His eyebrows cock with interest at her question. Is he afraid that she'll get him killed? It's a fair question in her mind, he's sure. If she feels like all she leaves in her wake is destruction, it makes sense to ask that and Derek should know. He feels like that, too.

Then, he shakes his head a little, his forehead still against hers. "I'm not afraid of anything worth letting my life stop over anymore," he whispers back. And he supposes that if he wants to prove that, he ought to make his actions match his words.

Derek leans in a little and his lips brush against Katniss's, chaste and soft and he pulls back, not much, but enough to give her space. Derek is afraid of being a failure. He's afraid of getting the people he cares about killed. He's afraid of going to sleep alone. But life goes on and Derek's gotten to the point in it that if he just keeps holding back and stunting himself from every trying to grow, he's realized that he'll never get past it. And maybe he never will, anyway, but at least he can say he tried. "I'm not afraid of you, Katniss. Stop being afraid of me."