Okay guys! So, I know I haven't updated in a while; it took me forever to write this chapter, but you will see why when you read it. Oh, and if you haven't already figured it out, the first part of this story is drabble, but when it should go pretty much day by day of what is happening after the reaping. Hope y'all enjoy it!

KPOV

"You can't trust him, Katniss! I don't know why you think you can! You just meet a guy in the woods, and you think its alright to go off and hunt together! He could hurt you Katniss! You and him all alone in the woods together. He could take advantage of you!" I brush past Peeta and continue to the table that is set up in my kitchen.

"I don't want to have this discussion right now Peeta! I trust him. We've been working together for months now, the only reason I didn't tell you sooner was because I knew you would freak! And anyways, if Gale was going to try something don't you think he would have done it already? I honestly don't know why you're so riled up, I mean I knew you'd be a bit jealous bu-" I start to tell him as I am taking my game and the stuff I got at the Hob out of my bag.

"Jealous? You think I'm jealous? Are you kidding me? I'm past jealous, I'm betrayed! How could you not tell me sooner? It's one thing for you to hunt all alone and not let me come, you won't even try to teach me how! But to go behind my back with someone else and do it... Why Katniss? Why? Is it me?" His voice gets softer and softer until it is just a whisper as he grabs me and spins me around, making me look into his eyes. "Why?" His eyes are so beautiful. They hadn't changed since that first day I met him, when he grabbed my hand in music class. I can never lie to Peeta when I look into those eyes. And he knows it.

"You wanna know why Peeta?" I ask, my voice quivering, just a sliver above a whisper. "Why I don't let you come with me, but I hunt with Gale? Because if something happened to you out there, I don't know what I'd do, because it would be my fault for not protecting you. I don't care what happens to Gale, not really. Sure we're friends, if you can call it that. But I don't love him, not like I do you, Peeta." I finally look away from his eyes, knowing what comes next is a lie, its not what I want, and I can't look into his eyes while I say it. "And that's why I want you to go Peeta. I need to focus on feeding Prim and I'm the only one who can do that. You need to leave, we can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore."

I break free of his arms and go to open the door. "Peeta. I'm sorry. Its just after all these years, you've gotten so close to my heart that if something happened to you I'd die. I can't afford to feel that way right now. I have to take care of Prim and my mother. You have to go." I avoid looking at his face, knowing that if I do, my resolve will break and I will beg for him to stay with me, to never let me go. I'm openly sobbing now, hugging myself and pressing the door open with my back, staring at the ground.

"Katniss don't do this. Don't do this. I love you. Please. I love you." He has a hold of my shoulders, now. He is lightly shaking me, trying to get me to look up, but I can't do that. I can't stop now. I have be there for my sister and my mother and he is distracting me. "Katniss! I could help you guys out, I've told you this before! I can take care of you Katniss, all three of you. Please just give it a chance, we could make it work. I love you." He has just opened a door, a way for me to cut him loose, although he probably doesn't realize it. I don't want to do this, I don't think I can. I have been trying to het up the courage to for a while now, months. And I really want to back out, I just can't do this. But I have to.

"I don't want your pity! Don't you see! We're not equal! I don't want you to take care of me! I don't want you to have this over me. If you do this for us, you'll always have control over me. I need to be the one to take care of my family. I can't owe you this, I can't owe you anything more than I already do! Don't you get it?" The tears have soaked my face by now and I point outside. "Leave. Please."

He looks at me for what seems like forever, debating what to do. I feel as though I've won the argument, even though I would be on his side, if I had the choice. He suddenly grabs my face roughly and kisses me, hard, for an eternity. And just like that he walks out the door, like its the easiest thing in the world, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I crumple to the ground and cry until Prim finds me, alone and cold, and sits me by the fire so I can tell her everything

I blink my eyes and groggily sit up, vaguely aware that I've had the dream again, that I've relived the worst moment of my life again, as I have been doing for the last five months. I rub my hands over my face and sit on the side of my bed, tears threatening my eyes. My life without Peeta has been cold, and I feel empty of emotions. I can't even begin to put on a show for Prim and my mother. They know what is wrong, but they don't try to talk about it to me. I've been working twice as hard lately, however, putting more and more food on the table. I hunt to keep my mind off of Peeta, to keep me from falling apart. But this is what I had wanted. To keep away distractions. And I had done a good job. Peeta hadn't spoken to me since. My guess was he was too hurt to try, too afraid I would make him go away again. God, I needed to stop thinking of him. I should get up and start hunting, before school starts I should have a couple hours. But I can't get up. It's too much. I hurts too much. Whenever I hunt I think of how he never learned, how I never taught him. Whenever I talk to Gale, I wish it was Peeta. Who was I kidding? I hunted to think about him, not to keep my mind off him. I couldn't do it anymore. I lay back in bed and cry, and wish for Peeta to be here, so he can hold me, and kiss my forehead like he always does when I'm upset. I drift off back to sleep and try not to care that I won't have breakfast for my mother and sister when they wake up. I try not to care and it works. I don't think I'll ever get up again. I understand now, how my mother could sit back and watch us start to starve after my father died, before Peeta tried to help out a little and I learned to hunt. It's hard to do anything when the one person you want isn't here anymore; when the love of your life is gone, one way or another.

PPOV

"Peeta! Peeta! Wait!" I look around for that voice, that sweet little voice, that I have missed in the past five months. I finally see Prim running at me and I almost break down right then. I had missed her so much. I choke back a sob and drop to the ground as I hold out my arms for her. I had been walking home after school, another day without her, Katniss, was wearing on me and I had wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep; it was the only way to keep my mind off of her, and even then only sometimes. Other times he would dream of that day, that horrid, horrid day, when they had last spoken. Prim runs into my waiting embrace but soon pulls out. The look on her face has me worried instantly and I assume the worst, that something has happened to Katniss, and I will never see her face again to tell her I love her. She hadn't been to school in at least a couple weeks, I had already been scared, now I was petrified. But I hadn't gone against her wishes. I had remained strong and stayed out of it, like she wanted. I could never deny her of something she wanted.

"It Katniss." Prim tells me and my heart drops. "We don't know what's wrong. She won't get out of bed, she won't eat or drink anything unless I force it down her throat. I don't know what's going on." Suddenly I can't breath. She looks at me with tears in her eyes as the start spilling over. "She's like how mother was. She's empty. She doesn't see us. She was doing okay for awhile, she was hunting, she was distant, but it was manageable. A few weeks ago she just snapped. She wouldn't get out of bed. I guess finally she just couldn't go through the motions, anymore. It's like she's in another world. You have to help her Peeta. Gale brings by a bit of meat when he can, but he's feeding his own family, too. Its getting bad. We haven't had a real meal for a while now. I don't know what else to do, I'm so scared Peeta. I'm so scared. It's like mother all over again. I don't know what we're going to do."

I held Prim, I held her while we both cried, sitting in the middle of the street. I don't know what to think, I only know what I feel. I feel burdened, scared of what has become of Katniss, and something else. Something shameful. I feel relieved that she missed me. I am guilty but almost glad to know she still loves me. Here was her starving sister in my arms and I was glad she had missed me.

"Why didn't you come to me sooner?" I ask Prim and pull away, steadying the small girl with my hands.

"Because that night that she made you leave she told me I couldn't speak to you anymore. But I had to, Peeta, I had to." I hush her and hold her in my arms until her hysterics stop again.

"Come on." I tell her, and I walk her hurriedly to the bakery. With five loaves of bread in my hand I walk out the door with Prim as we begin the long trek to the Seam in silence, ignoring my mother's screeching at us to stop and come back with her bread. The frigid November air swirls around us making our breath visible. Tiny snowflakes have begun to fall, and they gather in Prim's eyelashes before she can blink them away. Her nose has reddened with the cold and there is frost on her face where her tears have left frozen paths. She looks so tiny, so helpless. I wonder how Katniss could have let this tiny creature start to wither. I can see already that her face is thinner than it once was. Her cheek bones have become more prominent as her face has hollowed out. I am almost angry at Katniss. How could she do this? How could she just give up on her family like this? My thoughts are interrupted as their house comes into view. Oh, God. What am I going to say? Get up, Katniss. You need to hunt. Yeah, like that would work.

I turn to Prim and hand her the loaves of bread. I gently grab her face and wipe away the frost and snowflakes with my thumbs and bend down to kiss her forehead. "You go inside and get your mother and eat. I'm going to go help Katniss." I say to her. Her bottom lip trembles as she nods before running into the house.

I slowly follow her up the path and stop at the doorway for a deep breath. I can't believe I'm doing this, caving so easily. I had told myself that I would give Katniss her space, that I would wait for her to come to me and accept her back with open arms. My plan was crumbling before my eyes however, as I start to walk back to the bedroom but stop as I see Katniss sitting in a chair facing a blank wall in the living room.

I stand there behind her and to the side, near the middle of the room, and watch her concentrate on seemingly nothing. I wonder how she hasn't sensed me watching her yet. As a hunter she always knew when someone was near; it was a quirk of hers that I had always found rather amazing. But as I shift my weight and the floorboards creak and she still doesn't turn, I realize what Prim was saying earlier, about her being her mother, has more than a ring of truth in it.

She sits on a piece of furniture that is more of a stool than a chair. Her hair is not braided back; this is only the third or second time I have seen it down. It is unkempt, and hangs in front of her face. It seems she is wearing her sleep clothes, a gown that look as though it is worn out enough to be washed to rags by now. Her hands rest in her laps idly. Her feet don't touch the floor so they rest on one of the bars at the bottom of the stool. I finally look to her face. Her eyes are dull and lifeless, but bloodshot and puffy, as if she has been crying for days on end. Her lips are parted, drawing in shaking breaths that move her shoulders from their hunched position with each shallow intake of air. Her cheeks are pale, not flushed with color and life as I remembered them to be. A single tear rests just beside her nose, looking out of place on her otherwise emotionless face. She is a shell. She looks like a mess; battered and broken. But she is still beautiful, and always will be to me.

I want to cry as I see her sitting there, reminding me of her mother after her father died. I remember that I had looked over at her and wondered how she could do this to her daughters. Now I do the same thing to Katniss, and silently ask how she could do this to her mother and sister, people who really depend on her. But now, just like I did with her mother, I realize something. This girl's job right now isn't to be a provider for her family, it is to be heartbroken teenager, who has no one to tell her it will be okay. Prim is too young to truly comfort her and her mother is too broken, like her. I feel my heart break again, like it did when she made me leave, at the sight of this "almost girl," who is only almost alive.

I don't know how to approach this "almost girl," who is still unaware of my presence. It seems she has given up the hope that had been the only thing I could cling to, the only thing that had kept me from becoming an "almost boy."

I mull over my options on what I can do to save this girl that has my heart, which are few to none. The only thing I can do is come right out and confront her, it seems. Or comfort her. I go for the latter.

I take a deep breath and step behind her, carefully picking her up and caring her to her bedroom, while she thrashes around, trying to kick me punch me. I set her down on the bed and close the door, and eventually turn around to look into her eyes. They are no longer emotionless. Tears threaten to brim over the edges and underneath the inevitable anger at me for coming and getting her when I wasn't supposed to, I see the relief and love that is reflected in my own eyes.

I go to the bed and kneel on both knees on the ground, putting our heads at the same level. I hug her in my arms from her position on the bed until she stops pushing at me and clings for dear life as she sobs into my shirt. I feel my own body racked with sobs and together we sit there, for what could be minutes or hours or days, just holding each other and relishing in the feeling we could sit there forever, and it would never be long enough.

Eventually she pulls back and hold my face in her hands. I turn my head slightly and kiss the palm of her hand with my eyes closed.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers and I shush her.

"You don't have to explain. I get it. All of it. I love you. I always will, and I always have, since forever." She wraps her arms around my neck and I hold her as she whispers "I love you" over and over.

Sooo... did y'all enjoy it? I know I did, writing it. It was really hard though, because I didn't want them to fight:( but I need inspiration to write more, so if you are ready for the reaping (which will hopefully be next chapter) please review! oh, and I am moving tomorrow, to another state, so it could be a while before I update, unless I can write on my phone (which I find highly unlikely) soo please review so I know you want the next chapter;) REVIEW!