storybrooke: peter+katrina WHO: Peter Rusk (Peeta Mellark) + Katrina Magby (Katniss Everdeen) WHEN: After the previous Peter/Annie log, a few days ago WHERE: Out at the park! WHAT: Katrina realizes she has all kinds of uncomfortable feelings for Peter, and Peter remains wholly oblivious. WARNINGS: N/A
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Everything felt like it was falling apart.
Whenever the ground felt unsteady underneath her, Katrina’s first instinct was to run. There was only so far she could run, though. She didn’t want to leave Neal behind, or Finn, although part of her felt as though maybe Finn would be better off without her. That, at the very least, he should give up on trying to make her happy and try to find someone to make him happy, instead.
Katrina had thought she was happy with what she had. She really had been, probably. Now she was fairly certain they’d never regain that easy, comfortable contentedness with each other’s company ever again.
Being around Finn was unbearable, but being without him was painful, too. Still, she instinctively sought out reasons to be apart, to try to find the space to think, even though she never got anywhere. She tried not to make up excuses, because that would only make things worse, but everything she needed to do was suddenly taking her a lot longer. She lingered in the grocery store, stopped and looked in the windows of every shop she passed - except for the Upper Crust, which she was purposefully avoiding - and she took the long way around to get anywhere, meandering down side streets and through the park.
On this particular day, she’d even stopped for a minute to sit down on a swing. She’d spent a lot of time on this swing not that long ago, when she was younger. It had been one of her favorite places to come in the middle of the night, to sneak out and rock back and forth under the stars, pretend she was somewhere else entirely. She hadn’t done that in a long time. But it had a similar effect on her now, and she had kicked off her shoes, digging her toes into the sand below her.
She’d been staring at the ground, pushing herself ever so slightly back and forth. She was completely unaware of anyone else in the park. But all of a sudden there was a familiar blonde toddler in front of her, smiling at her, holding out something in one clenched fist. And once Katrina had lifted her head, she saw the child’s father approaching, too.
Peter.
Shit.
She stared at him for just a second too long, and then tore her gaze away to look back at the girl, trying to remember her name. Her smile was so bright and innocent that Katrina couldn’t resist her; she held out a hand, wordlessly accepting the little handful of dandelions that she was given.
“Thank you,” she said, softly. Then she remembered. “Meadow.”
--
Meadow beamed at her, stretching out her hands and letting out a squeal of delight. She reached out and touched Katrina's hand, like she had to make sure that Katrina was holding the dandelions and she wasn't going to drop them.
Peter didn't run, but he did move at a light limping jog. Anyone who knew him well knew that he'd lost one of his legs in a car accident as a child, and he wore a prosthetic limb. It was hard to notice most of the time.
"Heeeey, Katrina," he said, leaning down to ruffle Meadow's hair. "Sorry, she's at that stage where she wants to run off everywhere." He couldn't imagine how a toddler would bother someone, but Katrina didn't look comfortable.
--
“Hey,” Katrina answered, trying to sound normal, although she was sure she wasn’t succeeding. Peter was about the last person she wanted to see right now, and for some reason she really didn’t want to examine too closely, so was Meadow. She liked both of them, they were good people - especially the little, innocent girl that only wanted to give her flowers - so why did she feel like crying? “It’s fine. I-- they’re lovely. It’s really kind of you, Meadow.”
She had been avoiding the bakery. She wondered if he’d noticed. He always looked at her so intently when she came in, but he was a warm and friendly person, and she’d never been able to tell if it meant anything or not.
Obviously it had meant something to her, caused some chemical reactions in her bloodstream that had put her in a really uncomfortable position. But she still didn’t know why, and despite her initial instinct to avoid him, there was some part of her that really wanted the answer to that question.
How she was supposed to go about getting it, though, she had no idea. She couldn’t just ask him.
But she should try to be normal, and talk to him, since they were standing right here. She couldn’t remember how to be normal around him. They usually just made small talk while he put her order together.
“It’s nice out today, isn’t it,” she tried, so awkwardly that she immediately regretted saying anything at all.
--
"Gorgeous day." Peter smiled, watching as Meadow plopped down to sit on the grass.
Peter looked exhausted, his hair tousled and a few days' worth of blond scruff on his chin. He needed sleep and he needed a shave. He even seemed a little distracted, like he wasn't having the best day, but being outside and being here in the park with his daughter was helping to make him feel better. This was all he really needed -- being outdoors, being somewhere quiet. The rest of his life seemed to be falling apart lately, but this was a start.
"Meadow likes to come out here every day and get some fresh air," he said, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I, uh. I haven't seen you at the bakery in a while. Everything all right?"
Yeah, he'd noticed.
--
“I--”
She couldn’t say that she’d been avoiding him. It would hurt his feelings, and lead to too many awkward questions. It would have been nice to be able to be angry at him, to have someone to blame other than herself (or Finn, but it wasn’t his fault, either), but she couldn’t. Peter was a good person, he had to be, otherwise she wouldn’t have cared about him at all. Right?
“We’re a little short on money,” she lied, although it was true enough. They had enough for bread, still, but they’d never had a lot of funds. But she didn’t want him pitying her or offering her charity, so she added, “But we’re working it out. And I’ve been busy. I’ll come back once... I’ve sorted all of that out.”
And now she’d have to do that, or it would look strange. But if the word got out that they were poor, well -- she could handle that. What she couldn’t handle was more people, especially Peter himself, knowing the real reason she’d been avoiding him lately.
“What about you? Everything okay?”
She was only trying to turn the subject around to him, but she couldn’t help noticing after she’d said it that he looked tired and unshaven. He was always busy, but it seemed maybe a little more than usual lately. The scruff was new.
God, she needed to stop paying so much attention to him. She looked away, hastily, as soon as she realized what she was doing.
--
"Uh… yeah. Yeah," said Peter, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing away. "Yeah. We had kind of a mishap with some of the bread today, burned it, so I needed the walk. Annie's minding the place right now."
He didn't mention all of it. It wasn't important, and it wasn't something he shared with someone who was an acquaintance. Peter kept his cards close to his chest, as a rule. His emotions were easy to read but he wasn't always forthcoming about his feelings.
--
“Guess I wouldn’t have seen you even if I’d stopped by there today,” Katrina said, falling back on her usual attempt at humor to cover up or get away from anything emotional. “Instead I got a dandelion chain, so… I think the park was the right choice.”
She directed most of this at Meadow, because of the two of them, she was the easier one to look at. Adorable, innocent, and for some reason tugging painfully on her heartstrings, but that was normal for a cute kid.
“Maybe next time I’ll bring her flowers. I work with them, you know.” She added the last part for Meadow’s benefit. She was fairly certain Peter, along with everyone else in this small town, had seen her working at the florist’s shop at some point.
--
"Is that exciting, Meadow? Katrina works with flowers. I bet she knows the names of every flower." Peter smiled down at his daughter. It was easier to talk to her, too, to lapse into toddler babble about every little thing so she stayed engaged. Small talk was hard, especially on a bad day when nothing was going well. It was a hell of a lot easier to talk to a child who had a little world and little problems.
"How, um. How's your husband?" he asked, directing his attention back to Katrina.
--
“All the ones around here, anyway. Yeah.” Katrina managed a small but genuine smile. Flowers were something she felt comfortable talking about. Holding out one of the ones she’d been given in Meadow’s direction, she asked, “Did you know you can eat dandelions? I put them in a salad once, made it really pretty. You could take some home and have a pretty dinner, too.”
“--Might want to wash them off pretty well first, though,” she added, in Peter’s direction.
And then regretted looking at him, because she was still looking at him when he asked about Finn, and everything was immediately awkward again. “He’s-- yeah, he’s good.”
--
"Good!" said Peter. Small talk was something he was sort of good at, but this felt like particularly awkward small talk. "That's good. I was worried about you two when I didn't see you, but… you know, if you ever want to just stop by, I can always spare some bread for you anyway." He smiled faintly. Was that a stupid thing to offer? Free bread? Whatever.
--
Katrina was definitely regretting the lie about the money. She didn’t want free bread, didn’t want to owe him anything. It was nice of him to offer, though, so she felt bad turning him down. And if she said she had enough to pay for it, he’d know she’d been lying.
“Maybe I’ll let Meadow here pick out some flowers, in return,” she offered instead. “If you come by the shop sometime.”
And now she’d gotten herself into spending more time with him. Damn it. She was just going to have to figure out how to get the hell over him somehow.
“I should probably-- go,” she added, deciding it was probably best to leave before she talked herself into any more trouble. “I’ll see you later, okay? Thanks again for the flowers, Meadow.”
She left hastily, before either of them could protest, cursing herself the whole way home.