I'm alarmed to wake up to Peeta's sleeping face in front of mine until I remember the previous night. He had crawled in next to me, careful to keep his distance, only stroking my hair until I fell asleep. I watch his eyelids flutter, wondering what he could be dreaming about until I realize I'd slept through the night. No nightmare caused me to wake up screaming or suffocating. But then, I really shouldn't have expected less. Peeta's presence has always had a calming effect on me.

I watch him a while longer. His blond hair has folded over on itself by his ear and is sticking straight forward. I reach out to smooth it back into place. It's the first time I've touched him like this, not grabbing his hand in desperation or accidentally bumping into him, since our last parting hug in the Capitol. My touch wakes him. As his kind blue eyes focus on me, the corners of his mouth lift into the smile I had been so strangely desperate to see the night before. He continues to stare at me, smiling. All I can do is stare back. Rememorize his face.

There's a delicate knock on the door. "Time to wake up! We still have much to discuss!" Effie chirps.

I groan. The thought of another breakfast centered on talking about my being the Mockingjay again makes me feel exhausted. Is Effie really that dense that she didn't notice my less than graceful exit last night? Peeta slides his hand into mine. "Don't worry. I'll be right next to you." But it takes a reassuring squeeze and my stomach reminding me I haven't eaten in twenty-four hours to get me out of bed.

I eat without paying attention to what the Avox is setting in front of me. I'm too hungry to care. Peeta, as promised, is sitting right next to me as Effie rambles on about restoring hope. And about how wouldn't it just be lovely for us to stop at the next district and show them our unending love. I think she actually started tearing up at the thought before a surprisingly sober Haymitch shut her up.

"Katniss doesn't want to be the Mockingjay. We won't make her. End of discussion." He gets up and walks stiffly out of the dining car.

"Well," Effie says.

"They'll find another source of hope," Peeta says.

Effie sniffs. "I sure hope so. With this one," she gestures to me, "we'll never get anything done."

I slam my fork down on the table. I'm angry with Effie for being so ignorant. And I'm angry with her for making me angry. It's because of her that I embarrassed myself the other night by crying and then storming off. And it's because of her that I keep slamming things, which is a habit in some people I've never liked. Peeta puts his hand over mine to keep me from doing anything else violent.

"Leave her alone," he says calmly. "She's been through enough."

Effie raises her nose in the air, but I can see that she knows Peeta is right.

After breakfast, we reach another gap in the tracks. I busy myself with helping Peeta and the workers fix it. As I'm stacking the wooden blocks, I think about what lies ahead. Surely there will be more tries to convince me to be the Mockingjay, which I will not give into. But what will happen when we reach the Capitol? They'll have to tell me it was all a ruse. All a failed attempt to use me yet again. I'll be angry with them, of course. But then I'll be able to return home and live out my life as the ruined mess that I am with no more interference. I won't have to put on a smiling face for anyone ever again. The thought is refreshing and I find myself able to lift the steel beam I'd been struggling with earlier.

Peeta notices a difference in my demeanor as we sit in the shade of a tree by the side of the tracks, waiting for the okay from the workers for our train to continue on.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks.

"Home."

He nods. "That's always a safe thing to think about. Whenever I'm sad, it makes me feel better to remember I have a home, when not that many people do anymore."

"That's not true. There are lots of people in 12 with a home."

Peeta shakes his head. "I'm not talking about just 12, Katniss." He turns to look at me. "The other districts are suffering."

I frown. It bothers me that I have forgotten about the other districts. Am I really becoming that selfish? "How are they suffering?" I ask.

He sighs. "At first, everyone was too busy celebrating that the rebellion was a success to be concerned with much else. But as things quieted down, more people quit their jobs, holed up in their homes. Things weren't getting done and people were going hungry. But everyone was too deep in their misery to notice."

I shake my head. "It can't be that bad. I mean, how much sadness can they be feeling? Nobody had to go through what we had to go through."

"Not everybody deals with pain as well as we do. We're… used to it."

I can't argue with that. The numb feeling from the day before is already working its way back into my veins, diluting the self-hatred. "So what do we do?"

Peeta gives me a long look before replying. "Tell me, Katniss. Do you still love me?"

I'm completely taken aback by his words. Do I still love him? I wasn't even sure before what I felt for him and now he's suddenly sure I loved him. The thought makes me angry. Who is Peeta to tell me what I feel? And how is this 'love' supposed to help the districts? I'm about to tell him where he can stick that question, when I realize he's still talking.

"-like we did to bring rise to the rebellion." There's a firm look of concentration on his face and I realize he's watching me to judge my reaction.

"Uh, what?" I say. "Could you repeat that?"

"I was saying, if we can convince everyone that we're still together, still… in love, then maybe they will see that hope is still possible. That they can put their lives back together." He looks at my narrowed eyes. "I'm saying… Effie is right."

Peeta is right behind me as I stomp back to the train. When will it end, this constant cycle of trusting people, only to be betrayed? And when will I stop having to reason with that betrayal to the point of trusting them again?

"Katniss, wait," he pleads.

But I continue my angry march. "Is that what you want, Peeta?" I shout over my shoulder. "To lie to everyone else just like you've been lying to me?" I reach the train door and climb in, but I pause in the doorway when I notice Peeta has stopped short at my words.

"I'm just trying to help… I just want to help," he whispers so I barely hear him.

My insides twist with guilt. Peeta had only been keeping things from me so I wouldn't get upset. He knew Effie's idea would anger me. And he didn't tell me about his episodes because he knew that would make me sad. I look at him standing there, so big, yet so small. How could I have missed the way his shoulders hunch as if carrying an unbearable weight? The dark circles underneath his eyes and the sadness in his voice? I'm not the only one who is broken beyond repair.

Suddenly, Peeta is just a little boy hiding behind his mother in the bakery. A boy, who despite his mother's reprimands, helped me when I couldn't help myself. The boy with the bread. I climb back down the steps and go to Peeta. If I can be that person for him, just as he has been for me, then maybe we'll be able to fit some of our pieces back together.

I reach Peeta and without hesitation, I wrap my arms around his neck and pull his face to my shoulder. His sturdy arms find my waist. I can feel his breath against my collarbone. Maybe we will never be two whole people, but together, I know there must be enough left to fill in the gaps.