Peeta had been completely forthright when he had asserted to Rory that his sole motivation in training for the games was to make sure that Katniss returned home. All things considered, however, he was incredibly grateful for his improved reflex times as the redheaded District Six tribute angrily revived herself. He credited the training regimen for the fact that he had just managed to evade Amy's wildly kicking legs after Rory had poured the last of the lake water onto his injured district partner. Amy yanked her wet arm away from Rory, sprung to her feet while grabbing Peeta's discarded knife, and cast an accusatory scowl at the both of them. She first fixed her withering gaze at Rory.

"I think you've done quite enough, thanks," she growled. "Did you just literally salt my wound? Really? Really?"

"It was his idea." Rory shrugged as he casually inculpated Peeta, who now bore the full brunt of Amy's angry looks. "Fortunately for you because your arm looks loads better, and I don't think that I could have stitched up those lacerations otherwise. They were pretty nasty, if you ask me. And, keep in mind, you still didn't wake up until just now!" Rory paused to survey his district partner. "That bruising on your torso still worries me. Wouldn't you be better sitting down?"

It was almost as if Rory's words reminded Amy of the extent of her injuries because there was no mistaking the grimace that now distorted her features. Peeta could hear Amy mumble various profanities under her breath as Rory bridged the gap between the two of them. Rory disarmed his partner and laid her back down on the sand. Amy breathed sharply as Rory inspected the injuries, and Peeta again flushed with guilt with the knowledge that she had incurred those injuries while, for whatever unknown reason, saving him from the monkeys. Her initial impact had been sufficient to knock the two of them some distance away from the attacking mutt, who had managed a single swipe at Amy's arms before being felled by Rory. Even knowing that Rory was a victor, Peeta had been taken aback by the ferocity of Rory's expression after he dispatched the creature, but that ferocity had completely dissipated when he saw the injured Amy.

"Take her to the lake!" Peeta had shouted at Rory, who was better positioned to attend to Amy. "We'll hold the rest off." But the monkeys had disappeared even as he yelled these instructions, even before he was able to get himself back to a standing position. As soon as it became clear that the monkeys had dissipated, Peeta lost no time in joining the District 6 tributes by the lake and trying to help Amy.

Now, Peeta stood apart and watched solemnly as Rory continued to examine Amy's torso. "I think that I might be able to put together an ointment that will take care of that bruising. I doubt it would take more than an hour or so…you'd be fine here with the others."

Amy looked doubtful, and a scowl was now the cause of her distorted features. "I am fine," she enunciated slowly, as if to aid in Rory's feeble understanding. "Don't do anything stupid on my behalf just because you think it will make me feel better." Amy then swatted Rory away while she began to sit herself up again. Peeta supposed that Amy was likely trying to disguise her pain, but her expressions left no doubt as to the continuing severity of her injuries.

Unsurprisingly, it seemed that Rory could also tell that things were not well, and he attempted to persuade her to his plan. The attempts, however, were quickly cut off. "Don't, okay?" Amy growled at her district partner as she stood herself up. "Just don't. I'm fine. See?" And soon Rory's expression melted into a glower as he seemed to consider how best to approach his partner.

The standoff between the District 6 tributes was soon disrupted by Finnick, who had approached the scene with Katniss. "I think that we're okay for now. The monkeys are definitely gone, even their bodies." He then peered at Amy and Rory, whose aggression towards each other was plainly visible even by the moonlight. "Maybe we're not okay?"

"We're fine," growled Amy at the exact time as Rory asserted that they were most certainly not fine. At this, Peeta and Katniss caught each other's eyes. Sighing, it was now Peeta who crossed the short distance that separated him from his district partner. Rory then explained to the newcomers that Amy needed an ointment that would be stupidly easy for him to make from what he had seen during his time in the jungle. This served to incense Amy further, who declared that she was doing just fine without any ointment, and Rory didn't need to take any unnecessary risks when she was clearly okay.

Peeta was sure that both District Six tributes were equally determined not to give in when Katniss broke in. "Look, we're just drawing attention to ourselves the longer the five of us stay clustered out here. We still need water. I'm pretty sure that I can find the tree that Peeta was tapping, so I can go with Rory to get the plants that you need for this ointment. And it sounds like that ointment could be of real use to us right now. Everyone else can clean up and set up camp."

Now it was Peeta's turn to be dismayed with the proposal of his district partner. It wasn't that he didn't want to help Amy and Rory, it was more that he was instinctively uneasy with any course of action that led to his separation from Katniss. And maybe that was stupid, since they had already separated when Katniss had gone hunting for water and food. But that had been before, before everything that had happened tonight, before everything that seemed to indicate that the Gamemakers were far more interested in quickly annihilating the victors than maximizing the drama.

Not that he felt that he was actually succeeding in his mission to make sure that it was Katniss who had survived. Of course he had overheard Finnick telling Katniss that it was possible that Peeta had been the only accidental victor to have won the Games. At the time, Peeta refused to think about that exchange, to consider the possibility that other were viewing him as a liability. After all, Katniss hadn't disputed Finnick's assertion…and he hadn't let himself wallow in all of the attendant implications of Katniss's silence. But now, he let himself consider his role in the alliance as he tried to figure out what was the best way forward. Undoubtedly Finnick and Katniss were right, considering everything that had happened in less than eighteen hours. If asked, he would say that his immediate concern was less that Rory would try to attack Katniss but that he, Peeta, wouldn't be around to help Katniss if trouble arose from some other danger. And, really, that thought was ridiculous: it had been him, not Katniss, who had been at the brink of death at least three times already. And yet here he was, still alive. Finnick had revived him after the force field, Mags was gone, and, perhaps most puzzling, here Amy was, willing to risk her life to shield him from the monkey. But then his self-doubt began to grow even more and creep into his other decisions: was he making a mistake in being so trusting of the District 6 tributes? Was that his trust just more of his naiveté, as Katniss and Finnick undoubtedly thought? But could it really be naiveté to trust District 6 when one of them had risked her life to save his?

The others apparently understood his silence for consent. And, really, they were correct to do so because there was very little to reasonably object to in the plan. Finnick, who now seemed to be taking charge, spoke up. "Right, then. Amy, Peeta, and I will stay here and clean up the weapons and figure out where to set up camp. Rory, you and Katniss can go to the jungle and get the water and whatever else it is that you need. Agreed?"

Peeta barely caught the slight inclination of Amy's head that indicated her assent. What would have been impossible to miss was Rory's exhale of relief, and Peeta watched him trot over to Amy. He seemed to whisper something in Amy's ear that caused her to laugh softly before she took his arm and allowed him to assist her in coming over to where the three allies stood.

Peeta was startled from his reverie by a soft but insistent tap on his arm and, before he even gave thought to who it could be, he was again frustrated with himself and by his continual distraction.

Accidental victor, indeed.

"Peeta, are you okay?" the person asked, with a gentleness that he had rarely heard her use with anyone other than her sister. "You seemed, um, not quite here."

"I'm fine," Peeta replied. His eyes glanced over to the other three, who had moved away and were now collecting the scattered weapons on the beach. Or, in Amy's case, hobbling along. "Look, are you sure that you want to go to the jungle I know it was your idea, but they're not our allies, not officially, so if you don't think it's a good idea, then…."

"They're not our allies, but we should help her," Katniss interrupted.

"I'm not saying that we shouldn't," Peeta contested, now a little irritated that Katniss would think that he wouldn't want to help the person who saved his life. For once, he was at a loss for words. Because he was worried, and wanted to be by Katniss's side, even though he couldn't work out a plan where that was possible, because Katniss would be better at helping Rory find the plants and he wanted to make sure to thank Amy for what she did. Before he could articulate this to Katniss, she reached out for his hand.

"I know," she said, in that same comforting voice, and she gently stroked his hand.

And, almost unbelievably, he really thought that she did understand.

"It shouldn't take too long," Katniss assured him. "It looks like Finnick's making a few leafy things now so we can carry some water back. And the ointment will be good for all of us…there might be other medicinal plants that I haven't seen, which can't hurt." And the, in yet another wholly unexpected gesture, she reached up to stroke back a lock of hair that had fallen over his right eye.

Peeta appreciated her attempts at trying to reassure him. "Go," he urged. "You're right. All I'm doing now is wasting time."

And before Katniss could say anything further, Rory sidled up to them, holding his weapon and the leafy vessels Katniss had observed. "So Finnick will round up some food, and Amy's settled at the jungle's edge. Finnick seemed highly skeptical that anyone from Six or Twelve would be of any use fishing. Or so I understood once his laughing fit subsided. So do you mind helping Amy out? She's less feral now, I promise." Rory seemed to consider his last words. "No, strike that. I don't promise. But I'm pretty sure that you should be fine as long as she doesn't move too much. And as long as you stay out of her arm's reach. Probably fine."

"Probably fine is pretty good given where she had been," replied Peeta. "I'll take those chances." Before he could reconsider, he gave a fleeting smile to Katniss before jogging off to join Amy, whom he knew to be in an incredibly vulnerable position given her injuries.

"Hey," he said as he eased himself down near Amy. He angled himself so that he was facing her, having a view of both the jungle and the water in front of him. He glanced towards the water and saw that Finnick seemed to be roaming up and down, presumably looking for fish. He turned back to Amy's direction. "Rory said you were doing better."

"Surprisingly, I've been worse," Amy replied. She looked up and smirked at Peeta. "Sorry that you drew the short straw. Rory probably though I'd be on my best behavior with you, although he probably warned you to be careful nonetheless."

"He did advise me to stay at arm's length," agreed Peeta. He picked up a nearby branch and carefully drew a line in the sand. "Which I estimate to be right…about…here." He scooted back a few inches for effect. He was rewarded with a smirk as Amy gauged the distance, and he was easily able to deflect the balled up leaf that she then lobbed at him with his stick.

"Not bad," Amy commented before sighing. "Do we at least have some task to do, or is babysitting me enough of a challenge?"

Peeta had already been sympathetic to Amy's frustrations about being sidelined, but realizing that he also had been left without anything to do threatened to push his aggravations with himself to a boil. "I guess we should consider ourselves to be on guard duty," he replied as lightly as he could.

Amy replied with a snort. "That's too bad-Rory would be far better suited for that task. Ah well, I suppose we'll have to muddle through."

Peeta cleared his throat. "Amy, um, I just wanted to…." He trailed off as Amy fixed a stern glare on him.

"If…if you're trying to do what I think that you're trying to do, you can just stop right now," she hissed at him. "It was the right thing to do, and I don't want to be thanked for doing the right thing." Peeta was about to protest, because he was not about to actually let Amy's sacrifice go without notice, when she continued. "Okay, whatever, you're welcome. If you're so set on thanking me, what you can do is tell me a story."

"A story?" repeated Peeta dubiously.

Amy nodded. "I'm serious when I say that I've been worse, but I'd be lying if I said that I couldn't use a distraction right now. Besides, it seemed to work wonders for you last year." She eased herself back before continuing. "But don't tell me about goats-can't stand the creatures." He thought that he heard her mumble something about stampeding alien goats having bizarre ideas of fun, but he assumed that that must have to do with residual morphling or maybe she really was being driven mad by pain. He saw Amy's expression became more suspicious as his contemplations continued. "You do have non-goat stories in District 12, right?"

At this, Peeta couldn't help but laugh. "I guess that things are finally looking up for you because I have absolutely no stories to tell you about goats. You'll have to ask Katniss for those stories."

"Ugh, no thanks." She fidgeted somewhat, seemingly trying to find a comfortable position. Amy finally settled and looked expectantly at Peeta.

"Um, any particular requests?"

"Nope. Just tell me something about District 12."

Peeta considered his options. He could make something up out of whole cloth as nothing particularly interesting or captivating had happened to him. But he didn't think that Amy wanted to be entertained for the sake of entertainment; he could guess that much by her reference to last year's games. Last year, he had wanted Katniss to tell him a story because he had wanted as many connections to home as he could manage in what he fully believed to be his last hours. He hadn't known Amy long, but her avidity for drawing and trying to capture memories was familiar to him. District 12 might not have been Amy's home, but it was someone's home, and Amy probably wanted to gather more memories than just what the arena could afford her in her final days.

Home. Given the ruthless nature of the arena, Peeta was starting to consider whether even the mentors had any chance of surviving past these Games. Because he would surely die, and, right now, he just couldn't let himself entertain any scenarios where he lived but Katniss died. His family knew this: they had been aware of the training and of his plans to go back to the arena no matter what. And he knew that it pained them, even, he thought maybe sometimes, his mother. Because last year, there had been no choice. No matter what, his family would have lost one son, and he didn't think that he could have endured the guilt if his brother had volunteered to die in his place. He often wondered how Katniss's sister would have lived with it, if Katniss hadn't made it back alive.

And this past year with his family had been somewhat better. He hadn't expected his family to move in with him as Katniss's had. Of course he had extended an invitation and, as he had expected, it had been perfunctorily declined. He had initially thought that it was pride and practicality: the Mellarks still had a business to run, and there was no way that they would give up the bakery even with a victor in the family. The extra distance from the Victors' Village to the bakery would have meant much longer workdays, when even a few minutes of sleep could make all the difference in getting through the day. Besides, Effie had made clear to Peeta how unsuitable it would look for a victor to work at any job, and he could tell that she thought that baking was particularly beneath a victor. He had made various murmurs that could be understood as agreement in order to placate Effie, but he still spent at least several days each week lurking in the bakery, baking or decorating when he could. Even if he was rarely indulged the opportunity to actually do something for fear of someone snooping, the familiarities of his surroundings brought a certain elusive comfort.

It had been during one of those afternoons in the bakery, just a few days after the Victory Tour, when he had found out the third reason why his family had declined his invitation. His oldest brother had been working on the bread favored by the peacekeepers for their evening meal when he suddenly looked up at Peeta and asked with surprising directness if Peeta was being serious about marrying Katniss. Startled, Peeta could only stare back in reply. He was still more shocked when his brother actually continued to talk instead of letting the uncomfortable matter drop, as was typical in their family. He let Peeta know that, right before their return to the District, the Capitol officials stationed there had continually gossiped as to how many weeks before they could expect an engagement announcement, how Peeta's house had been set up in expectation of an imminent marriage, of the chatter as to how exciting it would be that there would be two victors living there instead of one. Peeta had started at this information, at this new knowledge that even his own house had been appropriated for the furtherance of the lie of their relationship.

"And at the time, that made sense," continued his brother, who by this time had abandoned his kneading, although he couldn't quite make eye contact with Peeta. "We had seen what had gone on…." At this allusion to the Games, his brother slightly faltered. "Once you got home, though, you never spoke of her to us or would change the subject. Even, even before…you would sometimes mention her. But then, once you got back, and after the first few times we asked, we could tell. And then, when you proposed, that look on your face…is this really the best thing?"

And that look, that helpless look that his brother gave him when he finally looked directly at Peeta. He knew that look, he remembered the last time he had seen that look through his tears. And that "we"…who in his family was his brother including? But there was no way that Peeta could confide in anyone, not even when at least his brother seemed to have guessed something pretty close to the truth, not when so many people's lives were still at stake. So he rolled his eyes and wryly asked if his brother remembered how Mrs. Everdeen had kind of presented a significant obstacle with her insistence that he and Katniss were too young. And if he had thought that his brother's facial expression when first bringing up this topic ripped at him, that Peeta's excuse was met with his brother biting his lower lip in response made him feel even worse: lip-biting was his brother's tell that he knew more what was going on but wasn't about to open his mouth and bring further trouble. As expected, his brother muttered "Okay," and returned his attention to the bread. It wasn't brought up again, not even after the Quell announcement. But he could tell that they wondered at his decision to give up his life for Katniss, even if there was nothing that they could do to dissuade him.

But if something happened to Haymitch, he couldn't bear the thought of never actually saying goodbye to his family, especially when he knew what he was going to have to say in order to persuade Katniss that she should be the one to live. This, then, was an opportunity that Amy was giving him to say goodbye to his family, to let them know that he still clung to the good memories, as he always had, really. It was highly probable that his family would be watching given what seemed to be the early morning hour. So this would be his goodbye to them, he thought.

"Well, I hope that you don't have an aversion to bread, because I'm going to tell you a whole lot about my family's bakery" he finally replied to Amy. At this, Amy started and whipped her head to look at Peeta, with the strangest intense look on her face. "Seriously?" he asked, astounded at her response. "I'm from a baking family. From District 12. That's really, really all that I've got."

Amy continued to stare at him for what seemed to be ages but really could only have been a few seconds before she shook her head. "No, sorry…of course that's okay. I just…I just got distracted by something that I was thinking about. Please, go ahead."

Peeta supposed that she must have been mentally distracting herself from the pain, and that her odd reaction, her odd expression of worry and concern, must be related to that. Now, even more determined to do what he could to help Amy, he began telling his stories to her. At first, she asked a few questions, but she soon seemed content just to listen to Peeta. At some point, he heard Finnick approaching from behind him-he must have ventured further out in search of food. But when he turned around, not only did he see Finnick, but both Rory and Katniss were sat behind him, seemingly having been settled for at least a little while. He turned back to Amy, who blushed. "I saw them, but I didn't want you to stop," she confessed, almost bashfully but with a touch of familiar defiance. "It was such a nice story."

"Congratulations on doing the impossible and keeping her still," remarked Rory as he stood up. Peeta noted that he seemed to have the salve in hand-he and Katniss must have prepared it during their time in the jungle. Rory moved to attend to Amy, and he himself joined Katniss to review the spoils of the jungle, grateful for the leaf of water that Katniss handed to him. Katniss said nothing, but she smiled the little fond smile that he remembered so vividly from their own night of stories just a few days ago.

Finnick had been successful at gathering food, and the meal was a quiet one, with each person seeming to be lost in their own thoughts of the day. And exhaustion was starting to overwhelm Peeta, and he could feel himself starting to struggle to stay awake. Finnick, who had been observing both Katniss and Peeta throughout dinner, then spoke up. "You and Katniss should go get some sleep. The rest of us can take first watch." Katniss assented without too much protest, and, to his surprise, she took his hand as they walked slightly away from the group in order to settle themselves for sleep.

And to his even greater surprise, she never let go.

Now fully healed, Amy watched the two youngest tributes fall asleep within mere minutes of laying down, their fingers still entwined. After some indeterminate amount of time had passed, and she was certain that they were in deep sleep, she turned to Finnick. "Rory and I are going to head off now." She didn't need to consult Rory to know that he would agree that it was for the best that they break away without any goodbyes to their friends.

Amy rather thought that they were becoming more like the Doctor than they cared to admit.

Finnick didn't protest. Amy knew that there were still more members of the alliance out there, allies that Finnick was probably hoping to meet up with, who would be better at protecting the District 12 tributes or enacting whatever plan the rebels had in mind. If she and Rory stuck around, the sheer number of tributes would prove to be unwieldy. They quietly packed up their belongings, along with a small portion of the plants that had been gathered earlier, and some of the remaining food that Finnick pressed upon them. Finnick quickly made an excursion into the jungle to refill Amy and Rory's bottles with water, and they stood guard over the sleeping tributes.

With a quick salute and whispers of good luck, the two time-travellers scampered off into what remained of the night.

Author's note: So, so, so many apologies for the delay. The Ponds' departure really sapped my motivation, and so I knew that I absolutely needed to finish this story before Christmas. With that burst of motivation, please note that this story is now complete with the upload of chapter fourteen through the epilogue. Please make sure to read the note at the end of the next chapter (chapter 15) regarding the story structure.

Regarding this chapter: Peeta's a complex guy, and this is my take on trying to imagine his roller coaster of emotion on that tumultuous first day of the quell.

Thank you for your patience!