Here's the next chapter! Enjoy! I do not own Mockingjay any direct quotes will be in italics.

Ch. 28

I eat dinner by myself, while the rest of the squad eats silently a couple feet away from me. The few looks that Katniss does give me are so filled with hate that I can't stand to look up from my food that often. Katniss was filled with a cold hostility that only a Victor could earn. It would be nice if it weren't always directed towards me.

Finnick even steers clear from me at dinner, even though he talked openly with me not minutes before. I can't help, but feel they had formed some secret force against. They didn't care that Coin had personally appointed me, they were away from District Thirteen and her force was not nearly as strong out here.

I finish my food quickly and am glad to hear that Haymitch was trying to call me. It would be nice to get away from this tension out in the open air. I go into my tent with the phone that they have here.

"How is it out there?" He says to me in a whispered tone as if someone was right there next to him listening in to our conversation.

"I feel like they hate me Haymitch. Katniss won't look at me and when she does she looks at me as if I'm the scum of the earth. They only see me as that monster and I guess maybe they should, but I'm sick of feeling like that monster." I couldn't stop the tears that began to threaten at the first word I spoke. It is the nasty crying with the sobs that rack the body and the snot that empties from the nose.

I hope that no one is near the tent and if they are that they aren't listening carefully enough.

I had no doubt that Boggs or his second in command Jackson was listening through some other phone. Even this crying won't let them put mercy on me; to them I am just another enemy. An unneeded enemy, at that.

"Peeta. Get it together. It's going to be hard, you just have to stay strong. Do you hear me? Show them that you aren't a threat. Talk to them. Joke with them. Become their friend, maybe then they won't see you as the enemy." Haymitch says to me. I'm not sure how I would be able to joke with those people out there. I'm sure they wouldn't even give me the time to speak a sentence, let alone tell a joke.

"I'll try." I say. The tears have began to subside and like usual Haymitch's words have helped me. We say goodbye.

When I have collected myself enough to leave the tent I see Finnick standing outside waiting for me. He looks better than he did before, but only slightly. Maybe my conversation helped him.

"I'm sorry, Peeta." He says, his eyes pleading. I wasn't sure what he was apologizing for, the way he acted earlier, with such morbid ideals, or how he ignored me all together at dinner. "For everything. What's happened to you, how you've been treated, how Katniss won't look at you." He was apologizing for the things that couldn't be apologized. I'm not sure why I ever doubted Finnick was a good guy.

In response I only shake my head. The apology was so sincere and real. I hadn't felt kindness this great in a long time.

"I've been through hard times, heck we all have." A pause in conversation, a loud sob coming from a nearby tent, "When Annie was here in the Capitol I was going crazy, me and Katniss tried to hold each other together, but it wasn't enough, it never was." He pulls out a piece of rope from his pocket, "It can get repetitive, but it helps. You don't have to know how to tie really good knots. Actually the simple ones were usually the ones that helped me get my mind off things the most." He stops and holds the short dirty rope out to me, I grab it thankfully.

"To hold yourself together." He says, after I don't say anything he turns to walk away.

"Finnick." I call out, and he turns around, "Thank you." He nods his head and continues into the same tent he was in earlier.

Later into the night when everyone else was inside his or her tent and I was left outside with my guards that changed every few hours I began to work with the rope. Tying simple knots, untying them, trying harder one, and harder ones. Finnick was right, it did help. My mind was almost completely empty by the time I heard Katniss walk outside and take guard.

I'm not sure how long it tooks me to muster up the strength to talk to her. Out of all the things that confused me, she's the one that confused me the most. They tell me she loved me, but why do I remember her trying to kill me. And when I look at her I see something of beauty, but at the same time not. Everything about her confused me.

"These last couple years must have been exhausting for you. Trying to decide whether to kill me or not. Back and forth. Back and forth." My words are quiet, but she hears them, I watch as her face contorts into an emotion that I don't have a word for.

"I never wanted to kill you." There is honesty in her words and it only confuses me more. "Except when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as…an ally." I had many words for Katniss Everdeen, but ally was a new one. From what I've heard about her and I, ally wasn't a good enough descriptor.

"Ally." I let the easy, guarded word slip off of my tongue slowly before I move onto the next one, "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."

Katniss doesn't looks at me; hear eyes have strayed away from where I sit. This happens almost every time I talk to her it seems.

"Then you should ask, Peeta. That's what Annie does." I hear Finnick from somewhere out in the darkness, no doubt not being able to sleep without Annie by his side.

"Ask who?" I look at Katniss and Jackson sitting next to her and I think of all the others that are sleeping in the tents. "Who can I trust?"

"Well us for starters. We're your squad." Says Jackson as if it's the simplest thing ever. But it wasn't, not after the way they looked at me tonight.

"You're my guards." I say.

"That, too, but you saved a lot of lives in District Thirteen. It's not the kind of thing we forget." I barely remember warning them of the bombings, it was the night my hijacking began, and I tried to forget about such things.

I stay silent and try to think of one simple thing I know about Katniss. What is one thing I remember knowing that can't be a lie. That can't be fabricated by the Capitol. Green. I think. Was that the color she had told me was her favorite? I have to ask. I have to know one thing for sure.

"Your favorite color… it's green?" I ask tentatively not even sure that she would answer me.

"That's right." She answers me. It wasn't much to stand on, but at least I knew something. "And yours is orange."

The bright color didn't appeal to me lately, I wonder what I must've been thinking when I told her. "Orange?" I ask. Maybe I should be more confused about myself than Katniss.

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

"Oh." I close my eyes to imagine the color that she speaks of. It was pretty. A little piece of me I was gaining back, "Thank you."

"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." She speaks these words fast and unguarded and for a second I see how people could say she loved me. Before I can thank her for all of that she leaves into her tent breathlessly, with out another word.

This is honestly one of my favorite parts, so I hope I did it justice.

So also I was really interested to know what you guys thought of the last chapter and not many people told me. It's out of pure curiosity and wanting to know how you guys felt about it. If you don't want to review you can always Private Message me!

Don't forget to REVIEW on the way out! Thanks! ~boywithbreadlover