his hand lightly across her hair. “Stay in bed a while, alright? You don’t have to hunt today. We’ve still got plenty of meat for the pies that were ordered.”

Katniss nodded, murmuring, “Yes. But… Delly and Madge may call later.”

Peeta visibly shivered. The last time the two girls had come together, he’d been pinned down in their kitchen for nearly two hours while both poured out their frustrations about their husbands—loudly, animatedly, sometimes to him directly, and other times to each other as though he were simply an unwilling witness. He’d tried to answer their questions only to be talked over, their chorus blending into one united declaration: men are pigs.

Well, most men, as Katniss remembered Delly adding pointedly—“not yours," she told her "I hate you so much.”

Still, the memory was enough to make Peeta pale.

“They’re better now,” Katniss reassured him, lips twitching. “Not like last time.”

Peeta chuckled under his breath. “The girls are good… but honestly, I still can’t believe half of what their husbands are supposedly doing. Are those stories real, or are they exaggerating because I was there?”

“They’re real,” Katniss said dryly. “Not everyone can be Mr. Perfect, Mr. Perfect.”

That earned her the look. He tried—unsuccessfully—to raise one brow at her. As always, both shot up together, making his expression more boyish than smug.

“Mr. Perfect, huh?” he teased. “Wasn’t someone cursing me yesterday because I left the towel on the bathroom floor? Weren’t you so loud making customers rush their orders just to get out of the bakery?”

Katniss lifted her own brow at him, delighting in the fact that her attempt was smooth, unlike his ridiculous double-raise. “Leaving towels on the floor doesn’t compare to Sage asking Delly to sleep with someone else with him in the Slagheap.”

Peeta’s easy grin slipped into a scowl. “He’s a real asshole, that Sage. Quiet type, so we weren’t friends—but honestly? He could give Rye a run for his money.”

Katniss only half-heard him. She was too busy watching the way the cords in his forearms flexed as he wrung out his jacket, searching for clean clothes. Her gaze drifted lower when he bent to grab socks, muscles shifting deliciously across his back.

And then he turned—catching her, full-on staring.

Katniss froze, heat flooding her face, wishing the earth would open up and swallow her whole. But Peeta only grinned impishly, his eyes scanning her even though the thick winter blanket was tucked firmly under her chin.

She scowled—what else could she do? He giggled at her. Actually giggled.

Before she could sputter a reply, he crossed back to her, dropped a soft kiss on her forehead, and slipped out toward the bathroom.

Katniss smothered her face into her pillow, screaming soundlessly into the fabric. It had been six months since they’d married, and forehead or cheek kisses had become… normal. Expected, even. They were married, after all, if not quite in the real sense of the word.

But did it make her shameless if she wanted more? If she wanted to lean in and kiss him when a smear of frosting clung to the corner of his mouth? If she savored the absent-minded way his hands drifted across her back when they lay together? If she fell asleep nearly sprawled on top of him each night, as if their bed was still that too-small cot from her old room?

She didn’t have the answers. Only the ache of wanting more.

It was definitely Delly’s fault.

She had perfected that bright, sunny disposition so well that no one would ever believe just how depraved that girl really was. People thought Delly Cartwright was made of sugar and smiles, but Katniss knew better. She had seen it—how Delly would slip through the back door of the bakery just as Katniss was returning from a hunt, and Peeta would give her that look. The one that said, please don’t leave me alone with her again. And Katniss could never quite find the heart to say no.

Apparently, Delly had been using Peeta as her personal confessional for years, regaling him with the intimate details of her and Sage’s marriage bed. And though Katniss could tell Peeta wanted to bash his own head against the counter every time she opened her mouth, he suffered through it. Because Delly didn’t have other close friends. Because Peeta Mellark could never bring himself to shut someone out.

Now that they were married, he’d somehow managed to pass the Delly problem onto her hands. The absolute asshole.

Delly didn’t hold back either. She would describe in vivid detail how Sage liked to take her from behind, or how he slipped his fingers between her thighs behind the counter of the apothecary while customers shopped in the next aisle. Katniss had started timing her visits to the Apothecary so she’d never have to step foot in that shop when Delly was likely there. She didn’t want to remember her friend doing that there.

But the worst part was that every time Delly painted one of her torrid little scenes, all Katniss could think about was her husband.

Not in the same way, no—Peeta would never treat her as Sage did Delly, never blur that line between tenderness and possession. Delly had once laughed, almost shyly, as she admitted how Sage liked to call her his bitch in bed, or how he would take her even when she wasn't in the mood at first, only for her to end up enjoying it. To Katniss, it had sounded perilously close to humiliation, something she could never imagine enduring.

Peeta would never make her feel that way. He would kiss her gently, reverently, as though she might break apart in his hands. And yet Katniss knew better than anyone that he wasn’t meek. Not really. Not when he wanted something. He had shown her that in the woods once, when their fight had ended with his mouth crushing against hers—clumsy, angry, fierce. And still, even in his fury, Peeta had never made her feel unsafe.

And that was what ruined her. Because now, every time Delly opened her filthy mouth, Katniss’s mind betrayed her. It filled in the blanks with Peeta: his hands, his lips, the way he tasted of sugar and heat, the way she already knew he could devour her if he chose.

Definitely Delly’s fault. Because she couldn’t shut up about her older, more experienced husband, she was corrupting Katniss’s mind.

It was almost funny, when she thought about it. Gale had once said Peeta was corrupting her—living in the bakery with him, then marrying him. But the truth was, it wasn’t Peeta at all.

It was Delly Cartwright, now March.

And maybe Katniss should be furious about that. Maybe she should be ashamed.

But all she could think, as heat prickled up her neck and across her cheeks, was that her husband was delicious in his too tight shirts and trousers that ride low on his hips.

Katniss pressed her face into the pillow and screamed soundlessly again, the fabric muffling the pathetic sound. She felt ridiculous—like one of those silly heroines in the cheesy Capitol books Madge used to smuggle to Delly, all flushed cheeks and sighs over a man. Only, in her case, it wasn’t some stranger on a page. It was her husband.

With a groan, she shoved the pillow aside and sat up. Enough. She would drive herself mad if she stayed in bed any longer. The bathroom was still warm from Peeta’s bath, steam clinging faintly to the mirror. His scent lingered there, too—bread and sugar and, faintly, her lavender soap. The corner of her mouth tugged upward despite herself. She liked that he used it. It was stupid, really, just soap. But when he smelled like her, it felt like some tiny claim she had over him, like he was hers even in the smallest, most ordinary way.

Once she’d finished washing up, she padded back into their room. The first thing she did was make the bed, smoothing the blanket over the mattress the way her mother used to. Then she turned to the small pile of clothes draped neatly over the chair. Peeta had folded them, of course. He always folded them, even the ones that were already dirty. It used to irritate her—she could never tell what needed washing and what didn’t—but now it was just another Peeta thing, one of those odd quirks she had learned to live with.

Her eyes drifted next to the long side drawer beneath the wide southern window, where Peeta’s sketchbooks had been stacked haphazardly from the night before. She set them right, straightening the pile until they were lined neatly in a row. That window nearly took up the whole wall, and from it they could see the sunset everyday. Every Sunday, without fail, Peeta sat there, sketching and shading with whatever colors she had been able to coax from the woods. Sometimes she joined him, asking questions on how he can draw things so clearly even better than a capitol camera could capture, but most often she just watched. Watched the way he worked, how the light softened his face, how something inside her loosened every time he smiled faintly at the page.

She bent to sweep the corner of the room, but her eyes snagged on the crate of jars tucked carefully under the sideboard. Setting the broom aside, she crouched and lifted each one, twisting the lids tight to make sure they hadn’t loosened. She wasn’t about to lose months of gathering to an accidental bump of an elbow. The blue jar especially. She still remembered the sick, hollow feeling in her chest the day she’d spilled half of it. Cornflowers collected for weeks, crushed and boiled until her fingers were stained purple, gone in an instant.

She held the little jar up to the light, the liquid inside catching the morning light. The blue was deep and steady, like a summer sky that refused to break. It had cost her hours bent low in the meadow, but she’d gotten it in the end.

The yellows had been easier—marigolds and dandelions so eager to be picked they practically begged for it. The greens came from leaves, though they never came out the same twice. The reds had fought her hardest, stubborn and stingy, until she learned to wait for the wild roses. One by one she checked them all—blue, red, yellow, green, pink, white, and black—her makeshift rainbow lined neatly along the crate. To anyone else, they were nothing but cloudy mixtures in old jars. But she had seen what Peeta’s hands could do with them. How the brush moved steady, how the colors seemed to soften the world just by being put down on paper.

Her fingers lingered on the glass a moment longer before she set the last one down. These had been her gift to him at their wedding.

He had given her golden bands passed down through generations and a feast unlike anything she’d ever imagined. And she…she had given him jars of flower-stained water.

But when he smiled that day, his whole face lighting in a way she would never forget, she had felt something warm spread through her chest so fiercely it nearly burned. Even now, months later, the memory was enough to make her chest ache.

Katniss moved briskly through the apartment, broom in hand. There was never much to do—no bloody water to pour off, no bandages to bury in the dirt so the smell of rot wouldn’t drive them out of their own home. Nothing like back at her mother’s, where the floors always seemed to carry the weight of sickness no matter how hard she scrubbed.

Here, it was different. Peeta and his father kept the place orderly, cleaning up after themselves with the kind of quiet efficiency that still startled her. She only needed to sweep and dust now and then, a task so simple it hardly seemed like work. The contrast was sharp: at home, she had come back from hours in the woods only to cook, scrub, tidy, and scrape the bowls that patients who weren’t hers used. Prim had tried to help, but Prim had always been at their mother’s side, more apprentice than daughter. So it had fallen to Katniss—always, it had fallen to her.

But here, in this apartment, things were different. She had taken over cooking, mostly because she couldn’t stand the thought of them eating nothing but stale bread and weak stews when she could do better. The Mellarks hadn’t protested, if anything, Peeta looked grateful every time she set a meal on the table. The herbs she kept in boxes under the kitchen window—parsley, thyme, sage, marjoram, dill, yarrow, and wild garlic—made even the simplest dishes feel richer. And Peeta, for his part, always insisted on helping with the washing, and flatly refused to let her near the bathroom scrubbing.

It was nice. Nice not to feel bone-tired, not to be pulled in a dozen directions at once. Nice to feel like she could breathe.

The kitchen smelled faintly of cornmeal and smoke when she slipped the last pancake off the pan. She stacked it neatly on top of the others, steam curling upward in soft ribbons. On the table waited two small bowls: one golden with honey, the other deep purple with the berry compote she’d made the day before. Beside them, a pot of coffee kept warm at the back of the stove, its scent sharp and earthy.

She set the pan aside, tugged the apron strings loose, and smoothed her palm over the neat blue embroidery on the corner—her name, stitched there by Peeta’s hand. The sight still made her chest feel strange, tight and warm. She hung it carefully in the cupboard, next to another apron marked with his name.

Satisfied, she turned to head downstairs.

Halfway down, Rye’s voice carried up the stairwell—loud, needling, impossible to miss.

“…don’t look at me like that, Peet. I know I’m the favorite this week.”

Katniss rolled her eyes, pausing just before the bakery kitchen to listen.

Peeta’s dry reply followed, soft but edged with long-suffering patience. “You’re never the favorite, Rye. You just show up too often for anyone to get a chance to miss you.”

Rye laughed, unbothered. “That’s the sound of jealousy, little brother. Admit it—I’m the charmer of this family.”

“Charm,” Peeta muttered. “That what you’re calling it now?”

Katniss couldn’t help the snort that escaped her. When she stepped into the kitchen, Rye’s grin split wide at the sight of her.

“Sis!” he boomed, spreading his arms as though he’d just returned from war instead of barging in on a Sunday morning. “I just bought you three sacks of rice grain. Three! Who’s your favorite brother-in-law now, huh?”

She blinked at the large sacks stacked awkwardly by the door. “How do we eat them?”

Rye’s grin faltered into a frown, his shoulders slumping theatrically. “You’ll figure it out. You’re clever like that.”

Peeta only groaned, rubbing his temple as Rye elbowed him. “Now come on, hand over that third tray of pudding you’ve been hiding. Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been making it all these months from left over stale bread. You gave one to Bram but not to me? I earned it, bringing all that grain!”

“Earned?” Peeta’s voice sharpened with disbelief. “You just dumped it by the door. You didn’t even carry it up the stairs!”

Rye clutched his chest in mock offense. “So ungrateful. And to think I came all this way to brighten your dull little morning—”

Katniss rolled her eyes again, though she couldn’t keep the smile from tugging at her mouth, though there was a sadness to it. Rye’s antics were always annoying—loud, exaggerated, forever needling—and Peeta never hesitated to jab him back with an elbow or a barbed comment. The way they laughed through it, the way the sting never lingered, made something twist in her chest. She envied it, this light camaraderie between them.

She had never had that with Prim. Her sister had always been considerate, too careful, making sure to stay out of Katniss’s way. Katniss had been more guardian than sister, more parent than playmate, and there had never been a chance to simply…be together. Sisters. Equal, easy, unburdened.

“Just give him one tray, Peeta,” she said softly, cutting through their bickering. “So we can eat before it all goes cold.”

Rye’s grin turned triumphant, as if he’d won a great victory. He snatched up the pudding the moment Peeta set it down, his laughter echoing as he bolted for the door.

Peeta shook his head, muttering under his breath, but when he bent to heft two of the sacks Rye had left, Katniss could only stare. Mr. Mellark stepped in without a word, lifting the last sack onto his shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all.

She gaped. No matter how many times she had watched them carry flour up from the bakery’s cellar, it never ceased to amaze her. She thought herself strong—could pull the string of her bow smooth as breathing, could carry the weight of three rabbits and a brace of birds across miles of woods—but Peeta with two sacks slung as if they were nothing… the muscles in his back shifting under his shirt, the cords in his arms flexing, it simply left her stunned. And not entirely displeased.

By the time they sat down at the table, the mood was light. The pancakes and coffee softened the edges of the morning, and Rye’s absence left a quieter cheer lingering in the air.

“You know,” Mr. Mellark said as he buttered a piece of pancake, “rice isn’t so difficult once you know what to do with it. A sack like that could stretch further than you’d think.”

Katniss tilted her head, curious. She had never cooked rice, never even heard about it until today.

“Plain rice, boiled in water with a pinch of salt,” he said first. “Toss in chopped wild garlic, and you’ve got something fragrant, filling. Or,” he went on, nodding toward Katniss, “you could take those dried mushrooms you put up last autumn, rehydrate them, and simmer them with onion. Makes a dish hearty enough on its own.”

Katniss’s eyes widened. She could almost taste it already—the earthiness of mushrooms, the sweetness of onion tangled with the soft bite of rice.

“And rabbit,” he added, his voice warming with the memory of it. “Rabbit and rice stew, boiled down slow with nothing more than a bay leaf or wild garlic for flavor. The rice thickens the broth, turns it rich and comforting. A good dish for winter.”

Peeta leaned forward, listening carefully, as if these were secrets to treasure. Katniss found herself leaning too, hanging on every word.

“Or rice porridge,” Mr. Mellark continued. “Savory. You simmer it in extra water until it goes creamy. Add salt, maybe dried parsley or sage from your garden. If you’ve got a little fat from meat drippings, drizzle it on top, and it’ll warm you through a storm.”

Katniss blinked, astonished. She had thought rice was just another grain, dull and flat like oats. But here was an entire world hidden in those sacks Rye had dragged in.

“And that’s only what we can manage here,” Mr. Mellark said, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Beyond these woods, rice is turned into dishes that sound more like feasts. There’s something called paella—from a distant country. They cook it with saffron, seafood like shrimp or prawns, musles or even lobster, chicken and vegetables. It’s bright yellow, full of flavor.”

The sheer number of ingredients made her head spin. She doesn’t even recognize half of the ingredients he listed.

“Then there are arancini,” he went on, “deep-fried rice balls stuffed with cheese, meat, or peas. Crisp outside, soft inside. Or risotto—a creamy rice dish, stirred slow with broth, butter, cheese. Sometimes mushrooms, sometimes seafood. Takes patience, but the flavor…” He exhaled, as though remembering something long past.

Katniss stared at him, dumbfounded, her mind scrambling to hold on to each description. It was dizzying, the abundance he described, and yet something in her chest ached at the thought that such things existed at all. That the world held so many ways to make a single grain into something extraordinary.

Peeta reached for her hand under the table, squeezing gently, and she realized she’d been sitting in stunned silence.

She managed a small smile, but inside her thoughts tumbled. Rice, she decided, was not dull at all.

Peeta gave them that polite, distant smile he reserved for his mother whenever she visits the bakery and he wants her gone faster. He nodded, said nothing more, and slipped inside their room, leaving her to Madge to settle onto the worn couch and Delly to collapse beside her, already giggling at some private memory.

The bakery below was spotless, ovens scrubbed clean from a long week's work, counters, wiped down and all spice jars refilled. She and Peeta had spent the remaining of the morning in bed, she watched as he sketch lazily on the backs of old order forms they scavenged from the small office downstairs. It seems the Mellarks had not thrown any single thing out for decades, the ledgers and slips had sat gathering dust, brittle with age. Where Katniss had been tempted to burn the entire heap for kindling, Peeta had looked at them as treasure. The blank backs became his canvases. Katniss had stitched the sturdier ones together with yarn, binding rough sketchbooks for him to fill. The pages too fragile to save had been consigned to the fire.

He would be seated under the wide window now, pencil in hand, that was his drawing area, his quiet place. Katniss had already left a small pitcher of warm apple cider for him, along with two jars of nuts: the sweet ones she had cooked down with sap and the roasted salted ones he liked best, insisting the contrast between them made each taste richer. She deposited the cat in the room so he would not be entirely alone, even if she was gone for an hour or two.

Still, she felt the tug of guilt leaving him alone on their one day off. But still, she had never truly had friends—never truly known how to keep them—and Madge and Delly were the closest thing she had. They rarely gathered like this. She would simply have to make it up to him later.

Katniss settled herself on the floor with her back against the couch cushions, listening as Delly launched into a story. Between laughter, Delly declared that Sage had “eaten her” in the shed, a tale told with such animated gestures that even Madge, usually so composed, could not stop herself from blushing and laughing.

Katniss’s face burned hotter than any oven downstairs. She could feel it crawling all the way up her neck and into her ears. “Delly!” she hissed in a whisper-shout, horrified.

But Delly only waved her off, unconcerned. “Oh, come on, Katniss. There are plenty of ways to have fun without getting pregnant. I know you and Peeta agreed on that, but you shouldn’t deprive yourself of the intimacy sex brings.”

Katniss’s mouth opened and closed, her voice caught somewhere between outrage and shock, when Madge—of all people—leaned in smoothly. “From the way you admired Peeta’s behind while we were walking upstairs, I’d say you’re curious enough.”

“It was a perfectly good behind,” Delly chimed without missing a beat.

Katniss swatted at her, more playfully than she intended, and all three dissolved into laughter. The sound was startling—light, bubbling, not the sharp or bitter laughter Katniss usually knew but something warmer

When the laughter ebbed, Delly leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush. “But seriously, Katniss—you cannot let Peeta’s only sexual experience be with Poppy March. That is unacceptable. You’re his wife.”

Katniss’s back went rigid before she could stop herself. Of course she knew. Peeta hadn’t kept it from her; he never wanted secrets between them. He had told her about those awkward, fumbling moments behind the gym, both of them barely fifteen, both of them left with nothing but regret. Poppy March—or whatever her name was now, married off to their old school principal of all people.

Her jaw tightened. No, she couldn’t think about Peeta like this, like he is just a piece of meat she was eyeing on the butcher shop just because her friend made her curious. She has more respect for him than that.

Later, Katniss slipped in their room. The door creaked faintly as Katniss pushed it open. She leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded, and watched her husband at work.

Peeta sat before their makeshift easel, a frame hammered together from old delivery pallets, a flour sack stretched taut across it. The paper scraps he used for sketching were never enough for the way he wanted to capture the world; canvas let him paint without fear of tearing through. And he loved it—she could tell by the way his shoulders relaxed, by the way his brush moved in steady, thoughtful strokes. He seemed more alive here than anywhere else.

The canvas shows the meadow in spring. He had started with a wash of green, but it wasn’t just green—it shifted and rippled with a dozen shades, pale near the edges where sunlight kissed the grasses, deepening to shadowed emerald where they bent against one another. Splashes of yellow dotted the field, clusters of dandelions so vivid they looked as though she could blow their seeds away with a breath. Lavender tufts of wild clover peeked between blades, and white daisies leaned toward an imagined breeze. He layered the colors delicately, feathering the edges until the flowers seemed to bloom right off the cloth.

Katniss’s chest tightened. She had brought him there a few times, when he used to walk her home after long bakery shifts, and he always lit up like the meadow itself, calling it the most beautiful place in all of District 12.

“You know,” she said softly, breaking the quiet, “there are other parts of the woods just as beautiful as the meadow.”

Peeta startled, shoulders jerking slightly, but when he turned, his eyes softened. His smile—real this time, gentle and warm—was for her alone. “You scared me.” He set his brush down, tilting his head. “How was your girls’ day?” he teased.

Her face heated at once, Delly’s outrageous words echoing in her ears. “They were… alright. Very graphic.”

Peeta’s expression twisted into a grimace, his whole body shuddering as though the memory of Delly’s voice still haunted him. “Ugh. Poor you. I know how that feels.”

Katniss let out a laugh despite her blush and moved to sit on the bed behind him. The mattress dipped under her weight, and Peeta shifted, turning to face her.

“So what about it?” she asked. “Do you want to see sights that’ll put the meadow to shame?”

He reached over and swatted her knee lightly, mock-scolding. “Stop it—you’ll hurt its feelings.”

Her snort escaped before she could stop it. “The meadow is all the way down past the merchant quarter and the Seam. I doubt it would care what I say about it.”

Peeta will smile and will look out their wide open windows closing half of it as the snow is coming down again.

Years of warnings had been carved into him—stories whispered by mothers and aunts, of what lurked in the trees, of children snatched and never seen again, of punishments that awaited anyone caught beyond the fence. The woods were no place for a boy like him, and so he had stayed away, no matter how many times she offered to take him there, no matter how gently she tried to coax him into seeing it as she did. He had carried those tales too deeply to set them down.

And yet—once—he had braved it. For her. He had stepped past the fence and into the dark, wild dogs snapping at his heels, fear sharp in his lungs. Searching, always searching, because the thought of her lost in that place was worse than every story he had ever heard. Bravery in its truest form, not the loud kind but the quiet, desperate kind, born of love strong enough to eclipse terror.

“There’s a clearing,” Katniss continued softly, “that looks like it’s blanketed in snow, even when it isn’t winter. The ground is white with blossoms.”

Peeta didn’t interrupt. His eyes locked on her face, steady and intent, as though every word she spoke was already unfurling inside him. She could almost see his mind at work, reshaping her memories into color, into form, into pictures that would one day spill from his brush as vividly as the meadow on the canvas.

“Perhaps in the spring?” he asked, his voice soft but laced with a kind of certainty that made her laugh escape before she could stop it.

“Truly?” she teased, raising a brow.

His smile widened, boyish and unguarded. “I know the woods are your escape, the same way painting is mine. I don’t want to intrude on you.”

“You’re so silly,” she said, shaking her head. “I always intrude on you when you paint.”

“That’s different,” he countered, mischief flickering in his eyes. “We live here—you really don’t have a choice.”

Her flush deepened at the look he gave her, a gaze that stripped the jest bare and left only intimacy in its place. She wasn’t one for declarations, not like him. He was the one who always spoke so openly, so achingly, while she looked away. But she didn’t look away now. Something—some boldness she didn’t recognize—rose in her chest.

“But I want you to intrude,” she said, her voice hushed but steady.

Peeta’s eyes widen then turned darker, “You’ll allow it?” he whispered.

“I’ll allow it.” She whispered back, her voice barely escaping her lips.

Peeta’s eyes shifted as he looked at her, their usual summer-sky clarity darkening, deepening—like a river just before a storm. It was a change subtle enough to miss unless you were watching closely and she was.

And before she could think better of it, she pulled him to her and kissed him.

The first brush of skin to skin jolted through her like a live wire, electric, like the hum of the fence when it was alive—or that sharp crack of lightning once, when a tree had split nearby. But this wasn’t fear, wasn’t pain. This was warmth flooding her, spreading to every corner of her body.

Peeta cupped her jaw, tilting her head so he could press deeper into her. A soft sound slipped from her throat at the shift, and he seized on it, mouth parting hers, tongue brushing lightly against her lower lip. She opened for him instinctively, and when their tongues touch her whole body shuddered at the shock of it, sweet and dizzying.

She almost whined when he pulled away, the sound catching at the back of her throat. The smoldering way her husband was looking at her made her skin prickle and her mouth go dry, as though the heat of it alone could set her aflame. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, and Peeta’s eyes dropped to her mouth. The urge to tug him back to her, to feel his weight against her once more, nearly overwhelmed her, but she held herself still, waiting.

“You’re not drunk, right?” he asked, his voice rougher than before.

Katniss blinked at him in confusion. “No… we drank apple cider.”

“Good.” His smile was fleeting, more like a breath than a curve, before his mouth captured hers again.

She sighed into him, melting, her hand sliding up to the nape of his neck, fingers curling into the soft hair there. She tugged him closer, nails scraping lightly against his scalp, and the low sound that rumbled from his throat made her shiver. In the next breath, he was pressing her back, the mattress giving beneath her until she was flat against it, his warmth and weight settling over her like something she had always been waiting for.

Katniss shot Delly a withering look, her fingers itching to shove her out the kitchen window—if only she weren’t worried about crushing the herbs she’d worked so hard to grow in the planter box outside.

And still, Delly carried on, far too comfortable in her role as “educator,” currently demonstrating with a very unfortunate carrot.

It had been a mistake—an enormous mistake—telling Delly about the kiss that happened two weeks ago, and then the more-than-kiss three days ago. And every day since.

“Are you listening, Katniss?” Delly asked brightly, carrot poised as if it were a prop in one of her elaborate, embarrassing performances.

Katniss, firmly not listening, sprinkled three tablespoons of vinegar into the pot of warm milk. She stirred with the wooden spoon, counted to sixty in her head, then frowned when the curds refused to separate, the whey still a stubborn milky white instead of the yellow-green it was meant to be. With a sigh, she added another spoonful, slower this time, and set a timer for ten minutes so it could rest undisturbed.

When she turned back, Delly was frowning at her, hands on her hips, carrot still in one hand like some ridiculous weapon.

“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Katniss muttered.

Delly clicked her tongue, shaking her head with mock disappointment. “Tsk, tsk. And here I thought Katniss Mellark would never turn out to be such a selfish lover.”

Katniss’s blush flared deeper, sharp with both embarrassment and anger. “I am not selfish,” she snapped, the words tripping over each other.

Delly only tutted again, her eyes wide and oh-so-innocent. “You’ve told me Peeta’s been eating you up nightly, but you won’t even return the favor? Poor boy, doing all that work while you just lie there.”

Katniss nearly choked. “I did not tell you anything!” she sputtered, hands flying up as though she could swat Delly’s words out of the air.

Delly only giggled, sweet as sugar, the kind of laugh that made it impossible to tell if she were teasing or genuinely scandalized. “You don’t have to say it, Katniss. You blush loud enough.”

Katniss groaned, pressing her palms to her hot face. “What if I’m not good at it? What if he doesn’t like it?”

“Oh, sweetie.” Delly chuckled, setting the carrot aside at last. “I’d bet the moment you so much as touch him, he’ll come on the spot.”

“Delly!” Katniss hissed, darting a horrified look toward the door that led to the bakery. Thankfully, it was firmly shut.

Her friend only giggled, completely unbothered. “Katniss, you’re married. This is perfectly normal. Married people do this.”

“Our marriage isn’t normal,” Katniss mumbled.

“No,” Delly agreed softly, her voice gentler now. “It might not have started like other couples. But you care for him, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Katniss whispered. “I wouldn’t have married him otherwise.”

Delly’s smile softened, losing its teasing edge. “Then you already know—Peeta waited his whole life for you. He’ll just be happy to be with you. That’s enough.”

Katniss nodded, suddenly feeling very small under the weight of it.

“You can take your time,” Delly added, giving her hand a squeeze. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“But I want to make him feel good too,” Katniss interrupted, voice barely above a murmur.

“Then you will.” Delly squeezed again, brightening. “Peeta loves you. He’ll like whatever you like. I promise, Katniss, you will like it, too.”

It turns out Delly was right. She had never felt more powerful than this moment as she watched Peeta lay sprawled against the mattress, chest rising and falling in frantic waves as though his body struggled to remember how to breathe. A faint, disbelieving smile clung to his lips, softened at the edges by exhaustion and something more primal, more undone. Katniss watched him, eyes wide, her own body sliding up against his, slick skin gliding over his with an intimacy that made her shiver.

For a heartbeat, she thought nothing could eclipse the expression he wore when he was happy—nose scrunched, dimples carved deep, laughter spilling bright and unguarded. But this… this unraveled thing, this bliss etched across his face, mouth parted and trembling as he reached the height of it, head thrown back against the pillow as though he could no longer hold himself together—this might be her new favorite.

His hands had knotted into the sheets when it overtook him, a strangled moan escaping before his body gave in completely. It was messy, uncontrolled, and so wholly him. Katniss bit her lip hard, trying to smother the grin that threatened to bloom across her face. She wanted to keep this moment tucked deep in her chest, to savor it like a secret only she was allowed to witness.

But then he opened his eyes. And in them was no shame, no lingering hesitation—only awe. Pure, staggering amazement, as though he could scarcely believe she was real, that she had done this to him.

Heat flooded her face. Her boldness, the way she had taken him into her mouth despite his weak protests, the way she had hummed around him simply because she liked the the sound it pulled from teh back of his throat, the way she had swallowed him whole without hesitation—all of it struck her at once. Had she really done that? Had she really wrung that bliss from him, reducing him to a shaking, gasping mess?

Unable to bear the weight of his gaze, she ducked her head and pressed her cheek to his chest, suddenly shy, her hair falling like a curtain. His heart thundered beneath her ear, strong and steady despite the storm she had just dragged him through.

Peeta’s hand came up gently, fingers brushing the side of her face until his palm cupped her cheek. Katniss stiffened at first, her eyes skittering away from his, heat still crawling up her neck at the thought of how wanton she had just been. But he didn’t let her retreat, he guided her chin back until she had no choice but to meet his gaze. And there it was: not ridicule, not judgment, but a smile so soft and sure it left her breathless.

“You are incredible,” he murmured, voice low and reverent. Then his lips found hers, his tongue sliding against hers in a kiss that left her clutching at him, shyness melting away. With Peeta, there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

Katniss watched with no small amount of exasperation as Peeta whooped, gathering his winnings off the battered wooden table like he’d just claimed victory at the Hunger Games. She’d known gambling went on in the Hob—everyone did—but she’d never cared for it. She’d never had the coin to risk, let alone waste.

Yet somehow her husband had managed to find himself at a table crowded with the Seam’s most notorious poker players—grizzled miners with soot-stained hands—and one very green Peacekeeper who was bemoaning loudly that he’d have nothing left to send home to his mother. The miners roared with laughter, ribbing the poor man, while trying to coax Peeta into another round. But Peeta, all charm and civility, declined with a gracious shake of his head, lifting the bottle of white liquor he’d just won as if it were a victor’s crown.

Katniss rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt, shaking her head at the ridiculous grin plastered across his face. Trust Peeta to turn even the Hob into his stage.

Still, it wasn’t all play. He’d started quietly buying tesserae from hungry children, baking bread with wild yeast from his sourdough starter, flavoring it with onion grass and chives. They’d brought the loaves to the Hob that morning, selling them cheap, and all but one had remained now. Katniss handed the last to Greasy Sae, a silent thank-you for letting her lurk at the edge of her stall without fuss. Maybe, she thought, if word spread, more Seam families might think the trek into town—and into the bakery—was worth it.

They could only manage these Saturday mornings, when Graham was on shift until late afternoon. Peeta’s oldest brother seemed to take a certain satisfaction in pushing them out of the bakery every week. Maybe it was nostalgia, reclaiming something that had been his routine for so long. Or maybe it was just another excuse to escape the witch’s nagging. Peeta had muttered more than once about her demands for another grandchild, and the thought alone made Katniss shiver. The witch’s eyes hadn’t fixed on them yet. But Katniss knew it was only a matter of time.

Peeta came striding over then, still grinning like a fool, the bottle in hand. “Pa will like this,” he declared, proud as a schoolboy. “And Mr. Cartwright too.”

Katniss arched a brow, dry as kindling. “Mrs. Cartwright won’t thank you for that.”

He only shrugged, unapologetic, and passed the bottle into her hands. With a sigh, she slipped it into her bag, tugging the strap closed—only to pause when she caught the discreet motion of Peeta slipping a small box inside as well.

Her face flamed instantly. Condoms.

Katniss hated them—the feel of a barrier, the reminder of distance even in their closest moments, did not sit right with her. But the thought of pregnancy, of the world she might bring a child into, was worse. So she tolerated it. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from zipping her bag with more force than necessary, cheeks burning as she avoided her husband’s too-pleased expression.

The Chance patriarch’s voice boomed above the noise of the Hob. “Mellark! Get over here, boy. I’ll show you how to wipe these old bastards clean. Beginner’s luck won’t carry you much longer!”

Peeta chuckled, leaned down, and pressed a quick kiss to Katniss’s head before weaving back toward the table, easy confidence in his stride.

“Beginner’s luck, my ass,” Greasy Sae muttered around her pipe. “Your boy’s been wiping the floor with them three Saturdays running.”

Katniss couldn’t help the small smile tugging at her lips. She leaned in and whispered, “Don’t tell them, but Peeta’s the best poker player in Town. He’s good at reading people.”

Sae barked out a laugh, her toothless grin wide.

Katniss didn’t know if it was true, but with the way her husband watched people—really watched—she thought it might be. And Bram’s been whining for months about losing his wages to Peeta.

They were still bent close, Sae sharing the latest gossip from the Seam in her scratchy voice, when the ground shuddered beneath them. At first it was subtle, the faint groan of timbers overhead, and then the floor lurched violently, a quake that knocked Katniss hard against the wall.

An explosion followed—deep, earthshaking. The Hob seemed to exhale all at once in a roar of chaos. Stalls collapsed in showers of splintered wood, coal dust rose in choking black clouds, and Sae’s great iron pot toppled, spilling hot stew across the ground. Beams overhead groaned and cracked like thunder.

Katniss flattened herself against the wall, heart pounding, eyes scanning for one person. She found him at once. Peeta—already moving, already dodging falling debris and panicked bodies as he barreled toward her.

“Peeta!” she shouted, just as a stack of pallets came crashing down near him, missing his shoulder by a hair. He stumbled, momentum carrying him into the Ripper’s stall, already in shambles, but he was on his feet again in an instant.

“Stay there! Don’t move!” Katniss cried, but he didn’t listen. He never listened when it came to her. Vaulting overturned carts and broken stalls, Peeta pushed through until he reached her. All she could do was throw her arms around him, clinging as the ground continued to rumble.

He didn’t waste a second. Even as she wanted nothing more than to press herself into the solid stone of the wall, Peeta was already hauling her away. “We can’t stay!” he shouted over the din, shoving through falling grit and smoke.

Instead of forcing her into the crush at the main doors, he dragged her toward a hanging window frame, half torn loose from the wall. A few carts had overturned beneath it, creating a makeshift step. In one motion, Peeta boosted her up and half-lowered her down to safety.

Katniss’s breath caught until he swung down after her, landing hard beside her. Then they were running, hand in hand, skirting the Hob until they reached open ground where no beams or debris could reach them.

Only then did she stop short, horror freezing her in place.

Down the slope, one of the mines were collapsing. The earth itself had caved in, choking clouds of black dust blooming upward, and the sound—the great grinding roar of rock and timber giving way—was the sound of lives ending.

It was like being dragged back ten years in a single heartbeat.

Katniss could see it as if no time had passed—the mouth of the mine, the endless stream of men carried out, faces blackened, bodies broken. She remembered clinging to Prim’s small hand until her knuckles turned white, standing long after others had gone home. Even after the foreman left, she and her sister had stayed, waiting for their father to be brought up. Alive. Or even dead. But he never came. One day he went down into the mine, and he never returned.

The blaring alarm snapped her back to now. It shrieked so loudly her head rang with it. She flinched, hands flying to her ears, but the noise was relentless, piercing.

And then Peeta’s arms wrapped around her. She buried her face in his chest, pressing her ear hard against him, clinging to the steady thump of his heart, desperate to drown out the mechanical wail with something human, something hers.

They stood that way for what felt like an eternity before he gently pulled back. His face was grim. “We have to help.”

Every instinct in her screamed no. She wanted to grab his hand and drag him away, back to the bakery, where he’d be safe and whole. But she knew he was right. Already, townsfolk and Seam families alike were pouring toward the mines, the divide between them vanishing in the face of disaster. In the District 12, mine collapses were the one thing that pulled everyone together.

Her hands fumbled at her bag until she found a small towel. She tied it carefully behind his head, making sure it covered his mouth and nose against the dust. Then she pulled out her own handkerchief—always kept folded in her pocket—and knotted it behind her head in turn. Without a word, they joined the rush, hand in hand, feet pounding the ground.

Before she let him go, she yanked him back to her, hugging him fiercely, almost desperately. “Promise me,” she whispered against his shoulder, her voice raw, “promise you won’t go inside. Let the miners who know the shafts do that. Just stay here with me—we can help haul the survivors out.”

Peeta’s blue eyes met hers. He nodded once, firm.

Then he was gone, moving to help a miner half-carry, half-drag a man whose legs barely held beneath him. Katniss darted to their side, guiding them toward a space a peacekeeper had cleared, a patch of ground quickly filling with the wounded.

She wasn’t her mother. She wasn’t even close. But she had learned enough over the years—splinting broken bones, binding cuts, cleaning wounds with quick, steady hands. She forced herself to keep moving, to focus on the work, even when bile rose hot and bitter in her throat, threatening to choke her.

She wasn’t alone. Other women worked beside her, sleeves rolled, eyes set. Every so often, Katniss’s gaze flicked up, searching, finding Peeta at the entrance. Relief washed through her each time—he was hauling men out, moving debris, carrying stretchers, but he was keeping his promise. He didn’t vanish into the black mouth of the mine.

Hours blurred. Her mother appeared, calm and commanding as she bent over the most injured men, her hands quick and sure in ways Katniss knew she’d never master. Katniss caught a glimpse of Mr. March and Sage moving through the chaos, lending strong backs where they could. Rye appeared at her side, pressing a cup of water into her hands, then tugging Peeta down onto a crate to make him rest, if only for a few minutes. Graham stood off with the foreman, voices low but faces grave.

It felt endless, like time itself had slowed, trapping them all in dust and firelight, in the cries of the wounded and the steady labor of saving as many as they could.

Peeta set the stretcher down in front of her, and Katniss recoiled.

The man’s left leg was a ruin—bone jutting out in pale splinters, skin torn open, blood gushing in steady, horrifying spurts. The sight made bile burn her throat. She wanted to bolt, to tear away from the carnage. Her feet twitched toward escape.

But the man moaned, low and broken, and she couldn’t move. Peeta’s eyes found hers, helpless, desperate, like he was silently asking her to do something, anything. Her heart cracked at the look. She had to try—had to give them both a sliver of hope.

“Take his belt,” she ordered, forcing her voice steady.

Peeta didn’t hesitate, tugging it free with swift fingers. Katniss slipped it just above the mangled knee, pulling tight until the leather bit into flesh. She exhaled sharply as the blood slowed, pooling dark instead of spraying. A reprieve, but only for a moment.

“Get the mining doctor,” she told Peeta, ready to hand him the man and step back then she saw the face.

Her breath hitched. Her hand jerked away as though burned. No. Not Gale. Please, not Gale—

But when she scrubbed at the boy’s face, smearing coal dust and sweat and blood with the edge of her sleeve, the truth seared through her.

“Oh, Panem,” she whispered, voice breaking. “Rory!”

Her cry tore through the din, frantic, and within seconds her mother was there. For a heartbeat, Katniss saw her mother’s stricken expression, the grief of recognition—but then it vanished, replaced with that healer’s mask of focus and precision.

The rest blurred. She remembered Rye and Peeta helping to lift the stretcher, remembered herself clutching Rory’s hand as they carried him through the dark streets toward Victor’s Village. Her grip never loosened, not even as Rory cried out at each jolt, every step driving fresh agony into his body.

At Gale’s house, they laid him on the gleaming wooden dining table. It looked obscene, that rich polish beneath so much blood. Rory screamed now, high and ragged, his body writhing despite their efforts to hold him still. Katniss wanted to stay, to keep his hand in hers, to lend him what little comfort she could. But then her mother’s voice cut through the air—calm, steady, horrifying.

“Boil a saw.”

Katniss bolted.

She didn’t go far, only out the door, her back hitting the wall with a dull thud before she slid to the ground. Her knees drew up, her arms wrapping tight around them. But she couldn’t block it out. Rory’s cries reached her still, raw and awful, each one cutting deeper than the last.

Rory, the boy who had begged her to teach him how to use a bow. The boy who had been closest to Prim, who had followed her to the meadow, indulged her flower-picking, helped her mend birds’ wings with gentle hands. Sweet, stubborn Rory, now writhing in agony behind that door.

Someone sat beside her. She turned her head just enough to see Gale, his face drawn, his eyes bloodshot, staring at the far wall like he couldn’t bear to look at the doorway.

Her throat burned, but she forced the question out, bitter, accusing. “Why was Rory in the mines?”

Gale’s jaw worked before he answered, voice hollow. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to have anything to do with a Victor.”

The words stung, unfair and heavy. She wanted to protest, to shout that she had pulled away not because he was a Victor but because he had broken her trust again and again after his return. But her body was too heavy, her spirit too wrung out. She had no strength left for Gale, not tonight.

So she just sat there, listening to Rory’s screams and trying to keep herself from breaking apart.

Gale winced every time Rory screamed. Each ragged cry seemed to cut into him as if it were his own flesh being torn. His shoulders shook, and Katniss could hear the tremor of breath he tried to hold back. When Rory’s pleading—“please, just let me die”—spilled through the walls, she looked at Gale from the corner of her eye.

She wanted to tell him it would be fine, wanted to gather him in her arms like she used to when they were younger, whisper again and again that Rory would survive this. Instead, she reached for his hand.

He gripped her so tightly her fingers went numb, but she let him. Even with all that had fractured between them, Gale was still the boy who had taught her how to set snares so she could feed her family. The one who guarded her back in the woods. The one who taught her how to haggle with hard-faced traders in the Hob.

And he was the boy who had become a father to his siblings when he was still only a boy himself. Fourteen years old, carrying the burden of mouths to feed, of keeping them from tesserae and starvation. Katniss knew his struggle more than anyone because that was hers too. She knew how fiercely protective he was of his family. For him to allow Rory into the mines—there had to have been a reason. Gale would have tied his brother to a chair before letting him walk into the place where they lost their father. She didn’t understand what went wrong between them.

And what she regretted most about her falling out with Gale was that she had lost the Hawthornes too. She hadn’t even known Rory was working the mines until today.

“Katniss?”

Her name cut through her thoughts. She lifted her head and saw Peeta standing in the hall. He looked exhausted—face streaked with soot, hands stained with blood.

Slowly, she stood, Gale’s hand slipping from hers to the floor. Gale didn’t protest. He only looked more tired, more worn.

She crossed to Peeta. He said quietly, “I need to get more boiling water.”

She swallowed, glancing back at the door where Rory’s screams still rang out. “Are they…?”

“Yes.” Peeta’s eyes met hers. “There’s no way to save the leg.”

Her eyes fell shut, anguish pulling heavy on her chest. Missing limbs weren’t uncommon in District 12. The mines took them as easily as they took lives. But Rory—he was so young.

“Oh, Panem,” she whispered.

Peeta’s voice was steady, though his eyes were heavy. “The important thing is, he’s still alive.”

She nodded, clinging to his words, and walked with him toward the kitchen. The room gleamed in a way that made her uneasy. She didn’t understand why a house needed both a dining room and a kitchen. It felt wasteful, tedious, to carry every dish from one room to another.

Together, they filled two large pots with water and set them to boil. The simple, domestic act felt jarring against the backdrop of screams and saws.

While they waited, she caught sight of the coal dust smeared through Peeta’s hair, across his cheeks and jaw. Without a word, she drew him to the sink. He leaned over as she worked the dish soap into his blond curls, grimacing at the strange slickness of it.

Katniss grimaced, making sure to rinse his hair carefully. “It’ll be a pain to comb your hair later,” she muttered.

Peeta chuckled, low and easy, and tilted his face toward her. “I can just cut it.”

She swatted his arm at once, sharp and certain. “Don’t you dare. The only time you cut it is in the summer. I’m not ready for these curls to disappear yet.”

He only grinned, and she disappeared into the cupboards until she found a clean towel, shaking it out like a flag of surrender. She pulled him down onto the stool by the radiotor, rubbing at his curls, rubbing harder than she had to—maybe because she wanted to chase away every trace of coal dust clinging to him.

When he straightened again, hands scrubbed pink at the basin, forearms bare and damp, she looked at him and felt it rising in her throat before she could stop it. “I hate it,” she said.

He turned, brows lifting. “The dish soap?”

She shook her head, clutching the towel tighter. “You. Covered in coal dust.” The words were small, almost bitter. “It’s unnatural.”

He should be dusted with flour not soot. His hands should be patched with icing colors, streaked with paint not… blackened like this. Her eyes darkened as she dragged her eyes over him—the dark smudges in the curve of his neck, the faint gray under his nails, even after he’d scrubbed. “This isn’t who you are.”

She pressed the towel once more into his curls, almost violently, as if she could rub the coal away, as if she could wipe off the whole world and keep him only as she remembered him: warm, sweet-smelling, always dusted in sugar.

Peeta squeezed the towel from his curls, giving her that steady look of his, the one that seemed to hold back all storms. “We’ll take a bath later,” he murmured. “It’ll be okay.”

She could only nod, though something lodged sharp in her throat, cutting off anything she might have tried to say. Her hands shook faintly as she scrubbed her own face, her arms, her palms—anything to wash away the coal smears clinging to her skin. When the pots began to rumble, she carried one with him to the door, but stopped there, unwilling to cross into the room she knew would stink of blood and worse. Katniss couldn’t follow him in—not with her knees weak at just the thought of what her mother was about to do.

There is only her mother and Hazelle there with him, Rye and the other miners had left hours ago. Rye had wanted them to go back to Town with him, muttering that Peeta shouldn’t linger in Victor’s Village, not when one of its victors would sooner spit on him than thank him. But Peeta, stubborn and kind to the marrow, had stayed.

Inside, Rory’s cry tore through the walls, raw and agonized. Her mother’s firm, controlled voice followed—“Hold him down.”

Katniss flinched and stumbled back, Gale already pushing past her. Together, without a word, they spilled out the back door, away from the corridor and its choking sounds. On the porch, Katniss gasped, the cool night air burning down her throat. She collapsed onto the steps, lungs straining as though she had run miles. Gale sank beside her, his fingers tangled hard in his dark hair, his shoulders shaking.

No matter how bitter the gulf between them had grown, her chest ached to see him like this. Gale had been her lifeline once—her only friend in those years of hunger and grief after her father’s death, the boy she trusted to have her back in the woods. Seeing him hollowed by fear twisted her stomach cruelly.

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice low, almost pleading. “You know my mother’s done this a dozen times. She’s saved the lives of a dozen miners—maybe not their limbs, but their lives.” She swallowed against the lump rising again, trying to believe her own words. “Rory will be okay.”

They sat in silence for a long while, the stillness broken only by the distant muffled sounds from inside the house. Katniss forced herself to breathe evenly, though her lungs still felt tight. The back of Hawthorne's house was nothing more than an overgrown patch of weeds and thorn, no tidy rows of beans or carrots, no baskets of drying herbs. She remembered Hazelle once saying she had always wanted a vegetable garden, but the Seam houses pressed too close together. And now—well, with the victor’s winnings, she no longer needed to coax food out of the dirt. She could buy whatever she pleased in town, even order from the Capitol if she wanted.

Katniss startled slightly when she felt Gale’s hand slide into hers. For a heartbeat she nearly pulled away, but then she stilled and let her fingers remain where they were. She gripped his hand, lending him the strength he had once given her, so many years ago when the world felt unbearably empty.

“I miss you,” Gale whispered. The words were so faint she almost doubted she had heard them.

A sigh shuddered out of her, and she gave his hand a squeeze. “I miss you too.” It was true, she missed having a hunting partner, missed being able to bring down a buck without worrying who would help her drag it home. She missed the freedom of focusing solely on the track of her preys, not half her mind consumed by danger of a bigger predator.

Gale’s jaw tightened. “I don’t understand why you chose the baker’s boy instead of me. We’ve known each other forever.”

Her eyes slid away, to the patch of weeds. “I knew Peeta even before I met you in the woods,” she said quietly.

His head jerked, startled, as if he wanted to demand more, but she offered nothing else. Those memories—the bread, his kindness—were hers and Peeta’s alone. She would not share them, not even with Gale.

He sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “All I wanted was to take care of you, Katniss. But you wouldn’t let me.”

She pulled her hand free and glared. “I can take care of myself.”

His frustration broke through, sharp. “Then why is it you spurn me, but you let him take care of you?”

“Because Peeta doesn’t expect anything in return,” she shot back without hesitation.

A humorless chuckle escaped him. “Funny, coming from you—when you ended up marrying him. Guess he did expect something, in the end.”

Katniss rose sharply to her feet, bristling at the ugly implication. “I asked him to marry me,” she snapped. “Because I trust him. Something I couldn’t do with you, Gale. Not for years now.”

His face twisted, anger searing through the pain. She didn’t wait for his retort. Her feet carried her back into the house, where thankfully the sounds of sawing had stopped. She found Peeta just stepping into the kitchen, arms full of kindling for the stove.

“We need to get back home before curfew,” she said at once.

He frowned. “Katniss, they need help in there. I should—”

“Gale!” she shouted over her shoulder, her voice sharper than she intended. “Make yourself useful and boil some water!”

Before Peeta could protest further, she seized his arm, tugging him out of the kitchen, away from the smell of blood and strange walls that weren’t theirs, and back into the safety and warmth of the bakery.

By the time they slipped back into their own home, curfew pressing close, Katniss was running on frayed nerves. She busied herself at once, heating water and drawing a bath for Peeta while he sat at the table speaking in low tones to his father. She caught only bits—words like bone, infection, and Hazelle—but she didn’t linger. The quicker the water was ready, the quicker she could scrub the soot and blood from him.

When the steam curled thick and the tub was half-full, she slipped in after him. Peeta’s eyes widened, clearly surprised, but his hands moved to her hips in an instant, pulling her flush against him. She tried to ignore the unmistakable hardness pressed between them and busied her hands instead, lathering the lavender soap she had made herself. Dish soap, sharp and wrong-smelling, would never touch him again if she could help it.

She worked the suds through his curls, determined, though her concentration faltered when his hands began tracing up and down her back. His fingers grazed just enough at the side of her breast to make her shiver. She gave him a sharp glare, but he only smiled at her with a mischievous warmth that set her parched all over again.

Nearly a year ago, she had married Peeta with the firm conviction it would be marriage in name only. If that stubborn, frightened girl could see her now—bold and wanton in her husband’s lap—she might have strangled her on the spot. But Katniss knew she wouldn’t trade this for anything.

“You two looked like you were talking earlier,” Peeta said after a stretch of quiet, voice careful beneath the suds. “What happened with Gale? I thought maybe you were mending things.”

Katniss snorted, tilting his head back a little to rinse. “Gale was being Gale. As usual.”

Peeta tugged her closer with a sudden pull that made her yelp softly. His blue eyes softened as he murmured, “I know you miss him. I’m really sorry, Katniss.”

Her expression eased into a sad smile. “It is what it is.” She sighed, fingers absently stilling in his curls. “I do miss my friend. But I don’t miss the rants—about the Capitol, about merchants, about anyone who might have had it easier than us. He could drain the little joy I had before.”

Peeta’s thumb brushed her side gently. “Sounds exhausting.”

“It was,” she admitted with a nod. “I hate the way we live too. But complaining about it all the time doesn’t change anything.”

She finished rinsing his hair, the curls dark and heavy with water, then shifted in the tub so her back pressed against his chest. The heat of him seeped into her bones, steadying her. Peeta’s large hands came up to work the soap gently through her hair, his touch so careful, so reverent, she wanted to weep.

She still could not understand him—Peeta Mellark, whose hands dwarfed her own, hands that could pound sticky dough until it yielded, hands that could pin any man in town with only a flick of his wrist. How could those same hands touch her as though she were something fragile, as though he might bruise her simply by holding too tightly? He was a contradiction she had never managed to unravel.

In a place like theirs, where cruelty was the water they all swam in, how did he remain kind? How did he find the strength to be gentle when his childhood had been filled with heavy hands and sharp, cruel words from his mother? Where she had once believed that hardship shaped them all into steel and stone, Peeta seemed instead to have chosen warmth. That peace he carried—it was something she longed for herself, something she reached for in him again and again.

She leaned her head back against him as he finished rinsing the suds from her hair, marveling at the broad, warm expanse of his chest pressed against her spine. For a moment she simply breathed, listening to the steady beat of his heart behind her. A sigh slipped from her lips when his calloused palm cupped her breast, the touch both anchoring and electric. His mouth found the curve of her neck, slow and unhurried, each kiss coaxing her away from the memories of coal dust, blood, and cries of pain.

She let him. For the first time all day, she let herself surrender, let him make her forget the harrowing weight of what they had witnessed, if only for a little while.

Katniss froze at the sound of fabric tearing, then the sharp slam of the bathroom door. She stepped out of their room, almost colliding with Peeta as he stormed past, his movements so unlike the calm steadiness she had come to rely on. She leaned against the doorframe, watching in faint amusement as he rummaged through the basket of used clothes with a desperation that bordered on violence, shirts and trousers flying as though they had wronged him.

It was so rare to see him like this—hurried, irritated, just a little out of control—that she nearly laughed. It reminded her that he wasn’t perfect, that he too could lose his footing. And strangely, it made her happy. It made her feel less incompetent beside him, less like she was always chasing after the steady warmth he carried so effortlessly.

But that flicker of satisfaction vanished the moment Peeta sank heavily onto their bed, shoulders slumping, his hands hanging limp between his knees. The fight had gone out of him, leaving only defeat.

She placed the wooden hairbrush she’d been holding onto the dresser and turned fully toward him. “What’s wrong?”

Peeta sighed, looking up at her with helpless eyes. Instinctively, she crossed the room and took his hands into hers. His palms were rough, restless against her fingers, as he admitted quietly, “I can’t find our wedding ring. I had it pinned on my shirt like I always do… but it’s gone. I must have lost it in the mines.”

“Oh,” was all she could manage at first.

He looked at her with such sorrow that her chest tightened. For a baker, rings were impractical, unhygienic even—so he always pinned it to his shirt near his heart. Still, the thought of it being lost cut him deeply.

She let go of his hands, opened the small wooden box on the dresser—the one where she kept her most precious pieces of herself. Nestled beside Prim’s blue ribbon lay Peeta’s larger ring, kept safe without him knowing. She lifted it out and pressed it into his palm.

His eyes widened as he took it, then he leaned forward to kiss her once, twice, three times, relief spilling out of him. “I thought I lost it,” he whispered, clutching it tightly. “I couldn’t have forgiven myself. My father said it’s been in the family since before the Dark Days.”

Katniss curled her own hand into a fist, thumb brushing over the band that circled her finger, as if to make certain it was still there. It had taken her days to grow used to it—her shots had been off, arrows veering by a few inches until she had nearly cursed the thing and left it behind at home. But then she had remembered the look on Peeta’s face when he slipped it onto her finger, the quiet awe in his eyes, and she hadn’t had the heart to let it go.

"I took it from your shirt to keep it safe, I'm sorry i forgot to tell you." Turning back to the box, she reached for a small drawstring pouch. Inside was a thin gold chain, simple and delicate. She drew it out and held it between her fingers. “Give me the ring,” she said softly.

Peeta passed it over without protest, still watching her with that wide-eyed trust. She threaded the ring onto the necklace, then looped it around his neck, fastening it carefully at the back. The ring rested against his chest, where he had always meant for it to be.

“There,” she murmured, smoothing the chain against his skin before stepping back to look at him. Katniss’s fingers lingered on the chain, toying with it where it lay against his chest. “This was my father’s,” she murmured, almost to herself. “And his father before him… and his father before that.”

Peeta’s eyes widened. He lifted his hand as if to touch it, then stopped, startled. “Katniss—no. I can’t take this.”

She only shook her head, sliding easily onto his lap, sideways, until her knees pressed against his thigh. Wrapping her arms firmly around him, she rested her cheek on his shoulder. “It’s just gathering dust in my box. You should use it.”

He looked down at her, half protest, half wonder, but she went on. 

“My mother gave it to me when I was fifteen. It used to have a pendant of a man nailed on a cross. She said they used it to punish criminal before.”

Peeta let out a quiet chuckle, disbelieving. “Really? The Everdeens kept an image of a criminal as an heirloom?”

Katniss giggled, soft and unguarded. “I guess being a rebel runs in the Everdeen blood.” Then, just as quickly, her expression sobered. “But it was creepy. I sold the pendant at the Hob the first chance I got. Fed Prim for a month. If I’d known we had it when I was eleven…” She broke off, shaking her head, regret flickering through her eyes.

Peeta touched her hand gently. “Your mother must not have wanted to part with it.”

Katniss snorted. “Probably. And we almost died for it, if it weren’t for you.”

His expression grew serious. “You have to let go of your anger towards her someday, Katniss. I don’t want this—” He laid his hand firmly over her heart. “—festering in here.”

Her throat tightened. She nodded, her voice low. “I know. Maybe someday.”

“Take all the time you need,” he said simply, leaning forward to press a kiss against her forehead.

She smiled faintly at that, the kind of smile that came from deep inside. “My father would have loved you,” she whispered, as though confessing a secret.

Peeta’s eyes went wide. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

And just like that, his whole face lit up. His smile was blinding, so radiant it seemed to eclipse the lamplight in the room, as though she had given him the greatest compliment in the world.