For a while, life felt almost happy. He didn't mention the bakery, and I didn't have the heart to bring it up. One of us should have. It was part of the grieving process, or so I was told. One had to face reality before one accepted it. Of course, I thought the psychological analysis was wasted on us; we were already damaged beyond repair. Though I would admit, Peeta came back from the Capitol better than I ever would have thought possible. Some days, I could almost forget everything we had gone through, everything we still held close to our tortured hearts.

The bakery slipped to the back of my mind, as did Peeta's family. It was hard to admit but Peeta, and Haymitch by proxy, had become my family now that my mother had moved on and Prim was... even Buttercup had become part of our collected group of outcasts if you counted him, which I didn't.

It wasn't until a few weeks later in the woods that my thoughts even turned to the bakery. Jacket on, bow across my shoulder, I trekked leisurely through the familiar grounds with no particular aim for the day. The game was light for the picking, and I wasn't in the mood to take a life. Following the doctor's orders, I was simply out enjoying the fresh air and 'what this world still has to give you'.

The noise didn't ring in my ears until I rounded a blind corner onto a path beaten through the trees. I stopped short at the sight of him, and he continued on with his back to me taking no notice of my arrival. There had been a time when I would have not only heard the grind of the saw against the tree but sensed another human being. Perhaps I had become too relaxed in this new life of relative peace and comfort.

Peeta was as loud as always, and I was as stealthy as I had been in the prime of my hunting days with Gale. He was as oblivious as could be as I approached slowly, and I took the time to study him as I moved closer. His shoulders were broad, and his footing was sure. If I hadn't know for sure that one of his legs was artificial, I never would have guessed. The muscles in his arms tightened and released with each drag of the saw against the thick trunk of the tree.

"One of the perks of being a victor," I said as I angled myself to the side to move around to face him, my voice pitched high in a poor imitation of Effie, "is that you never have to work another day in your life."

Halting the saw mid motion, Peeta looked up with a flick of his head. His arm reached up to wipe away the perspiration, and I noticed for the first time the sweat that held his shirt tightly to his arms and chest. "What else would we do with our time?" he asked.

I was used to a certain amount of suggestive innuendo to comments such as this one from Peeta, but this remark held nothing but a mild irritation with what our lives had become. Setting my bow and quiver gently against a tree a few paces away, I moved to stand beside him and examine his progress. "Eat, regurgitate, eat some more. Dance and celebrate our newfound freedoms. Enjoy the life being a victor was supposed to be instead of the one we were dealt. What else?"

"Well I don't know about you, but none of those sound very appealing to me."

The corners of my lips pulled up into a weak smirk of agreement. "So what are you doing instead?" I asked.

"I'm going to rebuild the bakery," he responded, as if it were the most natural thought in the world. With that comment, the memory of standing in front of the burned rubble slammed into me with full force. I should have realized when Peeta made no effort to bring it up again that something was looming just over the horizon. I just never expected this declaration to be it.

Racking my brain to find something to say, I came up with nothing. Nothing could have prepared me for his proclamation, just like nothing I could have said would likely have changed his mind. Peeta had shown over the past two years that he would do anything to protect me and do what was best for me, but I knew there was nothing I could say that would convince him to change his mind on this decision.

So I didn't try. We'd argued enough since we were thrown into this world together, and this fight wasn't one I had the heart for. Not then, not even when I thought it was a terrible mistake that would pick at the wounds of his fragile heart. I was tired of fighting, and it was easier to resign and give into his wishes. A small part of me also thought he might find some peace eventually working in a bakery again, if he survived the torture it put him through first.

Pushing my braid over my shoulder to rest against my back, I moved closer. Flexing my hands in my gloves, I positioned myself on the opposite end of the saw from Peeta. As he pulled it toward him, I pushed. As he pushed it away, I pulled. When he looked at me quizzically, I tried to muster a smile I didn't quite feel, "You're wasting daylight, Mellark. That bakery isn't going to build itself."

And just like that, things began to change once more, and the future remained as cloudy as ever.