Ashes Blow Away

Chapter Four

~~~~~~~~~~~Chapter Four: Peeta Tells Katniss Five Things About Herself~~~~~~~~

We're are lying in bed late one night when he asks about the scars.

I glare at him, narrowing my eyes. " Why do you want to see them?"

He reaches out to touch my face. " I just do."

Feeling convinced, I wiggle my t-shirt up to show him my belly. The pale moonlight seems to echo off the red, puckered lines, making them look worse than ever.

Peeta reaches out, tracing each and every one of the scars. They are ugly, horrible. My worst feature. But he doesn't seem to mind seeing them. Does that mean he loves me?

And I have no trouble showing him. Does that mean I love him?

" I have them too," he blurts out quietly.

I tug my shirt back down before he can kiss my wrinkled stomach or do something equally embarrassing. I turn away from him.

" They're beautiful, Katniss," he tells me, sensing the reason for my distance.

I snort. " No they are most certainly not. They are the worst thing about me."

" Well," he says, playing with my hair, " I think they are the most beautiful, perfect thing about you."

I sigh. " I'm not pretty anymore, Peeta."

He groans. " How come you don't see what I see?"

Maybe because I'm not biased," I snap.

He presses his lips together into a fine line. " Fine."

" That's it? Fine?"

" Well, if you don't want to hear why you're beautiful to me, fine."

Now I'm intrigued. I touch his arm gently, fully aware of the fact that this is a trick, and that I am falling right into his trap.

Oh well.

" Name five things about me that make me beautiful." I demand, convinced he cannot think of five really good reasons.

" That's it?"

" You have three minutes," I challenge.

He doesn't even wait a second before jumping into a list.

" Five; your smile. It's so perfect the way your lips hug your teeth. It's so natural the way the corners of your lips turn up when you're happy. But I don't get to see it nearly enough, which means I have to try extra hard to make you happy."

I find myself smiling, and straighten out my face. " Okay. Go on."

" Four; your eyes. They are such an impossible shade of grey. I didn't even know this shade existed until I saw you. And when they cry, I just. . . can't seem to go on. But you close them far too often, so I have to try and keep them open."

I blink at him suggestively. He chuckles.

" Three; your hands-"

" My hands?" I laugh unbelievingly.

" Your hands," he smiles wryly, grabbing my hands in his. " They are do small, so perfect. When your slender fingertips touch me, they leave fire behind them. I want to hold them forever."

I am getting nervous as to what the last two will be. Is there anything good left about me?

" Two; your voice," he says quietly. " You make the mockingjay's silent, as if they are listening to you. And when you say my name, " he sucks in a deep breath, " well, I don't know what could feel better."

I am struggling for breath at this point.

" And one; your scars. This is the thing I love most about you. I love the ones you got in the Capitol, in the Games, all of them." And, to my absolute horror, he lifts my hand and flutters a gentle kiss to one of my scars.

Wordlessly, he continues this. Kisses up my arms, on my neck, all over my face. A sign of all my battles.

I do not have scars on my lips, but somehow he ends up kissing those too. With new found enthusiasm, he kisses them again and again and again, cupping my face, running his thumb across my cheekbone.

As this continues, I wonder how I ever even considered Gale. Whether it be fate or something more, we were both landed in the Games. Pretended to be in love. But we played a dangerous game, because that love turned out to be real. It became everything.

I need Peeta. I need Peeta like I need light and air, like I need food and water. He is all these things too me. He knows me like no one else ever will. Not like Gale, or Prim, or mom. He knows he differently.

And then it is there again, that hunger that I felt of the beach. I don't stop myself, I don't put any barriers up.

He kisses me. I kiss him. Things happen. And when it is over, I am truly happy. I smile. I keep my eyes open. Touch his face and hair at any given moment. Sing. I display my scars. All his favourite things about me.

So, after, when he whispers, " You love me, real or not real?"

I tell him, " Real."

____________________________________

Time passes. Spring turns to summer, summer to spring, and then it is winter again. Peeta and I, we are different. We don't do what we did that night, not yet. But we learn everything about each other. Haymitch teases us relentlessly.

The old Peeta is completely back. Of course, he still has his moments. But they are usually minor, and I can help him out with them.

Then there is Buttercup. He appeared shortly after Prim's death, and disappeared shortly thereafter. But then there he is, on my doorstep. Skinnier than usual, but still fat for a cat.

I let him in and growl an unhappy hello. He replies with a hiss.

We end up on opposite sides of the room, glaring at each other. He hisses frequently and I hiss right back of course.

When Peeta returns home from the bakery, and sees us two, he bursts into fits of laughter. I press my mouth into a fine line, trying to keep myself from laughing too.

" He just showed up!" I giggle. " On our door step!"

Peeta goes quiet. I realise what I have said.

Ours. Uh oh.

" You know Katniss," Peeta says, making his way over to me. " We're practically husband and wife already."

I nod slowly. " Yes, so?"

" So. . . I was thinking, well, I made this," he says, reaching into his pocket and placing something into my hand.

It is a hunk of metal. And unlike other engagement rings, it has no big showy diamond or jewel of any sort on it. Instead, it has tiny patterns and paintings on it. I recognise it as Peeta's style straight away. I squint, looking up close. And then I realise.

It is Peeta and I. A timeline of us.

And there we are. On the stage, with Effie trinket. Shift to the right. There is my face when he told the world he loved me. Shift. There we are in the cave, kissing. Shift. There we are when we were on our way to the Quarter Quell, tangled in each other's bodies. On the beach, when I felt the hunger. Shift again. Our first real kiss after the hijacking. Still looks kind of forced. Probably was. Shift. Planting the primroses, crying. Shift. He has painted the night were he asked me if I loved him, and my face when I told him real. And then, the final painting, is of me throwing my arms around him, my hand clad with the ring he has just given me.

" Peeta," I breath, because I cannot talk. He has painted all the moments that he and I have experienced.

I throw my arms around him and we laugh and cry and dance, and he kisses me several times. And I think about every time that I doubted him.

I realise that it was me that I was doubting.