A/N: I'm fairly new to The Hunger Games universe. I've read through the series twice so far, but it's all been rather recent. I was reading through the book of Shakespeare's sonnets that I got for Christmas, and I got the idea for this. It turned out much longer than I was expecting, and I hope it makes sense. Off we go!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

The old Capital vaults emptied slowly. I never would know what was in most of them, generally because I wasn't deemed important enough to know, and the things they did send my way I tended to ignore. Peeta was more accommodating. They didn't often send him things but when they did they expected a prompt reply.

They typically sent him old literature they found looking for his interpretation; they evidently had not forgotten his way with words. They never sent him much of the same author twice. Many things were lost in the wars before the Capital existed, or were thrown away later to make room for less important things.

Today he was absorbed in one of those things they sent him. He had been sitting at my kitchen table when I left to hunt in the morning and he was still sitting there when I came home.

"Whatever they sent you must be very interesting. That or you've finally cracked." I put my game bag up on the counter meaning to start cleaning the days kills; 3 rabbits and a turkey. It wasn't bad, especially with so few of us to feed.

"They sent me more from that Shakespeare fellow." Ah, him. Whenever Peeta said his name I pictured one of those Careers from the games that changed their names to strike fear into their opponents. I had told Peeta this before and he had quite the laugh when I told him. Apparently Shakespeare was some old writer from the times when we could still cross the oceans on ships. The exact dates had been lost.

"He's not exactly the type that you figure out in five minutes," I replied knowingly. Whenever they sent something of his to Peeta, it often took him several days to work something out.

"I cannot believe that people actually used to talk like this." He ran his hands through his hair. It was one of the ways I could tell he was frustrated. I abandoned my kills on the counter to pull up a chair beside him.

"Well what is it today? Another play or another poem?" I didn't know what I wanted the answer to be, truthfully. The poems were shorter by a long shot, but the plays often took a lot less time for him to analyze.

"It's a poem. A sonnet, this paper says they're called. It's so cunningly named Number 133." My eyes went wide. 133? Peeta surely hadn't gone through 132 of these already. "I'm guessing, or I guess I should say hoping, that they don't have all of Mr. Shakespeare's poetry in their vaults. Either that or they're trying to drive me slowly insane by sending them to me out of order."

"More about love?" Every single one of the poems that they had sent Peeta so far was always about love.

"Maybe. Have a listen." He took in a deep breath and I leaned back and closed my eyes. However complex these poems were, I enjoyed hearing Peeta read them. The rhythm they had to them was usually quite soothing when he read them aloud.

"Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan

For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;

Is't not enough to torture me alone,

But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?

Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,

And my next self thou harder hast engrossed;

Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken,

A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed.

Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,

But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail.

Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;

Thou canst not then use rigor in my jail.

And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,

Perforce am thine, and all that is in me."

I couldn't understand why, but the words greatly unsettled me. "Well, uh, I don't really think that one was about love." I got up and quickly returned to the counted to clean the game. Why should those words, written who knows how long ago, fluster me so? "We have rabbit for tonight, Peeta."

The poem consumed my thoughts for several days. I snuck a look into Peeta's folder that he left over and copied it down so I could read it while I was out. He was still not making headway with it, so he began putting it off. When he started painting pictures of the rebel push into the Capital I started wishing he would pick it up again.

I found him a week later sitting in the same spot he always sat when he was trying to work out one of the Capital vault riddles. He didn't look so frustrated this time. Quite contrary, he looked like he had finally had a breakthrough.

"Is this something new they sent you, or is it our old friend Number 133?" I took my seat next to him.

"It's good old 133. But I think I've got it. Let me know how this sounds." He pulled his notes closer to him. " 'Beshrew the heart that makes my heart to groan' means, as close as I can gather, curse the person that makes me suffer. The person he's cursing is probably the one he's writing to. These next three lines he's talking about how the person has hurt him and his friend because apparently he wasn't enough for them. 'Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken/And my next self thou harder hast engrossed' is talking about how the person took him from himself…"

"Peeta, that's to many "person" and "he's" for my taste. Can you give them names or something?" I rubbed the side of my head in vain, like it would somehow help me see what Peeta was seeing.

"Yes, fine. Okay. 'A' is who the poem is about. 'B' is who is telling the poem. 'C' is 'B's friend. Got that?"

"Yeah."

"Alright then. So, 'B' is cursing 'A', because 'A' has somehow hurt 'B'. Then 'B' goes onto talk about how 'A' hurt 'C' as well because 'B' wasn't enough. Then 'B' talks about 'A' removed 'B' from 'B'…Like 'A' made 'B' into something that wasn't himself. Then 'B' says 'A' did the same to 'C', only worse. "Of him, myself and thee I am forsaken/A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed'. So, 'B' was abandoned by 'A' and 'C', and somehow himself. The 'thrice threefold' is just reinforcing that it was three times. Following?" He looked at me earnestly, obviously hoping that I was.

"I think so. 'B' and 'C' have suffered at the hands of 'A'. 'A' took 'C' to make them suffer because 'B' was not enough?" This was starting to sound like something familiar…

"More or less. 'Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward/But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail.' 'B' is basically telling 'A' to keep him prisoner, but to use it as payment to let 'C' go. 'Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard/Thou canst not then use rigor in my jail.' This bit doesn't really make sense to me, because it sounds like 'B' is asking to keep guard over 'C', even though he just asked to let him be spared."

This was starting to sound much to familiar for comfort.

" 'And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee/Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.' 'B' is saying that no matter what 'A' will torment him, because he belongs to 'A'. And, since 'B' belongs to 'A', 'C' does too because 'C' will always be in 'B's heart, see?" I locked my jaw and nodded. "So I think it's like-"

"Me." I cut him off and tried to choke back my feelings. I was 'A', and all these people that I had, however inadvertently, kept prisoner… Peeta and… and Gale. I took them prisoner and I took all they had with no notice or care. How horrible I could-

"Katniss, don't be such an idiot." He looked at me as if he wanted to hit me, although his words had already done that job for him. "It's not always about you. Well, I guess this still is in a way, but definitely not in the way you're thinking. What I was going to say is that 'A' is the old Capital or the Hunger Games or both. 'B' and 'C' are the tributes. If you have one, you have the other. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"Yes…" No, of course not. I was still focused on how I tended to ruin peoples lives.

"The Capital, 'A', took two tributes from each district. So, I'm 'B' and you're 'C'. I didn't want them to take you, but they did. I wasn't enough for them. I wanted to guard you from them. I wanted the Capital to let you go. But even though they never ever would, they would still have had you anyway, even if they had." His expression softened as his hands held my face. "They would have had you because they had me, my heart. If they have my heart, they have you. Do you understand now?" I leaned into his touch.

"Yes…I think I do."