It had been two days since Peeta had returned to District 12, anticipating that Katniss was only lost in her dream world throughout the nights, he was in for a shock. Haymitch had told Peeta how unresponsive Katniss was to the news of his return, and she just wasn't there.
So that night, Peeta waited. He waited for some kind of movement, a sign that there was still a life inside the dull house that stood across from his, but the only movement he could see was the soft glow from the fire against the dark shadow of the armchair he knew Katniss was confined to.
As sleep was not an option tonight, Peeta left his house and slowly crept into Katniss'. He hadn't seen Katniss for over a month, and did he notice the differences. Her hair was dull and tangled, her face was pale and thin, her skin was scarred and patchwork like, this was not the Katniss he apparently loved; this was a new Katniss who was broken into more pieces than there were scars on her body.
Katniss slept, gently whimpering every so often. Her vulnerability kept the flashbacks away, how could Peeta believe that this very person who sat in front of him ever wanted to kill him? Seeing her in person showed him that Katniss wasn't the enraged wolf, or the murderous girl he had been told she was, but that she was just a girl who had lost those she loved the most and was abandoned by those she trusted the most.
Peeta reached out and took Katniss' hand and for some reason, the whimpering stopped. He sat there for an hour, remembering all the things he could about her. How she would curl against him at night when the nightmares got bad and how her hair fell in waves around her head on the day before the Quarter Quell on the roof of the training centre. These memories did not shine like the rest of them, these memories were clean and simple, and they did not release the anger into Peeta's blood. She looked so beautiful on that day.
That's when Katniss' nightmares started, the whimpering started again and the haunted images that were imprinted on her mind came to life, the dead haunting her, the living abandoning her. Peeta picked up her fragile form, noticing how much weight she had lost, and carried her to the couch where he held her close until the murmuring stopped and her breathing evened out. As he placed her back into the uncomfortable chair she fell asleep in he gently caressed her face, taking care not to wake her before he left.
Once Peeta exited Katniss' house it was almost 5am. As his nightmares were just as bad as Katniss' he decided to start baking. At first he baked the simplest roll he could, to get his technique right. Then after his first batch was finished Peeta began to make cheese buns. At 8am Peeta delivered the plain bread to Haymitch, who was lying with his head on the table with drool down his face, and then he took the cheese buns to Katniss' house where Greasy Sae was beginning to make Katniss breakfast.
As Peeta handed over the bread, Sae thanked him with the same look the Capitol Attendant had when he and Katniss were going to the arena for a second time.
"She's doing OK you know" Sae finally said to break the silence, "she hasn't done anything bad for over two weeks, some days she's far away but some she just needs to be put on the right path for."
Peeta nodded and left, heading towards his own home. She hadn't done anything bad in for over two weeks? Were things really that bad?
As the day wears on Peeta can't help but wander into town, to see where his family lay, where his friends were killed and where they were being laid to rest. The meadow, if you could call it that had a large hole in centre with mounds of dirt piled up at the sides, suffocating the remaining plants that hadn't been dug up. The charred bodies being placed in the mass grave were unrecognisable, had it been Peeta's friend or foe, he wouldn't have known... But would that have mattered? They lost their lives because of Katniss' selfish act, she left him to die in that arena, and those words whispered on the beach were nothing more than an act, like it had always been. No, no, no. Katniss wasn't selfish. If she was him and Prim would have been dead in the first arena, and there would have been no revolution, she sacrificed her life, those she loved and her sanity for the good of the people of Panem. She wasn't lying. She wasn't selfish. She was lost.
After giving his respects to the dead, Peeta ventured into the woods. He had never been outside the barriers of District Twelve but Katniss always seemed to be in a better mood after visiting the woods. It could at least help couldn't it?