Home

By: Jamie Sommers

Written for: Prompts in Panem

Canon Items: Nightlock

Peeta's first hours upon his return to District Twelve after the war.

Living here in this brand new world might be a fantasy

but it's taught me to love

so it's real, real, real to me – Home, The Wiz

Home

I had been back in District Twelve for only a few seconds, but they were the longest seconds of my life. As I stepped off of the train in the early morning light and onto the platform I could almost see the crowd gathering for mine and Katniss' return. Everyone cheering the victors of District Twelve. No one ever expected someone from an outlying district to win the Games, let alone two, but we did. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, clearing away the memories of the lost souls that had once been cheering for us. My family had been there that day. It was the first time in my life my mother actually looked proud of me. My father was grinning from ear to ear and I could tell from the puffy red rimmed eyes that he had been crying just a little before. That was the thing about me and my dad, when it came to lying, we were pros. We had been doing it for years to avoid getting my mother's ire up, but when it came to matters of the heart, we were a complete wreck. Neither one of us knew how to hide our tears. In the end, if I had to take after one of my parents, I'm glad it was him. My brothers had my mother's surly temperament and could never quite look past the clouds in the sky to see a burgeoning rainbow.

"You all right, sir?" One of the train attendants asked me a little nervously. It used to be that people couldn't wait to talk to me. I was Peeta Mellark. Victor of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games. I was one of the star-crossed-lovers. Now all they saw was... Truthfully, I have no idea what people saw when they looked at me anymore.

"Fine. Just," I had to take a little breath. "Just been a while since I've been home."

I began thinking about that word, "home," and what it meant to me. Over the past two years it had come to mean a lot. It was the only place I longed to be. I remember lying in the cell next to Johanna's at night and quietly sobbing to myself thinking, I just want to go home. Now here I was and I was petrified to take a step forward.

"Mr. Mellark," a driver cautiously walked up to me. "I'm here to take you home." There was that word again and with it came an enormous amount of trepidation.

"Thanks," I lifted my small bag of items, a few shirts and a couple of pairs of pants I had to buy while being treated at the Capitol and reached for the large trunk at my feet filled with art supplies, sketches...pretty much everything I had created while in recovery. The few large paintings that I had completed were gruesome and I wanted nothing to do with them so I left them behind. They could burn them for all I cared. I just had to get the images out of my head.

"I'll get that for you," the driver grabbed the trunk and loaded it into his car then took my bag and repeated his actions. He didn't say anything to me as he drove me through the deserted streets of District Twelve. The sun hadn't even rose yet so I'm not sure if it was due to him being tired or, like everyone else, apprehensive about striking up a conversation with me. The silence didn't bother me though. I found it preferable to making small talk. I was sick of that and refused to do anything like that ever again. My life was no longer on public display so I didn't have to be liked by everyone. If I wanted to be the surly one for a change, I could be.

"Thanks for the ride, but I'd prefer it if you'd drop me off here," I told the driver to leave me at the entrance for the Town Square. For one, a car driving through town in the wee hours of the morning was bound to gather attention from the merchants that had to rise at an ungodly hour to prepare for business that day and I wasn't quite ready to attract attention. For another, I needed to see it. The bakery, and I wanted to do it alone.

"Miss. Trinket said that," the driver started, but I put a quick end to it.

"Effie Trinket isn't the one in this vehicle is she? Stop the car," I snapped at him. That's what I meant about not being liked by everybody anymore. It could have been the hijacking talking, but I knew it wasn't. Dr. Aurelius and I had discussed my temper about a million times and it always boiled down to the same thing, I was the one that was in control of how I reacted to people. If I bit their heads off for no reason, it's because I wanted to act like an ass. If I was polite, it's because I wanted to be. My emotional response to people was up to me. The only thing I couldn't control from happening to me were the flashbacks and even those I had gotten a handle on...sort of. In this instance with the driver, being an ass seemed like the way to go. It was already a bad day and from the sight of the dilapidated buildings surrounded by construction and newer buildings that had already been put up, it was going to get worse.

The weight of my trunk pulled heavily at my arms as I walked through town in the darkness of night. Only a few streetlamps were powered up, highlighting my way through, but it was enough to see everything. The bakery sat there like a large lump of coal. It was the only place that had yet to be completely demolished. I was asked what they thought should be done with it, technically it was now my bakery I guess, or my pile of charred bricks, but I told them I wouldn't know until I had seen it for myself. My doctor thought it would be best not to look at it in its current condition, but after a few weeks of talking it through he saw my point of view and realized that I needed to say goodbye to my childhood home...to my family. As I stood about thirty yards away from the bakery I had to wonder if that doctor didn't know what he was talking about after all, because the trunk I was carrying slipped from my grip and I stood there staring at it like it was the first I had heard of the wreckage. Like the news of the bombing of District Twelve had just been broken to me and I began to sob. I could feel my heart being ripped from my chest as I stepped into the ashes of a life I had once had. It may not have been perfect by any means, but it was the only thing I had left to hold onto. My foot hit something hard and a clank of metal exploded through my head loud enough to wake those that died here, but the fact was, it was nothing more than the tip of a pastry bag rolling around in a charred cake pan. I bent down and picked it up, placing it on the tip of my pinky finger and heard my father's voice.

My father spread his hands out and showed me the area where he had spent years baking and decorating the cakes in a corner of the kitchen. "This is our studio, and these are our tools." He handed me a star shaped tip. "Take care of them, Peeta. They'll be yours one day." My dad walked me over to the corner where a plain white cake waited to be decorated. "Remember," he took the tip out of my hand and exchanged it for an already filled bag of icing, "every cake is a canvas and every canvas needs an artist."

I shoved the tip into my pocket and left the bakery, not able to endure anymore of the memories of my past. Still as I lifted my feet over piles of soot and ash covered debris I could hear the tinkle of the bell on the door when a customer walked in or out. The sound of my brother's grunting as we unloaded the trucks and put the stock away. I could smell the scent of fresh bread baking...cookies...muffins...yeast...basil...cinnamon...dill... They permeated my senses as I began the dash towards my trunk and small bag. I had to get out of there. I had to.

When I opened the door up to my house in Victor's Village I wasn't sure what I was expecting. Maybe that warm feeling of familiarity to wash over me? What I got in return was nothing but a chilling sensation of loneliness. Effie had made certain that someone had gone into the house to air it out the day before and there wasn't a speck of dust on any of the furniture which somehow seemed to make it worse. It only reminded me that I had no one in this world. No one waiting for my arrival at the train station with open arms. No one at home with a cup of tea or even a casual hello. The only people I had were paid to do something for me.

I let out a grunt as I sat on a footstool and covered my head with my hands. Quickly dismissing the idea to wake up Haymitch and let him know I was back. If Effie had gotten someone to dust for me then surely she told my mentor I was returning and when. And thoughts of letting Katniss know were completely out of the question. I lifted my head and stared at my front door. "Katniss," I said softly to myself. If it had been this hard for me to come back here, what had it been like for her?

I loved my family, even my mother who left me questioning at times whether the feeling had been reciprocated, but Katniss had never questioned if she was loved. Prim had always loved her and she had always loved Prim. So much so that she volunteered for the Games.

That morning had been hell on me, it had been hell on every child between the ages of twelve and eighteen not to mention their parents. There were boys from the Seam whose names had been entered into the reaping bowl too many times to count and me? I had five entries. Five entries out of thousands. I worried about my older brother who had two more entries than me. I worried about myself. I was terrified for Katniss, because I knew she had twenty entries and the chances of her name being picked were pretty good. If I had heard her name being called out I was sure I would die on the spot. I couldn't imagine anything worse until Effie called out Prim's name. The bottom dropped out from beneath my feet at that point. Prim. Sweet little Prim. Everyone was shocked when Katniss volunteered, but not me. I knew it within a split second that Katniss was going to go, and in that second I knew her volunteering was going to be worse than if her name had actually been called. No one ever voluntarily went into the Games from the outer districts, and Katniss had immediately put a target on her back. I was so busy staring at her...hurting for her...refusing to believe that she wouldn't return home a victor that I didn't lift my fingers in the salute everyone around me did. We used that mostly at funerals, and by doing so I was certain I would be acknowledging her death. I was almost furious that others accepted it so readily until I realized that it was a show of support for the girl that broke the Capitol's laws on a daily basis and kept her family fed. I had also come to the immediate conclusion that I needed to see her before she left and tell her, maybe not everything I felt for her, but to let her know that I believed in her. That someone back home would be thinking of her every second of every minute she was gone. I wanted to tell her that it didn't matter who it was she went with from our district, as long as she returned, and if that was the only interaction Katniss Everdeen and I would ever have in our lives, then so be it. I could live with that.

"Peeta Mellark," the sound of Effie's voice reverberated through the speakers in Town Square and sucked the life out of me. The tears I had never been very good at hiding in my lifetime, were forced to the back of my throat as the feeling of sheer terror overwhelmed me. It wasn't easy knowing with each step you took, surrounded by Peacekeepers, that it was one step closer to the end of your life. For the briefest second of time I wondered how I would ever get out of there alive and then Effie told us to shake hands, and when I felt Katniss' in mine I knew...I knew in the deepest recesses of my soul that I wasn't going to get out of the arena alive, not because I wasn't willing to fight to the death, but because I was. I was willing to fight for a life. It simply wasn't my own.

I stood up and walked to the window, stared outside at the moon before letting my eyes settle onto Katniss' house and wondered if she was asleep. Was she still having nightmares like me? I couldn't face it for some reason. Memories of holding her in my arms during the Victory Tour that had once been cloudy were now etched deep into my mind. Little things like the scent of her hair, the soft sound of her breathing when she reached that deep sleep stage and her unspoken need no one else was privy to but me were chiseling away at my heart. The idea of never being needed like that by anyone wasn't foreign to me. No one needed me. I didn't even need me.

I'm not sure why I ran out of my house and headed for the woods of all places, that was Katniss and Gale's hidden sanctuary, not mine, but I did. I ran through them ignoring the sting of a branch as it whipped against my arm and collapsed onto the ground in tears. As they poured out of me I regretted the choice to come back to this place I called home. It was no more of a home to me than the jail cell the Capitol had put me in or the hospital I had been treated in while at Thirteen. There was nothing left for me here. There was nothing left for me anywhere. The gut wrenching pain in my stomach felt as though someone had stuck their hand inside of me and began twisting. My lungs were burning from lack of air due to the sobs I could no more control than the weather, and I wanted it all to be over. Everything. I just needed it to end.

The feeling of loss was so great I could barely swallow. It was stupid to think that while I was in the first arena I had everything I had ever dreamed of, but that's how I felt. She had only been pretending, but at the time I didn't know that. I thought she felt it. I thought she loved me too. God, I was so stupid. And afterward I was so damn angry with her I couldn't even contemplate trying to form some sort of friendship with her. Why I thought I was punishing her is beyond me. The only person I had ever hurt with my childish jealousy was me. There was no avoiding it though. The closer we got to that damn Victory Tour the more I knew I'd have to let her back into my life only this time I needed to be smart about it. At least that's what I told myself, and it worked out pretty good for a while too, we were friends...actual friends until our whole world got thrown into the pit of despair again. I couldn't even fathom recalling the haunting memories of the reading of the card...the fake engagement...pregnancy...the Quell, but that night on the beach...that night... If she thought I didn't feel it she was kidding herself. She loved me. Even if it was only for the briefest moment of time, Katniss loved me. I could feel it in the warmth of her breath against my skin. The way her hands held me like I was the most precious gem in the world. I could feel her heart beating in rapid succession against mine...her pulse growing wild at her throat...taste the saltiness of our tears between our open mouths as they granted each other a brief respite from the Games. There was no pretense during that kiss. She knew it. I knew it, and now I also knew what it was like to be loved...truly loved by someone and have it ripped out of my life.

The devastation of losing her left me chilled to the bone. My doctor told me that I should be grateful I had the opportunity to love someone the way that I loved Katniss, but I wasn't grateful. Being back in District Twelve only told me the one thing that I had been avoiding, I had lost everyone and everything and there was no getting it back.

As the sun began to rise into the heavens and the moon slowly descended, my focus was drawn to a drop of dew glistening on the end of a berry. I reached out and touched the purplish blue fruit and pulled my hand instinctively back.

"That's nightlock, Peeta!" Katniss' voice yelled at me as she slapped it out of my hand in the arena. "You'd be dead in a minute!"

I ripped a handful off of the bush and whispered to myself, "Good," just before I heard the crunching of the leaves. I froze in place, not even taking a breath for fear of what might be stalking me, and heard the tiny cries. Peeking through the bushes, I saw her. Katniss. She was no more than twenty feet away from me, on her knees dressed in a nightgown, her hair was frazzled and hanging over one shoulder, and her face buried in her hands. She too had come to the woods in an attempt to seek out comfort, instead finding the cruelty of anguish awaiting her arrival. I wanted to reach out and touch her. To run my hand down her back and fold her into my arms. To tell her that I would help her through this. To let her know I understood and that together we could somehow find our way back to a somewhat normal life, if such a thing actually existed. My eyes fluttered towards the nightlock for a moment then flashed back towards Katniss. I waited until she stood up and walked away, back towards Victor's Village, before dropping the deadly berry to the ground. My eyes followed the berries I had dropped as they rolled into the trunk of a plant. I reached out and pulled a tiny bloom from the bush, felt the silky petals between the pads of my fingertips, and instantly knew this was the reason I had come to the woods.

I wasn't sure if I would run into Katniss on my way back to Victor's Village or not, and if I had, what would I say to her? In a way I was glad I hadn't. From the way she looked in the woods, I wasn't even sure if she had been fully awake. I stopped at the grounds keeper's shack and grabbed what I needed, then hurried back to the woods and found the bush that held the nightlock. It was the first one I dug up. I tossed it to the side then proceeded to dig up five of the primrose bushes next to it, placed it in the wheelbarrow and hauled it back to Victor's Village. The large dumpster outside of the butcher shop beckoned to me as I walked by. I lifted the lid and tossed the nightlock inside of it.

"Peeta?" I heard the familiar voice of Rooba.

"Uh, hey," I would have offered my hand, but they were covered in dirt. "I had to borrow your dumpster. Hope you don't mind."

"No. Not at all," Rooba gave me a strange look.

"It's nice to see you." It was nice to see the butcher. The truth was, I had no clue exactly who had survived from my district and who was gone. And out of those who had survived, who would be returning. "Make sure no one touches that thing," I pointed to the dumpster. It's poisonous."

"Sure thing."

"Well," I picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and continued on my way. "See ya around."

"See ya," Rooba lifted a hand in farewell.

I began digging beneath the back of Katniss' house, underneath the picture window. I thought it would a pretty place to plant one of the bushes. As I studied the outside of her home I thought, one bush under each of these windows would be nice. Each spring they would bloom in various shades as a reminder of the little girl who was named for the delicate flower.

"You're back," the sound of Katniss' voice startled me, but I didn't jump.

"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," I explained to her. I wanted her to know why I hadn't come back sooner. "By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone." I tried to ease the tension I knew would be there before it grew out of hand, but all I could do was picture her crying in the woods. I could see her heartbreak even now. I wondered what she would do if I reached out to her. If I tried to comfort her. Would she allow me to help her through the grief or would she pull away?

"What are you doing here?" There was a defensive tone in her voice which answered my question.

"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her. I thought we could plant them along the side of the house." For a second I thought she was going to yell at me, but then she just clutched her arms and nodded at me. I watched her as she turned and practically ran back into her house. Questioned whether or not I did the right thing.

I could see her through the sheer panels of the window heading up the steps. She was almost out of sight now, but not out of mind, and never out of my heart.

Home, I realized, wasn't a place, but a sense of being and though I had returned to District Twelve, traveled across the train's platform, walked through the bakery, and stepped into my house, I hadn't quite reached my destination yet.

I could see her standing at the top of the stairs, her hands running up and down her arms. Katniss...home.

Thank you S (different S) my new beta for being so quick and efficient with this story. Not only did she volunteer to help beta this she has also stepped up to the plate to help on my other stories so all hail new S! YAY S! Thank you darling!

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