Chapter Text
The silence in District 12 is a physical weight. It sits on my chest, heavier than the mockingjay pin ever was, pressing the air out of my lungs until breathing feels like a chore I haven't quite figured out how to finish.
A month. That’s how long it’s been since they brought him back. Since he came home, blinking in the sunlight, looking at me with eyes that were desperately trying to remember where we left off.
That first day, I stood at my window and watched him. He didn’t look at the house. He didn’t look for me. He just walked to the garden beds, his movements stiff and uncertain, and he began to plant. Primroses. He buried them deep in the dirt, his fingers stained black with the earth, his brow furrowed in a concentration that looked so much like the old Peeta it made my heart ache in a way that felt like a knife.
I haven't spoken to him since. I watch him from behind the curtains, a ghost haunting the house next door, and I wonder if he’s waiting for me to do something. Or if he’s just waiting to be left alone.
Most days, I don’t leave the house. I don’t even leave the chair. The world outside the window is just colors shifting—grey to blue, blue to black—and I am stuck in the center of the static.
"Katniss."
The voice is scratchy, familiar. Greasy Sae. She doesn’t wait for me to invite her in anymore; she knows I won’t. She moves through my kitchen like she’s trying to wake a sleeping house, the clatter of pots and pans sounding like gunfire in the quiet.
Behind her, little Maybelle trots in, her eyes wide and curious. She’s the only thing that moves with any purpose in this place. She stops in the doorway, staring at me with a child’s unfiltered pity. I hate it. I hate that she looks at me like I’m a broken doll that’s been discarded on the floor.
"Eat," Greasy Sae says, setting a bowl of stew on the table. She doesn't ask how I am. She knows the answer. She just brings the food, and she stays just long enough to make sure I take the first bite.
I pick up the spoon. My hand trembles, just a fraction. I force the warm liquid down, not because I’m hungry—I haven’t felt hunger in weeks—but because Greasy Sae will just keep hovering, her granddaughter watching, until I do.
When they leave, the house settles back into that suffocating quiet.
I look toward the window. I know he’s over there. I know he’s sitting in his own kitchen, or maybe he’s in the garden again, checking on the flowers. Sometimes, when the darkness gets too loud, when the thoughts of ending the noise, ending the exhaustion, become a hum beneath my skin, I think about walking over there.
I think about knocking on his door and telling him that I’m drowning.
But I don't. I just stare at the wall, listening to the clock tick, wondering how much longer I have to sit in this chair before the rest of the world stops moving, too.
Does it ever drive him crazy? Knowing I’m right here, only a few yards away, but I might as well be on the other side of the planet. Does he ever feel it—the way the night changes, stretching out into an eternity of things we can’t say out loud?
I close my eyes and try to sleep. But even in sleep, I’m just waiting for the next day to start, and for the next one to end.
The transition from sleep to waking is never a relief. It’s just a shift from one kind of hell to another.
The screams are still echoing in the room, even though the only sound is the settling of the floorboards in the Victors' Village. My lungs are burning, heaving with phantom smoke, and my skin feels raw, as if the mutts’ teeth actually grazed me this time. I can still see Prim, the flash of gold and white, and then nothing but fire. I can see Finnick, his smile wiped away by the dark, wet tearing of the creatures.
And then there is the last one. The one that makes me want to stop breathing for good.
Peeta. His hands around my throat, his eyes wide and vacant, filled with that terrible, hijacked madness. He isn’t the boy with the bread; he’s the weapon they turned him into. In the dream, he doesn't stop. He never stops.
I don’t scream. I don’t even flinch. I am curled into the corner of the sofa, a ball of dead weight, my legs tucked beneath me. My body feels heavy, as if it’s made of lead, anchored to the fabric of the cushions. I haven't left this sofa in days. Maybe weeks. Time doesn't exist here; it’s just a slow, thick sludge that I’m forced to wade through.
The room is dim, the late afternoon sun bleeding through the gaps in the curtains like a slow, painful injury.
I don't look out the window. I don't look at the house next door. I don't need to see him to know he’s there, or to know he’s not. It doesn’t matter. Thinking about him—thinking about where he is or what he’s doing—requires a kind of energy I simply don’t have. To look would be to acknowledge that the world is still spinning, and I’m not sure I can handle that truth.
The front door creaks open. I don’t turn my head. I know the rhythm of the footsteps. Greasy Sae. She brings the scent of broth and something sharp, like herbs, into the room, cutting through the stale, suffocating stillness.
"Eat, girl," she says. Her voice is soft, stripped of the pity that usually makes me want to claw my eyes out.
I don't answer. I haven't spoken in so long that the idea of forming a word feels like trying to run a marathon on broken ankles. My throat is a desert.
She sets the bowl on the end table—a low, controlled *thud*—and I hear the soft padding of little Maybelle’s feet behind her. I don't look at the girl. I just stare at a spot on the opposite wall, at the shadows creeping up the plaster.
"You’re wasting away," Sae murmurs, not to me, but to the air. She’s talking to the room, to the ghosts, to anyone who might be listening. "The world didn't end. You’re still here. You have to eat."
I don't move. I don't reach for the bowl. I just watch a dust mote dance in a shaft of light, floating aimlessly, directionless, just like me.
Everything changed so fast. The war, the fire, the deaths, the silence. And now, I’m just waiting. Waiting for the thoughts to stop, waiting for the exhaustion to finally pull me under for good. Does it ever drive anyone else crazy? Knowing that life is expected to continue when everything that made you *you* has already been incinerated?
I don't care about the neighbors. I don't care about the garden. I only care about the fact that I’m still awake, and that’s the greatest tragedy of all.
The morning light feels less like a threat today. It’s thin and watery, but it isn’t searing. For the first time in an age, I managed to uncurl myself from the sofa and walk the few steps to the kitchen table.
Greasy Sae is at the stove, the familiar scent of boiling grain filling the room. Maybelle is sitting on the floor, stacking wooden blocks. I watch the way her small hands move, almost envious of her simplicity.
Then, the back door opens.
I tense, my pulse jumping a frantic rhythm against my throat, but it’s just Haymitch. My breath catches in my chest for an entirely different reason. He’s standing there, and he isn’t swaying. He’s sober. His clothes are clean, his eyes clear and sharp, and he looks terrified.
It is the most unsettling thing I have ever seen. Haymitch Abernathy is never sober unless the world is ending.
He doesn't look at me, but his gaze locks onto Greasy Sae. He’s breathing hard, like he’s been running. "Sae," he says, his voice rougher than usual. "I need you to come with me. Now."
Greasy Sae turns, her eyes widening as she takes in his condition. "Haymitch? What happened?"
"It’s the boy," he says, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper. "He had an episode. A bad one. I found him on the kitchen floor an hour ago... he’s unconscious. There’s glass everywhere, he—he hit his head on the counter when he went down. He’s bleeding, Sae. I can't stop it."
The air leaves the room.
Peeta.
The name slams into me, shattering the fragile, numb shell I’ve been living in. It’s as if the world has suddenly tilted on its axis, and I am sliding toward a cliff edge.
My Peeta.
I’m on my feet before I even realize I’ve moved. My chair screeches against the floorboards, a harsh, jarring sound that seems to vibrate through the entire house.
"Is he..." The words get stuck in my throat, dry and splintered. I try again, my voice barely audible. "Is he alive?"
Haymitch turns to me then, his expression unreadable, a mixture of guilt and exhaustion. He doesn't sugarcoat it. He doesn't offer me a lie to make it easier. He just looks at me, and for a second, I see the weight of everything we’ve lost mirrored in his eyes.
"I don't know, Katniss," he says.
I don't wait for another word. I don't grab a coat, or shoes, or think about the fact that I haven't stepped outside these doors in weeks. I just bolt past them, bursting out into the cool, biting air of District 12, my bare feet hitting the hard-packed dirt of the path between our houses.
Please, I think, the word hammering in time with my racing heart. Please don't let this be how it ends.
My lungs ache as I sprint across the frozen grass, the cold biting into my feet, but it’s nothing compared to the sharp, jagged fear tearing through my chest. Why am I doing this? Why does my body move for him when it has been dead to the world for weeks?
Stop. Just stop.
The thought hits me like a physical blow, halting my momentum for a split second before I force myself to keep running. I shouldn't care. That is the truth I’ve been hiding behind for a month. He doesn't love me anymore. How could he? I am the reason he was taken, the reason he was twisted into something that wanted me dead. His mind is filled with tracker jacker venom and manufactured hate. He looks at me and sees an enemy. I am the girl who left him behind, and he is the boy who doesn't even remember the version of us that mattered.
So why is my heart trying to beat its way out of my ribs?
I reach his porch, my fingers trembling as I grab the door handle. My mind is a war zone. I should turn around. I should walk back to my house, crawl onto my sofa, and go back to the gray, silent numbness where it is safe. Where I don't have to feel the sting of his gaze or the ghost of his hands.
But I can't.
It is a cruel, twisted irony. For thirty days, I haven't cared about the sun. I haven't cared about the taste of food or the sound of the wind. I have been waiting for the end. And yet, the second I hear his name, the second I hear that he is hurt, the world snaps into focus. The sun is blinding. The air is sharp. Every nerve ending in my body is firing, screaming that he is the only thing that matters.
Why him? Why is he the only tether left? He hates me. I know he does. I’ve seen the way he looks at me—that confusion, that suspicion—and it burns worse than any fire in the arena.
Maybe that’s why I care. Because even if he hates me, he is the only one who knows what it was like. He is the only one who can look at me and see the girl, not the icon. He is my shame and my salvation all wrapped into one.
I reach the threshold of his kitchen, the door swinging wide, and I stop dead. The smell hits me first—the metallic, copper tang of blood.
He is lying there, a heap of limbs on the floor, his hair matted against the tiles. The sight of him is so devastatingly fragile that my internal walls crumble completely. I don't care about his hate. I don't care about his confusion. All I know is that the world cannot go on if he is not in it.
I drop to my knees beside him, my hands hovering over his chest, terrified to touch him, terrified not to. My breath hitches in a ragged sob. I am an idiot. I am an absolute, broken idiot. But I am here. And for the first time in a month, I am actually alive.
"No, no, no," I whisper, the sound frantic and raw as it tears from my throat. I watch a dark, crimson pool spreading sluggishly across the tiles, creeping toward my knees. The sight makes my vision swim. "No, Peeta. Please."
My hands are shaking so violently I can hardly reach for him, but I press my fingers against his neck, desperate for a pulse. It’s thready, weak, but it’s there. A sob breaks out of me, jagged and ugly.
"I’m the one who should die," I choke out, the words spilling over in a rush of self-hatred. "I want to die, not you. It should be me. You can’t go, you can’t—please, don't leave me here alone."
I am not even sure who I am talking to anymore. The air feels too thin, the room spinning as the reality of his stillness crashes into me. I pull him closer, trying to shield him, trying to force my own warmth into his cold skin.
"Katniss, get back!"
Haymitch’s voice booms through the kitchen, harsh and commanding. I barely register him or Greasy Sae rushing into the room. They are a blur of movement, voices overlapping, but I am locked in a tunnel vision where only the blood and the pallor of Peeta's skin exist.
"Let me through, girl," Greasy Sae says, her voice uncharacteristically sharp as she shoves past me, her hands already working to assess the wound on his head. "Haymitch, get a clean cloth! Now!"
I don't move. I can’t. My hands are stained with his blood, and the metallic scent of it is suffocating. I look down at his face, at the jagged cut near his temple, and the crushing weight of my own desire to vanish, to give up, suddenly feels like a betrayal. If I die, who stays here to watch him? If I quit, who anchors him when he wakes up in this nightmare?
"He has to breathe," I whisper, my voice cracking, staring at the floor where he lies. "He has to wake up."
Greasy Sae is pressing a thick, folded towel against the side of his head, her brow furrowed in grim concentration, while Haymitch hovers at the edge of the kitchen, his face a mask of jagged worry. I am still on the floor, pressed against the cabinets, my hands uselessly bunched in my lap.
Then, it happens.
It starts with a tiny, sharp intake of breath—a hitching sound that cuts through the silence of the room. Peeta’s eyelashes flutter against his pale cheeks. His fingers, lying limp against the cold tiles, twitch once.
"Peeta?" I breathe, though I didn't mean to make a sound.
His head lolls to the side, and his eyes crack open. They aren't the clear, steady eyes I remember from before the war. They are unfocused, glassy, and swimming with a terrifying, fractured haze. He blinks, the effort visibly draining him, his pupils darting around the room as if he is trying to piece together a map that has been burned to ash.
"Katniss?"
His voice is nothing more than a ragged scrape. It’s barely a whisper, yet it hits me with the force of a physical blow.
Greasy Sae stills, her hand hovering over the wound, her eyes shifting toward me with a silent, cautionary warning. She knows—we all know—that the hijacking doesn't just go away. The questions, the accusations, the confusion; they are all waiting in the wings.
Peeta’s gaze settles on me. For a moment, there is a profound, hollow silence. He isn't looking at me with the hatred I’ve grown accustomed to fearing, but with a bewildered, childlike vulnerability that feels even more dangerous to my heart. He tries to lift his hand, his arm shaking violently from the exertion, reaching out as if to touch my face, but his strength gives out. His fingers brush the air between us before his hand falls back to the floor with a soft thud.
"What..." he rasps, his brow furrowing in agony, the movement pulling at the cut near his temple. "What happened?"
He doesn't know. He doesn't remember the episode, the breaking glass, the violence of his own mind turning against him. He only sees me, sitting on his floor, covered in his blood.
"You're okay," I say, and my voice is shaking so hard I can barely get the words out. "You're okay, Peeta. You're here."
I want to reach out. I want to take his hand and tell him everything is alright, but I’m frozen. I’m terrified that if I touch him, the flicker of recognition in his eyes will turn into the glare of an enemy. I’m terrified that I’m the last person he wants to see when he wakes up from the dark.
Peeta’s eyes follow my hands, his gaze sharpening as it lands on the dark, wet crimson staining my skin. The confusion in his expression is replaced by something far more agonizing: realization, and then, instant, hollowed-out terror.
His breathing hitches, turning into sharp, panicked gasps. He tries to scramble backward, away from me, but his body is too weak. He only manages to twist his torso, his shoulder hitting the kitchen cabinet with a dull thud.
"No," he rasps, his voice thick with a sudden, devastating clarity. "No, no, no. Katniss, stay back."
His eyes are wide, glassy with unshed tears, and they aren't looking at me with the programmed hatred of a hijacked mind. They are looking at me with the crushing weight of his own conscience. He’s looking at my hands and seeing a wound I don't have. He thinks he did this to me. He thinks the monster won.
"Peeta, look at me," I scramble closer, ignoring Haymitch’s sharp intake of breath. I reach out, hovering my hands just inches from his shoulders, afraid to touch him but unable to stop myself. "It's not my blood. It's yours. You fell, you hit your head—"
"I hurt you," he chokes out, his voice breaking. He’s not listening; he’s trapped in the horrifying certainty that he’s become the thing he fears most. His hands tremble as he tries to shield his face from me, as if seeing me is a torment he can’t bear. "I tried to... I knew I would. I told them not to let me near you. Why did you come here?"
"Peeta, stop!" My voice cracks, desperate. "You didn't hurt me! You're bleeding, that’s all. Look, I’m not hurt. See?" I hold my hands out, turning them over so he can see the skin is unbroken, stained only by the blood he lost.
He doesn't look. He’s staring at the floor, his chest heaving, his face contorted in a misery so profound it makes my own depression feel like a shallow puddle. "I can't remember," he whispers, a single tear cutting a clean track through the grime on his cheek. "I can't remember being good. I only remember the wanting. The wanting to stop you."
His hands go to his head, clutching at his hair, and I see him starting to spiral. The confusion is returning, the hijacking flickering like a faulty lightbulb, battling with his own horror.
"Haymitch, help me," I cry out, looking over my shoulder. Haymitch is frozen, his jaw tight, his eyes reflecting the same helplessness I feel.
I turn back to him, ignoring the danger, ignoring the fact that he might turn on me again. I grab his wrists, pulling his hands away from his head, forcing him to look at me. His skin is cold, clammy, but he’s real. He’s here.
"You didn't hurt me," I insist, my voice firm despite the tears streaming down my face. "You haven't touched me. I came here because I needed to be sure you were alive. Do you hear me? You are still you, Peeta. You are still you."
He stares at me, his eyes searching mine, desperately looking for the truth in the wreckage. For a second, the panic subsides, leaving behind only that raw, broken version of the boy I’ve loved for so long.
"Katniss?" he whispers, his voice barely audible. "Did I... did I really not?"
I hold his wrists, my grip tight enough to feel the frantic, uneven thrum of his pulse. I need him to stay here, in this moment, not lost in the nightmare.
"Peeta, listen to me," I say, my voice steadying despite the tremor in my hands. "You had an episode. Haymitch found you unconscious on the kitchen floor. He came and got me. You didn't hurt anyone but yourself."
He goes still. His eyes, dark and searching, fix on mine. I can see the gears turning, the fog of the hijacking slowly parting to reveal the horror of the boy underneath. He looks around the kitchen, his gaze landing on the shards of glass scattered near the counter, then back to the dark stain on the tiles.
"I remember," he whispers, his voice hitching. "The glass. It was so loud. I... I remember banging my head against the corner."
The air in the room suddenly feels vacuum-sealed. My blood runs cold, turning to ice in my veins. My eyes dart to Haymitch, who is standing a few feet away, his expression hardening into something unreadable.
Wait.
Haymitch had told me when he burst into my house that Peeta fell and hit his head on the counter. But Peeta just said he was *banging* his head against it.
My heart stops. Banging. That implies a choice. That implies it wasn't just a clumsy fall during a seizure—it was something else. A desperate, self-inflicted attempt to stop the noise, or to force himself to wake up, or to punish the part of him that was trying to hurt me.
I look at Haymitch, and for the first time, I notice the way he’s avoiding eye contact. He’s staring at the wall, his hands fisted at his sides.
"Haymitch?" I ask, my voice barely a breath. "You told me he fell."
Haymitch doesn't look at me. His jaw muscles jump, a sharp, rhythmic tic. "That's what it looked like when I got here, Katniss. He was already down."
But the look on Peeta’s face tells a different story. He isn't looking at Haymitch with confusion; he's looking at him with a tired, hollow shame. He remembers the corner of that counter. He remembers the intent behind the impact.
Peeta’s fingers curl into my palms, his touch desperate. "I couldn't make it stop," he murmurs, so low that only I can hear. "The thoughts. The programming. It was screaming, Katniss. I just wanted it to be quiet."
My stomach turns over. My beautiful, gentle Peeta had been trying to beat the madness out of his own skull because he was terrified of what he might do to me.
"Oh, Peeta," I sob, the sound catching in my throat. I lean forward, pressing my forehead against his, not caring who is in the room. I don't care about the blood, or the glass, or the lies Haymitch told to spare my feelings. "You don't have to do that. You never have to do that again."
Peeta’s breathing hitches, and his hands tremble against mine. He looks away, unable to meet my eyes, his face contorted with a shame so deep it looks like physical pain.
"Katniss," he rasps, his voice cracking under the weight of it. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything."
He pulls his hand away, curling it into a fist as if he can’t stand the sensation of touching me, knowing what his mind has done. "Especially back in Thirteen. When we were reunited... when I tried to kill you."
The memory hits me like a physical blow—the way his hands had felt around my throat, the genuine, venomous hate in his eyes. But looking at him now, broken and bleeding on his own kitchen floor because he’d tried to beat that hate out of his own mind, the horror of that memory shifts. It isn't anger I feel anymore; it’s a jagged, hollow ache.
"You weren't yourself," I say, my voice desperate, trying to reach him through the fog of his self-loathing. "They did that to you, Peeta. It wasn't you."
"But it was my hands," he whispers, his voice thick with tears. "My hands on your throat. The way I looked at you... I remember wanting to erase you. I spent so long trying to remember who I was before the games, before the hijacking, but that hate? It was so loud. It was the only thing that felt real for a while."
He closes his eyes tightly, a tear sliding into his hairline, mixing with the blood near the cut on his temple.
"I tried so hard to fight it," he continues, his voice barely audible over the hum of the kitchen. "Even then. Even when I was convinced you were a mutt, there was this tiny part of me that was screaming for me to stop, but it was buried under all that poison. And I’m sorry that you had to be the one to pay the price for my confusion. I’m sorry I couldn't be the person you needed."
I feel my own tears spilling over, hot and fast. I want to pull him back from this dark place, but I don't know how to convince him that he is worthy of forgiveness when he can't even forgive himself.
"I didn't pay a price," I tell him, my voice fierce despite the sobbing. "I’m still here. We’re both still here. That’s all that matters."
Peeta finally opens his eyes, looking at me with a vulnerability that makes my chest tighten. "Is it?" he asks softly. "Because I don't know how to be around you without wondering if the next time I wake up, I’ll finish what I started."
The silence that follows is heavy, broken only by the distant, labored breathing of Haymitch nearby.
Haymitch takes a heavy step forward, his boots crunching softly on the scattered glass. He doesn't crouch down, but he looms over us, his shadow cutting across the kitchen floor. When he speaks, his voice is stripped of its usual sarcasm, replaced by a brutal, grounded honesty.
"Kid, you won't," Haymitch says, his gaze fixed on Peeta. "You think they would have let you walk back into District 12 if you were still a loaded weapon? If you were still that bad?"
He gestures toward the doorway, then back to the two of us. "Dr. Aurelius wouldn't have signed the papers. He wouldn't have let you come back to the Seam, let alone live ten feet away from the girl he knew you'd be a danger to. They watched you for months. They tested you until you were sick of their questions. They wouldn't have let you come home if they thought you were going to kill her the moment you got a bad dream."
Peeta looks up, his eyes searching Haymitch’s face for a lie, but Haymitch doesn't flinch. He just sighs, the sound ragged and weary.
"You're not that person anymore, Peeta. The hijacking... it's a scar. It’s not the whole story. You’re human, and you're broken, and you're grieving—but you aren't a mutt."
Haymitch turns his head slightly, his eyes flicking toward me for just a second. "And you, Katniss. You think the people in charge would have left you both here to fend for yourselves if they didn't know you were capable of healing each other? They aren't that kind. They wouldn't have given you this chance if they didn't think you could handle it."
Peeta looks back at me, his lip trembling. He still looks haunted, his brow furrowed with the echo of his own self-doubt, but the frantic, panicked edge seems to have dulled just a fraction.
"I just..." Peeta starts, his voice raw. "I don't know how to trust my own head anymore."
"You don't have to trust your head," I whisper, leaning in close, my forehead resting against his again. I don't care that Haymitch is standing right there, or that the floor is covered in blood and sharp, broken pieces of our lives. "You just have to trust me. I’m right here, Peeta. I’m not going anywhere. If you start to lose yourself, I’ll be the one to pull you back. Every single time."
Peeta lets out a shaky, jagged breath, his hands finally relaxing their grip on my wrists. He leans into me, exhausted, his eyes fluttering shut. "You shouldn't have to," he murmurs.
"I don't have to," I say, a fierce, quiet intensity in my voice. "I want to."
Peeta’s eyes hold mine, heavy and weary, searching for some kind of anchor in the wreckage of the room. The silence stretches between us, thick with the weight of everything we’ve lost and everything we’re too afraid to name.
"Katniss," he whispers, his voice so fragile I'm afraid it might shatter. "Can we... can we try? To just be friends again?"
The question lands in my chest like a dull, rusted blade. It confirms the cold, hollow ache I’ve been nursing for a month: he doesn't love me anymore. Or if he does, it’s buried under so much trauma and confusion that it’s unrecognizable, even to him. The boy who once painted my name in the stars, who made me dandelion chains and chose me above everything else, is asking for nothing more than the bare minimum of companionship.
It hurts. It hurts more than the fire, more than the isolation, because it is the final door closing on the life I thought we might have.
But looking at him—his pale face, the blood on his temple, the way he is trembling with the effort just to exist in this moment—I realize that my own heart doesn't matter right now. He is drowning. He needs a lifeline, not a confession. He needs safety, not the pressure of being the person he used to be for me.
I take a steadying breath, forcing the stinging in my eyes to recede. I reach out and cover his hand with mine, holding it firmly against the floor.
"Yes," I say, my voice steady, though it costs me every ounce of strength I have left. "We can try that, Peeta. We can be friends."
He lets out a long, shuddering exhale, his shoulders dropping as if a massive, crushing weight has been lifted from them. A small, sad smile touches the corners of his mouth—not the bright, effortless grin of the baker’s boy, but something softer, scarred and worn.
"Thank you," he whispers, his eyes drifting shut again, his energy clearly spent.
Haymitch shifts beside us, the sound of his boots muffled by the towel Greasy Sae is still holding. He looks at me, and there is a strange, unreadable look in his eyes—a mix of pity and grim understanding. He knows exactly what I just gave up, and he knows exactly why I did it.
Greasy Sae finally breaks the tension, her voice gruff as she nudges me. "That’s enough for now. He needs rest, and he needs a doctor to look at that head properly. You two are done talking for today."
I nod, carefully helping Peeta lean back against the cabinets. He looks so small, so broken, but for the first time in a month, he isn't alone. And for now, that has to be enough.