A/N - Thanks for reading! Please leave a review if you like what you read. My muse is an egotistical whore. Anyways, a slightly mushy chapter coming your way. Things will take a turn for the darker soon.

I don't pay much attention to the tirade escaping mother's mouth. My thoughts are elsewhere, as they always are, on the girl I live so close to but only ever want to be closer to. Certain words break through though…. "daydreamer…. lazy …. clutz…..head in the clouds…. never amount to anything…." I feel the need to point out that I am a victor and it's thanks to me that she now lives in such plush surroundings and receive a swift clip to the ear for my cheek. "Good thing you made a successful murderer then. I hope you're proud."

That stung deeply. For one I never actually killed anyone. Not intentionally, at least. "Would you have preferred me to not come home?" I ask quietly. She mumbles a half hearted apology. Of course she's happier with me home, I think. At least that way she gets to live here in luxury.

I can't stand being in this kitchen another moment. As I stand up to leave my mother demands to know where I am going. "Where do you think?" I reply.

"She's no good for you, that girl! She'll break your heart, you mark my words! Nothing but trouble, those Everdeens."

I don't even spare her a second glance as I stride out the front door. She can't possibly understand the connection that Katniss and I share. Our experiences together…. No one could possibly understand what we went through. I need her, and she needs me. Maybe she doesn't have the same longing for more, maybe she never will… But we need each other and that's enough for now.

I don't bother to knock when I arrive at Katniss's home, as I know she is expecting me. She is sat around the kitchen table with her mother and sister and has quite clearly been crying. Her mother graciously offers me tea which I gratefully accept.

We manage to extricate ourselves from the family unit by explaining that we are going to work on the family book alone. Katniss explains I work better when it's just the two of us, and although I feel her mother's watchful gaze upon us she allows us to be alone unsupervised.

For hours we sit together, Katniss describing the plants and me sketching them, redoing every last detail until they are perfect. It is dark when Katniss's mother comes to tell us how late it is, and how I should be going home. I bid my farewells to the Everdeens, with the promise of seeing Katniss in the morning.

We have a routine perfected now for the nights we have planned in advance to spend together. I will say goodnight and head home, and under the cover of darkness she will come to me. I leave the back door unlocked and when it is clear everyone is in bed and asleep she will come to mine on her silent feet and together we can defeat whatever horrors the night will throw at us.

I lay in bed for what feels like hours until my bedroom door opens just a crack and she slips through. Without saying a word she shrugs off her outer clothes and climbs in to bed next to me. She rests her head on my chest and I envelop her in my arms and together we are able to sleep without being plagued by fear.

I wake up as the first light of dawn falls through my bedroom window. Katniss has barely moved since she entered my room last night, and much as I hate to disturb her she will need to leave before she is missed. I gently squeeze her shoulders and whisper her name. "Katniss?" No reaction. "Katniss?" I whisper again, using my free arm to push some of her hair back from her face. Very slowly her eyes flicker open. "Already?" she whispers back, disappointment evident in her face. "Five more minutes…." she protests, settling her head back down on my chest. I can't deny her, not when she looks so peaceful. Besides, I'm too comfortable myself. I close my eyes for just a moment, and when I open them again just moments later I can tell too much time has passed. The sun is too bright, and I can hear movement downstairs. My father is already up, preparing this morning's bread. I curse inwardly, but we have been in this situation before. I gently rouse Katniss from sleep again and she can tell immediately what has happened. Her eyes fly open and in seconds she has gathered her clothes and pulled them on. I open my bedroom door a crack and peer through. No one else is about that I can see. Katniss opens my bedroom window, takes a deep breath of the morning air to clear the fogginess from her head, and easily jumps to the branch of a nearby oak tree. She makes her way along the branch as I shut my window and make my way downstairs.

"Morning, son!" I hear my father call cheerily from the kitchen. "Hey, dad," I respond yawning. With my father's attention diverted and his back now turned from the kitchen window I see over his shoulder that Katniss has dropped from the tree and is swiftly crossing to her own home. Now she just has to hope she can sneak inside without being caught, or at least create a good excuse if she is. "Sleep well?" asks my father innocently, but I swear I see the flicker of a knowing smile pass over his lips.

I've never been able to get much past him. I guess we're just too similar to have secrets from each other. But I won't give him the satisfaction of knowing he's right that easily. "I was out like a light," I reply. "You?"

"Kept thinking I heard movement down here. Must have been my imagination." That knowing smile is still there. He cuts me a slice of bread and spreads it with butter and jam. I sit and savour the morning's breakfast, my last here for at least a week. Whenever the Capitol sees fit to release us back to our everyday lives. "I know it's early," my father says, "and no one but a lowly baker would possibly be awake at such an hour, but would you mind dropping these cheese rolls off at Mrs Everdeen's? I don't have time myself," he finishes lightly, winking at the same time. I grin a little sheepishly and gather the rolls, while at the same time receiving a hearty pat on the back from him.

I'm out the front door in next to no time at all, and can hear my father chuckling to himself as I go. It doesn't matter that we've only just left each other's company; I will take any and every excuse I can to be with her. Besides, in just a couple of short hours Effie Trinket will arrive from the Capitol to escort us back and we will be back under the watchful gaze of all of Panem. I want to make the most of our last two hours of reality before being back in the land of gory make believe.

I knock gently on her front door. Katniss answers almost immediately and says in a hushed voice, "Peeta, what are you-?"

I hold up the basket of rolls and answer, perfectly innocently. "Dad wanted me to bring these to you."

She rolls her eyes and steps back, allowing me entry. Her mother is already awake. "Peeta! Another early riser, I see? Katniss has already been in to town and back." There is none of the knowing geniality in her voice that my father had. More of a probe to make sure there has been no impropriety.

"Same as every morning, Mrs Everdeen! No rest for the wicked, and the bread won't bake itself."

"Quite. Well, you two had best prepare yourselves for today. I don't want to hold you up in your duties, Peeta."

I don't have much of a choice but to tell Katniss I will see her on the train. Her mother is not being unkind – I think she worries that the Capitol is forcing us together against her daughter's will. I want Katniss to want me too, but it has to be her choice. I can't blame her mother for being protective.

Dark thoughts invade my mind, as they so often do when I am left alone. Memories of blood, and screams, and death, and teeth. I shake my head to clear it of those unwanted and unbidden thoughts, trying to replace them with memories of Katniss. As I slowly make my way back home, storm clouds begin to gather overhead. I almost laugh at the pathetic fallacy. Almost.

For the last couple of weeks Haymitch has secluded himself away. I can't say I blame him – the memories of his own Quell are bound to be near the surface, and we can't expect a man used to a lifetime of solitude to suddenly become a social butterfly just because two families have moved close to his home.

But seeing him on the train, drunker than I have ever seen him is still something of a shock. Effie is, to say the least, unimpressed.

"At least you two have a sense of decorum!" She squeaks in utter disgust, as Haymitch, reeking of an unpleasant mix of alcohol and vomit, slides to the floor and is dead to the world. "He needs to be sober by the time we get to the Capitol, or else I don't know what I'll do!" She totters away on immensely high heels, her powder blue wig wobbling dangerously.

I take a deep breath. "I'll do the honours," I say, picking him up in a fireman's lift. If I can at least get him clean maybe Effie won't kill us all for showing her up.

"I'll help," Katniss responds. We make our way down the train, until we find Haymitch's sleeping quarters. I set his unconscious figure down on the bed while Katniss runs a bath. I look down at the prone man in front of me. Would this have been our fate, had we not got each other? Will this be our fate yet? I make a mental note to learn about the victors from other districts and see what their coping mechanisms are. After all, every year only one mentor in twelve brings one of their charges home, and usually only one of them. They will all be familiar to death. Maybe some, like the mentors from Districts 1, 2 and 4 are able to brush the deaths off as readily as the Careers are able to kill.

After a few minutes I feel a touch on my shoulder. Katniss has returned. I reach up and touch her fingers, interlocking them with my own. "I was just thinking,-" I begin to say.

"-how easy it must be to become like him?" she finishes. "I know." Her grip on my shoulder tightens. "Promise me you won't let me?"

"I promise."

She smiles one of those sad smiles I am seeing too often on her. "Thank you," she says, and kisses my forehead. My heart skips at the contact, but I don't push her for more. "Shall we?" she says gesturing at Haymitch with a grimace.

It takes a few minutes to strip him before we unceremoniously dump him in the bath. He is so far gone with the alcohol that not even this wakes him and as such we have to hold him up lest he drown. We rinse the dried vomit from his face and hair and allow the hot water to force his body to sweat out some of the alcohol. When the smell of cooked food wafts up through the carriage towards us we deem that we have done enough, remove him from the bath and lay him down on the bed. We've done all we can for now.

We return to the dining carriage and to the feast laid out before us. I remember the first time we took this journey, seeing the incredible range of food, and there being more than I ever dreamed I would see in one go. I had never suffered hunger in the ways that the kids from the Seam did, but I had never had excess. And seeing all that food and being able to share it with the one I had hoped to talk to my entire life, even under such horrifying circumstances, felt like something out of one of my wildest fantasies. I look at the spread now, after months of always having enough to eat and the excess of it all upsets me. I think of the family of seven yesterday. How the offer of a burnt loaf of bread was more than they had ever hoped for. And suddenly my appetite is gone. I excuse myself and say I am going to get some air.

Towards the back of the train is a balcony protected by a force field. Supposedly for the safety of the passengers, but in reality more likely to stop any tributes from either trying to run away or commit suicide. I lean on the balcony and watch the countryside speed past me.

As the sun begins to set I am joined by Katniss. She finds my hand and we are interlinked once again. "Not hungry?" she asks.

"Not for all that rich rubbish."

"Get used to it quick, there won't be anything else but rich rubbish until we get home!"

I smile and pull her in to a hug. We are heading back towards hell, but for now, on our own in the middle of nowhere, the sun setting behind us, I could easily be in heaven.