Chapter Fifteen

After three or so hours of fitful sleep, I wake for breakfast and then find myself accompanied back to camp by Mitchell and Leeg 1, who are my guards for the morning. Leeg 1 is a youngish woman with pale, silvery-blonde hair and the faded gray eyes common to 13. She's quiet, and no surprise - Finnick told me last night that her sister just died in an accident a couple of days ago, and is in fact the squad member I came to replace.

After breakfast, the camera crew goes out with Katniss, Finnick and Gale to shoot some propo footage. I take my pills, which Boggs asks to inspect first.

"They're for my head," I explain. "So I don't cause problems."

Jackson comes over and checks on Leeg 1, then turns to me. She's severely far-sighted, and has to really squint to look at me up close. But she seems friendly, and I guess I made an impression on her last night - or she's just very kind - because she smiles at me and sits down.

"Do you really not remember things - like your favorite color?" she asks me.

I nod. "Yeah - well, I do now, I guess. When Katniss said it - I suddenly did remember, and then I remembered more stuff - related stuff. But other things … I mean, the problem is not remembering what I don't remember, right? And sorting out the false memories the - they gave me."

"Do you have memories we can test? Things you're not sure are real?"

I stiffen. Do I? Let's start with whether or not I'm responsible for the mass casualties of District 12 and work down to whether or not I love or hate this girl? And how would Jackson know, anyway? I cast about for something - maybe about 13 - that puzzles me.

"District 13 made a deal with the Capitol to stay intact after the Dark Days. Real?"

Jackson, Mitchell and Leeg 1 all look at each other briefly. "Real," says Jackson, at last. "It came down to that someone was about to use nukes, so we decided to end the war instead of going there."

"District 13 started the war so you wouldn't have to share resources, real or not real?" I might as well cover the whole History of the Dark Days spiel, while I'm here.

"Not real," says Jackson. "The Capitol was hoarding resources. Still are. Why do you think half their citizens don't have to work?"

I ponder this, but then realize - this might just be the fabricated history she was raised with. I'd better stick to things in the present. "Most of the people from 12 were killed in the fire after the Quarter Quell," I say, shakily.

"Real. Less than nine hundred of you made it to 13 alive."

Nine … hundred? That's barely more than a tenth of the population. "It was my fault."

"Not real," says Mitchell, interpreting this as a question and not a gloomy statement of fact. "President Snow destroyed 12 the way he did 13, to send a message to the rebels."

I'm silent for a while, thinking, no - 12 had no say in its destruction, unlike 13. I look up to see that Katniss and the rest have returned from filming, and that she is hovering just outside the circle, listening in on our proceedings. I look at her and know that she heard the last exchange. And I know that we both know differently. There were multiple times we could have put a stop to the train that led to this pass. If she had just let me bleed out at the end of the game. If I had never wandered off and picked those berries. If she had declined to go to the feast and get the medicine that saved my life. If I had stayed quiet and died in the mud. If I had just held my tongue at the interviews. At any of those points, my resulting death could have spared District 12 - because without that act of defiance with the berries at the end, the one to keep us both alive - there would have been no call for any retribution on our district.

"What are you doing?" asks Katniss, somewhat sharply, dropping her eyes from mine.

"We're playing a memory game with Mellark. Real or not real, let's call it that. Very simple - Soldier Mellark says he not only has missing memories, but memories he's not even sure are real. So, we're going to help bring him back."

"You really don't have to-" I begin.

"As long as we have to keep a watch on you, we might as well. Plus, it's the right thing to do. You're part of the squad now, which means you're our brother, got that? In fact…" She stands up and squints. "I think I'll make sure the watches are shuffled so that you have Everdeen, Hawthorne and Odair with you for most of the daylight hours. They know you better than we do. You can ask them some questions about your past."

She walks off, and I turn to Mitchell. "She doesn't have to -" I start again.

He shrugs. "You don't argue with the den mother," he says with a laugh. Then, more seriously, "She lost her kids in the epidemic. You probably put her in mind of that."

"What epidemic?"

"Some kind of pox," he says, with a shrug. "Back when I was a kid. Decimated 13 - killed a lot of kids. And caused widespread infertility. One of the many dangers of a sequestered life."

I glance at him. "Do you like it - or is it weird - being out here, after all your years in 13?"

"Both," he grins.

At noon, I'm joined by Gale. He's certainly known to me. I feel like I watched him kiss Katniss on film close to seven million times. And he so strongly resembles her - in coloring and in the shape of his eyes and mouth, if not in physical build - that I think I would recognize him regardless. I feel uneasy around him - I know the Capitol targeted my jealousy of him very specifically, so I can't tell if my initial revulsion at his proximity to me is how I really feel, or if it is fabricated.

"We don't like each other," I say, bluntly. "Real or not real?"

He raises an eyebrow to me. "Not real, I mean - as far as I know. We're not friends, exactly. We're …." he struggles for a word.

"Allies?" I ask, helpfully.

He laughs at that. "No, I wouldn't go that far. Well-?" He thinks about it for a bit. "Maybe that does fit. Do you remember what you said to me - about the Quarter Quell?"

I ponder this for a long time, but come up empty. "No."

"You said she'd come back, but alone this time."

"Half right," I muse. "Well, that's better than my usual average, at least lately." But his words have triggered the memory. "We were … outside - you were teaching me how to …?" I struggle to come up with the right words. I remember a pile of strings and sticks. "Trap food? Real?"

"Yeah, real."

I shake my head. "Huh, I would have guessed that going the other way. We - uh - did stuff like that, before?"

"Not real. That was just to prep for the Quell."

"You trap squirrels?"

"Not usually. Rabbits mostly. I shoot squirrels, though not as well as Katniss does."

"You traded them - for bread. Real?"

"Yeah, your father had a weakness for them. But other stuff, too. Cloth, dishes, shoes, soap. Anything else."

Delly, I recall, lived next to me at the shoe shop. But where were the other shops? This begins a line of questioning about the layout of District 12. It's painful - and excruciatingly tedious, for him, I'm sure - but it gets us through the rest of his shift with me. And I have mapped out, with a small white rock on the concrete, the layout of District 12's town square, where I was raised.

Katniss' shift is next, and she sits down - a little closer to me than the night before - and stares at the drawing I've made. Since I can't think of just one thing I want to ask her, we sit in silence, as we did before. Just before dinner is called, she stirs and says, "You made a drawing like that in the cave - real?"

I watch her get to her feet, biting my lower lip for a moment. It's clear that she wants me to remember it, but I don't. But I know, since she's asking, that it's true. "Real - I think," I say. "Wait!" I close my eyes, and I hear the rain pouring down, see the water dripping over rocks. "I did - and you helped me with it."

After dinner, as the sun starts to set over the mountains, I find myself able to formulate the questions.

"You wore a pink dress in District … 7? Real?"

"Mmmmmm … not real. You're thinking about District 11."

"Oh - it was silvery - shiny white - like dewdrops on a white flower. Real?"

"Uh - yeah I think - yeah, that was the one."

"The pink one - was that my favorite?"

"I think you liked both of the dresses I wore in 11," she says, with a faint smile. "One was orange. The pink one was … fancier."

"That's where the problems started - on the tour," I frown. "Real or not real?"

"Yeah - pretty much right away," she answers, shortly. "Peeta …" I am beginning to notice the way her voice lingers on the vowels of my name. "You drew a map in the second arena, too. Real?"

"Not … real?" I start the answer with confidence, then see her face fall in the middle of my answer. "Oh, I don't remember. I don't remember the second arena."

"Really?" she breathes. "None of it?"

"Just the very end. They made me watch it a bunch of times - I mean, your part of it. I remember you going away to drop the coil. And Finnick yelling at me to stay at the tree. I remember running into Chaff - fighting Brutus. I remember - seeing two hovercraft, one flying away, one landing. I remember - running back into the jungle, and it was flooding. The beach was gone. And then - them taking me away. Anything before the coil is …." I see that she's looking at me in consternation and I wonder what I said wrong. "So - I did draw a map in that arena? How? I …."

"On a leaf," she says. "With your knife."

I close my eyes and try to remember, but all I see when I close my eyes are creatures rising out of the flat sand of the beach - shifting, slithering creatures. As they begin to sparkle with that unnatural silvery, glossy light, I start to tremble.

"What is it?" she asks sharply.

I swallow, and try to relax. "Nothing. When I think about the Quell … I see - weird, creepy things. There were - monsters in the sand. Real?"

"Not real."

The disappointment on her face is intense. I decide to press on with less harrowing topics. "You had a favorite type of bread. Is that real?"

"Yes," she says, so quickly that I jump.

By this time, the dusk surrounds her and her thin, pinched face is mellowed by the softer light. I think to myself - as I probably thought once before - that no, she is not pretty, in the traditional sense (whatever that even meant in the first place). But she's beautiful. The way she holds her chin high. And in the glimmer of her silver eyes. How you can sense the thoughts moving behind them. Even the ones she always keeps close to herself.

"Let me think," I say, with a painful swallow, aware that she is watching me. "I think - I remember … it wasn't a type of bread that I like that much myself."

"Really?" she asks.

"There was a storm," I say, squinting my eyes like Jackson, and that, strangely enough, helps focus my thoughts, as if I'm mentally far-sighted. "And I was low on supplies." I frown at her. "I was - upset about something."

She breathes in, sharply. "I don't know - maybe."

"Did we have a fight, or something?"

"No, no - more of a misunderstanding," she says uncomfortably.

"About what?"

She shrugs. "About ... what to do. Whether to stay in District 12 or run away."

This rings no bells, but I do know that I don't want to go down this path anymore, so I walk myself back into my house, and I'm snow bound, and digging into my nearly empty refrigerator. "Cheese. Cheese buns," I say, slowly.

"Yes. I didn't know you didn't like them."

I glance at her briefly, at the hungry look in her eyes. "I think that … I can't remember. Just that they were OK, but I kept making them for you. You liked them."

"Loved them," she replies. "And now I would kill for one."

I have a confusing memory, now; something about her eating them, but it starts to get a bit shiny, so I back away from it. Instead, I go back to my house and to that storm which, I guess, must be about a year ago, now. "After the tour," I mutter to myself.

"What?"

"That was after the Victory Tour," I say slowly. "There was a storm and I was stuck in my house. I remember … talking to Portia on the phone. And - you? Real or not real."

"Real," she says. "We talked on the phone, yes. Do you remember what we talked about?"

I blink. "School?"

"Yes - we talked about grade school. We both hated our fourth grade math teacher. Do you remember his name?"

"Mr. Alecorn. Yes?"

"Yes."

I look up at her. She sounds exhausted. I feel exhausted. And we've covered so little, really. "I'm sorry," I say.

"About what?"

I open my mouth. "Everything, really. But - specifically, for putting up with this conversation. I - sometimes, when I was in 13, I just begged them to let me go, find me some place to live by myself and just start over again from scratch, build all new memories. It's so hard, Katniss. It's … like … trying to rebuild using rubble - like trying to rebuild a house when it's been blown to dust."

"That can't be true," she says.

"Why not?"

She shrugs. "It just can't."