Chaos. Gray uniforms swarm over us and surround her, carrying her away from me. Katniss is screaming and writhing like a banshee, but the guards are holding her up, safely away from the crowd beginning to thaw from the shock and starting a low chanting of grief, calling for her blood. I barrel ahead, shoving the grasping hands away, helping to clear the way so they can get her inside, protect her from the rising wail of the furious mob. The door slams behind her and I turn with the remaining troops to keep the throng from tearing it from its hinges to get to her. More guards rush to our aid and the crowd is dispersed, angry, but so accustomed to following orders they give up with hardly a fight.

The commander approaches, speaking quickly into his communicator. "I need you to come with me, Mr. Mellark," he rasps.

"Of course." I am unbelievably tired, drained from the wildly swinging events of the day. Horrified and relieved and fearful.

We march briskly to the command center set up inside the mansion. A flurry of motion and hectic scrambling as people rush around, trying to recover from losing their president, their rebel hero, and their future all in one afternoon. Commander Paylor stands in the midst of the madness, barking orders and steering the wildly careening staff. Plutarch is hunched in a corner, speaking excitedly into a communicator of his own, apparently checking that it aired and was recorded properly. My lip curls.

Paylor turns and sees me, her face turning to stone as she regards me with her dark, measuring glare. She finishes speaking to the aide at her side and jerks her head sharply for me to follow her. We leave the frenzied hall and she closes the door on a small side room, the sudden drop in noise and motion making the silence somehow louder. Paylor studies me intently for a moment.

"What did Snow say to you?" she asks suddenly.

I watch her carefully. She doesn't have the same bereaved look as many in the hall outside. She didn't just lose a savior.

"What do you think he said?" I ask cautiously.

"What did Katniss say to you?" she demands in turn.

I smile sadly at this. "She wanted me to let her die." It's my turn to ask a question. "Did Eight know Thirteen was preparing an uprising?"

Her shoulders droop and I can read her answer in the grief in her eyes.

I nod. "It's interesting how all the districts went first, died first, before Thirteen, who had all the weapons and equipment, and no Peacekeeping troops in place, stepped in." I watch her from under my lashes. "Do you believe Coin was the leader to succeed Snow?"

Paylor sighs heavily and rubs at her temples. "That's not my call to make. And it isn't Katniss' either. Certainly not executing her without a trial or jury. That isn't justice, that's murder. Don't lie to yourself, Peeta. That was nothing short of cold-blooded killing."

I nod, because she's right. "I don't deny it. But what if she saved lives with it? What if she avenged the children from the City Circle? What if she prevented another Hunger Games with Capitol children?"

Paylor's face grows harder with each scenario, but at the last she breaks, slumping heavily into a hard-backed chair.

"No," she whispers harshly. "Not that."

"You've suspected for a while now, haven't you? About the parachutes." I watch the despair cloud her face. She is thinking the same thing I did. How we helped get Coin exactly what she wanted.

She nods slowly. "I couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it," her voice is ragged. "But it just didn't make sense that it was Snow. He couldn't have had a hovercraft, he just couldn't." She looks up at me, her heart broken. "I made it easier for her."

I shake my head, one hand reaching for the clenched fist trembling at her temple. "We were all fooled," I say gently. "We wanted it to be real so badly. But now it is. The people are free and we can rebuild, we can heal. We can forgive."

She watches me with haunted eyes. Her hands tremble and she looks close to tears. But then her gaze hardens. She takes a deep, shaky breath and stands, squaring her shoulders. She nods briskly, shaking off the sorrow that almost claimed her. I watch her admiringly as she steels herself to do what must be done.

"I'm sorry, Peeta," she says gruffly. "There will have to be a trial. No matter the reason, Katniss assassinated the President of the nation. And we can't tell them about the parachutes, or the – the Games. The people are too delicate right now, trust is too tenuous. To destroy Coin this way will throw the country into a frenzy of paranoia. I can't think of any way around it."

I nod. I agree with her, and more than that, I saw Katniss' eyes when I stopped her from swallowing the nightlock. I know all too well the state of mind she's in right now.

"Let there be a trial. The country knows what she's been through," I say. "The districts love her, and the population of the Capitol had no ties to Coin. No one will argue against a sentence of treatment and recovery. She's sacrificed everything for this nation. Let them give her this in repayment."

Paylor's eyes are distant, she's working it out in her head, seeing the arguments for and against, balancing justice with fairness. Her strong fingers fiddle with the carabiner at her belt, flicking and bouncing it as she weighs her options. And then her fingers still.

"You shouldn't testify," she says abruptly. "Everyone knows you're in love with her, it will only damage the credibility of the testimony."

Mutely, I nod agreement, my words frozen on my tongue as my face flushes crimson and my heart bangs against my ribs. After standing silently for a moment, nodding like an idiot, I murmur a cracked thank you and turn and make my way out, back into the crush and panic of the hall, certain I can hear Paylor's snort of laughter behind me.

The winter months drag on endlessly. Katniss' trial is a relatively quick affair, most of the nation wanting to move past the ugliness and forget it ever happened, to get started on their shiny new nation. Plutarch speaks in her defense, telling the story of how she was used without her knowledge, how she helped to bring down Snow's dreadful reign with her bravery and determination against terrible odds, how she cracked under the strain. Dr. Aurelius contributes a picture of such agonized grief, such unbearable pressure, that she comes off like a complete lunatic and he mostly wins her free on a pity vote, televised for all the nation to see.

Paylor is elected in a landslide in an emergency election, mostly due to Haymitch. Though he is drunk most of the time, and wracked with guilt, the nation loves him. He campaigns tirelessly, throwing his grumpy, hard-edged support behind her whole-heartedly and they eat it up. She runs on a platform of unity, and her first acts of office are to build a cabinet that equally represents both the Districts and the Capitol. The nation is besotted.

My own time is spent trying to help Katniss heal. Trying to guide her back from the world of darkness and hopelessness where she's been abandoned. I work with Aurelius, his knowledge of healing and my knowledge of Katniss blending together to help her recover. Giving her the time she needs to mourn, to rage, to ache. Time she has never been given, having been expected to be a leader, to be strong, to be visible at all times.

My heart breaks for her. When she starves herself, we up her morphling so she'll eat when hungry. When she begins to rely on the drug, we slowly cut the dosage back. And when her misery and pain are too much to bear, we play music while she sleeps. Songs from home, songs she would have sung with her father. And one day, sitting at the window, staring blindly out over the city, she begins to sing. Her voice, scratchy and broken, falters over the high notes, wobbles on certain phrases, but soon, amazingly soon, swells into something magnificent. Aurelius and I listen, transfixed, as her voice fills the room, golden and round, sparkling and sweet, an agony of beauty.

She sings for hours, for days. It's as if she's calling herself back into being. Finding the new person she's become when the person she was could no longer bear it. I watch as she recreates herself, building a core that will be able to live in the world as it is now. As the person that she is now. She may not know it yet, but she has survived this.

Every day is a battle against going to her. But I have known Katniss long enough to understand how she thinks. I can't add to the burden of blame she thinks she bears. At night, I stay close, sometimes in the hallway outside her room, hoping she can feel my presence the same way I can feel hers. Hoping she can find her way back to me.

Part of her release was dependent on her being sent away, not being set up as a revered hero in the city. Little did the jury know what a gift this was. Aurelius wants to send her to Eight, thinking she needs to be away from any reminders of her grief to continue to heal. I disagree. I think she will never forget, no matter what her surroundings are. She needs to be where she can remember herself, needs to be able to remember when she made herself strong, and eventually, when she's ready, to remember her family in happier times.

I send Greasy Sae to prepare her house for her, back in Twelve. She agrees eagerly to watch over Katniss when she comes home and I'm grateful. I'm equally glad when Haymitch volunteers to go, too. He has been rattling around the Capitol like a displaced ghost. Everything stirs horrible memories for him and he looks forward to leaving it all behind. They have always been a perfect fit for each other. I'm happy he'll be there for her.

Aurelius doesn't want me to go yet. I tell him I'm ready, but my stance is substantially weakened when I collapse in the middle of my argument from pure exhaustion. I sleep for two days straight, dreamless and still.

When I wake, I go out into the city. President Paylor is working hard to unite the country, and the effects can already start to be seen. Just as spring is beginning to wake the earth from its long, dark winter, the nation is coming to life again as well. Markets line the streets, using the fancy shop fronts as shelters. Merchants from all corners of the districts have travelled to set up tents and booths and there is a sense of a fair in the atmosphere. I barter a sketch of a stationer's daughter for a set of pencils and a hand-bound journal, my hands trembling slightly as I caress the clean, blank pages waiting for me.

I help to clear the city of wreckage, help families clean up the debris from their homes so they can live in them again. I work in the soup kitchens feeding the displaced and homeless. Every day I grow stronger as I'm able to see families rebuild, citizens find their way, people begin to heal.

Paylor has me visiting veterans from both sides in the hospital. I listen to their stories, and I share mine with them, and we help each other to get stronger. One woman is visiting her husband with their one-year old baby and she lets me hold her. They have named her Katniss. I bounce her gently as she grins and burbles, reaching for my cheeks with her chubby little fingers. The need to be with my Katniss overwhelms me with a great, swelling joy rising from my chest and spreading over my skin in tingling waves as I hold this tiny bundle of hope in my arms.

That night, my heart banging against my ribs, I fidget restlessly as the hovercraft slowly descends and sets down in the meadow next to the fence. I'm home. I want to run to her, go to her immediately and sweep her close in my arms. But Haymitch and Greasy Sae have been reporting that she is still locked in depression, overwhelmed with grief. So I let myself into my own house, dark and cold across the green. Katniss' house is lit in the kitchen, warmth radiating through the window and I send a silent thank you to Greasy Sae. Haymitch's house, on the other hand, is almost as black and silent as mine, only the upstairs bedroom lamp is on. I consider going to check on him, but chances are he's so drunk he wouldn't even notice, so I decide to wait until tomorrow. I need to sleep tonight, I have to be up early.

I sleep heavily, the closeness to Katniss wrapping me like a warm blanket after almost two weeks apart. When I wake, the cold dawn is just breaking over the hills behind the trees. I make a quick breakfast of a cup of tea and a stale roll I brought with me, I'll have to restock the kitchen quickly. Then, wrapping myself in my warm coat against the chill, I grab a spade and wheelbarrow from the shed behind the house and make my way outside onto the path that winds down toward town. Katniss' kitchen is again warm and bright, smoke rising from the chimney and I smile to myself.

My feet find the familiar path readily and I wind across the short distance to town, just starting to wake in the morning light. People are coming out to begin the day's work of reclaiming the town from the ash, uncovering the dead and preparing them to be laid to rest. Just like in the city, the work of healing is beginning. Moving a little quicker, I make a promise to come help as soon as I've finished the task at hand.

Crossing the Seam, I pull a tangle of downed wire out of my way and push through a snarl of roots. I pull a deep breath of the clean, cold air and drink in the tall, green trees, the bright, quick birdsong and the chatter of life all around me. How I've missed this place. As the light grows, I find the spot I used to come to paint, before the tour. I shake my head to think of how frightened I used to be of the woods, and of how I began to love it here after the first Games, even though I can't move through it without crashing around like a wounded hyena, apparently.

There, just as I remembered, across from my clearing, is a low bramble of scraggly bushes. I grab the spade from the cart and quickly set to work, digging up the roots, careful not to harm them. Uri had an amazing green thumb. He'd let me help transplant my mother's lilies in the spring and taught me well. I think five will be enough.

I load my prizes into the wheelbarrow and head back, my heart full. As I walk, I remember her, such a bright and happy little thing. She was sheltered from tragedy by her sister and able to smile quickly, laugh lightly. I think of how she would gently tease me about my cowardice with my feelings toward her sister, and her sympathy about it. She was a healer, like her mother and sister, but born out of compassion and a desire to help. She was gifted with kindness.

Back at the Victor's Village, I survey the house carefully. I think under the side windows, where she used to sit to read. The sun will coax the blooms soon. I roll back my sleeves and start to dig.

I've just finished turning the earth when I hear a thumping from inside, and the door swings open. I turn just as she rounds the corner and we both freeze, shocked by the sight of the other.

Her eyes are wild, her hair straggling in ragged clumps from a ruined braid. She wears the same clothes she left the Capitol in. My heart aches for her.

"You're back," she says, inconsequentially.

I shrug apologetically. "Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," I tell her. "By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone." From the look of her, it's more important than either of us had thought.

She lifts an unsteady hand and pushes at a knotted snarl over her eyes, asking suspiciously, "What are you doing?"

I gesture to the wheelbarrow where the five primrose bushes wait to be planted. "I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her." My voice cracks as I confront the full measure of her grief. I was wrong. I have left her alone too long. "I thought we could plant them along the side of the house," I offer gently.

At first, rage clouds her eyes, but then, a mix of sadness and relief washes over her features and she sags mournfully. She nods mutely and hurries back inside the house. I hear the door shut and the lock click into place.

I turn back to my work, gently carrying the delicate plants to their places and tenderly patting the earth around them. Planting them deep so their roots can take hold, so the sun can warm them and the promise of spring can wake them from their winter freeze.