When night falls and my shift from eight to midnight begins, Finnick stays awake with me even though I'm paired up with the Leeg sister. After an hour and a half, she realizes Finnick isn't going to bed so she shrugs and decides to crawl into her tent and sleep.

Peeta is lying on his side with his back to me and Finnick and I assume he's asleep.

"Do you think I overreacted?" I ask Finnick.

He immediately knows I'm referring to my outburst to Gale earlier today.

"No," he whispers back. "You stood up for someone who deserved it."

I nod and stay silent for a few seconds before I speak again. "He's just alone."

"You do know how weird that sounds coming out of your mouth, right?"

"I just… He just shouldn't be alone, not after what he's been through."

Finnick puts his arm around my shoulder. "I know."

We just listen to the silence of the night, both lost in our own thoughts. My eyelids flutter closed but when Peeta turns around I'm wide awake again.

"I can't sleep," he informs Finnick and me. "I have nightmares."

"Me too," I admit.

Finnick fumbles in the pocket of his sweater and gives Peeta the little rope he's always carrying with him.

"What is this for?" Peeta asks.

"To tie knots. Keeps you distracted."

"Oh. Thanks."

We all fall back into a comfortable silence and just when I'm about to doze off again, it's midnight and Jackson and Katniss get up to take our places.

Finnick and I don't crawl into our tents, instead we take out our sleeping bags and make ourselves comfortable on the ground. The warmth of the heater doesn't reach the tents so it's too cold in there and we both feel much more comfortable when we can see everything around us. A tent makes that impossible, makes you feel even more alone, isolated from the rest of the world.

A couple of minutes ago I was falling asleep but now I'm wide awake. It seems as if everyone is suddenly wide awake. Maybe because no one trusts Katniss with Peeta. She did call him a mutt not too long ago. Suddenly, Peeta starts speaking loud and clear, as if he too knows everyone is awake and watching him.

"These last couple of years must have been exhausting for you. Trying to decide whether to kill me or not. Back and forth. Back and forth."

I shift a bit so I have a better view of both Katniss and Peeta. I want to see how she will react to what he has to say.

"I never wanted to kill you. Except when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as…an ally," she answers cautiously.

Come on, ally? Really? She could've done better than that.

"Ally." Peeta repeats the word Katniss used. It obvious he's thinking the same thing I am. "Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancée. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I'll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out. The problem is, I can't tell what's real anymore, and what's made up."

This reminds me of someone…

"Then you should ask, Peeta. That's what Annie does," Finnick says.

"Ask who? Who can I trust?" Peeta asks.

Before Finnick and I can even respond, Jackson answers for all of us. "Well, us for starters. We're your squad."

I repress the urge to snort since I'm not entirely sure Gale can be trusted with regard to Peeta.

"You're my guards," Peeta points out.

"That, too," she says. "But you saved a lot of lives in 13. It's not the kind of thing we forget."

So they don't forget when someone saves lives of their own district but when that savior becomes a little too traumatized they suddenly want nothing to do with him.

Once again, everyone falls silent and most of our squad falls asleep, Finnick included, but I know for a fact that I won't be sleeping tonight. So I look up to the sky trying to find one tiny little star and when I don't find one, I start imagining them. It's been a while since I last saw stars. District 7 had nice stars but the most beautiful sky I've ever seen was on my Victory Tour in District 4. Maybe it's because of the sea, I don't know, but that sky was absolutely amazing.

I almost jump out of my skin when Peeta asks Katniss another question. I thought I was the only one still awake except for the two guards but clearly I was wrong.

"Your favorite color…it's green?" he asks.

"That's right. And yours is orange," she answers.

"Orange?"

"Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset. At least, that's what you told me once."

I'm pretty sure everyone's awake again but they are all trying so hard to fake sleep it's almost hilarious.

"Oh," Peeta finally says. "Thank you."

It looks like the conversation is over but Katniss is clearly on a roll since more descriptions of Peeta come rolling out of her mouth.

"You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces." And before Peeta can say anything back she flees into her tent. Maybe it's all finally taking the best of her.

I prop myself up on one arm to look at Peeta. Confusion is all over his face. He probably thinks he had something to do with Katniss hiding in her tent.

"Before you draw something," I start and Peeta's head turns to look at me. "You always wipe the surface three times to make sure it's clean." It's something I noticed during the training for the Quarter Quell.

I'd love to say more about him but I don't know him as well as Katniss. All I know from Peeta has to do with the Quarter Quell and our tortures in the Capitol and I don't really like to remind him of that.

Before I roll over to at least try to rest, Peeta asks a question that baffles me more than all the other things he's said since he got here.

"Why was I in love with Katniss when you were around?"

I stay silent for a second, too much in shock to do or say anything, but then Finnick's laughter fills the air and I realize Peeta must be more confused than ever.

I start chuckling. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, you are practically the only one that has been nice to me since I got back from the Capitol, and you're not ugly. I mean, Katniss isn't ugly either but I don't see why I thought she was more special. And, like I said, you were nice and she wasn't."

What he's saying does make sense in a weird and traumatized way but I don't really know how to respond to that.

"Not ugly," Finnick whispers in between snickers. I kick my foot in an attempt to hit him but I miss his head by an inch.

"I wasn't always nice to you," I admit to Peeta.

"Why not?"

Oh man, I am really starting to hate his Q&A.

"Because I'm generally not a nice person. I wasn't nice to anyone."

"Except for him," Peeta says, nodding his head towards Finnick.

"He's my best friend."

"Yeah, that changes things," Finnick says. "This is how Johanna sees the world: me, and the rest of the world. And if you could only be nice to one of those, the choice is easily made, right?"

"You are so conceited!" I say in an astonished voice.

He flips his hair like a true Capitolian. "I know. But I'm adorable so I'm allowed to be conceited."

I burst out in a fit of laughter and some of our squad, like Jackson and even Gale, join me.

"Do you people ever shut up?" Boggs yells sleepily.

"Sorry Boggs," Finnick whispers and I have to hold my laughter at the sight of his, okay I admit, adorable face.

"I don't want to hear another word. Everyone go back to sleep, and if you can't sleep then at least pretend to be asleep. Understood?"

"Understood," Finnick and I say in unison before we lie down to 'pretend to be asleep'.