Thank you all for the ongoing support and I hope this lives up to the expectations.

Part II

Yeah, we both carry baggage

We picked up on our way

So if you love me, do it gently

And I will do the same

-Thompson Square, Glass

When I was younger, back before I came to appreciate the beauty of autumn, winter was my favorite season. When the storms came barreling through, dropping feet of snow along the Appalachian Mountains, school would cancel because the county roads would be slathered in thick sheets of ice, and snow would blanket the entire region. Our town was always extraordinarily blessed in terms of school cancellations. We only had a small elementary school before our students were shipped on buses to a regional middle and high school, and when the snow fell our teachers tended to turn a blind eye to the fact that every single kid that attended Miner Falls Elementary could walk there, and instead when the older kids stayed home we did as well.

Eventually, I grew out of snowball fights and war zones created in the streets. It was around the time that my mother insisted that Rye, Leaven, and I stick the plow on the front of the truck and dig out the roads, which wouldn't be done by the state. It took most of the day to go out and fix the roads, clearing out driveways, and – because we never listened to our mother – Rye insisted we would extend into the areas near the old mine, where the poorest of the poor lived. Our mother never knew, or she just didn't tell us if she did, and adding that section of town to our route added that much more work. By the time we got back, I almost always missed out on the snowball fights.

When I park my truck in front of the Abernathy-Everdeen abode, I realize I missed the snowball fight here too. Or, more accurately, it never even started.

Prim and Rory are building a snowman in the front yard, although Frosty has seen better days. It looks like the two high school sophomores have miscalculated the size of the three individual body balls and the bottom is too big to be proportional to the rest. But, if I know anything about Prim it's that she won't care and she'll see this as the best looking snowman this side of the city.

I hop out of my truck and walk over. Prim looks up from rolling the head and ditches Rory to greet me, her friend trying to get the sticky middle snowball on the body without breaking it.

Prim wraps her arms around me and I chuckle at her attire. We've got maybe half a foot on the ground, but she's decked head to toe. She's got on one of those puffy jackets in an abnormally bright purple with a pair of ski pants and heavy winter boots. Her hands are covered with mittens and she's got not only a hat but a matching scarf wrapped right over her mouth and nose so I can only see her blue eyes and her braids sticking out. I have no doubt in my mind that this is Haymitch's idea, considering Rory's standing by the snowman in jeans and a coat, with mittens and a hat but nothing to the extent of Prim's getup.

"You look like a purple marshmallow," I chuckle.

Prim rolls her eyes and pushes her scarf down so she can talk. "Haymitch doesn't want me to get sick."

She doesn't say why because it doesn't need to be said. Haymitch doesn't want Prim to get sick because if Prim gets sick Katniss will get sick and the last thing Katniss needs when she gets back to campus at the beginning of next week is to be hacking with a cough or burning with fever. She just got over something – the doctors seem to think it was a mild case of a strain of the flu that wasn't used to make this season's flu shots, which Katniss received immediately after they were made available. I haven't seen her since she's been recovering. Not only has the bakery been busy, but we all decided it would be in Katniss's best interest if she just rested until she was well again.

And, she's well now, so obviously I came running.

The door to their house opens and I look over Prim's head to see Katniss standing in the doorway. I go to sidestep Prim and make my way toward her, but before I can move, Katniss surprises me by walking out of the house and then, as if she can't stand it another second, starts running toward me. It all happens so fast, I don't even register it until after she's leaped into my arms and we've fallen backwards onto the ground, Katniss draped on top of me like a blanket.

"Man down!" Rory yells. Prim giggles.

Katniss presses her lips to mine in a chaste kiss. I tug on her braid and she shivers. She's not dressed for this weather. "What was that?" I ask.

She grins despite her teeth chattering. "It's been a long time."

"Then you can't give me a halfhearted kiss," I joke.

She takes that as an invitation to dip her head down to mine again, capturing my lips and making us both forget about the cold. The fire rages just below my skin, my heart beating one too many times every second. I wrap my hand around her neck, warming my bare fingers in the base of her hair, and she snakes her own under my hat. Her mouth becomes my own personal furnace, keeping me warm and burning despite the chill.

"Sweetheart, get in this house or put a goddamn coat on," Haymitch yells. Katniss looks up, breaking away from me to glare at her guardian. He raises his arms in exasperation. "And I don't want to see that in my front yard!"

Katniss rolls her eyes and stands up. I jump to my feet beside her and she tucks her arm through the crook of mine. She pulls us along toward the house, blatantly ignoring Prim's continuous giggling and Rory's wolf whistles. She drags me into the house and passed Haymitch, pulling me into the living room so we can sit on the couch.

She kicks off her dark brown UGGs and tucks her feet up under her. This action makes me admire her outfit. There's nothing really unusual about it. Katniss has never been particularly girly and chooses her clothes more for comfort than anything else, which means she lives in jeans and leggings and shirts that cover her scars. Today is no exception. She has on a pair of leggings with warm wool socks on her feet and the neckline of the black long-sleeved t-shirt goes right up to trace her neck. However, there is something different about what she's wearing over her black shirt and that's what I recognize more than any of the other bits. The unbuttoned flannel shirt that she's wearing is mine.

I was wondering where that went.

"I like your shirt," I say, taking a handful of the fabric in my hand. "When did you steal it?"

She smiles and looks up. I can hear Haymitch in the kitchen, which means he can hear us too even though there's a wall between us. Haymitch likes me and I don't particularly care to ruin that. He tries to give us privacy, but he has rules. No going to hang out upstairs alone. No kissing in front of him. (Although, I think he knows Katniss sleeps in my bed at school. Prim knows and I just can't see her being able to keep her mouth shut. But, he doesn't say anything about that so maybe he's trying to be in denial.) I understand the rules completely. He's trying to protect Katniss from the one thing he can protect her from – getting hurt by me, even though I'd never in a million years do it on purpose. But, years of watching her suffer from things he has no control over have made him cautious with everything she does.

And, of course, Katniss just wouldn't be Katniss if she actually listened to Haymitch.

She smirks and crawls across the couch to sit on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I took it during finals," she says, craning her head so she can kiss the underside of my jaw. "I didn't think you'd mind."

I shrug. "It looks better on you anyway."

She chews on her bottom lip as she smiles. "So," she says. "What do you want to do?"

There is a pile of forgotten board games in the corner of the room, no doubt Haymitch's attempts to keep both Katniss and Prim occupied on something other than the boy they're hanging out with. But, Prim's fine. I believe her when she says that she and Rory are just friends. And I think Haymitch does too. He's really worried about his little evil mastermind, Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss pulls my head down and starts to kiss me.

I guess he's worried about her for good reason. This is the girl that he's watched nearly die three times, two of those times as her legal guardian. Their family might have a different structure than most, but Haymitch plays the part of the doting father well. When Katniss and I first started dating he strategically placed his bows around the house and his prized hunting rifle was on display in the den.

He certainly made his point. He can send me to death with a snap of his fingers.

However, I completely forget about Haymitch when Katniss decides she wants to attempt to touch my tonsils.

My friends have asked me more times than they should about how I've developed such good patience. They don't understand how I could be with Katniss for a year and a half – having known her for years before – and not slept with her yet. I'll admit that I haven't kept the purest thoughts nor am I completely content with the pace of our relationship. I'm almost twenty and have hormones that make me crazy, but I understand that everything with Katniss takes time. It took me months to become friends with her, over a year for her to date me, and this is an even bigger step. And, if I'm being completely honest, as much as I'm bursting with anticipation, I'm scared because I don't want to hurt her and I know I will. I don't need to be a biology major to know that what we're building toward won't be particularly pleasant for Katniss.

I like where we are now. It's safe. We know exactly what we're doing. And, no, Dalton, it's not monotonous because I feel like I'm rediscovering every inch of Katniss all over again each time we do this.

Katniss moves her hands from my hair and puts them back on my body near my abdomen, snaking her hands up under my shirt. The fact that Haymitch is in the next room is both exhilarating and terrifying, knowing that any second now he could walk in and shoot me right in the eye if he wanted. But, the hunger in my stomach overcomes all of that and my hands, which are resting on Katniss's hips, slip under her shirt so I can feel the burning skin of her back.

I lose all track of time, but when we pull apart I feel like I've run a marathon and probably sound like it too. Katniss's cheeks are red and her pupils are dilated as she rests her forehead against mine.

"I missed you," she says.

The goofy grin that spreads over my face can't be helped. My hand reaches forward to rest on her cheek. "I love you."

She smiles. "I love you too."

"Yeah?" I ask, raising my eyebrows in mock surprise.

She nods her head against mine and her mouth forms the word, "yeah," but no words escape her lips. The smile on her face only brightens.

Portia pulls me aside on Thursday and asks me if I'd be interested in trying something new once a week. I tried my hardest to schedule my classes for second semester around my schedule at PCH, but I wasn't entirely successful. I was going for Tuesdays and Thursdays, but my organic chemistry lab conflicted with my usual Thursday time slot, so I told Portia I could come in earlier or just on Tuesdays to sit at the coloring table.

"So, I was thinking about having you do some sort of art class," she says, opening the door to a room across from the reading room. It looks like a small high school classroom with a few tables and desks. "Nothing too fancy. Just something for the older kids to do, especially the ones who are too weak to play in the rec area."

I nod my head. Portia has been contemplating this idea for a while. Her volunteer program caters mostly to the younger kids, but there are plenty of teenagers that use PCH's services as well and you won't catch many of them crowding the coloring table or sitting in the reading room. The ones who can play in the rec area will kick soccer ball pillows into a goal painted on a wall and the ones who can't usually stay in their rooms on laptops or watching televisions. There's also a tiny computer lab for the teenagers, but it's almost always full.

"Yeah, that would fun," I say.

Portia smiles. "Great. So, whatever time works for you on Thursdays and I'll be sure to tell the kids. I think they're really going to love it."

When I sit back down at the coloring table, one of the little girls climbs back onto my lap. Rue giggles. "So, are you leaving me for something better?" she asks.

To be honest, one of the best things about volunteering has been being able to get to know Rue and Prim. Obvious, I now know Prim extraordinarily well through Katniss, but it's been amazing to watch the two of them grow up. They're almost sixteen now, a far cry from the twelve-year-olds conniving to get me together with Prim's older sister and creating Mission Befriend Katniss, which didn't work but is funny to look back on anyway. In this aspect, I'm glad Portia still wants me at the coloring table on Tuesdays. It would be weird to only see Rue when she's hanging out at the house with Prim.

"Well, kind of," I tease.

The tiny patient on my lap looks up at me with the biggest blue eyes I've ever seen. I touch her nose with my finger and she giggles. She can't be more than five or six and her nurse is standing off to the side with her panicked mother. She's a new diagnosis and her mother looks terrified not having her within her grasp, but Octavia knows me better than most since she was one of Katniss's regulars and it looks like she's calming the mother down quite a bit.

Rue glares mockingly and I look up from the little girl. "Just on Thursdays," I tell her. "Portia is having me do something for the older kids."

"Look at you. Moving up in the world," Rue teases. She wiggles her eyebrows and I can't help but laugh. Rue reminds me of Hersh in some ways, always teasing but with such a big heart. "You excited to go back to school?"

I grunt and Rue laughs, throwing her head back. The boy beside her looks up and starts to mimic her, making her laugh harder. I just roll my eyes and look down at the picture that the little girl is drawing. It's a cat, I think. Or possibly a rabbit because the ears are pretty long.

"You're going to miss me on Thursdays," Rue says with a smirk.

I shake my head. "You know it."

We move back in on the twenty-first of January, since classes start back up the day after the federal holiday. I don't have much new stuff, just a box of books for my new classes and a duffle bag, everything else I just left in the dorm over break. Since Katniss doesn't have class until eleven on Tuesdays, she spends one more night at home before the semester starts.

The way our schedules go means I won't see her until after I get back from volunteering. We agree to meet at the dining hall to catch dinner and I spend a good chunk of my time at the coloring table looking at my watch. Rue laughs at me and I have to admit that it's a little ridiculous. But I haven't seen Katniss in a week. That's a long time.

She's waiting for me in front of the dining hall and, when I get close enough, she holds her hand out for me to take. She's shivering from the cold and I pull her into the building before starting up conversation.

"You weren't out there long, right?"

Katniss shakes her head as we walk inside the double doors that lead from the lobby to the dining hall. It's loud and busy, but warm and inviting. "No, I got here right before you," she says. "It's just cold."

"Well, I know a few ways to warm up," I tease, raising my eyebrows in her direction. Her cheeks flame red and her eyes widen. I just laugh and pull her into me so I can press my lips to her temple. "I'm kidding."

When she steps back, there's an odd flustered look about her, teased with an air of disappointment. I bite my tongue and immediately wish I hadn't joked with her. I've spent too much of my time in the last month with Hersh. Now, I've overstepped the boundary with Katniss.

She smiles shyly and grabs my hand, pulling me toward the food lines. It's busy and loud, so we don't talk as we grab our meals. My eyes watch her closely, trying to judge how far I've overstepped. She isn't standing quite as tall as she should, her shoulders slumped, and her boots are more interesting to her than anything else in the area. She stands like this a lot, so it's not too suspicious and I wonder if maybe she's already over it.

But, after we swipe our meal cards at the register and grab a booth in the corner, I know she hasn't. She slides all the way in, basically hugging the wall, and curls in upon herself while she eats. All my attempts at small talk get single word answers or simple head nods and the majority of our meal is in silence.

I want to talk to her and apologize, but starting that conversation in the middle of the dining hall isn't the best idea. So, on our way back to the dorms, I decide to bypass Lime and head straight to Poplar. The guys aren't there and the suite is dark when we arrive. I know Hersh is working on his study abroad application in the library. He has a meeting tomorrow with one of the coordinators and he wanted to have most of it finished before he went. Mitchell eats dinner with his ROTC friends most nights and Dalton...I never know where he is. My guess is that he's with some girl.

I shut the door behind me and Katniss makes herself comfortable on my bed, sitting on the edge with her legs slightly parted. I go to stand in between them, preparing my apology in my head the entire walk across the room, and take her hands in mine. I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable. I fully understand that you aren't for crude jokes like that being made in public. I lost my head. I'm sor–

I am kissing Katniss Everdeen and I am really confused.

Usually, kissing Katniss is the least confusing thing I can do. It's a fairly simple and quite enjoyable activity and a way for my head to relax. It's more about feeling than thinking. But I was so sure she was mad at me.

Katniss unzips my Carhartt and pushes it off my shoulders without releasing my lips. It falls in a heap on the floor, pooling at my feet. For a minute, my mind completely forgets everything. What was I apologizing for? Apparently nothing. When she pulls back to take a breath, I jump up onto the bed myself and push her into the mattress. She giggles and takes my face in her hands as I go to unbutton her coat.

I don't even get her arms out before she's reaching for the hem of my shirt. That's when my brain starts working again. There is something wrong with this situation. It isn't that she wants me shirtless – Katniss usually takes it off when we make out – it's something else. The speed. We're going quicker than we've ever gone. My shirt ends up on the floor with my winter jacket and, before I can even start to slow us down, Katniss reaches for my belt and I spring backwards.

"Wait, wait, wait," I say.

Katniss sinks into the bed, if that's even possible. She closes her eyes and when she opens them they're glassy. My whole body tenses. I do the first thing that comes to me – I sweep her up in my arms and sit with my back against the wall. I'm surprised and, not going to lie, a little hurt when she pushes off me instead of pressing into me like usual.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

She doesn't look at me but I can hear her sniffle. "Why don't you want me?"

What?

I turn her face so I can look into her eyes. She's blinking fiercely in an attempt not to cry and will look at anything other than me. What Katniss asked isn't even connecting in my head. How can she think that I don't want her? That's just not possible.

"Why would you think that?" I ask.

She finally glances up at me, giving me a look of disbelief. "You keep pushing me away," she says, as if it's common knowledge.

We stare at each other. It is true. Katniss has attempted this in the past and I've shielded her from it. She's not ready for the emotional baggage that comes with these forms of physical intimacy. If she can't even talk to me about the scars she won't show me, how can I be comfortable letting her push farther and farther until she reaches her breaking point? I don't want her to get hurt and, if she goes too far, I'm sure that's what will happen. But, she's stubborn and I should have known that she'd keep pushing.

I open my mouth, but she beats me to it.

"You're so good to me," she says. She's lost some of the confidence she had earlier and now she talks with a smaller voice and an ounce of a quiver. "You're patient and kind and...I just want to do something for you."

"Katniss – "

"No," she interrupts. "I – "

"Katniss, listen to me," I say. She closes her mouth and looks at me with her lips in a thin line. "This isn't just about making one of us feel good or about paying a debt or whatever. I want you, but that is not what I want."

She frowns, so I continue. "You don't understand how much you mean to me."

"Yes, I do," she says, her voice high and squeaky. I wince. That wasn't the right thing to say. I'm putting doubt into our relationship and that's the last thing I want to do.

I shake my hands and start over. "Scratch that. We're equals, right? Partners?" She nods her head. "So, we do things together."

"I'm not following where this is going."

I grin and use my fingers to walk up her arms, which are covered with fabric. "We're going to go at your pace. You can set it, but I want you comfortable at all times." She rolls her eyes and I raise an eyebrow at her. "What?"

She falls backwards so she lands on her jacket, her head crashing against my pillow. I follow her, flopping down on my stomach next to her so our faces are a few inches apart.

"What?" I ask again.

Katniss shakes her head and her face burns crimson. "I just...I read Prim's magazine and it didn't warn me that you'd say no."

"Prim's magazine, eh?"

If possible, Katniss's face brightens. But, her eyes narrow, so I'm sure it's not entirely embarrassment anymore. "I know! I asked her why she had it. She's fifteen! She doesn't need to know about...that."

I decide not to remind Katniss that Prim is almost sixteen and, having dealt with Delly at that age, I know those magazines are more for curiosity and saying they have them, at least for girls like Prim. I don't think Prim's out there fooling around with every guy at school. So, instead, I say, "I wish I'd seen you reading it, though. You were probably the color of an eggplant when you saw the diagrams."

She glares at my teasing for a minute and, when I stop chuckling, she bites her bottom lip.

"Have you ever...?"

I wait for her to elaborate, but it never comes. She just looks at me with wide eyes. I know what she's asking. I just want to know if she'll say it. "Have I had sex?" I clarify. Her cheeks tinge again and I shake my head slightly. "Katniss, it's a normal instinctual activity and if humans didn't act upon it, our species would die out. It's not something to be embarrassed about."

"Well," Katniss says. "Have you?"

We've never talked about this before and that's my fault. I've stayed clear of conversations like these because I didn't want Katniss to feel pressured into anything she didn't want to do. But, now it's Katniss bringing it up and, after the conversation we've just had, I can only stall for so long.

I shake my head. "No, I haven't."

Katniss looks shocked. I don't know how I should feel about that. "Really?" she asks.

My spit gets caught in my throat. "Katniss, I met you when I was sixteen and I haven't dated anyone between then and you." I shrug. "Call me old fashioned, but I actually wanted it to mean something to me and I didn't find love when I was fifteen."

A small smile tugs at the corners of her lips. "Do I mean something to you?" she asks, batting her eyelashes because she knows the answer.

I move my arm so I'm hovering over her. My lips drop down on hers in a chaste kiss before I pull away and pretend to think for a minute, furrowing my brow and pursing my lips in thought. "Hmm, you know – "

"Peeta!" she squeals. The smile on her face, which has now spread across her cheeks, tells me that she knows my game.

My lips find the corners of her mouth before I lean down to whisper in her ear. "You mean everything to me."

Her lips suck in the skin of my neck that's stretched in front of her mouth. I hiss as she finds a particularly sensitive spot, her fingers scraping against the skin of my abdomen. They slide lower on my stomach until she's carefully, with just an index finger, touching the waist of my jeans. My body gives an involuntary shiver.

After we've lost our breaths, our pupils dilated, our skin warm to the touch, we curl up together just staring at each other. Katniss grabs my hand and plays with my fingers in between our bodies. She uses her fingers to trace the nails, the knuckles, and then the lines of my palms, ending with the beginnings of the veins that run up my arms and carry blood back to my heart.

There are two boys that come to the first art lesson. Not knowing really what was going to happen, I decided to just have them do water colors. The next Thursday, one of the boys from the first week comes and I notice a few kids with their faces pressed to the window, trying to see what's going on. They stick their noses in the window the next week too. I open the door and tell them that they're all free to come in and the group looks back and forth, as if trying to decide.

Ultimately, they come inside.

Nyx and Nova Leeg are identical twins that lead the other girls inside. The group sits down at a table and smiles while I pass them a piece of paper each. I can barely tell the Leeg girls apart. One, Nyx, has amber flecks to her eyes, while Nova's eyes are just brown. It's still hard to tell and it doesn't help that their names are similar as well.

The boy who came both weeks tells me to call him Homes. He's thirteen and quiet and sticks to himself mostly. When the Leeg girls come, he eyes them, listening to their high pitch chatter, and rolls his eyes. He actually listens to my instructions and I think he wants to get better, whereas I'm pretty sure the girls that came in aren't here to paint.

"What do you think, Peeta?" one of the twins says, putting her hand in the air when I stand up from my crouch beside Homes.

I'd say the twins and their friends are about Prim's age, maybe a year or so older. Unlike Homes, who is clearly going through a round of chemotherapy, I wasn't entirely sure what ails them until they told me they have a genetic metabolic disorder. The twin that called me over shows me her picture of a lake and I nod in approval. Her sister glares at her and then raises her hand.

"Peeta, what about mine?" she asks, batting her eyelashes.

She has painted something similar to her sister's painting. It looks like a beach of some sort. "It's great, N..." Shit, which twin is this?

The girl smiles. "Nyx."

"It's great, Nyx."

Both girls look thoroughly pleased with themselves. I look down at the painting the girl beside them did. She's painted a rainbow with what looks like a pot of gold at the end. I'm about to comment on it when the door opens and a pair of boys stands in the doorway. The two look alike, with sandy hair and blue eyes, both with bulky builds. The taller one has patches of missing hair, reminding me of Katniss after chemo, and an incision scar on the back of his head. He looks like he might be in middle school, maybe a freshman at the oldest.

His brother, however, looks younger. He has different facial features as well. His nose bridge is flat and his eyes are slightly slanted. His sandy hair is chopped short, making his ears stand out. They're low-set compared to his brother's. I bite the inside of my cheek as I walk over.

I smile kindly at both of them. "Hey, I'm Peeta."

"I'm Castor," the older one says. He puts his hand on his brother's shoulder. "This is my brother, Pollux."

When I turn toward him, Pollux ducks into Castor's arm and shakes his head. Castor turns to his brother. "Pol, can you say hi to Peeta?"

Pollux lifts his head and gives me a shy smile, but doesn't say anything. I grin and hold out a brush. "We're just painting today. Go crazy, guys."

Castor thanks me and Pollux follows him to a chair near the back. I hand them their paper and supplies before turning back toward the group. I'm about to go back to Homes when one of the twins start to giggle and the other raises her hand.

"Peeta?" she asks. "Are you coming next week?"

I nod. "I'll be here every Thursday. Why?"

The twins burst into giggles and the girl beside them, the one painting the rainbow, rolls her eyes. "It's Valentine's Day," she says. Then, she eyes her friends and turns to me. "Do you have a girlfriend, Peeta?"

Nyx and Nova stop giggling to look up at me expectantly. I nod and for a split second the two let their faces drop before their heads shake almost in unison. At the same time, the two open their mouths.

"What's her name?"

"What does she look like?"

I pull my phone out of my pocket and go through my pictures until I find a good one where she's not trying to hide from the camera. I hand it to the girls and all three of them crowd the phone. "That's Katniss," I tell them as they look.

"Katniss?" one of the twins repeats. I nod.

"She's really pretty," the other one says, almost sounding disappointed.

I look down at the picture of the rainbow that the girl beside the twins has pushed to the side. She's written her name on the bottom and I sneak a peak. Sloane Jackson. She even signed it in cursive, like an artist. I smirk and look up when the three girls continue to ask me questions.

"How long have you guys been together?" Sloane asks.

"A year and eight months," I say without counting. I don't need to count. It'll be two years in June.

It turns into twenty questions. Nyx, Nova, and Sloane all keep asking about our relationship as I move back and forth between Homes, Castor, and Pollux. They ask me about how we met, what I'm doing for her for Valentine's Day, if I think I'm going to marry her.

I don't know what to say for that one. Katniss and I haven't talked about marriage since we've gotten together, so I don't know if her views on it have changed. I like where we are now. I don't care to ruin what we have by prying into the future. She takes things one day at a time and I respect that.

But, it doesn't stop me from answering. "I'd like to marry her one day."

"Aww, that's so sweet," one of the twins says. "She's a lucky girl."

I turn away and look down at Castor and Pollux. Castor is actually a decent watercolor painter. He's done a landscape that looks incredibly real. Pollux drew a stick figure and painted the background around it with varying blobs of color.

"Those are really good, guys," I say. Castor grins and looks down at Pollux, who is looking into his lap, so I look down at the stick figure. "Is that you, Pollux?"

He shakes his head rapidly and points to his brother, but doesn't say anything again. "That's really cool," I tell him. He looks up from his lap and widens his small eyes at me. "I draw my brothers too, but my drawings aren't nearly as good as yours."

Pollux looks to Castor with a bashful expression and Castor pats his head. "See, Pol, I told you it was good! Can you say thank you?"

Nothing comes out of his mouth, but Pollux does turn to me and makes a sort of head nod. I smile. Aside from the kids at PCH, I've never dealt with any kids with disorders and disabilities. Between Katniss and my time volunteering, that's been completely flipped. I've learned all about different types of cancer and other afflictions that plague the kids here, but I'm stumped as to Pollux. I'm not sure if he's shy or if he's ill as well.

The door of the classroom opens and Portia walks in, smiling around at the group. "Okay, guys, it's time for Peeta to go home," she says. "We've taken enough of his time already."

For the first time since I've been here, I look down at my watch. I've been here almost a half-hour longer than I was supposed to be. The kids all make a noise of dissent and I feel my eyebrows rise to my hairline. They actually enjoyed being here, just as I did, and they don't want me to go.

"Don't worry. I'll be here next week," I tell them, turning to the Leeg girls and Sloane. "And we'll do something Valentine's themed, okay?"

The three girls look at me like it's Christmas morning and leave giggling, heads bowed and talking quietly. Homes snakes out behind them, sliding across the floors in his socks. Castor stands and takes his painting to the back table where I'd been drying the stuff the kids made. Pollux, however, doesn't follow him. I watch as Castor taps his shoulder.

"Time to go, Pol."

Pollux shakes his head and goes back to his drawing. Castor rolls his eyes and sighs. "Come on, Pollux. We'll come again next week." He goes to take the painting and Pollux makes a sort of hissing scream, swatting at his brother's arm.

It's not my place to intervene, especially considering Portia isn't and she's the boss, but I go over anyway. I kneel in front of the table and look Pollux in the eye. "Hey, I'll save you a spot next week," I say. "Tell me which seat you want."

Pollux looks at me and then slams his hand, palm down, on the table in front of him.

"Okay, this is Pollux's seat, then," I tell him. "I'll make sure no one sits in it."

"Come on, Pollux," Castor says, finally taking the painting out of his brother's hands. "Peeta will be here next week and you can paint more."

Once the two of them leave, I realize Portia is still in the room. She's leaning against the back wall, her arms crossed around her, and she's smiling at me. I walk over after I've cleaned up the tables with a cloth. If I had realized she was waiting for me, I would have cleaned afterwards.

"So, how do you like it?" she asks as she shuts out the lights.

"It's a lot of fun," I tell her. "I enjoyed getting to know the kids."

Portia smiles. "You certainly did look like you were in your element. You did well with Pollux just now."

I frown and look at her in question. What was I supposed to do with Pollux? Was it some sort of test? I just figured he was like everyone else and I should treat him as such. "What do you mean?" I ask.

"Castor is actually our patient, not Pollux," she says. "He's just smitten with his older brother, follows the boy everywhere and he's just a sweetheart, as I'm sure you realized. I just...I guess I wanted to make sure you were aware that he has Down syndrome so you wouldn't say anything. I'm not saying that you would, but I can never be sure with the volunteers about the words they use around the kids."

She says it very ambiguously and in a roundabout way, but I understand what she's getting at. My mother, and most of Miner Falls actually, uses the word retarded as a common insult. It wasn't until I was in middle school, and I'd said it around my father while Hersh and I were fooling around the bakery, that I realized it was offensive. Of course, my father just didn't like me using any insults at all and that's why it bothered him. I can only imagine what it would do to Castor or Pollux to hear the word slip out of someone's mouth.

I've never met anyone with Down syndrome before and the closest I've gotten to it have been watching the seasons of Glee with Katniss, and Prim on occasion when we're at their home on a rainy day with nothing but a DVD player. I wait for Portia to say more – tell me how to act, what I should say, what I should do – but we just walk down the hallway in silence for a minute. I don't really know what else to say.

Portia turns to me at the end of the hallway and chuckles under her breath. "I didn't mean to make you nervous," she says.

"It's...I just...I've never met anyone like that before," I tell her.

She shakes her head and puts a hand on my forearm. "Well, there's nothing to be scared of. You did just fine," she says.

I nod. I don't know why it's suddenly terrifying now that I know. It's not like the Katniss and her cancer type of terrifying either. It's more like I don't want to mess up. I don't want to say something and become just another volunteer that makes Pollux uncomfortable. I want him, as well as everyone else in my class, to have fun. No matter who they are, what they have, or how many chromosomes they inherited.

Katniss isn't extraordinarily romantic. She doesn't do roses and heart-shaped boxes of candy fall flat for her. My girlfriend, on a holiday such as Valentine's Day, would much rather receive something more personal than something I could pick up from the store. In fact, she'd rather me not buy anything at all and just curl up with her somewhere. I'm not even taking her out to dinner, but instead I'm picking up food from Mags' diner and I've kicked Hersh, Dalton, and Mitchell out of the room for a good few hours so we could have the place to ourselves.

"What are you drawing, Peeta?"

I have the kids cutting out hearts from construction paper and tying them to string. It was actually Portia's idea, not mine. The hospital has a special Valentine's Day get together, where the kids all have boxes and the nurses stuff notes and candies into them (if the kids can have it). The strings of hearts will be lining the hallways as the kids who are healthy enough to go to the rec room will bring their boxes down there.

I look down at my half-drawn sketch of Katniss and Prim. I guess it's a tradition for me to give Katniss some sort of drawing for major holidays, such as her birthday, Christmas, and Valentine's Day. I'm sure she'll protest – because I'm paying for dinner on top of it and she demanded that our gifts to each other would be our time – but I like drawing them. It soothes me.

"It's just a little something extra to give to Katniss tonight," I say, looking over my shoulder. I'm not sure which one of the Leeg girls it is standing behind me, but she's looking at my work with a critical eye.

"Uh oh," Sloane says with a smile. "Peeta didn't finish his gift."

Across the room, Homes rolls his eyes. "I'm sure Peeta's just going above and beyond."

I look up at the twin over my shoulder – it's Nova, I can tell by the eyes – and she nudges my shoulder. "Are you going to propose?"

"W-what?" I stutter. "I'm not that much older than you. I'm not getting married any time soon."

Nyx, at her seat beside Sloane, smirks. "When's your birthday, Peeta?"

"March fourteenth," I tell her. None of them laugh like the kids at school used to because they don't get the joke. People always got a kick out of the fact that I was born on Pi Day and my father owned the bakery. "Why?"

She widens her eyes to look innocent. "No reason."

"Now, how is that string of hearts coming?" I ask her, pretending to be stern.

"Ours is almost done!" Castor says, raising his end in the air. Pollux nods his head and flashes a smile. I smile back.

The kids go back to their tasks, chatting with each other, and I look back at the drawing. I just can't get it. Prim's nose won't come out right or Katniss's eyes won't look like they're shining. After I rip the paper with my eraser, I take it as a sign that there will be no drawing for Valentine's Day. This is the first one we'll actually be celebrating. Last year, I had midterms the day after and Katniss had only called me for a brief few minutes not wanting to bother me, and the year before that we weren't together. I want this one to be perfect.

Of course, Katniss won't care either way. Like I said, she's not really into the cheesy romanticism and consumerism that surrounds the holiday.

On their way out, the kids wish me "Happy Valentine's Day" and then Nova winks and says, "I hope she says yes!" I just roll my eyes. She's definitely a jokester, whereas her sister is more willing to ask about me rather than about my life or Katniss. I grab the food on my way to the dorm and head back to Poplar to change quickly and get everything set up, but when I arrive the lights are on. Dalton's an environmental science major and he's a nitpick about shutting the lights off when we leave. I set the bag on the table and walk into my room, turning on the light.

Katniss looks up from my computer and smiles. "Hi!"

"How did you get in?" I ask. I know how she got in – that's a stupid question. She knows the code to our room and she either came before the rest of the boys left or she just wandered in when someone opened the main door to Poplar. It's really not that hard for her to get in the building.

"No 'Hi, Katniss, how was your day?' huh?" she teases, shutting the screen and smiling at me. "It was fine, by the way."

"I didn't get anything ready," I complain. "The place is a mess."

She shrugs. "I know, that's why I came early," she says. I walk to the bed and lean between her legs. She rests her head on mine and rubs our noses together. "I didn't want you to go to great lengths which – let's face it, Mellark – you were going to do. I don't care about fancy places or if Hersh's drawers are shut. I just want to be with you."

"You're like a dog," I joke. "I can do anything and please you."

She scowls and it makes me laugh. "Not quite anything," she says.

"Well, what can I do?"

Her scowl dissipates. "Kiss me," she demands.

I don't have to be asked twice. I take her lips in mine, slowly satiating a hunger of a different kind than the one that will be satisfied by the food in the common room. We break our kiss long enough for me to hop up onto the bed, but instead of allowing me to crawl on top of her, Katniss pushes me down, straddling my hips with her legs and putting her arms on either side of my head. She sucks on my bottom lip for a minute before feathering my jaw with kisses and then leaving a trail down my neck. Her hands sneak under my shirt and push it up to my chin and her mouth goes back up to mine. My hands, which are positioned on her waist, draw circles in her sides until it's just too much and I pull her down to me.

Katniss collapses into me, positioning herself so she's comfortably laying against me. She kisses my neck and then moves her hand back to cover mine. I stop drawing on her skin, stilling the movements of my fingers thinking it's annoying her, but then she pulls my hand across her back and rests it on the bare flesh under her shirt. She keeps harassing my neck, which makes me throw my head back so I can't see and she takes my other hand, pulling it back to slide my fingers into the back pocket of her jeans.

All blood flow to my brain halts as it heads elsewhere. My heart makes a few crazed beats that I'm sure will need to be shocked back to normal. I look into her eyes to see that, even those she's shaking in my arms, she's grinning like a Cheshire cat. I know that we've talked about this, about moving forward, but I still want to make sure she's comfortable, so I open my mouth to ask her but she cuts me off.

"It's okay," she says, bringing her hands up to cup my face.

"Really?" She nods, but she's still shaking. "Then why are you trembling?"

"I'm just nervous. It's not like we're doing anything, but...you're still the only guy I've ever wanted to...you know," she says softly. She screws her face into a scowl, as if she's disappointed in herself, and then she stares at me pointedly. "Now kiss me again. I've been thinking about it all day."

"Demanding," I tease.

She rolls her eyes and presses her lips to mine impatiently. The hand on her back runs up to unbraid her hair, my fingers running through the tresses. I wish I could major in pleasing Katniss Everdeen, because I could do this every hour of every day for the rest of my life.

But, when we come up for air, I gently push her off me. She whines in disapproval. "The food's getting cold," I tell her. "And we need to eat."

"But, I don't want to eat," she says, crawling back on top of me. She wraps her arms around my neck, keeping her legs on either side of me. "I want to stay right here."

"Okay, let me rephrase that," I say, tugging at the loose strands of hair around her shoulders. Her face nuzzles my neck. "You need to eat or Haymitch is going to kick my ass."

She doesn't move, so I slide off the bed holding onto her. She wraps her legs around my waist so I have to carry her into the common room. I sit in my chair and she still won't let go. The thing is I don't want her to. Ever.

The rest of my February is destroyed by midterms. While the majority of my friends are off writing papers, I'm studying for exams – the life of a science major, I guess. I barely have time to see Katniss and I spend more time in the library than should be physically possible. The Friday before spring break I have three midterms. The night before Hersh brings me dinner in the library and, to be completely honest, that's the first time I'd seen him since Sunday.

I'm so exhausted by break that I just want to curl up in my bed and never get out. Hersh and I decide to leave on Saturday morning, mostly because he wants me to sleep before I drive home. When I get out of my last exam, I trudge back to Poplar through the nearly empty campus. Katniss is sitting at the table with Hersh when I get there and she guides me to my bed, wordlessly wrapping me in her arms and stroking my hair until I drift off. It doesn't take long and I don't wake up until it's time to drop Katniss off at home and drive to Miner Falls.

Spring break is slow, but it's just the type of speed I need. I get Tuesday and Thursday off at the bakery so I can go to the capitol to volunteer at PCH and see Katniss. Dad lets me sleep in for the first half of the week before I help him down at the bakery but on Wednesday I'm up with the sun. I don't mind waking early to work at the bakery. The work is relaxing and it's basically like hanging out with my dad. It's a nice break from the madness at school.

I tell my dad about the new class I'm teaching at PCH and about how crazy my schedule's been at school. He's never been a big talker and our conversation seems just like old times – my dad listening and me being a chatterbox.

"You sound like you enjoy it," my dad says after I tell him a story on Friday about Pollux. The day before he'd come down with Castor and had given me his drawing on the way out. He'd drawn a stick person again with a stick cat and a tree, but the funniest part was that the man was anatomically correct below the waist. Castor had been a little embarrassed but I just laughed and told Pollux it was great. He beamed.

"It's not even like work. The kids are amazing," I tell him.

Nyx and Nova come despite not being inpatients. Sloane tends to come when they do, but she's also outpatient and doesn't come all the time. Homes and Castor are inspirations, just like Katniss, in their battles. Homes, like Katniss, has leukemia but a different type. Castor has a brain tumor. And now that Pollux is starting to open up, he's great. Like Portia said, he's a sweetheart.

My dad pulls some bread out of the oven and smiles as I tell him about the kids. I'm working on decorating some sugar cookies while we talk.

"It's great that you found something you love," he says. There's an unspoken but in his voice and I know what's coming next. "Have you thought about what you might want to do after you graduate?"

My mother hounded me about that during dinner Wednesday night. It ended in a full-scale argument about how I'm wasting my life and I slammed the door in her face when she made a backhanded comment about how I'm not in college to give her illegitimate grandchildren. I spent the night at Hersh's and came home from Katniss's late enough on Thursday that she and my father were already in bed. This is the first I've seen of my dad since.

My father's question doesn't have the same tone as my mother's, or maybe I'm just biased. Whereas my mother's voice was laced with a condescending sneer when she asked, I hear genuine curiosity in my dad's. He just wants what's best for me. But I don't understand how we can be expected to choose what we want to do for the rest of our lives when we're this young. I'm turning twenty in a week and I'm already supposed to know what I want to do until I'm sixty-five or older. How am I supposed to know?

"I don't know," I groan. He turns away from the dough he's kneading and leans against the counter. I smile sheepishly in his direction. "Maybe I'll just stay here and work at the bakery."

Dad sighs and walks across the workroom floor, coming to sit across from me at the table. "Peet, there's nothing for you in this town and we both know it."

The age of the small rural town is coming to a close. He's trying to keep it from me, but I know the town is struggling. Ever since the mine closed, we've lost really the only job that hired people and we've lost population. Kids are moving away – like Rye and Leaven – to bigger cities where there are more opportunities and when the older residents pass there's no one to take their places. Businesses keep getting boarded up because we just can't keep them going. There will be stubborn ones, like my dad and the Donners and the Cartwrights, who will live in Miner Falls until they die, but there's no future here. The town will die out with them, another old mining town for the record.

It's a hard thing to realize.

Dad reaches across the table to put his hand on my cheek. He doesn't say anything else before going back toward the dough. I take a deep breath and try to decorate more cookies, but I no longer have the motivation.

"Peeta, stop moping." I look up. My dad's still got his back to me, but he knows my brothers and me better than we know ourselves. "God didn't give you life to mope. We'll be fine and so will you."

My father is a religious man, but he never pushed it on us. Unlike my mother, who dressed Rye, Leaven, and me in the fanciest clothes we owned each Sunday, my father would be perfectly fine just letting the three of us wander the world until we came to faith or not. I guess it's a testament to the different generations that Rye, Leaven, and I all stopped going to church when we were in our mid-teens, probably because it was our mother forcing it. I went to church with my father for the first time in nearly a year on Sunday and the pews were practically empty. When I was younger they were always packed and Miner Falls had churches on every corner.

"It's tough times," my father had said when I asked if this happened every week.

For some reason, it digs a hole in my chest when I think about it. In my race to be something stellar at State and practically living in the capitol to be near Katniss, I've been causing a great divide between myself and the town I never wanted to leave in the first place. But, like my father said, there really isn't anything Miner Falls can offer me. I'm trying to build a life in the capitol, but still holding onto my roots and it leaves me feeling like I don't have a place anywhere.

"Your mother thinks you should be a lawyer," my father says, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I roll my eyes. My mother just wants me to have the salary of a lawyer. "Yeah, I know," I mumble. "What do you think?"

My father has told me before that he thinks I'd be good at it. He says I have a silver tongue. "I don't think you'd be happy," he says. "But I think you'd have the ability. Hell, Peeta, I think you have the ability to do anything."

"You're my father. You have to say that."

He turns and smiles at me. "I just want you to be happy. That's what's best for you," he says. "I look at Rye and see how happy he is and when Leaven calls I can hear it in his voice that he's happy. I don't care what you do or where you do it as long as you call me occasionally so I don't have to bug you like I bug Leav."

By the time he finishes his speech, my father has turned back to his dough and his voice is wavering. My father is dealing with the inner turmoil of having his boys leave. I don't think when we were born, and the town was still thriving, that he realized our adult lives would be any different from his, but the economy and the impending and inevitable fall of the mining industry in the Miner Falls area has changed everything. I want to tell him that I'm not going to leave, that I'm never going to leave, but I don't know if I can honestly say that. I don't know where my life is going or where it will take me. Rye calls occasionally and we can assume no news is good news with Leaven. I talk to them more through the virtue of texts, but even then it's quick questions and answers, more so from Rye than Leaven.

"You'll never have to bug me," I tell him. "You'll want to get rid of me."

My father mutters something under his breath that I don't hear.

My birthday falls on a Thursday, which means I'm volunteering. I don't know who spilled the beans – I'm inclined to think Prim or Rue – but when I get there Portia has a card signed by most of the volunteers and some of the kids have made their own cards for me. Homes, in particular, looks like he worked hard with a drawing on the front of his card. He asked me the other week if I could teach him how to draw animals. My first lesson was a mockingbird. His isn't colored like a mockingjay, but I feel a swell of pride fill me when I see his expression as he hands me the card.

"This is great!" I exclaim. It is. For a thirteen-year-old who's never really had much experience with art, I'm impressed. "You're going to put my art to shame, buddy."

"No way!" Homes says, shaking his bald head vigorously. "I wish I could draw as good as you!"

I lightly punch his shoulder, just barely making contact as to not hurt him. "You will. I don't have a doubt."

Sloane, Nyx, and Nova walk in next with a plate of cupcakes for me. I try to pawn some off on them, but Nyx and Nova can't eat them and Sloane tells me she's not hungry. I feel bad that they went to all that trouble to make me things they can't eat themselves and I still can't believe any of these kids remembered my birthday or looked highly enough toward me to want to do anything.

The last person to come through the door is Pollux. He's without Castor and looks down at his feet when he enters. I set the cupcakes down on my table and walk toward him. "Hey, Pollux, what's up?"

He looks up from his feet and smiles. He lifts his iPod out of his pocket. "I listen to Demi on the way here."

This is the first time I've ever heard him speak. His voice is slightly slurred and a little hard to make out, but he looks at me, waiting for a reply, so I latch onto the name. "Demi?"

"Lovato," he states, as if he's finding it hard to believe I've never heard of her. I have, but the first thing that popped in my head was Demi Moore. Prim listens to Demi Lovato sometimes and she's put some of her songs in my iTunes library, but I don't think I've ever actually listened to it.

"Oh," I say. He holds out his iPod and I take it in my hand. "Skyscraper. What's that?"

Pollux starts bouncing from foot to foot as he holds out his headphones to me. I take one and he takes the other, grabbing the iPod from my hand and pressing the play button. When it hits the chorus, Pollux even starts singing with it.

"Go on and try to tear me down. I will be rising from the ground, like a skyscraper," he sings, stumbling a little through the lyrics.

I can't help but smile as I watch him. He has a smile spread across his face from ear to ear and he sways as he sings. It's as if he's in his own little world, just him and the song, and he doesn't care about anyone else. We listen to the whole song and when it's finished, he starts listening to the next song that, again, I don't recognize. I pull the earbud out of my ear and hand it to him.

"That was really good," I tell him, guiding him to his seat. He keeps one of the headphones in his ears, still slightly swaying. "Do you like her?"

Pollux nods. "S-she's my fav...favorite," he says.

I hand him a piece of paper and he starts drawing, still listening to Demi Lovato. I turn back to the other kids. The girls are giggling like usual and Homes is intently drawing something. I walk over to Homes and sit beside him in the chair.

"What's your major, Peeta?" he asks.

"Biology."

He nods his head. "Are you going to be a doctor?" he asks.

I shake my head. I can't get away from these questions. "I don't know," I tell him. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

"You should work with kids," he says. Then he looks down at his paper. He's drawing a cat. The face is great, but the body is slightly too long and the fur shading isn't quite right. "Will you help me with the body?"

"Sure."

His words resonate with me even after Homes's nurse comes looking for him for a blood draw. I had never thought about working with kids. I had been so set on picking a major and trying to figure out what I could do with biology that I had never thought about who I wanted to work with. Up until he'd said that, I'd been thinking research might be my only option. But I still don't know what I would do to work with kids. A pediatrician? Pediatric specialty doctor? But, I don't want to be a doctor or nurse. I'd decided that long ago. I don't think I could handle watching kids die like Cinna or Dr. Heavensbee. I'd get too attached. How else can I use my biology degree to work with kids without being a doctor?

It hits me like a stack of bricks.

Katniss told me she had a meeting, so we'd have to catch dinner after and she'd come to Poplar when she was finished so we could walk together. Hersh has a study abroad meeting, Mitch has an ROTC thing, and Dalton is never in the dorm at dinnertime, so as I punch in the room code I'm planning to grab my laptop and look into my options. I know there's a program through the school of education where you can minor in secondary education if you're majoring in certain subjects. I briefly looked into it while I was at Rye's for Thanksgiving, not really giving much thought to it.

I open the door and turn on the lights.

"Surprise!"

Before I even registering what's going on, Katniss is in my arms, her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms around my neck, giving me a kiss. I wrap one arm around her to keep her from falling and hold onto the cupcakes from the girls in my other hand. Hersh is on one side of me with a noisemaker, blowing it so the paper tube hits my ear. Mitchell is standing against the back wall with his arms over his chest laughing while Dalton motions to a cake that clearly came from the loving hands of the decorating-inept Hersh or Katniss. Thresh and a bunch of our other friends are here as well and they have the radio playing. I'm half expecting Hersh to start reciting Korean lyrics and dancing like PSY when the song changes while I'm still standing flabbergasted in the doorway.

"W-what?" I splutter.

"Forget what day it is, birthday boy?" Hersh asks, his head bobbing to the music but his eyes focused on me. "Maybe you should recount the first few digits of pi?"

I move just enough to hit him with my body, my arm still wrapped around Katniss. "Not funny."

"Hersh and I made a cake," Katniss says, nodding her head to the table.

I walk over to see. It says Happy B-day Peeta-Pi... and it makes me laugh. "I know it's not Mellark's quality," Hersh says, slapping my back. "But, we had your dad on the line the whole time we were mixing, so we have secret recipe cake right here." He lets out a laugh. "Not saying it tastes like your dad's, but it looks great, in my opinion."

"We tried to make a pie," Katniss giggles. "But it came out horrible."

"And Haymitch told us if we set the house on fire we were dead," Hersh adds.

I can't believe it. "You didn't have to do this."

"Not everyday someone turns twenty," Dalton says from behind the cake. "You wait until twenty-one."

"And," Hersh says. "I wanted it to be big like twenty-one, since I won't be here for it."

I turn toward him and raise my eyebrows. I didn't realize he learned this soon about his application status, but apparently he has. He grins and nods his head. "I'll get you an Irish shot glass for next year's present," he says. "A belated birthday gift, or I can Skype you with it on your actual birthday, if you want."

"Way to make the day about you," Mitch says to Hersh, pulling a knife out of the drawer and pointing toward the cake. "Peeta, pretend to blow out the candles. We can't technically light any or we'll get fined for a fire hazard."

I think for a few seconds about what I would wish for. I have great friends, a beautiful – healthy – girlfriend, and even an idea of where I might want to go in my life. I don't think there's anything else I could want, but I pretend to blow anyway without a wish. I don't need anything else.

The next week, I set up a meeting with one of the assistant deans of the school of education to talk about my options. The woman tells me that the minor is usually started in the beginning of sophomore year, but once she looks over my degree audit and I drop my status as an honor student she tells me it might be a good fit. She hands me a paper with the different minors I can do in the education program and tells me that I should declare before registering for classes in late April. She even waives my application, stating that she'd be the one reading it anyway.

It was easier than I thought it would be.

I sit down outside Katniss's class and go through the different minors. The first sheet gives me the requirements for a general education minor. It wouldn't lead to state certification, but I could be approved individually. The secondary education minor, which is what I thought of originally, is the most in depth and requires the most number of classes. But, it would lead to certification and gives a chance for student teaching that the general education minor doesn't. The third sheet, however, is what gets my mind racing. The inclusive education minor – designed to teach students like me about special education.

"What are you looking at?"

I look up, not even realizing how long I've been looking at the papers. Katniss stares at me curiously and I shrug, sticking the papers in my backpack before standing up and taking her hand.

"I'm just looking into the future," I say. "Would you still love me if I became a teacher?"

Katniss turns to look at me. "You want to be a teacher?"

"You didn't answer the question."

She rolls her eyes and leans into me. "Of course, Mr. Mellark. The answer is true," she says, smirking. "What would you teach?"

I think back to the papers. Something has me drawn to the inclusive education minor and it's not just Pollux. Katniss herself has a hard time learning new things and Annie is specifically trained to work with her and other kids with similar learning disabilities caused by their medical histories. I wonder if that would technically be counted as special education.

"I don't know. I'm just looking into it."

She swings our clasped hands between our bodies as we walk toward the dorms. We shoot the breeze, just talking about nothing as we continue toward the dorms. We bypass Poplar and she leads me to Lime. "Well, I think you'll be a good teacher," she says as she swipes her keycard.

"You think?" I ask. She nods her head. "Because I'm not sure."

Katniss rolls her eyes. "If anyone was made to be a teacher, it was you."

My confidence sores as we climb the stairs and I can nearly feel my ego explode. I finally have a path and it's toward something I actually think I could enjoy. Maybe I should listen to the kids in my class more often. She punches in the room code while I'm still in the clouds, imagining standing in the front of a classroom giving a lesson to high schoolers about biology or helping kids like Pollux. She pushes me against her bed and I pull myself out of delirium to give her a look. Her pupils are dilated and she smirks.

"You can practice teaching right now," she says. Her hand trails down my chest, resting on my abdomen. Her fingers gently trace the belt on my jeans. "Teach me."

"Teach you what?" I ask. My body is visibly shivering as her fingers play with the hem of my shirt.

She doesn't look up at me, keeping her eyes fixated on the ground. "Teach me how to please you, Mr. Teacher."

I look at the door to Katniss's room. "Your roommate – "

"Is away for the weekend. She left at two for a retreat with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship," she says, leaning forward to press her body against mine, her lips finding my neck. I lift her up and set her down on the bed before finding her lips with mine. She runs her hands through my hair and her legs draw me toward her. I kiss her like this for a few minutes – at least, I think it's a few minutes, I'm not exactly sure about the time – before I lean back and yank my shirt over my head. I jump up on the bed, hovering on top of her and lean down to press my lips to her neck. She shivers and runs her hands over my chest and back.

We do this for a while, rolling every so often so the other is on top. When I get her back so she's lying against her pillows, I start my routine. I kiss her palms and then her stomach. I push her shirt up to her rib cage like usual and then I look up at her. We're both panting like madmen still trying to calm down from our breathless make out session prior. She looks like a deer in headlights. I'm pretty sure I look the same. I've put my hands in her pockets since we've added that to the routine, but this is different.

She is in turmoil right now. She wants to, she wants to be with me, she wants for a lot, but her mind won't let her. Her scar won't let her. Instead of pushing her shirt up and over her head, I lean my head back down and kiss the very bottom of her sternum, just barely visible, and then I let my hand graze her side.

Katniss sucks in a deep breath. "I love you," I tell her, pressing my lips to her skin again.

"I – I know," she stutters.

I take a risk and touch her over her shirt, letting my hand barely touch as it descends toward the valley where I can nearly see her heart beating out of her chest. "Are you okay?" I ask, flicking my eyes toward her. She has her eyes clenched shut, her breaths coming in and out in short bursts, but she nods her head. "I love you."

She nods her head again, but I'm not going any further until she opens her eyes and doesn't look like I'm going to murder her. "Katniss," I say gently. "Look at me."

She cracks one of her eyes and then the other. "I'm not going to hurt you," I tell her.

"I know," she says. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about."

Katniss gulps in a breath and shakes her head. "Will you hold me?"

We only leave the dorm that night for food. The rest of it is spent in each other's arms, watching movies on her laptop and occasionally kissing. But we've tested enough boundaries for the night. I fall asleep about halfway through The Lorax, my eyes barely able to focus on Katniss's laptop screen as I doze, and I wake up to find the computer on her dresser and Katniss shaking my arms.

"No," she murmurs. Her fingers claw at the sheets and her face presses into my bare chest. "No, please...don't leave..."

"Katniss," I whisper, shaking her.

She doesn't wake up. She keeps trying to bury her face in my chest. "No. No!"

"Katniss, wake up!"

Her eyes snap open and she looks dazed for a minute before she realizes where she is and then she wraps her arms around me. She doesn't say anything, just breathes heavily and rests her head on my chest. After she's seemingly calmed, I ask if she wants to talk about it. She shakes her head and keeps her cheek firmly planted on my chest.

I think she's asleep when she asks, "You're never going to leave me, right?"

It's so quiet I can barely hear her, but I do. It makes my heart sink into my stomach. Sometimes I wonder if Katniss will ever let me in all the way. She has an irrational fear of people leaving. Gale, Madge, her parents, Maysilee – all of these people had been important to her at one point in her life and ultimately left her behind. Sometimes I wonder if she looks at Prim and Haymitch the same way as he does me, as if none of us will stick by her forever.

"I'll be beside you until the day I die," I tell her, using my hand to direct her face toward mine. "I'm not going anywhere."

She's sleepy, half-aware, and looks at me through the haze of her post-dream. "We'll go together?"

"I'll go anywhere you go."

She blinks. "You'll stay with me, real or not real?"

I smile. "Always real."

We're silent for a minute. It's four in the morning but I'm no longer tired at all. I'm on an adrenaline high from waking Katniss. She, however, slips her head back down on my chest. "I love you real," she murmurs, her breathing beginning to even out. I chuckle under my breath and she sighs as she slips back under. I wrap my arms around her, protecting her from the nightmares that plague her, knowing that her body pressed into mine protects me. We protect each other. It's what we do.

Katniss doesn't go home for the weekend and instead we stay curled up in her bed for most of it. We don't get much farther than Friday night's adventures, but as the weekend progresses she gets more and more comfortable. On Sunday, when we're walking around campus, we stop in the bleachers of the baseball field and she sits in my lap.

"Was that second base?" she asks, referring to our weekend and not the bases on the field. She's pretty proud of the fact that she let me touch her, even if it was with her shirt on. And, I have to say I'm proud of her too and I'm pleased with what this means for us. Call me selfish, but the fact that she's letting me do this shows that she trusts me and with Katniss trust isn't an easy thing to gain.

"I believe it was," I say.

She giggles. "Thanks for teaching me what to do, Mr. Mellark."

I kiss her cheek. "You're going to get me fired for messing around with students, Miss Everdeen," I joke back.

A rosy blush fills her cheeks. "In all seriousness," she says, ducking her head. "I'm glad I could do something for you."

I fought her tooth and nail on that one. Hersh would call me an idiot, but I did. I wanted to make sure she was comfortable and not just doing it because she felt like she needed to in order for me to stay. She convinced me and as if it wasn't like Christmas in July being able to touch her, it was all I could do to contain myself when she touched me.

"Me too."

April sucks. It always sucks, but it sucks more than ever before now that I know what it feels like to spend an entire weekend alone with Katniss. I have way too many exams and then finals to start thinking about. Between our schedules, Katniss and I can barely find time to see each other. Katniss spends every waking minute of her day studying for exams and the more I watch her, the more I realize how much she struggles. I don't know if it's all a coincidence because of what I'm looking to minor in, but it ultimately makes my decisions easier.

I talk to Professor Beetee about it and I request to have him changed to my academic advisor. When I tell him about Pollux and what I've seen of Katniss, he smiles at me and nods his head.

"See why I told you not to settle?" he says. "I think it's a great choice for you."

I feel like I'm on top of the world when I go for my last volunteering session prior to finals. Homes, as always, is the first to arrive. He waves brightly and smiles, although he's looking a little worse for wear. He has bruises under his eyes and an IV he's dragging behind him. Castor and Pollux come next. Castor asks me how I'm doing and Pollux holds out his headphones. We listen to Skyscraper again, as we have every visit since we listed to it the first time, before he sits down next to his brother.

After a while, I figure the Leeg twins and Sloane aren't coming today and sit down to help the boys.

"Are you excited for school to be over?" Castor asks.

I shrug. "I don't mind school," I tell them. Now that I know what I'm doing is left unsaid.

"It's probably easier for you to see your girlfriend at school too," Homes says, looking up from his drawing. I lean over to see that he's starting to venture into the realm of realist faces. Faces are what I always find to be the hardest, but he seems to be doing an okay job. "Right?"

He is right about that reason why I like being at school better than home. I can see Katniss whenever I want. But it's not just that. However, discussing my terrible relationship with my mother is not part of my job description. So I just nod my head.

"Are we going to get a chance to meet her?" Castor asks. Pollux looks up but doesn't say anything.

"Who? Katniss?" He nods. "Do you guys want to meet her?"

Homes nods his head. "If you like her then she's got to be cool."

I honestly don't think I'll be able to get Katniss inside PCH unless she's going for a check-up but I don't tell the boys that. I haven't told them that Katniss was once a patient. It's not my story to tell. When they asked how we met, I just told them that her sister introduced us, which, in a way, is true.

So instead of telling them that Katniss hates hospitals, I shrug and say, "Maybe sometime next semester. I'll have to ask."

They nod their heads and go back to their work, satisfied with my answer for now. They work diligently and head out at their regular times. As I'm leaving, I run into Portia waiting at the door. I quickly run through my finals schedule, thinking she's going to ask about when I can start back up volunteering.

A familiar pool of dread sits at the bottom of my stomach when I see her face.

It doesn't even register until I'm sitting behind the wheel of my truck what she told me. My heart beats erratically and I press my forehead into the wheel. Nova passed away on Monday after suffering a seizure in the shower and hitting her head on the side of the tub. Seizures were common with her disorder and her family is normally very prepared to deal with them.

I drive back to campus on autopilot and arrive back in my room without even moving. I feel as if I teleported myself from the hospital to my bed. I don't even answer Hersh when he asks me what's wrong.

Katniss comes in and curls up into me. I completely forgot that I was supposed to meet her in the dining hall. She uses her thumb to wipe water off my cheeks. I'm not even sure how it got there. Am I crying?

She doesn't tell me that it's going to be okay or even ask me what happened. I think she knows, even without knowing the details. She just wraps her arms around me and hums in my ear, an old folksy lullaby I remember my father singing to us when we were kids. It's a Miner Falls lullaby. It's soothing. It's calming.

And it feels like home.

I go to the wake. It's closed casket but they have a DVD of photos playing in one of the rooms. I recognize a lot of faces from PCH and I stand by Portia for a good portion of the time I'm there. There is a card by the guestbook with Nova's picture and a prayer on the back, so I take one and place it in my pocket. Before I leave I kneel on the bench in front of her casket and rest my head on my clasped hands.

When I get back to State, I place the prayer card in a spot on my desk so I can look at it periodically.

This is the first death in my life since meeting Katniss and it makes me realize how grateful I am she's still here. I could barely make it through this; I can't even imagine the mess I would have been if the transplant didn't work. My mind can barely focus on the studying I have to do for finals and I make it a point to study with her – be it in the library, my room, or wherever she's going. Sometimes I second-guess my memory that she's alive and it puts me at ease to see her, to hold her hand. It's like my nightmares have invaded my awake mind and my first night back at home without her nearby is miserable. I wake up in a pool sticky sweat.

Leaven's graduation is the week after I get back from school and my father insists on me joining them. I text Katniss the entire sixteen-hour drive down (except when I trade off driving with Dad) and, for once, it's her telling me that she's safe and not the other way around. Rye comes down for the day and heads back to Virginia after the congratulatory graduation dinner. I wish I had flown with him so I could go back.

Breakfast the day after Leaven's graduation is almost torturous. Our mother keeps bringing up Rye's MBA program and how Lux calls to talk to her (and makes a backhanded comment about how she barely knows what Leaven's girlfriend looks like). It keeps going south when she finds out that he's continuing his work in the orthopedic biomechanics laboratory he's been working in for a year. I think it sounds cool, but that might just be because I spent over a year of my life dealing with orthopedists and physical therapists with my leg. Our mother, on the other hand, raises an eyebrow. To her, people's jobs fall into broad categories, like business and doctor and baker. I'm not sure she knows what to think of Leaven's biomedical engineering degree.

"But what are you exactly doing?"

Leaven slams his fork into the plate, making a clang, but quickly masks it as trying to fork the eggs. I know because I've used the same technique in the past. "We're looking at dysfunction of the rotator cuff in shoulder disorders," he says through his teeth. He's already told her this about four times today.

"Yes, I know that," Mother snaps. "I mean, what is your ultimate goal? You can't do this forever!"

On the contrary, Mother, many people make a decent career out of research. You never know, maybe Leaven will figure out some new disease or technique and then our name will be plastered on it – Mellark's disease or Mellark's syndrome. Wouldn't you be thrilled, Mother?

My father pats the table. "I think we need to get the recipe for these muffins," he says.

That's how my father does things. He changes the subject.

Leaven looks at his wrist. "Oh, shucks," he says, although he doesn't sound too distressed. He stands and straightens out his clothes. "Look at the time. I have to be moved out of the dorm in an hour so I guess I better go. Dad, it was great to see you." He stands behind my chair and puts his hands on my shoulders. "Peet, don't go nuts." There's double meaning to that, but I hold my tongue as he turns to our mother. "Ma, give my best to Rye and Lux. I'm sure you'll talk to them very soon."

He just about runs over a waiter on his way out.

Mother is surprisingly quiet on the drive home. She sits in the backseat and looks out the window for the first few hours and then pulls out a book. When my father and I change drivers again just outside of Savannah, she looks like she's about halfway through her favorite Nicholas Sparks. I bet my mother knows Nights in Rodanthe by heart, and yet it's her go-to book. I lean my head against the window and watch the Georgia highway pass by.

By the time we get back to Miner Falls after hitting a motel in South Carolina and then driving the rest of the way the next day, I've spent too much time with my parents. It's already dark, so I change quickly and head out to the meadow where I know there's a party going on. Most of the kids are there and there's a bonfire and Hersh is already a few beers in. Delly, who I haven't seen since I've been back, wraps her arm around my shoulder.

"Welcome home," she says, shouting over the music.

I don't take the beer Hersh holds out but my mind spins anyway. I try to relax, but I can't. It's not as if I didn't know my family was falling apart. Our family has been dysfunctional at best for most of my childhood, but to see it actually crumble right in front of my eyes? I haven't talked to Leaven since he stormed out of the restaurant in Miami, despite having texted him a few times, and I honestly think that might have been his goodbyes.

Peet, don't go nuts.

He meant for me not to let my mother get to me like she got to him.

Yeah, good luck with that.

I'm not enjoying myself, so I wander back home. The light is still on in the kitchen when I make my way inside and my mother is sitting at the table. Dad has to be up bright and early the next day at the bakery so he passed out before I even left for the party. She looks like she's in a decent mood and she hasn't said much of anything since Leaven walked out on us. It's been nice. Maybe she's reflecting on her life choices. I can hope, right?

She looks up from the bakery papers she's looking at when I shut the door, kicking my shoes off. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells as I stride toward the sink and pour a glass of water. I sit down at the kitchen table across from her, sipping the water and watching for sudden movements.

She clucks her tongue. "You're home early."

I shrug. "Yeah."

She sighs and shuffles the papers. She's not really looking at them – she's trying to make it seem like she is so she can appear all nonchalant and friendly. My mother-radar starts to explode in my head. She's going to say something. I know she is. This is how she does it. She makes you calm and then –

"Was Delly there?"

I frown. It wasn't what I was expecting. "Yeah," I say, drawing it out. "Why?"

Mother shrugs and scratches the tip of her nose. "She's a nice girl."

My mother is like a tick. She's a little tiny pest the burrows under your skin during the summer without fail. My mother does not like Katniss. Everyone knows this and she's told me time and time again that I have no business being with Katniss Everdeen, but she's never directed me toward another girl.

Until now.

"Delly's one of my best friends," I tell her. "And I'm with Katniss."

My mother slams one of the papers down on the table. "Oh, for crying out loud," she says. "You're wasting your time. You ain't gonna marry your first girlfriend, Peeta!"

"How do you know? You don't know her at all! You've never given her the time of day!" I don't know when I stood up or when I started yelling, but I am now. There's a creek upstairs, but I let myself seethe. "I don't understand why you don't like her! Rye likes her! Dad likes her!"

I'll leave Leaven out of it.

"Oh, of course your father likes her!" Mother screams.

Speaking of my father, he walks into the kitchen, sticking his arm in the sleeve of his robe. He looks so confused and I feel bad for him. He was probably thinking that Mother had finally thought about shutting her mouth for once in her life.

"What is all the yelling about?" he demands.

My mother points at me. "He hasn't got the sense God gave a goose."

I feel like a child, but I point right back at her. "She wants me to break up with Katniss and date Delly!"

"At least Delly's going somewhere with her life!" she yells. "I don't even know what your precious Katniss is majoring in!"

"You wouldn't care if I told you!"

My father doesn't even know what to do. He has his arms raised as if he's going to enact some peace treaty, but we're smack in the middle of a world war. I wouldn't be surprised if the neighbors came knocking down the door telling us to shut up.

Whatever armistice my father wants to happen, it doesn't come. My mother starts yelling again. "I don't even know what you want to do!" She's right about that. I never told her anything about my college life. "Why can't you be more like your brother and have your life put together?"

"I'm not Rye. I'm never going to be Rye. And, you know what, I don't want to be Rye," I say. I take a deep breath. This is probably not the time to tell my parents about my new career path, what with all of our emotions running wild, but I don't care. I'm going to do it anyway. "And I know what I want to do. I'm minoring in education and I want to teach kids with disabilities."

My mother is actually quiet for a moment. She fully expected to win this argument and, had we had this argument a few weeks ago, she would have won. But I do have my life figured out. I know what I want to do. I've made my decision. I watch as she takes it in, her face blank until it takes on a look of disbelief.

"A teacher?" she clarifies. I nod. "Of course that's what you want to do. You could never do anything right!"

"How is there anything wrong with being a teacher?"

My mother throws her hands in the air. "It's women's work, Peeta!"

I can't do this anymore. I raise my hands in surrender and shake my head. "I'm done," I say. I turn to look at my dad and he has his mouth open, trying to touch the floor with his chin. "I just can't do this anymore. I'm done. I'm done listening to you talking about me like I'm nothing and talking about Katniss like she's some sort of parasite. I'm done."

I spin on my heel and walk to the front door, pulling my shoes back on my feet. "Where do you think you're going?" my mother hisses, but I ignore her. She taps her foot on the ground impatiently. "Answer me!"

Nope. I tie up the laces of my sneakers and grab a coat off the hook. It's warm out, but I don't know where I'm going. I'm just getting out of here.

"If you leave this house, Peeta Mellark, so help me...you will not disrespect your mother!"

I open the front door and turn back to her. There are so many things I could say to her to show her exactly what she really means to me as a mother. Instead of saying any of it, I just slam the door behind me.

The door to the truck jams, so as I'm pulling it open, my father comes running out of the house. I can see nosy neighbors with their faces peeking out through the blinds. My father comes up beside me as I get the door open and rests a hand on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I tell him. I really am.

He shakes his head and puts his hands on my cheeks. "Go to Rye's. I'll call him now and you stop every half-hour, you hear me? I don't want you fallin' asleep at the wheel." I nod my head and he leans forward, kissing my curls like he always does. He sighs and pats my cheek with his left hand. "Love you, bud."

I nod again and he lets go of me so I can get in the truck. He backs away as I put the truck in drive and I watch him in the rear view as he disappears in the darkness of the unlit country roads.

Nyx, Nova, and Sloane were all named for the meanings, not necessarily because I thought the names could fit in modern society. Nyx (Leeg 1) was a powerful goddess and the embodiment of the night in Greek mythology. Nova (Leeg 2) is an astronomical term for a star that suddenly increases in brightness and then fades. I thought this fit for her well, considering Leeg 2 is the first member of Squad 451 to die. I chose Sloane for Jackson because Jackson was described as sluggish in the books, so I chose Sloane because it started with the "slow" sound.

I debated for a long time about the Pollux storyline but ultimately decided to go with it. Pollux, for me, was a very powerful character in the books and I wanted him to be just as powerful to me here. Over the summers, my younger brother and I volunteer at a place for young adults with disabilities and I based Pollux heavily off of one of the boys we worked with two summers ago. He was in love with Demi Lovato, drew a picture for my brother like the one Pollux gave Peeta, and was super quiet because he spoke with a small stutter. It was a very powerful experience for my brother and me – he wrote his college admissions essay on him and I even debated going down the career path that Peeta is going down for a while. Peeta, even before I decided to write a continuation, was going to be a teacher, but the more I thought about Katniss's learning struggles and then bringing Pollux in, the more that all worked out.

Peeta mentions Glee and the character that I'm referring to is Becky Jackson, a cheerleader with Down syndrome. If you've never seen it, she's a wonderful character.

Yes, Peeta is born on Pi Day (3/14). I know, bad baker joke.

The slightly political part with Mr. Mellark and Miner Falls is based off a tiny town I've gone to for the past two years in southwest VA. I debated putting this part in as well, but I felt that it was a big part of Peeta's struggles of finding a place, considering his home is changing. I'm sorry that this part has been a lot more political than my parts in the past, but I felt like this in particular couldn't be ignored. I'm not trying to offend anyone and I hope this was written to your high standards of maturity. It's meant to show his struggles, not make any major political statements.

The song that plays at Peeta's surprise party is Gangnam Style by PSY, although I'm sure you all realized that.

The theme of this section was "Leaving Home" which, obviously, is much more literal than the theme of the last part. Next is the section that corresponds with the milestone of "Becoming Financially Independent" and I want to warn you all in advance that it might be a while. I go back to school tomorrow and it's the home stretch until finals, so be warned. I will be posting updates to Shine On My Name, my other fic, every Friday since they're already written to tide you all over though.

Also, a note on the rating. It will stay the same, a mature T, and the writing of any future...sexual situations will be written similarly to now - nothing that would make SC blush. Sorry for all you smut fans, but I don't think it's relevant for this story. As much as I love it myself, and considered it, I fully believe that as a narrator Peeta would take into consideration Katniss's comfortability and wouldn't share something as intimate as that with all of us.

Thank you so much for reading this. You guys have been so great to me and it's always nice to hear that you're waiting on updates. I'm sorry about the absurdly long author's note at the end. Let me know what you think!