Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Again repeat with new strewn out between it. I would love to hear everyones opinion! Reviews are always appreciated and worshipped. More Katniss slowly changing, but I mean only to change, or rather excel, one portion of her. Thank you for reading. Sorry for typos. Enjoy. -Taryn(:

Chapter Four

My thigh is thrown over his hip, while our legs are twined hopelessly together. We are tangled, struggling to fit laying down on the narrow couch. His nose is brushing across my forehead, lips damp against my cheekbone, and my chest is fitted directly onto his. The only reason I convince myself that I'm not moving away is because I don't want to wake him.

But that is a stupid excuse. I know why. Because whatever I say to him when he wakes up it will probably not be what he wants to hear. The odds are that I will wound him in one way or another by opening my mouth, so I'm content in not saying anything at all.

And, where his hand lays underneath my shirt against my lower back, my skin tingles, burns, his imprint branding itself there, seeping through skin, through blood and veins, deeper than bone. His breath whisking across my jaw, down my neck, and I fight not to shudder. Why ruin it? Why start the inevitable fight over who lives and dies? Why resist what feels so good and warm and wonderful when there's no harm in doing it?

Peeta's chest rises slowly in sleep, and I know each time it expands tighter across mine, I can't possibly sleep any longer. It is quiet and I feel my eyes boring holes into his face. His eyelashes are just as hypnotizing as I remember them to be. They might be as soft as silk. As soft as his lips.. and I wish we weren't so impossibly tangled together that I might drop my eyes to look at them. If I lean in just a bit, my lips could touch the underside of his jaw. Would it wake him? Would I care? Why am I even contemplating ridiculous and useless and stupid things like this?

I'm blaming Peeta. He is doing this to me. His hot breath on my skin is all I feel. The higher rates of my emotions, this new hunger, the teenage hormones I've never had a problem with before this. Each one has a different flavor to it and kinkier thoughts to boot.

Like now, I feel warmth. And it isn't like the normal, now I can live and I won't have to worry about freezing to death or getting sick. Normal Katniss behavior. Instead, the heat crawls slowly over my flesh, burrows into my skin, loosening every tense nerve and softening my sore muscles. Like Buttercup kneading my skin into mush, as unlikely as that is. I think about how I could make this feeling last. I think about that it's Peeta who is making me feel this way and how... new it is.

And normally new means bad. But this is a new, new. A not entirely unwelcome new.

"You make me weak," I say, one of the hands I have slung around him, pinching his side lightly. The accusation in my voice is overpowering.

It takes a moment, but his eyes open, eyelashes tickling my forehead. I repeat myself when, groggy, Peeta pulls back so we are at a talking distance, but still entirely too temptingly close. "How?" he rasps.

"That's a stupid question," I tell him. "You make me have another person to worry about. When I was young.. it was only my mother and Prim. Now I have you, and.. Haymitch.. and Gale.."

"Loving people isn't a weakness, Katniss."

"Yeah, well," I say stubbornly, "I don't love you."

"I know," Peeta says, amusement in his voice.

Was he mocking me? Mirth dances inside his deep blue eyes. "Why are you.. laughing?" I ask.

"I'm not," says Peeta. Innocently holding back a grin.

I scowl. "You're definitely amused about something."

He seems to think about it for a minute. His eyes wander the panes of my face and since he is so close when he smiles, I can feel his forehead, against mine, press closer. I would have been more worried, or focused on the fact that, he might kiss me, if I was not blinded by his dimples. "I don't believe you," Peeta says.

Again. I feel my stomach churn, because he doesn't believe me. Doesn't trust me. "Believe what?"

"That you don't love me."

That takes me a minute to swallow, and once I process it all, in plenty of shock, I'm still stunned by his blatant choice of words. "You don't think I know how I feel?"

"No. I know you do," he says. "But you just won't admit it to anyone else."

Great, now he's a psychologist. And arrogant. "What makes you think that?" I ask tensely.

"Because you just listed me with a whole bunch of people you've admitted to loving. I was right in the middle, doesn't that count for something?" There is so much hope in his voice that I lose my grasp on how confident he seemed on the subject just moments ago. He's no longer smug, no longer laughing. He wants me to acknowledge it, to approve of his new theory.

But I am speechless. A fish with their mouth opening and closing uselessly, stuck on land, in the middle of a desert. Peeta is suggesting I'm in denial. Am I in denial? Why would I be? I could easily admit I loved Gale and that was difficult.. or it seemed difficult. But I knew I loved Gale, very confidently. There is no uncertainty on that fact. With Peeta... it is so confusing, so mixed up and complicated. So much pressure and manipulation. So much selfishness on my side and goodness on his. So many things unresolved and troubling. How could I love him? It would only be a threat on my life, on any future child's life... and if I could love him, why didn't I? Why couldn't I have just loved him when it mattered, when it meant something, when it could have saved our nation?

And how can I not love him? When all I want to do it kiss him? When I dream of things that I used to think I would never want? These emotions are supposed to be toward those you love, those you would marry, have children with, because that's what comes as a result. Children. These were fruitless thoughts that should not even cross my mind. It doesn't matter if I love him. I owe him. I am saving him and what I should be thinking about is how I am going to claw my way to that dying wish.

Abruptly, I pull myself from his grasp entirely. I twist around and sit up, then stumble to my feet. I get a major head rush, seeing black spots and two hands shoot out to hold me on either sides of my hips, steadying me. A roil of pleasure runs up my body and I shove them away. They are full of that delicious warmth, a dangerous want.

He doesn't try to stop me, doesn't argue or demand an answer to all the questions I left hanging wide open. I imagine he just sat there staring after me, leaving in the middle of our fight.

Somehow I make it to my room, and not twenty minutes later Effie is escorting me outside the train and into my prep teams arms. Having been through prep with Flavius, Venia, and Octavia numerous times, it should just be an old routine to survive. But I haven't anticipated the emotional ordeal that awaits me.

At some point during the prep, each of them bursts into tears at least twice, and Octavia pretty much keeps up a running whimper throughout the morning. It turns out they really have become attached to me, and the idea of my returning to the arena has undone them. Combine that with the fact that by losing me they'll be losing their ticket to all kinds of big social events, particularly my wedding, and the whole thing becomes unbearable.

The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I'm the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying. It's interesting, though, when I think of what Peeta said about the attendant on the train being unhappy about the victors having to fight again. About people in the Capitol not liking it. I still think all of that will be forgotten once the gong sounds, but it's something of a revelation that those in the Capitol feel anything at all about us. They certainly don't have a problem watching children murdered every year. But maybe they know too much about the victors, especially the ones who've been celebrities for ages, to forget we're human beings. It's more like watching your own friends die. More like the Games are for those of us in the districts.

By the time Cinna shows up, I am irritable and exhausted from comforting the prep team, especially because their constant tears are reminding me of the ones undoubtedly being shed at home. Standing there in my thin robe, their wracking emotions have me walking a thin line. I know I can't bear even one more look of regret. So the moment Cinna walks in the door I snap, "I swear if you cry, I'll kill you here and now."

Cinna just smiles. "Had a damp morning?"

"You could wring me out," I reply.

Cinna puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me into lunch. "Don't worry. I always channel my emotions into my work. That way I don't hurt anyone but myself."

"I can't go through that again," I warn him.

"I know. I'll talk to them," says Cinna.

Lunch makes me feel a bit better. It is pheasant with a selection of jewel-colored jellies, and tiny versions of real vegetables swimming in butter, beside a dish of potatoes mashed with parsley. For dessert we dip chunks of fruit in a pot of melted chocolate, and Cinna has to order a second pot because I start eating the stuff with a spoon.

"So, what are we wearing for the opening ceremonies?" I finally ask as I scrape the second pot clean. "Headlamps or fire?" I know the chariot ride will require Peeta and me to be dressed in something coal related.

"Something along that line," he says.

When it's time to get in costume for the opening ceremonies, my prep team shows up but Cinna sends them away, saying they've done such a spectacular job in the morning, there's nothing left to do. They go off to recover, thankfully leaving me in Cinna's hands. He puts up my hair first, in the braided style my mother introduced him to, then proceeds with my makeup. Last year he used little so that the audience would recognize me when I landed in the arena. But now my face is almost obscured by the dramatic highlights and dark shadows. High arching eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, smoldering eyes, deep purple lips.

The costume looks deceptively simple at first, just a fitted black jumpsuit that covers me from the neck down. He places a half crown like the one I received as victor on my head, but it's made of a heavy black metal, not gold. Then he adjusts the light in the room to mimic twilight and presses a button just inside the fabric on my wrist. I look down, fascinated, as my ensemble slowly comes to life, first with a soft golden light but gradually transforming to the orange-red of burning coal. I look as if I have been coated in glowing embers—no, that I am a glowing ember straight from our fireplace. The colors rise and fall, shift and blend, in exactly the way the coals do.

"How did you do this?" I say in wonder.

"Portia and I spent a lot of hours watching fires," says Cinna. "Now look at yourself." He turns me toward a mirror so that I can take in the entire effect. I do not see a girl, or even a woman, but some unearthly being who looks like she might make her home in the volcano that destroyed so many in Haymitch's Quell. The black crown, which now appears red-hot, casts strange shadows on my dramatically made-up face.

Katniss, the girl on fire, has left behind her flickering flames and bejeweled gowns and soft candlelight frocks. She is as deadly as fire itself.

"I think… this is just what I needed to face the others," I say.

"Yes, I think your days of pink lipstick and ribbons are behind you," says Cinna. He touches the button on my wrist again, extinguishing my light. "Let's not run down your power pack. When you're on the chariot this time, no waving, no smiling. I just want you to look straight ahead, as if the entire audience is beneath your notice."

"Finally something I'll be good at," I say.

Cinna has a few more things to attend to, so I decide to head down to the ground floor of the Remake Center, which houses the huge gathering place for the tributes and their chariots before the opening ceremonies. I'm hoping to find Peeta and Haymitch, but they haven't arrived yet. Unlike last year, when all the tributes were practically glued to their chariots, the scene is very social. The victors, both this year's tributes and their mentors, are standing around in small groups, talking. Of course, they all know one another and I don't know anyone, and I'm not really the sort of person to go around introducing myself. So I just stroke the neck of one of my horses and try not to be noticed.

It doesn't work.

The crunching hits my ear before I even know he's beside me, and when I turn my head, Finnick Odair's famous sea green eyes are only inches from mine. He pops a sugar cube in his mouth, with more crunching and sucking, then leans against my horse.

"Hello, Katniss," he says, as if we've known each other for years, when in fact we've never met.

I try to keep my scowl on the horse and not him. "Hello, Finnick," I say, just as casually although I'm feeling uncomfortable at his closeness, especially since he's got so much bare skin exposed.

"Want a sugar cube?" he says, offering his hand, which is piled high. "They're suppose to be for the horses, but who cares? They've got years to eat sugar, whereas you and I... well, if we see something sweet, we better grab it quick."

Finnick Odair is something of a living legend in Panem. Since he won the Sixty-fifth Hunger Games when he was only fourteen, he's still one of the youngest victors. Being from District 4, he was a Career, so the odds were already in his favor, but what no trainer could claim to have given him was his extraordinary beauty. Tall, athletic, with golden skin and bronze-colored hair paired with those incredible eyes. While other tributes that year were hard-pressed to get a handful of grain or some matches for a gift, Finnick never wanted for anything. Not food or medicines or weapons. It took about a week for his competitors to realize that he was the one to kill, but it was too late. He was already a good fighter with the spears and knifes he had found at the Cornucopia, so when he received the silver parachute with a trident it was all over.

District 4's industry is fishing. He'd been on boats his whole life, the trident came naturally. He wove nets to entangle his opponents and spear them. Within the matter of days he had the crown.

Now there are rumors about him being given to the biggest bidder of drooling Capitol citizens. I can't argue that Finnick isn't one of the most stunning, sensuous people on the planet. But I can honestly say he's never been attractive to me. Maybe he's too pretty, or maybe he's too easy to get, or maybe it's he's too easy to lose. Either way, the thought of sharing him with paying Capitol snobs was revolting.

"No, thanks," I say to the sugar. "I'd love to borrow your outfit sometime, though." He's draped in a golden net that's strategically knotted at his groin so that he can't technically be called naked, but he's about as close as you can get. I'm sure his stylist thinks the more of Finnick the audience sees, the better.

"You're absolutely terrifying me in that get-up. What happened to the pretty little-girl dresses?" he asks. He wets his lips just ever so slightly with his tongue. Probably this drives most people crazy, but for some reason all I can think about is old Cray, salivating over some poor, starving young woman.

"I outgrew them," I say simply.

Finnick takes the collar of my outfit and runs it between his fingers. "It's too bad about this Quell thing. You could have made out like a bandit in the Capitol. Jewels, money, anything you wanted."

"I don't like jewels, and I have more money than I need. What do you spend all yours on anyway, Finnick?"

"Oh, I haven't dealt in anything as common as money for years," says Finnick.

"Then how do they pay you for the pleasures of your company?" I ask.

"With secrets," he says softly. He tips his head in so his lips are almost in contact with mine. "What about you, girl on fire? Do you have secrets worth my time?"

Do I? My mouth immediately says, "No, I'm an open book. Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself." But I blush, the heat flaming down my cheeks, remembering the dream the other night, the ever growing hunger inside of me for more. The thought causes another wave of heat to spread all the way to the tips of my toes.

Thankfully, I held my ground and Finnick says, while smiling, "Unfortunately, I think that's true." His eyes flicker off to the side. "Peeta is coming. Sorry you have to cancel your wedding. I know how devastating that must be for you." He tosses another sugar cube in his mouth and saunters off.

Peeta's beside me, dressed in an outfit identical to mine. "What did Finnick Odair want?" he asks.

I turn and put my lips close to Peeta's. My eyelids are hooded, in a poor imitation of Finnick. "He offered me sugar and wanted to know all my secrets," I say in my best seductive voice.

Peeta laughs. Good to see he isn't mad at me for ditching this morning. "Ugh. Not really."

"Really," I say. "I'll tell you more when my skin stops crawling."

"Do you think we'd have ended up like that if only one of us had won?" he asks, glancing around at the other victors. "Just another part of the freak show?"

I snort. I know he doesn't mean it literally, he understands they are all at the disposal of their stylists. And the after effects of their first Hunger Games, but I love that he has the right words to keep the atmosphere light. "Sure," I reply. "Especially you."

"Oh, and why especially me?" he says.

"Because you have a weakness for beautiful things and I don't." Was I really going to bring back weaknesses again after this morning? I have a rebellious mouth. "They would lure you into their Capitol ways and you'd be lost for an eternity."

His face softens. "Having an eye for beauty isn't the same thing as a weakness," Peeta say, and again I feel like we're back to this morning, but now it's weakness and beauty, instead of love. Then he goes ahead and adds, "Except possibly when it comes to you." The blush ridiculously sears back to the surface. Before I can move, his lips brush mine.

I jolt, but I guess it is kind of my fault for never pulling back again after the Finnick imitation. Plus, it's never really been Peeta to be so bold to steal a kiss. Except, I don't admonish it, and I usually don't return them, not so readily, not with so many people around.

A woman's laughter breaks us apart. Cecelia has a kind face, a tone of skin that runs deeper in her bare forearms and along her freckled shoulders, the outfit of some sort of brightly colored textile workings revealing a bit more skin than most woman around thirty would choose to expose. For a mother of three, she is surprisingly fit, though, and her strong, sweet voice is tinged in a constant good nature. I don't know a thing about her Hunger Games, but I do wonder how someone who seems so maternal had won.

"No need to look so abash," Cecelia says to Peeta, who's flushed. "She is your fiancé, kiss her all you like. Never know how many chances you'll get after tonight." Her smile is cloy, laughing, then she turns to me. "I'm sorry about your wedding, those dresses were all very beautiful on you."

"I like this outfit much better," I say.

"Yes," Cecelia agrees, looking it over. "It suits you better. And you," she turns back to Peeta and straightens his collar, the one I messed up. "You remind me of my oldest son, so handsome. That bright, charming smile."

Peeta laughs, completely at ease while I shift uncertainly, watching her touch him. I wonder if I'm prepared to shoot her with an arrow, when in a weeks time she touches him and we're not wearing silly outfits, but we're attempting to fight to the death. I don't get far in that thought, before the music begins to play and Cecelia bids us both a goodbye.

"She's nice," Peeta says when she's out of earshot. I shrug. Along with the start of the music, I see the doors at the front of the train opening for the first chariot, and hear the roar of the crowd beyond. We both feel the weight of the Opening Ceremony occurring to us again, instead of kisses and competitors, and Peeta holds out a hand to help me into the chariot. "Shall we?"

I climb up and pull him up after me. "Hold still," I say, and I straighten his crown. Cecelia missed this. "Have you seen your suit turned on? We're going to be fabulous again."

"Absolutely. But Portia says we're to be very above it all. No waving or anything," he says.

"Where are they, anyway?"

"I don't know."

I eye the procession of chariots. "Maybe we better go ahead and switch ourselves on."

We do and as we begin to glow, I can see people pointing at us and chattering, and I know, once again, that I owe a big thank you to our stylists. We're almost at the door. I crane my head around, but neither Portia nor Cinna, who were with us right up to the final second last year, are anywhere in sight. "Are we supposed to hold hands this year?" I ask.

"I guess they've left it up to us," Peeta replies.

I look up into those blue eyes that no amount of dramatic makeup can make truly deadly and remember how, just a year ago, I was prepared to kill him. I was convinced he was trying to kill me. Now everything is reversed. I'm determined to keep him alive, knowing the cost will be my own life. But a part of me, the selfish me who loves to run bad things out of my mouth and adores this new need I feel, is glad that it's Peeta, not Haymitch, standing beside me.

Our hands find each other without further discussion. Of course we will go into this as one.