When I open my eyes for good, I realize Peeta's bedroom is still covered with feathers. This normally tidy-to-a-fault boy has left the room a mess. I roll over and watch him sleeping next to me. He used to look young when he slept, like the young boy his father tucked in at night. Grief changes you.

I gently ease myself out of bed, careful not to wake him. I take the waste bin from the bathroom and sit on my knees, placing the feathers in the garbage one by one. I work outward in a circle, cleaning silently until I hear his gravelly morning voice drift from the bed.

"What are you doing?" he mumbles, sleep still heavy in his mouth.

"I thought you'd like it better if things were cleaned up," I answer. Peeta before the hijacking was neat. Peeta after the hijacking finds messes extraordinarily stressful. His anxiety piques if even small items are out of place. It wasn't so bad in Thirteen. Gale was nearly mechanical in his cleanliness and the rest of Thirteen believed that messes were too wasteful. I'm shocked cabins weren't inspected. Maybe they were.

"I thought you liked living in disarray," Peeta says softly, not moving from the bed but watching me pensively. It's a joke. Prim used to say that about me because she was just as neat as Peeta, and I'm a force to be reckoned with.

"I do," I answer. Normally Peeta's neat freak tendencies drive me up a wall. "But I could use some predictability right now." I find comfort in Peeta's orderly home. Everything is where I expect it to be. There are no surprises. I need no surprises right now. I need stability.

Peeta sits up, stretching. He rubs his leg and I realize he slept with his prosthetic on. Guilt trickles over me. He was such a mess last night. I should have noticed. I should have made him take it off.

"I was hoping we could go see Effie today," Peeta offers, stepping out of bed and finding some pants. He limps just slightly. I pretend not to notice. "And Haymitch."

At Haymitch's name I recoil just slightly. I have no right to it, but I'm angry at him. He lied to us. Again. He lied to us the whole time. He was playing every side – our Mentor, the Rebellion, the Nationless. I don't know where his alliance lies.

"Okay," I grumble, walking back to the bathroom and setting the waste bin back in its place. I brush the knots from my hair as Peeta heads downstairs. I take a quick shower and hurry my way out. The hot water reminds me of burning alive. It reminds me of Prim. I try not to seize as I let it flow over me, running off my skin and sending suds of soap down the drain. I dry off quickly and head downstairs.

"This might be easier on your stomach than all that rich food from yesterday," Peeta offers, sliding a warm piece of bread with melted butter across the counter toward me. I take it off the plate. It's full of grains and nuts. I take a bite and chew it thoughtfully. Peeta tries not to hover, pouring himself a glass of water but keeping his eyes on me. "How do you feel?" he finally asks. "Sick?"

"No, it's good. Settling," I answer. Relief washes over Peeta's face.

"Good," he smiles. Normally we are in the kitchen in the morning sun, but it's already well into the afternoon and the room looks different in the warmer, brighter light. I finish my bread while he heads out of the room to go change. "Katniss?" I hear from behind me. In the door, Peeta is holding my bag that has taken up residence in the front hall. "Should I… um… should I bring this upstairs?" he asks.

"No," I say too quickly. Peeta tries to play it calmly.

"You going somewhere?" he asks playfully, but I can feel the hint of doubt he's trying to cover.

"No," I say again, although it doesn't seem to pacify him any.

"Then why not –"

"Because I said so, Peeta!" I cut him off. "I just… leave it where it is. I just want you to leave my bag there. I don't want it upstairs. I don't want it unpacked. I just want it to stay right there." I ramble. He looks frustrated. I roll my eyes. "Why does everything have to be such a big deal to you? I'm here, aren't I?" My words are hurried and chaotic.

"Are you?" he asks.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I shoot back.

"Are you here? For good? Are you staying?" he asks, not mincing a single word.

"Are we really doing this again?" I ask, although I know that's not fair. We don't talk about this. We don't ever talk about it. Maybe that one fight in 3, where we were drenched in rain and he walked away from me. I haven't given him a single reason to trust me that I didn't immediately shatter within days, weeks, months.

"That's not an answer," he says, and I stare at him. A pit opens in my stomach and it feels like I might collapse in on myself. It makes the blood in my arms ache. I'm terrified of what comes next, but we promised no more lies.

"I'm not going anywhere!" The words are what he wants to hear, but I'm so mad I turn around and stomp up the stairs. I hear Peeta linger downstairs for a while, but eventually he leaves. I look out the window and see him taking the path to Haymitch's house. I waste about an hour before I finally cross the yard and knock on Haymitch's door.

"Well look what the cat dragged in," Haymitch says through a mouth full of food. I am so angry at him, so bitterly resentful, but in this moment, standing in front of him... Both of us home. Both of us safe. I throw my arms around his body and squeeze him as hard as I can. "Hey sweetheart," he whispers, wrapping what he can move of his lower arms around me. We don't hug. We aren't hugging people. It's awkward, but we just hold each other.

"I'm still mad at you," I whisper.

"I'm still mad at you, too," he whispers back.

We let go and awkwardly brush ourselves off, avoiding eye contact.

"Katniss!" I hear Effie trill from the kitchen and she comes prancing forward as if she hadn't just seen me a couple days ago. "Let me get a look at you!" She clenches my hands like a vice and send a critical gazee up and down my body. "Too skinny," she clicks disapprovingly. "And your hair is a mess. Really, dear, you need to keep up with trimming it while it grows out or it's going to look unpresentable. I know I have a balm in one of my bags that might help with these frayed ends. Let me look!" She clicks away and up the stairs, off in search of whatever ointment or treatment she thinks I need now.

I look around. The house is neat. Too neat. I look suspiciously at Haymitch, but he shrugs. "Don't think I did it," he rambles. I spy Peeta sitting on a chair in the living room. I wave uncomfortably, he waves back.

I'm not really sure how to do this. Visit. We all sit in the living room and make small talk.

"So Effie, when are you headed back to the Capitol?" I ask, sipping some tea that I let oversteep as I bounced the bag in my cup, looking for something to occupy my fidgeting hands.

"I plan to leave the Saturday after next," she says with a clipped coolness, but Haymitch's reaction is not lost on either Peeta or me. He stares intensely at his tea cup, which Effie has insisted he serves on a saucer. His hands rattle and he sets the whole contraption on the coffee table. "There is still some oversight needed at the interim Justice Building," she explains.

The interim Justice Building is basically a shed, based on Peeta's explanation to me. One of the women from town, Gerty, has assumed responsibility for all the new forms we keep getting from the Capitol. If and when we start doing government business, she is ready for it. I barely remember Gerty from before the war. She is one of the few surviving townspeople – blonde, blue-eyed, gentle voice. Most everyone else is from the Seam. Peeta blames himself. He thinks Snow was targeting the bakery. I agree, but I think he hurt Peeta to hurt me. I think his family's death lies squarely on my shoulders. I try to shake the thought from my head.

The rest of the visit is casual. We spend a couple hours talking. Eventually we make our way outdoors and sit on Haymitch's porch.

"I'm thinking about ducks," Haymitch says, gesturing to a patch of yard with his hands.

"To eat?" I ask. I've never really understood domesticating animals. I'm not opposed to eating them, but to me there's something weird about caring for something from infancy and then having it occupy your dinner plate. I'd much rather shoot a deer or trap a rabbit. At least they are strangers to me. They don't have names.

"Yeah, to eat. Plus I'd get eggs," he answers. "Maybe geese. They'd keep the idiots off my property, too."

I can't picture Haymitch raising an animal. I can't picture him nurturing anything.

Peeta makes dinner. We eat. Effie retires to bed. I can't remember ever having an easygoing day before.

I'm bored.

It's kind of nice being bored.

In the dark, without Effie's constant oversight, we light a lamp over the kitchen table and play cards. Peeta finds some nuts in Haymitch's cupboard. He melts butter on the stove, tosses them in cinnamon and pepper and lets them roast in the oven for a few minutes. Haymitch complains about the heat of the stove on a summer's night, but ends up gobbling down most of the snack himself.

The boys take down the chessboard. I go to the living room and flip through one of Effie's magazines before I eventually let my eyes drop closed. The warm night lulls me with chirping frogs and buzzing beetles.

The whispers fall low. They assume I'm asleep.

"Because she thinks she might have to run," Haymitch replies, his voice rusty with age.

"That's what I thought," Peeta said, sounding somewhat broken.

"Not from you, kid. The world hasn't let her settle in anywhere. Not since the Reaping. She's not convinced she's safe yet. She's not sure you'll still be in that house a week from now. It might burn down or blow up or collapse on top of her," Haymitch explains. I hate him for knowing me, for knowing things I can't even articulate but are absolutely right. "What's in the bag that she's trying to protect?"

The pearl. The spile. Bits of Peeta I held on to after I lost him. Artifacts from my family that make me feel close to my dad. My sister. Pieces I'm not willing to give up.

"I'm guessing it's the only stuff in the world it might hurt to lose. She's never been a material-type of girl," Haymitch says, gesticulating with his eyes toward Effie's room in a way that makes Peeta laugh a little.

"Let it go?" Peeta asks with some vulnerability in his voice.

"Let it go," Haymitch answers.

When Peeta wakes me up and tells me it's time to go home, I blearily rise from the couch. It's late. It's very late. I don't even say good night to Haymitch as I stumble out the door. We walk across the yard.

"Are we okay?" Peeta asks. I nod. He holds the front door open for me and as I cross the threshold, the offending bag stares us both right in the face. I reach down and grab the handle, lifting the bag and continuing up the stairs toward the bedroom. "Katniss, you don't have to do that," Peeta offers, trailing behind me.

"I know," I say, tossing the bag on the bed and unhooking the clips that hold it shut. I had planned on putting these things in a drawer, but when I hold the spile in my hands, I don't want to hide it away. I walk over to the window and set it on the sill. The shiny, silver metal catches the moonlight and for a moment it looks almost pretty. "How much do you remember about the Quell?" I ask, my voice low.

"Bits and pieces," Peeta replies. "It's like… like I'm watching the whole thing from underwater. I can't focus. I get a moment of clarity, but then you come into the picture and I lose it all again."

"Do you remember losing Mags?" I ask softly. We don't normally talk about what he's lost.

"Not how it happened, no. I remember you shoving her into the fog," Peeta says. I shoot a look up at him. "I know it's not true," he replies quickly. "It's shiny. But that's what I remember about it. And that her body twisted and contorted and…" he loses his voice. "Are you thinking about Mags?"

"I'm thinking about Finnick," I answer. "And bed. Let's get to sleep."

We brush our teeth. Too many more nights of this and we'll have a routine. I want a routine. Peeta slides off his leg and we drop into bed.

"I remember kissing you," Peeta says into the dark. "You tasted like salt and sand. You normally taste like pine and mint, and so I remember it was different. The picture of it in my head is a mess, but I remember thinking it was the last time that I'd kiss you like that. It's how I knew something about the hijacking wasn't right. Why would I know what you tasted like?"

I don't know how to answer him. Instead, we let the night win. We sleep.