A/N: Song for this chapter is "Everchanging" by Rise Against.

It's been a month since I've gotten back now, and things are still going painfully slow. I feel like I haven't recovered much at all since I've been back, and most of it is due to the fact that I still haven't talked to Katniss. There is confusion in my head that only she can bring light to. Questions only she can answer.

She's been getting better, though. That part is obvious. She's been going hunting nearly every day. At first she wouldn't come back with anything. But as time went by, she came back with more and more game. She's put some weight back on and so she looks healthier. The color's come back to her face. She looks much different than the girl standing on the front porch a month ago.

I still have my weekly phone calls with Doctor Aurelius. He asks me things like "How many flashbacks have you had?" And, "What activities have you been doing to keep yourself busy?"

He also asks about Katniss, but only if we're speaking. Each time, the answer is "Not yet."

Though I really hope that changes soon.

Now that there is free trade, I own the property my family's bakery once stood on, not the Capitol. So all I have to do is rebuild. The Capitol had a huge surplus of funds when it was taken over, which doesn't surprise me considering they robbed their people for years. The extra money has been distributed equally amongst the districts to repair and rebuild. So my bakery, and other merchant shops, will be built with that money. But as for the equipment needed, that I'll have to pay for.

As for right now, I'm running a small bakery out of my house in the Victor's Village. I can't sell as much as the bakery did, because of limited equipment, but I enjoy doing it. It keeps me busy and I feel helpful. After the first Games, when I found out Greasy Sae collected money for Katniss and I during the games, I promised her that I'd make sure she had fresh bread every morning. I still keep that promise.

Ketra, the boy I met back in District 13, comes over once a week to purchase a few French loaves. Haymitch sometimes come in when he's drunk and asks for a donut or two.

Thom comes occasionally too, as well as other customers from our new district.

Katniss has yet to come in. But I make a few cheese buns every morning, just in case. And every night, I check out my window one last time before I throw them out. I sell the leftover bread for half price at the Hob on Tuesdays and Fridays. The cheese buns are the only things I don't sell at the Hob. And I don't sell them to anyone else that comes to my house.

I spent all day at the construction site yesterday afternoon, and yesterday morning at the Hob, so today I'm tired and just decide to relax. I still haven't completely gotten all my strength back, and so I do have to take it easy once in awhile.

Speaking of taking it easy, Haymitch is passed out on my front porch swing when I walk outside.

"Haymitch, what the hell? Pass out at your own house", I say shaking him to wake him.

In a drunken motion he flings himself off the swing, then his head hits the wooden deck beneath my feet. That seems to bring him to his senses. He gets up angrily.

"What time is it?"

"It's five in the afternoon."

"Who turned on that hideous light in the sky?" He asks me, putting an arm in front of his face to shield his eyes.

"You mean the Sun?"

He pushes past me into my house demanding to know where I hid the jelly donuts.

I follow him inside, where they're right on the table for him, where they always are. He sits down and eats a few of them.

Once he's on his third one, he begins to sober up enough to talk to me.

"You been stayin away from that girl?"

"Yeah. I've been seeing to the construction on my bakery. And then I've been here."

He nods. "Good. But I think it might be the time to try talking to her."

"Really?" I say, not hiding my enthusiasm. "Why now?"

He hesitates. "She's been disappearin…sometimes for whole days. Occasionally overnight. Always comes back, but no one knows where she's goin' off too. Since she ain't technically allowed to leave the district, she might get herself into trouble."

"And you want me to find out where she's going?"

"No, that isn't your business. I just think you should talk to her. Make sure everything's still fine. If something seems, I don't know, off about her, we've gotta call the doctor."

I thought I was done having to worry about her. She seemed so well every morning that I saw her go off hunting. It didn't even occur to me that something still might be wrong. Now, I can't get rid of this anxious feeling that I have. So I say nothing else and go over to her house for the first time in a month. But I stop halfway there and run back to my house.

I forgot something.

A few minutes later I'm knocking on the door, with a basket full of cheese buns in my other hand.

There's no answer. She might not be home, so I just go in.

But there she is. Sitting at her kitchen table writing something down on parchment paper. The book that we used to do together before the second Games sits beside her. Is she adding to it? It shouldn't bother me that she hasn't included me, but it does. Buttercup, of all things, sits on her other side.

"Katniss?" I say. I know she heard me come in, but it's not until I say her name that she responds. She looks up at me but says nothing.

When she looks at me and we make eye contact, I can see how truly better she's gotten. Her eyes are bright and the gray in them stands out. Her skin is more evenly toned, and her cheeks have color to them. I must stare awhile because she looks left and right then looks at me again expectantly. "Yes? What?"

Her tone is a little threatening. Like she's annoyed with me. I swallow hard and then put the basket on the other side of the table and push it towards her. "I brought you…something."

She opens the basket and immediately takes a bun out and takes a bite. With her mouth full, she says, "Thank you."

"Can I sit?"

"I guess."

I pull up a chair next to Buttercup, who then hisses at me. "Shutup. It's just Peeta," she says to him, but then he just gets ever closer to her and stares me down.

Didn't this cat used to hate her?

"Well, that's odd." I say, talking about Buttercup.

"Him?" She says, looking at Buttercup.

I nod.

"He's just here because…"

I don't want to make her say it. I don't want to make her say, "He's just here because he thought she'd be here." So I stop her. I just tell her, "I know."

Then everything is quiet for a few minutes and I feel a need to fill the silence. "Where'd you get that paper? It's too nice to be from the Hob. It looks professional."

"Doctor Aurelius sent it."

"Oh, so you've talked to him then?"

"I guess you could call it that. Really he just asks how I am and I say I'm doing better to get him off my back."

"But aren't you? Doing better, I mean?"

She lets her pencil fall down from her hand and looks up at me for the first time since I sat down. "What would you like me to say Peeta? I'm doing as well as anyone would be doing in this situation."

Her sister. I know that. But her hostility upsets me even though I understand it.

"I lost people too, Katniss." I tell her, then I walk back out.

I go to Haymitch's, and he's on his couch lying down. He's not passed out, and though he smells like alcohol, he's still sobering up. "What happened?" He asks me.

"Well, you were right before. About not wanting me to bug her too soon or we might kill each other."

"That bad?"

"She just…didn't want me to be there. It was obvious. Then I guess I said the wrong thing and she flipped out on me."

Haymitch laughs. "Ah, kid, that's got nothing to do with the war. That's just what girls do." He sits up, laughing. Though I didn't think his attempt at a joke was very funny.

"But really what'd she say?" He asks, more serious now.

"I asked her if she was doing better and she got upset."

"That's probably because she couldn't give you the answer that you wanted."

Haymitch can be such a genius sometimes. It really gets under my skin. "What should we do then?"

"Bout her trips to nowhere? I don't know. Suppose we just keep watching her closely. So far, she's come back. If a day comes that she doesn't we'll deal with it then. Let her calm down some and try talkin' to her again though."

I nod my head before going back to my house. I hadn't realized how fast time went by but it's already almost nine o' clock at night.

I go into my already dark room, remove my shirt and change into my sweatpants. But before I get into bed, I look out my window. Her bedroom window can be seen from mine. She's there, putting on her hunting jacket and getting her bow and quiver. She seems rushed.

I hurry down the stairs and out the door. I see her leave, but thankfully, she doesn't see me watching. I watch her until she is out of sight. But it's clear where she's going.

The woods.