still voice testing /sob

[painfully]

Yeah, I know. I'm a dime a dozen these days, now that the new film is out. I couldn't forget it even if I tried, not with as often as you bring it up.

So why am I here? Why not buddy up with Johanna, or Finnick? I know you're in love with Finnick. Wasn't he the one you were planning to go with from the start? And yet I'm the one with a journal, and icons, getting tossed into test drives.

Look, just... just let me go back to painting, and tying knots on Finnick's rope, okay? It'll save us both some grief.

Comments

[stillplaying]

Peeta...

[It's almost a little painful to see him again, to listen to his words. How could he possibly consider himself a dime a dozen? Degrade himself as much as she does on a regular basis. It's been over a year now. A year since she last saw him, before he had been sent home from the Game. It had been both a blessing and a curse.

At least he was safe in District 12. Safe without her. Safe under this new Capitol. No longer subject to any future hijacks or any possible drafts. He could live, thrive. Have the life he deserves with the girl he deserves. Someone better than her.]

Peeta, don't let her.

[painfully]

[The sight of Katniss is painful to Peeta, no question, though the reasoning behind it is undoubtedly different. In his own (admittedly faulty) memory, the last time he'd laid eyes on her had been when she'd embraced him before stepping back out into the streets of the Capitol that last time, leaving Tigris's shop. Not so long ago to him.]

[And yet there's that sudden jolt of adrenaline when he sees her, familiarity laced with fear that sets his teeth on edge and his heart racing. It's getting better, of course--his team of doctors would be so proud, wouldn't they?--but maybe that's the painful part. To realize how bad it must have been, that this is better.]

Don't let her... do what? Put me in one of these "games"? I'm not exactly volunteering here, believe me.

[stillplaying]

[She hates that look in his eyes. The fear that she had caused. Maybe not directly, but close enough. Would Snow ever have hijacked him if it hadn't been for her? If he hadn't realized how much it would hurt her to lose that pure adoration he once felt, seeing it laced with fear and loathing instead? She doesn't think so.

He'd be whole, thriving. The boy she remembered. The boy who had been there in the game with her last time. It wasn't fair. She got to see him again, again for the first time in over a year. And he looks at her like this, lacking that same, simple love she had grown used to. The odds were never in her favor, were they?]

Any one of these Games. They're all the same, all dangerous. Fight her.

[painfully]

[It's so difficult to sort through his feelings about Katniss these days. He loved her once--or so he's been told, so he's pieced together from the snippets of memory, the insistence of the people around him. There's the fear, of course. Confusion. Anger.]

[But the Games. The very word itself strikes a deep chord of terror in him, unleashes a jumble of images in his mind, each with their own kind of sorrow attached. To be in the Games again--any kind, anything that someone like Katniss would deem dangerous, worth fighting to avoid--is something that nobody deserves.]

That's where you are, isn't it? Another Game?

[stillplaying]

[She nods. It's where she's been for nearly two years now. Trapped in one game. And, much more recently, trapped in another. So long as her Gamemaker is still interested, she'll have no escape. It'll be Game after Game, won't it? Never to see District 12 again. Never to see Peeta again, outside these brief passings.

It hurts, thinking about that.]

It's where most of us end up.

[painfully]

[There's a long pause while he idly examines the rings of raw flesh on his wrists, still sore from the handcuffs.]

What's it like there? Is it just you?

[stillplaying]

[Her eyes flicker downward at his movement. Her brow creases with worry at the marks on his wrists. Is that when he's from? From their attack on the Capitol? Or sometime shortly after? She doesn't know. She can't tell. Not from those wounds on his wrists.

And she's afraid to ask. So very afraid.]

There are two Games she has me in. I'm alone in one. But... [And this is where a slight smile actually forms on her face. It's faint, but steady. Does he yet know how much the second part means to her?] Prim's there. In the other one.

[painfully]

[He's always known how much Katniss adores her sister, of course, but he hasn't witnessed the parachutes raining from the sky. Not yet. So there's no way for him to know just how deeply the presence of Prim would affect her.]

[Still, a genuine smile from the girl on fire is a rare thing indeed. He remembers that much, at least.]

I'm happy for you. At least you're there to keep her safe.

[Another, shorter pause]

Tell her I said hi, if you get a chance.

[stillplaying]

I'll try.

[And wouldn't Prim love to hear that? Prim, who's sat by Katniss some nights as she wakes up screaming or crying for Peeta. She could almost picture her sister now, happy for Katniss. Always smiling whenever Katniss smiled. Crying whenever she cried. That much hadn't changed. It made it seem almost as if nothing had every changed between them.

But that's still only in one place.]

Are you- [She hesitates, a wave of worry washing over her. But she has to ask. She can't not know, not when it comes to him.] Are you going anywhere?

[painfully]

[Peeta laughs a little at this, although it's a laugh largely devoid of mirth.]

I think I'm actually going to end up in your neck of the woods soon. My Gamemaker says there's a "training" area, right? To see if things would work out?

...although she says to tell you that if me being there would be too much of a bother, just tell me to get lost. [This time there's the hint of a smile] Not that I think you'd hold back, if that were the case.

[stillplaying]

[It's like her heart suddenly stops beating. Like her breath is caught in her throat. The idea of him back there? With her again? It's everything she never dared to hope for. Because people come and go and since when are the odds ever in her favor? Since when does she ever deserve any sort of happiness in her life?

She doesn't. After everything she's done... Especially to him... This has to be too good to be true. This... The odds never favor Katniss Everdeen. Why should they start to, now?

Finally, she dares to look at him. Tears glisten in her grey eyes.] Really?

[painfully]

[The discomfort on his face is plain. The catch of her breath, the tears in her eyes--hope? Fear? He can't read her anymore. Is this the same Katniss that loudly declared she wouldn't mind killing him at all, or the one who kissed him and begged him to stay with her, to fight the hijacking?]

Yeah, well. For all I know I'll just end up going mutt on you again. It might be healthier for you if I stayed away.

But yeah, I'll probably be hanging around the training area soon.

[stillplaying]

[Fear? Hope? Happiness? Grief? It's hard to tell which emotion is winning inside of her. It's a battleground, an arena all of its own. She wants to yell at him. To tell him again to fight her, to fight his Gamemaker and don't let her send him there. Because she's not sure she can live with the worry again, live with the fear that he might be drafted or stupid enough to go on one of those damned missions just to protect her.

And she wants to run to him. Run to him and throw her arms around him and beg him never to leave her again. Be free with her kisses and rain them all over his face. He might not be the boy who was there last time, the boy who came in during the Quarter Quell, who hadn't yet been hijacked. But it doesn't matter to her. He's still Peeta. And she's never, ever gotten over losing him.

It's too much. Too, too much.

And in the end, words fail her. She doesn't know how to respond aloud, not with everything bubbling up inside of her. So she gives in to those feelings. Gives in and punches his chest angrily before hugging him as tight as she possibly can.]

[andproper]

[You can have a hug, Peeta.

Just a small one.]

You don't have to be scared. It's not that bad...