Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

-1-

The sun rises on me very slowly and I drink a last sip of water, and ask myself one question; the same I have asked myself, over and over, for weeks. I still don't have an answer, so I leave it to another day.

My limbs protest as I rise and draw out the bow, fit an arrow to the string. My back protests, too - not the ache of muscle and joint, but the dry stretch of my alien skin over muscles and joints that are not yet accustomed to it. I don't know much - or anything really - about skin transplants, but after months of wearing it, I'm really surprised that it still feels like this. Like I'm wearing something itchy and uncomfortable that I have slightly outgrown.

I've gone far afield - but I left early to give myself plenty of time to rest before going on the hunt. Deeper into the woods - past the lake - to new hunting grounds with no associations. Everything familiar - everything - is tainted with sadness and anger and fear. I know the wild creatures out here might be less timid, larger, without having had to deal with two starving hunters from District 12 for the last six years. But I've killed more terrifying things than bears and wild dog. I suppose it would be ironic for Katniss Everdeen, survivor of everything the Capitol had to throw at her, to be killed on a deer hunt. Ironic for those left behind. For me - what would I care?

It's early spring, so I'm hunting smaller animals, leaving the young deer and their parents to grow, to fatten up. Squirrel. Squirrel. Badger. Duck. They are plentiful, all around me, and it is so effortless. We are a machine, my bow and me. The second squirrel is a perfect shot in the eye.

Everything familiar is tainted with sadness.

I have to eat, I remind myself. And even if I didn't have to eat like this, I have to do something, anything to keep moving, to keep breathing. I suppose.

In no time, the game bag is full. Fortunately, because I'm running out of breath. I put my weapons up and return to the little concrete house by the lake, the one that I used to associate with summer afternoons with my father, but that now holds memories of synthetic mockingjays and heartless girls and of something, somewhere left undone. It's such an unassuming place to hold such weight. I'm struck dumb, staring at a disfigured poker that once just prodded wood into fire, and now sits propped up against a bare concrete wall, a slanted remainder of my complicated past.

Everything in the present has been burned away, simplified down. Eat, sleep, hunt. Eat, sleep, hunt. Well - except for one complicated thing.

Complicated in the past, at least. I don't know what he is in my present.

The first time I called Dr. Aurelius, I wouldn't talk about myself. "How much better is he? I need to know - is he ..." My tongue trips over the word I really want to say. "... OK?"

Dr. Aurelius gives me assurances and reassurances. That's what he does.

After a long rest, I walk back into town. I'm sore all over. I skirt the Meadow - what used to be the Meadow - and see that the first green things are growing on it. Of course - dandelions. Everything familiar.

For a moment, I almost wish I had been confined somewhere else, somewhere completely without memories. But where would that be? I've been to every district in this forsaken country, and most are associated with the faces of the dead.

No, and anyway, if one day I do get out of this - this - dark exhaustion, it has to be here. I have to learn to love this place again, or I never will love any place again, and then I'll truly be homeless. Love? Not that that's likely, but if there's at least a remote possibility, then this where I have to be.

I reach the Victors' Village and it's now late afternoon and unreasonably hot. There are twelve houses here, and now, for the first time in history, they all are full. Nine of the houses contain multiple families - two or three each. Seam families, used to limited space. But three of the houses hold just one person each. Me. Haymitch. Peeta. We still have some kind of special status, ridiculous and undeserved. Not that anyone would want to live with us. Me and my dark, unsettled moods. Haymitch in his filthy house, drunk and unpleasant. Peeta - Peeta … well, what? I don't know. I haven't been to his house; I only see him when he comes over for meals, and we don't talk much. He seems to not want to intrude on my space. It's just easier for Sae to bring us both food at once. It's like we are both waiting for something - some complaint, some fight, some apology? None of those, we are past those. I think. Aren't we? Everything that once comprised whatever our relationship was has been replaced by my grief and the aftereffects of his torture. We are back to the beginning. But how far back? - we have a multitude of beginnings. It's all questions, nothing but questions. I guess they need answering, especially the one overriding question.

I unload my bag, and put everything in the ice box except for one of the squirrels. Start with the simplest things that you know to be true. The mantra for how I now live in this fucked-up life. I skin the squirrel and realize, quite simply, it was meant for just one person, anyway.

So, I walk to the third house down from mine, and knock on the door.

After what seems like too long a time, he opens it. Behind him, the house is dark, but the afternoon sun illuminates his face and I look at him with an expression I try to make into a smile but really feels like a painful grimace. I hold up the skinned carcass of a one-eyed animal. "Do you still like squirrel?"

His eyes are no longer cloudy - that hazy look, like cataracts were forming over them - but there is a flat affect to his face that didn't used to be there. Drugs, probably. Or possibly the "anger management programming" that Aurelius mentioned. That sounds horrifyingly clinical to me - just like something that would erase the good along with the bad.

"I don't know," he says, bluntly.

Suddenly, I see myself as he must see me - half-feral, offering up a dead rodent as if it were a housewarming present. I hesitate. "Do you - want it? Or would you like me to give it to Sae to put in our dinner tonight?"

"I'll take it," he says, holding out his hand. The squirrel is transferred between us, and I don't know if he actually knows what he's going to do with it, but he's at least being polite. I try to peer discreetly behind him to see what shape his house is in. It smells faintly of bread, but apart from that, I can get no clues about him, how he's doing. It's possible that I'm too impatient.

Impatient for what, exactly? He doesn't invite me in, and I would have to refuse, anyway.

"See you at dinner," I say, walking away.

. . .

We eat quietly, as usual, and then Peeta offers to wash the dishes, so Sae just builds the fire up in my hearth before she leaves. Eat. Sleep. Hunt. As if following a script, I burrow into the blankets on my sitting room couch and stare at the fire, trying to drift off to sleep, but anxiously, tensely, listening to the sound of water and stoneware. Then the water stops and drains, and I stiffen, ready to flee, defend myself, whatever I have to do.

"Katniss?" he asks, tentatively. He thinks I'm maybe asleep.

"Yes?"

"Turns out - I do like squirrel."

I sit up, shaking from the release of my muscles, and look up to see him standing in the doorway to the dining room, all shadowy from the darkness, all flickery from the fire. This causes double and triple memories to pass before my eyes all at once, and I press my finger into my temple to stop them before they take over. “I - the woods are full of them. I can bring you more."

"Don't put yourself out, but I was just - it just made me think … You used to bring them to me before - is that real?"

Here it is. Whereas I am possessed with memories - so many that I am drowning in them - he is thirsty for them. It's not quenchable. I’ve lived through the inquisition before - the barrage of questions ranging from minute (the price of milk) to vast (one’s complicity in the war) and all of them fumbling toward a rebuilding of whoever this boy once was; and none of them quite succeeding. Memories are not enough, if the emotions attached to them are lost.

"Yes - and no," I reply, anyway. "I sold them to your father. He shared them with you."

There you go - two memories for the price of one.

"Thank you," he says.

"You're welcome," I reply.

There is silence and it starts flooding the room. The crackle of the fire in the hearth sounds like someone laughing at our muteness.

"If I can ever get anything for you - you'll let me know?" he asks.

"Yes, of course. Of course."

"You still know my phone number?"

"I have it written down somewhere."

"OK. OK. See you in the morning."

"Peeta?" His name bursts out of my mouth, all unintentional. The question that is on the tip of my tongue. But I don't ask it. "See you in the morning,” I say instead.

-2-

The nightmares take an unwelcome turn that night, as Peeta turns into a white lizard mutt and chases me, interminably. Occasionally, he catches at me, and gnaws something off me. Not enough to kill me; always, I escape and we do it again and again.

So, when he comes over for breakfast, I have a hard time meeting his eyes. I talk to Sae.

"There's game in the ice box. Small stuff."

"Thanks, girl."

"If I hunt - every other day or so, is that enough to keep the five of us fed? I'm going - further out from my old hunting grounds now, so I might not be able to do it every morning."

"Once the trains start coming in from 10, we'll be more than fine. In the meanwhile, if we need to, we can order whatever canned goods we need."

"Oh," I say. I didn't realize we can just request food now. I don't even know how we would do it. Living on canned food sounds depressing to me.

"Not that I don't prefer fresh," she says hastily. "You know me."

"Oh, for sure," adds Peeta, sincerely.

I feel like I'm being managed. But I need to hunt, so I'm going to pretend that I'm not. I finally meet Peeta's eyes. Peeta likes squirrel, so there's at least that. This is doable, this is livable, I say to myself. Small goals.

"Sae," he says, "do you know if we can order herbs and other things, too? I'm out of - a lot of stuff. And eggs and butter."

"Eggs and butter - yes, but it will take some time to get here. Didn't anyone show you two how to order supplies?"

By anyone, she probably means Haymitch. He might have explained something at some point when I was dead to the world. But Peeta shakes his head, too.

"What kind of herbs?" I ask.

"I'm not particular. Anything for flavor, anything fresh. Well, I guess it won't be fresh if it comes off the train, but as close as possible." He frowns. "What we need around here is a garden."

The next morning, instead of breakfast, I'm out hunting again. Hunting and gathering. When I return, I have not only squirrels and dill, but also chives and duck eggs. I knock on his door, but he doesn't open it. Instead I hear his voice coming through the half-opened window next to the door. "Hello?"

"Peeta - something wrong? I brought you some - things!"

"I can't come to the door right now, but you can come in!"

This is odd. My mind automatically imagines that he is injured, or laid out by one of his flashbacks - or that it is a lure, a trap. My fingers are trembling as they reach for the doorknob, and I remind myself that I am armed, and I won't go unaware into any dark places.

But I see him - sitting at the table - as I open the door. His elbows are propped up on the table and he is just applying some ointment or something to his arms.

"Sorry," he says, gesturing apologetically with his hands, which are shiny with whatever he's putting on his skin.

I hesitate before putting my game bag on the counter, closing the door behind me, and approaching the table. He's watching me with his wariest look. But I am mesmerized by his skin. I've seen his hands of course - the back of his hands with the uneven patches of pink and red skin. His forehead, with similar scarring. But I haven't seen the backs of his arms. These must have taken the brunt of the flames, as he covered his face when the firebombs exploded in the City Circle. There is a very familiar melted-plastic quality to the way the scars swoop down and up the skin, with baby-pink patches of fake skin and red patches of burned skin, and the unnaturally white patches of his original skin, which looks timid and out of place. I know my back looks similar, but seeing it on him is worse, somehow. To a certain extent, I chose to go into the fire - him, less so.

"Hey," I say, in an unsuccessful attempt at nonchalance.

"Bad, right?"

"Does it still hurt?" I wonder, looking over at the jar of ointment - it has a sweet and piney smell.

He frowns. "Not really. This is the salve to keep the skin from drying out - and to keep it from getting infected. Didn't they give you any?"

I shrug. If they did, I don't remember it.

"How are you doing, then?"

"I'm fine," I say - though maybe I'm not. I wonder if that's what all the itching is about. "Do you want me to show you what I brought?"

"Sure - I'm almost done here."

But it doesn't hurt my peace of mind that his hands are preoccupied as I pull out the two squirrels I shot for him, the eggs I took, the herbs. His gratitude is genuine. I leave them on the counter for him to put away as he likes, then leave the room, leave his house, with a quick reminder that I'll see him at dinner.

. . .

I know I fell asleep on the sofa, so I can't figure out what I'm doing on a concrete floor in a dark room.

I start rubbing the back of my arms with an insane intensity. And I am - where? Basement. Basement. I hope it's mine and not someone else's. I don't ask myself how I got here. Some lurching disconnected episode would be nothing new. I'm not sure how much time has passed or if Greasy Sae is looking for me. I guess I'd better not worry anyone. So I feel my way around the room until I've found the stairs to climb up. Fortunately, they are my stairs. I open the door on to my kitchen and tentatively peer into the semi-darkness. Buttercup is sitting on the kitchen counter, staring at me as if he's been waiting for me for hours. It must be pretty late.

There is a glow coming from the direction of the sitting room and I walk through the kitchen on slow, quiet feet. There are low voices.

"Hey," I say, making both Haymitch and Peeta jump.

"Katniss!"

"Um - what are you guys doing here?"

Haymitch stirs, rising stiffly and stretching. "Getting ready to organize a mockingjay hunt."

"So, I missed dinner," I say dismissively.

"Yes," retorts Haymitch, "you're almost in time for breakfast."

His head is covering the clock, so I can't tell what time it is, and anyway, he's probably exaggerating.

"Remember, technically I'm supposed to make sure you stay in the District, so just warn me when you are going off on unexpected journeys. Peeta, she's all yours." And he trundles out.

"I should go, too," Peeta says, quickly.

I suppose he means well, but it's starting to aggravate me, how anxious he always seems to not be alone in a room with me.

"No, you don't have to," I say. "Did you eat?"

His face twitches, almost as if he's going to smile, but he just says, "Some time ago, Katniss."

Now that I can see the clock, I see that it's almost midnight.

"Oh," I say.

"I won't presume to remind you to be careful when you go out. But we were worried and - maybe - a note, next time?"

"Sure." I shrug, then wonder if I should admit I can't really make that promise. My stomach grumbles. "Is there any dinner left over?"

"There is some stew in the ice box. Also, some bread on the table."

"I'll just have some of that."

He follows me into the kitchen and watches while I cut a slice for myself. The bread is white and aromatic, with green flecks. Dill. It is amazing. I cut another slice. "This is so good, Peeta. Won't you sit down? It's weird sitting here eating with you standing behind me."

He sits down across the table from me and I cut him a piece and hand it to over to him. For a moment, we eat together in silence. When was the last time we were alone together like this? The training center before the Quarter Quell? Even then, we were under surveillance. We have almost always been under surveillance. For a second, fear rises again. Why did Haymitch leave me alone with him? Why does everyone assume he is safe?

Peeta reads my face. "I'm not going to hurt you," he says.

"I know," I say, with a heavy sigh. And in my heart, I really do. He may no longer be the smiling boy who loved me, but his voice is clear and steady. "I'm the one who is crazy, now."

He squints at me. "You spoke to Dr. Aurelius?"

"A little."

"I spent several months with him. It helped me a lot - give him a chance."

I shrug. "It's all a front, anyway. He agreed to say I was crazy so I wouldn't be executed for assassinating Coin."

He regards me for a long time. "'Crazy' is such a loaded, awful, misleading word. No, of course you're not ‘crazy,’ but you don't seem right."

"How can I be? How can I?"

"I know - I know."

Having finished his bread, he takes the knife and cleans it in the sink. "He can help with that, too, you know."

Peeta says goodnight and leaves, and I'm left all alone in the darkness. There's nothing to do but lie on the couch and wait for sleep to come - which it doesn't.

-3-

I'm still awake when Greasy Sae comes in to make breakfast. Peeta doesn't show up. It is likely that he is just sleeping off the late night. I try not to let it bother me, but Sae can tell that I'm agitated - gone are the days when I could successfully mask my discontent - and she says she'll take some food over to Peeta's, and look in on him if she can.

The morning is unusually quiet. I'd almost welcome even Haymitch's company. Instead, I pull out my plant book - I haven't opened it since Peeta and I worked on it, over a year ago - and I look for all the different pages that show the herbs that grow around District 12 - fennel, sorrel, savory - to remind myself what they look like.

I'm somewhat distracted by the more recent pages, drawn and colored by Peeta, and the strange, bittersweet emotions they stir.

There's a knock on my door and I hop up - thinking this must be Peeta coming to apologize for being late this morning. But it's Thom.

"Sae sent me for you. She found Peeta wandering around town and she thinks he needs to talk to you."

My heart thumps, but I try to look unconcerned. "Sure."

I jog out of Victors' Village toward the vast gray ruin that is my home. It's just a few minutes to get to the town square. It's not quite the formless mass of stone it once was; the men who have been working to clear it have piled up the larger pieces of stone in neat stacks around the square; this was necessary to look for the bodies in the collapsed buildings.

Peeta and Sae are standing near a hunk of melted-down metal that was once a large oven. When Sae sees me, she gives a huge sigh of relief. "Here's Katniss, Peeta - do you want to talk to Katniss?"

He looks puzzled, lost, blank. "Yes?"

"Peeta, what are you doing?" I ask, as Sae slips away, with one last glance at us.

"I came home to have breakfast with my family. But..."

I swallow. "You forgot; District 12 was destroyed. My old home is gone, too."

He nods, slowly. "I did - I forgot." He suddenly crouches down and puts his hand in the earth, picking up a handful of gray dirt and letting it run through his fingers. This dust was the bakery - the place where he was raised. Tears start in his eyes but they don't quite drop down his face. "Are they - still here?"

"No - in the Meadow. Do you want to go - see?" I really would like to take him to his house and put him to bed, but first I need to get him moving.

"Sure."

I take his arm to help him up. Beneath the shirt, his arm is thinner, less muscular than it was - but there's still something familiar about even just linking arms with him, as once I did for strength on the victory tour. Everything familiar is tainted with sadness… We walk down the road, away from the Town Center and toward the Seam. Behind the Seam, lies what once was the Meadow - most of which is now brown with freshly-turned earth, dotted by the dandelions and some other spring weeds. There is still a sizeable hole on one end that has not yet been filled in.

Peeta stares at it for a long time. "I know it's real," he says finally. "But I just can't believe in it."

"You need to go back to bed."

"Yes."

But we wait for a while and watch the sun climb over the top of the trees beyond the fence. And I start to hum - music, it has recently been my one salvation - the meadow song. And his body relaxes against mine. We wait until there is a stirring of people from the direction of the Seam. Most of the returnees to 12 have moved back to the Seam; District 13 providing them with military tents, beds, and cooking equipment. It's honestly not much worse than the shacks they lived in before - at least while the weather is warm. They come walking toward us, carrying picks and shovels.

Peeta asks what they are doing, and I explain - they are shifting the rubble, to rebuild the town.

"I should help."

"When you're better."

"Are the families - living in tents? That doesn't seem fair, somehow."

"They wanted to come home as soon as possible," I explain. "The more people who come home, the faster the houses can go up."

He shakes his head and turns away from the Meadow. We walk back home in silence. Our houses look like mansions compared to the tents in the Seam. I hadn't really thought about it before. I follow Peeta right up to his house and go in behind him.

"I'm much better now," he protests.

"You need to eat, and then you need to lie down."

"I need to take some pills," he says. He goes into a cupboard and brings out a small cardboard box, from which he fishes out five or six bottles. While he sorts through them, I light his stove and start frying some duck eggs. I'm not much of a cook, but eggs I can do, and quickly enough I'm setting a plate in front of him. It's not much, but frankly - between groosling soup and force-field-roasted rat - it's among the better meals I've ever provided him. This thought makes me smile.

I sit and watch him eat, fingering the plastic bottles with strange words printed on them. "What are all these?" I ask him, nosily, as he lays out a rainbow of colored pills.

"Let's see - this one is for depression, this one is for anxiety, the long white one is a pain killer. The little tiny white one is an antiviral. And - this pink one is a sleeping pill."

"How well are they working for you?"

"It's hard to say. The painkiller helps when I need it, and the sleeping pill - well, that's how I sleep."

My hands tremble. "Will you have to take them - forever?"

"I don't know. I hope that I can stop taking the sleeping pills. I don't like them. They do make me sleep, but they don't completely keep away the nightmares, and I wake up - tired and - foggy, like this morning."

Right - my prep team gave me some of those and they didn't work at all. I bite my lip, remembering what did work. Wondering if it would still work. Knowing those days are gone forever. In place of memories, emotions, sleep, wellness, me - he has pills. And I have nothing.

I watch him take the pills, the pink one last of all. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

I shake my head. I should tell him that he might see me in some similar state of confusion, but I don't want to worry him. "That's nothing - you should have seen me after I was out of the hospital. Wandering all over Snow's mansion. I kept waking up in strange places. The only thing I ever got was morphling. And I can't take that anymore."

"Why?" He blinks at me; the sleeping pills are already taking effect.

"Addiction. Peeta - you get up to bed. I'll wash up. If you aren't awake for dinner, do you want me to get you up?"

He shakes his head. "I should just sleep them off this time."

He stands up and looks down at me. The puzzled look on his face - I'm not sure what it's for. Is he trying to figure out what I'm doing? I'm just trying to be kind, as if we are still friends. Does he mistrust this, deep down, the way I still mistrusted him? "Thanks," he says again, then slowly walks up the stairs.

-4-

Peeta doesn't come for dinner and I tell Sae not to worry about it; and this time I really mean it. I open closets until I find a large, bulky envelope I ignored from Dr. Aurelius. A small jar of salve for my back, to be applied every three days. Pill bottles - orange, blue, white and pink pills. There's a letter with instructions. I should take the orange and blue pills once a day at least until I have finished 20 telephone sessions with Dr. Aurelius. The white pills should be taken once a day until the bottle is done. The pink pills should be taken as needed. Well, I've been going along just fine without these pills. Perhaps I should use the salve, maybe it will help with my flaky back. I trust salve - I'm not so sure about pills.

After some consideration, I take a shower and go into my bedroom that has been unused since I left for the Quell. I unwrap the towel and sit down on the edge of the bed, and take the top off the jar of salve. I like the smell of it - that sweet and piney scent. With effort, I rub the salve into my back, getting a decent pass across my upper and lower, but struggling with the middle. As I rub, my skin peels off like onion skin, and the salve starts to sting whatever is underneath. But that's the best I can do.

Lying on the bed - it's comfortable, more comfortable than I remember. Instead of going back downstairs to my nest on the couch, I find an undershirt from my drawer and pull it on over my slick back before lying down on my bed.

The smell of the salve is soothing, and it feels so good too, once the stinging sensation goes away. I drift off into an easy sleep.

More nightmares. I'm walking in the woods - not my woods, but the woods of the arena. So, maybe, they are my woods. I run up a tree. I'm desperately sawing a branch, but my hands are slick and numb, and I keep losing a series of knives, one by one, until I'm down to a small pocket knife. At this point, I decide to cut a hole in the tracker jacker hive. I look down and Peeta is standing, staring up at me. He shakes his head, but it's too late - I've let them free, and as they start stinging me, I wake up, screaming.

I'm sweating. I crawl off my bed and half open my window, then gasp in the cool night air, let the breeze hit my face. Better. I lie back down and feel annoyed with myself. Why am I dreaming about Peeta? I never used to dream about him; he never invaded my nightmares, except for the six weeks he was held by the Capitol. And then he was the subject, not the object, of terror. I never dreamed him like this - radically changed, an enemy instead of a friend, not even when that was true. Before he came home …. Before he came home, I didn't do much of anything. Dreams and nightmares were tangled together, and so were daydreams and memories. She haunted me. If I thought about him, at all, I just remembered the last time I saw him, his hand gripping on me like a vise, preventing me from taking the pill - the purple one that would have been the best - the final - pain reliever. I cursed him. Although I knew, deep in my heart, I would have done the same in his place. Sometimes I told myself I would wait - wait until he came back home (if he did) - and kill myself then, just for spite. Then he came back and that thought fled, almost at once.

That doesn't explain the dreams.

It's a hunting morning, so I rouse myself, change my clothes and grab bow and arrows. I slip through the eerie darkness, my ruined town, my destroyed neighborhood, my overturned meadow. From the other side of the fence, I look back at District 12. There's a half moon this morning for light, and against the deep midnight-blue sky I can see the jagged, uneven line of the ruins, the glint of lamplight in the Victors' Village. Such a fragile little place.

An hour's walk takes me to my lake. I sit for a minute in the little house, resting, drinking water, and itching my back, which now kind of feels worse than before. I wait for the lake to reflect the first streaks of daylight before I gather myself up and move on to the woods that curve around it.

I'm not even fifteen minutes in when I hear a great, thunking foot step and run up the nearest tree, find a perch and wait, threading my arrow.

There she is - the great she-bear, big and black. My heart thumps. I'm far enough up to be safe, but still - this is a killer. She paws at the base of the tree for a while, looking up in my direction, taking big snuffs of my scent. She paces around me in agitation, and I tighten my hold on the arrow, though I highly doubt I will be able to do much better than anger her with my weapons. I'd need the whole quiver to take her down, and that might not even be enough. Besides … what a waste that would be! Too heavy for me to haul on my own back to 12. And she undoubtedly has young nearby in her den. Eventually, she'll get bored and move on, but until then, I'm treed.

Lamenting my lost moments for hunting, I start whistling a song, hoping for the mockingjays to come keep me company. They're not usually early risers, but eventually I start hearing their answering calls in the branches above me. A mourning dove and the meadowlarks also join the cacophony. "What do you think of that?" I ask my companion. "I'm the queen of this forest." She only growls and bares her teeth at me. She has a point. But I laugh.

When the sun rises a little more, I check to see if I can climb even higher. I see a nest up above me, and some green acorns. It's tentative, but I can slide my way over to the nest - empty - and pluck a few of the acorns. I start throwing these away from the tree, until the bear finally decides to follow the noise, and lumbers off. I know she'll be back, so the minute she has disappeared into the trees, I slide down and jump out of the tree and make a run for it in the other direction. Depending on how hungry she is, she'll hopefully stay clear of the open area around the lake, so I go back to the water, and walk on the beach back up to the house. I keep in this vicinity to hunt - two more squirrels and a duck - then root around for herbs, wild onions, and the early berries.

Despite my close call, I feel almost elated - like my heart is pumping blood again - and when I rest again in the house before heading back to town, I feel an enormous sense of peace and calm. I'm a little hot with the exertion, but otherwise there's something more familiar about me today.

It is really quite warm, and I'm glad to get back to the district fence. I'm literally visualizing my cool bed as my eyelids droop while I walk. I pass the workers in the town square, the small children playing in Victors' Village, barely noticing them. 

.
.

"Katniss!" I am startled awake at the sound of his voice. He is howling for me, as midnight approaches. No. No. If he comes to me, he'll die. Wait. It's hot and sweaty in this jungle. And dark - dark - dark. I can't see anything. I am sitting on the ground, arms wrapped around my knees. I can't get my bearings.

"Katniss, where are you?"

"No!" I scream a warning, as far as I can throw it, but I'm in a tiny little space, and the word echoes painfully around my ears.

A door opens and he's standing in the light from the kitchen. It's brighter than usual, hurting my eyes - the electricity must be on for once. There are things all around me like hanging vines, and I grab at them to help me stand up, but they are dresses - silk, satin, velvet, brocade - and they slide off their hangers and fall all around me.

He lifts me up and helps me out of the closet. Behind Peeta, Sae looks consternated, standing in the kitchen, holding the game bag I left on the table.

"Katniss, what are you doing?"

"You're very hot," says Peeta. "Are you OK?"

He helps sit me down at the table, and I stare at him, nodding dumbly. Of course it's hot, I think. It's always hot in the jungle. "Get away from the tree," I mumble.

"She's shaking," says Mags.

"It's the force field!" I spit at her. "You have to get away from it!"

"OK, OK," says Peeta. "Let's get you away from it. We're almost out of it. We'll see Haymitch soon and you'll see - we'll get out of it. Sae - get Haymitch, OK? Whatever it takes. I'm going to take her over to the couch." He lifts me up. He's wearing short sleeves and I can see the scars of his arms and smell the shiny salve. Woods not jungle. We're not there, yet? So, why is it so hot?

He puts me down on my couch and stands over me, looking worried and confused.

"You have to get away from me. I'll call the rest of them to the tree, and we'll die together. But you'll be safe."

He kneels down now so that he is close to me. "Katniss, come back. There's no lightning. You're home now."

Haymitch appears, hovering over my face. Hovering. I try to scream at him, but it comes out as a low murmur. "You promised me. You promised."

"What's this?"

"I think she's back in the Quarter Quell. But she's so hot. Really hot. I'm not sure - what to do."

"I've got some kind of first aid at my place. I probably have some fever pills, to start with. Call her mother."

Both of them disappear for a moment, but soon Peeta is back. He's got strips of cloth dipped in water. They are so cool against my forehead. Then he says, "I'm just going to push you over so I can see your back. Your mother said to make sure there isn't an infection."

Before I can object, my face is smushed up against the back of the couch, and I feel my shirt pulled up slightly. Abruptly, the Quell slides out of my head and I've returned to this weird world I live in now. "Oh." I hear the shock in his voice.

"Oh, that's just the burns. It always looks that bad."

"I don't think so. It’s too red - and shiny. Have you been taking your medicine?"

I don't reply. Now Haymitch is back and Peeta pulls down my shirt and helps me sit up so I can take some water and pills.

"Where are your pills, Katniss?" asks Peeta thinly.

"Upstairs."

"So, you're back, Mockingjay," says Haymitch, lightly, though there's an edge to his voice.

"I'm not the Mockingjay. She burned to death," I reply.

Peeta comes back downstairs with my envelope of drugs and dumps the bottles onto the coffee table. "Unopened - all of them. Katniss, this is important. You have to at least take the antiviral until all your new skin grows back in."

He hands me the tiny pill and I shrug, swallowing. "I felt OK until I tried that salve."

"You haven't been using that either? I think that - you probably had a lot of dead skin, and you got infected once you exposed the underneath, but hopefully it's no worse than that. Haymitch, how soon do you think we can get an antibiotic?"

"A day or two from 4, if her mother can manage it. I can send some money for it."

"You didn't tell me that she was - still blacking out, hiding."

"I didn't know." They are silent between them, my two allies. I look from one to the other of them, they look so worried. "Someone should stay with her tonight."

"No, I don't need it! I'm feeling much better now; I just over-exerted myself."

"Maybe," says Haymitch, "but you're not exactly the most reliable source at the moment."

Peeta sighs and says, with what sounds like great reluctance, "I should be the one to stay. I slept all day yesterday and I slept in today, so I'm really not tired." He makes me lie back down, then he goes over to sit in one of the rocking chairs in a corner. His eyes are glowing from the kitchen light, and I stare back at him, trying to decide how I feel about this situation. The only thing I feel for sure is feverish.

"You should go to sleep, Katniss."

"I'm not tired."

"How often does that happen?"

"What?"

"Flashbacks - to the arena. Is that what happened - the other night? Were you in the closet?"

"Basement."

"Oh."

"And it's not necessarily the arena. Last time I thought I was in a prison cell in the Capitol."

"Oh," he says again. There is a long silence between us. Then: "Is that why you were calling me that night - in the jungle? To draw the other tributes to you - at the tree?"

"Yes. At first."

"Then you blew out the force field, instead."

"Yeah, though - that was unplanned and, I didn't know what would happen, really. I just trusted Beetee. You saw that - the Capitol showed you that, before you were hijacked. Real?"

"Yes, a lot of times, before and after. How did you know?"

"We saw your broadcast - in 13. You mentioned it."

"Oh, right. … Katniss, you have to do a better job taking care of yourself. You have to follow treatment, and you should tell Dr. Aurelius about these blackouts."

"I'll take the salve for my skin, but I don't want anything else."

"But - what if you black out in the woods or something? Something could happen to you out there."

"It never happens out there. It only happens after I go to sleep. It's nightmares. They come to me and I wake up - somewhere else."

"Maybe you should consider the sleeping pills."

"No! Anyway - don't take this the wrong way, but - I think they are worse since you got back."

"Really?"

"Yes - it's ..." But now that I've said it, I wish I hadn't. I don't know what it is. And I can't really hold him responsible for what goes on in my head.

Predictably, he looks truly distressed. "I'm really sorry. Katniss, if there is something I can do to help - maybe I should stop hanging out here, or something."

"No - it's not your fault. They will go back down. But, Peeta - ."

"Yes?"

I take a long breath. And find that I still can't ask him the question. And I am beginning to understand why: the answer matters so much more than I had bargained.

Chapter Text

-1-

When I wake up in the morning, I feel about a hundred times better. I look around for Peeta and see he's sitting at the dining table, hunched over something, like he's writing a letter. But there's something familiar about the way he's doing it.

I get up, feel the weakness in my legs, but walk steadily over to him. I find him sketching on a small piece of paper. His concentration is so intense that I have to make a small coughing sound to notify him that I'm up.

"Oh - hey - Katniss!"

"What are you doing?"

"You're looking better." He yawns, then pushes the paper toward me. "I'm sketching - my father. Trying to remember."

His lack of surety cracks my heart a bit. "It's just how I remember him," I assure him.  In fact, it's a very accurate picture of the baker I knew, pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven.

Peeta gets up and feels my forehead with the palm of his hand. He nods to himself. "I think your fever is broken."

The withdrawal of his hand almost makes me gasp. "I really do feel much better," I say meekly. "Sorry for - alarming you."

"Just - you need to take your medication. And keep your skin conditioned."

"I will."

"Good. And - talk to Dr. Aurelius, when he calls."

"OK."

He looks down at me in exasperation. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving. How long before Sae comes?"

"Another hour, but I can make breakfast. Give her the morning off."

He rattles around my icebox and my hunting bag, and soon he's got eggs cooking with herbs and chopped onions. I stare at the picture of his father that is still in my hand. Then I grab the plant book that is sitting on top of the dining hutch and sit down at the table with it, leafing through it again. Peeta glances over it as he is serving out two plates of eggs. He does a double take.

"Do you remember …?" I ask him.

"Yes." He comes over to stand over my chair and I turn the pages to one of his drawings. He touches it. "We worked on this together."

"Yes." I close my eyes on sudden tears, and blink them away.

But he's thumbing through the pages eagerly. "This book is brilliant, Katniss. All of these … medicinal plants, herbal plants, edible plants. We should be using this."

"I have been - that's how I found the sorrel."

"I want to do that, too. Now that I can - I want to go out there."

"You have to be careful in the woods. I ran into a bear yesterday."

"What?!"

"It's OK - they’re not good climbers this time of year - but you're not great at that either."

He nods, and eyes me with a frown. "Still."

"I had another thought. I thought - maybe - when you're done with the sketch of your father, we can write some things about him to go with the picture, and put it in a book like this."

Peeta goes still, almost frozen.

"A memory book - of the people we lost," I continue.

"Yes." He swallows. "That's a good idea."

His voice doesn't match his words, but I decide to ignore that. I turn to my plate of eggs and it tastes even better than it smells. "Peeta, oh my … this is so good! We might have to fire Greasy Sae."

He smiles down at me, and I'm arrested by the flash of his teeth, the sudden appearance of a dimple. For a while, I feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me and it's so confusing, until I realize - this is the first time I've seen his true smile since the Quarter Quell.

-2-

Dr. Aurelius calls in that day - coincidentally enough - and while I evade his questions about my medications, I do explain about my idea for a new memory book, and he agrees to send me some paper on the next train.

I go over to Peeta's to talk to him about this, but he doesn't answer his door and then I remember that he stayed up a whole other night taking care of me and is probably asleep. As I'm heading back home, I run into Thom, one of the younger miners who returned from 13, who has been more-or-less in charge of the clean-up.

"Katniss," he says, "I have a question."

"Yes? Oh - and I have one for you."

"We're forming a District Planning council. We want a lot of people on this council, because it's going to draw up a plan for rebuilding, as well as eventually nominate a mayor and a representative for District 12 on the Panem Council."

"That sounds like a good idea."

"You interested?"

I laugh. "Thom, I think you're forgetting - I'm the criminally insane parolee here. Probably best to leave me out of it, really. Bad PR."

"You're District 12 - that's all we care about. Let us know if you change your mind. How do you think - Peeta - would feel about it?"

I shake my head. "I really have no idea, but ask him. He'd be great for that."

"Is he ... functional?"

For some reason, this question raises my hackles. "As much as I am. If he agrees to it, he'd be great - trust me. Hey, Thom - when do train shipments come in, and also - how can I order food and other supplies? Where does it all come from?"

Peeta knocks on my door about an hour early for dinner, and I hop up to let him in.

"How did you sleep today?"

"OK. I hope you don't mind me coming early," he says. "I wanted to look at the plant book again so I can really memorize some things, and maybe you can - draw me a map or something to tell me where to look for stuff?"

I shake my head. "You don't have any weapons."

At this, he looks taken aback. "So?"

"It's not safe if you can't defend yourself. I told you - there are bears out there, also wild dogs, stray mutts - and it's early spring."

He frowns at me. "What are you saying? That I'm - confined within the fence line?"

"Obviously not," I reply, more sharply than I intend. "I think some people came back from 13 with weapons. We'll ask around - borrow something for you. And I'll go out with you, and hunt while you forage."

He shakes his head. "Why are you doing this? I’m every bit a veteran of the Games and the War that you are.We're not in the arena, Katniss - you don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do, if you're going to do something as foolish as wander around the woods with no protection. I would never have done that - not even when I was 12!"

"I just need to do something useful, contribute something, and I can't just be in here - confined to Victor's Village. I'm sure that sounds stupid to you - but it's important to me."

"All right, I get that," I say, trying to sound apologetic. By his second use of the word confined , I suddenly realize what the deal is. "But I'm not exaggerating the risk. I'm not trying to say that you're stupid - but this is my area of expertise. It's like if I tried to - I don't know - put too much flour - in dough, or something."

"Yeah, that's comparable," he snorts. Then I giggle, and he smiles, somewhat reluctantly.

"So - here's what I suggest," I say, carefully. "We'll try to get you a weapon to defend yourself and we'll go out together. I'll take you to where there's a huge patch of dill and anise and you can start there. I'll hunt nearby. It doesn't matter if you slow me up - I'm just hunting to have something to do. If you start foraging for food, that will save me time, actually."

"OK. That sounds reasonable."

"Great - tomorrow's a hunting day. Do you want to go tomorrow?"

"Sure."

I relax into a strangely exotic sensation. There's been very little of this normal back and forth sort of thing between us - ever. Almost all of our conversations have been loaded with other things. Our opposition in the Games. Our alliance in the Games. His misery over my lack of feelings for him - the right ones, anyway. My misery over his expectations - and Gale's expectations - and the Capitol's expectations …. It takes living through all of that shit to make an argument about gathering herbs seem this luxurious. "Oh, did Thom talk to you about the district council thing?"

"Yeah, just before I came over. I told him I'd think about it. What do you think?"

"If you want to, of course, I think you should do it. You're so good at - thinking ahead about stuff. And - you're one of the only Townies here, you know? You should have a voice in rebuilding 12. But - if you don't want to do it…."

"I'll think about it. I offered to work on shifting rocks once a week, on Fridays. I think I can manage that, and that will help me feel - involved."

"Be careful with yourself."

He shrugs, a slight look of exasperation on his face.

I get down the plant book and we go to the kitchen table to look it over. I watch him thumb through it and I'm again enjoying the strange comfort of just how mundane it all is - when he says: "This feels so - normal."

I glance quickly at him, to see if the memories that are flooding through my head are reflected in his face. But he's still just looking at the book. I can't help myself - I narrow my gaze to his eyelashes, as if I needed reminding…. They are still so long and light - hard to notice if you're not looking right at them, but mesmerizing if you are.

When he looks at me, with a curious expression on his face, I blush. "Oh, guess what?" I say, covering. "Dr. Aurelius is sending me some paper - for the memory book. He thought it was a good idea. Are you still - interested?"

"Yes, yes." His tone is curiously flat. "It will be good. I haven't been able to paint since I got home and I miss it."

"Oh, really? It was so good for you before. It helped you sleep better - to paint the Games."

"Yeah - I don't know. I think, back then, I needed to paint in order to get the images one remove out of my head. It's different now. It's not so much the things that I saw that haunt me. It's the things that I can’t quite remember.. Or the things I do remember that I can’t quite trust.”

I restrain my first impulse, which is to grab his hand in sympathy. It’s disorienting how quickly this impulse has returned. "What do you think you would paint - if you could?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. How do you paint Johanna's screams? How do you paint the mutation of memories? I think there's probably a way to do it, but I feel - blocked. I just see this - this - red light, every time I think about it."

I swallow. Every instinct in me screams to run away from this conversation. "What do you mean - red light?"

He gives me a sidelong glance, and pauses for a long time on his words. "I don’t know if I can explain it.  There were times - times I associate with pain - and I was strapped to a table and I just remember there was some kind of red light, here ...." he gestures vaguely at his right shoulder.  “Just always in the corner of my eye.”

The house around us feels very quiet, as if it is holding its breath. My voice is almost a whisper when I ask, "Did they electrocute you - like they did Johanna and Lavinia?"

He licks his lips.  "No, they were being very careful to keep me alive - there were some things they wouldn't risk doing to me that they would do to Johanna. Mixing water and electricity - too risky when they needed me for TV.  That was before the tracker jacker treatment - which I don't remember really, just that everything was so - distorted and strange. I - they - well … I’m sure you don’t want to hear the details.”

No, in fact I don’t - but what kind of person would I be to say it? “I do if you want to tell me.”

He glances at me briefly before flicking his eyes away. “It’s OK, really - I’ve told Aurelius, anyway. I don’t want to trouble you - I just want you to understand, if it’s possible. How I could do - what I did. There were a lot of injections - some caused pain, some caused calm, some caused fear.” He grimaces on the last word, and the light vacates his eyes. He looks far away. "They told me - you could live, we both could live, if I just calmed down the districts. But if I couldn't - they would - destroy 12; they would have to, to teach the rebels that they couldn't win. They kept on threatening it, and I was never good enough. The more I spoke, the more the rebels were forcing you to do - they said that the rebels forced you to go to District 8 and you almost died. And always, they kept on threatening to destroy 12. Until later - with the tracker jacker treatment, I guess they told me you and the rebels did it. But I don't remember that now."

For long minutes after this, I can't speak. I want to tell him that I understand - that I went through a similar form of torture, finding nothing I did was sufficient to keep him from being hurt - that my every move had the opposite effect. But I will never truly understand what he went through, and anything I say will only underline that fact. "No wonder you thought it was your fault - what they did to District 12. They were lying to you - 12 was gone almost as soon as the Quell ended. It was gone by the time I was taken to 13."

He nods. "I know - that's what they told me in 13, anyway, though I couldn't always be sure how truthful they were being. It's not that they were lying, exactly, just that they always seemed to be putting everything in the most positive light."

"Tell me about it," I say bitterly.

He looks at me, his eyebrows raised, but I shake my head. "Peeta? Is it all right with you, if I hug you right now?"

There's a pause, during which emotion returns to his face, and he looks at me curiously, as if not sure why I offered, or maybe why I felt I had to ask. "Sure," he says - though not without a hint of doubt.

I lean forward in my chair and put my arms around his neck, for just a moment. I don't let myself linger long enough to get used to his warmth, to remind myself of past times spent in his arms. I just want him to know that I am his friend. "I'm so sorry that you went through that," I say.

"It's not your fault," he replies.

"You know it is - it's because of me that they did that to you," I reply bitterly. "Let's not pretend for the sake of sparing my feelings. Please ."

He looks at me curiously, strangely - as if he would refute what I've said, but knows he can't, in all honesty. "But also - it’s your fault that I'm still alive. I know they were keeping me alive to use me to get to you. I could say I'd rather die than go through that again, but, all things considered, I'm glad to be alive now. Most of the time, anyway."

I look at him sadly. I know what he means - most of the time . There's a hollow in him, as there is in me. A place that is sometimes too empty to bear. The thought - the idea - of carrying it forward for all the years that might be left of my life is so exhausting sometimes.

But it's even worse, somehow, that he feels the same.

-3-

I'm expecting to be visited by particularly acute nightmares that night - certainly after going to bed rehashing everything Peeta told me - but, to my surprise, the dreams that come are almost mundane. I dream that I am hunting in the woods with Gale. We're back to back, and it feels for a while that I might be there - back in time, before the Games, with no expectations from him except to be an alert hunting partner. This makes me happy, but once we start moving, and I can see him clearly, he looks much older than he should, and his regular bow has been replaced by the sophisticated crossbow he used in the war. When I frown at this, he shakes his head at me and explains that it is the best defense against bears. I get this familiar feeling I've come to associate with Gale, like I'm being unreasonable but right at the same time, and am just bracing myself for another fight with him when I wake up.

I go downstairs and collect my things. My regular bow and quiver, two canvas bags, a long knife and two thermoses, which I fill with water. When I step outside, I'm surprised to see Peeta waiting for me on the porch. Thank goodness - I was worried about having to wake him up. I grin at him.

"Hey!" he says, getting up stiffly. I see he's already carrying some kind of bag, and a flask, so I just hand him the knife that I borrowed from Thom. I know Peeta was trained on guns in 13, but I've never seen him shoot - and he's not a good shot, by his own admission. But I've seen him defend himself with a knife. I'm surprised by how gingerly he takes it, as if it's something he's never seen before. I wonder if maybe he's got an aversion to something that reminds him of the arena too much, or maybe he just doesn't even remember using it - and he's just accepting it because I made it a condition of taking him out. But he should also take it as a token of my trust.

As we head out together, I say, "I'm sorry about last night - making you talk about it. I don't know why I asked. I hope it didn't give you nightmares."

"Oh, No, you were much gentler than my regular psych team. In 13, they made me talk about as much as I could remember, and so did Dr. Aurelius. No - no nightmares. I didn't sleep."

"What?"

"I didn't want to take any sleeping pills, in case I couldn't get up early enough. So - I couldn't sleep."

"You must be exhausted."

"Sort of. But, the weird thing is, even though I'm tired, my head feels clearer than usual. I think you might be right - about the pills. Maybe I should try to get on without them."

I feel a twinge of anxiety. "How bad are your nightmares without them?"

"Pretty bad, but - it's not like they go away entirely, anyway. Maybe," he adds optimistically, "I have this finite number of nightmares and I just have to get through them, and then it will be over."

I glance at him to see if he's joking, and in the darkness, I see him give me a wry look. No doubt, there's something lighter about his face, less - flat.

The sun is starting to rise as we make it to the fence. I exit from a different place than I used to. My old gaps in the fence were closed by Thread, but the escapees from 12 tore down a section near the Meadow that now is supported rather loosely by wires. It easily swings out enough to squeeze through. It should feel strange, I guess, leading Peeta out here: the Peeta in my head belongs on trains and chariots, in classrooms and training centers, in caves and jungles - everywhere but here - but there's something oddly normal about it.

"Pay attention now," I say. "Here's how I keep my bearings. That tall, thin tree there - the tallest one - that is almost due east of the gap in the fence. Once you're out of the trees, if you don't know exactly where you are, you keep your back to it, you'll be able to find your way home. We're going to go on this footpath - it's kind of faint, you can see it better in daylight - into the trees, but once there, we are going to head north a little. There's a bare patch there, and a little pond, and you'll find a lot of things to pick. Don't worry if you don't recognize them, at first. It takes some practice to recognize plants from drawings, at least it did for me. We'll just take everything back and double-check anything you're unsure about."

He nods, and we walk together towards the woods, in a mostly straight line. Once inside the trees, we lose what little light we have, and I softly point out to him the landmarks we are passing that can be seen in the dark - a stump here, a sharp jutting rock there - before we step off the path and thread through the trees. Without question, he is still quite loud when he walks. But this is a lot less trying than when you are hunting for survival. After about a half an hour, we make it to a wide clearing that is bursting with green things. The light has really come up at this point, but only the early morning birds and the crickets are yet making any noise.

"Here's where I leave you," I say, with some anxiety, trying hard not to sound like I'm being overprotective.

He sees right through that, and smiles at me. " You be careful out there. Try not to run into any bears. You should - really have a hunting partner."

"I'm doing just fine on my own," I reply coolly. "See you in a couple of hours." I stalk off, shaking off the idea of recruiting someone to hunt with me. Then I realize - he must have meant Gale, that Gale should be back to partner up with me again. I guess there's no reason for him not to think that Gale will eventually come back to 12. Should I tell him otherwise? I squirm at the very thought. Just bringing it up would make me sound like … ugh. And I couldn't really say for sure, it's not like Gale filled me in on any of his long term plans.

This is the most I've thought of Gale since the day Peeta came back and I went out to our old spot and let him go. I have to admit, it's been a relief in a number of ways for him to be gone, and not just because it would hurt so much to see him and to be reminded all the time of Prim. I don't think he'd understand this thing I'm going through now - the nightmares and blackouts - the occasional spin-out into dark, overwhelming despair. And the whole Peeta thing would hang over us, too. I know that he knows I once loved Peeta, and if he was here, he'd always be making me feel guilty about it, even without trying. It was that way ever since the first Games. And I kind of need Peeta now - someone who understands what I'm going through - with a growing clinginess that would only frustrate Gale. His being here would be an impediment, a block to improvement.

Still, between what Peeta said - that expectation that Gale would come back to me - and my dream last night, I can't help but wonder what is going to happen when we finally have this conversation. Because I also know that Peeta thinks that I love Gale, and I don't know what he is going to make of contrary information. If that's what's keeping this really nice, but still fragile, friendship going, then he can go on thinking that. This is the first time in two years I haven't felt that pressure to examine my romantic feelings while simultaneously keeping up the appearance that Peeta is more to me than is true (to the Capitol) or less to me than is true (to Gale - and to myself, I suppose). The last thing I need is that romantic stuff again. My head's too confused to deal with it - and I was never good at it in the first place. Anyway, what would it mean? The Capitol stripped away Peeta's love for me and it's lost, probably, in whatever inaccessible chasm so many of his memories fell down into. Would it mean a return of his memories? Or would it just be a reflexive reaction of us being together again - some body memory, in place of emotional ones? Would one or the other be more genuine? It would be hard to know, hard to trust.

Besides, I remind myself again, I don't need that. I'm broken down, burned up, scarred both physically and mentally. What possible allure would I hold now even for the old Peeta? He’s probably grateful to be out of it himself. And I don't need that anymore. This is good. Today is good enough. But tomorrow might not be - and if the will to survive fades, I want to take no one down that road with me.  Nor does love feel right - feel fair, feel deserved.  My solitary confinement in a life from which so much has been stripped away - that feels earned.

Eventually, I pull myself out of my thoughts and concentrate on the hunting. I get not only squirrels, but a startled rabbit and a stray turkey - a feast, caught in two hours. Still, I find myself looking forward to checking on Peeta - seeing his progress, making sure he's OK. I'm looking forward to getting to the train station this afternoon, to pick up my paper for the memory book. I close my eyes and I can see the drawing of Peeta's father, and remember the smell of the cookies he gave me, the morning of the Reaping.

I finally admit that my mind isn't on hunting, and I've done well, anyway, so I return to the clearing, making sure to make a lot of noise to alert him to my return. I don't see him at first and my heart leaps up into my throat - but he's just lying down in the sun, eyes half closed, chewing on a piece of grass. The knife I gave him is stuck in the ground, not near enough to him. I shake my head. "Peeta!"

He doesn't move. "Hey, Katniss - I wasn't expecting you back so soon."

"I had a lot of luck this morning." I walk over to him and stare down at him. His face is calm and relaxed. He's surrounded by a number of plants - rosemary, anise and dill - but he hasn't just picked them, he's dug them out with their roots, and placed them carefully in little plastic bags, along with some water. So - he's decided to take on the gardening thing himself.

"Me, too," he says.

"You're not exactly in a defensible position."

"I know, I know - you could kill me at any time," he says, smiling. "I just wanted to feel the sun on my face, without having to worry about anything - mutts, or Gamemakers, or you, or bears or anything. Even if I'm fooling myself that there's nothing to worry about. It's so beautiful out here. I never knew."

Something turns in me - I understand immediately what he's telling me and I realize he's grasping for a feeling he's never known before - a moment of pure and simple freedom. I feel a sudden, urgent impulse rise up in me - a need to protect this precious thing he has found, even though I worry that he's not taking care of himself.

"Why not?" I say, quietly.

"Really?" He looks up at me as if doubting my capitulation.

I sit down on the grass next to him and push my game bag off of my shoulders. "Yeah."

He still looks puzzled, like he's trying to figure this out, and I'm afraid that I've destroyed his little moment of peace, but he suddenly yawns and grins. "I'm so tired. I could sleep out here."

"That I can't let you do. If you have nightmares out here -."

He sits up and stretches. "True. Tell me what you got." I describe my kill for him, and he practically salivates over the turkey. "I haven't had wild turkey in ages. Do you think I can have it? I'll cook it for us - and I can put together some kind of dressing."

"Sure."

"I should be concentrating on the bread - people keep asking me about it. I suppose I'm the bakery, now. I'm not sure my kitchen can handle the load of feeding two hundred people, but I guess I'll have to try it."

"Don't overexert yourself."

"Keeping busy is good for me."

Peeta carefully gathers up his herbs and puts them in the paper bag he has brought with him. It's midmorning now, and my stomach is growling, so I don't dawdle as I walk him back into the trees, and then to the district. We go to his place, first - on hunting mornings, Sae will usually deliver breakfast to his house - and we do find a plate of cold drop biscuits and some canned oranges. I deposit the squirrels and the turkey in his icebox, then, while Peeta takes his pills, I wander over into his living room, which unlike mine, is spotless. Except for a stack of long, thin boxes, in one corner over by his easel. I look at the top one, curiously, and am surprised to see the name "Gale" written on it.

"What's this?" I ask, more sharply than I intended.

He glances over. "Oh, yeah. Those are my paintings. Before the Quell, I decided to leave them to specific people, so I put them there for my dad to find and distribute - afterwards, you know?"

"You left paintings to Gale?" I ask.

"Yes, well, one I think - of you hunting if I remember correctly. I thought he might like it."

That's such a weird notion, I don't even know what to say, so I look over the stack and read the names on the different boxes. Mom and Dad. Haymitch. Some unfamiliar names - his friends at school, I guess. Delly. Katniss.

I swallow - I'm so, so curious to see which ones he left for me to have, but I've been intrusive enough as it is. "Why don't you unpack them?" But as soon as I say it, I know - so many of these were meant for people now dead or gone. These were his goodbyes - the ones he never got to say. "Never mind," I add hastily. I straighten up and stare at his blank easel. Well, not entirely blank. It looks like he started to paint something, but there's nothing but a smudge of red on the canvas. I'm instantly transported backward … blood smudged on rocks, splattered on marble. My hands are actually shaking. I probably need to get home and go to bed, myself. But I'm a little worried about what sleep will bring.

"Katniss? Aren't you going to eat?"

I shake my head, trying not to look like I'm rushing out. Though since I leave my game bag behind, I'm afraid I'm rather obvious.

-4-

Sure enough, next thing I know, I'm crouched in the basement, talking to myself out loud as I come out of a nightmare where I'm hunting and I accidentally shoot Peeta, Finnick, even Prim before I realize what I'm doing. The nightmare had taken a truly bizarre turn - I was trying to find a game bag large enough to carry everyone back to District 12 - when I woke up, my limbs frozen in a hunting stance, my throat dry, my heart pounding.

"Katniss."

"What?" I scream, looking around. I look up toward the stairs and someone is framed in the doorway - Haymitch.

"Dinner time," he shrugs, and walks away.

Abashed, I force myself up and walk stiffly up to the kitchen, where Greasy Sae is laying out a rabbit stew with fresh herbs and Haymitch is pouring himself a glass of white liquor.

"Where's Peeta?" I ask.

"Sleeping," says Haymitch. "Word around town is that you went sneaking off into the woods with him at the crack of dawn."

I frown at him. I guess I shouldn't mind - everyone thinks it happened before and so is happening now, right? But it's an unwelcome reminder that, even now, Peeta and I are not free of expectations. "His idea," I say, dismissively. "He wanted to know where to find the herbs, so I showed him and then went hunting."

"Great," says Haymitch. "Now I have to worry about both of you running around outside the district?"

"I don't think he intends to do it full time. Anyway, I made sure he was armed and we didn't go out too far. Peeta's an adult now, anyway," I add, though I'm not sure exactly when his birthday is, in all honesty. "I didn't care much about the idea, but he gets to do what he wants."

Haymitch shakes his head. "That's a great, adult argument. Except to the one having to watch you."

"Me you have to watch. Why are you worried about Peeta? Just let him be." This is funny - like I'm having a debate with myself.

"You don't think I would if I could?" he asks me, sourly. "He's still damaged. You two - don't even know - how long it takes to pull yourself back together. It takes more than one or two lost days."

I don't reply - I'm too busy wolfing down stew. I wonder who's right - Haymitch or me? It usually is Haymitch; plus I really do, secretly, kind of, agree with him, although I don't want to. Peeta needs to be looked after; he just does. Except that - who am I to insist on it? Who is Haymitch? I suspect both of us are just being selfish, trying to guard Peeta from himself, so he doesn't slip out of our reach again. So I dig in.

"Part of what he's doing, to pull himself together, is insisting on taking care of himself. Maybe it's risky, but it's what he needs to do. Just because we want him close, doesn't mean it's the right thing - for him."

Haymitch answers me with a grunt. I can tell I haven't convinced him - I certainly haven't convinced myself. But, as I've already learned, you can be right and unreasonable at the same time.

After dinner, I sit out on my porch for a long time, kind of like an open invitation to Peeta to sense me out here, to wake up and come to see me. I'm worried - worried that he took the sleeping pills after all, and he's out drugged. Worried that he didn't take them and he's suffering - not able to sleep, or not able to hold off nightmares. He doesn't have this thing in place like I have - people coming morning and night to check up on me. As his friend, should I go to him? Or should I leave him alone?

I think about how annoyed I am to find people hovering over me, intruding on my space, and even my nightmares. I have to let him be. Anyway, the only way I can help him - the one way we used to ward off nightmares in the past, is forbidden, completely out of bounds. It's between him and Dr. Aurelius how he manages his sleep.

But I stay on my porch until way past dark, in case his dreams have him sleepwalking back to the bakery.

Just as I'm about to go back in my house and try to get some sleep myself, Thom walks by, awkwardly carrying some crates. Seeing me, he comes over and sets them down at the bottom of the porch steps, and then clutches his side. "What's this?"

"These were left for you at the train station - well, you and Peeta. Can I leave these here? They're kind of heavy."

"Of course - oh, Thom, I'm sorry! I forgot about the train! Thank you so much."

I go through the stack of boxes and quickly enough find my paper, prepunched with holes. Dr. Aurelius has also included a box of pens and a leather-bound book to put the pages in. Peeta's boxes look like they contain the food he wanted - I definitely see a flat of eggs. They'll keep in the cool night air, so I leave them on my porch.

I take my stuff inside and eagerly lay it out on my table. I've been thinking about this for days, reminding myself of everything I know about Peeta's father. How his father ran the bakery, and his father before him. How he fell in love with my mother, wanted to marry her, but she ran off with a miner from the Seam. I wonder how he felt about the revelations from the first Games - that his own son had fallen for his first love's daughter. Forget that - what had Peeta's mother made of it? Or mine. I never asked her. There were all kinds of things I avoided thinking about - let alone talking about - after the first Games.

It's earlier in the day where she is in District 4, so I just call her, and ask. I explain about the book and how we're starting on Peeta's father, and I just ask. Had she known? Had they dated? Or was Peeta's father as close-mouthed about his infatuation as his son? Did she know him as a little boy?

Then she asks me questions - among them, how Peeta himself is doing. Ignoring the several possible implications, I just recap my debate with Haymitch about Peeta’s ventures outside the fence.

“Well,” she says. “You’re right, I think.  All of us have to find a way to live in this new reality.  It’s live with it or be buried by it.  For most of us - that requires some … reinvention.”

After I get off the phone, I sit down and write about the man who promised to look after Prim when I left for the Games.  In a pause between lines, I tell myself that that is a legitimate reason for my concern for his son - some reciprocal debt owed.  A fiction I’m aware of the moment of its invention.  Invention … reinvention … It's no use pretending that the baker’s son ever truly came back from the Capitol; and I suppose I'm the last one with any right to mourn him. Except that - horrifically - I’m about the last one around to do it.

This is why - this is why - I have to let him be, let him go out into the woods on his own, deal with his nightmares on his own. If he doesn't ask help from me, I can't force it on him. It's a different kind of survival from the one that forced me out to the woods on my own. He's not hungry for food, he's hungry to find himself. And I might not be part of it. And that has to be OK.

-5-

The next few days truly are lost ones. My resolution - right and reasonable as it seems to be - depresses rather than uplifts me. The next day, Peeta works his shift in town and takes breakfast, lunch and dinner with the workers from the Seam. I go down to see him and talk to him a little and he seems no worse for wear; in fact, his cheerfulness - his happiness being around the other workers and laboring in the sun - grates on me. Then that makes me feel even worse.

The day after that, it's another hunting day and I walk far out again, past the lake - I don't run into bears this time, but I find new patches of berries and something that looks like wild lettuce, which I try to carefully dig up, preserving the roots. It's almost evening before I'm home and when I stop at Peeta's he's out, but I see he's been potting the herbs he picked up the other day. I take my lettuce home and try the same, but it already looks wilty and I just hope I can get it to him before it dies off entirely.

He comes over for dinner, bringing the wild turkey, and it's so good - and there are so many leftovers. He says he's going to take them home and make turkey pasties - a variation on an old miners' meal - for the workers. I'm so tired, I'm almost dropping off in my dinner plate, but I remember to give him the lettuce before he leaves.

"Also - I've started on the book," I tell him.

"Good. We'll work on it tomorrow?"

I have to wait for tomorrow afternoon, because in the morning is the first district planning meeting. Peeta finally comes at lunch, and he's in a cheerful mood, again. "I brought you something!" he says, and hands me a pastry wrapped in paper - it's the pasty, a meat-filled pie with a thick crust, sturdy enough to be taken down the mines.

I'm in a very different mood today, but the smell of the pasty overwhelms me, and as soon as I taste it, I devour it. When I look up at him, he has a bemused expression. "Do you know what I like?" he asks.

"What?"

"Feeding you. You're so - appreciative. And I think it reminds me - somewhat - of the train. That's the first thing we did together, I guess - eat on the train?"

"Eating is putting it mildly."

He squints - this is a new look. It's like he's trying to see a memory from a considerable distance. "I don't even remember the food as much as I remember - the sensation of not wanting to ever stop eating. And of you - eating." He smiles at me, but then he frowns. "What's wrong with you?"

I start. "What do you mean?"

He brushes my hair out of my eyes. "You look - sad."

The touch of his fingers has a curious effect on me. I feel myself stiffen, first - then relax. "I'm just having a couple of days," I say into the space between us after he withdraws his hand.

"What do you mean?"

I sigh. "Nothing - I just - nothing. I can’t explain it. It’s what Haymitch calls ‘lost days.’ Or, at least what I think he means. I’m just - nothing.”

His eyes travel from me to the living room. "You're sleeping downstairs again."

I blink. I had no idea he had taken note of the fact that I had been sleeping in my bed in the first place; and he's right, I've moved my blankets back downstairs. I shrug.

"Have you been sleeping OK? Have you talked to Dr. Aurelius?"

"Yes - no, not yet. I will. Peeta, I just want to do this, OK?" I push the papers toward him - his sketch, and my writing.

He looks down at it for a second, and then he looks at me. "Oh, Katniss - I'm so sorry. I should have made time for this."

"What do you mean?"

He shakes his head. "You put so much work into this. I'm sorry - I've been putting it off."

"I'm fine - it's not a big deal," I argue weakly.

"No, it's important," he says.

I shrug unhappily, and watch him anxiously as he reads what I have written.

"Katniss, this is - how did you get all this?"

"I called my mother."

"This is amazing! And - it's so beautifully written, too, I can hardly think of anything to add to it. Let me think, though - something personal…. He was a wrestler, too," he adds, finally. "And, when he was a kid, he wrote poetry. One time, one of my brothers found a whole stack of poems at the bottom of a box. And they weren't like soppy love poems to your mom - or my mom - I know that's what you're thinking." He grins. "Well, there were some of those. He wrote these little wispy poems about spring and fall. And he wrote these sad - but very vague, almost coded - ones about - the Reapings and bad things that had happened under the old Head Peacekeeper, before Cray."

"Really?" I say, my eyes widening. It's hard to imagine the mild-mannered baker writing down what would have been considered seditious ideas.

"My dad had a rebellious streak to him - we were always told not to believe the textbook version of the Dark Days stuff, for one thing. When he talked like that - that set my mother off, so it didn't come up that often. And sometimes - probably it's just that I had too much time to think about things in 13 - but lately I’ve wondered if District 12 had a rebellious underground once, like some of the other ones did. Maybe something happened before we were born to shut it down. Maybe - my dad knew; maybe Haymitch would know."

I frown. I have questions for Haymitch, too, on pretty much the same subject - but for way, way in the future, when I can ask him without any danger of shutting him off completely.

Peeta pulls out some of his color pencils and slowly, with much concentration, starts coloring in the picture that he drew. I write out Peeta’s additions, and at the bottom of the page I add: "In Memoriam. Died in the firebombing of District 12."

I get up and start folding up the mess of blankets I have left on my sofa, glancing occasionally at Peeta, who is bent down over the sketch, stone still except for the movement of his right hand. Then, for a long time, he is just very still.

"Peeta?" I get no response. I walk softly over to him and look at his face. His eyes are open, but staring at nothing. The only sign of movement is in his right hand, where the red pencil he is using is shaking, very slightly.

"Peeta?"

When there is still nothing, I automatically return to the tune - the Meadow Song - that seemed to bring some comfort to him in town. After a line or two, he gives a loud gasp, as if he has been holding his breath. The pencil drops out of his shaking hands, and when he looks up at me, at first I recoil, as there is no immediate recognition in his blue eyes.

"Katniss?"

"Are you all right?"

"What happened? What are we doing?" He looks down at his sketch. "Oh, yeah."

I give a nervous laugh. "Where were you? Where did you go?"

He shakes his head. "Back in time. For a second, I thought I was a little boy, learning to use the pipes - for frosting. You were there."

"What?"

"I saw your face in the window, looking at the display cakes. You looked - hungry."

"Odds are," I say lightly.

He pushes the paper over to me. "What do you think?"

I study the picture, wonderingly. He's made his father look like he is coming right off the page, and I can smell the cookies. "I think - you have a gift."

"Who do you want to do next?" he asks.

"Are you sure? Maybe it's too soon for this?"

"No," he says solidly. "It's like the nightmares - the quicker I get through it, the better it will get - I hope."

"You're the one with the inspiration. You choose whoever you want to draw next."

"OK, well - I think we should do your father next. It will take me a couple of days to think about what he looked like and how to draw him, but you will have a lot to write about and you can get a head start."

"There's so much, I'm not even sure where I would begin."

"What do you think about the most when you think about him?"

"Him dying in the mines."

"No," he shakes his head. "When you see him, what is he doing?"

"Nothing special - coming home at the end of the day, smiling at my mother. They had a secret language - just the way they looked at each other."

He nods. "You have a picture of him, right?"

"Yes." I hesitate. "Haymitch said - Haymitch said - in District 13 - that you had a memory of my dad, singing 'The Hanging Tree' - when you were really young. Can you use that?"

For a moment, Peeta is so still, I think he has gone back into his flashbacks; but after a little while, he smiles and his head bobs a little. "Yes, I do - I do remember that. Music, of course - that's how I remember your father."

"Peeta?"

"Yes?"

"Haymitch doesn't think we should be wandering around outside the district on our own. Just to warn you, in case he brings it up."

He frowns. "But -."

"But I told him that, while he might have to keep tabs on me, he should leave you be. He's not your father or your jailer. That goes for me, too. I've no right to dictate where you go or what you do - or how you do it."

"Thank you, Katniss."

"But that doesn't mean we're not going to worry. OK?"

"OK." A smile plays on his lips, as if he's thought of a private joke.

"What?"

"Nothing." He shakes his head.

"Tell me!"

"It's totally inappropriate, especially in this particular moment, but it's the thought of you two - you and Haymitch - playing mom and dad with me."

I sputter in protest. But now he's laughing, and it's a sound so rare and delicious, I can't help smiling in return.

Chapter Text

-1-

I spend two weeks trying to write about my father. As I suspected, there's so much to say that it's hard to know where to start or when to stop. On a particularly bad morning, I sit on my porch trying to write, but am paralyzed instead by the sight of the primroses - and everything in my head is his daughter, who I failed to protect. Sometimes I wonder if this project is doing me more harm than good - certainly, I'm still sleeping downstairs, a prey to the same old sleeplessness and bad dreams.

I attempt to regulate my sleeping so that if I do have one of my walking nightmares, and wake up in closets or the basement, it's in the middle of the night when nobody is looking for me. Dr. Aurelius says I should take the depression pills, but I won't do it. Why should I try to get rid of depression? In what universe is happiness the appropriate emotion for me?

Peeta appears to be regulating his life, as well, but in a more productive manner. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, he bakes. Dozens of loaves of white bread a week, doughnuts, drop biscuits. When he has the ingredients, he makes cheese buns. When he knows about birthdays, he makes large sheet cakes, with a simple sugar frosting, and cuts it in squares for as many people as possible. No one is earning any money, but people help him out by donating some of their food rations to him - flour, eggs, butter and sugar. Someone helps him plant and tend his herbs. On Friday, he works his shift in town, breaking and hauling the remains of old stone buildings into great piles on the west side of town. One day, he shows me the different types of stacks - the gray gravel and dust that will be used to make concrete. The medium-sized chunks of rock that will be turned into cobblestone roads. The large chunks of stone that can be used as building blocks for new buildings. He has persuaded the planning council to set aside a handful of particularly intact large rocks to use as future memorial stones for the people we have lost.

On Saturday, he attends the district planning meetings. True to my expectations, he is a valuable member of this group. He draws maps upon maps, for one thing. I don’t know if they are asking it of him, or if it is by his own impulse, but he draws out so many different alternative versions of District 12 that I don’t know how anyone is going to make a decision on the new layout of the town and the neighborhoods. I demur when he asks me for my input on all these different designs for neighborhoods built around common greens, open markets, libraries, community gardens and grazing areas. It’s not that I’m not interested; it’s just that I still don’t feel like there is any reason for me to have any say on the rebirth of a district when the dust of it is still fresh on my hands.

But it is fascinating to watch his mind at work. And I hear - from Thom, from Leevy, even from Haymitch (who has his ear to the ground, apparently, despite his near total withdrawal into his new project of building a still in his basement) - that Peeta has very strong opinions about certain parts of the planning, particularly housing. His neighborhoods cluster together in squares, instead of stretching out in lines. No Seam. No separation of neighborhoods. In fact, his first battles on the council are with the people who want to start building houses along the Seam - quick wooden shacks to replace the tents. He wants to build houses like the ones in Victor's Village - maybe not as large, but better and sturdier - which he knows will take longer, but in the end will be better than allowing a shanty town to grow up in the district. This is a battle he has no chance of winning, until the council gets Paylor to agree to send us temporary houses from the Capitol.

These arrive on giant flat cars from the train station, and have to be hauled from there by enormous trucks. They occupy the cleared-out area behind the train station. We've never seen anything like these. They are long, narrow houses that have two bedrooms, living areas and small kitchens. Once they are connected to the plumbing and septic systems, they will also have running water and functional bathrooms. Their roofs are made of some kind of dark panel that converts sunlight into electricity to power the built-in television sets, ovens and refrigerators - their occupants will have nearly constant power, unlike the rest of us. They look haphazard and not exactly attractive in their makeshift neighborhood, but the beauty of them, Peeta explains, is that as we gradually transition to permanent housing, they can be reused as community buildings - classrooms, government offices - and then eventually sent back to the Capitol altogether. But that's a long time from now. Peeta estimates we'll need to build fifty houses just to accommodate the current population of the district, which is only half of the anticipated eventual returnees. Then there is the future population to account for.

The night after the first set of temp houses are installed and the first occupants, chosen by lottery, move in, an impromptu festival is held. I contribute a buck and three turkeys, which, at a stretch, feed everyone, roasted at a large fire pit dug into what used to be the town square. Peeta, of course, supplements with bread, and everyone brings food from their rations. A representative from Paylor's administration attends to present a proposal that a factory be placed in District 12, some industry to replace the coal mines that they have decided not to reopen. Coal had been the primary energy source for the districts, but now we will be on the hydroelectric grid, the same as the Capitol, and we will all be able to receive allotments of firewood from 7 and wood stoves and, eventually, electric heat and air conditioning. There is much excitement over this, but I can’t really drum up any myself. If it were up to me, 12 would remain clear of any Capitol footprint.

After we eat, Peeta and I walk home to the Village together, Peeta humming to himself. He smells - I guess we both smell - pleasantly of wood smoke and cooked meat. Tomorrow is Friday, which means I won't see much of him, so I try to just soak in his happy presence for as long as possible.

As we approach my house, he says, "Are you tired?"

"No - not really. Why?"

"I have a sudden desire to work on our book," he says. "I was just thinking about your father - how proud he would be that you are taking care of us all with the skills he taught you."

"Oh. Well - sure."

We go inside my house and light the oil lamps, bring out our papers - his sketches, my scratched-out essay. He's still humming and I realize it's an old song called "Rocky Top" - a strange song whose lyrics have always been as confusing to me as its tune is addictive, but definitely upbeat. He usually works with the one photograph I have of my father, but this time, he sets right to work without it, and his hands fly over a completely blank piece of paper. I have barely enough time to cross out an unsatisfying line on my paper, when he says, "What do you think?"

It's a rough sketch, but once I see it, I know - this is the one. He has captured my father in a laugh. His eyes crinkle in his beaming face as he stands in some rough doorway or other. He looks - alive.

Before I can help myself, I clasp Peeta's arm, my breath taken away. It feels wrong - rough and contoured - and then I remember and look down. I've become used to looking at the scars, but I've never actually touched them. It feels worse than intimate - it feels like an intrusion. But I can’t let go right away. "Yes," I mutter, finally letting go. "That's it - that’s exactly him."

He looks down at my hands but, taking his cue from me, just says, "Good! It's interesting that I had to be in a happy mood to draw him."

I blink at his words. It's not unusual for him to say things like this, now - as if he's observing himself clinically, from a distance, fascinated by his own inner workings, figuring out truths about himself he had forgotten - or even ones that are new. It's humbling to stand next to this process, but also a trifle discouraging - it feels like he has outshot me by miles. He was tortured. Brainwashed. And yet, I’m the one who can’t move on.

We meet each other's eyes, and then we both smile, a little nervously - the silence has been going on a bit too long. I wonder what truths he knows about me. I'm probably too unreadable a mess, even for his considerable powers.

Finally, he says, "Do you want to read me what you have? Maybe I can help you sort it out."

"No, not yet. Let me try one more time, with this picture. I think I'm getting a better idea of how it could go."

He leans back in his chair - he's still looking at me gently. I don't feel like he's trying to figure me out - I can usually tell those looks - just letting himself relax and enjoy my company.

All of a sudden, the power comes on and we both jump, as my lights and the television in the living room flare abruptly up. "I wish they'd get that fixed," I say grumpily. I get up and go to turn off the TV - it's always on some entertainment programming with Plutarch's signature style of dramatically dressed people and pounding music and colorful sets.

Peeta gives a long sigh. "I guess I should go," he says. "I've got a long day tomorrow."

"Yes," I agree, and don't say it, but when he has long days, so do I.

-2-

Sure enough, when Haymitch stops by the next day, I have been staring at the picture of my father for what feels like days - and it’s only ten in the morning.

Haymitch makes himself some coffee and then joins me in the living room. A cursory look at the project – a pile of both Peeta’s drafts and mine - prompts his questions, which I’m reticent to answer, as I feel like I can predict his reaction.

“Oh, Aurelius approved it?” he says sarcastically, confirming my prediction. “That makes it healthy and not morbid, at all.”

I hesitate to press it with him – there are things in his past that I don’t care to stir. A tracker jacker nest of trauma if there ever was one, his history. Also, I would like to reserve the right to have Haymitch on my side verses Aurelius, if needed. Yet, I’m stuck.

“Well, it’s something to do,” I say, mildly. “It’s just – it can be hard, writing about things so close to the skin. Like – you knew my mother a little, didn’t you? You told me once that she was the one you all took the wounded people to, back in the days of the old Head Peacekeeper. So – did you also know anything about my father?”

Haymitch picks up one of Peeta’s sketches and stares at it as if he’s never seen a man before, or even a drawing of a man. “Burdock Everdeen?”

“Yes. I mean, I think Peeta did do a good job of making it look like him, so if you don’t recognize ….”

Haymitch shakes his head. “Oh, no, it’s like enough. I mostly remember him younger, that’s all. We were in school together – obviously. We all knew each other. Yeah. I … it’s painful. We were estranged later on.”

“What do you mean ‘estranged?’”

Haymitch gives a short, dark laugh. “Never thought I’d have to tell you this. First, it was pointless – you were going to be another dead tribute – another child of an old friend of mine that I would shepherd to death, latest of a long line of ‘em. Then – it was too dangerous. It was always too dangerous. Snow hated me enough – but then he hated you even more. The connections between you and me were already too dangerous. Acknowledging them – apocalyptic.”

“You were friends with my father?” I ask him, a shiver moving down my spine. “In school?” I search my history with Haymitch to try to find the truth of this, and I only find anger. Where was Haymitch when his old “friend’s” widow and children were starving to death?

Haymitch senses my thought and his expression goes quickly from bemused to sad. “Like I said, we were estranged, after my Games. He never forgave me the estrangement. But he did do one thing for me. It was the last time he ever spoke to me, apart from the occasional nicety. I met him in the woods one day, shortly after my Games. I was looking – I was looking for a grave.”

“Whose?”

“This is such a long and difficult thing to explain,” Haymitch says, breaking back toward irritability. “There is so much about District Twelve that you don’t know the first thing about. You – so precocious going outside the fence! Like there weren’t dozens of us that did it, back in the day. There’s an old graveyard out there – past the woods, past the lake. Secret. Not many knew of it. Your dad found me looking for it and showed me the way. There was great pity in him. And more knowledge than anyone I ever knew. He was one of the last here to hold on to the old ways of this place – before the war, before the Capitol closed it up. He knew what we all used to know: how to survive, how to live free, even in captivity. If you’re looking for something to say about him, say that. Look at his face – even Peeta remembers it – you can see the old ways in his face.”

Haymitch sees himself out with that outburst, and I can’t tell what I feel about him in that moment – angry, frustrated or incredibly sorry. But what I do feel is a connection to my father that is both strange to me – and mesmerizingly familiar. I finish the entry for him less than an hour after Haymitch’s visit.

On Sunday morning, Peeta wakes me up early and, finding me lying on the couch, in the clothes I wore at dinner the night before, drags me out of the house. He has a paper sack with him and his knife.

As we approach the fence I protest - I never go out there without my bow - but he is insistent. We won't go far. We don't even go all the way to the woods, just follow the fence line until we're out of sight of the Meadow and the Seam. He finds an old log and makes me sit on it, then he sticks his knife in the ground - it almost pains me, how careless he is of the blade - and, sitting on the wet ground, dives into his bag and hauls out cheese buns, bottles of milk and fresh fruit - a bunch of grapes, two oranges and a handful of cherries.

"Where did you get these?" I gasp.

"Train, yesterday. I requested more but I couldn't get more than my ration, so I just have enough to split with you."

"Oh, it is so good to eat fruit that doesn't taste like tin," I say, grabbing at the cherries.

"How'd you sleep last night?" he asks - this is practically a ritual for us now.

"So-so. You?"

"Horrible! I woke up at my kitchen sink, standing there with the water running. I have no idea why, I don't even remember what I was dreaming about. Then I fell asleep on my couch and woke up a couple of hours later in my upstairs bathroom. Also at the sink. I don't know what it means, but it was very unsettling."

I swallow. "I dreamed about District 13. I think it was like when I was first there - did you know? I had a massive concussion, so when they discharged me, I just kept wandering around, hiding in closets and stuff. But in my dream, I was in the hospital and decided to climb into a vent in the wall, but when I got in there, it looked like the sewers under the Capitol - and I was totally wedged in there, not able to get out, and listening to rats and dripping water and - things."

He shudders. "Don't you wish you could - turn off your brain somehow, at night?"

"I'd give anything for a really nice dream," I reply, with a sigh.

"Some day," he says. "So anyway - about the book. I don't know how you feel about this, but I think the next one we do - has to be Prim."

I nod. "I think I've been writing it in my head for weeks."

"Me, too - well, drawing, I mean. I have this incredibly sharp image - of her pet goat, licking her face. Like - I can see it, even though I never saw it. I could draw it right now."

I swallow multiple questions. The last time the subject of Prim’s goat came up, it was Haymitch relating an anecdote to me about the attempt to cure Peeta by a sort of reverse hijacking in District 13. This story didn’t end in my favor, exactly. I mean, Haymitch’s insinuation was that Peeta still thought of me as a mutt, despite remembering some element of our time together in the arena. So, I had thought of that project as not really working. I wonder what did work, in the end? But maybe even Peeta isn’t aware.

After a while, he leans back on his elbows and looks up at me with a tentative expression. "Can I tell you something - about Prim?"

My breath catches; I'm fairly sure I'm not ready for this, but it's hard to admit. I stare at the ground. "I - guess."

"When I was in 13, I was pretty isolated. The head doctor and some orderlies. Haymitch - when I could tolerate him, and vice versa, I guess. Delly, not that often - until later. The first time Prim came to see me …."

He pauses and when I look up at him I'm horrified to see tears in his eyes. "Prim was my rock in that place, and I'm not exaggerating, Katniss."

I gasp with the sob that takes me unaware.

He looks up at me quickly. "I'm sorry. You're not ready."

"Tell me," I rasp.

"She wouldn't let me say anything - bad about you - but she didn't make me feel like she was angry at me when I did. She made me feel like she understood me. Always. She was - my advocate - like nobody else in that place was." He wipes his eyes, but I don't bother to wipe mine. I can tell I will be crying for a long time. "She was really against my being sent to the Capitol - I don't know how or why she ended going herself, but if I'd been back there, I would never have let it happen. I wish …." He shakes his head. "I told her some of this, before I left 13. But I wish ….”

"Don't," I say, raising my arms up as if to ward off a blow. I've reached the limit of what I can take.

"I'm sorry," he says again.

I duck my head into my folded arms and cry into them. Peeta doesn't say anything, or touch me. Everything inside me and outside me is empty, void - a heartless vacuum. Eventually, when I raise my eyes again, I see he's looking away, toward the woods. But he turns to look at me when he feels my gaze on him. His eyes are still wet with unshed tears. "Don't be sorry. I - I wanted to hear it. I needed to hear it. I've been so alone."

"You're not alone, Katniss. It's OK. It will get better, I promise."

I look up at the sun, which is still pretty low, just barely released from the top of the trees. "It might, but - Peeta - maybe not. I’m not saying this to be maudlin. This might be who I am now, forever - up and down, up and down."

"Well - I hope not, but that's OK. I mean, it's not bothering me. It worries me - but it doesn't bother me. Maybe, don't you think, when more people come back to 12 - it will - help?"

I lower my eyes. If we're being all truthful with each other, why doesn't he just say it? He's talking about Gale again, even more explicitly than before. And if I'm being honest, why don't I just tell him? Instead, I pretend to misunderstand him. "I don't think that has anything to do with it. Victor's Village is so full of people, I feel crowded enough as it is. It's not on the outside, it's on the inside. It's like I'm waiting - for something to do. No - no, it’s not. It’s like I’m waiting for nothing."

He nods. "I think I understand."

"Could you explain it to me, then?"

"No. You know I can’t. Your feeling is as unique to you as mine is to me. One day, you will be able to explain it to yourself. Even if you don’t care for the explanation. The only thing that I can tell you for sure is that you need more time to rest and to grieve. Panem already asked too much of you - don't ask too much of yourself."

“What do you need?”

He sighs. “Hmm. How do I say this? I need to begin to grieve. I - I … when I found out that my family had died, I was, you know, not quite myself. And later on, when the realization hit me, I was too drugged to really feel it. I want to feel it - but also, I desperately don’t want to feel it. I’m afraid of that grief, of it finally coming out. I’m afraid of that pain like no pain I’ve ever been afraid of in my life. And yet, I’m so ashamed of not feeling it. I don’t think I can move on from this state of nothingness without it. And sometimes - I don’t care.”

I put my head down on my lap so he can't see the tears start leaking out again. “I’m so sorry,” I find myself saying. “I thought you were doing better. At least - better than me.”

“I’m not sure that my ‘better' is actually better than your bad. If that makes sense.”

And then I actually begin to sob again. After a moment, I feel - I sense - him moving toward me, and he pulls me down to him and wraps his arms around me. He seems much stronger than he did the last time I felt his arms. It must be these last few weeks of shifting rocks. Without even thinking about it, I press my head against his chest, until I can feel his heartbeat. A warm and comforting sensation. Long lost to me. The familiar feeling lets other thoughts in - old thoughts; old questions. What would I have done without him? All this time - from the burned bread, to this moment. What would I be if he had been killed, if his torture had not been reversible? Because whoever I am, whatever I'm waiting for… I pull up, don't even let myself complete the thought, and I squirm my way out of his arms, panic clutching my chest.

"Sorry," I say, wiping my eyes, as if I'm apologizing for my tears and not for my rejection of his comfort.

"No," he says, "I should have asked - like you did."

I shake my head. "You don't have to ask."

-3-

That week, we work on a page for Prim, and when that is done, instead of feeling worse - which is what I have been dreading - I feel a bit lighter.

That's the week that the electricity starts flickering on with increasing regularity - sometimes for 30 or 60 minutes at a time - and the hum of the television when it turns on makes us somewhat jumpy with memories of mandatory broadcasts of the past. Once we get used to it, though, we watch with increasing curiosity, especially when we see some news piece from the districts. They are disarmingly upbeat about the fortitude of the people in all the districts who are rebuilding and helping each other out, etc. We see glimpses of new building in 8, the new seeding in 11. There's a still shot of the temp houses being sent off to District 12. This is the first moment I realize that, one day, cameras will be back in 12 - something to dread. But hopefully they'll put off that time until there is somewhere a camera crew could actually stay, which will be never, at the rate things are progressing.

Through natural association, after Prim we work on a page for Rue. We talk for some time about our first Games, about the Training Center, which is where he saw Rue the most. As is typical, some memories of him and me together - and we were stuck like glue during that time - have to be jogged out of him. We reminisce about my sarcasm at the camouflage station, his lesson about District breads. After he's happy with his sketch, he does something different, bringing over oil paints that are similar to the paints he used in the training center. Since he is working with small brushes, he has to take small, deliberate, careful strokes. I watch him for a while, then the paint smell - the memory of Rue - starts making me feel anxious, and a familiar shaking starts in my hands.

"I'm going to lie down for a little while," I say thinly. He's so absorbed in his work, he barely nods. I go over to the sofa and dig down into my nest of blankets. I close my eyes and try to find something peaceful, remote from Rue, to concentrate on, but images are flashing, swirling through my mind … they resolve themselves into a dream; at first, surprisingly, a pleasant one - I'm a bird, pushing off of the ground - my eyes are on the trees, whose leaves look like watercolor smudges. It's taking me a long time to get up over the treetops, but I can feel I am in flight, making progress, when I'm suddenly ripped out of the air, trapped in netting, thrashing around, falling ….

I wake, thrashing around in my blankets, crying out in a throttled sort of voice. Peeta is hurrying over to me - "Katniss? Katniss?" - and the room resolves around me.

"I'm OK," I choke, looking up at him.

"Sorry, I went so late," he says. "Let's get you up to bed - your real bed."

Before I can protest, he's lifted me up in his arms and is walking me upstairs. Like I'm a child, he sets me gently down on my bed, wrestles aside the sheets and blankets, and covers me up. I haven't stopped shaking, but look up at him, feeling hopeless and pathetic. He swallows, and, without a word, climbs into the bed, and wraps his arms around me.

For a split second, I feel that panic again, and I tense, but then something strange happens. My body relaxes, thoroughly and completely, practically melting away. I touch his scarred arm, put my fingers around it and let the callused pads of my fingertips gently rest on his scars. I feel his breath - in and out - and relax into its rhythm, as if it is my own breath. "Thank you," I whisper. "Thank you."

And just like that, I'm asleep.

When I wake in the morning, I feel like I have been asleep for years. For a moment, I wonder what I'm doing upstairs, then I remember, and turn around. I'm alone in the bed.

Downstairs, Sae is making breakfast. The paints from last night have been cleaned away, and there is no sign of Peeta except for the neat stack of our pages, with his brightly-colored painting of Rue set on top.

The door opens and Haymitch comes in - one of his rare breakfasts here. He and Sae chat amiably - he's in so good a mood, in my agitated state it feels like a bad portent. But I keep up with their chatter, join in once in a while, hiding my distress. Wishing I could worm around inside myself and figure out why I'm so distressed in the first place.

Both of them seem inclined to linger, taking their time over the dishes and clean-up, while I resist the temptation to pace. Finally, they are saying goodbye, and I am telling myself not to panic - he probably stayed up late taking care of me, and went home to sleep - not to panic - I'll just go over to his house and check in on him … when he comes in. Then I remember what day it is and that there was a district planning meeting today. If anything, he's earlier than usual.

He's carrying some mail and looks distracted. I find myself holding back the urge to greet him with a hug; I just pull out some leftovers for breakfast and sit him down, perching on a chair opposite him to watch him eat.

Finally, I say, "I slept so well last night."

He looks up. "I thought you did - you looked so peaceful this morning. I did too - no nightmares."

"No nightmares," I agree.

"That's why we did it before - real?"

I hesitate on the precipice of what could be a very loaded conversation, considering the last time the subject came up between us. "You mean - slept together on the train? Yes, real. It was the only way I could sleep, on the Victory Tour." That hangs in the air between us for a while, then I say - "What's wrong? Did something happen at the meeting?"

"No, I had a letter come in - from Delly. I might be reading between the lines too closely, but she is hinting that life in 13 isn't so great, anymore. She was a little too close to us, I guess. And - we're - not very popular there right now."

By which he means me. I feel a rush of sympathy for Delly. It really must be bad at 13, if she has complaints. "Can she come home?"

He hesitates. "If she wants to live in a tent. We can't let anyone jump ahead in line for a house. She wants to stay in 13 for a couple more months, anyway - for her brother's sake. She seems to have big ambitions for him and he’s doing some coursework there. But I think she'd like to be back after that. Maybe I can persuade the planning council to let them temporarily move in with me. It's crazy - you and I have six empty bedrooms between us. But I know that - even the thought of inviting Delly and Drew to stay with me - makes me nervous."

He doesn't have to explain it - he's thinking of himself waking up in front of sinks, the sudden onset of flashbacks.

I let him sit in silence for a while, staring out into space while I clean up after breakfast. Eventually, he pulls out our box of papers and the pencils and paints. "Who's next?" he asks me. But he is already sketching as he says it, almost absently.

I sit opposite him and watch his hands. Their new scarred appearance has become so familiar to me. The girl in the sketch is not. "Who's that?"

"Lily Bell. She was Delly's best friend - and one of mine." He puts the paper aside and grabs another one. "I'll finish it later."

He starts a second sketch, and I get a glass of water. There's something … off about him. And I'm not sure what to do. When I go back to the table, I see he's drawn a picture of Portia, who was his stylist in the Capitol. She's grinning, holding a sketchbook to her chest in both arms. Her partner, Cinna, was my stylist, and I was close to him - and I know he was a genius. But I realize that Peeta's relationship with Portia might have been closer, in a way. They must have had a lot more in common.

This sketch, too, gets pushed away, mostly finished but not quite complete. "Cinna, next?" he asks.

"Peeta - we can do - whatever."

He stands up, suddenly, pushing back his chair. "Can we go - outside?"

I follow him - his stride quicker than normal as he walks out of the village - through town - and then turns toward the Seam. We go through it - the pockmarked dirt roads with the big, white tents on either side. The house I grew up in has long been torn down, and I no longer look for it. We walk through the Seam, to the old mine entrance - the twisted remnants of the steel building between the slag heaps, the coal-black hills of used earth from the mines. Generations tall, cold and silent now. In the limited range of opportunities for kids to be kids in District 12 - this was one of our landmarks, especially for the townies whose parents did not work in the mines. It was also one of the places the older kids went to make out with each other. I wonder uneasily what is going through his mind - what memories are chasing him here, of all places.

But we don't stop here, either. Once again, Peeta makes for the fence - and I curse myself for not bringing a knife. There's a small gap here that I wasn't aware of, but he seems to know exactly where it is. He pushes through, cursing a little as his prosthetic foot gets tangled in the chain link. I follow after him and then wait, eyebrows raised, for what is next.

He sits down in the grass. Then his breath starts coming out, ragged and loud, as if he's been holding it all this time.

"What's wrong?" I finally say.

"She's dead. Because of me. Because - they left her behind."

I put a hand on his shoulder, but he stiffens.

"Like me. Like they left me. And when they finally came for me - after weeks, Katniss. After there was almost nothing left of me to come back for. And - they left her behind, and they killed her."

"Peeta, I -." My heart sinks. I've been dreading hearing this.

He looks up at me, frowning. "I'm not blaming you. Maybe I don't know - what they tried to do for her. But they were so reckless with our lives. Not just hers - not just mine. Yours, too. If 13 was ready to combat the Capitol, why even let them throw us in the Quell? Why leave Portia behind - after they killed Cinna, they must have known she was in danger."

Peeta's pronouns are confusing - I have to keep track of what he means by "they" - the rebellion or the Capitol. In the end, maybe there isn't much difference. "Peeta - if we go down that road … Try to answer questions that we can't …. I'm so sorry, Peeta. It wasn't my choice - who they decided to keep safe. If I could change anything …."

"I know why they chose you. And it isn't that, exactly. It's … It will pass. I guess - I feel like we've left Delly behind. I'm worried about her and I don't have it in me - I don't have enough energy for it, anymore - to care, to fight. I want peace. That’s what I need: peace."

"It's just a couple of months," I say. I don't understand. I'm trying to, but I really don't. Is this about Portia or Delly - or even his dead friend, Lily?

"Yeah. Yeah. I don't know - what's wrong with me. Something for Dr. Aurelius to figure out, I guess," he says.

I finally sit down next to him, silently, trying not to feel like we've slid backward today. Trying not to feel selfish - that I rely on his strength, and I don't know how to talk to him about it like he knows how to talk to me. Forget that - I know I'm selfish. I lean against him and put my arms around his right arm.

After a pause, he puts his head down on mine. "I have one of her sketchbooks - Portia's," he says, suddenly. "Really?" "Yes, her family let me have it, when they cleared out her apartment. She had let me draw in it, once."

"You know what I have?" I say, suddenly remembering. "I have all your old sketchbooks, don't I?"

"You do? Why?"

"You left them at my house," I explain, "when my heel was broken. We were using some of the pages to write notes."

Now he lifts his head and looks at me. "You're making that up."

"No," I laugh. "That's how we talked about the uprisings in 8 without - talking."

"Can I see them?"

"Of course, you can have them back - but I don't think there are any pages of our notes left. We destroyed them when we were done."

"Oh," he says, "that sounds familiar."

I sigh. "I'm glad. Sometimes - it makes me so sad, the things you have forgotten."

"Me, too," he says. "And I'm sorry - I wish …" He gives me a slight, slanted smile, and I'm suddenly aware of the proximity of our faces - my chin tilted up, his forehead leaning down. I find myself wondering - what it would feel like now, after everything. Most of them felt like nothing much, really - they were put on for cameras and crowds. Then there were those couple of other ones. And the thought makes me panic a little - acid actually starting to gather in my throat.

"Why don't we go look at them, see if they ring any bells?" I suggest hastily.

We walk back home, more slowly this time.

Peeta seems a little better - I feel a little anxious. I don't want to think about this. It might be comforting to know - from Peeta - that he, like me, isn't into it. That would settle it, I think - there would be no more suspense over if or when it will happen - I won't have to worry about how to avoid it, what to say if I can't. But I can't possibly bring that subject up.

-4-

Peeta pores over his old sketchbooks for hours. Every page has to be studied in detail. I become awed by the power and limitations of memory. Some drawings he remembers at once - others he has lost completely. I try to help him - I know we went through these books together. What I don't know for sure, I can sometimes guess. His younger cousins. Our 9th grade English teacher. He told me once that the first book was a present from his grandmother, who was the other artist in his family - the one who also taught him to frost cakes. This book goes back to when he was eight years old. Even then - his drawings were much better than I could hope to do today. It's surprising to me how long he has been drawing me. I must have known it before, but I hadn't really noticed it. Either I was too preoccupied, or I took it for granted that he would draw me - both of those things at once, probably. I'm an awful person to have a crush on, I think.

Every once in a while, he'll say - "I remember how that felt." It might be something generic as a squirrel - as the books go on, you can see him drawing animals and plants from numerous angles, as if he was making a study of them. He doesn't elaborate. I try not to interfere. I'm remembering a conversation in the Capitol - the very last night before the second Games, and we were on our own. That was the night Peeta told me about his grandmother. "So, that's the secret to becoming Peeta Mellark," I had said. It was a throwaway remark - a callback to something he had said to me once. But - what if - it was true? What if he could reconstruct a chunk of his past this way? If he remembered both what he drew and how he felt about it when he drew it? Because - that is the most troubling thing to me about his memories, since he came back hijacked - not just that he doesn't remember some things, but that even when he does, he doesn't always seem very attached to them.

Peeta remains oblivious to the passage of time until Sae and Haymitch arrive with dinner. Haymitch eyeballs Peeta's open sketchbook a moment before Peeta closes it with a smile. I tell Haymitch about Peeta's letter from Delly - maybe get his mind working on that problem. Peeta talks to Sae about the other business of the morning. The planning council has determined a spot for the District communal garden - in the field right adjacent to Victor's Village - and they are gathering requests for seeds to order from District 11. But requests are needed soon, as spring is running quickly away.

"... and we have another twenty temp houses coming by the end of June, we hope."

"When do we start building?"

Peeta shakes his head. "We requested some heavy equipment from the Capitol - but they are in the process of rebuilding on a huge scale and can't spare anything. Thom is going to go to 13 to see if they have what we need. Which for starters is some kind of way to crush the rocks and mix them into cement - to lay down the first foundations for houses."

After dinner, Peeta gets up to leave after the others, but I grab his arm. "Stay here tonight," I tell him.

"What?"

"Please - sleep in the downstairs bedroom. I'm worried about you."

He lowers his eyes and bites his upper lip thoughtfully.

"Please, Peeta. It's just your energy today - it's so - restless. If you have trouble sleeping, you can wake me, I'll talk to you - we'll work through it. You've done it for me. I just - would sleep easier if you were here tonight and not three houses down."

He meets my eyes. "You’re not wrong," he agrees with a sigh. He taps his forehead, frowning. "There’s - a lot going on in here right now."

When I go upstairs to my bedroom, I have every intention of going to sleep, I think. Buttercup, who usually spends his nights out on the Village Green, hunting mice, appears on my window ledge and I raise my eyebrows at him. He really likes Peeta, but he senses the extraneous body in our house, I guess.

We stare at each other for two hours.

Eventually, I give up, go downstairs, and make myself some tea, as quietly as I can. I grab some pieces of paper and try to write something about Portia - but I know so embarrassingly little - and then about Cinna - but my head is not into it. I make a list of vegetables, instead; things I might want to request for a garden. It's strange for me - it feels like an absurd luxury, food on demand - so Capitol in its audacity. What I should do - what I really should do - is get some fishing done at the lake. It's just so boring to do it alone; I wonder how Peeta would feel about going with me.

And so on. My mind can't rest. After about an hour of this, I finally hear the sound I've been more than half expecting - a sort of shuffling, moaning, anxious sound from the adjoining bedroom. I run to his room. He's thrashing about the bed, and nonsense words are coming out of his mouth. There's a pain in his voice that is probably just an echo of the horrible pain he is dreaming about.

I approach the bed, but carefully - wait until he is somewhat still before I climb in next to him. At my touch, he relaxes, and turns toward me. His eyes blink open, and when he sees me, he smiles. "Katniss," he mumbles. His breath tickles my nose.

"It's OK, now, I'm here."

He immediately relaxes back into sleep and I quickly follow him. . .

When my eyes open, I'm pressed against his chest, with my head in the crook of his arm.

I stir and that seems to rouse him also. His eyes pop open and he looks at me in surprise. "My fault," he says, suddenly remembering.

"I wouldn't say fault. I couldn't sleep anyway."

"This is an interesting predicament," he says.

"What do you mean?" He just looks at me, his mouth open on words I guess he can't quite say. And then I see the predicament. We can't exactly spend our lives like this, because eventually …. "Oh, I see what you mean," I say, trying to act cool about it, but I feel my cheeks get warm. "But we aren't going to solve it today. Let's just start the day - I have to get out to the woods."

Then I jump up and leave the room.

Once again - for the umpteenth time this spring - I find myself distracted from the actual hunt, and I wander around my clearings, picking flowers and roots and flowers. The wildflowers don't smell as good as their cultivated counterparts, but I pick for myself nice bunches of daisies, poppies and lupine. When I get to Peeta's house, the air is perfumed with the strong scent of baking bread. Peeta has the windows open so that the smell leeches out into the Village green.

"What did you get?" he asks, staring at my bunches of flowers.

"A couple of rabbits. And some roots. I kept getting distracted by how pretty it all is. This is strange to say, but it's harder for me to hunt now."

"That's not strange at all," he replies. He hands me a couple of jars for my flowers.

"What did you make today?"I ask, sniffing the air.

"I got some cheese in from the train yesterday," he replies with a wink.

"Ah!"

He smiles at me and I smile at him. "I'll bring them by for lunch," he says.

I carry my haul back down to my house. I skin the rabbits and throw them in a pot with the roots and some leftover rabbit grease, and let them stew. I experiment with placing the flowers on the table and on the kitchen windowsill. I've never really had an eye for this, and both bouquets end up looking somewhat ragged and haphazard to me, but the exercise is cheering. By the time Peeta comes over, I'm actually singing to myself.

While the stew finishes, and I eat cheese buns on the couch, the electricity pops on and we check out what's on TV. There's a short film on the rebuilding efforts in District 2 - something about a new peacekeeper academy - and suddenly we see Gale being interviewed as part of his job in the leadership of the academy.

Obviously, this takes us both aback, but Peeta looks genuinely stunned. "Gale's still in 2."

"Looks like it."

"I heard he went there - I thought it was a temporary assignment." Peeta's casual tone almost has me convinced that this is a matter of mere curiosity to him, but my heart is starting to thump.

"Oh. Not that I'm privy to his plans or anything, but no, I don't think so." He looks at me quizzically. I can see this has upended some internal convictions.

"No?"

This is said so softly, I could pretend not to hear it if I want. Which is all that I want. I suppress a sigh - I guess this conversation is ultimately unavoidable. And I was so happy, so content today.

I shrug. “I really don’t know,” I tell him.

So, the ball’s back in his court. And he keeps it there, making no reply, just watching the rest of the broadcast in what feels to me like strained silence, before making his cheerful good-nights and going back to his house.

-5-

“I do. I need you.”

I see myself - I feel myself - move in eagerly for the kiss. It is the kiss to stop his mouth, to shut down his words. To breathe him and to taste him in a kiss that is at first meant for strategy - until it is only meant for me. But his lips are pursed, unresponsive.

“I need to grieve,” he says, finally.

I wake up with the sound of his voice echoing in my ears. I am of course alone, but the vividness of the dream has me searching around the bed for him, anyway. Then, I curse silently to myself. The last time I had dreams like this was in District 13 - early on, when Peeta’s fate after the Quell was still an open question, and I sometimes wished that fate to be death, so terrified was I of the alternative - legitimately, as it turned out. Yet, I dreamed this kiss - selfishly, I’m sure - and in the darkness I wanted nothing more than his living body next to mine, to recreate it and finish it. I guess these are natural impulses, but they felt self-centered and wrong at the time, and they do again, now.

I need to grieve, I whisper. Yes, and so do I. Anything built on this desolation would undoubtedly yield barren results, in the end. I believe this. I believe this. I do believe this.

At any rate, there is no sign - none - that he is willing, let alone ready. Yesterday proved that beyond almost any doubt.

I’ve woken up early on a baking day, so there is no good excuse to march down to his house and force the conversation. I decide to go out to hunt again, and make up for my poor showing the day before. I see Peeta for dinner and I don't know anything that is going through his head; I just know he is clearly preoccupied. The day after - the same. By Wednesday, I have shot three bucks and deposited them in the community ice house. I have anxiety-laced dreams and I tell myself - we will talk this out on his day off.

When I wake up Thursday morning, it is later than normal, but when I tramp over to Peeta's, I smell the oven again, and am annoyed. I hesitate outside his front door for a minute, and despite all my good intentions and everything I know to be true about our situation, I fantasize for a second about just going inside, demanding to know what he feels about Gale’s absence and tempting him into a kiss. I happen to know that you can tell a lot from a kiss, for good or bad. Finally, I just sigh and knock softly before opening his door. This is my fault - I should have told him about Gale earlier, found some casual way to work it into the conversation. The truth is, I didn't know that it still mattered to him at all. The real truth is - I'm still not sure.

His house smells warm and sweet and I stop in the doorway, taking it in. In the kitchen, Peeta is bent low over the table - is he drawing AND baking? I wonder.

"Whoa - whoa!" he says, turning around and seeing me. "You're almost too early," he grins.

Then I see the cake. Not one of his big sheet cakes, but a little round one, decorated around the edges with pink and green frosting, and on the top with wildflower petals.

"What?" I say dumbly.

"I wanted it to be a surprise. Your flower-gathering made me want to contribute something - equally pretty to the - to the - what’s wrong?"

“Nothing. It’s - uh - amazing. Beautiful. I think you could make a living at it,” I add with an ironic smile.

“Well, that’s good news, since I suppose I technically am.”

Then I am struck by a realization so hard and heavy that I don’t know if it is the most right thought I have ever had - or the most wrong: is it not on me to help him grieve? In the same way that he has tried to help me - planting primroses, talking about her. He was trying to force the process - to force me to move forward. Should I not be doing the same for him?

That was the real meaning of the dream.

I sit down at the table and watch him put the finishing touches on the frosting. “I don’t think we ever talked about it, beyond your claiming that your frosting skills gave you some edge out in the wild, but - just because you are good at it, do you actually like it? Is it what you wanted to do? Take over - for your father?”

“Good question,” he responds, frowning at the cake. “Good question. Hard to answer.”

“Most good questions are.”

He chuckles at that. “True enough. Well, there wasn’t much room to choose back then, was there? I had two older brothers, so it was never automatic that I was going to be the one taking over the bakery. We all helped, but eventually one of them would have started a family and it would have moved on that way. But one of my brothers wasn’t really cool with being around our mother and he was part time. The other didn’t really have any interest - by which I mean he hated it - so I did have some notion that I might end up in charge one day. I never really thought about whether or not I wanted to do it.”

“Which one was the brother who hated it? Was it the one who wrestled - Rye, Ryan?”

He blinks. “Ryan, yeah. ‘Rye’ - I haven’t heard that one in a long time. ‘Rye Bread Mellark’ the wrestling team called him. Shit, how he hated that. Yeah - they actually both wrestled, but my older brother Will was before our time in high school.”

“Is it wrestling that you would have preferred to do?”

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. Not that I didn’t appreciate it - the act of preparing for it, figuring out your opponents. I just wasn’t that invested in winning and I didn’t really like spending so much time in practice, to be honest. Took time away from drawing. In fact … well, if I’d had the chance to pick, back then, I’d just go with what I did for the Capitol’s talent development thing: art.”

“Have you - made any progress on your painting? Being able to do it?”

He shakes his head. “Not really - hence, the cake. Best of both worlds.”

“Or a compromise, at least for now,” I insist. “You haven’t -.”

“What?”

I take a deep breath. “You haven’t talked about doing a page for your mother. Or your brothers.”

“Well. Well - no. It’s complicated. She’s complicated, and they are wound up with her in my head.”

“Or your grandmother who painted,” I insist doggedly. “Or - your younger cousins.”

He looks at me sharply. “You know they’re dead?”

“Yes - I - when I was first in 13 - well, after I got out of the hospital - I asked around.”

“Did you? Why?”

“Peeta,” I say. “You were my friend. They were your family. I wanted to apologize and - and also to commiserate - to mourn with them, if it was necessary. Haymitch was out of it. There wasn’t really anyone to go to - I didn’t realize at the time that you were so close with Delly and I wasn’t sure about your other friends, so I….”

He takes a deep and ragged breath. “Thank you. I get it. Of course. I’m sorry - the disconnect I have with 13 is so strong, still. Everything that happened and everyone associated with it is - not quite real to me.”

“Aurelius must have a field day with those kind of statements.”

“Yes,” he laughs. “Yes, he does.”

I make a dismissive gesture.

Aurelius, whatever.

“Enough of all this. It’s a gorgeous day today; do you have plans?”

“Just the town square thing tonight.”

“Oh?” I wrinkle my forehead, calculating days - I’ve lost track of them frankly. “Forgot that was today.”

“Are you going?”

I shrug. “Is that what the cake is for?”

“No, the cake is for you.”

“What for?”

He shakes his head. “For the inspiration, I guess. Also, I didn’t have the ingredients to make you a birthday cake this year, which is such a pity for a major birthday. So - it’s a belated birthday gift, you could say.”

Yes - May 8th had passed by pretty much unmarked, for a number of reasons. I clutch the back of a chair. "Thank you.” I stare at the cake. "I'm 18," I say.

"Yes, you are. Do you want it now - or later?"

"Later - I don't want you to cut into it yet, it's so pretty. When’s yours?"

"March 11th. Why?"

That feels right. I vaguely recall he was one of the spring birthdays at school, so I must have known he was just a little older than me. So - he turned 18 in the Capitol, then. “I don’t know if I can return the favor next year.”

He smiles at this. "Why should you - oh, on the principle that one should not make one's own birthday cake? Eh. But really - it’s not that hard. Definitely teachable. Baking is simple chemistry - with maybe a little bit of a flourish or knack, I suppose - but anyone can pick that up over time."

"Is that true of - painting or drawing?"

"Sure. It’s a little different. There’s the technique - that’s the easy part. How to press the pencil lead, how to feather the paint. Then there is the art; you have to conceptualize it, and then find a way to translate the concept to the canvas. That’s the part that maybe never is perfected. I don’t know. I remember being pleased enough with my paintings, but always with the awareness that the perfect version of them still only existed in my head."

"When are you going to unpack your paintings?" I ask.

"I thought you hated them."

Oh - that he chooses to remember. "Not them - just what they reminded me of. I at least want to know which painting you left for me."

"Sure, why not? It's your ‘birthday,’ after all."

After breakfast, we go into his study, where he has stacked his flat boxes of paintings, and we sit down on the floor while he cuts open the one labeled "Katniss." There's an envelope in the box, but he won't give it to me or open it himself. "This was me saying good-bye to you, Katniss, in case I didn't get a chance to. But we're both still here, so it would be - maudlin. Besides, there's nothing new or interesting in it - you know how I felt about you."

There are four paintings, and he hands them to me one after another. The first one is of his own hands, digging in the mud. The second is the picture of me appearing out of some sort of silver haze, like a mist or something.

"What's this from?"

"That's how I remember you when you first came to me - you know, in the mud. I still had a bit of residual tracker jacker venom." He stares himself for a moment. "It's been a while since I looked at these," he says softly. "They seem - real. More real than the video of the games. I remember - how I felt when I painted this. How I …." His voice trails away. I find myself waiting him to finish the sentence, but he just shakes his head.

The third one is a painting of our cave - water dripping down the rock sides. He says, "Huh. This isn't bad. I watched so many videos of this part of it, I would know this place anywhere." We look at each other. I don't know if he's thinking it, but I am. There was a lot of kissing there. A bit of lying on my part, too. Real or not real? It was all a little of both.

The last painting is one of me up in a tree. It's painted from the perspective of a person at the bottom of the tree and I'm looking straight down at that person. So, I'm looking into my own eyes, and I can read my own anger, bewilderment, and fear. I know exactly when this is.

"Kind of an odd choice."

"I know, but - it's one of my favorites."

"Really? I look like I could happily throw a knife at you at any moment - and that was probably true, by the way."

"I know - but - you didn't. And I might have been a little - frustrated and sorry for myself when I painted this. But … I really captured the light on the leaves and I've always liked how I got the perspective just right. It was one of the first that looked even remotely as I had imagined it. Once I painted this, I knew I was on to something."

I shake my head. "Where shall I hang these? I want to keep them together. So either - living room, up along the stairs, or in the upstairs hall?"

"Let's go to your place - sort of take them around and place them, and see where they want to go."

After lunch, I let him cut the cake, and we eat it; I get frosting all over my hands, and pretend it's finger paint and make a mess of the table. He good-naturedly cleans up after me. We go to the station for the afternoon train and pick up our rations. It’s just a wonderfully fresh, cool, early summer day and the walk is invigorating.

Our afternoon power surge brings us a show about District 4, showing sweeping aerial shots of the ocean and the picturesque fishing boats on their wooden docks. I think how much I would like to go back there, someday, and then I remember that I can't.

In the middle of the program, the power goes out again, and we sigh and sit in silence for a moment on the couch. I lean against him. "This was a good day."

"I'm so glad," he says.

The space between us - little as it is - seems charged with questions and worries - and tenderness and affection - and guilt and recrimination - and desire. I close my eyes on these feelings and let myself enjoy them for what they are, ignoring the need for them to be more. Then I turn to him and give him a smile. "Thank you," I say.

Then I realize just how close we are to each other. I mean to pull away quickly, to get up and light the oil lamps, but I linger just a moment longer than I intended, and he moves his face so that his lips brush lightly across mine. It might even be an accident. I close my eyes, and my lips part with an escaping sigh.

"Katniss," he whispers against my mouth.

And I know now that this was inevitable. And that I've been waiting for it since the morning he came home to me. I press my lips against his. Then the phone rings. I pull away, but not too far. He's looking down at me and I'm looking up at him, so closely that I can't even focus on both his eyes at the same time, but shift my glance between them.

After the third ring, I clear my throat and get up, walking over to the phone - a little unsteady. The room feels kind of tilted.

"Hello?" says my unnatural voice. "Oh, hi, mom." I turn around and look back at Peeta. He's watching me. All my responses to my mother's words come out as robotic phrases, which I can hardly hear above the thumping of my heart. "Thank you. Yes, I did. Oh yes. Yes. Yes I will. I will. Yes. No. Yes."

After she gets off the phone, I set the receiver down, slowly and carefully, as if it were a bomb. I stand there, waiting, and finally, he gets up and walks over to me. He looks like he would touch me, if he dared - but he doesn't. "I should go home and get ready for - the thing," he says. "And …"

I wait, heart pounding.

"And - we should talk about this." I swallow, but nod. His hesitancy doesn't scare me. It's my rush to his arms that is terrifying. Or should be. But I know - even if he doesn't yet - that something has come back to life between us.

Chapter Text

-1-

Gale.

I sense it in the air, warm and sweet though it is at the moment. As the sun rises on another bright summer morning, I can feel the static charge of the coming storm. In my blood. In my bones.

But I hunch in the doorway of the lake house, staring directly into the flames of the fire I built for myself in the pre-dawn hours. Fire fills all of my vision and my memory. Today, I can feel every scar on my back. I am a fire mutt, I remind myself. The only thing I know is pain.

After a moment, I turn my back on the fire, get up and walk to the edge of the lake. My bow and arrows are on my back, but they are just there for self-preservation today. Today is not a hunting day. This morning I woke to nightmares piled on nightmares, and I had to get away - even knowing how foolish it might be to leave the safety of Victor’s Village for the wild, in my current state of mind.

“The last time I danced, it was with Prim.”

There had been dancing last night at the bonfire in the square, and I had not participated, though Peeta had. I had never watched him dance before - not like that, in the squares and reels of true dancing, rather than the slow-motion catwalks that we did for the Capitol - and I wish I could say the sight of it filled me with joy. But it did not. I’m backsliding again today, and it has something to do with me and something to do with him and everything to do with us. And I hate this and I wish I could cut everything off of me and float away, conscious but unfeeling, into the electric blue sky.

“I’m tired of absolutely everything - including everything happy - eventually turning into sadness,” I told him. And I again reminded myself that there is no point to starting something new with him, something interesting, possibly something great, when all happiness eventually turns to poison.

This is me - wallowing in grief. And that is him - unable to grieve.

There is an urge in me to move on. It’s just that every step I make to do it feels like being burned to death all over again. I kiss him and it is wonderful . I watch him dancing, and it is awful . Aurelius said something to me once about the different stages of grief. The healing process. I’m not sure where I am in that process, but I don’t seem to have progressed much further than I did the day that Buttercup returned and I spoke Prim’s death aloud.

I fall back on older advice: remind yourself of everything you know to be true. There’s me - wounded, damaged, but alive, and for some reason determined to live, despite all the pain. There are all the lost people in my life, both the dead and the missing - my father, my sister, my mother. Gale. The sources of my pain, but impossible not to live with, in some way or the other, if only in my memories of them. The trick, I think, is to make this pain work in reverse: to make the painful memories lead to happy ones. The memory book is just the beginning of that process. I have to follow through on that, actively, deliberately. How? I’ll figure that out later. ( Only the things I know to be true. )

There are the people in my life now - the couple of hundred of us here in District 12, most well known to me and a few quite loved: Thom and Leevy, Sae, Haymitch. 

Peeta.

Only the things I know to be true. And this is the real problem, isn’t it? The thing that I am stuck on - the universe of questions, consequences, life-altering decisions that are embodied in my simple desire to put my lips on his lips. But my desire is for the old Peeta, and the new one, however many similarities there are on the surface, I have not yet been able to quantify, define, place into my understanding. He is both here with me and lost to me. I need to add him to the list of people to grieve. Maybe? Possibly? It is so absurd that after all this time - I still don’t know.

I throw a rock into the lake, make the water ripple. It reminds me of my father and I can almost hear him saying to me, “Katniss, you don’t know because you haven’t asked.”

I throw the bow and arrows on the ground, strip off my clothes. A breeze catches me, and it has a little bite to it. But I already knew that the storm was coming. I sprint into the water, let it drown out the questions and the grief together, let it quench the fire on my back, let it flush out all the pain.

When I get home, much later that day, the thin clouds are streaking across the sky, giving the afternoon a silvery tint. I am surprised to find Peeta sitting on the top step of my porch, stretching out his legs.

“Oh, hey,” he says. “Long hunting day?”

I shrug off my empty bag. “Sort of. Hope you haven’t been waiting long?”

“No, couple of minutes. I thought I’d chance it - you coming home soon. I … wanted to make sure you were OK; after last night.”

I’ve been very truthful with him about this - we’ve been truthful with each other. It’s the only way to help each other. But I weigh the pros and cons of being completely honest, now. “It was good to be out by myself today,” I answer. This is true enough. “As for last night, it’s always the first time that causes the most - hurt; I’m sure the next time I’m around dancing, I’ll be less - well, less taken off guard, I guess.”  I sit down on the bottom step, tuck my knees up, and stare at my hands. “You enjoyed yourself, at least.”

“Paid for it today,” he responds, rubbing his left knee, where his joint meets his prosthetic. I sometimes forget about it - his use of it is effortless, even last night, as he spun Leevy around in the reel, or do-si-do’d with Sae. 

I glance up at a sound down the way and see that Haymitch has emerged from his house. It’s just about dinner time. Peeta stands, stretches, and reaches down to me, his hand outstretched. “You sure you’re OK?” he asks.

I let him pull me up. “I - I’ll be fine,” I tell him. Then he startles me by lifting my hand up and, gently, kissing my fingers.

-2-

Haymitch has a habit of lingering over Saturday mornings. Those are the days that Peeta goes to the planning meeting after breakfast, and I wait for him to return to me for lunch. Today he will bring back news from the council as to what is to be done with Delly and her brother. Peeta is going to ask permission to have them move in with him until they can be assigned a dwelling, arguing that they need special refugee status based on their alliance with me. Delly's decision to stay in 13 for the sake of her brother’s coursework will weigh against him; but there are more recent developments that might help his cause. District 13 - with its population decimated by a plague a few years back - is offering incentives for the 12 refugees - especially those with children - to remain behind, including first rights to the new houses that are being built above the ruins of their old town. And that construction is happening much more rapidly than ours. We were anticipating a flood of returning families over the summer - and that might not now be the case.

Haymitch, like me, hasn't really been paying that much attention to the district politics. Every once in a while, because Peeta wheedles him into it, he'll put in a day helping weed the communal garden site. He has nothing to exchange for goods - except for money, which no one can really use, yet. The still in his basement - which by now has reached legendary status in the District - remains under construction, so he has to rely heavily on the occasional gift of booze from Effie or Plutarch to keep him going. The latest game in town is the over/under wagering on when Haymitch’s moonshine will finally hit the District 12 market.

"What's new, Haymitch?" I ask him, once Sae clears up and leaves.

"I was going to ask you that, myself."

"Nothing," I answer, uneasily. "Well, still working on the book. And wondering - ."

"Oh, no wonder you are so unsettled this morning."

I frown in his general direction, but he's not looking at me, now. "It was very helpful - your information about my father. I wish ...."

"Well, don't."

"You don't even know what I was going to say!" I protest.

"You were about to ask me one of three things. You were going to ask me to tell you more about your father. OR, you were going to ask me why I never talked about him before. OR, you were going to ask me to contribute more to your grotesque little book. The first might be doable - some day. The others - never."

In fact, it was the third - and most unlikely - I had been about to propose. But the first item of his list is certainly the most tempting.

"Peeta also objected to making the book at first," I tell him. "Well, not objected so much as procrastinated. But he would tell you, now, how cathartic it is."

"I dare you to sic Peeta on me over this," says Haymitch.

"Well, aren't you in your own little mood?"

"I had a letter from Effie, of all people. That's a full share of PTSD for the day."

Oh, no you don't, I think. "How long have you known Effie?"

"Since the very beginning, sweetheart," he responds, sourly. "You'll get no tea down that road, Katniss. Effie has always been Effie - exactly as you know her. There are no deeper levels, no chasms of despair to climb down with her."

"But didn't she care - all those tributes she watched die, same as you? Didn't she care about them - any of them?"

Haymitch scowls at me. "How would I have ever known?"

Did you? I almost ask it. It is on the tip of my tongue to ask it. It's not fair to him; I know it isn't. But there is some part of me that still resents him for all the knowledge he kept from me. And, even more than that, I know it would make him feel better to talk this out - to let us write it out. How many ghosts does he live with? But I simply ask: "What's Effie up to, anyway?"

"Touring Panem, scouting out stories for Plutarch. She's in District 10, visiting an artists' colony."

"What's that?"

"Some cockamamie idea someone in the Capitol had. As far as I can understand it, there was a building in the Capitol where a bunch of artists all lived, and it was destroyed, so they went to 10 and bought an abandoned ranch from the District to all live together and raise chickens and paint, or something. I'm sure it will be on TV."

"That seems like a weird match - Capitol artists and District 10 ranchers."

"Welcome to the new Panem."

When Peeta returns from the meeting, he's not alone. Thom - who lives next door to me, along with two of his old workmates from the mine, their wives and one baby - comes with him; between them they carry a large crate. It's a package from Effie - mostly white liquor for Haymitch and some small cow statuettes for me and Peeta, no doubt souvenirs from District 10.

Peeta offers lunch to Thom, who refuses because of a prior engagement.

"Haymitch?" he asks, as Haymitch starts going up his back porch.

"Not hungry."

"I need to talk to you some time."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere."

Peeta looks at me with a shrug and a smile, and we walk back over to my house. I try not to dwell on the fact that he was actively recruiting guests for lunch.

We eat cold stew and hunks of bread and I look Peeta over as surreptitiously as possible. He’s pink from a mild sunburn, and his hair - which gets curlier the longer it grows, and possibly hasn't been cut since District 13 - is falling down past his cheekbones. He's put on weight since he first came home, but his work on both bread and construction is converting it straight to the muscles of his arms. His eyebrows, which had been burned off by the fire in Capitol, have grown back in thinner, but somewhat darker. The burn scar above his eyes is all but faded away, especially under the sunburn.

And of course, when he looks up, there are his intense blue eyes.

"How'd the meeting go?" I ask casually.

"It got complicated," he says. "So - the good news is that the council agreed to reserve one of the temp houses coming later this month for Delly and Drew."

"Wow! That's even better than you hoped! What's - the bad news?"

"Oh, it's not bad news, exactly. I probably shouldn't have agreed to it without talking to Haymitch, that’s all … we'll see how it goes. I agreed to let the district use my house - starting in September - as a schoolhouse."

" What ?"

He shrugs lightly. "Well, we need one. It'll be an incentive to get more families back here."

"But where will you -?" I sputter. "You mean - you're going to move in with Haymitch?” 

"Yeah, that's my plan, anyway. He doesn't use his upstairs at all; it wouldn't be that bad, especially if I got him to hire a housekeeper again.”

“Where will you bake?"” I ask.

“I would still bake at my house; in fact, just now I was thinking - since I'm going to need help, eventually, maybe I could have an apprenticeship program, attached to the school. Teach some kids to bake."

I sit back in my chair. "I don't know what Haymitch is going to say."

"Me neither, but - I can be persuasive when I want to be."

I smile a little bit at that - anyway, if worse comes to worst, he can always stay with me. "Who will teach school?" I wonder. Our teachers were always townies, and there aren't many of those left.

He laughs. "That's not my problem, fortunately. I have enough on my plate."

"Do you? Are you sure?” I ask sarcastically.

He looks at me. Then he reaches across the table and I give him my hand. He stares down at it for a long time. "This is funny," he says. "This is the thing I was never good at."

That's weird to me because talking about his feelings for me is all he seemed to do for two years. But then again, that was the old Peeta. “If you’re not ready to talk about it ….”

“Whether or not I’m ready is kind of beside the point,” he replies, frowning. “It happened.”

Two or three times, I open my mouth on quick and painless excuses …. It was the emotion of the day … It was too soon, so let’s just pretend that it didn’t happen … It was just - it was just a kiss …. But I can’t do it. I don’t know how to move forward, but I also can’t move back. “I hope,” I say carefully, “that it did not mess things up - if you need me, or I need you. To help go to sleep. I would hate to have messed that up.”

He smiles in palpable relief. “No, that is separate. I think - that is separate. It was before, right?”

I swallow. I can only answer for myself, but I’m not sure anymore, looking back, if I even know the answer. “Yes, it was separate.”

“OK, good, because - I’ve felt all day today - and yesterday, too - that you needed comfort, but I did not want to be misconstrued.”

So, I think, stepping into his arms and letting them envelope me, that’s it. There is warmth and strength here, and it is all I asked of him before; it’s not his fault that it’s not enough anymore.

-3-

I wake to the sound of my own panting.

I'm not even in bed, I'm kneeling on the floor next to my bed, grappling with the blankets. My heart is aching and there are tears on my face. The dream - it was so real. I am being lifted from the arena in a hovercraft, and I can see him, his face lifted up to me - left behind.

Oh, shit . It's all accelerating so quickly.

I climb back into bed and listen to my racing heartbeats. Because my brain only wants to torment me tonight, there is nothing to do but contemplate the conversation from earlier and wonder if I gave the right answer. Yes, the sleeping together was separate from the star-crossed lovers' strategy, separate from our friendship and the fragmented pieces of our ‘romance.’ Except that, in the grand scheme of things, it probably wasn’t. I slept with him so many times - and was able to truly, truly sleep. But I also woke up in the mornings with the evidence of his desire for me hard against the back of my leg. At the time, I put it down to the peculiarities of the male body at rest, He was asleep - it wasn’t deliberate. But to be honest - I never forgot it; I hid that knowledge away somewhere for future reference. He loved me - why wouldn’t he desire me? Something to be handled in a future that, at the time, I never thought would come to pass. A future that didn’t, in fact, come to pass. He was taken and changed, and all he remembers now of that time - as far as I know - is that I was both compliant and deceptive; sleeping with him on the train, sneaking around with Gale in the wild.

Well, I suppose he accepts now that we never slept together - not in that sense. 

I wonder how it really feels ? ( Slow down, slow down , I caution myself.) No, but really - how close is it to …? ( Stop it.) I’m not naive - I know what happens; I know where everyone’s parts are supposed to go. I know I can’t easily recreate it on my own, but … my breath comes harder, and I flush, feeling foolish and frustrated. This isn’t the first time - it’s the first in a long time, since at least those early days in 13, when guilt and frustration worked together in me, begging for relief. If anything, it’s worse now. Pleasure is complicated - it feels self-indulgent. Undeserved.

So, I wallow in horrified guilt afterward. And then I go to sleep. I’m not pleased with myself, but at least the nightmares don’t come back.

"What happened?" Peeta asks me.

It's the question that was in his eyes all through breakfast, while we made small talk with Sae - Haymitch a no-show this morning. I fold laundry - slowly and non-deliberately - in the living room, while he sits opposite me, perched on the hearth. Now that the thoughts have come - now that I have let them in - I can't shut them out. All my senses are jumbling together. I can feel his voice on my skin. I can taste his scent on my tongue.

"Just the weather," I tell him. 

“Yeah - these clouds feel - oppressive.”

“There’s a big storm coming - thunder and lightning, It’s slow moving, and it is electrifying the air.”

“Wow! Are you sure? How do you ….?”

“Long history with storms. The strong ones change the feel of the air days in advance.”

He shakes his head. “And all I learned how to do was to bake bread. I wonder if that accounts for it - this odd feeling, unsettled. Jittery.”

“Jittery?”

“Nervy - like I can feel the ends of my nerves.”

“Could be.” But I squint at him, trying to see if something else is going on.

“I’m just glad it’s Sunday,” he says. “No real obligations.”

“What would you like to do?”

“I don’t know. Relax - somehow?”

“Did you sleep OK last night?”

He responds with a long sigh.

“You should have come over,” I tell him, sternly - although, of course, last night would have been a bad time to do it.

“It wasn’t nightmares, or trouble sleeping. At least not at first. I kept dreaming about the celebration at the town square the other night, and then waking up and going back to sleep and dreaming about it again. Something was - off - about it.”

I focus on folding a sheet, which is really a two person job, so I’m making a shambles of it in the first place. Aware of his eyes on me, I make a show of smoothing and folding, smoothing and folding, and still end up with basically a balled-up bit of fabric. Then I ask, “Off about the dream? Or about the night?”

“Well, the dream was off, which makes me feel like the night was off.”

“Can you tell me -?”

He shrugs. “I’ll try. The dream is very dark, except for the bonfire. The fire is so bright that everyone looks like a shadow. I’m dancing - I can’t tell who I’m dancing with - and I keep reaching out to grab someone’s hand for the dance, but they’re - missing. And of course the fire is so hot - unbearably hot. I woke up sweating this morning, when I finally did wake up for good.”

I bite my lip. “Well, it was so humid this morning, I woke up sweating myself,” I say. “So, that’s the easy part. As far as ‘missing’ - there are so many ways that could go. The whole town is missing, for one thing.”

“Yes, that wasn’t lost on me. Even in my dream - but in my dream, there were buildings - shadows of buildings, anyway. I felt them all around me, and I think we were dancing right outside the bakery.” He laughs - but shakily.

A shadow falls between us and I open my mouth to respond to him - but he forestalls me.

“I dream too much about work,” he says. “I do have a lot of anxiety about having enough to feed everyone - enough ingredients.”

“No, Peeta,” I say. “Don’t do that - don’t deflect that way. It’s not honest.”

The change in him is swift and startling. He slumps forward, his hands covering his face. “I can’t. I can’t make connections that I don’t know for sure are real.”

“There is nothing more real than that! Your home is gone, your family is gone. I’m not a head doctor and I don’t think I can interpret dreams any better than the next person, but you have to listen to what’s inside your head. It’s right there. I know you dread it - I know you do. But sometimes you have to turn around and face what you dread. Which - I already know that you know. Tell me again about the woods.”

“What?”

“Tell me about why you had to go into the woods.”

He is still for a long moment. Then, almost resentfully, he says, “I was afraid of the woods - when I was younger. I had nightmares about the monsters in them. Things creeping around trees, dropping out of branches. Mutts. I didn’t want to feel safe in the fence, but I did - I felt safe in the fence, protected by the Capitol. I wanted to be braver and I was - ashamed of myself for not being brave. Even - even after the Games, they terrified me. Maybe even more so, because I knew what mutts and monsters really were.”

“So, why did you have to go into the woods?”

“To be - to be braver than my fear. To grow up . To prove that I was the thing protecting myself. Not the Capitol - not you. Me.”

“I can’t help you all the way through this,” I say. “Maybe someone better than me could. But I think that -.”

He abruptly stands up. “You’re right,” he says. There is no break of emotion on his face - still no tears, no sadness. It’s a blank resolution.

“What are you -?”

“I’m going to town.”

Oh shit - what did I do?”

He leaves before I can ask if he wants company. And for a moment I sit there, stunned into inaction - ashamed of myself. Yes, this had to happen eventually. But my motivations are not pure, and I may have pushed him somewhere he genuinely was not ready to go.

Then I stir myself. If this was my fault, it’s also on me to fix - or alleviate, if possible. I go outside - hesitate for a moment on my porch. The clouds are dark and heavy - the air is thick with moisture. Dear god, would it just rain already? It’s like being suffocated in slow motion.

“Hey! Mockingjay!”

I look up at the sound - the green is busy with people working on the community garden, but I easily pick out Haymitch, loitering on the edges - like me, more comfortable outside the dance than within it. “Not now, Haymitch!” And I sprint towards town.

The only landmark left of the bakery now is the dead tree that stands vigil over the dust of the place. It was the apple tree in their backyard - and one of the only things in town, living or dead, that remained unflattened at the end of the bombing. Its days are numbered - it is a skeleton where it stands, as like to be blown over by the storm as to remain. But we have been loath to pull it down, yet. When you first get off of the train station and walk into town - it is the first thing you notice among the ruins (or now, the cleared-up rubble), dark and defiant.

So, here he is. He is kneeling in the dirt - as he has done more than once since he came home, though not in recent weeks. This usually means his mind is gone - lost in confusion. Sometimes, he says things that indicate that his mind has gone back to the height of his brainwashed state, where they showed him the ruin of his home and told him that I was the one responsible. So - this is not encouraging.

As I approach him, he clutches a fistful of dirt and brings it up to his mouth, kissing his knuckle - one, two, three, four times. I pause.

And then - he screams. It is a scream that nearly makes me turn tail and run - raw and throaty, ripped from his bowels. It’s more animal than human, this scream. But I stand my ground and wait for its conclusion. And wait. And wait. Until the scream turns into sobs. 

There is something extra horrible about watching the cries of someone who is not used to doing it. They rock his body, and the force of the pain is elemental. I can feel it coming off of him.

And then the cries die down into whimpers. He seems stuck there - kneeling on the ground, fist clenched in front of him - even as his body shudders with grief.

That’s when I finally close the gap between us. It has worked before and I know it will work now more than it ever has before. I touch his shoulder.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow

A bed of grass, a soft green pillow

Lay down your head and close your eyes

And when they open, the sun will rise

Here it's safe, here it's warm

Here the daisies guard

You from every harm

Here your dreams are sweet

And tomorrow brings them true

Here is the place

Where I love you.

By the end of the song, his fingers have relaxed, one by one, until his arm falls to his side. He looks up - not at me - but to the sky. There is a seam in the clouds and a streak of sunlight hits his face for a moment before it disappears again.

"Are you OK?" I ask him.

"No,” he says, and his voice, though hoarse, is his own.

"You're OK," I tell him, breathing easier.

There is a rumble of distant thunder and a flash of distant lightning. I reach out to him. "Come on, we don't want to be caught in this. It's going to be a good one."

"It will be a bit of a relief," he says shakily, wiping his face. "This air is so hot and heavy. We could use the release - of a good storm."

He sounds so normal, my relief almost knocks me over. "Exactly. Come back to my house."

"Katniss - were you singing just now?" he asks.

"Yes - sometimes it helps - when you're - when you aren't quite here."

"Shit - what do you mean? Do you do it often?"

"Only as often as you need it, which isn't all that much around me. Come on, Peeta. I don't feel like tempting the lightning today."

We walk back toward Victor's Village, me in the lead.

"How often?" he asks.

We have reached the gates, now - the first fat drops of water fall on my face. The green has already been cleared of everyone, who have retreated inside to get away from the storm - except for Haymitch, who is sitting, now, on his porch.

I turn to Peeta, whose face is streaked with dirt and tears. It makes him look like a little boy, and my heart contracts. "Do you want the number of times since May, or something?"

"Yes."

"I don't know - four or five. Why?"

"You know the answer to that question, Katniss. I'll always be worried - about losing control."

"But you don't - you go very still and grip whatever is at hand - the arm of the couch or the back of a chair. You don't seem capable of moving, honestly; let alone doing anything dangerous. It's the opposite of dangerous - there's something helpless about it."

He glances down the row of houses, toward his own, but he follows me into mine. It will be one of those days.

The rain starts falling in sheets just as we get indoors. It is a monster - but a sweet one - carrying with it both tremendous noise and a sweet, earthy scent. I leave the front door open, and throw open all the windows on the first floor of the house, letting the wind clean out the stale air of the morning. Thunder shakes the house - lightning flares pulsate against the walls. I stand in the doorway for a while, watching the lightning strikes as they march through the woods. Tomorrow would be a good hunting day, I suppose. Then the center of the storm passes through and we are left with just the rain - sheets of it falling for hours and hours.

Peeta draws inward through most of this, but he occasionally breaks down into tears again, so I know that he is processing the feelings of the day, that he is thinking about his lost family and wrestling with a pain that is as healthy as it is all too real. I offer him distractions when I can - have him hold some yarn for me while I wrestle with it in an attempt at crochet (Prim was such a natural at these kind of things , I tell him).  I sort through some of our notes for our book, alphabetizing (for no real reason) the drafts of our pages for the Star Squad, and double check with him on the spellings of some of the names,  I give him a book that my mother sent me from District 4 - old and crackling at the spine, it is filled with beautiful line drawings of a city that used to exist on a coast that used to exist. He thumbs through it, mutely, but occasionally stops to look at a page and squint at it with what I have come to call his “artistic eye.”

This carries us until dinner, which we eat on our own - a simple meal of bread and cheese. Then, all distractions exhausted, and any need for pretense, I take him upstairs and lay down with him in my bed. We listen there, huddled together, as the last of the storm dies off, leaving only the dripping of the eaves in its wake.

I look across the pillows and over the bumpy surface of his arms and into his face, which is calm now, but with that slightly puffy look of one who has spent a very large number of tears. "How are you holding up?"

"Truth?"

" Always ."

"Not great."

I take his hands and lift them up to my mouth.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. I know this sort of grief. It lingers long past the tears. It is not because you are weak, it is because you loved them."

Tears start falling again. "I - wanted - to help you. "

At this, my ears perk up. This - this is it. The central question. The heart of all that I have been wondering about since he returned. "You have, over and over again," I say, trying not to choke on my own words. "You are my rock and comfort - let me be yours once in a while." 

I force my body not to shake as I try to think of the right words. I need to ask in a way that he will not know how important the answer actually is to me - because I need him to be completely honest. The course of my life - the relationship I have with him from now on, or at least the foreseeable future - relies on his answer. I don’t care if he doesn’t love me anymore; I just need him to care about me - me, separate from the Mockingjay or anything to do with the rebellion. I need him to be more than an ally. I need him - to need me .

"Is that why you're here?"

"Here?"

"Is that why you came back - back to 12?  Did they send you to - watch me?"

He stirs. "No! - in fact, most people didn't think it was a great idea - my being here. I came because - God, Katniss, where else would I go? This is home and you and Haymitch are the only two people in the world I have left. I don't have the words to explain the feeling … when I found out there was a place I could actually return to - the pull was … I needed to be here and I came back - as soon as I possibly could.

"When I saw you - saw that you needed help in kind of the same way that I had … of course, I had to be here for you … but was I sent back with that purpose? One of your guards? One of your jailers? I could never. If they had asked me to do that I would have gone anywhere else, instead."

I grip his hand. It’s his tone, really, more than his words, that gives me comfort. But I know, now, at last, that he is here by his own will, and not some one else's. And the relief of it washes over me. I look at his face - earnest now, as he stares at me in the falling light. He’s starting to sweat with the returning humidity, and it gives me the perfect idea for the sequel for today.  "It's too hot - and tomorrow will be even hotter. Tomorrow, we go to the lake.”

-5-

In the morning, the sun is as hot and the sky is as blue as if rain and clouds were fictions. It’s more than a relief to duck into the cool and familiar shadows of the woods and strike the familiar path toward the lake. Peeta’s too-loud footfall behind me is a comfort more than an irritant. 

I am a little heady with my own power - having played my part in navigating him through some important part of the grieving process, I now contemplate my next move. It is difficult not to think of it through the lens of a hunter. It comes so naturally. I try to trace the next steps as I would anticipate the flight of a deer from a clearing: which direction do his feelings track? How much of a clue is the one kiss? (How the old Peeta would laugh at my dilemma, trying to figure out his feelings for me - real or not real? I wonder if life always moves in this sort of circular pattern.)

I automatically pause at the normal resting spot - the overlook spot where Gale and I used to scope out the valley. This was not a conscious choice, but once made I deliberately avoid sitting on the rock and rest instead, cross-legged, at the base of a tree. Peeta joins me and pulls out his thermos to drink some water before good-naturedly using a twig to start drawing something in the dirt. Then, after a few minutes of this, he looks up at me.

"Resilience," he says, abruptly.

"What?"

He shakes his head. "Sorry – I was just thinking about yesterday. About somehow moving on, somehow living through all this grief and all the horrible memories. Aurelius calls it 'resilience.'"

Yeah, well, I call it survival. Aurelius and his tedious bromides and catchphrases have failed Peeta all this time, no matter what he thinks - and as for me, I get along just fine without him. But I am not here to contradict Peeta today. "But what does it mean?" 

"Well – it's the ability to sort through trauma and contain it enough to survive. It's in all of us – that's what Aurelius says. We just work through it in different ways. For me …" he pauses, looking at me tentatively as if waiting for me to dismiss him. I patiently hold my tongue. "For me – well, I went through a series of negotiations to get by. For instance – feeling like you should have loved me, then ultimately deciding you were a monster for not doing it."

Whoa. Now, this is truth telling, maybe a bit more than I’m ready for. But - I have been curious about this part, so I urge him on. "When precisely did you decide that I was not?" 

He shrugs. "It was a process. But I guess it was when I realized that it was actually me. And then realizing that that had been true all along."

"You thought you were a monster?" I tremble on the words - this is horrifying. And liberating. Holy shit, talk about facing the things that scare you … I don’t know how much I want to know about the worst of what he thought of me - or himself, but I do know that I need to hear it.

"Some part of me thought that the moment I woke up in the Training Center after the first Games. You remember what it was like - I know you must have felt the same; sometimes I saw it on your face. The guilt from having survived and – that feeling like everything real was tainted by it."

This strikes me in my depths - my core. The part of me that was injured by the Games long before the rebellion destroyed my home and my family. I just didn’t realize that he had gone through the same thing. "Yes, but – I thought maybe you had been spared that. You didn't really let them – change you in there. At least – it looked that way."

"Maybe you resented that." 

I shake my head. Resentment wasn’t it. I remember thinking how good, how unspoiled he was by the Games. It’s awful knowing now that he didn’t feel as clean as I thought him to be. "Maybe. Maybe I also wanted to protect it. Winning the Games is so dirty, but I thought if your hands were clean, at least I had done - something - right."

He smiles. "You wanted me innocent. Pure – even."

This is a memory from the second Games - a fact that should encourage me. But I’m still embarrassed by the entirety of my behavior in the Training Center, and by his casual dismissal of my feelings then. "Don't laugh at me."

"I'm not laughing, Katniss. You have no idea – how humbling it is to hear this."

I start to turn away from him. This goes much deeper than I was expecting. He’s talking about something that encompasses all of it - the allyship, yes, but also the tremendous responsibility of taking on another person’s life, even if it means sacrificing your own. It was this connection that the Capitol shattered that was the most devastating. We were once more than friends or allies - we once were the keepers of each other’s lives and souls. And that break has been unbearable .  And it must be addressed, so I turn back to him. "It's that, but it's more than that. For a while, it felt like a debt - everything that I owed you. But at some point it became more than that. Like you were the better part of me. And that to - watch over you - was more than repayment of a debt; to watch over you was in some way to watch over myself."

"I know," he tells me, softly. "I mean - I didn't know, consciously, but I did somehow figure it out, I think. I knew that you intended to sacrifice yourself for me. What you gave me - that gift of protecting me - was deeper than love. I was too shallow to appreciate it, until very recently; I could only try my best not to spoil it. But - I did know."

"You give me too much credit - or yourself too little. I'm not sure. How were we to ... who were we to sort through all of that mess? All I know is that - I failed, as with everything else."

"I'm sorry, Katniss. They took everything, didn't they? Corruption – that's what they knew. Take a bird – twist it into a spy. Release it to die. That's what they knew."

We are fire mutts, I remind myself. Designed for pain. And yet … "The jabberjays might have died, but the mockingjays came after."

"Exactly." He grins. "Resilience."

I get up at that, trying to keep the look off my face - but maybe Aurelius has had his uses, after all.

"This is as far as I've ever come," he notes, standing up and looking around, and pointing toward the rock.

"Here?" 

"Yeah - it's a good place to draw."

I’m surprised by my own resentment and I stumble over my words. "Oh. Yes - I can see that." What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t own the rock. Like I don’t own the boy who I have always associated it with - nor this boy, with his intrusive ways.

I walk away, reeling with these unexpected emotions.

"Katniss?"

He hasn’t followed me. He has sensed - something.

"What?" 

"What is it? You look like I've – done something wrong."

Like a deer stumbling straight into my sights, he has accidentally found it: the conversation. It is one million percent within my power to avoid it - yet again. "Truth?" I ask him.

"Truth? Of course - always."

"This is where Gale and I used to meet, that's all."

"Well – that makes sense," he says casually, though I can sense the sudden tension in his body. "I can see that. If … you'd rather that I left it alone, of course. Whatever."

"That would be ridiculous. It's nothing – it really isn't. I was just set back – by the coincidence."

He shakes his head. "No, it was more than that. You can tell me – if you want. You miss him. You - love him."

"Love?” I repeat carefully. “He was my friend. Like you were my friend. Maybe he was long and slow where you were quick and sudden … but …"

"You don't have to say this," he interrupts hastily. I wonder if he is trying to spare my feelings - or his own.

"But you want to know, don't you?" I ask him. Once opened, I don’t think there is any putting the lid back down on this. 

He swallows - he is genuinely unnerved by this conversation. "I know you've never liked talking about it. And I didn't ever really want to hear it. Maybe it's time. I don't know."

"You know - you guys were the ones who skipped straight ahead to love. It's not like either of you asked. Just demanded answers. Perhaps I felt like there were more important things to do … and perhaps I didn't want it - not yet, anyway."

He nods at this. "I can't speak for Gale, but- well, and I obviously can't really even speak for myself, I guess. But – love is funny. It feels like a shared thing, even when it's only one-sided. And when you're a kid – and you really don't know how love works …. And there was everything else, of course." He runs his hand through his hair, making it stand up straight. It gives him a slightly wild look. "You're right – the timing was not great. It's just – you can't help it. It happens. You do crazy things, you say crazy things. Regrettable things - maybe. You try to get out with dignity, if you can." He hesitates - glances toward the rock - but he knows and I know that the question hanging between us must now be asked. "Katniss? Why is Gale not here? Is it because of you or because of him?"

I breathe out in relief. He’s made the question easier to answer than not. "Me," I say. "Gale and I - we're too much alike. That's problematic at the best of times. But right now – especially when I am not particularly happy with myself - it would be no help to me to see my reflection in his face - all fire and destruction."

He contemplates my response for a minute. Then: "I've always had a soft spot for the theory of the attraction of opposites."

I grin at that.

"Sorry - I really shouldn't have said that," he adds, hastily, as if I have scared a state secret out of him.

"Why not? What's the point of keeping secrets anymore?"

"It's not keeping secrets - it's keeping the balance. Not messing up what we have right now. Comfort - isn't that what you called it?"

"Yes - that's what I called it. But it's only comfort if it's also honest."

He looks at me for a moment, very aware that there is a sharp turn to my words: that we will not, now, be able to seek comfort in each other’s arms without acknowledging everything complicated about it.  "I'll - keep that in mind," he finally says.

"I'm counting on it."

I have a strange sense of elation as we finish the walk through the woods. It is driven home in me when we finally step out of the thickest section of the woods and are greeted again by the sparkling sun and the crystal shine of the lake. This is my world - my second home - the place I have come for comfort and also for honesty with myself. And now it is his world, too. I watch him turn around on his heels, dumbstruck with the beauty of the hills rising up over the other side of the lake, and the utter blueness of the sky. 

"I've been here before," he says.

"What?!" 

He shakes his head. "No – no – that's not it. I saw a video of this place. You were here – and you were singing."

It takes me a minute to figure out what he is talking about, and then I remember a particularly sad day during my time in Thirteen. "Oh. Singing. Forgot about that."

He sets his backpack down on the pebbly beach and looks in all appreciation and delight at his surroundings. Waves and waves of longing and insecurity overwhelm me as I watch him. When he notices my gaze, I blush, then point hastily behind him, to where the lake house sits at the edge of the beach.

"Check that out."

He glances back, then walks up to it, and I follow at a distance. He sees the fire-ring just outside, and peeks inside, where my nest - some furs and an old blanket - has been set up for me to rest in. He looks back at me, smiling and shaking his head - delighted to finally see the places I have talked to him about.

I walk down to the water. I’m hot and anxious. And I need to know more - I need more knowledge of him. I need everything from him. I yank off my boots, roll up my jeans, and walk out into the shallow water.  Then I pull my shirt off and expose myself to the sun and all the elements - and to him. I glance back at him.

"Whoa!" he says, hastily looking away. "Warn a guy, why don't you?"

"I don't care if you see me naked," I reply, swallowing my disappointment at his reaction. I turn away from him and give him the full view of the scars that made me ugly - the melted, twisted, multicolored, ruined flesh of my back.

Fuck it. I pull down my jeans and throw them onto the beach. I turn to him again, and find that now he is staring at me with a pained expression.

"I do," he says. "I care."

I look down at myself - the worst burns were on my back, but there are also scars on my arms, my waist, a dark streak across my breastbone. "Yeah, It’s not pretty.”

He looks pained. "That's not what I meant."

"Then - what did you mean?"

"I meant that there have always been lines. That I care about you enough to care about them. That I value - the lines."

I laugh at that. What? That ancient history? "Those were different people and a different place and time. Look - you won't offend me by saying it. You don't look at me the same way - you don't feel about me the same way. It's OK to say it."

"But I thought you wanted honesty."

My heart stops for a moment."What do you -?"

He steps toward me. "Katniss, you - are beautiful. Your scars - are beautiful."

"That's what people say when they feel sorry for -."

He grabs my arm, and I almost cry out in my startlement. "No. Maybe some people, but not me. Your scars - you …."

"Yeah, I earned them, I know."

"Fuck earning anything,” he says, with an angry look. “Especially anything to do with their wars. You survived. That's what makes them beautiful. You think I'm bullshitting you? I've had half a leg since the first arena. And it sucked at first, in all the vain, pointless ways you can think of. And - maybe in the depths of it, I didn't care about my life, but - you saved me and I can't help it - to have survived feels so good, even when it hurts to live."

"I don't - I don't ..."

"I know." He grimaces and lets my arm go, then looks down at his own hands. "Truth?" he asks me.

"What?" My heart is starting to pound.

"Do you want the truth? Really want it?"

"Yes. Yes, of course," I breathe.

"There were so many times I thought I had closed the door on you. Finally told myself - 'I'm done.' I thought that was what you wanted. But where does love go when it's rejected? I just did what I could with it; used it for you, for them. Tried to get some good out of it. And then they - took - all of that away, turned it inside out, made propaganda out of it - and then a weapon. And after it was over, again I thought 'OK, I'm done. At least, I'm done.' And yet - still - still I'm not.

"Sweetheart, be as naked as you want to be. Just understand that - the lines I draw between us? Those are for you, not for me. They were always for you. And they still are - when I sleep with you at night and cook for you in the morning - when you stand naked before me and I want you as much as I ever did. The lines are yours for the crossing - not mine."

By the time he is finished, he is out of breath - and so am I. And I’m the one who is naked, but he is the one who has completely exposed himself. As before. As always. And I have no fucking words. “Come with me - into the water,” I finally say.

It takes him a while to follow me. He does finally strip down to his underwear while I am swimming in the part of the lake where the shallows transform abruptly to the depths. And he is watching me - wondering, I suppose, about my reaction to what he has said. About the consequences. Me - I’m just trying to prepare myself mentally for the thing my body has been ready for, for ages. 

Finally, he ventures in, tentatively. I swim over to greet him. “Come deeper,” I tell him.

We go until he is chest deep in the water, and I splash around him, while he watches me warily.

"You've forgotten everything I taught you about swimming," I tease him.

“But – you weren't teaching me how to swim. You were trying to get me to run off with you."

Oh! This is new. A true memory from the Quell, which he has insisted is mostly a memory of nightmares, very little of it true. I duck my head under the water for a moment. "You remember?" I ask him, spluttering on my words, when I resurface.

He grabs at me and pulls me up into his arms. The water laps around us, his skin and my skin. And I have never been … and I have never felt something …  "I've watched it,” he tells me hoarsely. “The Quell."

My heart starts thumping so erratically that I’m sure he can feel it. "Have you now?" 

He breathes against my chest. Once. Twice. Heavy. Three times. "Yes. I brought a copy of it home with me. I've watched it – a few times."

"So then – you remember," I say. The kiss, the kiss, the kiss.

But he shakes his head. "Katniss – I've seen it. I know what happened. I believe what happened. But no – I don't remember."

I crane my neck back, leaning back in his arms - the movement causes the lower halves of our body to press closer together, under the water. I don’t know how I manage to form the words, but: "I do. I remember. Maybe that is enough."

"I want to," he says.

And then I am kissing him. I’m not actually sure how it happened. But concentration is nearly impossible - conscious thought is a thing of the past. There’s no build-up to it, either; it is a monster of a kiss: a full-on attack. I had forgotten that I knew how to kiss like this, moving my mouth against his as if I am trying to burrow straight through every layer of him.

And he responds in kind. And then he starts moving his fingers up the scars of my back - they are even more sensitive than my natural skin, it turns out, and I want to cry with the sensation of it.

Off balance, now, we tumble backward into the water, which forces our separation. I make immediately for the shore, and wait for him to follow me. He emerges from the lake, and I take in the sight of it - the water dripping off his muscles, the tight knot of his undershorts.

"Oh,” he says. “That does ring a bell."

I laugh from pure joy. But not for very long. “Peeta,” I say. “Peeta Mellark….”

He waits for me to say it. But really, who needs words? I take his hand and lead him up to the house.

For me, the most startling part of it all is in the immediate aftermath. I’m not sure I was expecting something so alien to my everyday life to feel as natural - incremental, inevitable - as it does. For Peeta - after a kaleidoscope of solicitation, assurances and intense focus - there is illumination. We have barely finished when he says, "We really never did that before. We really didn't."

I blink up into an expression so boyishly conflicted between bravado and insecurity that I almost don’t recognize him. "No, we never did."

"Thank goodness," he says, blowing out a breath. "I wouldn't want to not remember it."

He gently rolls over to lie on his side and my body suddenly feels different with the separation.  I’m all relaxed muscles and sore joints wrapped up in sweaty skin.  My hair is three-quarters loose from its braid and sticking to my cheeks.  Yet, I feel uniquely attractive - glowing with a sense of my own beauty in a way that I have not felt since the synthetic fire clothed me in the Capitol.

“Are you OK?” he asks.

I push the hair off of my face.  “I - I think so,” I reply.  Then I smile. “I mean - I don’t feel any different. Except that I do.”

He grins in return.  “Same. That’s a good thing - I think. I think it’s a good thing. Do - do you?”

“I think you could be overthinking it.”

And I might just be over feeling it. My gut aches in a deep, hollow way that is like no hurt I have ever felt before. If I let myself, I could actually cry, sob really - and yet, it is not quite the same as the grief with which I am too familiar. There is a joy to it. I crave this feeling, like I crave this boy. I know what it is - what name I could give it.  But I also know that I’m far too cowardly to speak it, unless he does first.

“Sometimes I do that,” he replies. 

I swallow. “So, tell me, then - what you are thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I took too long. Or not long enough. Or too rough, or too gentle, or too in between. I’m thinking that I have no idea what —.”

I lean in and stop his flow of words with my kiss.  It’s surprising how quickly satiation gives way again to agitation, and we are both breathing much heavier when we separate. 

“Do you know what I think?  I think it doesn’t matter .  There can’t be any right way to - to do this thing, as long as both of - as long as both people are happy at the end.”

He licks his lips. Then he puts his fingers on my cheek and they just linger there, the warm, callused tips of them. I feel his pulse on my skin.  My breath stops in the suspense of the moment. “Now what?” he whispers.

“Now,” I say pragmatically. “I make a fire and we eat lunch.”

“That is an excellent idea,” he smiles.

And that is how the day goes. We eat, we swim, we walk around the lake and talk. We eat again. The sun goes down and I don’t want to go back home, yet, where there are eyes and expectations and the details of everyday life to manage.

It is with more deliberation the second time, by the light of the fire, with the sound of crickets and the nightbirds rising up around us. Then he goes to sleep and I indulge in the unfamiliar practice of tracing his collarbone, lightly, with my fingertips. Until I, too, fall asleep.

Later that night, he wakes me as he struggles out of his dreams. He looks around, slightly confused, until he sees me lying next to him and relaxes back against me. I stroke his temple, shushing the traces of his nightmares away. This is my job - and my privilege - and my joy, I realize, as the enormity of what we have done suddenly soaks into my understanding. 

We stare into each other’s open eyes. He reaches out with a thoughtful, quizzical expression to take a strand of my hair and twist it gently around his finger. "You love me," he whispers. "Real, or not real?"

Ah - so, in the end, he has left it up to me. And so I speak it aloud, at last: "Real."

Chapter Text

-1-

Peeta’s conscience hits him early in the morning, and we walk home before the sun rises so he can catch up on baking bread. My conscience takes a little longer to wake. 

“Missed you last night, girl,” says Sae at breakfast.

I squint at my plate of eggs and toast, ignoring the pointed look Haymitch throws Sae at this remark. Her granddaughter starts making noise in the living room, which forestalls me having to think of a response.

Then I look at Haymitch and see that he is staring at me.

“Well?” he says. “Remember, I’m supposed to be kept in the loop on your movements.”

I almost tell him, just because I know it would successfully get him off my back for some time. Maybe I do need to tell him, though. I need advice, and I’m not sure where else to get it. "I took the day off. I - didn't sleep well." It's hard for me not to smile ironically at this, but I contain it. 

"I see you have some new artwork up," says Haymitch, glancing into the living room.

"Yes, I bullied Peeta into finally taking out some of his pictures from last year. I’m hoping he starts painting again. It helped him before.”

"You've done a good job with him."

This compliment nearly knocks me over. Have I? Is it me? Once, when I finally asked Peeta about it, he had rattled off the list of things he did in the Capitol while I was on trial for regicide. "Depression management, anger management, grief management, cognitive-behavioral therapy, art therapy, blood treatments. There's no aspect of my head Aurelius hasn't seen."

"We've helped each other,” I say, with a humble shrug. “And he’s stubborn. Everyone always called me a survivor - I think we all underestimated him, in that regard.”

Haymitch shakes his head. “I watched him stay alive in the dirt for four days in that first arena. I’ve never underestimated him since. But - the Capitol laid a wallop on him, no lie.”

Sae comes back in from the living room at that, and I again have to swallow the explanation that I need to give to Haymitch. "Sae, is someone paying you to come cook and check in on me?" I ask.

"Pay's a strong word. They offered me first choice of a house in 12. But I couldn't stay in that rabbit warren 13 anyway. I didn't care what happened in the war, I was about to strike out on my own, regardless."

"Oh. Well, I appreciate it a lot, and I'm happy to have you over sharing meals with me. But I don't think you should have to do all the cooking. I'm finally - feeling normal, so I think I should start doing more. Haymitch, can you stay over this morning? I feel like doing something - playing checkers."

"You hate checkers."

"Well - something. I need company, and I want to talk to you."

He shrugs. But when he and I are sitting in the living room together, all the things I want to say and ask get blocked out by embarrassment. "How are you doing?" I finally ask.

He gives me a not this again look, but doesn’t get up to leave, which seems like a major concession. "I’m always fine. Would be better if the electricity stayed on more than twenty minutes a day, but, on the other hand, this place looks better in the dark.”

"If you didn't have to be here with me, would you be - somewhere else?"

"Like where?"

"I - I don't know. Some place where there are lights - and alcohol on every corner."

He shakes his head with a sour look.

"I just realized - this is your first summer not in the Capitol in literal decades."

"So - you think I liked it or something?"

"No - just - it's a part of your life that is suddenly over. It must feel strange."

“No. Feels completely normal. Like I never went in the first place.”

“Haymitch ….”

“Well, you’re fishing again. Who are you trying to get information on, anyway?”

I think of Chaff, Mags, Wiress – all people with pages yet to come. "No one, Haymitch. Not today. I'm not trying to be insensitive. I'm just checking in on you. We're - family," I add, tentatively, as I'm inviting a scowl.

"Why don't you just say what you really want to say and stop trying to head doctor me," he says.

It's my turn to scowl. "Well, I just wanted you to know - in regards to me and Peeta, I mean - that things have kind of picked up, a bit."

I glance at him curiously, waiting for a smirk or something, but he just gives a little sigh. "It's about time," he says.

I smile. "Yeah, no arguments here."

"What's the problem then?"

"No problems! I mean - I just … I just need some advice on this - thing." He waits, looking at me warily. "I don't want children."

Haymitch sits bolt upright. "Holy hell, Katniss. Are you kidding me? Oh no - no, no, no - I did not need this, this morning. There are more ways to not have kids than there are to have them. And you should not need me to figure that out. "

I go red down to the roots of my soul. "I know that. That's not what I meant - I mean, I never want them."

"Well. There are ways to do that, too. But, what do you mean … aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? Who’s suggesting that you have kids right now? That’s lunacy."

"No one is, but - I’m thinking down the road. That Peeta should know now what the future would be, but I'm not sure how to talk to him about this."

"You know, one of these days, you're going to have to do this without me."

"That doesn't have to be for a very long time, Haymitch."

"Don't count on it. I might just move to the Capitol once we're done with this conversation." He frowns at me. "It's a lot to ask someone - not to have kids."

"It's a lot to ask someone to have them. Especially - after all I've lost."

"He's not without his own losses, Katniss. I understand how you feel it - and why you feel it. But you’re way too young to understand the long game. Do you think I regret not bringing a kid into the world - a hostage to the Capitol? No, not one bit. But - do I regret that that was the choice I had to make? Sometimes. I’m getting old, sweetheart. And I’m alone. Who remembers me - after?"

“I do. Peeta does. You’re a Victor and the most successful mentor of all time, and a major part of the rebellion. You’ll be remembered longer than most.”

“Yeah, well - that’s remembering what I did, not who I am. But, anyway, no big deal. It’s not like I’d make a good or even passable father. Peeta, though ….”

I feel a sharp pang of guilt. Of course, I know this. And, inconsistently enough, I want him to have them . If I was braver, less selfish, I'd ask Haymitch how to let Peeta go without somehow hurting him again - let him have children with someone else. But I know that won't work. Not for him. Definitely not for me. “Haymitch, the bare idea of having the responsibility over another life - I will never get over that terror.”

He sighs. "Well, let's walk through this. The thing about Peeta is – and, believe me, because I have been hearing this for the better part of two years – he loves you beyond all reason or sense of self-preservation. You don't need to be on banners, or wear pyrotechnic dresses, to have a ridiculous amount of influence over him. There isn't much you can ask of him that he won't give."

"I’m sure even that amount of devotion has its limits," I say.  “Anyway, that’s the old Peeta. I’m not much sure about the current version.”

Haymitch, to his credit, doesn't disagree. "I'll tell you what. I'll have a talk with him, very discreetly - remind him that this is an issue for well into the future. You two are so messed up right now, it's ten years before you should even think about having kids, anyway. He'll appreciate that."

"Thank you, Haymitch."

"You promise me this, though. You have to tell him how you feel about this, but also … If he gives you this, you keep your mind open to the possibility that maybe Panem might be a better place with Katniss Everdeen's children in it. Promise me - give it ten years and think it over again - and goddam talk to him about it. Hopefully, I won't be around in ten years to have to hear it."

"OK, I promise," I say, thinking over this compromise and wondering who it's least fair to. I guess the good thing is there is no predicting what can happen in ten years. "Hey, Haymitch. Am I even allowed to - you know - get married, if I wanted to? Will people find out - like Plutarch? How do I keep them - the Capitol, the cameras - out of my hair?"

"How would I know? This isn't a game I'm used to playing. Stay low-key if you can, but - if you do plan on making it official - you need to manage to try to stay ahead of Plutarch. He's used to working on his feet - if he gets even a sniff of a major event, he will be here before you can sneeze. There are too many people invested in your love story for him not to."

"That's your fault," I tell him, but he knows I'm joking, and laughs.

"So - are you telling me there might be cause for Plutarch to come running here with cameras and rice?"

I don't get the rice reference, but I shake my head. "No, of course not. We haven't even talked about it."

"Interesting. Do you want me to have a word with the boy about that , too?"

No," I blush. "I'm not worried about Peeta - I'm worried about Plutarch." Visions of ridiculously complicated white dresses and crowds of Capitol folk stuffing themselves from tables of food distract me for a little while, then I remember - I'm confined to 12 and there is literally no place here to hold such an event. Finally, some advantage to my situation.

While I'm pondering this, Peeta walks in. I jump up in surprise and we look at each other for a moment. He glances at Haymitch.

"You're back," I say, unnecessarily.

He smiles. "Too tired to work a full day."

"OK,’ says Haymitch, standing up. “I’m out.”

"So ….”

"Yes, I know. Let’s not linger over it. Real pleasant breakfast, Katniss. I might skip the next few - hundred. But let me know if you need me to have that word with Peeta," he adds, smirking at me.

"What?"

"Nothing - no really, nothing. He's teasing me for being worried about - Plutarch."

"Oh. Oh." Peeta stares at me for a bit. "Yeah, I'm a little worried about that myself. What was his advice?"

"Lay low."

"That seems self-evident."

"Yeah."

He touches my cheek. "You know I was thinking this morning ... the beauty of our situation is that most everyone already thinks we're married, or near enough. It's actually more scandalous that we haven't been together. The only ones who know better - well, they might be expecting this, anyway. So - we don't have to really do anything drastic, or worry about making any announcements or even worry about long-term plans."

"Oh, that's true." I frown behind him at the clock. "You're two hours early. Are you really done baking for the day?"

"I was dead on my feet, so - I did just enough so that I can reasonably catch up tomorrow. But also - I was in the middle of rolling out dough when I realized …"

I raise my eyebrows. "What?"

"Just that - I wanted to be here with you. Not for anything in particular. Not to touch or to talk, not anything but just to be here, right now."

The moment that you know - that you really know? It’s different for everyone, of course, but for me it’s the rush of joy that overwhelms me at these words. The fact that it's good to hear them, not the burden it once was. “Well,” I tell him.  “This is where you belong.”

-2-

"Slow down," I say, "you're going too fast."

I've stopped with my hands pressed in the dough, watching his fingers fly. Press, press, flip, squeeze, flip, press, press. I look down at the lumpy ball of dough on my board and see that I have already got flour everywhere, and that is my main accomplishment.

"Oh, sorry," he says. "You get into a rhythm sometimes."

"You mean - you do," I respond.

"I'll slow down. Watch."

In some ways, things haven't changed much over the past couple of weeks. Peeta keeps his regular schedule - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: bake - Friday: construction - Saturday: district council. I hunt every other morning - or every two or three mornings, anyway, as long as they are not Thursdays or Sundays. On those days, we relax together. Sometimes, it is at the lake. Sometimes it is in the clearings or the fields, gathering herbs. Most times it is with the book. Pages on pages on pages. Finnick, Boggs, Mags. Thresh, Chaff, Seeder.

Some things have changed a lot - but the transition has been so smooth and natural, the change itself seems nearly imperceptible. There's no hesitancy; no need to ask or worry - we sleep together now. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights at Peeta's, the rest at mine. As Peeta suggested - there is no scandal to this, no fuss in the District. Most of these people are my folk - Seam folk - and as protective of me as they've ever been, maybe more. And Peeta is one of them now.

Where he got them - from Haymitch, or the train, or from someone in town - I don't ask, but Peeta supplies the condoms. This isn't the best permanent means of birth control, but our options are limited at the moment. Or until I call my mom to discuss my choices, which I haven't brought myself to do, yet. 

At any rate, now sleeping together doesn't mean just sleeping.

So, when I'm at his house in the mornings, I try to help him bake, at least when I'm not out hunting. Drop biscuits - the staple of the district - are easy to make. Other quick breads - apple cakes and zucchini bread and flatbread; these I picked up pretty quickly, too. Now, I'm trying to learn how to make leavened breads that don't turn out completely dense or full of air pockets or even just flat.

Peeta grins at me as he moves his fingers in super slow motion. I throw a dish towel at him.

He catches it easily, then descends on me with it. "You have flour on your face," he says, rubbing my nose. I put my hands on his cheeks and leave white fingerprints.

"Now, so do you," I tease him.

After he's done kissing me, there is flour in his hair, on his neck, all over his clean apron and on the backside of his jeans. Normally, Peeta's dislike of fooling around near his food preparation areas would stop us, but today I'm not sure even that would be the case if the train whistle in the distance didn't bring us up short.

"Oh - it's early!" he exclaims against my mouth.

We take off our aprons, dust each other off as best as we can, put the dough in bowls and cover them with damp cloths. Then we walk to the train station together.

We find them waiting for us on the platform, among the crowds of people who have gathered to collect their own visitors or orders from the train. Delly - who has really prospered - at least physically - under 13's diet regime; she may even have grown half an inch, or maybe she's just carrying herself in a way that makes her look taller. Her hair is loose - it's been cut so that it barely touches her shoulders, and her bangs are feathery. Behind her, a tall boy of about 15 - darker blond than either his sister or Peeta - well-knit and serious. I have a vague recollection of seeing him among the District 12 kids who went into military training in 13, during the war.

There's a third person with Delly and her brother, Drew, a narrow-waisted but curvy girl with long golden hair. Her face is vaguely familiar to me, but I'm distracted by the conspicuous scarring of the right side of her face.

"Aster?" says Peeta, who knows who she is, of course. A townie - one of the very few who made it out of District 12. Aster … Lin-something. I don't quite remember - just that we were constantly being told how pretty she is.

He kisses her left cheek and then eyes her for a moment. "You look better than the last time I saw you."

"Huh," she says, dismissively. "Well - you look worse, Mellark."

He only smiles at this. "That's true enough. What are you doing here?" But he half-turns toward Delly. This has to be awkward for him - he had to make huge concessions for just Delly and Drew. Where the hell is this girl going to stay?

Delly answers him, with an apologetic smile. "She just came for a couple of days. She'll stay with me, then …."

"Then I'm off to the Capitol," says Aster.

He widens his eyes. "Really? I - oh! You mean to …"

"Yes." She touches her face. "I'm meeting with some surgeons there. And I have to try to figure out if my family's money still exists somewhere."

"Do you have all your luggage?" asks Peeta, looking slightly confused.

"Yes," says Delly, "we traveled light. But - oh, my goodness, what a long trip. I don't know why they don't hurry up and fix the train line between 12 and 13. We had to get a ride on a delivery truck going to District 8 - bump, bump over the most overgrown, holey roads you've ever seen. Then wait for hours for the train coming here. Wow!" She suddenly looks past us and toward the town - which is flattened now, and just ashy gray. "I've seen the pictures, but - really - nothing can prepare you for…."

Peeta absently pats her back. "I know. I know. Um - do you know which temp house you've been assigned? They're over -."

Delly laughs. "Oh, we're not staying in one of those. We really didn't want to knock someone out of place on the waiting list, and in the middle of thinking what to do about it - we were also offered a house in 13 - Haymitch wrote and offered me a job and for us to stay at his place."

"What?" Peeta and I both say it together. Then I remember I had kind of asked Haymitch to take care of the Delly situation, if he could.

"What job?" asks Peeta.

"Keeping his house," she says with a smile. "One person - how bad could it be, really?"

I open my mouth to warn her, but I'm arrested by the befuddled expression on Peeta's face. Now he has a dilemma. He's supposed to vacate his house in three weeks.

He takes Aster's bags and walks between the two girls. I follow, walking next to Drew - who is not talkative in the least - and listen to Delly and Aster chattering, and wonder if Peeta had any friends from school who aren't pretty girls.

On the way, we catch up with Thom, who's hauling some supplies in a barrow back up to Victors' Village. Peeta falls back now to walk beside me, and he invites Thom to his house this evening. "I'll make dinner," he says.

Thom is eyeing the backs of the two giggling girls ahead of us with a slightly bemused appreciation. "I won't say no to that."

"What about you, Katniss?" Peeta looks at me apologetically. "Are you up for a party?"

I shrug. What choice do I have, really? I'll look rude and surly if I don't go. I'll probably come off as rude and surly, anyway, but I'll at least get dinner out of it. "Sure. Are you inviting Haymitch?" I add, half-smiling at him.

"Oh, I'm inviting Haymitch," he says with narrow eyes.

I shower and change at my house, then return to Peeta's in time to help him with dinner. He's fully immersed in it, throwing what looks like gobs of dough into a pot that smells like chicken. Delly is perched at his table, just talking. While I start ripping apart vegetables and throwing them in a bowl, I pay more attention to Peeta's face than Delly's words. It's partially strained. He was always the sociable one, but it's been quiet here in 12, and perhaps he's grown accustomed to my much less verbose form of conversation.

But Delly is his oldest friend and he owes her - we both owe her - for trying to look after him in 13. So I try to pay attention to what she's saying - right now, she's talking about the opportunity to send Drew to the Capitol to learn engineering. Apparently the teachers in 13 thought he showed promise in that area. For his sake, she put up with some passive-aggressive behavior in 13. Having to re-register as a 13 citizen, getting a downgrade in housing, being warned against going into certain levels, having her security clearance devolved. Even Drew, who would have fought with them, if called upon, had to take some sort of loyalty test.

"Who's in charge there now?" I ask her.

"Some guy called Kasick. He was one of the line commanders at the end of the rebellion. Really, you could plug in almost anyone there. They're all roughly the same."

"Hmm."

But Peeta says, "So, I guess you don't know - if they are planning to disarm, or anything - the nukes, I mean? We don't get very much news here, and I was hoping - someone would have a plan about that."

Something cold in the air makes me shiver between my shoulder blades. When I've thought of 13, it's been to be very nervous about the proximity of a district whose President I assassinated. Unlike Delly, I have no desire to see the train tracks rebuilt to 13. It would be a very short jump between us, if so. But Peeta's right - as long as 13 holds the majority of the worst of Panem's weapons, we have no reason to rest easy about the future at all. Children? Forget the arenas. There have always been wars ….

We're eventually joined by Haymitch, Drew, Aster and Thom. Peeta and I serve chicken and dumplings and salad. Delly has brought some alcohol from District 8, which neither Peeta nor I partake in, but everyone else appreciates. Aster talks to Haymitch about his still - she's an expert in this area, apparently. I watch Thom's interactions with her, as well. She was the ultimate Townie girl - not even a merchant, but from an independently-wealthy family. I doubt she would have been caught dead with a boy from the Seam. But times have changed - and, maybe her vanity has needed propping up, lately … she seems receptive to his awkward flirtation.

At some point, I finally get Drew to open up, and we sit in a quiet corner while he talks about the chemical composition of roads and the mathematics of bridge building. This is so far advanced from anything he could have learned in District 12 - where he would have eventually found himself measuring and sewing shoes - that I get one of those conflicted feelings about the rebellion and the war … like, despite my own personal losses, maybe it was, in the balance, for the good. And Delly's grown even further in my estimation. Imagine leaving a guaranteed house and citizenship in the one intact district in the country to clean house for Haymitch - to live with Haymitch.

But Delly gets along with Haymitch, the way she gets along with everyone. There's a moment when she, Haymitch and Peeta are all talking together and I realize - they must have had many moments together in 13, during Peeta's recovery. Haymitch wasn't just doing me and Peeta a favor - he actually likes Delly. Or, he's tolerant of her, anyway. This is a revelation.

At one point, I escape out to the porch for a moment of silence and fresh air. The sun has long set and the summer stars are out - I look south, away from town, and at the southern constellations: the horseman-hunter, the scorpion. Without even thinking about it, I start singing a low tune to myself:

The town's all gone; it's gone away

The town's all gone; it's gone away

The town's all gone; it's gone away

The people are straw. The wind's blown them all away.

I was born in a coal camp with stars at my head 

and mountains as far as I could see…*

"Morose tonight, Katniss?"

I smile as he puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. "No, just enjoying the stars. All the songs with the saddest lyrics have the prettiest tunes."

"I think everyone's leaving soon."

I turn around, leaning against the porch railing and looking up at him. "I'm really fine. Just needed some air. What are you going to do about Haymitch?"

He laughs and puts a hand in his hair. "Maybe the temp house I acquired for Delly is still free and I can take that one. I don't know. I have a couple of weeks to figure it out."

I keep my lips closed on the obvious solution. Though I guess maybe it's on me to bring it up.

"I baked our bread loaves. Yours turned out well. When everyone's gone, let's have some tea and eat it."

"That sounds nice." I sigh into the night air.

"What's wrong?"

"That was not an unhappy sigh."

"Discontented?"

"No."

"Frustrated … maybe?" He asks with a sly grin.

I shake my head. But I'm about to lean into his suggestiveness and flirt with him in turn, when the door opens behind him and Thom comes out. He's had very little recent experience with alcohol, and appears to be swaying a bit. He's definitely got a grin on his face.

"Thanks for dinner, Peeta," he says. "I never had anything quite like that before."

"I don't know how accurate it is - just something I ate once in the Capitol and it seemed like it might be easy to duplicate. You should get used to Capitol food, Thom."

"Vote's still a couple months away."

Peeta shrugs. I look from one to the other, realizing how out of the loop I am.

"I heard from Hazelle," Thom says suddenly.

Peeta glances at me, then frowns at Thom. "That's nice."

"Well - it's the first time since we talked about what's going on in 2. She didn't really know much herself, but said she'd ask Gale to write to me."

"Thanks, Thom - good night."

I raise my eyebrows at Peeta while Thom walks down the road. He smiles gently, but he doesn't say anything until his house is empty of guests and we've done the dishes and sat down to tea and buttered bread.

"Um …" he says, looking down into his tea cup.

"Now it's my turn to ask about Gale," I prompt, glancing at the side of his face, his inscrutable expression.

"There's nothing much to tell. After that interview with Gale aired, there was a discussion about it at the council meeting. Some people were wondering if there was a way to get more information on the new peacekeeper academy they were interviewing him about. Are they all going to come from 2 again? Are they going to be centrally controlled? I wasn't paying attention, and no one saw enough of it for it to be clear. We thought Thom might have some contact with Gale - but, he hasn't spoken to him. Hazelle checks in with Thom every once in a while - so, that's it, really."

I frown on this unexpected information. I hadn't given it any thought - that TV appearance had my thoughts going in their own directions. But now that it's been said … "It's hard to imagine - Gale having any part of a system that is that similar to the old one." But then again, it's equally hard to imagine him training peacekeepers. Or is it?

"We don't know if that's what is going on. Or if Gale has any say in what is going on. He may just be training kids to shoot at targets or running calisthenics. We just want to know."

"Then what?"

"Then we ask everyone here what they want to do about it. Then we talk to Paylor. I mean - hopefully we get ahead of anything we are nervous about."

I am out of the loop. This is the second time today I've heard something about concerns outside of 12, and I don't like it. I look at Peeta sadly, but he just smiles.

"There's nothing to worry about, Katniss. We're just being overly cautious. Just in case."

-3-

I decide to deliberately ignore whatever Peeta and Thom and the rest of the council are all worried about and trust them to take care of it. And I also decide to ignore Gale's involvement - I have enough grievances there, anyway. My immediate concerns are future babies I have no intention of having - and the potential problem of Delly. Once Aster leaves for the Capitol, I'm expecting to be in demand - there aren't very many other girls our age here, and Delly's just naturally sociable. 

But it's much less than I feared. She likes to cook and she seems to take it as part of her responsibilities to Haymitch to prepare and take meals with him; so, suddenly, the opposite of what I feared happens. Our group breakfasts and dinners - me and Peeta, Sae and Haymitch - all but disappear overnight, leaving Peeta and me free to take more meals together alone. On Saturdays we'll all eat at my house, and on the occasional invitation - at Thom's or Haymitch's or on the green or someone else's house. Someone has told Delly to leave us our Thursdays and Sundays. So I see her most often on Fridays, when Peeta - and now her brother, as well - are working in town.

Sometimes we work together in the communal garden - sometimes we play cards or checkers. She tries to teach me how to sew - which would now be an incredibly useful skill - and when that doesn't work, to knit. Sometimes she looks at me with questions on her face, but she is either showing phenomenal restraint, or she's as intimidated about me as she claimed to be back at school. At times when she is more talkative than others, I have to silently suppress my frustration, but then I feel ashamed at my lack of gratitude. Peeta appreciates her presence here - someone his age, with common memories. And Haymitch does, too. You can tell between the lines of his grousing.

I'm a poor listener. If I was ever going to develop the ability for small talk, the last few years fire-blasted that possibility away forever. One time, Peeta asks after their mutual friend, Sammy, who is still in 13 - someone she's mentioned once or twice, but I never asked her any follow-up questions.

She wrinkles her nose. "His mom wanted to stay. She's got all those boys, and she used to make stuffed toys for sale - after her husband died and his brother took over the chandlery - and there's not much industry for that here."

"Nor in 13," says Peeta.

"But - more than here. Anyway, she wanted Sammy to stay with her, and he's never been good at going against her." She rolls her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Delly," he says.

She shrugs. "If that's how he is going to be, I can do better," she says. "We'll see."

See - that's the sort of thing I would know if I knew how to make small talk.

That night in bed, Peeta says, "I think that's why I always got along with Delly - she's so different from me."

"You mean - pragmatic?"

He laughs. "Exactly. Practical. But it's too bad about Sammy. I don't know how long it's been exactly - they sort of got together some time before the first Games - but that's still a pretty long relationship."

"Did you ever think - you and Delly …?"

"What? Oh! No - really no. She's like my … sister? Almost. We were friends at such a young age that I just kind of missed when she turned into a girl, if you get my meaning. And it’s true on her part, too. In fact, she tried to set me up with her friends."

I sit up at this. “Really? Like - who?”

“I took Lily to a harvest dance one year. That didn’t go particularly well, so I resisted her matchmaking efforts after that.”

“What happened? I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Well, it was seventh grade and you know how those things used to go - nobody actually danced with each other except for those annoying couples, and I guess she wanted to dance. I offered to walk her home, and she kind of said something cool about it - which I didn’t understand until years later. Anyway, I think I probably projected pretty hard that I would rather have been there with someone else.”

“You mean --.”

“Well, yes.”

“You never asked. I was never asked.”

“Would you have gone?” he asks in astonishment.

“Well - no, but --.”

“I’m pretty sure I knew that, then. But … you’re right, of course. I should have asked.”

“It would have created quite the sensation - a townie with a girl from the Seam.”

“That’s one of the reasons I should have asked.”

We are silent for a while, and I listen to Peeta's breaths slow into a contented, sleepy rhythm. I think of all the things we have to talk about. All the important, life-altering things we have to talk about. September is looming over me. An artificial deadline, maybe, but I know - as if it was written in stone somewhere - that Peeta will move in with me before the school year starts. We sleep together every night, anyway, so what other outcome could there be? I could just let it happen - let one thing lead to another. But there's the other sword hanging over my head. The one I promised Haymitch I would discuss with him.

"Peeta," I say out loud - not on purpose. I clap my hand over my mouth, but he's awake instantly.

"Mmmmm?" he murmurs.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."

"S'OK. What is it?"

"Nothing really - I was just wondering - if we could get away, for more than a day. Maybe spend a night out - by the lake. We could go fishing first thing in the morning. And just get some - space."

"That sounds like fun," he says, and then falls back to sleep.

But I stay awake for a lot longer, running everything over and over in my head.

.

.

I probably should have anticipated the kind of day it was going to end up being the way it was so problematic to arrange in the first place. The following weekend brings a  huge flour shipment on Saturday and a specially-ordered birthday cake to bake the next. And the next weekend ….

"Paylor's going to be in the District on Saturday," he tells me.

"For what?"

He hesitates. "She's making a tour of the Districts, to commemorate what has been designated Rebellion Day - at the beginning of September."

"All the more reason to be out of here for that," I say in horror. I drop my roll into my plate of salad.

"But - you're officially not supposed to leave the District, so, maybe, when the President of Panem is here ..."

I wave this off. "Haymitch will cover for me."

"But, Katniss -."

"What's she doing something like that for, anyway?" I say, angrily. "Memorializing the war? That's bullshit."

"Well - I mean - I don’t know. Everyone wants a reason or an excuse to celebrate what happened. And to remind yourself not to go through it again. Or something like that."

I snort. “That’s what they said was the purpose of the Hunger Games.”

"I know, I know - it's BS. I can’t help it if we collectively have a lack of imagination about these things."

I wipe the sudden sweat that breaks out on my forehead. "She'll have a camera crew with her, won't she?"

"Maybe - maybe not. I don't know."

"I won't be here for that."

He looks at me for a long minute, frowning, but I know he won't fight me on this. Not on this. And he doesn't.

"OK, we'll warn her in advance that Dr. Aurelius has advised you to avoid any public events, in particular to do with the Games." But he looks unhappy.

.

.

I walk out to the lake myself on that Saturday morning, taking a backpack with two bags and some fishing gear. My residual horror at the events I'm leaving behind makes me loud and incautious in the woods. Reaping Day. Rebellion Day. Damn all of them and their need to make symbols and ceremonies out of every single thing. Why can't they just let us all forget? 

Like it's something important to remember. This is what is important: him, baking bread in the morning, breaking rocks on Fridays; his hands, roaming over me at night - every time some new sensation, as the summer has wound on, and everything we're curious about we go ahead and try. This is what is important: him, walking through the woods with a lighter-than-normal tread, agreeing with me that the best thing for us is essentially a childless life. Hopefully.

It's evening, and I've been pacing for hours - dipping occasionally back into the woods - before he finally comes, hauling his own backpack. Because I was worried about him, I'm now, of course, angry. By the look on his face, he was anticipating it.

"Well, I hope you thanked Paylor for ruining my weekend," I say to him sourly. "I'm sure it was all too fascinating to leave."

He sits down wearily on one of the stumps we've put in front of the lake house for seating. In the evening light, it's hard to see the nuances of his expressions. "Her train was late," he says patiently. "So it all started late."

"There were cameras, I bet."

"Yes," he admits. "But just by avoiding them today, you know you aren't rid of them. They're even more piqued by your absence today. They'll eventually be back."

"I don't care. I'm not going to arrange or rearrange my schedule for anyone with a camera." I'm beyond irked with Paylor right now. She could have visited in good faith, not made an event out of it. Plutarch's work again, or suspiciously like. And I have undoubtedly pissed off my third president in a row.

"Well - I … nor should you," he sighs. "By the way, and I don't know whether she was mistaken about this or something, but - Paylor told me that she - approved your recent travel request herself."

Shit . I whip around and find him looking up at me, a deliberately calm and patient look on his face. I didn't want to have this conversation by twilight. I wanted to have it in the morning, after a good night and fishing and a good breakfast. I wanted to be able to see his face in the sun and make sure he couldn't hide any of his feelings from me. "Peeta -." I begin.

"You were going to tell me?"

"Tomorrow. I wanted to talk to you about it tomorrow."

"Is it - to see your mother?"

"Not entirely. I asked for permission to go to 4 for a medical treatment. A - long-term contraceptive."

"Oh." This does not erase the puzzlement on his face. "When are you going? Why the secrecy?"

"As soon as I can make the arrangements, now that I have the official go-ahead. Not secrecy - just - I'm not good at talking about this, Peeta, and there is a lot … I figured this would be a long conversation."

He sighs. "You hungry?"

"A little."

We go inside and start a fire. Peeta pulls out a loaf of bread and we eat it under canned beans. He lets me completely finish eating before prompting me to continue. This is worse - having this conversation in this small, close room, with the fire drawing false expressions on our faces. Finally, after trying to think of a long road to lead up to it, I just say it. "I'm getting a tubal ligation."

"That’s a - big decision."

So - Haymitch did his job. Peeta knows what is going on. "And not just a decision for me."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

He shakes his head. "Ultimately - it is your decision. Not mine. I'm just saying - how you feel now about having kids might not be the way you always feel."

There's no arguing that. But there's also no arguing that my weakness for him might eventually persuade me into something that would be bad for both of us. There are things I can't trust to myself, present or future. "But - if you do want kids," I say, as rationally as I can - for this is the very heart of my fears. "If you do want kids, then you have to make a decision, too."

"Yes," he says.

I stare at him. I need more than that. "I guess - " I stammer, "I guess I'm being presumptive in saying that. I mean - I'm not trying to make any assumptions. I'm just letting you know - so you have all the facts before you make any kind of - decisions."

He smiles and his eyes glow in the darkness. "It's cute that you think I really have any choice. You hold all the cards, Katniss. You always have. If you tell me to stay, I'll stay. If you tell me to leave - I'll go, as far away as you need me to."

A sound comes out of me - a strangled sound of relief and frustration. "Why?" I ask him. "Why? What about what you want?"

"I want you - as if that hasn't been crystal clear for years, now. You, not your - uterus. I'm not prepared to beg or plead about it, though. You either believe it or you don't. Accept it - or not."

"But - that's for now. You can't tell me that you might not some day want kids more than you … that in the end, maybe it won't be worth it."

"No," he says frankly, and I nearly fall over from shock. "Obviously, I can't tell you right now what I might feel or regret in twenty or thirty years. But what do you want me to do? Be miserable now in order to avoid being potentially miserable later?"

"Maybe."

He stares at the fire and bites his lip. "Isn't that my decision?"

"But this affects me, too! Don't you understand how much it would terrify me - watching you, feeling you slowly come to resent me over time, slowly come to hate me?"

"I can't say I won't regret not having kids, but I couldn't resent you after giving me fair warning. That would be ridiculous."

"You'd leave me, eventually."

"So - I should leave you now?"

"Why do you want to have kids, anyway?" I ask him, a little angrily.

"Why don't you?" he counters.

I open my mouth and try to find the words.

"Anyway," he says, quickly, "I don't . Not right now. Not for some time. Are you kidding? I'm 18 - and mentally screwed. I have to fill all my time with busy work just to get through things some days. I probably have no business expecting you to spend your life with me, let alone bringing some poor kid into the mix."

"That's now …."

He groans. "Katniss, if you wanted kids and I told you right now I was incapable of having them, what would you do?"

"I hope I would …."

"Exactly."

"But what if I didn't?"

"I don't know how many times I can go around on this, Katniss."

"Maybe we should go to bed."

"Sure, that sounds like a good idea."

I can tell he's not sleeping - not for a long, long time - and I'm sure he can sense the same. I'm more anxious than I was even before, and I'm not sure why. What do I want? I always knew I was never going to get precisely what I wanted out of this conversation - whatever that was - and Peeta is getting even less, but he still seems to be winning it, anyway. Haymitch prepared him for this very well, I think resentfully, and with an unwelcome sense of deja vu.

Frustration takes my breath. I know - I know what I want is right for myself and wrong for Peeta. I want him to have children. Just not mine. But also - not someone else's. There is literally no solution to this dilemma.

.

At dawn, I'm staring at my slack fishing line, pole stuck in the sand of the beach, trying to call back that first, sweet, amazing excitement of falling back in love with him. It could have gone worse, I guess. He could have reacted by immediately breaking off with me or by trying to argue me out of my plan. He did neither. I'm just left with this frustrating sensation of being outmaneuvered by his kindness again and his infuriatingly consistent impulse to sacrifice himself for me. Maybe he thinks that's adorable, but it's also kind of selfish - leaving all the guilt to me.

I hear his feet crunching the rocks behind me. "Why didn't you wake me up?" he asks.

"I -." I don't really have a good answer that doesn't involve me wanting some peace from him and this impossible situation between us.

"You're still mad at me." He sits down next to me and crosses his legs on the sand.

"I never was mad at you. Just incredibly frustrated."

He blows out a long sigh. "Me, too."

"What do we do?"

He looks over the water and squints at the light of the rising sun, the pink color of the sky and the dark, slate gray ripples of water touched with bright yellow sparks. I stare at his profile. The pale curls falling over his cheekbones. The texture of his skin - the little dots where his stubble is growing in. The corner of his pink mouth. Despite myself, I feel dizzy, a rising sensation …

"Well," he says, "what is there to do? When you come back from 4 … how long will you be gone, by the way?"

"Four or five days."

"Katniss, I know you've convinced yourself that somehow if you do this thing - if you decide not to have kids - that I'll eventually want out. What can I say to make you see that isn't true?"

"But it might be true."

"And it might be equally true that you'd want out. Your feelings for me are fairly new. Every day I have to remind myself that my feelings for you are no longer secret or to be ignored. But I've loved you - in one way or another - for thirteen years. You're really fooling yourself if you think that that is so easily dislodged."

My lips tremble.

"Sometimes, you just have to take a chance on things," he adds.

"I know that. And I am . I never expected ... I never wanted to be close to someone like I am to you. It's easy for you - everything seems easy for you. And it's so hard for me."

He chuckles. "It's not as easy as it looks. Nothing ever is. Katniss, I - this is probably the wrong time for this, but maybe it's actually the best time. I don't know." He takes a breath. "When you come home from 4, let's get married. Not -" he holds his hand up when I make a move, as if to jump up and run, which honestly is the first thought that comes to my mind. "Not officially - I think it may be a long time before we can or should do it legally. But just like everyone thinks we are - just a toasting, you and me. I think - I would feel better, and maybe you would, too, if there was a commitment between us, beyond us sleeping together and, presumably, living together in the fall. But it would be easier to - dissolve - if you changed your mind."

"How - pragmatic," I say, faintly aware that I've been proposed to, although it doesn't quite feel like it.

"Isn't that what we're trying to do here ?" he asks with an exasperated look. "Look, it's not how I would have chosen to do it, in different circumstances. But I already did that proposal - the Capitol already ruined it for me - and that stuff's more me than you, anyway. I know you don't need all the flowery words. You know I love you. I - I - believe you feel the same. So …."

I take very deep breaths in order to keep from hyperventilating. I do know this is where we were headed anyway - but that doesn't make it any less difficult to reconcile with my past resolutions. And I'm scared. And I'm worried - worried that he's doing it for the wrong reasons. If I wasn't worried about this, wouldn't the answer automatically be yes ?

I meet his eyes and look into them steadily. "I'm going to give you a pragmatic answer, Peeta. Ask me again when I come back. I don't want this to be about you proving to me that you're OK with not having kids. Even if it's not - I don't want that to be the doubt in my mind. I want you to really think about it, for more than one night."

Despite the less-than-romantic nature of his proposition, his face definitely falls at this. I harden my heart. I'm right - if nothing else, I'm right about demanding this time. I'm fairly sure that if we do this - if we actually do get married - one of two things will happen: he will eventually break down and leave me for a woman who will give him a family, or I will eventually break down and give him one myself. That maybe we will have ten or fifteen years of contentment before it dissolves into regrets. If he can live with that, I guess so can I - but he needs to come to terms with it before I will proceed.

-4-

When the train pulls into the station, I pull my hood over my head and clutch nervously at the small bag I packed. I had a private sleeping car, and Peeta packed me enough food so that I wouldn't have to go out to the dining car for dinner or breakfast. Now I have to navigate what is likely to be a busy train platform without attracting too much attention.

Last night was rough. To spend the first night in weeks alone - and on a train - was not a situation designed to put me at ease. So I spent a lot of the night awake with my guilty conscience and general anxiety.

District 4 is not a self-contained square like 12, but spread out for hundreds of miles along a rugged, hilly coastline, where a number of fishing villages hug the few accessible inlets. The center of District 4, though, is a fair-sized city overlooking a large bay. It's not as big as the Capitol, or even District 2, but it has a sizeable downtown with a cluster of multi-story buildings. The train stops right in this downtown area, and not only the station but the sidewalks outside are crowded with people. Nonetheless, when I step out into the open air, I take a moment to appreciate the salty tang of the air and the smell of the fish markets.

The Capitol guards who have accompanied me, stand around me, a barricade between me and the crowds - until a dark car pulls up and I'm ushered into it.

It's a short ride to the hospital - a matter of just six blocks, or so; I could have walked it. But they drive me around to the back of the building, where there are several ambulances and big bay doors. One of the guards takes me through one of the bays, to a back staircase that opens for employees only, and up two floors. We enter a large ward from the back - a large, sprawling room with a central station surrounded by patient rooms. But there are relatively few people here. I've made as discreet an entrance to this place as possible, I think.

Just as I turn to thank my chaperone, a muffled loudspeaker calls for a list of people to go to admissions, and during the announcement he takes off. I wander over to the central station and curtly nod at the nurses behind it. One of them does a double-take and says, before I have time to utter a word, "I'll call your mother, Miss Everdeen."

While she's doing that, I glance up at the monitors, and frown, realizing I'm in the maternity ward.

"Dear, go on in to room H6, down that hall. Your mother is in there with a patient. It's OK."

It's been months since I've seen my mother, so my heart starts racing as I go down the hall. Also, I don't do that well around sick people. Hopefully, it will be someone too sick to recognize me. Or - in labor, I guess, I think in consternation.

"Katniss!" She gets up to greet me, leaving the bedside of a panting woman I don't see at first. "It's so good to see you! And, I believe you know …."

I look down at the laboring patient, and my mouth drops open.

.

.

The surgical ward is on the same floor as the maternity ward, and before long I'm settled in a private room, meet with a specialist, and eat lunch. After lunch, I call Peeta.

"How are you?" I ask him breathlessly. "How was the meeting today?"

"I'm good - it was the standard stuff; expanding the community ice box, voting on moving the Harvest Festival to October. How was the ride?"

"Lonely," I tell him. "Hey - uh - did you know that Annie was pregnant?"

"What?!"

"Yes - she's here, possibly delivering a baby as we speak."

There's a pause and I can tell that he - like I did earlier - is counting the months backward to District 13. "Oh, wow! Now I really feel bad - not keeping in touch with her." He pauses again. "Well, please tell her hello and good luck for me. Finnick has a kid . That's going to take some time to get used to."

Just after dinner, my mother slips into the room and sits down in a chair next to my bed. She's sweating and her pale hair is all mussed up, but she smiles happily. "It's a boy," she says.

I swallow. It's incredibly easy to imagine a boyish version of Finnick, running along the sand, weaving nets, the light of life in his sea-green eyes.

"Can I see Annie?"

"She's sleeping. It was a pretty hard labor and she'll be out for a while. Would you like to see the baby?"

Mm, no. Not before the operation anyway. "Maybe later."

"Did you meet with your doctor?"

"Yes, I can't believe that there are doctors here who all they do is operate on women. We don't even have an apothecary in 12 right now, just some guy who comes once a month from 8 to read our temperature, take our weight and replenish our first aid kits."

"I hope someone's planning to rectify that soon, but Katniss - if you ever have any questions, need any help with any sicknesses or injuries, you'll call me? I can give you some instructions on remedies you should prepare to have on hand …."

"That's a good idea," I say reluctantly.

After a brief silence, she runs her fingers through her hair. "Katniss, are you sure about this? There's always a risk of not being able to reverse it. A small one, but still … There are less drastic methods - some of them last five to eight years."

Since I can't bring myself to tell my mother that she will most likely never be a grandmother, I just smile thinly. "This feels right to me. Anyway," I add, parroting my doctor, "there's always in vitro or surrogates if that happens."

"How's District 12?"

"Rising up - very slowly. The - Town buildings and the Seam houses are all torn down. We've put down foundations for twelve houses - they are going in north east of Victors' Village - we're calling it Undersee Village - we're just trying to get enough lumber and stone to get started - and some electricians and plumbers from 3."

"And Peeta?"

I look down at my hands. "He wants to marry me."

"I guess that's no surprise. I’m not sure what it means that you are here, doing this - have you ... agreed?"

"Yes - well not yet, really. Soon, maybe. I haven't told him yes, yet," I add hastily, thinking she might actually call and talk to him. "Are you - OK with it?"

"Of course, Katniss. As long as you are. As long as it's something you truly want, not that you feel like you're backed into doing. He's a kind boy - and he adores you."

It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask about Gale - not just that I think she always expected, maybe hoped … but also because I wonder if she talks to Hazelle. Not just about this - though some part of me feels an obligation to tell Gale, and also a distinct hesitation - but about whatever the political situation is in District 12. 

But I hesitate and the moment passes.

.

.

Mom takes me to her house the next morning. After waking up out of anesthesia, I have enough time to call Peeta and reassure him I'm alive and well, visit Annie - nursing her fluffy-headed baby with both smiles and tears - and sign a few autographs for my doctors and nurses. Mom and I go by taxi out to the road that runs along the coast, up to a small cottage that overlooks the piers. I'll be back on the train tomorrow afternoon, and I'm almost sorry - I am in no shape to walk, but it would be nice to take a look at the ships and the stalls along the piers, get a little closer to the ocean.

I wonder about my mom's life here. Does she have friends, besides Annie? Male friends? She could remarry, theoretically. I don't know how I feel about that. Everything is so strange now.

The next morning, she makes tea and eggs and we eat on her front porch. Down below us, on the piers, there is a huge crowd making a lot of noise. At first it looks like a crowd of people waiting on an incoming ship, or something - just like a large crowd waiting for a train. But no ship comes in, and the noises amplify - shouts, angry and occasionally in sync - chanting?

"What's going on?" I ask my mother in alarm. Isn't this the new, free, peaceful Panem?

"The fishers are threatening a strike. They've been asked to increase the contribution to the Capitol."

" Increase -?"

"Yes - but that's because it's going to the districts, as well. Like we get contributions of fabric and foodstuffs and everything. But the fisherfolk here have always been independent - they're isolated among their little villages, you see - and they don't always see things - collectively. They expect compensation now."

"What happens if they strike?" We had learned about such things in school, but under Snow, coal miners' insurrections meant starvation, increased workloads, and sometimes executions for the ringleaders.

She frowns. "We go low on fish. Apart from that, I'm not sure. We have a very small security detail here in the city. Mostly new recruits, only some of whom even saw action in the war."

I frown. "Do you hear anything about this new peacekeeper academy in District 2? I saw that Gale is involved somehow, but other than that, we don't understand what's going on there."

"I don't get time to follow the news, but I know people here are concerned about that, too. That's why the mayor has tried to recruit people for internal security. But hopefully, once the elections happen someone can keep an eye on what's going on in 2. Who do you think will sit for 12? Haymitch?"

"Oh, no - Thom.. He's been pretty much in charge of things in 12, and he might run without a challenger. Though, we'd miss him, that's for sure." But I ponder all of these things and miss my self-imposed isolation in 12, where my biggest problem is a boy who loves me too much.

-5-

The train gets in at dusk and I hobble out of the station, still sore and a little stiff. I'm surprised to see Haymitch waiting there with in a motorized cart.

"Peeta thought you probably shouldn't walk home," he explains.

But between getting onto the thing, and the way Haymitch picks out all the potholes to drive through, I'm not sure it's much more comfortable. I don't know why Peeta didn't come to greet me, and I don't worry about it too much. I have time enough to mend things with him, if that's what is needed.

"You didn't tell him you'd think it over in ten years," Haymitch grumbles to me.

I glance at him. So, Peeta went talking to Haymitch about it - he must have been more upset than he let on. "You made me promise to tell him how I felt about having children. And you made me promise to rethink it in ten years. I've kept the one promise and have every intention of keeping the other. But - how cruel would I be to give him false hope?"

"False?"

"Well - to be more optimistic than he should be."

"You know what I predict, girl? You will have a whole houseful of babies with that boy."

I smile, then frown. "I wonder who's right, Haymitch. You or me?"

Mine is the first house at the gates of Victors' Village. Apart from the porch light, it's dark - glancing down the row of houses, I see that the front of Peeta's house is all lit up. Maybe he even had Delly and Drew to dinner tonight. That's possible. Maybe I'll go over when I've unpacked my things. I'm a bit hungry.

Entering the dark house, I start to turn on the lights, but notice a strange, flickering light from the direction of the kitchen. Setting my bag down quietly, I tread lightly into the kitchen and find it empty. There's a single tall candle, set in a jar, illuminating the dining table. There's a loaf of bread under the candle, a ribbon wrapped around it, and flower petals strewn all about it. A small square piece of paper is attached to the ribbon. On one side, there is simply a question mark. On the other:

It's impossible for me to be completely pragmatic.

For a moment I stand completely still, and all I can think of is how to match the gesture. Then I walk over to the closet that is off the kitchen, where my dresses are stored. I know I still have it - I made certain to keep it. Not one of Cinna's fancier dresses. It's a thin cotton dress with short, puffy sleeves, soft orange as the sunset. I slip into it quickly. It's a little big on me yet - but only just a little, now. I grab the loaf of bread - it still retains some of its recent oven warmth - and hug it to my chest. I smell the sweet raisins in it, the toasted walnuts. Then I put it down and think - call him over, or go to him ?

I open the front door, only to see him standing at the bottom of my porch, staring up at me. I'm startled - he's finally had a haircut, and his long hair is now back to how he always wore it as a boy, in waves over his forehead. We don't really need words. I obviously know that he has not changed his question. And by my dress - and probably the insanely sappy look on my face - he surely knows my answer.

"Come in," I say, finally. He hops up the steps to me and picks me up in a hug that makes me say 'oof' in surprise.

"I missed you," he says, seeking out my mouth with his and burying my lips for a long while. He smells of sun-warmed grass and lavender soap - of home. I touch the familiar ridges of his arms, slide my fingers up to the crooks of his elbows.

"I missed you, too," I say.

He lifts me again and carries me, laughing, back into the dimly flickering house. Our house . 

He puts both his hands in my hair and leans in and softly licks my lower lip. "I've missed the taste of you," he whispers.

"And how do I taste?"

"Like caramel. And pine needles. And that minty leaf you chew in the woods. How do you feel - really?"

"Totally fine, it’s really nothing. A little tired from the trip.”

"You should be lying down."

I protest only faintly as he carries me up to my bedroom. Once there he lies me down on my bed and spends a moment just looking at me - the girl who left to take away maybe his only chance at having a family. And he still wants me.

"I love this dress," he says, smiling. "So I'm going to try to be very careful."

"Oh - of the dress ."

"Yes, and its owner.”

.

.

I squint at him while he drinks a glass of water. I'm still disheveled - panties at my shins, dress folded up over my stomach. I consider asking him how I taste, again, but I can't bring myself to do it. I would ruin that question with a laugh, for sure. Sexy - still isn't my thing. "Should I be suspicious," I ask him, "that I leave for a few days and when I come back you have picked up a new trick?"

He chokes on his water and laughs, then gets back on the bed, pulls my panties back up and my dress back down. "How was 4? Did you see Annie's baby? How's your mom?"

I answer those questions briefly, then I tell him about the fisher strike, the suspicions of 2, feeling pleased with myself for having some intel for him. 

"Thank you, Katniss," he says. "We're so small here - so vulnerable. Of course, we don't have any particularly valuable resources, so maybe we'll be left alone. The idea of our own security force is an interesting one. But we might have to hire out for that, and …" He bites his lip. "We'll deal with that later. I want to talk about more important things tonight."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know - fall crops?" He turns over on his side and looks at me closely. "Look, about what you said before - being worried about resentment creeping in over time. I dismissed that too quickly. You're right - that's always a danger. In fact - we've already gone down that road. I like to think I learned my lessons from back then, but I'm only human and shit does happen. So - here's my promise to you. I'll try - always - to guard against that. If I feel it, I'll say it, and not let it fester - OK? And you'll do the same?"

"Always," I tell him. "And … I promise I … won't close the door - entirely - on children."

He stares at me in silence for a while, not even blinking. Then he says, "I think we need a fire."

A shiver goes through me. "Tonight?"

"Yeah, I think so. I think - tonight. Yes?"

" Yes ."

As he builds the fire downstairs, I get the bread from the table and a knife, humming to myself. By that he knows that I am happy - and in fact, so do I.

"What's that song?" he asks, poking at the wood. "You've sung it before?"

"Yes, now and then - it was a favorite of my mom’s" I tell him, and then I sing:

“Tell me you love me and say you'll be true

I love nobody in this world but you

Your heart and my heart in love will entwine

Give me your love and I'll give you mine."**

* "It's Been a Long Time." Hall/Houston. Music of Coal: Mining Songs from the Appalachian Coalfields.

**”Give Me Your Love and I’ll Give You Mine.” Traditional.

Chapter Text

-1-

It's going to be another hot day. It's not even ten in the morning and as soon as I emerge from the lake, the water droplets start baking right off of me. I wish we were staying out here one more day.

I walk up to the house. We have mounted a wooden door and wooden shutters to the windows. They're all wide open this morning. Inside: the wooden floor we puzzled together using scraps of leftover lumber from the construction site, a small knotty table, with two carved and polished stumps for chairs. A straw mattress on the floor. Gale's poker is outside, now, a stake in the ground with a little flag attached so we can tell the direction of the wind. These are the sporadic workings of a year.

Peeta, shirtless and sweating, is kneeling on the floor, facing the wall opposite the fireplace, paintbrush and palette in his hands. He's started a mural on this wall - something random at first - a painting of the moon in one corner just on a whim, then more additions. I can tell by his stance that he has reached a pause in his painting - but temporary or not, it's hard to tell. I wouldn't mind another dip in the lake, a delay in returning home.

He sighs and answers my unspoken question. "I think I'm done for today."

He packs up his paints, then helps me pack our bags. I take a last look around and I start absently braiding my wet hair. "I don't look forward to going back to all the noise."

"I don't look forward to all the baking I have to catch up on."

But we walk back through the woods, through the new gate in the newly restored fence. The meadow is rich green and dotted with lupine. There's a memorial stone in the middle of it, carved with the family names of everyone buried there. The sound of the hammers and saws comes abruptly to life - the frames going up on the third of the "villages" - Black Hills Village - and the stone-laying of the new justice building more or less on top of the old building's foundation. I groan.

We get home and while I start unpacking our dishes and utensils, Peeta flips through a stack of mail. Then he freezes and stares down at something for a while.

"What is it?"

He looks up at me with an unreadable expression. Then he hands me a postcard. "It's from Gale - he's getting married."

I stare down at the card, but the words swim around. "Wait, is this an invitation?"

He's looking at me closely, I know, trying to gauge my mood, my reaction, and I'm fighting to hide it, because the rush of memories, the bad ones, will be hard to explain. I go into the dining room. The hammer sounds are really annoying now.

"We can contact Thom about getting your travel restriction lifted, again." Thom is in the Capitol now. Bailey, a middle-aged niece of Sae's, has replaced him as head of the district council.

"I don't know…if I want to go."

"Why not? Sit down, Katniss, you're pacing." We sit across from each other at the table, and I make myself smile as I look into his eyes. I see an old look there - an old fear. "Why don't you want to go? Is it Gale? Is it me? What is it?" He frowns to himself. "Would it upset you - to see him married?"

And now, I guess, I’ll finally have to tell him, and reopen old wounds in the process. "It's complicated," I warn him.

He smiles at me. "I'm literally ready for anything you have to tell me." But he grips the table, as if bracing himself.

"OK, but - you're really not. Just keep in mind, as I tell you this, that I haven’t been keeping it from you to keep secrets.  I just don't have any real evidence about what happened." I take a long, deep breath, and collect my thoughts. "OK, so - those bombs, the delayed explosion bombs that - that were dropped on the Capitol, that … Prim." I can't even stand to say the words, so I count on him to fill in the gaps. "They weren't the Capitol's bombs."

Peeta stares at me a moment. "What are you saying - that they were Coin's?" he asks, very slowly.

I nod. "I think ... I believe so."

He puts a hand to his forehead. “My god - this - if what you’re saying is true - this changes everything. How on earth did you find out?

“Like I said, my evidence is not solid. Snow told me, for one thing. I obviously wouldn’t take his word for it - except that I recognized the signature of the attack. Plus, it definitely didn’t help him: his last loyalists turned against him then, and I think he was savvy enough to know that would happen. And it also explains why - maybe - why my trial was such a sham. I’m sure Plutarch knew. Maybe even Haymitch - not in advance, but afterwards. Like I said, it’s not solid evidence, it just - only adds up one way for me.”

"What does Gale have to do with it?" he asks, his eyes wide with shock. “He was with us.”

"They were his invention - his and Beetee's, but his idea - the trap to lure in the helpers. I'm not saying that he knew they would be used in that way, or the where and when, but -."

All the implications of this seem to hit him at once. "Oh, shit. Oh ... shit."

"So, my last conversation with Gale in the Capitol - we both knew that I would never be able to see him again without associating him with - that."

Peeta's face flies through expressions from puzzlement to anger to sympathy. "I get that, I get that, but, Katniss - I'm sure he would never have condoned their use in that way, against children."

"I want to think so, but - and that's the thing that still bothers me. At first, I was angry and what I told him was the truth - specifically about not being able to forget what happened to Prim. But it's more than that. I told you before that he and I didn't get along well when we were in 13, and this was one of the specific reasons why. These bombs that targeted civilians. The Nut…."

"That was his idea, too?"

I nod. "Not only was it his idea, he would have taken it even further. I argued against both of these things, but we never landed on the same side. To this day, I’m afraid he might say that all the sacrifices were worth it to end the war so quickly. I don’t know how to respond to that argument - weighing how many lives might have been lost otherwise - but I also just couldn’t hear it, with Prim being one of the sacrifices. Not to mention you and me - nearly."

Peeta looks down at his scarred arms, which, like my back, serve as a memorial of that day. It is trapped in his skin, living and breathing with him. “I don’t like arguments that treat human lives like statistical computations,” he says.

"Back before the Reaping, when we'd go hunting together, Gale used to say things like - like he could just destroy everything associated with the Capitol. I used to think that he was just ranting to get out his frustration. I never thought about what he would do given the chance to go that far in real life. It's not that he changed, so much, but it was like a part of his personality came out, took over - that I didn't like. So - I can’t blame him, directly, for Prim; I don’t know that he would have used the bombs in that exact situation. Maybe, that order could only come from someone as soulless as Coin. But the Gale I knew during the war? As much good as he did for the rebellion, as much good as he did for me - I'm not even sure I can be friends with him, again."

After a silence, in which we retreat into our own thoughts, Peeta stirs. "War can bring out the worst in people. That doesn't mean the best of him isn't also still there."

I give him a half smile. "In all ways I imagined this conversation going, I never saw you as taking the part of Gale’s advocate."

"I'm not - I'm really not . In all truth, I would be perfectly happy if you never saw Gale again. But I'm trying to be fair. And - I happen to believe forgiveness can be healing, in the right circumstances.”

"There are other reasons besides Gale not to go to 2. Legitimate reasons."

"I know - it's a little soon. But - there are other legitimate reasons to go, too." I know what he means. There's still the question of figuring out what is going on in 2. Last year, it was 2 that the Capitol called on to break up the strikes in 4. That’s a little too close to the old loyalty between 2 and the Capitol for comfort.

It's a year - a year - since I last spoke to Gale. When I finally tracked down a number and, after debating with myself for several days, called him, at first his voice had lit up noticeably at the sound of mine. I had decided to tell him myself about living with Peeta, so that he didn’t hear it from his mother first. But then it seemed like a cruel thing to make a phone call over, almost a taunt or a dig. Exhausting. So, I had asked him about his family and left it to Hazelle to break the news, after all - and then Panem’s crappy infrastructure cut my call short, anyway.

-2-

We disembark from the train and step out into a golden autumn afternoon. The last time I saw District 2, it was in the darkness of a cold and bloody night - but I did spend the better part of a fall season in these mountains before, and I do remember this glowing filtered sun, this crisp air. Even here, in the middle of town, there is a tang to the atmosphere that I cannot hate, despite everything I associate with this District.

Peeta hasn't been here since it was a particularly stressful stop on the Victory Tour, but he watched the fall of the Nut on live television, including me getting shot … right over there. He points mutely at the extension of the train tracks from the station in the city square toward the mountain that used to be the Nut. I squint and see there is activity there - some scaffolding or something built up around the base of the mountain. Hmm.

I pull the hood of my sweater closer around my face - wish Peeta wasn't so exposed. It's a new Panem - sure - but there are people on both sides of the war who have reason not to love us.

But I hear my name called, and in relief, I grasp Peeta's arm and hurry him over to where Gale is waiting, leaning against a car parked on the street. I glance up at him - so familiar, but strange at the same time, in civilian clothes much nicer than anything I ever saw him wear before. He searches my face; I smile and nod at him. He gives me a hug.

He shakes Peeta's hand and, as he does, a woman steps out of the car.  The first thing that I register is that she is tall - she has to be almost a foot taller than me. She’s also very beautiful - she has startling green eyes and blonde streaks in her dark black hair. Gale introduces her. "This is Lyra. I don't know if you remember her, Katniss. She's Lyme's daughter and was one of the rebel fighters here."

"Oh! Of course!" I say, although I don’t. I feel sure that, even in my state of mind at the time, this woman would have stood out. Lyme did not survive the war, but I've never known if she was killed in the battle for the Capitol, or as part of the Victor's purge that left only seven Hunger Games veterans alive by the end of the war. 

Peeta and I get into the back seat of the car, and it rolls away. As it does, Peeta and Gale keep up a conversation, and I ponder Gale's choice of a wife from District 2 - where they were born and bred to fight in the Games. But then again a rebel, daughter of the rebel commander, and one who had been raised in the District 2 Victor's Village.

"How is 12 coming along?" asks Gale. "I hear things are moving a little slowly."

"Yes," says Peeta, with a slight tone of defensiveness that maybe only I can hear, since I'm so used to it, in relation to this topic. "I don't think anyone truly appreciates how hard it is to build a city on top of ruins, having to wait for materials and borrow construction equipment."

He explains about the construction of the "village" neighborhoods, each with its own green, and in the center of the four neighborhoods, a commons for gatherings, market stalls, whatever. "Just imagine the Victors' Village duplicated three times, with each of the neighborhoods forming a cross, Victors' Village at the southern end. Then we have townhouses going up around the Justice Building and the town square. There will be thirty, and these will be assigned to people getting married or young adults wanting to move out of the common homes. Then there's the west side of 12 - we should be able to put another, larger neighborhood there - initially another twenty or thirty, but there is plenty of room on that side of town. Once the temp houses are no longer needed, we'll develop north of the train tracks. That will keep us busy for some time."

"How many people came back to 12?"

"Around 350. I know - it's not much. About a third of the survivors. We'll be struggling along - just one big extended family, in some ways - for some time to come." Another lingering disappointment. Thirteen had a lot to offer our people, especially the families. And some of them went to the Capitol, or to District 8, who recruited laborers for clean-up and future employment in the factories. And I think quite a few came out this way - miners, who still wanted to do the work they knew best.

In short order we pull into District 2's Victors Village, which of course is much larger and fancier than 12's ever was. It's a full house - Hazelle and the kids, Lyra's two surviving brothers, one of whom has a family. Hazelle is warm and welcoming, the others a little more cautious. They don't know what to make of us - I don't either, I guess. I feel weird and out of place here.

After being shown our room and unpacking, I find myself downstairs, looking around the house. It's even larger than ours - and stylistically, there's something a bit more luxurious about it; it reflects 2's beautiful, white-columned justice building, with multi-level rooms you step in and out of, large open spaces - rooms divided by columns, not walls. It's gorgeous - but not very homey. It's the last place I would ever have looked for Gale - or, not the very last, but close.

Lyra finds me checking out the kitchen where I am enviously eyeing the enormous oven. With some of his remaining victor's winnings, Peeta bought a large, efficient oven from the capitol that bakes more and faster - but this dwarfs it. I don't know why a household of this size would even need such an oven.

"My mother's talent," says Lyra, as if reading my mind. "Was catering. She had a master chef from the Capitol train her and she could make the best food.We all grew helping her with it. I remember baking a thousand tarts one time for a tribute's party. That's right before I went to the training academy. We were crying over the tarts - she was so tired of it all. I think when I went in is when she started casting about to see if there was any hope for a resistance movement."

I think: there's something new for the memory book. I can picture her - Lyme, so tall, sturdy, deadly serious, breaking down over turning her daughter over to the District 2 academy, the one that prepped the children to become career tributes, killers.

"Do you do any cooking, Katniss, or does Peeta?"

"I cook most of our meals - not that I’m any good at it. But he has to spend enough time at the oven as it is."

"Katniss," says Lyra, in a sudden change of tone, "I wanted you to know - so there's nothing awkward between us - that I know that you and Gale aren't cousins and that he had very strong feelings for you."

I swallow and look around nervously. "Oh. Well, you know - nothing ever really happened between us. I'm sure he's - over all that."

"You never get over your first love. I know this - mine died in the war. So, Gale and I have this in common - it's a strong bond. Oh, we love each other, too, but we also understand each other in this particular way. I guess I'm thanking you for breaking his heart? That seems odd. I'm certainly happy you left him free for me."

"Oh. It seems weird to say you're welcome … but, I guess …?"

She laughs gently at this, and I begin to understand her appeal to Gale, beyond the fact that she is really very beautiful. She's direct and straight-forward, two things he never really got from me, at least not in later years. "Oh, Peeta," she says suddenly, "I'm glad you're here! I wanted to talk to both of you about the toasting ceremony."

I turn around and see that he's joined us, and I grin at him. "Don't come in here, Peeta - you don't want to see this oven."

He admires it for a while. "It would never fit in our kitchen anyway, and it will be YEARS before a bakery is built. Ours will work just fine for now." But I catch him giving it a last glance as we walk with Lyra out into the family room.

The day before the wedding, Gale drives me and Peeta to one of the outer villages - I recognize it as one of the ones I stayed at when I was here with the rebels - and we picnic on an alpine meadow underneath a gorgeous rocky mountain. Peeta has brought his sketchbook and sits apart from us, furiously sketching it. Slowly, Gale and I ease into a conversation, our first alone together in a long time.

"So," I say, "tell me about this apprenticeship Rory's doing?"

He outlines it briefly - in this new apprenticeship program, which is focused more on broad exposure than specialized training, Rory is learning a little bit about animal husbandry, metallurgy, electricity, machinery. From Gale, he already knows how to hunt and fish, and has basic survival skills, and some experience with weaponry.

"Bow and arrow?" I ask, trepidatiously.

"And guns. And they teach swordplay and wrestling here, as well."

"Oh." I say.

"You never know, Katniss."

"I know, I know." And I suppose we are isolated in District 12 - it just seems so peaceful there, so removed from the rest of Panem - but I can't imagine teaching my kids to shoot guns. If I had them, which I don't, so the whole necessity of them learning to use weapons is fortunately moot. "So - District 2 is learning to specialize in all the industries?"

"As many as we need to keep independent."

Interesting. "And your - I forget what you called them - the old peacekeepers?"

"Civilian Defense Force," he says, with a hint of exasperation in his voice. "Yes, I'm training them - retraining a lot of them; most of them are old peacekeepers. Eventually, they'll be sent out to the districts to help uphold the district laws. Only they won't be answerable to the Capitol, but to the district councils."

"That's definitely an improvement," I say politely, but I'm also struck by the weirdness of this - Gale, of all people, training peacekeepers.

"Eventually, they will be recruited from the districts themselves, but in the meanwhile, there's this whole population here trained for it and ready to go. We just have to make very sure of their loyalties."

"Of course."

"So - what are you up to?"

I pause - that's a good question. The truth is, although I'm busy enough in a general day-to-day sense, I'm not doing anything as specific as running a district bakery, or a peacekeeper-training academy. A year ago, before the electricity was fixed, before food started rolling through the districts on freight trains, I was very busy hunting game for the district. Fresh meat was in high demand. Now, my hunting is rarer and usually feeds just us and our immediate neighbors. Delly still tries to teach me some basic household arts. At the new medicine factory the Capitol built for us, I serve as an occasional consultant for their herb cultivation plans. When there are falls or injuries from the construction sites - or fevers or colds - people come to me and I use my rudimentary skills in first aid and some herbal remedies from my mother.

By comparison, Peeta has been busy enough for the both of us - and more. He's painting or baking or at town council meetings; and even with all that, he still has plenty of time for me. We work and play at the lake house, which is frankly my favorite place to be. We continue work on the book. Peeta has wheedled Haymitch into contributing to our memory book with the stories and pictures - gleaned from old Hunger Games videos - of the twenty-three pairs of tributes he mentored before he ended up with the pair of us.

"I'm just - living," I say, finally. "There's always something to do. Everyone's expected to put in some hours on house building, so there is always that. And the community gardens." I smile at this, remembering the struggles of this past summer - mildew and invasive bugs and rats. "I'm finally trying to make bows - like my father."

"Good - it's good to keep busy. You look - content."

"That is exactly how I feel. And you?"

"I don't know if contentment is in me - but I'm happy, yes."

"Good! And - I like Lyra. I don't know if I ever pictured whoever you would end up with, but when I saw her, it made sense."

Gale frowns. "There was nobody really like her in District 12."

I glance from him to Peeta. Even by the back of his head, I can tell that Peeta is in that state of rapt attention he goes into when my one and only true rival - his 'muse' - visits him. I suppose I should ask more about Gale’s work with peacekeepers and the Capitol, but I only imagine that conversation going down the dark road that I don’t feel like traveling. I try to believe in Peeta’s contention that forgiveness can be healing. That things can't be undone and dwelling on it too much brings on the kind of regret that lingers, wormlike, in your heart, fertilizing despair and depression. I've been there too many times already. But right now, avoidance is working for me much better than forgiveness. Right now, I'm here to celebrate that Gale has moved on, that he has found love - and with a girl I'm prepared to like. That has to be enough for now.

-3-

The wedding, and the parties afterward, are a chance to reunite with people who I never get to see anymore. Beetee, looking better than ever; focused, content - he has a million projects going on all at once, and he couldn't be better pleased. He has a nation to electrify. He and Gale still have a strong rapport. My mother and Annie, with Annie's little boy, Finn, have come together from District 4. Then there's Plutarch and Effie - Effie pressing on me to visit her in the Capitol some time; Plutarch reminding me I 'owe' him a singing performance for one of his many entertainment programs. There's no polite way to say I'm absolutely done entertaining Panem in any way, shape or form at a wedding, so I smile and nod along. I ask after Cressida and Pollux.

"Cressida went rogue," Plutarch says, with a regretful shake of his head. "She's working in District 5 right now - setting up a film school. Pollux is teaching at the Avox academy in District 1."

And Johanna - Johanna looking thinner and paler than before. Something off about her that stands out in this crowd of generally happy revelers. I watch a friend of Lyra's flirt heavily with her, but she gets no truck from Johanna, who only scowls. My attempts to talk to her fall short. I am afraid to ask her about her morphling addiction, her terrors, what she is still doing in District 13 - why she never went home. So, I can only ask generically what she's been up to and she replies that she's soldiering on, and then laughs at her own joke - all citizens of 13 are "soldiers." Peeta talks to her earnestly for a bit, but when I ask him what they talked about, he says he couldn't get anywhere past similar small talk.

Gale and Lyra drive us back to the train station early the next morning. We part with them with promises to not let so much time go in between visits, but who knows? The next move is Gale's - to come back to visit District 12.

As opposed to when we arrived, the city center and train station are nearly deserted this time of day, and Peeta and I, having a few minutes before needing to board, walk over to the bottom of the stairs of the justice building. We gaze up at it as if we were the audience members in the victory tour, looking up, up - at the tributes who replaced our own children, at the peacekeepers with their guns trained vaguely everywhere, at the mayor and his staff. I can see it so clearly now that I know I’m in for nightmares, later.

"It's so unfair!" says Peeta, abruptly.

"What?" I jump.

"That all this is so intact - so preserved that every memory is sharp enough to feel. But District 12 - which I want to remember so badly, where I actually had happy memories, is so completely changed that I sometimes can't even remember what the bakery looked like, or school, or - or people I once knew."

"Yeah," I say. "I know." There's no use trying to deny what he is saying, or sugarcoat the edges. It's true - and there's nothing to be done about it.

Which is why it is a surprise when he we get back to the train station and he suddenly says, "Would you mind if we got on the later train?"

"What? Why?"

"Since we're here," he says, "I feel almost an obligation to check out the … what is it?"

"The Civilian - Defense Forces?" I respond, tripping over the words.

"Yeah - the Civ - the CDF academy."

I feel an obligation to get the hell out of here, but I see what he means. "Do you know when the next train is?"

Peeta studies the timetables. "In two hours, we can get on the train that goes to District 5. We might have to overnight at the train station there. It looks like we'd miss the second train back to 12. In 5 hours we can take the sleeper car that goes home overnight."

"Well - let's take the sleeper car. I don't want to stop anywhere overnight, and I don't want to be rushed for time."

He reaches over to me and squeezes my hand. "Thanks. I’ll see if the guy at the ticket booth can help us find a driver."

The academy, it turns out, is located at the foot of the Nut. The Nut - not its real name, but the rebels’ nickname for it from the war; the real name is Copper Mountain Defense Base - was a smallish, standalone mountain in the alpine valley in which District 2's main town is set (like District 4, 2 is comprised of a large town surrounded by a network of villages). An old mine itself, it was hollowed out to, more recently, house the weapons and other warcraft of the Capitol. The avalanche that the rebellion caused to bury these weapons has blunted it - it looks like a very large mound. But again I notice scaffolding stretched out over the base of it.

"What's going on there?" I ask our driver.

He looks at us through his rear view mirror, and I can tell that he doesn't know whether or not to trust me - am I an enemy or an ally? The mockingjay, flitting around again. But he eventually decides no harm can come from telling me what I'll be able to find out elsewhere, anyway. "They're just stabilizing the entrance."

Peeta touches me on the knee - a light warning to say no more. But my heart sinks. But of course - 2 is reclaiming what the rebellion took away - its cache of weapons. Hovercraft. A small arsenal of nukes.

I wonder if anyone else is putting the pieces together. Besides Peeta, who I know must be thinking the exact same things right now. The only force of trained police - besides 13. The only large-scale supply of military grade weapons - besides 13. A second academy - training its citizens for long-term independence - agriculture, manufacturing. Perhaps these are merely logical steps in securing the District long-term. We all should be thinking in terms of self-reliance. But what a head start they have on the rest of us!

It turns out both academies - the CDF and the Apprentice Academy - are located on the same sprawling grounds, a large ranch surrounded by a chain link fence. Only a small house is accessible, just outside the fence. This is a registration center, staffed by a very surly receptionist. Peeta tries to wrangle a tour, but they don't give those. They have pamphlets - lots of glossy pamphlets with smiling pictures of people looking like they're just having fun hanging out together. The CDF pamphlets promise District 2 credits in return for service a lot less stringent than under the old system - five year terms, no restrictions on marriage. The apprentice program literature is much more extensive, and Peeta takes it to read on the train.

"Interesting," he says, as we walk toward our waiting cab.

"Do you think it all means anything?"

He glances at me with a thoughtful look. "It could - but then, anything always could mean something. It strengthens a District - any District - to diversify its own resources. Just because it's kind of scary that it's District 2 doesn't mean they've no right to. However - no part of me wants District 2-grown peacekeepers in District 12. I understand they would answer to the district council and not the Capitol - but it's too close. And it would be too easy to call on centralized loyalties. I don't think they can make us take them. I hope not. What do you think?"

"I think I agree."

We are quiet about this on the ride back to the train station. Peeta merely comments on how nice the autumn weather is here in the mountains - less humid, less hot than home - and our driver waxes nostalgic about a huge lake his family lives near.

Back at the train station, with hours to kill, we meet up with Annie and my mother, who are waiting on a different train. I'm awkward around babies, so I don't do much more than hold Finn on my lap for a second and eyeball him while he stuffs his fist in his mouth and eyes me warily in return. Peeta is (of course) a natural, letting him toddle around on his wobbly legs, making cooing giggly noises, then pulling him back in when he tries to stray too far from our bench. It does not help that Finn has bright yellow ringlets of hair.

Peeta is reticent that night in the sleeper car. I don’t know if it’s his manipulated memories of the Victory Tour - or something about seeing Gale - or Finn - or just his general worries about 2- but there is an unusual distance between us on the bed. I know better than to take it personally; some things still need to be worked out separately. 

Just before I’m about to drop off to sleep, he gives out a loud, long sigh. I take that as a cue that he’s ready to talk.

“What is it?”

“About Coin,” he begins. "Ever since you told me, I've been running through my head. I never asked you why ..."

“Why I shot her and not Snow? I thought you and Aurelius and Haymitch laid out my - what was it - 'delusional state of mental confusion' pretty convincingly at the trial."

"You saw your trial?"

"Recaps," I reply.

"Effie," he says, after a beat.

"She's a great source for supplying tapes, as you well know."

"Well - no, I didn't mean about you shooting Coin. I figured you had your reasons and that they were good ones." He shrugged. "Had I been in a clearer state of mental clarity, myself, I might have cared to ask, but I was too angry with Coin at the time. No, I mean - what really bothered me was you agreeing to go along with her plan to continue the Games. Now, I understand that you had already been betrayed by her. You needed her to trust you long enough to get out of that room, with the bow still in your hand."

I wonder if I'm at all suited to describe out loud my feelings at that time - the rawness of the betrayals of Coin, Plutarch, Gale. The frustration with Haymitch and Beetee for their unintentional complicity. That strange feeling of both nihilistic unconcern for my life - and of sheer terror for the lives of those I still cared about.

"I - I can't claim to have planned what happened," I say. "Even suspecting what I did of Coin's actions to end the war. There was still enough doubt, all the way until the end. A couple of things triggered when she brought up the vote on the Games. Recognizing that it was a test of loyalty - and if it was just a matter of my loyalty, no big deal. I planned to die anyway, and an execution or assassination at her hands would have simplified that plan considerably. No - it was the Mockingjay Deal. She had it over me - announced in front of her entire district. If I wasn't complicit, I was forfeiting not only myself - but also you, Annie, Johanna. And to spread it out, as I'm sure she could have - my mother, Haymitch, Gale - whomever she decided fell into my circle more than hers. Oh, the Mockingjay Deal was my agreement with her to perform for 13 in order to ...."

Peeta places his hand on mine. "I know. That's recorded - it's one of the tapes I was shown not long after I got to 13. I see what you mean - and I didn't make it any easier, I guess."

"When do you ever?" I say with a chuckle. "But - seriously - you were, as Haymitch always knew you to be, without even asking, the one who just says the right thing. If you hadn't - if you had looked to me or Haymitch for the cue, it wouldn't have looked right. It would have been suspicious. But it did help raise the stakes. It meant that - myself aside - that other people were still in danger, as long as she was around. But even so - I was of two minds. Killing Snow - would have felt so earned. And I would have been the hero. You know? Celebrated."

"Instead ...."

"Yes, well - it's probably better this way. Being celebrated has a tendency to turn around and bite you in the ass. Being given a wide berth because people are scared of the 'crazy' person? I've been rehearsing that role my entire life."

"It's not fair ...."

"But it is fair. I may never know for sure that my reasons were right. And my last certainty was Snow - which is not a great feeling. I wake up at night thinking about it. But - when you look someone in the eyes right before you kill them ... I don't know if I can explain. It was only a couple of times that it happened. There's some final truth you see in them. Even Cato - maybe it was all my imagination, but the look he gave me before I shot him, all but begging for death - I could see that everything he had believed about himself and his world he knew had been a lie."

"I'm not sure I can believe that about Snow."

"Oh - no, Snow had no regrets. Not that I could see. I mean, except for the one thing - he regretted overlooking Coin. His only comfort was that so had I. He was especially smug about my failure. I already distrusted her. To a certain extent, I already had her number. And yet, I stil failed to grasp the full extent of her ruthlessness."

"You saw all that in his eyes in the moments before you shot Coin?"

"I - I'm not saying it's possible that it wasn't just my imagination. That's why I'm content to accept my fate and grateful that you, at least, are content with me, regardless that I am a crazy assassin."

He laughs. "Long before you were the girl on fire - long before you met Gale and became the girl in the woods - you were the girl who made birds stop singing to listen to you. I don't second-guess that girl. I never will - not while I am of sound mind, anyway. Speaking of Gale ...."

"Yes?"

"I want to be honest with you. I'd prefer it didn't make me look like a jerk, but I want to be honest with you. Seeing him brought up a lot of things. If I'm distant with you now, it's not that I want to be - very much the opposite, in fact. But it would only be to prove something to myself or something to you, and it would feel - rotten."

“Don’t beat yourself up,” I tell him. “I don't have a lot of experience with these things, but that doesn't sound abnormal. And the only reason I would say 'no' is because I’m worried about your trauma. Here, in this setting. I don’t know if I’m the same to you, on this train, as I am back at home.”

“Not you, not you,” he says. “I’m the one who is not the same on the train. Crippled. Broken.”

“Do you know why - you feel this way?”

“Yes ... and, no, I don’t think it would do good for us to talk about it. Not right now. I’m already struggling with the comparison - not just with Gale, but with who I used to be before the Capitol. I’d open that up tenfold by talking it about it right now.”

“You know what you said - about forgiveness? No, hear me out. I do think I agree with you that forgiveness can be healing. But - I also think there are circumstances in which it can be harmful. Forgiveness isn’t an obligation that you owe to your abusers. Sometimes, all you owe them is a ‘fuck you.’ If you give them more than that, you’re just giving them even more of yourself than they took in the first place.”

“I know. I know. It’s just that - I have to keep the door shut on anger. Always. I don’t know how to curse them without the curses turning into rage.”

“I suppose that goes for me, too.”

“No - no! That is the thing that they tried to take away - my knowledge that you never hurt me. But I know you never did. I know that you are here with me now, by choice - even if I would not have been your choice, in different circumstances. No part of my anger is for you - not anymore. It’s just the residue of it - it sticks to the skin.”

I’m silent for a moment, thinking about choices, remembering how much I hated being in the position - with either of them - of matching their feelings with my own. “I don’t know if you need to hear it - I know you are struggling against something that you know isn’t even real - but I don’t think there is a world in which the reasons that I ultimately ‘chose’ you didn’t always exist. The differences I had with Gale were always there, and maybe it took the arenas and the war for me to see it, or maybe I always would have. And then - look - if I haven’t made it clear already, I’m sorry, but I spent months with Gale in 13 and all I really thought about was kissing you again.”

“You’ve given me that impression,” he says, with a faint smile in his voice. “But we would never have known if we hadn’t been thrown together by the reaping.”

“Or - you could have asked me to a dance.”

At this, he laughs out loud. “Then, let’s pretend that I eventually would have,” he says, kissing me.

It's SUCH a luxurious feeling, waking up naked and kind of tangled up in sheets - trying to figure out where the pillows went. I feel happy . There's no thought of Gale in me - I have to remind myself why we are even on the train. But I'm not content - other aspects of our trip disturb what could be perfect peace; neither is Peeta. He stops in the middle of packing up his suitcase as the announcement comes for the approach to District 12.

"Would you like me to quit the council?" he asks me.

"Why would I want you to?"

"So we can let other people handle these problems. So we can - just - keep out of it all?"

"Is that what you want?"

"I'm honestly torn right down the middle. I do and I don't. The not knowing - the knowledge that there might be problems gathering beyond my awareness - this would worry me. I think."

"I'm torn, as well … maybe not down the middle - maybe it's just ten percent. A large part of me wants to believe everything is perfectly fine now. Otherwise, what did we do it all for? But a small part of me wants to make sure of it. As if knowing is the same thing as being sure. I know it's not. But …." I trail off, unable to put words to this feeling.

But he understands. "Yes, that's exactly it. I want to keep 12 safe. I want this whole thing to work out. But if something were to happen - if 13 should rise up and threaten us all with their nukes - or if 2 did - I couldn't do it again. I couldn't go back into war; it would break me. And I couldn't see you involved either. I hate to think about it coming down to knowing enough in advance to just - run off with you into the wilderness. But would they deserve our help - if they managed to break the country again?"

I look at him in alarm. "Do you think something major is going to happen?"

He sighs. "Yes - or no? I don’t know. And that's why I wonder if I should quit the council. I'm afraid I'm getting paranoid."

"Well," I say, " I think you should do what stresses you out the least - staying and knowing or not staying and worrying. Assuming a perfectly content little world, I would say you definitely should stay on it. You're good for it, and you know it. Especially with Thom in the Capitol. But first and foremost, take care of your head."

-4-

In mid-November, as the leaves finally start blanketing the floor of the woods after a long, late-running summer, Peeta and I go back to the lake for a weekend. I go hunting around for hickory and oak. I find branches of good thickness, saw them down and bring them back to the house. I have a stack of these and, before I join Peeta at the lake, where he is fishing, I pick out two older ones, which are now dry enough.

Fishing is exactly the sort of outdoor activity that suits Peeta. He can phase in and out of concentration as he wishes, and in the stillness between fish bites, his inner eye is working on a painting, or just meditating on the beauty of the hills around us.

I sit next to him, disrupting his contemplative peace, and he watches in curiosity as I balance one of the branches on my hand and eye it carefully.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm finding the natural curve of the branch. Every piece of wood has one, even if it is almost imperceptible."

"Really?"

"Mhm." I run my finger along the knobby wood. "See, there it is. Now - I visualize it. Find where the hand grip will be. Then I'll shave the branch, starting at the ends, until the curve is even on both sides …."

"You are an artist," he smiles.

"Hmm." I perch the branch on the ground and grip it with my knees, then start scraping along one end. It's a pleasant sensation - the sound, smell, the feel of the wood beneath my fingers.

"How many will you make?"

"For the school? I think I need only four or so. There isn't room for more than four students at a time in the backyard of the Mellark House Unified School." I look up and grin at him, for he hates to be reminded that they've named the school after him - 'as if I was dead,' as he says. I've offered to teach archery this year. Much as I hate its necessity, I think it is important to teach the district some skills in defense and self-preservation. Most of them will probably not even ever hunt. But - if the necessity arose …. "And, I'll be teaching the older kids to make them."

We go back to our tasks, until the sound of footfalls come from the direction of the woods behind us. I'm automatically alert, but in fact our visitor is not unexpected.

"Thom!" says Peeta, getting up.

Very few people come out to the lake, even now. Old habits are hard to break, and most people leave the district only to pick apples in the fall, as they ever did. Once in a while, we'll see someone down the shore from us - bathing or attempting to fish - but they keep their distance. We are still, to a certain extent, set apart, for a variety of reasons - our history, my moods, Peeta's status in town.

Thom's hair is long and sleek, and he's wearing a nice brown suit. I've heard rumors that he's hooked up with Aster. She's a rising little starlet in her own right - Plutarch likes her sulky, naturally blond looks, and she does the occasional spot reporting for Capitol parties. So I guess I should be impressed she's chosen a former miner from home - if that is the case.

"Hey, Peeta. Katniss. I just met and briefed Bailey - she'll have the details for you guys on Saturday. Are you going to talk to the council about what you're going to tell me today?"

"If you want me to."

We go up to the house so Thom can sit on one of the chairs. He takes the time to admire Peeta's mural - which is really only painted in one corner - the rest kind of sketched faintly on the wall with chalk. It's something called the "Myth of Persephone," and he's shown me a colored drawing of what he plans: there's a city street - like the Capitol - at night, and a girl emerging from a sewer, and some strange, bright stars and a trail of yellow flowers blooming in the light of a streetlamp. It's surreal and I secretly wonder if I'm going to feel entirely at ease with it when it's done.

Peeta recounts our visit to District 2 and everything we were told or saw about the academies. News of excavation at the Nut is a surprise to Thom - and that feels ominous.

"I think you should tell the council, maybe even the district at large, actually. We should get a read on how everyone would feel about the CDF troops - sooner rather than later. The Capitol is getting a troop and 2 is ready to send others out, unless refused. Most of the outlying districts - 8, 10, 11, 13 - are opposed. Of course, 13 has no need. And 8 has its own troops, too, left over from the war. So, I don't know if that reflects the spirit of the vote, necessarily."

"OK. And about the Nut?"

"This is complicated. I wonder if … well, Paylor must know, right? She's toured all the districts. They may not have told her. No one has talked about it on the floor. What District 2 has done is called for a vote demanding an immediate disbursal of 13's nukes among the rest of the districts."

"Disbursal? In what sense?" asks Peeta, his eyes widening.

"Everyone gets their own supply of nuclear missiles, so no one - or two - districts can hold the threat of nuclear attack over the rest of us."

I look at Peeta sharply; I know his feelings on this.

"I thought we were supposed to be disarming them," he says.

"Eventually. But - apparently it takes a long time - and tools we no longer have - to do it. We're - stuck with them."

Peeta stands up, abruptly. "So - bury them - or something - until then. Spread them around? Bring them here? I don't want them. And I don’t believe those tools were lost. Thirteen is keeping something from us."

"But you can't bury them - you can't hide them - from everyone. There would always be people who know. There would always be the temptation to …."

"It would be no different if they were here. They might always be targeted - internally, externally. We'd have to guard them, always, and we have no … peacekeepers."

"Unless we take them from 2," I add softly.

He looks at me with a pained expression. "And there could be accidents. A single accident could take out this entire district."

"Not everyone will agree with you. Some people might argue it puts us on equal footing with the other districts - defensively."

"We will never be on equal footing with the other districts. Not for generations."

"Katniss?" asks Thom.

I look at him in surprise. No one ever asks me my opinion on state matters - no one but Peeta. "I'm with Peeta," I say. "There has to be another way."

"Well," Thom says, uncomfortably, "there are forces beyond our control out there. Anyway, I thought I'd give you guys something. I told you I'd been looking through the old government archives. Well, to be honest, Aster has been looking through them. She has managed to get some extra security clearance through Plutarch."

He pulls a beige folder out of his coat and puts it on the table. It's stuffed full of loose sheets.

"Thanks," says Peeta, bemusedly.

"I only glanced at it. But you should really look it over. There are some very old maps - from back before the Dark Days, from back before this was District 12. Might be of interest in planning district expansion - in the future."

I look at the folder with more interest. "Will you stay with us for dinner, Thom?"

"No, I'm heading back to town. You guys do have a nice set-up, though. It's a little … Seam … but nicer. Good place to retire."

"Believe me, we're contemplating it," Peeta replies.

After Thom leaves, Peeta lies down on the bed and puts an arm over his eyes. He's so still, I think he has dropped right off to sleep, but eventually he lets out a long sigh. I sit down next to him, then lie down, then nuzzle his arm with my nose.

"Katniss …."

"What?" I ask, innocently.

"Don't try to wheedle me into a good mood."

I kiss his arm, then up the side of his neck. "Is this what you call wheedling?"

"I'm so tired."

"Of course." I sit up and he moves his arm, just a bit, to watch me. "You should take a nap. You got up before the sun. You sleep, and when you get up we can make a fire and grill the fish you caught."

His breath catches and I smile to myself. 

I bend down to kiss him gently on his cheek. "How's that? Relaxed?"

He blinks at me. He could lie - but what would be the point? We can both see he's not relaxed.

.

.

"You shouldn't do that," he says into my hair.

"Sure," I answer. "Why?"

"You reinforce bad behavior. Petulance shouldn’t be rewarded." But I can hear the grin in his voice.

"I wish this wasn't happening," I say, sadly. "It hasn't even been two years!"

"Maybe it's always happening. Maybe there are always people plotting something. And we just happen to know some of this thing and - who knows? - it might come to nothing. It probably will come to nothing. Most plots must dissolve, unfulfilled, in reality."

"Then why does it feel so …?"

"Because we are especially scarred by the feeling of powerlessness." He sits up.

"No nap?"

He shakes his head. "No - let's amuse ourselves and look at these maps."

There's no order to the pages, which look like they were hastily copied and thrown into the folder. The folder contains not only maps - there are also some lists or ledgers written in a scrawled hand. Some typed reports. A transcript of a court case. We sort through them until we find five pages of maps, all of roughly the same area, but with different labels. We use the lake itself as a landmark. It's clearly our lake, based on one of the maps, which is a map of District 12, as it was until the rebellion.

We try to guess the order of the maps based on the diminishing number of settlements on each one. One of them has the widest view of the area - the lake is much smaller in this map than the others - and we see the names of several towns and mine camps, and something, at the very south of the map, labeled The Bunkers. Another map shows fewer towns, with different names; where District 12 is now, there was a mine camp called Piney's Camp. Further west, along the railroad tracks and on the shore of a river, a town called Blue Hills Village. Further north and east - much further east, but closer than I would have expected, there is a town on the Eastern Sea called Virginia's End. Up north - probably halfway to 13, though it's hard to figure the scale - a large town called Meadow Air.

Another map is simply a planning map for forming District 12 - measuring the fence line, planning where the Justice Building and the town center was going to go. Where Victors' Village is now was a huge park with a marsh at one end, labeled "mallard preserve."

"Oh, here's a reference to The Bunkers," says Peeta, who has moved on to some of the other pages. "Listen to this:

'A very large extended family - once of some prosperity and influence in Zone 12 - attempted to persuade a number of citizens to flee Meadow Air and Piney's Camp before the contraction and development of District 12 for a fortification in the South of the Zone, near some abandoned mines dating back to the Tennessee era. They refer to it as The Bunkers, and it is very old, perhaps dating back to the Appalachian resettlements that followed the Savannah River disaster.

'This group found the other citizens unwilling, but they did themselves largely escape. At the time it was thought best to let them go, as it was anticipated they would cause difficulty with the new government if forced to remain and that they would eventually return on their own. Capitol forces acquired maps of this area from District 12 families still familiar with this event in the history of pre-Panem Zones. Muttations were sent to scout the most likely locations of The Bunkers in case these settlers survived, but the alleged bunker was never discovered and it was determined that runoff from Savannah River would still possibly have caused the group to have fallen prey to infertility, birth defects and high rates of cancer, even assuming they survived the journey.'"

"So that would have been during the Dark Days - I wonder if it was toward the beginning or the end?" I ask. "Zone 12 - huh. And do you think we are really this close to the ocean?"

"It looks like just a hundred miles or so, doesn't it? Over these mountains though. It would be a rough journey without roads."

"And what's this about the Savannah River disaster? It sounds like …."

"... radiation poisoning," Peeta finishes my thought. "Well, if you think about it - all this thing that says Eastern Sea … some of this was landmass before the sea rose. Maybe a river rose and overran a nuclear facility and there was a large radiation leak. Scary thought - but that must have been centuries ago. Just this document must be close to 100 years old. I don't know if it would still be an issue. I guess they might know in 13."

"Probably - I never attended those classes. What's on the other side of the ocean?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Other countries used to be, but I guess that whoever didn't end up underwater died off in nuclear attacks or from starvation or something."

"What if they're still - out there?"

"If they were - why wouldn't they have found their way here?"

"We haven't gone out there."

Peeta ponders this with a faraway look. "Whatever our ancestors did - whatever weapons they deployed - maybe the people here had some warning and were able to shelter in these - bunkers - but the rest of the world didn't." He laughs bitterly. "Sometimes I feel so ignorant. I used to wonder about this sort of stuff - back in school - but we didn't learn anything, so I really can't even reasonably guess."

"What are you going to tell the council?"

"About the Nut? - everything we know, little though it is. I am worried that that will increase people's fear to the extent that they will strongly consider taking nuclear weapons. That part is for Bailey to tell them. I just have to try to make a compelling case against. Or am I wrong?" he asks, unexpectedly.

"I don't think you are. You're right. And I don't like the risk of an accident. You're right about that, too. Look what happened to 13 - with that plague of theirs, or whatever. They were much larger than we are now, but that could have wiped them out, within a generation, if they hadn't taken all our people."

"How do we defend ourselves?" He looks at me. "What?"

"Well - I was just going to say, our best defense - at this point - is to continue to be so unimportant that nobody will want to attack us. But that was our defense before. It was me - someone speaking up, causing a fuss, becoming a cause - that made District 12 a target. So - that is why I can never speak up about this. And why you also have to be careful."

He nods. "Yes - sometimes I still think I should back completely out of this. You're totally right. What I need to think of - or both of us maybe - is some real alternative."

-5-

Delly is a good cook.

Since eating meals at Haymitch's is not something I've ever been in the habit of doing, I've had very little opportunity to appreciate this. But when I'm three bites into some sort of pie-wedge-shaped egg-mushroom-cheese-greens dish, and it's basically gone, I understand at least one reason why Haymitch is so content these days. Oh, he'll complain loudly, to whomever will listen, of the chatterbox girl who plagues his life with her constant need to talk - but it's never said with any sense of seriousness. When you hang out with them, there's a kind of weird dance their conversation makes … his slow, ironic jabs; her laughing responses.

The mean-spirited could - possibly do - whisper about the situation. Haymitch, rich and lonely - 25 years of self-imposed exile abruptly interrupted by the revolution that removed the reason for his lonely state. A teenage girl, just nineteen, blond and curvy (merchant looks do still hold cache with some, even among the exiles from the Seam), living with and cooking for and cleaning up after him. The world being the world … who would really blame Haymitch? And the girl could do worse: a twenty-three year age difference really not much in a community of under 400, the pickings slim. But I know Haymitch, and I don't see anything like that in his interactions with her. He's in mentor mode, and since I've abandoned him, he's replaced me with this nice, low-risk relationship.

I don't know Delly. She likes everyone, anyway, so it would be awfully hard to tell. I don't know if she's still waiting for her ex-boyfriend to eventually come back to her. She's so naturally romantic - so genuinely delighted in the success of my sideways romance - that I can't help but think that if it never happens that way for her, she might never really get over the regret.

"If you could clone Peeta," I tell her, "I would say the two of you should open a restaurant. Oh, my goodness."

"Oh - well, in all honesty, I don't like cooking that much. And I just have a handful of really good recipes. I'm hoping - once Drew is finished with school - to train as a - midwife."

The phone rings and Haymitch pushes away from the table to answer it. Delly looks startled, confirming my suspicion that Haymitch still doesn't get too many calls. His eyebrows start lowering at once, and keep on digging downward throughout the rather one-sided conversation.

After he hangs up the phone, he turns to me with a look I vaguely recognize. "Plutarch's on his way."

I jump up in alarm. My go-to maneuver when there are visitors to the district is to head for the lake.

"Eh-eh-eh. Not this time. He's not bringing cameras. He's bringing news."

News on the day of the big vote is probably not good news. "I won't see him until Peeta's done working."

"Yes, I think he gets it now - you're a package deal."

That's not it. Really, I'm still just a little bit anxious about being alone with Plutarch and what he may or may not have known about Coin's firebombs. And about what I may or may not have guessed. We were on the same side, sure, but sides are fluid with 13 districts and the Capitol all jockeying for attention, or independence or nukes. "When's he going to be here?" I frown.

"Noon train."

"Well, you pick him up at the station and keep him until two or so," I say, then get up and leave. Outside, I wind my scarf around my neck and put my hands in my jean pockets. Next door, the schoolchildren are slithering around on the frozen ground. There has been no snow yet, but the dew was heavy and the day went from cold to colder. Strange weather - drought weather, they are saying. Hopefully not.

As much as possible, my days still mirror Peeta's- Mondays and Tuesdays teaching archery, Wednesdays at the medicine plant, where mostly I am still learning about which herbs and fungi go into the hundreds and hundreds of drugs we will be manufacturing - I'm considered the local herbal expert, and I guess that's true, as far as it goes. Fridays with Delly or working on the garden, or on a construction project.

At home, I hide myself in the downstairs study that Peeta uses for painting. After the initial block of his first days home from the Capitol, his art has flooded out of him again. He often paints pictures of the arena, or of tributes from either one. The lake. Scenes from town. The mountain in 2. He's good - very good, at least as far as I can tell.

Peeta finds me there when he comes home. "What are you doing?" he asks.

I tell him, and he immediately frowns. This is on my behalf. Peeta doesn't fear Plutarch or cameras. Nor have either been entirely avoidable. Cameras have come to 12 and I've even given an interview. It was very interesting - intercut with fabrications from Dr. Aurelius about the intensity of our phone therapy sessions, I sat at my kitchen table and talked about my reunion with Peeta and the benefits of a domestic life. More propaganda - it was impossible not to sense it. Whether it was mainly to remind people that the Mockingjay is no more, or to encourage Panem to get married and start peaceably repopulating the planet, I don't know.

"I don't like this," I say. "Either he is coming with cameras for some reason and lied to Haymitch about it, or …."

"Or he is bringing you a message he doesn't want to give by phone," Peeta finishes for me, nodding.

When Plutarch comes, he does come alone and camera-less - at least visible cameras, I remind myself cynically. He greets us, as he always does, by asking how "Panem's happiest couple" is doing. And following it up by asking when we're going to make things "official." He's got ideas for a documentary on District wedding customs that he is saving just for us.

"As long as you have those ideas, it will remain 'unofficial,'" says Peeta lightly.

Plutarch sinks his cause further by reminding us that our "romance" began on Capitol cameras and a televised wedding would bring a nice symmetrical sense of closure. Symbolic - of love among division, or something along those lines. I can sense Peeta keep throwing me nervous glances, as if wondering how far I'm going to let Plutarch provoke me.

But Plutarch's power over me is vastly diminished.

"Well, in lieu of that," he says, not even ruffled by Peeta's smiling non-answers and my stony stares, "I would like Katniss to reconsider another project for me. I'm also doing a series on unique songs of the districts, and all it would really require is for Katniss to sing some songs, then we could dub over some information about …."

"My answer is never going to change, Plutarch. So, thanks, but: no."

"It would be a valuable historical resource for …."

I snort. "I bet. I'm not the only person in District 12 who can sing, Plutarch. I'm sure you'd be able to find a willing volunteer."

"Ah - but…."

"Here it comes," I say, sarcastically, to the ceiling.

Now Plutarch laughs a little uncomfortably. "Well, the honest truth is that it would be so much more popular - and effective - to have you."

I've thought very long and hard about this issue, and my response is fully prepared. "Plutarch, I'm done entertaining Panem. It's abhorrent to me - and also, bad for the country in ways I can't believe you don't see. I'm still a convicted assassin."

"A soon-to-be pardoned assassin."

"And I don't even care about that. I'm always going to be Coin's assassin no matter how many official pardons I get, and I don't mind staying in 12. I just don't need to be put on Panem's television screens anymore. It's not just that it's my preference - which it is - but it's also bad for anyone who sees me and only remembers all the pain the mockingjay brought."

"You still see it that way?" asks Plutarch, furrowing his brow.

"Even the most inspirational symbol of war is still going to remind the people of war, once it's over."

"And it's really not fair, considering-." begins Peeta, but I cut him off with a look.

"Please, Plutarch," I say. "I gave almost everything away. I let the Capitol dress me up and make me kill other kids. I let the rebels dress me up and make me encourage everyone else to kill each other. I'm not what everyone believes me to be, but if I go back on their TVs, that's what I'll become for them again. They'll never believe the person I really I am - that person's fictional, to them."

"But we - there's something about you that we still - need," says Plutarch. "Don't ask me why - they connect to you."

"What's going on, Plutarch?" asks Peeta sharply.

"I don't suppose you can sing?" asks Plutarch.

If Peeta takes offense in again coming in distant second to me in Plutarch's plans, he doesn't show it. He laughs. "Everyone can sing. Whether they should or not in public is a different story."

There is a silence for a few minutes. After a while, I offer him some tea, which gives me a good reason to escape to the kitchen and let Plutarch come to terms with his disappointment. When I come back, he's looking over some of Peeta's paintings that hang in the living room.

"...dead serious," he's saying. "If you send me some photos of these, I can probably get you a dealer. People will really want to see these - they will want to buy these."

"Only because I'm - notorious," says Peeta, blushing.

Plutarch shrugs. "So, among the many disadvantages you were born with, here's an advantage. You use it - to get your feet in the door, to get what you want. It's how the world works, son."

He gives me a meaningful glance. I smile at him serenely. But my curiosity has been roused - for Peeta's sake. I saw the look on his face, brief but clear. He would like people to see his paintings. Maybe he would even like them to buy them. Maybe he would even like to be known for them. That's a new wrinkle.

Plutarch leaves after tea - he's accepted a dinner invitation from Haymitch - without ever coming around to what really must have brought him here in the first place. That he was trying to recruit the Mockingjay again - but for what? And if he wants Peeta - is it instead of me, or a way to eventually get to me?

I shake my head to clear those thoughts and cook a small dinner for me and Peeta and he turns on the television to watch the live coverage of tonight's vote on District 2's referendum. We know how Thom will vote. It was too important for the town council to decide, so we held a district-wide vote to determine how we felt, collectively, about receiving an allotment of nuclear arms along with the other districts and it broadly went to "no." Interestingly - and I hadn't thought about this - almost everyone in District 12 spent months in District 13 and had mandatory lessons on the history of nuclear weapons and war. They know that holding defensive weapons we will never be able to use to defend ourselves would not really make us stronger. But the larger districts would suddenly be, and that could be an issue, in the long run. Bad enough we have to be wary of our neighbors to the north - we'd have to watch out west and south as well.

But the vote was split more evenly on whether or not to refuse to take our share of the weapons if that's how the referendum goes.

We eat dinner on the sofa, watching the debate with the volume low. The mayor of District 2 - a charismatic young man named Julian who has the polished skin, square jaw and carefully-constructed physique I automatically associate with Careers - has become a fixture on Capitol TV. He speaks very passionately - and convincingly - about the need to protect at all times against the creeping encroachment of a centralized government. The district 13 president might not lead Panem, but that does not mean that 13 does not enjoy - or think it does - a special relationship with the Capitol. That that relationship also includes almost every military weapon in the country is too dangerous to allow. 

Well, since that is almost exactly the relationship District 2 had with the Capitol before, I guess he should know.

And it's a compelling argument. We do have to guard against the central power of the Capitol. But - at least at this point in time - we also badly need its protection, some single guarantor that a trigger-happy district mayor - or a new breed of rebels, even - can't get their hands on these weapons more easily.

District 13 argues on wholly pragmatic terms. The risks of transporting and storing. The ongoing research into how to effectively neutralize them. Pragmatic and a bit uninspiring. I worry.

But the vote goes our way. Nine to five, the district reps vote to maintain the status quo. In the end, it's still hard to trust an argument coming out of 2, I guess. I wonder what Gale thinks about all of this. We didn't always see eye-to-eye on these things, but I'm pretty sure the old District 12 version of Gale would see the point of being wary about any proposals coming out of District 2. I don't know.

"Whew," says Peeta. "Well, that puts off that worry - for now." His face is all open with relief. "I can go back to worrying about how big a septic system we'll need on the west side." He grins at me.

I smile back. "So, Plutarch liked your paintings."

He shrugs. "I guess so. It's hard to really tell for sure - with Plutarch. Things are always a means to an end … hey, why didn't you want me to talk to Plutarch about your - conviction? Don't you think he knows that you know?"

"I think he probably does. I don't know if he knew before or after, though. That's a road I maybe don't want to go down."

"But - if people knew - why you actually shot Coin - you wouldn't even need a pardon. The whole thing could be overturned."

I squint at him. "I still killed her."

"You were keeping Panem from going down the wrong path, following a woman who committed unimaginable war crimes to put herself in charge of the country. And I know there isn't much legitimate difference between a pardon and an overturning - except that I think they mean to keep dangling this pardon over you, to keep control of the mockingjay narrative as long as possible - but it would mean so much for people to know the truth about what you did."

"There is still the question of proof."

"That might still be possible. Coin may not have had time to hide all the evidence of what she did. We could - look at the tapes, try to match the id number of the hovercraft to 13's inventory …."

I shake my head. I will never look at that tape. "The id number could have been repainted or hidden. In fact - I would be very surprised if she didn't make sure of it. I bet we would also find no record of who flew that mission - assuming she allowed them to live after."

"It's not as easy as you think - hiding all traces of evidence. Not for that big a - crime. And if Plutarch knows or suspects, he'd probably be able to find it. He was close enough to Coin."

"It really doesn't matter to me that much, Peeta. As long as it doesn't hurt my standing here at home - who cares?"

"I care - and you are still not popular in 13, and they are awfully close."

"Are you rethinking the nukes thing?" I ask him with a smile.

"No - I …" suddenly Peeta stops, distracted by the TV.

I follow his eyes. The post-vote reporting has continued, with reporters interviewing different members of the council. They have cut back to the legislative "floor," where the representative meeting seems to have continued, and it looks very heated. In the background, there is even some yelling.

It takes some time for the breathless reporters to fill us in on what is actually happening. District 2 has announced its resignation from the representative council. It will no longer participate in votes or the common trade market. In effect, it is leaving Panem and moving forward on its own, as its own sovereign state.

Chapter Text

-1-

The interesting thing about a buried civilization is what nature allows to remain, once it has reclaimed it. Roads, for instance: even after they are mostly crumbled into dust - here and there a sturdy chunk remains. We can still even occasionally see the faded yellow stripes of the highways, just like in the old pictures. It's almost as if the earth taunts us - leaving behind enough traces of our so-called might just to emphasize our vulnerability.

"Why do we keep doing this sort of thing in the summer?" Peeta asks me, sweating as he lays out the drop cloth for our tent.

"I didn't plan your trip to District 4," I remind him. While he sets up the tent, I start laying the stakes in a perimeter around it, then threading the fishing line, strung with small bells, through the stakes, so that any large predator, wandering toward us, will trip the alarm. On our last extended trip outside District 12, we were startled by a large bear as it crashed into the tent, almost bringing it down on us. It wasn't looking for food - at least not of the human variety - so we didn't have to do much more than scramble out of its way. The deer out here are so plentiful that it is hard to even describe - herds of them crowd around small watering holes, fill entire valleys. The bears have plenty of food. But we take no chances.

Twelve eventually elected a mayor and the town planning council evolved into an elected district council with oversight over various subcommittees. Peeta is the planning subcommittee. He doesn't have a vote on the council, just continues to think about and plan and make recommendations for building and expansion. Much of this right now is just continuing with what was agreed on three years ago by the planning council. There was another considerable slow-up when it became more complicated to get stone and stone-laying materials from District 2, but we compensated by learning to build concrete housing, which was faster, cheaper and more energy-efficient anyway. That's starting up in the West Side of 12, while the construction concludes on the town center and townhouses. Within months, Peeta will be able to move the bakery to an actual shop in town. A mixed blessing. I'll miss having him around in the mornings, and the near-constant smell of baking bread. But it will be a more efficient system for him, and we will no longer have to contend with drop-in customers at the house.

As the planning subcommittee, Peeta has an  excuse to travel in the region outside of the 12 boundaries and survey the open land. Thom got a hold of some better maps of the area, so we don't have to do any mapping - just see what's out there. This has made for some excellent camping trips. Last summer, we went east through the woods and into the hills above the lake. We didn't go as far as the edge of the land - probably nowhere near the sea - but we did come across - every once in a while - eerie signs of previous civilizations. Plastic stuff, mostly. A naked, almost faceless little lump of arms and legs that must once have been a doll. Cups, bowls - some bulky items with no function we are familiar with. Metal we collect - it is rare, but scraps of metal we bring back to 12 where they can be put to use.

For this trip, we are heading south, sticking to the valley but following what used to be a major roadway that skirts the hills. We didn't know that there would be any of it left - so it was exciting, and a little solemn, to find the crumbling remains of it under the thick green grass. It also makes it that much easier to keep on track for our destination.

After we've set up for the evening, Peeta pulls up the old maps again and we try to estimate where we are. It's more difficult than you might think, given that whole landmarks - lakes and rivers, especially - have vanished off of the oldest of the maps. We rely on distinct curves and gaps of the hills. We've only allowed ourselves three weeks for this trip, which means on the ninth day - or at most the tenth - we really need to turn back. We're eight days out.

"Here's what we have to look out for," he says. "There were several mines here - hopeful there will still be some signage. It looks like 'The Bunkers' are on the other side of the same hills. Maybe they are related."

"Like they were actually built into some of the old mine levels? Could be."

He takes off his boots and rubs the bottom of his feet. "Wouldn't it be great if there were still horses? Domesticated ones, I mean. This would be a lot easier."

"Or roads or cars out here?" I suggest teasingly.

"I don't know about that. It's so pristine out here - I'd hate to spoil it."

For dinner, we eat rabbit and dried fruit. Although the deer are plentiful, it's much less fuss to kill a rabbit for dinner. For backup, we have dried venison - but hunting out here has been so easy, we haven't had to dip into that supply, yet.

Dawn brings a heavy dew and a nice, cool morning. I catch the scent of moisture in the air - perhaps rain will roll through before the end of the day. It also brings our third anniversary. It feels suddenly strange not to be home for this, or at the lake house. We have no bread with us, so there won't be toast tonight - we just have crackers. But we are also wonderfully, blissfully and completely alone. Back in 12, his apprentices are baking and delivering bread. The school children are on summer vacation. When we're back, I'll have to give him back to Panem for a while, and I am anxious about him traveling west. On his way to District 4, he will have to stop make a nerve wracking stop. 

Trains are still allowed to stop in 2 - after all, the district needs to get its own supplies out to sell to those who can afford them. But passengers are confined to the train station, unless with documented permission otherwise. Paylor's government - the district reps - anyone with Capitol citizenship - are never granted permission. Peeta’s status on the District 12 council is just over the border of acceptable. But I’m anxious. Early on in the District 2 crisis, a hovercraft attempting a flyover with cameras to see what was going on in the district was shot at with anti-aircraft guns. It was called a warning shot, and it put an effective chill on any attempts to communicate with 2. According to Thom, there are ongoing negotiations to return 2 to the table, but the two sides are so far apart, it seems unlikely that it will happen any time soon.

No one has the stomach to try to force the issue. Our only military force is really still basically District 13. A handful of districts have assembled their own security units, but these are sparse and lightly armed. There aren't 15 guns in District 12. It now seems fairly clear that District 2's revamped peacekeepers were always meant for its own use, at least in the event that the vote they forced would allow it the excuse to walk away and barricade itself in the mountains. Every once in a while, I find myself wondering how embedded in these plans Gale is, or was. Did he just stumble back into a bad allegiance?

Peeta's morning kisses remind me that we are all alone for now, and to hold on to this moment and enjoy it. We eat some leftovers, pack up the tent and move on.

By midmorning, we have come to a small stream. I purify some water, and Peeta walks around with the map, peering up and down between the hills and the paper. "I think I know where we are," he says, excitedly. "Let's follow this stream."

We climb up now, into the hills, following the water. Before long, we come across evidence of a road that also used to parallel the stream. Peeta shows me where he thinks we are - what used to be a small river that ran directly down from a copper mine. After lunch, it rains on us and we huddle under a tree and wait. It's the sort of summer storm that blows in and out. Heavy rain for 30 seconds; then a light shower for ten minutes. Lightning in the background. Another heavy rain. Then a rainbow in the southern sky. And then the sun again. Within ten minutes of walking, we have dried in the hot sun.

It's early evening when we come upon the clear signs of what we’re looking for. Metal carts, a rusty waterwheel. The rusty ends of picks and the crumbled concrete foundations of small structures. After some exploration, we find an entrance into the hill - collapsed wooden beams lying around it. We peer inside but don't go in, not trusting the state of the interior reinforcements. We set up camp here. We sing songs - Peeta joining me in his tentative, slightly flat tenor - and we eat crackers and rabbit.

The next day, we continue up the hill and now we find a hard dirt track that is just barely overgrown with heather. The track takes us into a poplar grove on the crest of the hill, continuing down the other side. The shade protects us from the heat of the morning. When we come out of it, we have an incredible view - down into a lumpy green valley, with a dark smudge of trees in the background.

The track ends just where the trees do, and we can see it - another entrance cut into the hillside. But this is a heavily reinforced opening - two huge steel doors. There is an old padlock on the doors, but it is rusted and Peeta breaks it with a rock. We peer inside the doors - I pull out a flashlight to do it - and find a wide, shallow room, all lined with concrete. There's another door on the far end.

The shallow room is empty except for a two-drawer metal filing cabinet. This is not locked, but a metal box inside it is. The interior door opens into darkness - a metal staircase heading down into the depths of the hill.

After spending some time trying to open the box,without luck, Peeta and I measure the wisdom of continuing to explore the bunker. After lunch, we decide against it. It's time for us to head back.

"Next time we come out here," I tell him, "we'll borrow a truck and do the trip in a couple of days."

He nods, his natural curiosity still warring with his sense of duty, regardless. "Well," he says, looking down at his map. "At least we have done what we came to do. This is clearly the far southern boundary of Zone 12, whatever that used to be, exactly. So, at the very least, something interesting to report to the council."

-2-

I'm surprised by the powerful return of my anxiety, which starts with a nightmare the night before Peeta leaves. He wakes me in the middle of the night with his voice shushing me gently. I won't talk to him about the dream, not in specifics. But it keeps my eyes wide open afterward, even as he falls asleep with his arms wrapped around me. I saw 12 again, decimated - the walls crumbled and covering the dead. And I had to uncover the bodies. Prim again, and Finnick, and Madge and Mags and Haymitch and Peeta.

In the morning, I hide my yawns and help him pack - he has fifteen paintings he is taking to District 4 for an art show. Most of them - early ones - are not for sale. But since people remember them from when he displayed them for the Capitol during the Victory Tour, he is expected to bring them just to show. Some of the newer ones are for sale. His agent, Violet Something, who Plutarch connected him with, thinks most of these will sell and that an art show is the best way to get a higher price via bidding.

On the way back home, he'll be traveling with my mother as far as District 11, where she has taken a job in a new hospital - the first in the eastern districts. It will be good to have her closer - and away from whatever is happening back west.

We can't get a hold of Gale by phone, so I sent him a letter a few weeks ago, letting him know when Peeta would be in 2 for his layover to 4 and asking him to just try to get some word to us that he and his family are safe.

It will just be for a few days - less than a week. But as soon as the train leaves, I start to fret. It's not healthy - I know it's not healthy. This feeling like an emotional flashback right to the end of the Quarter Quell. We are so seldom apart, and certainly there is never this distance between us - increasing every minute. What if he has nightmares or flashbacks and I'm not there? There is no one else who really knows about them. What if I have nightmares, every night?

I find Delly waiting on my porch when I come home from the train station. Subtle. She's got a basket of yarn and some needles. Yikes, this again. She tried to teach me to knit some time ago, but that didn't really work out. With a sigh, I let her inside. I'm not sure this is for the best - I probably need to let off my nervous energy with a long trek into the woods and probably some intense hunting. But I'm not willing to let this show.

Delly knows this is all busy work, so she doesn't bother to go slowly or re-teach me what I never really learned. I just twist yarn around the needles and listen to her vaguely.

"Drew is leaving for school again next week. Can you believe it? Next year he'll be done and he was telling me and Haymitch all about a project he will be working on this year. A wind power generating plant. He'll be in District 10 part of the year. And he thinks we can use one here."

"We're on the hydro-electric grid."

"Yes, but this would be our own project - our own power. He doesn't think that the Capitol will be able to just sustain giving out power forever. That's the talk there, anyway. That there are some things the districts will have to start paying for."

"Great," I say, sourly.

"I had a letter from Sammy, too. He's going to visit me for a month after Drew leaves."

I glance at her. There's a lilt in her voice. Which makes me sad. Sammy has been dating someone in 13 for years, at least last I heard.

"And I also heard from Aster. She's still out of her mind for Thom, but she doesn't think she's going to get married to him any time soon."

"Why's that?"

"Her fans like reading gossip about who she's dating. And I think Thom is worried that she'll want to stay in the Capitol. He eventually wants to come back home."

"Relationships take a lot of compromise," I note, matter-of-factly.

"Even yours?"

"Yes, even mine," I say, smiling.

Delly breathes a long sigh. I struggle with myself for a long time, then plunge in.

"So, Sammy's coming for a visit? That's kind of huge, isn't it?"

"For real. I haven't seen him that often over the last couple of years. And he never comes here. He is just like his mom - it was traumatic for them, fleeing 12. They didn't make it out with the initial group - with Gale and everyone. His family's house was spared in the initial bombing and they made it out between waves of bombings. But they got lost in the woods overnight. It took them a while to make it out to the lake. His mom really enjoyed being taken care of in 13 - it had been very stressful for her ever since her husband died. And she loves her new house there. I think she'd like to forget everything and just be safe. Him, too."

"It's safe enough here."

"I know. Especially with Katniss Everdeen arming our district school kids with bows and arrows." Delly smiles at me. "But I think the rest of the districts probably still just think of us as a fragile refugee camp."

"Well, I'm sure Sammy will see differently."

Delly's face is so hopeful it hurts my heart.

"What will you do when Drew is done with school?"

"Oh - I'm hoping to go to this hospital in 11 for midwife training."

"Haymitch will miss you."

"I'll miss Haymitch! He's the best roommate," she adds, making me almost laugh at the thought. "Oh, I almost forgot. He sent something with me." She reaches into her knitting basket and pulls out a jar filled with amber liquid, in which some pale cherries are floating. "He says this is as close to whiskey as you'll ever taste."

"Oh, for goodness sake," I say, frowning. "I'm an adult - I'm not going to sit here pining over Peeta so badly I need Haymitch methods for dealing. And, also - Peeta would be pissed."

"Haymitch said to tell you that it's no different from any Capitol pills you might have lying around. And also - not to completely forget that you aren't Peeta and you don't always have to follow his self-righteous moral code. Especially when he's not here."

I roll my eyes.

"Besides which," says Delly, "Haymitch's moonshine really isn't bad."

.

.

The phone wakes me up and it's with extreme effort that I raise my heavy head. I fell asleep on the sofa - just like the old days - so the sound of the ringer is quite close. Oh, shit. I look up and see that only half the jar of moonshine is gone - and Delly and I split it rather evenly. It must be incredibly potent. Ohhhh.

"Hlllllo?"

"Katniss?"

I try to shake myself awake. I glance at the clock and see it is only ten. "Peeta!"

"Did I wake you?"

"No - well, yes," I reply, clutching at my head. "I fell asleep waiting …"

"Oh, I'm sorry! I just got to your mother's house. It's lovely here! I would be quite sad to leave if I were her."

"How was the trip? Did you have any problems?"

"None at all. District 2 was weird just because it didn't seem weird - just a layover in a train station." He pauses, waits maybe for a question that doesn't come. "I did see Gale."

"See him? That's good. So - everyone is well?"

"Yes, they seem so. He brought a picture to give to you. Him and Lyra, and Hazelle and Rory, Vick and Posy. And - he has a baby, now, a little girl."

"Oh, that's nice. What - did he say anything to you - about …."

"He just said that everything is fine in District 2. They are prospering and seem happy with their relationship with the rest of the districts. He thinks that is the future - the best future for Panem - for the districts to be independent states - and that would avoid the rise of dictators."

"I don't know about that."

"Me neither - but who knows? Anyway, I know you were worried and I wanted to let you know - no problems. I'll call you tomorrow - after the show. You OK?"

I clutch the phone, not wanting to lie. That's not who we are. "A little lonely," I say carefully, "but Delly came by and kept me company most of the day. I'll be fine."

.

.

I sleep soundly, with no nightmares, and wake with a minor headache. I'm up late, but go out without too much fuzziness and spend the day hunting. It's late afternoon before I return home. I'm unlocking my door when Delly comes running over again. OK, I love Delly, but I'm not sure I can do another day. But I say nothing when she follows me into the kitchen and watches me unload my game into the ice box.

"I borrowed a hacksaw for you," she says cheerfully.

"What?"

"For that locked box."

"Oh." I don't even remember telling her about it. So, after I'm done, we saw off the lock on the metal lockbox from the bunker and open it curiously. Inside it, there are just some papers. One seems to be a diagram of the bunker itself. It shows that, downstairs from the top level where we found the box, there are just two levels below. The first is divided into three rooms - all labeled storage. The lowest level is much larger and divided into five rooms, simply labeled "sleeping quarters." There appears to be room for about 250 just in these lower levels. The rest of the papers are some lists - lists of names, lists of supplies - and some handwritten letters or pages that are faded beyond the ability to read. There are also some rolls of folded up paper - soft, a little fragile, a little waxy - green and covered in old portraits and numbers - mostly the numbers 20 and 100. Some kind of currency, then, but incredibly old.

"And this place belongs to District 12?" says Delly, squinting at one of the faded letters.

"Well, we're still trying to find more information about this - Aster says there are a lot of archives in the Capitol that are still off limits, as the materials are so old they might crumble with the handling, and apparently a lot of the electronic records have to be re-translated so they can be read by modern machines." I laugh. "I don't know how much of that is true or just the same old Capitol stonewalling. But what we guess from what we've read so far is that way back - Panem - or what became Panem - was divided into Zones, instead of Districts. These were larger - there were several towns just in Zone 12. Maybe they were self-governing, so when a central government came along, some people protested and left. We were thinking we would find evidence of that at the bunker, but it took us too long to get there; we didn't have time to look around. But everyone was collected into the Districts, and the boundaries shrunk down - way down. At least, ours did. Most of the other districts are actually a lot more spread out. Maybe we were too rebellious, even back then."

"What were the bunkers for? Were they like 13? For sheltering from nuclear fallout?"

"Probably. But 13 is huge, and this one is for just a small group. If you think about it, considering the wars and all, and the threat of radiation from accidents, there are probably underground bunkers all over the place. But 13's was clearly special. Someone told me once - I think it was Plutarch - that there used to be a capitol in the east, and maybe 13 served that government - or the military or something like that."

"What could we do with ours?"

I shrug. This is something else Peeta and I have talked about, and is more to the point than speculation about a past we may never learn the truth about. "We could use it as a storage facility. When times are plentiful, we could put food away there, an emergency stash in case things go bad again. Or - if things went from bad to worse, as a place to shelter." I shrug. These are worst case scenarios, I suppose. But all we've known in our short lives is hunger and destruction. So …

The phone rings and it's Peeta calling. Just from his voice, I can hear the blend of flushed excitement and nervous anxiety - and I know he will have a hard time sleeping tonight. He sold five paintings and had so many people come up to talk to him - and only some of it was about the Games. He admits to drinking two glasses of wine to calm his nerves. He met his agent, Violet, in person for the first time, and she also has some show on television, and of course had all kinds of other ideas about guest appearances, etc.

"Well, I guess you can't expect much else, if Plutarch put her in touch with you. Were there - cameras there today?"

"Some, but I avoided talking to anyone, so I think they just filmed some of the paintings and talked mostly to Violet."

"Oh, I'll see if I can see it on the news," I say, trying not to shudder. He's agitated, but not unhappy, and I don't want to ruin his mood. I tell him how Delly and I got the box open and what was inside it. He's disappointed, but not surprised, that it isn't more interesting, but there are bound to be things left behind in the lower levels, so we'll definitely have to venture out there again.

"I miss you," he says, suddenly. "It's only been two days, so I feel so silly for feeling this way. But it's like - ."

"It's like being separated before, yes."

"Yes, like bad things will happen if I don't keep my eye on you."

"I know how you feel. It's OK. It's irrational - we'll be OK."

"I know."

"I miss you, too."

When I get off the phone, I see that Delly is making dinner in the kitchen. I must really be a mess if everyone still knows it, I think to myself. And I thought these last few years had been pretty smooth, really. But I can tell - I have that feeling of just being on the edge. My hands will start shaking and then I'll wake up somewhere I don't expect. No wonder Haymitch sent the booze. So I can sleep without dreaming.

"Peeta might be on the news," I tell her.

"Oh, let's watch that after we eat, then!" she says, enthusiastically. "I'll just let Haymitch know that I'm going to be out a little later. And make sure he knows where to find leftovers."

But after dinner, we can't find anything on TV except for coverage of the current district rep session, and I mute it while Delly and I once again take out yarn and chat lightly about the plans for the rapidly-approaching fall - the school year, the harvest. I've remembered how to knit yarn into chains, so I just keep braiding and braiding it with the needles until I can do it without even paying attention to it. It doesn't help ease the worried thoughts in my mind, but it does hold off my physical reaction to the stress. During lulls in the conversation, I look up at the TV in mounting frustration. Something feels off. I can't quite put my finger on it, either. There seems to be some argument going on in the meeting, but that's not unusual. By the time I turn the sound back on, the session is ending and the screen goes black for a second, then an old program - some documentary about extinct wildlife - comes on. When I turn the channel, I find much of the same - generic programming. Until a scroll starts playing ….

Communications down in District 1. If you are attempting to contact residents of Districts 1, 4, 5 or 6, please wait. Communications are down in …

Ignoring the directive, I jump for the phone and try to call my mother's house. Circuits are busy, I'm to try again later, I'm told by an automated voice.

"What's going on?" Delly asks.

"I don't know - I …"

At that moment, Haymitch comes in, out of breath and red-faced. "Don't panic," he tells me, at once raising my blood pressure.

"What? What's going on?" I stare down at the phone receiver - it's buzzing at me angrily, and I set it down on its cradle.

"You didn't see?"

"We weren't - really watching," Delly says, looking from Haymitch over to the TV.

"District 1 has joined 2. Or been annexed by it, depending on how you look at it. Two has cut off train access to both and disabled some of the communication lines, so until there's a work-around …."

"But -" I splutter. "How will Peeta get home? He has to go through 2 to get back from 4."

Haymitch shakes his head. "It might take a little longer, is all. The Capitol and 13 will send hovercraft, and there are back roads the Capitol can use to get to 4."

"But - but -."

"There are larger issues here, girl," says Haymitch, sharply. "Don't you understand what this means?"

I shake my head. I don't - and I don't care, really, about what District 1 does, or District 2 - in the grand scheme of things. "I have to get out there," I say, panic starting to spiral down from the top of my head, down my spine and grip at my gut.

"How are you proposing …."

"Take me to 13 - I'll get on a hovercraft - Haymitch …."

He crosses over to me and guides me over to the couch. "Don't be ridiculous. Everything will be all right. You are just going to have to be a little patient."

At the word patient , a scream starts growing to life in my throat and I clench my neck muscles over it. He's right, of course, I try to tell myself. But why does he look so pale? Why are Delly's eyes so wide?

"I knew he shouldn't have gone," I say, hoarsely.

"Don't be absurd."

But a silence settles around us, and in the silence I don't even need to close my eyes - to see him, smell him, feel him around me. And my eyes fill with tears. "I can't help it," I say, at last. "I promised myself that I wouldn't let him out of my sight again."

"That's unreasonable, Katniss. You can't live your life that way, or expect him to do the same. This isn't the arena. He's not being targeted."

I'm shaking my head even as he puts a glass in my hand. This time I don't hesitate, but drink it right up. I was already not expecting Peeta back for another two days. If it's going to take some indeterminate length of time longer, I'd prefer to be passed out for the interim, if possible.

-3-

It is again the phone that brings me out of my stupor. I'm sleeping on the sofa again - my bed is not my bed without Peeta. Haymitch, sleeping nearby on a chair, stirs for a moment, but does not even stop snoring.

Peeta's voice. Thin, but real.

"Oh, thank goodness," I slur.

"I don't have much time. I'm on some private line that Plutarch's people have. I'm OK, just want you to know that. Your mom, too. We're just going to have to find some alternative route out of here."

"Peeta, I -."

"I could go …. Capitol, but …. District 11. So, I know it might take a little …. love you - I'm totally breaking up here. I love you, Katniss."

"Peeta -." I'm left holding the receiver as the line goes dead.

.

.

After two days, I've lost any sense of the self I've carefully constructed over the last few years. I might be back in District 13 at the end of the Quarter Quell, dazed and desperate. And the worst of it is, nobody is surprised to find me so distraught.

After four days, I manage to get a hold of Annie. She's doing well. Four will be all right - many there welcome the isolation, especially the fisherfolk. Peeta? My mother? She is surprised at the question. They left two days ago.

The days stretch into a week. I swallow my distaste and contact the Capitol. Thom has no news - people have been evacuating 4, 7, 1 & 2 for days using any means necessary - cars, on foot. Roads that have been used for years only by cars on Capitol business are suddenly choked with vehicles. He knows from Plutarch that Peeta refused a ride to the Capitol back with Violet and her crew. That's all he knows.

One week into two weeks. I wait by the phone - am paranoid about missing calls overnight. Haymitch cuts me off of his booze and I fight, fight against a horrible feeling that starts growing in me. To leave the house - to run, into the woods, and farther and farther into the woods. Far enough to forget him. I can't do this, anymore. It's better for me to be on my own.

I'm halfway into my plan. I've showered and washed my hair. I've eaten. I've grabbed my bow and arrows. I've packed clothes. I'll go to the lake house. Leave a message for him there. I'm sorry.

I'm almost to the fence, walking through the Meadow. The summer-scent of the dry grass arrests me. I stop, close my eyes and visualize where I'm going. If I go to the lake … where we … where his paint is on the concrete wall of the house, waiting for him to come back and finish his mural ...

What am I doing? I'm halfway into my plan and I turn around and go home. That afternoon, there is a letter for me on the train.

.

.

On the 15th of September, I go over to Peeta's old house, unlock it with the keys I got back from the district council, and walk around inside it - noting anything that needs to be cleaned up or repaired after three years as a school building. Technically, it still is Peeta's house, since we never "officially" married. Now, with the opening of the new school, on top of the site of our old high school, it's back in limbo again.

What was I expecting to feel here? I spent very little time here with him, and everything of his is at our house. It's just the anxiety of it. The need to be in a place that is his. As if it stands in for him and I can communicate with him somehow.

Yesterday's letter offered little concrete news. It was dated several days ago, just a short note saying that he had arrived in District 6 with my mother. He could have been out sooner, but for a couple of things. His first option was to go back to the Capitol with Violet, using Plutarch's connections and a private car. But he didn't want to go to the Capitol and he didn't want to go without my mother, who had a house full of stuff to move out. So, they waited for a truck and had eventually been driven to 6, where they were waiting on a train to 11. The problem is, the wide scale panic caused by having to reroute all the travelers around Districts 1 and 2 has meant that trains are overbooked and fewer. Once in 11, he'd settle my mother in and come home as soon after that as possible.

It should have been such a relief. But I can't bear it again - to feel and to lose. I'm ashamed of myself. Will I never not be broken? And somehow I feel that Peeta would have handled things differently - been less paralyzed, thought of some way to get me home sooner. I have to figure out a way to fix myself.

I walk the few doors back down to my house and go inside.

"Katniss?"

I freeze and turn to the sound. He's coming down the staircase and I watch him mutely, as if afraid he's a vision that would dissolve if I disturbed it.

"Katniss!"

He lifts me in his arms and I throw my arms - tight - around his neck. Then I seek out his lips and absolutely attack them. His hands grip my back and I feel my muscles soften against his fingers. I dot his cheeks and his neck with frantic kisses, take his earlobe in my mouth, grip the long, unruly ends of his hair and let them tangle in my fingers.

"Peeta," I say, in a voice that is half-sob.

"Hey, love, it's OK. It's OK."

He eases me down and we stand and just look each other over. I drink him in. And it affects me like Haymitch's booze.

"You got my letter?" he asks, looking worried.

"Yesterday."

He shakes his head. "Oh - wow - I think it was four days ago that I sent it. But we had a heck of a time getting to 11, and, in the end, we ended up taking a truck, again. It was for the best, anyway, as your mom got to keep all of her stuff together. But it was slow! The roads are not good. Mostly dirt and not even close to smooth. I'm sorry, Katniss - I'm so sorry. I was frantic thinking about how worried you must be."

"Take me to bed," I tell him.

His breath hitches. "There's nothing I … but are you sure? What if Haymitch figures out - I'm back … a lot of people saw me at the …."

"He can wait," I tell him. "Peeta, it's been - I don't know how to describe how I -. It's too deep, too heavy. I just need you to feel every inch of you before I can really believe you're back."

"Holy shit, Katniss."

And there is - there is something frantic and unholy about it. Something insatiable in me. And if he had any hesitation about it, it vanishes within seconds of me pushing him down onto the bed, vaguely pushing my shorts and underwear down. It's so fast and desperate, we don't fully undress until we're finally done, and we only strip off our clothes then because it's too hot not to be naked.

"It was bad," I tell him solemnly, murmuring it into his flushed and sweaty neck.

"How bad?"

"Five nights drunk on Haymitch's moonshine bad, just so I could try to go to sleep without nightmares. He cut me off after I threw up in his living room."

" Katniss ."

"I know - I know. It was scary."

He stares at me for a long time. "It's been awhile since you spoke to Dr. Aurelius."

I nod against his arm, which I am both laying my head on and clinging to as if he would float away without my hands holding him back.

Then I start to cry. All the crying I had suppressed. All the fear, the self-loathing, the weakness. I can't bear to lose him - but it's more than that. His loss would destroy me. And it's not healthy, it's not fair, to put that kind of a burden on our relationship. And I don't know what to do.

He lets my tears fall all over his arm and chest while he gently strokes my hair with his free hand.

After I've calmed down at last, I ask him to fill me in: On the week he waited at my mother's house, panic rising around them as it became clear that District 4 was cut off from the rest of Panem. Then the fishers threatened another strike and there were still protests in the streets when he and my mother secured the truck that got them out. On the mayhem in District 6, which is the transportation district, still slowed down by the damage caused to their manufacturing plants during the rebellion. Now, they're being asked to redirect all the old rail routes, construct a plan for new rail lines around the District 1-2 region. And they're being asked to construct small, private autos for the citizens in 4, 5, and 7, who are going to be immobilized by this development. It will be the work of decades.

"Finally a benefit to being one of the eastern districts," Peeta finishes with a sigh.

"I'm more happy than ever that my mother has moved back out here. How are things in 11?"

"I don't know," he says. "There were problems there, too. Someone told me unemployment is very high there, now. Since the Capitol had provided some farm machines to replace human pickers - and since so many people in the other districts are growing their own food … I guess there are quite a few people without enough to do. They are such a large district, it seems like they could follow 2's lead - up to a point, I mean - and start diversifying their resources. But people just don't think that way, I guess. Crops - that's what they know."

"The Capitol…."

"Yes," he says. "It's awfully close to District 1. It's not as small as District 1, but nor is it any better defended. I heard that 13 will be mobilizing troops to send there, which will probably provoke 2 even more. I don't get it - I don't get why it has to be this way. I wonder how Gale feels about all this now."

"Did 2 take 1 by force - or was it a mutual agreement?"

"I'm not sure. Until I got to 6, I heard very little about what was going on - probably less than you did - and it's still all really muddled."

I watch his face - see how he is very genuinely concerned and thoughtful about the situation and what it means, now and for the future. But I find myself caring very little about it anymore.

-4-

"Put the clutch all the way down, Peeta, before you brake."

I can see the back of Peeta's wavy head shake in almost imperceptible frustration. I sit in the cramped back of the heavy pick-up truck, watching the two blond heads in front of me, but occasionally catching a look from Peeta in the rear view mirror. I try not to look smug, but I actually picked up driving much more quickly, although my legs are so much shorter than his that I sometimes had to almost stand up on the clutch and the gas pedals*.

It's almost the end of Sammy's visit and he's now teaching Peeta to drive, since he's satisfied with my skills. I don't even remember Sammy from school - he was a nondescript townie who apparently was also on the wrestling team - but he was once one of Peeta's closest friends. So, I've been happy to see the two of them reconnect (although on Delly's behalf I fret that Peeta is taking too much of Sammy's time). I'm not sure of the appeal, myself, to either Peeta or Delly. He's fair-looking enough, but kind of … dull. He's so used to the routine of 13 that he orders his days along nearly militaristic lines. He finds Haymitch confusing - and he is very disapproving of alcohol. He wakes up at precise times, goes for a morning run, eats meals, meditates - all on schedule. At one point during the month, I eat dinner with him and Delly and can notice nothing but the rolling of Haymitch's eyes at his conversation about his job as a mechanic in 13.

Delly, for her part, looks deeply happy - and satisfied.

"My prosthetic doesn't want to cooperate," Peeta says, apologetically. "I can't figure out how much pressure to put down on it. It will happen, eventually - but I'm just not there, yet."

We sputter around for a little while longer before Peeta can roughly drive up and down the road between town and the train station.

After the driving, we all start walking back to Victors' Village and Peeta talks about plans for dinner. From Sammy's hesitation, I can tell he was planning something different - probably alone with Delly - and I dig my elbow in Peeta's ribs, and finally feign a cough and a headache, until he drops the idea.

Once we get home, I explain it to him, and he widens his eyes. "Oh, I thought that was long over."

"I don't know what it is, but it's something - at least for right now."

"Wouldn't it be great if he moved back here?"

I nod, thinking that at least it would be really great for Delly.

"So - I guess you'll be driving us on our next adventure," he says lightly, going into the kitchen and looking in the refrigerator for leftovers to warm up for dinner.

"Oh - don't be sensitive about it, Peeta. You'll get it. You almost did have it."

He smiles as he looks up at me. "I didn't mean to come off as sensitive - just realistic."

"What shall we do? Back down to the Bunker - or up toward the old northern boundaries?"

He ladles the remnants of a stew into two bowls, then goes into the bread box. "Neither - yet."

"What?"

"Sammy being here was a convenient excuse to learn how to drive," he says, staring down at the cutting board while he slices the bread. "But I want you to talk to Dr. Aurelius first, before we take any more trips."

I let out a huff of air.

"I'm serious, Katniss. Look." He carefully puts down the knife and meets my eyes. "We promised to be straight with each other, right? So, I'm going to be straight with you, and I'm going to ask you the same back. I'm frightened. Of course , I understand why you were worried and upset when I was gone. But when I came back - you were different - for a little while. Distant. I feel like - like - you were almost prepared to cut bait, rather than handle the fear. I understand that; I do. But it scares me. And I don't think that's how you want to live - is it?"

I stare at him for a moment. "I don't like how I felt," I admit, slowly. "I didn't think of it - that way - exactly - until you just now put it like that."

"I know you don't like talking to Aurelius. Really, in all honesty, I think you would be better meeting him in person…."

"Ugh."

"Don't knock it, Katniss, it works. But, anyway, that option really isn't open for you, so I would hope that you could at least - just once, anyway. Just talk to him about what happened and how you reacted. Maybe I'm overreacting and it's not a big deal. But - I've known you for a long time, Katniss, and I can feel it. When you are different."

I note to myself that he doesn't mention the drinking, but I'm fairly sure that Aurelius will have something to say about it. But - as much as I would like to push back against this over-solicitous request, I can't deny what he's saying. I felt it, too. "OK," I tell him. "I'll call him one time."

.

.

Sammy leaves - Delly seeing him off at the train station, but no obvious change in her living arrangements or his. And no obvious change in her demeanor. Every once in a while I can see the strain in her expression, but it's never there for long.

I talk to Dr. Aurelius once and he fixates, as I feared, on the fact that I decided to drink through my anxiety. He renews my old prescription for anti-anxiety pills (which I never took in the first place) and makes me promise to take those instead, in similar situations. But he thinks, in general, I haven't given myself enough time to heal, yet. I vaguely promise to consider more sessions.

Peeta offers Delly the loan of his old house. There are no waiting lists now - housing is more plentiful than not, and the Victors' Village houses more problematic because they are ultimately owned by the Capitol, not District 12, so they can't be re-assigned permanently. Since Delly plans to leave next year, she would be a perfect candidate for the house; but, to our surprise, she elects to remain at Haymitch's. One Friday, while I make clicking sounds with my knitting needles - but mostly watch her finish off a winter scarf - I confront her on this.

"How did you leave things with Sammy?"

She sighs. "He wanted me to go back with him to 13. I said I wouldn't. This is home. I'm sure he'll find someone else to keep him company - just like he did before."

"What about you?"

"What about me? I like my life right now. I'm not lonely, bored, frightened, starving. In all ways, my life is better than it was five years ago. Well - I don't mean that, entirely. It would be better if my parents were still here. Yet - I know - that they would have been thrilled to know that Drew and I can live as we do now. This would make them happy ."

.

.

How’s the memory book coming?

Talking to Aurelius always entails touching the past again. It illuminates the unfinished work I started in order to reconcile with the dead. It’s not that we wanted to pause per se – but after working on the pages for our fathers, Prim, Rue, Cinna and Portia, Thresh, Foxface, a District 4 tribute from our Games, the Star Squad, several of Peeta’s friends and even his brothers … the task started to feel overwhelming, almost unfinishable. We kept getting stuck on people for whom we didn’t have enough meaningful things to say. Which feels wrong on so many levels.

“Who next?” I ask Peeta, taking the book down one day after dinner. And then I pause, musing how much of an ask it is. “Unless – you’re not ready to go back to this.”

“We talked about the Quarter Quell before,” he says, taking the book from me and opening it to the first blank page. “But stalled out on Chaff. You didn’t want to talk to Haymitch about him.”

“Well – Haymitch got wind of what we were doing and he wasn’t particularly supportive of it. Then – I found out some stuff that he knew about my dad and I lost the nerve to keep asking him.”

“What kind of stuff?!?”

“Oh – nothing salacious or anything. Just – apparently, they were friends, until Haymitch’s Games. And he’s beyond sensitive about it.  And I was kind of bent out of shape, finding that out. So, I’m hesitant to ask him.”

“Well,” Peeta says, thoughtfully. “If you think about how small District 12 was, even in our day – they must all have known each other, right: your parents and mine, Haymitch – the girl who went in with him: Maysilee Donner, right?”

“I’ve been thinking about Maysilee, actually,” I tell him. “I was going to ask you to do a page for Madge, but every time I think about it I come back to Maysilee. And why Madge was so insistent on giving me her pin. Do we know everything about Maysilee based on the footage from their Games? I tend to think we don’t.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong to ask him for the answers to basic questions.”

“Oh.”

Peeta raises an eyebrow at my obvious reluctance. “What?”

“He warned me not to ‘sic’ you on him over this.”

Peeta only rolls his eyes. He rips out a blank page and starts drawing, very quickly, the outline of a girl holding a dart. “Not great,” he says, showing it to me. “But it just needs to be a starter.”

So, we head over to Haymitch’s and find him eating dinner alone. “Delly's upstairs, if you’re looking for her.”

“No, we’re visiting you tonight, Haymitch,” says Peeta.

“I’d like some peace and quiet,” he grumbles. “After the past month? That wonk really is your best friend?”

Peeta smiles. “Was, sure. You know – the war changed him, as it does. And the Games changed me. None of my friendships were the same, after the Games. Don’t know if it was me or them; I suppose it was on both sides. We couldn’t relate to each other, anymore. I don’t know if that will ever be repaired.”

Haymitch gets a look on his face as if he’s realized that he wandered into a trap – which of course he has. He couldn’t possibly have given Peeta a better opening for the conversation.

“And, of course, you demonstrated that friendships were fatal mistakes for Victors,” continues Peeta. “Sammy’s visit highlighted that loss for me. For you – I can’t imagine how it was for you. I had one year. You had decades to lose your friends.”

Haymitch has paused between bites, his fork suspended between his mouth and the plate. His right hand twitches – it is the only sign. “I suppose this is payback for medicating Katniss during your prolonged – and foolish, I might add – absence.”

“Katniss is an adult. She is responsible for her own mistakes. I was just answering your question.”

“Boy, you have never been able to lie to me.”

“I’ve never felt the need.”

“All right, enough of this,” I interrupt. “Sometimes, I can’t stand the way you two talk around each other. Yes, Haymitch – we did come here with an ulterior motive and, in some ways, it is payback for all the moonshine. I’ve been in touch with Aurelius again and we’ve decided to pick up with the memorial book. I don’t necessarily care to drag you down the road to mental health with me, but – there is a whole lot of my story locked up in your head. And I need it.”

“Nobody needs this,” Haymitch retorts. “You need water, you need food, you need a place to rest your head.”

“You need to survive,” I finish for him, softly. My heart cracks wide open. “Life doesn’t have to be the Games, Haymitch.”

His smile is ghastly. He puts down his fork and pushes his plate away. “You want to know more about your father.”

“Yes,” I say, before thinking. Then: “Of course, I do. Why wouldn’t I? But I also want to understand you better. And I need to honor the people who died – the people who I care about but didn’t even know. Mags. Chaff. He was your friend, despite all your grand designs of going friendless.”

“What’s that?” asks Haymtich sharply, as Peeta pulls out his drawing of Maysilee. 

“Well,” Peeta explains. “We don’t know much about Mags or Chaff, but since we watched the Game – and she was District Twelve – we thought we knew enough about Maysilee Donner to start with her.”

“So, what do you need my help for? By the way – not your best work, kid. She looked – oh, fuck.” Haymitch’s face contorts as he squints at the drawing. “No, you don’t know enough about Maysilee Donner,” he adds. “You don’t know anything about her.”

-5-

“First of all,” Haymitch begins, closing his eyes, his voice almost dreamlike in tone. “First of all,” he adds, more sharply, opening his eyes and looking at me. “I don’t see you ready to take notes. I’m not telling this story more than once.”

Peeta hands me his drawing and a pen, and I turn the page over to write – notes, I guess? I’m a little offput by Haymitch’s demand, but don’t want to discourage his effort.

“Where was I? Oh, yeah – first of all – everything you think you know about my Games is a lie.”

“You didn’t win the second Quarter Quell?” asks Peeta.

“Don’t start with me. Yes, I won the Quell. But I did not win the game I was trying to play in there. Not even close. And I wasn’t reaped for it.”

“Did you – volunteer?” I gasp.

“Not on purpose. Four kids were picked. One of them – kid from the Chance family, big time rebels, pretty much gone, now. He tried to bolt, got his head blown off. Panic ensued. I was picked to take his place.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t keep my head down. Your dad, though,” he says, abruptly turning to Peeta. “Your dad was probably seconds away from taking my place. He got tackled to the ground just in time to avoid catching their eyes.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. I told you I didn’t know where you got your brains, son – let alone your ability to keep your head in a crisis.”

Peeta smiles at this. “It wasn’t my dad who taught me how to be nimble,” he says wryly.

“No, I suppose not. So, anyway, I was an accidental tribute. The other three were not. Maysilee lasted long enough to get all the air time with me – oh, and she deserved it, know that. I had no hope for myself in the arena; I had some for her. She was extraordinary. Easy to misjudge. The Donners ran the sweet shop then, as they did in your time, so not that far above us, even in the Seam – especially back then. In my day, we didn’t divide ourselves up so sharply as you all did. But she was the most stuck-up girl in town. She loved her clothes and her jewelry – and she judged your look if she didn’t approve it. Yes,” he adds, looking at me, as if he has read my thoughts. “She was a very good friend of your mother’s, and the last thing your mother was was stuck up. There were depths to her that the surface belied. Think of Effie – but if Effie had been raised right. But more than that – she had a good, practical head on her shoulders – and she had no fear, whatsoever. And when she decided to be loyal, she was loyal.”

“Which makes that last break between the two of you so sad,” says Peeta. “I remember feeling particularly bad about that, although I suppose it … what?”

Haymitch sighs. “The Games are heavily edited. They all are, of course – you saw your own: the things they cut, the things they stitched together. My Games were the grand champion of Capitol editing. That broadcast you saw? So shamelessly false that even the Capitol never aired it in reruns. The truth is – Maysilee and I had not yet decided to split up. We discussed it, but it hadn’t happened yet, when she died. We were about to separate – a cannon sounded – she decided to get some food and then we’d weigh out what to do. She was fetching potatoes when she died. But by that time she was never making it out of that arena. She killed a Gamemaker.”

Both Peeta and I sit up straighter at this bombshell and Peeta makes some sort of exclamation.

“Yes, it’s true,” Haymitch says, almost with a smile – if he is forced to talk about the past, he can at least get pleasure out of the shock value, I suppose. “We ran into – pretty much literally ran into – a few Gamemakers doing clean-up in the arena and she killed one of them.”

“Of course that would never show on TV,” I muse.

“Of course not, particularly as they were cleaning up evidence of one of the passages out of the arena.”

“Was it the way out you were looking for?” asks Peeta. “At the edge of the arena?”

“Hmm? Oh – no – not quite. I was looking for the power source of the arena. So, I guess, a sort of a way out. Only, by then I had forfeited my life, too – or at least I thought I had. I just wanted to shut the whole thing down before I died.”

“Did you kill one of the Gamemakers, too?” I ask.

“No. Wish I had. Would have made no difference at all to the things that happened to me after. No – that’s a longer story and one which I may tell you some other time. But this is about Maysilee, and she had nothing to do with that. What else about Maysilee? She was a genius with knots. Probably taught your mother all she knew about braiding hair.”

“The pin,” I say. “I’ve often wondered why Madge was so insistent on giving me her pin.”

“There are probably several reasons. She may have known that your father was well known for his association with the mockingjay. I didn’t keep up with her mother – Maysilee’s sister – hard for me to look her in the face, to be honest, but I imagine Madge grew up in the shadow of her aunt. Even in the edited version of the Game that got broadcast to the Districts, Maysilee came off a hero. Madge may have wanted to honor her memory in a way only a few of us could know. Did she know it would set off a movement? No, but those things aren’t really predictable, are they? Anyway – in a sense – she was giving it back to a rightful claimant. It was a Seam creation – in fact, a relative of your father’s made the pin.”

I clutch my breast – but in fact the pin is never on me anymore; it is tucked away in a box of things I never touch. “Well,” I say – and can think of no other words.

“I know you’ll say it’s too late for this information.”

“Too late? Too late for what? I just don’t understand – why you never said anything about it.”

Haymitch looks puzzled at this, and Peeta gently shakes his head. “Katniss,” he says, “in this you need to give Haymitch some grace. Anything that could be used by the Capitol against him, against us, against the rebellion – even the smallest thing – had to be kept quiet. I’m sorry, Haymitch – you look exhausted. Thank you for giving us more than what we asked. I hope you’ll feel better for it.”

“I’ll have nightmares tonight, is what is going to happen. You’re welcome.”

-6-

When we take the truck back down south, I drive, but I almost wish we were hiking again. We follow the old road, constantly sliding, bumping and skipping over the broken pieces of asphalt, the lumps of earth, the hidden holes in the ground. After eight hours of driving, we've reached the spot it took 8 days to get to before, but when I get out of the truck, my legs are cramped and uncomfortable anyway. "Is that how you made it across Panem?" I ask Peeta.

He rubs the small of his back with a grimace. "The roads weren't quite that bad, no."

The next day we hike back up to the bunker and carefully explore the lower levels. It's plain and simple - nothing like District 13 - a bare shelter for emergency use only. The racks of metal shelves that once held food and probably other supplies are bare, but still look sturdy enough, preserved in the dry, cool air. Down below, the rooms are each filled with dozens of low metal-frame beds. Also in decent shape. Down here we find more papers and money, and in better condition, as well. For one thing, there is a diagram of the adjoining mine, of which only the main shaft is in the hill. The various levels of the mine - from which was brought up copper, nickel and a little tungsten - are far, far below the earth, just like the coal mine in 12.

The other papers are an account of incidents dating back apparently before the Zones. They refer to this bunker as both Appalachia 6 and Tennessee 2 and hint at the nuclear catastrophe from which it once sheltered people. One letter says, grimly,

I'm sure you will appreciate that our stores of anti-radiation treatments are running low. We've sent you the last Prussian blue and DTPA in our facilities and the manufacturing plant has been abandoned. This is difficult for you to process, I'm sure, but everyone left alive in your region is beyond lucky, and you should be thankful that you may have several years in which to enjoy what's left of the world and the current peace ….

"Wow," Peeta says, turning this letter over several times.

I shiver. "Imagine being stuck in here and still dying from the radiation." In my agitation, the flashlight in my hand wavers and its dim light bounces over the concrete walls.

"This should be in a museum, or something," he replies. "How much do they know, or have they saved, do you think - of our real history?"

"I don’t know."

"I wonder where it went wrong? Or why?" he muses. "Well - what do you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh - I was getting ahead of myself. I've been thinking about where to expand. After the west neighborhood is finished, we just have that planned area to the north of the train station, and the rest left open, as it was before. So … do we go north - buffer against possible expansion from 13? Or east toward the lake? West - which we haven't really looked at? Or do we start creeping down this way? There's this place - which could be useful in terms of storage or as a bunker, if needed, like we've talked about. There's also the mine - it might not be played out."

"Not east," I say firmly. "South is good. The valley is relatively open. To the north we would have to clear trees. Same as the west, at least partially."

We exit the bunker with the papers we found and hike back down the hill toward the truck. It's a cool, late autumn afternoon. When we get back from this trip, we'll be busy opening the new bakery and after that a return to the lake house, where Peeta is itching to do some more work on his mural. And I can start some more bows.

He jumps onto the truck bed and I join him there: our legs dangle together above the ground. He puts his arm around me and lightly kisses the top of my braid. I look up at the open sky and the vast open land all around us, and I am struck by a feeling that this - just the two of us together, far away from people watching, staring, monitoring us - is the only way, yet, that I feel truly at peace. That I don't have to think to myself - every once in awhile, like someone carefully treading on an uneven sidewalk - that I need to watch my step. And it does feel - so - peaceful. But I have to admit that there is still a problem, here. And Peeta can sense it. It's like I've built my own arena - or an anti-arena, to avoid all the shit the Capitol and the rebellion put me through. It's a safe place - but a barren one. Not the meadow that I once imagined for Peeta, but a desert I have dragged him into.

"Do you ever wonder - why this isn't enough for people?" he asks me unexpectedly. "Just sitting in peace and quiet and letting the days pass and nature take care of itself?"

"I've always wondered that. Always."

"I guess it's hard to build a functioning country on top of a broken one - sort of like it was with 12. But it just seems like if everyone would relax for a second, we could figure out how to work this all out without all these pissing contests. I don't like this. Not that the districts shouldn't be reasonably independent, but we're stronger together, I think. And I hate not knowing what's going on in 2."

I shrug. "This blackout isolation can't last forever, right? Either they will capitulate, or they'll eventually annex all of us and we'll all be District Two. Then we'll know what's going on."

He laughs, gently. I resist the temptation to turn the conversation away, to turn my head and breathe in his ear and make him forget everything except for how much he still wants and needs me. Because he sees through that now, too. I am still so fucked up.

"Peeta," I say, abruptly coming to a decision that I didn't even know I was thinking about making. "I want to have regular sessions with Dr. Aurelius again."

I feel some tension in him relax against me. But he swallows. "That's good, Katniss. I think that's a good idea."

"You still think I should go - go to the Capitol to meet with him."

"I know you don't want to go back there."

"I don't know if I can."

"One step at a time, then. If you need - space - or anything - from me to work things out, I'll give you that, and gladly."

"What do you mean by space?"

"Space - or anything else. For me to leave you alone for a while. For me to move out of the bedroom - or out of the house."

"Peeta - have I ever once given you the impression that I want that - or even need it?"

"No. But I have to admit - I worry that you don't give yourself the option to be strong for yourself, anymore. I didn't think about it before, but it's possible that the downside to - us being here for each other, supportive as we try to be - is that we might be too dependent on each other. I don't feel that way for myself. But - what happened made me think that maybe you do. That maybe you feel a little too trapped. My parents were trapped together; no getting out of it for either of them. And they were miserable. And we were, too, living with them. Their misery was its own entity, the silent sixth person in the house - and sometimes not so silent. So, if you need space, I won't be upset - not if that's the reason."

I squint at the sky. "Is this why you wanted to leave an 'out?' To not make it official? Because of your parents?"

"Whoa," he says. "Whoa." I turn to him in time to see the quizzical look he gives me. "Maybe - that was part of it," he says, softly. "But just my part of it. It was also for you. I didn't really believe it - not entirely - that this was completely reciprocal. That you …."

"That hurts ," I tell him.

"I'm sorry. It's just the way my head was at the time. You're forgetting, it's only been a year since my regular appointments with Aurelius ended. That's not what this is about now. I know you love me. I'm just giving you the space to do it, if that's what you need."

"I do love you." But since he's given me a bit of a scare, I leave him in suspense for an extra beat. "And I don't want you to leave me - I don't need any space. I need to get over some things that still frighten me and - whether you're in the same room with me or in District 4, it's always there. Does that make sense to you?"

"Yes," he breathes, unable to hide his relief. I know what his fear will always be - that suddenly the love I finally gave him will one day just cease to be. I can understand that. It makes all kinds of sense - given his mother; our history; even, to a certain extent, the loss of Portia. But he has faced his fear like I haven't mine, yet. I start to feel overwhelmed by this - the enormity of trying to fix something that started all the way back when I lost my father.

But now I can kiss him without feeling guilty about it, without feeling like I'm trying to keep anything at bay. And he knows - he knows me, like no one else ever has before. Like no one else ever will. His lips are soft - he kisses me with his smile. His fingers caress my braid, and with the practice of years, he undoes it in a single motion, sighing as the strands of my hair slide down his naked hand. It's one of his favorite things to do - an act of intimacy that is innocent, suggestive, ultimately a question. I gently bite his lower lip and clamp it, still, for a second, between my teeth. Yes and yes.

.

.

We were planning to head back home right away, but after everything - the emotional climax and the sex that followed as inevitably as a chorus follows a verse - we're in no hurry. So we build a fire and heat water for coffee and set up the tent. And I'm thinking to myself, why not now make it official? Why not reject the 'out?' Probably, he would prefer me to talk to Dr. Aurelius a few times first. Maybe he would like to be the one to ask me? We're twenty-one now, which in terms of District 12 is on the outside range of when people get married. Not that we aren't married - I think of him as my husband, and I know he considers me his wife. He was right about that, too. To do the toasting - to seal it, symbolically and spiritually - has made it feel real enough. But he was also right in that, legally, it leaves us open-ended. It assumes an eventual retreat.

"What are you thinking?" he asks me, looking up at me suddenly from his crouched position by the fire.

"A lot of things," I stutter. But, since I never hide it when he asks, I add, "About talking to Dr. Aurelius, and also-." But I cut myself off. Something … there was something on the horizon - like I've seen a falling star out of the corner of my eye - a bright one. I strain my eyes. "Wait, I - what?"

Peeta jumps up, seeing it, too. There is a small fire to the south of us. It flickers strongly as shadows cross in front of it. "There are people there," he says.

Chapter Text

-1-

I'm always every bit as relieved as the children on the last day of school - this year, more than ever. How I keep getting talked into returning, I'm not sure. Teaching archery is one thing. I'm used to being much better at it than anyone around me, so lack of skills or real interest on the part of the students don't frustrate me. And every once in a while, one of the kids will show a natural ability, which pleases me, as well as makes my job easier. Music class is different. I don't think I'll come back next year. I have no aptitude for this - it takes me forever to shush the kids down at the beginning of the class - I don't really know how to teach what comes as naturally to me as pitch and harmony - and we just end up singing songs for (most of) an hour, by the end of which I can feel everyone's eyes boring into me and I just want to run off into the woods. I wasn’t much good at the social side of school in the first place - being alone on this side of the classroom is ten times worse.

But much like Peeta took on two kids - an orphaned brother and sister in their early teens - as apprentices to pass down his family's recipes, so I feel - felt - the need to pass down the mountain songs I learned from my father to the children of District 12. It's just no fun for me. And this last school year was unhappily tense.

It was only that Peeta suffered so much more than I did last year that I didn't up and quit in the middle of it. But he was the public face in support of the settlers from District 11 who we met down the valley, and, over this past year and a half, what we have learned is that you can't easily dislodge deep-seeded prejudices. Despite everything Peeta did to compromise and frame his arguments in favor of the settlement, there was a percentage of people from 12 who never really accepted it. Peeta might argue that 12's numbers are ridiculously small - that we were already by far the smallest District before the war, and our numbers still barely touch 400. He might remind them that we have no political power - no economic power: we have nothing, really to trade. We make medicines here, but medicines mostly go to the hospitals and clinics, and not out to the markets in the Capitol.

He might argue that the refugees from District 11 - for that's what they really are: driven out by the rampant unemployment and forced off land they used to work which only ever belonged to the Capitol - wouldn't even need to settle into District 12, proper, but establish farms in the valley to the south, and that this would be a means to convince the Capitol to expand our borders, eventually.

He might remind the citizens that this communal period in Panem - which we benefit from more than any other district - cannot last forever. Already, District 4 doesn't fully participate - let alone 1 and 2. Eventually, we will be expected to pay for what we can't trade, which would make the inclusion of crop-growing experts an enormous benefit.

It doesn't matter - not to some. It's really a small percentage of the people he can't reach - but in a small district, small percentages have outsized voices. And whatever they are saying at home …. Just when things had calmed down - when people stopped arguing with, and even threatening, Peeta - the kids from 11 enrolled in school last fall, and tensions sprang up again. I've seen it there myself. The kids cluster in groups - 11 and 12. Hateful words are said. Fights break out.

Peeta had said: "Well, we districts were always taught to hate each other, right? But it's more than that. Something deeper. I didn’t realize before how much of an outsider I still am; let alone …."

"You’re not an outsider!" I had protested, pointlessly. In fact, there are still very few people in District 12 who look like him. It’s just that - we made sure, no one more than him, that District 12 wouldn’t be divided by status, or profession - or looks. Peeta has long been accepted as my ally - folks from the Seam worked to raise money for both of us in the Games - so it is jarring for him to be accused of siding with outsiders again, as if he has been waiting all this time to turn against us. And difficult to explain to the people from 11 - perhaps because it is difficult to explain to ourselves. 

Summer again. Like the kids, I now have all the upcoming days to myself. There will be weeks in the woods - probably another trip hunting down the borders of District 12. And several major events scheduled for midsummer.

I put the sheet music and the binders into a cupboard and lock it up for the last time - maybe ever. Out in the hallway, I can hear the raucous shouts of the kids as they run into the schoolyard. I smile at this. This is the best part of the last day of school. That it can be fully appreciated. For me - for my peers - the last day of school meant that the Reaping was mere weeks away. Summer vacation meant watching the Games on TV, losing two more classmates to the Capitol.

Then I hear screams.

Running out to the front of the school, I see the knot of kids bunched up in the middle - the looser crowd of kids watching them. The teachers starting to move in tentatively. Someone is screaming again and I run into the thick of the crowd.

Two boys are fighting and, yes, they are from 11 and 12. The boy from 12 has a knife, but the other boy is spitting mad and moving around in an attack stance, looking for an opening. I'm just trying to remember their names, trying to think of something to say to put a halt to it. But I'm a moment too late. One boy moves in and the other pulls back his weapon - a striking blow. I jump at him, shouting, "Stop!"

I fall gently to the ground - not even really feeling it. Someone loses their head. "The Mockingjay! The Mockingjay!" Which is more annoying than inspiring, I would think. I put my hand down to my side, thinking I've landed on a sharp rock and feel, with surprise, the sticky fluid a couple of inches above my hip. Ow.

I look up and see that the crowd, now stunned into silence, has made a wide circle around me. Not very helpful. "I think …" I start to say.

Then I hear my name being shouted in a very familiar voice, in a very familiar way. "Katniss! Katniss!" Someone had the presence of mind to run to the bakery.

"I'm OK," I say, covering my side with my hand as he kneels down next to me - I'm sure it looks worse than it is.

"Move!" He shouts at the crowd. ""Katniss - damn it, let me see it."

I hear his heavy breaths and his hands pry mine away.

"I don't think it's …."

"No, it's not. You'll be OK, but I think you might need stitches. Here." He yanks his apron over his head and bunches it against my side. "Hold this here."

He lifts me up and I look over his arm and see the crowd of students and teachers just staring at me, stunned. Behind them, I can see the ugly words painted on the concrete wall. I don't see either of the boys involved in the fight. 

"This is my fault."

"Peeta, no …."

"Did someone attack you?"

"No, I got in the middle of a fight. I'll be fine."

He quickens his pace. We're heading to the medicine factory, attached to which is a small clinic.

"Peeta, really, I don't even think I …."

"Shut up, Katniss," he says tightly. And then, more gently, "Humor me for just a little while longer."

I shake my head, but am silent for a moment, suddenly worried about other things. The consequences. The consequences of violence - from the relatively small problem of disciplining the kids involved, to the prospect of inflamed reactions among the adults. To the lingering problem of how to eliminate this problem that shouldn't even be a problem.

I look up at Peeta's pale neck, his pale hair clinging to it damply. This is annoying, I think suddenly. This might take weeks off of my summer plans.

In the clinic, Dr. Guild confirms that nothing vital has been injured, and puts in a few stitches. I watch Peeta, sitting in a corner of the office with his head in his hands. I understand that this is a psychic wound much worse than my physical one. I can see that he is struggling with both the horrors of the past and the disappointments of the present.

At home, some of the Runners, as we call them in 12 - locals who volunteer for security service - come to interview me, and I try to temper the seriousness of it. Perhaps I - overreacting, as I do sometimes, when anything reminds me of the war - perhaps I accidentally accelerated the problem by jumping into the middle of it.

"Where are the boys?" asks Peeta, wearily.

"Simon is in the Justice Department, being questioned. The other boy - York - has not been spoken to, yet. He went back to the valley, but he wasn't at his home when we went there. His family is non-cooperative."

I stir. "He was provoked into the fight, and he wasn't even armed. It's really the school's fault - no one has done anything to try to relieve the tension between the kids this year."

"Some people might welcome the escalation of tension," says Peeta.

"Then," I splutter, "they are the ones I don't want here."

"What do you suggest?" he asks me.

But I don't have the answer to that.

-2-

An emergency district-wide council session is called, and attendance is so high, it's held in the school assembly hall. Peeta is reluctant to attend. He's had three flashbacks in the last week and a half. And he feels that anything he says might be too weighted for one side to listen to, anyway.

"You weren't wrong," I tell him in frustration. "Just because some narrow-minded people can't live with it; you weren't wrong. Tell me how you can possibly think you were wrong."

"I should have anticipated there would be bad feelings."

But we both attend. There are good signs and bad from the outset. The attendance from the nearly 200 valley farmers is very high, but they sit together on one side of the room, while the rest sit on the other. Except for at the front of the room, where a group of students have organized their own - protest, statement? They sit together as friends, 11 and 12. I nudge Peeta and point it out - even if it's not all of them, it's enough that these kids now going to school together may just grow to think of each other as equal members of the district. But he just shrugs.

First in the manner of discipline, the town council has taken the recommendation of the school to suspend the boy from the farms at the beginning of the next school year. The boy with the knife is expelled. Arrangements have been made to send him to 13, where he has cousins, to do his last year of school. But, in the meanwhile, he will labor for one month in the valley, where Drew is building his wind farm.

I suppress a smile. Drew's wind farm is an area of much confusion to most people in the District, and Drew's eccentricities do not help his cause. He took on some Capitol affectations while he was at school - earrings and an odd way of cutting his hair - shaved on one side and dyed black. He isn't an easy person to talk to - he shies away from small talk or casual conversations and becomes easily frustrated when people can't comprehend his technical jargon. I have a lot of sympathy for him, but I don't see him much. When he came back to 12, he headed out immediately into the valley and built himself a small house near the common green the farmers use for their own meetings and festivities. Between him and Delly - all is not quite well. He disapproves of her continued cohabitation with Haymitch, arguing that it has hampered her from forming other relationships; not quite saying what I'm afraid so many people might be thinking.

There is an uproar among Simon's people. Drew is, of course, a Townie - another outsider. One who has not integrated into the new 12, like Peeta and Delly have. They don't want their boy to go live with this strange man, among the interlopers. Someone might decide to take revenge on him … and anyway, knife or not, he was not the originator of the fight, nor did he mean to injure me ….

And another discussion suddenly boils up. One of the teachers suggests it, but soon enough it is taken up by people on both sides. It was too early to bring the kids together in one school. And many from 11 agree: It's too much of a burden - the farm kids walking the distance to school and not being allowed to work during the harvest.

"Child labor is not allowed in District 12 - that is non-negotiable."

"The children need to learn without the constant threat of violence."

"It is the 12 kids who brought the violence."

And on and on. "Say something," I urge Peeta.

He shakes his head. "I can't, Katniss. You were injured. And I've started something I don't know how to …."

"Yes, you do," I tell him. But as he shakes his head again, I gather up my courage and rise to my feet.

"Hey!" I yell. And when this doesn't work - "Hey!" I look to Bailey, our mayor, and she bangs a gavel. "In case you all didn't notice, District 12 doesn't exist anymore."

Silence falls as everyone turns to me, gaping. I rarely speak to anyone, let alone a crowd. My palms start to sweat. "Each and every one of us here - calling ourselves District 12 - we were made citizens of District 13, and you all were happy to do it - to take their shelter - to live in their homes, to fight in their war - to reinvent yourselves. For food. For safety. For the future. All you here that came back - all you here are resettlers yourselves - and what is District 12? Some houses, a factory, a couple of shops. You all still take supplies from the trains, handouts from the Capitol. You all took your dwellings - from materials the Capitol sent us - on land that used to belong to someone else. This is still not much more than a refugee camp, and it wasn't even home enough for half the people who once lived here to come back. So get over yourselves. District pride? There is hardly anything actually here - where are the shopkeepers? Where is the skilled labor? The traders? Where will your kids go when they grow up and there are no jobs here? Back to 13, to the Capitol? Join in with the Career Alliance and become peacekeepers or miners? Beg for a place to live in District 10 or 8 or 7?

"And every one of you who grew up in the Seam ... Do you remember how you were looked down on by the merchants? Do you remember school - everyone dividing into teams based on where you were raised? Only coming together for the Reaping - and do you even remember that? The expectation that it would be you going in to the Games? The absolute shock when it was a townie? Is that how you want to be? Do you know how hard everyone would laugh at us for this? Combined, we don't make up a city block in the Capitol. We could be overrun by anyone with a notion to do it, tomorrow, and we'd be completely lost to history. And we want to tear ourselves apart from the inside?"

I stop, mainly to take a breath, and am suddenly aware of the intense silence, of Peeta's hand on my thigh, steadying me. Suddenly, a cheer comes up from somewhere, and the room rises in applause. I start shaking - a little with relief, a little with the old anxiety, the burden of being someone who has to make these speeches. Then Peeta stands next to me. And when the crowd quiets, he says, "Katniss is right. We have to try harder. We have to get better at this. Yes, we're barely a district right now - but we can be. And we can do it in a way that no other district really can - we can make ourselves over from scratch - to be whatever we want. That might mean bringing more people here. Ranchers. Merchants from other districts. Capitol people.

"If you can't live with that," he adds with a deep breath, "I don't know how you are going to order your life. But you are not bringing your inter-district fights to the school. That's - what we did before. That's the arena. That's how it starts. This is where it has to end."

.

.

"You were amazing," he says to me, as we lie awake in bed that night, both too keyed up for sleep. "I haven't seen that girl - in such a long time."

I shake my head. "I don't think you understand - how much I hate it. It was such a relief to rely on you to speak the words."

"And I don't think you understand - what you have, what you are - how you affect people. If I could explain it - well, maybe I could have made myself immune to it. Not that I wanted to, really."

"I'm just unbelievably sad that there was the need for it. I don't want to go making a fuss - I don't want people looking at me again. It's too …."

"I told you - I should have got out of this town council thing a long time ago. I don't want to do anything but bake and paint and make love to Katniss Everdeen from basically now until the end of my life."

"But you've been too good. And Thom trusts you. And all the 11 people - and most everyone else."

"We should figure out a way to stop referring to them as the 11 people," he muses. "But do you think - I guess I was too naive to even realize it - do you think my being - a townie - is still a problem for the people here?"

"Well, you're a special case, aren't you? A victor, and - honestly, when they're not all worked up about something, I'm sure they see you just for who you are and what you do - not where you used to live."

"I want to be sensitive to it. Something you once said to me - and Haymitch, too, something he once said - made me realize how much you all must have resented it: the tesserae, I mean, and the fact that people like me didn’t have to take it. It’s easy for someone like me to be, um….”

“Colorblind?”

“Well, yeah. Something like that. Easy for me to say, ‘hey, accept these strangers in your backyard.’ I have nothing but bread recipes to preserve. They - you - have so much more.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t think I never noticed that everything that gave District 12 its character came from the Seam - the music, the dance; our very identity as the coal district. When we lost the mines, we lost our distinct heritage. What happens to it when a full third of the district now was never part of it? I can see how people might worry - about losing it completely. I just can’t see a different direction to go. Not when people are starving and desperate. We are so incredibly small. And I can’t be the caretaker of this heritage that - that - privilege kept me apart from. I see that now.” 

“What did Haymitch say to you?”

“Something about other districts being better at looking out for each other than District 12. I don’t know how things divvied up in the other districts - I’m sure there were some divisions, there always seem to be. But he’s right. He’s right. We talked about it in school - how none of us expected to be reaped.”

I purse my lips, try to imagine him having this sort of conversation. Not that we didn’t know it; but it is difficult to hear spoken aloud: our lives, worth less. “That’s what the Capitol intended, of course,” I say quietly. “Division everywhere.”

“Everywhere, and always - apparently.”

"Now you're being morose," I tell him. "That's my job. You're the optimistic one."

"This has shaken me, Katniss, I have to admit it. And that you got hurt - yes, I know it isn't serious, but it could have been. Yes, I care if things are done well, or right, or to the good. But nothing comes close to my need for you to be safe. I'd leave this place tomorrow - never come back - if that's what it took to make sure of it."

"I think what happened tonight will help. Someone was telling me that Simon's family will probably move back to 13, rather than have him complete his punishment here, and that will solve probably a great deal of the problem, at least initially. And I was thinking about not going back to the school, anyway, even before that all happened."

"Really?" he asks, sadly.

"Yeah - I hate teaching. Well - anyway, I don't really like it."

"Oh. What were you thinking about doing instead?"

"Something that Plutarch has been asking for."

"What?!" Peeta almost sits straight up.

"Yeah - I thought I would - just go make a recording of all the songs I can think of. Write out the lyrics - make it into a songbook. And the school could use the recording instead of me. And Plutarch could - sell it, or whatever he wanted to do, store it in the archives, use it for one of his programs. As long as I'm not asked to perform them live or in front of any cameras. That would be one way of preserving District 12’s - heritage, as you put it."

"That sounds amazing. As long as you don't stop singing around me. But what about the archery?"

"One of the graduating kids could take my place. Or not. I might still do that. I haven't decided. But that's not important. You need to cheer up, Peeta. We were supposed to have an amazing summer. The best one yet."

"Can you promise me you won't jump in front of any more knives?"

"I guarantee it."

"OK," he says. "The best one yet."

-3-

I wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt, surprised to find myself so nervous. It's the sunset-orange dress again, preserved for one last special occasion. Probably it's just the anticipation of letting everyone else in on the secret reason for this party. And that Peeta is late - late by almost thirty minutes now, and I am trying to chatter happily with the guests. I thread my way through them - Annie and Finn, now a five year old boy, all golden hair and charm - my mother, here in 12 for the first time since the District was leveled six years ago - Beetee, looking OK but moving kind of slowly - Delly and Drew, Thom, Sae, a few other neighbors - to reach Haymitch, sitting by himself in one of the rocking chairs in the corner, looking tired and older than his years. He turned 47 this year, and his dark hair is now dark gray - his skin paler than it used to be. 

He's the only one here who actually knows what's going on.

It's been in the planning for more than a year. We would have done it last summer, but it was harder than anticipated, reestablishing the bakery. And dealing with the tension in the district as the initial group of farmers from 11 who followed us home established themselves south of the fence and sent for their families. Once August had passed, we decided to wait. We wanted to preserve the date of our toasting for future anniversaries.

"Halfway there," says Haymitch, when I sit down on the other rocking chair. I frown at his glass of liquor. Grains and hops are readily available to him now, so Haymitch has become his own industry of alcohol production. Beer, whiskey, rye. He's even attempted to make blackberry wine.

Last year, we tried to put him on a train for liver treatments in the Capitol. He refused to go. He had no fear of death, he said. Most everyone he loved had died and if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for him. Nothing we argued in return could sway him.

“Helping us on the book has made him even more nihilistic,” I complained to Peeta, at the time.

By this time, he’s told us about his other fellow Quarter Quell tributes, including his original ’sweetheart,’ and in the process given us random peeks at the early years of Plutarch’s rebellion. Haymitch – rather like me – was recruited almost on the spot by Plutarch. Also like me, this probably saved his life, but at enormous cost he just can’t get over.

"Halfway to what?"

"Ten years," he says cryptically, and it takes me a while to figure out what the heck he is saying. Yes, my promise to evaluate my "no children" stance is five years away.

I look at him with narrow eyes. "I had no idea you were such a softie, Haymitch. Believe it or not, I haven't forgotten our deal."

In fact, I think about it probably more often than he would believe. All this past year, leading up to today, I've watched Peeta carefully for signs that regret has started to dim the soft glow of his feelings for me, particularly now that familiarity is so firmly established. We've never even spoken of it. He's got his bakery apprentices. I have had the students at the school. And that's the main thing, right? The handing off of skills? I certainly don't feel like I need little miniature Peetas and Katnisses running around to complete the sense of family. Just like I don't need to do today.

Though I am doing it. At least I think I am. Peeta's window of opportunity is closing fast. 

"Where is he?" I ask between clenched teeth. "I'm at the end of my capacity to hostess."

The front door opens and, like magic, he appears. He must have changed at the bakery, because he is wearing a suit, and his hair is smoothed back - slightly long again, it's curling up adorably over his earlobes and at the back of his neck. He's carrying a manila folder, which he brings over to our corner, after making his own circuit through our guests. This takes a while, and I take a swipe off of Haymitch's glass of ….

"What is that? It's sweet," I say, almost spitting it out.

"Ginger beer," he says, with a laugh.

My eyes go wide.

"Don't get your hopes up. Delly managed to get me to promise not to get drunk until tonight - not to ruin your … party."

"Does she know?"

He shrugs. "It's not like you two are the social hub of District 12. What other reason would you have to throw a party?"

"People are giving me very knowing glances," Peeta says, joining us at that moment.

"I think someone blabbed," I say, with a frown at Haymitch. "If Plutarch shows up in the middle of this, Haymitch, so help me - you're disinherited."

"I said nothing," he retorts. "You realize that at least half of us in this room are aware this is your 'fake' fifth anniversary, yes? You two make such an everloving big deal about it."

"Uh - real anniversary," says Peeta, frowning. He lays the folder in front of me and, wordlessly, shows me all the documents - the release of Peeta's house to the Capitol, his addition to mine, the marriage license. "Last chance to back out, Katniss," he says, and he's not joking - he's looking at me, seriously.

"Where's the cake?" I ask.

"Bella is bringing it from the bakery in - ten minutes or so." He smiles at me, and he gently strokes my curly hair. "Oh, your hair is beautiful. Cinna would be proud of you."

Cinna didn't use torn-up rags like I wore knotted up in my hair to bed last night, much to Peeta's amusement. I'm pleased to be wearing this dress again. I don't know if Cinna would have preferred me to get married in one of his elaborate wedding dresses, but I think that - at heart - he appreciated simplicity more than the Capitol ever allowed him. He certainly appreciated symbolism.

"Well, if the cake is going to make the proper grand entrance, we should get to this," he says, holding out his hand. I take it, feeling the flush start in my cheeks. I feel flustered - a little anxious about being the center of attention - and happy. Happier than I expected. We've always told each other that - whatever we intended by the toasting at the beginning - we've never needed more than that to feel perfectly joined. But this puts a public seal on it - and that is strangely satisfying.

So it goes. Peeta makes the announcement (everyone has the grace to look pleasantly surprised). Almost right on cue, Bella - the twelve year old girl who works at the bakery - enters with the wedding cake, which I have not been allowed to see. It's beautiful - simple, but elegant. A two-tiered cake covered in dove gray fondant, dotted with candy pearls and yellow flowers made of stiff sugar. We sign all our papers, then someone runs out to fetch a fiddle and we sing - "The Riddle Song," "The Rocky Mountain Top," "Amber Tresses, 'Blue-Eyed Boy" and "Footprints in the Snow."

Later that night, which is our anniversary tradition, anyway, we sit on the rug in front of a low fire to recreate the toasting - quietly. My mother, Annie and Finn are all sleeping upstairs. We had considered going back to the lake for a second "honeymoon," but the timing isn't right. Delly is leaving for District 11 in three days. And everyone is anticipating the upcoming event in the Capitol - Paylor has at last managed to get District 2 back to the table. While the diplomatic talks won't be aired live, there will be round the clock updates and speculation from the news channels.

Peeta spends some time staring at the fire, his attention completely distracted. I squint carefully at his expression to make sure it isn't a flashback. Satisfied that it is just an especially deep reverie, I just sigh and lean back on my elbows.

"Feel any different?" he asks.

I shake my head. "Not … really. A little on the surface, I guess. I have to admit - it felt nice to have the - party. As for the paperwork - it turns out you were right from the very beginning. I don't feel any more like your wife than I did yesterday. But it's nice that it's recorded down and public. The only thing that feels strange is the name thing. Mrs. ... Mellark?"

"You don't have to change your name," he smiles, turning toward me.

"Maybe you could change yours."

"Maybe."

"But -" and I frown suddenly. "Even our names don't belong to us, do they?"

"Stage names, yep," he says, understanding me, immediately. "Maybe not forever, but still. In fact, when I file the paperwork tomorrow - the Capitol will be notified, because of the house. And - I expect some fuss. In a way, our timing is pretty good, for once. Everyone will be -."

"Distracted."

"Hopefully."

"I already know exactly what I'm going to say, if I'm asked."

He looks surprised. "Oh! Good, that's -."

"Forward thinking of me, yes, it is." I smile. "Is that what you were thinking about just now?"

"Partly that, yes. A lot of things. I'm wondering what kind of concessions the districts will give to 2 next month. I wonder if 13's nukes are going back on the table. I'm wondering about the peaches your mother brought up and if it would be better to eat them fresh or in cobbler form. And …."

"What?" I say, as he looks at me with a suddenly sly expression.

"I'm wondering how soundproof the downstairs bedroom is."

"Oh. …. Oh! Yeah," I laugh. "Me, too."

-4-

Two days later, we are at Delly's for her farewell party. Probably the first one ever held in Haymitch's house. It's like no party I've ever been to, at least not in District 12. The food is sleek and fancy. The lights are dim. Music is playing - something techno, more like what you hear on Capitol TV. People from all throughout town and the valley - mostly young - blink at each other in the low light, before gradually relaxing and enjoying themselves. It's a little too noisy for me - and Haymitch hangs out in the kitchen, softly rubbing his temple - but everyone else seems to be having a good time.

"How are you holding up?" I ask him.

"Do you know how teenagers are supposed to be nature's way of cutting the apron strings?"

"No."

"Well - at the moment, I would personally drive Delly to 11."

"Oh, Haymitch." I frown at him. "How are you going to get used to it?"

He shrugs. "It's been a weird five years."

I consider him, carefully. "She'll be back - in a couple of years."

He nods. "It's the end of an era, though. Another one."

I make a quick resolution to start hanging out with Haymitch more often. After all, I'm losing my Friday companion. "Did she ever manage to teach you how to knit?"

"Sure, it's easy," he snorts.

"Oh - maybe you can teach me, then."

He's still searching for a sarcastic reply, when Delly pokes her head in. "You two are such leopards," she says enigmatically. "Hey, Katniss, Drew finally showed up, but he says I'm wanted at the Bellock farm - someone's been in labor a very long time. Do you have motherwort or valerian?"

"I think so."

"Can you meet me there?"

I run home and Peeta follows me, coming in the door while I pack up the bottles. "I won't be long," I tell him. "You don't have to leave the party."

"Without the guest of honor and my wife? No, I'll go with you."

I want to warn him against this. When Delly is called in for a difficult labor, there are sometimes unhappy outcomes. But I don't object. Maybe he should see.

.

.

Technically, the valley farms belong to an area we have earmarked for immediate expansion - a five by five mile section of the valley just beyond the southern fence of District 12. But Thom has not successfully brought the expansion up for a vote yet - no one thinks a District of less than 600 people could possibly need to expand. And they are all worried about people just wandering around Panem, claiming land. So far, as a compromise, Paylor does not enforce Capitol territorial rights on the valley farms, but laws have been passed forbidding future settlements outside of historic district territories.

The farmhouses were built, hastily but well, out of logs, notched together so they would stack, with a thick glue of mud and straw filling up the gaps. Inside, curtains or sliding panels divide the houses into rooms. Drew's wind farm will eventually supply their electricity, but for now they have one lodge that is powered by solar panels - a common room for refrigeration, televisions, laundry facilities. They are spread far apart - every family who came measured out twenty acres they wanted, and so they are not in a neat grid so much as a scattering down the valley, connected to each other by meandering tracks. Peeta drew up a map, which is in a protective case just on the other side of the fence, with each farm's family name and location indicated.

When we get to the Bellocks', Delly is taking a very quick breather between the laboring girl's contractions. Peeta gets a quick and unexpected view of the girl - her legs up in the laboring stance - purple-faced and profusely sweating - before apologetically heading back outside. I help administer the drugs and - I've helped Delly with this before - take over as breathing partner for the girl when it becomes clear her partner has no idea what he is doing.

"OK," Delly says, "let's do this. Katniss - I have to go in and try to maneuver the baby a little - he's breech."

Shit. "OK, what's your name?" I ask the girl.

"Flora."

"OK, Flora, just hold my hand and follow what I do …."

It's about an hour later when I get to leave the close, sweaty room and go out into the slightly less humid summer air. Peeta's waiting patiently outside. He smiles when he sees me, but then his smile fades. "Is everything ….?"

I nod - then I notice suddenly I have blood on my arm and I swipe at it. "Yes, it was difficult, but OK." I explain about the breech birth and Peeta looks a little sick. "Come inside and see him - I think he's cleaned up now," I say.

He hesitates. "If you …."

"Well, you've been waiting around this long, might as well participate in the good part."

We go in in time to see Delly, having finished her cursory examination of the baby, wrap him tightly in a blanket. For a moment, the baby's head of dark, curly hair rests against her shoulder, and her golden hair falls over his face. His expression is angelic as she gently places him in his mother's arms. Then the girl's mother takes over, talking about the breastfeeding process, and we retreat again.

"Delly, I can't imagine how much District 11 can really teach you," I tell her.

"You'd be surprised," she replies, wearily. "Well - back to the party, I guess," she adds with a smile.

As we start walking back toward the fence, Peeta asks her, "Do you want one - yourself?"

It was what I was thinking. There had been a look on her face almost the duplicate of the baby's.

"Of course!" she says. "Eventually. Like - ten years from now, or so. Do you know how busy I am going to be enjoying myself for the foreseeable future?" She laughs.

As we walk behind her, I steal the occasional side glance at Peeta, and my brain starts saying, don't ask it, don't ask it, don't ask it .

"Peeta … uh … what about you?"

He starts. "What?"

"Are you - regretting it yet?"

He frowns. "You ask me this two days into our marriage?"

"Five years."

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Katniss - I promised I would talk to you about it if it was an issue. We're still not ready, and honestly, things have been so unstable - nationally, I mean. Are you … changing your mind?" he asks cautiously.

"No."

"Good."

"Good?"

He stops and I stop and he waits for Delly to get a little further ahead of us. "Yes, I think it's best - for both of us - to be on the same page, and for us to be stable. I'm happy. I love this - our life together - so much. I hope …."

"Yes, of course, I do, too." In fact, my relief breaks out in a grin over my face. Did I catch a look in his eyes when he saw the baby? A tiny, tiny, tiny look …? I guess I didn't. It must be my own fears I'm projecting on to him.

“I’m going to Haymitch’s,” I tell Peeta, the first Friday after Delly’s departure. The gap in the day has reminded me of my commitment to spend more time with Delly’s ex-roommate.

“Oh good. What for?”

“Knitting lessons, I believe.”

“Ah. You’re right. We should check in on him. Do you mind if I tag along?”

When we get there, we find the house – remarkably enough – already starting to revert to ancient form. There are clothes in familiar piles everywhere in the living room – and also boxes strewn about, their contents half spilling out of the tops of them.

Haymitch himself is nursing a bottle of liquor, watching an old video on his television. It is worn down and the colors seem faded. He pauses it as we enter the room. (Did we knock? Yes. Did we wait for an answer? No. Just like the old days.) The picture jiggles slightly on the screen, but the image is discernable enough: I recognize the old school yard. The camera is set up to face the blacktop and the sports fields behind them. On the screen, sitting on one of the old wooden benches, is a young woman with a remarkably pert expression – heart-shaped face, dark hair and stunning green eyes, the like of which I’ve rarely seen and never, I think, in District Twelve. Although her look is not unfamiliar to me.

“Is this the mental health brigade?” asks Haymitch sourly.

“Shut up, Haymitch. I miss her, too,” I say.

“What are you watching?” asks Peeta, squinting at the television. It’s his familiar expression for remembering the past, and I hold my breath subconsciously. “That looks like ….”

“Yeah,” Haymitch replies roughly. “School. It looked the same in my day, too.” Then he sighs. “Forty-ninth Hunger Games tape, if you must know.”

Forty-ninth? I look at Peeta and he glances over at me, his face reflecting, I think, my quizzical expression. 

“So,” Peeta responds, slowly. I think he now believes Haymitch to be drunk off of his gourd. “The year before yours. But why is someone being interviewed in District Twelve?”

“Remarkably enough, we had someone in the top eight that year.” Haymitch sounds perfectly sober. “Kid from the Seam. Some of his friends were interviewed. Lenore – that’s her name. Lenore Dove was a friend of the family.”

Various threads of thought tangle and then untangle themselves in my head. My mother and brother. My girl.

“Haymitch,” I say, surprised to find my voice shaking. “Is that - ?”

“Cousin of yours, by the way.”

“What?”

“On your father’s side. I suppose you didn’t know your relations on that side. Second cousin of your dad’s, I think. Never got a chance to draw the family tree. She was dead ….”

“Within two weeks of you getting home from the Games,” I finish, my mind reeling.

Peeta glances between Haymitch and me; I realize then that for all their conversations in District Thirteen, this information remains only mine. I don’t know if I should step onto the landmine – but ….

“When you first told me that,” I continue, “I was far too heartsick to ask for details. And I also was thoroughly unaware of the benefit of talking out details.”

Haymitch looks away from us and is silent for a long moment. I try not to let the silence fill up with my tension, but there is something tender and raw about Haymitch that I don’t usually have to confront, and it makes my anxiety start to rise. I remember his anguish in Thirteen, when we were trying so desperately to believe that we could rescue Peeta from Snow – that moment I understood his deeply hidden capacity to love. These are the sort of emotional trials that I was not built for.

“What did you say her name was, again?” asks Peeta. “Lenore ….”

The air in the room relaxes, considerably. I sit down in a chair opposite Haymitch’s sofa, and Peeta perches himself on the arm of the chair.

“Dove.”

“Unusual last name,” muses Peeta.

“No, her last name was Baird. Lenore Dove was her name. I guess you’ll still say that’s unusual.”

“I never knew any Bairds,” I muse. “Was she Seam?”

“Yes – yes and no. Like I told you, District Twelve was different when I was a kid. That whole Town-Seam divide wasn’t as strict as it would be later. But anyway, the Bairds died out long ago. Your father’s grandmother was the last of them, and she outlived Lenore Dove by just a couple of years, if I recall aright.” Haymitch looks up at me then, his expression hard to read. “Your father introduced us when we were ten. Out in the woods.”

“And Snow killed her?” Peeta asks. “Directly killed her?”

“Oh, in the most direct Snow way possible,” Haymitch replies. “Poison. Poison I fed her with my own fucking hands.”

I shiver at this and then look back at the television to take in the girl on the screen, frozen in time a year before her death; so alive looking – more alive than most people I grew up with, her eyes almost dangerously alight as she talked about her friend in the Games. A relative of mine … and I grew up without them; all my father’s family dead by the time I was born and my mother’s family shamed of and estranged from us. Now, all dead themselves. Also, directly killed by Snow.

“Tell us about her,” I say.

Haymitch hesitates on my request (which admittedly comes out of my mouth in the tone of a demand). But only for a moment.

.

.

Peeta and I walk back home together much later – much, much later – that night. And my feelings by then have most definitely softened. Haymitch was certainly drunk by the end of it, his tale starting to become convoluted with an older story – something about another member of Lenore Dove’s family he calls “Covey” and another reference to that secret graveyard and a related grudge of Snow’s dating back generations.

At home, Peeta lights the kitchen and pulls down the memory book and places it on the table. He doesn’t open it at first; just stares at it, as if at an unexploded bomb. Then he shakes his head. “I can’t help it,” he says.

He opens the book to one of the still-empty pages at the back and starts drawing, lightly, in pencil. I occupy myself around the dim house until he is done.

When he’s finished, Peeta shows me the drawing. It’s a rendering of certainly the most vivid part of Haymitch’s story – the girl, Lenore Dove, with the flock of geese she tended. Her hair is flying about her sharp-chinned face and her eyes – as much as possible in plain gray lead – flash right off the page. “I can’t help it,” he says again.

“It’s not just her, is it?” I ask him. “It’s everyone. His family. And all his tributes.”

“One time he told me that I could not even begin to compare with him – the horrors he had seen in twenty-four years of mentoring the Games. I shudder to know. And I didn’t even know about her – or his family. But ….”

“But we have to make him put it down,” I agree. “It won’t be done without his history. Do you suppose he remembers them all? By name?”

“I can almost guarantee it, Katniss.”

Oh god, I think. “Do you know what he needs?” I say, as lightly as possible.

“Mmm?”

“Geese.”

Peeta laughs. “What?”

“I’m serious. He kept coming back to them. They are lifelong partners, my father used to say. He's always said he's remained alone because it's safest, but I do think ... it seems clear that ... he's still loyal to her, after all these years. It seems to be - important to him. Anyway, geese practically take care of themselves. I’m going to look into it.”

.

.

Was it Paylor - negotiating with District 1 under the table, behind the lines? Or did it go how it always went before, the Career Alliance eventually breaking when they found themselves on their own? No one knows, least of all District 2. All we know is that Julian, 2's up-and-coming mayor (now District President, because that's how 13 does it, after all), was definitely gobsmacked to come to the negotiations with the Capitol and find himself suddenly abandoned by District 1. District 1, which now includes the Capitol.

It turns out that the Capitol belonged to District 1 back before the Dark Days - or belonged to whatever became District 1. Just last year, Plutarch produced a hugely popular documentary series on the ancient history of the region - as a longtime observer of the man, I’m convinced this was to lay the groundwork for the seismic shift to come. You have to admire someone who puts that much time into rebuilding the architecture of Panem without getting the full credit - or blame. 

Anyway, the pairing makes sense. District 1 is relatively small; historically, it produced high end items that really only the Capitol ever had use for, which is why its tributes were almost as successful as the ruthless kids from District 2.  The Capitol, in the meanwhile, has been struggling. Most of the residents are chronically unemployed - they still have limited legal status - and no official representation. Now they are district citizens. Those who have no employment in the government or government-run industries - schools, media, libraries, etc. - or as shop owners, can join the gold mines in the District 1 mountains, the small manufacturing plants in 1, or the smaller artisan groups who craft things like jewelery, fine wine, or decorative furniture.

No one else knew in advance. Thom called us as soon as it was announced on TV - during a legislative recess. He and Peeta talked around and around about it - the benefits and the drawbacks. Whether Thom should protest or support it. In the end, because it was such a setback for District 2 - which had claimed all along that 1 was a willing partner these last few years - everyone else went for it. It didn't increase the Capitol's own influence or power significantly, and it solved in a single blow the lingering question of how to ease the Capitolites into citizenship. The only concessions demanded by the other districts were that the District 1 mayor and councils remain in the historic district town. The president's mansion, the city circle, and the government buildings throughout the Capitol would remain under the jurisdiction of the President of Panem and the district representatives.

But District 2 is back, and with it the high-pitched demands for nuclear disarmament of 13. And other items, as well. Their demands for the legislature to produce a long-overdue national currency, to eliminate mandatory tithing of district resources. This - Peeta anticipated, but it still makes us both nervous; can 12 stand on its own, do we have everything we need?

Good things come out of this meeting as well - things long in the brewing, but now, along with everything else, giving today's meeting the aura of a historical day in the history of the country. Certain individual and human rights are reaffirmed and ratified - rights to privacy and expression, rights against discrimination - birthplace, gender, orientation. These things existed before, supposedly, and vanished - so it is difficult to be completely without cynicism. But it's a positive and not a negative step forward, anyway.

Regardless, everyone feels inclined to celebrate and a national holiday is called. This all coincides with the harvest, so we plan a full week of celebrations. The kids from the valley are given two weeks off from school, the adults from town go down to the valley to assist in the harvest. Peeta and I walk down with Bailey one day and they talk all the time about how much District 12 can write its own laws for itself, and how quickly this should be done. Things like - a refusal to take security forces from outside, or nuclear weapons. Things like - the ability to expand to meet our own need for resources in the coming years when food and goods will no longer be arriving by request on the trains. Down the valley for farming. Into the hills for mining and materials like lumber and stone.

The valley farmers host the harvest festival - it's always meant more to them than to the rest of us, after all. It's spectacular - games with prizes (races and darts and tug of war); endless judging competitions - ribbons for the largest or the prettiest gourds; for preserves, for home brewed wine and beer; an enormous feast; a giant bonfire and dancing when the sun goes down. A longstanding tradition in District 11 is that the harvest festival is the time for major announcements, particularly engagements, so the evening ends on this happy note.

Peeta and I walk home in the darkness, Peeta humming to himself. In the moonlight, I can see the flush on his neck and cheeks from the drinking and the exercise of the evening. I feel strangely lightheaded and giddy myself. Will they leave us be, I wonder? District 2? The Capitol? Free to order our lives, like we have done tonight, like we have done over the past five years? Time, I guess, will tell.

Peeta's hand in mine is firm, but not tight. His thumb strokes absently across my knuckles. Not absently, I think. With a purpose.

He starts kissing me when we are barely inside the house. The warmth is already there - a reckless and joyful heat. I return his kisses, laughing against his lips when his fingers reach down and up under my dress to tickle my thighs. Moaning against his lips when they roam further. 

"Someone is impatient tonight," I murmur close into his ear.

"Someone is irresistible tonight," he says against my neck.

"I smell like sweat and smoke," I laugh.

"You do not."

"Well, you do."

The phone rings, a sound that startles him and his hands away from me.

"No," I tell him, hooking my fingers on his pants and pulling him back towards me.

"It might be important."

"More important than this?" I put my hand down to touch the curls and the soft flesh beneath them.

We wait and watch each other in the darkness, while the sound of the telephone goes on and on, until the caller finally gives up and the ringing stops. Then I grin at Peeta and start to strip him, piece by piece.

The phone doesn't ring again until after we've both been thoroughly dismantled, lying in panting fragments on the living room floor. Still heady from the evening, I laugh while Peeta jumps up to answer it.

I follow him into the sitting room and watch his face drop open in surprise when he hears the voice on the other side.

He turns to me while he talks. "Yes, it's good to hear from you. Yes. Yes - that's true. Earlier this summer. Well - you know how hard it is to pin her down." He gives me a quirky smile and I raise my eyebrows. "Oh, yes she's right here. We just got back from a - thing."

He hands the receiver to me, mouthing "Gale."

Oh. Weird timing , I think, taking the receiver. "Gale?"

His voice is thin. "Catnip! We just wanted to get a hold of you. We've heard nothing about 12 in years."

"Well, you know - we don't make much noise. Wish I could say the same about 2."

He just laughs at this. "Yes, it's been a ride."

"I heard you had a daughter."

"Yes!" His voice grows in warmth exponentially as he tells me about his little girl, about how Lyra is pregnant again. I ask after the rest of his family. He asks after my mother. Finally, at the end of the conversation - an automated voice informing us we have a minute left - he tells me, with a sudden change in tone, "Tell Peeta - be wary of Julian."

"What?"

"Be wary of 12 making any deals with 2, or that 2 approves. Don't you wonder why the abrupt turnabout - about 2 rejoining the other districts? Julian has reached the limits of his power here. He has bigger amb-."

Chapter Text

-1-

The sound of thunder wakes me and I blink up, for a moment startled that the ceiling above me is a strange one.

It's dim in the bedroom - with the darkness of the storm outside, it's hard to tell exactly what time it is, but it's clearly at least dawn. I look over and stare for a moment at Peeta - still deep asleep. The party went late last night, and he was happy and exhausted. There's a slight upturn to his mouth, which gives the impression that his dreams were even happy.

I slip out of bed and go over to the window, so I can look outside. The window faces east, so I can see the sun - a rim of fire underneath the clouds on the flat horizon. I can see the lightning illuminating the thick black clouds. We were told it is the time of year for tornadoes - we were even shown the nearest storm shelter - but the clouds, though ominous, do not look as described, swirling and funnel-shaped. They are thick, but formless, and the rain, though heavy, is no harder than when the surge storms come up over the eastern hills in the fall.

District 10. Flat and ochre. The trees that dot the artists' colony here are large and sturdy oaks, but solitary creatures, and kept well out of range of the cottage houses, because of the storms. It's less attractive to me than the Capitol, in many ways. Of course, I only saw the fanciest part of the Capitol, and maybe I'm just resisting 10's charms, somewhat deliberately. I did enjoy the barn and the pens, feeding the pigs and chickens. I did enjoy the folk dancing last night. I just can't wait to go home.

I know what's wrong with me, even if it is hard to admit it. Years ago, when Haymitch first told me about this experiment in District 10, I wondered uneasily if it would be a place Peeta would rather be than back home. The people here live lives on a small scale the way he always kind of envisioned for District 12 - sharing chores and responsibilities and food and other essentials, while maintaining their own quiet, independent spaces for working on art. Here, Peeta would only have to spend a little time baking bread for a few dozen people, instead of having to spend most of his time churning out the bread for 600. Most of the time, he could paint, or talk to other people about his painting, or about their art. A thing which - in its novelty, at least - he seemed to enjoy every bit as much as he did introducing his art and getting whispered confirmation of purchases from his agent, Violet.

I'm not overly fond of Violet, either. She's too Capitol. It’s not the fake hair color, implanted gems, etc., though that’s still a signifier (in my head) for the kind of thoughtless, self-involved attitude I associate, to this day, with the Capitol. It’s the Plutarch in her - she’s just a constant stream of promotional ideas, marketing suggestions, system-gaming. In her case, I should be grateful that it is all in service of Peeta’s work, but I can’t shake the impression that her real focus is the reflective celebrity she gets as his agent. She even has her own TV show now, on which she brings on a string of uninteresting guests to talk up art-adjacent topics in a neon-lit bar: Arts after Dark . 

Last night, she suggested that Peeta get a tattoo to commemorate each art show - is she truly that ignorant of how people from the districts view body enhancements?  It may be irrational, especially since we’re all equal now, but it’s just not something we can easily get over: these people had the time, resources, safety to be bored enough with their own bodies to augment them. We didn’t even own our own damn neglected, malnourished bodies. He politely nixed the idea, but I thought his answer could have been a little more forceful.

Many of the artists here are, of course, a little too Capitol, as well. Some long-timers were here at the party - the quiet, inexpressive ranchers and the soft-spoken people from 10's dusty town. I like these people, but they are so wildly in contrast to the Capitolites who settled into the art colony that it makes our difficulties blending in with the folks from 11 look overblown to the extreme. One rancher tells me how much he likes that Peeta's paintings are at least about 'something' - not like the time one of the artists here mounted giant sparkling purple and blue pinwheels on the shop roofs overnight and called it an art installation. "Whatever that means." Violet’s talk show guests would probably call that attitude “provincial.” They like that word.

So, I'm anxious. This world where Peeta fits in so seamlessly, and I just grate against. Not for the first time, I wonder guiltily what he would be, what he would do, if he hadn't tied himself to me and to our little train stop of a district. Which he tries so hard to separate himself from, but can't entirely. Back home, they will be counting the votes today for both the mayoral election and that of district representative. Thom is expected to return to the Capitol - what is it, for the seventh year, now? Bailey is stepping down as mayor, so there will be someone new in that job. Peeta's name was put forth by way more than one person. But he refused to be considered. And some people were relieved; Peeta, try as he might to input his opinion only on matters of district mapping and expansion, is known for having Thom's ear. It's a delicate balancing act - one which he's tired of.

But, surely he wouldn't want to move out here, where there are so few trees?

The electricity in the air causes my hair to stand on end, so I grab my soft brush and try to smooth it out gently before I start putting it in its braid. Then I sigh. Since I've thought all these unpleasant things this morning, and they are weighing me down, I'm going to have to talk about them with Peeta, confessing my pettiness. That is our bargain.

"What's wrong?" he asks me, sleepily, from the bed.

I sigh again. "I didn't mean to wake you. I'm just watching this storm. The horizon is so bare, it's weird. The sun looks like a prairie fire."

"Oh, let me see." He pulls on his prosthetic and joins me at the window. "Oh," he breathes. "It reminds me of you."

"Shut up," I laugh. "What?"

"That's almost the exact color I use for your eyes - and beneath it, that line of fire." He lightly kisses the top of my head.

"I like to think I've cooled down over the years," I say, though I'm not displeased.

"Well - that's not the only thing that reminds me of you," he answers. "The tall grass against the fence. The sun setting over the lake. You're way too complex to be captured by one natural phenomena."

I feel my cheeks getting hot. While I try to think of a suitable response, the lightning strikes again, and Peeta shivers.

"That's a little too much," he says. "I hope the weather doesn't delay the train. I can't wait to be home."

I sigh again, but internally this time, and in relief. "Really? I would have thought you would like to stay longer. There's no one in 12 who can - relate to this side of you, as well as the people here do."

"I don't know. Maybe it's just because I've always done it on my own, but I think of painting as a pretty solitary pastime. And I prefer more cynical eyes. Yours - Haymitch's - for example. To keep me grounded. There's a bit of an echo chamber around here, and I think it's a bit too 'everything goes' for me."

"Yes," I say. "Yes - I think I know what you mean." He's not only eased my mind, but eased the burden of the confession I was about to make; feeling I have to give him at least part of it, anyway, I add: "I don't really like Violet."

He laughs. "I didn't think you would. She's a lot to take."

"How many paintings did you sell?"

"Ten."

I whistle. "Well, it's hard to argue against that." I have no idea - nor do I care - what this means in terms of actual money. I still rely on trade for the majority of my day-to-day transactions. It’s just easier for me to measure the value of a thing by that which I would accept in return. I suppose I will have to get used to the national currency, eventually. But that can be put off for a while, yet.

"Yes - so, I'm pretty tapped out again. I think you can count on it being a few years before I can even think about doing another show. Did you hate it?"

"No … I didn't hate it." When he raises his eyebrows at me, I just smile in relief.  

We eat breakfast in the common room of the art colony - me now a trifle more inclined to look upon these people with friendly eyes. Peeta is quickly pulled into conversations while getting his eggs and ham from the trays on the side of the room. I also find myself surrounded by people wanting conversation. A bit of a surprise, considering how aloof I was last night. But, interestingly, these people want to talk politics.

"Is 12 going to elect another anti-nuke mayor?" I'm asked.

"I don't know," I reply. The truth is: probably. In campaigning over the spring, no one really came out against 12's semi-official "nuclear-free district" stance. It won't matter, anyway, with Thom still on the council. Thom has been heavily-influenced by Peeta, and anyway, Gale's warning to us about the District 2 mayor - er, president - hit a nerve with him. Julian is, he has confirmed, the kind of person who could get you to agree to signing over your house, and pay him for the inconvenience while you're at it. More to the point, he's continually suggesting centralizing certain functions that the districts have -following 2's lead, actually - gradually taken on their own. So Thom is reflexively against almost anything that District 2 proposes, at least at the outset. In that, we find ourselves in a bizarre alliance with Districts 1 and 13, who may never trust 2 again.

"Did you hear that District 2 wants to move all the District 13 weapons to District 1? Put them in charge of the president and district council?"

I shake my head. Damn it, I'm sick of these stupid weapons and their being virtually moved everywhere across Panem like pawns in a game that nobody wants to start. The more loudly Julian insists that something should be done with 13’s nukes, the more stubbornly defensive 13 gets about them. 

"Agreed," someone says. "Don't you think they'd be much better off in one of the smaller districts - one without any real history of inciting violence?"

I suddenly focus in on the faces of the people talking to me. Artists, both of them, with the remnants of their Capitol pedigree intact - one with long hair that changes color every time he shifts in the light; the other a woman with contacts or implants that make each of her irises two different colors. "You mean - 10?" I ask carefully. District 10 is one of the more historically docile districts. One of the last to join the rebellion. Its inhabitants are a far-flung, solitary and very deliberative people.

"Or 12."

I hmmph. "Why 12?"

"Wouldn't take long to transport them. And you all seem hesitant to use them. I'd feel safer, personally."

I laugh internally at the thought. But I smile politely and tell them that is something interesting to consider.

I don't talk to Peeta about this on the ride home. It's a far-fetched notion, never likely to get any traction. District 12 - the nuclear powerhouse of Panem? I wonder why everyone is still so ready to think in these black-and-white terms. Weapons do not just equal power. They equal everything power eventually corrupts - trust, cooperation, humanity and, finally, safety. And the more fearsome the weapons ….

Peeta reminds me that Delly is due home in a couple of weeks.

"And she has some kind of news," I add, happily. If someone would have told me, eight years ago, that I'd be looking forward to the permanent return of Delly Cartwright to my life, I would have laughed them out of my house. "Haymitch will be pleased."

Peeta shoots me a look. "I hope he doesn't expect her to move back in with him. She's applied for a townhouse."

"Oh, no I - why would he?" I ask, but I hesitate. As much time as I've been spending with Haymitch, lately - letting him teach me how to knit, taste-testing his home brews, chasing his geese across the green - the subject of Delly doesn't really come up that much. I know - from Delly - that they have been corresponding sporadically over the last two years. But not the specifics.

Peeta only shrugs, and after that, the storm that we watched this morning comes upon us, darkening the train windows and making crashing noises around us, with the occasional bright electric flash from the lightning. I look nervously at Peeta's face - which is pale and nervous in its own right. A storm from a distance is one thing. Hurtling through it on the plains of Panem, quite another.

-2-

"Haymitch seems to approve," I say, fishing a bit.

"Oh." Delly narrows her eyes a little. "He was always telling me I should do it - forget Sammy and just get married if I wanted to. It particularly distressed him - that people were talking about us."

I shift my feet uncomfortably. "Oh, well - I don't know if anyone actually believed it…."

She smiles. "Well - me and Haymitch? It could have been true."

I literally drop my cup into the grass and stare at her, with an open mouth.

She chuckles, bending down to pick up my glass.

"What?" It's the most I can choke out.

"Sure." She shrugs, as if we were talking about the weather. "It came up once or twice. We were lonely. He was … . And we got along so well. In a fragile world, that's not nothing."

I glance nervously over at the others, then back, only to find Delly staring at me bemusedly. "Uh …." I pause. I have never been more at a loss for words.

"I maybe would have married him - at least to shut everyone up," she muses. "But - he can't give that to anyone." And she shrugs again.

I wonder if she knows the full story. Probably not – he was so reluctant to tell it, in the first place.

I wonder if it made her death too real for him – speaking it out loud. For all the years that he kept Lenore Dove inside him, maybe he was also keeping her alive somehow. Sometimes, when we expel the things we have been keeping inside, we erase their power over us (per Aurelius, anyway). Sometimes, that can come with its own loss.

.

.

Peeta and I leave for home first - everyone's used to us doing this. "We're getting old," I tell him, as we walk - and point out the anniversary.

"Or … we were so young," he says. But he pauses. "Ten years. Wow. That's - a long time ago, now. Longer than it feels."

I know what he means. In the instant he says it, I can feel it again - the cold surface of the cornucopia, the searing pain on my leg, the fear pressing in around me. I shiver.

"Hey," he says, glancing at me, a little concerned. "Ten years since we first kissed. That's also an anniversary."

I nudge him with my hip.

"You're right, though," he says. "We are getting old. Dr. Guild confirmed - there is something definitely wrong with my eyes. I need to get glasses, at a minimum."

"Really?" I look up at him, try to envision it.

"Unless I want to get eye surgery." That would mean the Capitol. "I guess …. I hate to say this, but I might have to go get my leg looked at, too. It's also ten years old, and it doesn't have the spring to it it used to."

"Oh." That is a dismal thought. We haven't been back there in eight years. And I would hate to send him off there, alone; and I would hate to go back there with him - and I might not get approved for that trip. Maybe Haymitch, or someone else ….

"What's up with you?" he asks, as we get into the house, and I move around to start lighting the oil lamps. "When you were talking to Delly, you looked like you had seen a ghost."

“Oh, in a way, I suppose. Something she said reminded me of his girl, Lenore Dove. I think it’s been good for him to memorialize his tributes. Painful, but good. It still surprises me sometimes how many details he remembers. But I almost feel her, hovering around him now, when I talk to him. It’s – strange.”

.

.

The very next Friday, sitting at Haymitch's with my basket of knitting, I take care not to initiate any conversation. It would be natural to ask him what he thinks of Rhys - when he found out - if he misses having Delly stay with him. But I know that I will not ask - and if he brings up this subject, I will steer consciously and widely around it. It's hard not to think about it though - Haymitch's lonely state. I know the Capitol got rid of Lenore Dove to punish the teenage Haymitch for his defiant behavior in the Games. As far as I know, he made no other relationships in District 12 after she and his family were killed. But - I wonder now about his relationships in the Capitol: informal, casual - meaningful? The pull of human contact - the need for physical contact; he can’t have been immune to it.

Still …

"What?" he asks me gruffly, noticing my stares.

"I'm trying to figure out what you are making," I say, covering quickly.

He holds up the big blue square of yarn he has been working on for maybe the last two years. "Same as always. Whatever this decides to be. How's your 'scarf' coming?"

I hold up the very long, very thin chain of knots. "I'm almost done with the second row," I say, grinning.

"I think you might be doing it wrong," he replies. Then, after a companionable silence: "When is Peeta going to quit all this politics shit?" he asks me abruptly.

"I don't know," I ask him, in surprise. "Why? I didn't know it bothered you."

"Because when things go to crap, it's going to affect him too much. He should be resting - like me, like you."

"If things 'go to crap,' and he didn't at least try to - head them off - then he would feel really bad. Believe me, he knows things might go south - he knows there's not a lot he can do about it but just try to encourage 12 to do the right thing."

"Don't let them talk him into running for mayor. The next thing you know, he'll be moving to the Capitol."

"That won't happen," I promise him. "Before that happens, I'll forcibly move him to the artists' colony in District 10."

"Oh, talk about crap. When will that boy ever act like a normal human being?"

I laugh. "What’s normal, anyway? Especially for a Victor."

He shrugs. "It's hard not to think about it right now - isn't it? Those Games."

Haymitch must be well used to these sorts of anniversaries. I shake my head. "Like yesterday. I can feel it. Does that ever change?"

“I asked my mentor that very question. Once, on my Victory Tour. Once, the last time I ever talked to her. Both times the answers were the same.”

I raise my eyebrows. “You’ve never talked about her. Was it the girl who won before you? Lucy something, wasn’t it? They always named her at the reaping, but I don’t know anything about her.”

Haymitch looks at me curiously. “I forget sometimes how much was suppressed and forgotten. And I missed my chance to learn more, myself. No. Lucy was dead long before I was reaped. I did see her once – on video, in the Capitol. Oh, she was pure Covey – the kind of Covey that I only saw the tail end of. Bright colors, bright voice – songs that could stop mockingjays in their tracks.”

“What or who was Covey?” I ask, wondering if the reference to my father is deliberate, or not. “You said that word before, but you were far off from intelligible at the time.” 

“Baird,” he says simply. “Lucy Gray Baird. Lenore Dove Baird. All part of the family. The Covey were – like I said before – not Seam, not Town. They weren’t miners or merchants, not by background, at least. They were Covey. Performers. And protestors.”

“And my father was part of … wait a minute, are you telling me that all of the District victors from Twelve are somehow Lucy Gray Baird, you – the boyfriend of Lenore Dove Baird – and me, who is related to both of them?”

“Well, and Peeta. But, besides that – yes. Don’t think about it too hard, Katniss. It’s a small district – we’re all probably distant cousins.”

Haymitch is suspiciously cagey all of a sudden, but I can’t frame my next question. I can’t even think of a good question to frame. “Fine,” I say, at last. “So – who was your mentor, then?”

“Mags.”

“Mags!”

“Yes, and Wiress. But Mags was the one I talked to most. That plot of Plutarch’s in my arena? They were both involved – them and Beetee. And they were severely punished for it.”

“Haymitch, exactly how many secrets are holed up in that head of yours?”

“Probably more than I know.”

After lunch, Peeta joins us - earlier than usual. There have been more half days lately - construction in the District slowing way down. That's the case today. They've been electrifying the latest neighborhood - north of the railroad tracks - and ran out of copper wire.

"Your ears must have been burning," says Haymitch, while Peeta sits down on a free chair in the living room, opening a bottle of Haymitch's beer.

"Really? That can't be good - my birthday was weeks ago. Any other secret conversations about me are bound to be unpleasant."

"Haymitch thinks you should be a respectable Victor and keep your nose out of politics," I say, frankly.

"I wish I could. Is it my fault people come running to me with the world's problems?"

"Yes."

"Well," Peeta responds, grinning at him. "I think Thom is planning to retire after this term is up. The next district rep will probably want to make their own way without a washed-up Victor always whispering in their ear. Or whatever." He shrugs.

"Don't be modest, Peeta - tell Haymitch about your plans to institute a District 12 presidency."

He laughs. "There is no fear that I'm going to get any more involved than I am today, Haymitch. Less so - really. The only thing really left to do on my current list of projects is go back down to the mine and collect some samples. After that it's nothing but baking bread. Maybe I'll join your little knitting circle."

"But then where will Katniss and I go to complain about you?"

"Has it ever really stopped you doing it when I've been in the same room with you?"

I lean back and smile at their banter. Because it's been on my mind for several days now, I think back to those Games, to Peeta's prediction that the three of us would hang out together ever after in Victor’s Village. Not that we talk much about the Games. But still - the Games made a family out of us; a roughly-hewn one, for sure. But the years have softened us a bit. And we love each other; I think, even if things had gone differently between Peeta and me, there would still be this unique and abiding connection among the three of us.

I'm going to try to remember that - to cling to it - as the anniversary approaches; and not think about other things.

-3-

So, in mid-July, we borrow a truck, leave the district and its annual ceremonial reminder of the reapings, and drive down the valley. For the first half of the trip - the length of the farms - the roads are so much better now. Even beyond that we've driven up and down enough times that there is a rough but distinct track for us to follow until we get to the hills at the bottom of our map.

Although Peeta has shared the information about the mine and the bunker with the district council, there's been little interest in developing either. Which is fine with him - at least as far as the bunker is concerned. He and I - on our semi-regular jaunts here - bring dried meat and canned goods to store. It's a jumping-off point for further explorations down the valley, beyond the reach of the maps - down to where we have found swamps and quarries and the broken concrete remains of old cities. It's where we will go when all hell breaks loose. District 2 and District 13 are regularly jawing at each other again. District 13's plans for nuclear disarmament are always too vague, too slow, too inconclusive. District 2 is too secretive, too demanding, too influential. At some point - in the near or, hopefully distant, future, Julian will get himself some sort of hold on all of Panem's nuclear weapons. Then - we will hole up together, stay well out of the fray and live off the land, left all alone. Part of me can't wait.

The mines are another matter. The problem is, the people who came back to District 12 were not interested in going back to being miners. Those people left for mining districts like 1 and 2. But - since they are unofficially part of District 12 "land," we do need to know if they are still viable at all. The only way to do that is to take some rock samples and see what minerals are present. Even trace amounts of certain minerals would make reopening the mine worth discussion. There's only so much we can rake in from wind power and medicine sales.

But it would feel intrusive, too - there's no question about that. In this place - the far border of "Zone 12" - as far as we know, we are the first people in a hundred years to come out here. It's quiet - although the animal sounds are actually louder here, the generations of wild creatures who did not learn to hush on human footsteps. Development at the mines would mean giving up our private claim on the bunker.

We set up camp on the crest of the hill, where the old mine camp was, near the old front entrance. We'll need a lot of good light to carefully venture inside the mine and test out the old ladders. We stare off into the western sky, watch the sun set over the fuzzy horizon. Then I look at Peeta, watch the lights in his eyes flicker with the firelight. "What are you thinking?" I ask him.

"A lot of things. How nicked up and scuffed my leg is, for one thing. What about you?"

"I was thinking you might look cute in glasses."

This makes him chuckle.

In the morning, we put on overalls and headlamps and start by checking out the beams that frame - more or less - the mine entrance. They are steel bar reinforced, so even though the wood is soft and crumbling away, the support seems to be good. Inside, there is more good news. The ladder that goes down the main shaft is also made of steel, and it's riveted into the stone. Peeta goes first, carefully walking down to the first level, while I aim my lamp at his feet. Then he aims his at mine while I follow him down.

"The walls are dry," he points out. We both know - from years of field trips to the coal mines - that that is a good sign, that the water table is still far below us. We peer down the shaft to the next level. We can see the dry ground there, too, so we head down one more.

I shudder as I touch the hard rock surface. Barely any light makes it down the main shaft now, and I'm entombed in a sensation I haven't felt in a long time.

"OK?" Peeta asks me.

I lick my lips. "Barely. Let's light a candle - just in case. Test the oxygen."

The candle burns freely, so I try to breathe more deeply.

"Should we go one more - or just take some rock samples from here?"

I kneel down to look down the shaft into inky blackness. "It smells a little damp."

"Why don't - I just go. You shine the light for me?"

"No … it's OK."

I follow him down. The walls now are slick with water; so is the floor. We can hear the drip drip in the shadows. We take careful steps to one wall, take out the little picks we brought and make careful taps against the rock to loosen the chips. As softly as we tap, the echoes are still terribly loud and we stop frequently to listen to them die away. I try to comfort myself that the noise in this shaft must have been enormous, back in the day - the honeycombed levels of tunnels ringing with the sounds of metal on rock, the occasional explosion.

When we are done, Peeta follows me back up the ladder. As we climb, I'm struck by something - something in the tang of the air, or some small, echoing sound, maybe - or his unnatural silence. I close my eyes as we climb, and behind my eyelids, memories come. The sewers. The mountain tunnels. The cave. Always being forced underground …. I try not to run out of the mine when we reach the top level again - but I can't help myself from taking large gulps of air.

Peeta's face is strained. He drops his pick, his bag of rocks, pulls off his headlamp, and stamps jerkily on the ground.

"Shit, shit, shit," he says, his voice thin.

I freeze. It's been - a couple of years, actually. There is a routine - but he has to find it himself. He'll usually go stand behind a chair and grip it - his knuckles a precise distance apart. I back away on quiet feet, start looking around for a good alternative.

He bends his knees way down so that his butt is nearly to the ground and puts his hands over his face. "Shit, shit."

Good, this is good, even if it sounds bad. It means that he is lucid enough to mark a countdown in his head. Three … two …

I wait and watch as he takes heavy breaths, and they are lined with tears, sobs almost. 

"Shit!"

… one.

"You OK?"

He doesn't move his hands from his face as he nods.

"When did it ..?"

He looks up at me now with a devastated expression. "Almost at once, but I-."

"Peeta!"

"But I had control of it until we went up - something about going up - your boots right above me - everything went a little - sideways."

"Sit down," I order him.

He does, and I go over to him, sit down and feel his pulse - it is rapid with terror - and look closely into his blue eyes. He's starting to shake, which is the usual sign of the passage of the flashback.

"Damn," he says softly. "Do you know how long it's been?"

"Two or three years."

"Yeah."

"Hey, well - no one said they were ever going to go completely away. That's a long run."

"Why the hell does one fucked-up year get to fuck up all the rest of the years of my life?” he says angrily - then sighs. “You're right. I should have - avoided it."

"I wasn't doing so great myself. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I want to yell - or throw things - throw boulders at people and things that don't even exist any more."

"You can yell."

He shakes his head. "It won't - help me. Just make a really loud noise."

"I'll yell with you. I'll scream. I think you do know it will help - at least a little."

So we do. We make the hills shudder. We reintroduce fear into the hearts of all the placid deer nuzzling the grass in the valley below us.

"I'm glad," he says, hoarsely, "that you're here with me."

I pull his head down to me and kiss him, very lightly. Sometimes ten years doesn't seem like so very long ago.

-4-

We drink wine - lots of it - at dinner on the train and sleep right through the great plains of Panem, right through the mountain tunnels. I don't know about Peeta, but I'm so hungover when the train whistle wakes me up that I don't even have strength for my anxiety.

We hastily change and repack our bags, then take each other’s hands, murmur vague reassurances to each other and join the line of passengers stepping off of the train.

In the end, I couldn't let him go to the Capitol without me. In a way, it made things a lot more tedious for him - my special permissions taking even longer than usual - it being the Capitol, after all - and the arrangements for a chaperone and a place for us to stay. Several people vied for the honor - Effie, Violet, Plutarch. But in the end, we accepted Thom's invitation to use his apartment. He'll spend a few days at Aster's, which is in the same building, just a few floors above.

Apart from the District 1 flags flying everywhere, the Capitol is remarkably similar to the last time I saw it. The destroyed buildings in the outer blocks have been rebuilt exactly, as far as I can tell. There is even a crowd waiting for us at the station - pressing in on each other to get a look at us as we disembark. Perhaps their collective style is a little less flamboyant, now, but that's the only real change. Fortunately, we're hastily ushered into a car and whisked away. Just like the old days.

I've never been in the Capitol in the autumn - so that is a bit different; there is a gold- and rust-colored tint to the streets. But I don't spend much time looking out at the streets. I slump low down on my seat, watching the sky.

Thom's apartment is in the inner blocks of the Capitol, about four blocks from the President's mansion - which is also the district representatives’ meeting house. This is, of course, unavoidable. The hospital is just a few blocks away from the mansion, anyway.

Aster meets us at Thom's apartment. Without her TV makeup, you can see the very faint shadows of her old burn scars - just a blush on one side. She double kisses each of us on the cheeks, gives us a tour of the apartment amenities and hands us her set of keys. "When Thom is off work, maybe meet us upstairs for dinner at my place?" she says.

By Capitol standards, it's a fairly modest place - one story, one bedroom and two baths. There is food in the kitchen, which we're free to eat, but the headache from the wine is starting to pound, so I say no to lunch and just go into the bedroom and lie down in the darkness.

Aster's apartment is a little bigger and a lot more fancy. She's doing well, I guess - all her furniture is so white I'm afraid to sit down on it. Furry rugs, furry lamps, glass vases in pink, green and blue. While she opens a bottle of wine, I look at the paintings on her wall. Peeta's I think compare pretty favorably, though I'm not an expert, and I guess it's at least partially a matter of taste.

We're unable to avoid the open windows here, and the view from Aster's dining room that looks specifically right out on the city circle. Well - what are you going to do? They're just buildings, I guess. It's not their fault that they belong to the time in my life - that one and a half year period between my reaping and my trial - that looms so largely and darkly over everything that came before and after.

"What's the Training Center being used for now?" asks Peeta.

Thom looks from him to me, as if suddenly realizing that these landmarks - just the background to his everyday life - are monuments of dread for us. I internally squirm, hate being pitied. "Well, it's like a convalescent home - it started as one for rebels who were too injured to go home immediately after the war. With the hospital facility already there, it made sense. Would you … like to see it again? Take a tour? See the changes?"

"No," says Peeta firmly, and I shake my head.

The rest of dinner alternates between political talk - rumors that Paylor will be stepping down after her current term, meaning the first election in which district citizens will actually vote for a new President - and gossip about celebrities. Aster has a lot of interesting stories that would probably be more interesting if I knew who on earth she was talking about.

The next day, Effie arrives in her own car to escort us to the hospital. Effie's so thoroughly Capitol - sly about revealing her age, she's caked in glittery makeup and wearing a bright blond wig - that she is still talking about the same things she talked about ten years ago. Namely, how she is still moving among the people who mean something; which, these days means basically Plutarch and his crowd who control the airwaves. On the other hand, she also has a lot to say about now being a district citizen - "which, once you get over the stigma of the whole thing, is long overdue. I mean, we've had no say in anything that goes on in Panem for eight years!" She even has the word 'unum' tattooed on her back, she says - which is an old word meaning 'one.'

"What's twelve in this old language?" asks Peeta, after delicately peering at the tattoo during a traffic stop.

Effie shrugs.

She offers to buy me breakfast while Peeta meets with the eye doctors. That's the first appointment. I agree only to eating with her in the hospital cafeteria, with my hoodie pulled tightly over my face. I bring a cup of coffee up to Peeta in time to join him for his second appointment, with the prosthetic specialists.

"So is it glasses or surgery?" I ask him, softly, while we sit in an empty hallway together.

"Surgery," he says with an apologetic smile. "I have a cataract in one eye."

"Really?!"

"Yes, they think probably from the trauma of the burns on my corneas. It's small, now, but if I remove it, I should have good vision for years, yet."

I touch his knee. "Oh, I'm sorry about that."

He shrugs. "No, I'm sorry. It means definitely extending our stay. Let's not talk about it right now - the idea kind of weirds me out."

I glance at his forearm - the marbled coloration of his skin. I want to tell him it's no big deal - he's been through so much worse - but the idea of someone operating on my eye weirds me out, too.

The orthopedic doctor in the prosthesis department has even more startling news. If he wants to consider it, Peeta can get on a list for a leg transplant. At first I have a hard time following this discussion, but eventually it dawns on me - if a person on some matching list should die, Peeta could get on a list to have their lower leg actually surgically attached to him. Suddenly the idea of corneal surgery doesn't sound that bad. Peeta's reaction is merely puzzled.

"Even after all this time? That would work?"

"It's been successfully done many times, yes."

"Well …." Peeta closes his eyes, as if pondering it. "I don't think I'm interested, really."

"You have time to think about it. Any time you might change your mind, you'll make an appointment for a consultation, figure out the matching process, etc."

"I don't know, I -."

"The people who donate their bodies to medicine really do want to be helpful to those in need."

"Oh, it's not that," he replies.

"Well, let's get started on measuring you out a replacement prosthetic device anyway, shall we?"

Peeta - who is sitting on an exam table - makes a startled movement, then reaches down to his left leg. "Replacement! - I thought maybe we were just repairing this one."

"But, surely you … don't you want a new one?"

Peeta looks down at the prosthetic leg with a blank expression; he trails his fingers down the length of the plastic exterior of it. The inner mechanisms - the springs that give the foot a little of the give of a natural foot - these could be replaced. The outer shell, maybe not so much. It is nicked, scuffed, and scratched up. Maybe it could be resurfaced, repainted, so that it looked like new - but then …

"Doctor, it's his leg ," I say, suddenly understanding it myself. "It took him through the arena, the war."

Peeta looks up at me in gratitude. "I don't mean to be funny about it," he says softly.

"Well, there's no reason we can't replace the interior and reuse the exterior," says the doctor, skeptically. "If that is acceptable."

A little while later, Peeta's walking around on a temporary replacement while his old one is fixed, and we don't feel like heading back to Thom's while we wait. We decide to visit Dr. Aurelius, and Peeta makes a series of phone calls trying to track him down. At last he reaches him and, when he's finished on the phone, turns to me with a bemused expression.

"How'd you like to see where I lived when I was in the Capitol?" he asks.

I automatically think he's referring to wherever he was kept when he was imprisoned and tortured, and my face must register my disbelief, because he laughs a little. "After the hospital, I mean - where Dr. Aurelius did all the work on my head. That's where he is today."

"Oh."

"Then, after that, maybe he can direct us somewhere we can have some fancy Capitol lunch. Or go shopping. I'd like - to buy you something."

"What do you mean? Buy me something?" I chuckle. "What?"

"I don't know - a dress if you want - you haven't had a new dress in forever. Or - jewelry - or something. I never get to do that. Everything's traded or ordered from catalogs. I wonder if Tigris is still in business. You could use some fur underwear. You know. For the winter."

"Kinky," I respond, which makes him laugh.

We start walking north and he takes my hand. We're slower than usual - he's fumbling a bit with the unfamiliar prosthetic. "What sucks," he says, "is that I could have had cataract surgery in 4 or 11. We didn't have to come here for that."

"Your leg, though."

He shrugs. "I could have gone a few more years."

"Well, since we're here …."

"Exactly, since we're here - we might as well enjoy ourselves, right?"

We don't buy fur underwear, though we do window-shop other kinds - kinds that make even Peeta's eyebrows disappear in his bangs. But we chicken out about buying any. Instead, we find a poky little jewelry store, which has a lot of vintage rings and stuff, and Peeta finds me a bracelet with a little gold cat charm on it that reminds us both of Buttercup, who passed away two years ago.

.

.

In bed that night, I’m both thoroughly exhausted and completely sleepless. Dr. Aurelius insisted on taking us to a theater to see a performance - not a full play, but something new in the Capitol called “fragments,” in which scenes from old plays that are being rediscovered by the archivists - and hobbyists - are performed, and audience members vote by applause on which plays they’d like to see made whole again. 

Outside the theater, we were cornered by someone writing an original play about the rebellion and he would not stop talking about it. I think we vaguely agreed to an interview before we got away and back to Aster’s for a dinner party. Another chore - Aster’s friends and colleagues in Plutarch’s inner circle are more or less exhausting - individually, interesting to talk to, enthusiastic, kind; but as a group, just exhausting. 

The one surprise - and she arrives late, so we get to spend very little time with her - is the presence of Cressida, up from District 5. Panem’s new laws have made it possible for her to formalize her relationship with her long-time girlfriend, and she was just married the weekend before. Though, she and her partner have adopted four war orphans in 5, so she’s deep into family life, already.

She asks if we have kids and it’s the first time (out of many) that I’ve been asked that question that it hits me hard.

And I can’t sleep.

-5-

The night before Peeta's surgery, we go to dinner with Thom and Julian, President of District 2. This is Round 4 in our courtship by various parties - Plutarch, Violet and March, the President of 13, being the others. Or the seduction, as Peeta puts it. I'd be more amused, if I wasn't so anxious.

Overall - as much as I hate to admit it - I have actually been enjoying the Capitol, in its own right. We've kept ourselves busy exploring the city. As long as we avoid the city circle as much as possible - walk to the avenues to look at all the fancy shops; take a bus to the markets to shop the booths for fruit and vegetables, fabrics, knick-knacks and jewelry; gape at the displays of old paintings and statues in the museum; visit Effie in her fancy townhouse and meet her latest lover; take a pilgrimage to the shop that used to be Cinna and Portia's studio and leave flowers in front of it - it is actually fun. Or it was. Now, I'm just anxious.

Lunch with President March was a surreal experience. It's been a long time since I was in District 13, but I'm pretty sure I didn't run into anyone quite like him there. There was a spectrum - in my mind, the spectrum runs from Boggs to Coin - but it was like a color spectrum of all one shade of color, from light to dark gray. This one does not exude the typically serious, militaristic District 13 persona I remember, either the good or the bad of it. He's a nervous man, plainly dressed in civilian clothes. He speaks to me with a strange, glassy look about forgiveness for my "sins” in the war.

Everyone seems to somehow know that Thom's position on nukes is also Peeta's position, and therefore, it is assumed, mine. For this, District 13 - or at least March’s faction of it - has softened toward me considerably. They would even finally consider supporting my full pardon, something they have apparently fought Paylor on for several years now. Especially if I would come to 13 - renew my relationship with them. If we would see their work on neutralizing the radioactive elements of their nuclear weapons, we would see that it is District 2, not 13, that really holds the threat of destruction over the rest of Panem. Why, he demands of us, has 2 not been called on to dismantle their arms …? 

The meetings with Plutarch and Violet are more mundane. I still "owe" Plutarch, in his worldview. Yes, I made a studio recording of District 12 folk songs, but - and this was Peeta's brainstorm - I contacted Beetee, who arranged a mobile studio to come to my house and help me make one recording and legally secure the rights to it. So I didn't have to sell my voice or my songs. Nor did I have to go back to attempt to teach the kids to sing. I stuck to archery - added some more survival skills and field trips to the woods - and that has been that. So, Plutarch can still be put off.

Violet is slightly more difficult - this is because it turns out one of Peeta's weaknesses is not liking to say no to what he convinces himself are reasonable requests. But Violet is far too transparent in her dislike of having me around for these talks - maybe it's innocent, in that she knows I will buttress his ability to make refusals that he might find hard to make on his own. Maybe it's not. I'm fairly sure I don't imagine the hint of possessiveness in her eyes.

What she doesn't know is that Peeta has recently made his own arrangements for another art show - he was contacted directly and agreed on his own. Also, that we toured an art studio today and discussed his ability to operate independently of Violet, if he wanted to. Peeta doesn't give a reason for wanting his independence from her, which is just more evidence that he knows or suspects the same thing about her that I do. Eventually he turns down - firmly - her umpteenth request to appear on her arts show sometime.

Through all of this, I feel nothing - not about District 13’s nukes, nor Arts after Dark , nor even the unctious voice of President Julian - nothing but anxiety.

Part of my anxiety is about Peeta’s surgery. Despite all the assurances about it - laser eye surgery is literally an ancient procedure, centuries old - he's anxious about it and, therefore, so am I. Obviously, the small chance that there can be permanent damage to his eye is frightening. But … and I don't want to ask - and he won't say - but I think that it is that he will be here, trapped on a table, with a light in his eyes and people huddled over him. Too reminiscent of bad things that happened here before. Things he has never fully told me about.

Part of it is my own secret. I'm late; something which just doesn't happen. Not significantly late, but late enough that I've run to the bathroom every morning for three days to check for it. And I can't address this with Peeta until his own trial is over, so I'm miserable in my anxiety, and in the fact that I'm keeping it to myself.

Afterward, I consider that I may have had cause to be grateful for my distractions, because they provide me an ounce of immunity from Julian's charms, of which the television does not do justice. He is - objectively - gorgeous, the ultimate product of District 2's long-time favored status. Bronze and sculpted, green-eyed and smooth-tongued. But more than that. The way he talks to you, he acts like he's hanging on every word and he has a way of agreeing with everything you say - with just the slightest twist at the end that leads to you somehow find yourself agreeing with whatever he's saying. A dangerous, charismatic man.

But I just listen, wide-eyed, my thoughts bouncing between concern for Peeta's ability to make it through his surgery and the formless panic that is vaguely concentrated on my uterus, while Julian wheedles his way into a conversation about the mine to the south of District 12: our mine. The samples we collected indicated that there may still be some viable minerals for extraction - especially tungsten, which is rare and so valuable. Now, he knows there really aren't any miners left in 12, but perhaps some arrangements could be made whereby District 2 could provide the labor and ….

Well, here's my answer , I think to myself. It's not quite time for the ten-year reassessment of my feelings on having children, but it's hard to believe that they would change all that much in two years. Which is just absolute, positive terror at the idea that I could be pregnant.

"But, why would there even be the need for a base that far east?" Peeta is asking, quizzically. The conversation has turned while I have been buried in my own thoughts and I blink and try to catch up.

"We do not have long-range rockets. Just a small cache of missiles. You'd be surprised. I won't give you the exact inventory - that's confidential. But the number is smaller than thirty-five."

"All it would take to finish Panem would be about a dozen," Peeta says, wryly. "If that."

"At any rate, we are really no direct threat to District 13 - again, this is confidential information - from where we are, because it would take air transportation to use them against it …."

"Why are we talking about nuking District 13?" asks Peeta with a directness that surprises me.

"Oh," laughs Julian, "we're not. We're talking about the concept of having nukes pointed at 13 so that they know they could not bomb anyone else without fear of instant retaliation. A guarantee of safety. But they would have to be stored much closer to 13."

"They are getting rid of theirs, aren't they? That was - part of the deal."

"Yes, they are, or they say so, yes, of course, of course. And we trust them - of course. But … on the other other hand … they have a history of going their own way. And there are some fanatics there - people reviving some sort of cult of exceptionalism, as they call it. I'm sure you haven't run across it - it is so small. But some of them have funny ideas about why they survived, strong and intact, while the rest of us were so weak as to fall in line with the Capitol …."

I can sense Peeta trying to catch my eyes, at this point, but I continue to stare at my glass of wine, again running over the calculations in my head. It's more than five weeks since my last period. It occurs to me that I don't actually know how to test if I am pregnant or not. I suppose - while Peeta is in the hospital - I can wander over to the maternity ward and casually ask for an examination. And then what?

I finally look up at Peeta and my face is probably full of my negative thoughts. Anyway, he smiles at me and he looks at Julian and says that, of course he himself does not speak for District 12, but in general the district has reaffirmed, time and time again, our determination to remain free of nuclear weapons for any purpose. And as to the mines … "We'll have to discuss that in detail, as well. And here I am speaking as a member of the council - this is something that would take more than a negotiation with just Thom, or just our mayor - but with the entire council, and with the people who live in the vicinity of the mines, as well."

I give him a small smile in return, as if I'm approving of his handling of the conversation and am not just completely distracted by my own concerns.

.

.

Instead of talking to any doctors, I let Aster take me out during Peeta's surgery. She takes me to where she works in the media center - directly across the training center on the city circle. The scene of the crime. I know my pardon is kind of eventually supposed to be a forgone conclusion, but I wonder if I'm pushing it. Damn, that day was so long ago, now. Aster shows me where all the "magic" happens - the smoke and mirrors. I remember this from being in the Games. Not the arenas themselves - those were technical marvels. But the interviews, the parades - with the sawdust and the wood beams and the incomplete sets, which looked so much more impressive on television.

She also takes me on a tour of the Game center. This is on the second-to-top floor of the building, and is abandoned - but preserved for tours, apparently. There are twelve suites here; this is where the mentors spent the Games, at least until their tributes died - a bank of monitors to show them their own tributes as well as the locations of others. A phone bank to pursue sponsorships and other deals. Haymitch's home-away-from-home for twenty-five years.

From the window, I stare across to the top of the training center. I don't want to go back there again, but I am curious - I can't see it from here - to know if the roof garden is still there, with its trees full of wind chimes. My one positive memory from those days ….

Finally, we are on our way back home. Peeta has an eye patch on, and is sleepy, but very happy and much more relaxed to be on the train, with Panem flying past us. This trip we have taken freely - for once. Another step - another painful part of the past behind us. He's too sleepy to talk about anything heavy, so again I wait ... and later on, I'm happy that I do.

It turns out that I am just late, and the first time I check back at home, I'm spotting; so my announcement to Peeta that I am on my period just serves to delay some things we've been delaying on our trip - and is not the subject of intense relief - or disappointment - that it might have been.

Chapter Text

-1-

When Paylor's tenth year as President of Panem concludes in early spring, she steps down amidst a raft of celebrations. Quietly, my full pardon for killing President Coin is certified. I think, considering that I've traveled the country occasionally - that I've been seen on television, keeping house, teaching school - a lot of people are probably surprised it hadn't happened long ago. Certainly, there is nothing that feels different about it. The only major difference is that it doesn't take weeks of permissions and paperwork for me to travel out of 12.

The first place I go is back to District 2.

It certainly was not by my design. Peeta had already agreed to do an art show there, specifically as part of District 2's own year-long celebrations marking the ten-year anniversary of the fall of President Snow - celebrations which now include the election of their own Julian to replace Paylor. But I had no plan to go with him. I thought - what a perfect chance to prove my capacity to manage my anxiety; let him go by himself to 2. It was Lyra who persuaded me. Of course, Gale would like to see me … he wouldn't put pressure on me himself, but it has been so long. 

He'd love to show off the kids and their new house out in the country.

So, after hashing it out with Peeta - and canceling a trip to 11 to stay with my mother instead - I finally agree.

We are met in 2 by city officials. In the intervening years, there are some little alterations - a new building here or there - but 2's architecture is so timeless and solid, there's been no reason to make any real changes. It looks like it has sat like a little pearl in the setting of the mountains for eternity. We are put up in a guest house belonging to one of the district officials and we have the whole place to ourselves. Peeta immediately starts going through his paintings and making final decisions about what he is going to show. I watch him, even offer some suggestions.

As usual, he always has to bring at least one of his early paintings about the Games - for show and not for sale. This time he's brought a painting that I rarely see - it's one of me, hunting in the arena. This is the painting he had left for Gale, in the event of his anticipated death in the Quarter Quell - so it suits his own peculiar brand of humor to bring it here as his "sold" painting. It's an early one, and not one of his favorites - you can tell it was when he was still being very literal with his shapes and colors. It lacks a certain depth and lightness that he's now known for.

Once we're done going through the art, I call Gale's house to let him and Lyra know we are in town. One of their kids answers - I think the little girl who is now, what, seven or eight? - and I have some back and forth with her until Lyra grabs the phone and apologizes.

"Oh!" she says. "Great! We'll be there at the show! Will they be feeding you, or -?"

"Yeah, I think so," I say. Lyra and I have established a decent phone relationship, over the last couple of years. She and Gale have still never come to District 12, so, except for the occasional photo, it's been ten years since we've seen them. Lyra makes sure to call us a few times a year, and if Gale's available, we say hello to him as well. I can't say it's awkward, our relationship - it's just barely there. But I do appreciate Lyra's care in making sure it's still there at all.

This is one of those rare occasions we get to pull out our Cinna and Portia outfits and get dressed up and look like older, less-flawless versions of our tribute selves. I make a single braid in the front of my hair and wrap it around the crown of my head. I help Peeta brush out his hair and fluff up the waves that lie flatter now. As I do this, our faces are close to each other and he smiles and touches my cheeks gently with his fingertips. His blue eyes are twinkling like a noon-lit sky.

"We are so grown up today," he grins.

That's funny because, in our everyday life, we are busy doing grown up work. This is the holiday, where we put on fancy clothes and let other people cook us dinner, and soak up the admiration of a crowd. Today, I feel 16 - both the good and the bad of it.

"Grown up?" I reply. "We're 28 - we're on the verge of being elderly."

District 2 is opening a war museum as part of its anniversary celebrations, and that is why we are here today. We have reached the point in time where all the war trials are finally over, the districts are largely up and operational and everyone is ready to erect more formal memorials and educational programs about what we all went through. In District 12, this has taken the form of a few stately obelisks. There's the one at the meadow, commemorating the lives lost in the firebombing of District 12 after the Quarter Quell. One in what used to be the town center, with a memorial to the tributes lost in the Hunger Games. One just at the entrance of Victors' Village, commemorating the volunteers who died in the rebellion against the capitol. Prim's name is here.

Two's war museum is a pristine new building on the outskirts of the town, and features large, graphical representations of the rebellion - at least, District 2's part in it. There are some inspiring, life-size photos of Lyme, preparing for battle, looking exhausted and pensive. There are some great pictures of Gale, in what I guess is the battle after the Nut fell. A still shot of me, from the back, in my mockingjay costume, staring down the train tracks. Photos of rebel soldiers cheering on the fall of the Capitol. Some informational and interactive stations tell the stories - me and Peeta and the berries and the victory tour and the Quell. The resurrection of District 13. I avoid one section of the room where I see displays labeled "The End of Coriolanus Snow" and "The Fall of Alma Coin."

Peeta places his easels in front of this section of the museum, and when his paintings are set up, even the tops of these displays are hidden from view. Either way. It's not like I can ever avoid what I did and didn't do. Everyone knows it - they'll know it long after I'm dead.

There's a bit of a memorial quality to Peeta's paintings, as well. There's the ruined town center as it looked when he first returned to 12. A painting of Haymitch on his 50th birthday, sitting on his porch. There's a spectacular painting of the mountain that evolved from his sketches of ten years ago. There's a painting of Johanna looking youthful and relatively happy - he had based this on an old photograph of her and not on the wasted, morphling-addled woman she was when she died.

I help him arrange and rearrange the paintings. We're both quiet as the memories around us press in, which makes talking in their presence feel almost profane. Bit by bit, the event begins. A violinist arrives to play songs in the corner. A caterer arrives with finger food and delicacies. Gale and Lyra are among the first to arrive. They are dressed up and - talk about looking grown up - I realize with a start that Gale is thirty . His hair is cropped short, his skin is rougher. But his gray eyes - the only other Seam eyes in the room - are the same, and they twinkle as he smiles in our direction.

People are almost as happy to greet him as they are us, and he is shaking hands, talking and laughing with the guests around him. Eventually, the four of us manage to stand in a group together, and we are kissing cheeks, hugging, smiling. It is clear that he and Lyra are still happy together - maybe happier than before, even. I hope I am similarly telegraphing my happiness with Peeta, though I still tend to not wear my heart on my sleeve. We're invited over tomorrow - the kids are dying to meet us.

I'm not surprised to see Plutarch show up, along with some cameras and Violet, who sidles up to the guests and asks them questions. She practically drapes herself over Peeta - she's forgiven him, I guess, for cutting her out as his agent. She's probably happier as a TV star, anyway. Peeta's too polite to cut short a conversation, but I move in to help when I see a sort of bemused irritation start up on his face.

"Oh, here's Katniss now," he says. "Katniss - you remember Violet. She has some TV program - I forget what it's called again…?"

I suppress a laugh with difficulty.

Violet has gone full-on old-school Capitol - hair dyed in strips of purple and blonde, skin-tight dress of acid green that is cut above the knees. Gems glint like multicolored dimples in her white face. " Arts after Dark ," she says shortly. "You've never seen it then?"

"We don't watch much television," I reply shortly.

"I wish you'd come back to the Capitol. We miss you guys there. We could have such a great interview - your side of the Coin story, so to speak. The inside scoop on Johanna, Haymitch…."

I take a deep breath over the words that automatically come to my mouth and Peeta steps swiftly in. "We're a little isolated in 12, so we don't have any inside scoop on anything. As for Haymitch, there's nothing to say. He's doing well and is enjoying a very peaceful retirement."

She opens her mouth, but fortunately Plutarch steps in and yanks her away. He knows me too well to let one of his lackeys mishandle me.

Peeta shakes his head and pulls me into a corner next to the violinist.

"What?" I say.

"Steam is coming out of your ears."

"What does she mean, about Haymitch?" Haymitch is Haymitch. He drinks too much, he broods too much - we're always rounding up his geese as they invade our gardens.

He shrugs. "Are people still talking about the Delly thing?"

I roll my eyes. It's strange to run into these rumors so far away from home, where they were so quietly contained.

"I can't wait to get home," I say, "where people are normal." I suddenly notice the violinist standing right next to us, looking sheepish, and I glare at him as if he has been eavesdropping.

"Any song requests?" he asks. I shake my head and start to turn away, but he says, "I know some old Appalachian airs, if you want to hear them."

I shrug. I also squint suspiciously across the room at Plutarch, wondering if this musician was of his choosing.

"Well, I'd like to hear some," Peeta says, ever polite.

The very first one is one my father sang all the time, about dead miners. The second and third are also familiar to me. I know they've played the footage of me singing in the training center while my trial was going on, so I'm more than half-annoyed to hear these songs, knowing where they must have come from. But, the music also flows into me, plays on my emotions. By the time he gets to the fourth song, I'm smiling - this one is a love song, of a sort, and I associate it now with the boy I married.

"Oh, I like this one!" says Peeta.

"You should," I tell him. "That's 'White-haired Boy." And I quietly sing a line to remind him: 

"In the hills where I was born, there was a boy, there was a boy ..."

"You're voice is so lovely, Katniss," says Violet, who appears next to us again.

I don't respond, so Peeta says, "Isn't it? It's the very first thing I ever noticed about her."

"Oh, we remember," she says, with a knowing grin. "Still, isn't it nice to be going strong after all these many years."

"Thank you," I say modestly. And then: "Damn it, Plutarch," as the man himself wanders over. "I suppose that's on film."

"You're still golden," he says jovially, hooking me by the arm and leading me away from the others.

"But what a pity you two still have no children," continues Violet, behind me, talking to Peeta. "No one to sing to. But I suppose you have your reasons …."

.

.

That night, for a mix of bad reasons, I am extra affectionate with Peeta, although maybe affectionate is the wrong word for it. I'm demanding of his kisses, I tease him, I go down on him, I climb on top of him. I exhaust his protests, I exhaust his body. It's the sort of intimacy that is only possible between two people who have trusted each other for a long time - and yet at the same time, there's a sort of stress and anger in it that feels wrong emotionally, even if it feels so right in all the other ways.

"Shit," he says afterward. "What was that about?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do," he says, in a familiar tone.

I lie on the bed, tummy down and naked, and turn my face away from him. "No, I really don't - and you're not always right about that. Sometimes, I just don't know."

But I kind of do.

"OK," he responds, with a sigh. He kisses the back of my head. "That was great, and I love you. And I'm sorry about tonight. I think we should put a pin on these shows for a while - maybe for good. I sold everything again, anyway."

"Did you?"

"Yes - well, it didn't hurt that there was a sort of bidding war between the museum and a private collector for the ones of Haymitch and Johanna, and a couple other ones. I cut the museum a break on them; I think the collector was from the Capitol and that just felt wrong to me."

Mention of Johanna brings unexpected tears to my eyes. "I love you, too. It's not your fault - about Plutarch or Violet, or anything else. I wish everyone could just forget me, or I could reinvent myself like you did."

"I didn't reinvent myself - I just kept doing the thing I wanted to do, and it doesn't matter to me what people think about me, or what I did in the war. If you wanted to sing - like - professionally - I'd encourage you to do the same thing. But I don't think you do. You want to be independent, and dignified, and peaceful."

"That doesn't seem like much of a goal."

"No - it's a way of living your life on your own terms, and there's nothing wrong with it. Just from now on, we'll do both our things in a way to make sure that they don't contradict each other."

"You shouldn't have to give up the art shows."

"As long as I don't have to give up the actual art, I'll be fine. The shows are just to sell the pieces - to make it worth the time it takes away from the bakery."

"Oh." I still don't know much about the whole financial side of it, but I don't press it. I decide to go to sleep and make things up to him by being especially nice in the morning.

"Katniss?"

"Mmmm?"

"I'm not going on any television shows. Especially not with Violet."

"Good."

"And I really had no idea they'd have those big displays up. I mean - we all know what it's the tenth anniversary of, but a whole interactive station on how you shot Coin …."

"You never give District 2 enough credit for being morbid. Look - if I wanted to not deal with the consequences of it, I would have killed myself afterward. Oh, wait. I tried that."

"Huh," he says, not understanding my mood. Not that I do, either. "I just wish that people knew your motivation for -."

"It's enough for me that you know."

"I thought you had motivation enough after that arena vote. I would gladly have pulled that string myself. I'd have missed, though."

"Yes," I say shortly, "that was my job to do. If she had been smart, she would have insisted they fish you out of the arena first, the way she intended. Made you the face of the rebellion. I'm sure you would have found some brilliant way to talk her out of - everything that she did."

"I don't know," he says, determinedly trying to keep things light, though I can start to hear the irritation in his voice - the irritation I have been deliberately courting. "I guess they would have had to come up with some really cool nickname for me to start with. That would have been a challenge. I never even got to be the 'boy on fire.' Anyway," he adds, drawing a sharp breath, "let's not talk about this right now."

A not-so-subtle reminder that I'm being unpleasant, bordering on hateful. We lie in silence for a while. Then I turn around, pull the blankets over myself and fall asleep in the crook of his arm.

.

.

The next day we spend at Gale and Lyra's house, outside the city limits, which sits on an alpine meadow that backs into a nice wood. It is noisy with the sound of their three young children. The oldest is the girl, Jewel, who is the spitting image of Gale. Then there are twin five-year old boys, Marcus and Sparrow. Peeta is a hit with the children, as he always is, and they climb on him, make him chase them around. After lunch, they want to take him outside to show him where they play, and Gale tells them to leave him alone for awhile, but Peeta says it's no bother, besides he and I can catch up while he plays with the kids.

Gale and Lyra show me around the house, which they designed and helped to build. There's one room they have set aside for Gale's things - he has quite a collection of weapons, but also some things that I guess he and Hazelle salvaged when they fled District 12 - some old photos that they have framed. I don't remember ever seeing some of them - particularly ones of Gale's father, who was around the same age as mine was when they died. His wedding photo with Hazelle. Baby pictures of Gale and Rory. Behind them in these pictures are the long-lost streets and houses of the Seam. Where the Seam was, there is now a commemorative park (with an obelisk in the making), a green strip of land that has replaced what used to be the road that ran from our houses to the mine.

I look at a crossbow, heavy with scopes and triggers, and frown. "That looks exactly like the bow you had -."

"Yeah - I never got that one back, unfortunately, but Beetee gave me this one."

"Do you ever - use it?"

"Usually not, unless I'm hunting bear."

"I hope you don't do that alone," I say. Some memory is tugging at me, but I can't quite place it.

"No, no - usually I'm with Rory, if he's free."

"Speaking of which, Rory and his wife, and Vick and Posy will all be here for dinner, Katniss," says Lyra.

"I can't wait to see everyone!"

"What about you, did you ever find a new hunting partner?" asks Gale.

I shake my head. "I rarely hunt anymore. There just isn't much need for me to do it. Peeta and Haymitch prefer wild game at the holidays, but otherwise…." I shrug. "At that point, it's just hunting for sport, and I can't bring myself to do it. Fishing, though - we do a lot of that."

Gale looks vaguely disappointed, but what can I say?

"I bet you can't wait to teach the kids," is what I end up saying.

At that, the expression on his face completely changes and he becomes an entirely new Gale. His smile is sweet and gentle, and his eyes beam. "Jewels already loves going on hikes up the mountain. She'll be great. The boys are early to say, but, yeah - you're right. I can't wait."

"We should really go rescue Peeta from the little darlings," puts in Lyra.

"I'm sure he's fine - he gets so few opportunities to hang around kids," I say.

"Oh, that's too bad," says Lyra vaguely.

I think I see her shoot a look at Gale - probably imagining it, but after hearing Peeta tweaked by Violet last night, I'm vulnerable to this topic. Why does it bother me so much? Am I that worried that people might think my marriage is unhappy - or that one or the other of us is broken?

As we walk through the house, Gale says, "So you're teaching? I thought you were working at the factory, or something?"

"Oh, not really. I initially consulted with them about the medicinal values of the plants around 12, and I helped them locate and cultivate them. But they get along fine without me, now. Just to keep it up - just because it was the family business, I guess - I'll make ointments and tinctures like my mother did. Some people still prefer that to seeing the doctor."

Outside, Peeta is on the ground, talking very earnestly to Jewel, while the boys climb up his back and on his shoulders. It's as if the three of them have known him for years. As we approach, the girl is pointing down at his feet.

"Is that a fake foot?"

"Jewel," says Lyra sharply, but Peeta laughs.

"Yes," he says to the girl, seriously, "that is my artificial leg."

"Did you lose it in a mine accident?"

He shakes his head. "No - I got in the way of a - particularly angry - wild dog," he replies, then winks up at me. He gets to his feet and Lyra grabs both of the boys in deft hands used to dealing with wiggling children. Jewel runs to her father and hugs his leg with the most endearing smile I have ever seen. I think again how much she favors him, olive skin and gray eyes, but Peeta has a slightly different take.

"Katniss, I can't get over how much she looks like you when I first met you."

I do a double take, and so does Gale. We've always looked remarkably alike, so I guess it's not a surprise that she should resemble me, as well. Now that he's said it, her double braids and little print dress - not plaid, but close in style - could easily put Peeta in mind of me on that first day of school, especially since that is a particularly strong memory for him.

"If you say so," I say.

"I don't remember what Katniss looked like until she was - what was it, 12? But, yeah - there's a resemblance. Hopefully, she's every bit as good with a bow."

"You should bring them - bring them home - to see where you came from. You should come back to 12," I say impulsively.

Gale looks down at the top of his daughter's head, and puts a hand on it. "I don't know, Katniss. It's not 12 - not to me. Twelve is gone, and there's some new district built on top of it, that I have nothing to do with."

"The district is the people, Gale," says Peeta, gently. "I know that sounds trite - but it's true, nonetheless. Come home - when you're ready."

Peeta can put into words the things I am thinking just as if he was walking around in my head. I just don't know if even he can reach Gale, who never saw District 12 as a unified people.

.

.

The next day, we're on our way home. The train is nearly empty, and we have our own sleeping room to ourselves. Once again, I am the instigator - not that he resists. 

I'm still breathing hard when he rolls over, draws me into his arms, and kisses my forehead. He lifts up my chin until I am looking into his laser-like eyes. "OK, I'm not going to ask what is up with you," he says, "but …."

I meet his eyes steadily. "Why do you think something is up?"

"You have a different energy. There's something deliberate - but also weirdly out of control - about you the last couple of - days."

"You're going to say that I'm not thinking straight."

"No, I'm not."

"OK, well - I think it's time."

"Time for what?" he asks slowly.

"Time to have a baby."

There is a long pause. "You're not thinking straight."

"I told you!"

He sighs - and there's a catch in it, as if it pains him. "I knew what Violet said got to you."

"It's not just that."

"I know - Gale's kids, on top of that. These are not reasons to reverse a serious lifelong commitment to not having kids."

"I promised you that I wouldn't close the door."

He closes his eyes.

"You still want them, don't you?"

When his eyes open, they are wet. "This isn't fair, Katniss. Don't make me be the one to say no."

"Why would you say no?"

"Because - you are saying this when you're not yourself."

"Then don't say anything, yet. I mean, I feel like myself, but I guess I'm not the one to say."

He looks up at the ceiling. Then, after a few minutes, he sighs. "I'd really got used to the idea that we weren't going to have kids."

"Is it so wrong that I think that you deserve to have them?"

"Yes, it is! If only one of us wants them - that would be a disaster! All these years of our marriage, we've always been a team. It's worked - really well. I'm so happy with you. Looking back, in retrospect, I might have doubted that we could pull this off, between all our issues. But we just kept going, and it's worked! You and me. We are all the family I need, really."

But he can't see the pain that is clearly on his face - and I can. It's a pain I haven't seen in him in a very long time. I've unlocked something that he has been keeping deep inside - maybe he isn't even aware of it, but it's there. For once, it is me who can see all the way into the heart of his truth. There's literally no way I can unsee it now - the regret. Now, I will always know that it is there.

"OK," I say. "Like I said, we can have this conversation later, when I'm more ‘myself,’ I guess."

-2-

We arrive home the late at night, and Haymitch is supposed to meet us, but doesn't show, so we walk into town, me carrying the painting, he carrying our bags. We go to the bakery instead of the house, as that's only about five blocks from the station. The bakery doesn't have an attached dwelling like it did before, but there's an office in the back with a couple of sofas we can lie down on.

I don't actually sleep much. Our travel day on the train was strained, at best. I'm not quite sure what to do about the situation, how to persuade Peeta into a better mood. We've had our fights, but they've always resolved pretty calmly with the sort of discussion he's particularly good at - stepping back out of the emotional element of the argument and finding a neutral ground to figure things out. I benefit from this at least half the time - or maybe he has decided to just let me win half of the arguments. Who knows? Sometimes I think about what little I knew of his parents and how his mother must have browbeat her way into winning all the arguments in the house; maybe that's the sort of thing that he tries very deliberately to avoid. In temperament, he's much more like his father, anyway.

But this is different. I really have unburied something that he wishes I had not disturbed. I'm hoping that his hurt and anguish are a temporary side effect of the disturbance, and that once that has muted, we can begin to discuss this dispassionately. But what do I do with him? Should I lay on the apologies? Should I confront him?

As dawn breaks, I go into the kitchen and start the ovens. I could wait for Boone, but I actually miss the days when I used to help Peeta out with the first-of-the-morning baking. I start simple, with the things I know I can do, and mix flour, water and butter for the drop biscuits that remain a staple of the district, and set the dough aside. These are best when they are served hot.

Then I mix dough for the leavened bread. I've got three big bowls done and covered with damp cloths, to rise, when Haymitch knocks on the glass front door.

I go quickly to open the door, but I don't let him in right away. "We're closed - and be quiet. Peeta is still asleep."

"How are you here?" he asks blurrily. "Your train never came in last night."

I wonder if he was way early or way late to the station yesterday, but it doesn't matter. At least he came for us. I'm less mad at him, as I let him in. He smells of stale booze.

"Haymitch, eventually your liver is going to give out," I say sternly.

"Oh no! – nature taking its course," he responds with full sarcasm.

I shake my head. I can't judge him after what he went through, but I don't want him to go like Johanna did. For one thing - I love him. As used as I am to loss, I am not immune to it; it's unbearable to think of Haymitch gone, too.

"Do you want some coffee and some day-old bread?" I ask him.

He accepts, and I go to the bread box for some stale rolls, and warm up the coffee pot. "How was the trip?" he asks.

"There were ups and downs."

"I saw - on the television. Neither of you looked very happy."

"So, they did air some of it. Well, what are you going to do?" I sigh. "Peeta says we're done with those trips for the time being." I smile to myself. "Maybe we're no good at these public appearances without mentors and escorts walking us through it."

"Good - you guys belong here, anyway. How was Gale?"

"Gale's doing really well. He has three kids now - they are very cute. Peeta thinks the little girl looks like me when I was little."

"Not sure Panem has room for two Katniss Mellarks."

"She's going to have a very different upbringing from mine."

We're silent for a while, as Haymitch drinks his coffee and I pull out some of the dough that has been refrigerating for the last few days. These are for sourdough breads, and I hesitate before pulling them out, flouring a board, and plopping a glob of dough on it. Then, I start kneading, trying to be neither too rough nor too gentle, trying not to ruin the final product. I had forgotten - how this isn't even a chore - it's completely satisfying to attack the dough and have it keep coming back for more.

"Morning, Haymitch." Peeta comes into the kitchen now and nods to Haymitch. Then he turns to me. "Having fun?" he says with a little smile.

"Yes."

He comes over and kisses me. "Carry on, then. What else have you been up to?"

"There's biscuit dough ready to go and I also started some bread dough."

"Great! Thank you. I'll start mixing cakes then."

We continue this until things start going into the oven and the first customers arrive, and then Haymitch and I take off for the villages, leaving Peeta behind.

As we approach the first houses on the outskirts of Undersee Village, I say, "Haymitch, do you think I would make a good mother?"

"I don't know," he responds bluntly. "That's hard to predict, isn't it?"

"I guess that's true. Peeta would make a very good father, though, don't you think?"

"Oh, yeah, without question."

"I'm going to try not to take that personally," I say wryly.

"Well, you knew both of these things already. What's brought this on?"

"I told Peeta it's time to have kids, and - he didn't take it well." I glance at him in time to see the smile on his face dissolve into a frown.

"Maybe you should have picked your spot better - this was after you all saw Gale's kids?"

"Yes, but - it wasn't about seeing Gale and his kids - it was seeing Peeta with Gale's kids. It's like I could suddenly see that there were missing pieces in his life."

"Did you explain it that way?"

"No - anyway, he thought I was just all riled up from the whole weekend and wasn't thinking clearly."

"That's because he's sensible. You really do need escorts and mentors to walk you through the public-facing stuff, don't you? Clearly, you picked the worst possible time."

"I suppose so, but he kept asking me what was wrong. Now he's hurt and I don't know what to do about it."

"You'll need to talk it out."

"He's not going to believe me now."

"About what? Do you honestly want to have kids?"

I search myself - but there is darkness in between me and that question, and beyond the darkness, old images - my mom, lying insensible to the world on her bed; Prim, walking up to the stage at the reaping. "I honestly want him to have them."

There's a long pause. We've reached my house now and I look at Haymitch, whose expression is puzzling. I'm expecting him to give me the same argument that Peeta did, that we should both want them, but he surprises me: "Then you should give them to him. If they are missing from his life, he should have them. He deserves it. But you're going to have to do a lot of work talking him into it. You're going to have to convince him that you want the same thing. Don't let him put words in your mouth - even if they are the words in your head. Convince yourself that you want to have kids - that's the only way you'll be able to convince him."

"That can't possibly be good advice."

Haymitch shrugs. "I don't care. You've come to the line and you know it. It's his happiness or yours. And if the only thing stopping you from actually wanting them yourself is the thing that doesn't exist anymore, you haven't worked on your head for him as hard as he worked on his for you. If I'm taking sides this time - it's his. On this, it's his."

That's a gut punch if there ever was one. "You know, kids aren't 'pieces' of anything, right? They are sort of people who sort of have to be - formed and birthed - and reared. Ideally, by the right people for the job."

"Kids get dropped into this world with less deliberation than I took to not comb my hair this morning, Katniss. It's weird, I know. We're a weird species. Yet, it does often actually work."

"I guess that's the part I never understood. My mother ...."

"Yeah," Haymitch interrupts. "She had her issues. She also raised two of the better humans I've ever known. I'm done. I'm done. I've said my piece. Thank you for upholding your end of the deal, even in the ridiculously self-sabotaging way you did. One more favor: close it with him. Close the discussion one way or another."

Convince yourself. Has Haymitch ever given me a more difficult task? I don't even know where to start. I can't even imagine it. 

At home, I pull the memory book off the shelf - it's been a few years since I've opened it. I smile as I touch the pages, remembering these people I loved, remembering the work we put into the pages, Peeta and me. With my words and his pictures, this is as close to offspring as we have, and someday it will go to the library in the Capitol, I guess, reproduced and kept for posterity. It will tell our tale for us long after we are gone, hopefully. Looking through it now, I realize I wish we could expand on it, to explain not only who these people are, but put in context how and why they died. But in future years, no matter how much it is expanded, the people who read it will do so at a remove, curious but disconnected to us.

Is that enough of a reason? I guess most people have kids, at least in part, to pass down their family traditions or their family business, and their family memories. Gale, itching to teach his daughter to hunt. Annie, teaching Finn everything about who Finnick was - everything appropriate at least. That's a rub - our family memories include horrors I could never imagine telling to children. We are killers - Peeta less so than me, but I've killed more than enough for both of us. Even if you don't count the thousands of people who died because of the Capitol's retaliation for my moves, my list of victims is pretty impressive.

But - I've never shrunk from that aspect of my history. To forget it would be to dishonor the memories of the dead. For some of them, I am one of the last vessels of their memory. That is a sacred trust. Is it my duty to pass along even this?

The front door opens and closes and Peeta comes in, smelling of fresh bread. It wasn't practical to continue using our house as the district bakery, but I do miss the smell of his baking, almost as much as I miss having him home during the day.

The Mellarks have been baking bread in District 12 for at least a hundred years. But he is the last of the family.

"What are you doing?" he asks, putting my daily delivery of cheese buns on the table next to me, and frowning at the book.

"I just felt like looking at it - it's been a long time."

He looks worried - I suppose he thinks I'm still in a strange mood. Maybe I am.

I get up and he takes my place at the table and thumbs through the book himself. "What do you think for dinner?" I ask him. "We have all this leftover bean stew - I could add some of the venison and wine; that might go well together."

"Mmm, that sounds good, actually."

"I was thinking there is even more stuff I could write about the people in the book," I say conversationally. "Ten years ago, it was hard not to be brief. But I think there is more to be said."

"You might be right, but I think, instead of expanding these, I think you should write it all out, from beginning to end - the whole story."

"Oh." That sounds like a lot of work. "I'll think about that. You might be right. I was just thinking - I want to make sure that people don't forget the real story. I wonder if I'm the right person to do that?"

"Who else would you suggest? Plutarch? Haymitch? You'd never get a straight story out of either of them - for different reasons."

"Well - you."

"I could help you with it, but there's an awful lot I don't know, and to be perfectly fair, my memories can't always be trusted. And anyway - you’re by far the better writer."

After dinner, we go out onto the porch to enjoy the warm summer evening and watch the sunset. 

"Your favorite color is orange," I say, teasingly.

"Like Effie's hair," he replies, laughing. This is a game we play sometimes - but more than a game, it helps him retain his memories, some of which still have a habit of sliding out of place. "Effie and her coal turning into pearls … Hey! Remember that I found a pearl?"

Things like that - of huge significance in the moment, but only a whisper of a memory to him. "Yes, of course - I kept it until the end of the war. It was with me all the time, but I don't know what happened to it after the city circle. I never got it back after I got out of the hospital. I wish I had - that's the one piece of the arenas I wish I still had."

"I didn't know that. That - that is the sort of thing I would like to read about."

"I'll think about it. But - I've been thinking about something else. I don't think I'm busy enough. I want to help you in the bakery more."

"How so?"

"Like - help. I was thinking that, if I came in with you in the morning, you could get a lot of stuff done quicker. Then you could leave Boone in charge of the shop and Bella in charge of afternoon deliveries, and you could come home earlier - to work on your painting, or whatever."

"I've been starting to think that, too. Hiring someone to help, I mean. I think we can afford that. But - if you want to come in and help me - if you really do want to do that - I like that idea, too. I'll never say no to spending more time with you."

"Remember when you taught me to recognize all the district breads?"

"Yes - how many of them do you still remember?"

I think for a moment. "One or two - especially that District 3 bread Haymitch kept sending us."

"Yeah - what was that all about, anyway?"

"Oh! That's funny, but of course you never knew - that was part of the code they were using to signify when Beetee was supposed to short out the force field. District 3 was for Day 3."

"Oh. See - all that stuff I never even knew about, let alone remember."

"Peeta," I say.

In the growing darkness, I can see his expression stiffening. He doesn't want me to reopen the discussion. He's decided that it's over - that we can move on, peaceful and happy, as if it had never been. Convince yourself.

I haven't done that, yet. Which means I have no right to have this discussion, yet. He will see through me and he will win the argument - and he will be devastated. OK, so - not yet, not yet.

"Peeta, I'm sorry I was such an ass in District 2."

He smiles, but doesn't quite relax next to me. "I'm so tired today," he says - sounding it.

"Me, too."

So I let it drop. And drop. And drop. Summer, fall and winter.

-3-

As Peeta's birthday approaches, I start going out to do some spring hunting. I will catch squirrel, if nothing else, but if I'm lucky, I can get a young turkey, or even pheasant. On a whim, I head north of the district - relatively unfamiliar hunting grounds, but an area we've explored in recent years. I go early in the morning, with the darkness still mostly in the sky, and lay pheasant traps as I go. Then I find a good tree to climb, so I can get the lay of the land and watch for signs of turkey.

Things are quieter for me and Peeta, though not entirely calmer overall. With Paylor retiring last year, and Thom's last term up next year, he decided his own decade in public service was enough and he resigned his position with the town council, giving up everything we either found or got from Thom - except the maps showing the specific locations of the mines or the bunker. If he's asked for them, he'll have no choice but to give them, but with Julian directing things in Panem and exerting influence on District 2 trade deals, this issue with the viable mine - and 2's offer to lease it - hangs uneasily over us. 

It's again a problem with numbers. District 12's 700 or so citizens could be overmatched by a large enough mine operation from District 2. Oversight of the mine extractions and profits, oversight of the civilians whose loyalty lies with another district, and a powerful one … these would be nearly impossible for 12, and would lead to heavy involvement by 2. Peeta advocated a targeted recruitment of the people who had gone to District 2 after the war - our people, who might have some inducement to return on their own. But he's defeated in this proposal - too much time has passed. And now he’s retired and it’s up to other people.

At least - at the very least - another of Paylor's final executive orders was to grant District 12 all the land mapped out as "Zone 12" in the earliest of our documents, so we have full jurisdiction over the mine. Peeta and I got to spend a summer camping up and down the hills and valleys, erecting border signs.

And he's content, and I'm content that he's content. Most mornings I do go with him to the bakery and help with the morning prep, staying until the first customers come. I'll teach the occasional archery class, but apart from that, we are free to pursue other projects. We've added a another room, with a loft, to the lake house. The roof in the loft has a cutout with a removable plastic skylight, so we can sleep up there and see the stars, at any time of the year.

The mural is almost done, and I like it more than I thought I would. As it's come together, bigger than life, bright colors and contrasting shadows, I have come to understand the inspiration, to see all the separate images off to the side or in the background. The girl with the braid, crawling out of the sewers, is the central figure, sure, but surrounding her in the darkness of a city night are the yellow flowers, a dead tree, a broken road, a misshapen poker, a broken axe … it works like his memory works, all the broken pieces of them coalesced around the person - and the event - that defines them for him. 

We have other plans. Small plans. Plans to spend more time at my mom's - two weeks, maybe. To go back to Districts 4 and 7. No plans to go back to the Capitol, but we don't necessarily rule it out. We had fun there.

I don't know why I make note of it - it's an old habit, really not relevant for turkey or squirrel hunting - but I check on the direction of the wind, which is blowing up from the south. I've just verified it to myself, when I hear a soft, muffled - but deep - sound - like a very distant explosion, or something. I look up at the sky in puzzlement - it's a very clear morning, it's going to be a beautiful day - when I see the distant and distinct cloud.

My angle's bad, so I slide myself quickly from the tree and bolt - out of the woods, to a clearing. I look north and watch it as it starts to fade away. At first I panic just for my own self, alone in the woods, with the ominous sign looming over me. But I'm far enough away. Then I think - is this all really happening?

I run home.

Peeta's outside the bakery, watching for me to come from the other side of the train tracks. It is dawn now, the sun rising behind him. A few of the other early risers are out, too, or staring out of windows. I throw myself at Peeta and he wraps his arms around me.

"You saw it," he says.

"Yes - it was, wasn't it? I wasn't imagining it?"

The mushroom cloud, the sign of man-made calamity.

He says, "In the direction of District 13."

I nod. "In general, anyway." Then: "The wind is in the south."

"Well, that's something. But - if it is as far as 13, we should be safe." He waves off someone who comes over. "I don't know - but I'll see if I can find out. Come on, Katniss - let's go home, see if we can get a hold of somebody."

He takes my hand and we walk solemnly back home. "It's not even five in the morning in the Capitol," he says. I can call Thom at home, but, if I even reach him, he might not know anything."

"You're very calm," I tell him.

"In shock, mostly. Numb. Worried. Katniss - if it comes to it," he asks in a strained voice, "do we stay or do we go?"

I just shrug. "Depends on the who and the why of it, doesn't it?"

No one is reachable, so we just turn on the television and wait to hear the word. It takes a full hour before President Julian comes on to make a sober announcement, behind his desk, about what appears to be an accident at District 13. He urges everyone in 13 who can hear his voice to flee, and orders everyone else to stay at least one-hundred-seventy miles away. Roughly the distance of District 12.

"The roads from 13 are not great," Peeta is saying when Delly comes rushing in. I'm surprised that she hugs me first - less surprised when she throws herself at Peeta, starting to sob. "Sammy! How will I know if he and his family are OK?"

Peeta can only look at her helplessly, and I help him disentangle himself and get her on to the sofa. "Is Rhys at the shop?" I ask her. "Do you want him here?"

It's Haymitch who comes, grimly preparing to comfort Delly with his bottles of booze. Peeta doesn't know whether or not to object, and Delly's in hysterics, so I gently lead him out to the porch, and we sit together, staring out at the normal and so familiar green and the other houses of Victor’s Village.

"We can't trust what Julian says," he sighs. "Maybe it was an accident. But how will we know?"

"Peeta," I say, "we need to put something up tonight - a beacon or something - so that anyone escaping 13 on foot can find us. We're the closest."

''Katniss! Yes, you're right! You are always so clear-headed …." And this energizes him. For the rest of the day, he works with Drew and a few others to construct a light array on top of the Justice Building - a tall antenna with bright, blinking lights and some bright orange flags, to be seen from a distance.

We stay home and help comfort Delly and watch TV, until the afternoon, when Rhys closes the cobbler's shop and we take her back to her house in town. More TV - everyone in the District is glued to it, quiet, waiting. The news updates are slow - and they are silly. With nothing but silence from 13, and terse, empty updates from the district reps and the president, the television reporters can do nothing but call on Capitol experts in nuclear technology and speculate and speculate. We learn about kilatons and windsocks and carcinogens. They show us the latest aerial maps of District 13. Of course, most of 13 is below the earth and, in its lower levels, its citizens could survive a nuclear bomb, although emerging into the fallout would be problematic. They have protective gear, of course. At least those inside.

But in the eleven years since the rebellion, District 13 has not remained underground. In a clear space on a river - about six miles from the old 13 Justice Building - there is a town of over a thousand people, including an unknown number of the three to four hundred people from District 12 who remained there after the war. Depending on the size of the bomb, where it discharged - how close to the surface - the direction of the wind … these people could have survived. The CDF is mobilized - medical units with medications and radiation suits ….

Our mayor calls an emergency meeting the next day. We can expect several trains of CDF forces in 12 within the week. Medic units, mostly - the military forces will be flown in or trained to District 8, where there are some better roads that run to 13. But, in the open space between the northern border of 12 and the southern border of 13, there will be a camp set up for refugees. All communications in 13 are fried - nothing has been heard - but it is too early to give up hope.

At dusk, restless and depressed, I take some plastic glow flares I've found in the common stores and walk north-east from town - go up into a tall tree and stare out into the darkness, looking for any signs of life. It's too soon to expect anyone by foot - but if there were any working cars, or anything … probably they would have headed toward 8, though.

Every night for four nights I do this, and on the last night I leave a trail of flares behind me as I head back to town. At last, I hear something - the sound of footsteps under the trees, just as I am approaching the glow of the houses north of the railroad station. "Katniss!"

My heart leaps at the sight of the blond head. "Sammy?"

.

.

He's dehydrated and hungry and sick. And he's run all the way from District 13, ahead of a small group of survivors making their way down more slowly, in as straight a line as they can toward home. They will need food and water and ….

Peeta and some of the others load up some trucks and drive slowly out into the darkness with supplies. Delly comes over for a tearful reunion with her childhood boyfriend. The one some part of her will always love, despite all the times he disappointed her. I think she may have more in common with Peeta than either of them would admit. After he eats and drinks - a little - he falls dead asleep for a while, but his dreams bother him, and eventually he wakes up. Delly goes home to her husband, but Haymitch stays with me overnight, and is with me when I can finally question Sammy about what happened to 13.

"We weren't attacked, not from the sky," he says. "No one saw a bomb or any aircraft. There is a processing plant they've built …. It's thirty miles away from the old 13 town square … that's where they've been disarming the nuclear weapons. When we first saw the light - heard the boom - we thought it might have come from there. But 13 itself - all the entrances to the underground - were gone, collapsed, cratered, as if it happened right there, beneath the surface. Not that we went exploring … we ran like hell. It was either an epically large bomb - or maybe something went off during transfer to the processing plant."

"Could someone have planted a bomb and set a timer?"

He shrugs. Of course, that's always possible.

"There were internal conflicts," he says. "Something we - in town - didn't follow too closely. But some people were concerned the disarming process was being conducted too quickly."

"Too quickly for whom?"

"For the scientists, for some reasons. For the politicians, for others."

"Do you know how they were doing it?"

Sammy shrugs again. "It first involves separating the nuclear core from the actual missiles. Deactivating the electronics, disassembling the missiles. Putting the core in some kind of pool. They were experimenting - or maybe trying to recreate an old recipe - for neutralizing the cores."

"How many - survived?"

"Everyone in town did. It was bright, loud and scary - but we have concrete-enforced earth houses. All the buildings survived. A lot of the people headed to 8 - easy to follow the train tracks. Most of us who came from 12, though, headed back."

I settle Sammy in the guest bedroom and walk Haymitch back to his house. It's such a beautiful night - a low moon, and the stars are shining particularly brightly. "Sounds like probably an accident," he says.

"Yes. I hope so. But … I wonder how many people are still alive underground. If they had been under attack, at least they would have got some warning and been able to head down to the lower levels."

Haymitch sighs. "It's amazing, all the ways we've found to kill ourselves, even without trying."

We climb up his porch, me helping him a little, because one of his knees is going bad. "All those years they kept themselves intact - on their own - and for something like this to happen…."

"Maybe 2 should mind its own business and not make recommendations about things it doesn't understand."

The chill in his voice startles me. Ever since we came back here after my trial, eleven years ago, Haymitch has kept solidly and steadfastly out of politics. I'm not even sure he knows our current mayor's name, let alone our President's.

"Yeah, I agree."

"So … you thought better about having kids, did you?" he asks, making an abrupt turn in the conversation.

"No - it's not that. It's a matter of timing, like you said. Why does it matter to you so much, by the way?"

He clears his throat and looks - beyond me - over my shoulder - out into space. "Maybe it shouldn't, but - well, for one thing, I know he wants them, and I - I don't know, Katniss, with Peeta - he's just the kind of person who you want to see get what they deserve because he doesn't demand a whole lot."

"That's true."

"But it's more than that. It's you, too, sweetheart ... I had to make decisions and I had to do things that took away any right I have for … personal happiness. I owe a lot of dead people more than I can ever repay. I carry with me the girl who didn't get the chance to have - or refuse to have - my children. Your debts are so much smaller. You were so much younger when it ended. And also - not to be morbid - but - I lived alone for a long, long time. I've got you two, now, and - I may not show it, but it's a comfort to me. One of you two is going to outlast the other, and even though I'll not be around to see it, I hate the thought of either one of you ending up alone."

"I -."

"I know - at 28, you don't think about these things. I know."

"Do you really believe that anyone can possibly lose the right to - personal happiness?"

"In a way. Certainly - you can lose the capacity."

He goes inside his house, leaving me depressed and anxious.

In the first light of morning, the trucks start returning, our people loaded in the beds. Over two hundred - most are familiar though some are spouses or friends from other districts, some children born over the last ten years, who have never seen 12. It's a crazy, grim, sleepy, stressful, tearful, joyful family reunion. The morning is spent securing medical exams and then rooms. There are options everywhere - there is space in many of the Village houses, which were originally adapted and/or designed for multi-family use. An empty townhouse, a couple of empty houses on the North Side. More permanent arrangements will be worked out later. The next time I reconnect with Peeta, it's mid-afternoon and we're both just heading home to crash in our bed.

"Are they going to be OK?" I ask him.

"No," he says, bluntly. "Many of them will be sick - many of them will die sooner than they should. But - we'll do what we can do."

Not that he had to tell me that.

-4-

Back when District 13 was deliberately bombed to make it look like it had been completely destroyed, the railroad tracks between 12 and 13 were also destroyed. If you go west down the tracks from our train station - just out of the old fence boundaries of District 12 - there is a railway switch: this allowed trains to veer north toward 13, instead of continuing on to 12. For a long way - miles and miles - you can still follow this line until, in the middle of the woods some fifty miles north of 12, the tracks abruptly end.

When the CDF medical unit arrives, this is where they go - setting up a field camp at the abrupt end of the railroad tracks, in case they are needed for survivors inside 13's so-far inaccessible levels. Meanwhile, the geared-up military and other volunteers (Gale among them, of course) are cautiously approaching the ruins from the direction of 8, measuring radioactive levels, listening for any signs.

President Julian takes a tour of Districts 8 and 12 - with special praise for 12's ability to envelope the newcomers so efficiently and comfortably. I can't help thinking that it is owing in no small part to Peeta's prior involvement with the housing planning - combined with all the lessons learned when people came back from 13 the first time, and then came up from 11. And - despite Panem's movement toward a market-based economy - we are still primarily a shared-resources district. We know just enough about how to bend in order to accommodate new situations - a drought, a heavy winter, an influx of refugees.

After interviewing the survivors, the president and the press have come to a somewhat different conclusion than mine. The television warns us of battling 13 factions - the fanatics who wanted to operate independently of the rest of Panem - the potential sabotage. Would even so-called fanatics nuke their own district? The interior of 13 is capable of withstanding such an attack, so ….

… So, the operation in 13 is a military one. CDF forces, District 8 soldiers and the private security forces of a handful of the larger districts, like 6 and 9, are called up. Dissenters on the news - and this is something we never saw back in the old days - make us nervous about what the forces will do when faced with people who need rescuing. Shoot first and ask questions later? This is one of the most interesting developments - publicly debating Presidential decisions something we're still really not used to. I chalk one up to Plutarch.

Peeta turns 29 amid all this mess, and I barely have time to kill a good turkey for the festivities. Because he does enjoy large parties, I have invited an unreasonable number of people to our house, commission Bella to bake him a cake, and get enough beer and wine together so that people will drink, get tired and stumble home before it gets to be very late. When they're all gone, I'll put on fur underwear and bring a bottle of wine to our room and see what happens.

But in the meanwhile, I hop up to sit on the dining hutch - all the chairs and seating surfaces are in use - and watch him talk and laugh with his friends - old ones, like Sammy and Delly; Seam friends, the ones he built houses and a district with; and friends from the valley. When Haymitch arrives - late, but greeted with cheers (as he always brings the interesting booze) - Peeta gets up to talk to him, smiling and happy. Haymitch smiles a little bit. They break my heart a little.

Little kids run around the dining room, eating snacks. Someone - there's always someone - brings out the fiddle and someone - there's always someone (it might be Peeta, this time) - gets me to sing.

There's a late guest. Some people - especially those with kids - have left already. The rest are getting raucously close. There's a knock on the door that someone in the front room hears ... and Aster is let in, looking harried and confused by her surroundings. I go to greet her in surprise, and she apologizes for intruding, and again when she learns it is Peeta's birthday.

She goes into the sitting room, and Peeta stands up when he sees her, smiling in confusion. She stumbles straight for him and greets him with a kiss on the cheek. But she lingers, and I can tell she is actually whispering something to him. His expression freezes, then he looks up and finds my eyes. What ?

He shakes his head. "Let me get you a drink, Aster. Sit down," he says.

In the kitchen, I join Peeta at the sink as he turns on the water and starts absently washing out a glass. Over the sound, he says, "She flew in on a hovercraft arranged by Plutarch. Thom didn't think he should call. There was an emergency session tonight. They suspended certain District exceptions - temporarily - so they can bring weapons to 12. In case they have to launch from here."

"No."

He shuts off the water, grimly. "I don't know how soon …."

"Why would they need to launch anything?"

"Someone is convinced the silence from 13 means it was taken over by a faction of isolationists who now have control of their arsenal."

"Obviously, the more complicated explanation is always the most likely," I reply sarcastically. Since he's just standing there, glass in hand, hesitating, I take it from him and pour a beer for Aster and take it to the living room.

It's a restless night. After everyone leaves and we can talk to Aster a little more, Peeta takes a long walk by himself - then comes back grimly determined. I'm sitting patiently in the kitchen, nursing a coffee.

"I'm going out," he tells me.

"What?"

"Aster can talk to the district council tomorrow - let them know. But I can't sit here - I can't - and wait."

"What do you mean? What can you do?"

"I'm going to go try and stop a train," he says, shrugging.

My gut twists. "Peeta - ."

"I'm just going to go out to where the switch is - on the tracks - and see if I can get the train to stop and if I can at least send it up to 2's camp. I don't like that much better, but at least 12 itself won't be … violated."

"How?"

"I'll just … ask."

"But -."

"Yes, I know it won't work, but I …." He shrugs.

"I'm coming with you."

He opens his mouth on an automatic rejection, but then just looks at me for a moment. I'm giving him my stubbornest look back. "OK," he smiles. "I'll be glad to have you with me."

After a brief explanation to Aster, I grab my bow and we head over to the garage by the train station, take a truck and head out. There's a small service road that runs alongside the tracks, and we follow it west, out beyond the old fence and to the point in the track where the switch is. It's an eerie trip, done in silence in the small hours of the morning. Peeta talks sporadically - running over all the arguments again, for and against what he's doing. It doesn't matter. It's a compulsion.

We drive past the switch. Several miles later, we come to a warning signal array that, when triggered, indicates trouble ahead on the tracks and he forces the signal bar up. This should get the train to slow down. Then we park the truck near the tracks at the split - not enough to cause a crash, but close enough to draw attention, and we get out and sit in the grass, as the sun rises behind us.

I watch the rising light erase the shadows on my husband's face - burn away the dark lowlights in his hair and make it look as downy yellow as when he was a little boy. I notice the complicated pattern in which his hair grows - the strands pushing out in all different directions, so that it will never be straight - always wavy, or wind-swept or curly (depending on its length). The early light softens the roughening texture of his skin, but even so - he's not a boy, anymore: more angles than curves, and sleep-weariness and world-weariness slightly dims the light of his eyes.

After this, I think - after this - I will take him away for a long time. To the lake, for a while, but even further. Up into the hills, where we can dissolve into the wild tangle of Panem, search for secret graveyards, find the shore of the eastern sea and maybe not come back until the snows come. And maybe not even then. Why should he have to keep struggling with frustration and futility? He's done nothing to incur or encourage it. He's tried to do as little as possible, in fact, other than rely on the reasonableness of his fellow creatures. Who have done little to merit his trust.

I wonder if it's obnoxious of me to keep feeling so protective of him, after all this time. It's hard to get over first impressions, and some part of him will always be that boy with the wounded leg who truly did need me, in order to live. The boy with the bruised cheek. With the wounded feelings. I wonder exactly how he feels about me - what is the lingering image of me that he carries across time and circumstances.

Finally, we hear the whistle of the train. It's signaling, hopefully, its acknowledgement of the warning sign and its intention to slow down. We jump up and head back over to the truck - to stand on the bed and wave down the train. I touch the bow that is on my back, thinking that this would be the most uneven match in history, possibly - an arrow against a train loaded with missiles.

It's a small train and not a high-speed passenger train. There are only a few cars behind the engine. It comes to a halt just before the switch, as we intended. Peeta jumps off the truck - and I follow him as he approaches the engine, mounts the board and opens the door.

"What's going on?"

There are two engineers inside. I look down the length of the train and look for signs of others - someone peering out the window, curious about what is happening.

"Are you the train transporting weapons from District 2?"

"Who are you?"

Peeta holds out a hand. "Mellark. Peeta Mellark. This young lady with the bow you might remember - my wife, Katniss."

"Oh - thought you looked familiar."

"You're headed to 12?"

"Yes - what's the hold-up? Is there a problem with the tracks?"

"No - it's just that you are now on the border of District 12. You do not have to come any further."

There's an uneasy laugh. "Do you expect us to unload our supplies here, out in the middle of nowhere?"

"This is not the middle of nowhere," Peeta says patiently. "This is the border of District 12. I'm trying to be reasonable with you people," he adds. "Your orders are contrary to the laws of District 12. We'll be willing to overlook it if you come no further."

"Is there a problem here?" asks someone, stepping off the next car.

"Are you in charge of delivering the weapons?" I ask him.

"Yes - who told you that we were coming?"

"Mr. Mellark - please remove yourself so we can continue."

"I can't do that. I've told you. You are in District 12 now. I would prefer that you head toward the District 2 camp - you'd just have to take the switch north - but, barring that, you can leave your load here. You can't bring them into town, where we live ."

"You are laboring under a misconception, Mr. Mellark," says the person who came off the train. "The weapons themselves are harmless, inert - the guidance systems that control them are coming with the personnel, later. This is …. What are you doing?"

This is addressed to me. I cross over to the second car of the train and push myself up and in. The three or four people in uniforms stare at me in surprise as I walk through the car and into the next one. I hear them jumping up and following me as I pull open the door. This is it - a cold car, with some stacked boxes, strapped down - covered with sheets. It's with a strange sense of horror that I lift up the sheet and look down at two fat steel cones in a box, nesting in foam.

"You're not authorized …."

"You're not authorized to bring these into my district," I retort.

But I hop out of the car, after counting the number of boxes. It's possible - very possible - this is close to 2's entire stash - at least everything that Julian had claimed.

When I get back outside, Peeta is standing on the tracks, but looking east. The engineers are with him.

"Katniss!" he says. "Come here!"

I jog up to the front of the train and squint into the sunlight. There's a dark mass moving toward us. I just get a glimpse of Peeta's grinning face before I understand. And as they move closer - a massive crowd, row by row, their hands locked together - we can hear them singing.

-5-

Peeta grabs my hand and we run to meet them. The mayor - Jin, who has been on the council since the early days and worked construction with Peeta for years - is in the very center of the first row. Behind the crowd of walkers, three trucks drive slowly alongside the tracks. As we approach them, the crowd stops, but their song rises up. I don't recognize it - it probably is a field song from District 11. During the years I taught music, the kids from 11 introduced these, but they didn't know much about their history. They tended to be more uplifting than the downbeat mining songs. Among the people in the crowd, I see several have armed themselves with bows, most of them handmade by me over the years.

Jin detaches himself from the group and goes up to talk to the people from the train. I whisper to Peeta what I saw on the train.

"Katniss," he says, "I've had an idea. But I don't know how to carry it out."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean … I was thinking about a place to take them - to hide them. But I don't know how to actually get them there, and I don't know how to do it without getting into trouble."

"The bunker," I say, suddenly seeing it. And feeling a twinge of regret. We had been squirreling the bunker away for a different, future purpose - undefined and vague, but belonging to us.

"Or the mine; the mine is deeper … but it would amount to the same thing, in the end. The whole place would be finished as a place to go. I know we haven't shared much information about either - about their location, anyway - but I wish it was even less. It won't be enough to bury them. We'd have to bury the hill. But how would we even get them there in the first place?"

"I wonder how long these guys are prepared to stay and block the tracks."

Jin rejoins us - smiling a little, and ruffling up his hair. He's a young man - he was a contemporary of Gale's - but unfazed by other authority figures. "I've explained that we've lodged a protest against the emergency order, which should block it."

"Really?"

"I have no idea. What do you need, Peeta?"

"I need some time, and …"

"Is anyone here from 13?" I ask suddenly. "Someone who worked with nuclear weapons?"

.

.

After three hours of facing off - hundreds from District 12 sitting on or near the tracks, singing … food brought to them from the accompanying trucks, and eventually a bonfire lit … Thom gets word to us - via the communications on the train - that the emergency order has been suspended, at least for now, and the train can proceed no further. Some lawyers need to look into the hodge-podge collection of district sovereignty laws that have been passed over the years. Haymitch - having been driven out to observe the fuss that we've made - tells me that public opinion - at least in part driven by Plutarch's newscasts - is not with its new President, the one who made such a fuss about Panem leaving District 2 alone, not all that long ago.

"Does Plutarch have more power than any one person should have?" I ask Haymitch.

"Maybe," he says. "But worry more about that when he's succeeded by someone who is not on your side."

"I'm tired of the necessity of taking sides."

"I told you two to behave yourselves and retire on your victor laurels."

I glance over to where Peeta is an intense conversation with a couple of nuclear engineers who were among our recent refugees. "I know you don't actually mean that."

Peeta joins us, giving Haymitch a quick and surprised hug. "Well, it's possible," he says. "I don't know if it's legal, but it's possible. We could transport them to the mine. We'd need to be careful about going down too far though - wet levels of the mine could be acidic or corrosive, and you wouldn't want to store them that way. Since the bunker is sealed, they actually like that idea better. Then - a controlled explosion to collapse the entrances. Like the Nut. I mean … 2 could reclaim them, if they wanted to put in the work again, I guess, but in the meanwhile, we could challenge it, legally, for a number of years. And I guess 13 was closer to figuring out how to neutralize the nuclear cores than we knew. That older guy - Devon - he was telling me about something called MOX, which is some kind of oxide that renders the radioactive core basically harmless. Eventually … we dig up the missiles, and -."

"What went wrong, then, in 13?"

"They don't know for sure, but like everyone else that came back, they don't think it was 'fanatics' - they say that's overblown. They really do think something went wrong - a computer glitch, some flaw in transport or storage. The latest aerial photos show a surface explosion somewhere just below the main entrance to 13. Though - more than one person suspects 2 itself, or the President - in order to use this incident for its own ends."

"Well ..."

"Yeah, I don't know if I buy into that. I certainly want it not to be true."

"There could be a lot of people alive in there," I say anxiously.

"In the lower levels, for sure." He hesitates. "I don't remember much about the layout of 13 - I didn't see much of it. It would be terrifying, though - being in the dark, because they do seem to be completely without power, and knowing that radioactive air is seeping through the ventilation system. Not knowing - but suspecting - what you'd find if you made your way to the surface." He shivers.

"How far away is this bunker of yours?" asks Haymitch.

"Three hundred miles, roughly."

"Let's do this, then," I say.

Doing is easier said than - well - done. But, with the train officially stalled outside of 12, the switch is activated and the train moved to the north-bound tracks, out of the way of the regularly-scheduled commuters. The protestors are thanked in speeches, then sent home. Then begins the process of unloading the missiles. There are only a dozen radiation suits on the train, so this is done carefully, overseen by the people from 2 and 13. The sixteen crates of missiles are packed tightly onto two truck beds, strapped down, the gaps in between the crates filled with sheeting, pillows and any other foamy materials we can scavenge from the train.

The work is finished in darkness. When we're finally ready to move, Peeta and I - still covered in the shiny protective gear - get in two of the trucks. The train engineers and the soldiers from 2 are transported in the other three trucks. They think we are all going back to town together.

Peeta checks in with me before we take off.

"Are these too heavy?" I fret through my open window. "I can feel the weight of them, and I haven't even started moving, yet."

He shakes his head. "They said we were well within the trucks' capacity. It's just going to be slow, Katniss." He yawns.

And it is slow. We follow the other three trucks for a while, but, before we reach the old fence, we veer off along the service road that runs along the west side of town and then out into the darkness. As we drive down the valley, we try to stay as far from the farms as possible, although it would be great to be able to use their roads. Every bump, every jar in the drive is horrible. Once we are clear of the farms, we break for the night - hiking away from the trucks and using the emergency tents and ponchos that are always stored in them to set up camp. We didn't sleep the night before, and worked hard all day, and there are spots swimming around my eyes as I lie down.

In the morning, Peeta builds a fire and I hunt down some squirrel for breakfast. We finish the bottles of water that we brought with us … we are well familiar with the waterways down the valley, so that won't be a problem. The second leg of our journey takes us back over to the east side of the valley, were the old road is - and since we've driven up and down here several times, we are on surer ground. What I don't know is what we will do when we get to the turnoff to go up the hills. We've never taken vehicles up there.

It's mid-morning when we reach the junction and stop. Again, we walk away from the trucks - it's silly, because we can't actually get far enough away from them to be safe if they were to spontaneously combust. It's just the natural aversion to them.

"How much fuel do you have left?" Peeta asks me.

"A quarter of a tank - plenty to get up the hill, but …." Then I stop and look at him. "We're not going up the hill."

He shakes his head.

And I smile at him. "Peeta Mellark, you …."

"It's still not ideal. But - too many people will know, otherwise. We'll still have to cave in the mine and the bunker. It will still have to look like that's where we stored them."

"Where are we going, then?"

"Do you remember that big rock quarry - with the concrete buildings - and those caves in the rock walls? I think we can make it there. We'll have a long walk back, that's all."

I laugh. And laugh.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing - I mean, I know it's not funny. At all. It's just …. I was thinking we'd need a long vacation, anyway."

"I know. So - you ready?"

"More than ready. Let's go."

Chapter Text

-1-

The girl with the dark brown braids fits an arrow to her bow and - like that - the turkey is dead. Her swift motions … I'm not capable of them, any more, if I ever was. It's not just that I'm out of practice - hunting so rarely now that I can feel that I'm going to have blisters on my fingers at the end of the day. She's just that good.

I feel terribly sad, looking at her. Her set, determined look. The steady, defiant upturn of her chin. She does look like me, and it's not just the physical resemblance; it's the exact same loss, written in her face. I was the very same age when my own father died.

Loss has followed loss, like autumn leaves falling, one after another. We knew it would come, but we weren't sure who or how exactly it would strike. Sammy was among the first to die, Delly, Peeta and Aster at his side. Delly’s grief put a strain on her marriage, but Rhys knew that loving Delly includes loving this loyal and honest part of her - it’s a good quality, at the end of the day: built to withstand trials.

The radiation exposure took many of the people who came back from 13, stalking us, a Reaper such as we haven't seen since the Hunger Games. Many did survive - resistant to radiation illnesses, or their cancers treatable. Some went on to have children - nervously, anxiously. But there were as many miscarriages. 

Lives changed by a single moment - an accident, as is now generally acknowledged.

Julian was replaced as president as soon after the District 13 incident as was possible. He was eventually accused - and widely believed - to have jumped on the tragedy in 13 to establish a military outpost for District 2 in District 12. Whether or not that was true didn’t end up mattering as much as the fact that District 12 swindled his nukes away and now - with 13 closed off, a radioactive wasteland - is presumably the only district in Panem left with useable nuclear weapons. This indignity eroded even his most steadfast support. Just another political monster, exposed. In fact, that was the title of the documentary that was put together shortly before he was voted out of office. I imagine both Plutarch and Peeta figure heavily in whatever revenge fantasies he harbors, to this day. 

The losses - from radiation poison - of some of the troops that went to 13, and eventually assisted in the recovery of several hundred people trapped within, were also laid on him, though perhaps unfairly. A general lack of organization among the operation is as much to blame. Many of those rescued from 13 ended up dying, as well.

Loss upon loss.

I watch the girl pluck her kill with calm efficiency. Then I lead her out to the lake house. It's chilly, and I want a fire.

She admires Peeta's mural for a moment. The central figure - the girl climbing out of the sewers into the confusion of the Capitol night - resembles her now maybe more than it even resembles me. That was such a long time ago. Then she turns her gray eyes to mine and looks at me with a thoughtful and penetrating expression that resembles someone else, entirely.

"I like this place better than the district. Did my father like it?"

I smile. "I think so. He only came out here a couple of times. But - in general, he liked it out in the woods better than in the district. Of course - the district was a lot different in those days."

This is really the only place I've been able to take her - the woods - that has any connection with her father. Gale's old house, the mines … long ago ground into dust and pushed into the earth, the foundation for the new district, as he said, that grew up on the remains of the old one. It was not until he got sick that he finally agreed to come back to 12, to touch the place he had been born; the place that had made him, good and bad. But it tore through him like fire, too quickly. Lymphoma. He was ill, then he was better; then it came back, and then he was dead.

Jewel made the pilgrimage instead. She wanted to hunt in the woods where he learned to hunt. To touch the place he had been born. Beyond her years, she is steady, thoughtful, watchful. I have nothing to teach her, and almost nothing to share. In some ways, it is Gale sharing her with me, from beyond death. He made this bright and fascinating girl - without my assistance - and left her to Panem. Will she succumb, like I did, to the crippling grief and cynicism of losing a beloved father at this specific moment in her childhood? It seems, at least in this enclosed space and time with her, that she won't. There is too much of her father in her - she's a survivor - but not as much anger, not as much sense of discontent. For her, life had gone pretty well, until now. This is her first test versus the world. Her father died a hero - several times over. This is what she knows.

Back at home, Peeta - who still enjoys a bizarre mutual appreciation society with Gale's children - is effusive in his praise at her prowess. He tells her how, when he was her age, me and her father kept the district on fresh meat basically single handedly. How it was one of those things that he admired about us. "But I was a bit too shy about letting Aunt Katniss know about it."

"Why do boys make it so hard to tell?" she asks. "It's very inconvenient."

"Well," he laughs, "in my case, the girl I liked could have killed me about as easily as talked to me. I guess I just wanted to walk very carefully up to all that. But if you are wondering if a particular boy likes you …."

I turn my back on this conversation and go to the kitchen to dress and cook the turkey. But listen to them with one ear. I realize that I'm going to be quite sorry to put her on the train tomorrow.

When she is gone, I do give over to the sadness for a couple of days. I am startled by its strength, considering how long ago our friendship was, how long it has been since I’ve felt remotely close to him. Gale-sadness always comes with a dose of regret - for what might have been, I suppose. It may be - it most likely is the case - that we needed to be separated to achieve the happiness that we each attained. There’s something everlastingly sad about that. 

"It's going to be a cold winter," Peeta says, coming back from the bakery on the second morning after Jewel's departure, stamping his feet. "This is the coldest I've felt in early October in forever."

"Yeah, I think so, too."

He does a double-take when he notices that I'm sitting at the table with the memory book. "Oh my gosh," he breathes, realizing at once where my mind is. "I guess … I guess we do have to …."

"Yes," I respond. "I don't think you have to draw any pictures, though. I've got a photo of Gale around here. I'd just have to try to think - what on earth to say …."

He opens his mouth to say something. "It will be good for you," he finally says, "to work through that."

"I don't know why so many things that are 'good for you' have to be so damn painful," I reply.

"Me neither."

.

.

It's been sad like this, over the last couple of years. Even as we parked the trucks of nuclear missiles inside a cavern within the old rock quarry - a feeling almost like we were leaving them on an alien planet, the columns of earth and vast field of broken rock making a strange environment - and covered both the trucks and the entrance with small rocks and large rocks, our conspiratorial glee was hedged with anxiety. Were we doing the right thing, the safe thing? Would there be consequences?

The long trip back up the valley - hunting and fishing and talking and singing - was eerie. It took almost two weeks, and we didn't know what we would come back to. So many troops were committed to the approach to 13 - the long, deadly march - that there had been very few to accompany the weapons to 12, and they were baffled as to what to do when they realized that the nukes had not followed them into town. Eventually, they just went home on the train, calling us all imbeciles who would get ourselves blown up through our own ignorance. By the time we got back to 12 - many days later than everyone expected - Julian himself was there. But his arguments had to wait on the judgment of his emergency order, and they did not end up going in his favor.

Drew and a few others went out and collapsed our hill with timed explosives. Where were the trucks? We had managed to get them down into the lower levels of the bunker, we told them. Drew couldn't quite figure that out, but eventually stopped asking. After all the legal business was over, we were asked to return the missiles to 2, but when Julian was replaced, the requests stopped coming, so we were able to stop ignoring them. When someone again gets a hankering to put their hands on them, they'll be invited to sue us for permission to find and excavate for them, if they wish. Hopefully, that time is long in coming. Nobody ever really wanted them. Oh someone will - there will always be someone. But in the meanwhile, we can breathe for a bit.

So, we returned to other pursuits. Peeta finished his mural and last summer borrowed a fancy camera to take pictures of it so it could be sold as a print. It sold like crazy. First framed prints, but also, later, postcards, bags, tee-shirts. Arts after Dark lamented his selling-out as an artist. I think we might be rich again, but how much more or less in comparison to the one year we collected victors' winnings, I have no idea and I still don't care.

Rhys continued the shoemaking business and Delly continued delivering babies, in between having a couple of her own - as always, in the face of her personal tragedies, a bright and sunshiny presence in our lives. 

Thom came home - and Aster with him, on maternity leave from her work on one of Plutarch's stations. Another district rep was elected. When elections come round, people always start whispering about Peeta and he always has to politely refuse nominations.

-2-

After I've finished Gale's page in the memory book, I read it to Peeta. I've pasted the photo of Gale that Peeta gave me in the locket in one corner and written densely about my childhood friend, filling two pages. Peeta squeezes my hand from across the kitchen table. I look him over in the dim light of the dusk that is lowering on us. It's time to pull the curtains and turn on the lights, but it feels comfortable for a moment, in this half-light. Next summer will be our fifteenth anniversary. All these years we've had together - just a little less than half of our lives now. I can read his thoughts - or at least his moods - now, with a consistency to rival his own.

"Peeta?" I ask.

“It’s very good,” he says. “Although ….”

“It’s a bit emotionally removed,” I finish.

“Between what I told myself or what you told me and what the Capitol insinuated, I’m not sure I ever understood exactly how you felt about him. And now I’m not convinced that you ever did, either.”

“Maybe. Any time I would have had to figure that out was wiped out by the Games and what came after. But also - it is so hard to explain. Gale and I - do you know, I feel it in the strangest place, his death? I feel it in my - spine. And that’s hard to explain in words.”

“Yes ….”

“You know how sometimes people are described as ‘joined at the hip?’ Or ‘their hearts are as one’ - that sort of thing? Well, with me and Gale, we were - for a little while, at least - joined at the spine. Literally, we sat back to back in the woods, fused together. That’s not mere friendship. In some ways, it isn’t friendship, at all. When he was whipped, I felt the blows on my own back, and I was surprised by that feeling - I thought the Games had severed us. Eventually District 13 did. But the scar remains. That’s where I feel it now.”

 “Most of us aren’t lucky enough to have that sort of friendship - or connection, if you don’t want to call it friendship. That does make it hard to convey.”

“Lucky?” I smile ironically. “It was born of horrible necessity and ended in pain. And yet, you’re right - for a time, I was beyond lucky to have it.”

He’s silent for a moment. “I feel like I have no right to an opinion - the tragedy of your friendship had such a happy ending for me.”

“But you do have one.”

He grins. “I always do. When we were younger, I used to feel that there was an unfinished element of my relationship with you and him - like, I had been robbed of the chance to be the ‘winner’ of the ‘competition’ for you, which is such a simplistic framework to think about it. Insulting to all of us, especially you. But now I accept that things had to happen in a certain order - that without Gale in your life, for a number of reasons, you would not have ended up in mine. It’s not just the survival in the woods aspect of it, either. I think he gave you lessons on companionship - and a dose of righteous rage - that benefitted me, later.”

“Now, that’s a thought,” I say, amused - but also intrigued by the notion.

“It’s like any relationship that doesn’t end particularly well - take mine and my mother’s. There’s a lot of pain there, that is no easier for having never been properly closed. But it wasn’t all pain. It was a deeply formative part of my life. We don’t really choose the people who come into our lives - and we certainly can’t control how they behave. Yet, they form us, regardless.”

“I miss having Jewel around,” I say. “I think I like kids that age. They were my favorite students to teach. They’re like little adults - but a little more rational, a lot more optimistic. It’s so odd how twelve was the age to dread for us - and now it is full of possibility, the beginning of everything.”

He raises his eyebrows. “It’s taken you a long time to finally shed that, hasn’t it? That dread of childhood.”

I look at him steadily. “Yes. You know me. I take a bit of convincing.”

He looks away.

I plough forward. “You’ve been very patient about it.”

“Katniss - If you feel sorry for me, you don't have to. I have no regrets. None. I love you. I want you, as much now as ever before. Nobody could possibly give me what you have. All these years - and we have so many more left."

"I don’t feel sorry for you. I just want you to be honest with me - like you promised. Tell me - just tell me. Say it."

He is quiet for a long time, and then a tear falls down his left cheek. "I want to - have a child. With you."

My breath escapes my chest in a quick and painful burst, as if I have been holding it. "I know," I say. "Thank you for finally saying it.”

He licks his lips. "Is this for real?"

"Yes, Peeta - it's for real. I'm not going to pretend I'm not terrified. I don't want to love someone else who I could lose. I'm stuck with you - you made me love you when I wasn't looking. This would be much more deliberate. But - it feels right."

The darkness has fallen around us but I can still see the tears glittering on his face. "It's more than that, Katniss. Don't you see? If we had a child, it would mean that the games would finally be over. That the Capitol has no more hold over us."

At that, I start crying. For a few minutes, we are a mess - separately - then together, clinging to each other in the kitchen.

“What’s next?” I finally say.

He pulls away from me with an ironic look. “My darling, there are only a couple of ways to make a baby.”

"We have to make plans," I say, ignoring the joke. "I'll have to go to 11."

"I'll come with you this time."

.

.

In the morning, we wake up together, before the dawn. We'll be going to the bakery to start the morning bread, as usual. Peeta reaches over to switch on his lamp and looks over at me. His face has changed - overnight. There is such an expression of relief, a clearness - it's like years have fallen off his face and the glow from his eyes is reflecting everywhere.

“I had such a strange dream last night,” he says.

“What was it about?”

He shakes his head. "Dreams don't always make sense in the telling. And this was like that - it was all color and light. I dreamed you were happy. And that I was … painting it."

- 3 - 

Within weeks, we are on the train to 11. The economics and industry of the district has picked up in recent years with two opposite - but equally effective - developments. First, they built a food processing plant, so that their fruits and vegetables are canned and jarred here, rather than shipped off to 8 for processing. It saves time and money, and provides employment. Second, they started a craft farm industry that broke up some of the large, automated farms into many smaller ones. From these, the farmers, like artists, perfected their own strains of tomatoes or varieties of apples and certain brands started gaining their own followings - a crazy good line of preserves mixing peaches, blackberries and lavender, for instance. Honey and fruit meads - which I prefer to beer or harder alcohol, since they are both mellow and sweet. Red sauce and white sauce and pickled everything.

But for all this, they've never spent a lot of money revitalizing the central town of the district, and it looks remarkably as saggy as it did when Peeta and I came here on our first stop as victors. The hospital is the newest and largest of the buildings in this part of the district, and its shininess breeds confidence, even as I prepare myself, nervously, to be put to sleep for the operation.

But I wake up - a little sore and woozy - to see Peeta smiling down at me. We take a cab to my mother's townhouse and he carries me up to a bedroom filled with flowers and preserves. He sets me down on the bed and looks at me again with that angelic expression that hasn't really left him since the night I told him we were doing this.

"Remember when you had the operation done in the first place - and then you came home - and …?"

"And I married, you, yes."

"After I ... you know ..."

"I agreed to it beforehand, as I recall."

"Still - you have to admit, it was a selling point."

I laugh at him. "Stop it - you know I can't tonight. And you're just going to make yourself agitated."

"I already was," he says, grinning. 

.

.

The next day, I spend with my mom while Peeta goes out and explores the district. It's to her that I can confess some things that Peeta won't understand - like how afraid I am. Afraid that I won't actually be able to figure out how to take care of a baby. Afraid that I won't actually be comfortable around it. "And babies are downright terrifying."

"It’s not uncommon to feel that way. It's usually different when they are your own. Instinct will kick in. You'll be fine, Katniss."

I help her make dinner and we talk - for the first time in years - about Prim. Prim - who probably would have followed her, to 4 and then to 11, to work as a doctor. If Prim had lived … things would have been very different. Snow dead at my hand, instead of Coin. The shadow between me and Gale - at least, that particular one - never in place. Would I still have gone back to 12? Where would we all have ended up - me, Peeta and Haymitch - scattered about without the binding of my sentence?

I wonder how rapidly or more slowly things would have progressed with Peeta, in those uncertain circumstances. In the end - once the walls were down - they went pretty quickly. In what time and place, under what circumstances, would it have happened? What if it hadn’t … no, that’s not really conceivable. It would always have happened.

Perhaps I should tell him. Though I think he actually knows. That's the sort of thing he usually does know.

-4-

It's spring - mid April - and I'm sitting on Haymitch's porch, trying to stave off boredom with a game of checkers, which is not my favorite game in the world. But Peeta made me stop working in the bakery three weeks ago, and I don't know how to fill in my time without that morning routine.

I try to adjust myself so that I'm comfortable, but there's no comfort for me these days. 

According to Delly, I'm due any day now, and - though I'm scared of labor and even more scared of what comes after that's over - I can't wait until I can sit, stand or lie down without this horrible back pain. I bite my tongue on speaking the words out loud but ten times a day I ask myself what on earth I talked myself into.

After the procedure, it was actually four months before it was even possible for me to conceive. And then it took another five before it finally happened. While we waited - Peeta by turns happy and anxious - we started a long-discussed project to add another room to the lake house, and for most of that two-thirds of a year before I got pregnant, we spent long stretches of time there, mostly by ourselves - laying a foundation and putting up a frame and stone walls.

Then, I finally conceived, and we turned to new projects - we built a crib and a toy box. Peeta started bringing home books - mostly kids’ books, but whatever he could get his hands on, really. Neither of us were raised to read for pleasure, but for our child, we are planning to amend that. We take turns reading them to each other. My mother came to stay with us for a while and taught me quilting - which she learned in District 8 when she had stayed there for a while to help found their hospital - bringing me remnants from a garment factory. When we found out I was having a girl, Lyra sent me some of Jewel's old baby clothes.

Haymitch was the first person I told, almost before I told Peeta. He was downstairs eating breakfast the morning I took the test that showed it had finally happened. After two more tests to confirm, I ran downstairs to phone the bakery. It being a Friday, Haymitch had his knitting bag with him and when I turned around after the phone call, waiting for Peeta to come flying home, he just pulled something out of the bag - that big blue square he's been working on for years. "Finally, a reason to finish this off," he said, and I realized it was the size and shape of a baby blanket.

"So that was the whole reason for your interference in this decision?" I teased him. "I thought you probably had laid a bet, somewhere."

"Hmm, not so sure that I didn't, to be honest," he said.

But then he starts talking about my father - and talking and talking. It is the work of weeks, his tales. I learn about the joys of their childhood, the agonizing break after the Quell. I learn everything that Haymitch knows about the Covey: the traveling folk, the singing folk, who were brought to District 12 by force and then vanished into the population, leaving behind the songs we have made our own. Snow - I learn - had his hand in this in more ways than one. I wonder how closely he watched District 12 after he mentored its first Victor. I wonder if he knew me before he met me. I wonder if he knew the connection. I wonder how I ever survived it. Haymitch hasn't ventured out there in years - and won't now - but he describes for me the secret graveyard where so many of the Covey finally found their escape from Twelve. "You'll find it," he tells me. "You, of all people, will be able to find it. Your father would want you to know. Like he'd want the songs passed down to his grandchildren."

This brings him an enormous - a palpable - peace.

But I haven't yet found any peace of my own. I try to keep it hidden from Peeta - a near impossible task - but the minute my pregnancy was confirmed, panic began to set in. It is the inevitability of it, the inescapability. I carry her with me everywhere I go - I can't shake her by running to the woods or burying myself in work. And I start to understand that she always will be here, preying on the part of my mind that tends to flee from responsibility. It's like I'm fifteen years old and running out of the house when patients are brought in for my mom. But I will never even have a temporary break from my responsibility to her.

I know Peeta has some awareness of this, and this is a large part of why he has rearranged his schedule - working even fewer hours at the bakery as Bella is now able to work full time - and finished up the work on the lake house. He's trying to let me know that the responsibility will not be all on me, that I will have a place to go to when I need to get away. But I can't quite reconcile his efforts with my tremendous fear. When she's born, I'll feel different, just like mother said, I tell myself, over and over again.

When the first pain hits me, my hand jerks in surprise, and checkers pieces go skiddering off the board.

"Hey!" Haymitch protests. He was winning - again.

"I didn't mean to," I tell him impatiently. I wait for the next contraction to come - and all the time, my head is saying run, run, run to the woods. You don't have to do this if you really don't want to .

Which is crazy. I've seen plenty of childbirths, and all the irrational ways women act in the thick of them - I never thought I'd react that way, myself.

I don't have a watch on me, and I can't bring myself to ask Haymitch to time me - not yet; so when what I judge to be more than five minutes has passed, I relax and try to smile at him while he sets up a new board. When the next pain hits, I stand up in alarm.

"What?"

"Sorry, Haymitch," I say, gritting my teeth on the vice-like sensation that is gripping my sides and back. "Do you have a watch?"

"Oh, shit. Um … don't you think I should get …."

"Not yet … it might still be a while yet, I just need you to help me figure out how far apart they are."

After about twenty minutes of this - the minutes between the pain rapidly diminishing - I tell Haymitch to get Peeta and have Peeta get Delly.

I walk home and try to remember exactly what we had planned. The downstairs bedroom. I lay myself down on the bed, then restlessly remember I don't want to mess up the blankets and get up and start removing them when I have to stop and - breathe, breathe. Oh, shit, this is going to suck.

I'm kind of half bent over, clutching a quilt in my hands when Peeta comes running in, his hair clinging to sweaty skin. He grips my arm and I tense - the pain makes me want to snarl at him - and just concentrate on the so-familiar, marbled pink-and-white color of his forearms. The same color as my back. I've known pain before, worse pain.

"Oh-ohhhhhhh-ohhh."

"Katniss, you need to lie down."

"Not necessarily," says Delly, entering then. Then she gets a look at my face. "OK, what's the status, Katniss?"

"About - three minutes apart."

"Your water?"

"No - it hasn’t …."

"OK - Peeta - help her to bed. Remember what we taught you. Hold her hand and start breathing, slowly - in and out, in and out. Katniss, gently squeeze his hand so he knows when the contractions start. I'm going to see how far along we are - you might want to watch where you keep your eyes, Peeta …."

It feels like it should happen any time. But in fact, I'm barely dilated and as morning turns to afternoon, the contractions fade away for a little while. I walk around, uncomfortable, sweating and crying. It's with every ounce of my strength that I don't turn on poor Peeta, who is walking around with me, anxiously, and sweating himself.

At night - just as I'm almost exhausted enough to go to sleep - it starts up again and through the night the contractions sharpen and I slowly progress. But it's not until the very first parts of the morning that I'm finally allowed to start pushing. I've just finished absolutely screaming - and probably breaking several of Peeta's fingers - when Delly says: "Good - there she is! Take a good breath, one or two more." And Peeta's face suddenly lights up with the dawn breaking in the window behind him. I gasp.

"The sun's coming up, Katniss," he says. "This will be over soon, and you'll get to rest."

Rest, I think hazily. And then what - and then what? What have I done? How will I do it? I'll disappoint him - and the little girl who is coming - and myself.

"Ahhhh!"

"Don't hold your breath, Katniss," he says against my temple. "Breathe in - now out - and push!"

Her little cry startles me, as much as it seems to startle herself. Peeta lets go of me suddenly and as I open my eyes, the light dazzles me. I blink. She cries again, and I have a sudden understanding of what she needs. She's been abruptly separated from me and she needs to come back. "It's all right, it's all right," I coo, as Delly lays her down on my stomach. My hands go instinctively over her soft, wet, fuzzy back, and her cries fade away. She's beautiful and dark - her soft skin and her soft, downy hair.

"Peeta, come here," says Delly, softly. I watch mutely as he goes over - as prearranged - to help deliver the afterbirth and then cut the cord. I expect him to look grossed out or even faint - I've seen plenty of husbands do this - but he's very deliberate, and only just raises his eyebrows when he puts the scissors through the cord, as if he's not sure that this is really something that anyone should be doing.

I put my face to her head - oh, she smells so good - and gently, as if she is made out of glass, nudge her so that she turns over and rests in the crook of my right arm. Her mouth automatically puckers against my breast - but she's not quite hungry enough, yet, to fuss around for food.

"She's beautiful," gasps Peeta.

At the sound of his voice, she wriggles a little and opens her eyes. She looks up at me - they are huge saucers of eyes, a deep and mesmerizing blue. And suddenly, I have no more questions.

The End