Peeta

"You two need to stop fighting so much," Haymitch growls as we pull out of the station at Twelve. "Had someone seen that little spat you two had at the house, they'd doubt your love even more than they do now. It's bad enough that you've kept your distance from each other for six months." Katniss crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him.

"Yeah, yeah," she says. "We get it. Be more careful next time. Now I'm tired. Can I go to my room?"

"No, I'm not finished," Haymitch says, but she turns around anyways and stomps out. "Everdeen! Get back here!"

"Let her go," I say. "If there's anything I've learned about her the last few months, it's that if she doesn't want to talk to you, there's no use in trying. She won't listen."

"Have you even tried?" He asks.

"Of course I have," I say looking out the window. "Once a week, I send a letter with her cousin, Gale, whenever he comes to trade for bread. He leaves them under her door for me. But I don't think she's even looked at any of them."

"Did she even see them?" He asks. "Are you sure Gale didn't just get rid of them?" I shake my head.

"No, I've seen him give them to her more than once," I say. "Besides, that was kinda why we were fighting today."

"Well, you two need to figure out how get over it," he says. "If another fight like that happens in public, I'm not sure I can just pass it off as some little lovers' quarrel." I look down. "I want you to go get her and make some sort of arrangement that won't end up getting us publicly executed." I glare at him.

"What part of she doesn't want to talk hasn't gotten through your drunken skull?" I say.

"What part of I don't care hasn't gotten through yours, boy?" He says. "Either you talk to her, or I do. And I can promise, I won't be nice about it." He walks out after that and I turn my head back to the window.

The world goes by in a flash and I feel angry and confused. She hasn't left my thoughts in all these months. I tried not to let her, but that last day in the Capital when she was screaming at me that she never wanted speak to me again, it broke my heart. That time in the cave changed how I saw her. She was no longer the lovesick girl who announced her love for me to the whole world.

She was one I grew to love. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but they never say how much it hurt to hear the words we said to each other when we parted. I know she was angry. Had I lost my leg as she had, I most likely would have been bitter too. But I've hated not talking to her for so long.

I sigh and slowly make my way back to our car. The right side belongs to me, the left to Katniss. I get up to her door and just as I'm about to knock, I hear her talking inside.

"-and I know that the last person you would want to talk to is me. You've made that perfectly clear a month ago. But I really feel I must talk to you, Katniss. It was never my intention to hurt you, but in my playing with your heart, I've done just that. I wish everything was different. I wish it were me who had been grabbed by that monster. I know you wouldn't have been able to pull me up like I did you, and then we would have been all set. You would have killed Cato and it would all be over," she says softly, with great curiosity and confusion. I take a step back. Why she'd be doing this, I haven't got a clue. Stomping away and glaring at me earlier as she announced she was going to her room didn't even suggest she would be sitting in her room, reading one of my letters. The fact that she has it at all is a shock in itself. The very thing we fought over, and here she is doing what I accused her of not doing.

"If I could have been me who lost their leg, I would have gladly taken your place. But since I can't, and I know you don't want anyone to look at you with sorrow or pity, I want to promise you that I will not be one of them. Inside, you are still the girl I threw the bread to, leg or not. You are no different, though I cannot promise I will not look at you differently. Because ever since you walked away, you took half of my heart that I didn't know you possessed with you. I need to talk to you, Katniss. Please just let me explain everything.

Yours Always,

Peeta," I hear her finish, then the slight rustle of paper as she folds the letter. I hear her sigh and her bed squeak as she sits down on the bed. "Each letter confuses me more and more. I don't understand how he could be saying this. I just don't understand why he wouldn't just talk to me about it." I softly knock on the door and I hear her get up.

"I said I wanted to be left alone," she says through the door.

"Katniss, it's me," I say. "I think it's time we talked about all this." At first she's silent, but just as I'm about to speak again, I hear her soft voice.

"Give me a minute," she says and I hear her shuffling around in her room, something wooden being shut, and then she opens her door, standing aside so I can walk in. I step in and she closes the door behind me. "Haymitch sent you?"

"It was me or him," I say. "I figured you'd probably be more angry at me if he came because I was too chicken to talk to you myself."

"I'm over being angry at you," she says. "At least, I'm over being upset over what I was last time we actually spoke before today." She goes over and sits on the edge of her bed. "Today, I guess I just lost my temper. I wish I hadn't, but I guess the fact that I've been talking to a piece of paper for the last few months gives me every right to be pissed of at you."

"At least I tried to talk to you," I say and she bows her head.

"You are the one who is good with words," she says. "Talking isn't easy for me. You still wouldn't know what I felt had I not thought I was going to die." She reaches for something beside her and holds it close to her. "Sliding your words beneath my door has made it so much easier to lock you away in a box I didn't intend to open." She holds the object in her hands out to me and I see it's a small wooden box with a bird burned into it.

"What's this?" I ask ask take it.

"The letters you accused me of burning," she says. "I may not have read them, but I didn't get rid of them either. Believe it or not, I'm not that cold."

"I was angry too, Katniss," I say setting the box down beside her bed. "You wouldn't even let me talk to you after you got better. You told that you never wanted to speak to me again. Did you ever stop to think maybe I actually cared, that I wasn't just pitying you? When I wrote you once a week, did it really seem like I was just trying to give you pity? I cared about you Katniss!"

"I know that now!" She says. "But I don't know that what we are feeling is even real. Face it, we're little more than strangers. After everything, I'm not sure what to think of you anymore." She gets up and walks around me, her gate slow and slightly uneven.

"Because I'm a coward," I say. She shakes her head and picks something off her dresser.

"You are anything but a coward," she says. "Though it was the most frightening time of my life, those nights in the cave was the only time I felt safe. Because you were there to keep me safe. You've saved my life twice now."

"You've saved me twice too," I say. "I probably would have bled out if you hadn't bandaged my head and kept me still in that cave. And in the end, even when you were bleeding from your leg being nearly torn off, you injured Cato without letting him snap my neck."

"And then you tied my leg off with a tourniquet," she says. "And you held me for three days while we listened to him scream. All I wanted to do was die. And yet you have the nerve to keep me alive."

"You blame me for saving your life?" I ask.

"I saw it in your eyes Peeta," she says. "You never felt the same. It would have been better to die in your arms than face the truth." She walks back over to me and hangs her head. "We're in a lot of trouble for all this Peeta."

"Yeah," I say. "I know. But after this tour, we'll be okay." She looks at me, as though she knows something but isn't sure it's safe to tell me.

"Yeah," she says unconvincingly. "And I really am sorry for how I acted. It wasn't fair to you to not read your letters."

"There is a way you can make it up to me," I say.

"How?" She asks.

"You'll at least let us try to be friends," I say.

"I don't know how," she says. "Outside my family, I don't have friends."

"Well," I say walking over to her door. "First, I guess we should get to know each other better." She follows me and opens her door.

"Like what?" She asks.

"Well, like what's your favorite color?" I  ask.

"Favorite color?" She says.

"Yeah," I say. "Like mine is orange."

"Orange," she asks not sounding convinced. "Like Effie's hair?"

"No," I say laughing. "Not bright orange. Softer, like a sunset kind of orange."

"Sunset," she says ask I walk out her door. "Yeah, I guess I can see that."

"So I guess I'll see you at dinner?" I say and she shakes her head.

"No," she says. "I'm eating in my room tonight."

"Well," I say. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" She nods.

"Tomorrow," she says and I turn to walk away. As I get to my door she speaks again. "Oh, and Peeta."

"What?" I ask turning back to her.

"My favorite color," she says. "It's green." And with that, her door shuts tightly behind her.