Archive of Our Own ^beta

He's in the Capitol and I'm glad it's not me.  But when he reminded all of Panem that I am restricted to District 12, I feel farther away from him than I ever have.  Father away than in the Arena when we separated at the tree.  Because while I could cross a bit of wild terrain and follow his trail like prey until I find him, crossing Panem is something different.  It's big, and the replacement Peacekeepers and the hovercrafts with infrared cameras make such a journey too exhausting for me to even consider.  Sneaking onto a train might work faster.

                But once they know I'm gone I'd be stuck in the Capitol. And I'd rather be heartbroken, destitute and alone in District 12 than imprisoned in the Capitol on any level.

                I click the television off and my chest feels painfully tight. Delly tries to tell me how much Peeta cares about me, and how much better he has grown since he has come home.

                Even Delly considers this his home.  But is it really? He's so comfortable on camera. So at ease with people, and clearly enjoys their company at times. Despite everything we've been through, together or separate, he can still function there. I realize that he could even survive there, as a celebrity.  I realize that his natural confidence in front of people, his good heart, and fame could one day bring him into the world of public service.  Even here, where there is talk about electing a new local mayor next year, I realize he could be a contender.

                Because everyone desires him.  Coin desired his rescue above mine. Haymitch desires his happiness above mine. Panem desires his comforting presence and voice on the video feed. Thom desires his friendship. The town desires his baked goods.  The town, again. I picture him at his family's rebuilt bakery, rising early, sparing grins for the patrons and treas for the children brave enough to press their faces against the display window.   The merchants typically live above their shops... for security and for efficiency and convenience.  The town is something so much better than what it was before, but I couldn't live there. I can't live where there are people. I need them, to sneak into their circle to have contact and exchange of goods, but then I need to slip out again, preferably unnoticed.  Peeta isn't like that.  He's rebuilding the bakery. I can imagine what comes next.

                That was inevitable as soon as he started baking again.

                He'll say, for my sake that he can live in Victor's Village and run the bakery. But it's too far to walk into town each morning so early.  It's too far from his ovens to stay up all night doing a new experimental batch and still find his way to bed in time to get enough sleep.

                In a bed I won't be in.  In a bed someone else will eventually keep warm for him.

                Because while the image of him back in that life leaps clear and easy to my mind, I know I can't live in that environment.  Not any more. Not ever. Even if I keep getting better, more stable, less depressed, I will never find my comfort where there are people.

                Suddenly, I'm back to listing reasons we never should have slept in the same beds. Confusion, guilt, and what I know is eventual heartache. His heartache when I refuse to grow with him as he grows back to normal, and mine when he moves on.

                Which he will, even if he doesn't want to, because I will make him. I will force him. I accept now that I am not the root cause of all of his sufferings, but I was the catalyst every time. I was the tool every time. Real. And if Haymitch and I ever agreed on anything, it's that Peeta deserves happiness.  I know now that it isn’t that Haymitch hates me.  It’s that he knows a lost cause when he sees one, and better to sacrifice the lost cause if it’s at all possible someone else can be rescued.

                Delly is still talking about Peeta's spot and I realize only seconds have passed since I turned off the view screen and also that I haven't been listening.  Without saying anything, which is my way of being polite rather than snapping at her in my depressed mood, I simply get up, take my jacket, and leave for the woods.

                I want a break from myself, from my thoughts.  So I find again the spot Gale and I used to meet at when starting our hunting trips.  I don't miss him. Not at all. Not anymore. And not because of how the last bomb of the war went off. I just don't care. I don't think I ever really cared beyond having someone to help me provide. Now that Prim is dead, well, that need is gone as well.

                He was right, though. It was like I was drunk any time we were close. Not intoxicated and hazy like Haymitch.  Intoxicated on guilt for not feeling for him like he did for me, on fear of losing any more people from my life, on confusion of what people wanted from me and how I felt I should be able to accommodate them for all the trouble that I brought.

                And I don't miss him because he wanted me to belong to him, and I will never 'belong' to anyone except myself. That is another thing I can't give Peeta.  I'm certain Peeta wants me to belong to him too. But the difference between he and Gale is that Peeta's gentle and kind and willing to accept companionship instead of claim. Or perhaps he's willing to accept being the one who 'belongs' to another. 

                The idea irritates me, but then I realize I'm socially damaged and someone with his attitude is the only person I'd ever have a chance of keeping around as family.   In the Victor's Village I assume that’s because of everything I'd been through at the hands of the Capitol and the Rebels combined.  But out here, I realize it was always true.  I hunt as well as I do because part of me is feral. Like the girl crying and starving under the bakery’s apple tree at age eleven, too feral to ever thank the boy who took a beating to feed my sister and me.

                Feral like Buttercup in some ways, I think, and an idea that comes to my mind unbidden and unexpected.  He and I are more alike than I realized.  Although, he belonged to Prim, so I consider whether the comparison breaks down.

                Or does it.  Prim was so caring, and gentle.  Maybe... Maybe her patience and willingness to enjoy Buttercup's wretched company as a weak comfort against the pains and realities of the world, without trying to control him, was what endeared her to him.

                She and Peeta are so much alike.  I suddenly feel like balling up and weeping.

                I have been sitting on a stone slab, unmoving and squinting into the distance without seeing anything. But now my eyes focus and I see a small buck down in the meadow below.  I'm grateful for the distraction. The shot is too far by several times over, and I don't have Gale with me to carry the heavy carcass out, but I check the breeze to make certain my scent is blowing upwind and then slide off the slab and pick my way slowly forward.

                I control my breathing automatically, deep, slow and quiet. Every four steps, my gaze drops from my target to the ground in order to survey how to take the next four steps quietly.  When I'm only two arrow lengths away, I'm in a crouch. The wild grass of the meadow has grown high, and covers me up to my shoulders when I am down like this. 

                The buck has moved. He's still pulling and gnawing at grass, but his meal has taken him further off to my left than I would like.  With the wind direction, I will now have to walk around in an arc to avoid my scent catching on the breeze and alerting him. That adds a considerable distance to travel so carefully, and it is already nearing sunset because of how late I left the house after watching Peeta on the vid display. 

                I should give up and head home; it's not a kill I'm situated for this evening. But as I realize I've just spent twenty minutes stalking him, mind focused exclusively on my breathing, my steps, the wind, the natural movement of the grass, and on the simple beast in front of me, I realize I've spent twenty minutes without worrying and fretting. My shoulders feel lighter from that, and to chase that feeling I elect to continue the stalking as an exercise.  I will try to come up as close as I can, but I won't take the shot.

                Another twenty minutes  and he has let me draw surprisingly close. The sun is low enough on the horizon that the colors are starting to spread upwards from behind the mountains off in the western distance. His meal is over, and he is now just laying in the meadow looking around and reflecting on his environment.  He spots me, but doesn’t startle or get up to leave.  I recall Gale's and my experience in Thirteen, how the animals had stopped being afraid.

                I make it to the edge of the tall grass, and decide to see how tolerant he will be of my presence.  His muscles tense, readying at last to bolt, but he remains still. I'm close enough that I can hear, as well as see, the breaths puffing in and out from his nostrils. 

                His eyes are wide and black, nervous.  Now he realizes his willingness to let me close might have been an error of judgment from which he won't recover.  I spend several long moments staring back at him, not breaking the connection.

                "I'm not going to hurt you," I whisper very low without thinking, and begin to lower from my crouch into a sitting position.  He still doesn't move, but his nerves are fraying. I can see his body shiver slightly.  My own leg muscles have been burning for a while, to the point of starting to quiver, so I empathize with him.

                For a few moments, the fear and uncertainty in his eyes grows more intense, but as I sit still he finally relaxes.  For several minutes he lets me stare into his eyes, watching his body as he breathes, study the pattern of his fur.  I can smell  him, I'm so close. The ripe scent of animal and musk and dirt and grass.

                The trill of a bird alarms me to a distant, low hum from what must be an approaching hoverplane. It triggers a memory from the games:  The cry of the mockingjays right before a hoverplane appears and removes a dead tribute's body.  The adrenaline in my system is instant. The craft might be in the hands of the new government, but their sound still reminds me all too well of the power and tyranny of the Capitol and what Twelve, and me, and Peeta... and Prim and Rue, experienced at the hands of that power.

                I spot it riding low along the horizon, heading towards town and I turn my head to follow it as it passes by in the distance. My shoulders relax immediately once it’s out of sight.

                But a sudden, agitated grunt, followed by the violent rustle of dry grass sends a charge of electricity up my spine, and my bow- which I’d been holding loosely in my hand- is up, an arrow notched and flying before I even realize it.

                Its a survival instinct, defensive at its core, that is instantly transformed into something murderously offensive: The buck had started to bolt, finally startled away by I don’t know what, but my arrow has sunk into his heart before he even made it up onto all four hooves.

                He’s dying fast, body twitching, and I know from experience he’ll be gone within moments. 

                I can’t stop it.

                 And I see in his eyes, just before they dilate, a look of broken trust, confusion… pain.  Exactly like I've seen in Peeta's too many times.

                Real or not real? 

                Most definitely real.

                For a moment of confusion and panic I have the delusional image that it’s Peeta laying here in the grass with me, on his back with one of my arrows in his heart. 

                It takes several minutes for me to stop shaking and come back down to reality. When I do, I realize I've killed so many living things on this land, both before and after the games, that the sting of an animal’s death had become distant and unrelated to the idea of loss.  Until this one.

                I had promised him, this buck, in these minutes together- in this shared sunset glowing with the soft orange color Peeta loves so much, that I would change. I had promised to share this experience with him as his companion, rather than his killer.  He might not have understood my words, but my body language, demeanor, and I’m certain even the scents that came up in my sweat, had conveyed that promise to him.  Otherwise, he would have fled to save himself from me.

                I’m too tired to say I’m sorry. 

                Instead, I crawl over to him and sit, stretching my legs out and resting his head on my thigh.  I stroke the coarse hair between his antlers, trailing my fingers down his muzzle towards his large black nose.  

                If Doctor Aurelius had seen this, the hunter mourning for the prey, I wonder what he would have said.  Maybe he’d lie and tell me it’s not my fault.  Just like it’s a lie every time he tells me none of the other deaths were my fault.

                I pull the lifeless head further onto my lap and break down and cry.

                After killing the buck, whom I named Bucky, whom I had formed a bond with, and whose friendship I had betrayed, I had struggled next with the guilt of letting the death go to waste.  Convicted, I field dressed the carcass as best I could by flashlight, because it was dark by the time I had gathered myself. I was shaking from muscle fatigue, and emotion, and the rush of cold and colder breeze that swept through the meadow after the sun left. The smell of blood no doubt also calling to predators.  I consider dragging him to the edge of the meadow and trying to hang him up high enough in a tree to be safe from most night-time scavengers until I can come back tomorrow with Thom or someone else from the village who could bring the meat to Greasy Sae.

                But I decide that my penance included the physical struggle of delivering his body to where his death would nurture others, namely miners and their children and those working on reconstructing the town.  So I rest for a few minutes and then work the body into a pack-like arrangement, slicing through the skin and tissue of the rear legs and slipping the front ones through so I could carry Bucky over my shoulders like a macabre backpack. I stuff my father's jacket into my field pack before hiking him up onto my back, refusing to spend the long hike home ruining it by wearing it under the carcass. This makes the evening even cooler, but bending over significantly under the weight, I begin picking my way back towards town under the dim beam of my flashlight. 

                It's a distance that would take me only an hour in the day. But at night and with my exhaustion and Bucky's weight took me closer to three.  And as I near, I can hear someone calling my name, and then several someones.  I realize Delly must have gotten worried and sent out a search party.

                Seeing Peeta on the video screen might have upset me, but I'm not so unstable anymore that it would drive me to something desperate.  The production irritates me, but surprisingly also feels nice,  knowing the locals care about me instead of hating me for sparking off the fire, literally and figuratively, that burned the town.  Although, for the first time I admit to myself that the people seem happy, rebuilding. Free. The fear is gone. They struggle with their hands, but for their families' improvement, not for the Capitol. The black market at the HOB is now a local market, a social hub. 

                I manage a chuckle, thinking I should suggest to Peeta when he's elected mayor he should rename the Hob officially to the Hub. 

                When one of the searchers finds me. I think he is actually more excited to see the deer meat on my back than me, however.  He happily takes my load and agrees to round up the other searchers and drop the meat off to Greasy Sae.  I slink back home, with goosebumps from the cold and too slimly to put the jacket on.

                Delly is relieved to me, and I let her run up to me and hug me without my usual protest, knowing her arms would get smeared in the nasty jam on the back of my shirt.  Her surprise and disgust are satisfying, if not reduced somewhat by my mild guilt.  I tell her about the deer I sent off to Sel and that I suspect Sal will bring by something extra nice for dinner tomorrow. 

                I instinctively pick up the phone to call Peeta and tell him I'm too tired for dinner, although really I don't want to see him tonight after my vision of having shot him through the heart.  But I remember too late he is in the Capitol tonight. He's there for another four nights.

                I decide that is a good thing.  I realize that my confusion about how to react to his feelings for me, perhaps since we were children, was because I don't want someone wasting their life tending to me, not just that I don't like feeling I owe someone. And now it's worse. Realizing out in the field that I'm a catalyst for things that hurt him, rather than the reason, helped. But realizing how bright a future he would have but for being chained to me at home, feeling that internal compulsion to put me first, that crystallizes why I resisted the idea so long of wanting to be attached to him. 

                I remember with angst the moment he and I got off the Victor's train for the first time back home, the moment he realized I had been acting, and not sincere in the cave, in the interviews, that I had lied to him and let him believe his love was requited only to play the game with Capitol. I close my eyes and remember the pit in my stomach when I held his hand as we faced the congratulations of our District, sick of what it was doing to him, and confusingly even more sick that I might not ever get to hold that hand again.

                I open my eyes and am back in the present. Before he left for the Capitol this time, before the cameras showed up, I had finally admitted to myself how much I need him as more than just a friend.  I was sad he was going; this afternoon I was terrified of the possibility he might want to stay.  But now, as I tell Delly that I'm tired from the late hunt and wobble upstairs on my shaky legs to bed, I'm glad for the reprieve.  For once I realize the unselfish thing to do is not to push him away because it's what seems easy, or to pull him close because it's what he wants, but to think about would be best for him in the long term.  Once I chip that design out of the marble, I decide, then I'll struggle with whether I can accept the answer.

                -

                I fall asleep almost as soon as I sit down in the chair by my bed to pull my hunting boots off.  I had been too tired to remember and pull them off at the door. I suspect I've tracked mud through the house. But now I'm awake, panting and gripping the arms of the chair white-knuckled.  More nightmares.

                I stare over at the bed. Empty and no Peeta to curl into.  I realize with disappointment I had fallen asleep without fulfilling the promise to myself to think about Peeta’s good.  Maybe it had been intentional.  

                I can just see from the moonlight coming through the window that the clock reads after midnight.  I consider showering and then going back to bed, but I owe it to Peeta to think about this with clear thoughts, without dozing, and without him being around to distract me. 

                I sneak out of the house so quietly that not even Buttercup rouses.  Within minutes I'm standing in Peeta's empty bedroom, staring at the neatly made up linens.  Now that I'm here I want to crawl under the sheet and sleep again, so I shower in his bathroom, hoping it will make me. And if it doesn't help, I know I'll sleep in his bed and at least I'll be clean and won't leave traces of my bloody day in the meadow on his sheets.  Staring at his personal hygene items, and how neatly they are put up in his cabinet, including the cream for his skin grafts, I force myself to start from the smallest block upwards. 

                If I allow us to be close, expecting to pull away from him later once I'm sure he's well enough to cope with the past traumas on his own, I hurt him.  Like that day we came home on the train, he'll feel it was all a lie. He'll hate me. He'll be bitter.  It will hurt him.  But he'll be able to move on, find someone else, if he hates me enough, once he's put back together from his torture and nightmares.  I pick out a bottle of pills I recognize as his anti-flashback pills. I place it on the left side of the vanity to symbolize this first option. My hands shake as I put them down, the option painful enough to me that I almost sit down on the floor.

                The alternative, if I'm convinced he's better off without me, because I'm just bad news, or because I'm often mean and selfish, or because I can't feel quite the way he does because it's not in my nature, is to pull away now.  But if I pull away now, I'll hurt him and slow his healing.  Maybe he won't even heal, since part of his wounds are mental spiderwebs the Capitol wove around me.  I certainly have never understood why he secretly had a crush on me all those years, I find the idea of my singing in school as the moment to be too mushy even for him, and I never understood how that could evolve into what he and others call love when we were going into the arena, but if I ever had a chance of breaking away from Peeta without hurting him, the Capitol cut me off by making me, literally, the center of his every waking thought.

                And pulling away now will slow mine healing, but I remind myself for once I am trying to think of his interests without consideration of mine, so I can't consider that. A feature of character that seems to have always come naturally for him, when he thinks of me.  But, in the end, it might be better.  It would encourage him to move on, find someone more stable, and likely he would soon move to town, less likely the Capitol.  Either way, he will be surrounded by people happy to see him, and whom he will become happy to please with his baking skills and his empathetic nature. 

                I pull his muscle relaxer prescription out and place it on the right-hand side of the sink, as an acceptable ending.

                A third option. I could decide to be with him, plan to stay with him.  Not form a family as such, but to be partners, with said partnership possibly lasting for the rest of one of our lives. But no commitment. This allows me the option to run, if I have a breakdown, which is a variation of option one.  But it allows him the freedom to know that as he grows better, he has permission to reject me if I become too much of a burden, or too much of a mean-spirited recluse, a bit like Haymitch, and almost permission simply to move on congenially if his needs evolve to some path I can't follow.

                This is a possibility. A strong one. Not ideal. But it's not avoidance, which I consider slightly stoic for me.  It is flexible enough to account for such a wide variety of unknowns that will likely come our way.  And it has the benefit that I think it is a solution he would accept.  I know he wants children, and knowing him I know that means a wife, and a home, and a means to work and be productive.  All of that takes commitment.  But I sense he would accept this option, without complaint. 

                I take out his sleeping medications and place them on the right.

                The only other possibility is the one I like the least.  Commitment. I don't understand the emotion that underlies that.  Plenty of people do.  Most of the people in my District do.  But it's elusive to me.  Maybe because My father died, who loved my mother, and my mother's response was to withdraw and leave me and Prim to fend for ourselves.  Maybe because the Capitol starved all us children from the Seam when they claimed on the vid screens to be the benevolent parent of the Districts.  Maybe because Gale's plan killed my sister.  Maybe because Peeta's mother beat him for feeding a hungry child and Peeta's father never had the courage to put his wife in his place and stand up for his boys.  Betrayal. Betrayal everywhere, and selfishness.  Certainly that's why I'm so selfish and feral, because nothing's fair and love is for dreamers who haven't starved or lost their father and sister in explosions that were the fault of other's greed.

                I scoff at my reflection in the mirror.  The scars. The slight emptiness in my eyes.  I see it. Haymitch sees it. My mother sees it.  Gale saw it. Snow saw it. Coin saw it.  The only people who pretend not to see it are Prim and Peeta.

                Maybe that isn't fair. I grip the sink white knuckled as a violent flashback of Boggs dying in front of me comes unbidden, along with his speech to me about wanting me to have a happy life.  He hadn't owed me anything. But he'd wanted it for me. Why?  Why couldn't he see the emptiness inside me, that said I wasn't worth saving.

                But Peeta wants a normal life. A bakery, kids... a wife.

                I'm not anyone's wife or mother material. I barely was before the Games.  I'm no one's, now.

                Sure, why not.

                Why was he so angry when I suggested we marry to save our necks during the Victory Tour?  I knew it was insensitive, since I knew he loved me.  Like trapping a starving rat on the other side of a glass window where a hunk of cheese sits molding.  Or a starving girl on the other side of a bakery's warm window.  I also thought he was irritated because it meant that other possible mates would be scared away for life while  I was double-hearted enough to feel able to marry Peeta for show while returning on my days off to Gale, if Gale was who I'd end up wanting to spend time with.  But could Peeta have pulled off the same thing, even if he were inclined?  Who would sleep with the Mockingjay's husband and not assume an arrow would end up in their back?

                "At least I know he'd say 'yes,'" I joke with my reflection.  But the smile looking at me fades to doubt. 

                He might not.  With all of the brain games, he might not be able to. With all of my behavior, which I'm sure everyone including him misinterprets as games, he might not be willing to. My stomach feels knotted as I think of what it would be like to hear Peeta refuse.  I try to visualize it in my head, a moment in some alternate reality where the crazy, violent and commitment-challenged Mockingjay asks Peeta to marry her.

                Where? In bed, with his arms around me one night while we sleep quasi-platonically to chase away the nightmares?  In a field, someplace where the view is breathtaking and soothing and there are no chances anyone else would be around?

                I can't picture asking at all.

                Guys are supposed to ask anyway.  And he wouldn't; not now, not after everything.

                I grab the fourth and last bottle from the cabinet, the mint-laced skin cream. The one that is helping his body to heal and accept the external changes forced on him.  I have an identical bottle at home, because I have to have it too.  I hope there isn't some universal irony that this is the last item I've pulled from the shelf. I open it anyway and smell it before putting it on the left side of the sink.

                I stare at my handiwork.  Three-to-one in favor of playing the game as it comes.  The slight and unintentional reference to the 'odds being in your favor' and the word 'game' make my twisted stomach gurgle with acid and I feel nauseated. I curse my idea of thinking about a solution and go climb into the bed, asleep the moment my head strikes the pillow.

                -

                "She's here! It's alright." 

                I startle awake. Haymitch is standing in the doorway.  He looks smug, but behind the curtain of unkempt hair I see concern.   A cry of relief calls back from downstairs. Delly.   Haymitch disappears for a moment and I hear him call down that we would be down shortly.  His feet walk back up the hallway towards the door and he comes over the bed, pushing my legs aside and sitting on the mattress in a sort of semi-collapse.

                "I'm here. Talk to me, sweetheart."  I assume he's making a sarcastic comment that I miss the meaning behind, but he's staring at me with a look of compassion.  He reeks of metabolized alcohol, but he's as near sober as I've seen him since the station ran out of white liquor for a week almost two months ago.   He smirks, realizing the tender-card is not one he's known for playing and so he comes at what he really wants sarcastically, "Your eyes look so fetching with the puffy bags you have as accessories under them.  I should get a picture and send it in to the Capitol gossips. It will become all the rage."

                I realize his clothes and body odor are even worse than my hunting grime was from last night and I'm irritated that he's stinking up my sheets, Peeta's sheets rather, with his existence.

                Enjoying my irritated glare, he holds his hands up in the air and spreads them, as if reading a marquee all lit up, "They'll call it, 'Mockingjay Morning Blue.'" He leans towards my face and squints and then pulls back, with a grin. "Or maybe Purple. In fact, I'll call Efie right away and see if she can license it as a dolling-up paste or something if I cut her in on the profits."

                I would like to punch him. But his point is taken. He's offering to be a shoulder to lean on, or a mentor again, or both, or something else I can't decipher. But he's there. And, like me, he's in Peeta's corner believing Peeta's ever=after deserves to be better than my own.

                I chew my bottom lip under his close scrutiny and decide to tell him as well that I was here soul-searching last night for what is best for Peeta.

                "I hurt when he's gone."

                That wasn't what I meant to say. I correct it immediately, in part because I expect a lecture about how selfish I am to put my needs first. I use that sentence as springboard explanation before Haymitch can use it to run a guilt assault on me.

                "It's why I came here last night, although really it was an excuse to walk through his shadow with him not around and try to decide what is best for him."

                Haymitch's chin juts out and the skin of it crinkles. He's thinking.

                "Well, Mockingjay," he sounds dubious, weighing the moniker as though he is weighing whether I can really change my feathers. His eyes narrow a bit. "It's nice to hear you say you want what's best for him.  Prove it by telling me what that is."

                I run him through the first three options, unable to speak about the idea of marriage over my own pride, embarrassment and, frankly, unwillingness to consider it.  When I'm done, his chin crinkles up again and he scratches at the stubble.  He's not ignorant I've left one out.

                "You want to live with him, have all the benefits of a committed relationship, but not commit."  He pauses, staring out into space. "I see."

                He didn't see. Clearly.

                "No. I'm trying to leave the options open so there is room for him to grow, if he needs it. And if not, then not."

                Haymitch nods slowly, and then more appreciatively.  He grins, still staring into space and not at me, then slaps the bed and springs up onto his unsteadily sober legs. "You know, I think you're on to something there.  If I were the most pure hearted, selfless, devoted man in all of Panem, as Peeta is..." He looks to me with his hand out, expecting a nod to conceded the point.

                I nod.

                "... who had lived, suffered, and literally went through a death and resurrection, several times I might add, because they had to restart his heart several times after the first games because of the blood loss through his leg, for the for the love of my life, and she told me she wants, purely for my benefit and not for hers of course, to commit to not committing just in case I decide I want to 'grow' later on... Well, I'd be over the moon. That is exactly what I'd want to hear. I'm glad we had this little talk."

                He's smiling at me, but I don't like the look in his eyes.

                He spares a sneer of disgust for me and stalks out. From the hallway he calls behind him, "You're the best, Mockingjay. Don’t you dare change a thing about your charming personality.”

                I won't let it go. He isn't understanding, so I follow him out and find myself yelling down the stairs for him to stop.  He doesn't. I forget even that Delly might be around. Feeling desperate, although for the moment I can't think why, I find myself screaming obscenities after him, followed by a voice-cracking shout of, "I'll break him, Haymitch.  Any choice I make, you and I both know I'll break him in the end. I'll shoot him through the heart without realizing what I'm doing until it's too late. Just like Bucky."

                I collapse to my knees, using the banister to support me as I sag down.

                Haymitch's head appears from the other room, poking out sideways from behind the wall so he doesn't have to bring his body back with it.

                "Who’s Bucky? Who did you kill now?"

                His expression of complete confusion and surprise are so intense it is comical. I chuckle despite the depression I'm swimming in.

                "I shot him, with an arrow to the heart.  He trusted me, and now he's dead."

                If possible, Haymitch's expression turns even more confused. I can see he's wondering if I'm becoming 'mentally-disordered' again.  I laugh more, finding a respite in making the situation sound as ridiculous as possible.

                "We were friends. Going way back."  Well, in hunter-prey terms, watching a sunset together is a pretty long-term relationship, if you think about it.

                "And you shot him?" The rest of Haymitch's body appears, presumably to support his head, and his inability to grasp my dark humor makes me realize he is not as sober as I originally thought. 

                I wave him off. 

                "Never mind." 

                We stare at each other. I wait for him to leave.  Lovely talk. Stellar mentor-tribute bonding.

                "Katniss, of course you're going to shoot him through the heart.  It's not that you're broken, it's that you’re broken and naturally prickly. Look at me," he slaps his own chest before sticking his chin forward and wagging his head emphatically.  "You're just like me. You are me.  Thirty years ago.  The only family we allow to love us is the one we're born with, and only because we ain't got the choice to refuse.  We don't stay, we run. We don't bake, we barb, and despise and use.  And for what?"

                He leans against the wall and slides down against it, his hands on his thighs as his body folds into a sitting positing.  It looks like it hurts.  Not as flexible as he was as a tribute.  But for still being mildly drunk, he seems to be lucid. I would normally chase him out or start arguing with him, but last night in the meadow, sitting on that slab, I had already come to those conclusions about myself.  Plus, I realize that without meaning to his own mental struggles have mirrored the same physical response as mine.  Collapsing to the floor because it's something that will support us but to which we'll never feel we owe anything.  He's staring off into space again, or at something else downstairs I can't see.  I realize I haven't heard Delly and assume she left when Haymitch was leaving.

                Before I even know what I'm doing, I've unfolded myself and made it down the stairs to sink against the wall next to him.  I pull my knees up and hug them. In a move of tenderness that momentarily stuns me, he puts his arm around me. I let my head rest on his shoulder in quiet.

                "What do we do, Haymitch," I finally ask. "I can't love like Prim, or Peeta, or my father, or Rue. I'm not that good of a person. I feel need, emotional, physical, mental. But I can't love them the way they love me.  And I don't even know why."

                After a few seconds, he says, without looking up, "I do."

                I feel my gut wrench; he said it calmly and with enough detachment I fear he really might know. And I am afraid to know the truth of my own misshapenness.  I don't ask, but he volunteers the answer.

                "Because we don't need them in order to survive."

                He looks up at me and sighs, searching my eyes to see whether I agree. 

                "We don't need them like they need us.  Love, for most of them, means they feel like they've found a person they can't live without, someone who completes them in some way. When they find that certainty, it makes their life easy to prioritize. But since we don't need anyone else in order to surive, even if we want them, enjoy them, find comfort in them, or desire them, they'll never rise to the top of our priority list because, at the end of day, it might hurt like hell to lose them, but we know we'd still be able to pick ourselves of the ground and walk."

                I look at the state of Haymitch.  What he's doing doesn't look a lot like getting off the ground and walking.  Apparently I say as much without realizing it, and he shoots a stare so sharp at me that I wince, but his arm is still around my shoulders.  "You don't know a damn thing about my life, sweetheart. You've walked a thousand miles in your own shoes and still can't even tell if you're going or coming, so don't you walk a short mile in mine and pretend you can judge me."

                I do know some about his life, actually. And I know it's not pleasant. Not, 'the entire population of Panem was on the brink of total annihilation just because you won't kill the whimpering puppy who dotes on you' type of tragedy, but enough.

                I argue it out in my mind.  Prim. I loved Prim like that.  Her death meant mine.

                I say this to Haymitch.

                “Right,” he says.  “Just like you befriended Rue.  Because we both know you were going to kill her if it came to it, since it meant getting back home to take care of Prim and providing for her.”  He scoffs.  “Not.”  Just like you were going to eat those berries.  You were going to choke and die on those berries, not for Peeta, but as a big f-you to Snow and the Capitol, because something, an idea, meant more to you than your life, or even Peeta’s.”

                “That was a ruse. A gamble.”

                He blows air out, flapping his lips.

                “Right.  We both know you hoped it would work.  But we also both know,” he turns so he can stick a swaying finger in my face, “that you were prepared to take the consequences.  For the principal.  For the idea.  That’s why you were always going to be the Mockingjay, no matter how Coin wanted Peeta for the job.”

                “What?”

                I don’t know why I’m surprised.  I’ve had the thought before.

                “Aw come on, Peeta’s soft.  He’d compromise anything to save you.”

                “Because he didn’t try to kill me.”

                “You’re talking about brainwashed Peeta.  I’m talking about loverboy.”

                I’m mad.  I want to make comebacks to everything he says. 

                But the truth of his insight resonates within my mind.  I walk the concept through experiences I've had with my family, with Gale, with Peeta, and even with Haymitch, and it seems to explain many of my behaviors and attitudes of the time.  Gale was right, in the end I'll choose whoever I can't survive without.

                The problem is I can survive alone. Or I can choose to die for something as paltry as a cause, even if it burns down the world down around those who love us.             

                "Are we broken?" I don't mean are our wills or our spirits broken. I mean, are Haymitch and I deformed somehow, in our minds.  Like Harv the blacksmith, who everyone knows will say or do pretty much anything if it will get him the result he wants, without regard to morality, social norms, or consequences to others.  Like he's there, but in his eyes you can see something small missing. Small but important. Like I see emptiness when I look in the mirror.

                "I don't know. I think so. I think the games make it worse. Why don't you ask that Capitol head doctor of yours, for the both of us." I assume he's making light of a heavy thing, but he adds, sincerely, "But don't mention me. Just tell me what he says for you and I'll chew on it."

                I think more. This is by far the most reflective time we have ever shared.  After a few initial moments of tumbling thoughts about my own life and well-being, my eyes happen to fix on the oven through the adjoining hall entrance.  Peeta's oven is a symbol of who he is.  I promised yesterday I would figure out what was best for him, without considering my own state of affairs.  I will follow through.

                "What about Peeta? If we can't commit, then how-"

                His head lolls back and thumps against the wall. "I never said we can't commit.  I only said our instinct is different than theirs.  It's possible for us to choose to commit, to force ourselves to rearrange our survival priorities so they are not at the very top of the mountain.  At least, theoretically possible." He says the last statement without enough uncertainty that he may not actually be convinced it could work that way. "But the difference is there is something in them that drives them to commit. There is something in us that runs from it."

                "So, I commit to Peeta, knowing that at some point one of us might kill the other at any point in the future?" It seems unsound to me.

                "He's not going to kill you. He's come through that fog."

                I wasn't talking about the Capitol Mutt version of Peeta trying to kill me. I was talking about my killing of Bucky.  I envisioned my sticking around as meaning one day I might accidentally shoot first, hopefully only in metaphor, and decipher the situation too late.  I look down at my pants to see the crusty blobs of dried spittle from where I had rested Bucky's snout on my legs, but realize for the first time I'm only in my underwear after last night's bathing. To Haymitch's credit, he seems not to have noticed.

                "I'm worried about him," I'm almost as quiet as death, "not me."

                "Well you're wrong there." Haymitch's uncharacteristic introspection dissipates instantly and he raises an eyebrow at me.  He pulls his arm from around me and claps a hand on my bare knee in a way that I know he knows stings, and then and pushes down on it, painfully hard, as a support to help him back to his feet. He is suddenly in a good mood, as though he's about to point out some flaw of mine and then strut away, having wounded me.  "The only thing you're really worried about is you.  You're worried about keeping the tether off, in case the Mockingjay wants to fly away some time, in case playing house and doing chores becomes too tiresome and domestic.  And you're worried that if you screw it up and hurt Peeta, you'll hurt from the guilt. Not because he's wounded, mind you, but because you'll feel like a pile of horse-manure for dumping on someone who doesn't deserve it."

                Looking smug, he twirls the end of one of his tangled blond locks  then starts to leave.

                I refuse to accept what he says.  I don't believe I'm that selfish.  I don't want to believe I'm that selfish. I want to believe I'm putting Peeta first.

                "I'm trying to put Peeta first."

                "Logically impossible," Haymitch says.

                "Tell me why."

                "Because I've made that choice before, sweetheart, with my own someone else," he smiles with familiar condescension, "if you must know. With that same thinking.  And after having walked a thousand miles in my own shoes, I can say that if it's simply a camouflage you're using to fool yourself, then it means you love him. And you don’t love him."

                The statement hurts.

                "In the way the others mean when they say love, I'm sayin.' That just ain't you. So, definitely not trying to put Peeta first." He sounds giddy, which confuses me since I think he's putting me down. "And Mockingjay," he flips me the three-finger sign with a mix of cheer and sarcasm,  "the day I'd be convinced I'm wrong and you love Peeta the way he loves you, not your selfish or guilt-ridden attempt at love, is the day I'd give up the drink."

                He pulls the front door open wide and walks out deliriously happy, for reasons that are a mystery to me.  It's probably because mentioning 'the drink' put him to mind to go have one. 

                He's left the door open and that upsets me.  Peeta works very hard to keep the doors closed and only leave opens windows with screens. He says it's so the flies don't get into the flour and baking supplies, but I know it's really because he wasn’t to keep out any stray tracker-jackers that might happen to be flying about.  I stick my tongue out at Haymitch, though he can't see it, and then slam the door.

____

                "Katniss, it's Peeta."

                It's dinner the next night.  Day two of Bucky-in-a-Bowl, or 'venison stew' as Greasy Sae calls it. I'm sitting at the table eating dinner with both Delly and Haymitch, the latter of which for some reason seems semi-sober for the second afternoon in a row.   I desperately want to hear Peeta's voice; I had nightmares again and he is the only thing that calms them. But I don't want to talk to him on the phone in front of the others.  I'm sick of their looks, whispers, and the thoughts I can see whistle through their brain. 

                On the other hand, telling her to put him off might leave Peeta wondering if something is wrong.  She's holding the phone out to me and I can hear the distant sound of Peeta calling my name under the assumption I've already gotten the handset.

                I grumble and take it, getting up from the table and standing by the sink before saying hello.  I sound curt, even though it's not meant for him.

                "How are you?"

                I sigh.  Stupid question. It's always a stupid question, whoever asks it, because it's too simple and too generic to cover what's really being asked or what really should be asked.  And it gives the questioned plenty of room to evade the snare of real communication.  Peeta's fault, not mine, so I say something bland and unenthusiastic about the weather.  Haymitch grunts sarcastically behind me, mocking my performance, and so I burn him.

                "Haymitch left the front door to your house open yesterday. You now have flies.  He says he's not sorry and he hopes they nest in your flour so you can't be so rottenly motivated so get up so early in the mornings."

                I turn around and narrow my eyes at Haymitch.  His narrow back, but then he laughs too.

                Peeta only sighs. I think he knows I'm not serious, but if so, he's probably tired of me using him in my mental war with our mentor. If he only knew the half of it.

                "I'd like to talk to you, about something important."  He sounds steady, but slightly irritated that he doesn't have my full attention.  It's hard to be convicted when he's not in the room next to me, and he's been running around the Capitol as the belle of the ball.

                "Nice news segment they ran on you this afternoon," I say before I can stop myself.  It was meant as a barb. It is a barb.  The cameras followed him around trying to do some errand while young, attractive women mobbed him, apparently worshiping the ground he and his prosthetic leg walked upon. A leg I didn't save because I was inept.

                Peeta hangs up. I know where he's staying, and I memorized the number.  I drop the phone and pretend I accidentally disconnected us, not wanting to give Haymitch the satisfaction of knowing I'd pushed Peeta too far.

                "Looks like I'll be drinking myself into an early grave," I hear him gloat behind me.  Delly erupts into a gasp of shock and naively tries to counsel him out of such a mindset.  This only seems to heighten Haymitch's entertainment.

                I shake my head as I wait for the hotel desk clerk to answer the phone. I ask for Peeta's room, by number and not name. I'm given the run around. I start to get mad but then realize after the day's news segment, there are probably any number of reporters and women trying to get their moment with the prince of Panem. The name strikes my fancy and I make a mental note to call him the "Prince of Panem" during the next convenient argument where doing so won't cause one of us to kill the other.

                "It's Katiness Everdeen." Projecting a mental image to him of being shot by an arrow, I authoritatively instruct him to connect my call.  He stutters an apology and a few moments later I'm on the open line with Peeta again. Open, because technically we could communicate if either of us were talking, but instead we are both silent.

                Finally, I'm just honest. "Can it wait a few minutes? It's not a good time here."

                "What are you talking about? I'm having a fine time here," hollers Haymitch in the background.

                This seems to get me Peeta's pity. I hear a sigh. "Drunk?"

                I won't lie. "Worse. Somewhat sober."

                Peeta laughs, and it makes me smile.

                "Vine at nine?"

                It's the code we use now. Vine means I'll call him at his house. It's for the electrical vine he hacked into during the Quarter Quell with a machete and then promptly died.  Tree means he'll call me at mine. That's for the tree I electrocuted myself with using BeeTee's copper wire, before raining down collapsing dome and collapsing Panam on top of myself.  Phones use wires, or used to I'm told, so it made sense in a morbid sort of way.

                Not a great code. But with enough ambiguity it's conceivable someone slow on the uptake might think we were talking about a literal meet-up location.

                He seems appeased, agrees, and hangs up on me for the second time.

                "Vine at nine," Haymitch mocks, though he's looking at Delly as though to encourage her to ask if he knows what it means. She doesn't bite, but instead is still trying to speak to Haymitch about the benefits of sobriety, and how already his company has improved now that he's not so fall-down drunk at dinner that we have to watch to make sure he doesn't drown in his stew.

                I sit back down and start stabbing at chunks of Bucky with the rounded edge of my spoon. Poor bastard. Never had a chance around an unstable Mockingjay.

                By eight-thirty I'm sitting in the dark at Peeta's kitchen table.  I've locked everyone else out, and I've already decided I'm going to sleep upstairs here tonight. But without the noise of the video screen, Delly's continuous talking or Haymitch's repetitive belching, I've got nothing let but my own thoughts.   Alone and quiet, I fall back into the introspective mood from two days ago in the woods.

                I ponder if Haymitch is right. Could I be selfish enough to be more concerned with my own guilt than whether Peeta actually becomes hurt? He had called it emotional camouflage, or something similar. The idea brings to mind my stalking of Bucky.

                I'm tired of thinking about it, and would be happy if I never thought about feelings again. So I lay my arms and head on the table and sleep.  I dream of being back in the grass, enjoying the sunset.  The hover plane passes. I hear a sound that startles me... and I shoot on instinct again.  I'm sick, near to vomiting, because I know I've just shot Peeta and not poor Bucky.  But I can't pretend it didn't happen.  I creep to him slowly, ready to turn the body over so I can see Peeta's lifeless face, eyes wide and black because of me.

                But the eyes that greet me are my own.  It's my face. And then Rue's. Then Prim's. Then my father's. I run, terrified.

                And then jerk awake. It's the sound of the phone ringing that bled into the dream and startled me.  Groggy, I reach for it in the dark and mutter an answer.

                "Katniss?"

                "Yeah," I manage, feeling the after affects of the dream naseauea.  I realize I must have slept through the time I was supposed to call and my sagging shoulders sag under heavier weight.

                "Peeta, I-"
                "I'm sorry I called early. But I thought I might get lucky and you might be there already."

                I try to look at a clock, but it's too dark.

                "What time is it," I mutter, voice still not clear from the abrupt waking.

                "Eight-thirty. Katniss, were you sleeping?"

                If I say yes, I know he'll ask if I was having a nightmare. He always does when I sound like this, and I don't want to be asked.

                To my surprise he doesn't seem to really care about the answer, but seems intent on something else.

                "I need to ask you a real-not-real question."

                My head drops. I'm bone tired now, if I wasn't before. But I say, "I'm all yours," before I can think about the possible double meaning. Given my current crisis, that is the last signal I need to send.

                But to my surprise, and surprisingly to my regret, Peeta doesn't pause with his characteristic thoughtfulness.  He's in a hurry to know something.

                "When we were in the Capitol..." I can tell from the way he draws in a long lungful of air and his tone that he is nervous.

                "Out with it Peeta."

                "When we were in the Capitol during out last victory tour, was there... was there any night we did not sleep together?"

                Not this again.  I can't handle answering questions about our almost-but-never love life.  But some specific issue has his attention, so I think back.

                "No. It was less than a week, and we were running the engagement scam so Snow wouldn't kill you or our families," I swallow as I realize how in-artful the word choice was, but I continue, "so we had to make look convincing to everyone, including the staff at the tribute center.

                Peeta sounds cautious, "So, we slept in the same bed, though we never..." We have an unspoken agreement that we neither of us refer to ourselves as 'having sex' or 'not having sex' because we never know who might be listening and what one sound-byte might magically make it onto the Panem news reel.

                "No," I say simply. "But technically that's not a-"

                Peeta released what sounds like a cry of relief.  I'm left confused.

                "I'm sorry," he apologizes, sounding bizarrely ecstatic about us 'never...' "You were going to say something else."

                "It's nothing," I say, confused and slightly hurt that he seems so relieved by the revelation. I've told him before we had never done more than actually sleep, so I don't understand why he is surprised. I was going to say that wasn't technically a real-not-real question, but that doesn't seem important in the moment.

                "No, go on. You've just made my night; nothing you have to say is too trivial."

                I feel on unsure ground and wish I could see his face, see his expression to help me divine what is actually going through his mind.

                "No, it's fine." I release a breath, trying to find my way back into our routine. "How was your day?"

                "Stressful. How was yours? And how was your yesterday? I called during dinner but Delly said you had gone out for a walk or something."

                I don't want to talk about it. 

                "Had your fill of the Capitol, or did all those cheering girls and swooning television hosts sweeten the pot," I ask, again without thinking. All things are so much simpler when he's here.

                I notice he doesn't say the things he's said every other night we've spoken since he's left. He doesn't say he misses Twelve. He doesn't say he could live without the Capitol.  In fact, he doesn't say anything.

                "When are you coming home?"

                There is a long pause during which neither of us talk. 

                "I'm scheduled back in three days," he says finally, with no way to miss the word 'scheduled.'

                He's holding back, and he's not coming home on time. I experience a swell of agitation, which turns to anger. I try to count.  I'm losing control right on the very edge, trying to hold onto it.

                "Why the question? What was the memory you were trying to vet?"

                "Not... not a memory."

                I don't follow, and Peeta's not his normal, accommodating self. Left to my imagination, I can think of any number of reasons he might ask that. I like none of them. Something I recognize as jealousy, and pain, squeezes my lungs.  I think I hear myself squeak. I resent the sign of weakness. I resent the weakness.

                I feel like I did in my dream only a few minutes ago.  Haymitch was right. I'm worried about getting hurt more than I am worried about him.  The Capitol has it's tenatcles into him again, but this time he went to embrace it.  I can't follow that road...ever.

                "Option two," I say, feeling he's just made the decision easy for me.

                Tonight I'm sleeping in my own damn bed.

____________

                At three in the morning I feel my way downstairs into the kitchen without turning on the lights. I don't want to wake Delly and have her listening, or worse, asking questions.  I hit redial and find I have to threaten a new desk clerk to have my call connected.  I half expect a woman to answer when the line rings through to Peeta's room.

                "Katniss?"

                I'm relieved he assumes it's me and not someone calling him for a late=-night rendezvous.

                "Did I wake you?"

                "No."

                We are both silent.

                "Katniss, what is 'option two?'"

                He sounds worried.

                I've had a question rolling around my head for hours. I know I want the answer, although I know it's better if I don't. I know I need the answer, because I can't make a decision without knowing.  But I can't bare the humiliation of asking it.

                "Peeta..."

                He waits patiently.

                I ask a different question than the one I called about.

                "Why did you call to ask me that?"

                "It's embarrassing."

                No more embarrassing than my needing to ask about it.

                "What's 'option two,'" he asks again, deflecting.  "I almost called Plutarch and asked for a hover plan to take me over there. You sounded very upset, especially once you started counting."

                I had been counting aloud?

                "I'm fine."

                "But what is 'option two?'"

                "It's embarrassing," I mock back at him. Mockingjays mock. But I don't want to talk about it. Option two is too hard.

                He sighs.  I'm tired, and wondering why I called to begin with.  All I really want is for him to be back. We could have this conversation without hardly talking at all, with our eyes, and body language and expression, and possibly slamming of doors. Words are so taxing.

                "Real-or-not-real," I ask.

                "Go ahead."
                "You're considering staying in the Capitol longer."

                "Absolutely not real," he laughs, relief and amusement in his voice.

                I feel relieved, too.  I add in his usual, "Thank you."

                This seems to please him, and I can tell without seeing he's trying not to laugh or let his face crack open into an annoyingly stupid smile.

                "Should I be considering staying here?"

                He already knows the answer is no. I humor him anyway.

                "You want me to come home?"

                I am aware the statement is asking more than it seems. He's not asking if I want him to leave the Capitol early and return to Twelve.   I'm pinned, again, by the way he can pin me with his words right down to the heart of what's being discussed in a conversation's subtext. That should have been his skill at the games, not just a wrestler, but a wrestler of words. That skill, and not the physical one, is what saved us to begin with. He's so much more adept at conversation; I'm always on the lower ground.  Deflecting is the only avenue I have.

                "I want you not to fall in love with the Capitol. Remember you are from District Twelve."

                "Yes ma'am, solider Everdeen."

                "Did you salute just now?" I know he did. And the stifled giggle confirms it.  My fears are allayed and I feel my bed finally calling to me.  "Good night Peeta."

                "Katniss, wait."

                I wait, but saying nothing.

                "Are you still there?"

                I refuse to dignify that with a response.

                "Real-or-not-real..."

                I almost swear at him. I can't take this not being in the same room when he asks the loaded ones.  I get the right to ask one once in a while; he asks them all the time. His being so far away is driving me mad, and not because I can't stand the idea of him being away, but because it reminds me how powerless I am to protect him if something happens.

                I haven't said anything, so he continues. "You were awake that night."

                "When?" I know when. I just want to buy time or else force him to leave it for embarrassment.

                "If you don't know when, then it wasn't real."

                It's like kissing someone whose drunk; it doesn't count. 

                That's what Gale had said about my kissing him when I was consumed with fear about Peeta's wellbeing.  Peeta's implication seems to mirror Gale's.  Peeta knows I was awake; if he can remember telling me he loved me, with his arms wrapped around me in his bed, then he wasn't asleep.  That answers, indirectly, the question I called to ask him.

                I wonder briefly if he sensed that was going to be my question, and if this was his way of answering. Again, was it that he wanted to know something, or was he just trying to help me, like he always does.

                I wonder too long. He's hung up on me.

                I don't feel like threatening the desk clerk again tonight.

_______________

                If someone is going to be drunk, it's Haymitch.  The next afternoon he's several sheets to the wind. I can tell because I hear random cursing and crashing coming from his house.  A week ago I would have let him fumble around alone, but our conversation made me feel obligated to check on him.

                The front door is open and I see flies buzzing around inside, trying to decide which dirty surface to delight in first.

                "Haymitch," I call after him.  Noise comes from the kitchen and I go inside.  He's sitting at the table with a picture frame in his hand.  He growls at me to go away.

                I sit down on the cleanest looking chair and simply stare at him.  He refuses to look at me, but keeps staring at the picture. When I ask what it is a picture of, he glowers at me and then leans over to place it under his thigh, protecting it. Unfortunately, the movement releases a trumpeting, if invisible, cloud of vile odor.  He chuckles, which turns into a drunken laugh, pleased to make it uncomfortable and awkward for me to stick around.  But I just pull my shirt up over my nose and try to be patient.

                He knows I'm as stubborn, if not more, than he is. So when I continue to stare, unmoving, he knows it's pointless to drag it out.

                "Aww Katniss. Can't you just keep your nose out of things that don't concern you?" He's slurring his words badly.

                "According to Plutarch, interfering is what I'm best at. President Coin might have agreed," I narrow my eyes at him, feigning a threat, "if she were still alive."

                Haymitch snorts and waves a hand at me. "Yeah, yeah. I know you won't change." He pulls the frame out from under his leg and passes it over.

                I hesitate to take it, since it was recently so close to the source of Haymitch's flatulence, but my curiosity demands to be satisfied.  It is a picture of very young version of himself, standing next to his parents. I wonder why he would be thinking about them this morning. Could it have been one of their birthdays? Or their anniversary?

                Probably not; he's not sensitive enough to remember important dates.

                "What's the occasion?"

                When I look up from the frame, Haymitch is chugging from a bottle.  He doesn't even look at me, but lets his head collapse onto the table, cushioned by a forearm.  I'm not going to get anything out of him, he's about to pass out.

                I look around and momentarily wish Delly had not left Twelve this morning.  She was pretty helpful in cleaning Haymitch's sty up.  It's still filthy, but so much better than what it was before she arrived. There are even still clean dishes in the drainer waiting to be put up.  Plus, she had a way of talking so persistently that Haymitch was forced to participate in a conversation or else go insane from an overload of unceasing background noise. 

                He's snoring and I decide to put the dishes away, since Delly went to the effort of washing them.  While I'm there, I decide to pick up some of Haymitch's randomly discarded clothes from the living room and start a wash, and finish by doing a liter patrol of the entire ground floor. In doing so I realize just how much cleaning Delly had actually accomplished: The task only took me a few minutes.  I wonder if I should see about moving her to the Victor's Village; she might be good for him. As much as I hate Haymitch, I care for him too. He's betrayed my trust in a way I will never forgive, but he's also been there for me other times when I needed him. And, selfishly, I often see my own future when I look him and don't like it.  More so now.

                I sit on his couch, which is mess-free, if not stain-free, and close my eyes to rest for just a moment.

                I apparently doze off, because the phone startles me awake.  Haymitch's new phone rings louder than mine or Peeta's, and sounds absolutely obnoxious. It's more like an alarm clock than a polite ring-ring.  No doubt it's punishment for having ripped the last one out from the wall. Haymitch is seconds behind me, and I hear the tell-tale thud of him falling out of his chair at the table and then the frantic scraping of wood against floor as he pushes the chair out of his way to get to the phone.

                "What!" He shouts, angry and confused by the aggressive waking. And then more reasonably, "Oh, hey Peeta.  Or should I call you 'dough-boy,' after that charming little vignette you did on the daily show." His voice is dripping with sarcasm, but with Peeta Haymitch's sarcasm usually has an undercurrent of affection rather than disdain and disappointment like it carries for me.  He laughs at something and agrees to a comment I can't hear on Peeta's side of the call.

                "Well if the dough doesn't stick, I could start calling you the Prince of Panem. It's Katniss' new nickname for you."

                My eyes bulge and I almost give myself away by making a protest. I can't believe Haymitch tattled on me. The nickname, which I threw out into the conversation during yesterday's dinner, had a flare of sarcasm in it, but secretly I mean it with a bit of pride too.  To hear Haymitch turn the phrase, it sounds like I hate Peeta.

                "Yup. She was here this morning, but I gassed her and then passed out. I suspect she evacuated the premises before the drooling started."  He yells suddenly, "Katniss you still here?" but doesn't wait for an answer, assuming I'm long gone. "No. She's gone... Yeah I can keep a secret from her. That's a stupid question considering our history... Yes, Peeta, even if I'm drunk."

                I want to get off the couch and tiptoe over towards the kitchen to hear better, but I know the floor boards will creak and give me away.

                "No, she's gone. Left this morning... Well you heard wrong!" Haymitch snarled. It's painful not to know what he's reacting to. "Out with it Peeta."

                I recognize my own short-patience phrase and sigh to myself.

                "I promise already. Just tell me-" He listens for almost a full minute. "Well hell, Peeta, everyone knew that was going to happen at some point... Yes, even Katniss, I'm sure. She's not stupid. Slow maybe, but not stupid. I'm pretty sure Katniss knew even before you did... No, trust me, she obsesses about you in that screwy mind of hers just like you used to obsess about her. Hell, she's slept in your house most of the nights you've been gone."

                I almost leap over the couch to charge him so I can end the call before he can say anything else embarrassing or damaging, but my stomach feels twisted by the guesses I make as to what Peeta is discussing. Like the phone call last night, none of my guesses are pleasant.

                Haymitch adds, to my relief, "But then again, she might have been trying to avoid the non-stop yakking of that Delly girl of yours."

                I bristle a bit with jealousy, even though I know Delly isn't Peeta's 'girl.'

                "Uh huh. No, I think you deserve to move on with your life. I think it's healthy. It's something neither sweetheart or I have been able to commit to."

                I'm dying now. I don't care if I'm heard; I will torture Haymitch if I have to, but I will find out what they are talking about once the call is over. And I will punish him for saying that about me.

                "Well I'd marry you myself, seeing you're the Prince of Panem and all, but I'm not her. I wouldn't hold my breath. If you're going to take that step, well, I would expect to take it without her blessing. These days she's all talk about 'what's best for Peeta,' like she's some mission to prove to herself she can put you first, but in the end you and I both know Katiness will always make the choices that suit her own survival."

                I do know one thing: Katniss will choose whoever she can't survive without. That's twice now Haymitch has channeled Gale and nailed my true nature to the wall to see. And last night Peeta echoed Gale's assessment of me too. That, then, is probably why Gale and I were able to rely on each other. He understood me enough to flow with my issues instead of confront them.

                "No, she'll be happy for you, in her way. I don't think she'll try to shoot you down. But if you're asking me how I think she'll feel, she'll be hurt. But Peeta, she'll always be hurt. You can't fix her. It's not your job. Be happy. Live your life. She'll turn to Bucky for consolation if she needs it."

                "What the hell are you talking about?" I finally explode and rush into the kitchen, giving Haymitch the stink eye. He gives me one of his acidic smiles, covering the handset so Peeta can't hear me if I talk. He turns away from me and laughs, "No, it was nothing," he says. "Just Buttercup snarling because he snuck into the house and I threw a shoe at him. I should probably go, I've reached my daily word limit today, what with Delly stopping by to say goodbye and Katniss coming over for her routine lover's quarrel with me."

                I give him a dirty look when he turns back around.

                He only winks and grins, which infuriates me. "No, Peeta." He rolls his eyes, ready for the boy to get off the phone. "No, of course I won't tell her. In fact, it rather tickles me to keep it from her, because I know it will gut her to find out later you told me first." He winks at me again, taunting. But Peeta can't see that Haymitch is just trying to rile me up and he has to apologize to Peeta for his meanness and swear he doesn't hate me that much. His apology apparently wins Peeta's good-will again and in an almost normal parting, Haymitch smiles and says happily, "I will. You too, Peeta."

                "What?" he said, catching sight of me still staring at him once the receiver is back in its rest. My fists are digging into my hips and I'm ready to jump on him and start scratching at his eyes.  "Oh no you don't. I'm not repeating what he's said to me. I promised." He points an accusatory finger at me, "As you well know you little eavesdropper. And I don't break my promises."

                "You do when they're promises to me," I say, bitter.

                "Fair enough," he sighs heavily. "But Peeta bribed me first, and came equipped with liquid good-will. So run along and bring me a few bottles from the station and maybe I'll think about telling you after you get back."

                I have a comeback, but he will only laugh at it.  I'm impotent. I can see in his eyes he won't tell me what Peeta said.  And I can't hurt him. He's too permanently hurt to feel any new pain.  And too anesthetized.

                An idea occurs to me, and I allow myself to grin in bitter satisfaction.  The look must be intimidating, because he does a double take and looks nervous, like he knows I've just found a chink in his armor.

                "Take care, Haymitch. I'm not making dinner tonight, so don't bother to come by."

                I turn on my heels and leave, slamming the door behind me.  I have a mission for the day, a 'sortie' as Thirteen might term it. I start walking in the direction of town.

___________

                The station's liquor stores are refreshed on Tuesdays, which happens to be today.  And with rationing over and gone, I can buy as much of it as I can afford. I don't get tribute's wages anymore, with the collapse of the Capitol, but I've spent nearly nothing of what I was paid in that one year between my first game and the Quell. Snow cut me off after I destroyed his arena. I can't really blame him for that. So I'll cut Haymitch's supply off for the week and see how he likes that.

                But banks are necessary to every thriving society, so in the rebuilding, the banks were left largely intact, with my money safe. I have enough in savings, at the current prices, to live well for most of my life. Or I could buy a few houses in Twelve, if I wanted.

                But now that I've bought five crates worth of booze, I've no place to store it. Dumping it is a waste, so I decide to distribute to the townspeople. They've been the ones working on rebuilding and burying our dead while I've been in my comparatively posh cocoon at the Victor' Village. They deserve a round on me. But I'm not up to it tonight.

                The guys at the station mercantile agree to hold it for me while I go find someone I can leave it with.  My feet point themselves in the direction of Peeta's soon-to-be bakery.

                The work is coming along nicely. In fact, it's essentially completed. The flooring, some sort of tile, has been laid and the walls in the front of the shop are already sheet-rocked.  One man is on a ladder installing some sort of decorative trim along the top of the walls, and another is painting. A big display case, still in a crate, sits in the middle of the room waiting to be placed in its final resting spot. Peeta hired a man named Jimmy to rebuild it, and I spot him giving instructions to a laborers. He sees me and waves a polite hello and I walk into the shop to join them.  There is something about upstairs that makes him want to take me there, and he's grinning.

                Peta told me the space was going to be for storage, rather than a living arrangement like a traditional merchant building.  It has been framed and drywalled as a storage loft, with minimal windows and no internal walls. But already I can see that open warehouse-like space is being framed off with new wood and windows have been installed to make the room feel alive with the afternoon sun.  Men are also working to install plumbing and electric.  Before the foreman even speaks, I know what he's going to say.

                "I thought you'd want to see how it's coming, the new living area. It was a short notice Peeta gave requesting the changes, but it's coming along well and I thought maybe you might have some input before we do anything else."

                I cut him with a glare that wipes the grin off his face.  It's apparent he assumed that if Peeta had redesigned the layout for living, he was going to live there. And it's even more apparent as he shrinks under my glare that he assumed I would be living there too.

                After all, isn't that was everyone assumes. The...entire...Panem...expects me to play house with charming, likable Peeta, bouncing babies on my knee while he slaves over hot ovens downstairs to delight the taste-buds of the townspeople.

                "I'm sure Peeta will enjoy his view," I say icily.

                The foreman makes an excuse about needing to check on something downstairs and leaves them.

                I know Peeta isn't doing this under the assumption I'll move here. But it bothers me that others expect it.  But it also settles into my mind what the conversation with Haymitch was about.  Peeta has decided to move back, if not now then at some point, to town to carry on his life as a baker.  Haymitch was right, as ever. I'm upset, but I also understand.  I can't begrudge him that.  Option three is off the table.  I can't walk two roads at once when they are so far apart. 

                On the phone last night I had decided against Option two, but now I realize that was only because it was too painful for me.  And I promised myself I wouldn't consider myself in the equation. 

                I hesitate upstairs, watching the workers. I try to picture the finished layout. How the living area will look out over the rebuild town square, so at Christmas and holidays all the lights in the shop windows and houses will blink bright and cheerily. The bedrooms, I count them despite them only being framed in lumber with no covering. Three of them. That's extravagant to a kid like me from the Seam, where many houses are nothing more than four walls no matter how large your family is. There's a certain sense of entitlement in having three rooms.  Or maybe, optimism. 

                I walk to the back, where they are running plumbing to where a reasonably small kitchen and eating area will probably be. The sturdy wall of the would-be storage area has been cut, and a large picture window shimmed in. It looks out to the woods. My woods. 

                I try to imagine what life would be here for me, what Peeta wants.  Babies screaming, more mouths for me to feed, and my woods, in the distance so I can see but too tethered down to go to them.  I feel claustrophobic and turn to run down the stairs and out so quickly I knock over a bucket of tools. I don't even apologize. It's not my style.

                Tears are burning in my eyes but I hold them back from falling and walk to the Hob.  It is alive with activity. People greet me, some even still hailing me with the three-fingers. I feel my cheeks grow hot. But I am also surprised that it cheers me somewhat. These people have moved on and, rather than hate me, misguidedly think I'm some sort of hero. But they care for me. They want me to be happy, I can see it in their eyes. Like Boggs, but less sad.

                One of the vendors even offers me a pair of beautifully sown rabbit fur mittens for free. A token of thanks.  I paw the mockingjay pin, my District token. I still keep it with me most days, but pinned into my shirt, not outside for others to see.  To anyone watching it just looks like I'm rubbing at my collar.  But all of the wares, colorful, lively and not dreary necessities like the Hob used to peddle, give me an idea so I don't have to feel so angry, so hurt, if Peeta's truly moving and leaving me.

                And I do feel like it would be leaving me.  But I don't want to be bitter at him.

                I buy a few trinkets, and a thin box that seals and head back to the bakery.  The foreman is there and tugs on his forelock before hurrying to take care of something not where I am.  But he doesn't question why I'm there or prohibit me.  I stay on the first floor, and move the back where the ovens Peeta ordered have not only arrived but have been installed.  They are covering the framed-in walls of the kitchen at this stage. I find a worker, a young man probably my age but who doesn't have the same years on his face, who looks at me with a hero-worship I find embarrassing. I prevent him from erupting into thanks or small talk and ask simply if he will seal the box into the wall for me, like a time capsule, somewhere in the kitchen before it's completely sheet-rocked. Like the foreman, he treats me as if I have the authority to order him to do anything in the bakery, as though I am an owner.  Its unsettling, but I just give him a polite smile and he gives his word so strongly I have no question he will perform the task without peeking into the box.

                I find the foreman, with some difficulty because he was avoiding me, and thank him for doing such a great job and express that I think Peeta deserves this. I ask when it will be completed.  A week, he thinks. I recall that Peeta is coming home in three days and mumble as much.  I don't realize I've spoken aloud until the foreman grins at me.  I see his gears grinding behind his eyes and I don't like it.  Instead, because he's taking such pride in making Peeta's dream a reality, I tell the foreman I want to thank he and his crew for all the hard work and if he would send someone over to the station with me, I'll send them back with a gift of my appreciation.

                The eager young worker I spoke to about the box is assigned to come with me, and I advise him to bring me a trolley.  By the time we are to the station, the effect of the Hob, and the foreman's work, and even my being willing to compliment him, have put me in an almost not-depressed mood and I no longer feel like punishing Haymitch. So I send the boy off with all crates but the one I carry back with me to the Victor's Village.

                I stash it in my basement, but pull a bottle out. I'll go to him with a peace offering today, and maybe even once a day this week, but it won't be enough to keep him in a constant stupor.  Haymitch is sitting on his couch when I enter his house, watching something on the video screen.

                "Hey sweetheart, bring daddy any presents from town?"

                My lip curls at him joking about being my father, but I remember I'm attempting to be nice.  I'm impressed he isn't passed out, so, really, he's already exceeded my expectations.  I slip the bottle into my pocket. I'm sure he'll recognize the bulge, but we can get to that in a bit.  I sit down in a chair by the couch.

                "I saw the bakery."

                He ignores me.

                "The builders have been asked to redesign the second floor as a dwelling."

                Haymitch doesn't look at me but I can tell he's listening now. I'm certain now I'm right about Peeta's call.

                "Is he planning on moving there as soon as it's finished," I ask, trying the direct route.

                He licks his lips and swallows. Not from being nervous, but because the idea of keeping a secret is a type of subconscious stress, and that's making his mouth salivate for the bottle.  I expect a dodge.

                "In a few months. He says both of you have been doing well, and he doesn't want to interrupt that too soon. But I think he's lying to himself. I think, once he's fired up his ovens, and senses that whatever internal conflict you have is not resolving, he'll start getting lost in baking there like he did here. It will be a good distraction for him."

                "A distraction..."

                "From you."

                My hands are folded in my lap. I start digging around in my own nails.

                "You think he needs one, then."

                "I think it depends on where your head is at." He pauses and stares at the floor for a few moments. "Did you talk about that thing with the head doctor?"

                I don't understand what he's talking about. And my weekly conversation with Doctor Aurelius isn't for another two days.  And then I remember he's talking about our conversation at the bottom of the stairs.  Something deeper is brewing in Haymitch, more than just concern about Peeta or I. For a few moments I see in the lines of tension on his face a reminder that the world no longer revolves around he and I.  Maybe Haymitch is facing some of his own demons.  I feel badly about stealing his medicine.

                For the second time in two days, I go to sit by him, and again his arm snakes around me. 

                I realize he's been watching some daytime Captiol show on relationships. I hope he hasn't been giving me advice all this time passed on from the vid screen.

                Abruptly, he sighs, clicks the screen off and twists so he's looking at me. He sees the bottle in my pocket, draws his hand down his face but then meets my eyes.

                "I don't know which one of us should try to set the example for the other. You, the prickly, unlovable girl whose wounded because she was left with too much responsibility too soon that should never have been hers. Or me, the only Twelve Victor, and so finding myself too young, with too much responsibility too soon that never should have been mine."

                I realize he's talking about mentoring. For the first time I think not only of him as a middle-aged man, but realize that his duties started when he was seventeen.  Which meant that his first years as mentors he was scarcely older than his tributes. How hard that must have been, to be forced to mentor kids you probably already knew. Until one day it was the kids of the people you knew.  There's a well inside me that bursts, as I think about how protective I felt of Rue, and how in the end I could not save her, and what must Haymitch have felt? A boy, trying to be a mentor, trying to organize sponsors, from the poorest of the Districts with no connections, no manners, no Capitol sophistication. 

                Against everything I've really ever been, I lean into him and wrap my arms around him.  He's shocked, but eventually starts patting me awkwardly on the back. I'm crying and don't want to pull back until I can get that emotion under control.

                "If you'd like my advice, sweetheart," he gives me a genuine squeeze, "be braver than you've ever been. Be brave enough to believe you deserve to be happy with Peeta. That, and not some misguided sacrifice or selfish avoidance, is what is best for the both of you."

                I'm just sobbing now. For the first time since my father died, I feel like a child. Haymitch lets me cry until I fall asleep, and doesn't even try to pull the bottle from my pocket as he lays me out and covers me with a blanket.

                ________________

                Peeta's due to come in on the train today. I decide I'm going to meet him, although with the crowd I'm sure that will gather to see him, I think I can probably avoid being seen if I really want to. I walk to town very early in the morning, feeling stiff and hoping the early morning sun will warm them. I haven't been out hunting since I killed my 'deerest friend,' as Haymitch now jokes every night for dinner, and I'm thinking about slipping away into the meadow for a few hours of hunting before going home to get cleaned up for his return.  My bow is around my chest, leaving my hands free for swaying. For some reason I've been sleeping better, almost no nightmares and so while my muscles are stiff, I feel more calm than agitated for once.

                I stop by the bakery, and there is no one there. I've never been good for boundaries, though, so I try the door anyway.  It's locked. I slip around back and find that one open.  The kitchen is impressive, and finished.  If I had any idea how to start them, I could almost entertain the idea of warming one up so he can see it fresh from the train.  I go into the front of the shop. The display case is installed, as are several racks, and a long, thin display case for the window. The place is clean, decorated with beautiful trim, but as yet the only color paint on the walls is white.  I go upstairs to survey the new changes. It is a respectable abode. Not huge, but not the tiny home of my childhood.  I go to the kitchen, where the window looks out over my forest.  The appliances have all been installed, but there are no dishes, no table, no furniture, and like the downstairs, no decorating. 

                A sound behind me makes me spin and crouch, bow off, but I'm getting better at not automatically notching an arrow. I'm glad, because the foreman is standing at the top of the stairs with a little girl with curly blond hair holding onto his hand. His daughter.

                I see the flash of fear in his eyes but recover in time to prevent the girl from being more than curious. I make a joke of it for her and walk over in the exaggerated version of a duck waddle I used do to make fun of Prim and to make her laugh.  I even quack. The foreman relaxes and releases the girl's hand and before I can respond she's lunged at me. I barely keep from rolling backwards, but manage to stand up after getting my balance back. She's positioned her legs around me and has taken a position on my hip.

                I'm aware of the foreman smiling, and I'm secretly furious about having a child trying to tug at my heartstrings. But it's not her fault.  I put her back down and go retrieve my bow, which I had to leave behind to perform my waddle. He asks me what I think, apparently the armed version of myself is not as terrifying as the unarmed version he saw last time.

                "It's far more than I ever had growing up," I say.

                "Then you like it?" he asks, in a way that I realize again he's assuming I'll be living here with Peeta.

                I sigh.  I still haven't decided. Or I have. Or nearly so.  But it's too complicated of a choice to talk with this man.  He waves his arm along the hallway that runs the entire length of the building.  The living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, a bedroom, the hunting room, a kitchen.

                "A hunting room?"

                "Haven't you been in yet? I assumed you'd already been in there since you have your bow."

                I shake my head and he gives me a gleeful look before picking up his daughter and going to the room closest to the kitchen. The door is locked, but the key is still in it so he twists and enters in front of me so he can turn on a lamp.  There are two large tables along two of the walls, each with racks reaching to the ceiling.  The racks are perfect for hanging bows, I can tell because several bows are already hanging there.  There's also equipment for making bows, bending the wood, tensioning the strings... My father would be dancing and hooting at the bounty before him. I barely hear the foreman, but he's talking.

                "I'm sorry the bows are already out. I know they were private, but some of the boys couldn't resist seeing them and got into the boxes that Peeta sent up.  I figured since they'd made a mess of it I'd better just go ahead and get everything placed in order."

                I looked at him, mute. He clears his throat, uncomfortable. “I hope that isn't too upsetting. I'll take full-"

                "It's fine," I say. I spin in place slowly, looking at everything fresh. "He ordered this for me?"

                He looks even more uncomfortable. "I hope it wasn't meant to be a surprise."

                I wave him away. I just want him gone, or to be gone myself. Alone. I want to be alone. He seems to sense that when I just stare at him in the awkward silence without looking away.  He weakly excuses himself, dropping the key into my hand.  His daughter looks at me strangely when he turns around, looking at me from over his shoulder. I cross my eyes and stick my tongue at her and she rewards me with a giggle.

                When I can't hear his footfalls anymore, I sit on the floor in the middle of the room for a full ten minutes. The only room that has any thought given to its contents.  Yes, I picture my dad acting like a five year old in the sweetshop if faced with this. And my heart is beating in my chest, a laughing grin at its extravagance. The only thing that sours it is the thought, unbidden, that I have to bring Prim and show her.

                Haymitch said to try and believe I deserve to be happy.  This room, this act, makes me happy. I am happy. And as someone who has hunted her whole life to provide for others, there isn't a single ounce of me who believes I don't deserve a room like this. I've dreamed of a room like this before, in the Seam, a room no Capitol peacekeeper would have allowed, even if I had been able to afford it.  In this room, in this moment I am a rush of childish glee and adrenaline despite the absence of Prim to share it with.  And as those thoughts swirl in my head, I feel my chest and stomach tighten.

                It's here because someone thought of doing it, and that someone was Peeta.

                I look out the window to gage the sun and how many hours there are left before Peeta's train arrives.

______________

                At a few minutes to five, I position myself along the wall inside the dwelling's living room, sidling it so that I can angle and look out at the station without appearing readily visible. A small crowd has gathered. I'm pleased I don't have to be down there among them. On time, the train arrives, Peeta appears, the crowd surges to welcome him, swallowing him, and then begins to part so he can walk through. He's carrying several boxes, which others offer to carry for them. There is other luggage, mostly boxes and crates and I watch as those, too, are carried by friendly arms.  The foreman is there with him, talking at his elbow.  Peeta nods as his new-found helpers follow him to the bakery and I lose sight of him as he's unlocking the door and stepping inside right beneath my feet. 

                My plan has worked. I can see from the stairs that no lights have come on downstairs and in no time the crowd spills back outside followed by Peeta and the foreman.  I see them shake hands and Peeta addresses the crowd. I risk opening one of the windows slightly to hear. He's thanked them, but is in a hurry to go home a rest.  I hear someone from the crowd whistle Rue's tune, now my tune as well, and another whistle a knowing catcall. I can't see Peeta's cheeks, but I'm sure they reddened when the crowd laughs. But typical Peeta, he says something polite, charming, and in protection of my honor insists he's just looking to be home and getting some rest.

                I see the foreman risk a glance up at me. I wave a thanks to him, and once Peeta starts walking off towards the victor's village I go back to work.

____________

                I'm sure it's cruel, but because I know he'll approve of the result I don't mind enjoying the mischief of ruining his next hour, a snare he is going to walk into.  He will come to see me first, and probably spend the walk back home complaining to himself that I again robbed him of my company because I don't like being seen in public together, and all that tendency forebodes. When I don't answer, I know he'll go to his house, expecting me to be there. Especially after last night's goodbye on the phone, when I told him to come home and not get lost.  But I wont be there. He will probably call for me, and then try my house again, before going to Haymitch's. 

                Haymitch has a very specific and very cryptic message for him, but one which will make Haymitch seem ignorant of my being missing.  Peeta wouldn't know where to find me in the woods, so as soon as he decides I'm long enough missing, he'll come to the town looking for help.  Walking the path towards the snare waiting for him.

                Anytime.

                And a full quarter hour earlier than I expect him, he appears in the square. I can barely make him out, because the sunset has come and gone and dusk is fading fast, but there he is walking down the lane that leads to Victor's Village.  I see him pause when he sees the bakery's lights on below me. It's not right. The power wouldn't come on when he came by earlier, told by the foreman that there had been an electrical problem that needed to be worked out.  He senses something, and his head bobs around like a rat coming up to a trap, smelling the cheese with uncertainty and suspicion.  But he comes forward, like I knew he would. 

                It's dark enough I'm able to slip away from the window without him seeing me. 

                I stand at the top of the stairs. I've left the door open, so that when he unlocks the bakery and comes in, I can hear the questions and confusion he whispers into the air. 

                I've left the ovens on, and they're producing enough heat to heat not only the shop but also upstairs. He doesn't disappoint me, but I can hear his slightly irregular shuffle head towards the back. 

                I've never cooked a loaf of bread before. I've watched Peeta. Helped Peeta. Teased Peeta while he slaved over dough while I eat any number of warm rolls that have come from a previous batch. But bread is frankly beyond my ability and so the two loaves I have in an oven now were made for me by Greasy Sae so all I'd have to do it set the temperature and put them in.

                I creep down the stairs so I can hear. The door to the oven opens. The bread must be ready, because I hear him pull the loaves from the oven and set the pans onto cooling racks.  The pans, mitts and rack came from his house. As did the bread ingredients.  He appears to notice I have the second oven on, as I hear a door open. I slip back upstairs quietly, waiting in a particularly concealing shadow.  I hear him shout my name excitedly.  Hopefully, the squirrels I shot are not overcooked, and hopefully he pulls them out as well instead of leaving them in.

                "Katniss? Are you here?"

                I hear him rush to the open door at the bottom of the stairs, but then stop.  I know he's seen it. My pulse quickens. It would be a tacky present, really, if it weren't so valuable to me. If it didn't pledge my heart on so many levels, all of which Peeta will know. Because it's something of Prim's.  An old piece of burlap, stretched taught in a frame, into which she embroidered one word.

                I hear him say my name, but it's not a call. It's a statement of relief, of acceptance. I can even hear him exhale slowly several times, because the stairwell amplifes the faint noise so that it is just audible.  I'm familiar with that pattern of breathing. It's what he does when he thinks I'm sleeping, after pulling me in tighter to his chest, his nose in my hair.

                I'm sure he thinks he is nearing the goal, that I will be waiting for him. But really he is about to take the final step into the trap. I click on the the light for one of the bedrooms.  He notices the action and starts to ascend. The steps are new, but they still creak under his weight.

                I'm not in the lit room, but hugging the wall just around the corner from the door.  He's normally very talkative, so I'm taking his silence as a sign that I'm hitting the right marks.  As soon as he's inside and clear, I dart forward and pull the door shut behind him, turning and withdrawing the key to lock him in.  He shouts my name, and then laughs when he can't open it.  He asks to be let out, but I smile in the darkness and head back downstairs to check on the squirrel and bread.  He has things to occupy him in the room.

                I've burned the bread, I realize. Thank goodness Peeta came when he did, because I was certain there must still be another quarter hour left on the cook. The squirrels are okay, beautifully browned on the little skewers I used to balance them over one of Peeta's loaf pans while they roasted. It's really a dry meal, squirrel without sauce, and bread that isn't Peeta's, but I brought the bottles I bought for Haymitch to help the food go down.  I brought a large bowl to carry it all up in, and two hand towels, but nothing else. No utensils. No plates. No glasses.

                Tonight we sit on the floor and share everything with nothing but our hands and mouths.

                I turn out the shop's lights and return upstairs.  I hear him crying quietly when I put my ear to the door.  Good.  Doctor Aurelius is always telling me that’s cathartic.  I drift into the living room, where I have already laid out a large blanket to serve as a center to our picnick.  I place the items down, helped with the slightest of ambient light from outside. It's completely dark out, now, except for the stars and lights coming from other dwellings.  It is pretty. Not quite the lights of the Capitol from the Tribute Center rooftop, but more stunning because of it. 

                I hear Peeta laugh, a deep belly laugh, from the other room. He's taking his time, which makes me smile. lean against the wall and stare out at the square and the stars. Happy again, I realize.  This doesn't feel bad. This doesn't feel conflicted.  Even my need to enlist the help of a dozen people today, the foreman and a few of his laborers to bring things from our houses in Victor's Village, Hamitch, Greasy Sae, Thom, vendors and barterers around the square and in the Hob, I've had more human contact than just about all of my days home so far combined. And somehow, with every smile I saw, the world seemed less oppressive.  More hopeful. Like maybe the Capitol, the old Capitol really is dead and gone. And kids from the Seam like Prim, or from the orchards and fields like Rue, really will start to get the full bellies and rosy cheeks they deserve.

                And maybe there really will be no more dead tributes and weeping families and gamemakers making sport.

                "I can't believe you found this," Peeta yells from the room. He's amazed, and I can tell from his voice he's smiling. I was so deep in thought it startles me but I smile. I know he's gotten to the last item.  The last of seven boxes, each marked to be opened in a particular order. I'm hoping that when he comes out his face will be one of contentment. I pull a candle from my pocket, and a little base for it, and light it before going back to the door.

                "Turn out the light," I order, more authoritative than I mean. But I realize as I've stepped up to the door that I haven't seen Peeta in a week, and that tonight will be different. My stomach is churning, my heart starts racing, and my throat is dry. And, literally, my whole body is alive in fear and anticipation of being in contact with him again.  But the cobwebs of confusion are gone, so it's an excited fear, not a terrified one.

                The lights click out and I pass the key under the door to him.

                I know my prey will go to the flickering light first, rather than back towards the darkness, so I wait in that darkness, shadowing him silently as he walks into the living room expecting to find me.  When he stops moving, at the edge of the blanket and is staring down as the dinner, I move closer, until we are so close I can feel his body heat. And just a slight edge forward, and I am against his back.

                He stiffens, and then relaxes.

                "Is this real, Katniss? Or not real?"

                I slide my arms under his and around his stomach, pulling tightly against him and resting my cheek against his shoulder blade.

                "You tell me this time."

                "Thank you," he says dutifully.

                I expect him to turn around and embrace me, kiss me, but he stands still until I'm tired of standing like this and then he takes one of my hands and leads us to sit. He slides down at the edge of the blanket, using the wall as his back support and pulls me down onto his lap.  He wants to talk about the presents.

                A picture of the Town, in the old days. It's black and white and burned on one corner, but framed. A memory of the way things were. There was a nail I had driven into the wall, and traced a rectangle just large enough for the frame, my implied command to hang the picture up. 

                The second was a page I ripped from his memory book. Cutting it out made me feel badly, but it was in a frame now, and there was another nail and empty rectangle on the wall for it to receive a place of preeminence. 

                And next to it, from the third package, was a sketch he had done for me of Prim, the corner of the page decorated in delicately drawn primroses painted yellow.

                The fourth was the picture of Annie and her son. Perhaps, unconsciously, that was also a promise. I'm not sure myself.

                This picture is also in a frame but one that was designed to sit upright by itself on a little stand atop the small dresser I had had brought from my house. It’s full of clothes for both of us.  Aside from a mattress on the floor (I didn't have enough manpower or time to move either of our expensive iron-wrought bed frames), the dresser was the only furniture so far in the room. 

                In the center is a plain glass vase with dandelions and water.

                The fifth was a brick from his father's oven.  If he looked around, he’d have seen I left a little piece of cloth for it to sit on oppose Annie's photograph.

                The sixth was a piece of games memorabilia.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it, but when word got out late in the morning that I was trying to make a surprise house warming for Peeta, a woman came forward with it. Her husband, a coal miner who had some natural talent as a carver... During our first games, in the days when we were hiding out in our little cave after it had been announced we might both be able to win, he had spent some of his anxiety for us carving a little vignette in relief on a block of wood.  In it, Peeta slept while I sat watch. Only, he's not really sleeping, and I'm not really watching. Instead, our little wooden face are each giving a comedic wink, as if to say to the Districts, 'We're beating the old man at his own game.' Because just above us, is carved a gargantuan face and bulbous nose with ridiculously confused looking eyes. The face was unmistakably a caricature of President Snow meant to make fun of him.  I cried when I saw it first, because I realized the man could have died for it had the Peacekeepers seen it. But she assured me he had died during the firebombing, and not for that. This made me weep, and I allowed her to hold me, as though it was me and not her who had experienced the loss. Crying with a stranger, bizarrely, was also cathartic.

                Today has been a good day. 

                I know that was the piece he laughed over.

And the seventh package was really just a crate with clean bed linens. I hadn't had time to put them on since he made it to the bakery more quickly than I expected.  I'm satisfied that he spent enough time in the room that he actually made the bed, which makes me smile.

 I’d prefer to talk and eat, but he’s holding me so that I'm still on his lap and out of reach from the food.  Dinner is probably the farthest thing from his mind, since he ate the Capitol’s best on his train ride home, but I’ve had nothing at all to eat today and the hunger is gnawing at me.

Still, I promised myself tonight would be about him and not me, so I don’t protest and instead we talk about [the presents] while the candle burns down a bit and the food gets cold. 

Until my stomach starts to growl.

Then he laughs, kisses me chastely on the lips, and helps me move off of his lap so we can both scoot along the floor closer to where the food rests on the little blanket.   He grins as he watches me tear into the flesh of the roasted little rodents with my teeth. 

And once we have finished the meat, it’s time.  

He holds up the misshapen, burned loaf between us.

I'm glad it burned now, in retrospect.  A reminder to him of how grateful I still am for that burned bread so long ago.

I take one side.  We pull it apart, burn our fingers trying to toast it a bit over the candle flame, and then he raises his arm and I slide underneath.  The loaf is piteously inferior to his baking.  But it is more than enough to say what we’ve both needed me to say.

"Come on," he says, once we’ve eaten the entire thing without speaking.  "Right now."

Before I know it, he’s snuffed out the candle, gotten us both to our feet with no help from me, and is leading me back to the bedroom by my two hands gripped in one of his.   In the complete darkness, I hear the fingers of his other hand trail along the wall as he navigates us through this unfamiliar dwelling that, after what we are about to do, will undeniably be our new home.  

But once we’re to the right room, it’s an easy thing to find where the mattress rests on the floor, so he’s suddenly devoting both of his hands to me.

To a poor girl from the Seam, this feels just like home.