"Are you really sure this is a good idea?" Plutarch asks warily. "We don't know what he's going to do. What he could do to you."

Haymitch nods, "the boy needs someone else to talk to, too. Not just that chipper girl who is super happy all the time." He shakes his head and says somberly, "I owe him this much. After everything. I owe him a talk. He should have the right to yell at and hate me just as much as Katniss did."

"I don't understand your reasoning," Plutarch gives a slight raise of the shoulders. "But I guess if that's what you need to do, then you might as well go and do it." Shaking his head he walks towards the observation room.

Haymitch takes a deep breath and pulls the door open, stepping inside. Peeta takes him in when a glare spreads across his face and it tightens into a line. Haymitch stands resolutely just a few feet inside the door, ready for the onslaught of whatever it is that Peeta has to say. He'd been watching his progress, and he felt like now was the time, he owed him. He had kept his promise to Peeta about keeping Katniss safe, but he was just as guilty of him being left in that arena as anyone else, and no one could make him feel less guilty, no matter how Katniss had forgiven him, though he didn't know why.

"What do you want?" Peeta hisses, pulling at his bindings.

"I figured it was time," he folds his arms over his chest and sighs. "Come at me. Yell at me, scream at me, hurl every insult you can think of at me. Give me your worst Peeta. I failed you both. Let me know what you really think. Don't hold anything back. I can take it."

Peeta eyes him warily before speaking in a very measured voice, "You didn't tell us about the rebellion. You didn't tell us you were involved. You didn't clue us in at all. There we were fighting for our lives, when here on the outside, everyone was plotting some grand escape, one that left me in that arena all alone with Johanna to get snatched up by the Capitol."

"Yes," Haymitch's arms fall to his sides. "If I could have gotten to you Peeta, I hope you know that I would."

"You kept your end of the deal," he snaps. "You got Katniss out. That much you promised me. But then when it all fell to hell, you saved Katniss, Beetee, and Finnick - and left me there!" He screams as his hands ball up into fists. "You don't know what it was like for me Haymitch. No one knows. Katniss won't even talk to me. The doctors told me I tried to kill her, they showed me footage when I didn't believe them, but she hasn't come back since."

"She came back Peeta," Haymitch says in a measured breath. "She came back and you called her a mutt. Said everything was her fault. If you want to know why she hasn't been back, that would be it."

"Where has she been?"

"She went to District 2," Haymitch explains.

"Did Gale go too?" his voice breaking on the word 'too.'

"Not at first," Haymitch shakes his head. "She wanted to go alone."

"Good," grumbles Peeta. "Wait, not at first?"

"No," Haymitch sighs. "He went eventually. They were all there for awhile, but then she got shot and they came back, and-"

"She got shot?" Peeta's eyes widen. "She got shot and this is the first anyone's told me!" His hands ball up into fists again, his breathing quickens, his voice more raspy. "I'd like to see her, Haymitch. I'm assuming you have some pull with these people. Make it happen." Haymitch hesitates, "you owe me." Nodding Haymitch leaves the room.

At the wedding the following day, Haymitch lets Katniss in on the plan and she goes to the room, hesitant - more so than before - and waits for the other boot to drop. Waiting for him to hate her some more.

Stepping into the room Katniss is wary. "Haymitch said you wanted to see me."

Peeta, slightly offended by her brashness, nods. "Yes. Thank you for coming."

They stand in awkward silence for what seems like an hour.

With a bit of resentment in his voice he breaks the silence, "Well, what's the use in coming, if you're not going to say anything?" Katniss mouth falls open, which she then shuts quickly. "Not looking too good there Katniss."

"Well you've looked better," she snaps.

"And not even slightly nice," he shakes his head condescendingly. "Especially to say that after everything I've been through. You don't even know the half of it, and seem to care even less than that."

"Yeah, well, we've been through a lot," she shakes her head, "it's not exclusive to you. And you're supposed to be the nice one. Not me. No one has ever associated nice with me. Me and nice are not simpatico."

"I can see that," he rolls his eyes.

Shaking her head she takes a few steps back, "I think I'll go. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow. I don't think the dancing was a very good idea." Getting to the door his voice stops her.

"Katniss. I remember about the bread."

Turning Katniss' face betrays her emotions, which she was generally good at hiding. "What do you remember then?"

"You. In the rain," he says softly. "My burning the bread. You digging in the trash cans. My mother yelling at you and hitting me. Giving the bread to you, instead of the pigs."

"That's right. That's all true," there's a slight betrayal by her voice. "I wanted to thank you that next day, but I - I didn't know how. I didn't know how to talk to you, or what I would say so I-"

"I think you picked a dandelion," he interrupts before looking up at her and meeting her gaze. "I must have loved you a lot," he says matter-of-factly.

"You did," her voice catching.

"And did you love me?" he asks, watching her reaction, her mood, seeing if her answer would betray her outer resilient exterior. What was she going to say? Would she even dain to tell him the truth? Had the old him been mistaken, were his dreams just dreams, were any of his memories even real?

Looking at the floor, "Everyone says I did. Everyone says that's why Snow had you tortured. To break me."

Did it work? He wondered. Did she break? "That's not an answer." She says nothing. "I have a lot of memories that I don't think the Capitol touched, and I can't get them to make any sense, like the train during the victory tour, or the rooftop before the Games. The Quarter Quell, I mean." After a brief pause. "I don't know what to think when they show me videos. There sure is an awful lot of kissing." Katniss shifts uncomfortably. "Didn't seem very genuine on your part. Did you like kissing me?"

"Sometimes," she mumbles. "People are watching us, I don't really think we should talk about this with people watching."

"It's a simple yes or no," he shakes his head. After a pause his tone is slightly bitter, "What about Gale?"

"He's not a bad kisser either," she snaps.

"Was it okay with us, you kissing the other, I mean?"

"No. It wasn't okay with either of you." Before she finishes she adds quickly, "But I wasn't asking for permission."

He laughs mockingly, "well that clears a lot up, doesn't it?"

"I guess I was right," she turns to leave.

"Right about what?" he asks.

"That the Peeta that loved me," a single tear slides down her face betraying her. "He's gone. All I have in front of me now, is you. This new Peeta. The one who thinks I'm a mutt. Wants to see me dead. Hates me. This Peeta doesn't love me. This Peeta won't love me. So why in the world would I admit my own feelings?"

"Because you're wrong," his voice breaking.

Stopping at the door she turns to face him, wiping the tear from her face, "What am I wrong about?"

"I can't sort everything out, or make sense of all the chaos going inside my head," he sighs heavily. "But one thing that I can sort out, is...well maybe parts of that Peeta are gone, parts of me I'll never remember."

"I don't see how that makes me wrong?" she crosses her arms over her chest. "That Peeta loved me. You just want to see me dead."

"That's where you're wrong," he hesitates, considering the weight of his words, what they might mean to her, "I still do."

"Still do what?" she says disbelieving.

"Love you," he briefly closes his eyes and closes his fists. "I don't know," his eyes open, wild, crazy, "I don't know what they did to me. But feelings - emotions - like that. They're hard to get rid of. I think of the tracker jackers in the first arena and I think you're trying to kill me. But then I think of the train, or the rooftop, and I'm just so utterly confused. But the emotions from both of those events are completely opposite. I can't explain it, but part of me, seems to be the bigger part, still loves you. I don't think that's going to change. I think they wanted it to, but I don't think it did. That plan backfired."

"What are you saying, Peeta?"

"I'm saying," he inhales sharply and exhales slowly, "that I can't explain the why, but I still love you, Katniss."

Turning on her heel she flees the room. Haymitch then enters and shakes his head at Peeta.

"What?" asks Peeta annoyed.

"Always one for the surprises," Haymitch begins to laugh so hard he's coughing. "Oh never change Peeta."

"I have though," he admits.

Haymitch stops laughing and glares at Peeta, "Don't have to be so literal boy."

"Think she'll come back?" Peeta ponders aloud.

"Did you mean what you said?" Haymitch asks.

"Yeah," he nods emphatically.

"Maybe," he shrugs, punching Peeta in the shoulder, "but you might have scared her away too."