"I only know that I feel like I've been lying to someone who trusts me. Or more accurately, to two people. I've been getting away with it up to this point because of the Games. But there will be no Games to hide behind back home."

The Hunger Games, pg. 371

Convergence

Chapter Seven

Why is the heart so important? What shapes the notion of a heart for one person yet allows it to be so different for another?

What about the heart makes one person sympathetic, and the other cruel?


"Katniss, do you love me?"

The way he asks is soft, unabashed, and shockingly straightforward. No lead up, no pretense. Just honestly between the two of them, as if he were asking what she wanted to have for dinner or if she were excited to be going home in a few days. Low, unhurried, and calm.

Peeta's question feels as if it's come out of no where.

It had been a relatively uneventful day. The two spent their time prepping with Cinna on what to wear and how to act on the upcoming train ride back home. Cinna had wisely decided in advance to schedule Cato at another time for his own appointment.

"I don't need a brawl," Cinna had said, looking pointedly at Katniss. She didn't even bother to protest the insinuated comment, shrugging it off instead.

They both spent the morning as Cinna's fashionable playthings without any particular trouble. Effie had later joined them to provide her expert advice, despite Cinna's not-so-veiled hints that it was unnecessary. She fussed around them, a mother hen with her two unanticipated chicks, clucking at Cinna and doing her very best to make them look enviable by the Capitol.

"Wear pink!" Effie told her, even after Katniss declined.

Effie attempted to bully her into submission, but Peeta, always the peacekeeper, intervened.

"Katniss doesn't have to wear expensive dresses or the color pink to be pretty," he said, and kissed her. For her part, Katniss fought the guilt that threatened to overwhelm her. She knew she had to speak with him soon. It wouldn't be fair to him otherwise if she didn't know how she felt.

Effie, never one for a filter, said, "Katniss, dear, you're as stiff as one of Haymitch's ratty old suits. Do try to remember that you're supposed to love this boy once the cameras are on you."

It's said innocently enough. But Katniss felt a shift within Peeta as soon as the sentence left Effie's painted mouth. His eyes flickered with warmth but his mind was far away. As she slipped out of his embrace, Peeta didn't stop her. He was more subdued than he's ever been before, and it put Katniss on edge.

Once Cinna and Effie left, Peeta asked her the question that she had trouble answering herself. It's been hanging over her since she realized Peeta wasn't acting for the Capitol. The issue has never been if Katniss loves Peeta, because she does. She has since the moment the burnt loaf hit the ground all those years ago.

But what kind of love is it?

Peeta definitely doesn't feel the familial love she knows she feels for him. Peeta asks about romantic love, and he asks it as a man who does not expect to hear any other answer than yes.

"Don't leave me hanging," he prompts again, laughing when she doesn't answer.

"Why do you ask?" she asks, voice strained. She wants to buy time and think and plan and reason another way to bring this conversation up and convey how she feels without hurting Peeta. The concept of hurting Peeta is almost unbearable, the boy is too good and she owes him too much. She wants time and more time. Time will let her sort through her stubborn feelings and figure things out.

But she doesn't have more time. This is happening now.

"Katniss?" he asks, brow furrowing. He finally senses something is wrong.

"I—I…"

The look he is giving her is imploring and innocent, even though lines are appearing across his forehead as he realizes she is taking too long to answer.

"Katniss?"

She can't lie to him. Not to the Boy with the Bread.

"I—I don't know," she whispers, the words leaving her horrifyingly exposed as they drop into the air, suspended from a hangman's noose.

Peeta jerks his head back as if she slapped him, and Katniss forgets for a moment she hasn't.

"Peeta, I—"

"You don't know?" The way his lips form the words is heartbreakingly slow, spoken so softly she almost doesn't hear them.

"I—I wanted to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"I didn't know at first, that you were being honest with everything. In the arena, how you—I thought Haymitch had spoken with you before the Games about the plan—"

"What plan?"

Katniss's stomach tightens. Haymitch never told him.

"I originally thought you knew, and then it became real later on for you," she says robotically, her mind trying to catch up with the situation, "We were supposed to act like a couple. Haymitch said it would help us get sponsors. I thought he told you…" her voice catches, "I thought he told you."

"So it was all fake? You? Us? It wasn't real?" Peeta pauses as another thought strikes him, "Do you even like me, Katniss?"

Her mouth drops along with her heart. "Of course I do! I care about you, Peeta, I owe you so much. I wanted to protect you—"

"But you don't love me."

Her jaw locks, and she finds it hard to answer.

"Katniss," he says tonelessly, "it's a really simple question. And I know you. God, I spent years watching you like an idiot. You always know yourself."

"I do, but, I..." Katniss swallows hard, "I don't know if it's like that. Like how you feel about me. I've been trying to figure it out."

"Figure it out, huh? While I sat here and thought everything was fine. Thought I'd be returning home with the person I love and who loves me. Not someone who was indifferent this entire time."

"I do care about you, I swear. I could never lie about that. I wanted to be honest with you after I realized you weren't pretending. I just didn't know how to tell you."

Peeta laughs, the sound icy. Her gut twists, and Katniss feels as if she's talking with a stranger. Peeta has always been warm, but there's not a drop of warmth in him right now.

"I'm not good with love. I'm not lying. I do care about you, I have since the day you tossed me the bread. But after the Games, there's been only room for fear, like it's the only thing I have space for right now," she continues, trying to get him to understand, "Fear for my family, fear for Haymitch, fear for you...I don't know how I feel because there isn't enough in me right now to figure it out. I care about you, but I don't know if it's in the same way you care about me…I just don't want to lie to you. Not if I'm not sure."

Peeta is unable to look at her. "I understand what you mean about fear. I'm afraid too, but that's never stopped me from knowing that I love you. When you love someone, you just know. You don't have to figure it out."

She opens her mouth to say something, but realizes she has nothing to say that would make this situation better.

When she doesn't answer, Peeta laughs again. "Oh hell," he says, "he was right."

"Who was right?"

"Does it even matter?"

"It does to me." Fire burns up her veins, chasing away her heartache. Anger, temper, purpose. Anything to distract her from how horrible she feels watching Peeta like this.

"There's no point now. Leave it alone."

"Peeta…" She reaches out to him out of habit, but Peeta jerks abruptly away before her hand reaches him.

"I need some time to think, and I can't do that if you're here."

Katniss takes the hint. "I'll go then."

"Katniss?"

She stops. "Yes?"

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"I wanted to. I just didn't know how."

He offers her a lopsided, sad smile. "Next time, if you have something to say, please don't wait as long to say it?"

She manages a nod.

"I guess I'll see you later then," he says. "Goodbye, Katniss."

"Goodbye, Peeta," she whispers, and her heart breaks, just a bit.


Katniss leaves the room in turmoil. The thought of Peeta pulling away from her, after everything they've been through, is difficult for her to handle. She expected no less, and knew what would happen once she told him. She knows there's a good chance she just lost the one person who understood what it meant to make it out of that arena.

What she forgets, however, is that there's more than two people who survived the 74th Games. There's actually three. And as she exits the room, closing the door behind her with a solid thud, she comes face to face with the smiling, eavesdropping Career.

Cato looks happier than he has been in a while, leaning back against the wall. His eyes are filled with playful spite.

"Did I miss the show?" he asks, and Katniss realizes that he's heard some, if not all, of a very personal conversation from the other side of the door.

"You sure gave it to lover boy. Broke his soft heart, didn't you, 12?" Arrogant Cato is back, a side to him she hasn't seen since before the finale at the Cornucopia.

Cato looks so at ease, so comfortable to be back in a position he knows all too well. Finally, he has gotten something over the Girl on Fire. His world, dosed in obscurity since the end of the Games, has left him without his strength and identity. But here, in the mess of Katniss's pain, he has found a foothold. And he climbs, testing his weight and reestablishing some sense of self. It's familiarity in an unfamiliar world. He has beaten Katniss, and any victory, no matter how small, gives back something he has lost.

It is infuriating.

"Shut up, Cato. I don't need to hear this from you."

"Do I care what you need? This is fun."

"You think it's fun listening to people get hurt?" she laughs bitterly, "Oh, that's right, I must have forgotten for a moment that I'm talking with you. Come to think of it, why am I talking with you anyway? I don't need this." Katniss turns from him, walking away.

"Should have just let him die during the Games. It probably would have hurt less than the shit you just pulled on him."

His eager, lofty words aggravate her control even further. Against better judgment, she spins back around and stalks over to him. Raising her fist, she swings a wild punch towards the wide grin on his face. If she breaks all of his teeth, maybe it'll help him keep his mouth shut.

Cato, trained throughout his entire life for combat, easily catches her wrist with his left hand. He wretches her closer and gets right in her face. "Don't forget that I'm better than you, 12. Just because you're feeling shitty about lover boy doesn't mean I'm going to just let you take it out on me."

Katniss's wrist feels brittle within the strength of Cato's grasp. She is close, much too close to him for comfort, especially when she can see some of the faint scars lining his face.

"You're an asshole, Cato. All you do it hurt other people."

The blond laughs, the sound cruel. His warm breath hits her face and the feeling is an uncomfortable one. "That's just how my world is."

She rips her wrist out from his hold. "I feel sorry for you, if that's how you see the world."

"I'm not the one who deserves your pity. Your ex-boyfriend in there is another story."

"Peeta's not my ex-boyfriend."

"Ah, so he's your boyfriend then?"

She pauses a smidgen too long, and he tosses her another taunting smirk. "That's what I thought."

"You're a real jerk, do you know that?"

"And you're just a slum girl who happened to win it big. You took my crown, you left me with nothing. So now I'm returning the favor."

Katniss goes still. "Returning the favor? Just what did you do, Cato?"

"Well, someone had to tell him about your lies, right?" Cato hooks his left thumb off the side of his pocket, his crippled arm dangling uselessly by his side. He leans forward as he talks, leveling his tall frame so he can look right into her snapping grey eyes. "From the way I see it, 12, you should be thanking me."

"You're the one that said something to Peeta?"

"Congratulations," he says softly, "you're a winner yet again. What a surprise."

This time Katniss's punch connects with Cato's handsome face. Rearing his head back, he runs a hand across his reddened jaw. The skin smarts when he touches it, and he knows from experience it will bruise.

"Fucking hell, you bitch," he winces as he massages the side of his face, eyes as venomous as a tracker jacker. "You're going to regret that."

"You've made me regret telling the medics you were alive before I even said the words," she tells him lividly. Her knuckles, callused from hard labor, pulse slightly from the impact, but the skin hasn't torn. "What did you tell Peeta?"

"Only what I thought." Cato spits a wad of bloody saliva onto the ground near her boots. Some of it splatters onto the leather, but Katniss refuses to look down and break eye contact.

"I wish your heart stopped that day."

"And I wish I could stop yours right now without being arrested for murder. Guess we all can't get what we want, baby."

The mock endearment causes her to flinch from repulsion, bringing her back to reality. "You're not worth my time, Cato."

"Time is all we got. Stuck together as some three victor freak show bullshit, nice and cozy. Gonna make your life a living hell, just like you've made mine."

"It's hell because you're alive, and somehow you blame me for that? What is wrong with you?" Katniss snaps back at him. She can't understand how someone could be so angry to still be alive, and she's fed up with it.

He looks down upon her, face impassive. "Well, I was told that I may not be all right in the head," he leans closer again, ignoring the fact that the last time he got so close she punched him, "But I think I'm not the only one."

Katniss swallows. She wants to punch him again, just because she can. "You're wrong. Between the two of it, it's definitely just you."

"At least I'm honest with how I feel. I don't like you, I don't like Mellark, and I especially don't like the stupidity of having three victors. But you?" He smiles again, and she can see the blood that stains his teeth. His tongue licks some of it away, and he gloats at the taste. "You're a liar. You're not happy either, not with lover boy, not with winning, not with the Capitol. But you hide it and pretend. We never pretend in 2. What's that point?"

"More like what's your point, Cato? Not like you're honest all the time either."

"I don't play along in charades I don't agree with, pretending to love people I don't love. I don't make nice with people I rather see dead."

"Did you forget how you slip on different masks yourself? I've seen them, you know," she hisses, "One mask during the interviews and another for the Games, as if you were two different people. Don't you even realize you do it? Who are you to call me a liar? You can think whatever you want to think of me, but I know I don't like you, and you can't say that I hide that."

"No, you don't, despite Haymitch telling you to pretend otherwise, I'm sure," his blue eyes study her impassively, "Though I don't know why you haven't listened."

"I'll make it simple for you to understand. You can't stand losing, and you're an ass," she says, "Not even the best liar in the world could pretend to like you."

"Is everything okay?" Peeta's voice interrupts whatever Cato is about to say next, and they both turn to look at him. Peeta is standing in the doorway, and his eyes are red. The realization is a knife in the gut.

"Fine, Peeta. Everything's just fine."

Cato laughs quietly, and he looks at her with an all-knowing grin. "There you go again, 12."

"Don't act like you know me. You might think I'm the liar, but you're the one who's messed up in the head," she murmurs, loud enough for only Cato to hear. In the presence of Peeta, Katniss becomes aware of her questionable proximity to the boy from District 2, and how it must look.

"Are you sure, Katniss?" Peeta asks.

"Yes, fine," she says, keen to escape from the boy she hurt and the boy she hates. Peeta nods and goes back into the room. Katniss turns and walks away from the Career, and this time, doesn't look back.


"Haymitch," Katniss calls, opening the door to his room without bothering to knock first, "Slight problem you might want to know—"

She stops mid-sentence as another person who is not Haymitch rises from a chair within the sitting area.

"Who are you and where is Haymitch?"

The stranger puts up his hands in mock surrender. "Whoa there. Eager with the questions, aren't you?"

Katniss studies the unidentified intruder. He is older than her by a few years, and very handsome. But she isn't one to be fooled by a handsome face. "Just answer the question. Where is Haymitch?"

The stranger's full lips part to reveal straight white teeth and a knockout grin. "Are you threatening me, Katniss?"

"Looks like you know my name, but I sure don't know yours."

"Don't recognize me?"

"Should I?"

"If you watched enough of the Capitol stream," he says—was that bitterness in his voice?

"Sorry to disappoint you, but living in District 12 doesn't exactly leave a lot of time to sit around and watch Capitol shows."

"You're feisty. I like that."

Katniss, after her last two encounters with Peeta and Cato, has had enough. Impatience wins out over patience, and she nearly growls, "Well, I know that I don't like how you're avoiding the question. Where is Haymitch?"

"He'll be back, don't worry."

"Somehow I think you'll understand when I say I don't find that reassuring at all."

The stranger walks slowly around the room, stopping a few feet away from Katniss. Everything about him oozes confidence, self-assurance, and sex. Within the wicked width of his smile hints of a man who will not let fear for his pretty face stop him from necessary violence. Katniss recognizes a fellow predator for what he is. Dangerous.

"Haymitch is fine. You have my promise he will return just as ornery as the last time you saw him," he says.

"And you are?"

The unknown man peers into her face with brazen green eyes. "You sure you really don't know me?"

"You must think highly of yourself, if you assume every person should recognize you on sight," she tells him, holding her ground under the weight of his stare.

He laughs, delighted. "Well this is a treat. I think I like you, Katniss Everdeen."

She stares back at him, nonplussed. "Your name?"

The stranger smiles and inclines his head. "Finnick Odair, at your service."

The name strikes at chord, for who does not know about the famous Fininick Odair?

"Finnick Odair, as in the District 4 victor, Finnick Odair?"

"That would be me, yes."

"And just what would a District 4 victor want with an older District 12 victor?" Her earlier instincts had been right—this man is as dangerous as they come. It's been years since she watched him as a 14-year-old boy win his Games. But with his name as an anchor, Katniss can see the young victor in the face of this older, more matured man.

"If I told you we were old friends, would you believe me?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then I guess I won't have much to tell you at all."

Katniss grits her teeth. "What are you doing at the Capitol? Why Haymitch?"

"I'm just on Capitol duty, as usual. I'm a pretty popular candidate for it, so I come by very often," he says.

"Sounds like fun."

"It's a joy."

Katniss crosses her arms. "So if you're here for the Capitol, why are you in Haymitch's rooms?"

"You just don't give up, do you, Girl on Fire?" Finnick's open stare rakes over her again, the look he gives more intimate than she's comfortable with. "Well, I guess you have to be like that, otherwise you wouldn't have won."

He cocks his head to the side, "If you must know, I came here to meet you."

She is taken back. "Meet me? Why?"

"Why not? You've joined our ranks, one of us, all that nonsense."

"Somehow I feel like I don't believe you."

"It's true! Besides, you're even better than I thought," he tells her, and she is momentarily rendered flustered. "But since I've met you and we've had our lovely chat, I'll be going now."

Finnick walks over to her, grasps her hand, and pulls it up to meet his mouth. "A pleasure meeting you, Katniss Everdeen. I'm sure I'll be seeing you around."

The handsome man leaves, and she rubs her hand to wipe away the imprint of his lips.


After Mrs. Everdeen receives word of an accident, she and Prim gather up their supplies and head out for their patient's shack of a house. As mother and daughter leave their home, their feet stir up little dust clouds that stick to their legs.

Her mother is not much of a conversationalist, but Prim always tries anyway. "Katniss will be home in a few days, I can't wait to see her!"

Mrs. Everdeen trudges along. "It will be good to have her home again."

"Do you think she's going to like our new house?" Prim asks as they approach the main living area of the district.

"No," her mother answers bluntly.

They find the man's house and let themselves in, putting down their supplies and starting their work. After Mrs. Everdeen finishes running her needle through the man's ruined flesh, she asks, "Prim, which poultice should I use on Mr. Tomston's wound?"

Prim bites her lip, studying the injury on the groaning man's back. The coal miner had gotten into the fight with another miner and somehow ended up with the point of the pick biting through his skin.

"I think we should use this one," she says, selecting the medicine and bringing it over to her mother. "It will help with any infection in the wound."

Mrs. Everdeen gives a worn smile of approval. "Yes, exactly right. You've being doing well, studying different poultice combinations and what they do."

Prim flushes under the praise. "Thanks, Mom. I'm no where as good as you though."

"In time, that will come. Now, I'll hold Mr. Tomston steady while you apply the medicine, okay?"

"Okay."

Pale, proper, delicate Primrose dips her fingers into the medicine container and applies it to the squeamish wound without hesitation. The child is a bit of a contradiction—while she detests violence and bloodshed, she has the heart of a healer.

Prim is drawn to those who cannot help themselves, even when it may not always prove wise for her at the end.


Some hearts will heal, while other hearts will break.


Edited on 12/9/2015 for grammar and sentence structure.