Lay Me Down, Let Me Dream

Co-written by Katnissdoesnotfollowback & Titania522

Trigger warnings: Major Character Deaths, Minor Character Deaths, Suicide, Afterlife, Heaven, Hell, Reincarnation (Literally Everybody Dies).

Rated M for Mature Sexual Content.

Day 7 of 7: Thorns

XXXXX

Peeta

I step carefully across the walk, avoiding snakes and lizards who sprawl lazily across the stones, as if in contempt of the visitors. They don't bother to scurry away, but stare at us in disinterest.

"Why don't they move away?" I ask Mr. Everdeen.

"These are not ordinary creatures. They are constructed by Katniss' imagination. They won't behave the way you expect them to."

I find their behavior more chilling than if they'd scurried away or reared up at me to attack. I step over them and make my way to the front door. The wood is worn and splintered, as if it had been left out in the elements for years. I press for the bell but it doesn't work so I rap on the door politely.

No one answers. I glance at her father, who indicates with his head that we should try again. I knock harder but still nothing.

"She loves to spend time in the garden. Let's walk around back," I say, stepping back over the bloated reptiles.

The dried grass crunches under my feet, the smell of decay hanging oppressively in the air. I almost trip over a garden hose which is cracked from over-exposure, the metal spout rusted and crumbling. Katniss was always meticulous about our house. She'd known poverty and squalor and in consequence, was very respectful and took care of her possessions. It is jarring to see how badly everything is reduced.

"This isn't your real home," Mr. Everdeen reminds me.

"I know, but it is shocking nonetheless," I answer as I round the back corner of the house.

I finally see her and it's all I can do to keep from racing across the flagstones and scooping her up in my arms. She looks haggard, even more so than those days she was in the institution. Her hair lies loose and limp over her shoulders, as if it hadn't been cut or washed in months. Her t-shirt is torn and dirty and her khakis are wrinkled. I blur my eyes and her aura pulses sadly from her body - the green muddied with brown, like a wilted leaf, while the remaining colors are dulled to a pale grey. A soft orange pattern gets lost beneath the gloomy patterns of greys, browns and blacks, making a visible kaleidoscope of her misery and grief. She leans against a tree, holding something small in her dirty hands. She is here, all alone, with no one to make sure she stays clean.

My relief at seeing her and the sadness of her condition give way to fury. Katniss, my Katniss, does not deserve to live like this. In her life she had been a loving person, full of personal responsibility and self-sacrifice. I want to shake my fist and curse at whatever or whoever put her there, commit an act of blasphemy so vile, it will be heard across the spheres or universe or whatever holds this place together, because this isn't justice or Katniss' soul "working through issues." This is cruelty.

I feel the gentle pressure of Mr. Everdeen's hand on my arm. It's all I need to remember that I am allowing this place to get to me. The angrier I become, the more I give in to hopelessness, the further I am from Katniss. She's done this to herself and my resentment will bring me no closer to my goal of bringing her out. When I turn towards him, his eyes are softened with tears and I am immediately ashamed yet again of my weakness. He can't protect her and it must kill him inside to see this.

"Peeta, as much as I want to go in with you, it's best if I wait outside. If we overwhelm her, she will not listen to either of us. I will monitor you and help you if you need it." He takes a shaky breath to steady himself. "Godspeed, son."

"Thank you," I respond, wanting to say more but Katniss' trembling voice interrupts us.

"Who's there?" she calls out. Her father raises a finger to his lips and slips away on silent feet. I'm not sure how to act, perhaps not truly believing I'd find her so quickly. I take in her terror-stricken face, imagining what fears she might have in the presence of a strange man in her home. Prim and her father had warned me that she wouldn't recognize me. I say the first thing that comes to mind.

"I'm a neighbor from just over the hill," I lie.

She scowls with mistrust. "Which house did you move into?"

"Ahem, I bought the Hawthorne's house, " I say nervously, rooted to the spot for fear I would spook her and send her running.

"Their house isn't for sale," she says, her eyes narrow with suspicion.

"I...uh...they put it on the market some time ago and I bought it and am just moving in. You could ask them." I suggest.

Katniss stares vacantly at me. She doesn't recognize me and all I want to do is burst into tears. But I remember Mr. Everdeen's admonishments and hold my ground.

"I don't...can't...leave the house." Katniss says, all confusion draining from her face. She looks around at the garden as if seeing it for the first time. "The locks are broken, the windows don't open. I'm a prisoner in my own home."

"Well, I just walked around the house and came into the garden. I bet you could leave that way," I suggest.

Katniss shakes her head. "I can't leave," she repeats, in a monotone. "I'm a prisoner."

"A prisoner of what, Katniss?" I ask, hopelessness creeping over me like a cold fog, a helplessness that I have to actively fight against.

"How do you know my name?" she pounces and I mentally curse myself for the lapse.

"Mr. Hawthorne - Gale - he told me your name. We spoke about the neighbors at length and he mentioned you lived up here," I decide to take a calculated risk. "He said you were a widow and lived here alone."

Katniss' face goes blank as she turns her attention to her hands. I now see she is holding a dead flower. "Everything is dying. I have no water, no electricity. I can't go grocery shopping because the car is broken."

She has handily skirted my question, which gives me an idea of what angle I can take. "I'm a widower too. My wife...she just passed away a few months ago."

Katniss turns her face to me and I see something flicker in her eyes, something like recognition but it is swallowed up in the emptiness again. "How did she die?"

"She...committed suicide. Her name was Katniss too. Isn't that a coincidence?" I ask, my voice stumbling over the words. I feel impatient and try to reign it in because I want her back so badly, it hurts.

I watch with satisfaction as she becomes visibly agitated. She grabs a handful of the soil and studies it carefully. "There aren't any earthworms in the dirt. That's a bad sign. It means the soil is dying."

I don't acknowledge her digression. "Katniss committed suicide because her husband died. Her husband...left her alone…" I feel myself crumbling under the crushing realization that she might not recognize me ever again, and all that implies. "She had already gone through so much and her husband went and got himself killed."

She eyes me suspiciously as she compulsively digs into the dirt. "I thought you said your wife died. How could her husband be dead too if you are her husband?"

"Katniss…" I say, my heart breaking.

She jerks back, as if struck and scrambles to her feet. "No! Go away!" she screams and runs inside the house. I follow her before she can shut the door on me. "I know how to defend myself!" she cries out as she races towards the kitchen.

I put my hands up to show that I am harmless. "I don't want to hurt you! I just wanted to get to know my neighbors," I say desperately, trying to pacify her. "I...look...I can call the utility company, if you like, to get your water and electricity to turn on. Would you like that?" I ask gently, trying to keep the lines of communication open.

Katniss, who has skirted behind the kitchen island, freezes, her eyes becoming dull again. Slowly, as she turns to switch on the tap. "You see? No water."

"I know," I'm desperate now, as I see my hope slipping away from me and search for another tactic. "What...what was your husband's name?"

"My husband? He's dead," she says bluntly as she kneels, opening the cupboard to check the plumbing. "Dammit! The hot and cold water valves are on and I still have no water pressure."

"Katniss!" I say, somewhat impatiently, which causes her to jump. "I'm sorry...I...what was your husband's name?"

"My husband?" she repeats, this time sitting on the floor, bringing her knees up to hug them to her chest. "My sweet husband. Peeta. I killed him."

I suppress a sob at this. How did she get this into her head? I want to grab her and shake her and kiss her and love her all at the same time. Instead, I take a deep breath and try again. "That's funny, you see, because my name is Peeta too." Please, recognize me!

A tremor passes through her, causing her to shake horribly. I kneel down before her and just catch her watching me before she puts her head down on her knees, a long moan escaping into the dusty decrepitude of the crumbling house. Near the entrance of the doorway, a thornbush suddenly blooms, growing weakly through the floorboards. I can't fathom its existence but I turn my attention to Katniss.

"How...how did Peeta die?" I whisper, trying to keep the momentum and stave off the vacuous look in her eyes when she is actively in denial.

She stares at a point on the floor for several moments before answering, "He had a car accident."

"I'm sorry," I say. She lapses into another silence, the empty look creeping over features. I'm losing ground again and I struggle even harder with my own despair.

I have another idea but I'm grasping at straws now. "Katniss, what did...Peeta...look like?"

"Peeta? He's dead," she says hollowly.

"You said that. What did he look like?" I insist.

"I…" her upper lip trembles before she suddenly stands, walking over to the light switch. "I can't even get the emergency lights to come on! Some kind of exclusive neighborhood this is!" she says, pacing like a caged animal.

No matter how close I get to a breakthrough, she shuts down or evades. I decide on a desperate ploy.

"Where's your sister?" I ask, interrupting a new litany of complaints against the utility company.

"My...my sister?" she says and there is real fury in her eyes. "Don't talk about my sister!"

Finally! A real emotion! "Yes, your sister, Prim. Where is she?"

Katniss stomps back outside into the garden, anger rolling off of her in waves that strike me with their intensity. "She's...she's dead! Dead and gone! Now get out of my house!" She strides over to me and pushes hard on my chest, sending me backwards out of the garden. "You will not talk about my sister!" she shouts

"Why?" I shout back. I've lost it and I know as the anger rolls through me that I've failed. I sense Mr. Everdeen's approach from behind.

"Because she's dead! They're all dead! You know nothing about it. Nothing! So go home and don't come back!" She catches sight of Mr. Everdeen as he approaches and stumbles backwards, as if burned.

"Who...who is that? Get out of my house, before I call the police!" she turns around and sprints back into the house, slamming the garden door behind her. I move to go after her but her father pulls me back. I want to fight, yank my arm away but my frustration has already caused too much damage and I know there is nothing to gain by struggling against him. The deep desolation of my failure weakens my knees and I slump against the house under the weight of it. This idea of an afterlife is a mockery and I have been played for the biggest fool of all.

"Some husband I am," I say moodily. "I came in, certain that, on the strength of our connection, our love, I'd be able to pull her out of here. I was arrogant and stupid and I'm sorry."

Mr. Everdeen shakes his head. "There is nothing more destructive to a human soul than the loss of hope. You tried. At least you got as far as being able to speak to her."

"Regardless," I straighten up. "I wasn't planning on leaving here without her. If I can't get her out of here, then I'm not going back."

Mr. Everdeen furrows his brow in alarm. It brings me a vague satisfaction at being able to surprise him, given the extent of his equanimity during this entire journey. "You can't! You won't be able to resist the despondency of the place, not indefinitely. Katniss has not traveled her path to purification but you have! You would be regressing and there is no way to guess what effect that will have on you."

"I'll take my chances. I didn't marry her to stay with her only when the conditions were convenient. I can't leave her here and frankly, heaven isn't much without her anyway." Having made the decision, I feel somewhat stronger, optimistic even, as if a great weight were lifted from my shoulders. "Tell Prim that I'm sorry I couldn't bring her sister back but at least Katniss won't be alone." I extend my hand to my father-in-law, who stares at it uncomprehendingly before pulling me in for a powerful hug.

"It's a fine thing you do. I'm proud to call you my son." He says in resignation as he claps my back with his large palms before releasing me. "Stay strong. Try to resist as long as possible. She may come around yet," he says but we both know the chances of that are slim. He shakes his head and turns around, making his lonely trek up the hill.

XXXXX

I return to the garden door, which is now locked against me. I want to bang my head against the door jamb, mentally cursing myself for losing my temper. Not only does Katniss not recognize me but now she believes I am also a danger to her. I reserve a small spark of hope that, with time, I will persuade her to recognize me for who I really am.

But it's hard to stay optimistic when every statement I make, every evidence of truth I put forth is met with active denial. Each argument, each attempt at persuasion, no matter how logical and infallible my reasoning, is met head on with the intractable stubbornness of her disbelief.

Then it hits me all at once. Her very disbelief in the survival of the soul after death is her greatest obstacle to understanding. She doesn't believe she's dead because to her perfect, scientific mind, there can be no life after death. It is not just her guilt that binds her to this hellish reality - she won't even acknowledge that she is dead!

This possibility awakens other options in me. I consider another method of attack, one that goes to the very heart of her existence. But first, I have to figure out a way to get to her physically.

My thoughts are interrupted by a scream that comes from inside the house. I press my face against the window panel of the glass garden door and see her standing in the middle of the room, frozen in terror. At her feet is a giant snake of an ethereal, almost translucent snow white color and large fangs the color of blood poised to attack. Searching frantically for a weapon of any kind, I grab a shovel and burst into the house.

The snake corners her, Katniss screaming now from the shock of my entry. I bring the shovel down to bear on the snake's head with all the force I can muster. I sever the head cleanly from the neck, wondering briefly if such a violent act is really necessary, then deciding it was absolutely indispensable if it convinces Katniss that I am at the very least not intending to harm her.

XXXXX

Katniss

I stare at the pale, twitching body of the snake, the head lies several inches distance away. Its fathomless black eyes thankfully turned towards a wall and not me.

"Thank you," I gasp as I try to catch my breath again. I can't look at the stranger, my apparent rescuer. I fold my arms over my chest and try to rub away the chills racing down them. "They're everywhere, even in my bed. I've always hated snakes!"

I ramble as he scoops up the carcass with the shovel and tosses it outside. His words from earlier still sting, like a swarm of bees, and I chase away the feeling that I should know him. I couldn't possibly know him. A strange man who moved in down the street and claims to share a name with my dead husband. But the moment he stepped into the garden, something shifted. My gut started churning with unpleasant feelings familiar to me now and yet completely different, as though they were a new cocktail this strange man brought with him.

Guilt. Fear. Longing.

Yes, longing such as I hadn't felt in ages. Bitter sweet and pure. And with it…a growing sense of clarity. Which is why he scares me so much.

"My wife hated snakes, too," he answers. "Katniss, I'm sorry for earlier. I lost my temper with you. I've always hated arguing with you."

I stare at him, knowing my face must betray every emotion I feel. Confusion. Anguish. And I wrestle with the meaning of his words. His placating tone. The feelings he brings that should only belong to Peeta.

"You think I'm talking nonsense but if so, I have to ask - How come all your utilities are off at the same time? There haven't been any storms or local disasters. Why is this happening all of a sudden?"

"I...don't understand…" I stutter, backing away from him. The dirty liar is clearly still trying to unhinge me.

"Think," he presses, and I retreat further away, unwilling to hear his words or feel the pain of the memories they bring to the surface. "You never lived like this before and now, all of a sudden, the house is like this?"

He pauses and I curl in on myself, instinctively protecting my ribs from a blow I don't believe I'll be able to take. He has blue eyes, this stranger. And I can't look at them too long for fear that I'll start to replace Peeta's eyes in my memories with the stranger's. I've already started to forget exactly what Peeta looked like, the mental image gone hazy. Lost in ashes and mist.

"You're dead, Katniss. You killed yourself."

My body begins to shake uncontrollably, my hands covering my ears as I shake my head and try to block out his words. There is no way he or anyone else could know about what I tried and failed to do that night. I haven't left the house or spoken to anyone since.

"You're lying!" I scream. "I'm not dead!"

"You are dead! You swallowed every prescription pill you could find in the cupboard and you killed yourself. That's why you're here!"

"It's not true!" I should be dead. How I long for death! And Peeta. Mostly I long for Peeta and his arms. His warm embrace that this stranger seems determined to torment me with, building false hopes that I might once more have hope or the arms and lips that I yearn for. But I can't ever have those again. Alive or dead.

The floorboards creak beneath my feet and splinter. I stumble blindly into the sitting room, running from the meaning behind his declarations and whatever new horror now creeps from beneath the foundations of our home. I can't be dead. If I were dead, I wouldn't be here. It's why I took all those pills. I needed to find the black oblivion that comes after life. I couldn't bear another day of this. Of listening to Peeta and Prim die in my head or watching it in my nightmares. I'd be dead now if I had found an opportunity. A weapon. Anything besides rats and snakes, dead plants, and broken dreams. This stranger is nothing but another nightmare.

"And I'm your husband," he says gently, following me…like a loyal dog…

"If I wasn't dead, I couldn't tell you anything that happened after my death. But I can prove to you that what I say is true."

I quiet myself, my tremors gradually ceasing as I wonder, morbidly so…if he knows about the pills…could he know about the rest? Could it be….?

"I was there, during the wake. The house was full of people but you weren't there. You were in our room. Do you remember that?"

I sit silently, my lips pressed together to keep from screaming at him again. How could a stranger who just moved in know that? Who told him? Who's been sharing all the sordid details of my mental health with him? I simply nod, unable to voice my growing fears or hopes, and he continues.

"You were wearing the black dress we'd bought for your conference, remember? You were in bed." Slowly, he sits down next to me on the sofa and I watch his hands quiver, fingers flexing and unflexing repeatedly…as though resisting the urge to reach out to me. It was one of Peeta's nervous gestures. Something he did when we fought. "You were crying and it broke my heart. I tried to hold you but I was just a ghost. You called me twice."

I shiver at the accuracy of the picture he paints and try to block out the pain it brings with it, but it is no use. I exist with this pain or crumble to nothing. He can't take my pain away from me. He can't take Peeta away from me. I won't let him. He moves his hand to hover over my knee but I jerk away from his touch. He doesn't relent in his recitation, his voice breaking a little, sounding wounded. "I stayed with you the whole night. I even slept - I bet it was a surprise to you how strangely we sleep here…"

"Yes…" I mutter, the word slipping out involuntarily, forced out by a string of nightmares and things that keep happening to me when I think I'm awake and yet make no sense. Even the dreams I had before the night I tried to die…the strange way in which I felt that Peeta could see them…or at least feel them, too. The shadow…

"And the funeral. Do you remember how I touched you and you flinched? You felt me! You can pretend you have forgotten but I was there…"

"Liar!" I protest weakly as tears begin to slide down my face. No, he won't take the shadow too. But how could he know? Only the diary knows that...

The diary…where is my diary? I haven't seen that in such a long time either. It should have been in bed with me the morning after the pills…

"I was with you at the cemetery also. It was the biggest mistake I ever made - leaving you there but I was making you crazy, Katniss. I had to go…"

"I don't believe you!" I hiss. The shadow was mine. A piece of my mind and a figment of my broken heart's desire but it would have made me insane. Maybe it already has. Why can't my head just work the way it should? "There are no such things as ghosts or spirits. When you die, you die!"

"You're the liar, Kantiss." The stranger's voice takes on an edge of desperate anger. " You're lying to yourself and to me because you yourself saw how Buttercup reacted when I appeared. You even tried to communicate with me, through the wisteria tree painting. Didn't you think I'd somehow hear you? Why would you do that if deep down inside, you didn't think I existed?"

I burst into a fit of sobs, keening like a child, unable to hold down the acute yearning I've felt since this intruder walked into my barren garden with his haunting words and all his knowledge of things he shouldn't know unless…

"I want Peeta!" I moan. The stranger holds me, the gesture so warm and soothing. No one else's arms have made me feel this safe since Peeta died. Has anyone even held me this way since that night? I don't think they have. So I let him hold me. "Where is he? I need him!"

"I'm here…" he soothes, petting my hair and pushing it away from my face. Just as Peeta used to do…

"No," I whisper brokenly, weakly trying to pull away. But my words gain strength as I speak. "Why are you doing this? What do you want from me? You can't take him away from me! He's already gone! There's nothing left when you die!" Anger seethes within me and I wrench myself free. Fleeing towards the garden.

I startle at the buckthorn shrubs I find in the hallway, pushing up through the floor, devoid of berries or leaves, but teeming with sharp thorns. These shouldn't be here. They can't be here. I reach out a tentative hand and touch a thorn, wincing as it pricks my finger, drawing forth a drop off oozing red blood.

"The dead don't bleed," I say, but the stranger has followed me again and I keep moving.

"What if there is more?" The stranger persists. "What if his spirit is still alive and he's trying to reach out to you? Why won't you admit the possibility?" I shake my head and hold my injured hand, cradled to my chest. The floors groan and bend upwards as more of the buckthorn break through and I gasp. The bushes shouldn't grow when they're dormant like this, let alone at this rate…inside a house.

"I'm here!" The stranger yells and grabs me, whirling me to face him and shaking me a little. "I'm Peeta! Look at me!"

"Let me go!" I snarl.

"I can't!" He yells back, but I fight him off easily and change directions, running for the bedroom instead. The thorns follow me even here, although their growth slows when I lay on the bed and wrap myself in a blanket of my own grief. I hold on to it, the only thing sending me straight into screeching madness.

"Whether you believe me or not," the stranger's quiet voice reaches me as he sits heavily on the bed, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you again. If I leave, and you stay here, I'll have nothing to exist for, no one else I care about. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I forced you to survive without me. I'm so sorry I wasn't more careful with our lives. I'm sorry I broke you. I will never abandon you again."

Laying silently on my side, I stare with unseeing eyes at the wall where the frames that once held our pictures now hang covered in ash. All of my energy focused on resisting the temptation his words offer. A finger runs delicately along my jawline. My entire being responds to the touch and I flinch, but stifle any other reaction. I won't let him know how badly I've longed for a caress just like that, from Peeta's hands.

The light in the room, perpetually ashen gray since I tried to kill myself, does something strange in that moment. It shifts. Darkens. As though any hope left in the room were sucked away. Stolen.

The stranger stretches out alongside me, blocking my view of the destroyed pictures and stares directly into my eyes.

"Thank you," he says softly. "Thank you for being so wonderful, a man would give up heaven for hell just to hang around you." The room grows darker still. Approaching what midnight would look like if I had any midnights left.

"I told you I'd stay with you and I meant it," he whispers, and the temperature seems to drop along with the light. I finally focus my eyes on the strangers', still not wanting to really look, but he's using Peeta's words, and that is unforgivable. His face is contorted, lips curled with great effort as he struggles to continue speaking.

"I promised you. I promised…" His speech is strained as I watch his face twist with something like madness.

"Always…"

The word sinks through layers of thought and misery to settle somewhere deep inside me. A glowing promise, pulsing with light and hope. The stranger's form, up to now, oddly fluid in shape, solidifies. The hollow echoes of his voice recede in my mind as I tilt my head and a lone tear treks down my face.

"Peeta?" I whisper.

His jaw has gone slack, his brow furrowed as he looks around, eyes haunted. I know that look, even though I've only seen it once before. It came with a dead sister and a sanatorium and divorce papers that I had asked for.

Me coming here isn't helping you...and it's killing me.

I release a strangled, gasping moan, like that of a person who has been drowning and just rediscovered air. He's here. Real. With me.

"Peeta," I say desperately and fly up off the bed, pulling him with me so we're kneeling on the pillowed surface, face to face. His pupils grow wide, encompassing his irises in hopeless black.

"It's so cold in here," he murmurs, looking around at our bedroom with vacant eyes. "Aren't the lights or the heater working? I'm so tired."

A tendril of dread curls through me, completely unlike the constant humming misery I've lived in since the sounds of Peeta's car crashing first reached me over the phone. No…this feels…real. Sharp and clear. Not a nightmare or a hallucination but much more dangerous.

"Peeta, no! Don't leave me. You can't leave me here alone! You promised!"

I whimper in pain, clutching his limp hands in mine and pressing kisses to them. I can't watch him sink to the same depths as my despair and shut my eyes to block out the sight. How did we get here?

Memory returns to me, one piece at a time. All in reverse, as though I were reliving my life backwards. Isn't that what they say happens when you die? That your life flashes before your eyes? I relive the entirety of my days on earth. I fall to pieces and destroy my world, the words of The Hanging Tree sung in my own broken voice slithering through my conscious.

Don't wear this necklace of rope with me, I think as Peeta pulls his hands free and I tug on his shoulders to keep him close. Don't follow me into this eternity. Not this Always.

The horrible days after Peeta's death. The car wreck that took his life, although I wasn't really there. Years of precarious happiness together. Prim. A seaside trip with her and Peeta. The three of us building a sandcastle together. Our wedding day. I fall in love with him all over and desperately hold onto that feeling of hope while the rest plays on. My mother in the hospital, years of caring for Prim, flashes of Peeta's life I would never have seen but do not question the presence of in my subconscious. My father teaching me how to shoot an arrow…all the way to the beginning of memory and then nothing but white light.

I cry out, an unintelligible sound of pure emotion. I don't know how to save Peeta from this nightmare I've concocted. From the world that comes after death. I look around at the remains of our house. Did…did I really do this to us?

A hollow of dead brush where flowers used to grow.

I clasp his face in my hands and hold it to mine, pressing our cold lips together as he struggles weakly to detangle himself from me. As though he no longer recognizes me. It isn't possible. No one could make Peeta forget me. Or that he loves me. Dying hurt less than this.

A memory reaches me. Small and quiet.

Peeta frowns at the paper in front of him before tearing it from the sketch book and throwing the crumpled ball across the room. He stands and stalks into the kitchen, his footsteps heavy. I rarely see him so frustrated with his art and follow him, to make sure he's okay.

"Peeta?" I ask as he rummages in the pantry. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," he says tersely, and I bite back an angry retort.

Instead, I wrap my arms around his middle and kiss him between the shoulder blades, trace lazy circles over his abdomen. He heaves a sigh.

"I'm sorry, Katniss," he whispers. "I shouldn't have been short with you."

"I'm sorry, too," I answer.

"Why?" He twists a little in my embrace and I duck my gaze away from his. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I keep making things difficult. And sometimes I think that when you don't talk to me, it's because you're afraid that you'll break me. That I'm somehow…weaker."

"I don't think that, Katniss." Peeta turns completely and holds me to his chest, his fingers clutching my back, nose buried in my hair. "I'm afraid I might break if I give in to this pain and take you with me."

I snort in response. "You think I'm crazy. For believing it was my fault."

"No," he says vehemently. Then he leans back and waits for me to look up at him, brushes the hair off my forehead, a wistful smile on his face. "Sometimes, the things we believe in our minds are far more real than any truth. Science and logic be damned. You believed it was your fault. That made it real to you. And that's all that mattered. I don't believe for a second that Prim's death was your fault. But you did. Still do sometimes. I can see it in your eyes. So that's the reality we have to work with."

I tuck my head under his chin and listen to his heart beat. Steady and strong. I hold onto him until my breathing matches the rhythmic tha-thump against my cheek. And I absorb his words as he opens to me, and somehow, neither of us breaks.

It's a long shot. Probably futile. But I try it anyways. If I made this prison out of our home, then I can unmake it. I can change what is real in my mind. The silhouette of our tree looms a short distance outside the filth covered bedroom window. An idea takes shape, a seed that germinates and plants roots. A tiny pearl that I hold close and polish until I almost smile.

We've got some flowers to grow.

"Stay with me, Peeta," I plead and taking his hands in mine again, I hold them, palms flattened, against my cheeks and I kiss him full on the mouth. Tears stream down my face and I imagine them as a steady, gentle rain, flowing free from a cloud filled sky. I imagine it washing away the fear and guilt of this place as I recall every beautiful memory I can.

I start with the primrose. That one is easy. My beautiful sister lost so young. Her carefree sass and bubbling optimism. I imagine her life as the yellow and pink flowers she was named for fluttering in a breeze. Pixie like. I can hear her sing while splashing in ocean waves and swallow down a sob. Because this time, her song is not meant to torment me.

Peeta flinches against me, his wrists straining under my hands. I grip them tighter, almost to the point of pain. To anchor us both as I paint a dream for us.

Orange trees in bloom. Our wedding reception. It was in a garden with the playful scent of the orange blossoms waltzing through the night. I grab the memory with both hands and channel it towards Peeta. He pulled me close that evening and rubbed our noses together in a stolen moment, hidden from view by the orange trees, a dazzling smile on his face. I replace the crumbling walls of our house with the fragrant trees.

You're stuck with me for Always.

Forget-me-nots come next. Tiny blue stars. A promise to remember. My mother happily twirling around me in a blue dress, her first new dress in ages, while my father watches with a loving smile. The flowers spring forth in her wake.

Amaranth, red vows of eternity waving gently in a summer breeze. The colors separate and soften, a painting bathed in sunset hues. Peeta giving me a look of feigned annoyance when I shove his sketch book off his lap with my feet and demand a massage after a long hike through the mountains.

Around me, I hear strange sounds. The sighing of a world released from tension as I continue to nurture an Eden in my mind's eye and share it with Peeta through this endless kiss. I kiss him until my chest aches and I can barely breathe and still I hold our mouths sealed together. We're dead. We need only breathe each other to survive.

Jasmine. The scent weaves around me like the vines those sensual flowers grow on. I cannot grow them without resurrecting our wisteria draped tree, the two memories eternally tied together. Brave and adventurous purple puffs. White elegance tinged with pink.

Peeta draws in a ragged breath through his nose, his body shuddering, and I wonder if he can see it, feel it, too. Sensuous nights of love, laughter, and paint. The belief that life could go on. Be good again.

I give the tree companions, so it may never know loneliness. Towering pines, sturdy oaks, and ethereal birch. Sentinels of the living we left behind on earth. Johanna. Finnick. Annie. They are all the different woods of my childhood. The ones my father gave me and Peeta adopted along with me and Prim.

And then, his laughter. A sliver of auditory sunshine that clears away the clouds and reveals an infinite blue sky dotted with singing birds in blazing feathered plumage. I give the buckthorn bushes their waxy leaves and bright red berries, life out of death. Beauty out of misery.

Dandelions by the hundreds. By the thousands. A million promises of Always in white clouds and yellow crowns woven in braids, a quilt of hope laid over the ground.

For just the space of a heartbeat, I feel Peeta's hands tremble under my own. Then his thumbs glide across my cheeks, gathering my tears and wiping them away. His lips respond to mine. A second pair of hands rests on my shoulders and squeeze. Familiar and comforting. They make me think of my father and how badly I've missed him, too.

And then everything turns to purple mist.

XXXXX

Peeta

I think I died again.

When I open my eyes, it feels as if I've been sleeping for an eternity. The weight that lay heavily on my chest is gone and I feel light and unburdened again. The sky is a sliver of sapphire blue outlined by the frame of our bedroom window. I'm alive and, for the moment, I'm giddy from the feeling of lightness of being freed from the deadly desolation that had settled within.

I also know that I am no longer alone.

I know she's here, next to me, without having to turn my head. But I want to look at her, feast all of my senses, all the necessary and unnecessary ones. I want to drown all of myself in Katniss.

I haven't opened my eyes yet but her face hovers over mine and she smiles down so sweetly, it confounds my ability to speak. She hesitates, pausing to stare at me as I sleep, and I know she wants to kiss me.

"Well, if you don't do it, I will," I tease, opening my eyes and catching her by surprise.

Her breath hitches and every corner of me aches with her beauty. She is no longer that self-immolating wraith I'd discovered in the squalid prison of her personal hell but luminous and healthy - full of life.

Her aura frames her face and it captivates me more than anything I've ever seen before. I see music and hear the colors that dance and move with a cadence that matches mine - deep green like her father and a sweet pink that calls to mind Prim's patterns, most likely an inheritance from their mother's.

And there is me. My sunset orange.

We'd only been dating for a few months. But when I said love at first sight, I was not exaggerating. I was blown away by how right it felt to be with Katniss. We could speak about everything. It was so staggering the way we clicked that we seemed to gloss over the easier, more basic aspects of our personalities because it was so easy to speak so intimately with Katniss.

"Isn't it interesting that I know everything about your family situation and the way you feel about your sister but I don't even know what your favorite color is?" I asked. We were lounging in the grass at the park, Katniss' head on my lap. I toyed with her braid as the afternoon sun began to dissolve.

A smile crept across her lips. "Green. What's yours?"

"Orange," I said.

"Orange? Like a bright, tacky orange highway cone?" she teased, wrinkling her nose at the image in her mind.

"A bit more muted," I said. "More like...sunset."

Sunset. It greeted us now, as if our conversation had accelerated time and invoked it. The rim of the descending sun, the sky streaked with shades of orange, beautiful like a tiger lily cookie I'd once frosted for Katniss. Beautiful like the girl whose heart I would one day make mine.

And that's when I know I have her back.

"Peeta! I thought you were gone!" she says, hiccupping between her sobs.

"Shhh…" I say, brushing away her tears, real because she still thinks she needs them here any longer. "Don't cry. You've cried enough,"

"Dad said you would wake up but I was so afraid. I already lost you…" she presses her head to my forehead.

"I'm here now," I say, taking in every detail of her. I'm starving for everything about her and I want to burst with real happiness when I feel her press so closely to me.

She nods and speaks to me but I have no more words left in me. She probably doesn't realize yet that she can communicate with her mind. I pull her down instead and kiss her, running my hands along her back, clasping her to me. I have spent the better part of my adult life kissing her, but this is more than kissing. I have a powerful feeling of deja vu and I realize that we've been here before. We've spent most of our mortal lives unconsciously attempting to recreate this moment, what we were doing now, what we have always done, since the beginning of our existence.

It's not love-making - the only word that comes to mind is fusion. In our kiss, we speak wordlessly to one another of everything our hearts had been unable to share in our human forms, because of the limitations of time and space, the boundary of our bodies, life and eventually, death. The entire panoply of slings and arrows that was once our mortal lives falls away until there is only Katniss and I, soul to soul, with no impediments between us. We are finally home again, not in heaven, or hell but in each other. This is why there are so few of us, why soul mates are so dangerous and rare - because within each other, we have no need for anything else in all of existence. The entire universe is contained in us.

I press her onto her back from force of habit and she winds her arms around me, clutching me tightly. The first thing I feel is relief, followed by longing. I desire all of her, not just her flesh and bone, so undressing her, kissing her, tasting her skin is now something for another existence altogether. And yet we go through the human motions, from the memory of our bodies bound to earth, removing each other's clothing. I listen and, with satisfaction, hear her sighs, kiss her neck and shoulders.

But mind is everything and as I hover over her, I am no longer separate from her in any space defined by the four dimensions that confined our small but precious existence. I am her and she is me and here I see that our entire earthly sexual lives had been another effort to get to the state we are in now. There is no place to get to, no climax to reach - we are at our most natural condition of being when we are continuous with each other, which is what had made our separation practically unendurable for the both of us.

"Peeta," she exclaims in wonder as our auras meet and the pieces I carried become fused with the pieces that define her, forming something so luminous and complete, we could be a comet in the sky and no one would have recognized us.

"Trust me," I say.

She nods and listens to me as I open the gates of memory to her. I show her everything that had happened since I died - every memory is written in my aura, waiting for her to add her part. I show her my time in the mist, watching her as she grieved, forced to leave for her own good, my time in heaven, my descent into hell. I show her all the experiences of my earthly life, the ones she'd never seen before and let her write herself into those memories also, because she was a part of me as much as I was a part of her.

Katniss shudders, struggling for a way to reciprocate and I tell her, "Just want it and it will happen."

And without hesitation, she floods me with her life and I watch her painting the wisteria tree, watch her search for me, speak to me, believing herself to be insane. She returns to work without any desire or joy, but from obligation and necessity. I watch her become more and more hopeless until it's all too much for her and I weep for her. Then, I am her as she traverses her time in the Second Sphere and I see myself as she saw me - a stranger in her strange house, awakening to me and finally understanding who I am.

In that instant, I am suffused with a powerful wave of love and I know it comes from her. Katniss glows, so bright, she drowns out everything and I forget who I am. We don't have to verbalize to one another that we love each other and that we would. In that infinite moment of union, we see everything the other has seen, feel everything the other has felt. I don't know where she ends and I begin - we are not in the colors and patterns and music of our auras, we are the colors and patterns and music of our auras. We are the force of life, bound up inextricably with one another, beyond weeping and crying and laughter. We are the memory of all that we'd been and all that we would be until nothing is distinctly mine or hers any longer. At long last, there is the relief that comes after a long separation, when two souls traverse the vast and lonely expanse of the universe to finally find each other again.

XXXXX

After, we lie in bed, playing with the energy from our auras, watching them merge and separate as we bring our hands together before pulling them apart. The game we play creates infinite patterns of light and dark when she reverts to speech.

"How did you get it into your head that you could be successful coming after me like you did? There was no precedent whatsoever." she says turning her attention to toying with my hair.

"But we did have a precedent! We've been together since we were made," I say, running the pads of my fingers over her arms. It is primitive but after so much distance, merely touching each other is an infinite pleasure.

"Right. Soul mates," she smiles, glancing out the window. "Dad told me you made everything here?"

"I just thought of the most beautiful place in the world, the place that most reminds me of home," I sit up suddenly, startling Katniss. "I'm sorry, but there's something we have to take care of."

Katniss casts me a questioning look but takes my proffered hand and climbs out of bed.

I thread my fingers through hers and we leave the house. It's a perfect day and I watch happily as Katniss takes all of it in, enjoying the sun on her face. I am sure I will burst into a ball of fire from joy as I watch her. She is resplendent. Happy. Here with me. And I love her so very much.

"I love you too, Peeta," she responds, glancing slyly at me and I realize my thoughts are still a beacon bursting from my mind.

We make our way up the hill and stand before the tree of ash. Katniss kneels before it, touching the tree trunk, the ash falling from it like clumps of dirt on a potted plant.

"Is this…?" she asks, though she knows. She knows everything now.

"Yes," I answer.

She looks at it again, the pain dampening the brightness of her aura. "You heard me all that time, didn't you?" she asks rhetorically.

I kneel before the tree. "I heard your song. And saw the things you added to the painting as they appeared here. No one knew what to think of it."

"I'm so sorry!" she says, kneeling next to me, still staring at the destroyed tree. "I was desperate. I couldn't believe you were still alive in some way and yet I was making myself crazy, thinking that I could still feel you near me. Turns out I was right."

"You don't have to explain," I say gently, toying with her hair. I can't help but touch her.

"But I do! It was our painting and I ruined it."

"Then let's make the tree grow again," I say.

"Together?" she asks skeptically.

"Together," I answer. She will never be the kind of person who does not question the world around her. She'll always have a little doubt about everything, which is what makes her so amazing to me.

"C'mere," I say, settling in the grass behind her, my thighs on either side of hers. "You've done this already. Just pretend you're painting."

I take her smooth, slender hand and hold it in mine, as if she were holding a paintbrush.

"Mind is everything. Whatever you can imagine, it will appear just because you want it to." I lift her hand and air paint the shape of the tree before us.

"The purer your soul, the more beauty you will create," I whisper in her ear.

"I'm not as pure as you are," she retorts.

I lean back, turning her face by the chin to better look at her. "I never want to hear you say that again. You are good and pure and beautiful. If it weren't for you, we'd still be in hell," I flick her nose teasingly. "And if you have any doubt, just look at me. I'm the other half of you."

Katniss' eyes grow bright and misty. She leans back further and we kiss again. I am lost in a ravenous hunger for her but release her lips long enough to complete our work. The tree blooms, towering over us, it's branches thickening and becoming heavy with amethyst-colored flowers before I recapture her lips again.

She twists around and straddles me, pressing me back into the grass. Her light surrounds me like a shield against the world, the light more than illumination but a manifestation of her love. And like the sun, she shines her pure love on me. I think back on a quote from my school days, He whom love touches walks not in darkness.

"Katniss…" I'm lost in amazement and rendered speechless by her.

She smiles slowly, blindingly beautiful. "I don't know how everything works here yet but I can hear your thoughts. I feel you here," she presses her hand where her heart would be. "And I feel myself inside of you. It's not strange, or terrifying. It's perfect. I have the feeling I've been searching for you for much longer than I've been alive and I don't want to be separated from you again. I want it to be like this for always."

At that, she lower her head and kisses me, flooding me with her and I lose every desire to know where and when I am. I am with her and everything else ceases to hold any meaning for me.

"Peeta," she says breathlessly, her aura vibrating with a sultry excitement. "Can we...can we do that thing we did before? Where we, you know...I don't even know how to describe it!" she exclaims.

I close the distance between us, kissing her until the world spins. "Why don't you just show me?"

XXXXX

Katniss

Peeta is eager to show me more. I can see the excitement glowing on his face and feel it beneath my skin. It may take me some time to shed these thoughts of corporeal things. Faces, skin, heartbeats, lips. To fully accept the soft orange currents that seem to flow around him, through him, and change with his thoughts. What my father had explained was an aura. A visual representation of the soul's light.

But for now, we take in the lush garden I somehow brought with me from the depths of my own personal hell. It now grows beside our home here, which is something my father couldn't explain either, but had scratched his chin and shrugged, saying he'd have to ask someone what that was all about.

The sight of the flowers reminds me that my heaven is not yet complete. As happy as being reunited with Peeta has made me, there is another branch to this family, and I feel her absence as a gaping hole in the landscape around us.

"Hey," Peeta squeezes my hand, already knowing my thoughts and feelings. "Just tell me when you're ready and we'll go see her."

"She's here?" I ask brokenly.

"She has her own slice of heaven, too. But I know where to find her. She was my guide when I first arrived, although I couldn't really see her until I was ready."

I nod and step away for a moment, listening to the birds rejoice in the sky and the wind sing through the trees. I examine my feelings. Guilt that I didn't ask to see her first thing on arriving here.

Peeta chuckles. "I'm not complaining. And I think she would understand. She'd probably laugh and tease us…'Ew. Gross, you two.'"

I look over my shoulder at him with an eyebrow raised and let him feel my annoyance. Then I return to my task…

Fear that she will blame me or be angry with me for not saving her.

"She's doesn't. She never did. But you'll only truly believe that by seeing her."

And...longing. Peeta takes my hand in his, a soft smile on his face.

"Close your eyes and just think of Prim," he instructs.

As soon as I do, the air changes. I sniff lightly, salt and humidity, fragrant flowers. Off to the side, I hear the rolling and lapping waves of an ocean. Opening my eyes, I find crystal turquoise waters stretching out as far as I can see. Palm trees sway in the breeze that sweeps along the shore. To our right is a quaint beach bungalow, a wide staircase leads from the sand up onto a veranda lined with chairs and tables for sitting and enjoying the view. An abundance of glorious tropical flowers flourishes on all sides of the house.

I gasp at the beauty of the place, but what seizes my attention and holds tight is the foundation of a structure in the sand. A sand castle. Buckets and digging tools, such as would be necessary on earth, wait in a neat pile next to the structure, as if…

"I was waiting for my family to help me finish it."

My eyes close at the sound of her voice and something pounds in my chest. Not my heart because I no longer have a heart in the physical sense. I suppose this must be love. Pure, unconditional love for another soul. Different from the connection I share with Peeta, but just as powerful and consuming. Slowly, I turn, not quite willing to let myself believe that she's here for real this time and not another self-inflicted torment.

When I finally open my eyes, a choked sob escapes me as Prim, blonde ponytail swinging wildly, flings herself at me. Her skinny, girlish arms wind around my neck in a fierce embrace and we collapse onto the sand. I inhale the ocean salt, innocent laughter, and the hint of spice of her sass.

"I've missed you, Little Duck. I'm so sorry," I say to her.

"I've missed you, too," she replies. I don't know when or how she does it, but suddenly, Peeta is there, too. Encompassed in our embrace, kneeling with us in the sand. My eyes blur with superfluous and yet necessary tears. Tears of joy as I watch the dancing yellows and pinks of her aura...just like the primrose bushes I conjured in hell. Perfect.

"I knew he could bring you back! I just knew it," she declares.

I feel rather than hear Peeta's laughter beside me. "Actually, Katniss did this one all on her own."

Then we are silent, sharing a long hug and allowing the years of anguish and what-ifs to float away on an ocean wave.

"You couldn't have stopped it," she finally says, sounding a thousand years old. "And you have to know, short or not, my life was so much better because of you two."

Prim giggles then and ends the embrace. She wears her familiar smile. The one that promises laughter and an adventure.

"But this sand castle isn't going to finish itself," she says brightly. We set to work in her tropical paradise and it is while we're building turrets and ramparts that I sense a fourth presence on the beach. One I already know well. A comforting touch on the shoulders. My father stands in the shade of Prim's porch and nods once before melting into the shadows. I want him to join us. I want-

"He has work to do," Prim explains. "He'll be back. Besides, he's still a little lonely and lost without Mom. She won't be here for a few more earth years, though."

The thought of my mother, back on earth, alone in the sanitorium with all those efficient doctors and no visitors frustrates me. It isn't right. It shouldn't be that way.

"Who said life was fair?" Prim teases. "She'll be fine. Besides, we had a new arrival from that area while Peeta and Dad were gone looking for you. A nurse. Mom is actually doing a little better. Dad thinks it has something to do with you two finding one another here, although he can't quite explain it. Plus, Finnick and Annie started visiting her. They went first to tell Mom about you and Peeta, but then they kept going. Turns out, their new baby does wonders for the mind."

I feel a twinge of sadness at having missed Annie giving birth. Perhaps that was the real reason she and Finnick stopped checking on me. But the news of my mother does lighten my spirit. Enough that we are able to enjoy a time of happiness, building sandcastles and gardens at will, a time in which we return to being the family we once were. When he allows himself a few moments peace from his work or his solitary contemplation, my father joins us, his laughter slightly dampened from what I remember it being on earth.

Until one day, I seek out my father and find that he is no longer alone.

It feels like an intrusion, but I cannot help myself. I watch as my father clasps my mother's hands in his and pulls her close. The simple connection turns into something greater. I observe with growing joy as the whispering blue that curls in random twists around my mother strengthens and calms then winds around his wrists. What started as erratic blue pulses evens out into tremulous notes. The deep browns of my father's aura assume the same rhythm.

As I watch, the patterns of their joined aura meld into what can only be described as music, vibrant and steady. Complementary. She is treble, and he is bass. Even their colors, forest green and rich soil brown, sky blue with brief flashes of pink, paint a musical picture so beautiful, it almost hurts to watch.

My mother laughs, a bright sound I'd forgotten the tenor of, and the pink of her aura joins the dance. I realize that I am watching what happens when Peeta and I are close together. My heart softens at the realization of the similarities in my mother's and my earth-bound experiences. I know, without even speaking to her or making my presence known to my parents, that they were made for one another as well. That their separation was just as unendurable as mine and Peeta's. I chose death, she chose to wander alone and confused, dead in heart if not body.

She is suddenly beautiful and carefree again, the woman I imagined twirling in a blue dress through my hell, leaving forget-me-nots in her wake. As I watch, those same flowers stretch and rise from the ground. They dot the forest floor of my father's heaven-no, their heaven.

I ache to hold her, to feel her hands, such as they are here, weave a braid through my hair. But that is a joy to be experienced another day. I have eternity to apologize to my mother for not understanding. To rediscover what we lost when my father died. For now, I leave my parents to their reunion, and seek out Prim to share in the joy of our mother's return.

XXXXX

Peeta

Time passes - indefinite time. We learn to function in this environment and grow from what we learn. Katniss is a gifted tracker, like her father, and goes along with him on his excursions into the Lower Spheres. The first time she went, she was blinded by terror and had to return right away. But once overcome, her fear became courage, her particular intimacy with the desolation of those realms giving her a powerful insight into the poor souls that condemned themselves to self-punishment.

I am content to paint and learn from an infinite library of knowledge in the city Prim had always spoken of. Unlike Dis, this city was bustling with souls going about the business of their different tasks. There's no violence or anger here. These souls are kind, almost to a fault, and deeply fulfilled by their existence.

But most of my time is spent with Katniss, when she is not off with her father. I am lonely and somewhat dampened by her absence but I guess that is one of the occupational hazards of soul mates - one is not worth much without the other. You have only to watch the enormous difference in Mr. Everdeen now that he is joined by his wife to know that this is true.

Then Finnick and Annie both appear, almost at the same time, and I realize that maybe soul mates are not as rare as I thought as I watch their sea-foam colored souls unite in fluid harmony, like the sea Prim loves so much. Or maybe, we gravitate to one another. Who will ever know?

However, the day comes when Katniss slowly becomes restless. In the end, we are all made for life on Earth, no matter how idyllic paradise may be. I see in Katniss' thoughts, how she cherishes certain experiences, ones that can only be had in mortal form. I catch her daydreaming about hunting and hiking in a forest full of decay as well as life.

So it comes, what I have long suspected. A request that I can't deny.

"I want to fall in love with you again," she says as we walk our vast garden in moonlight, galaxies swirling overhead as if they could be plucked like apples from the sky. "Have children. Try to make different decisions."

I pause as I hear her heart's desire. We've long since stopped using our lips and our forms have become so radiant, our physical attributes have largely been subsumed by the totality of our aura. If I had to admit it, I miss the distinct smell of her body, the feel of her thick hair in my hands, her endless grey eyes that make the pinwheel galaxies soaring over our hills look like dull circus trinkets. I miss cooking and eating and making love to her, the limits making each moment of our mortal lives more precious for their very ephemeral nature. Moments are eternal here. But on Earth, each moment we breathe, live, and love is meant to be cherished, for they are short, limited and destined to end.

"We'll forget our previous life. All the pain and joy will be hidden from us," I say.

"But they're in our souls, right? I mean, we forget the events but not the lessons. That is the whole point of purification. Forgetting also levels the playing field, allows us to really live unencumbered, each time as if it were the first," she pleads.

I take her hand, caressing the knuckles before bringing them up to my lips. "But how will we find each other?"

Katniss laughs, the light bursting from her as she senses my acquiescence. "Well, you found me in Hell. I think I can find you on Earth!"

XXXXX

Epilogue

When I was a little girl, I met a boy in a bakery.

My father had escaped with me, a special outing to pay me some attention, something he thought I'd been missing since my little sister had been born and we'd been forced to move for his job. Unable to turn my tender feelings of devotion to my baby sister into words, I had not voiced to him that I didn't mind his and my mother's preoccupation. But I wouldn't complain about receiving his precious time either.

It was a perfect spring day, and I basked in his love and attentions. School awaited me on the morrow, and while I was uncertain about making new friends, I knew that I was a decent enough student to adjust well. My father and I sang with the birds until we reached the small bakery on the main street of our new hometown.

The bell over the door rang merrily, and a jovial man greeted us from behind the counter. My father conversed with him while I walked the length of the display case, tapping my finger on my lips, deep in contemplation of the sweet treats before me.

Reaching the end of the case, I pressed my palms and nose to the glass, hungrily eyeing a flaky pastry oozing with melted cheese and sprinkled with herbs. I had found what I wanted.

A small movement caught my attention through the glass and I lifted my gaze to find the bluest pair of eyes I've ever known staring back at me. I felt as though I had been flung high and was soaring in the sky, suspended on unseen gusts of wind, looking back down on the world from a dizzying height. Forgetting the cheese buns, I returned his stare, drinking in the sunshine of his unruly hair and the smattering of freckles that covered his nose and cheeks, the smudge of flour over his right temple and his inconceivably long, golden lashes.

When he smiled, my heart lurched, as if in recognition of something I'd lost a long time ago and had only just found again. I opened and closed my mouth but that moment of recognition had robbed me of speech and instead I floundered like a bird who'd lost the breeze.

"I think my daughter might prefer something more savory than sweet," I heard my father say in the background, too busy trying to find my own voice to confirm his assumption.

"Looks like she found it," the cheerful baker said. "Son, a couple cheese buns for the lady and her father."

I waited eagerly as the boy placed the pair of buns in a white paper sack and handed them to his father. While my own paid for our purchase, I resumed staring at the boy, caught under his spell and flailing to keep myself from falling from the sky.

I tried to make sense of this feeling that I had, that we were somehow connected by an invisible and yet tangible thread. He gave me another smile, one of almost kind understanding, and my father had to tug on my sleeve to get me to move. As we left, I felt a certain desperation, wondering if I'd ever see the boy again.

I needn't have worried. Our paths would soon cross again. This time, I would grow old with him on earth. And we'd find each other once more on the other side as we always had and always would, both in life and after.

Author's Note:

To solasvioletta and abbythebear...thank you for sticking with us through this sometimes harrowing but ultimately fulfilling experience. Thank you for making us laugh even at the darkest points and for correcting our sometimes awful grammar and word choices. We love you, Always!