Better Games

7. Beauty

Katniss POV
---------------
A few hours after Peeta calms down we sit on the living room couch. I had made him tea, with no sugar, just the way he likes it and wrapped draped him in a blanket on the couch near the fire. After our embrace after our attack he's been a little shaken up. So I try to get his mind off of it in anyway I can. We play one of our games. One our shared doctor helped us make up. We try to remember every good thing we've seen someone do, or find beauty in anything we see.
"The snow," he mentions, "reminds me of how perfect nature is. It's blanketed straight white and pure on the ground...Your turn?"
I think a little. "Lights in the house," I announce, "because when we were little we barely had any electricity except for the mandatory tv programming. Your turn."
He looks down and plays with the fringes of the blanket. "Your voice. For singing to me when I had my attack." He looks up at me with those deep blue eyes that have more depth than the light ocean they so reassemble. I decide to mention them. "Your eyes. For waking up to when I have nightmares or in the morning when my sleep is soundless. For reassuring me that I'm safe, that I'm loved. For letting me know you came back to me when you had your attack." I finish, looking deep into his eyes not fearing if I get lost in them. He looks at me with the same depth and reaches out his hand. I take it. We sit there and hold each other's hand and sip our tea. Naming more things with beauty, more good deeds. Looking into each other's eyes, with Peeta rubbing small circles in my hand with his thumb. Such a simple gesture but as effective. This I'd what I realize: my Peeta, the one I had in the very first Hunger Games, is still here. He's just grown up into the man in the Quell. Everything everyone said about the real Peeta never being able to come back was wrong. He never left. Sure he falls away sometimes, slipping from my grasp, but he's always holding on. For me, for him. And I love him for it. We'll be okay. We'll do this together. Okay?

AN: Short Chapter more to come!