(Point of View: Peeta)

I twisted my wedding ring around my finger. It was a gift from Katniss. They've never been common in District 12, perhaps because of the expense. Mine was simple and modest. Katniss probably just wanted me to have a token of her love, but the ring became a lifeline for me. It was an ever-present link to reality when I was in "trouble." Unfortunately, my efforts to deal with "trouble" were never 100% successful.

It struck me at the oddest times. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make the bad memories completely go away. I'd start to feel afraid...terrified really. Then I'd feel things or see things that I didn't want to feel or see. They weren't hallucinations. They were memories. I'd feel the needle piercing my skin, for example, and suddenly I'd be back there.

How will I ever get through this again? How many times are they going to do this to me? How many times have they already done it? I see the man in green standing over me. He moves the needle around in the skin of my arm, and it hurts. The pain is nothing like what is to come through. I know that. The man has more and more trouble with the needle every time, it seems. Finally, he steps back with a look of satisfaction. I feel the burning in my arm as the fluid begins to flow. The effect is almost immediate. My head feels dizzy, and my vision blurs. I close my eyes so I can't see how the objects in front of them morph into frightening puddles of color. The light-headedness is impossible to escape though. The room grows too warm. My throat feels too tight. My thoughts become fuzzy. They are quickly overtaken by the venom. Then I see her. I don't know how they are doing this. I thought my eyes were closed, yet I can see her. There she is. She's plotting against me with Rue. She's cutting the branch so the deadly mutts will drop on top of me. Doesn't she realize I'm there? Me? Not just them. Me! Doesn't she realize I'm trying to keep them from killing her? She must hate me if she's trying to kill me despite my attempts to protect her. She must want me dead. My arm feels as though fire shoots through it. I try to reach for it with my other hand, but I'm restrained. I try to cry out, but what escapes my lips is more like a moan. I feel nauseous. I shake. I don't want to watch anymore. She wants to kill me. Maybe I should let her. Or – maybe I should kill her. I start to feel cooler. I feel my heart slowing despite the fact that I'm still terrified. A feeling of weakness overwhelms me. I feel weightless, as if my body doesn't even touch the bed anymore. Then, I feel nothing…just nothing.

Suddenly I gasp. I'm panicked. I can see the man in green talking on the phone. His back is to me. A woman in green stands over me. Whatever is running swiftly into my arm now feels cold. She touches the tubing. There's a beeping noise. She looks behind me as if she's checking something. My vision is clear, and I feel better. My chest stings badly though. It's a strange feeling. I can hear the man in green talking on the phone.

"Yeah, we got him back…I know, I know…There would have been hell to pay if we'd lost him…He's young though. He can take it to some degree, but if they are going to keep dosing this higher and higher they need to consider better ways to keep his blood pressure up and maybe a pacemaker too...I'm just saying, nobody can tolerate drops like that for long…if this kid is so important then they need to get somebody down here who can handle these emergencies…I just don't want it to be my fault! OK, just let me know what he says."

I am sitting on the sofa in our house.

I can't live like this, I think. I have to get away from here. I have to get away from her.

My eyes well up with tears. I feel so weak! I should be stronger, but who could be stronger in the face of such things? They nearly killed me. I nearly killed the love of my life.

I did as Dr. Aurelius said. I talked myself through it. I twisted the wedding ring some more.

I'm feeling this way because I'm remembering being tortured with the tracker jacker venom. I'm wearing my wedding ring. I can't be in prison being tortured because I didn't have a wedding ring then. This is District 12. I'm sitting on the sofa in our house. The war is over. So I know I'm not in prison being drugged and tortured. Katniss loves me. She's my wife.

It worked mostly, but on bad days my doubts would remain.

(Point of View: Dr. Aurelius)

I wasn't surprised when Katniss and Peeta married. They were young, but marrying at their age was not uncommon in District 12. I knew that they loved one another deeply. I did have concerns about the union causing them to always be reminded of their traumatic pasts. However, Katniss and Peeta did seem to help each other cope effectively with those pasts. Some of the trauma had even been shared trauma, though Peeta did not remember all of that. I hoped that maybe the way they supported one another would off-set the risk of reminders. I thought of them often. Looking back, I must have been worried. I suppose I knew there would be trouble.

(Point of View: Katniss)

Happiness actually scares me. It's too good to be true. After my father died, I lowered the expectations I had for my whole life. I would take care of Prim. Then I would be independent and alone. That way I would avoid the pain loving others can bring into a life. I can't lose what I don't have. If I don't lose people, then I don't have to feel pain, I thought. For years I distanced myself from others. Dr. Aurelius called this attitude "a very costly coping strategy." He seemed to think there were better ones. Unfortunately, at 12 years old, it was the best I could do.

Once Peeta was my husband, I was consumed by the fear of losing him. Actually, I'd been afraid of losing him ever since the cave, but the fear grew exponentially after we married. There was also the matter of children. I knew Peeta wanted them. I didn't. Again, my attitude went something like this: if I have no children then I can't lose them. Even though the Hunger Games had been abolished, President Coin's proposal that they be continued after the war was proof that the threat of their re-institution was always there. Besides, there were less systemic ways the Capitol caused children to die: starvation, poverty, neglect. They didn't allow the districts enough freedom to improve any of that either. Who could say that any of those circumstances couldn't happen again in District 12? There were natural causes of loss like illness also. Peeta gave me a puzzled look the first time I told him about these fears.

He said, "You'll worry yourself to death thinking like that."

I replied, "But I won't be grieving."