Buttercup flicks his tail, tickling Katniss' nose, waking her from a dream of a field of ashes. She hears Rue's voice trail off, watches her as she stands on her toes and takes flight with a smile.

"It's okay," Katniss whispers, telling Buttercup Rue's words as she scratches the back of his neck. "It's going to be all right."

She stretches, her joints creaking from disuse, her muscles weak from lack of food and water. For a moment, it's like she's in the Seam again, and she finds herself planning her trip through the woods for the day's meal. It takes Buttercup digging his claws into the mattress for her to remember that those days are over.

"Stop destroying things," she tells the cat as she sits up. As if he understands, he desists, doing a stretch of his own and shaking out his head when he's done. "Cute," she remarks with a roll of her eyes.

It's late in the morning, the golden glow of sunrise still visible on the trees she sees through her window. She stands, taking slow steps to her drawers, breathing deeply as her body adjusts to being upright again. Showering helps; she scrubs the sweat of a full day in bed off her skin, feeling the weight of the shadow that immobilized her go with it.

In the hall, the smell of fresh bread and cake wakes her appetite. Buttercup has already gone to investigate, the imprint of his body on her pillow the only evidence of his having been here at all. Once she has braided her hair, she goes downstairs and finds Peeta at work in the kitchen, drizzling pale blue icing over a pan of cupcakes. He glances briefly at her as she walks in, smiling as if everything is all right, just like Rue told her.

"Did I miss lunch delivery day?" she asks, grabbing a pot from the cabinet under the sink.

"No, just one of the prep days for it." He nods at his work. "This is for us."

She glances at them as she starts some water boiling. "That's a lot of cupcakes. We can't finish those if it's all we eat today."

"We'll manage," he says with a shrug. "We have an extra neighbor now, if all else fails."

Katniss nods. "Do you want coffee, too?"

"Sure."

They work in silence until the brew is ready and this first layer of icing is done. The cheese-covered bread he has made them for breakfast is as good as it has ever been, yet it is somehow more savory to her. The end of her fast is sweet and pleasant, the peace around Peeta no doubt the reason she has recovered so swiftly at all.

"A lot happened yesterday, didn't it?"

Katniss does the dishes while Peeta sits, massaging his leg where it meets the prosthetic. He has said to her that sometimes he feels flickers of pain where his leg used to be, and that now all those stories of people who had lost limbs in the accident that took her father make sense to him.

It reminds her to be grateful that they are alive at all.

Sighing, he leans back in his seat. "I don't really know, actually. Why do you ask?"

"Because so much seems to happen when I'm out of it." Two days recovering from tracker jacker stings had resulted in several dead tributes during their first time in the arena, and days after their victory, she found out there had been a discussion about the state of her breasts for the victory interview.

Those are fair enough reasons for her to wonder now, she'd say.

"If it did, it wasn't here, and that's all I can say for sure," he tells her. "Except for Effie turning up in the evening."

"That's why I'm asking." She shuts the tap, grabs a towel, and begins to dry a glass. "She seemed upset." She thinks back to the conversation, to the subdued anger in Effie's voice.

Peeta nods. "She said something about girl time." He shrugs, looking wide-eyed at Katniss.

She nods, Effie's words coming to her easily. Her accent is less pronounced lately, the tones more even and relaxed, more natural. More like District Twelve.

"I think I might know why." Katniss avoids the question that is surely in Peeta's eyes. Last night, Effie had mentioned trust, had all but confessed that something had gone amiss with the confidence she had placed in someone. The last thing Katniss will do now is break the trust Effie has handed to her.

She hardly expects Haymitch to be awake at this hour, let alone coherent, but Katniss goes to his house anyway. The living room reeks of liquor and vomit, and the armchair lies on its side. The dining room is not much better: only a few of the chairs are where they should be, and the vase centerpiece has been turned over, its flowers a badly dried mess on the surface of the rich wood of the table.

Haymitch sits in one of the chairs at the table, his head on his arms, a nearly empty bottle by his hand. Wrinkling her nose, Katniss approaches. She knows better than to try shoving him awake when he's in this state, but she goes for it anyway, nudging him hard in the shoulder with her fist. When he doesn't stir, she tries again.

Nothing.

"You asked for this," she mutters as she goes into the kitchen. She fills a saucepan with water and goes back, standing on the other side of the table from him as she calculates the angle for her shot. Finally, she splashes the water onto him and ducks just in time to avoid becoming the target of his cursing. His knife, at least, is too far away to do any damage, and she figures he won't risk losing it. She wouldn't, after all.

"I thought you'd stopped drinking this much," she says once he's reduced to heavy, angry breathing.

"Katniss," he all but spits. She stands then, catches him wiping water off his brow and out of his eyes. "Why do I even bother being surprised anymore."

"You need a shower," she tells him.

"Yeah, thanks to you. What is it with people throwing food and drink at me lately?"

"Only when you deserve it."

He sighs and sets down his knife. "I fail to see how me sleeping somehow warrants you barging into my house and pouring water all over me."

Shrugging, she crosses her arms. "What was it this time, Haymitch?"

He pulls off his over shirt and wrings it out. "Monsters under my bed."

"I'm talking about Effie."

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

"So you did do something."

"Did she send you over here?"

"I came here on a hunch." Katniss lowers her arms, her hands loose fists at her sides. She has an escape plan ready, but she won't back down yet. "I thought you'd decided to stop being a jerk to her."

He stops just moments before shaking out his shirt, fixing a cold glare on her. In the split second before he speaks, she sees a deep, familiar pain in his eyes. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Inhaling deeply, she watches him, waiting for more, but he is silent. "She was upset about something, I know that much."

"And it's automatically my fault if she's crying over a broken nail?"

"You're the one she spends the most time with outside of filming."

"You know what? Let's talk about you instead," he says, hanging his shirt on the back of the chair he'd been sleeping in. "How was your day yesterday? I notice you spent it holed up in your house. Is that my fault, too?"

She balls up her hands tighter, wishing she had something to throw at him.

"No answer? Damn shame." He shakes his head. "Here I was hoping Peeta'd come throw something at me next."

Pressing her lips together, she forces herself to relax her hands. The fight has left his eyes, but not the shell, the wall he's built to keep people out and memories in.

"Go ask her if you want to know," he says after a few seconds, grabbing the bottle on the table. "It may be my fault, but it's not my story to tell."

She frowns. "But-"

"Out. Unless you have alcohol."

She turns, rolling her eyes. "Take a shower," she tells him, and marches off.

Peeta asks her no questions when she returns, merely hands her a bag of chopped almonds for her to sprinkle over a tray of braided dough he has left to rise all morning.

At around noon, she looks out the window in time to spot the bright blue of Effie's wig. Haymitch's advice rings in her mind, and Katniss decides he's right.

She tells Peeta where she's going and heads to his house in search of answers.