Tough Love | EVERLARK

Where the girl on fire comes home.

It hadn't occurred to Katniss until now to be nervous. She simply hadn't had the time to fret before now. The last two days of her life had consisted of packing and even more packing. She'd been surrounded by Madge and Johanna at all times, who had been like two very helpful, very excitable birds. Twittering around her for the last forty-eight hours as they helped her pack and sort out her life.

So now, as Katniss sat on the train that would take her home, she had nothing left to do but think. And as the thoughts rolled in, she was instantly filled with anxiety.

Her mother and Prim had been surprised but elated when she had told them of her coming home, with her mother showing some uncharacteristic worry, asking Katniss multiple times why she had decided to come back to Twelve, worried that she had given up on her dream.

Katniss had explained over the phone to both her mother and Prim how miserable she had been at work, and that doing freelance was her ticket out of being stuck at a boring desk job for the rest of her life.

Katniss found herself surprised and slightly agitated with her mother, on one hand, she was glad that she was obviously a lot better now. But on the other hand, Katniss was annoyed, why couldn't her mother have cared this much when she and Prim were starving? She's different now, Prim had told her quietly when they spoke over the phone the other night.

Ever one to be sceptical, Katniss told Prim that she'd believe that when she saw it with her own eyes.

And of course, there was Peeta. Telling him that she was coming back had been just as good as she had thought it would be. That five-minute call turned into a three-hour one, which was not unusual for them nowadays. Katniss had even fallen asleep on call to him, the sound of his voice soothing her to sleep.

The train would take a day and a half to reach District Twelve, a journey she had done only once before almost a year ago when she had decided to move to Capitol City.

Katniss looked back on her time in the city with mixed emotions. She had been completely miserable at Fireshot for the past six months, but she had also gained Johanna and Madge as friends for life during that time and been able to run her own projects, learning invaluable skills that improved her photography a lot.

Their goodbye at the station had been a tear-filled one, with even stone-cold Johanna shedding a tear or two herself. Katniss already bitterly missed her two little birds, glad that they were going to visit in a month — they had already bought their train tickets — but then again Katniss was glad that she was leaving Capitol City behind her. She wasn't made for city life, she was made for forests and small towns, for her family and for the boy with the golden curls.

Prim had told her all about Peeta's new bakery, Prim had visited it several times since it had opened, describing everything about it to her very curious sister. Katniss had smiled when Prim had told her its new name, The Golden Bakery, she thought that it was the perfect name for it.

Seeing Peeta again also filled her with anxiety, they still hadn't really properly talked of anything too deep, both nervous about ruining whatever tentative relationship they had been building over text and many video calls.

She knew that she needed to explain to Peeta what happened between her and Darius. Of how just a couple of months after Peeta had left she had gotten horrendously drunk one night and had lost her virginity to one of their mutual friends.

Katniss cringed as she remembered the night. She had been completely shit-faced and Darius had been, well, there. He'd innocently flirted with Katniss that night, and Katniss had taken to it like a fish to water. Flirting back the best she could. Somehow her drunken mind had insisted that she needed to get over Peeta, and at that moment, Darius seemed like her best bet.