I never thought I'd be so happy to be at the Training Center, but after such a busy day, the relative quiet of our old apartment is delectable.

After dinner, I take Prim up to the roof. She is amazed by the view, but is careful to stand back from the railing.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about falling," I tell her. "Watch this." I pick a stone from the garden and toss it at the force field. She gasps as it bounces back. "I'm sure there's no need to explain why that's there."

"It's not hard to figure out," she says.

I stare out at the bright city lights. In the distance, the President's Mansion dominates the cityscape. It is there where, in less than twenty-four hours, I will become Peeta's wife. How perverse is that? Being coerced into marriage, in a ceremony too extravagant for my taste, hundreds of miles from home, at the house of the very person I'm trying to protect my family from.

Prim puts her hand on my shoulder. I reach up and give it a squeeze. That's when I notice she's a lot taller than she used to be. She's growing up, too fast for my liking. Hardship has a way of doing that to children.

"You'll be all right, Katniss," she says consolingly. "I know the way things have happened between you and Peeta has left you confused, but I also can see that you love him. You just haven't figured it out for yourself yet."

I just smile weakly. "Well, if enough people are saying it, it must be true, right?" I don't have the heart to tell her that the way I feel about Peeta is the least of my worries.

"But they don't know you like I do, do they?" she says. "You didn't have to save his life in the arena, you know. You were doing just fine without him."

"To be honest, I'm not sure why I did it," I tell her. "But I think it was out of selfishness. I knew I'd be blacklisted back home if I didn't try."

"No." Prim shakes her head. "I saw the way you reacted to the announcement. You weren't thinking, if I don't team up with Peeta, everybody at home will hate me."

"Well...no, not at that precise moment," I admit. "But it did occur to me."

"So it was an afterthought," she says. "That doesn't make you selfish. I remember how despondent you were after Rue got killed. It took a great effort for you to do so much as sit up. But then, when the rules changed, the opportunity to track Peeta down snapped you right out of it. You were eager to find him. And when you finally did, you didn't put some half-hearted effort into saving him so that you could say, 'Well, I tried.' You did everything you could for him."

"Yeah, I sure did," I retort. "Right down to setting him up for a huge letdown."

"You're being too hard on yourself, Katniss," she says. "I could tell when you were being genuine, and I stand by what I said."

"There's a difference between loving someone and caring whether they live or die," I counter.

"Oh, really?" A devilish grin spreads across her face. "And is that why you can't keep your eyes off him? Because you care?"

"What?"

She laughs. "Don't play dumb with me, Katniss. The way you watched him sketch for the plant book. And all those times at school. Didn't think I noticed, did you?"

I feel my face turn beet red. Was I that obvious? I wonder if anyone else noticed—or maybe everyone else—and the thought mortifies me. "Okay, you got me. I was looking in his general direction, therefore I'm hopelessly in love. It's nice to see the little girl who begged to look at the cakes in the bakery window is still in there somewhere."

The sound of approaching footsteps echos from the hallway. "This topic is closed," I demand.

A moment later, Peeta appears in the doorway. "Am I interrupting?"

"No, I was just showing Prim around." I toss another stone at the force field.

"I'm going in now," Prim says. "It's freezing up here!" And then she's gone.

Peeta takes my hand and leads me to the garden swing. I curl up next to him and throw my legs across his lap. He covers us both with his jacket and sways us back and forth.

"I'm sorry for the way I've acted," I say.

"You have every right to be upset," he replies. "I actually think I'm starting to understand you a little better, now."

I look up at him. "How do you mean?"

The wind up here is loud enough to ensure that our conversation won't be overheard, but Peeta lowers his voice for good measure. "You were confused after the Games last year." I nod. "And I assumed it was just because of your feelings for Gale. But what you said last night, about never wanting to marry at all, made me realize you've also been dealing with your own aversion."

"That's exactly right," I say. But I feel I need to explain further. "I never thought about Gale that way before the Games. And ever since, I've tried to sort out how I feel about both of you. And it didn't matter, anyway, because nothing would ever come of it. At least, it wasn't supposed to. But that was before the Victory Tour. And now..." I trail off. Peeta waits patiently while I collect my thoughts. "What you said last night about your parents being unhappy hit a nerve." I stop again. Putting my feelings—particularly deeply personal feelings—into words doesn't come as naturally to me as it does for Peeta. I swallow hard and I stammer through the rest of my speech.

"I've been fighting tooth and nail ever since the paperwork came, but that has only made things worse. And...I don't want to make you miserable. Especially since...especially since I probably could love you. So...since there's no stopping this wedding...we might as well...we might as well be a real couple. All the time. On and off camera."

Peeta laughs. "You know, you're really cute when you're trying to be articulate."

"Oh, bite me," I say, rolling my eyes.

"Well, since we're officially a 'real couple' now, does that mean I'm allowed to tell you I love you?" he asks. "Or would that be too weird for you? Because I'm warning you, you'd be hearing it a lot."

I smile at him. "I'll allow it."

"All right." He leans in toward me. Taken by surprise, I back up just a little. He stops when his face is just inches from mine. "And am I allowed to kiss you?" A loud cackle escapes my lips as I'm reminded of the day I found him in the arena. "How about that kiss?" he'd said jokingly. I was in the midst of draining puss from his infected wound, and he could see I was struggling to keep my breakfast down. Yeah. A kiss would have been awesome.

"That depends." I push him away playfully. "Do you promise to bake me fresh cheese buns for breakfast every morning?"

"I think something can be arranged." Flirty Peeta. I kind of like it.

"Then get over here." I pull him by the collar of his shirt and bring my lips to his.

I feel that thing again. That familiar stirring within my chest. Kissing is nothing new for Peeta and me, but what a difference it makes to do it because we want to, and not out of obligation. No cameras around. No audience to please. Just him and me. At this moment, it's easy to forget my fears. Maybe being married to Peeta won't be so bad.

It's Peeta who breaks us up a moment later. "Can we have a toasting?"

"A toasting?"

"Not right away, but eventually," he says. "When you're ready."

I understand what he's asking. His request dovetails perfectly with the one he made last night. When I'm ready, meaning when my feelings for him are no longer clouded by uncertainty, and I can tell him I love him and mean it, he wants to seal our union with our own marriage ritual. "Sure," I say. "We can do that. But..."

"But what?" he asks.

"It could be a while."

Peeta smiles. "I can wait."

I lay my head on his shoulder and shut my eyes. For a long time, the only sounds to be heard are the howling of the wind, and the tinkling of the chimes hanging above us. It's very relaxing, as I snuggle against Peeta, cocooned in his warmth. Very relaxing...

"Hey, Katniss." Peeta's voice startles me. Did I doze off? I must have been too relaxed.

I look up. His expression is serious, now. "Yeah?"

He puts his lips to my ear. "Do you really think Snow is going to make us have kids?"

"He has something up his sleeve, Peeta," I whisper back. My voice is so low he probably has to read my lips to know what I'm saying. "That's why we're here. He knows this wedding isn't going to quiet the districts. Things are a lot worse now than they were on the Victory Tour. I think the best we can hope for is a reasonable amount of time before he starts threatening our family. And then it's..."

Peeta finishes it for me. "And then it's either watch them die, or our own children someday."

Tears well up in my eyes.

"Come here." He pulls me closer and kisses the top of my head. And for that moment, I try to forget about everything but the comfort of his arms around me.