The snow lands lightly, carefully on Katniss' dark hair. She throws back her head, spinning around as if she has music to dance to. Her eyes flicker with Rue, Prim, Finnick, and Gale. All the people she has lost or left. I suspect mine do the same.

Her lips turn up into a sharp smile, an odd sight against her sooty skin. Her braid whips back and forth, the flyaway wisps framing her slim face.

My eyes follow her as she continues to dance and prance and fall in the meadow. Her feet, clad in her worn hunting boots, move effortlessly across the icy grass.

"Peeta," she mutters, reaching out and grabbing a fistful of my cotton winter coat. I stumble to my feet, confused by her cheerful attitude. Katniss Everdeen hates dancing.

Katniss spins me around quickly and pauses, her chest heaving up and down with silent breaths that swirl upward into the air like a column of smoke from the fireplace. Her hands come to rest on my chest and she just stares for a moment, blinking the frost off of her eyelashes. I let her stare; too scared to move and break the serenity she seems to have. I can see the faded white scars peeking out from under her sweater. They line her entire neck and travel farther down her back than she lives to reveal. I know some of them are from the games and the war. I also know that she inflicted some herself in the years after, as she struggled to feel something.

Katniss' fingernails catch on the twists of cotton in my coat as I finally lift my eyes away from the scars that make her Katniss Everdeen. She is beautiful, and kind, and brave. She thinks that I cannot love her as fully since she is marked by her past. She forgets that I was there through it all, feeling pain just as she did. I love her more for that. Her faults and her marks and her dents are the only thing that set her apart from all the other girls that sat in my class at school in this very District so many years ago. They all had long, shining hair and bright eyes. They all had curves and full lips and a nice laugh. Katniss Everdeen had sharp gray eyes, ones that saw every movement and caught every sound. She was damaged and that made her complete.

"It's December 24th," she says suddenly, finally looking me in the eye. Her eyes don't look so worried now. Instead they hold a dash of hope. She would look so very cute in a Santa hat.

"We should head to the bakery tonight," I say, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Buy some bread so we can celebrate."

She doesn't answer. Katniss presses her lips together into a hard line, and I know just from having looked at her features for fifteen years, that she eagerly wants to say something.

"What do you want for Christmas, Peeta?" she blurts, and the relief in her eyes is evident.

I know my answer immediately. The question is, am I wise to speak it aloud? I know what I most desire is a touchy subject for Katniss, but if she truly wants to know, I have no right to keep it from her. I bite my lip, drawing blood, and clench my fists together.

"A child," I say, and my words are carried into the snow. I can hear it echoing off the trees and suddenly the bounce in Katniss' step simply isn't there. The mood and the dancing is gone. I take a step back, stumbling, my breaths coming faster. This isn't what I want, to make her angry.

But her grip stays firm and I am pulled back into a standing position.

I can see her fighting for breath, trying, trying, trying to think of a response. Her lips open and her teeth chatter together as if the temperature has just dropped.

I can see the fear in her eyes and the discomfort at having to discuss this. So it comes as a shock when she presses her lips to mine and mutters, "me too."