Everlark: Midnight

Chapter 10

The next morning, Peeta woke to a shaded room with his window open, but with no sun or light. He looked out his window and saw the multiple raindrops loudly hitting the window.

He thought back to the other night. Katniss staying up with him after her nightmares, him feeling better after finally deciding to paint.

They didn't talk while they accompanied each other in the study, but it was like they were communicating through her glances.

Katniss would look up from her glass of water, and he felt her asking for his smile. So, he showed it. Every time.

He would then look back at her, trying to get her to smile in return. She would try to show a true smile, but something was weighing on her mind, and majority of the time he saw a sadness instead.

Peeta could not focus his mind on the memories of last night, since there was a question that had been pulling at him since he had heard Katniss's scream.

He had wanted to ask her if all the memories he had, and he was sorting through were true. They started with her screaming herself awake from a horrid night, him coming into her room and seeing if she is alright, and then she'd ask him to stay.

He knew his feelings, he felt them, but the memories were still hazy, still hard to pick apart, to separate. He loved Katniss, he knew that, but when had he started? When had she started to love him back, if she had at all? He tried to remember, tried to remember the real memories.

He finally stood up, needing to clarify the truth with Katniss. He walked out of his room in his long sleeve shirt and khaki pants. He didn't change into pajamas for bed, since he rarely slept.

Walking through the hallway and down the stairs, he was losing his reality. He was having a hard time gripping what was real and what was not. The gloss over the fake memories were less noticeable.

What were his real memories? He asked himself as he tried finding some. He shut his eyes tight in frustration as he continued his mission to find Katniss.

He needed to find her fast, before he lost all this realization, before he started his episode. He peaked into the study, but it was empty.

Then he realized he heard the rain louder than he had upstairs. He walked towards the door, and he saw her sitting in the doorway.

He walked towards her and she looked up to him as he approached her. She whispered something up to him, but he couldn't focus enough to listen. As Peeta slide down the opposite side of the doorway, he began to speak.

"Katniss, I need to ask you something." His ragged breathing indicated that he was losing himself. "Real or not real," His words were rapid as he spoke, and Katniss sat up straighter to listen. "You wake up from nightmares screaming and I-I" He shut his eyes tight, trying to find the words, trying to find the memories.

"You stay with me." Katniss said, causing Peeta's eyes to flicker up to her. As she clarified his memory further, he was able to sort them again, the memories that were real and the ones that weren't. "I wake screaming from a nightmare and because of your kindness, you come in to help me, to make sure I'm okay." Katniss made sure her voice was calm and slow so that Peeta could come back to her. "Then, I ask you to stay because you guard against all my nightmares, all the horrors that find my dreams." She felt a tear find its way into her eye, threatening to fall.

Peeta's memories were sorting themselves out and he was starting to remember. He was remembering everything; it was all coming back. The gloss over the hijacked fake memories were becoming clear again, and he could see the distinction.

"And in the games, you were deciding whether to kill me, real or not real?" Peeta's voice was calmer as he flashed back to their conversation during the war. He could feel his episode fading away as he continued to focus on Katniss's words, trusting them.