Disclaimer: Still not my world, still not my characters. Sigh.

Watching.

II.

Life is hard enough in the "New Districts." It was hell before.

And one of the first lessons of hell is you don't get close to people. Ever. Because either they screw you over, disappoint you, or die. You can only handle so much death before you die...at least inside.

All those kids taken before me. Friends. Neighbors. Stuck up jerks from the Merchant pool...they all died. Cut up. Drowned. Starved. However doesn't really matter anymore...they just died.

23 kids in the arena with me. 23 died. Including one almost friend. At least I didn't have to kill her.

Then 23 years of being responsible for taking shit scared kids into the capital...them thinking I could help save em'...and watching the blood baths. Year after year after damn year. The phone calls home. The parents that met me at the trains. The parents who didn't.

All dead. All those kids. Slaughtered.

And people wonder why I drink.

I knew a boy once. He'd catch a bird or mouse, whatever he could, just to torture it. Watch it cry out, struggle and die. The Capitol people are like that; blood for amusement. Anything to forget their boredom.

So there are reasons...damn good ones I think...to keep your distance. When the games cost you your family, your girl, your friends...when the games make you send in kid after scared kid to the alter...how are you supposed to keep caring?

With every death comes a dying of yourself. I was sure I didn't have much left that was still me...and what was there...well hell, I was going to drown it.

I never expected to love them. The pain in ass girl, with her frowns and her rage and her be damned spirit. The boy...do we even raise people that good anymore? I forgot kindness like his still existed. It shouldn't, but there he is. I didn't want to care, I certainly didn't want to love them, but I was in before I knew it.

They're broken now, my kids. Getting better, but broken. I'd kill every damn Capital resident for what they did to that boy, how they hijacked him. He still shakes, not often now...but enough. And between Snow and Coin, there wasn't much left of her.

I thought I was bringing her home to die. That I was going to have to bury one more piece of me in another hole in a forsaken field. I almost had to, but then he came back. The boy came back into mountains of rubble, where his father and mother and brothers still laid in heaps of bones, and the first thing the boy did was dig up primroses. For her.

Always for her.

Coming back from that chemical induced hell of fear and pain, guilt and confusion, the first thing he did was to take care of her.

I remember thinking, "I'll be damned," when Sae told me he was back in 12. I think I passed out after that.

He brought her around though. The fire came back and so did her damn attitude. At least towards me. And I'm the one that came back with her! Ungrateful brat. But she's my brat.

I see them now, coming around the corner. I'm not always drunk in the afternoon, I see more than people think I do. Always have. They're staying at his house now, across from mine. I don't think she can live with the memories in her house, her little sister probably walks the stairs at night in her dreams. We all have our demons, who am I to judge someone else's?

They look good today. Peeta's bakery is almost ready, I think. I hope he'll keep bringing me my loaves here, I don't like walking through center. Too many might-have-beens linger there.

He looks like he's telling a story or a joke maybe. He knows a lot of those. And he knows when to tell them. She's laughing. Actually laughing. She does that more now. He's good to her. She kisses him, quickly, something real and not forced. No acting, no maneuvering, no game playing to keep them alive.

I told her once that she wasn't good enough for him, that she didn't deserve him. That was before I saw her break when the Capital had him, before I knew how deep love goes with a girl like that.

My girl was like that. They say she died screaming as a Peacekeeper cut her throat.

So I drink. For all the girls whose love runs deep, for all the boys who are faithful to the end. For all the dead I can't shut out.

He sees me now, Peeta. With that quirky grin and those honest eyes. He always waves, sometimes I wave back. Today is one of those days.

My kids. They don't know they are, but they're mine. All I have left. At least I salvaged them.