Disclaimer: As much as I wish they were mine, all characters belong to Suzanne Collins. I own nothing. (My first fic, so please be nice...)

I just stood and took her in.

Over the past few weeks I'd spent hours pacing the bleak corridors of district 13, and each had its own eternity of sorrow. Her name was a part of me now, burned into my brain. It bound my soul, and resonated in the soft, wet beating of my heart. Sometimes I could even swear I heard it echo, as if the walls had actually started whispering to me: Katniss. Katniss. Katniss. As soon as I saw the hovercrafts over the arena I pictured seeing her again; not just our passionate reunion as the star-crossed lovers of district 13, but the real one too. The one where she would see my face and I would watch the fear melt away as she shed her tears of relief. I can't believe I ever let her out of my sight, so when she would hold me more tightly than she ever had before, I'd just let her. I would kiss her face then, her cheeks, her jawbone, her lips. Perhaps she would kiss me back. Perhaps it would even remind me of the night on the beach... But reality is cruel, and no such reunion would come.

I remember that first day with a dreadful kind of scorn; mocking my own naivety. I still hate myself for believing that we could truly be allowed to be together after what we had helped achieve in the arena. I passed out sometime during the journey, and I'm still unsure if it were really tiredness or some kind of drug injection that finally stole my consciousness. I woke in a hospital bed. The room was grey and dark. There were no windows, just a bare bulb hanging from a fitting, and a chair with grey clothes draped across the back. No belongings, but that didn't bother me. What made me anxious was when I realised I was alone. The room was only small enough to allow space for a single bed, so logically this was why I sat in solitude. Why couldn't I suppress the feeling of dread?

After sitting myself up and assessing the damage done to my body in the last few days, I decided that it could have been a lot worse, and I was grateful for that. I was scratched and bruised, and although there were stitches on my forearm where the tracker had been cut out, I found movement came more easily than I had anticipated. I had scoured each of the wards, and separate rooms of the hospital wing twice before Haymitch found me. He told me about 12.

Finally I was able to process where we were; the existence of 13, and the rage of the capitol once the arena had been destroyed. I was surprised to find that I didn't mourn my parents at the time; though they had already grieved my death at the first reaping. Mother especially had already said goodbye when she placed her hopes on Katniss. My brothers, however, left a gaping hole in my chest. It began to fester with the addition of each dead friend. I began to wonder if Delly had made it here, or if she had burned along with Madge... I could almost see their faces in the flames behind my eyes... My fault.

It was then that I had to ask. I had to know. I immediately wished I had kept quiet. Haymitch took a breath, but before he could even speak I saw the look in his eyes. What I saw reflected was not joy but reluctance, and sadness, and an ageless regret. I knew then that all was lost. I stopped dead. Haymitch reached for my shoulder, an inadequate gesture of condolence. I found myself stumbling back from him, and could halt my tongue no longer.

"Don't," I begged, "don't tell me she's dead."

"No. Not dead. Though now we all wish she was," Haymitch replied. He used no more words than he felt were necessary.

"How can you say that?"

"Peeta..." It was the same look Haymitch gave me the first time he saw me after the announcement of the Quarter Quell. This was bad. Very bad. "Where do you think she is?..."

My hands started to shake, and it wasn't until I ran out of breath that I realised I was speaking. "No, no, no..." Haymitch stepped towards me again, and I started to feel like an animal caught in a snare; trapped and panicked while he moved in for the kill. Instead I became suddenly pumped with adrenaline. All of the guilt and frustration powered me forwards and onwards into this rage. "You promised me!" I screamed, "you told me you'd made your choice! You said if she died then none of this would matter; that you would protect her, that you would help me protect her! You promised me and you lied! Why didn't you save her first?..."

Haymitch had tried to restrain himself, but a sliver of his drunken anger slipped through. "You see, that's your problem! You never think! You assume that everyone is as god-damned perfect as you are! Did you never stop to wonder if she had asked me the same thing? That it was your turn to be protected? That maybe I just had to bet on the stronger contender? Maybe I'm just fed up of watching kids die over what I do and don't do? You're the better choice, the capitol like you better. The people of the districts would have preferred you to win."

I was momentarily stunned by this; "I don't believe you..."

"That doesn't matter."

Silence stretched out after that, an ocean of calm once the storm had disappeared as quickly as it came. However, these words could not be unsaid any more than the actions they depicted could be undone, and I know that eyes held malice, perhaps for the first time ever outside of the arena. I spoke just three words before I turned on my heel and retreated to my room, slamming the door behind me. "Get her back."

For days I did little else but slept and ate. Occasionally Delly would stop by my room to see how I was doing, or sit by me in the canteen. She knew better than to make small talk, but her persistence was endearing all the same, so I smiled at her. It wasn't a real smile, but it made her happy anyway. Eventually Haymitch gave me an outline of a plan to rescue Katniss, but it was never going to be enough because I knew he would never let me train for the retrieving squad. Johanna and Annie were missing too, and I found that Finnick's company became the most comforting, despite the fact that no words had passed between us since the arena. One afternoon, he caught my eye in the corridor. It was an almost physical pain; it was as if seeing a reflection of everything I felt.

Finnick came to me, and we sat in my room for hours, tying knots and trying not to think. Only Finnick truly understood my emptiness. I was certain that the same feelings of longing and inadequacy flowed through his veins, and grew as the dawn of the mission came closer. Gale was the squad leader. This left a bitter taste in my mouth. Gale had settled in extraordinarily well after 12 was destroyed, his affinity for military strategy meant that he and Coin became almost inseparable. He followed her around like a puppy, longing for approval. Now that they were in need of a Mockingjay for their revolution, they would try to save her. For their own gains. I tried to convince myself that it didn't bother me why they got her back, as long as they succeeded...

Now she stood before me.

We hadn't been given the privacy I would have liked, but it didn't matter; she was here. I took in her clothes, plain like mine, but black and dirty. From what I could see she didn't appear to have too many extra scars or burns, and no bandages or slings strangled her limbs. On some level I must have thought that was odd, but I was foolish. I got far too carried away in her presence to notice. As I greedily took in her features I remembered why her face would forever be in my memory. It remained the same as it always had been. Finally, I looked in her eyes. What I saw frightened me.

There was cold distance. There was something else there too, but it wasn't hope, nor longing...

"Katniss..." I found myself pleading with her, questioning her, adoring her, all in that one word.

I know that her next words will haunt me for as long as I live. Standing perfectly still, she spoke as a hiss. There was a deadly malice that I had never seen from her before, even in the arena:

"Get away from me you mutt."