On mun's reaction to seeing Catching Fire finally...

[stillplaying]

He's better off without me. How many times do I have to say that? They're all better off without me.

[But Peeta? Peeta deserves better. Haymitch had been right all those years ago. She could live a hundred lifetimes and she'd never be deserving of a boy like him. Which is why this is for the best. He had been there once, trapped in a game with her. She remembers the fear, the worry that he might be harmed once more and she would be absolutely powerless to stop them. The fear that any of them would be harmed.

She has Prim to worry about. Even Effie. Isn't that enough? If he was there, if Gale was there, or even Finnick... She'd never be able to live with herself if something happened to them. Because she's already had to live through it once. Peeta nearly dying in not one but two arenas. Gale being whipped. And the lizard mutts... those horrible, horrible lizard mutts.]

I don't care what that film made you think. I don't care how much you think I need him. I don't deserve him. He deserves better. And he'll get that. So long as I stay away.

Comments

[stillplaying]

[All the scars are still there. But any new ones are buried inside of her. Death in Luceti erases any scars earned prior. The scar on her throat from Clove's knife is no longer there. Wounds obtained from battles she never asked to fight. But that's the nature of any game, isn't it? You do what you have to in order to survive.

In order to win it on your own terms. But it hadn't worked. It hadn't gotten her sent home, hadn't given her a chance to see Peeta again. She knew ever since the Quarter Quell that she'd sacrifice her own life for him. Because he was so good. Because if anyone deserved to live, it was Peeta. It took losing him to actually do so.

Real or not real. Is he real now? Or is this just another nightmare, seeing him again, listening him talk.]

We saved each other. [How could she possibly face his gaze, knowing everything that happened since that first Hunger Games.] And then I got you... Snow... [It's almost impossible to form the words.] He never would have tortured you if it wasn't for me.

[realornotreal]

[It's something else. The guarded way she carries herself, or how she won't look at him at all. Before, it was him who wouldn't look at her, who couldn't even speak directly to her during that last meeting with the surviving victors. Now their positions are inexplicably reversed.

There were times he wished he could just see into her head. So many things he couldn't make sense of, so many hours of watching her face pretend to smile, and how simple it would make everything, if he could just know why she hasn't killed him yet. But that was the hijacking. Her reminder of it makes Peeta's eyelashes flicker, his expression shutter for a second.

Didn't they tell him as much, while they were doing it? This is because of Katniss, all of this is her fault, until he felt it weaving through his skin, settling into his bones. People dying, District 12 burning. Because of her, her, her.]

We rebelled. [His voice is quiet, taut, but grows stronger as he goes on.] Not just you. Me too. Remember? I painted a picture, and you hung a dummy. [He looks at her, and there's just the ghost of a smile on his lips.] As if we planned it. What makes you think they would've been any easier on me than they were on Johanna?

[stillplaying]

[She remembers that. How can she forget? How can she forget any of those days? It doesn't matter how much she tries to forget. The terror she felt knowing she'd be selected Tribute again. The worry at the thought that Peeta might not make it out alive. Anger - furious, heated anger - at Haymitch when he told her that Peeta had been left behind, taken by the Capitol. How could she forget any of that?

The mention of Johanna, though, catches her off guard. She's barely given the other girl much thought since returning to District 12. Since ending up in that new Game. Johanna is a survivor. A glimpse of the woman Katniss might have become had Snow succeeded in taking away everyone she loved. Peeta's right. They weren't any easier on Johanna.

But. But there is one difference. Her grey eyes harden just a little, the shadow of self-loathing hidden within. For a split second, she catches Peeta's gaze. Takes in his own posture, the way his seems to shutter for a second. The last time she had seen him, trapped in the Game with her, he hadn't yet lived the Quarter Quell. And now?

Real or not real.

She shakes her head.] They didn't hijack Johanna.

[realornotreal]

[She's right that they didn't hijack Johanna. They didn't hijack anyone except Peeta, didn't force anyone except Peeta to learn the names of their Avox attendants before watching them be tortured to death. Only Peeta was dragged before the cameras in between these hellish episodes and forced to repeat words denouncing the rebels, instead of what he really wanted to do, which was scream. Only Peeta still sometimes wakes up from nightmares in which Katniss spreads her white-tipped wings and shouts you burn with us while fire rages behind her.

Or so he thinks. He's never asked anyone else about it.

After he was rescued, he was told by doctors and Delly and Haymitch that the old Peeta wouldn't have blamed Katniss for what happened, which seemed easy to allege when the old Peeta would never be around to refute it. It got better, when people stopped telling him about the old Peeta and started discussing other reasons instead.]

Johanna didn't make it look like Snow was executing a pregnant woman. [It's only now, after so much therapy, that Peeta can see his hijacking was meant to dismantle him as much as it was supposed to disarm Katniss. Just like the old man during their Tour, just like his family and everyone else who died when Twelve was firebombed. They can share the blame for that.]

They were never going to let me come back whole, Katniss.

[stillplaying]

[It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because she should have just died that day in the first arena. She should have swallowed the berries and let Peeta go home. Then no one would have seen her actions as those of rebellion. Just that of a lovesick girl willing to die for the boy she loves. Peeta would have been safe. Prim would have been safe. District 12 might still have been standing. Even if the uprising occurred, would it really have played out the same way?

Tears sting her eyes and they make her want to scowl. He had been the one person she could be weak around. The person that held her tight at night when the nightmares hit, comforted her when she awoke. She doesn't know how to express these words. That living without him - living without him after having a chance to really love him - has been as bad as any torture Snow could have devised.]

I know. [The words are weak, defeated. Exactly what Snow would have wanted to hear. But so much of her fire had burned away along with Prim. The rebellion had cost her too, too much. Peeta. Prim. Even Gale. Her home. Everything she had gone into the arena not once but twice to protect.

But it's not all gone. Having Prim back, no matter how brief a time they might have together in the Game, has given her something she hadn't had since losing Peeta. Someone to fight for, to protect. It's the spark she needed. Almost as much as she needs Peeta back.] I know. It's why I made them pay.

[Coin, Snow, all of them. She'd make this Gamemaker pay, too, for keeping her trapped in Luceti for over two years now. She would, at least, if Prim hadn't ever shown.]