(Side note: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to respond individually to reviews, but I just wanted to say thank you, so much, for all of the kind words that you guys have left. I'm not quite sure why I can't leave this story alone, but I'm having fun with it and it means the world to me that other people are enjoying it as well. So thank you!)

Interlude: Peeta

The first time she told me she really loved me, it was the only time in my life that I've ever drawn a complete breath.

I loved her from the first moment I saw her, when we were five and her ribbons were red and her voice was husky-sweet; I loved her when we were in the Capitol and I realized that she had a surprising sense of humor, an impatient reply for every stupid thing anyone said to her, a wicked right hook.

I loved her when she was swathed in flames; I loved her when she spun like an alchemist and shed wedding white for mockingjay black; I loved her when she had red-rimmed eyes and writing on her arm and cheekbones so pronounced that you could cut glass.

I loved her when my hands curled around her neck and I could feel every delicate bone beneath; loved her when she was wheezing and the world was wreathed in starlight and her eyes were gleaming at me like constellations.

I loved her when she accepted my ring on her trembling hand, and I loved her in yellow when she danced with me across our front lawn.

I fell in love with the world the way it is when she is in it.

Even when we were separated by thousands of miles, I knew that we were only on opposite sides of the television screen. I mouthed her name and knew that she could see. I saw her with her braid and her bow and I saw how fiercely her eyes burned.

And oh, how I loved her.

An open door, Haymitch's unsteady hand on the knob and slightly glassy eyes that appraise me solemnly and the smell of liquor that sears my nostrils when I walk past him and over to the open bottle on the side table.

Pain in my mouth, the stinging trail down my throat, a heavy warmth in my stomach, and I wipe my lips and turn to look at him, flickering sympathy on the weathered planes of his face.

"So?" he asks, and I nod and take another long drag from the bottle.

"Congratulations," he says with dark irony.

"Do you remember the day I came to Thirteen?" I ask him abruptly. "The day I saw her for the first time after the second Games?"

"Yes," he says after a brief pause, and motions me toward a chair, taking a seat beside me and rescuing the bottle from hands that are suddenly shaking like trees in winter.

"Do you know what her sister said to me?" I ask, and Haymitch shakes his head and takes a drink before passing the bottle back to me.

"'She's been going crazy without you'," I say quietly, and then laugh. "I was the one who was legitimately out of my mind, and Prim was berating me for hurting her sister."

"So?" Haymitch again, obviously clueless about where this is going.

"So. Ah. It's just funny, isn't it? How that worked out?"

Haymitch stares at me.

"I'm beginning to understand why you don't drink."

I flap a hand at him in mute annoyance.

"You saw the footage from the second arena, didn't you? When the jabberjays got to her and Finnick?"

Haymitch winces and goes for the bottle.

"Yeah, I know. I know. But do you know what's worse than that? Seeing the person you love more than anything being hurt, less than a foot away, and you can't do a damn thing about it.

"That's how I felt about Thirteen," I tell him. "The entire time I was there we were behind glass. She was on one side and I was on the other, and there was no way we could reach each other without getting cut."

"What does this have to do with her being pregnant?" Haymitch exasperated, one hand tapping a staccato rhythm against the dirty fabric of his knee, the other curled protectively around his alcohol.

"She's screaming again," I tell him. "It was months, Haymitch. Months where I would stay awake and watch her breathe. Now she wakes up and she screams and I can't get past the glass."

"Tell me what it was like," he says quietly, "behind the glass."

He passes over the bottle.

"Wires," I say slowly. "Needles. Drugs, and doctors, and disapproval. Hijacking, and Snow, and Plutarch, and her. Mutts and cakes and dancing and videos, and that stupid Star Squad. You. Prim. Gale."

"Gale?" Haymitch asks in honest surprise, then whistles under his breath. "I can't believe he didn't kill you."

"I think he would have tried if there hadn't been so many witnesses," I say sourly. "As it was, he didn't mince words. I obviously couldn't take care of Katniss. I'd proven that more than once."

"Neither could he," Haymitch says quietly. "Neither could I."

He drains the bottle dry.

"Katniss," he says, "takes care of herself."

"But what about Willow?" I explode. "She can't take care of herself. She can't even tie her shoe."

"That's why she has two parents," Haymitch says reasonably. "I know that you and Katniss have this history of throwing yourself into things together, but that part of your life has ended. What would you do now if they did something to Katniss? Go after her? Leave your daughter alone? You're a lot of things, Peeta, but you're not stupid."

"According to who?" I mutter, and Haymitch snorts.

"Maybe," he says after a long pause. "I'm not who you should be talking to about this."

He leans over and puts the empty bottle onto the floor, and then grabs my shoulders and turns me back toward home.

"She lives," he says cryptically. "She lives, she lives, she lives."