Hunger Games - Extended epilogue

Chapter Twelve

I awake to a wet mouth pressing kisses all over my face. I turn to embrace Peeta and question why he's kissing me with watery lips. But as I turn small pounces dodge my expected attack and bolt to the doorway. Buttercup. I haven't seen the wild cat since him and I wept together with Mother over Prim. I know he's been gone the same reason as us all. Prim haunts him, even if he is just a silly cat.

I look to my body to see I still have the same clothes as yesterday on. A pair of black leggings and a grey hooded jacket.

A few seconds later he leaps back up onto the quilt and perks his huge eyes at me. He lowers his body, like he's ready to pounce away and he can't decide my state.

I put my hand out slowly and he takes it as an invite, slowly creeping up on my lap. I lay back and he presses his paws to my stomach.

Looking at him up close I can see his fur is hideously dirty and parts are missing. Scratches occupy the lost space and dried blood. Especially on his ears, they're a bloody mess. His weight appears healthy as I bet he has been hunting his own meat.

Before staring at me suspiciously a while longer, he lowers his body completely and lays on me. Still watching me. I smile and stroke his fur.

"I'd say you're ugly, but look how beat up you are," I tell him, expecting a hiss but he only lowers his head to his paws and closes his eyes tiredly.

I wonder where he's been and what he has been doing. Getting into fights with other animals perhaps?

I pick him up off me and nurse him in my arms as I walk down the stairs. For what could quiet possibly be the first time, I am caressing him in a manner that says I care for him. Which right now, what else could I do? Prim loved this thing to death. She would trade her life for him. Like in Thirteen, when she nearly missed the closing of the safe house gates to collect the cat.

I place him on a couch and wet a cloth to damp. And pat the bloodied wounds. I know cats look after themselves, it's what buttercup has done his whole life. But it's the least I can do, and I feel as if I'm helping Prim also by taking care of her prized possession. I try to imagine what she would do in this situation, what would happen when she was here. She would smother him and I would scowl at the attention she gives him. So I decide to do my best job at smothering him.

He stays awake to lick clean the places I splotch, but he appears exhausted. By the time I'm done doing all that I can do, he looks better than before. And my cloth has cat blood all over it. Enough to make me feel dinner rising up at the back of my throat.

I throw the cloth into the sink and find some bread scraps to feed him. He takes them greedily, and nudges my hand a few times, a way I suppose he's saying thank you. And in five minutes he's fast asleep on the lounge. And I stare at him, I can barley picture Prim's small, but clever, hands. Around his body and cuddled to her chest. So long ago that I can't even see it.

"Oh hey," Peeta stands at the kitchen counter with a cheese covered bun next to him. My favourite.

I take a look at him, and something at the back of my mind screams 'familiar'. I try to brush it off with the fact he wears clothes similar to each other like that every time he works in the bakery. His white shirt and white apron aren't that different, are they? But something tugs and I can't put my finger on it.

"Hey, look who's back," I nod to Buttercup.

Peeta picks up the bread and brings it to me, and in that moment as I look at him I'm taken back to a dark place. I hold my ears to drown out the ringing noise and drop to my knees.

Squeezing my eyes shut, the cold icey sheets of rain feel like they are pelting at my skin again. And my stomach aches to be filled. And I can see him behind my eyelids. Throwing the half burnt bread to the pigs, checking for his mother then throwing the only food that had come that close to being mine in months, right to my feet.