This chapter is dedicated to the brilliance that was Philip Seymour Hoffman. I could not have chosen a better Plutarch Heavensbee and my thoughts and prayers are with his family. So PSH, this chapter is for you.


"Katniss," Gale has to yank me off of the ground. "You can't do this now!"

"But," I squeak, "Peeta…"

"Right," he nods. "We'll deal with that later, but we need to get out of the street and we can't do that if you're going to curl up on the ground and refuse to move. We'll deal with Peeta later, but we really need to get off the street!" He's shaking me because I cannot seem to stop the tears. "Katniss!" He shoves me away, hoists Peeta onto his shoulder and we all dart into a building. Gale shoves Peeta in a closet so he can't lunge at me again.

What happened? He didn't even have any venom did he? Why is he all of a sudden hating me again? I can't deal with this, I just can't. I can't think I can't function I can't breathe. I'm hyperventilating when Johanna slaps me in the face.

"Pull it together, Katniss!" She yells at me. "We need you here! Peeta's going to need you too, so you can't do this! You can't fall apart now! We have a job to do, and I'm not going to let Peeta going nuts change that! He's still alive be thankful for that! And pull your fucking self together! Oh. My. God." She slaps me again for good measure.

"Right," Jackson says interrupting. "Katniss what did Boggs do?" After an explanation that I don't even believe and some other conversation that I don't even remember Gale looks at me.

"We have to go, and I'm with Katniss." He goes to the closet and hauls Peeta up over his shoulder again. Seeing Peeta in this state is traumatizing in the least. I thought we were past this homicidal mission to kill me. But I guess we're not, my heart is breaking. Of course Snow would have planned for this…or maybe he didn't? This thought is immobilizing. Johanna has to shove me out the door.

Katniss! You need to pull yourself together if you're going to get anywhere near the Capitol at all! I think. I shake myself and walk behind Johanna who is going on and on about something, but I can't focus. I can't think. Breathing is damn near impossible. I hate Snow. I will kill him.

We make it into some house, somewhere. I don't know. I just followed everyone here, leaned against a wall and slid down to the floor. I have my legs folded up and my chin is resting on my knees. If I wasn't leaning against this wall I would probably be rocking myself back and forth. I don't know what to do. My sanity seems to have been sucked from me, and sucked everything out of me.

When Peeta is finally conscious again I can't bare to look at him without crying, Gale has put handcuffs on him, and I don't eve know where they came from. I suppose that's a good idea, but if he tried hard enough he could still choke me, even with handcuffs on.

"What's going on?" Peeta asks.

No one knows what to say and they all keep looking at me as if I'm the one who should be answering this question, I try unsuccessfully. "Well, you see—" "It's like this—" "There was an explo—" I start to cry. "I don't know Peeta!"

"Okay," Gale says looking at Peeta. "We really don't know Peeta." He just shrugs. No one knows what to say to Peeta, but after awhile Johanna sighs really loudly and walks over to Peeta and slaps him in the face.

"What the hell, Johanna?" Peeta yells at her.

"You still hate Katniss?" she asks—more like—yells.

"What?" he looks around the room at all of us before his eyes rest on me. I'm not sure what's going on in his head, but all I want is to pull him from the storm that must be once again raging inside his head. "I remember the bread." He says and I sigh, are we really this far back? Why did I get my hopes up? Gale said before we even left that it was possible, why was it possible? Why the hell hadn't they fixed Peeta? There must have been something else they could have done.

"That's not an answer Peeta," says Johanna fiercely.

"I'm…I'm…I'm…" he's looking around at all of us. "I'm so confused."

Johanna looks over at me, "That's good. You can deal with that, right, Katniss?" She has very little patience for me right now and I can tell by her hostility that she's feeling some of those strong emotions that she felt in the arena. I know she'd never hate me as much as she did in the arena…especially now there's Willow, but honestly, I don't think she'd hesitate to kill me if it would help get back at the Capitol…I'd thought we were friends. Just then there is another slap across my face, "I said," her teeth are clenched, "Can you live with that, Katniss?"

I nod hesitantly and slowly.

"Good," she nods. "Because that is all I can guarantee you right now."

"We need to keep moving, they're going to—" Gale starts but the television interrupts him. I hadn't even realized it had been turned on. It's President Snow, and I now can imagine an arrow going straight through his heart. He's the target in my own Games, and I will be the victor here as well.

Pictures of Boggs, Gale, Finnick, Johanna, Peeta and me; much like they did in the arena. Snow is congratulating the Peacekeepers on a job well done. They are under the impression that we are all dead, but I know most certainly that they won't be believing that for much longer, not once they check the area out and realize Boggs is the only casualty of their supposed victory.

Then we're looking into the face of President Coin, she's introducing herself, identifies herself as the head of the rebellion and gives my eulogy. Praise for the girl who survived the Seam and the Hunger Games, then turned a country of slaves into an army of freedom fighters. "Dead of alive, Katniss Everdeen will remain the face of this rebellion. If ever you waver in your resolve, think of the Mockingjay, and in her you will find the strength you need to rid Panem of its oppressors."

Up comes a heavily doctored photo of me looking beautiful and fierce with a bunch of flames flickering behind me. No words. No slogan. My face is all they need now.

Beetee gives the reigns back to a very controlled Snow. I have the feeling the president though the emergency channel was impenetrable, and someone will end up dead tonight because it was breached. "Tomorrow morning, when we pull Katniss Everdeen's body from the ashes, we will see exactly who the Mockingjay is. A dead girl who could save no one, not even herself." Seal, anthem, and out.

"Except you won't find her," says Finnick to the empty screen, voicing what we're all probably thinking. The grace period will be brief. Once they dig through those ashes and come up missing eleven bodies, they'll know we escaped.

"We can get a head start on them," I say. Suddenly, I'm so tired. All I want is to lie down on a nearby green sofa and go to sleep. To cocoon myself in a comforter made of rabbit fur and goose down. Instead, I pull out the Holo and insist that Jackson talk me through the most basic commands—which are really about entering the coordinates of the nearest map grid intersection—so that I can at least begin to operate the thing myself. As the Holo projects our surroundings we realize that there is only one option.

"Underground," says Gale.

Underground. Which I hate. Like mines and tunnels and 13. Underground, where I dread dying, which is stupid because even if I die aboveground, the next thing they'll do is bury me underground anyway. I'm almost wishing that I was dead and then I remember that even if Peeta is forever lost to me, I'm still a mother, I still have Willow. No, that is one thing that I'll keep fighting for. A future where she won't have to experience what her parents did, and she most certainly would feel the full effects of it, and Finnick and Annie's child as well. The children of previous victors have always been prized. Sometimes I think the results and the reapings are rigged, but there's no way to prove that. But in my heart of hearts I know it's true.

"Okay, then. Let's make it look like we've never been here," I say. We erase all signs of our stay.

Finally, there's only Peeta to contend with. He plants himself on the blue sofa, refusing to budge. "I'm not going. I'll either disclose your position or hurt someone else."

"Snow's people will find you," says Finnick.

"Then shoot me," says Peeta.

"No," I say trying to stand up.

"Or what?" he asks.

"We'll knock you out and drag you with us," says Jackson. "Which will both slow us down and endanger us."

"Stop being noble! I don't care if I die!" He turns to me, pleading now. "Katniss, please. Don't you see, I want to be out of this?"

No. I'm not leaving him behind. Not now, not ever. After all, he'd never leave me behind for anything. "We're wasting time. Are you coming voluntarily or do we knock you out?"

Peeta buries his face in his hands for a few moments, and my heart is breaking seeing him like this, then he rises to join us.

"Should we free his hands?" Cressida asks.

"No!" Peeta growls at her, drawing his cuffs in close to his body.

"No," I echo. "But I want the key." Jackson passes it over without a word. I slip it into my pants pocket. When Jackson pries open a small metal door several people file in before me. Jackson and I are the only two left yet when she grabs my arm.

"Katniss," she says holding my gaze. "Are you willing to do whatever it takes?"

"Yes," I say, but I think I know where she's going with this.

"I don't think you are."

"Why not?" I ask.

"I'm not sure you could really shoot Peeta, if it came to it," she says.

I jerk back. I'd expected this, but it's still like a bolt of electricity was shot right through my heart. I stumble forward and hurl myself down the shaft. It's all I can do to keep from bursting into tears. Good lord, look what having a baby has done to me. I never used to cry this much…or maybe it was finally admitting that I loved Peeta that caused all the emotional upheaval.

"You okay?" Johanna asks. I've never seen her look this concerned over me before. I nod frantically. She doesn't need to know I'm not okay, and neither does anyone else.

We get to a certain spot in the tunnel when Peeta bursts out, "I just don't know what's real anymore. Sometimes I feel like there's this undeniable connection, Katniss, and then other times I just want to choke the life out of you…my memories are in such a jumble I don't know what's real and what's not real." Everyone is staring at him, but it's Finnick who speaks up.

"Then you should ask, Peeta. That's what Annie does."

"Who?" Peeta says. "Who can I trust?" He looks at me, "Katniss?"

I just shake my head. I don't know what to say or think and as I turn to look away I could almost swear that I saw his shoulders droop. Is he being genuine right now? Does he not remember anything? Oh god, what if he doesn't remember Willow, or being back in 13? What if he doesn't remember anything since the Games…and then those memories are so warped? I start crying but stifle my tears as I lay down. We've been given shifts with Peeta and the first watch is not mine.

For most of my watch there is silence, I don't know what to say and Peeta seems to be at a loss for words too. But at just a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. "You favorite color…it's green?"

"That's right." Then I think of something—well, more than one, but I'll keep it down to one thing—to add. "And yours is orange."

"Orange?" He seems unconvinced.

"Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunrise," I say. "At least, that's what you told me once." My heart is pounding in my chest. Am I going to have to reconstruct his every memory of me…well everyone but the one about the bread?

"Oh." He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. "Thank you."

But more words tumble out. "You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces."

Then I dive into my sleeping bag before I do something stupid like cry.

In the morning we strategize more. Finnick explains a game—of sorts—to help Peeta remember things. He says something, and if he's not sure if it's real or something the Capitol fabricated, he simply asks. "Real or not real?" And whoever knows the answer will tell him. Most of the answers come from me, however. No one knows Peeta like I do.

After another day of navigating the underground we stop again. My eyes fall on Peeta, whose head rests by my feet, I see he's awake. I want nothing more than to reach into his head and sort all of the jumbled mess out, but I can't. So I settle for something that I can do.

"Have you eaten?" I ask. A slight shake of his head indicates he hasn't. I open a can of chicken and rice soup and hand it to him, keeping the lid in case he tries to slit his wrists with it or something. He sits up and tilts the can, chugging back the soup without really bothering to chew it. The bottom of the can reflects the lights from the machines and I remember something that's been itching at the back of my mind since yesterday. "Peeta, when you asked about what happened to Darius and Lavinia," our female Avox finally had a name. Peeta mentioned them being tortured earlier, asked if it was real or not real, Jackson confirmed that it was. As much as she could confirm. "And Jackson confirmed it and told you it was real, you said you thought so. Because there was nothing shiny about it. What did you mean?"

"Oh. I don't know exactly how to explain it," he tells me. "In the beginning, everything was just complete confusion. Now I can sort certain things out. I think there's a pattern emerging. The memories they altered with the tracker jacker venom have this strange quality about them. Like they're too intense or the images aren't stable. You remember what it was like when we were stung?"

"Trees shattered. There were giant colored butterflies. I fell in a pit of orange bubbles." I think about it. "Shiny orange bubbles."

"Right. But nothing about Darius or Lavinia was like that. I don't think they'd given me any venom yet," he says.

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" I ask. "If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what's true."

"Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly. Only people can't grow wings," he says. "Real or not real?"

"Real," I say. "But people don't need wings to survive."

"Mockingjays do." He finishes the soup and returns the can to me. Is this some subconscious metaphor from Peeta? That he is my wings and I can't fly without him? Because if that is the case, then I know it's true.

In the fluorescent light, the circles under his eyes look like bruises. "There's still time. You should sleep." Unresisting, he lies back down, but just stares at the needle on one of the dials as it twitches from side to side. Slowly, as I would with a wounded animal, my hand stretches out and brushes a wave of hair from his forehead. He freezes at my touch, but doesn't recoil. So I continue to gently smooth back his hair. I can't do much for him right now, but at least I can do this. What I need is Willow in my arms and Peeta's around me, but that's not going to happen. Both Willow and Peeta are far away from me right now.

"You're still trying to protect me. Real or not real," he whispers.

"Real," I answer. It seems to require more explanation. "Because that's what you and I do. Protect each other." After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep.

It doesn't take long before Johanna has moved over to my side. "He'll be okay, Katniss." She says. "He's tough. You're tough. You two have been through far worse than this."

"What's worse than this?" I ask bitterly.

"Katniss," she shakes her head. "You know I don't need to make you a list. You two have made it through so much, with and without each other. And now you have Willow. Don't give up on him, Katniss. I don't think Peeta is gone. Sure, he might be a little far off—"

"He doesn't know if he hates me or not," I interrupt but she glares at me and I stop.

"Who said you could fucking interrupt?" She shakes her head and continues. "Don't give up on him, Katniss. He let you touch him, didn't he?" She gestures to my stroking his hair, I didn't even realize I'd started again. "See? Don't give up on him."

"But—" I try again.

"Don't make me hurt you, Katniss," she sighs. "Because you know I will. Peeta nuts or not nuts. He's still alive, Katniss. Let's just try to remember that, okay?" She gets to her feet in order to move back to her sleeping bag.

"Johanna," I say catching her arm.

"Yeah?" she looks at me.

"We want Willow—" I sigh. "To call you 'Aunt Jo' or something like that." Her face crumples and she pulls away from me. I guess I should have anticipated this, but it's true. We want Willow to know her as an aunt. If anyone's deserved that, it's Johanna Mason. She kept me, and Peeta alive in the arena, and she's taken care of Willow when we can't. Beside her actual aunt, no one deserves the title more than her, and we're going to give it to her. If we live through this. A few more hours pass uneventfully.

Shortly before seven Gale and I move among the others, rousing them. There are the usual yawns and sighs that accompany waking. But my ears are picking up something else, too. Almost like a hissing. Perhaps it's only steam escaping a pipe or the far-off whoosh of one of the trains…

I hush the group to get a better read on it. There's a hissing, yes, but it's not one extended sound. More like multiple exhalations that form words. A single word. Echoing throughout the tunnels. One word. One name. Repeated over and over again.

"Katniss."


Also, I ask again, since it's getting to that point in the story, please take the poll over on my bio, it would mean the world to me. And to those of you who review, you make my day all the time! I love you! And for the nearly 2000 of you that read this, thank you for your dedication to this. You're all wonderful.