Real

Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games and its characters, they belong to Suzanne Collins. This is a fanfic that deals with what happened between Peeta's return to District 12 and the Epilogue in the last book. There will be spoilers, so if you haven't read it, you've been warned Enjoy!

Chapter 1

I'm exhausted. To say it's only physically would be a lie, but at the moment I do feel physically exhausted. It hasn't been a long day, and I haven't done much to merit such exhaustion. I got up quite late, went to the woods to hunt and stayed there until six in the evening.

I didn't hunt much. I came back with a couple of rabbits that got caught in snares. I didn't even do the job. They just were there by chance and got caught. I did not stalk them, I did not chase them, I did not shoot them. I didn't even set the snares today, they have remained from some other day when my mind was on it.

But today my mind wasn't on it. All I did was cry.

It's difficult for me to understand how I have become so… weak. The faintest memory makes me cry. Smells, colours, flowers… even silly mockingjays make me cry. They remind me too much of things I've lost. No, not things, people I've lost. Water reminds me too much of Finnick, mockingjays of Rue… dear sweet Rue. Flowers remind me of Prim, my sweet little sister, who grew up so much right under my nose, only to be blown away in a second.

My precious Prim is gone.

While I can come to terms with some of my losses, Prim is not one of them. She shouldn't have been there. She shouldn't have been anywhere near the battlefield! Yes, it must have been Coin's plan to expose her, and that thought alone makes me feel less guilty about having killed her.

Yes, the people I've killed weigh heavily on my heart as well. I will carry them forever, that much I know. Even if people say those deaths were justified, I cannot see that. Nor can I see the deaths of people who died to protect me as just. Finnick didn't have to die for me, nor did Castor, or Messalla… not one of them had to die for me.

Today, however, all my grief has been for Prim. A tiny yellow flower is growing near Gale and mine's hunting spot. I had just got there today, was preparing my bow… and there it was, staring up at me as if it had eyes, and I broke down. I broke down and cried for the rest of the day, until the fading light roused me back to reality.

Now, in my kitchen, I sit with my unlucky prey staring at me with empty eyes. Even Buttercup doesn't know what to make of it, and just hisses at it once in a while.

Buttercup. It's a wonder that flea bag is still here. I suppose I do feed him, so he sticks around, but maybe it's the memory of Prim that keeps us together. We lost the one dearest to us at the same moment… only difference is that I saw it happen. He at least was spared that.

Prim… you'd have turned fourteen today.

In my dreams I'm airborne. I drift slowly through space, partly wrapped in something warm, but I cannot feel much. I cannot hear much either, except what resembles soft hammer blows somewhere in the distance. The rest is darkness, not like the absence of light, but more like a void in which I swim effortlessly. When the nightmares find me, they come on strong, and mostly of Prim dying.

It's the smell that wakes me ultimately. As I open my eyes, I can see that it's quite dark outside. One quick look at the clock and I see it's almost midnight. I'm shaking like a leaf, and I'm sweating all over, my nightgown sticking to my skin.

My nightgown… I'm in my bed. How did I get here?

Sitting up I scan the room. Everything looks normal, everything except the conspicuous loaf of bread on the bedside table. Peeta must have been here, he must have carried me upstairs and changed me. He must have brought the bread with him. As I reach for it, I notice that it's still warm, so he cannot have been here too long ago.

I get out of bed and bite into the bread, letting its warmth fill me. I walk downstairs and into the kitchen. There he is, stoking the fire in my oven, looking more like an apparition than a real human being.

"Peeta," I say, but he doesn't turn. I can see his hand clenching the poker so strongly that his knuckles have gone white. He's having a tracker jacker flashback, and he's potentially armed. I know I should leave the kitchen, but I just stand there quietly until he calms down. Buttercup looks from one to the other, his nose wet with the milk Peeta obviously brought for him. Peeta… tormented by poison induced flashbacks in which he feels the need to kill me. He will calm down soon, I hope. And I can tell when he does, for his hand releases the poker and he turns to me. His smile is small but kind.

"You're up," he says, his voice small too.

"Yes, thank you for the bread, it's delicious."

"I'm glad. I'm just making some more, so you have some in the morning. Then I'll go home."

"Thank you."

He nods, and I walk in closer, pulling a chair and sitting down. The fire warms me, and the scent of warm bread fills my senses again. Breaking a piece of the loaf I'm holding, I offer it to him, and he takes it, sitting down across from me. Mostly he avoids contact, afraid of what he might do if he is too close to me when he has a flashback.

"You brought me upstairs," I say.

"Yeah. I came to check on you and found you asleep at the table. You looked like you'd had a rough day, so I carried you up."

"You changed me, too."

"Nah, that was Greasy Sae. Didn't think you'd want me to do it."

He looks away, which in itself is strange. Earlier, when he said things like that, he'd always look me straight in the eyes, and I'd find myself blushing and unsure of what to do. But now his eyes do not seek mine, and I'm left alone with my embarrassment. Of course, I do know why this is. Whatever Peeta felt for me earlier… it is gone. His mind was tortured too much for my sake, and I was too close to Gale for his comfort.

"Thank you anyway."

"You're welcome."

We sit there for a while, and I offer him tea, which he gratefully accepts. It helps to keep warm, so I'm glad for it. I realise, too, that he has drained and skinned the rabbits. When we first really met he wouldn't have known how to do this, but now he does. We've come a long way since the reaping… no. Since he gave me the loafs of bread when we were eleven.

Finally, he declares the bread done and takes it out of the oven. They look beautiful. There's no other word with which to describe them right now. He must have had a lot of time, as he carved figures into the dough, and they baked perfectly. He is an artist.

"I best get going, then," he says. "You'll want to rest."

"You, too, I suppose."

"No. I'm not sleeping much these days."

That surprises me. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Too many things," he gives a half-hearted chuckle. I think of something to say, but I come up blank. He, however, seems to be willing to talk. "I just keep thinking about them. My parents and my brothers, about how they didn't out, and now are buried in the meadow with everybody else. I wonder if they suffered… I wonder if… I don't know."

"You wonder if they thought of you?"

He sighs. "My father may have, but the others… I don't know." He paces about the kitchen. "My mother… she wanted a girl, you know? After two strong boys, what she wanted a little girl. All she got was a wimpy son."

"You're not wimpy, Peeta. You survived more than they can ever imagine. They must have seen you in the Games that first time… the second…"

"Oh, they saw me, alright. They saw me getting beat up, cut, almost eaten by mutts… But do you know what they said to me when we got back? My brothers… They said: 'You're only alive because she pretended to love you.' That's what they said."

The sadness in his eyes can only be matched by my shock. I might have convinced the Capitol and the sponsors that I loved Peeta, but his own family knew it was not true.

"Didn't they think you were pretending, too?" I ask.

"Hahaha, good joke. They could see I wasn't faking it."

"How do you know?"

"My mother, she said that I was crazy to think that you'd ever actually love me."

"And your father?"

"He understood. How could he not? He had loved your mother." His smile is bittersweet. "Yes, he understood, but he also felt bad for me."

"Why didn't they move in with you to the Victor's Village?"

"They didn't want to. They didn't think I deserved it. They thought you did. Of them all, I think only my father would have considered it, but he was too attached to his bakery to leave. That's why I moved in alone."

"I'm so sorry, Peeta."

"Don't be. You are very lucky, you know? Even with Prim gone, you have your mother who loves you, even though she is far away. Your sister loved you, your father loved you, and at least now they are together."

"Don't go there…" I feel the anger rising in me.

"I have to, Katniss. You need to see."

"Don't."

"You must have made the connection, they died in a very similar way…"

"Shut up!" Why is he doing this? Is this his way to torture me? To finally kill me?

"Whatever else happened, he took her with him. She's with him, and she's safe."

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

"I lost my siblings, too."

"But they didn't love you!" I'm so angry I do not stop the words. "They did not volunteer to take your place, they let you go and expected you to die! Not Prim! She believed in me!"

I'm crying in anger, and all I want is for him to go. How can he be so cruel? How can he… !

"You can't compare what happened to you with what happened to me!"

"No, I can't," he says firmly. "Good night, Katniss."