Peeta

Home. Home at last. Home sweet home. Home is where the heart is. Yeah, well if that were true home would be next door where Katniss lives with her mother and sister. Peeta invites his family to share his victor's house but his mother and father don't want to be so far from the bakery. His brothers stay in the house for a week or so, but they just don't feel comfortable. Peeta doesn't know if his restless and dissatisfied state is the problem, or if it's the house itself. A victor's house is a big and empty space filled with mindless luxuries, not necessarily comfortable.

Alone, confused, having lost the love he thought he'd finally won, Peeta begins to bake and paint. In one day he can bake enough bread to feed a family in the Seam for a week, so once again Peeta becomes The Boy With The Bread. He bakes good hearty breads, some with cheese, some with raisins and nuts, some with wholesome herbs and one sweet loaf that is more like a cake then a bread. When it's cool enough he packs it all into a flour sack and waits until all the lights have winkled out in the Seam. Then he skulks his way into the Seam and leaves the bag at some family's front door. Peeta visits a different house every night, remembering everything he learned from Katniss about moving quietly. He doesn't want to be caught by Peacekeepers or the people he bakes for.

His brothers know what he's doing because they bring the sacks of flour he needs nearly every day but so far as he knows no one else, even Katniss, knows about it. In the Seam no one speaks of the bread that shows up overnight. Peeta is the prime suspect, but these gifts of bread are so not in the spirit of the Capitol that everyone assumes it's illegal. No one wants to jeopardize either the giver or the gifts.

When Peeta isn't baking he's painting. Portia suggested he try painting for his talent, and as it turns out, Peeta really does have a talent for portraying the most visceral feelings in the most horrific scenes. Portia calls his work "the fine art of horror." because it evokes exactly what a tribute in the Hunger Games faces. Some are beautiful, but none are beautified. The paintings are all searingly honest.

Any Games survivor has his share of post-traumatic strees, but Peeta is more wounded by Katniss' deception and by Haymitch championing her deception than he is by the Games themselves. For Peeta much of the horror in the Games was veiled by his love for Katniss. He was also spared the tracker jacker hallucinations, he didn't have sing his ally to her death after failing to prevent her capture, he didn't have to pretend a love he didn't feel, and he killed only one tribute deliberately. Somehow Peeta knows that Katniss bears a heavier burden after the games, but he is still too raw from her deception to have any comfort to offer her. But as he kneads his bread and draws the scenes he'll paint, some of them scenes Katniss described to him in their cave, Peeta has time to think and to piece together what he knew and when he knew it.

He knew when he talked to Haymitch and when he declared his love for Katniss to all of Panem that she did not love him. He knew that in District 12 the three people he saw her with were Prim, Madge and Gale: her sister, her classmate, and Gale. What was Gale to Katniss? He hadn't known before the Games and he doesn't know now. There never seemed to be anything romantic in their relationship, but Katniss is not a demonstrative person, he'd learned that by the tenseness in her body as she cozied up to him in their interviews. She'd had to will herself to lay her hand in his lap or her head on his shoulder, while he'd felt utterly natural sitting almost entwined with her.

He'd known during training that their "friendship" had been at the request of their stylists and that eventually it wore Katniss out. She'd asked him to drop it when they were in their training quarters, safe from the eyes of other tributes. He hadn't known why the stylists wanted them to be friendly then, and he didn't know now. He asked Portia, but she didn't know either.

He remember his father's observation that something good might come of the games, and he remembered Haymitch's recommendation to hope for and work for the outcome in which both he and Katniss lived happily ever after. He'd known then that Katniss was not in love with him, but at some point he'd lost track of reality and when Katniss found him in the stream he believed that they loved each other. Everything she did seemed to reinforce that belief. Why? Why had she done that? He remembers Haymitch trying to explain a games strategy and Katniss understanding the strategy idea in a way Peeta hadn't. Had Haymitch told her to pretend? Maybe he could ask Haymitch. Maybe not. Maybe. Maybe not. Whatever. Eventually the Games will force them together again and by then he'll know what to do and say. In the meantime he bakes and he paints.

Plutarch

One of the worst things about fomenting a revolution in Panem is getting around the districts to talk and plan with other rebels. In Panem you need a reason and permission to move from one district to another. As Gamesmaker Plutarch could manufacture reasons to travel, but Snow would eventually become suspicious of his need to visit the more unattractive districts like 12. Another difficulty is transportation. There are trains that move around the districts, but they are for freight, not travelers. Plutarch has no success finding a rebel amongst the rail workers but eventually he works out a system that requires more effort but is probably safer for everybody, though not at all comfortable for Plutarch, since he has to travel as potatoes or cooking oil or bauxite.

Though there are telephones in Panem, there is no reliable postal system. Generally only the wealthier people have phones, but there is one in the Hob near Greasy Sae's counter, and she likes answering it so much that it is unofficially her phone. When Plutarch wants to meet with Haymitch he leaves a message with Sae, a message that sounds real, but is in code, and from this message Haymitch can figure out the day and time and train car Plutarch will be on. When Plutarch goes to District 12 he travels in Peeta's art supplies – canvas, wood for framing, paints and brushes and turpentine – which is not the worst accomodation he puts up with for the cause.

They have to cover a lot of ground when Plutarch and Haymitch meet, so Haymitch has to go into detox a week before Plutarch's arrival. Plutarch suggests it would be easier to stay dry than to clean up every time he comes to District 12, but Haymitch ignores the hint.

"Jest tell me what ye came here for so's I can hep ye into that box a bauxite yer goin' to District 11 in."

They can't talk in Haymitch's house and Plutarch can't be seen in public so Haymitch smuggled Plutarch into another victor's house in a basement room that Haymitch soundproofed at night in one of his dry periods.

"Yes, alright. No helpful hints from Plutarch, even though I'm just thinking of your welfare. Well, here's where we stand: The tributes for the 75th Games are going to be drawn from the pool of victors."

"Jesuskrist!" Haymitch is a creative cusser, but this news calls for the worst in swear words. No one remembers exactly what this word means anymore, just that it's the worst thing you can say. "That the real 3rd quarter quell, or is it one a yer evil tricks?"

"I'm afraid it's one of my evil tricks. It's the only way we can coordinate the efforts of the other tributes to get Katniss and Peeta out."

"Yeah, I kin see thas so. Ye think we can git 'em both?"

"No, I think it's far more likely that we'll try for both and manage one. And we have a storm brewing with President Coin, because she wants to rescue Peeta rather than Katniss."

"Don't she know who is the Mockingjay?"

"No, I'm afraid she doesn't. She doesn't understand the concept. I'm afraid they're an awfully unemotional lot in District 13. Perhaps it's because they live so far underground and never see the outside and because there are so many rules – I don't know, but they don't seem to understand imagery at all."

"Ye lost me at she doesn't."

"Right, well she doesn't. I don't think I'll be able to persuade her alone, so we're probably going to have to get a number of rebels – Cinna and Finnick and Beetee and Johanna – together with her. It's her hovercraft and her soldiers, so obviously she has to believe in the mission."

"She give ye her reasons?'

"Not in so many words, but what it boils down to is that Katniss won't do what she's told, which is quite true, and which is part of what makes her the Mockingjay."

"Dam' fool. Pretty risky scheme to git a buncha us together to convince one ornery woman to see sense."

"We'll have to get together anyway so that everybody understands the plan exactly the same way. I'll keep working on her, though, but can you help me compile reasons why Katniss is the Mockingjay? You'd be better at this then I would because you've seen her with non-Capital people."

"Yeah, OK . . . ummmmm . . . "

"One is . . ?"

"District 12 – they give the salute to Katniss only. None a Effie's applause, jes the salute. 'Cause she goin agin the Capital by takin' over fer Prim."

"Two . . .?"

"District 11 – they sent her bread after Rue died. 'Cause she loved Rue like they was sisters. She grieved for Rue. Ain't sposed to grieve at the Hunger Games."

"Three . . .?"

"Uh – When she offered Peeta them poison berries. All her idea. She even had to talk him into it. He argued to stay and die. Give up too easy, he does."

"Four . . ."

"What she did with the berries kinda lit a fire under a whole lotta rebel butts. People seein' possibilities there."

"Five . . ."

"Well, what's a mockingjay annyway? It's a mutt what turned itself agin the Capital. And Katniss, when she want her way, she goes agin the Capital. And when she want her way it ain't never for herself – it's for Prim or Peeta or Rue or Gale 'n his famly.."

"Six . . ."

"Why am I doin yer work? If'n you don't know why she's the Mockingjay what are you headin' this rebellion for?"

"Because, my dear Haymitch, you have a poetical voice when you talk of Katniss and the rebellion, a voice that represents all the rebels, not specifically me. Coin can argue with me, but the rebels have the last word. Coin wants the rebellion to succeed, so it really does matter to her that we have an emblem of the rebellion that can, as you put it, light a fire under a "whole lotta rebel butts."

"Ye lost me at Haymitch. Les git outta here. I gotta pack yer butt in a box a bauxite. Oh – and don't ferget she shot at ye Gamesmakers at the training and then ye lot gave her that 12 like you was puttin' a big fat target on her. But she still won. Coin should love that."