Chapter Eleven

Haymitch is pissed at me, of course - and I'm not entirely content, either, as if I could have said so much more to her. Nevertheless, after that meeting with Katniss, there's something lighter about me. As if I've purged a lingering poison and I'm healthier without the words and thoughts festering inside me.

But Haymitch is pissed, and we have a rousing argument as soon as Katniss leaves the room.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What do you mean?" I ask him, in surprise. "I didn't say anything untrue or anything, did I?"

"You don't even bother trying to remember anything, so what the fuck do you think you know about the truth? At least you used to be kinder to fragile people."

"If you think Katniss Everdeen is fragile…."

"I've got reason to know it, boy. She could shoot someone down and patch them back the next minute, with almost no hesitation. She can fly into trouble and handle pain. But you were the only one really able to keep her mind together."

An old anger rises. It's been buried under morphling and under my enjoyment of having regular company, his included; but this has never yet been resolved between us. I yank the tubes out of my arms so they can't disrupt my fury. "What the fuck do you want me to do, Haymitch? Reverse time, wipe out the torture, wipe out that time I was left behind to die? Wipe out that I went into the arena in the first place with no knowledge of a rescue plan? Am I supposed to pretend to think or feel things just to make things more convenient for her? Why does it matter so goddam much?"

"Because we care about you, you little prick," he growls. "And it matters to you, even if you don't remember right now. You …."

"It's not like she was all that nice to me, anyway!"

"And she'll be spoken to about that as well," he says, gritting his teeth. "But you need to stop blaming her for things she didn't do. It was our idea - the romance in the arena - yours and mine, and she joined in only to save your miserable life - and that's a fact! And I watched you avoid her every bit as much as she avoided you after we all came home. And you begged me to let you go back into the arena. I wish I hadn't let either of you back in - the plan was too risky - but do you think I have any more power over this fucking rebellion than you do? You were supposed to be rescued, too. Finnick and Beetee tried to keep you at the tree that night."

"Well, I don't -." I'm struggling now against my anger - holding onto the sides of my bed in a manner which should send Haymitch running from the room. In fact, I'm surprised the medics haven't rushed in already - probably enjoying the show too much.

"Watch the goddam tape," he snarls. "Maybe then you'll learn a thing or two about yourself - and Katniss."

"What's the point?" I cry out, so frustrated at this endlessly repeated insistence.

Now, he's heading toward the door, face red. Before he goes, he turns to me and says, in disgust: "Because the two of you are the only actual success I've ever had in my life, and I'm not letting you fuck that up."

That's the last I see of him for several weeks.

My feud with Haymitch leaves me to Delly, primarily. Prim is busy - maybe also avoiding me since my meeting with Katniss - and Dr. Molina seems hesitant to proceed with my therapy, either in our meetings or through the use of arena tapes. It makes an OK break for me, although I do wonder how much this is delaying my eventual release from this place.

It probably was a huge mistake to fight with my primary advocate.

I don't know if Delly is taking orders directly from Haymitch, or what, but almost the first conversation we have after the big fight is about how rude it was - what I said to Katniss.

"So, someone told you?" I ask her, wriggling uncomfortably. "Or are you one of the people who gets to watch?"

She squints at me. "Only medics observe from there," she says. "Well - and Haymitch."

"Pfffft."

"Haymitch really means the best for you, Peeta. You're lucky to have him. Someone to still - look after you."

I glance at her, then away. I forgot. Holy shit, how could I have forgotten? "Delly - have you seen - my cousins? Any of them? Did they - make it out?"

She looks at me. I will say this about Delly - and this is especially refreshing after all the lies and half-truths of the last couple of years - while she does tend to view the world through rosy lenses, she's as straight-forward as they come.

"Haymitch didn't tell you?"

I absorb the vague feeling of being punched in the gut. "That's not how my relationship with Haymitch works, exactly," I reply. "He doesn't really tell me things."

"I'm sure he just didn't want to upset you -."

"I've got drugs for that. So - I take it - you don't have good news for me."

She licks her lips. "No - I'm sorry, Peeta."

Somewhere behind the morphling some part of me is kicking and screaming like a child holding a tantrum. Howling like a wild animal. It was supposed to be me. I was the one in the family to be sacrificed to the Capitol. Now I'm the only one - fuck, fuck, fuck! - I'm the only one left. How did this happen?

But outside my head, I'm very quiet. Tamed by the drugs. I am an avatar of normalcy - medicated into the semblance of a human being. Perhaps I will need to be medicated like this for the rest of my life - like the Morphlings, themselves. Hollowed bodies filled with drugs. Once I'm off them - once I'm off them - what happens to the rage and protest, the grief and the pain - swirling around in there, like a storm waiting to happen? Who will I hurt next time?

I look down at my arms - the scarred, thin, snow-white interior of my arms - and wonder if I even have blood in them anymore. I must be mostly a cocktail of tracker jacker venom and morphling.

I look back up at Delly and squint, trying not to direct my anger at her. But - I do have questions. "How did you escape?"

She blinks at me. "Wow."

"Sorry," I say quickly. "Apparently, I've lost the ability to be diplomatic. You don't have to answer that."

She purses her lips for a moment. "I will, but first - you have to listen to me. First of all, Katniss isn't a … whatever you meant by 'piece of work.'" She frowns at me. "District 12 was a small place, and you may not remember it, but when things went on, it was hard to hide them. Maybe you don't know, since you were always oblivious to the hooking up, but Katniss was kind of the same way. She didn't flirt with guys - she didn't talk to them. She didn't like hearing other girls talk about them; she didn't even like taking her clothes off for gym."

"That doesn't count -."

"I'm getting to Gale, hold on a second. Look, maybe they did - maybe they didn't. Knowing her - I really doubt it. And if it was - it could only have started a few weeks before the Games, because I can name you three girls for sure he hung out with just that year. He was not shy with his kisses, but no one ever - once - saw anything go on with Katniss. Why do you think we were all so easily convinced that they were related? It kind of made sense."

"OK," I say - doubtful, and also trying to reconcile the Katniss of school with the Katniss of the Victory Tour, who allowed so much - maybe everything.

"And if she did have something with both of you, that's her business. It doesn't make her - uh - fast or manipulative or deceitful. You knew who she went into the woods with. He saw her kissing you all over the TV. You accepted it with open eyes, and, anyway - I know you don't believe anything about the second arena, but I could tell you what I saw…."

"For show."

"Maybe," she sighs. "OK, well, so - the last night of the Quarter Quell - late as it was - pretty much everybody was up and watching, so a bunch of us did what we always used to do - we went to Victors' Village to hang out. I guess it was stupid … we were scared of Thread, but we had to do it - we were all so tired of the curfews and stuff. Kind of harder than usual with Katniss' family there, but we were trying to be quiet, anyway. No bonfires, no singing. There was moonshine, of course. But we were just trying to get some privacy. Sammy and I …" She looks at me closely. "We snuck off on our own for a little while. Then - we could see the lights go out, suddenly, in town, and everybody started scattering. I had to make sure Drew was OK - he was there at the house, so I didn't run back to town right away. He was looking for me, too, and by the time we were getting ready to leave - us and a few other people - Gale came running up to get Katniss' mom and sister. When he saw us, he told us to come with him - that there was trouble coming."

She stops - upset now. "Some people didn't listen to him. I'm not sure why I did. Maybe I should have gone back and got Mom and Dad. The only thing I could think of was getting Drew out - and we were just barely out …."

In the silence between us, I wish I could do something - comforting. Like touch her arm, give her a hug. But I've become hesitant to touch anyone, after these weeks in 13 where I've been made to think of myself as a defective part-human, only to be trusted if I'm restrained and drugged. So I just frown. "I'm sorry. I mean - for everything - except that you and Drew got out. What about -" I choke on Sammy's name. "- the other people who were there?"

"Colin and Iris and Dana, yes, they came with us. Quill ran home. Hendry wasn't even there. Sammy," she smiles. "You remember his house was on the way out of Town, anyway. He stopped to get his mom and brothers, and they made it, but we didn't think so at first. They got lost in the woods that night and didn't find us until the next day. Lily went home. Aster - yes. Aster is here. But she was badly burned. On her face. She's still in treatment. That was rough, because we went three days before 13 came to rescue us, out in the woods, with barely anything to eat, let alone any way to treat her burns."

This mixed news - half of my closest friends dead; half of them, miraculously enough, alive - throws me into a dark reverie for a while. I remember them telling me - convincing me - that first it was my fault if 12 was destroyed, and then that Katniss had done it herself. In fact, it sounds like my home was gone before I was even marched out of the arena.

"What's Sammy doing?" I ask, suddenly wondering why he never visited. Just like after the first Games - the girls tried to keep up their relationship with me, not that I made it easy; the guys, whether it was my amputation or my wealth or even my romance with a girl from the Seam, shut me out, and that was never fully repaired - despite my late efforts - when I left the second time.

"He's training for the war. So is Drew."

"Drew? But he's -."

"Everyone here is a soldier, once you turn fourteen. Probably none of us will be sent, since we're underage. But who knows? If it comes down to it, and they need us…."

I blink at her. Delly, of all people, go off to war? "I thought it was over, anyway, once District 2 went down. Isn't all of the Capitol's military basically gone?"

She nods. "The Capitol is still standing, though," she says. "And there are plenty of Peacekeepers still there."

"But - but -." I rub my temple, as the clear thoughts try to push their way to the surface. "Can't we force Snow to surrender now? If the rebels control everything - food, transportation, all the factories … I don't think the people there will really have any loyalty to Snow if they think they will be cut off from - stuff."

"But that could take a while."

"Sure, but - fewer people would have to die."

"But Snow -."

"Is one old, sick man."

Delly smiles at me kindly, and I give it up, suddenly wishing I could talk to Haymitch about this or even - bizarrely - Katniss.

One day, I'm surprised by a joint visit from Prim and Dr. Molina, the latter of whom I ignore. I actually smile at Prim, and she returns it.

"I haven't seen you in a while," I say. "I thought maybe you were mad at me about …."

She shakes her head. "Friends, remember?" she says, patting my hand. "I've been on an emergency rotation and I had very long hours." At my puzzled expression, she explains, "I'm in training to be a doctor."

I blink at her in surprise, unsure of what to say. My emotions - dulled by drugs and trauma - don't allow me to feel much joy or happiness, but I have a spike of something positive when I hear this news. One good thing that would not have been possible without the Games and the rebellion and even the destruction of District 12. Maybe - even if I die an insane, unhappy wreck - enough good will come out of all of this to have somehow made my part in it all worth it.

"Haven't seen you lately, either," I say to Dr. Molina. Sarcasm comes easy.

"I've been working with the new recruits. But reports from the medics, and from Miss Cartwright, are positive. You seem to be maintaining conversations for longer periods of time and more calmly. So …"

At this, Prim grins and I glance from one to the other, waiting on their apparently good news with anticipation.

"We're going to start exposing you to more people," says Dr. Molina. "You'll be accompanied," he says, as if in reassurance, when I frown at him. "And it will be a little bit of exposure at a time. Miss Everdeen even requested that we start by letting you go outside for a half shift, to get started.

I grip my armrests. They have no idea how much I have missed the real air. How much good I think it will do me. How I have dreaded dying without ever seeing the sun again.

The next morning, I'm accompanied by Prim and two burly orderlies up, up, up a long elevator - the sensation of which makes me extremely nervous, with its vague reminders of the Training Center - until we reach the surface of District 13. We step out into the weak, thin light of a late autumn morning. The ruins of District 13 - made famous by insincere Capitol newscasts for years - are mellowed with the decades - vines grow over them and the stone is beige and rounded. Half of the trees around us are conifers and tall and green, but the rest are deciduous, some still in their bright autumn color. Their rich orange leaves quiver on the ends of branches or are scattered like a soft carpet underfoot. Birds sing everywhere to the new morning.

I pull in a long breath until my chest hurts and put my face up to the sky. It's cold, and the dew was heavy so that the ground is still damp, but I have a sudden urge to strip off all my clothes and expose my pale skin to the sun, and run and run. An impossibility, really. My pacing around my cell has not done enough to keep up my strength. I'm weak and winded from the small amount of walking I've done so far. Also - I'm shackled. My arms are belted together in front of me and a bracelet on my ankle will be remotely electrified if I try anything - funny.

We walk a short way out into the trees, then I sit on a big, broken piece of old building, and listen to my heavy breathing. Prim stands, not far from me, looking out through the trees toward where we can see some stream. I pick up a large orange leaf and hold it in front of my eyes. It feels smooth and imperfect; smells like wet dirt and mildew; it is beautiful. I put the leaf up to my nose and feel and smell it, memorize it, before returning back inside.

It's not every day, but every few, that somebody takes me outside. After that first day, we walk around a large fenced-in area accessible to citizens at prescribed times of the day, and now being used, at one end, for battle-training. From a distance, I watch people jog in formation, shoot at targets, wrestle each other. Sometimes Delly joins us - and sometimes even her brother, Drew, taller than I remember and filling out a gray uniform. When I'm with Delly, and not Prim, I tend to test her - or myself, I guess - by pointing out some malfeasance of Katniss' and listening to her defend her. Since Delly has a tendency to only see people's positive qualities, I can't quite take her seriously. Yet - I still go to her, strangely enough, to play devil's advocate to my rants about Katniss.

The next phase is to eat lunch out of the hospital room, in the common cafeteria. This only happens on days when Prim is available and she vets schedules and makes sure that no one on a list of people I'm not allowed contact with is there at the same time. Except for one day, when she's late for some reason and the two orderlies are bored - and I'm hungry, having missed the hospital lunch. It takes very little wheedling on my part to persuade them that we should just go. On the way up the elevator, I learn that there are beef shipments from 10 - real, good beef, the kind that used to go right to the Capitol - and the typically bland food is actually pretty good today.

I smell it as soon as we reach the doorway. I hesitate a little here, knowing that I'm looking out for myself, now. The orderlies with me are just here to tackle me if I fly into an episode. Prim comes with me to look out for me - and to keep me company. Now I have to either find a table to myself or ask permission to join some group, and I'm sure most people think I'm crazy.

But I'm hungry, and the food smells amazing - Capitol good. I grab a tray and the cafeteria workers fill it with stew: since I'm thinner than I should be, the 13 system of rationing food - at least outside the hospital - affords me generous portions. A small loaf of bread - larger than a dinner roll, but not by much - is perched on top of the stew and I pluck it up to examine it, wondering if this is District 13's representative bread, and if they even have one. It has a hard crust, but a pleasant golden-brown color.

I put it back down and balance the tray on my fingertips, the only way I can really transport it with my arm shackles on. Then I turn toward the middle of the cafeteria and have to take several deep breaths to keep my heart from racing.

Among the group of people gathered around the table, it is her I see first. As if she is in sharp relief to everyone else around her. As if I'm watching her on film, and the editors have faded everyone on the screen except for her. This is strange because I felt sure that, following our last conversation, I was convinced she had finally fallen back down to earth; an ordinary girl, thoughtless, self-centered.

I've reached the table before I am even aware of moving toward it. Then I see the rest of her companions - on either side of her are Gale Hawthorne and Finnick Odair - two people definitely not on my approved list of contacts. Across from them - Delly (thank goodness), Johanna and Annie. There's an empty seat between Delly and Johanna, and I'm standing in the gap between them, not sure what to do.

Then Katniss glances up and sees me before anyone else does. Her eyes widen and she coughs. Beside her, Gale visibly tenses. I find I can't look at him for long. He's unchanged - maybe even better looking than I remember.

Delly glances back and starts - then looks behind me, as if seeking out Prim. She blinks at me. "Peeta! It's so nice to see you out … and about."

"What's with the fancy bracelets?" asks Johanna.

"I'm not quite trustworthy, yet," I reply. "I can't even sit here without your permission."

"Sure he can sit here," says Johanna to my guards. She pats the seat next to her. "We're old friends." I glance at the orderlies and they nod although really the most important - the most dangerous - person has not given her assent. As I sit, Johanna bumps my arm with her elbow, gently. "Peeta and I had adjoining cells in the Capitol. We're very familiar with each other's screams."

I glance down at Annie, who has reacted to this by covering her ears and hunching. When I look back, I see that Katniss is staring at me, with an unreadable expression on her face.

"What?" says Johanna, in reply to a dirty look from Finnick. "My head doctor says I'm not supposed to censor my thoughts. It's part of my therapy."

Probably an exaggeration, because the Johanna Mason who spent six weeks with me in the Capitol - and who only truly broke once - never did censor her thoughts, anyway, except to keep rebel secrets as long as she could. So, Finnick can kiss her ass, as far as I'm concerned.

I look over at Johanna and I can see the emptiness in her eyes - the drugs that smother the memories. Mine probably look much the same. But she flashes me half a defiant smile.

"Annie," Delly says suddenly. "Did you know that it was Peeta who decorated your wedding cake? Back home, his family ran the bakery and he did all the icing."

Delly should probably train as a head doctor, I think. For some reason, her cheerful voice rouses Annie, who looks up and over to me. I finally dare look at her face and see that whatever happened to her mind in her arena spared her, somewhat, through the ordeal of her imprisonment in the Capitol. Maybe, I think to myself hopefully, she wasn't as mistreated as I feared. Maybe they just wanted to make me think she was. Her eyes shine and her smile is very sweet as she says, "Thank you, Peeta. It was beautiful."

"My pleasure, Annie."

"If we're going to fit in that walk, we better go," Finnick says. "Good seeing you, Peeta," he adds, picking up both his and Annie's trays.

His smooth voice reminds me how little I like him. A libertine, as I remember it - whose love affairs were open and celebrated every summer. A rebel, who Haymitch - and Katniss, too, probably - trusted more than me. I feel terribly sorry for Annie. "You be nice to her, Finnick. Or I might try and take her away from you."

Next to me, Johanna gives a short laugh. Finnick replies, "Oh, Peeta - don't make me sorry I restarted your heart." Then he glances at Katniss and walks away with Annie.

Delly - as usual - rises up to argue with me. "He did save your life, Peeta. More than once."

Yeah, so I've been told. But saved me for what? "For her." I look back up at Katniss and I see she's staring at me. "For the rebellion. Not for me. I don't owe him anything."

Katniss stirs, swallows visibly, and speaks to me, her voice quivering. "Maybe not. But Mags is dead and you're still here. That should count for something."

So - we're continuing with the unpleasant truths, are we? I have plenty of those on hand. I glance over at Gale, then back at her. "Yeah, a lot of things should count for something that don't seem to, Katniss. I've got some memories I can't make sense of, and I don't think the Capitol touched them. A lot of nights on the train, for instance."

A blush darkens her skin. And I feel one crawling up mine. Even as I say the words, they don't sound like me - and they don't sound like her. The images they summon in my head are shiny, belying my own assertion. Clearly - they were tampered with, somehow.

She doesn't reply, just keeps looking at me as if I'm a trainwreck she can't keep her eyes off of.

My brain tilts sideways. I clutch a spoon, and it helps to dim the screaming voices in my head. I draw a line in the air between her and Gale. "So, are you two officially a couple now, or are they still dragging out the star-crossed lover thing?" I ask, desperate to prove that I don't care, not really, what happened between us before. But I'm not sure my jerky voice and movements help make my case.

"Still dragging," says Johanna.

My fingers move, automatically, clenching around the spoon, searching for the armrest of my hospital bed. Nothing makes sense. Not 13's insistence in continuing my fake romance well past its expiration date. Not my relief that Gale still isn't her public lover.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself." This is Gale, who is staring at me with those eyes that are so exactly a copy of hers.

"What's that?"

"You," he says.

"You'll have to be a little more specific," I say, barely able to control my sarcasm. "What about me?"

But it's Johanna who pipes up. "That they've replaced you with the evil-mutt version of yourself," she says, with an edge to her voice that doesn't match her short laugh.

Mutt? Of all the backward, upside-down things to say. I'm not the mutt. I grasp for a response, but end up just sucking air too quickly. Gale practically drags Katniss out of the room and I feel strangely bereft by her absence.

"I can't believe I said that," I say to the empty space where she used to be. I feel the top of my head start to spin, and it's like I'm on some strange drug my brain is manufacturing for itself. "But - I needed to say it. I needed to know."

"Peeta!" Delly barks at me, and I narrow my eyes and look at her sideways, angry. Not now…. "You have no right to say those sort of things in public. That is so humiliating for her - for both of you!"

"I don't feel humiliated," I say, vaguely responding to her. "Or do I? I suppose…. Do I?"

"Peeta, I am going to take you to her quarters and make you apologize. I told you - she's not that type of girl."

"Yeah, she always did seem uptight to me," says Johanna.

At that point, I just start saying stuff - words. Every third or fourth word I can catch as they spin rapidly through my brain. Until the medics finally pull me to my feet and drag me away.

I don't know why it took so long to hit me. But today is the day it does.

I kneel to the ground and pick up the dust. They are not here. All recoverable remains were buried in the Meadow. There are no individual markers - no place to go and know I am near what is left of them. So, I come home. I kiss my fingers - 1, 2, 3, 4. My parents, Ryan and Will. 1, 2, 3, 4 - Ally, Isoc, Pauly and Rush. I can hear their names in my mother's voice.

Then it swells - and breaks. At last, at long last. I haven't been able to mourn them. I haven't been able to do it. But now it comes out - all the buried pain - like the rain will come, soon, pouring from these swollen, gathering clouds. And I scream it out. Finally.

A hand grips me as the dirt and ashes trickle out of my fist and the large, looming, horrible shadow darkens the sky and everything inside of me. To call it crying - to call it mourning - is in all ways inadequate. It is a primal scream - something as full of rage as it is of sadness. And that's just the top layer. Underneath it, I am all curses and sobs - the sobs that rip themselves out of your body, almost taking layers of you with them. Until my gut hurts - the diaphragm, the place inside from where song comes. My voice is weak - but I am not alone; there is someone to take up the song for me:

Deep in the meadow, under the willow

A bed of grass, a soft green pillow

Lay down your head and close your eyes

And when they open, the sun will rise

Here it's safe, here it's warm

Here the daisies guard

You from every harm

Here your dreams are sweet

And tomorrow brings them true

Here is the place

Where I love you.