A/N: Written for the Everlark Fic Exchange using Prompt 29: Post-MJ, Growing Together. Peeta is finally showing his affection and love for Katniss as they heal and reconnect. Katniss, being Katniss, seems to act like she doesn't appreciate this, and is less than enthused. Peeta, taking this like an adult, stops showing her with the affection and tries to show her his love in other ways. Katniss, however, does not appreciate him stopping those things and set out to try and get him to continue it again because she misses it. [submitted by albinokittens300 on Tumblr]

Warnings: past canonical character death, alcoholism, dead animals, references to past events in the books.

Word count: 2,948

Katniss threw her empty game bag over one shoulder, followed quickly by her sheath of arrows. Each step of the familiar routine helped her feel a deeper sense of ease, but she didn't really feel like herself until her bow was in her hands. She gripped it tightly as she left the house.

She meant to make a beeline for the woods. With the fence around District 12 now little more than a suggestion, she could enter the woods from a spot right outside her front door, but the flowers in her front garden made her pause, just as they had every morning since they were planted.

They were thriving despite Katniss not touching them since Peeta had planted them. She'd caught him tending to them a few times, but he did most of it discreetly while she was in the woods or selling her catches in town.

The way Peeta appeared to be ignoring her made her uneasy. Not that she could blame him for it.

She understood because she didn't have a clue how to act around him either. Everything was different, not even talking to Greasy Sae was the same as before the war. Returning to normalcy would have felt even weirder than the state they were in, but Katniss wished she knew how to better bridge the gap she still felt between her and Peeta.

Glancing at his house, she noticed lights in the kitchen that indicated he was awake.

With a sigh, she turned away from him and from the flowers and headed into the woods.

The last thing she expected when she returned home was Peeta sitting on her porch with a plate of cheese buns in his hands.

He'd been tending to the flowers he'd planted for months, yet she hadn't needed to face him directly in nearly as long.

There was a moment when she hesitated. Her bag was packed with several rabbits. She'd been planning to keep them to herself, but upon getting a glance of Peeta, she started formulating a new plan to take them into town and sell them before he caught sight of her.

Her indecision lasted long enough that Peeta happened to glance in her direction, his senses better honed after two games and a war. He offered her a smile and a short wave.

Katniss did her best to return it, but she could feel the embarrassment twisting her features into something more like a grimace. Peeta's smile fell with his hand.

She couldn't run, but she approached him with the same caution she used when she stalked deer. Peeta looked more nervous than the deer often did.

"What are you doing here?" Katniss snapped, her voice coming out hostile out of her fear.

She hated that Peeta had that effect on her. He wasn't anything like Snow or the gamemakers or anyone Katniss felt justified being frightened of, yet he made her tense up every time she was around him. It had only gotten worse since the war ended. And Katniss knew it wasn't because of the Hijacking.

Peeta held up the plate of cheese buns. Plastic was wrapped over the surface to keep them fresh, but their smell still wafted towards Katniss and warmed her.

"I wanted to bring you these," Peeta said.

Katniss stared at the bread, trying to ignore the way her mouth had begun to water.

He had baked for her family between the games, but he had almost always presented the bread to Prim or her mother. Katniss has mostly been able to pretend it was for them, not her. She couldn't do that anymore.

They both had the same income, so she knew this wasn't some gesture of sympathy. She wasn't the starving girl he'd once tossed burnt bread to. That would have been far easier to accept.

She slid her game bag off her shoulder and pulled out one of the rabbits she'd killed. With the new laws, she hadn't bothered to skin it in the forest, and its dead eyes stared back at Peeta as she held it up.

"Take this," she said, holding it out to him.

Peeta eyed the rabbit with uncertainty.

"Katniss," he said slowly, "I really don't want—"

"If I take the cheese buns, you should take the rabbit.

Peeta sighed and sat the plate of bread on a small table on the porch, one that hadn't been sat in since her mother and Prim had fled during the bombing.

"The bread's supposed to be a gift, Katniss. I didn't want it to feel like a transaction."

Katniss' hand that held the rabbit fell to her side. Was that what she had been doing?

She stared at the bread, which was much easier than looking at Peeta.

"Okay," she said, further words failing her.

Her mind raced as she tried to work out what the appropriate next move was. It seemed polite to invite Peeta in and ask him to share the bread with her, but the idea was so terrifying that it kept her frozen in place instead.

She took too long to do anything.

Peeta ran a hand over his face and brushed past her to leave, her heart racing at his momentary proximity.

Katniss squeezes her eyes shut, keeping her back to him as he hurried back home. She was left with nothing more than the cheese buns and a plate that she'd have to return.

In the months that followed, various baked goods showed up on Katniss' porch while she was hunting. Half the time it was cheese buns; the other half of the time it was something else. But Peeta was never with them when Katniss returned.

Each time, Katniss returned the platter to Peeta's doorstep in the early morning when she set out for the woods. She didn't knock. Instead, she scurried away, frightened he might open the door before she escaped, though he never did.

Sometimes, she left things for him along with the dishes: wild strawberries like this family had always bought, rabbits, the occasional cut of deer meat. He took them all without reaching out to her, and at first, she was grateful.

As time passed with little more than glimpses of Peeta as he came to and from town, Katniss began to long for any sort of contact she could make with him.

She thought long and hard about what she might say if she were brave enough to knock on his door, yet she never worked up the courage to find out.

Her nerves didn't turn into fear until the gifts stopped coming all together.

There had been no baked goods on her doorstep for nearly a month; the realization made her stomach churn and her chest tighten.

Peeta had gotten tired of baking for her. It wasn't like she could blame him.

Even then, she didn't work up the courage to knock on his door.

Knocking on Haymitch's door was something else entirely. She couldn't leave any of what she gathered in the woods on his doorstep because they'd rot without him knowing they were there, stinking up all of Victor's Village.

Instead, Katniss brought him food at least once a week, supplementing the supplies from town that Greasy Sae always brought by.

He was half-cognizant of Katniss during one of her usual visits, watching her with a dazed look as she wandered around the kitchen to put everything where it belonged.

She was just gathering her empty bag when Haymitch spoke in words that were more than lazy grunts.

"How's Peeta? He didn't stop by this week."

Katniss hesitated, her hands tightening around the straps of her bag. Though it was empty, she took her time adjusting it before she answered.

"I don't know. You'd have to ask him that yourself. I haven't talked to him, and I don't think he wants to speak to me anymore either."

Haymitch let out a loud, undignified snort that made Katniss glare at him. He was unaffected as he slumped back in his chair and regarded her with lidded eyes.

"I see the two of you are being as ridiculous as always," he said, tilting his drink in her direction. "Especially you."

Even with the slurred words, Katniss was offended. At least she was functional. Haymitch spent his days drunk in his house with others taking care of him. What right did he have to judge her for anything?

"He's stopped leaving bread by my door," she shot back. "That was him, not me. It's clear he doesn't want anything to do with me."

But her defense didn't get rid of the knowing grin on Haymitch's face. He pointed in the general direction of his kitchen window, nearly sliding off his chair as he did so.

"Sometimes I bother to look out the window. Don't think I've missed that perfectly tended garden outside your house. I know you're not the one doing that."

Katniss froze, images of the flowers flashing through her mind.

Of course she had noted that the garden was still as well taken care of as Peeta's own, but she'd assumed that was more about the flowers than her. Peeta wasn't the kind of person to let any creature, even flowers, die pointlessly. Of course he would continue tending to them.

She turned her face towards Haymitch's window. The early afternoon sun streamed through the crack in Haymitch's curtains and warmed her face. She could get the blurriest of views of her own garden through the dusty glass.

"Stop being ridiculous, sweetheart," Haymitch said, raising his drink to take a swig. "Go talk to the boy."

She didn't say anything to Haymitch as she turned to go, frowning at the drunken laughter she heard behind her.

The sun was bright, and it hit her with full force the second she was outside of Haymitch's darkened house. She had to squint to see Peeta's house. The sunlight reflected off the white siding, stinging at her eyes.

She glanced over at her own house, eyes scanning the flowers of various colors that lined the outside of it. The garden had only expanded since Peeta had last spoken to her. Maybe Haymitch was right and the garden was about more than just keeping existing flowers alive. Katniss glanced down at Haymitch's own flower beds of nothing but dirt and weeds.

Without allowing herself time to second guess the move, Katniss headed straight for Peeta's door and knocked.

It took him mere seconds to answer, his gaze widening when he found Katniss on the other side.

"Katniss?"

His shirt was speckled with every color of paint imaginable. Some of it was old and dried, but some of it was undoubtedly new, shining in the afternoon light. There was even a bit of blue across his cheek. It was smeared as if he had tried to wipe it away only to fail. It took all of her willpower not to focus on it as she spoke.

"Why did you stop bringing me bread?"

If she was going to do this, there was no sense in beating around the bush about it. Peeta's mouth opened and closed several times as he looked at her. Eventually, he motioned for her to come inside and closed the door behind her.

Katniss' eyes scanned the space. She hadn't had many opportunities to see the inside of Peeta's house, but the layout was the same as that of every other house in Victor's Village. The decor, however, was entirely different. Katniss' house was clean but plain. Haymitch's was a mess. Peeta's was something akin to an art studio, with paintings all over the walls, some hung with nails and others propped against it on the floor.

"I didn't think you wanted me around," Peeta said from behind her.

Katniss' eyes kept scanning the paintings. It was easier to have this conversation if she didn't look at him. One painting in particular caught her attention. To most, it would look like nothing more than an interesting design of various shades of gray. To Katniss, it was a wall of the cave they'd hidden in together during their first games.

"Of course I wanted you around," Katniss continued. It was much easier to blurt things out once she'd started. "I just didn't know how to act or what to do."

Peeta sighed. She listened as he took several loud footsteps forward until he'd come to stand at her side. She didn't look away from the painting.

"There's no one way you have to act, Katniss, but I can understand if you're uncomfortable around me."

It took Katniss a second to realize that he was thinking about the highjacking. In all of her worries over Peeta not being around, that had been the farthest thing from her mind.

She turned to look at him straight on. He was close, much closer than he'd been in a long time.

"Sometimes I do get uncomfortable," Katniss said quietly, "but it's not because of that."

No, she'd forgiven him for that before he'd even arrived back in District 12, but that was a detail she couldn't yet bring herself to reveal.

"I've never—" she started to say before cutting herself off. There was no easy way to voice what was on her mind. "I don't know exactly what we are, but whatever it is, it's new to me. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do."

The confession hung heavy in the air until Peeta smiled in a way that made her heart skip a beat. That was something new too. She hated the way it made her want to flee again, but she fought against the urge, staying rooted in place.

Slowly, Peeta held out his hand, watching Katniss through long lashes. Katniss held her breath as she took it and let him link their fingers together. Both of them stared at their interlocked fingers, neither daring to make another move at first.

It was the most physical Katniss had been with anyone in a long, long time. Even when her mother and sister had been around, she'd always felt uncomfortable about it unless it was from Prim, but Peeta's hand around hers felt good. It almost made her want to cry.

"I don't expect anything," Peeta said, giving her hand a squeeze. "But maybe we should be more open with each other. That might solve at least half of our problems."

He offered her a small smile that Katniss hesitantly returned along with a slow nod of her head.

"And you can have space whenever you need space," Peeta stressed, his brow furrowing suddenly.

Katniss' smile widened.

"Thank you," she said.

She didn't know what other words should be said. She felt like she should promise him something in return, but what that should be eluded her.

It was silent for a moment, both of them lost in their own thoughts as their hands continued to dangle between them.

"Actually," Peeta said slowly, "I haven't had much time for baking recently. I've been more focused on painting. There's something kind of...large that I've been working on."

When Katniss only blinked at him in response, he continued.

"Something for you. Even though I wasn't sure I'd work up the courage to give it to you."

Katniss' eyes widened, and her stomach fluttered in an unfamiliar way. She felt light-headed as Peeta led her by the hand to one of the rooms off the main hallway. It was the one he used as an art studio. Various canvases in half-finished states were scattered around the room, all of them abandoned for the particularly large canvas placed in the middle of the room. Peeta's paints were laid out carefully around it.

Katniss gasped the second she saw what was on the canvas. Though it was nowhere near finished, the figure was undoubtedly Prim.

A smiling, happy Prim as opposed to the one who had been hardened by the rebellion and life in Thirteen. This was the Prim Katniss wanted to remember, and apparently, Peeta did too.

Katniss hadn't dared look at any false representation of Prim since she'd died, frightened that it would be too much for her, but seeing a reminder that someone else was thinking of Prim like she was—not just thinking of her but viewing her in such a way—left Katniss with a sense of comfort she hadn't been expecting.

Without thinking, Katniss surged forward and wrapped Peeta in a tight hug. He gripped her back just as tightly. She pressed her face against his t-shirt, able to feel places where the paint staining it hadn't dried. It didn't bother her. In a way, it was comforting.

They had hugged before, of course, even when they weren't faking it for the cameras. But they hadn't really hugged in anything like real privacy. For once, they had something that was just for the two of them, and Katniss hadn't expected how much comfort she gained from that.

There was no telling how long they stayed locked in their embrace. Neither of them bothered to check the time. But eventually, they did pull away, smiling stupidly at each other as they did so.

"And, Katniss," Peeta said as he led her towards the kitchen, "I don't need any meat in exchange for this one."

He motioned at the painting over his shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen. Katniss paused in her step, watching the spot where he'd disappeared for a minute as she debated the proper response.

She shook her head. There was no proper response. She would have to stop worrying about things like that. Instead, she smiled and followed.