For her, he had endured so much. Almost every decision had been motivated by his love for her. He had been hurt again and again. But that was all right, because it was for her.
Peeta stared down at his hands, calloused from his old work, in a life where he had to worry about his next meal, often go hungry. A life where he had been innocent. He would return to that in an instant, if he could.
But no, maybe he would hesitate. He had lost much. He had killed. He had lost his childlike faith in the world. He had seen how people in the Capitol lived, and been repulsed by it. But he had gained Katniss.
Perhaps not her love, that was true. Peeta knew better than most that Katniss was wary of who she let into her heart. But she trusted him. She knew that he would never hurt her. She knew that he loved her.
"Katniss Everdeen," Peeta whispered to the night. He sat upon his doorstep, contemplating his life, gazing at the stars in the sky. Katniss.
The girl from the Seam. The girl whose life he prized beyond his own. It was his memories of her that kept him from wallowing in a pit of bottomless despair. He was still himself. He was still Peeta Mellark.
No real monster could feel love, could they? He couldn't be a monster, then, because his love for Katniss was stronger than anything. But was it love? Or was it just a pathetic obsession, him longing desperately with every fibre of his being for something he couldn't have?
A hunter.
A loner.
A fighter.
A survivor.
Katniss.
He had watched her for years, noting the strength of her love for her sister, Prim. The strength of her love for her best friend, Gale. Her cold guise when she spoke to anyone apart from her family or Gale's. The way the mask had only come to her face when her father died.
Peeta couldn't help but feel a seed of jealousy when it came to Gale. Before the Games, he had been able to empathize with Katniss so much more than him. They had been thrown together because of a mutual need to keep surviving. That need had become something deeper. A friendship, an actual need. Katniss had needed Gale by her side.
Then the Games had come. It had been those Games that had evened the score. He and Katniss had both survived, and the nightmares would never go away. The only person who could comfort her was him.
It wasn't that he was happy for those Games because it had brought he and Katniss closer. No, he could never be happy about the slaughter of innocent children. He couldn't. He couldn't be that much of a monster.
He would do anything for that girl. He would do anything to free the Districts of the pain and suffering, the slaughter of their children for the entertainment of the Capitol.
Peeta's talent was words. He could convince Katniss that she was safe and that she could go back to sleep because he was there. He could convince the people that they could unite and make a differences. And somewhere between the Games and now, he had convinced himself that he could make a difference.
