Chapter Thirteen

"I do. I need you."

The voice, low and urgent, is in my ears when I wake up the next morning. Insistent and accusatory. Confusing. False and true at the same time. I mean, the tone seems sincere, but the words don't sound right. They don't fit the narrative - at all.

When I sit up, I feel that I have tears just inside the rims of my eyes, which is strange. My conscious mind immediately tries to twist the meaning of the words. Of course she always needed me - I was both her faithful servant and her most willing prey. But those are words filled with the rage and pain of the hijacked boy who woke up in 13 to see her hovering over him, and could only think about removing her from this fucked-up world she had created. Those are the words I used to feed my rage and to also - if I'm perfectly honest about it - feed my own ego, in a weird and twisted way. Because - whether she is the Mockingjay or a mutt, Katniss has always been just a little more elevated, a little more important, than I am - and my only claim to fame has been in her shadow, her helper or her target.

Those are the words that are false. I'm neither her servant nor her prey. She's just a girl who fell into these crazy circumstances, and I'm just the boy who tumbled down with her. How I feel about her - how I ever felt about her - is really unimportant now, in this moment, with her marching grimly toward her death and me clawing desperately out of my madness. The fact is that we saved each other, in whatever capacity we could manage, whenever the circumstances arose - and I know this, even if I don't feel it anymore, or even understand it. The Game twisted us together, a strange, warped single creature made out of two very different people, who somehow needed each other to live, even though at least one of them was meant to die. And the Game is still on.

I need you.

So, what do the words mean, if they don't mean servant or prey? But you were the only one really able to keep her mind together. That's what Haymitch says, and I have to face the fact that he might be in a position to know better than I am. It's a delightful irony, of course; but the Capitol knew what it was doing, when it recalibrated me against Katniss. Because I need myself back in order to help her, and I need her to help me get myself back. And I've been pushing her away - almost literally - ever since I got here. And now she's gone.

When Delly comes by in the afternoon, she goes through the hoops of getting permission for me to visit Johanna, who is just a couple of rooms down from me.

She's sitting up in bed, twisting a thread around her fingers, and rolls her eyes when I enter. It's strange - the six weeks we were in the Capitol together, we didn't actually see each other that much, and mostly it was when she was being tortured in front of me. We heard each other a lot … I know there were a lot of broken conversations; but that last bit of torture they did on me wiped most of those out, at least the details.

"Hey - it's Loverboy," she says, raising her eyebrows when she sees me. It's my nickname from the first games - the one the Careers gave me - and she's always used it. I've tolerated it - for one thing, you don't really argue Johanna out of doing anything - even though it's kind of annoying, distilling me down to the one identity, and in a derogatory way, at that. But now I address it.

"Not much of one, I guess, in my last couple of meetings with Katniss."

She grins at me. "You wish, sweetheart. You think we can't tell when you are writhing in jealousy?"

I huff out a breath in protest. "Katniss -."

"Is every bit as clueless as you are. Delly, is everyone in District 12 as naive as your star-crossed lovers, or are they - special cases?"

I blush as Delly laughs. When I shoot her a look, she says, "Peeta, you can't really deny that -."

"OK, OK. Because that's what I came here to talk about. … Johanna, Haymitch told me that you were in training to go fight in the Capitol."

She gets a ferocious look on her face. "Yeah, so?"

"Why would you go back there?"

"To kill Snow," she says, bluntly.

I nod and look down at my hands. "Yeah, I get that. But you have to accept that you fought your battles, and it's time to recover. What happened to us … it's like the war was being fought on our bodies. Those scars will be a long time in mending."

I venture a look at her and she looks back, angry, but speechless. "Nice bedside manner," she says, finally.

I smile. "I'm not supposed to censor my thoughts," I tell her.

Her mouth twists. "She's going to do it," she says suddenly.

"Do what?"

"Kill Snow."

I give my head a slight shake. "Katniss? She's on a low-risk mission to film battle propaganda - that's what Haymitch says."

Johanna snorts. "She promised me herself. She's going to kill Snow with her own hands."

I look around for any medics. But they probably don't pay much attention to Johanna's ramblings, anyway. Whereas everything I say about Katniss is parsed out for close inspection. "Well, I want you here," I say firmly. "I worried about you enough - you are going to have to stay free and safe for the rest of your life. My mental state depends on it."

She snorts, but when she looks away from me, she's crying a little bit. "All I want to do is forget. If I have to be dead to do it - then, that's the way that it is."

"Hey," I say gently. "If I can get sane enough again to sit here and have this conversation with you, you can learn to live with it, Johanna. You can."

"Get out of here," she says, with a smile under her tears. "Dammit, I don't like nice people. You had a real great cynical streak going on with you for a while there, Mellark."

As Delly and I walk back to my room, I think how similar Johanna is to Haymitch. I wonder if it would be good for them, or counter-productive, to just hang out together in a room and air out all their bitter thoughts.

"She's right," says Delly, thoughtfully, pausing outside my room. "You're a lot more like yourself, lately, Peeta."

I sigh. I see what she means, but I still don't quite feel it. I feel like a disconnected set of memories and emotions walking around together in a common body but with no mutual history.

I go inside, only to find Dr. Molina, Prim and Haymitch. No one looks happy, and I have a sudden, clutching fear - bad news, about Katniss? That's the very first thought that occurs to me.

"I was just visiting Johanna," I say defensively, as if I'm in trouble.

"That's fine," says Molina. "It's not a big deal, but we're just going to run some tests on you this afternoon. Blood tests, brain scan, then a cognitive …."

"What?" I say, tensing as I look at Haymitch.

"We want to confirm your tracker jacker levels and your blood pressure, and test your memory, and …"

"What?" I say again, to Haymitch.

He nods. "It's OK. Um, look, Molina - why don't you go prep all your tests. The girl and I will talk to him on our own."

Fuck, now what? "Haymitch," I say rapidly, hopping up on my bed and almost automatically looking around for the tubes of drugs that used to be a constant whenever I talked to anyone, "you're not very good at hiding it when you're upset, so just - tell me, OK? Did something happen? Is - she - OK?"

He looks at me with a curious expression.

Prim smiles at me. "Katniss is fine, Peeta. Her unit is in constant communication with Plutarch's group, so we are able to make sure she's doing OK."

"Well, then - what is it? Is something wrong with me?"

"There's been a request to see if you are capable of going - to the Capitol."

I laugh. "What? Seriously?"

When Haymitch doesn't say anything, I lean back in my bed and ponder this thing, which makes no sense. I'm not even allowed around the cafeteria, or the kitchens, without supervision.

"Were my propos not enough - they want to actually show me fighting for the rebellion?"

Haymitch stirs. "Something like that. The line … the truth is … Coin isn't happy with the performances out of Katniss and the rest of her propaganda team; most of them aren't particularly convincing on camera and some of them she wants pulled into actual combat. So, she has this thought that - you'd be a good replacement in this capacity."

"Don't worry, Peeta," Prim says encouragingly, "I'm sure Dr. Molina's medical tests will prove you aren't capable of going."

I purse my lips and stare at Haymitch, who looks unhappy and unsettled. His expression rattles me and my mind, which has felt so stable lately, starts to do that wobbly thing again. And then I have a strange thought.

I want to go.

It frightens me at first, but then I think it again - and again - until it starts to make sense. I have unfinished business myself … with Snow, who has to go. With Katniss, who holds too much of my identity inside her. I have to talk to her again before she dies. With myself. Whatever I was meant to do in this conflict, it was not to be buried here, strapped to a bed in District 13.

"Whatever they find," says Haymitch, slowly. "We have to make sure we are mentally prepared for it to happen."

"I really won't ever be, though, will I?" I say. "So - what do I do?"

"If you go," he says, cutting off Prim's objections. "If you go, you just need to remember ... who the real enemy is."

"That sounds familiar," I say with a frown.

Haymitch just rolls his eyes.

That it is one of Plutarch's assistants who fetches me - some woman I've never seen before - and not Haymitch or Prim or anyone from the medical ward, I know to be a bad sign. Or a good sign, depending on how you look at it.

I'm brought to a room with a long conference table in the middle, and banks of monitors along the sides. President Coin is a severe-looking middle-aged woman with severe, shoulder-length hair. She has pale skin, smooth except for the crow's feet around her slightly-squinted gray eyes. The only color on her face is her pale pink lips, but her cheekbones are prominent and give her severe face a certain handsome distinctiveness. I think a good prep team could make her look a little friendlier, without losing her her air of authority. But that's not the 13 way.

She's sitting across from Plutarch, and I'm gestured to a seat next to the former Head Gamemaker. "Mr. Mellark," she says with what I'm sure she thinks is warmth - but it's a clipped tone unnatural to her voice. "I'm happy to be meeting you at last. This is very long delayed. I don't know if you were told this, but it was my intention for you to be the voice of our movement. Miss Everdeen's look is potent, yes, but we have not been unaware of your capacity for moving crowds." She glances over at Plutarch.

"Well - I was otherwise engaged," I say, impatiently.

"Yes, your imprisonment in the Capitol was very distressing, for everyone," she says, in an infuriatingly fake show of sympathy. "But we hope our - hospitality - since then has helped you overcome that time. I am very encouraged by your steady improvements, especially recent ones."

With a swift movement, she shuffles some papers in front of her, as if she is going to pass them to me - but she doesn't complete the gesture.

"My tests?" I ask, put off by the incomplete motion. As if I would be able to translate them, anyway.

"Yes, we see very little amount of tracker jacker venom left in your system. Your blood pressure is back down to almost normal range. And your cognitive tests show an increased capacity for retaining memory."

That might be a vast improvement in the physical sense - but my body isn't really the problem right now, is it? Anyway, I haven't really been paying attention to my medical numbers, so I'm not in any position to take the lab results as proof of anything. And, like Haymitch, I know this doesn't even matter. "So, does this mean I'm cleared for …."

Plutarch stirs next to me. "You see, as I explained before, there is a certain element to this war that is being waged - that has always been waged, really - on an emotional level. You are well aware of … the power of giving the audience a hero - a concept - a story to root for. Make no mistake, we wouldn't have a Mockingjay now if you hadn't presented Katniss Everdeen, in the first place - as a - root-able interest."

I fall back on my general lack of usable memories. "If you say so," I shrug.

"So, my team in the Capitol is supposed to be filming scenes of the Mockingjay and a few others - Finnick Odair for one - waging battle in the streets of the Capitol. As she and Finnick are high-value targets, though, we've been keeping them far behind the fighting lines. We're just not getting enough out of them, though. We need more - we need a story."

"And we are down a squad member," says Coin impatiently. "And there are assets on that team that could be used elsewhere."

"I'm not sure how aware you all are that my current relationship with Katniss is not - what it once was," I say, slowly.

Plutarch waves this aside. "The hijacking. At any rate, it would just be for the cameras - just the two of you on the same team, again."

I touch the table with my fingertips. "Are you actually giving me a choice, here?"

There is a sharp silence, which answers my question. Finally: "No, these are our orders for you, Mr. Mellark. You are a citizen of 13 and a valuable asset in the war."

That word again. Asset. It sets my teeth on edge. "I don't have any training on your weapons," I say. Not that they didn't try, I think, with a sudden realization.

"You'll be part of the propo team - you won't need to use weapons except as props."

I turn to Plutarch then, but bite my tongue on my words. I want to go, remember? I just had no idea I would be thrown into a war zone without training. But, hey, I'm a victor, I guess – that's exactly the thing I do. "I'm still fairly dependent on morphling in stressful situations," I add.

"You'll be provided with antidepressants and mood stabilizers. Dr. Molina has provided a list of recommendations."

Molina. Well - he probably has his orders. "Thank you," I say, "for explaining all this so carefully. When do I leave?"

"Tomorrow."

My fingers start to tremble, but I control them. This is a bad idea, for sure. But …

"... but, I'm really tired of being here, anyway," I say to Haymitch, trying to explain. "I don't understand it exactly, but it feels like - that's the place I'm supposed to be, not here. Like I'm letting other people finish what I started."

"That is ridiculous," says Haymitch. "Look, boy, we might not have any choice here, but don't start looking at this like it's actually reasonable, when it's not. You have to remember every minute of every day that you aren't ready for this. Do not let your guard down."

I take a few breaths. "Because I'm not safe to be - around Katniss?"

"Or yourself, or other people. It's a war zone; there will be gunfire, there will be explosions - there may be mutts, Peacekeepers. You have no idea if you'll be able to handle it."

I look at him and I remember - with surprising clarity - how he had to try to gently argue me out of my plan to sacrifice myself in the arena, all the while handing me the tools to do it. This has been his entire adult life, mentoring doomed tributes, and he must be sick of it. And he really doesn't have to do it anymore; in fact, he's kind of flouting the authority of his current masters to just talk to me like this. So, it's important to him – my life or hers, or both of ours, I guess, if he really doesn't have to choose. So, I smile and promise to do my best.

Haymitch's gloomy expression, Prim's sad face and Delly's tears are my farewell party the next morning. I certainly look the part - outfitted again in one of 13's dull uniforms, a gun slung over my shoulder. While I appreciate the company, it feels so weirdly like that hour of goodbyes after the Reaping that I already feel my anxiety rising in a very particular way.

Delly leaves first - headed to school. After she leaves, I turn to Prim and I really look at her for the first time in a long time. It's unbelievable that she's only 13. She's had to grow up at super speed and she has been my rock in this place. And if every once in a while, I've listened to her talk to me about her cat or her family or her dreams about the future, it was a mere fraction of the time that she listened to me rant or whine or rage. No words I say can ever right this imbalance.

"Prim," I tell her, "you are going to be an amazing doctor. I don't know what would have happened to me if you hadn't been here. You never gave up on me, and if I survive this - whatever is intact of my mind, it's all on you. I wanted to tell you - I've been trying to remember - the Quell. On my own. And I'm going to keep on trying. Thank you - so much."

She gives me a grin and, somewhat awkwardly, impulsively throws her arm around me in a hug. Then she fixes me with a stern look. "However she greets you, and whatever doubts you have about her, know this. When you were gone, Katniss was gone. And when you came back changed, it changed her. Your life - means something to her. More than her own. She thinks you hate her and that she deserves it. If you can just try at least not to hate her. Give her a piece of herself back, Peeta. For me."

I swallow. "I'll try. I will - I'll try."

Before Haymitch and I leave my hospital room, I turn back and look at it. I don't know how long I've been in 13 - weeks stretching maybe into months, now. There is nothing of me here. Not a scratch on the wall. Not a drawing. Nothing for me to regret leaving behind. And I vow I will never come back here. If I survive this assignment, I will not come back. I'll go back and live in whatever is left of 12, if I have to. Or just – walk away. Follow the train tracks out of the Capitol and dissolve into the wilds of Panem.

Haymitch walks me to one of the big elevators and we go up and across to the upper levels of 13 until we come to a hangar. I'm going by hovercraft to the Capitol apparently. I laugh out loud, earning a glance from Haymitch. The perfect ride to the arena - too bad it's missing all the colorful pomp and good food.

"Well, boy," says Haymitch.

"Well, Haymitch," I respond, giving him a wry smile. "I don't know if it's a bad sign, but I'm actually hoping to come back alive from this one."

He chuckles. "I'll be in contact with your commander, Boggs. Tell him if you aren't feeling in control." We both look over sharply when the hovercraft door opens and its engines roar to life. "Peeta," he says, then takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry you weren't informed about the escape plan and I'm beyond sorry that you were left behind. It's not her fault - remember that."

I nod. I stare at the man, thinner now than he used to be, so much unhappier looking, even though the Games are - likely - over and Snow on the way out. I must look so much different, too. I touch my hair, which was cut short last night, the curls shorn away. Is that it? I wonder. That, though we've made it almost to the end, we've all lost too much in the process? District 12 - I think with sudden guilt of the home I never think about. Of course we have lost too much. My mother and father. My brothers and my cousins and most of my friends. Every teacher and almost every classmate I ever had. Mayor Undersee. The goat man.

But that's why I have to go. On behalf of every townie and coal miner who was obliterated to ashes - because I survive, unfairly, where they lie dead. And for whatever culpability I - and Katniss - have in their deaths.

"Peeta?" says Haymitch, looking at my expression, which has probably gone blank.

I shake myself out of it. "I'm good," I say. I look him in the eye and say, "Just thinking about home."

His expression falls, even as he nods, and claps me on the arm. Then my name is called and I turn around and go into the hovercraft, my gun slapping against my back.