Catching Fire: The New Story

Chapter 29

Peeta's POV

I yawn, waking up in my room again with Katniss in my arms once more. The nightmares have been stronger than before, since the Tour relived the Games into our minds as we met face to face with the parents of the tributes we killed. We can't get at least a few hours of good sleep without each other being awoken by horrifying nightmares needing the others arms for comfort and reassurance.

It is almost February, right? Yes, it is the end of January, getting closer to my birthday, three weeks since the Tour at the end of December. Which also meant it is almost a year since our Games. Then the Quarter Quell in a few more months, the first Games we will be mentoring. Katniss is nowhere near excited. Neither am I, but she is on a whole different level of differing. Watching young children die every year was atrocious enough, but mentoring them to their death, that is going to be extra difficult to live with.

I lift Katniss up and set her on my bed besides me. She usually comes to my lonely house in the late hours of night and sleeps with me. I tell her not to, and have explained to her one too many times, yet her stubborn self convinces her to continue do so, but she climbs up the side of my house to my bedroom window when the front and back doors are locked. I tell have told her I would give her a key, but she says then it would be like she was living there. I tell her to knock, but she says she doesn't want to disturb me.

I thinks she's crazy for always using that excuse, I really need her to disturb me, to wake me from my nightmares and let me hold her safely.

I walk downstairs in the light and start breakfast. Before I start, I head outside to get some fresh air. When I open the door, I find two large crates labeled with the names Katniss and the other with Peeta in large bold, red letters. I bring in one box at a time, heaving them into the living room where they rest by the coffee table. I sigh, already sore from carrying the two crates. My mind wonders to what could be stuffed in them, so I grab a knife and budge the one with my name open. I pull out suits of different color, design and material. I open Katniss’s and pull our dress after dress. Long, short, white, red, ones made of silk, others covered in sequins. There are so many, I don’t know why they are here.

I go back out to my mail box, in search for a letter. I find one single envelope.

I got back inside and I plop myself onto it and open the letter, exhausted.

It was from Effie:

Hello Katniss and Peeta,

I am glad to inform you that your clothing has arrived. I am overjoyed! I will be coming in two weeks with camera men, Cinna, Portia, and more clothes for the photo shoot.  

If you try these on while we arrive from the Capitol that would be excellent. I hope you two are ready for the photo shoot. It will be marvelous.

Love, Effie and your prep teams

Oh. Effie's coming, with cameras, to take pictures, of Katniss and I, in suits and dresses. What for again? I read the letter again more clearly, pushing past the drowsiness.

Oh my.

"Katniss!" I scream while running upstairs. I find her still sleeping. The covers hide her from my sight. I pull them off and she moans, reaching for the blankets that now lay on the floor.

"Peeta, please."

"Not now Katniss. Effie's coming."

She automatically sits up. "Why?"

"To take photos of us. In suits and dresses."

"For what reason?"

"I think that it's for our wedding?" I say almost too obviously as I hand her the neatly written note and she skims over it multiple times.