A/N: You are all totally awesome. Thank you for tall of the feedback, the faves, follows and reviews.
As always, my betas, dandelionsunset and evilgrinstar, deserve tons of credit and thanks for the tremendous amount of assistance and feedback they give me.
Fanfic suggestion: If you haven't already, and if you're old enough, go read "The miner's wife," a work-in-progress by MockingJayFlyingFree. It's dark, moody and absolutely amazing. I can't wait to see where she takes the story.
Chapter 18—the boy with the bread
Peeta sat down on his bed, still shaking. He knew that his body was going to hurt in a few hours. Already his knee was beginning to swell and grow hot. He didn't think any of his ribs were broken but he couldn't be sure. It probably didn't matter. He had enough experience to know that after the blows he had just received, breathing would be painful for the next several days.
Peeta started picking splinters out of his hand. Rye walked in and squatted in front of him. Rye looked at Peeta like he was a wounded animal. "Holy shit, Peet. I thought you were going to kill her."
Peeta nodded. He'd thought he was going to kill her, too. He could hardly stand the expression on Rye's face. Rye was afraid of him. Peeta remembered how much he had wanted to wrap his hands around her scrawny neck and squeeze the life out of her. The thought disgusted him. His hands started to shake.
Rye left for a moment and returned with tweezers, a bowl, a towel and witch hazel. He sat next to Peeta on the bed and took one of Peeta's hands in his own. He started removing splinters out of his brother's hands. Farl walked in with cold compresses and sat down on Peeta's other side. "Which knee?" he asked. Peeta lifted his right knee up a little bit. Farl put one of the compresses on the knee. "Where else?" Peeta used his chin to indicate his back. Farl and Rye helped him take his shirt off. Farl sucked in his breath at what he saw.
An enormous bruise was forming over the lower half of the left side of Peeta's back. A slightly smaller, darker bruise had appeared just below the upper right side. Farl pressed the other compress onto the left bruise. Peeta hissed in pain but said nothing.
After a few minutes, Farl and Rye switched sides so Rye could work on Peeta's other hand. At some point, they all heard Marigold shuffle down the hall and close her bedroom door behind her. Peeta felt the adrenaline start to dissipate from his body. Everything was beginning to ache and he suddenly felt exhausted. When Rye was satisfied that all of the splinters were out, he rinsed Peeta's hands with witch hazel.
They helped Peeta take off his shoes, socks and pants so they could get a look at his knee. It was twice its normal size and the color of an eggplant. "Peet, you sleep in tomorrow and when you get up, we'll go to the apothecary and get you something for this" Farl informed him.
Peeta shook his head. "I won't be here. I'm meeting Katniss tomorrow morning before sunrise."
Rye and Farl looked at each other. "Meeting her where, son?"
"The woods."
If Rye had looked afraid before, he looked positively terrified now. He leaned into his younger brother and whispered urgently, "That's illegal, Peeta! They shoot people for that!"
"So? The only fresh meat we ever get is because Katniss is willing to get shot. She's been going out there since she was eleven and I don't see anybody too concerned with her well-being."
Farl stood up, agitated, and waved his hands at his boys. "It doesn't matter if it's a good idea or not, Peet. You can't go anywhere on that leg. And you're the one that broke a rolling-pin over your knee, so don't blame that injury on your mother."
"I don't," said Peeta, his voice resigned. "I blame you."
Farl looked like he'd been slapped. He stared down at his sons, his features etched with guilt and sadness. Peeta and Rye sat next to each other and gazed steadily back at their father, saying nothing. Farl leaned over and pressed his lips to the top of Peeta's head. "I blame me, too, Peet." Peeta could hear the tears in his father's voice but didn't much care at the moment. Farl left the room and closed the door behind him.
Rye helped Peeta lie down, then arranged the ice packs on Peeta's knee and the bruise over his kidney. He put away all of the first aid supplies while Peeta watched him with apathetic eyes.
When he was done, Rye sat gingerly on the edge of Peeta's bed. He spoke softly to Peeta, like he was ill or something. Which in a way, Peeta thought to himself, I am. I'm damaged. I've been damaged for a long time. "I know what you're thinking, Peet, but you listen to me. You are not her. You'll never be her."
"What if I'm him, though?" Peeta asked. Rye looked away. Peeta didn't push it. He thanked Rye for cleaning him up and tried to close his eyes against the pain in his body and soul. It didn't work. His back ached and his knee pulsed. Worse, though, were his memories. Now he had a fresh set of awfulness to keep him company but the old standbys made their appearance, too: the look on his father's face the first time Marigold hit Peeta hard enough to break his skin; Katniss starving under their tree with a building full of food not 30 feet away; the look on his mother's face minutes later when she raised a rolling-pin above her head.
But he had new good memories, too: Katniss' smiles, which were turning up more frequently and were often directed at him; Prim, who was equal parts kindness, mischievousness and wisdom; the silver flash of Katniss' eyes; Rye stomping out a tempo with his foot; the way Prim was so obviously pushing him and Katniss together; and Katniss singing, oh god, Katniss singing.
Had it just been an hour ago that he was walking hand in hand with Prim and Katniss? He had been so happy to be with her—with both of them, really. Yet he'd also been so anxious that Katniss would figure out that he'd been in love with her for all these years. Worse, he was terrified that Katniss would just get to know him and realize that he was just as pathetic and worthless as his mother always said he was. Then she'd never look at him again.
Peeta realized he had just made a choice. He let it settle in his bones as he examined it from all angles. He finally drifted off into a fitful sleep.
Peeta's alarm sounded at 4:30, like it usually did. He rolled over to turn it off and the ensuing pain caused him to very nearly reconsider meeting Katniss. A two or three hour hike—even with Katniss Everdeen—sounded like torture. But he was going to be in pain no matter what, so he might as well spend his day in the woods with Katniss and not home with Marigold.
He pushed himself up to a sitting position and swung his feet over the side of the bed. His knee was looking better. He flexed it up. It was swollen and stiff and there was a huge bruise, but everything seemed to be working fine.
His back, on the other hand, hurt like a monster bitch. He limped to the bathroom and relieved himself. His urine was bright red. He tried to look at his back in the mirror and see how bad the bruising was, but it was too painful to twist around like that so he gave up. He was up and walking; that was enough.
Rye woke up while Peeta was getting dressed. He shook his head, "You really going out there, Peet?"
"Yeah. I'll be back...well, I don't exactly know when. If nothing else, I'll see you at rehearsal."
Rye didn't say anything further. Instead, he got out of bed and helped Peeta pull on a T-shirt and sweatshirt. He also tied Peeta's shoes for him when it became clear that Peeta couldn't bend over enough to reach them. Rye double-knotted the laces. All the Mellark boys did. Marigold used to hit them if their laces came untied.
Peeta took a satchel—using his backpack was out of the question—and put his sketchbook and a tin of pencils in it. He dug an older sketchbook from a drawer, and put that into the satchel, too. In the kitchen, he grabbed bread and pastries too old to sell and wrapped them in paper. After throwing them in the satchel along with a water flask, he left.
The cold air felt good. It hurt to walk—hell, it hurt to breathe—but after a few minutes, the pain in his knee ebbed to a dull throb. The pain in his back, however, did not improve. He knew it probably wouldn't for a few days. It caused him to move slower than he usually did but he had given himself enough of a head start that Katniss shouldn't be waiting long.
It was still dark out when he arrived at the water tower. He didn't see Katniss until she stood up in the tall grass she'd been squatting in. She walked up to him, a frown on her face. The first words out of her mouth were, "you're hurt."
"Yes," he replied.
"Do you still want to go? It's a long walk."
"Yeah, but only if you want me with you. I'd probably slow you down no matter what, but I'm going to be even slower today."
She looked him over, worry evident on her face. "Peeta, let me take you to go see my mother. You really don't look well."
"No. This is something I need to do."
"What, look at an arrow? They'll still be there later. Let's go back when you're feeling better."
"It's not about that anymore. It's much more important than that."
For a moment, he thought Katniss was going to argue with him but she said, "OK, it's this way."
He followed her through the tall grass that she had been hiding in. There was a line of brush behind that and she showed him a very narrow opening that you could only really see from one angle. They walked single file through the brush, which faded into forest.
The forest was unbelievably dark. Katniss moved so silently that, had he not been able to see her, he would have never known she was there. She did outpace him at one point, and he really couldn't see her. "Katniss, you've disappeared," he called. Peeta wasn't afraid, but neither did he want to trip and make his injuries worse.
She appeared before him a moment later and took his hand. Her hand was tiny in his, but warm, strong and calloused. She led him through the gloom. He felt like he finally understood the saying "follow blindly." He had no idea where she was taking him. She could be leading him to his death for all he knew, but he trusted her implicitly.
There was another wall of brush. "It gets really tight up here and you'll probably need both hands to push the brush aside," she warned him. "Put your bag on your shoulder."
"I can't." He could barely tolerate the shirts he was wearing. No matter which shoulder he tried to use, the bag would either rest directly on one wound or would bang up against the other.
That answer brought her up short. She looked at him again, almost like she thought he was kidding. She could see from the look on his face that he was not.
"What happened?" Her question was soft.
"Marigold happened." His answer was not.
"You'll tell me when we get there." This was not a question as much as it was a demand.
"I will," he promised. He had planned on telling her anyway.
She held out her other hand, the one that wasn't holding his, and he gave her the satchel. "Be careful with that," he told her. "It's holding our breakfast."
He saw a faint smile. She hoisted the satchel over the same shoulder with her game bag, and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go. "Step where I step and try to keep the brush pushed aside so you don't lose sight of me. The fence is just another 15 or so feet away, right as we step out of the brush. If it's on and you come out in the wrong place, you'll walk right into electrified barbed wire."
Peeta's heart started to race. It wasn't the thought that he would be electrocuted that had him excited. It was the realization that he was about to leave the District for the first time in his entire life. He carefully followed Katniss.
"Here we are." Katniss stepped through the last layer of brush and waited for Peeta. He stepped out and looked around.
They stood on a small strip of short grass that ran along the length of a tall, barbed wire fence. Even in the pre-dawn darkness, Peeta could see that the fence was poorly maintained. In some places, the brush grew close enough to touch the fence. He now understood why Katniss had been so cautious about where they exited.
She turned to him. "It's off right now. It usually is. When it is on, you can hear it."
"What's it sound like?"
"You know how at the Reaping, they bring in those big speakers and there's that buzzing noise when they turn them on? It sounds like that."
She looked at him, then at the fence, then back at him. "You'll have to bend over at the waist to get through. Can you do that?"
"I couldn't this morning but I'll give it a try."
She stepped on the two lowest strands of wire and pulled the next two upwards with one hand, giving him a place he could step through. She held out her other hand for him to use for balance. He took a breath, let it out and stepped through. He didn't actually start crying at the pain but he came damn close. When he was through the fence and had straightened up, Katniss looked extremely troubled.
"Peeta, please, let's skip this so I can take you to my mother," Katniss insisted.
Peeta answered her by stepping on the wires like she had and holding them up for her. She scowled at him, then stepped through as gracefully as a cat.
The sky was beginning to lighten. This side of the fence was lightly wooded and he could hear a stream somewhere nearby. Even though it was much easier to see, she took his hand anyway. The walked side by side in silence. Katniss stopped at an old, hollowed log, and pulled out a bow and a quiver of arrows. She handed Peeta's satchel back to him and kept walking.
He followed her to a small clearing with a stream running through it. Katniss pointed to a boulder. "Rest there," she ordered. If he leaned his backside against the boulder, and crossed his ankles so his bad knee was on top, it wasn't so bad.
They pulled out the food, and Katniss filled his flask and her water skin at the stream. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Peeta wasn't hungry—he was in too much pain—but it was good to see Katniss eat. He drank an entire flask of water. Katniss refilled it for him, and he drained that one, too.
Sunrise wasn't far off. Katniss watched the stream for a few minutes. He watched several emotions flicker across her face—guilt, sorrow, anger, worry. His instinct told him to wait until she was ready to speak. Soon enough, she turned to him and said, "Show me."
He stood up. "Pull up my shirts in the back. Go slow, it hurts like hell."
Katniss had a light touch and had he been in less pain, he would have enjoyed feeling her hands on his bare skin. As it was, he couldn't stop the noises that escaped his mouth when she moved the shirts up. Her gasp and choked sob sounded equally involuntary. "Oh, Peeta," she whispered. She took her water skin and went to the stream to fill it up. He could see that she was struggling to maintain her composure. She placed the water skin against the bruise over his kidney, then gently tucked his shirt in so it would stay in place. The water was icy cold and it felt good against the bruise.
She stood directly in front of him and asked, "What happened?" Her eyes were glossy with unshed tears.
"She surprised me last night as soon as I walked in the door. She had turned the lights off so I didn't see her coming at me."
"Coming at you with what?"
"A rolling-pin." He tried to pull up his pant leg up to his knee but couldn't bend over easily. She saw what he was trying to do and helped him. When she saw his knee, some of the tears in her eyes spilled out. "That's where I broke her rolling pin a few minutes later." He let the leg of his pants drop.
Peeta looked down at his hands, which were covered in little red scratches and punctures from the splinters that Rye had dug out of them. His voice was low, and he felt like he was confessing a sin. "I swear to god, Katniss, if Rye hadn't been there to stop me, I would have strangled her. And I don't mean that it just crossed my mind or that I was just very angry. I mean Rye had to physically hold me back from getting to her. The look on his face..." Peeta's voice broke. He put the heels of his hands up to his eyes and curled in on himself a little.
"He was scared of me. Rye was afraid of me. That's not..." he took a breath. The only reason he wasn't letting himself completely break down was because it would hurt his back too much. "That's not who I want to be. And all these years, my father has never once tried to stop her. Not once. Last night was no different. She was saying the most godawful things to me. About me. About your mother. About you.
"Dad just stood there. He didn't come to my defense, he didn't tell her stop, he didn't do a damn thing except bring me an ice pack after all of the damage was done." This time, he couldn't help it. A choked sob escaped him. "He's never defended me. Not when I was four years old. Not now. That's not who I want to be, either."
He felt Katniss' hands on his wrists, gentle and warm. "Peeta," Katniss breathed. She gently tugged his hands away from his eyes. She stood in front of him, tears still in her eyes. "You're not. You aren't either of them. You're better than both, you always have been." She reached up to wipe his tears. Not even aware he was doing it, he grabbed her hand, kissed her palm and pressed it against his cheek. Her small gasp caught his attention. He had seen her parents do that. Did she remember? The look on her face told him she had. Did the intimacy of it upset her? She already looked upset, so he couldn't tell but she also didn't pull her hand away.
He took her hand from his cheek and held it in his own. "Katniss, there are some things that you deserve to know and that I need to tell you, but they aren't going to be all that easy for me to say. When I'm done, if you don't want to be friends or see me anymore, just help me find my way back inside the fence and I'll never bother you again. I'll even ask Gale to walk you home from rehearsals. All I ask is that you let me explain everything first." She nodded but her familiar wariness had returned and she pulled her hands away.
"Hand me my satchel, please." She handed it to him. He pulled out the older sketchbook. He flipped it to a page that he had drawn a few years ago and then had never looked at again. It was of Katniss at age eleven, wet, starving, huddled under the Mellark's apple tree in the rain. Peeta took a breath and let it go. Then he showed her the sketch.
She inhaled, a sharp, keening noise coming from her. Her hands flew up and covered her mouth and nose. All the color had drained from her face. He could see the shock in her eyes as she stared at him. There was a moment of profound silence between them. Peeta could swear even the stream had stopped flowing for just a heartbeat. Then Katniss's knees buckled and she sat at his feet, sobbing. She kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
He placed the sketchbook next to him on the boulder and reached his hand down to her. This was not the reaction he was expecting and her distress really upset him. "Katniss, no no no, please, Katniss, stand up." She didn't seem to hear him. "Katniss, please. I can't bend over, please stand up for me." She shakily rose to her feet. He pulled her into him and held her while she sobbed into her hands. She kept repeating that she was sorry. He held her a little tighter. Even though the haze of his pain, and the wonder that she was in his arms at all, Peeta could still feel how thin she was. It made her apology that much more confusing. "Katniss, why on earth are you apologizing?"
"I've never thanked you," she whispered. "I' m so sorry, Peeta. I owe you so much for that bread."
"Katniss, no. Look at me," he gently pushed her an inch or two away from his chest and waited for her to clam down enough that she could take her hands away from her face. "I've spent every day of my life wishing I had done things differently. I knew things were bad for you, I saw how thin you were getting. But it wasn't until I saw you under that tree that I really understood that you were actually starving to death. By then, it was almost too late. I am so sorry I didn't notice before and do something about it. And I'm really sorry I was too much of a coward to just hand you that bread instead of throwing it at you like some animal."
Katniss had stopped sobbing and was now looking at Peeta like he'd lost his mind. "Peeta, you saved my life that day. None of us had eaten in days."
Peeta closed his eyes for a moment and fought off a wave of pain before he continued. His back was getting worse. "Katniss, I've been trying for years to muster up enough courage to talk to you and I never could. One of the reasons why is because I'm so ashamed that I threw that bread into the mud like you were one of the pigs." Peeta was holding both of her hands clasped in his.
Katniss was shaking her head. "It was more than anybody else did. And it didn't just feed us for a day, Peeta, we survived because of it. I owe you, not the other way around. I don't know if I can ever repay you for what you did."
"Repay me? Katniss, I tossed a couple of burnt loaves of bread in the rain and hoped my mother wouldn't catch me. You've risked your life thousands of times, which has put meat on my family's table for the last four or five years. I think I got the better end of the bargain here."
Katniss had a very intense expression on her face. She stepped back from him and crossed her arms over her chest. "Did you burn those loaves on purpose?" When he nodded, guilt flashed across her face and she looked away. "Why?"
"Because you were dying out there, Katniss. I could see it in your eyes. You'd given up."
"Peeta, nobody helped us. Nobody. Not one single adult lifted a finger to help me and Prim. But you," she poked him in the chest, "you, Peeta Mellark, took a beating for me and saved my life. Why would you do that for some girl you had never spoken to?"
He picked up the sketchbook again and motioned for her to step back over to him. When she did, he moved her around so that her back was against his chest "Because," he explained, wrapping his arms around her from behind and holding the sketchbook open in front of her so she could see, "when you sang, the birds stopped to listen."
He showed Katniss a sketch of her at the age of 5, standing on a chair and singing. She had two little black braids and a plaid dress. She looked at it for a long time, then craned her head to look up at him. Confusion was written all over her face.
Peeta flipped to another page and he heard her gasp. This one was Mr. Everdeen walking with Katniss at age 7, an innocent, happy expression on her face. Mr. Everdeen was bending towards her just a little as they walked, as if he were listening to what she had to say.
Katniss looked at it for a long time, tracing the outline of her father with shaking fingers. She leaned back against his chest just a tiniest bit and gave a small nod of her head.
He flipped again. Katniss at recess when she was about age 10, scowling, with one hand on her hip and the other shaking a finger at a boy who looked familiar. "Is that Rye?" she asked.
"Yep. He had been a little too aggressive at dodge ball with the younger kids that day."
He flipped back to the sketch of her under their tree and then flipped to the next page. This sketch was Katniss staring at a dandelion on the school playground. She took the sketchbook out of his hands and looked closely at it. "That was the next day," she told him.
"I remember," he said. He rested his cheek against her hair.
She relaxed into him and continued, "I had wanted to talk to you at school but you didn't look at me. Half your face was black and blue, and I thought you might be mad at me or something. Then I saw you after school and right after I looked at you, I noticed that dandelion. I remembered what my father taught me, about what we could eat. We had a dandelion salad and the rest of your bread that night for dinner."
She closed the sketchbook. Her back was still up against his chest. She was so deep in thought that he wondered if she realized his arms were still encircled around her. She tapped the sketchbook. "Peeta...I don't really get what this means."
"The sketches or the fact that I showed them to you?"
"Both."
He was grateful that she was facing away from him. This would be easier to say if she wasn't looking at him.
He flipped back to the sketch of little Katniss singing. "Once I heard you sing, I was a goner. You have been on my mind every single day since then. Yet in all that time, I never once found the courage to talk to you. The one interaction we did have, I threw bread to you that landed in the mud. The only reason we started talking at all was because Rye literally dragged me over to you last week at lunch."
Katniss had turned her head just slightly to the right. She was listening, as promised, but still confused.
Peeta indicated the sketch of 5-year-old Katniss again. "When we were little, you were the happiest kid I'd ever seen. You were funny and sweet and outgoing. You stood up for others. Everybody wanted to be your friend.
"After your dad died, that happy little girl faded away. I wanted more than anything to take care of you, feed you, keep you safe."
"You did feed me."
"You know what I mean, Katniss. You were left to take care of all three of you."
"So? Gale is only two years older than me and he's providing for five."
"And I respect him for it but Gale didn't have to do it alone. Mrs. Hawthorne never once stopped supporting her children. Now, I believe you promised to let me finish?"
Katniss gave a tiny smile. "Sorry."
"I watched you start fending for yourself. You started trading with my dad, so I knew you were hunting—which, by the way, still impresses the hell out of me. Do you know Purnia?"
"The Peacekeeper? Yeah, she's alright."
"Well, two or three years ago, she came into the bakery, and she was talking about you. She said you'd shot a lynx and that if she ever had to go out into the woods, she wouldn't bother with her own weapon. She'd just bring you for protection."
Katniss blushed at this and looked like she was about to say something, so he barreled ahead before she could interrupt him.
"I was so proud of you, Katniss, but I was so worried for you, too. I watched you build up these walls around you. You never smiled anymore. You didn't sing. You didn't laugh or talk to people. You didn't seem to want any friends, not outside of Gale and Madge."
Peeta was having a harder time ignoring the pain in his back and his fatigue. He hoped he could get through this without passing out. As he talked, he flipped through the sketchbook, showing Katniss sketch after sketch of her at various stages in her life. "I've watched you for 11 years. Watched. That's all. I didn't talk to you. I didn't try to help. I never even waved hello.
"These last few days, when I finally manned up enough to start speaking to you, I've censored everything I've said. I've been terrified that if you found out how I really feel, you'd never speak to me again."
Peeta had to stop for a moment and let a wave of pain pass before he continued. "You fight day and night to make sure you and your family have food to eat and a place to sleep. I've never fought for anyone or anything. I spent eleven years afraid to talk to you, which makes me a coward. Yet I fantasized about taking care of the most capable person in Twelve, which also makes me a fool."
Peeta gently turned Katniss in his arms until she was facing him. She wouldn't look at him. She wasn't pulling away but she looked very confused and a little scared. Well, he probably did, too.
"Katniss, please look at me." She raised her silver eyes to his. He cupped her cheek in his hand. His voice was becoming hoarse with fatigue and pain and emotion. "I care for you very deeply and I have for a long time, but that doesn't mean a damn thing if I'm too afraid to act on it. After what happened last night, I decided that I'm tired of being afraid of the truth. I want us to get to know each other but if you don't, if you want me out of your life after this, I will respect that and never bother you again.
"You don't owe me anything. There are no obligations between us. You are the single bravest person I've ever known and any man who cowers behind excuses is unworthy of you."
Katniss blinked at him. She didn't look scared anymore but she didn't look any less confused. After a pretty uncomfortable silence, she said, "You've...had a crush on me for eleven years?"
"I don't know if 'crush' is a strong enough word for what I feel, but otherwise...yes. More or less."
"Peeta," Katniss frowned, "you need to understand. I decided a long time ago that I am never getting married or having kids. Not with anybody."
Peeta tried to give her a reassuring smile but he was in so much pain that it probably looked more like a grimace. "After last night, I wonder if I shouldn't just take a pass on a family of my own."
That surprised her. "You'd be a wonderful father! I've always pictured you with some Merchant girl from a good family, who would help you run the bakery and give you lots of blond, blue-eyed babies."
"Yeah, my father did exactly that and look how happy we all turned out," Peeta bitterly replied. "I'm done hiding myself. I told my mother to never hit me again. I called my father out on his cowardice. I've come clean with you. And if it's all the same," Peeta hated to break the embrace he had with Katniss but he was in so much pain that he was beginning to see spots before his eyes, "my back is killing me and I need to sit down, or maybe even lie down."
Katniss led him to the middle of the clearing where the grass was deepest. She helped him lie down on his side, using her hunting jacket and his sweatshirt (taking it off made him break out into a cold sweat) as a pillow. She walked back to the stream and refilled the water skin with cold water. After putting it over his bruises, she sat down next to him.
Peeta could feel his eyelids drooping. The sun was just beginning to rise. "It's early, still," she told him. "You rest for a little while. When you wake up, I can show you the arrows. Then I'm bringing you to my mother to see about your injuries."
He nodded. Katniss brushed the bangs from his forehead and asked him, "I still don't really understand what any of this means. Are we friends now?"
"We're what ever you want us to be, Katniss."
She kept smoothing his hair with her hand. "You're wrong about a couple of things, you know. I still owe you for saving my life. And you aren't a coward, Peeta. You never were."
Peeta was too exhausted to argue. After a minute, she started singing "Lovesong" very softly. It was so beautiful that even as he drifted off, tears came to his eyes. The last thing he was aware of before he fell asleep was Katniss gently brushing the tears off his face with her fingers.