Disclaimer: The Hunger Games series belongs to Suzanne Collins

-Of Puzzles and Pieces-

She's in pieces when he finds her. And it's the shattered pieces of her that litter the forest floor like the leaves that fall during autumn. She's nothing if not beautiful even when she's laying in an almost artistically broken way.

He never wants to let her go when he makes it to her side.

Her spirit has been taken apart, and her body has been damaged. She's in pieces like he'd hope he'd never have to see her in. But she's still there, in a way. And he decides that he will pick up the pieces. He will make her whole again.

So he's picking up the broken bits of her as gently as he can regardless of the cuts inflicted to his own hands, and begins the backbreaking, finger-twisting task of putting her back together.

She's unwell. She doesn't know she's not whole anymore. She will not accept the help. She insists that she is fine.

But he knows better, and he knows that some things have to heal on their own. He's always there to glue the jigsaw puzzle together, even when she staunchly tells him that there are no pieces to put together. He knows what his eyes see. He knows what his ears hear. He believes what his heart pumps like a cadence, only for her.

She's getting better. She's acknowledging his existence. He's not really sure how he feels about how she feels about him now.

Some things will never be the same. Because despite his careful ways of picking up all the pieces that made her up she had shut away a part of herself or given away a part of her to the boy who made bread. And no matter how hard he tried he would never get that piece of her back.

She's cautious. Like a caged animal that is coming out of a cage it has been held in for too long. Her cage is how far apart she's fallen.

He doesn't even know exactly who she is anymore. He knows that he sees her healthy and moving and hunting. But he feels like she's not quite the same.

Her hand slips into his one day in the forest. Her palms are dry and calloused, but he doesn't ever want to let her hands go. They stay like that. Sitting in a tree holding hands while the mockingjays echoing stray melodies in the sky with predators roaming and flesh-eaters hungering below on the forest floor.

He feels like a part of him has returned. His own heart is whole again. That missing pieces has fallen into place.

And then she's leaning closer to him and laying her head on his shoulder. She turns her head and places a kiss on his pulse like a promise, and they sit in the tree together to watch the sun set and the moon rise and the world fall into place.