Over the next few months, I work on building a legitimate friendship with Peeta. It starts off with small things. Two or three times a week we have breakfast together at his house. I'm not hunting as often as I used to, but I still find myself getting up early out of habit. Peeta also seems stuck in the same routine from his life before the Games.

The first time it happened I was leaving to go hunting. I hadn't planned on going out to the woods, but I wasn't sleeping much due to a brand new set of nightmares courtesy of the Games. I stepped out of my house and noticed that the lights were on already over at Peeta's. At first I ignored this, and continued on my way out of Victors Village. I was halfway through town when I stopped. I found myself in front of the Mellark's Bakery. None of the lights appeared to be on, probably a little too early for them still.

I thought of Peeta then, alone in his house. His family hadn't made the move with him to his Victors Village house like my mother and sister had. He was living there alone. I had a hard enough time dealing with the nightmares when I had my mother and Prim there to pull me out of them when I eventually ended up screaming and waking them up. I could only imagine what Peeta was going through. I wondered if he would get stuck in his nightmares like I did.

I turned on my heel and headed back towards Peeta's house.

"Morning." he greeted when I knocked on his door. He didn't take long to answer, which tells me that I was right, and he had been up, and hadn't just left his lights on overnight. I immediately noticed the bags under his eyes. I'm sure they matched my own.

"Morning friend." I greeted back. "Busy?"

He smiled at the friend remark, "Not really."

"Good." I smiled back.

He lets me in and we shuffle around the kitchen awkwardly for a few minutes before he finally suggests breakfast. He then insists that I sit at the table while he cooks. A comfortable silence descends over the kitchen as I watch him whip up what appears to be cinnamon buns. Once they're in the oven, he joins me at the table.

"I'm surprised you're up so early."

"I could say the same." I tell him. "I was actually headed out to the woods."

"But you came back here to see if I was awake?"

"I saw your lights on when I left..."

"Yeah, bakers hours." he says, and looks away. He's just lied to me. This won't do.

I look away from him, waiting a few moments before I speak again. "I have them too.. the nightmares." I clear my throat. "It's why I was up."

I chance a glance back at him and I can see him visibly relax. It brings a smirk to my face. Did he think he was alone in his nightmares? I'm sure every victor has had them. How could they not? I have a new understanding of Haymitch. If I was alone with all this, I'm not sure my future would be far off from his.

"Well don't seem so relieved." I tease. "They're awful."

I see his cheeks redden as he looks back to me. "No, thats not what I..." he stops and snorts. "I just realized, I can talk to you about this, can't I? I thought about telling my dad but..."

"But he wouldn't understand. Not completely. And why would you want anyone to hear about the horrible things you see when you close your eyes?"

He nods. "Exactly."

That morning, we decided to make it a habit to have breakfast together every other morning except for Sunday's. Sunday morning was spent with Gale in the woods. The breakfasts started off small at first. Something quick and simple that Peeta would throw together.

After the first week, I started bringing over things in the morning. I would bring juice for us. Or supply the eggs or bacon for that morning's meal. Peeta always had a fresh loaf of bread for us and it was always different.

This was also where our friendship grew. I was starting to look forward to those mornings more than going to the woods. I truly cherished the time that I was spending with Peeta. It was different than the time that I had spent with Gale, but it was the same. Gale's and my friendship had grown from the loss of our fathers. We understood each other because of that. Our need to survive and care for our families at such a young age was our common ground. And while his companionship was nice, and working as a team did bring us in a better haul, I didn't need him. I wanted him there with me, but he wasn't a necessity for my survival.

With Peeta, I didn't exactly need him either, but he understood me now in a completely different way than Gale did. While I didn't need him, I wasn't sure what kind of person I would be without him. He was keeping me sane. Sure, I had my mother and Prim. I even had Haymitch if it came down to it. But what I wanted really was someone who understood exactly what I had been through, and was sober. The horrors that we sometimes found ourselves talking about were not for the ears of Prim. My mother would listen to me if I asked, sure. But it wouldn't be the same level of understanding that I get from Peeta. I could always go and sit with Haymitch, learn his style of coping. But it wasn't what I wanted if I could avoid it at all.

It wasn't like the Games or our nightmares was all we talked about. In fact, they hardly came up. But with the dramatic change to our lives, our sometimes downtrodden attitudes, mood shifts, and just plain exhaustion, we could read and adapt to each other like no one else. Even if we were nothing more than friends the rest of our lives, I was sure that we would truly be friends until the end. No one would ever understand us like we understood each other.

"Was that the only time you've kissed Gale?" I look up from my plate, surprised at Peeta's choice of morning conversation, nearly choking on the bite of eggs I'd just taken a bite of.

Once I'd stopped coughing and swallowed what I'd had in my mouth, I looked up at Peeta, cocking an eyebrow at him. "Yeah..."

"Sorry. It's none of my business."

"You're right, it's not..."

"But I just had to know. I was thinking the other day..."

"About Gale and I kissing?" I smiled at him

"Yes. I think about it often actually. You're so pretty, and well, Gale, he's so ruggedly handsome, and the thought of you two, well..." he smiled back at me and I tossed my napkin at him. "No, really, I wasn't trying to be nosy. I was just thinking the other day that I had probably interrupted something between the two of you. I wasn't sure going in to the Games if you and him were dating, and I figured that even if you were, I was going to die anyway, and so I had to let you know... Well, you know the rest." he finished and shrugged his shoulders.

I didn't answer him right away. It really wasn't any of his business. Friend or more, whatever happened before Peeta was in the past, and I didn't see any reason in rehashing what did or didn't happen between Gale and I. It was in the past, and it should stay there.

But it was obvious that he felt guilty about something. Like he had said, he wasn't sure what Gale and I were before the Games, and if with everything that's happened, I'd had to break things off with Gale to carry on with Peeta.

"We weren't a couple. Our... current situation, it didn't put an end to anything between me and Gale. And that was the only time we've kissed. And I'd like to note that he kissed me, not the other way around."

Peeta nods at this. "You're sure? I know that we had to keep things up for the Capitol, and I know that I kind of sprung things on you, and you got forced into a situation that you didn't necessarily want to be in. That was never my intention. I just want to make sure that you know, if things between you and Gale have changed, I just hope that I'm not holding you back from anything."

"Okay." I say, not sure what else I want to say back. I look down at my hands in my lap, trying to think of what to say next. This topic isn't something that's come up before. After the day I showed up and talked my head off to him about my feelings about him and our situation, we never really discussed it further. We've just been happy being friends. We haven't talked about what would happen when we go on the Victory Tour or after that. What would happen next year when we go back to the Capitol to mentor for the first time.

When I look back up at him, his emotions are written all over his face. A few months ago, I'm not sure I would have been able to read them, or even cared to. But now, I can see that he's taken my answer as sounding like I was going to give things a shot with Gale.

"What I mean is, there wasn't anything before with Gale. I didn't notice, or maybe I did and just chose to ignore it, but things between me and Gale were a bit one sided. More on his side. I never thought about him that way, and I still don't."

He nods again, and then tosses my napkin back at me. We share a smile before we go back to finishing our breakfast.

In my nightmares, I'm back in the hospital in the Capitol. It's always the same. I'm standing in the doorway to a room that has both Peeta and myself in it. Even though this wasn't how we had been set up in the hospital, it's how my dream is. Our beds are next to each other, and we both are still in our comas. I can see Haymitch sitting vigil over us. He's looking ragged and beat. He's clearly gone days without bathing or changing his clothes. He sits in a chair between our beds and I wonder how long he's been there. When I see Peeta, he looks like an angel. Even with all the equipment hooked up to him, the tubes going into his arms, the wires hooked up to his chest, and the breathing tube coming out of his mouth.

"Sweetheart, you gotta wake up for me." Haymitch says.

"I am awake. I'm right here!" I say, but he doesn't turn around to look at me. Instead, he grabs the hand of the me thats lying comatose in the hospital.

"We can't save him. He was too far gone." He whispers, and I can just barely make it out.

"Yes you can, he's right there, he's alive." I say, and I start crying.

Haymitch rises from his chair as a doctor comes in behind me. They seem to pass right through me as they come through the door and walk to Peeta's side of the room.

I watch as the doctor starts to turn off the machines connected to Peeta. I scream at them to stop. He's still alive. They're keeping him alive. They have saved him. They just have to give him time, and he'll wake up. He will. "Please! Please don't do this!"

But then all the machines are off. I see Haymitch take Peeta's hand. I move to stand in front of him, willing him to just see me. Notice me, hear me, anything. "Don't let them do this! You're giving up! Don't give up Haymitch. You stupid drunk! Plug those things back in! Save him! Please! Don't let him die like this Haymitch!"

I run around to where the doctor has just been and I try desperately to plug the machines back in, but I can' seem to grab hold of anything. In the meantime, the doctor has removed the tube from Peeta's throat. I watch his chest for the automatic rise and fall of it, a sign that he's breathing, but there's no movement. The constant beeping of the monitors, the sign that his heart was beating, that blood was flowing through his veins, keeping him alive, they start to falter.

His breath never comes, and eventually, the beeping fades to nothing.

And I can do nothing but stand there, screaming, crying, begging someone to help him. Not to let my Peeta die...

"Katniss!"

I sit up abruptly, pulled from my nightmare. Peeta is next to me, his face wracked with concern and relief. I grab hold of him as tight as I can. I'm sobbing so hard I can hardly breathe.

"You died. I couldn't save you. I tried. I always try." I cry into his shoulder. I can feel one of his hands rubbing soothingly up and down my back.

"I'm okay Katniss, I'm okay. I'm here. You did save me. You saved us both." he whispers.

He holds me while I cry myself out on his shoulder. When my tears have dried up I take note of my surroundings. I'm at Peeta's. We're in his living room. I take a few deep breaths, finally calming down enough to pull away from him. I notice one of the table lamps is on. I look towards the window and find that it's dark outside.

I had come over that afternoon. It hadn't been one of our usual breakfast mornings, but I had come over to ask Peeta if he would help me add some things to my family's plant book. I had found out that he liked to draw and paint, and I had asked if he could draw some things for me if I could describe them to him.

He had agreed, and we'd spent the afternoon in his living room. Me adding new entries, and Peeta drawing up the things I was describing to him. At some point, we had taken a break and turned on the television. There was a baking show Peeta had discovered and he wanted to show it to me.

I wasn't aware of falling asleep at all, but apparently I had. I guess I wasn't surprised by it. I was sleeping so little. It was normally wracked with nightmares. I hadn't gotten a decent nights sleep since we had gotten back.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, and I shook my head.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep." I said, sniffling as I gained back my composure.

"Don't be sorry. I didn't want to wake you. I know how precious sleep is nowadays." He pauses for a moment before he continues. "You started to move around, and I was worried you'd roll right off the couch. And then you were crying and I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't at first."

"It's okay. My mom and Prim have a hard time getting me to wake up too."

"Are they always that bad?" he asks and I nod. If it's not the nightmare of Peeta and me in the hospital, it's of Rue, or of Cato and the mutts. They're always bad.

"Mine too."

"You don't have anyone to wake you up." I say without thinking. I flinch as soon as the words are out of my mouth.

He sees, but just shakes his head. "It's okay. I don't react like you do. I just wake up really tense. And I'm fine once I know you're okay."

I nod and sit up straight on the couch. I must have leaned over on Peeta when I fell asleep. I was practically on top of him when I woke up but I'd been so upset, I hadn't noticed until after I'd calmed down.

I get up and tell him I should probably be heading home. He agrees and walks me to the door. We say our goodbyes and hug before I make my way down the steps of his front porch. I turn one last time to waive good night when Peeta speaks up.

"Katniss. You're welcome here any time. Any time. If you need to talk and it's the middle of the night, or if you just want the company of someone who understands, I'm here for you."

I smile at him. "Same here Peeta. Any time."