(everything screams in my dreams tonight)

Set during Mockingjay, Chapter 17. Prompted by: "I sit on my bed, trying to stuff information from my Military Tactics books into my head while memories of my nights with Peeta on the train distract me."

A few vignettes meant to fit neatly in the novel.

The empty cold spaces in District 13 make the Victory Tour on the train seem downright cozy, even if it was a place filled with nightmares. But then what place isn't filled with nightmares?

Peeta didn't knock that first night on the train. He heard my sobs and ran in, wild-eyed, afraid I was being attacked. I was but not from the outside—not yet. He assessed the room quickly and, realizing I was alone and trapped in my own head, he reached for me, touched my hair and gently coaxed me awake. That's what he told me after I'd calmed down. He told me lots of things in the dark.

But mostly he held me as I sobbed and curled up with me until I fell back asleep. He held onto me tightly, occasionally kissing the top of my head while petting my hair. And despite everything—the impossibility of the situation and the constant fear of death—when he held me I felt safe. Safe enough.

That first morning when I woke up he was there, sound asleep, arms still around me, my head still on his chest. I sat up, suddenly shy, thinking of hands and legs and bodies entwined. My movement woke him and he looked at me expectantly.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah. I'm alright. I'm sorry if I woke you last night." I had heard him pacing the halls on previous nights and it made me feel safer, like he'd come and get me if anything happened while I slept. And he had.

"I don't sleep much, honestly. I mostly just roam the train, stare out the windows, and try to avoid sleep until I'm exhausted. Sometimes I sleep in the food car."

"Why do you do that?"

"There always seem to be people coming and going. Feels less alone somehow." He meets my eyes then and I can see my own exhaustion reflected back at me.

"From now on, stay in my room," I said.

He never woke up screaming with me.

I could tell he was asleep by the way he breathed. And just as I was about to drift off, he sat up sharply. I looked up at him but he was already looking down at me, to see if I was really there.

"You're okay." He said it simply, as though telling a third party.

I nodded and he touched my hair and then slumped down close to me.

"Sorry to wake you," he said.

"I wasn't asleep."

"Yeah, you usually don't wake up when I do." He looked amused at this.

"Do you wake up a lot?"

"Not much since I started staying in your room."

He was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. I didn't know what to do say I snuggled in tighter and put my head on his chest. His hands went to my hair, fingers tangling quickly in and it occurred to me that I'd grown to like this.

"What was your nightmare about?"

"Snow had you killed." He said it softly and simply.

"That's probable."

"I think you'll make it." He pulled me tight, his free hand running across my arm.

"I wish I were so sure. And it's not really me I'm worried about."

He looked down at me then, seeming to consider his words or my expression.

"Let's just promise to do everything we can to see each other through this. It's our best shot."

I nodded and hugged him impulsively. Somehow affections shared in the dark on the train seemed to make sense in a way they couldn't back in District 12.

Nothing really happened during those nights on the train. Nothing worth pondering until the possibility of them ever happening again was out of reach.

In my dream, I was running again.

"Katniss…"

His voice pulled me out of the arena. Flames were rising up on every side, engulfing me.

"Did I wake you?" I asked. We were face to face, sharing one large pillow.

"No, I haven't been able to sleep much," he said, his eyes dark.

Guilt washed over me then. It was my fault he wasn't able to rest. I thrashed and cried and needed his attention all the time.

"You don't have to stay here just to keep an eye on me. I probably keep you up half the night."

He reached out and touched my cheek then. Our bodies were close and our faces only inches apart but it was his hand on my face that made my stomach feel funny.

"Being here with you at night is the only time I get any real sleep," he said softly. "The only time I feel even sort of relaxed."

I looked down at nothing to avoid the steady gaze of his eyes.

"Don't do that," he said.

I looked back up and he smiled.

"Don't do what?" I ask.

"Something in you glazes over and you start calculating…something…whenever I express any feeling for you."

I looked down again despite myself.

"Sometimes I think I know what you're calculating. Other times I'm not so sure."

Peeta leaned in and kissed my forehead, lingering until he spoke.

"I want you to know that it doesn't matter to me how complicated this gets. I don't know what the future holds but it's probably messy. I just know that I feel better when I'm close to you. And you being safe and alive makes the world more bearable somehow."

I nodded against his chin and settled in closer. He wrapped his arms around me and sighed. And then I pulled him tighter. I felt the same as he did in that moment but saying it out loud felt like it would make the world an even more dangerous place.

One morning I woke up feeling like I had a fever.

Our bodies were intertwined and it took me a moment to assess the situation through a haze of sleep and heat. But I could feel his knee between my legs and I knew instantly that I woke up straining against it. My left leg was over Peeta's thigh and my mouth close to his throat because his head was tipped back. Peeta's right hand was touching the skin at the small of my back and the heat and closeness was as intoxicating as it was nerve rattling.

I wanted to move closer and also away. We can't have this. Not on top of everything else that's going on. But he smelled clean and felt so warm. And the heat that unfurled inside me was strangely relaxing. And I wasn't having a nightmare. That was the most surprising thing about waking up that way. It kept the mutts at bay.

Instead of pulling away from him I settled in, nuzzling against his neck and letting my lips brush his throat. His right arm pulled me in tighter and slid further up my back as he shifted against me. His deep breathing told me he was still asleep. I didn't want to wake him so I stayed that way, feeling as close to him as I have anybody ever in my life, suddenly weirdly grateful to him for just existing. For the pulse I could feel faintly under his skin. For helping me maintain my sense of self just by being him.

Light slowly made its way into the room, flooding it. And Peeta stirred with the sun. He shifted his head and I moved my leg swiftly from his thigh, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He didn't let go of me, however. His hand just rubbed my back slowly, gently, lingering on the pleasure of skin on skin.

We radiated heat. It rose up between us. I tipped my head up as he tipped his down, and before I had time to think about it our lips met in between. He cupped my face in his hand, kissed me softly on the lips twice, and then on the forehead. If he thought we'd crossed some boundary he didn't show it.

Then Effie wrapped sharply on the door.

"Come on, Katniss!" She said my name in a high pitch, knowing she was not just talking to me. "We've got a big, big day ahead of us!"

Peeta rolled onto his back and said, "I think that's my cue to go back to my room and get ready."

I had the urge to reach for him, sad that the early morning spell was broken. Soon we would be arriving in the Capitol and I wasn't sure the closeness of our nights on the train would sustain us there.

And as I sit on my bed in District 13 the urge to reach out for him is an ache, and I hold it, hoping it will pass before Johanna enters the room. But it doesn't. The ache grows until it feels like a pit and I'm sliding deeper into it with each passing day. And the only thing that feels like a light is my hatred of Snow, for what he did to Peeta, my family, my district, and every Tribute before me. The hate is the only thing to hold on to now.