#mj analysis

In MJ2, the first thing she wants to do after getting her neck brace taken off is to see Peeta, to talk to him. She wants to try to reason to him, to comfort him, to make him unafraid. She needs to see that he’s okay. 

So goes to see him, touches the pane of glass longingly, desperate to be near him. She sees how lost he is, then goes to Coin and demands to be sent to the Capitol. She wants to go out guns a’blazing to avenge her lost love. 

She can barely look at the pearl in the hospital ward. The thing she used to carry with her, day and night, the talisman that represents Peeta’s love for her, and she can’t bear to even look at it. 

She goes to him. She almost loses her shit talking to him. The way she tells him that he was kind. The way her voice breaks? Yeah. She’s totally indifferent. Then he rips her heart into shreds by telling her she’d been better off dead, that he wishes he hadn’t been kind, basically, or ever loved her. That his life would have been better off without her. Or that he’d rather be dead himself than have the life he was given. She hears that and decides she’s gonna kill Snow. She’s gonna shoot that motherfucker down. Again, totally indifferent to Peeta, right? You know. I often decide to go on suicide missions to kill evil overlords for boys I don’t love, too. 

And then Peeta shows up in the Star Squad. She pulls her bow, thinking this is the moment I have to kill him. But no. He tries to make friends with her again… he asks her what her favorite color is, just like he did on the train. And then she offers a string of information he didn’t ask for, tears welling in her eyes as she speaks the words. She walks away, knowing she could never kill him. He could strangle her, and she wouldn’t try to kill him. 

She hears him muttering the things she’s told him as he tries not to mutt out. She realizes he’s still in there, fighting to get back to her. And from that point out she never stops fighting for the lost boy with the bread. 

In the sewers she wants to tell him why they protect each other. But she can barely look at him. He’s crying and broken and lost and so sad, and she’s been rejected, and his pain is hers. But nope. Not love. Not at all. 

Then they fight together in the sewers against the mutts. They instinctively have each other’s backs. There’s no doubt they are a team. In the midst of all the chaos, of all the members of her squad battling the mutts, she only looks for him. It’s like he’s the only other person in the room.  

They make it through the meat grinder, and he’s burying his face in the ground. He’s crying and begging him to leave her. He’s a mutt. He’s a mutt. She throws her bow to the ground… her means of protection, and she turns him around. He’s so much stronger than she is. His handcuffs are broken. He could kill her with his bare hands. And she kisses him. She begs him to stay with her. She can’t afford to lose him, and she would rather die than be without him. That’s not love. Nope. Not even a little.   

Then they get to the cellar. His voice reaches hers when no one else’s can. 

Gale’s bleeding out by the neck. He needs stitches. But do you know what Katniss is doing? She’s cleaning Peeta’s wrists. Again, he could kill her. He says he’s not fully in control. She rubs his shoulder comfortingly. He can barely look at her, he seems so ashamed but also desperate for her. She cuffs him. And neither one of them can sleep.

She listens to him talk to Gale. Gale. Her supposed best friend. Who doesn’t even know her well enough to know that she would never have forgiven him if he had volunteered in Peeta’s place for the 74th Games. But Peeta, even hijacked, is clear-sighted enough to see that. She listens to Gale say that she will choose whoever she can’t survive without. 

The next morning she makes her choice. She tells Peeta to go with Cressida and Pollux because she can’t lose him again. And she takes Gale with her on her suicide mission. Gale can die alongside her, but Peeta has to live. Yeahhhhh. She doesn’t like him even a little bit. 

Things go from bad to shit storm. Her life falls apart. She finds herself alone in District 12. She goes through the motions. Looks out into a field washed in every shade of green and orange. As she walks back through the gate of the Victor’s Village, she sees him. He’s kneeling on the ground, digging in the dirt. 

She runs toward him, breathless, and says, “You came home.” He’s almost bashful. The words don’t come easily for him. He explains to her what he’s doing, and she throws herself into his arms, burying her face in his neck. He apologizes, and he’s just said the word “primrose,” but Katniss Everdeen is smiling with a look of pure relief on her face. Because the boy she doesn’t love just came back to her. 

They’re making dinner in the kitchen, and he’s talking about babies from some dang letter from Annie, and she’s looking at him like he’s the sun and the stars. She soaks in the sight of him. How whole he is, how healthy. She looks at him and thinks that she has found her peace.

She watches him as they sit in the doorway. He’s lost in thought, looking out at the rain, and she’s smiling at how peaceful he is. She’s thinking how, even after all the horror, he’s still the boy who sits by the window thinking about life. He looks peaceful and happy, and she’s so content with him she realizes that now there is a way she can afford to think. 

So she goes to him. She climbs out of her bed and pads silently down the hall. She climbs into his bed, under his covers, and curls up against him. When he finds his voice he sounds a little unsure but also like he knows. He asks her, “You love me. Real or not Real?” She tells him “real,” burrowing into him and placing her hand over his. They fall asleep in each other’s arms. 

The next time we see them he is the father of her children. The children she said she was never going to have. They’ve had a picnic, and he’s playing with their son. Laughing and blowing dandelion seeds. He looks at her, never breaking his gaze until their son launches into his arms. She smiles at their baby in her arms, at her family before her. And she smiles. Completely at peace and impossibly in love.