When I met him he was a tiny wisp of a human being.

Standing by the incubator at District Thirteen's NICU, I judged that this baby would fit comfortably in my right hand. Tubes wove in and out of his face as his minuscule chest rose up and down with the support of the plethora of medical machines connected to him.

His eyes were shut tight on his wrinkly, red face. He looked, he was, vulnerable and weak, completely dependent on these complete strangers around him for -

"He's a fighter that one," says a pale willowy nurse, hovering over the other side of the incubator, startling me out of my reverie, "born two months early, never thought he'd live past the first hour."

"Oh." I said stupidly, looking down at the thing that was a human being. His skin was almost transparent in its delicacy and his beating heart was visible beyond a his ribcage. I looked up to the heart monitor above the baby, and watched the line go up and down.

Why did Coin order me to come and see this little creature before allowing me to meet her and talk about Peeta?

Peeta. Is he still alive? Is he dead? Or worse yet is he suffering at the merciless hand of President Snow because of me? Haymitch was supposed to save Peeta, not me. He promised.

I was so caught up in my thoughts about Peeta that I didn't notice the persistent beeping coming from the heart monitor until a nurse stepped urgently in front of me tending to the baby.

Something was wrong.

But before I could glance at the baby again, I was ushered swiftly out of the NICU, towards the elevators.