My paintbrush whips through the air and smacks against the wall, leaving a splat of green on the stark white surface before clattering to the wood floor. I want to pull my hair out in frustration. I've spent hours - hours - trying to get her tail right and no matter what I try, I am unable to do it justice. Her eyes are another problem. I can get the silver of her irises just right, but the mystery in their depths is still missing.

I pace the speckled floor in what was once a pristine study. The hardwood is now flecked with almost every colour that has ever graced my palette and all the fancy Capitol furniture is piled high in the corner.

My eyes drift to the portrait again. Flat. The work is flat. Uninspired. If I could just get some rest, maybe I could get it right; but a full night's sleep had evaded me for two weeks. Since the Games, really, if I'm honest. But it has been especially bad of late. I glance at the clock on the wall and I wonder if I am sufficiently tired to at least catch a couple of hours before the nightmares awake me again.

I flick out the light with a sigh, wandering down the hall and picking up yesterday's mail from the mat at the front door. As usual, there's a fat stack waiting for me. Ten or so letters from the Capitol that reek of perfume. Fan mail. How much longer am I going to have to ignore it before it stops? They land with a smack on the little half moon table standing against the wall nearby. A thick, creamy envelope bears the Presidential seal. I break it open with shaking hands to find an invitation to the opening gala of the 75th Hunger Games. My stomach roils and heaves at the idea of going back. I'll be a mentor this year, a Quarter Quell year. What fresh hell will the gamemakers have in store for such an auspicious occasion? Undoubtedly, there will be more ghosts haunting the corners of my bedroom and starring in my dreams by fall. There is a flat package from Portia too. Designs, I suppose; this time for suits to wear during the official events tied to the Games. That one joins the rest on the pile on the table. I'll look at it in the morning.

I flick off the hall lights and head up to the master suite at the top of the stairs. I'm not very far into my bedtime routine before my mind wanders back to Katniss. The first night after she'd swam away from me, I was shocked not to hear her voice in my dreams.

Instead, my dreams were filled with flashes of me; moving through crowds - golden and glowing in the sun of District 4, exhausted and haunted on the beach the next morning, angry and sullen by the fire. Along with the visions came a jumble of feelings I have yet to make sense of; curiosity, confusion, a tremulous excitement tinged by a healthy dose of fear, and then an overwhelming hurt that nearly chokes me with its intensity. Convinced she was trying to reach out to me, I leapt from my bed as soon as it was light enough to see in the woods, eager to find her in the water, waiting for me. I would apologize, explain myself so that we could start over. But when I arrived, breathless from the run through the forest, the lake lapped neatly against the shore. The birds, having long abandoned the mermaid's song, were tweeting softly to each other on the breeze and the only evidence of my visit the day before was the charred remains of my fire.

Since then, nothing. Two weeks without any sense of her in my dreams. I can only assume that she's made her decision and the tie between us has been severed. If it ever existed at all. If she ever existed at all. Either way, I can't say I'm enjoying having my dreams all to myself again.

I lay flat on my back in my king-size bed. The sheer curtains ripple as the early summer breeze wafts into the room and over me. It's so damn quiet up here on the hill. I miss the near-constant hum of the bakery and the street noise of the town. The tree outside my window waves back and forth in time with the curtains. I watch as it sways out toward the little courtyard between my house and Haymitch's place and then swings back toward my window. Out again. Back. The leaves quiver and rustle as the branch rocks toward me again. It's soothing, almost hypnotic.

When the leaves brush against my face, I hack the branch out of the way with my knife and continuing pushing through the dense forest. I check behind me to make sure Katniss is still there. She gives me a grim nod and so I push forward until I reach the edge of the forest.

The sun is setting and it's getting colder. I know what this means. It's the finale. The shoulder of Katniss's jacket brushes against my own as she stands beside me. She's as human as I am tonight.

"Stay close," I whisper, as I gently lift a branch in search of the only other remaining tribute in the arena. He's hiding inside the cornucopia, just like he does every night.

"Where is he?" she replies. I nod toward the metallic horn of plenty, shining under the manufactured moon. She frowns and raises her bow, adjusting her stance and positioning her arrow, drawing it back until the string taut against her cheek.

"Katniss?"

She shushes me. "I'll draw him out." She lets her arrow fly high into the air and it rattles noisily when it falls against the metal roof of the cornucopia. Something moves inside. We've startled him. Katniss nods to the right. "Come at him from that side," she whispers. "I'll draw him to the left once you're in position."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Go!" She shoves me the way she wants me to move and slinks off into the brush in the opposite direction. I find an ideal spot where I can't be seen from the cornucopia and watch her draw her weapon once more. It pings off the side of the giant horn and this time, Cato creeps outside. His sword glistens in the moonlight. I run, my feet moving faster than they've ever moved before and I tackle him from behind.

His sword drops to the ground as we tumble onto the hard packed earth outside. I land a few swift jabs to his kidneys, as Cato scrabbles across the grass, finally wrapping his fist around the hilt of his sword. I'm still on my knees when he rolls and slashes at my leg. The slice feels like lightning tearing through my thigh; its white heat throbs as I fall to the ground. I await what should almost certainly be the final plunge of his sword through my heart. Instead, he jumps me, talking incessantly about how this will make him a hero. A Victor. If he only knew.

"Do it," I urge him. "Put me out of my misery."

No, Katniss hisses. She's nowhere to be seen, but her voice echoes in my head all the same.

Cato grins manically at me. He's clearly become unhinged in the time I've been hiding in the woods. He raises a rock high above his head to crush my skull and makes the same mistake he makes every night. The rock offsets his centre of balance just enough that I am able to make use of my years of wrestling training. Making the most of my good leg, I heave my body off the ground, twisting and pinning him to the earth.

And I slice his throat with my knife, just as I have done every night since the night it first happened in the arena. The gurgling noise hardly registers anymore.

I fall to the ground and stare up at the artificial stars waiting for the false sun to rise. Or to bleed out, whichever comes first.

She steps into my line of vision, staring down at me, her silver eyes glittering. "You did what you had to."

Katniss frowns when I shake my head. "I should have let him kill me. It would have been better."

"Then we never would have met, Peeta Mellark. Now wake up."

When I open my eyes, the sun is rising over the houses on the other side of the courtyard. I lay still and watch it creep slowly toward the peak of Haymitch's house as I wait for the sick feeling that overcomes me every time I have the dream to pass. I only have one kill to my credit in the Hunger Games, but I've killed the same man in my sleep at least 200 times. I will never escape him. But for once, there is no heart-palpitating terror to go along with the dread. Katniss's presence seems to have soothed it.

Katniss. Just the thought of her makes me sit straight up in bed. She was there. I throw back the covers and quickly haul on some clothes before rushing down the stairs. I grab my rucksack from the kitchen closet and shove my feet into my shoes. I toss in a bottle of water, a couple of pieces of fruit, some cheese buns and I'm out the door and headed for the lake.

The mornings are warmer now, but the more temperate weather makes no impression, so focused am I on reaching the meadow. I usually walk through the Seam in the early morning hours with my loaves of bread, long before the miners have left for work or the children begin their walk to school. It is important I not be seen. A mysterious delivery can be seen as good fortune, especially when no one knows exactly who will receive a loaf of bread on any one day. But if I am caught leaving it on the doorstep, the people of the Seam would consider my offer of bread to be charity and send me away.

I have no bread to share this morning and I march purposefully to the fence. I do not wish to be delayed on my walk to the lake. My strides quickly eat up the distance between my house and the meadow and, before long, I'm scrabbling under the fence and following the well trodden path into the woods. My eager steps do not slow and I push my way through the brush, pressing on for the lake, desperately straining my ears for any sign of her air is curiously silent, not even the birds are singing this morning. I weave through the trees, pressing on to my destination.

The sun is high in the sky by the time I burst from the woods to the shore of the lake. I expect her to be there. I want her to be there. Instead, there is only silence and still water. I chuck my shirt over the bush near the water and kick off my shoes.

"Katniss!" My fingers hook under my socks and they join the shirt.

"Katniss!" I watch the water for even the slightest bubble. Nothing. I flick open the button on my pants and they fall to the ground. I throw them over the shrub and wade into the water.

"Katniss!" I yell as I splash further into the water. The water is surrounding my hips, clawing at my legs and delaying my progress. "Katniss, please!"

Then I see it, a ripple in the middle of the lake. I call out to her again, aching to make contact at last. I plunge ever deeper, the water swirling up under my arms now. Right where Katniss should appear, a fish jumps high, snatching a bug out of the sky before sinking back into the depths of the lake, and I feel like a fool for coming out here. She's obviously not coming. Disappointment surges over me and the water drags at my limbs as I slog back to shore.

It takes a few minutes before her voice penetrates the noise of my own splashing.

"Peeta Mellark!" I whip around and see Katniss's head bobbing above the waterline, her face full of desperation. "Peeta! Wait."

She propels toward me, her strong arms slicing through the water like knives. Now that she's closer, I can discern the dark shadows under her eyes.

When we're eye to eye, she grasps my shoulders. "The dreams, Peeta," she rasps. "If I must live them with you, I need to understand. Tell me."

I close my eyes and sigh even as I nod, because I know that she's right. I'd already resigned myself to telling her the story. It's not an unreasonable request and I've missed her so much that I'll do almost anything to keep her with me. Even tell her about the Games. Wordlessly, I start back to shore as she coasts along beside me.

It's warm enough today that I have no need for a fire, but I find myself back in the same spot as our last time together. Katniss settles back on her rock and watches me expectantly.

I pick up a stick and drag it through the dead coals left by my fire two weeks ago.

"My people know almost nothing about the time before the Dark Days."

"The time of the sky fire," Katniss clarifies.

"That's right," I confirm. "That 'sky fire' was caused by a terrible war. Our country is divided into 12 districts. There used to be 13, but District 13 led a revolution of the Districts against the Capitol."

Katniss frowns. "What is this, the Capitol?"

"Where our president lives, and his…" My mind whirls as I try to find a way to explain the phoney opulence and thoughtless arrogance of the Capitol. "Followers, I guess? The people who support him and benefit from the way he runs our country?"

Katniss nods in understanding. "This president, he is like a chieftan?"

I hear a screech from above and look up. A hawk circles overhead before diving down into the lake and then soaring away with a fat trout in its claws. I wonder briefly if his fishy belly is full of flies.

"A bit," I tell her, using the stick to scratch pictures into the sandy mud at the edge of the lake. "He is corrupt, and he allows the people in the districts to starve while we work to support the Capitol. It's been that way for a very long time. That's why there was a revolution, but it failed. Twelve of the districts were defeated and then the Capital dropped bombs on District 13. Blew it up, right off the face of the planet. They created the Hunger Games after that, to remind us that the Capitol is all powerful. Every year, each district must provide one boy and one girl to serve as Tributes in the Games. Their names are chosen from a bowl and then they are sent to fight to the death for the entertainment of the Capitol."

Katniss's face is stoney. "You were chosen."

I open my mouth to answer, but the words are stuck. I clear my throat and manage to whisper, "Last year."

Neither of us say anything for a few minutes. I prop my elbows on my bent knees, my stick held lightly in my hands as I bounce it up and down.

"I hid in a cave the woods for a long time. I made a spear and caught fish. I collected berries. I camouflaged myself and hid in plain sight sometimes to steal food or figure out what the others were up to. Finally, there was just us two, Cato and I. And I knew he had enough food and weapons to wait me out indefinitely or until the Gamemakers forced us together, so I packed up my things and went to him. I knew he'd probably kill me, but at least it would be over"

Katniss turns her face up to the sun and it kisses her olive cheeks, the tawny tips of her bare breasts tilt skyward while her dark hair tumbles in a waterfall down her back.

"So you are a warrior," she says to the sky.

I snort. "Hardly. I'm just the guy who managed to survive in a fight he didn't ask to be a part of."

She side-eyes me. "Among peaceful peoples, that is the very definition of a warrior."

I would never accuse the country of Panem of being peaceful, so I don't say anything to that. Instead, I offer her some lunch. She's fascinated by the idea of sharing a meal, but says she can't eat anything of mine without something to share.

"You could sing for your supper," I offer, but that only earns me a scowl and an insistence that she can provide her share of the meal, thank you very much.

I wait on the shore while she's off diving for our dinner, and start gathering some sticks to start a fire. I'm guessing raw fish is a regular part of her underwater diet, but that is just not appealing to me.

I've got the fire snapping and crackling by the time she returns with a healthy-sized trout. She sits beside me on the beach, her still glistening tail still resting in the shallows.

"I've been eating the freshwater clams, mostly," she explains, "But he looked nice and fat."

I grab my knife from my pack and try to figure out how to prepare him for the fire.

Katniss stills my hand. "First we must thank the fish for giving up his life so that we can eat," she says, closing her eyes and muttering a few brief words I don't quite catch. She holds out her hand for the knife and once it's clutched in her fist, deftly slits the trout's belly and removes all the entrails.

"We're going to cook him, right?"

As I feared, Katniss gives me a puzzled look. "Cook him?"

"On the fire." She still looks confused and so I get up and cut a green branch off a nearby tree. I thread it through the fish's mouth and out his gills before propping it over the fire. "If you don't like it, I'll try it your way next time, okay?"

Katniss looks longingly at the fish and I realize that she's hungry.

"Would you like a cheese bun, Katniss?"

"Cheese bun?" She doesn't understand - again. The combination of her perplexed state and her annoyance with not knowing has twisted her face into such an odd expression, I have to turn my back or I'll laugh out loud.

When I turn, I loosen the cloth I'd tied around the rolls. "Cheese buns," I offer her. "I baked the cheese right into the bread. Try one."

"Bread?" Her eyebrows fly upwards.

"I suppose you don't eat bread," I reply, trying to reassure her, "since you spend most of your life underwater. Can you eat it?"

She nods slowly. "I can eat anything that humans eat."

"Well, I can vouch for these. It's my father's recipe. They're a best seller in the bakery."

Katniss takes a tentative bite into the flaky roll. When the salty, yeasty flavour meets her taste buds her eyes roll and then close in contentment. She sighs happily and her pink tongue darts out over her lips. "You make delicious bread, Peeta Mellark."

Her expression of ecstasy burns into my brain for recall later. I check the roasting fish, seizing the opportunity to adjust myself while my back is turned. The trout is flakey and white, so I remove it from the fire and bring it back to Katniss. We pick the meat away from the bones and gorge ourselves on fresh fish and the soft buns. I can't remember a time I've enjoyed a meal more. Katniss devours everything with gusto, and I'm left to wonder what she usually eats.

"So, if you're a mermaid, how can you eat seafood?"

"Because I prefer not to starve," she snarks.

"I know that, but… aren't you part fish?"

She rolls her eyes. "No. Closer to a dolphin, really. And even then… not really. We are who we are. But everything in the sea eats something smaller than itself to survive."

We toss the fish bones into the fire and I bring out the apples I packed in my bag. I pass one to Katniss before I finally work up the courage to ask Katniss more about herself.

"Is your home in District 4?"

"I'm sorry, what?" She's distracted, turning the rosy red fruit over and over in her hands, trying to decide what to do with it.

"LIke this," I say, and my teeth snap into the apple's tight skin. Katniss copies me and then smiles when the sweetly tart juices flow into her mouth. I chew my bite slowly and swallow. Katniss copies me.

"Your home," I remind her, once her mouth is free again. "Is it in District 4?"

"District 4?" I can hear the puzzlement in her voice.

"Where we met the first me."

"Oh, Pacifica," she replies. "No. Not there. That is even farther from my home than here."

I wonder where she's talking about. The Capitol-approved textbooks at school taught us nothing of the rest of the world.

"The sea is salty and warm, not like… this place. Or like Pacifica. Our sea is green and rich with life. We live in the city below the surface, and my people farm the sea plants and care for the fish. We take only what we need to survive and we waste nothing."

"What's it like on the surface?"

"Palm trees. White sand. Little houses clinging to the cliffs."

"Sounds like utopia."

"Perfection? Hardly," she snorts and bites into her apple again. "It's dangerous to spend any time above the water, at least in places where the humans live." She purses her lips as she considers. "We only surface during the day in a secret cove that we can travel to through an underwater tunnel."

It sounds lonely. "Do you have a family?"

"I live with my sister and my parents. My sister is training to be a healer, like my mother. My father is Chieftan."

It's just my luck that the girl I share this strange connection with happens to be the Chieftan's daughter. He's probably sharpening the prongs of his trident as we speak. "I bet he was just thrilled to hear about me."

Katniss presses her lips together and swishes her tail in the water, like there's something on the tip of her tongue that she can't express, so we sit in silence, listening to the occasional twitter in the trees and the gentle lap of the lake on the shore. I can't remember the last time I've been so content. I'm over by the bushes getting redressed when she speaks again.

"My parents were lucky enough to find their mates under the sea. For many merfolk, it is a very simple thing. I always knew it would not be simple for me."

I double knot my shoelaces and return to the fire. "Why wouldn't it be simple for you?"

She huffs. "I am Katniss. Priestess. Guardian. It could never be simple."

Her eyes are a swirl of unexpressed emotions. It's like watching the sky during a summer storm. Unable to help myself, I twirl a lock of her still-damp hair around my finger and then let it spring free. "No, it's not simple," I say. "There's so much I don't understand. Like, how did you end up in my dream last night?"

She bites her lip. "I'm not sure. I was on duty at the City gates when the vision came over me. And I just couldn't watch it again, watch it and do nothing. I remember thinking that I needed to help you and the next thing I knew, I was beside you."

"With feet," I say, and she blushes.

"With feet." She brushes her fingers through the sand. "Anyway, did it help?"

"You having feet?

"That I was there. That I distracted him."

My hand finds its way to hers and I lace our fingers together. "It always helps when I feel your presence, but yes - seeing you in that moment - it helped."

She gives a satisfied nod. "Good. And the dreams will stop?"

I wrap my arms around my knees and look out at the water. "I don't think they'll ever go away. Not completely. But at least today, I didn't wake up paralyzed with fear." I find a pebble in the sand and throw it into the water. We watch the ripples fade away in ever larger circles until they disappear. "I was afraid I'd never see you again. That you'd decided."

She peers at me cautiously from under her eyelashes. "I thought I had. But the visions and dreams did not stop. So I consulted our high priestess. She said the link between matched pairs cannot be severed in anger."

"It certainly felt like you were gone." My legs are restless and so I begin to pack up what's left of the picnic. "I had no sense of you."

Katniss scowls. "I did not want you to. Then I talked to my father. He said that if my mother had been able to sever their connection every time he annoyed her, I would never have been born."

I think of what passes for a relationship in the house I grew up in and I wonder whether my mother would have judged my father worthy. Somehow I think her measuring stick is different than the one Katniss is using.

"I'm sorry I annoyed you. I just… I hate to talk about it." Her tail sways back and for the in the water as she considers my words. "I know we just met, Katniss, but I feel like I know you. And I missed you." I lay my hand, palm open, on my lap and she takes it in her own. Heat pulses from our palms, the warmth extending up my arm and wrapping around my heart. When I glance over at Katniss, her cheeks are flushed and her lower lip is caught in her teeth. I bump my shoulder against hers and she looks over at me, her blush deepening. She returns my smile with one of her own.

We sway toward each other until our lips meet, a tentative press of her rose-coloured flesh against mine. Katniss inhales sharply, then relaxes as my hand finds its way to her cheek. It's chaste as kisses go, glowing with the sweetness of a first encounter, still but different from any first kiss I have ever had. Maybe it's because I've been seeing her in my dreams for so long. Perhaps it's how much I've missed her these last weeks, but there's a rightness to this kiss, a knowing, that I have never experienced before. My thumb brushes over her cheekbone, tracing softly, as I pull away.

Her eyes open and her fingertips flutter to her lips. "You kissed me."

"Do I have something to apologize for?"

With a quick shake of her head, Katniss clasps my face in her hands and mashes her lips against mine once again. My fingers weave into her hair, our nervousness abandoned as our lips move in concert. My heart is pounding in my ears when I ease back, stroking her hair before leaning in again to capture her bottom lip between my own. She tastes of apple, and of innocence. I kiss her brow.

Her head in my hands, I whisper my next words into her hair, her slender fingers wrapped around my wrists. "It's getting late and I have a long hike. I need to go."

Her gaze meets mine. "You'll be back tomorrow?"

"I will."

She nods and releases my arms. I jump to my feet, dusting the sand from the seat of my pants and reaching for my rucksack. My feet barely touch the ground all the way back to the fence. I listen for the hum of electricity, but it's off as always and I scramble beneath it before hiking back home, my step lighter than it's been since Effie Trinket pulled my name from the reaping ball. Haymitch is out on his porch as I arrive home. I toss him a quick wave as I trot up the steps and let myself into my house.

In my kitchen, I throw together a quick sandwich and carry it into the studio. The memory of her is still fresh in my mind's eye and I want to attempt her face at least once more before I go to bed. With the sandwich clutched in one fist, I attack the canvas with renewed vigor, desperate to capture the fullness of her lips, her pert nose and the smoke in her eyes.

It's well past midnight before I am satisfied enough with my work to shut off the lights in the studio and make my way upstairs to bed. As I fall asleep, I'm already planning what to take to the lake with me in the morning.

The sun is beating down on me as I pick my way across the scalding sand. The breeze blowing off the water stirs my hair and makes it hard to carry my blanket and the basket I've brought with me, but at least the air is warm.

When I reach the water's edge, I spread my blanket on the sand and settle down to wait. I haven't seen Katniss since yesterday when she kissed me goodbye before leaving our rooms over the bakery. She was on duty, guarding the mercolony.

Rasmus surfaces first. His pudgy fingers shoot up in an enthusiastic wave when he spots me. He darts below the surface again and then leaps high into the air, his tail glistening in the sun. When he hits the water again, he shoots toward me at top speed.

He's walking on his hands in the shallow water on his way to the blanket when Katniss and Willow appear, Katniss's expression frantic. It seems Rasmus has gotten away from her again.

"He's here!" I call and her faces relaxes in relief before contorting into a scowl. She starts swimming to shore, her pint-size replica at her side.

Rasmus' blonde curls are in tight spirals from being wet all night. I scoop him up from the water and kiss the apples of his cheeks, still wet from the sea. He giggles and his grey eyes dance. It would melt my heart if I didn't know that he'd just terrified his mother.

"Hi Babbas. I beated Mama."

"You know better than to swim away, Little Man. Mama's not going to be very happy with you."

His chin quivers and his lower lip pops out. "I didn't swim away," he insists. "I race-did Mama. I told-ed her."

"I don't think Mama's going to see it that way."

By the time Katniss and Willow are pulling themselves onto the blanket, a much-subdued Rasmus is already dry and awaiting her verdict, his arms and legs crossed defensively. For as much as our son looks like me, he has his mother's volatile temper.

"Rasmus Mellark." Katniss launches her attack before she's even dry.

Rasmus is already sputtering defensively when six-year-old Willow slumps against me. "Hi Babbas." She's exhausted.

"What's wrong, cookie?"

"Ugh! We'd barely left Papou and Yaya's house and he was zooming off. Mama told me I had to swim my fastest because Rasmus is so quick. She was afraid we'd lose him or he'd get lost."

I kiss the top of her dark head. It's still damp. "Well, you made it, so good job, Sweetheart."

Her brows knit into a familiar scowl. "He's so naughty. It's not fair."

She's begun to dry off, so I swipe her favourite tunic from the picnic basket and pass it her way. She's begun to be shy about her nakedness and I don't want her to feel exposed when her scales fall away.

I pass Katniss her tunic as well, managing to distract her from the lecture she is laying on our son.

"I brought you something to put on." She gives me a grateful smile.

"Hello my love. What's for lunch?"

I lift a hearty loaf of bread from the basket. "The last loaf of bread in all of Atlantis."

She rolls her eyes. "Petronius." Then she grins. "I take it business was good this morning?"

I nod and tear off a hunk of the bread and pass it to her, before sharing the rest with the children.

Rasmus pulls out a bunch of grapes and then pops one in his mouth. Meanwhile, Willow waits patiently for some goat cheese to spread on her bread.

"Are you on duty tonight?" I ask Katniss.

Her mouth is full of bread, so she just shakes her head no and I'm elated that I'll have my family under our roof tonight. I rise so early to go to work, that Katniss takes them to stay with her parents when she's on duty.

Willow hums happily beside me. She'd much rather be at home in her own bed than at her grandparents. Rasmus is full of new stories. He adores his Papou's tales of sharks and ships and life underwater. I asked Katniss once if her father's stories were true. She just smiled mysteriously and said that depended on the listener.

Before long, we're packing up what's left of our lunch and headed home for a nap. Katniss was up all night, I've been up since before sunrise and the kids are both ready to crash. When my wife's fingers slip between mine I can't help but think that I'm the luckiest man alive. If I could freeze this moment, I'd live in it forever.