Chapter 97

Katniss

"All those arrows you threw, you threw them away. You kept falling in love, then one day, When you fell, you fell towards me. When you crashed in the clouds, you found me." -Barcelona

"Are you sure you're okay?" Peeta asks after breakfast."Peeta, I'm fine." "You would tell me if you weren't, right?" He says."Yes, Peeta. You know I would." I reply.

After we sent Willow to school earlier, Peeta shut the door behind him and turned to me."Are you okay?" He asked.I looked up at him from where I sat at the table, focused on my breakfast that was getting cold."You heard me last night." I said, half asking, half already knowing that he did.He nodded.

"Well, it's okay. I'm fine." I said. He was quiet for a while, but he kept bringing it up.

So here we are, still sitting in the same spot... him trying to get me to tell him about it, me telling him that he heard everything I said and that's all there was.

Suddenly he changes the subject."I... I don't mean to scare you, Katniss, but I'm not feeling like myself today." He says without looking up.I sit up straighter in my chair, alarmed."What do you mean?" "You know what I mean." He says.

I get up and move to a chair closer to him."You mean like last time?" I ask.He nods.

Last time was about 3 or 4 years ago. Peeta woke up fine, he told me no nightmares, but when I was upstairs putting Willow down for a nap, he called me downstairs. I found him standing in the kitchen, breathing harder than usual.

"Peeta?" I asked, my concern heightening when he looked over at me."Peeta, what's happening?" I asked him."I... Don't know." He said between breaths."Are you okay? Peeta, stop breathing like that! You'll only make it worse." I told him. But he didn't stop.

Instead, his knees buckled. Lucky enough, I was there to help him. He's built much bigger and weighs more than I do, but somehow I caught him. I had to. I didn't even think about it. I just did whatever I could to soften his fall and ended up getting my leg stuck beneath his body, but I didn't care.I only cared about Peeta.

"Peeta!" I said.His breaths were getting more rapid. His eyes were filled with tears and he kept shutting them.I put my hand on his shoulder and he smacked it away.That's when I knew this was serious.Again, I didn't think about what I was doing, I just grabbed his hands in both of mine and held them. He tried to wrench them away from me over and over again.

"Stop fighting it, Peeta," I said to him soothingly. "Fighting it won't help you. You just need to let it happen. It's going to be awful, Peeta, but it's not real. I've got you. I'm right here, Peeta. Stop resisting it. Just let it happen, and then it will be over. I'll be here the whole time. Just like this. It's not real, Peeta. It's not real. Remember that for me."

After that, he went unconscious. I didn't know what was going on. I felt a scream threatening to erupt from my body, but I thought of my sleeping  2-year-old upstairs. Crying and keeping my eyes locked on my husband on the kitchen floor, I grabbed for the phone. My fingers fumbled as I tried to dial Haymitch's house.

I heard ringing. Haymitch, answer. Answer it. Please.No such luck. I dialed again and again. Still no answer.The 6th time I called, he picked up. "What the hell do you want, girl? Calling me over and over again... This better be good."

"It's Peeta. I need your help. Please, Haymitch, you need to get here now. I don't know what to do! Please help me. Please help me!" I said over and over."Katniss, slow down!" He said. "Tell me what's happening." "Please just get here!" I said, crying.

Soon enough, he bursted through the door. I pointed in the general direction of Peeta and he went to him.He knelt down next to Peeta and told me to go get Annie and tell her to watch Willow and bring her to the hospital after we know what's going on with Peeta.

When Peeta was in the hospital, I sat in the chair across the room from where Peeta was laying in the bed, hooked up to monitors. He still hadn't woken up, and so I sat crying and holding my daughter close to me. She didn't understand what had happened, so she sat there with me, confused as to why I was so upset.

After an hour of that, he finally woke up. I sent Willow with Haymitch and laid in bed with Peeta until he could get me to stop crying. It took longer than it should have, but it was only because I loved him.

He hugged me tight and I spilled out incoherent pieces of information that only Peeta could understand; stuff about sunsets and dandelions and bags of cookies being tossed out train windows, stuff about seeing people at midnight and arena beaches and bread in the rain. If it wasn't Peeta I had been talking to, they would have gotten me a psych consult as soon as possible.

He just held me and said, "I know," every time I damned him for scaring me so badly.

But it never happened again. He got put on medicine and then, after a while, it all stopped. They said he was well enough to come off of it and he did. I was so angry, so jealous, so worried about him not taking it. I remember telling him how I wish I could be like him, just able to go off his medicine after a couple of months. Because here I am, almost 11 years on some of mine.

--

"Peeta, how are you feeling?" I ask for the 100th time this hour. "I told you I didn't want to scare you," Peeta says. "Because I didn't want you to do this."

I sigh."I'm just worried." I say."Don't be." He says, coming over to kiss my cheek.

It doesn't help.

--

Peeta sleeps peacefully in the chair in the living room. I sit at the kitchen table, watching him like a hawk in case anything happens. I find myself preparing for something to happen, then telling myself I'm being silly and presumptuous. But I can't stop running scenarios through my head and what I would do in each case.

Then my mind wanders to Willow. And my baby. How horrible it will be for them when they're older and have to understand what's happened to their parents. How horrible it is that they're going to have to worry about us. How horrible it is that the two of them will have to grow up with broken parents. We're trying our best for Willow and the one on the way, but what happens when our best parts are overtaken by our worst?

I snap out of it when the clock on the wall lets out a chime, signaling that it's 11 o'clock. Peeta's mid-morning nap is no coincidence. Sometimes the easiest thing to do on hard days is sleep, and even then, it's risky.

I think of calling Johanna or Annie to come to our house for "lunch", just in case something happens. That way, if something happens, I won't be alone. After a moment, I decide that doing that wouldn't be right. The implied distrust of Peeta's judgement, the idea that I can't handle my own husband... It's all wrong. I won't be doing that.

I get up from where I sit to go check on Peeta across the room. I plant a light kiss on his forehead, but he doesn't wake. That's okay, though, because I wasn't aiming to rouse him. The only humane thing to let him do is sleep. I, of all people, understand.

The house is incredibly quiet without the patter of Willow's footsteps and the sound of Peeta's voice. I feel as if any movement or noise will wake the sleeping spirits. I try to slide in my socks instead of stepping, and I make my way into the study. The room makes me sick to this day for a multitude of reasons, some more eerie than others.

Recently, I've been catching the sickening scent of President Snow's old roses around the study. I hold my breath as I walk in and I leave the door open behind me, just in case. In case of what, I don't know. But, just in case.

After a couple of seconds of examining the study, I let out the breath I was holding and walk around. I look at the chair of the desk in the center of the room and feel a wave of nausea come across me as I think back to that cold, wintery day Snow came to visit me after my first Games. I was still only 16. Twelve years ago.

He's not here anymore, Katniss, I tell myself over and over again. I take a deep breath and turn away from the desk, looking toward the picture Peeta painted of my sister. I try to find comfort in it. Prim's in this room. Nothing bad can be in here.

I blow out a breath slowly and keep walking. I examine the book case and my eyes fall on the book of the dead. I pull it out and run my fingers on the cover. I feel as if my breath is knocked out of my lungs as I begin to flip through it.

It begins with my father. The first person in my life who ever died. And then Gale's father. But then it moves on to our first Hunger GamesGlimmerMarvelCloveCatoThe girl and boy from 3The girl and boy from 4Foxface and the boy from 5Both tributes from 6 and from 7 and 8 and 9 and 10RueThresh

It goes on and on through the next games and then through the war. I skip Finnick and Prim's pages. I hope they'd understand why.

When I set it back down, I pull out the plant book. I spend nearly a half hour examining it and quizzing myself on plants I already know forwards and backwards. It's not until I go to put the two books back onto the shelf that I notice something out of place.

For once, the sight of it precedes the revolting smell. A white rose is back in the area behind where these two books are kept.I cover my hand with my sleeve and pick it up. I feel a scream starting in my chest... Because the one spectacular thing about this rose is the fact that it's alive.

Eleven years of sitting behind these books has caused it to flourish, not wither... Unless it wasn't placed there eleven years ago. I drop the rose onto the floor and put on a pair of shoes I left in the study a couple of days ago.

I crush the rose under my foot, grinding the stem and petals into the wooden floor. I cover my nose and mouth with my arm and try not to breathe in its stench. Tears form in my eyes as I carry it outside and far away from the house. I think of my husband inside of my house and my daughter at school and pray that Snow's continual loyalists can't touch my family.

I run into my house then to check on Peeta. Just in case, I tell myself.He's still there, sleeping peacefully in the chair. I'm reminded of how much I hate his bad days, even more than mine, for selfish reasons and for selfless reasons.

In a few minutes, I get up to make lunch. I think I'll wake him then. I almost never cook, so this should be interesting. I feel a little ashamed of myself when I start thinking that if I started something on fire, the first thing I'd do is go get that rose from outside and watch it burn.

I haven't the slightest idea what to make for us. Sometimes Peeta makes sandwiches, but we don't have any bread. He was supposed to go into the bakery today and then bring some home afterwards. It feels wrong for me to wake him to ask him to make some, so I decide I'll just make something else.

After looking through the fridge and finding an abundance of vegetables, I make up my mind on the idea of a salad. It's January, so most vegetables aren't in season, and the ones that are spoil quickly. I pull out the lettuce and the tomatoes and other ingredients and grab a kitchen knife to start chopping.

I check the fridge for dressing and pull some out. We have some leftover chicken from a previous dinner, so I pull that out too. I let my mind wander again, back to times where I didn't have a refrigerator full of food every day. I didn't even have a refrigerator to begin with. At least, not until I won my first Games.

I try to start focusing more on what I'm actually doing, especially while I'm chopping vegetables. I start with the lettuce and then go to the tomatoes, and then I'll continue with the cucumber and the small amount of peppers we still have.

As I'm chopping, I think I hear Peeta wake up. "Hey, Peeta, I'm just making some lunch. Is salad okay? You know I can't cook much else without your help." I call out, trying to sound extra nice and sincere since he's having such a bad day. Today I'm trying not to use my perfected art of sarcasm and mildly cruel humor around him.

When there's no response, I figure he's just gone back to sleep. A minute later, though, I hear quiet footsteps walking through the kitchen."Peeta, it's fine. Go sit down at the table or wherever. It's almost ready. I don't need help. It's just salad." I say.

Still no response. Weird.

Then I feel a strong hand from behind me clamp around the front of my neck. I drop the knife and it clamors to the floor. "Peeta?!"

*** Okay, honestly I have no clue what even happened in this chapter. It's just a weird mish-mosh of Katniss thinking about things and Peeta struggling??? No idea. Sorry if it's really boring and all over the place.

In other news, I know you may not want to hear it but... I'm going to be stopping this fic sometime soon. YES, it will have a definitive ending and you will get closure to most things, but it's going to be pretty soon. Most likely within 10 chapters or something.

I already am starting new ideas for another fic I'm going to be doing after I complete this one. Yes, it's going to be Everlark, most likely centered on the "growing back together" part that's briefly mentioned in Mockingjay. Soon I'll be putting out the request for a cover, so if any of you can help me find a good cover maker, that would be awesome! Thank you guys! Enjoy!

-Aly ***