CHAPTER sixty-three|THE PAST HAS COME AGAIN

Alec Benjamin~ let me down slowly
❝Don't cut me down, throw me out, leave me here to waste.❞

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DAY TURNED TO night, and the silence that once filled such a broken place like this one morphed into a new form that could fester cleanly. This one was comforting, because it was filled with soft snors that would of been whispers just hours ago, and the shuffling of bodies that happened in their sleep, not because of something highly uncomfortable. It seemed as if the team had found peace- which must of been why it never found me, but instead sat on my eyelids so that the weight of them tripled.

I was tired physically, but mentally I was exhausted.

Why?

I kept asking myself what it was that pushed me awake all the time, even when I knew that the things that kept me awake the day before had been settled. My brother, who had been the last cause of my nightmares, slept beside me tonight with nothing else but a shirt on and his lips lightly parted so that his soft breath could escape. Finnick, who once apon a time made my nightmare that much worse was just as peaceful as his hand gently curled around my waist to try and block the cold that was flowing from an open hole next to him.

They had both managed to solve their part in my inner turmoil, but it just seemed to hav gotten replaced with ten more.

Because there was always something that clung onto me, and this time it was something that could kill me- much like most of the times something had clawed it's way out to the front of my brain before. And yet, nobody would let me guard the very thing that put me on edge.

While Peeta had handcuffs to keep him from Katniss, his lips were free to move like daggers. That meant that it was possible for him to get me at any moment- that my body would never fully be my own. That terrifying thought, only that one, was the reason that I couldn't accept peace in the life of night.

It was Katniss' shift, which reminded me starkly of the Hunger Games we had been in before.

Just like then, I stumbled up from the uneven floor so that I could sit on a large rock parallel to her as the steel blue moonlight allowed me to see the slight angle in her cheeks, something that looked sharper in the daylight. When she had her hair down, I remembered thinking that her face could of been as deadly as she was due to the sharp angles that were cover in the gentle curve of her cheek, but here it seem to have been blunted.

To begin with we didn't say a word, just like before, which made me really analyse how much our relationship had changed.

"Who would of thought we would of ended up here." Katniss muttered finally as she leaned against a crumbled wall. This time, I couldn't seem to bring my imagination back from when I had been anticipating the Hunger Games a year ago; it seemed like the explosion that I had faced took the ability to see past memories in the present away from me. That part of me was supposed to fule the lunacy- but without it I didn't feel any more sane.

"When we were sitting there that night in the arena, just after we had been given the spiel, I didn't think I would see the outside world again." I commented while I tried my best to be as silent as the wind around us, even if I couldn't. I managed to chuckle through my last few words, if only out of disbelief.

"But I could never of imagined that I'd be here with you."

"I had some faith."

The clouds covered up any form of moonlight, which made Katniss look more gaunt than she had just a moment before. As it happened, Peeta shuffled in his sleep beside us, and I could just about see Finnick retract his arm that was hugging my invisible torso.

"I told you then that I'd never trust you because of the bond between you and Finnick- that the only reason we should of worked together was because our methods were similar " Katniss recalled.

"And I told you that it didn't matter because we we're going to die."

"Somehow both of us were liars."

I glanced at her then- not sharply- but it was enough to draw her eyes away from the blonde haired boy that had caused us both a large amount of physical pain. I tilted my head at her to make her elaborate further, and my momentarily free hair fell in front of my face in it's subtle waves.

"I trust you Lorna." Katniss finally admitted as she glanced into my greying eyes.

"Even after Finnick became my husband?"

She didn't nod, but I could tell as the light returned that something within her wanted to release the same airy kind of chuckle that I had earlier. And yet, she was better at holding it in then I was, because her's was out of actual humour instead of awkwardness.

As she caught the noise, Peeta shuffled again to confirm that he had awaken from whatever dream he was forced into. As he glanced between us, his limp facial features straightened up along with his rather hunched spine that was backed up into yet another half destroyed wall- one that could support his entire weight as he dragged himself to sit completely straight.

There was something there, a flicker in my eyes that would of once turned into an elaborate retelling of a past memory as I glanced at how thin he had become, but it was snatched away by the sanity that I thought I wanted.

"We've been here before you know."

"What?" Katniss asked as her throat scraped itself like our shoes had against the loose stones. She didn't want to look at him, neither did I, but we both found that the heavy rope that curled around us as his voice did drew are necks towards him. His dirty blonde hair was more yellow than it had been before- more like corn silk.

"That look. I've seen that look." Peeta answered, almost as if he was guilty because he had to see it again.

It occured to me then that I didn't belong. It was like if Katniss cut in when Finnick had dragged me back to the shores in the arena- I had found myself caught in a moment that I wasn't really meant to see, even if I couldn't bring myself to move out of their direct path. Instead, I had to bow my head and wait for something that I would understand as I desperately hoped to imagine the old Peeta- the one that used to make things easier instead of harder.

"You're trying to decide whether or not you should kill me." He muttered, before glancing at me for a moment as my hair fell around me like a privacy curtain would.

"I never wanted to kill you. That's not what I'm doing."

"I saw it with my own eyes. In the first games."

"In the first games I thought you were trying to help the Careers kill me. After that I always saw you as an ally."

"A friend. Lover. Victor. Fiancee. Enemy. Target. Mutt. And now ally."

With each word, the volume of Peeta's voice rose with the strength in it, as if he was trying to relay the message through the curtain of blonde hair that was keeping me away from them. Gently I rose my head to glance at his glassy eyes and tearful scorn despite the intimate feeling I had grasped from the air around me- just enough so that I could see them both clearly.

"Yeah, I'll add that to the list of words I use to try to figure you out. What words do you use to describe Lorna Katniss? Friend? Ally? Most trusted? When she was completely wiped clean and shaped to support President Snow until I reminded her of the rebellion."

"I'm sorry." He apologised after a short fault; he chose to look at his bound hands instead of our faces- after glancing at my face once more. "I just can't tell what's real and what's made up anymore."

"Then ask."

A part of me jumped when Finnick walked up behind me and placed his arm around my waist, but most of it reclined so that my back was flush against his chest while his head rested on my covered shoulder. He spoke before he even touched me, but it took me until I was safely in his arms to completely realise the phrase he had spoken out loud, or why he was holding me so tightly.

"Ask who?"

"Us." I finished, almost understanding why Finnick felt the need to remind me he was there. He was reminding me of what I felt like when I was so utterly confused, and how it tore my spirit in two like a small tear in a piece of paper that got tugged so much that the whole sheet ripped. He was reminding me of the people behind me- one of which the boy in trouble.

"I asked you. You told me everything, never spearing a detail that you thought I would find important at some point in the future, and I want to do the same. We want to help you."

"We're your unit now." One of the soldiers behind us agreed, just as Peeta managed to raise his head once more.

"Your favourite colour is green, is that real?" He finally asked something that made Katniss's lips part a little wider than before.

"Yeah, it's real. Your's in orange- not bright orange. Soft like the sunset"

"Thank you."

"You're a painter, a baker." Katniss continued when Peeta looked like he had stopped; now it wasn't him that was angling for something in their relationship to change. As Finnick hugged me closer, I heard him whisper dark blue in my ear- followed by the exact colour that was on my interview dress. "You always sleep with the windows open; you never take sugar in your tea; you always double-knot your shoelaces."

As she went to stand up, she agreed with the soldier that had called her out earlier without her concent.

"I can't do this."

But I could. I wanted to, I felt like I owed it not only to Peeta, but to my restless mind that wanted to be able to sleep. If he knew the difference between imagination and his real memories, perhaps he could fight the deadly words that he would spew from his mouth, and then I might be able to sleep at least once for an entire night. Maybe that way I could finally battle the mountain of worries I would attempt to scale each night just as the warmth reached the centre of my bones. Maybe I wouldn't have to work so hard.

Or, I would just find another thing to keep me up and night, and all I would of achieved was finally being able to pay back my dept.

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