Title: Close Your Eyes and Pretend I'm By Your Side
Author: Missi Marie
Rating: T (slightly suggestive, but only if you already have a dirty mind xP)
Warnings: Very mildly suggestive, but there is bare thigh xD
Characters: Peeta, Katniss
Summary: Post-Mockingjay. This is how their mornings went.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author Notes: Check out "Waking Up With The Wolves" by The Black Maria for the song whose lyrics are the title to this story. It's awesome.

She was perched on the bed in only the oversized shirt she wore for sleep. Sipping at the tea she had made—because this morning was like every other morning before it—she watched Peeta as he slept heavily, his terrors of the night passed hours ago.

She watched his breathing, because sometimes she worried it would just stop one day.

It was quickly turning into late morning and Katniss had been up for hours—her tea had cooled to nothing more than cold, flavored water—but Peeta continued to sleep and Katniss continued to watch him. It was okay like this, because it gave her piece of mind. As long as he was sleeping and breathing and lying right there within reach, things were going to be okay.

They had to be okay.

It wasn't until he stirred that panic began to set in, as it always inevitably did. Groggily, Peeta moved, stretched slightly. Automatically, his hand moved to the mattress directly beside him. When he found it empty, Katniss could see his entire body stiffen.

She wanted to reach out and touch his hand, to let him know she was still there, but the panic that was welling inside her prevented it. She couldn't do it.

His eyes snapped open and he looked up wildly. When they found her, only about a foot away, still perched motionlessly on the side of the bed, his muscles relaxed and his eyelids drooped momentarily.

All he needed was to see her there.

"It's late." His voice was rough with lingering sleep.

"Not very," Katniss replied. The sunlight streaming in through the window was still pale and hadn't filled the room yet.

"How long have you been up?"

It was probably subconscious, his hand moving, reaching out to find her. All he needed was to feel her there with him.

"Not long," she mumbled, cheeks getting just the tiniest bit pink as his hand found purchase on her bare leg where her shirt had hiked up when she sat.

"No hunting?" He asked every morning.

More often than not now, she responded, "No."

He opened his eyes again, staring up at her. "What are you thinking?" All he needed was to hear her voice...

There was silence for a moment, but it couldn't last. Peeta needed to hear her, and after the war, after everything, she had promised to give him whatever he needed. "I worry," she confessed, staring at the mug clasped in her hand rather than at him.

"That I won't be here when you wake up?"

His hand was splayed on her bare upper thigh, thumb drawing lazy circles on her skin. This was his fear, she knew. That one day he would wake to find his bed empty. To discover that this had all been some kind of dream. That their life together was only in his fragile, often broken mind and she had actually died in the war, in the Games. From starvation. From despair. From the gunshot. From the fire. From the muts. From the explosion. There were so many times where she had been on the cliff of death, looking out over the edge, all but ready to fall over and never come back up. It had often been Peeta to pull her back, to save her, and she knew one of his worst fears was that one of those times he hadn't managed to save her.

He screamed it in his dreams every night.

But this, though worrisome and terrifying in its own right, wasn't what made her sit up early in the mornings and just watch him sleep, unable to tear her eyes away, because of a mix of fascination, hope, and dread. No, it was a fear that had, just once, come true.

Katniss shook her head. "No," she whispered. "I worry that one day you're going to wake up and look at me lying beside you... and you're going to be disgusted by what you see."

He squeezed her thigh, a rebuttal already forming in his throat.

She surged forward before his words could reach the air, suddenly needing him to understand why she was so scared. Why, after everything they had seen—together and apart—it was this that terrified her above all else.

"That you finally figure it out... That I'm not worth all the trouble that comes with me."

And with all her heart, she believed that statement.

A flit of pain crossed his face, his hand gripped her thigh suddenly fierce, and she knew he was thinking of the hijacked memories that nearly tore them apart. He took a deep breath. The kiss he placed on the skin next to his hand was heated and just a little desperate.

"I'm always waiting for that," Katniss admitted shakily. "Because I wouldn't even be able to argue that you're wrong."

He kissed her once again.

"You'll wait forever then," he muttered into her skin. "Because that can't be true." The desperation when he emphasized can't spoke more about his need to keep her than even his insistent touches and hot kisses.

"Peeta," she whispered. It was a heady relief to hear his words. To know that this all-consuming need wasn't just coming from her. Another kiss reached her skin and it warmed away the icy fear that lodged in her heart. Again and again he pressed hot kisses to her, finding any bare skin he could, kissing over her shirt when it would go no higher than the swell of her breast. He reached her collarbone, his hand having slid up her thigh.

Her cheeks were flushed crimson with hints of passion and heat. Her head tipped back as he placed his lips at her neck. Clumsily, she reached her hand beside her to put down the mug of tea in her hand. She missed the edge of the table and it crashed to the floor.

Neither of them noticed.

"Katniss," he whispered against her lips. All he needed was a kiss...

Then he drew her to him, his hands sliding to her hips and moved her down onto the bed beneath him.

This was how their mornings went. Apprehension, worry, and then, finally, warmth.

Just warmth.