A/N: Winter solstice was yesterday, and I suddenly because inspired to write this little one-shot about Katniss and Peeta after the war. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

She came home before me. She was alone here, I know that. I know the only company she kept was ghosts. She locked out Haymitch. She ignored Sae, who never stopped coming, but left food untouched on the counters. Katniss never came down from upstairs.

When I first got home, I planted primroses at her door step. She watched me from a window, but never let me in. Spring passed, as did summer. When the weather grew cold in late autumn, no smoke came from her chimney, and I wondered if she was cold. I wondered if she would recognize being cold, or if everything just felt the same.

We celebrate Winter Solstice in the districts, or at least we always did in 12. We didn't have much to celebrate with, but families would scrounge together enough to buy yarn to make a doll, or wood to carve a wagon. Some lucky girl might get a scrap of silk to tie in her hair. But that was all before the war. Before peace.

Now, as I walk down the quiet streets of District 12, lights illuminate glass windows that keep out the cold and frost. People don't need to wear coats and wool socks indoors. Children help their parents paint cookies. People roast game in their ovens. It's the shortest day of the year, but Solstice Night is the longest, and that's when we celebrate. They stay up late and play card games. They laugh and drink warm drinks. They hug and kiss cheeks and are thankful for surviving. Babies are swaddled and toddlers stay up past their bedtimes. Stories are told. People remember.

But Katniss doesn't come downstairs.

The snow crunches under my feet as I head to the woods, axe slung over my shoulder. We had a light snowfall yesterday, but the sun turned the snow to rain, and the dark turned the rain to ice. The world glistens in the dusky sunlight. I climb over what is left of the fence. We never rebuilt it. It seems the predators we were trying to keep out are as disinterested in us as we are in them. My steps leave a trail behind me, betraying my whereabouts, although no one will follow me out here. The woods are sacred. The woods are hers, even if she won't visit them.

I find a small evergreen tree, maybe a couple feet taller than me. I drop on my knees and feel the snow soak my pants. I ignore the biting pain and swing the axe hard into the base of the tree. It takes five or six solid whacks before the pine topples on its side, its supple branches complying. I grab the trunk, sticky with sap, and begin the arduous task of dragging it from the forest.

When I reach her doorstep, it's locked. I dig around until I find the spare key Sae hides under a planter. It's frozen into the ground, and I have to chip at it with my pocket knife before it frees itself. Sae hasn't been in a while. I'm sure the weather kept her home, but I wonder if Katniss is alright. How long has it been since anyone heard her footsteps, saw her reflection?

I slide the key in the lock and turn it. Her wooden door groans in protest. It wants to keep me out, just like she does. I debate calling her name, but you don't call out to fearful things, you wait for them. Instead, I drag the tree through her kitchen and into her living room, watching my breath and I pant with excursion in the frozen room.

This is stupid. Who brings a tree indoors? I don't care though, it's worth a try.

She's worth it.

Cold. This I can fix. I cross the room to Katniss's fireplace. There are a few dry logs sitting on the hearth, neglected. I break off some small branches and once a flame is kindled I toss the heavier log on top. Heat billows into her living room, and for a second in feels less like a tomb and more like a home.

I use the metal stand I built to stand the tree up. It looks like it sprouted from her floorboards, taken root in her home. I reach into my bag and pull out a string of cranberries I threaded onto fishing line. I string it around the tree. I do the same with the string of popcorn. I was hoping it would look like snow, and while it doesn't really achieve that, it looks pretty. Or ridiculous. Pretty ridiculous. Ugh, what was I thinking?

I leave it, though, and pull out a handful of feathers I'd collected over the last few months. I place them along the branches – the flashing sapphire of a blue jay, crimson red of a cardinal, bright yellow from a grosbeak.

"What are you doing?" her voice floats from behind me, almost ethereal. Not real. I take a breath before I turn around.

She's perched on the last stair, clinging to the railing. Her hair is pulled up out of her face, but it's clearly knotted and unkempt. She's thin. She's so desperately thin it makes my chest hurt just to look at her. Her skin is pale, any rosy pink absent from her cheeks and lips. I exhale, and I realize her name is in my mouth. I catch it. She doesn't want pity. She's never wanted pity.

"I, um…" I ramble. What am I doing? "You haven't been to the woods, so I thought, with Winter Solstice and all… I um… I thought I'd bring the woods to you."

"Why does the tree have popcorn on it?" she asks warily, knuckles white on the rail.

"I thought it might be pretty," I mutter, the words sounding foolish coming out of my mouth. I stare at the floor. This was a bad idea. I should have left her alone. It's what she wanted.

"It is pretty," she whispers, and I pull my eyes off the floor and meet hers. Maybe everything has changed, but her eyes are still coal gray. "It's pretty, Peeta."

I take a step toward her and my heart protests loudly in my chest, hammering against my ribs. She told you to leave her alone. I take another step, forgetting how to breathe and feeling dizzy with the lack of air. She doesn't move. She doesn't run up the stairs. She just watches me as I take step after step until I'm standing right in front of her.

She hasn't touched me since we've been home. She hasn't touched me since we hugged goodbye at in Tigris's shop. I don't blame her. I'm not who I was, but neither is she.

I'm not the boy with the bread.

She's not the girl with the bow.

Now we're just two people, standing in front of each other, not sure what to do next.

I look up at her. She has a few inches height on me, perched on her step. Her eyes narrow as they explore my face, like she's looking for something, like she's reading words she thought she knew, but they are in a language she doesn't speak. She leans closer to me, and when she presses her mouth to mine my breath catches in my throat.

She's never kissed me when there were no cameras around. Except that one time, in the tunnels, and I wasn't me then, I was the mutt. She's never kissed me, not for real anyway. I don't know what to make of this, I don't want to push her, so I keep my mouth still. Her lips are dry and chapped, but she tastes like life. She's alive beneath this mask of pain.

"Katniss," I breathe, and I can't fight it anymore. I move my mouth with hers and a noise rumbles in her throat. I slide my hands up her cheeks and into her hair. I tug at it slightly and she exhales into me, filling my body with warmth. I wrap my arms around her waist and lift, pressing her tiny body against mine. I slowly let her slide down my chest until her feet meet the floor. There. Now she's here with me.

"I'm sorry," she pleads, and I just shake my head and push my mouth back to hers. I look for the last year of her in her kiss. I try to find her, let her find me. "Wait," she pants, pulling away and putting her hand on my chest. She backs away from me, something flickering in her eyes. I pushed too hard, too fast, for too much.

"I'm sorry," I repeat back, and it seems like those are the words we exchange more than any others. We aren't lovers, who share different words on cotton sheets. We aren't friends, who laugh and tease. All we are is sorry.

Katniss shakes her head and leaves the room. A rock forms in my throat and I cannot swallow it, though I push hard. I turn back and pick up my bag, when I hear her ask, "Where are you going?"

I turn around and see Katniss standing at the edge of the room, her eyes wide and glued on mine. In her hand is a tiny star made of tinfoil. She catches me staring at it and shifts on her feet, clearing her throat.

"Prim made it for me when I got back from my first Games. She said when I looked at the sky at night, all I saw was the face of fallen tributes. She wanted to remind me to look for the stars instead," she chokes out. The star is crooked and imperfect, but it's shiny and reminds me of Prim's flaxen hair and crystal blue eyes.

"Can I see it?" I ask, and Katniss seems hesitant at first, but then she drops the foil star in my hands. I reach on my tiptoes and place the star on top of the tree. Prim is watching over her. Even if Katniss won't have me, or Haymitch, or Sae. Prim is watching over her.

Her eyes well as she looks at the star, but she quickly bats her eyelashes and dismisses the tears. It's easier to feel numb. It's easier to feel nothing. I envelop her in my arms and she's so tiny, so much smaller than I remember her. It's as if she disappears inside my embrace. Her hands slide around my waist and lock behind my back, pressing her body into mine.

"You are so warm," she breathes into my chest. "I haven't been warm in a long time."

I stay for hours, and for the first time since losing her dad, Katniss lets someone take of her. She sits between my knees and I work out the knots in her hair with a wide tooth comb. I find her fresh clothes and stoke the fire. I bake bread in her oven until the house smells like cinnamon and she eats a piece with melted butter on top. She stares at the fire and runs her fingers idly over her burn scars, over mine. When she falls asleep in my arms, I know I'm never leaving here, I'm never leaving her. We fit together.

I listen to the fire pop, I sip hot chocolate and wait until her breathing evens, until her chest rises and falls in a familiar rhythm of rest. I stare at the tree, at the star on top, reflecting the firelight back down on us.

"Happy Solstice, Katniss," I whisper before I press a kiss into her hair.

She weaves her fingers in mine, and half asleep she whispers, "Stay with me."

"Always."