Peeta and I sit in stunned silence as our peers decide the fate of our relationship.

"What's the harm in it?" an official from Thirteen asks, shrugging in our direction. "The Capitol eats that stuff up with a spoon anyway."

"That's exactly what Snow wants us to do," someone else interjects.

"Well, if we're looking to dissent, why not match her up with someone else?"

Finnick scoffs. "And you really think that would be more beneficial to the rebel cause?" He pats my knee sympathetically, but I'm too angry to feel grateful for him coming to my defense.

"Sure. Pair the Mockingjay up with someone a little, I don't know, rougher. Take the softness out of her image." A few heads nod in agreement, and the official continues, encouraged. "That's the problem with this star-crossed lover dynamic. It makes her weak."

Peeta's jaw tightens. He's struggling to restrain himself, but there have been far too many blows to his character in this short meeting. It's only a matter of time before he explodes.

Coin nods. "I agree. The footage from the other day alone is proof of the ineffectuality of the dynamic. The people in the districts won't stand behind an emotionally unstable leader." She presses a button on the slim silver remote in her hand, and the giant screen behind her blooms to life.

"District Thirteen is safe, and so am—" Onscreen, I falter and clap my hands over my mouth, unable to stifle the sob welling up from the depths of my chest. Someone off-camera calls "Cut!" but the tape keeps rolling as I break down into hysterical tears. "It's my fault! It's all my fault!" I watch as a medic comes into the frame and injects a syringe into the side of my neck, watch myself flailing and sobbing until the drugs kick in and I fall limp. And the screen fades to black.

The room is quiet, contemplative after seeing the raw footage. I can't look at anyone, least of all Peeta, so I lower my eyes to the table in shame.

See, Haymitch and Effie tried to goad me into showing emotion for sponsors, for the sake of the country's stability. But now that I have, the rebellion is threatening to crumble around me.

"I propose two solutions," Coin says, breaking the silence. "One, Katniss separates herself from Peeta, and we deal with the media fallout later. Two, she aligns herself with someone else associated with the rebellion."

"What about Gale Hawthorne?" Plutarch offers brightly. My head snaps up at that.

"No!" I burst out, then check myself. He's sitting directly across from me, after all. "I mean, shouldn't I get a say in this? Shouldn't Peeta get a say?" Gale's gray eyes are fixed on me, his face registering hurt and frustration. I focus on Coin instead. "I'm the Mockingjay. Doesn't that count for something?"

Coin shakes her head. "Unfortunately, you've already exercised your authority by bargaining for Peeta's rescue," she tells me coolly, without so much as a glance in Peeta's direction. "This isn't your decision."

"It is my decision," I shoot back. "I didn't ask for you to rescue him so that you could keep him from me, lock him away in isolation and interfere in our private lives."

My face is burning now, which makes Coin smile. Her lips are thin, stretched tight across her face like a serpent. "Oh? And what was the driving force behind your decision to save him?"

I can't say it. Not in front of all these watchful eyes, Haymitch and Plutarch and Coin and Gale. Not when I haven't put it into words for Peeta yet. And especially not when I've struggled to admit it to myself. "Because… it was wrong," I stammer. "Snow torturing him for information he didn't have. It was wrong to keep him there for as long as we did."

Her eyes narrow at me, apparently unconvinced. "Well. If there are no further opinions on the subject, we will just proceed—"

"Oh, just let the kids work it out for themselves." Haymitch folds his arms across his chest, adopting a defensive stance as he leans back in his chair. Coin recoils.

"I beg your pardon, but this is not—"

"The boy just got sprung from his prison cell. She practically lost her head over him being trapped there. Give them a break, will you?" Haymitch says gruffly. "Let them breathe for a second, then shoot a few propos with the two of them reunited. The Capitol will go ballistic, then the districts will follow. And Snow'll be mad as hell."

A few murmurs of agreement circulate the room. "That's what you want, isn't it?" Haymitch adds. "A media frenzy? A cooperative Mockingjay?" He shrugs at me. "This is the only way you're gonna get it."

Coin pauses to consider this, looking as displeased as I've ever seen her. "Genius," Plutarch interjects as the president struggles with her decision. "We give the people what they want. Vilify Snow for his inhumane treatment of the victors while we're at it." He turns to Peeta, perhaps the first time in this entire meeting that anyone has regarded him. "What do you think? Could you tape a segment talking about your experiences in captivity? Really get the Capitol audience fired up?"

Peeta tenses up at the mention of his torture. "I—" he stammers, his hand clamping around mine so tightly that my knuckles crack and pop. "I don't—" Before he can say anything else, his voice breaks and he starts to shudder.

It would be difficult to miss seeing Gale shaking his head in exasperation from across the table.

"At least transfer him out of the hospital wing," Haymitch says, drawing the attention away from Peeta, who's fighting the early stages of a nervous breakdown. "He's better when he's with her."

"Really," Coin replies drily, casting a critical eye on a shaking Peeta. "It doesn't look like it."

"I don't think that's an unreasonable request." But from Haymitch's tone, I can tell that it's not a request. It's a demand.

Coin drums her fingernails against the surface of the table. "All right. Effective immediately, Peeta Mellark is to be transferred to the district's temporary living quarters. The guards will escort him to Habitation Services to initiate the process as soon as the quorum adjourns." She shoots me a cursory glance before returning to her agenda.

I exchange a look with Peeta, whose tremors have stilled. He smiles faintly, and it's barely detectable but enough to brighten the dank, gray room. I take one of his hands in both of mine and squeeze it, unable to contain myself.

We're safe. For now.

It's inevitable that they'll try to break us up. Haymitch prolonged a relationship slated for the chopping block, but who cares? Peeta's here, and he's safe, and it's more than I can ask for. I never allowed myself to imagine a future with him in while he was in the Capitol, didn't want to think about how it would feel to claim him as my own and sleep in his arms every night, but I can now.

I won't let them interfere with us. If the two of us are both alive at the end of all this, they won't be able to keep him from me anymore.

Coin adjourns the meeting with a decisive pound of her fist on the table, and mechanically, everyone rises from the table and slowly files out of the room. I realize that I'm still clutching Peeta's hand, that I've effectively missed the rest of the agenda because I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts. One look at Peeta confirms that he's just as lost as I am.

The pair of guards at the back of the room move forward to collect Peeta, escort him to the administrative offices to sort out his living arrangements, but Haymitch raises a hand. "Hold on, I'd like a moment with these two," he says, rising out of his chair. "I'll send for you when we're through?"

One of the guards with piggish features starts to protest, but his partner silences him. "We'll just be through those doors, Mr. Abernathy," he says deferentially, and the pair excuses themselves, leaving the three of us alone. The old team, even though it doesn't feel like it anymore.

"Thank you," I tell him in a low whisper, before he has the chance to say anything. Haymitch's eyebrows shoot up, obviously unaccustomed to hearing me express gratitude for something he's done, but I can't let this deed go unacknowledged. "For convincing her."

He sighs. "Well, sweetheart, I'm not sure how long this little reprieve is going to last. So don't thank me yet."

"I don't care." I shake my head at him. "I'll figure out a way around it." There's a long pause, and I feel inclined to fill it. "Thank you, Haymitch. We both appreciate it."

It's then that I realize I've been speaking on Peeta's behalf this entire time. That he's been silent for almost the entire meeting, has barely said a word since I came to pick him up in the hospital wing.

We turn to him at the same time. Peeta's eyes are vacant, troubled. Like the night he returned from the Capitol.

"Doesn't seem like it," Haymitch mutters under his breath.

Ignoring him, I kneel down in front of Peeta and rest a hand on his knee comfortingly. He flinches at my touch, something that I try not to take too personally. "You okay?" I ask for what feels like the hundredth time. I wonder if the question's bothering him as much as it bothered me.

"Fine," he exhales sharply, not quite meeting my eyes. I frown, unconvinced.

"It's gonna be alright," I tell him. "No matter what happens with the rebellion, they can't wedge their way in between us."

Peeta sighs. He looks so weary, the bruises and lacerations on his face and neck standing out even more prominently against his pallid skin. "You think that's what this is about?" he asks. Without warning, he pushes himself out of his seat, turns to Haymitch with a dark look in his eye. "It was never about that, Katniss. Coin can do whatever she wants to me. Try to make me look like a traitor, try to break us apart… whatever. I've already been through the worst."

Haymitch's face falls. "Listen, boy… I was only doing what I thought—"

"Save it, Haymitch," Peeta snaps, his fists clenching at his sides. "I know what you're gonna say. And don't think for a second that I wouldn't have done the same thing. If I was going to pick someone to lead this rebellion, I would have picked Katniss, too." But there's something more than anger lacing his features. Something more like real physical pain. "But one thing I'll never understand is why you didn't get me out of there sooner."

Peeta's face contorts, twists up like he's about to cry or start throwing punches, and either way, I'm frozen with fear. "I know," Haymitch admits, his voice hushed. "If you knew—if you had any idea how agonizing that decision was—"

"I have to go," Peeta says coldly, cutting Haymitch off. "See if they'll clear me from the hospital wing." He lingers for a moment, eyeing his former mentor with palpable pain welling up behind the brilliant blue irises, then stalks out of the room. The door slams shut behind him.

The air is so thick with tension that I almost find myself struggling to breathe. Then Haymitch lets out a strangled laugh. "Well," he says, scratching his head, "this is a first. Him chewing me out and storming off, you being level-headed."

"He'll calm down," I say uneasily, even if I'm not sure I believe it. The look on Haymitch's face confirms that he's got his doubts, too.

"Oh, sure." Another long silence. "Katniss?"

I'm surprised by his rare use of my name, not his usual patronizing sweetheart. "Yeah."

"You, uh. You know that I wanted to save him," he says, framing it like a statement instead of a question. "That there were... circumstances preventing me from doing that."

I know what he's trying to say. It doesn't take much effort to imagine Coin shooting down Haymitch's proposals to rescue Peeta; Plutarch glibly evading the question with a vague, "We'll see," and a glance at his communicuff.

It in no way forgives any of them for letting Peeta get picked up by the Capitol, for standing idly by when they knew his blood was spattering across Snow's tiles. It in no way exonerates me for letting him slip through my fingers in the arena. But I see the way Haymitch's shoulders are curved forward, his protruding collarbone, the sallow bags of skin drooping from his face.

This is more than survivor's guilt after the Games, remorse after watching unprepared tributes being slaughtered in the arena. This is anguish.

This is failure.

"I know," I say quietly. And, even if it's a lie, I add, "He knows, too."

Haymitch breathes out a sigh of relief. "Good. As long as you know."

He starts for the door, shaking his head in disbelief as he goes. Something compels me to call after him.

"I can talk to him," I offer. "Help him understand—"

Haymitch pauses in the doorway, turns back to me with a thoughtful look. "Don't bother, sweetheart," he says with a wry smile. "What's done is done. We can only move on from here." He yanks on the door handle. "Besides, you've got more important things to worry about."

I already know that. But his reminder doesn't fail to unsettle me, even long after he's gone.