Real or Not Real

Chapter 1

dillpickle37  this ones for you.

Her steel gray eyes stare out the window and watch as the rain drops leave a trail on the glass. When she turns back to face Dr. Aurelias, she has forgotten the question he asked.

"Katniss," her far off gaze, settles on him. He finds that her stare is one that makes him uncomfortable, he can't be under her gaze for too long. Maybe it's because she holds so many secrets that she won't share. "Did you hear my question?"

Katniss shakes her head and returns her gaze to the window, the trees that sway back and forth outside. Free. What's that like to be free? She can't remember.

"I asked if you've been getting much sleep lately." He tells her and she scoffs.

Sleep. That's something that can come so easily for others, but for her it's like a living nightmare. Before the games she had nightmares of her father dying and not being able to provide food for Prim, after the games she dreamed of mutts and President Snow killing her, but now, now her dreams are about him. About a life without him.

Dr. Aurelias doesn't press her for answers, but instead scribbles a note in his notebook. What does he write in there, that she can't know?

"No, I've already told you that I don't sleep." She replies with anger. Why does he always ask the same questions over and over again.

"Okay," he says softly. She continues to stare out the window and watches as the rain comes to a stop, but the water droplets still hang on the window. She knows they'll disappear sooner or later, just like everything else. "Tell me about your other life." His speech slows down on the last two words, and she knows it's because he doesn't believe what she tells him.

"I've told you and you never believe me. What's the point?" She tells him and rings her hands together in her lap.

"It's my job, now why don't you tell me again?" He asks politely.

Sighing she looks into her lap, at the pearl that rests on her finger. The pearl Peeta gave her, when they were in the quarter quell. "When I'm awake, I'm here with my daughter. But when I close my eyes at night and reopen them, I'm with Peeta."

He nods his head and she can see he doesn't believe her. "Two separate lives that never cross paths." She can hear his pen scribbling once again. "So you can't tell if you're asleep or awake right now." She shakes her head and understands just how insane she sounds right now. She looks down at her wrist, at the red knotted bracelet that lies around it. It means many things, it means living in the Victors Village with Haymitch and her daughter Rose, it means hunting with Gale to pass the time, it means Prim is still alive, but it doesn't mean Peeta.

"When did this start?"

Katniss thinks back, even though she usually tries not to. In both realities, she can't remember how it started or when it started, only that it did. And that some say she is mentally crazy. She can remember the star squad and Bogs handing the holo over to her. She can even remember leading the group into the underground tunnels, which is where she lost so many of them. So many that she loved.

Peeta had begged her to stay in district thirteen, but she refused. President Coin was railroading her into going, and she knew that if she didn't, her family would pay. Bogs was skeptical about letting an eight month pregnant girl come, but I think he knew the consequences if he didn't. They weren't suppose to go into real danger, it was all for the camera. But of course, someone had a different plan, and it changed everything.