Come on reviewers! I have a little bit left to write and a few chapters to post, but this poor sad, lonely story needs some love.

Chapter 4
"I shouldn't have pushed her," Peeta said with a heavy sigh. While he kneaded dough, Haymitch sat at his kitchen table with a bottle of white liquor in hand. Ripper had finally returned to District 12, and with her came her supply of booze.

"Got her talking again, didn't you?" he inquired.

Peeta shrugged. "Sure, until she started crying again. Then she ran inside and locked the doors, and refused to open them again."

The older man smiled widely. "Yeah, but you got her talking again," he said. Once more the young blond shrugged and went back to his baking.

He had just put the loaf into the oven to bake when there was a knock on the front door. Wiping the flour off on his apron, he untied the strings and draped it over the back of a chair. He opened the door to find Katniss staring down at her bare feet. "Can I come in?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied, stepping out of her way so she could enter.

Standing in the living room, hands holding something in front of her, Katniss stared at the floor. "It broke," she whispered, offering him the pieces of a small music box. "Can you...will you fix it?"

He took the pieces from her and led her to the sofa to sit. The lid had broken off at the hinges, and Peeta wondered how he would put it back together. "How did this happen?" he wondered.

Katniss stared at the carpet, her arms criss-crossed around her waist, and she rocked back and forth. "Did you ever hate him?" she asked, ignoring his question.

"Who?" Peeta wondered, brows furrowed as he stared at her.

"Your brother," she clarified. "Cook."

Peeta rose and crossed the room. He opened a small drawer in the armoire and pulled out a set of tools. "Why would I hate him?" he asked, looking through the selection for anything that might be of use in repairing the music box.

"He could have volunteered for you," she explained. "Although that didn't work out so well in my case."

Peeta shook his head. "The rules wouldn't have been the same if it were you and him in the arena," he replied. "If you won, that would have meant my brother died."

"They died anyway," she exclaimed, anguish in her voice, and he was sure she had begun to cry again.

Tools forgotten, he turned to comfort her, but Haymitch beat him to it. Their mentor had taken his seat beside her and held her in a firm embrace. "I know it's hard losing the people you love, sweetheart," he told her. "Whether you went into the arena that first time or not, the war still would have come. More people would have died if it didn't happen when it did. You put an end the the Hunger Games and a lot of suffering, sweetheart. And look at it this way - Peeta might not be here without you."

She turned to look at the shocked boy standing on the other side of the room. "I didn't save him," she murmured, her gaze falling back to the floor.

Peeta set the music box down and took a seat on her other side. "Katniss, you saved my life more times than I can count," he said, hesitant to touch her. "If it hadn't been for you, I...I know I never would have gotten out of the arena the first time."

"Yeah, but Cato only injured you because of me," she retorted.

"Right," he scoffed. "He would have just killed me flat out." Getting to his feet, he returned to his spot on the other side of the room just as his mind began to feel fuzzy. Images of the arena, of Katniss stuck up in a tree conspiring with a nest of tracker jackers, a smile on her face as she attempted to take out the Careers and himself. He shook his head. "Cato stabbed me because I helped you. Real or not real?"

Katniss sniffled. "Real," she replied, her voice thick with tears.

"And when you went to the feast, you did it to save me. Real or not real?"

Again, she answered, "Real."

"Because that's what we do - we save each other," he stated. "Real or not real?"

She recalled a time, in the middle of the war, when she had uttered those same words to him. Looking up at him, she finally smiled. "Real," she replied.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he nodded and rejoined them. "Okay, then."

"Is that why you knocked the nightlock pill out of my hand after the assassination? Because we save each other?" she asked. Peeta nodded. "I wish you hadn't."

Peeta's face fell and he opened his mouth to refute her, but Haymitch once again beat him to it. "That would have been convenient, wouldn't it," he said. "You die, you don't have to deal with us anymore. No more cleaning me up after a week of drinking. No more wondering if Peeta will strangle you in your sleep. Sure, dying would have let you off nice and easy. But what about us?"

Katniss moved away from him and hugged herself. "What about you?" she wondered.

"My family, his family, both are gone," Haymitch continued, tentatively placing his hand on her shoulder. "Dysfunctional as we may be, the three of us have become a family. We fight, we yell, we scream at each other, but at the end of the day, we're the ones who are here for each other. I've lost a lot of people over the years, people I've loved. I don't know that I could have survived losing you too."

Her tears returned with renewed force, but she continued to back away like prey from a hunter. She said nothing as she inched closer and closer to the front door, and when she finally reached it, she left without another word. Peeta stared at the door, then looked down at the two halves of the music box in his hands.

"Why did you say that to her?" he wondered.

"Because," Haymitch replied with a sad sigh, "it's true."