Mockingjay

«You love me. Real or not real?»
I tell him, «Real.»

Finnick looks at me in disbelief. “I don’t, Katniss! Obviously, I don’t. I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there’s no relief in waking.” Something in my expression stops him. “Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

«Don’t worry, Katniss. It’ll pass.»

“What do you think, Peeta?” I finally ask him.

“I think…you still have no idea. The effect you can have.” He slides his cuffs up the support and pushes himself to a sitting position. “None of the people we lost were idiots. They knew what they were doing. They followed you because they believed you really could kill Snow.”

I don’t know why his voice reaches me when no one else’s can.

“When I feel myself slipping, I dig my wrists into them, and the pain helps me focus,” says Peeta. I let them be

“Stay with me.”

His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. “Always,” he murmurs.

“Don’t let him take you from me.”

“Leave me,” he whispers. “I can’t hang on.”

“Yes. You can!” I tell him.

Peeta shakes his head. “I’m losing it. I’ll go mad. Like them.”

Like the mutts.

“You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real,” he whispers.

“Real,” I answer. It seems to require more explanation. “Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other.” After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” I ask. “If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what’s true.”

“Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly. Only people can’t grow wings,” he says. “Real or not real?”

“Real,” I say. “But people don’t need wings to survive.”

“Mockingjays do.” He finishes the soup and returns the can to me.