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Underground. He hated it. The walls felt too cold and the ceilings too low, the air too stale and the people around him too... confusing. He had no idea who to trust or if he could ever trust anyone again but himself - though even then he doubted himself. There were days when kindness challenged the tumbling mess of memories in his mind full of nightmares and images he was unable to separate from fantasy or reality.

He had lashed out at Katniss more times than he could count and although the shackles strapped to his body at night helped him stay in bed, they did not help him sleep in peace. Why was he even here? Why had they saved him? Especially her... She had looked so happy to see him yet all he could think about was the pain and suffering she had caused so many people.

The violent thoughts had calmed somewhat after the wedding, but they would still poke at his mind every now and then, tempting him. He still trusted no one.

Yet here he was now, guarded constantly and chained, but able to walk out of his room at least. He was headed down a corridor out of the wing that held the hospital rooms, not sure where he was going really... just anywhere that had better air. The guard following close behind was a constant reminder of his current state of mind, though a part of him was whispering that it was probably best like this.

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She sat there next to him, leaning back against the wall and letting her eyes fall closed as she sang, soft and slow.

One song blended into another, and when she lost the words she continued singing wordlessly, the melody carrying through. Without thinking about it her hand moved to find his in the darkness.

The touch came as a surprise, so much so that he nearly jumped from it, but the soft melody had relaxed him enough not to lash out as hostile as he knew he could. He let her hold his hand, turning to look at her despite how dim the light in the one room was. His own fingers didn't curl into hers until a minute later, looking down at them.

Realizing what she had done when she felt him tense, she let him take his time to react, not rushing things. Not pushing them. He had to do this all on his own time, no matter how much she wanted it to go faster.

Her mood mixed into the singing. Sad songs. Longing songs.

After a long time, Peeta's eyes looked over to one of the hidden cameras, staring into it. He had no idea how much time had passed or how they could even measure it in this bland room, but he knew they were still being watched. They were always being watched.

"Are you sad?"

He asked quietly, still watching the camera but clearly speaking to Katniss.

She started a little, not expecting his voice. And especially not expecting it to ask something so suddenly cutting to the point.

"...I think I'm to tired to be sad anymore."

There was sadness, and anger, and deep hurt. Nightmares that didn't go away when she woke up. But more than that she was tired, frustrated.

"Yeah..." he agreed slowly, taking her words into consideration. "I know what you mean."

They had both been hurt and damaged in various ways by now and Peeta still wasn't sure how locking them up in here would help their mental health at all.

"I...." She swallowed, looking down at their hands. And then closing her eyes and feeling the texture, the roughness. Baking, burns from ovens, nicks from knives, rough from paint brushes...but that's not all, and she can't pretend it is.

"Do you think there's a point where people just can't take anymore?"

The implication of her question hit him hard and he immediately understood what she was trying to say. It only made him frown more and want to recoil back into himself, yet the way she was still holding onto his hand stopped him. There was an odd pang in his chest at the mere thought of her taking her life, realizing it must have been the part of Peeta that once loved her.

"Yeah," he said simply, a bit of silence passing before he continued. "I think it happens more than we know or realize."

Her mind hadn't yet wrapped around the endgame of that thought process. So bent on survival, the idea of working against it was a hard one for Katniss to process in anything but a theoretical sense.

But eventually your knot frayed, and you couldn't tie it anymore. And then what?

"I'm so tired of all of this. I just wanted-" She laughed, suddenly, a small, tight laugh. "I just wanted to protect people."

Peeta shifts against the hard floor but doesn't move away, his voice still that soft and wary thing in the dark.

"You don't think you have?"

"I protected Prim. And for what? 12 is...." She trailed off. She still couldn't think about it. Not without her mind going to places to dark, even now.

"And you? How well did I protect you?"

"Maybe it's time to realize it isn't your forte," he was trying to joke around but it sounded far more bitter than he'd intended.

"Well, what the hell else am I suppose to do?" She asked, twisting to look at him in the dim light. "Just sit here and let everyone be hurt? Everyone tells me I'm so powerful...and I have none."

"The harder you try, the more people seem to get hurt," he added bitterly, not looking away from her. The tone kept changing just like that and it didn't go unnoticed to him, nor the ones who were watching, he figured. "So yeah, maybe you should just stop."

"And do what, then? How do I 'just stop'? Because I never really wanted to start!"

I volunteer. Was that the only choice she'd made? No, of course not. But sometimes it felt like it.

Was she suppose to have just let them reap Prim, slaughter her. The thought it's self, even thought it didn't happen, brought hot tears to her eyes, and she wiped at the angrily.

He felt a twitch at that in his fingers, tightening their grip into fists as he tried to remind himself to breathe. He knew his words were cruel and affecting her more than he should have wanted but that was the point wasn't it?

"I don't know," was all he could offer lamely, his head starting to throb again.

"Neither-" She paused, the bitter words dropping away from her mouth, slipping away back to quite despair. "Neither do I."

What she wanted...everything she wanted summed up in that thought. To just not. To be home, to not have been in a rebellion. To not be the Mockinjay.