Here's the next chapter! Enjoy! I do not own Mockingjay.

Ch. 46

The fire brought the nightmares back. I never really thought they were truly gone, but the explosion had brought them crashing back into my subconscious. A replay of Prim dying was what I saw first. Her small innocent, yet strong body, burning into nothingness. The nightmares never stopped after that, not until the pain medication ebbed and I could finally leave my mind.

I only wake up to physical pain, but physical pain was what kept me calm nowadays. Fresh pink skin, misfit and ugly, is marked across my body. I felt like the doll my mother had kept from her childhood. Pieced together and dirty, broken and misshapen.

They couldn't get rid of the scars that the scalding fire had left on my skin. The doctors claimed it was because they could do nothing better. Some skin grafts. Some healing. They would never really truly go away. But I believe it was much more than that. My scars were left because I no longer had to put on a charade. I no longer had to smile for the crowd when inside I was completely and utterly falling apart. My scars were there to remind me that I wasn't crazy in thinking I was broken. It was right there, charred into my skin. It was not my fault I was insane, it was not my fault I could no longer speak to my family, it was not my fault that my heart was empty because Finnick, and Prim, and Portia were not there to fill it. My scars were a reminder that everything I am has come from pain. My scars were a reminder that I survived. That I lived. That I had the privilege of seeing that kinder tomorrow.

Those were the first words that my doctor had murmured to me, "We made it. That future we were all hoping for is finally here."

I expected to feel some sort of joy, but I couldn't. I could not find the power in me to feel happy about it. This future came with a price. I didn't even know if any one I loved was still alive. What of Katniss? Was she reduced to nothing? Was she just another death in the list of millions?

"She won't talk, but she's fine." Those were the next words to come out of his mouth. "Fine in the physical sense. I'm not sure if anyone can come out mentally sane after a life like hers." Pause, "A life like yours."

I stayed silent. I felt that if I opened my mouth only dryness would escape, only more sorrow, only more pain. I kept it shut. I do not want any more suffering.

"Peeta, I can't tell you if everything is going to be okay. Nothing really is, is it? After all you've been through, after all you've seen. I can't imagine. So I can't give you an okay, because I wouldn't be being honest with you or myself. But I can give you tomorrow. You will live. I promise you that." He took one last look at his clipboard and then he left.

I guess when a person loses everything they aren't really human anymore. Sure, they still breath and they have to eat and drink and they still have to sleep, but they don't feel. At least I don't feel sitting on my hospital bed watching as the morphling drips slowly into my blood stream.

I want to feel something, anything, but I can't. I have become deceased. Dead to everything I once was.

I know the emotions must be somewhere deep inside me, but they do not show nor do I try to search for them. It seems too hard for a broken boy.

Whenever I feel strong enough I do feel a yearning for her, somewhere deep down inside of me. A call from the boy I once was, a call for a chance at life. I suppress it most of the time, but it has become too much.

It was early morning when I made my request to my doctor, Dr. Aurelius, he had pursed his lips and shook his head. A sure sign that I would not be able to see her.

"Peeta. We're not sure what her presence will do to you. You may feel like you want her now, but what about when you actually see her? What do you think will happen?" I feel the pressure against the wall in my head, I know what he is talking about, yet I feel like it doesn't matter. I just wanted to see her. "Besides, putting you in a hospital gown wouldn't be best for your new skin. We can't roll you out with just a sheet."

"Take me at night then. I don't care. I just want to see her." I never spoke much. He was the only one to really come in. I'd seen Haymitch a couple of times, but that was it. Delly was still back in Thirteen. No one else would take the time of day.

"She isn't the same. She hasn't talked. She rarely moves. Her eyes are empty. Peeta, this isn't the girl you fell in love with." He looks at me straight in the eye. Not skirting around the bush as my doctor in Thirteen had done. Flat out telling me that she wasn't Katniss anymore. Flat out telling me that I probably wouldn't feel what I had once felt.

"I'm not the same either. Just please. I need to see her. I need to see she's okay. They never let me see her. They never do and I just want to see her. I want to know that she's okay. I don't care about anything else, I just need to know that she is breathing." When I'm finished I look back at him. He took me out later that night.

Her room had a window on it, similar to the one in my room back in Thirteen. She wasn't sleeping when he pushed my wheel chair right up against the window. Her eyes, still grey, not hollow and empty as he had said they were, stayed wide open staring into nothingness.

Her hair hung low and her exposed arms were much worse than mine. Ugly skin pieced together to hold together a broken girl. Little did the doctors know that they couldn't fix really her.

She was beautiful, but not in the normal sense of the word. She was the beauty that came out of suffering. Beaten down and sorrowful, lost and incomplete, but still breathtakingly beautiful. Nothing could take her from my heart.

I feel like I shouldn't celebrate that I posted two days in a row because of how depressing this is, but I'll just leave that there.

Please, I would really appreciate if you told me how I did on that last chapter and this one, it won't take much time and I would be forever grateful!

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