Peeta

I'm left speechless sitting next to my brother after Katniss' latest interview. Rye is glancing over at me in a clearly concerned way. But I'm staring at the screen, not really taking in the next segment. It's Chaff and he's being forced to harvest wheat with a sickle at an inhuman pace to outrun the converybelt mechanism right behind him that seems to be swallowing up the ground at a rapid pace. There are sharp blades in the gap of the crumbling ground, like the inside of a combine harvester. Chaff keeps cutting and tossing wheat over his shoulder, trying to outrun the clock.

He's Haymitch's friend. He's a good person. He's being forced to compete for his life in an atrocious version of the Games. I should be focusing on him and the other victors who are going to have to compete tonight.

But I can't seem to get past the numb feeling in my head and chest.

Seeing Katniss earlier, it was like seeing a ghost tonight. She looked wrong. Very very wrong. The way she played along with the cameras, the dress they put her in. My god, that dress! It just wasn't her. You could practically see the outline of her nipples, the fabric was so thin. It made me sick inside. She was a beautiful woman, gorgeous in my opinion, but she would never openly advertise her body that way. Never. Something very wrong is happening in the Capitol right now. I knew my mind was twisting in on itself to try and shy away from reality. I didn't know if I could face reality.

And then the questions they asked her, and the songs she sang. More and more propaganda. They kept trying to sow seeds of doubt and bitterness between us. And she was so convincing.

For the first time I imagined this is exactly how Gale felt, when he watched me and her on screen. I knew logically she was being forced to say and do these things. I knew that. But the words, and the way she sang them, and the look in her eyes when she talked about him. It was really getting to me.

"Peeta," Rye said, looking over at me sympathetically, and it just makes me angrier.

Here I was forced back into this horrible fucking place where I was questioning everything. Everything that had happened between us in the past 3 months. She practically told me she loved me. She had made it pretty clear at the end of the trip that she was with me. She even slept in my fucking sleeping bag in full view of everyone!

So why? Why did I feel this way? Why couldn't I get their kiss out of my head? What the hell was wrong with me?

"I'm gonna clear my head." I tell my brother abruptly before he tries to speak again. I walk out of the quarters we've been sharing and head down the hall aimlessly.

I stop when I get to the hospital corridor. I felt just like talking about something, anything that wasn't Katniss and what was going on right now. That thought made me feel guiltier though. Because how could I, if I loved her, try to avoid all of this? But how could I stay sane if I didn't try to get away from it for a while? I slumped down in an alcove near Deen's room. I just needed to catch my breath before I tried seeing him. He would know, instinctively, that I didn't need pity right now. I would be able to talk to him, after I got a hold of myself.

"Prim, maybe we should do this another time." I hear the voice before I see the face. But I recognize the deep low tones. Gale.

I grit my teeth in consternation. He is really the last person I need to see right now. I wonder if I get up now, if I can make a break for it before they see me. But before I can stand they are near the door, and too close.

"We've got to discuss the plans. They're hurting her, Gale. They're trying to kill her spirit." Prim says in a soft voice. She's right, she's so intuitive Katniss' little sister.

"I know that Prim. I know. I just think I need some time to get my head right, ok?" Gale says as he shuffles his weight nervously. I watch him more closely.

"Was any of that true?" Prim asks. I know what she's talking about. The song Katniss sang. The one about Gale. The one for Gale. My stomach clenched uncomfortably.

There's a long pause.

"Hell if I know. Katniss never talked to anyone about how she felt. Certainly never talked to me about how she felt after the kiss. We avoided the topic for years, Pim. There was nothing we could do anyway, with Snow watching her. She told me when she got back from the tour that he knew about the kiss. Gave me a look that said it could never happen again. When I pressed her, she said Snow threatened to have everyone killed if her and Peeta didn't fall in line. That included me, my mother, and my whole family. For a long time I thought….that both felt the same way but it was pointless to talk about unless we got away."

"That was two years ago. I think things changed Gale. Don't you?" Prim says firmly, and for just a second I want to hug her. To thank her for...well saying it easily, so obviously. That Katniss had fallen for me and not him. But then when he doesn't answer her I get nervous again.

"What? What is that look for?" Prim asks. And I study his face. And I know, I know exactly what the look is for. Gale is thinking about Snow's orders. Is that why he looks unconvinced by Prim's argument?

I start to feel uneasy. On the trip he seemed to accept Katniss' decision to be with me readily enough. But now I could see something in his gaze. Something angry and unreadable beyond that.

"Prim, there are things you don't know. But it's not my place to tell you." He finally says and I feel terrible and grateful at the same time.

"Don't pull that with me. Do you think I want to find out about these things, on national television, with the rest of the country! I'm starting to feel like I didn't even know her Gale! It's starting to feel like my own sister was a stranger to me! She never said anything about this after her Games, not even once!"

"Prim, she loves you the most. She was just trying to protect you."

"Well who protected her? Who took care of her Gale? WE all just stood by and let this happen to her, because we were too scared-too cowardly to fight back!"

"I wanted to fight back. I wanted to organize a rebellion in 12. But Haymitch and Peeta convinced me it wasn't the right option. We didn't have the numbers, and the unrest in the districts quieted down to whispers after her and Peeta's tour. The arguments seemed valid at the time, for staying and planning things out. No one wanted her to live that way, Prim. But I don't know what we could have done to stop it, short of what we did, escaping."

"And look how that turned out. We made a mess of things, and she ended up paying the price, same as always."

"If there was anyway Prim- I would have dragged myself through that arena! I couldn't even walk. I passed out for hours. I-it's my fault. I let her come with me! I shouldn't have-"

"Gale, I didn't mean it to come out that way."

"No, you didn't but it's true anyway. I lost her Prim. I always told myself if I had gone into the Games with her, if I had just volunteered to take his place...I could have saved her all this. But I couldn't even make it 12 miles with her."

"You made it more than 12 miles with 14 people, many of them inexperienced in the woods, many of them scared and sick and frightened. You led us to safety Gale. You helped us all survive. The entire trip from 12 to 13. We never got lost. We didn't starve. We made it out."

"That's polite to say Prim. But the blame has to fall somewhere, and it probably falls on me and Deen the most."

I get up from the floor, and step out of the shadow where I'd been sitting. Gale's eyes take me in immediately, and he pales a little. Prim takes longer to notice I'm there but when she does her eyes widen a bit.

"I wasn't trying to over hear. I was just trying to catch my breath before I went in to see Deen. But I guess I eavesdropped accidentally."

"Peeta…" Prim says in alarm.

"I apologize. I should have spoken up sooner." I tell them in what I hope is my best sincere voice. Because I didn't want to overhear, but I didn't want to not find out what they'd been planning without me either.

Gale's mouth twitches a little, like he's annoyed but doesn't want to start an argument. I sigh.

"Look, I heard you talking about plans. Whatever else was said, well, it's none of my business. But if you've got a plan to help Katniss, I want in. This is getting out of hand fast. I'm not sure if she'll make it until Coin has all the intelligence she needs to go ahead with a rescue op. And I'm out of ideas."

Gale looks at me, slowly. But there is that same thing in his eyes as there was back during the trip. Back when Katniss was sick with fever and spouting nonsense.

I know the answer to the question we're asking each other all over again.

Will you still help if she doesn't choose you?

I knew my answer. I had always known.

It was the same answer I'd given Katniss on the victory tour, when she asked me to sleep with her in her bed and ward off the nightmares.

"Stay with me?" She's asked, wide eyed and frightened in the dark. Always.

And my answer had put to rest any questions of what she could ask of me, what I'd be willing to do for her, give for her.

Everything.

Fake relationship, or no. Forced dependency or no. Gale in the back of her head, in her heart. It didn't matter to me in the end. Not if she needed me.

I'd do whatever, be whatever she needed me to be. There were no limits, no restrictions on my love for her. Even if it meant working with the man she had loved, or almost fallen in love with. Even if it meant watching our sick, and broken cycles of pain and humiliation play out in front of every screen in the country.

I was all in.

And when I looked at him, I could tell, just like when she had gotten sick, that he was all in too.

"Come on," He told me quietly and cocked his head in the direction of Deen's room. And I followed them in.

….

Katniss

After the interview they didn't take me to my cell. I should be tired right now. I haven't slept all day and I didn't really sleep much the night before. But whatever they gave me is keeping me awake. It feels a little bit like my blood is simmering in an alarming way. They take me down to a new room. Its different from the torture rooms, but its on the same floor.

There's a hospital style bed in the middle. There's an Iv and medical equipment. There's a screen brightly lit on the wall.

My heart beats madly like the sound of a hundred bat mutt's wings. I feel my eyes strain and blink rapidly, trying to keep everything in focus. I strain against their arms as they try to strap me in.

"NO! NO!" I scream and scream. I managed to knock over a medical tray. I lunged for one of the needles and almost-almost plunged it into one of the guard's necks, before he yanked my hair up so forcefully and so hard I knew my scalp will be bleeding when this is through.

They curse me. I curse them. They threaten to break my fingers if I don't drop the syringe. I tell them to go ahead, and curse them some more. Then Thread comes in, and asks me if he wants me to bring some more pieces of my prep team in little balck bags for me to look over.

I drop the syringe. They strap me in so fast. They shoot something, I have no idea what it is, but it is worse than the shocks from earlier today, into my arm.

The world dissolves into a tiny point. And at the apex of that opening is the sun, and at the bottom is me. And there is nothing between me and the sun. No space, no stars, no earth, no atmosphere. No barrier to quench the unbelievable fire that erupts across every single one of my cells. No place to hide from the unmitigated agony.

Someone or something holds open my eyelids as I scream into the blinding dark.

And I see images. I hear voices. I relive conversations and sounds and feelings and memories. They melt into the fire that lives under my skin. I melt with them. My mind shudders and I can literally feel it buckling coming unmoored. I can feel the pieces as they burn away.

I kiss them before they go.

A dimpled smile as we sit in an overly large chair talking to Caesar Flickerman. A yellow dress like candlelight. Warm hands holding me together. My nervous laugh as I try to answer questions. The smell of his shirt when I pressed my face against his chest to try and hide my tears when they told me about him losing his leg. The look he has in his eyes when I tell him I couldn't stand the thought of being without him.

One by one they spin and sizzle and decay around me. The sound, the smell, the way the light catches on his hair. One by one they sear their way out of my mind. Leaving a burned hollowness as they go.

At some point they inject me with something to stop my screaming. Mumbling about me damaging my vocal chords. But it doesn't knock me out. It only intensifies my terror because now I am silent and I can't even give a voice to the burning shimmering melting agony that is tearing its way through my body and mind.

And when they finally stop, there is a voice. Asking more questions. Promising more pain if I don't answer truthfully. I can't speak though. So they make me blink yes or no. Questions, so many questions. And my mind feels like a charred pile of ruins. But they promise to inject me with more venom if I don't answer.

So I answer, as best I can.