Another chapter done. I hope I've done just to Katniss's character.


It's Peeta that brings up the subject of nightmares again.

"I wouldn't mind if you stayed the night," he offered. "I sleep better when I'm with you. The nightmares don't bother me as much when I can wake up and see that you're alright."

After the talk where I cornered Peeta in his kitchen, we established a routine. Both of us, being people that needed to rise with the sun, decided it was easier for us to eat breakfast at Peeta's house. It was a better alternative than me bumbling about my kitchen and waking Prim and my mother. The boy with the bread always had a plate of cheesy buns, freshly baked and waiting for me. They had quickly topped lamb stew as my favorite food.

Most mornings we didn't talk. Afterwards, he would head into town and help Mr. Mellark open the bakery and I would sneak underneath the fence, retrieve my bow and quiver from the slightly hollowed tree I hid them in, and lose myself in my hunting.

Hunting was simple or easy anymore. Haymitch would call me a stubborn fool for returning day after day and recommend I have a stiff drink instead of torturing myself. It was unfortunate that my haven now came with reminders of the Games, of children I had hunted and killed. Every time I lifted my weapon and took aim I saw Marvel's or Cato's face, stuck through the eye with an arrow I had made.

As had become typical of interactions between me and the district's resident drunk, I ignored him. I was the girl that hunted in the woods, and I wasn't going to let the Games take that from me.

It was kill or be killed in the Hunger Games. I felt bad that I had killed. Not of the action itself, but because of its consequences. I had deprived a family of their son. Maybe even a brother. But I would never regret what I had done. It had been necessary to keep my promise to Prim.

I was a hunter. Killing was what I did. I would move on and forget about the Games, just like I had all the others we were forced to watch. With time, the faces would stop haunting me.

I was handling it just fine. I woke from the nightly terrors before crying out so I wouldn't disturb Prim. Slightly sleep deprived was something I could deal with. I was already getting used functioning on four hours of sleep.

Peeta disagreed. The blond commented that my olive skin looked washed out, asking if I had been sleeping okay. I'd be angry that he was insulting off-handedly if it wasn't done out of concern.

"Olive?" What was olive?

Peeta hm'ed around a mouthful of cheesy goodness. Swallowing, he said, "It's a fruit that's a dark yellowish, green color. You're skin has that slight warm, yellowish undertone. Reminds me of olives. But you're getting off topic."

I set my jaw. "Wasn't anything to get off of," I said through gritted teeth. "The Games are fresh. The nightmares will go away in a couple weeks," I stubbornly insisted.

Peeta was already shaking his head before I had finished speaking. "They won't, Katniss. You can't keep running from your problems. Ignoring them will only make it worse."

"What about you?" I snapped back, not in the mood to deal with the terrors I dreamt of each night. Wasn't it enough that I had told him one?

"You said on the train you'd let me help," Peeta reminded, ignoring my question and staring at me determined. I found it impossible to look away from his blue eyes. "Let me help you, Katniss," he pleaded. "We slept better together."

I wanted so badly to refuse him, to tell him to back off and mind his own business. Didn't Peeta realize how much he had helped me already? He saved my family when he gave me that bread, ignited my fighting spirit and reminded me that there was something I could do to ensure Prim was fed. He made me into the survivor that I was.

And, despite its underhandedness, his feelings had made me a popular choice to win the Hunger Games. The Gamemakers would have killed me off earlier for my stunt with the apple if I was just the surly and scowling girl from Twelve.

I owed Peeta, more than he owed me. He didn't owe me anything, especially considering how stubborn I've been. Every time I open my mouth I hurt him.

We. I realized he had said. Plural. It was his business too, I recognized. I wasn't the only Victor struggling with nightmares. How could I say no when it granted him a reprieve from his fears too? Ones that revolved around me.

"Just this once," I said, eyebrows narrowed warningly, inviting him to contradict me. I always paid my debts. Peeta would realize that the night on the train had been a fluke. We had been too exhausted and emotionally drained dream again. Tonight would be like every other night, filled with darkness and death and him dying in my arms as Snow crowns me the Victor with a chain of roses, thorns piercing skin and letting rivulets of blood run down my face.

Peeta flashed me a brilliant grin, uncaring that this arrangement was a one-time thing. "You want to come over after dinner?" he suggested.

I'd rather sneak out of my house when Prim and my mother were down for the night. They would assume I was out in the woods like always. But Peeta looked so happy that I had agreed that I found myself saying I would.

"Great. We can talk about our talents then," he added, rising from his barstool. I promptly choked on the last of my breakfast. Peeta came over and pounded me on the back with an open hand until I coughed up the partially chewed cheesy bun.

He swept it into the nearby trash bin with a wave of his hand and handed me his half-finished glass of water. I drank it gratefully as he hovered nervously. "Are you alright?" he asked concernedly when I set the empty cup down and took a deep breath.

"What are you talking about? What talents?" I scowled. If Haymitch was keeping things from me I was going to dump every bottle of alcohol he owned down the drain.

Peeta blinked, surprised. "Effie didn't tell you?"

My scowl deepened at the mention of the overbearing escort. That was even worse. Effie treated everything to do with the Games like it was common knowledge and we should be overjoyed to have been picked to participate. I still hadn't forgiven her for drawing Prim's name from the Reaping bowl. Prim's name was only in there once. One amongst thousands of slips. The odds of her being chosen at her first Reaping were the same as Haymitch giving up drinking. That is to say, no chance at all.

"Tell me what?" I demanded.

"She called yesterday afternoon." He tipped blond curls in the direction of the telephone mounted on the wall. "Said she'd be coming out to the district to register her pearls' talents. Apparently," he said, mouth twisting wryly, "we're a hot commodity in the Capitol and they're clamoring to know what we'll decided. I wouldn't be surprised if they're placing bets on it."

Peeta's joke didn't even register. All I could feel was panic, and a touch of horror.

"I thought we had until the Victory Tour?" I blurted.

We both flinched at the reminder of the dread Victory Tour, which took place six months after the Games. They were horrible. Worse than knowing I'd be mentoring scared teenagers who didn't stand a chance at winning. It was the Capitol's way of twisting the knife into the hearts of the people, making a mandatory parade-like event where the Victor traveled to each district to thank the other tributes for making the Games entertaining and praised the Capitol for putting us in our place in the same breath.

We had five months before it was time to go on the tour.

Peeta shrugged helplessly. "Effie wants it done now."

"Easy for her to say," I muttered under my breath. "Not like she has to choose. Her only talent is berating people for lacking proper manners."

To my surprise, Peeta smirked. The boy was usually disappointed when I criticized our escort, claiming it wasn't her fault that she was born in the Capitol. "That's not true. She's very good at saying the wrong thing, like when she said pearls are made from coal."

He had a point. Effie's obliviousness, when it wasn't irritating me, amazed me.

"At least yours will be easy," I sighed, frustrated. It was ridiculous that the Capitol forced us to have a talent they could market.

"Oh?" Peeta cocked an eyebrow at me. I scowled reflexively.

"Yeah. You're an artist," I said pointedly, remembering how he made his arm look like tree bark during training and that he decorated the cakes Prim loved to fawn over. "I don't have any talents."

The other eyebrow shot up to join the first. "That's not true. Of course you have talents," he insisted.

I shot him a withering glare. "None that aren't illegal," I clarified. My hunting was the worst keep secret in the district. Even before the Games. If the Peacekeepers could afford the kind of food they served in the Capitol, I would have been killed years ago. As it was, their lot was as bad as ours, so none of them cared that I broke the law because it meant they could have fresh meat.

"You have the most beautiful voice," he complimented softly.

I fought the heat blooming in my cheeks. It wasn't the first time Peeta had praised my voice, but this time he said it with a raw honesty that betrayed the long love he carried for me. Peeta usually kept such displays of emotion to a minimum to make me more comfortable.

"I don't want to share that with the Capitol," I glared down at the countertop, hands fisting the cotton material of my pants. "It's mine. One of the few memories I have of my father." I missed how Peeta's eyes softened sympathetically and his nod of understanding.

Peeta's rough hands gently unclenched my own, tugging them up onto the counter and curling his fingers around mine. "You don't have to sing. I'll tell them you're my muse and that I only want to paint you. I'd be willing to bet everyone wants a portrait of the Girl on Fire."

I knew Peeta was trying to distract me and make me feel better, but his words had the opposite effect, reminding me that we wouldn't be sitting here if not for our popularity and the Capitol's generosity, which knowing Snow, came with invisible strings.

He cupped my face under the chin, forcing me to look at him. "Don't worry about it. We'll figure it out together."

"Right. Together," I echoed. We were a team. Maybe they would let me pose for Peeta's paintings. I could handle that.

"Later, though," Peeta continued. "My mother is going to kill me for being so late." With a quick kiss, the baker had taken advantage of my not restricting when he could kiss me and was always creating opportunities to do so, Peeta was out the door.

I followed him as far as the door, watching as his broad-shouldered frame made its way down the path from Victor's Village to the Town. When I could no longer see him, I grabbed my father's leather hunting jacket and jogged to the fence.

Hunting always cleared my head. I could think easier surrounded by the trees and the sounds of nature, though I usually used it as an escape to think about nothing at all. It had something to do with knowing I was absolutely alone, literally the only person for miles.

"You're late, Catnip."

Except for Gale, who was bent over one of his snares, removing the rabbit he had caught. I didn't mind share my private haven with the other teen. Gale and I were a lot alike. Stubborn and willing to do whatever necessary to take care of our siblings.

Gale's presence meant that it was Sunday, as it was the only day he had off work from the mines, and that I was really out of it because I had lost track of the days.

"Gale," I greeted. His dark head popped up at my terseness.

"You sure you're up for hunting, Katniss? You look pale."

Gale's words gave me pause. Not because he was the second person in the space of an hour to tell me I looked wane, but because he called me by name. He rarely ever called me by Katniss.

"It's nothing," I said, threading my arm through the strap on the back of my quiver and letting its familiar weight settle across my back.

"Don't pull that crap with me, Catnip," he said, bagging the rabbit. "We talk about everything. You know you can tell me anything."

"It's nothing," I repeated. "Just stupid Victor stuff."

Gale's face closed off. In uneasy silence he reset his trap and moved light on his feet to the next one. I didn't know why he was upset, but I wasn't eager to find out. Chances were it dealt with the Capitol and I didn't want to hear another one of his rants about the Capitol's injustice. Not when I knew Snow was capable of taking Prim from me if I so much as looked at him wrong.

With the anger practically rolling off my hunting partner in waves, I found myself distracted, only managing to shoot one small quail and a squirrel. I made quick tracks back to my house when we called an end to our hunting for the day, leaving before Gale could argue about my two kills that were still in his bag.

I thought the day couldn't get any worse. Lack of sleep from nightmares. Effie and the Capitol were breathing down our necks. And now I had managed to upset Gale, the one person who didn't remind me of the Games every time we were in the same space.

Then I found Peeta's door locked when I went over after dinner. I shouted and threatened, but he refused to let me, claiming that today wasn't a good day and we could do it sometime next week.

I was worried. It wasn't like Peeta to go back on his word. So I went around the side of the house and hefted myself through the open window. Peeta always had at least one open. Said the house felt stuffy otherwise.

I found him in the first place I look, the kitchen, nursing a bruise on the left side of his face with a frozen bag of peas. Involuntarily, I gasped, and Peeta whirled to face me, dropping his makeshift ice pack.

"Katniss?" he asked in bewilderment. "How did you get in? I didn't hear the door."

"That's because I didn't use it," I said smartly, stepping forward with a raised hand and freezing when Peeta took a step backward. "What happened, Peeta? Who did that?"

He mumbled incoherently, eyes not meeting my gaze. Taking care to move slowly, I reached out for him again. This time he didn't move away. I gently brushed the pad of my thumb over the darkening bruise. It ran along his cheekbone. It was an abnormally straight marking, not the result of someone striking him with a hand.

Oddly, I found myself recalling Peeta's words as he left. My mother is going to kill me for being so late. I felt furious. I hadn't like it when she had slapped him for burning the bread that night, but what possible reason could she have had to hit him today? Certainly not just because he was running behind schedule?

"I'm going to kill her," I growled, marching towards the front door. I was halted by Peeta's warm hand on my wrist.

"Please, Katniss. You're not a murderer."

"The fact that I'm standing here says otherwise," I said flatly, not impressed with his defense.

"It's not worth it. Let it go."

"Let it go?" I shrieked, enraged. "She hurt you!"

"I know. I was there." I scowled at him furiously. Peeta sighed, dragging his free hand over his face. "Look, it's not a big deal. I'll stay away for a few days and she'll calm down."

I was torn between wanting to tear Mrs. Mellark to pieces with my bare hands and comforting Peeta. Despite his claims, I could see the pain in his eyes.

I twisted my wrist so I could grab him and drag him over to the couch, scooping up the bag of frozen vegetable along the way. I pressed him down onto the cushions, kneeling on the seat next to him and reapplying the cold package to his bruise.

"You shouldn't let her hit you," I whisper.

"Let?" he asks, amused of all things.

"I know you can defend yourself."

Peeta sighed a second time. "I can't hit my mother."

"But it's alright for her to hit you?" Rage filled me. Peeta was the sweetest person. He didn't deserve a mother willing to take a rolling pin to him.

"Just drop it, okay? I don't want to talk about."

I thought about calling him a hypocrite. It was only this morning that he forced me to talk about my ever present nightmares when I didn't want to. Instead I curled up against him, tucking myself under his arm and resting my head on his shoulder.

"You promised me a night with nightmares," I said in response to his bemused look. A night on the couch would be uncomfortable. Both our backs would definitely be feeling it in the morning, but I wasn't leaving Peeta alone.

"So I did." He tightened his arm around me. Faster than I thought, I was lulled to sleep by the steady thump-thump of his heartbeat.