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Peeta hears someone on the porch, but this isn't that unusual. Sometimes one of the older women will come and sit with Katniss, talking about the weather or some easy topic, spending a few minutes with her before continuing on with their day.
But he hears stomping, swearing, noises of anger and frustration, and he knows this is not one of sweet older women from the market district. The sounds are muffled by the fan he has constantly running in the kitchen, but he switches it off and goes out to check. He's between loaves in the oven, luckily, so he doesn't have to play the annoying game of constantly checking his watch to get back inside.
It's Johanna, sitting on the porch with Katniss. She came alone this time. Katniss is on the bench, wrapped in her blanket as always, only about half as disaffected as usual. Johanna is crying.
Peeta wonders if he's ever seen Johanna cry, really. He assumes it happened in the prison, at some point, but there was always a wall between them, they could only hear each other, not see each other. And he was drugged half the time, so that time was a hazy blend of pain and fear.
But now she's sitting on the porch steps, fingers curled in her hair, crying, and none of them have anything mind-altering happening to disguise this fact. "Hey, Johanna?" he asks. "What's going on?" He knows Katniss won't break the ice, so he has to. He doesn't mind, exactly, but he doesn't know where this is going, so it makes him nervous.
"Fucking Haymitch is such an idiot," she says, sniffling, and he almost laughs, because it sounds like the complaint of a heartbroken teenager. But he knows better, and moves to sit down next to her, leaving a few feet of distance. "He thinks he knows everything, but he doesn't know shit."
She sighs, laying back on the flat boards of the porch. He can see the fine lines that have formed on her face, at the edges of her mouth, around her eyes, and the scars that are permanently part of her appearance, little round singe marks from the electrodes at her hairline and temples and on her chest. "Fuck," she says quietly, pressing the knuckle of her thumb into the center of her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut for a few moments. "It hurts, just about every minute. And he's there telling me he knows my medications better than I do."
Another sob, this one dry, but Peeta can tell she is remembering something painful. She reaches in her pocket, against a bony hip, and pulls out a wad of cash. "I paid cash for everything I bought! I had a job in District 2!" She sits up again, as if she can't stay still, or can't face them anymore when speaking about this. "But he assumes I whored myself out at the market, like he thinks the only thing I know is how to do that!"
She tucks the cash away and rakes her fingers through her hair. Peeta finds himself wondering if there's little scars on her scalp, too. "And even if I did," she says, quieter now, "Who is he to say anything about it? Fuck him."
She seems done with her rant, and switches to picking at the chipping paint on the porch steps with her fingernail. Katniss is watching Johanna, her usual unreadable expression on her face. Peeta is unsure what to say. It's easy to forget that Johanna and the others were Mentors for years before they entered the Games, that they were stuck sexually entertaining the Capitolites, that there were years of history between them. Peeta only met Johanna at the Quarter Quell- she didn't exist to him before that.
Johanna looks at Katniss, and turned away as she is, he can't see her expression. "Sorry," she says, "I know you probably think he can do no wrong."
"He can," Katniss acknowledges, though she doesn't say more. Peeta can guess what she's thinking, of course.
"I think we've all made mistakes," Peeta says, and Johanna turns on him before he even gets the words out.
"Mistakes? There's different kinds of mistakes, I think." She bites her lips, standing, and looks suddenly as if she regrets coming to see them. Maybe the difference between them was too great: Peeta and Katniss had never Mentored, they had never had to stay in the Capitol during the Games, and Johanna wasn't from District 12. The gap felt like it couldn't be breached.
Peeta tries again, once more, even though he's pretty sure it's futile. "We're all pretty brittle after the war, Johanna. I think it's worth it to be a little more patient with him, and know he's going to mess up a few times."
He watches her clench, trying to swallow this down, but she shakes her head. "Maybe when he can figure out how to be patient himself," she says. "Whatever, sorry I interrupted."
She leaves without another word, not in the direction of Haymitch's house, but out towards the market district, and he turns towards Katniss, but she's looking out at the gate, her eyes unfocused.
That night, Katniss comes to his bedroom, and Peeta moves over to make room. They don't always sleep together, it seemed too sudden after they moved in together, so they each have their own bedroom.But more and more often, Katniss would come to his room, and they would lay together, sometimes talking, sometimes just to be in each others' presence.
Tonight, however, Katniss rolls on her side, facing him. He can tell that something is on her mind. "What do you think we would have been like, if we would have had to be Victor-whores, like Finnick and Johanna?" she asks
He bites down his first responses, like the fact that such a term is probably in indelicate way to put it, or that there is no way they both would have been in such a position, because in all previous Games, there was only one winner. He allows himself to let these things go, to play along. "I think," he says, "That you are the type of person who doesn't stand for those sort of things, you were always going to end up leading a rebellion."
She's quiet for a while, considering. "I don't know," she says. "Not if they threatened Prim."
It's startling to hear her say Primrose's name, after almost a year of cautious avoidance. He doesn't draw attention to it, and lets her continue. "That's what they did, right?" she continues. "That's why Johanna's family is dead, and Annie is alive."
He takes a deep breath, trying to untangle all of this. Because the truth of the matter is they were thrown in at the end of a rebellion that had been stewing for years and years, with many players, and it's impossible to understand it all when they were just tagged in to finish the race. "You're saying you understand Johanna, a bit?" he asks.
"She's angry, and so am I. For different reasons, of course, but it's better than pretending not to be."
This was true, he supposes. Johanna is reactive, calm one moment then explosive the next, whereas Katniss is always quietly simmering, and has been for a year now. But the resentment, the frustration that there is nowhere to direct the anger they carry is the same. Katniss seems to have realized that Johanna was not moving on from the war and the time before as easily as she had pretended to, that first night she came by after arriving, though the blame could partially lie with Johanna for putting on such a front.
"You think she shouldn't make up with Haymitch?" he asks.
Katniss shrugs. "Do you hate him? For letting you get captured?"
"I don't think that was Haymitch's fault, exactly," Peeta says. "But even if it was, then no. I knew the plan, or at least a sliver of it. I knew that you were the priority."
Katniss rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling now. "That's it, really. Me being the priority ruined a bunch of peoples' lives."
He dares to move closer, not to reach in or anything that might startle her, but just to lay close by, to remind her that the war is over, they are together, that they fought for a better Panem. "I don't think that's true," he says. "Let's give it a little more time."
He has to go into town the next day to get more flour, and he sees Haymitch, his wagon laden with jars of moonshine set up just under the covered roof of the shopping arcade. He's wearing his favorite sheepskin coat against the chill, but his nose is red, and Peeta realizes it's from drink and not the wind. "I thought you were sober now," he says, in lieu of a greeting.
"This is just temporary," Haymitch says, and Peeta spies it: the jug of moonshine that's an inch lower than the rest. A man comes by and hands Haymitch some cash, takes a jar, and moves on, tucking it into his coat pocket. The sale is quick and subtle, perhaps a sign that he is hiding his habit from someone.
"What, are you blaming Johanna for your drinking habit?" Peeta asks. It's become easier to challenge Haymitch, maybe because he watched Johanna all torn up over him, while Haymitch is here acting like nothing is amiss.
Haymitch shrugs, his tone light. "She blames me, so why not return the favor?" he asks. He raises the jug in a mocking toast and takes another sip. The smell is astringent, and Peeta has a feeling he'd gag if he tried any.
"Because one of you needs to be the bigger person," he says. "You need to talk to her, properly, before she leaves here, too."
"Maybe she ought to," Haymitch says, and there's just the slightest drunken slur to his words.
"Don't even start!" Peeta says. He can feel his frustration rising, the way that only Haymitch can make it. The same feeling he had when Katniss and he were getting ready for the arena the first time and matched with Haymitch, a Mentor falling over drunk and convinced they were doomed from the start. Defeatist and unapologetic about it. "You spent all this time making sure we won the war, coaching Katniss, making these plans, and now you're done? You won't put effort in for yourself?"
Haymitch licks his lip, his grip tight on the jar of moonshine. "It's for her own sake," he says. "Every girlfriend I've ever had has died or become fucked up in some awful way."
Peeta sighs, realizing that this is beyond him. Whatever is plaguing Haymitch will have to be solved by Haymitch himself, he needed more than just a pep talk. "Well Snow is dead," he reminds him. "There are no more Games. Katniss and I don't need a Mentor watching us every moment, anymore. You can think about yourself."
And then he leaves to do his shopping, because he has reached the limit of his patience, and he doesn't like leaving Katniss home alone for too long.