"My name is Katniss Everdeen. I'm 17 years old, and a survivor of two Hunger Games. I'm from District Twelve, and it no longer exists. I now live in District Thirteen, where I spent the last month waiting for the man I love to be rescued from the Capitol. His name is Peeta Mellark. And he can't even remember me."

He ignored every glance in his direction, every dirty look that got shot his way as he pushed and ran down the halls back to the medical ward. He didn't care what they thought of him, what they were thinking. Right now, there was only one thing he wanted, one thing he cared about.

His camera case.

Peeta shoved open the door to his room, scrambled across it for the case that still resided on the side table, where he'd left it earlier before going to the propagation house. He gripped it in his hands and dropped to the bed, tucked his hand inside to feel for the hidden compartment where he'd always kept some the backup chips that contained his photos for safekeeping. He breathed a sigh of relief when his fingers brushed against the small circles of metal.

Digging one out, he glanced at the green circle warily for a moment before opening the camera slot and sliding it in. And took a deep breath before he turned his camera back on, waited for the data to load.

He felt his stomach pitch the moment the first image appeared.

It was her.

"When were you going to tell me?"

Peeta didn't bother with niceties, or even a hello, as Finnick walked through to his room the next morning, the door closing firmly behind him. Finnick's eyes widened at the sharpness to Peeta's voice, and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his standard issue pants nervously.

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

Peeta rose from the bed, where he'd spent the entire night before pouring over the photos the chips contained, and practically shoved the camera in Finnick's face. "This!"

"Wh-what's this? What are you showing me?" The way the colour drained from his friend's face spoke volumes.

"Katniss," Peeta hissed. "She's all over this chip, dozens and dozens of photos of her. Of me. Of us together. And I don't even know her. What the hell is going on, Finnick? What's being kept from me?" He watched as Finnick swallowed heavily, as his eyes darted over to the mirrored window that Peeta knew separated him from the small observation room. "Who's out there? Who's out there right now?" Peeta demanded.

Finnick kept his voice low. "No one is out there right now. It's just me." He bit down on his lip, flicked his sea-green eyes back to meet Peeta's. "I...we weren't allowed to tell you. Coin forbid it until all the tests were done, to make sure that the Doc's suspicions were right. I wanted to, every time I saw you, and I know others did too."

"Tell me what?" The frustration and anger he felt overrode any of Finnick's protestations that he'd wanted to tell him. Wanted to meant very little to him right now.

"Are you sure you want to hear this? Are you sure you want to know?"

"Of course I want to know!" He rammed the camera into Finnick's chest, where Finnick had no choice but to lift his hands to grasp a hold of it. Peeta whirled on his feet, scrubbed his hands through his hair as he paced across the room. "Are they real? Or are the photos manipulated to...to...play with my mind, or something? To drive me insane? Is this some kind of punishment for being captured?"

"No!" Finnick shook his head emphatically, dropped his gaze down to the camera, and the image it was currently displaying. "This picture, and any others of Katniss...they're all real. All real."

"There's a photo of us kissing. I took it - you can see I did, with the way my arm is outstretched. There's a photo of her sitting in the sun, with a flower in her hand. And there's a photo of her, on-stage, in District 4. Like a Victor would. And dozens upon dozens more." Peeta turned again, and he knew his aching eyes were red from lack of sleep and constantly staring at the small image screen for hours. "We were together, weren't we? A couple? And she was the last Victor. Not Rue."

Finnick slumped to the end of the bed, placed the camera on the sheet and ran a hand across his face. "Yeah, she was, and you were."

The confirmation alone was like a punch to the gut. "Then I need you to tell me everything."

"Everything?"

"Don't leave anything out."

He listened, not saying a word, as Finnick told him what he knew. Of Katniss winning the 74th Games, of Peeta being contracted to complete her portraits before the Victory Tour. Of the connection between them, of President Snow's request that Peeta pretend to be in a relationship with her. Of the relationship being anything but pretend, and the times Peeta visited Katniss in Twelve. Of the conversations he'd had with Finnick about his feelings for Katniss.

He told him about how insistent Katniss was about rescuing him from the Capitol, how she'd demanded to be a part of the group that liberated himself, and Jo and Annie. How she'd sat patiently by his bedside and waited for him to wake, only for when he did, to be met with the stark reality that he couldn't remember her. And he told him Dr Aurelius' real theory, the theory that his mind had been manipulated to remove any part of Katniss from his brain, from his memory, from his life. As the final punishment for betraying Snow.

"I can't believe this," Peeta murmured. About midway through Finnick's speech he'd lowered himself to the floor, his back resting against the wall as he took everything in. He couldn't decide exactly how he felt - angry, upset, horrified, confused. Possibly a combination of all of them all wrapped up together. "I just...I just assumed he was angry because I was part of the Rebellion. That the torture was because of that."

"I'd say the torture was. The rest of it though - well, that would be his anger over Katniss."

"Katniss." Peeta rolled the word around his mouth, tried to imagine saying it hundreds of times before. He couldn't. "I said some awful things to her yesterday in the propagation house."

Finnick winced. "She mentioned she'd seen you. She wasn't very happy when I spoke to her about it."

"I don't blame her," he murmured. "But what am I supposed to do, how am I supposed to feel? She's obviously the one and only blank spot in my memory, and I can't pretend to feel something I don't." He twisted his hands in his lap, dropped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. "She looked at me yesterday in a way no one ever has, and I can't reciprocate. I don't know her. But I don't want to hurt her, either."

"You said yourself you can't pretend. If you don't love her, you'll hurt her anyway." Finnick's words were soft, but carried weight, and grief.

"I can't love someone I don't know," Peeta whispered. "She has this life of us...and I have nothing. Whatever we had, Snow took it from me. From us. And I don't think I can get that back."

"Peeta, stop it!"

"Stop what?"

"Stop trying to take a photo!"

He laughed, lowered his arm and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Sorry, I just can't help myself. You're my favourite subject."

Katniss rolled her eyes, punched gently at his arm. "You're awfully happy today."

Peet shrugged, stretched his legs out in front of him. It was quiet in the Everdeen house, both Prim and Alice out visiting with sick patients in the Seam. It wasn't often that they were alone in the house when he visited - most times they elected to go out to the rotunda, or for a walk - but Peeta had suggested they stay in. After all, he'd murmured in her ear, they both knew the house was bugged, and it would seem odd that a young couple would go past the opportunity to spend some time alone in an otherwise empty house. Especially now.

Katniss had blushed, but agreed. And while they'd shared kisses that were sometimes sweet and sometimes...not so sweet, it was their conversation, simple and unassuming and normal, that somehow meant the most to her.

She wondered if this would be their life if they didn't have everything else to worry about. If they'd been born into a world without the Hunger Games.

"Well, I'm here with you, aren't I? Of course I'm happy. I just want to enjoy every moment we have together."

What he didn't say, what she knew was on the tip of his tongue, was that they needed to make the most of every moment they had together until she went back into the Arena again.

She pulled her legs up onto the sofa, tucked herself closer into his side. "I suppose that's a good enough reason," she murmured, pushing the near constant grief she felt about the games deeper down inside, and lifted her mouth up to his so he could press his lips to hers again.

She pretended that she didn't notice his arm lift up in front of them, or hear the whirr of his camera.

"Katniss, wait! I need to speak to you!"

She stopped, glanced over her shoulder to see Finnick jogging quickly down the whitewashed hallway towards her. The moment Coin had released them from the meeting, she'd been up and out of her seat, stalking down the hallway to her compartment. She hadn't wanted to speak to anyone, see anything.

But she couldn't say no to Finnick.

"What is it?" She asked bluntly. Just because she couldn't say no to him didn't mean she had to be happy about it.

"Can we, uh, talk privately?"

"Why?"

"It's..." he trailed off. "It's about Peeta."

She inhaled sharply, tried not to let the emotions of yesterday overwhelm her again. But she nodded quickly, turned on her heel and led him back to her room. Pushing the door to the compartment open, she called out for her mom and Prim, before she remembered their schedule had them in the medical ward until 2. Grateful that they wouldn't be here for whatever it was Finnick had to say, she closed the door behind them, turned to face him expectantly. "What is it?" she murmured.

Finnick pulled out one of the chairs tucked into the small table in the centre of the room, lowered himself down carefully. "I went to speak with him this morning, before the meeting with President Coin. And he, uh, he'd found some photos. Of you. And him. Together. On the Victory Tour, in Twelve. He knows."

Katniss' eyes widened. "What?"

"He knows it's the truth, Katniss. He knows you were together. Knows what Snow did to him."

"How?" She fought to keep her voice level.

"He...wanted to know. Needed to know. So I told him"

"What? I thought we weren't allowed to?" Coin had been so insistent they not tell him, had warned them all not to reveal the truth until she told them she could. And now Finnick had decided to blurt it out anyway.

It didn't matter that her outburst the day before had told him part of the truth. In her mind, it was completely different. He had no reason to believe her, but Finnick was another matter entirely.

He shook his head. "We weren't - or aren't, I suppose. But I guess he hid those chips in that case well, because I know they weren't found when Plutarch gave it the once over before Cressida gave it to him. Peeta flat out asked me when I went to see him before the meeting, and I couldn't not tell him. He wouldn't have believed me if I'd tried to tell him otherwise."

She lowered herself into the seat beside Finnick's, her body feeling like a limp rag doll. "Then what did...what did he say?"

"He was confused, shocked. But I don't think you should hear this from me. I think you should go and speak to him yourself," Finnick said quietly. "You both need to hear what the other has to say in person."

"But what if I don't know what to say?" She replied. "I didn't handle it well yesterday."

"I don't think that matters."

"What if they stop me?"

"They'd already know by now that he figured it out, Katniss. His room is under surveillance - they might not have known what pictures he sat up all night staring at, but they certainly know what we talked about when I visited. They can't stop you. They didn't come in and try to stop me."

"Coin will stop me. I know-"

"Katniss." Finnick's voice was firm, calm. Calmer than it had been since he'd caught up to her in the hallway. "Just go. You're expected in the training halls in an hour. You need to speak with him before you go to Two, and beyond today, I don't know how busy you'll be. So go. Now."

He didn't have to say it again.

Her heart pounded, raced, felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. Her stomach twisted with nerves, her feet felt like lead with every step she took. She'd felt awful yesterday, their conversation playing over and over in her head. Having Peeta tell her that he didn't know her, that he didn't know them had cut her to the bone.

Now, less than 24 hours later, Peeta knew, she had no idea what she was going to say, and - if it was physically possible - she felt even worse.

Katniss slowly pushed the door open to the small observation room, was unsurprised to see Dr Aurelius there, standing at the window and patiently watching Peeta.

"I thought you'd come," he said, not turning to face her, maintaining his gaze on Peeta's prone form, curled up on the bed.

"Finnick told me," Katniss murmured. "He said I should come see him."

"He's right." This time, Dr Aurelius turned. He still looked as tired as he had the day before, and she wondered if he ever slept. "You should know that even though she's my leader, I didn't agree with President Coin's decision to keep the truth from him."

Katniss folded her arms across her chest; they felt heavy and useless dangling by her sides. "Will she be happy with you telling me that?"

He smiled slightly. "Madame President knew where I stood on the matter, I didn't keep it a secret." He cleared his throat. "It's good that you're going to speak to him, but don't expect miracles, Katniss, whatever you do. I still can't guarantee that we'll retrieve his memory of you."

Katniss nodded. "I know."

"I'm going to stay here, just in case, while you go in. Is that alright?"

"I suppose." What did he expect her to say? No, don't stay? She knew he'd likely stay there anyway, regardless of what she said.

Dropping her arms and squaring her shoulders, she took a deep breath, then pressed the button that released the door. The moment she stepped through and it gently closed, he was sitting up, his eyes immediately shooting across to her.

"Hi," she murmured.

"Hi." His voice was throaty, raw.

"I, uh...Finnick suggested I come and see you. But I don't want to bother you."

He shook his head, drew himself back so that he was resting against the bedhead. He tucked his legs up against his chest, wrapped his arms around them. "He told me. About us."

"Yeah. He told me you knew." Katniss linked her hands in front of her, twisted her fingers into knots. "How did...What made you ask him?"

His blue eyes - despite being rimmed in red - were almost unnaturally bright, reminding her of when they first met, and how she was so damn sure they were fake. That the blue was his nod to the ways of the Capitol.

She'd been so unbelievably wrong.

"You used my mantra, in the propagation house," he said softly. "And I'd never told anyone about it before. I only had two options - it got tortured out of me while I was in the Capitol and you were a spy. Or you were telling the truth." His fingers twitched against his knee, and she noted the small circle of green he clutched in between his thumb and forefinger. "I remembered the memory chips I hid for safekeeping when I packed the rest of my gear prior to the Arena extraction, figured my photos could tell me - and they did. Why didn't anyone tell me the truth?"

"We - they - weren't allowed."

He raised an eyebrow in question. "They weren't? But you were?"

She shook her head. "No. I wasn't even supposed to see you, let alone talk to you."

"Oh." He chewed on his lower lip, looked across at the camera on his bedside table. The silence that followed was long and heavy with unspoken questions. "So I, um, don't really know what to say."

"Neither do I." She knew her tone was formal, polite. Fake, like when she spoke to Caesar in her interviews all those times. But what else could she do? Talking to him was like talking to a complete stranger again.

He rubbed his hand against the back of his neck, in what she recognised as a nervous gesture. "There are a lot of photos of you on my backup chips."

She nodded dumbly. Yeah, there would be. Because you rarely let any of your cameras out of your sight. Because you wanted to take photos of everything, all the time, everywhere. For posterity.

What good is posterity without a memory?

"Can you..." he cleared his throat before he started over again. "Can you tell me some things? So I don't feel as...lost?"

She took a deep breath. "Of course."

"How did you win your Games?"

Katniss blinked, surprised. It wasn't what she'd expected him to ask, not first, not straight away - but then again, she reminded herself, she was nothing but a blank slate for him. The beginning was probably the best place to start.

"Um, it was down to me, and the boy from Two. Cato. We fought on top of the Cornucopia, he fell off. Was being mauled to death by mutts before I shot him with an arrow." If she said it clinically enough, if she just blurted it out as facts, maybe remembering wouldn't hurt so bad.

"Where did Rue finish?"

"Fifth," Katniss said quietly, lowering herself into the uncomfortable plastic chair in the corner of the room. "I killed Marvel moments after he hit her with a spear. Then Thresh killed Clove and Cato killed Thresh."

"And I took your Victor portraits, not Rue's?"

Katniss nodded.

He fidgeted slightly. "Did we...did we like each other straight away?"

She felt her cheeks heat, and she glanced away. "I didn't, not immediately. I tried not to like you."

"Why?"

"Why?" Katniss couldn't help but scoff as she looked back at him. "You're from the Capitol. The last thing I wanted was to like someone from the Capitol."

"But you did."

"Yeah. I did." I do.

He asked her question after question after question, about her, about them, about particular photos on the camera until her head felt like it was spinning and her heart was going to break. She was talking about her relationship with the man she loved - but she was having to explain it all. He remembered nothing, while she remembered everything.

"Who knew we were real?"

"Where were we when this photo was taken?"

"Did you show me the rotunda in the middle of the woods?"

"Did your mom approve of us?"

"Did you meet my parents, my family?"

"When did you know about the Rebellion?"

"Did I tell you? Did Haymitch?"

"Did you know about the extraction plan?"

She didn't know how much more she could take - how much more he could take - when they were interrupted by a loud buzz echoing through the room; both Katniss and Peeta instinctively glanced towards the mirrored window, despite neither of them being able to see through.

"Katniss, you're wanted in training." Haymitch's blunt, no nonsense voice filtered through the speakers.

"Now?"

"Now." A high pitch squeal of static followed his simple reply, and Katniss turned back to Peeta.

"I have to go."

"What are you training for?"

"I'm leaving. Going to Two."

His brow furrowed in confusion, and he scratched absently at his head. "Two?"

"The Mountain," Katniss said quickly. "Or The Nut, as we're calling it now. Gale and a few others have been thinking up some plans to help try and defeat it. I'm going there to do some propos, while they're still brainstorming."

"Gale Hawthorne...the Rebellion contact in Twelve who got whipped?"

The words were said glibly, simply, with no knowledge of the association of Katniss to Gale - but his lack of knowledge didn't make it any easier to hear. Katniss bit down on her tongue hard enough to draw blood, let out a strangled yelp. He couldn't remember her, but he could remember Gale? Could remember him being whipped? Could remember he was a part of the Rebellion, but she was nothing?

"Are you okay?" She could hear the concern in his voice; but it was nothing but the generic concern of one stranger to another. Not the concern of a lover.

She clenched her jaw. "I'm fine."

"No you're not. Tell me what was wrong with what I said."

"I need to go."

His eyes flashed. "No, they can wait. Tell me what just happened."

"I-" She broke off, shook her head. "I just don't understand. Gale is my friend - we helped recruit him into the Rebellion. And you can remember him...but not me. How is that even fair? How have they been able to do this? Gale is in there, but not me? Just...how?" She knew they were questions he couldn't answer, but she didn't care. She had to ask them anyway.

"I don't know. I don't know." He dropped his head, rested it in his hands. When he spoke, his voice cracked. "I wish I did, but I don't. I just have nothing of you, at all. I'm sorry."

She rose to her feet, wanting desperately to get out of there before she did something stupid like cry in front of him. Because she was so close to it, knew the tears were pricking at the back of her eyes, threatening to overspill. "You know, he stayed at my house while he recovered, not only because it meant he was close to my Mom and Prim for treatment, but also because I blamed myself. I was supposed to see go and see him the morning he got whipped, to tell him not to go into the woods anymore. But I was late. Too late. And it was because I was with you." With another shake of her head, she stalked towards the door, barely avoiding tripping over her own feet in her hurry.

"Katniss."

She turned again, one hand on the small buzzer that would open the door for her, and swallowed back the lump in her throat. "Yeah?"

"Just one more question? Please?"

She nodded, reluctantly, and his cheeks immediately flushed; he looked away, fixing his gaze on the grey blanket covering his bed.

"I'm sorry that I have to ask this. But you said we were together. In the morning. Did we, um...were we ever, uh...together together?"

She felt her heart squeeze until she thought it would stop, waited for him to finally look back at her before she nodded. She didn't want to talk about this, knowing that both Haymitch and Aurelius were likely watching. But she had no choice - he had to know. "Yeah. We were," she finally murmured. "In the Capitol, on the roof of the Training Centre. The night before I went into the Games. And I'm sorry you have to ask too."

She walked out without another word, ignored Peeta's pained exhalation, and the looks of sympathy from Haymitch and Aurelius as she walked past them. She headed straight to the training facilities and away from what was so obviously her past, and not her future.

She trained, and trained hard. Practiced with her bow and arrow, tried to get familiar with using a gun, though she still didn't like the feeling of it in her hands. She silently sat in the Conference Room while Gale and Beetee and a few others discussed options of what they could do when they arrived in Two to try and take The Nut. She spent time with Prim, and her mother, discussed with Plutarch and Cressida what their plans were for her propos when she arrived.

Within the three days Coin had promised, Katniss and a small team from Thirteen were on their way to Two.

She didn't see Peeta again before she left.

Peeta studied his photos until he was certain they were embedded in his brain - images of Katniss in the sun, on a Victor stage, a lonely figure on a deserted beach. They left him confused, empty, melancholy; wishing that he had even the slightest remnant of memory so that he didn't feel like a stranger in his own life. Other photos - ones of Snow, of the Capitol, early images of the Control Room - all turned his stomach, made him wish that those were the parts he couldn't remember.

It took him another three days before he agreed to meet with Dr Aurelius again, where they did nothing but sit in his room, silence filling the hour. When he was told that Katniss had left for Two, he felt nothing, then immediately felt guilty because he figured he was supposed to feel something.

Two days later, Primrose Everdeen walked into his room unannounced and outlined a proposal she had. For people with memories of he and Katniss together to share them with him, while he was under something called hypnosis, accompanied by a slight dose of tracker jacker venom in the hopes it could trigger something, or help to reverse whatever the Capitol had done to him.

"You don't know that the memories are entirely gone," she'd said softly, in a way that told him she had the bedside manner suitable for a doctor. "Maybe they're just hidden, hidden so deep that we just have to try and dig them out."

At first he'd declined, decided there was no point. He'd already gone through enough, of people playing with his mind, putting him in a sleep deep enough that they could amend what was in his head into something unfamiliar. But in the end, the feeling of emptiness, of not being whole, of knowing something was missing, was enough to get him to change his mind.

The following week, he had his first session.

"You had dinner at our house."

He nodded slowly. "I remember that. Haymitch was there, and the Hawthornes, and the Mayor's daughter. It was before…" He trailed off, confusion clear on his face. "Before the Victory Tour. My head's telling me I was in Eleven then, but that memory is so clear to me that it was at that time."

"Because it was," Prim said calmly, folding her legs in front of her, the skirts of her grey nursing trainee uniform tucked under her knees. They were in one of the observation rooms, seated across from each other on twin beds. An IV was already inserted into Peeta's arm, the venom ready to be injected any moment. Aurelius was running behind, and while they waited, Prim had already started to share some of her memories, though he'd quickly reminded her to keep some for when he was under. "We'd planned the farewell dinner for a long time, but I invited you the day we were holding it. Katniss wasn't too happy that I invited you."

"Because I was from the Capitol?" he guessed, tried not to scratch at the skin where the IV was inserted.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Prim's mouth. "Well, yes...but also because she liked you and she didn't want to."

He rested his elbow on his knee. "She told you that?"

"No. But Katniss doesn't always need to tell me things for me to know." She picked at a bit of invisible lint on her skirt. "You and Haymitch sat on the porch and talked, while Gale and Madge played chess. During dinner, Gale was being a rude idiot-"

Peeta laughed - he couldn't help it - and watched as Prim blushed. "Well it's true," she said, her tone a reflection of her name. "He was."

"Sorry, I'm sorry." Dr Aurelius bustled through the door, flustered and frazzled, his white jacket flapping around his body with his quick movements. He headed straight for the machine on the side table that controlled the IV. "My apologies Mr Mellark, Junior Nurse Everdeen, I got caught up with another patient."

"That's okay, we were just chatting," Prim said with a smile.

"Good, good," Aurelius mused, checking over the stats on the machine. "I won't waste any more of your time - shall we get started immediately?"

"Sure," Peeta agreed, unfolded his legs so that he was laying down on his back and stretched out his arm, waited for Aurelius to activate the venom.

"Now just to confirm, Peeta, we'll be injecting the venom, and as that's working through your bloodstream, I'll begin the process to take you into a state of hypnosis. Once I'm happy with your progress, Junior Nurse Everdeen will begin to relay some of her memories of you with Katniss Everdeen. Afterwards, you will remember everything that occurs during this time. Are you still okay with this process?"

He swallowed nervously. "Yes."

Aurelius nodded, quickly glanced at Prim before giving Peeta a small, reassuring smile. He lowered himself down into a chair placed in between both beds. "Alright, I want you to listen to, and focus on, my voice right now. You're in a safe place, and we're not here to harm you. Let's pretend you're in a quiet meadow, and it's warm and sunny - you can't help but feel relaxed. There's a stream of water, and it's running gently, the play of water over the rocks soothing and calming. You can feel all the tension leaving your body - your feet are relaxed, your calves, your hips..."

Peeta felt his mind slowly begin to drift, felt the tension in his body doing exactly what Aurelius was saying. He felt as light as a feather, like he was floating, and he happily closed his eyes, allowing it to take him away. He was already under when the venom began to slide through his veins.

The next couple of weeks flew by. When Peeta wasn't in the medical ward going through another round of hypnosis, or wandering the halls taking photos, he was spending hours making a cake in Thirteen's kitchens for the impending Odair-Cresta wedding, with ingredients and tools that would have been sub-par in his family's eyes, but in his, were perfect for what he needed them for. He created waves the colour of Finnick's eyes, fishing nets the colour of Annie's hair, boats that he remembered seeing with his own eyes when he visited on Victory Tours or Reaping Days. It was bigger and more delicate than anything he'd ever made when working in Mellark's, and he knew there wasn't anything he'd ever made that he'd been prouder of.

Finnick spent most of his time with Annie, planning a wedding no one had expected to occur, while Johanna ensconced herself in her room, rarely coming out. Cressida and Plutarch and the crew were in Two filming propos, while Haymitch spent hours in Thirteen's control room, connecting in with Katniss and Boggs remotely. Which meant that on the occasions when he sought out someone to speak to, it was mostly Prim he went to. She was the only one he felt semi-familiar with, the only one who he felt he'd come to know better since he'd arrived - and that alone made it all the more harder for him to pretend that the hypnosis sessions were helping. Because they weren't. Katniss was still as much of a stranger to him as the first moment he'd opened his eyes in Thirteen. Except now, he just had a head full of other peoples memories.

And from what he'd heard, the attack on The Nut was just as unsuccessful as his treatments.

Three weeks had passed since Katniss and Boggs had left, and two since Gale and Beetee had followed with their list of proposed actions. But from the snippets of conversations Peeta had carefully listened in on around the medical ward, every plan they'd thought of had been shot down by the commanding team in Two, and nothing had come close to being put into play since. Fighting continued every day, with no end in sight.

He knew the commander in Two, knew that Lyme - an ex-Victor herself, and a passionate member of the Rebellion - was an expert on her District, inside and out. Whatever they'd proposed to her, Peeta knew that she'd have had a good reason for opposing them. He just hoped that they'd think of something, and soon.

They couldn't go on like this forever.

"They've bombed The Nut!"

"It's caused avalanches!"

"They're waiting to see if anyone survived, if the old mining trains come out of the tunnels!"

"How could anyone come out of that alive?!"

The shouts and exclamations followed Peeta as he ran down the halls towards the Control Room, where he knew Haymitch was still holed up. He'd been in the dining hall, eating a meagre dinner with Johanna, silence the primary conversation between them, when he'd heard the first whispered conversation that something had happened in Two. Until the whispers had become murmurs, and the murmurs had become loud proclamations of success against the Capitol. And he'd left his dinner there, half eaten, and headed for one of the few places he'd yet to be granted access to.

He turned the final corner at a sprint, and at the first sight of Peeta, the guard at the door stood to attention, shook his head before Peeta even had the chance to open his mouth. "Sorry, sir, only authorised personnel allowed."

"But I'm part of the Rebellion!" he protested. "I'm Peeta Mellark, I'm from the Ca-"

"I know who you are, sir, and I'm still not allowed to grant you access."

"If Plutarch was here he'd-"

"Plutarch Heavensbee holds no sway here, Civilian."

Peeta flung his arms out at his sides. "I want to speak to President Coin."

"President Coin is indisposed."

"Then I want to speak to her Next in Command."

"Sir, I don't want to have to tell you a-"

The door suddenly slid open, and Haymitch's head popped out, frustration clear on his face. "Oh for fucks sake, Gardner, let the kid in."

The guard glowered. "But Pres-"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll deal with Coin if she has an issue." He wrapped a hand around Peeta's forearm, dragged him inside, the door sliding shut swiftly behind him. "That exchange was amusing for about five seconds."

Peeta looked at him in confusion. "How-"

"Entrance is monitored, kid," Haymitch interrupted, waving a hand absently towards a small screen just beside the door where Gardner, the guard, appeared to still be annoyed at being overruled. He crossed the room and slumped down into a black leather chair. "Now sit down and take a seat, and tell me what's got your panties in such a twist that you needed to get into here right now."

Peeta dropped into the empty chair beside Haymitch, the rest already occupied by men and women monitoring individual screens filled with images of what vaguely looked like Two. "I heard some rumours in the dining hall. That The Nut got bombed."

Haymitch nodded absently and slipped a headset over his head, shifted the attached mic so that it sat right in front of his mouth. "That's right, it did. We're waiting to see if there are any survivors, but at the moment, there's still a lot of fighting going on. Peacekeepers trying to regain some ground, and retake the train station we currently have control of. There's not much you can do from here, trust me."

"It doesn't matter," Peeta assured him. "I just want to be in here, feel as though I'm a part of it. I've felt removed from the Rebellion ever since I arrived. I just feel useless."

Haymitch tipped his head, studied Peeta for a moment before nodding his head. "Alright, you can stay. It's gonna be boring, though, warning you now. I'm just gonna be sitting here, watching this footage until something possibly happens."

Peeta nodded swiftly, settled himself into the chair more comfortably. "Then that's what I'll do too."

"You won't lose me, Katniss, I promise."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I am, alright? Now say it again. Please? Just for me."

"I love you, Peeta."

"And I love you, Katniss, and that won't ever change."

He jolted from sleep, his heart racing, his body thrumming oddly from the dream he'd been yanked from. He couldn't grasp it, not clearly, not completely, and it was almost like it was slipping through his fingers like smoke even while he tried to capture it. Whatever it was, whatever it had been, he knew one thing - that it had been good.

He just wished he could remember what it was.

Cricking his neck, and sitting up in his chair, he watched as Haymitch spoke quietly into his headset, their eyes catching each others.

"Everything alright?" Peeta mouthed.

Haymitched nodded, flicked a switch on the headset. "Yeah. Just...we need to do something - nothing is changing out there, and we're done with it. I just spoke to Cressida, she's going to get it started." He smirked as Peeta yawned. "Nice sleep?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Peeta replied, shamefaced. "I must have zonked out."

"You didn't miss anything," Haymitch assured him, then sat to attention as a sound echoed from his headset; he flicked the mic on again. His eyes were trained on the screens that took up the majority of the wall, and Peeta recognised the spotlit Justice Building of District Two. "I know you're not going to like this, but we need you to make a speech."

Peeta's gaze swivelled back to Haymitch, ready to immediately question him, when he realised it wasn't him that Haymitch was speaking to. It was Katniss, via remote, in Two.

The next five minutes were a flurry of activity in the control room as Haymitch continued to speak to Katniss, telling her that she needed to speak to the people, to motivate them, to bring the fighting to a close. Peeta watched on the screen as she slowly moved out to a position on the front steps of the Justice Building, the lights bright and blinding in what he knew was the middle of the night. And within seconds of her identifying herself and calling out to the people of Two, trains from inside The Nut squealed into the station, people in various states of distress and injury pouring out of the cars.

It seemed like it happened in an instant - shots were fired, lights went out, flares were released, guns were waved menacingly in the air. But Peeta didn't notice any of it. The only thing he saw was the man on his knees with a scorched cheek, and a gun trained unflinchingly on Katniss. And watched, in surprise, as Katniss refused to surrender. Instead, she opened her mouth, and told him she couldn't think of a reason why he shouldn't shoot her.

Her reply almost shocked the man into silence.

The speech that followed was impassioned, as Katniss reminded people who the real enemy was, as she pled for people to put down their weapons and unite against the Capitol, against Snow. She threw down her bow and arrow, and sunk to her knees, reminded them that she was from a mining district herself. She told them that she was nothing but a piece in the Capitol's games, that they were all just a piece in their games - and she was tired of it. Tired of doing what Snow wanted her, and all of them, to do.

Pride, in the Rebellion, in her words and - inexplicably - in her, rose in his chest, and Peeta found himself slowly rising to his feet, unable to take his eyes off the screen. She looked magnificent, he realised, and it had nothing to do with looks.

It had everything to do with her.

For a moment, he was certain they were safe, that there wasn't going to be any more gunfire or fighting. That Two would finally be taken without any more blood being shed. And then, just when her final words rang in the air, a single shot echoed, and he watched her slump to the ground, unmoving.

He couldn't have stopped the guttural yell of horror that fell from his lips if he'd tried.

A/N - Thank you for reading, for your follows, favourites and reviews. I know it's been awhile since the last chapter, but participating in PiP on tumblr, RL shenanigans, and a little bout of illness put me a bit behind. But we're entering the final straight now, and there's not long to go :)

I love to chat with other fans of THG and Everlark - you can find me on tumblr under sponsormusings.