[Now there's a question. The kind of question that he'd never been able to answer adequately, no matter what age he was. But at seventeen? At Katniss's age? Yeah, that was even harder.]

At first? Because I didn't know anything else. Because it was the only way I knew how to survive.

And now... because I'm too stubborn to give up fighting, and too good at fighting to die. And, to steal a phrase from my partner, I have too much red in my ledger to ever wipe it out, but damn if I'm not going to make a dent in it before I die.

I got a chance to redeem myself. I can't just turn my back on that. It'd be a disservice to the people who saw something better in me.