In the silver light after a storm,

Under dripping boughs of bright new green,

I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks

Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.

What have I to fear in life or death

Who have known three things: the kiss in the night,

The white flying joy when a song is born,

And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.

- Meadowlarks, Sara Teasdale

Prologue

The water runs over me in warm tendrils like whispering fingers caressing me, my neck and back and breasts, and I am insensible to everything except the one thought. It has taken over my conscious mind and - whenever I do give a thought to the shower I stand in - it is only to become even more keenly aware of the almost-erotic aspect of it; how it massages and drenches, how it lashes and tickles me.

When I turn off the water, the sensation itself only thickens around me. I stand in steam as if I was wrapped in someone else's breath. All I am aware of is how badly, how so very badly, I don't want to be alone right now. For a long time, I hesitate. So long I think - I hope - he might actually be asleep before I come out, safely wrapped in loose, unattractive gym clothes. My hair in wet rat tails around my face. Secure in the knowledge that, although my body betrays me tonight, HE won't.

He's not asleep, not even lying down. He has not removed the prosthetic, yet, but is just sitting on the edge of the bed, back turned to me, looking down at his lap as if lost in meditation. He's in his underwear - of course he is, and that's my fault. I commanded him to stay in my room, afraid that once we were separated, the Capitol would lock our doors shut and keep us that way. So, he had nothing to change into. The faint odor of the evening clings to him, mingling with the lavender soap - the sweet, soft, somewhat buttery smell of the glittery skin cream; the hard, desperate smell of sweat. Like me, his muscles have been sculpted by the spring of training, and the white undershirt stretches so finely across his back and broad shoulders that it is rendered nearly transparent.

I ache with resentment of him. Not this life-and-death pact between us - that's old news; but the fact that he so easily disrupts my peace of mind. And of body, too.

"So, this is it," I say, as lightly as I can manage, and he stirs, turning to look at me, an unexpressed sigh on his face.

"Just about," he agrees. He eases himself onto the bed and lies back against his pillow, crossing his arms against his chest. He smiles at me.

I wriggle my way in next to him, delicately careful not to touch an inch of him. Eventually, it will happen. In the night, I will wake or he will wake and we will seek each other's arms. Of the handful of nights that we've spent together, it has happened more often than not that I will wake up deep in his arms, face pressed against his chest, with no memory of how it came to be. But for now ….

He softly commands the lights to dim, and the night settles in around us. I wonder why he hasn't taken off his prosthetic - I suspect that, despite my objections, he plans to go to his room to change as soon as I'm safely asleep. Hmmm. Sleep will be difficult tonight. Tomorrow, we go into the arena, and my brain explodes with formless thoughts - what structure the arena will take, what weapons will be available. Who - among the tributes, so united in dissent tonight - will turn first? How will I know? Or should I turn Career and just start killing people as soon as the game begins?

I shiver, and Peeta senses the movement; I can feel his eyes looking at me in the darkness. "What?"

"Nothing," I say, not able to completely keep the tremor out of my voice. "Just thinking - about tomorrow, and …. everything."

He stirs. "Look, I am sorry - about tonight. Not for what I said, but that I didn't get a chance to warn you. I didn't know what I was going to say, until it was too late to talk to you … it was when I saw you in that dress, and you said that Snow had ordered Cinna to put you in it. I just thought - what if they had really made us go through with it - a Capitol wedding? How fake that would have felt. I mean, I know it would have been fake - but it would have also felt so … unreal. And then everything kind of came to me at once."

"You don't have to apologize. I meant what I said before. Really, the only thing that bothers me is giving them - leeway - to think about - my … personal life." I cringe all the way through that sentence, and the word "sex" evades me. Thank goodness it's too dark for him to see me blush. He called me "pure," and that still rankles; I don't know why, exactly.

"Yea-ah," he agrees slowly. "But the problem with fame - and with this game we've been playing - is that - they've probably already been thinking about it."

"Oh. I guess that's true."

"I just wanted them to feel something about it this time," he adds, with a quiet intensity.

There's something different about his voice - something raw and genuine. During all the conversations we've had this year - dark though the circumstances were - he was always light and comforting, as if he existed only to improve my mood. Here, at last, is the real boy, speaking out his anger. And my instinct is to soothe his mood, now. "You're good at that," I say. "At - at moving people."

"I guess so," he says, and again I am surprised by his voice - there's a little resentment in it, sorrow. "Though not for the best reasons."

I blink. "What do you mean?"

He sighs. "It's funny how separation makes you start to see things more clearly. Just - my mother. Her moods were always sporadic and unpredictable. For as long as I can remember - I've had to deal with that. To be a different person every day, if necessary, to deal with whomever she was on that day. To try to wheedle her into a better mood."

"I can't even imagine," I say soothingly, thinking of the things he generously doesn't even say - of soft bruises and hard words.

He laughs shortly. "Because you've never had to … you're so blunt. You say what you mean or nothing at all. I'd love to be able to do that. I guess that's what made it so easy - so easy to believe you in the arena."

I squirm.

"It's OK, Katniss," he adds. "I'm forever grateful to you - or for as long as I'm allowed, anyway. Come here." He suddenly unfolds his arms and I move into him, my head resting on his left arm while his right settles softly, delicately around my waist. "You outwitted even Haymitch. He was pretty sure you wouldn't be able to act that well."

I have to concentrate on keeping my breath steady as the heat of his words wafts against my temple. I wonder what is going on in his head - does he remember those arena kisses as a distant event from a regrettable time? A pleasant memory colored with regret? A constant source of frustration - endlessly replayed in a loop … if I had only kissed her sooner, longer, more convincingly …?

The tip of my tongue lightly traces the outline of my own lips. Where they are usually chapped, they have been made smooth by the week's-worth of lotions and balms. Where I expected to find them dry, they are unexpectedly damp. I realize, all of a sudden, that I am at a crossroads. That what happens tonight goes one of two ways, and I am the one who … wait, wait - what am I even thinking?

"I'm not that good an actor," I reply, after a too-long pause. "I'm just better at hiding things than giving them away. In the arena I just … I was taking my cues from you." I move my head slightly, and my lips are tickled by the delicate fuzzy tips of his arm hair. I don't know if I'm imagining the slight contraction of his arm muscles.

"Oh," he says lightly. "I felt like it was the other way around. In those life-and-death situations, I guess it can be difficult to tell."

I let my lips purse against his skin in the lightest-possible of all kisses: an innocent gesture, really - my sympathy and my regret. But innocent only if I follow up with an innocent speech. It is on my tongue - my enduring thanks for his patience with me, his assistance, something to make him understand that he is worth the sacrifice I intend to make for him. And then good-night. A dignified way to end the evening.

But instead I follow the other path: "Is it hard - for you?" I ask him, my voice sounding deep in my throat.

"Is what hard? Preparing to die in the arena again? Preparing to make sure that you don't?"

I shake my head. "No, I know all that. I mean - this. Lying with me; just lying. Is it hard for you?"

Now I know I don't imagine it - the sudden stillness of his muscles. "Hard?" he asks. "It's the easiest thing in the world, Katniss. Do you - don't you trust me?"

Again I kiss his arm, but with more deliberation this time. I have him, I think with a strange spike of excitement. It's not just that I want him - it's also that I know he wants me, too, and that he turns on my words, and we both know it. "With my life," I tell him. "But it's hard for me. Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

I crook my head up to face him and his arms around me give way, loosen. I am unbound, free to go. But not really. I look up into his eyes and in the darkness I can see the intensity of his stare. "Sometimes. Especially now - tonight. All the things that remain - undone."

He gives a small smile. "I know sometimes it feels like tomorrow can't come," he says, misunderstanding me - deliberately, I think. "It feels like this is the end - there is nothing in front of us but the blankness on the other side of the precipice. But tomorrow will come, and for you, Katniss, so many tomorrows."

"You don't know that. This could be the last chance - for everything. You don't know."

"Yes, I do," he says. He bends toward me to plant a kiss on my forehead. I'm sure he means it as a simple embrace, the closer to the conversation. But he can't quite remove himself - he lingers, his chin resting against my hairline. I can feel his chest move - deep - shallow - deep.

"Peeta," I breathe into the hollow of his neck.

I lift my chin and his mouth is suddenly on my mouth. There is nothing new - the familiar soft press of his lips against my wet lips. Until there is. He moves over me and his mouth guides mine open … and instead of recoiling - I like it, his tongue curling against my tongue, his mouth moving as if I am a creature he is devouring, eating and drinking all at once. My mouth makes a sound I did not plan and my arms go around his neck, pulling him closer in. So: this is true hunger, the kind that cannot be easily satiated. The longer his mouth ravishes my mouth, the more I need to be ravished. I am emptied instead of filled - I am hollowed, vacant - I am heartless, soulless. In the emptiness at my core, it hurts and hurts until hurt becomes pleasure, and then it spreads, from its birthplace in the hollow of my chest, tingling along my arms and down to my toes. And still I am hungry.

He lies fully over me and then the ache becomes quite centralized and screamingly intense. I find myself answering his kisses now, my mouth finding a rhythm against his and a soft keening passing from my lips to his - like the newborn cry of a child, demanding and impatient. My fingers pluck the soft tight material of his undershirt at the base of his neck.

His hand wedges down in the space between us - it cups my breast over the heavy tee and I gasp against his mouth.

He parts from me and peers into my face. But my gasp wasn't meant to stop him, and he can clearly see it in my face. And now that I can see his face, I see that it has completely changed. If I am the spirit of hunger, he is its body - every inch of his expression reflects my craving. Wordless, staring at me - breaths heavy - he removes his hand only to slide it under my shirt. It is warm and his fingers are strong. I can feel every ridge of his fingerprints against my flesh. They press their pattern lightly against the sensitive skin of my breast, his palm brushes against my nipple. I cry out.

"You want me," he says, his eyes widening in surprise.

I want to tell him - it's not just about tonight. If there was going to be a tomorrow and another tomorrow and another - if I could somehow describe how this feeling, how this thing between us, has its origins in a cave, on a rooftop, in a chariot, on a rainy day with my life unspooling like a thread... But "yes," is all I can say. "Yes, Peeta."

And he kisses me until there is nothing in the world but the sound of my breath, of my cries for him, as my eyes grow dark and the room dissolves under his fingers.