Dizzy. Peeta squeezes his eyes shut. His face feels hot, so hot.

The wood of the dining table feels pleasantly cool beneath his flushed cheek, though, and he pulls his arms tighter around his head. Wishes he could fall asleep. Disappear.

He hears the scrape of chair legs across the floor, and then a hand is on his shoulder, warm and firm. Haymitch's hand. "C'mon, kid," he says, shaking Peeta a little. "Let's get you to bed."

"No," Peeta mumbles, twisting away from his touch. "No, I have to…I have to go."

Haymitch sighs. "Why don't you sleep on it first. Tomorrow you can go any damned place you like."

Somehow Haymitch manages to coax him up the stairs and into his bedroom, one arm around his back for support. Peeta stumbles against the edge of the bed, and tips forward onto the mattress fully dressed, his prosthetic foot dangling off the edge. He rubs his face against the pillowcase. It's better than the table was, cool and silky against his skin.

Behind him he's dimly aware of Haymitch leaving, Haymitch pausing in the doorway, Haymitch watching him. Haymitch pitying him – and he's not too drunk, could never be too drunk, to recognize the irony.

Peeta says, "She hates me."

Haymitch clears his throat. "What?"

"Katniss." Her name sounds muffled against the pillow, and he shifts his head to the side, freeing his mouth. "She hates me," Peeta tells him.

Another sigh. "Peeta..." Haymitch shakes his head. "I don't want to get into it. Just get some sleep, for chrissake."

And Peeta closes his eyes, welcoming the dark.

It's daylight when he wakes. Peeta groans, pressing his hands over his eyes until the stinging sensation dissipates. It's disorienting, after a life spent rising with the dawn.

Downstairs, the kitchen is a mess. Dishes sit piled in the sink, unwashed and crusted over with the remains of last night's dinner. The cookies he'd made remain untouched, still arranged carefully on a floral-print plate he'd found in one of the cupboards. He sits at the table and stares at it all, the dread pooling in his stomach as his brain begins to piece together the night before.

He'd known it was a terrible idea from the moment it had left his mouth – from the moment Katniss and Gale had stepped off his front porch and the older boy's hand had moved so easily to the small of her back. Once they were gone, he'd slipped on his shoes and run to Haymitch's house in a near panic, bribing him to come for supper with the promise of free bread for life.

It had been a mistake – not just the dinner, but all of it. Coming back to Twelve, believing there was anything here for him at all. Thinking he could sit beside her and not be overwhelmed by the storm churning through his head and his heart and his gut.

He hadn't expected that: how deep, how sharpthe longing would be. When she'd walked through his door last night, into his home, he'd felt like a compass gone awry, spinning off his axis. Unsure where he wanted to land – where he could land. Katniss's presence still pulled at him like a magnet; that hadn't changed.

But he had. Once, the love he'd felt had been a steady, sturdy thing. A constant. Something he could anchor himself in.

Now he doesn't even know what to call it. Not love. A connection, maybe – but a tenuous one, frayed and knotted. The way he feels for her isn't a comfort anymore. He doesn't understand it, can't find the roots, though he still feels them sometimes, digging and twisting somewhere deep within him.

He's surprised to find Haymitch awake, watching television from his couch, when he lets himself inside the other victor's house at lunchtime.

"I knocked," Peeta says. Haymitch doesn't answer, his eyes trained on the screen. President Coin sits in an armchair, giving an interview to a man with close-cropped hair. She looks exactly like she did the last time he saw her in person, at Snow's execution. Like the only person who made it through the war unchanged. A dull headache throbs in the back of Peeta's skull, and he turns away.

"What are you watching that for?" he asks, raising his voice over the drone of the newscast. "I thought you hated politics."

There's a long pause before Haymitch responds, "I do." There's a soft beep as he shuts off the tv. "What do you want?"

Peeta smiles a little. Haymitch's suspicion is familiar, if nothing else. "Some company," he says, ignoring Haymitch's snort as he pushes aside dirty plates and old newspapers to make room on the kitchen counter for the bread he's brought with him. "Some help eating this bread."

"That I can do," Haymitch says, heaving himself into a chair at the kitchen table.

There isn't much in the way of edible food in the house, but Peeta digs up some butter, cheese and a tomato that isn't entirely rotted from the fridge, and fries two sandwiches in a skillet on the stove. The sandwiches taste better than the ones his mother used to make on weekends, using the stale, hard nubbins of whatever loaves were left by Sunday close.

They eat quietly, and for a moment Peeta pretends that this is just one of the afternoons they'd spent together more than a year ago, before the quell. Two victors, having lunch, with the mutual understanding that neither had anything to say that the other wanted to hear. They had eaten together like this frequently after Peeta had moved into Victor's Village, alone; after he'd had his heart broken, but before he'd realized that there were even worse things waiting for him.

But he can't pretend forever. Peeta finishes his sandwich, and says, "Does the train come every Wednesday?"

"S'far as I know," Haymitch says, crumbs dropping from his open mouth. "Why?"

Peeta taps his fingers on the tabletop. He hadn't expected any questions from Haymitch, whose barely-there curiosity always seemed to begin and end with whatever Peeta was feeding him at the moment. "Thought maybe I'd sign up for those provision boxes."

"No," Haymitch says, startlingly firm. "You thought maybe you'd hitch a ride back out of town." He takes a bite of his sandwich, chewing roughly. "Don't lie to me, kid. I've seen enough of it to know."

Peeta's cheeks burn, and he stands, carrying his empty plate swiftly to the sink. He leaves his back to Haymitch. "So?"

"So?" Haymitch says, mimicking his tone.

Unbidden, Peeta's fingers curl into fists, but before the horror can grip him they splay back out, stiff and trembling. He flips on the tap to wash his hands, desperate for something to occupy them. It's Haymitch. Haymitch. Just Haymitch. "If I do…I'm only doing what's best," he says, scrubbing hard at his skin.

Haymitch doesn't respond. But Peeta keeps running the water over his hands, wincing as it grows hotter. He flexes his fingers one at a time. Maybe he can burn whatever sickness is left right out of them.

"Peeta, did someone…send you here?"

Peeta shuts off the tap and, no towels in sight, wipes his hands on the bottom of his shirt. He turns to look back at Haymitch. The older man looks worse in the daylight than he did in the soft glow of a lamp last night, his eyes bloodshot and wary.

He isn't sure how to answer. "Here? To your house?"

"To Twelve."

"No, I…" He racks his memory. His last weeks in the Capitol all bleed into one another, a steady stream of therapy sessions and baking hours and crisp white bed sheets. He was there, and now he's not, but there was no real catalyst in between; just the sense that he couldn't be there anymore. "They told me I could go, and I did."

Then it clicks. Peeta feels suddenly queasy, acid rising in his throat. "You think Coin sent me." He swallows, his mouth dry. "To kill Katniss."

Haymitch looks at him, his face impassive, and Peeta looks back. "No," he finally says. "I don't." He flicks a piece of crust across his plate. "But I had to ask."

Peeta grips the counter behind him, feeling lightheaded. "Is that what Katniss thinks?"

Haymitch's mouth curls up in a smirk. "Katniss doesn't think," he says, and it's not really an answer, but it's not the worst thing he could have said.

"I don't feel that way anymore," Peeta insists. "Violent, I mean. I get angry sometimes, still, but…" His voice trails off. "I don't want to hurt her."

Their eyes meet then, and Haymitch nods, just once. "I believe you."

Hearing it feels better, more significant, than Peeta expected. "Thanks," he whispers, turning his head so Haymitch won't see how quickly he has to blink back tears.

Haymitch makes it clear that his plans for the rest of the day center on a long, uninterrupted nap, and Peeta finds himself adrift in an afternoon bereft of possibility, no one to see and nowhere to go.

So he walks.

It's hard to orient himself. It's about a mile from the Village to the town square, and though there was never much to see along the way, the landscape stretches out impossibly barren before him now. A sycamore tree had marked the rough midpoint of the path, its mottled bark distinct from the ones around it, but they're all identical now, black and leafless. At one point he just stops, looks back and looks ahead, and sees…nothing.

Peeta has to steel himself once the Justice Building comes into view. It's the only one left (partially) standing. There are a handful of people in the square, and as he draws closer his pulse picks up rapidly, though he can't tell if he recognizes any of them yet.

Eyes turn to watch as he walks past a heap of cracked cement and rubble, all that remains of the grocery store that had once marked the edge of town. An old woman with gray eyes and a brown kerchief tied around her head coughs, the sound raw and wet in the silence. Peeta recognizes her vaguely, as someone who Katniss had traded with before the penalty rose from stern warning to shot in the back of the head.

Still they watch, quiet, as he hugs the edge of the square, picking his way around the rocks that have strayed into the path. He's used to people staring, but in the past it was always clear what they were looking for. He doesn't know what these people want.

He stops where the bakery was.

A twisted, blackened lump of metal is all that sets it apart from its neighbors. It's the oven. Was the oven. The rest is broken glass and ashes.

Peeta lets his eyes run over the scene, constructing walls and windows in his mind; green paint flaking on the wooden panels, wet leaves gathering on the white plastic overhang above the door. The entry to the apartment upstairs was on the left, and the alley where his family kept their pigs was on the right, but he can't remember whether there were two windows or three on the second story.

He braces, waiting for it to sink in, for the overwhelming sorrow to claw its way up and drag him down. But all he feels is empty.

Footsteps crunch loudly behind him. A man clears his throat. "They wouldn't have suffered. Anyone who was here – the bombs fell right here. It would have been instant."

Peeta turns to look at him. He's thirty years old, give or take a few, with dark hair and dark eyes. Seam. Peeta doesn't know him, but everyone knows Peeta. His forehead is creased in a frown, black dust gathering in the wrinkles.

"Thanks," Peeta says, though he isn't sure if he means it.

The man shrugs with one shoulder, and turns away. It's only then that Peeta notices his left arm ends in a stump.

The sun is setting by the time he walks through the Village gates. Peeta takes his time, favoring his good leg. It aches in a satisfying way, from the most use it's had in months.

He thinks about bringing dinner over to Haymitch as he passes the older man's house, but the windows are all dark and curtained shut. Haymitch is a good friend, a real friend, but not an eager one, and Haymitch won't fill the hole that's already starting to gape open within him.

Peeta knows that it was worth it. That the pain and death and sacrifice meant something. He knows it the way he knows that he is fortunate to have a home with four walls, at least one leg that works, and a mind that isn't completely, irretrievably wrecked after all. Because the districts are free now, if fractured; because children are just children now, not pawns, not targets.

But it's so hard to feel it, as he stares down another night alone, a lifetime drifting through a country made of bones and ash.

He's about to win his third round of solitaire when there's a knock at the door.

It's Katniss, her hair loose and falling into her eyes, her father's battered leather jacket draped over her shoulders. It always amused him, the way the jacket swallowed her up, the way she didn't care.

"Hi," he says, releasing a breath.

"Hi," she says. She fidgets, shoving her hands into her pockets. "I just…wanted to make sure you were okay."

Peeta glances down at himself, slightly embarrassed by his striped pajamas and bare feet. It's barely past 8 pm. "I'm fine."

Katniss nods, averting her eyes to look past him into the house. "I know you don't drink a lot," she says, more to herself than to him. "I mean, you didn't. I don't know."

"No, you're right." Peeta presses his lips together, nervous. "I'm sorry about that, by the way."

Katniss shrugs. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"I deserved it."

She makes a soft noise in her throat, half-agreeing. "It wasn't all your fault."

He knows she means Gale. The name hangs between them like a ghost, unspoken.

Katniss tugs at her hair. "Thank you for dinner. The food you made was really good."

"We didn't make it to dessert," he says lightly. "I still have some cookies."

He can see her weighing the options, working through the scene in her head, and he struggles not to roll his eyes. They're cookies, not a marriage proposal. But this is Katniss: every decision is a critical one, every outcome a potential disaster.

"Okay," she says.

His shoulders tense abruptly; he didn't realize it until now, but he didn't actually think she'd say yes. And he's not sure he wanted her to. The image of the burnt out bakery crashes into his mind, the lump of the oven looming bigger and darker in his imagination.

Peeta forces a smile, steps aside, and lets her in.

It's a Thanksgiving miracle!

Seriously, though - I apologize that I left this story stagnant for so long, and thank you to everyone who bugged me about it and checked up to make sure I didn't die or lose a limb or something. There wasn't much forward momentum coming out of the last chapter, so it was tough to work out exactly where I needed to go with this one in a way that felt unforced, but I think I've got it figured out alright.

Thank you so much for reading - please let me know what you think!