KPOV

Peeta holds my hand and leads me through the train, past the dining car, past the sleeping cars to the very end of the train. The doors slide open to reveal a large room with a huge picture window at the back. There are couches underneath where we can sit and watch the countryside rolling by. Peeta sits down on the couch and pulls me to sit down next to him, not letting go of my hand. It's almost like he's afraid I'm going to bolt up and run away, which if I'm being honest with myself, means that he knows me a lot better than I thought.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, before I look up at him and sign in frustration. I try to distract myself by tracing the veins in his wrist up to his palm. Peeta just waits for me, not saying anything. It's almost maddening. Almost.

Finally I look up at him. "You're not being fair," I blurt out, regretting my choice of words almost immediately. Peeta's eyebrows disappear under his hair and he opens his mouth to speak, but I raise my other hand to cut him off.

"We were practically strangers before the reaping, and then you had to go on national TV and say that you had a crush on me, and then in training I kept trying not to look at you too much because I was afraid of getting too close to you and then having to kill you, and then in the arena it seemed for a while that you were trying to kill me...".

Peeta opens his mouth again but I again cut him off. "Let me finish, talking this much all at once is hard for me," I admit sheepishly, looking back down at his hand holding mine.

"And then, in the arena when the rule change was announced, my mind immediately went to you and I shouted your name from the tree, without even thinking that I might be giving away my position to the Careers. And then when I found you I was so thankful, and then I was afraid you were going to die, and then when you didn't I was so relieved because I felt safe in that cave with you and I haven't felt safe like that since my father died. And then when you kissed me that one time when my head started bleeding again I didn't want to stop. And then once they announced that we won in the arena and you were bleeding so bad from your leg and you collapsed in the hovercraft and I didn't know if you had lived or died and I was frantic; because if you had died then after all that we'd been through in that arena then I wanted to die too."

I pause for a minute to catch my breath before continuing. Peeta is still rubbing his thumb back and forth on my hand and saying nothing.

"And I've always said that I never wanted to fall in love or get married because loving someone that much only ends up destroying you in the end..." my voice trails off again and I feel like I've said more in a few minutes than I have in the last five years.

Peeta is silent for a while, waiting I think to make sure I'm finished with my speech. When I finally work up the courage to look back up at him I see him smiling lightly at me, almost smirking.

I feel myself flushing with embarrassment. "There's nothing funny about this," I say, looking away and trying to pull my hand away. But he holds onto it tightly and puts his other hand under my chin, forcing me to look back up at him.

"What do you want from me Katniss?" he asks, keeping his hand on my chin so I can't look away. His beautiful blue eyes are staring deeply into my grey ones; unwavering and strong, just like him.

His question takes me by surprise, and I find myself unable to answer right away. No one has asked me what I wanted for myself for a very, very long time. What I've wanted has never seemed to be a priority. I didn't want my father to be killed in that mine explosion. I didn't want my mother to completely withdraw from the world following his death, causing all three of us to almost starve to death. I didn't want to have to single-handedly start supporting my family when I was only 11 years old, but nobody ever asked me if it was what I wanted. It's been so long since I've even thought only about what I wanted that I think I've forgotten how.

Peeta waits patiently for me to reply, his one hand still holding my hand and moving his other hand from my chin over to cup my cheek. Almost instinctively I lean into his hand, letting his touch give me the strength to figure out the jumbled mess of thoughts floating in my head.

"I want," I start out, blinking a couple of times at the foreign nature of those words coming from my lips.

"I want you to make me feel safe again, because I'm scared of being alone anymore. I want you to help keep my nightmares away. I want to learn more about you and what you like to do. I want to stop just trying to survive and learn how to start living, but I don't think I know how to do that by myself. I want you to tell me stories about you growing up with your brothers, and I want to tell you stories about my father and about Prim. I want to not have to be the strong one all of the time."

I pause for a moment before continuing. "And I want to share all of these things with you, Peeta, and it's scaring me so much because I've never wanted to share these kinds of things with anyone before."

Peeta nudges my cheek with his hand, asking me silently to meet his eyes. "Not with anyone?" he asks, his voice wavering. I shake my head in response. I know his underlying question is about Gale; he's just too much of a gentleman to ask me directly.

Gale. Thinking of him makes me nervous again, and I drop my eyes back down to Peeta's hand holding my own. I've never thought about Gale as anything other than a friend, an older brother maybe. His reputation as a ladies man at the slag heap was almost legendary, but Peeta seemed to think there was something else there.

"Did you think Gale would be waiting for me to come home to him?" I ask. Now it's Peeta's turn to look down, a flush creeping up his neck as he stared at our joined hands.

"Try to look at it this way," he says, glancing back up at me before looking off to the side, his face still red. "I've been watching the two of you together for years. From my perspective, he was the one who could coax a smile from you. He was the one hunting with you in the woods, he was the one who helped you to survive..." his voice trails off as he notices the expression on my face. I bring my other hand up to touch his hand still on my cheek, shaking my head.

"No Peeta," I say, swallowing thickly. "You helped me survive when you threw me that bread in the rain when we were 11. You don't understand how close I was to giving up. Prim and I were starving to death, my mother was so busy wallowing in her grief that she didn't even notice; I didn't know what else to do. You took a beating to give me that bread."

I reached up to touch his cheek where the horrible bruise had been the next day. "The next day at school, I wanted so badly to thank you, but I didn't know how" I say, still stroking his cheek as if I was erasing the mark that used to be there. "Then I saw a dandelion in the schoolyard, and I suddenly remembered what my father had taught me about finding food in the forest. You were the reason I survived Peeta, not Gale. Gale came along later, once I was already hunting in the forest. Gale's my friend, yes, but he's only my friend," I say firmly, looking straight into Peeta's eyes. "I've never thought of him as anything other than a friend, and he doesn't see me like that either."

Peeta doesn't look convinced but says nothing, instead he lets go of my hand and brings his up to cup my other cheek. "Katniss, do you understand how much I care for you?" he asks, gently stroking my cheekbone with his thumb.

I look into his eyes; those beautiful blue eyes with the longest eyelashes that I've ever seen. Eyes that are so different from my own. Eyes that are mirroring every word that he just said.

"Yes," I say, my voice almost squeaking. "I think I do."

He smiles. "Then I just have one question left for you right now," he says softly. "Katniss, can I kiss you?" he asks, so tentatively and sweetly that it almost brings tears to my eyes.

I smile at him. "You don't have to ask me that," I say, starting to lean towards him. He leans towards me and meets me halfway.

This kiss is the first one we've shared with no cameras or people watching us, and it feels different, more intimate. His lips are warm and soft and his skin smells like vanilla and I can feel warmth building in my chest and spreading down to my fingertips. This feels like that one kiss in the cave, the one that I didn't want to end when my head started bleeding again. I bring my arms up around his neck to hold him to me, feeling his thumbs still gently stroking my cheekbones. We stay here locked to each other until we have to break apart and catch our breaths. I lean my head onto his chest and his arms wrap around me, holding me tight.

All of a sudden I'm exhausted and try to stifle a yawn. Peeta notices and chuckles lightly. "It's getting late, and we have another big, big, big day tomorrow," he says, imitating Effie and her Capitol accent. "Why don't we try and get some sleep?"

I look up at him. "Will you stay with me?" I whisper, afraid of sleeping by myself. I've barely slept at all since the arena; first out of fear when I hadn't known how badly Peeta was injured, then because Haymitch and Effie kept us apart until the interviews.

He pulls back to look at me and smiles. "Always," he says, and takes my hand to lead me towards the sleeping cars. Peeta stops by his room to grab some sleeping clothes and then joins me in my room. I've already changed into my pajamas when he comes out of my bathroom ready for sleep. We climb under the covers and he wraps his arms around me, holding me tightly against him. He kisses the back of my head and I kiss his hand, and we both quickly fall into a dreamless sleep.