Title: Sorry, Love, I'm a Little Bit Broken
Author: Missi Marie
Rating: K+
Warnings: Mockingjay spoilers (a li'l bit) and... cuddling?
Characters: Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch, the kids...
Pairing(s): Katniss/Peeta
Summary: Post-Mockingjay. Things were better now, by far, but sometimes we still seemed a little broken. It was okay, though, because if we were two broken people apart, we became one whole person together.
Author Notes: The bunnies. Won't. Stop. So this is for you, courtesy of them. I suggest you feed them carrots... So you know, Kember and Aiden are Katniss and Peeta's kids. Song obviously belongs to Taylor Swift and is epictastically awesomeness. If you haven't listened, then go. Now. Listen. Seriously. It's awesome. Anyway. I hope you guys enjoy, because I was supposed to be doing homework...

I watched Aiden from the porch. He was in the clearing talking with a cute, sandy haired girl that belonged to one of the families that had eventually moved back into District 12. They were joking and laughing—flirting, I thought, although my attentiveness to such things was low. Next to me Haymitch sat slumped in one of the old chairs we had set up. He was frumpy and getting old, the scruff on his face more gray than gold now, thinner than it once had been. His face was lined, although not unpleasantly so. Age had been as good to him as anyone, though drink had worked against him. His eyes were drooping—he still drank more than he ought to—but I could tell he was alert. He too was watching Aiden's foray into the world of love.

My hands fidgeted in my lap. I itched to go and do something—hunt maybe—but I made myself sit there and pay attention. This calm quiet life that had wormed its way slowly into my world was what I had fought for and I was determined to enjoy every minute of it.

Besides, I wanted to know the details of Aiden's exchange to share with Peeta later. He would want to know.

After several slow minutes I noticed Kember out of the corner of my eye. She was walking down the hill, obviously from town. She was covered in flour, apron still tied around her waist and wild, curly brown hair pulled back into a mess ponytail. I remembered that she often went to help Peeta in the bakery and had probably chosen to do so today.

When she reached the porch, she leaned on the railing, facing me. I looked over to her and noticed her troubled expression.

"What's wrong?" I asked her quickly, already feeling my muscles tense.

Peeta was hurt. There was a fire. Peacekeepers came. They took him away. Paylor has been overthrown. Peace was broken. A war has begun—

A thousand ridiculous and impossible scenarios played through my head. I had to take a slow breath to remind myself that the war was over. Peacekeepers were the good guys now. No one was hurt. No one was dying. We were at peace.

The war was over.

Kember wrinkled her nose, indecision plain on her face. She was like me, too expressive for her own good.

"Nothing," she finally said. An obvious lie.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Kember."

She let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed her face. "Dad said not to say anything..." She let it trail off, but that was all I needed to hear. I knew what had happened.

Immediately I rose from my comfortable seat on the bench. I could feel Haymitch watching me, although me did little more than breath in his chair.

"Where are you going?" Kember asked me, a little worried. She already knew where I was going.

"To the bakery."

"Mom, dad will know I said something," she pointed out a little distressed, but not exactly using it as an argument to stop me. No one tried to stop me from doing anything anymore, not even my own children.

I shrugged, stepping off the steps onto the cool grass. "You didn't say anything," I reminded her.

Her lips twitched a bit and I knew a smile was making its way onto her face. "Tell that to dad."

"I will."

And I left, knowing that Aiden would continue his flirting and Kember would make a few snide comments to Haymitch who would huff a little and that they would all be fine, because Haymitch wasn't going to let anything happen to them. They were his family, too, now.

When I reached the bakery, there weren't any customers. Not surprising. Business was good, but there were still very few residents here in Twelve. Most likely, they had already come and gone earlier in the day, or would show up later in the afternoon before the bakery closed. It was just after lunchtime now, so things would be slow.

I moved around to the back quietly, the smell of fresh baked bread filling my nostrils. I inhaled deeply. The smells here always comforted me.

The ovens were still warm, but I noticed that nothing was baking. Peeta was standing at a counter off to the side, hands resting on the table firmly, head down, back to me. He was tense, agitated. Something was wrong.

I frowned, but didn't go to him. Instead, I hoisted myself up to sit on the counter opposite him. I waited.

After several long moments, I saw his shoulders loosen slightly. He sighed. "How long are you going to just sit there?"

"I thought it was best to wait until you noticed me."

"What if I didn't notice you for hours?" he inquired, amusement in his voice.

I shrugged, although he still hadn't turned to face me. "I can be patient."

He let out a laugh and shook his head. Finally, he glanced over his shoulder at me, his blue eyes crinkled in a smile. "All good hunters are, eh?"

I smiled at him. "Yep."

He straightened up and turned to lean with his back against the counter so that he could face me fully. Silence filled the air as we just watched one another.

"Want to tell me what's wrong?" I asked.

He frowned slightly and ran a flower-coated hand through his hair. "It's nothing."

I surprised him with a laugh. "Funny. That's what Kember said."

Shaking his head, he gave up. "I... I had an episode."

That's what we called them, episodes. It sounded almost benign. Neutral. Unimportant. A subtle word for a terrifying thing. An episode meant an attack. A moment where Peeta forgot what was real and what wasn't. Who his friends were and who his enemies had been. Who was responsible, who was the victim.

Sometimes they meant he forgot he loved me.

I fidgeted. I knew this was the thing that Kember wasn't supposed to tell me, so I wasn't surprised. But I still hated hearing it. I hated that he still had them, that he was still broken in some small way that I couldn't fix. I hated that he was still hurting.

"It wasn't bad," he added quickly, probably noticing my expression. "Short, over in seconds, really."

I nodded. I wasn't mad at him. There was nothing to be mad at anymore. Those at fault had been punished, killed. Many of them by my own two hands. There was nothing more to be done about it in that regard. Anger got me nowhere.

"Are you okay?" I asked carefully.

He took a moment to respond. It wasn't as simple a question as it appeared. There were a dozen different meanings behind it, although the only one I really cared about was: Are you still Peeta and are you still okay?

He shook his head. "Yes," he replied only somewhat unconvinced. He ran a hand through his hair again, the curls coated in flour. "I just... I need to do something."

Of course. The episodes were bad, no matter how short they were, because they lingered with him for the rest of the day. After an attack, Peeta always found himself unfocused and a little aimless. I tried to help as best I could, but I could never fully understand what had happened to Peeta. Torture. Hijacking. Losing himself. Finding himself.

All I could really do was be there for him in whatever way he needed me.

"Close the bakery for the day," I told him.

He shook his head, "No. I need to do something with my hands."

I looked skeptically at the lump of dough on the table. He had obviously been working at it for longer than he needed to and it was doubtful that it was going to turn into anything edible by the end of the day. Peeta wasn't focusing.

"Close the bakery," I repeated, just a touch of firmness to my voice.

He frowned, debating it, and I knew that Kember's expressions came from him, not me.

I slipped off the counter with cat-like grace, silent as ever, and walked over to him. I touched his knuckles with the pads of my fingers. They were covered in flour, my fingertips making tiny tracks revealing the skin beneath. He sucked in a breath, then turned his hand over to take my hand in his.

"Peeta," I said gently. "Baking isn't working today. Close the bakery. We'll do something else."

His free hand reached up to brush a stray strand of hair behind my ear, fingers trailing across my cheek. He leaned his forehead down against mine and just breathed for a moment. I waited patiently for him to realize I was right.

It didn't take long.

"What should we do?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Whatever you want. We can go home; you can paint something pretty."

"Okay."

He didn't resist as I tugged him away from the counter, the lump of dough left unmolded.

He sat staring at the blank canvas, paintbrush in his hand and paints at his side. He had been like that for the last ten minutes, frowning and just trying to focus on something. Nothing came.

I watched him cautiously, hoping that something would just strike him and he would get to work on something spectacular. It is not in my nature to create pretty things. I don't do art. Those are things from Peeta's world and I don't fully understand the creative process that results in them. So I'm not much help here. Really, I'm just present for the sake of being present. Moral support, companionship. I'm just a reminder that he is not here alone. And I think that's important, because I know that there were days, after our first Hunger Games, that he spent alone in Victor's Village painting horrifically beautiful scenes from the Games.

I don't want him to think he's back there now.

So now I sit on the old couch that we eventually dragged into his painting room. We got it, because Peeta never liked me sitting on the floor, and I wasn't good with standing still for hours on end.

Finally, frustration got the best of Peeta. He threw his paintbrush down and roughly raked his hands through his hair. "This isn't working," he told me.

I twitched. Calmly, I reminded myself that he wasn't referring to our arduous journey to fixing each other. That he wasn't talking about the relationship that had weathered the storms of our past and somehow survived in the end.

He wasn't talking about us.

I got up from my sitting position and walked over to him. Carefully—because he was tense and a lot of times his episodes were about me—I put my hands on his taut shoulders. Immediately, he exhaled in relief. My hands slipped down his chest and wrapped around him, my chin resting on his shoulder. I breathed him in, the scent of paint mixing with bread and spice and whatever it was that was just Peeta.

Quietly, I began to sing.

"I remember tears streaming down your face

When I said, I'll never let you go

When all those shadows almost killed your light

I remember you said, Don't leave me here alone

But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight"

His hand reached up to cover mine where they were clasped together. He closed his eyes and just listened.

"Just close your eyes

The sun is going down

You'll be alright

No one can hurt you now

Come morning light

You and I'll be safe and sound

Don't you dare look out your window darling

Everything's on fire

The war outside our door keeps raging on

Hold onto this lullaby

Even when the music's gone

Just close your eyes

The sun is going down

You'll be alright

No one can hurt you now

Come morning light

You and I'll be safe and sound

Just close your eyes

You'll be alright

Come morning light,

You and I'll be safe and sound..."

He let me finish the song. Every last note. He always loved to hear me sing, though I didn't do it often. There was always a heaviness for me that came with music. Because it reminded me of my father in the woods, and Prim when she begged for a song, and Rue when she died... Painful things were tied to my voice, but it was different for Peeta. It was beauty to him. It was birds going silent to listen, it was love at first sight, it was comfort and peace. So I sang for him and it wasn't as hard as it used to be.

"Katniss," he said after I fell silent. His eyes were still closed and his hand still gripped both of mine.

"It's okay, Peeta," I told him knowing that even my song couldn't bring inspiration today. "Let's just take a nap."

His lips quirked up. "A nap," he asked, clearly amused.

I scowled a little. "Yes," I said defensively. "A nap."

He laughed, probably more at my tone than my suggestion.

My hands slipped free of his up to his chin so that I could tilt his head back and look at him. He opened his eyes; I stared into twin pools of cerulean.

"Don't you laugh at me, Mister," I warned him, my voice more breathy than I had intended.

His smile lingered. "I would never do that."

I leaned down and placed a soft kiss on his lips, because he was there and I was there and that smile lingered and I could. Just because I could. It was brief and chaste. I pulled away—Peeta didn't like that instinctively, though he let me go easily—and stepped back from him. My hand tugged at his shirt and he got up to follow me.

"Nap," I told him.

He obeyed, more exhausted than he had let on.

I led him down the hall to our bedroom, closing the door behind us. We didn't bother changing beyond kicking off our shoes. Peeta crawled into bed first, collapsing heavily on the pillows. He really was tired and sometimes I wondered at how hard he pushed himself. I thought he did it for me.

After a moment, Peeta lifted his head from the pillows slightly and looked over at me. He reached out his hand.

"Stay with me, Katniss?"

I smiled at him gently—because some days he still looked at me as though he couldn't believe I was really here with him—and took his hand.

"Always."

I crawled in after him. He pulled me tightly to his chest and kissed my forehead. I wrapped my arms around his torso, letting the feeling of comfort wash over me. I was tired, too. Things were better now, by far, but sometimes we still seemed a little broken. It was okay, though, because if we were two broken people apart, we became one whole person together.

I decided that was enough for me.