The Bakery is hot and stuffy, and that heavy smell of dough and yeast and sugar hits me in the face as I open the back door. It's a sharp contrast from the crisp air of early dawn outside - the fresh morning had danced upon my skin as I'd made my way through the Square. Now, it sits stagnant, this fat heat. It curls around my neck and wrists. I itch at my collar and cuffs.

When I'd arrived home last night after talking with Peeta, a small package had been resting on the porch. Inside the paper wrapping were two collared shirts, starched and neatly folded. A piece of card with Madge's looping cursive was nestled in the fabric.

The prosecution is being announced on Wednesday! Press will be in town from tomorrow for a week. No offal-shirts please.

"Hello?"

Peeta's at a counter, flour up to his elbows, kneading a large ball of dough. He glances up and offers a nod of greeting. There are dark circles under his eyes. For a second, a flash of disappointment seems to twist his expression, but it disappears as quickly as it came.

"Morning," he says as his hands continue to pummel the dough; punch, punch, pull, punch-pull-punch. He tilts his head to the wall behind him where a row of aprons hang on hooks.

"Suit up," he says. His voice is low and soft and tired.

I drop my bag in a corner and fish an apron off the wall, wrapping the tie thrice around my waist. He tilts his head again, this time to five large metal bowls covered by tea towels.

"Could you please divvy that dough up into rolls? Chuck some flour on your hands so it doesn't stick."

He motions with his elbow to a small bowl and brush to his left.

"Once you've finished with that I've made up an egg wash. Just dip the brush in, give each of the rolls a quick swipe, and then chuck them in the oven."

He returns his attention to his dough, and I figure that's as much as direction as I'll get.

"Sure thing."

I pad over to a basin to wash my hands before making my way to the bowls. An olfactory assault erupts - subtle and strong all at once - when I peel back the first of the towels.

"For fucks sake," I mumble under my breath. Staring back at me is a bulging ball of dough; a milky white mottled with brown flecks of cinnamon. And, peppered throughout, wrinkled raisins.

Fucking Tuesday raisin rolls.

In my peripheries I see Peeta's head momentarily snap towards me, confused and questioning, but I ignore him. I pat my hands in some flour and, with a grimace, scoop out a ball of the dough, moulding it slightly before placing it on a metal tray. I manage five misshapen rolls before I glance back at the bowl, and my grimace pulls deeper; the ball of dough looks just as big as when I started. If anything, it looks to have grown.

The next hour passes excruciatingly slowly, a dance of flouring hands, scooping dough and placing rolls on trays, all the while shuddering as the pruned and puckered skins of the raisins brush again my hands. When Peeta finishes with his kneading he begins with the egg wash as I make my way through the remaining bowls. He doesn't talk, nor whistle, nor turn on the radio. Instead, the kitchen is filled with soft sounds; the humming of a fridge, the soothing swooshes of the egg wash brush, the intermittent clang as Peeta pushes metal trays into the oven.

The sun sits confidently in the sky when we finish; from the kitchen window I can just see the corner of the Square, bathed in the warm light of early morning. The morning rush is in its infancy, that transitionary period between the last of the early-risers heading into work, and the first hordes of students making their way to school.

Peeta wipes his hands on his apron before reaching around to untie it.

"All done."

I notice the way the muscles of his shoulders undulate as he fiddles with the tie, the way they extend and contract under the thin cotton of his shirt when he turns and hangs the apron up. I avert my eyes when he turns around, busying myself with my own apron. He glances at the clock.

"Time to open. See you this afternoon," he says, before disappearing through the door to the front of the shop.

For a moment I stand there, alone, surrounded by the heat and humming. Faintly, I can hear the sound of Peeta opening up front, and the tinkling clang of coins being arranged in a register. There's an odd feeling in my gut, an ugly feeling.

It's confusion about Peeta; how in the space of a few days he can swing from hostile to hospitable to downright disinterested. And why had his face had crumpled - ever so briefly - in disappointment, or more aptly, like he'd been stung, when first laid eyes on me today?

As I shoulder my bag, exiting through the back door and making my way through the Square, past shops raising shutters and yawning schoolchildren piling onto buses and a newly arrived camera crew setting up seating and microphones, this feeling niggles. It's confusion, yes, but something else. Something foreign. It's only when I'm at the top of the Justice Building stairs that I realise what it is.

Hurt.

Peeta said sixty two words this morning, but not one of them was a thank you.

Haymitch, surprisingly, is already perched at the table when I arrive at the Town Hall.

"Gooood morning, Sweetheart," he coos.

I manage a grumbled reply, and Haymitch barks a laugh.

"Ah, not so good a morning then. What's got your knickers in a knot?"

I slump into my seat next to him, plunking my elbows on the table and resting my face heavily in my hands.

"I helped out at the Bakery this morning."

Haymitch chuckles roughly again. "What, the morning too early for you? Wouldn't have thought a dawn-start would bother you too much."

I close my eyes, feeling myself sink into my hands, into the chair, into the wooden planks of the stage. I breathe deeply.

"Ah, no. Early starts are the bread to my butter," I mumble.

A few figures appear at the door. They bustle into the room with confidence, finding friends and acquaintances, waving across the room at others and calling out in greeting.

"Peeta was just in a funk," I continue. I sit up, pull my chair in, stretch out my arms and hear the faint crack of my knuckles. "A simple thank you would've been nice," I mutter.

I expect Haymitch to laugh, but he merely lets out a contemplative humph. I peer over at him, questioningly. He shrugs.

"Everything's a strategy, girl, and he knows it. You can't blame him for being moody when even getting a damn spare pair of hands to help out is orchestrated. You turn up in that collared shirt on the day the cameras arrive in town, you'd best believe he's jumping to conclusions and thinking that your 'helping hand' is just a press ploy."

I roll my eyes. "His brother was sick, Haymitch. They had no one to man the store. Who was he going to ask, huh? He couldn't ask you, you're not exactly the poster boy for hygiene. It doesn't inspire customer confidence."

"I'm not disputing that he needed help. I'm merely pointing out that it's convenient that you were called in to help on the day cameras are in town."

I furrow my brow, confused and not following his line of thinking. Haymitch sighs.

"When are you going to get it, girl? Peeta needs a hand in the Bakery, so Madge rearranges the schedule so you can help. Not Beetee, not Johanna. You. This isn't about bread, or baking, or scheduling …"

Haymitch's arm swings out, a broad arc, as if asking me to look around - as if the Town Hall holds some key to broader picture I've been missing.

"… Why did Madge choose you for her team? Yeah, you care about people, yeah, you don't have your head up your ass so you pay attention to others. But news flash darling - other people in the District do that too.

Madge wanted you because you watch Peeta. Madge wanted you because Peeta was once enamoured with you. But at the end of the day, Madge chose you because of what you represent."

Haymitch quietens for a moment, breathing in soft, rhythmic pants. His expression lightens when he reads my own, still confused.

"You have no idea, the effect you had, girl. That you still have," Haymitch says, no longer blunt. "In the old Twelve. In this new one. In Thirteen. In Panem. Hell, there were talks in Thirteen about making you the Mockingjay, or at least someone to stand beside Peeta."

I bark out a surprised laugh and wait for Haymitch to join me - for his seriousness to break and dissolve into a chuckle - but he doesn't.

"Haymitch. Come off it," I deadpan. "That's fucking ridiculous."

He simply shakes his head.

"Peeta was curated. He was a part of the Rebellion by virtue of being part of the Games. People respected his actions, but everyone knew there was strategy behind it. But you? You were organic. You were untouched by the Capitol, and you probably would've started a Rebellion with or without the 74th and 75th Games."

Haymitch pauses, and a sly grin creeps into his features momentarily. "You're crude as shit though and a donkey's asshole would probably take better to a camera, hence Coin's ultimate veto of the idea."

Haymitch's generous appraisal pulls a snigger from me, but I still shake my head. Peeta may have been curated, but he was a somebody. Panem may have only been introduced to him through the Games, but District 12 knew him before and after - the sweet blonde-haired boy, the youngest of the Mellarks. Me? Panem wouldn't have known me from the next Seam girl, and the majority of District 12 wouldn't recognise me, or would pretend not to. I was as far from a figurehead as they come.

Haymitch reads my dubiousness.

"Why do you think you're a leader, girl?"

I squirm.

"Gale is a leader because he's charming. He can win a person over, he can strategise and calculate and negotiate, and we needed that when we came back - someone who knows how to get what we need, how to make the hard decisions.

You on the other hand have all the charisma of geese shit. But while everything Gale does comes back to and benefits him, everything you do is for others."

Haymitch stabs his forefinger once into the table. "Everything."

A sharp squeal sounds, and Hamish and I are abruptly drawn from our tête-à-tête. We clap our hands over our ears, as does half of the now-full room, cringing. I look down below our platform where Thom is fiddling with the microphone, his features contorted in a mix of embarrassment and apology.

"Sorry," he rushes, "Um, I'm first up today, so uh, are we okay to start?"

Haymitch grumbles a tired, "As we'll ever be", and so begins a steady stream of people rolling back and forth to the microphone for the next hour.

I listen to chatter about how there's not enough green space, and how there's too much; questions about construction and plans and the future, about the train schedule, whether a bus route will be introduced, what the bus schedule will be, do Haymitch and I think that a fifteen year old with good reflexes could be a bus driver as an after-school job?

I scratch notes on my notepad robotically, but my mind is elsewhere as Haymitch's monologue rolls through my thoughts like undulating waves, rushing up and down the shore. That I had, and have, an 'effect'. That Madge choosing me was strategic as a ploy to get people to warm to Peeta. That I was considered for the Mockingjay. The Mockingjay.

One thought is constant though, twirling and twisting even as we thank everyone for coming, as we sift through forms, as we tidy up and start out of the hall.

"See ya, Sweetheart," Haymitch drawls when we reach the door, and just as he turns to head out towards the Square, I grab his wrist. His eyes snap up in surprise.

"What did you mean when you said Madge wanted me because of Peeta? And him, you know …" I fumble over my words, my momentary boldness rapidly fading. Haymitch's eyebrows quirk in question. 'Go on,' they say.

"Being enamoured," I choke. "With me. Peeta being enamoured with me."

Haymitch pulls back and emits a roaring cackle, so boisterous I can see a half his breakfast - slivers of fried egg whites - wedged between his molars. I punch his shoulder, and his laughter subsides marginally.

"Girl," he manages through a chuckle. "Everyone knew who the boy was talking about when Flickerman asked him if he had a girl back home, and he said she'd never noticed him. Hell, everyone knew who he fancied before he was even reaped, what with his puppy-dog eyes. And when he came out of those Games? That interview?"

Haymitch shakes his head and scoffs.

"Come on, Sweetheart. The bravest and the kindest? Who else would he have been talking about?

The bravest and the kindest. The bravest. The kindest. The bravest and the kindest …

The phrase swirls through my thoughts as I weave through the Justice Building corridors. Gale has already set up the Leader meeting when I arrive, and Paylor's holographic face is shining against the far wall. Beetee and Johanna are sitting opposite Gale, and I flash a distracted smile at them before sitting down.

It's the same rigamarole as Tuesdays past - leader updates, leader presentations. Paylor calls for a Town Hall update, I tell her they're going well, she grins, and I fade again into background, all while those two words loop in my head.

I'd been in Town the first time I heard them.

It had been a busy morning of trade, and Gale and I had decided to do our mandatory-viewing of the Victor's interview in the Square after wrapping up sales. Casear Flickerman's voice had been crackling slightly through the speakers interspersed throughout the crowd.

"So glad to have you back, Peeta!"

Flickerman leant forward to Peeta who was perched on a small sofa opposite.

"Now, can I let you in on a secret?" He sat back in his chair, turning to the crowd and sweeping his arms open. "Shall I, everyone?"

The Capitol crowd roared in asset, and Flickerman winked theatrically before continuing. "I'm not supposed to have favourites … but you were my favourite tribute."

Sharp laughter bled from the screen into the Square, accompanied by peels of static. A soft breeze was weaving its way through District 12, and the large projector erected in front of the Justice Building fluttered slightly. The camera zoomed in on Peeta's face - his mouth curved in a crooked grin - and I marvelled at how clean it looked. A face that has watched the murder of its friends shouldn't have been that fresh, that unblemished.

Flickerman cleared his throat. "Now let me cast your mind back to our first meeting Peeta, when you sat on this very stage two weeks ago."

Peeta nodded jovially, though his fingers twitched and stiffened at his sides. The twenty three others that had joined him on that same stage were now buried under cold ground.

"I asked you if there was a special girl waiting for you if you won, did I not?"

"Perhaps," Peeta replied with a goading smirk.

"A special girl who you said didn't recognise you until your reaping. Well, now you stand here, Victor of the 74th Hunger Games with the world at your feet and no doubt her attention. Tell me, Peeta, just who is your special girl?"

The Capitol crowd erupted in shrieks again, but this time their enthusiasm was echoed in our own Town Square, with several girls fidgeting and whispering excitedly to their friends.

"Well, Caesar," Peeta started, and a hush fell over both the Square and screen. "I don't think she's the type to appreciate being named on national television."

Caesar's expression morphed into one of faux disappointment. Jeering boos rose from the crowd, only to stop suddenly as Peeta started again.

"I can say this though, Caesar." He drew a deep breath and shifted positions. His fingers lifted to the lapel of his suit and traced its seam line before settling on a golden pin adhered to the fabric. I knew that pin - it was the same one he had worn in the Games, the one he wore in his interviews beforehand. A mockingjay.

"She is the strongest person I know," Peeta said. "The bravest and the kindest. She was with me, whether she knew it or not, from the moment I went into the arena to the moment I came out. She was my hope for a better tomorrow, and she is the reason I am here with you now."

A quiet snigger burst from Gale, and he clamped his hand over he mouth. I batted at his arm, but could feel a smirk of my own creeping over my face.

The air was still balmy when the interview finished and as we began making our way home, the promise of summer danced through the slight sheens of sweat on our skin. Gale chattered on about nothing as we crossed into the Seam, and I nodded along periodically. We were both buoyed by the end of the games and our walk away from them; content in that brief slice of time before dawn broke tomorrow morning and we would again wake to soot and hunger and constraint. A chuckle bubbled from Gale.

"How they pump an interview like that out of someone fresh from the Games, beats me. That boy was a poet! Got half of Panem on the edge of their seats, and the other half pining for him!"

I rolled my eyes at his incredulous tone but nodded all the same. He wasn't wrong. Watching Peeta, and the reactions of both the Capitol and the crowd in Twelve, had made my stomach sour. The Games had ended, but the pretending and preening was only just beginning for him. I pushed the thoughts from my head and focussed instead on the boy walking beside me, and the family I had waiting for me at home - all safe and well.

"You're, of course, in the pining half, no?" I asked with a grin.

Gale stopped mid stride, eyebrows raised so high they near touched his hairline. A stupid smile chewed half his face.

"What'd you say?"

I laughed and spun around to face him, easing into a slow jog.

"You heard me!" I teased, before spinning back again and breaking into a sprint, laughing.

Gale was laughing too, a great big sound that ebbed and flowed, and we ran through the Seam, zigzagging through streets and forgetting, in that precious slice of time, that our pastel dusk would soon end, and tomorrow would come.

I didn't hear those words again for another three months. Peeta returned and then left again for his Victory tour, and while he was always in my peripheries - as he had been since he'd thrown me that bread - I wasn't invested in his triumphant return or tour like others. I didn't turn on the television to watch his speeches unless it was mandatory viewing. I didn't queue to get his signature on the banquet day. I saw him, intermittently, elbow-deep in flour, from the back door of the Bakery while I traded squirrels with his Dad, but our communication never went further than a quick meeting of eyes and obligatory nod.

I didn't think about Peeta any more than usual, and those words slipped from my mind. But the second time? The second time I was at home when I heard the phrase, in that lull between the Games, winter biting at the heels of autumn.

A soft rap had sounded against the door.

Mum peered over in confusion; the sound was arrhythmic, like the person outside had forgotten how to knock.

"Gale?" she questioned.

I shook my head and pursed my lips, moving slowly towards the door, swiping a knife from the kitchen on my way. Gale wouldn't have waited to be let in. I paused and glanced back at mum, her eyes wide, and steadied my hand against the knob. The rapping sounded again.

I yanked the door open, knife clenched in my hand and half-ready to strike, only to be met by a raised fist in mid-knock. The fist slowly unfurled and the arm drooped. I slipped the knife into my pocket.

"Ahhhh, Kat-niss."

His hair was plastered to his face and his cheeks ruddy, visible even in the dim light. His clothes were rumpled and lined with faint sweat marks. My eyebrows pinched in confusion.

"Peeta?"

A lazy smile spread across his face. He swayed slightly, pitching forward and back, and I caught a whiff of something that smelt like Ripper's bootleg moonshine.

"Katniss," he breathed, his voice warm, like merely saying my name gave him some great sense of contentment. I frowned, confused. He didn't stop smiling.

I glanced around, looking out onto the empty street and the blackening sky. It was almost curfew. I didn't need recent Victors on my porch at night. I didn't need them, or any town folk, here period. I especially didn't need drunk boys I felt indebted to hanging around.

"Yes?" I bit.

Peeta chuckled, "Katniss, don't be mean to me. Katniss, katniss, katniss. Such a pretty name."

"It's near curfew, Peeta. Go home," I deadpanned.

"Fuck curfew," he mumbled.

My eyes widened in surprise. I'd never heard Peeta curse. He was silent for a moment, attention focussed on his pockets, his hands wriggling manically inside the linen. Even crumpled, the fabric looked expensive. Peeta suddenly lurched forward and grasped my hand, pressing something cold and sharp into my palm. He shifted his eyes up to meet mine, grinning a stupid grin, and leant closer to my ear. A wave of hot breath swept over my cheek. It smelt of bread and sour booze.

"I brought it back," he said. "For you."

I looked down, my small hands resting in his large, and slowly unfolded my fingers. Inside lay a golden pin - his pin. A mockingjay. He withdrew one hand from mine and rested it gently against my cheek. I didn't move, and his eyes locked with mine. They were glassy and slightly unfocussed, but for one moment they sharpened and sobered, seeming to search my own for answers to unasked questions. His thumb caressed my jaw once, and his other hand squeezed mine tightly.

"The bravest and the kindest," he breathed.

I scrunched my eyes, bewildered, as though this was a convoluted dream I'd soon wake from. When I opened them, our porch was empty and my hand that had just been clasped by Peeta's was now hanging cold air that smelt all too clean.

I shook my head as if to try shake away confusion. I gazed back out onto the street, but it was bathed in darkness now; the only sign of Peeta's presence was the soft thumping of footfalls growing fainter and fainter as they moved down the street.

I'd brushed it off as a drunken mishap - a wrong door, likely, or a prank; go piss off the Seam girl, the one who prefers her bow over boys. The whole idea of him having an unrequited love in District 12 reeked of a Capitol-designed love story - something to keep audiences on their toes, to lure them in. The idea that said love was me was plain ludicrous.

But regardless of however baseless Peeta's words may have been, it didn't stop Prim's teasings when she later found the pin resting by our bedside.

Her eyes had widened comically, and she'd palmed at the dented metal like it was gold.

"The bravest and the kindest!" she squealed, before jumping onto the bed and waving the pin above her head manically. A toothy beam had split her face.

We'd traded the pin back and forth for the next year, and those words took on a new meaning between the two of us. A reminder to ourselves and each other that in amongst the unravelling of the world - the cowardice and cruelty and despair that greeted us round every corner - we were brave, and we were kind. Well, at the very least, Prim was.

The last time the pin traded hands, Prim was handing it back to me in the bowels of Thirteen. We weren't allowed to wear anything beyond the standard uniform underground, so I took to attaching it to my bra each morning.

It's a habit I haven't kicked, and each day I go out, that pin rests on the inside of my breast, atop my heart, a constant reminder of the bravest girl I knew; the absolute kindest.

I usually pay the pin no mind - it's such a fixture that I no longer notice how it scratches briefly if I turn a specific way, nor its coolness on my skin. But as I finish up the Leader meeting and I make to the Victor's Village to knock on Peeta's door, the pin seems to pulsing, burning, dripping fire. Prim and I had taken those words and made them our own - our own special language, a form of shorthand. Haymitch's reminder of their provenance, and the insinuation that they weren't a scheme nor a joke as I'd thought, has breathed new life into those words and the pin that represents them.

I wriggle my toes in my boots, I jiggle my knee. My hands fidget at my sides. I don't want to be here. Think of where this money will get you and others, I tell myself.

I don't want to be here. Think of the cabin in the woods. I don't want to be here. The pin pulses and I fidget and scrunch my eyes and wish, desperately, that Haymitch had kept his gob shut this morning rather than unleash this mental torrent upon me.

Peeta's face is impassive when he opens the door, and he simply nods before turning round and leading me to the dining room.

"Madge got advance notice of the Prosecution ahead of tomorrow. She told me the team," he says flatly.

"Oh." I scrounge for a response, but what do you say to something like that? The people on the Prosecution are very likely people Peeta knows, people he's worked with before. "Whose on it?"

His face twists. "I can't say."

He slumps down at the table. I pull out a chair opposite, wincing as it scraps across the floorboards, and sit down gingerly. He stares at, waiting.

"So," I try, clearing my throat. "What's your favourite item at the Bakery?"

Peeta sighs heavily. "I'm not really feeling the twenty questions today," he says, swiping his hand across his jaw. "Can you just cut to the chase?"

"There's no chase," I say frowning. "Not yet, anyway. Madge has just asked that we talk and get to know each other."

"Get to know each other," Peeta parrots, and I feel myself bristling as I did the first time I came to visit. The Peeta from yesterday has all but disappeared; in his place the sullen boy from last week.

"Get the stick out of your arse, Peeta."

His eyes widen and he chokes out a contemptuous laugh.

"Out of my arse?" He splutters. "Well, don't sugarcoat it darling." He shakes his head and pushes back from the table, making his way to the kitchen before deciding otherwise and facing me again.

"If Madge wants us to 'talk' - if these conversations are considered work - fine, but don't expect me to be chummy. Especially when you dress up like that," - he gestures towards my body vaguely, a sweeping up and down movement, his face pulled in a tight grimace as if I was wearing something utterly offensive, and not a collared shirt - "on the day the cameras come to Town. We're not friends, Katniss. Don't expect me to believe you'd have turned up on my doorstep for any other reason than getting me ready for this trial."

A strangled sound of bafflement bubbles from my lips.

"Yeah, no shit, Peeta. I know we're not 'friends', and yeah, I wouldn't be coming here to chat if I hadn't been asked, just like you wouldn't have sought me out before this trial prep began."

Peeta rolls his eyes and turns back to the kitchen, and I follow him through the doorway.

"I don't expect you to be chummy', I spit, "but I expect you to be bloody civil!"

Peeta stalks towards the counter as if he hasn't heard me. The marble top is strewn with metal bowls, small and large, with wooden spoons and spatulas dangling precariously between rims. There's a piping bag nearby, the remnants of a vibrant blue icing lining the strangled plastic. Peeta starts picking up utensils, dumping them into the sink with clanging clatters that increase in ferocity as he goes. I lean against and island bench, watching. His shoulders slump when he's finished, and he braces his arms against the basin, outstretched. The kitchen is silent.

"I'm sorry, I'm just tired."

I shake my head. "You're lying."

He bangs the palm of his hand against bench top once, turning his head to the side slightly so I can see how his eyes are scrunched tight in profile, before sagging back into his braced position. Slowly, his elbows contract, his knees buckle, and he draws himself closer to the counter, sliding down till he's slumped against the cupboards facing me. Tentatively, I crouch down, sitting on the floor where I am several metres away. The Peeta in front of me is not the one from yesterday, nor this morning, nor the one who opened the door not ten minutes ago. This Peeta is broken.

"Before my Games, we didn't talk at all," he starts, softly. "After, we would cross paths occasionally - Haymitch buying booze in the Hob, sitting in a few of the same meetings in Thirteen - but we never said more than a few words. And then?"

His voice catches in his throat, and he swallows roughly. "And then for thirty seconds, when you wrenched that gun away, you were a part of my life, and so profoundly. When we came back to Twelve though, it was as it was before, and I was fine with that, because it made it easier to forget that day. But now? You're suddenly in my life again, and you want to talk. And while I know we'll eventually get to the Games and the Rebellion, yesterday, when you asked me those questions and seemed to be happy listening to my answers, it felt good. Good to talk to someone new. Good to talk period. And then you turn up in that collared shirt and I'm reminded of why you're here, that this is for the trial, this is because I took that shot."

Peeta pauses and takes a deep breath, and his shoulder and chest expand outwards and up, like he's sucking in strength to continue.

"Sometimes when I see you, Katniss, all I can see is you ripping away that gun."

His shoulders deflate and he stares at his fingernails, fiddling with a loose edge.

My insides churn and I wish viscerally that I wasn't sitting on polished concrete but the bare dirt floor of the woods. The soles of my feet twinge with a phantom ache, and my legs suddenly feel heavy, as they do whenever I run through the woods to escape this very question that won't leave me alone - should I have pulled that gun away?

Peeta looks up again.

"I didn't ask to be saved, Katniss."

His tone is steady and calm and soft, and it punches me in the gut.

"I know," I whisper.

"That was my decision. My choice."

"A decision you made after nearly two years of being knee-deep in bloodshed," I say, the words pouring from my mouth unbidden. I study my hands as I wring and squeeze and unfurl them - anything to avoid his eyes. "A choice made under the weight of death and sadness and aloneness - a choice made because you couldn't see a future with anything besides that.

I've been under that weight too, Peeta. I've felt that sadness eat at my skin, the overwhelming aloneness that just sits there, staring at you. And when I was being crushed, you pulled me out. You saved me with that bread."

I pause and glance up, my breath somewhat rapid and heavy.

"It was my turn to save you," I murmur.

For a moment we're silent, staring at each other. Peeta has a strange look on his face, one I can't quite decipher. He's the first to break, and his gaze meanders over to a window. I need to know what that look means - what thoughts are rumbling around in his head. I need him to tell me that what I did was right, that in pulling away that gun and forcing him to bear this hulking weight of living, I've given him a chance. Possibility. Hope.

I wade back into the conversation, seeking answers.

"You looked happy after I pulled the gun away," I say softly. Peeta's attention snaps back to me. "Your eyes were light. You smiled."

Peeta again studies me for a moment before peering back out the window. The wind has picked now; the afternoon is turning blustery. He heaves a deep sigh as strong as the brewing gales outside.

"I've thought a lot about mortality," he says. "As soon as your name is pulled from the reaping bowl, you start thinking about what it means to die. And as soon as that trumpet sounded and I was named Victor, I started to think about what it means to live. That was all the more terrifying. I was prepared to die. I was ready. I wasn't ready to live."

He shakes his head slightly and grimaces, as if trying to find the right words and failing. He starts again.

"I don't know if there is anything after death, and if there would be anything for me. Old legends say that there are two worlds beyond ours; one hell below for the damned, and a heaven above for the blessed. I don't think it's that simple; that distinct.

But it's still a nice thought, that maybe there's a possibility that at the end of all this, after trying to make the right decisions, I might end in a place where I'd be happy with those I'd love."

He paused, tracing his fingers along the seams of his cuffs.

"When I pulled that trigger the third time, I thought I was making a good decision. I wanted to escape my pain, but more than that, I wanted to end the Mockingjay. I wanted the districts to start anew, free from the Capitol, free from Thirteen, and free from the thing that bound them together; me.

When I pulled that trigger and didn't feel anything but hot air, I thought the gun might have jammed, or I'd misaimed. But then I opened my eyes and you were there in front of me, and I thought that maybe I had died and this heaven thing wasn't bullshit. Or that maybe I was now just in a perpetual state of dreaming where I could live with a conjured you."

He looks up to me, and his face is earnest.

"Then Haymitch was pulling me away." He scoffs lightly under his breath, "That was the end of that dream."

A pregnant silence lingers, swirling with unasked questions and large answers. Peeta's insinuation lies heavy in the middle; that his idea of happiness, of a perfect afterlife, is - or was - centred around me.

The streets are mostly empty as I weave back to the Seam, everyone scared indoors by the looming clouds rolling in from the east. There wasn't much to say after Peeta's confession - what do you say after something like that?

The wind lashes the wisps of hair that frame my face, the locks that have escaped my braid through the day, and they wave violently. I feel like my insides are thrumming, like they too are rippling violently, some internal gale blowing me left and right, upwards and outwards.

By the time I stumble through the door I'm tingling, prickling, itching to get rid of this feeling, but it seems to only amplify as thoughts of the day rush through my mind. The sickly scent of raisin rolls and the way Haymitch slightly rolled the 'r' in enamoured and how it felt like a light flicking on, two puzzle pieces clicking together, when memories of that brave and kind phrase flooded my thoughts, and the way Peeta's eyes shone and his fingers twitched when he said he had thought I was his heaven.

"You okay, Catnip?"

I snap my attention to the kitchen, where Gale is perched at the dining table, as he is every other Tuesday night. I cough awkwardly and toe off my shoes.

"Yeah," I say, "Sorry, just in my own world."

A look of concern still lingers on his face, but as I make my way to the fridge and pull out a roasting tray of wild turkey and vegetables, it dissipates.

"I've got some news," he says. The oven racks clatter as I push the tray in and turn the knob.

"Mmm," I mutter, fiddling with the dial. The District subsidised new ovens for Seam folk three months ago in an effort to reduce house fires from slap-together stoves. "Just a sec," I say. I still haven't figured out mine.

When I turn back and sit down opposite Gale, he's brimming with excitement. The prickling subsides slightly and I can't help but laugh at the child-like display.

"Well?" I ask with a smile.

Gale pulls a letter from behind his back, cradling it delicately, and he stares at me with bright eyes. "I've been invited to be part of Peeta's trial. They want me on the case, Katniss."

I push my chair back and skirt round the table, wrapping his neck in a warm hug.

"I'm so happy for you," I whisper, and he chuckles, his cheek vibrating against mine.

"Does Peeta know yet? He'll be so excited, Gale."

Gale pauses and pulls away, looking at me with a strange gaze. "What?"

"Excited," I repeat. "As in he'll be excited to have you with him, helping him, on his team. I thought there was only three a team, so what'll you be doing?"

Gale expels a loud breath. It lingers heavy in the sudden silence.

"Catnip," he starts. He swallows, and his Adam's apple seems to undulate sluggishly. 'I'm on the Prosecution."