It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly.

i. Five

We are lying outside on the grass, Peeta and I, our hands clasped between us. It is a cloudless night, so the stars are unusually bright. Peeta smells like the cheese bread he brought home for me. I turn my gaze from the cold and distant stars to my very warm and very near love, and I find that he is already looking at me. We smile at each other. I feel his hand tighten in mine.

"Did you make any wishes?" he asks, glancing up at the sky. When I look confused, he goes on, "My father once told me about an ancient custom of wishing on a star. It became a bedtime ritual for us after that – until I grew up, anyway. He would tuck my blanket around me and ask me which star I had chosen, and I would point out the window. He would pretend to know exactly which one I meant. 'Ah, yes, what a good choice!' he would say. And then I would whisper my wish in his ear."

Wanting to be next to him, I shuffle my body ungracefully over the short distance between us until my head is on Peeta's chest. "What did you wish for?" I ask.

He answers with a quiet laugh. "Most of the time, I wished for what you might expect a little boy to want. But sometimes I would wish for the Games to end before I was old enough to be in the drawing. Sometimes I would wish for my parents to be happy. Sometimes…" He stops and laughs again.

"What?" I prod.

"Sometimes I'd wish that you would talk to me the next day at school."

"You did not," I grin, rolling my eyes.

"I did," he says softly. "I really did."

I reach up to touch his cheek. "It sounds like none of your wishes came true."

"None of the ones that mattered, no," he says, and I hear the forced lightness in his tone. "I guess I never picked the right star."

I stretch my arm across him to hug him closer. "Well, tonight you'll pick the right one. Point to one and tell me your wish, and I'll make sure it comes true."

"What if I wish that you would bake me a five-tiered cake covered with edible flowers?"

"It has to be something I can actually do!" I laugh, slapping his chest.

"Okay," he says. He pulls us both to our feet, takes my hand in his, and points up at the sky. "You see that really bright one right above us?"

The one he means is unmistakable. "Yes," I reply. "Now tell me your wish."

He lowers our hands and draws my body up against his. "I wish you would marry me," he whispers, his lips soft against the shell of my ear.

Not this. He knows it can't be this. I step back from him, tugging my hand away from his. Three years ago he asked me to marry him, and I told him I couldn't. I couldn't explain why then, and I still can't. Something in me fears, even hates, the idea. Peeta knows all this. I thought he understood.

"Why did it have to be that?" I ask him angrily. "You know I would gladly give you anything – anything but that."

He puts his hands in his pockets. "That's my wish," he says. "There's no law that says you have to grant it." He looks towards our house, then back at me. "I'm going in," he says, and he does.

I cross my arms and close my stinging eyes, though that doesn't stop a few tears from creeping down my cheeks.

I can't.

Why can't you?

Until I answer this question, really and truly answer it, then I have no good reason to refuse Peeta. I love him fiercely and completely. I want to be with him for the rest of my life. Why, then, can't I bear the idea of toasting a piece of bread with him?

I stay outside alone for a long time before I return to the house. Peeta is already in bed, his breaths deep and even. When I slide in beside him, I lay my head on his shoulder and hold him close, the way I've done for over five years.

"Are you awake?" I whisper.

"Yes," he says. He opens his eyes to meet mine. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay. I just need to talk to you."

"Listen… earlier, that was wrong and unfair of me. I know how you feel about marriage, and I shouldn't have ruined your very sweet gesture by asking for something I know you can't give. I'm really sorry."

I sit up and wrap my arms around my knees. "You didn't do anything wrong, Peeta. I asked for your wish, and you answered honestly." I take a deep breath. "Let me try to explain why I can't marry you. Why I shouldn't marry you, really." Silence hangs between us; he is waiting for me to continue. I can't bear to turn and face him as I go into what will probably be a garbled excuse for an explanation. "I love you so much that it makes my heart ache sometimes. And it aches because… while I want to be with you always, I can't help thinking that you won't always want the same. I keep thinking – fearing – almost even hoping, sometimes – that you'll fall in love with someone who can give you everything you want and deserve. A woman who…" My voice catches in my throat, and I take a moment to swallow and bring myself back under control. "A woman who will give you children."

"Stop," he says.

"No, you have to understand-"

"I do, Katniss." He pulls me down to him and kisses me gently. "I do understand."

"You're the only man I want, the only man I'll ever, ever want. But I love you too much to marry you." I am crying now, my face buried in his neck.

For some time, his hands move soothingly over my back, occasionally running through my hair. I feel myself relaxing into the safe, familiar comfort of his body.

"Katniss," he says gently. He waits until I lift my head, and then he holds my face in his hands, stroking my cheeks with this thumbs. His eyes wander over my face for a moment before locking onto mine. "I do want children. I want them more than almost anything else."

"See?" I murmur. "That's why-"

"Almost anything else. I don't want them more than I want you. And the only children I would want are your children. Our children. So if I can't have children with you, I don't want them at all." He draws my face slightly closer to his. "And if I can't have you, Katniss, there's nothing that could ever make me happy again. Not all the children in the world."

Oh, Peeta and his maddeningly unfair way with words. I find myself crying again, but the tears are happy ones. "Peeta…" I say, trying to put sensible words together. That's a lost cause, so instead, I pour everything I'm thinking and feeling into a kiss. We are both breathless when it ends.

He smiles up at me, and his eyes are shining, too. "Please say you'll marry me," he says.

"I will, but only because I love you."

Peeta turns his head to the window. "Finally, I picked the right one," he laughs. "Maybe the odds are finally in my favor."

I turn his head back to mine because I want more of his kisses. "We've beaten the odds so many times," I say, trailing my lips from his mouth to his neck, "it doesn't even matter whether they're in our favor or not."

Hope you enjoyed. This will have two more parts, as the title suggests. =)