Sorry for the long wait – more info at the bottom – but I won't keep you waiting. Hope you enjoy! The chapter starts where Part III left off.

Part IV

You are the snowstorm, I'm purified

The darkest fairytale, in the dead of night

Let the band play out, as I'm making my way home again

Glorious we transcend, into a psychedelic silhouette

Gabrielle Aplin, Salvation

The air around us is sticky, but if I didn't know it was early September I wouldn't know if it was caused by the weather or the moment. It could be twenty below right now and I'd never know. I'm shirtless and layered with a sheen of sweat as I look up at the stars from the bed of my truck, running my fingers through Katniss's loose locks.

Katniss kisses the middle of my chest and then rests her head on the same spot.

"I missed you so much," I tell her.

She lifts her head and sits up. "You just missed making out with me," she teases.

"Guilty."

We both laugh and I move to a sitting position next to her. We lean against the back of the truck cab and look up at the stars again. Katniss rests her head against my shoulder and takes my hand. I didn't realize until now how starved I've been for human closeness. In the past few months people have surrounded me yet at the same time I've been completely alone.

Being with Katniss feels like coming home.

"Where are you?"

I shake my head and find that Katniss has lifted her head off my shoulder and is now staring into my eyes. She brushes my bangs away with her fingers and lets the tips run down the side of my face, then down my neck, before she rests her palm on my chest. My throat gives a grunt.

"You seem distracted," she says. "Are you okay?"

It takes me a moment to think of an answer because, despite the bliss of this moment, I know that deep down I'm not okay. There are demons hiding under the surface just ready to break out, like they did at Rye's a few weeks ago. But this moment is so perfect that I don't want to ruin it by thinking of things that will bring it down from this high.

And maybe I'm feeling a bit too euphoric to truly grasp those demons because right now they seem like a distant problem. This is the first I've seen – truly seen, and touched, and breathed – of Katniss in months. After meeting her at her door, I whisked her away in my truck to an open field we discovered about twenty or so minutes away from campus, a place that's empty and quiet and peaceful where we could be alone. And, in the needy desperation that came with our separation, we both might have gotten a little handsy – nothing that overwhelmed her or that we hadn't done before, but there wasn't a lot of thinking going on.

"I'm fine," I tell her. "I just...I missed you so much and you being here right now...it feels like a dream."

Katniss smiles back at me. "We're together, real or not real?"

I make a spectacle of pinching myself, causing her to giggle, before I answer. "Real," I say. "And I want it to be real for every minute," I take her hand and kiss her knuckle – "of every hour" – another kiss – "of every day" – kiss – "of the rest of my life."

"Stop being corny," Katniss says, rolling her eyes.

"I can't." I press my forehead to hers and kiss the tip of her nose to epitomize the corniness of my actions. "I'm young and I'm in love."

Katniss heaves a dramatic sigh and rolls her eyes again. "You know, you could write one of those young adult romance novels that Prim loves so much," she says with a smirk.

"I don't see why you're complaining," I joke. "You could do a whole lot worse than me. I could be reciting love poems and holding roses under your window at night."

She leans in and kisses my cheek. "I suppose you'll do."

We sit in the darkness for a while longer with the only sounds around us being the crickets singing their song.

In my three months of absence from Panem Children's Hospital, nothing seems to have changed. The lobby still looks as if a crayon box has exploded on the walls and tiles of the floor. Effie Trinket remains seated behind the Information desk as her phone wails constantly beside her. On the bulletin board, I can see flyers for various meetings and fundraisers – one of which being the run that Prim is creating.

But, things have changed. Just looking at my art class tells the true story.

Homes is already seated in his regular chair when I push the door open. He has his hands clasped together, a mask over his face like Katniss would wear when she was immunocompromised from her treatments, and is dressed in street clothes. On the table next to his hands is a tin box that I recognize as drawing pencils. When he looks up to see me walking toward him, his eyes widen and begin to sparkle.

"Peeta!" he says. "Look what my mom bought me!"

He lifts the pencils and I smile, sitting down in the chair beside him. "That's awesome, buddy," I say, putting a gentle hand on his bare scalp. "You use them yet?"

Homes shakes his head. "No, I was waiting until you came back," he says with a smile.

I'm taken aback for a moment by Homes's excitement over my return. He babbles on, telling me about how Portia enlisted some of the other volunteers to sit in the room and watch as the kids colored, and how it wasn't the same. One, apparently, didn't know anything about art and couldn't answer any questions.

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"He couldn't even draw a stick figure," Homes says. "And everyone can do that."

I laugh and shake my head. "Well, then," I say, standing up and grabbing a few sheets of paper from the cabinet. "Looks like you've got some work to do."

He grins and takes the paper, opening up the tin and inspecting them carefully before taking one out. The rest of the room is empty. No new kids have come to stop by and the rest of my regulars are missing. I'm not surprised that Castor and Pollux haven't come, given Castor's worsening condition. Nyx and Sloane showed up occasionally, but after Nova passed away Nyx all but stopped coming. Homes is the only one that I could really expect to show. He doesn't miss unless he's confined to bed.

"Peeta?"

I look up to where Homes is drawing and stand so I can walk toward him. "You need help?"

He shakes his head, blinking a few times before continuing. "A lot of the times a girl named Prim came and sat in on our classroom. She said she knew you. Is that true?"

"Yeah, I know Prim," I say, sitting on one of the tables and crossing my arms. "She's my girlfriend's little sister."

"Katniss?" Homes asks.

I nod and he grins when he knows he's right. I've told them bits and pieces about Katniss over the months and all the kids liked hearing about her. But a moment later his face falls and he looks confused.

"What's wrong?"

Homes plays with the string of his facemask. "Prim said that her sister had leukemia like me," he says. "Is that Katniss? Is she sick?"

I let out a breath. Homes is currently receiving maintenance chemotherapy, which helps to prolong remission in patients with acute leukemias. His type, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, is the most common type of cancer in children and has a very high cure rate, but it is no less traumatic than what any other patient goes through. Homes doesn't know Katniss, if he were to bump into her in the hallways of this building he'd never know, but he empathizes with her. And he's scared for her, just as I am every time her complaints parallel symptoms of relapse.

"Yeah, but she's better now," I tell him.

He blinks and eyes me for a minute before turning back to his picture. I sit back and watch him draw. It's amazing to see him work when I think back to the first time I met him, months ago, when he needed help with basic shapes. He's a natural and catching on so quickly. The door opens and a few kids come in. I hand them each a sheet of paper.

The time passes quickly and before long everyone is getting ready to leave. Homes, as always, is the last out. He stops in front of my table and holds out the picture he's been drawing. He's drawn a dandelion, the seeds blowing in the wind, with a pair of lips just within the page. They're pursed as if letting out a breath. On the bottom, he's written: To: Katniss. From: Homes. Stay better.

"This is great," I tell him.

"Do you think she'll like it?" he asks. "Prim said she likes dandelions and I just...I like knowing people who are better. It made me sad to hear about Castor."

I look up. Homes is barely thirteen, but his childhood innocence about the world has already vanished. He shrugs his shoulders and fidgets a little on his feet, as if he's nervous about his drawing. I make a display of putting it in my folder so it won't wrinkle in my backpack before patting his shoulders.

"She's going to love it."

Katniss's new roommates invite her to go out to dinner with them on Friday and when she tells me that she hasn't decided whether she's going to go or not, I insist that this is good for her. Although I have only met each of the three for brief moments in passing, they seem really nice and a little more like Katniss than her roommate last year. It'll be good for her to make some friends.

Of course, she has a whole host of excuses on why she shouldn't go that range from terrible to considerable. She's in the middle of telling me that she doesn't know what she would be able to eat since she's never been to the restaurant before, when Hersh lifts his head off the floor, where's he's trying to learn page fourteen of his Spanish book through osmosis, and shakes his head at her.

"Look up the menu online, and send it to your nutritionist," he says. "There, problem solved."

"But," Katniss says. She bites her lip and then turns to Hersh. "I don't know what to wear."

He rolls his eyes. "Look at what your roommates are wearing, genius." Katniss glares at him. "Your excuses are lame. Go and if you have a terrible time you don't have to go again."

Katniss turns to me, but I shrug. "I agree, Kat. They seem nice and I'll be here when you get back so we can hang out."

Begrudgingly, Katniss goes and I end up worrying the entire time. I just really hope it goes okay because I want Katniss to make some friends. She needs people that she can trust besides me and Prim and Haymitch. Hersh tells me that no news is good news and I can only hope that's true.

It's a little after nine when the code gets punched into our room while we're sitting in the common room playing Mario Kart. I abandon my controller and look up as Katniss enters the room. She walks in before I can get up, sits on my lap, and grabs my controller.

"How'd it go?"

She shrugs. "It was fine," she says.

"And I see that you found something suitable to wear," Hersh snickers.

Katniss huffs and continues playing. I wrap my arms around her waist and rest my chin on her shoulder as she finishes the round for me. The four continue to play for a few more rounds before Hersh, Dalton, and Mitch get up to get ready. One of the ROTC guys is having a party and they want to leave around ten to get there. They ask if we want to come and, in lieu of answering, Katniss takes my hand and pulls me into my room. We can still hear them laughing when we shut the door.

Katniss jumps up on my bed and sits with her legs dangling off, waiting for me. I come to a stop in front of her, leaning my body between her legs.

"How'd it go?" I ask again, fingering in the fabric of her orange sundress. It must have thin straps that don't cover her scars because she's wearing a cardigan.

"I told you. It was fine," she says. She grinds her teeth. "You were right. They seem nice."

The way her voice drops off leaves me with the feeling she's leaving something out. "But...?"

Katniss looks down at her lap. "I'm not any good at making friends. I just...I feel like I say stupid stuff."

"You don't."

She nods and then lets out a breath. "How was your night?" she asks, changing the subject.

"Well, the four of us had dinner at Chez Dining Hall, you know, the new really ritzy place. I had to rent a tux and everything." Katniss giggles. "I'm just kidding. I've mainly been thinking about you, but that's not any different than usual."

I lean forward and give her a kiss. When I pull away she smiles. "Can I stay with you tonight or do you need your sleep for the race tomorrow?"

Tomorrow is the 5K that Prim has orchestrated for PCH. I recruited Hersh, Mitch, and Dalton to run it with me, but I think our pace will be a little slow if they're going out tonight. It doesn't really matter to me, there's no way that I would deny Katniss anything, especially sleeping in my bed when I haven't been able to all summer.

"My covers are always open to you."

She grins and falls backward, splaying her arms out over my comforter. "Can you get me some pajamas then?" she asks. "I need to get out of this dress."

I go into my drawer and grab a t-shirt as well as a pair of her pajama shorts that I keep on hand. Katniss is tiny, a side effect of being bombarded with toxic chemicals designed to save her life from the time she was five, and my shirts dwarf her. They're basically nightgowns and nine times out of ten you'd never know she was wearing shorts under them.

I toss the clothes on the bed and head for the door. "I'm going to grab a drink. Want anything?"

She says no and I walk out of the room to grab a glass of water while she changes. I hate that Katniss isn't comfortable with her body and I wish more than anything that she could see how beautiful she really is. All she sees are scars. Sometimes I wonder if she'll ever let me see her port scar. I don't even know if Prim has seen it.

Katniss is getting better. She's fine with me seeing the scars on her stomach from when her skin was basically raw during radiation. I'd like to think that my routine of kissing her scars – the ones on her hands, her belly, her ribs – is helping her or at least doing something.

When I go back in my room, Katniss is laying down with her head on my pillow. When she sees me she reaches her arms out and it seems to take two steps for me to get from my door to my bed, jumping up and hovering over her so I can kiss her neck and the exposed section of her collarbone.

Primrose Everdeen is going to change the world one day. The sixteen-year-old stands on a plastic box with a megaphone to her mouth and an ID wrapped around her neck as she directs people around her school's track. The schoolyard is packed with people, runners as well as bystanders, for the event. She did this, all of this, with barely any help.

The Pace for Progress 5K Run/Walk for Panem Children's Hospital.

I look down at my watch. The kid's Gold Ribbon Relay for Childhood Cancer Awareness is just starting with a lap around the track, and then the 5K will start promptly at eleven, circling the neighborhood where her school is located in a 3.1-mile loop. Kids from Prim's school are sitting behind the desks checking people in and handing out t-shirts, race numbers, and a flyer about what programs the donated money is going toward – this year it's to put mini-fridges in the rooms on the cancer and blood disorder floor. They also have a thermometer poster that a few girls keep coloring as they count up the funds raised toward their goal.

A squeal hits my ears and before I can even think, Prim has her arms around me.

"You're here!" she says, moving the megaphone away from her mouth so she doesn't scream it across the yard. She pulls back and looks at us, nodding her head. "And you already signed in, good."

"Prim, this is amazing," Hersh says from beside me. "I can't believe you did this."

Prim shrugs. "It wasn't really me. Once the run was in place, this is all the families' doing. They enlisted everyone they knew! It's incredible."

She's being too modest, but the two of us let it slide. As she continues talking, I notice Rory sneaking up behind her. He puts his finger to his mouth to make sure Hersh and I don't say anything and waits until he's right behind her to cover her eyes with his hands. She shrieks and spins around, pounding his chest.

"Rory Hawthorne!" she screams. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Hi, Prim," he says before turning to Hersh and me. He tries to hold in a laugh. "Hey, guys. Nice shirts. I'm sure Posy will love 'em."

All I can do is groan and turn to Hersh. He throws his arm around my shoulder with a huge grin on his face.

"Real men wear pink, Rory," he says.

I shrug Hersh's arm off my shoulder. When I woke up this morning, I found the three of them in the common room, giggling like a trio of five-year-olds who think they got away with stealing the candy dish. However, instead of a candy dish they had four shirts, all blinding neon pink with a spray painted bird on the front with "TEAM MOCKINGJAY" around it. On the other side were our last names over our room number, like an old baseball shirt, covered in glitter. They say they didn't drink last night and instead used their time painting instead. Given the state of these shirts, I'm not too sure their story is accurate.

At least Katniss thought it was hilarious this morning.

Hersh, Dalton, Mitch, and I run at a leisurely pace for the majority of the 5K, however when we reach the homestretch Hersh starts sprinting, daring the three of us to catch up. Of course, Mitch does ROTC so he's in the best shape and completely blows us out of the water. As soon as the race is finished, I head over to find Katniss and wrap my arms around her lithe frame.

"Eww, stop," she squeals. "You're all sweaty!"

She's right. It's a hot morning, only to get hotter as the day goes on. I just tighten my squeeze on her waist. As she squirms away, her shirt raises just slightly but enough for my arms to make contact with her stomach. I lean down and bury my wet forehead into her neck at the same time.

It makes her shiver, but I can feel her chest shaking with laughter against mine.

"Stop," she chuckles.

I kiss her cheek and press my mouth to her ear. "What's the magic word?"

She turns and her gray eyes dance in the sunlight. "You smell."

"Wrong!" I laugh and spin her around in my arms so I can put my forehead on hers.

I move my eyes around as I speak. "What do you think?" I ask, hoping she understands what I'm getting at. She does.

"I'm so proud of her," she says. "She's such a good kid – which, in and of it itself is amazing, since Haymitch pretty much raised her."

"You're so mean," I tease.

She shrugs. "It's one of my less endearing qualities."

I lift my head and see that over her shoulder Haymitch is giving us a look which, given the distance he is away from us, has nothing to do with what Katniss just said about him. I let go of her and grind my teeth together. It doesn't matter that I've been with Katniss for over two years; Haymitch still terrifies me because as much as she badmouths him, his opinion means the world to her.

She looks over her shoulder and when she turns back to me, she's rolling her eyes.

"He's just a big softy under all that gruff. You know that," she says.

"Yeah, well, I learned to never cross a mother bear," I mutter. "They're protective of their cubs."

Katniss rolls her eyes again and turns toward Haymitch. She must give him a look because he raises his eyebrows pointedly in our direction but then turns and starts chatting with Cinna. Katniss spins back around and grabs my hands in hers, swinging them back and forth.

"So, what do you want to do today?" It's the first Saturday of the semester so we don't have much work to do yet, and I want to spend as much time as possible with her before we get slammed with midterms.

Katniss smirks. "Well, I want you to take a shower first."

I roll my eyes and stick out my tongue as she chuckles. "I'm actually considering not showering for the rest of my life." I try to look conflicted and concerned. "Will you still love me?"

"I mean, I'll still love you," she says, the smirk still on her lips. "I may not stand next to you."

I let go of her hands and bring mine to her face so I can pull her toward me. The kiss is brief, as I'm sure Haymitch is watching. "You're perfect," I tell her.

As she pulls away, she shakes her head. "I'm pretty sure my DNA is as imperfect as it can possibly get. Yours on the other hand..."

I shake my head. "I'm not perfect," I insist.

Not by a long shot.

Katniss frowns and eyes me for a minute. "You know, you never told me about your time in Roanoke," she says. "Was it okay?"

I take a deep breath and feel my throat start to constrict. I can hear the high-pitched laughter of children, adults having merry conversation, and in the far reaches of the back of my mind my mother's nagging voice. I haven't seen or heard from her since the night I left Miner Falls. But this is not the place to tell that to Katniss.

"It was fine," I say, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. "I'm just glad to be back."

Prim insists that we come over for dinner that night. She and Haymitch are going to show their new and improved cooking skills. Katniss tells me on the way over that it will probably be Haymitch making the actual meal and Prim probably made a batch of cookies for dessert. She also tells me that over the summer they bought Haymitch an apron that says Kiss the Cook. That's reason enough to go.

When we walk in, Prim is in the living room. Katniss gives me a look that says, "told you," before making her way into the kitchen.

Prim is sprawled out on the floor in the front den, papers scattered everywhere and her laptop right in front of her face. Whereas Katniss's green MacBook case is basically pristine, Prim's is covered in stickers. She has her school logo, a gold ribbon that has an angel and the words "CURE CHILDHOOD CANCER" written inside it, a couple hearts and flowers, and one that says "Keep Calm and Carry On" – a saying I've seen all over campus. There's so much going on, you can barely tell the case color is purple and not made of her stickers.

She looks up from her typing and smiles. "Hi!"

"You doing homework?" I ask, leaning down to pick up one of the sheets. It's not homework, but a handwritten account of a college.

Prim shakes her head. "I'm trying to narrow down the schools that I want to visit. We can't go to them all." She spins her laptop to show me that she's set up an excel sheet with three columns – Definitely Applying, Need to Visit, and Possibly Visit. All of the ones that she's definitely applying to are instate, the other two columns house colleges all the way north to Boston and south to Atlanta. Her possibly visit list is a lot longer than her need to visit.

"Any advice?" she asks.

I shrug. "I dunno, Prim. I only applied to State and Virginia Tech. I never even visited anywhere."

"Yeah, Katniss wasn't any help either," Prim says with a smirk. "I'm still convinced that the only reason she even agreed to apply to State was so she could have sleepovers with you whenever she wanted to."

"Very funny," I say as she giggles. I change the subject. "You're making me feel old, Prim. I can't believe you're old enough to be thinking about college."

Prim smirks. "You've only got three semesters left after this one," she says. "That make you feel better?"

"No."

She laughs, throwing her head back and covering her mouth. Once she settles down, she turns back to me. "Do you have any plans for what you're going to do?"

"I need to start studying for the GRE and figure out which graduate schools I'm going to apply to so I can get my master's," I say. I lean over and tap her nose. "Kind of like you're doing right now."

Prim smiles and looks back down at her lists and I lean back into the front of the couch. I still haven't told Katniss that I'll have to leave the city for graduate school. Hopefully, one of the programs that are relatively close by accepts me, because I don't know what I'd do if I had to go somewhere far away. It's what Leaven did. Travel far and leave everyone else behind, but I could never do that.

It's one of my many flaws that I'm too dependent on people.

In the back of my mind I can hear my mother laughing. She would say the same thing about me. I care too much about what people think of me that I'm willing to bend to them, instead of making them bend to me like she does.

I feel my throat constrict thinking about it. My mother has most of Miner Falls wrapped around her little finger and that includes my father. He hasn't called me once since I came back to campus, not even the night I moved in to make sure I made it all right. I guess he figured out through the Donners that Hersh was all settled and figured that meant I was fine too. Rye has texted me once or twice in the week that I've been here, but since I snapped at him about Pastor Claudius there's been a sort of tension between us. But we were never super close anyway. I don't know what I was thinking, that Rye, Dad, and I would go gallivanting off into the sunset?

I feel a hand on my thigh and when I look up, Prim is gone and Katniss is in her place. She looks at me with worry in her eyes and I quickly try to come back from my thoughts.

"Where's Prim?"

"Main Kwong. Haymitch burned dinner so we're having Chinese instead. Hope you don't mind." I shake my head. "Are you okay? You look upset and you didn't even notice me sit down."

I do not want to talk to Katniss about this right now. Part of me believes it's because Prim could come through the door any minute and our conversation would get interrupted, so why start now. But there's another, more irrational, part to my not wanting to tell Katniss. I'm scared. I'm scared that she'll see me for everything that I really am.

Useless. A failure. Someone who she shouldn't want. Someone who isn't good enough for her.

So, instead, I wrap my arm around her shoulder and plaster a grin on my face. "It's nothing. I'm just tired."

She doesn't look convinced. But I'm saved from explaining by Prim walking through the front door.

Katniss decides to come back to campus with me that night rather than staying at home like I expected her to do. Usually, Katniss has a hard time transitioning back to school after spending so much time at home, but I guess she missed me enough to neglect a weekend with Prim and Haymitch.

I'm not going to complain.

We stay at the house for a while after dinner. Prim pulls out Monopoly in her attempt to keep us around as long as possible (it's quickly vetoed by Haymitch who doesn't want to stay up for hours playing games) but we end up playing spoons. It's hilarious because Katniss is so unobservant to anything other than getting her set of four matching cards that she never notices anyone grab a spoon from the middle until she finally gets all four or Prim can't hold her giggles in.

We don't end up leaving until after eleven, long after Haymitch has gone upstairs to bed. Prim gives us each a hug goodbye and tells us not to be strangers. Katniss rolls her eyes, but it makes me smile. Like Katniss said earlier, Prim's a good kid. Sometimes it's hard to remember that she's sixteen.

My room is empty when we get back, but it's a complete disaster. The others have left their shot glasses on the table along with an open handle. I go to clean off the table since I know Katniss isn't the biggest fan, but she grabs my hand and shakes her head.

"Leave it. You're on my time."

We curl up under the covers with my laptop and Haymitch's Netflix account streaming. Katniss doesn't make it to the end, so once I'm sure she's too far gone to wake up, I pull away enough to turn the movie off and shutdown my computer.

I can't really sleep. After a half hour of staring at the wall attempting to count sheep, I recognize that I'm not going to sleep for a while. Unfortunately insomnia is never good for me because I'm incapable of turning my mind off. For a while I can just watch Katniss sleep, but that reminds me of before dinner.

I don't even know where to begin on how to tell my story to Katniss. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds in my head and I sound like a whiny brat with misdirected parent issues. Parents are supposed to adore their kids, right? You have to be a complete mess to stop unconditional love.

I look back down at Katniss and wonder how I can ever be enough for her when I'm not even enough for my parents. She deserves the world.

Tonight is one of those nights when I realize sleep is futile. I'm still awake when Hersh, Dalton, and Mitch come stumbling in. The three of them spend a little time in the common room before they're done for the night. Hersh falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow and I'm still up. And, when I do finally manage to sleep, I wake up maybe an hour or two later.

Like usual, my nightmares are about losing Katniss. This time, however, she doesn't relapse. She doesn't catch pneumonia. Her heart doesn't stop. All of the scenarios that are usually running through my head disappear. The Katniss that debuts in my nightmares tonight sounds shockingly like my mother.

When I wake up again around six, I carefully roll out of bed. I take my laptop and let Katniss sleep. Hersh will probably be up any minute. He always wakes up early after he drinks so I won't be alone for long. I grab a drink from the fridge and throw some bread into the toaster before sitting down to look at what I have to do for the day. I don't have too much work, just a few reading assignments and a problem set, so I go into my email. I didn't check it yesterday with the race.

I have ten messages in my inbox. Two general messages from the school. A couple junk. And one from Portia.

My heart sinks and I don't open it immediately. I stare at the subject line. This Week. It could be anything. Sometimes Portia sends us emails about the upcoming week, especially if there's a holiday or another fun event for the kids. But there's no holidays coming up and I know what the email is going to say. Not opening it is just prolonging the inevitable.

When I finally open the message, the content doesn't surprise me.

Castor passed away on Saturday.

I just sit there, numb, unfeeling, my mind just utterly blank. I don't know how long I sit there for, but after what feels like days, I feel my eyes start to water. I slam my laptop closed and then unconsciously walk back to my room. Hersh and Katniss are both still sleeping, unaware of the stillness that is wrapping itself around my heart. My body acts of its own accord, climbing carefully back into bed and wrapping my arms around Katniss, trying desperately not to wake her up with my tears.

Prim comes to Castor's wake with me the following Tuesday. She got to know my art kids when she sat in on my class while I was in Roanoke. I almost can't walk inside, but Prim wraps her arms around mine and leads me in. I look at her, in her simple black dress, with her hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, and wonder how she does this. How did she get to be so strong?

She's the one that does everything. She talks to Portia. She talks to a few nurses we recognize. She talks to Castor and Pollux's mother, who is crying, but reaches out for Prim's hands and gives them a squeeze, not saying a word but not needing to. Prim understands. Prim understands better than anyone.

But Prim doesn't approach Pollux. She leaves that to me.

Pollux sits at the front of the room, on the ground in front of the casket, which is open for viewing with a bench for kneeling in front of it. He's not crying or doing anything but stare. I sit down beside him and he doesn't turn.

"Hey, Pollux," I say. "How you doing, buddy?"

He blinks a few times. "I'm sad."

"I'm sad too."

Pollux bites his lip and then turns to me, flinging his arms out and collapsing in a heap on top of me. His little fingers dig into my shoulders and his tears wet my shirt as he attempts to press his face into my heart. He wails. I can feel the little energy that the room had before instantly stop and I know everyone's eyes are on us.

I just press my face into his unruly sandy hair and let myself cry too.

For lack of a more sophisticated phrase, the rest of my week sucks.

I can't stop thinking about Pollux. Castor meant so much to him, so much more than I could ever imagine either of my brothers meaning to me, and it just makes this situation all the more devastating. Thinking about them and how close they were reminds me of Katniss and Prim, which is no good as well, because it fuels my nightmares. One night, I'm at the same church as Castor's services, only instead of Pollux sitting in front of the casket, it's Prim. I wake up sobbing.

By Friday, I'm completely exhausted and Katniss and Hersh decide to stage a coup. Katniss tells me that she's going home for the night so I can get some sleep and Hersh basically force-feeds me Tylenol PM. It helps me keep my eyes shut, but it does nothing for the nightmares. Apparently I thrash most of the night.

Katniss comes back the next day and having her in my arms actually works a little. I still wake up, but as soon as I can see her next to me, I can close my eyes and go back to sleep.

"I got my ticket for the long way 'round / the one with the prettiest of views / It's got mountains, it's got rivers, it's got sites to give you shivers / but it sure would be prettier with you / When I'm gone, when I'm gone..."

I blink a few times. Katniss is still out like a light and when I look over at Hersh's side of the room, he's already awake and out of the room. I reach over and try to slam the alarm, wondering why it's going off on a Sunday.

It's then that I realize that it's not the alarm but Katniss's phone and, specifically, Prim's handpicked ringtone.

I simultaneously reach for the phone and shake Katniss's shoulder. She answers groggily as I roll out of bed and grab my own phone, which is charging on the desk. I tap the home button and the screen awakens from its sleep. The battery is green, completely charged, and the time says 7:55.

Under that: Sunday, September 15.

As far as history is concerned, nothing extraordinary happened on September 15, 1998. It was a Tuesday. There were no fireworks or holidays or battles in great wars, at least to my limited knowledge. On September 15, 1998, I was five years, six months, and one day old, and I sat in my kindergarten class as Delly raised her hand and said three words that foreshadowed so much tragedy and pain for our little town.

"She's sick today."

While I colored and played and giggled and napped, Katniss, who had woken up with bruises lining her chest, was shuffled to the town doctor, who told her mother to take her to Boone Memorial Hospital for blood work. The staff told Mrs. Everdeen that they would get back to her about whether or not Katniss had anemia by the end of the day.

We all know the ending to that story.

"Prim, calm down," Katniss says. She sounds slightly panicked and frantic. "I can't understand what you're saying."

I hold my breath as Katniss lets out hers. "Prim, listen to me. I'm fine. I'm going to be fine. Stop worrying." Again she sighs and looks over at me. I can hear Prim wailing through the phone. "Prim, listen. I'm going to get dressed and then Peeta and I are going to come over. Okay? I'll see you soon, okay?"

She disconnects the call and puts her head in her hands. I lean against the bed and put a hand on her kneecap in, what I hope, is a comforting gesture. She sighs and leans forward to rest her forehead on my shoulder.

"You okay?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "No," she says. "But, I will be once my sister stops freaking out."

Apparently, I'm not the only one with nightmares.

"Then, let's go."

Prim comes barreling through the house before we even get through the door, throwing herself at her sister as if the world is going to end tomorrow. Katniss hugs her tightly and the two don't disconnect, not even to walk up the stairs. They'd rather walk together at a slower pace, almost tripping over each other's feet, than let go.

I smell Haymitch before I see him.

He smells like bourbon. His hair is a mess, he's still in his pajamas, and I can tell just by looking at it that his cup is straight up alcohol, filled almost to the rim. It's not his first glass, probably not his second either, and his eyes follow the girls up the stairs until we can no longer see them.

"Clara always knew the best way to fuck everything up," he says, chuckling darkly, and turning around. He gestures for me to follow by wiggling his finger over his shoulder as he walks toward the kitchen. "You want a drink? You're twenty-one, right?"

"Not 'til March," I mutter.

"Close enough."

I sit as Haymitch digs through his liquor fridge he's had built into the island. He pulls out a bottle of white liquor and pours some into two glasses, followed by juice into one of them. He passes me the one that's mostly juice and keeps the other, the next round after he finishes his bourbon.

I don't touch the drink. Seeing Prim so clearly upset has my stomach doing uncomfortable flops. I've known Prim since she was twelve, since her sister was actively dying, and I've never seen her so upset. I hadn't really noticed, but Prim has been a pillar of strength for me. She was strong through Katniss's illness, through losing kids that we volunteered with. She single handedly helped me through Castor's wake.

She was only a year old when Katniss was diagnosed. She doesn't remember it, but maybe just knowing the date is enough for her.

"I've never seen Prim like this before," I say, sloshing the drink around in the glass.

Haymitch grunts and throws back the rest of his bourbon. "She's a strong kid," he mutters. He runs a hand through his hair. "Katniss ever tell you about the journal?"

I shake my head.

"Their mother wrote a journal about when Katniss was sick," he says. "I found it in her things when I was cleaning out their house, after they died. I gave it to Katniss on her seventeenth birthday." He pauses and shakes his head. "I originally planned for her eighteenth, but..."

He doesn't finish, but he doesn't need to. I know what happened. Katniss got sick and he didn't know if she'd make it to eighteen.

Haymitch taps his empty bourbon glass on the counter. "I should've burned it all, but I figured she had a right to read it," he muttered. He grunts again. "I don't think she ever did."

I look up from the glass Haymitch is fiddling with. "I take it Prim found it."

Haymitch blows a breath through his nose. "Last night. She was looking for some stupid book Katniss had in her bookshelf. I found her sitting in Katniss's room this morning at five o'clock. Kid sat up all night reading." He runs his hand through his hair again. "She read the whole goddamn thing. Every goddamn detail we've tried to hide from her, the bad stuff she was too little to remember. On this day of all fucking days."

He slams his bourbon glass on the counter and looks up at the ceiling. "We kept a lot of things from Prim that we probably shouldn't have. She didn't really remember a whole hell of a lot, so we just let her keep her head in the clouds about how bad things were back then." He grunts and looks like he's going to keep talking, but he doesn't.

Then he grabs his liquor and walks out the door into the backyard. I can hear him yelling at the geese, at the sky, and then the sound of glass breaking against a tree.

I don't know what else to do, so I just sit there and wait for Katniss to come back down.

The journal is actually three journals, all at least five hundred pages of eight-and-a-half by eleven that detail Katniss's illness and, judging by what Haymitch told me, the slow and steady demise of the Everdeen family. Katniss holds them in her lap on our way back to campus later that night.

"I'm going to burn them," she says when we pull into my parking spot.

"You sure?"

She glares at me. "I don't need to read it," she says. "I lived it."

"I'm just saying, that it might help you understand what your mother was going throu–"

"Stop!" Katniss exclaims. "You...God, Peeta, you're the last person who should be giving me advice on how to deal with this."

She moves to open the truck door, but I grab her arm to stop her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

When she turns to face me, she looks so lost and small that I regret raising my voice. "Peeta, you won't talk to me! I've asked you time and time again if you're okay and you always say the same thing. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine." She shakes her head and closes her eyes. "But you're not fine. And it's so obvious, but you won't tell me what's wrong. And I know that you're trying to protect me, but I'm a big girl."

A few tears leak out. "What's the point of being in a relationship with me if you don't trust me enough to tell me things that are obviously bothering you?"

"No, Katniss –"

"I'm not fragile and I thought that you were the only person in the entire world who realized that," she says. "We protect each other, that's what we do, and it's my turn to help you. Please."

"I didn't want to talk to you because I don't even understand half of it."

Katniss reaches across the seats and takes my hands. "Then just talk and maybe we can figure things out together." She shrugs. "And if not, I have a whole list of people that I've talk to – psychs, social workers, all sorts of people – and if you can't talk to me, maybe you can talk to one of them."

My throat feels constricted and we're both crying. There is too much emotion in this truck. But she's right. I remember Pastor Claudius's words of advice. I hang my head low.

"Peeta, I love you and that's never going to stop, no matter what you say," I hear her say.

I feel like a little kid when I say, "Promise?" without even looking up.

"Promise."

My earliest memory is actually of my mother.

Growing up, my parents got into their fair share of arguments. Usually, they consisted of my mother yelling with barely a pause for breath and my father only raising his voice when he needed to, such as when my brothers or I were involved.

"You goddamn son of a bitch!"

"Quiet down, or you're gonna scare the boys!"

Rye let out a breath and took my hand. I was about four and a half, maybe a little older, so he was almost nine. He told Leaven to change into his pajamas while he took me into the bathroom to wash my face and make sure I brushed my teeth. Then he helped me get dressed while Leaven went into the bathroom. We curled up in his bed while we listened to the crashes and screams from downstairs.

"Rye?" I asked. "Why is Momma and Papa yellin'?"

There was a particularly loud smash which ended up being an old ceramic lamp my grandmother made.

"Because," he said as Leaven came in and jumped onto the bed with us. "That's what grown ups do. They yell at each other, they make up, and they yell some more."

"I don't wanna be a grown up," Leaven said.

"Me neither," I agreed.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is the door to our room opening and my mother walking in. I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep because I didn't want to make her any madder. Rye was still awake though and when she came over, she sat on the edge of the bed. I cracked an eye open just enough so I could see but not enough so she could tell.

"Where's Dad?" Rye asked.

Our mother shook her head and adjusted his bangs. "He had something he had to do at the bakery. You'll see him tomorrow."

"Why were you fighting?" She was quiet for a moment so Rye kept talking. "Was it about that lady that came in the bakery today? The one with the little girl and the baby?"

She clucked her tongue. "It was nothing you need to worry about. Okay?" Then she turned to look at me and Leaven. I shut my eye. "Thank you for taking care of your brothers. Now get some sleep."

I heard her kiss Rye's forehead and then she ran her hand through my hair. And then she left. The next morning she made us breakfast, which was usually Dad's job, and even let us watch cartoons. We had a good day.

Dad came home around dinnertime and he brought a white bakery box with him. All three of us jumped out of our seats and ran to him, begging to eat the cupcakes he brought home before dinner and not after. Surprisingly, he let us eat them right on the spot. They were created just for us – vanilla with buttercream for Rye, chocolate with chocolate mousse for Leaven, and chocolate with buttercream for me. I practically inhaled mine right into my lungs and when I turned to my mother to see if she was going to yell at us for ruining our appetites for dinner, I noticed that she looked sad and mad at the same time.

Eventually, we move out of the truck and Katniss pulls me to an open grassy area and we lay there looking up at the stars. There is something infinite about the stars that all at once makes me feel extraordinarily small as well as limitless. The thing that has always intrigued me about the sky is that when you look up, it appears as if it is so close that you can touch it but when you reach out to grab a handful of stars or a puff of clouds, all you get is air. The stars are so far away from us that we only see a tiny pinpoint. We can never see anything else but that tiny bit.

The thing that makes the situation with my mother difficult is that I think, at one point, she must have loved me. I don't think it was a strong love, but it was love nonetheless. And, somehow, somewhere along the line, she stopped. I assume it was slow, but in the bits of memory that I have from my early childhood, the moments I have make it seem like it was one swift kick, like someone walking into their living room and deciding one day that they don't like the color of paint that's on the wall.

I don't know what I did to show my mother that I'm useless but whatever it was she saw it.

I'm still afraid to tell that to Katniss, so instead I put her in the hot seat. "What was your mother like?"

She's never told me about her parents, aside from her rant about love she gave me before she relapsed years ago, and I've never asked. It just seemed easier not to delve into these issues. We were hiding from them, at least I was.

Katniss takes a deep breath and then lets it out. "She loved me a lot," she says. "She loved me too much. That was her problem."

"How can that be a problem?" I ask. I didn't mean to interrupt, but that seems impossible.

She shrugs. "Her life became a mission to save mine. It consumed her and it ruined everything. My dad was always working and she was always with me. And then when I got better and we went home, whenever they were together they were arguing, and it was usually about me." She swallows audibly. "My dad wanted me to go back to school, my mom didn't. Things like that became wars against each other. They were practically handing each other divorce papers when I relapsed."

Katniss is quiet for a minute. "Sometimes I feel like it's my fault."

"It's not."

"I know," she says. "Doesn't mean that it makes me feel any different about it."

Something about that resonates with me. I reach for her hand and give it a squeeze.

"I know what you mean." Katniss turns on her side so she can look at me and I continue. "I feel like I was never good enough, you know? Like my mother loved me because she had to and then she realized that she didn't. I mean, I've never done anything the way she wanted. Everyone in town knew that my parents were trying for a girl when they had me and as I grew up we butted heads on everything."

Katniss shakes her head. "You are good enough."

"What kind of son makes his own mother hate him?"

"I think the right question is what kind of mother hates her own son."

Before long, the two of us are crying while I tell her some of the things that my mother has said to me over the years.

"My mother thinks I'm worthless and probably thinks that it's a waste of air for me to breathe."

This clearly upsets Katniss, who reaches for me and clings on tightly. I hate that I'm making her cry. It just makes me feel like, yet again, I'm doing something wrong. Who does this? Katniss deserves better than this. After all the shit that she's gone through, she deserves the happiest ending in the world and I don't know if I can give it to her. Clearly, I wasn't able to give it to anyone else.

"Peeta, look at me." I hadn't even realized that I'd closed my eyes. When I open them, Katniss has positioned herself on top of me so that we're so close I can feel her breath on my lips. I think she's trying to come up with something powerful to say. She ends up with, "She's an idiot."

The bluntness is so Katniss that it almost makes me smile. But at this point I don't think I can. The feelings of inadequacy are too strong right now.

"I know that she's your mother," Katniss continues. "I get that. But she doesn't deserve you."

"But everyone runs back to her," I say. "My dad hasn't talked to me since I've been back. It's like he chose her over me." I can feel my blood start to boil, just as it had when I drew in my sketchbook over the summer. "And I knew it was going to happen too. I told Rye the same thing. He just let Leaven go and didn't even try to stop him and now he's doing the same thing to me. And I hate it. I never want to go back."

And that's it. My family has successfully imploded upon itself. I feel hollow.

We stay in the grass through the night and the sun begins to rise around us, engulfing the campus in a pure golden light. The way Pastor Claudius spoke about opening up made me think that putting everything out on the table would make me feel better. I imagined having this conversation with Katniss so many times and I always figured that I would leave it feeling lighter.

If anything, I feel heavier than before. Talking about it didn't cure anything. I still hear my mother's voice in the back of my head. I still get angry when I think about my father, who said he loved me so many times but hasn't really shown it. The only thing that talking about it has given me is the courage to lay everything on the table in front of Katniss. There is nothing left to me that she doesn't know.

And the fact that she doesn't move away but in fact snuggles closer gives me the slightest bit of hope that I'm not alone.

I made the mistake of telling Katniss about my sketchbook full of hate drawings during our tell-all and, that Friday, she insists on seeing it.

I've never been more scared.

My hands are shaking when I pull it out of the bottom drawer of my desk and walk to the bed where she's sitting. I jump up next to her and lay the sketchbook across our laps, letting the pictures do the talking.

The first picture Katniss stops on is of my mother. She's holding me as an infant, her nose upturned, as my father looks over her shoulder in pure delight. It's clear that he's in love and it's abundantly clear that my mother wants nothing to do with me.

Katniss flips the page.

The next one she spends a long time looking at is the one with my father holding the scythe, the one that Rye found the day I broke down in his living room. He had torn it out so I had to tape it back in. She sucks in a breath and traces the devil's equipment.

She flips each page slowly and carefully looks at every face and every detail. She sees Miner Falls go up in flames. She sees a picture of my family smiling in a broken frame, as if someone had knocked it off a mantle. She sees my mother screaming. My father turning into the devil. Rye sweeping everything under the rug. Leaven running.

"What are you thinking?" I ask. My voice has a slight quiver to it, since I'm imagining her slamming the book shut and chucking it in my face, telling me that I have a problem, and running out of my life.

"I hate them," she says, flipping back to the front and starting to go through them again. "I mean, they're extraordinary. I just hate that you feel this way."

We both stare at the drawings again.

"I hate them too," I tell her once we're about halfway through the second viewing. "I just...I feel so...like a freak."

"I think it's a good thing that you draw it out," she says, looking up at me. "It's bad to live in your head. If you keep everything in you'll just explode."

For a moment I think back to when Rye found my sketchbook and how he freaked out after looking through it. I know that part of the reason I was afraid to talk to Katniss and show her my book was because I feared her reaction. Rye made me feel like I had done something wrong. He was mad at me at first and I know it's because drawing these types of things isn't normal. Normal people don't draw church congregations chasing them with torches.

"So you don't think I'm crazy or deranged?"

Katniss keeps her eyes on the sketchbook. She's lingering on one of the few pages that don't showcase gray skies and dark undertones. It's the waitress at the Waffle House that I frequented, the one who had my order ready the minute I walked in the door. She's standing with her coworker, her eyes lit up as she laughs at something I can't hear. I know that the page after this is the first of my father-as-the-devil portraits.

She turns away from the page and shakes her head.

"No. I don't."

Parents Weekend is the last weekend of September, but to me it just seems like a cruel joke. It's not that my parents ever came to Parents Weekend, but this year it seems to affect me more than the previous two. They don't call to tell me that they're not coming, but they haven't called the entire month of September, so I don't know why I kept checking my phone, waiting for a missed call after my classes, the week before all the parents start to show.

There's a football game that Saturday and a huge tailgate sponsored by the school for families so while my roommates go out to join in the festivities, I just sit in the empty dorms. I must not be the only one whose parents don't come, but it seems so quiet that it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.

I wonder if my father sent along an excuse with the Donners on why he couldn't come. He probably told them to tell me that the bakery was busy and he couldn't get away. Maybe he even told them to tell me that he loved me. But, even if he did, I just feel as though they're empty words and I think Hersh figured out that I didn't want to hear any of it, because he met his parents and Reese outside instead of bringing them up. I haven't told him exactly what's going on with my family, but he knows me well enough to realize something's not right. And, since he's still part of Miner Falls, he has probably heard all the gossip.

The only other person who seems to be parentless today is Katniss. She comes to my room just as the cheers from the stadium start to get too loud and we hang out for a bit before leaving campus completely. She can probably tell how much the campus atmosphere is bothering me, even though I'm trying to hide it.

We spend the rest of the day with Haymitch. Prim is off somewhere with her friends and he's just sitting watching television with a glass of scotch when we get there. His eyes almost glitter with excitement to have some company, but that just might be the light and my imagination. I expect to spend the day trying to hide my frown.

We don't end up doing much of anything, but it's okay. We talk for a while and then flip channels. We end up watching a marathon of people picking their new house out of three that seem to each be lacking something that makes it their dream house. Katniss and I never agree on which house the couple should choose and it makes Haymitch give a full belly laugh.

"I feel bad for your real estate agent," he says, chuckling as we bicker.

A calm washes over me and I think to myself that I could do this every day. There's no yelling or arguing. There's no need to worry about what I say. If I mention that I like House Number Two better than House Number One, Katniss just shakes her head and side-eyes me, telling me that One is in the neighborhood they want and, even if it's smaller, it's all about location on this show. Haymitch just rolls his eyes and, to spite her, chooses Three. It doesn't matter that we don't agree, none of us are wrong (at least not until the couple chooses Three and Katniss insists that Haymitch has seen this one before), we're just expressing our opinions. Opinions are good. It gives us depth as humans.

By the time Prim walks through the door with bags from the mall, it feels like no time has passed at all when really we've watched six couples choose their houses, saw others leave the country for more exotic locales like Paris and Beijing, and switched the channel to the evening news, which is delighted to report that State won the football game. I had completely forgotten about it.

Sometimes we find the things we need most in the place we least expect.

School picks up with the first round of midterms and suddenly the semester begins to fly. I'm so busy with my work that I barely have time to think about anything besides school. I'm taking the requisite five classes, and also have an additional sixth class that meets once every two weeks. By accepting my admission to the Honors program, I had to commit to doing a service-learning project during my junior year. Since I'm minoring in education, my art class at PCH could be counted for it. The biweekly Monday night class is mostly reflection on our placements. On top of six classes, I picked up a job at Mags' diner. I figure that I've lost my job at the bakery, so I have to start working elsewhere. Despite financial aid and scholarships, I'm still going to have loans to pay off and graduate school won't be cheap.

I don't have as much free time, not by a long shot, but in some ways it ends up being a blessing in disguise for Katniss. It's not as though she turns into any sort of social butterfly, but she spends more time in her own room now that I'm not in mine so often. Between the four of us, our suite is more often than not devoid of life, and Katniss's roommates begin to notice her hanging around by herself. They've always been nice to her, letting her join them and inviting her to things they're going to, but I'm just glad that she managed to find a group of girls that are willing to be patient with her.

She's stubborn and she won't let them in immediately. When she brings them with her to Mags' one day to see me, I almost drop everything I'm carrying in surprise. I'm proud of her and I make sure to tell her that. She says the same thing, although I'm not sure what there is to be proud of in terms of my life.

Pollux comes back to my class in the middle of October. The day he comes back, Homes looks up at me from his seat at the front when Pollux steps inside, his earbuds in, his iPod in his hand. I'm not exactly sure if there's a certain protocol about what to do in this situation, but I figure the best thing to do is behave the same way around him as before and adjust as needed.

I excuse myself from one of the new kids and walk over to Pollux at the door. His eyes are downcast as he looks at the screen.

"Hey, Pollux," I say. "What's up, man?"

He pulls one of the earbuds out of his ear and holds it out to me. I take it and kneel down so I'm at his height before pressing it to my ear. As per usual, he's listening to Demi Lovato. It her newest song and his head bobs as she sings so I bob my head with him. Once the song ends, he shuts off the music and takes his earbuds back before walking toward his seat. He sits in the same one he used to sit in, the empty seat next to him saved indefinitely for Castor.

Life continues on at my hectic speed that reminds me of when I was in high school and my mother had me doing every extracurricular activity I could. I enjoy the pace. It gives me less time to wallow in my own pity. I'm not sure if it helps me move on, per say, but it helps me forget.

The November chill sets in just as my workload hits a lull before the holiday. It's also around that time that I start to wonder what exactly I'm going to do over winter break. I can't go home. It's not an option. In the few texts Rye and I have sent to each other in the past three months, he hasn't offered up his place either. I don't want to ask Katniss. A few days is one thing, but three weeks is a long time and I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. I have to figure it out soon though because the residence halls close for winter break.

I suppose I should take it one holiday at a time and the first up is Thanksgiving.

The thing about Thanksgiving is that it's always right around the time Katniss has to have her yearly checks with Dr. Heavensbee. So for the past few years, we've been nervous wrecks. The day that Katniss was officially declared cancer free was November twenty-sixth, so her appointments are supposed to be somewhere around there. This year, it's two days before Thanksgiving Day, but because of exams and class assignments, Katniss really can't take a day off before the holiday, so she's scheduled to go in the Monday after.

Katniss says she likes it that way – says it gives her a last Thanksgiving without tears if her results come back bad. I don't like thinking about that and quickly reroute the conversation whenever she brings it up. I know she's nervous, but hearing her concerns just makes me more and more scared. If Katniss's tests come back with evidence of cancer, there's not much Dr. Heavensbee can do but make her comfortable. She's maxed out her options with the exception of experimental trials.

As much as I try to forget, it's hard not to think about and every time Katniss so much as coughs my body tenses.

However, when I wake up in Haymitch's guest room Thanksgiving morning, I'm surprised at the cheer filling the house. When I stumble downstairs to see how Haymitch is making so much noise, I realize he's not alone. His neighbor – and all but surrogate mother – Sae is in the kitchen with Mrs. Hawthorne. Prim and Posy are watching the Macy's Parade on the television while Vick and Rory play a card game on the floor. Haymitch and Mr. Hawthorne are talking in the parlor.

I feel Katniss wrap her arms around my waist and turn to see she has come down the stairs behind me, still dressed in her pajamas. "It's our first Thanksgiving together," she says.

I've never had a Thanksgiving without my family, but I have to say that this seems like a much livelier atmosphere than any we had in the past. My mother always made us dress in our Sunday best, but everyone here is dressed casually. But, most importantly, everyone's smiling.

"Everyone grab your shoes!" Mr. Hawthorne says and all the kids go running.

I look to Katniss and she smirks. "Welcome to our traditions."

Every year while Hazelle and Sae cook, Haymitch and Storm take the kids out of the house. There's a Thanksgiving Day showdown between the two high school football teams in the city. We root for the Cougars, since that's Rory's school. Almost as soon as we walk through the gates Rory and Prim disappear to sit with some of Rory's school friends. Vick vanishes soon too and before long it's down to five.

Posy situates herself in the bleachers between Katniss and me. She's almost ten now, a far cry from the preschooler I met when I was sixteen. She's a spunky kid, yipping and hollering at the players and calls. At one particularly bad call, she sits back down and pouts, resting her chin in her hands and leaning on her knees, muttering about it. Katniss and I share a look over her before Katniss starts talking to her in order to sway her mind away from it.

Katniss is great with kids. The way she talks to Posy makes my stomach lurch in a pleasant way. I don't know if Katniss is still against having kids, but she'd make a wonderful mother.

The Cougars end up winning and once we wrangle all the kids up, we make our way back to the house. Sae is just laying everything out on the table when we get back, so we take our shoes off and sit around the table. I sit between Prim and Katniss on one side of the dining table that's been extended to fit everyone. Once the turkey is on the table, Sae asks us who wants to say grace.

Rory and Vick both stand up with grins on their faces, but their father gives them a look. "If it's like last year, then sit your butts down in those chairs," he says.

"What did they do last year?" I ask, leaning over to whisper it to Katniss as they sit.

She giggles and whispers back, "Rub a dub, thanks for the grub, yay Jesus."

Beside Katniss, Posy raises her hand. "Can I say it?" she asks, looking toward her mother.

"That would be lovely," Sae says. Hazelle nods. "Go ahead, Posy."

Posy stands on her chair and reaches her hands on either side to take Katniss's in her right and her father's in her left. Around the table, everyone else joins hands and bows their heads. We always said grace before dinner and usually went around the table to say something we were thankful for back home, so I'm eager to see what they do here. It seems much more formal than anything my family ever did.

"Dear God," Posy starts. "Thank you for the food that You've given to us. Thanksgiving is a time to remind us of all we have to be thankful for and we have so much to be thankful for this year."

I expected her speech to end there, as our grace before dinner was typically short, but instead she starts to circle the table, talking about good things that have happened to them. She starts with her father, adds herself, and then goes around the table clockwise from her father going to her mother, then Vick, Rory, Sae, and Haymitch. As she draws nearer and nearer to where I'm sitting, I wonder what she could possibly say about me.

"We thank You for Prim's run and how You allowed it to be all she expected and more. And we want to thank You for having Peeta join our table this year. He is a very special part of our family and we pray that You'll allow him to be with us more often."

I crack an eye open and see that everyone is still in position, heads bowed, listening to Posy. There's no one rolling any eyes and I don't think she's saying it just to say it. I think Posy genuinely means what she's saying. I haven't felt wanted by my family in a while, but here is a ten-year-old trying to make me feel included.

Posy keeps going despite my inner thoughts.

"We thank You for Katniss's continued good health and pray that You stay with her on Monday when she goes in for her check up. Today we also remember those who are gone and are thankful that they are safe with You. We pray for Gale, Mr. and Mrs. Everdeen, and Miss Maysilee and hope that they are enjoying Your love and that they know that people down here miss them. Thank you, God. Amen."

"Amen," is chorused around the table.

Katniss leans over once we open our eyes and let go of our hands to nudge Posy's shoulder. "That was beautiful, Pose," she says.

"Thanks, Katniss." The little girl is smiling so widely.

We begin to pass food around and before long everyone is eating and chatting. There is never any silence and at some points, there are three or four different conversations going on. We're almost done when Sae asks Prim about her plans to visit colleges in the spring.

Prim turns to Haymitch as she talks, probably to make sure she's getting her itinerary right. "We're heading up north in February to visit a couple in Boston and then a couple in Pennsylvania. In April we're going to Virginia and North Carolina, right?"

"Why are you going to Boston in February?" Rory asks with a smirk. "Do you want to get snowed in?"

"Why are you going to Boston anyway," Katniss asks, leaning a little so she can see Prim on the other side of me. "Are you really considering places that far away?"

Prim looks down at her plate and pushes a bit of food around. Haymitch gives Katniss a look. "Your sister can look at any school she wants."

"I'm just saying that it's far away."

Haymitch's face clearly shows that he's not dealing with Katniss right now. So, instead of indulge her, he turns to Rory and ignores her instead. "You still looking at State?"

Katniss picks at her food for a bit, biding her time until she can leave. Hazelle starts clearing the table and Katniss goes with her, Posy following dutifully behind. Prim sighs and puts her head in her hands. I nudge her shoulder.

"She'll come around," I say. "I think she was just a little surprised."

"I know," Prim mutters. "I probably should have told her, but she didn't want to hear anything about me going to college. She still thinks I'm a little kid."

Katniss is always going to think of Prim as her little sister, but Prim's not a little girl anymore. She's growing up before everyone's eyes into a young lady. And, as much as Katniss wants to stay here with nothing around her changing, something tells me that once Prim graduates high school she is going to want to see the world.

"She'll come around," I repeat.

And she does, much later that night, but she doesn't exactly apologize. She says she's sorry, but she tacks on something along the lines of 'visiting doesn't mean you'll like it' to the end, which makes Prim upset. I'm not in the room when it goes down, but I run into Prim as she comes up the stairs and hear about it second hand.

Katniss is in the dining room working on something for one of her classes when I come down the stairs. Prim, who's heading to a friends' house before they go Black Friday shopping, slams the front door behind her loud enough to wake Haymitch, who went up to bed barely an hour after the Hawthornes and Sae left.

"You okay?" I ask.

Katniss doesn't even look up. "Why wouldn't I be?"

I shrug and lean against the doorframe, sticking my hands in my pocket. "Your sister's pretty upset."

She stops typing and looks up at me from over her computer screen. "Why does she have to go so far away?"

"She may not," I say. "She's just looking right now. But even if she does go visit and likes it and then she applies and gets in and decides to go, that doesn't mean that she's not going to come back eventually. But don't burn her thinking it's going to make her stay because it won't."

"How do you know?"

I walk toward her and take the open seat next to her. "You can't keep her in a bubble, Katniss. Prim's her own person."

Katniss sighs and bites her lip. "I guess I was kind of a jerk." She turns to me and I must be giving her an odd look because she throws her hands up. "I've told you before, I'm not a nice person."

"Yeah, but you're my big meanie," I say, wrapping my arm around her to pull her into me. I shut her laptop. "Come on, stop doing homework. It's Thanksgiving."

"Says the boy who spends most of his free time in the library."

I stand up. "Exactly, if I can take a day off, you can too." I lead her backwards toward the television room as I talk. "And if I have to bring you and Posy to the movies tomorrow and barrel through crowds of people who want to round out their weekend by watching a bunch of teenagers killing each other on the big screen, I need to watch something happy tonight."

"It's not kids this movie, it's adults."

I roll my eyes. "Well, tonight we're watching something hopeful. You can pick The Lorax, or The Grinch might actually be on again if you want to watch that."

Katniss sticks in the non-cartoon Peter Pan instead.

It turns out that we had nothing to worry about. Katniss's test results come back just as we'd hoped. There is no evidence of cancer. Her heart and lungs are stronger than they've ever been. Her thyroid is still whacked, but we knew that, and she still has restrictions on what she can eat due to the damage her treatments caused to her digestive tract. But, overall, the results are very positive. She's more than halfway to five years.

Then again, Katniss relapsed in the second half last time, so we know we're not in the clear. And I guess technically no one is ever 'in the clear' but it's a good sign and Dr. Heavensbee is very optimistic. If he is, after treating Katniss for pretty much three fourths of her life, then I can optimistic too.

Now that Thanksgiving is over and Katniss is officially healthy, the next pressing matter can make its way to the forefront of my mind. I still need to find a place to live for the three weeks of winter break unless I decide to camp out in my truck. I don't ask Katniss. I know that Haymitch isn't too keen on Katniss' boyfriend spending extended amounts of time under his roof. I know I wouldn't if it was my kid. So, instead I start asking around to see if anyone who has an off campus place is looking to rent it out while they're home.

I don't know how she does it, but Katniss ends up finding out about my apartment search and insists I come live with them. And, when I arrive after Katniss takes her last final, Haymitch actually just shakes my hand and tells me that I'm always welcome, in his gruff and intimidating kind of way. I suppose I've proved that I'm enough of a gentleman not to try anything under his nose.

Their house is always very relaxing. It's laidback without too many strict guidelines like my mother had. Take off your shoes at the door, Peeta. Don't mess up the pillows on the couch. If you close the blinds, make sure to open them, you don't want the neighbors to think we have anything to hide. I still take off my shoes at the door, but there's no issue with messing with the pillows. In fact, Haymitch likes to use pillows to tease the girls, gently hitting them or throwing one at them, and they retaliate. Although it's clear who the boss of the house is, and as much as Katniss thinks it's her it's not, they still have fun.

One day it hits me. This cold feeling. It seeps into my bones and I can't even will myself to get out of bed. It doesn't make all that much sense to me. The day before I had laughed with Prim, joked with Haymitch, just been myself. But, as I lay in the guest bed, my mind floats to my family, who I haven't talked to since Rye texted me in November, and I just can't get up. I don't even make any conscious thoughts. I just feel bad.

Katniss comes in and curls up behind me, wrapping her arms around me, pressing her face between my shoulder blades. She starts to talk. I can feel her lips moving against me, the soft vibrations of her voice bouncing off my bare skin. It takes me a while to realize that she's singing.

I've never heard her sing before, but her voice is so warm and familiar that I wonder if maybe she's sang to me when I was sleeping. I've heard her hum, but never sing, and it's like nothing I've ever heard. I bet if I looked outside the birds would be sitting on the sill not singing in order to hear her. Prim says that Katniss has the most beautiful voice in the world when she uses it and now that I've heard it I have to agree.

And, despite the darkness, I fall in love with her all over again.

It's girl I fall for, not the voice, although it is beautiful. The girl who gave up singing long ago but will resurrect it for me.

I don't know how long we end up staying in the guest room, Katniss singing and me listening. It could be minutes, hours, or days, and I wouldn't know the difference. When we do sit up to face the world again, I still feel a pit in the bottom of my stomach, the everlasting coldness that I don't know will ever truly go away.

"Talk to me," Katniss says, resting her head on my shoulder.

I do. I tell Katniss about what I'm feeling. I tell her that sometimes I think I'm not good enough. I tell her that sometimes I wonder how I ended up being such a mess. She listens to every word, stroking the back of my hand with her thumb. I tell her that it's comforting that she's here with me.

Like I said, I'm not sure how long we stay there. All I know is that I don't want to leave.

Christmas and New Years pass quickly and before long Prim is back at school and its just three of us in the house. Haymitch spends most of the day in his office working, while Katniss and I adventure in baking (lets just say, when Katniss and I get married, she is never going into the kitchen alone), people watching at the mall, and picking Prim up from her various afterschool activities. Sometimes she'll come with me to Mags' and sit at the counter talking to the elderly woman who runs the diner. And some days we just sit in the living room or the kitchen and talk.

Which is what we're doing today.

Katniss is lying on the couch, her feet in my lap so I can massage them. It's one of the few things I can do to physically help her deal with her health problems. Finnick says a good massage every now and then is good for the nerves in her feet. I like being able to do something for her. It makes me feel useful.

She's watching the last few minutes of some crazy reality show where the people have weird addictions, like carrying around urns or eating cheesy potatoes for every meal. Katniss is enthralled so I don't say anything, but if I never have to see another cheesy potato again it'll be too soon.

I put most of my focus on Katniss's feet so I don't have to watch.

The hour changes and I look up when I don't hear the theme song for the previous show start up. Instead, it's one of those wedding dress shows. I expect Katniss to start flipping channels again in attempts of finding the Cake Boss, who has evaded her all morning and most of yesterday, but she doesn't. She just flips on her side and makes herself comfortable as the blonde owner of the shop starts telling us about why she hates foxes in henhouses – which I don't see has anything to do with wedding dresses until I realize by fox, she means groom.

I side eye Katniss for a minute. We've been doing well talking to each other about things that are affecting us, but the future is still a topic that I'd been kind of waiting on her to initiate a conversation about. She hasn't. I guess I don't mind if she doesn't want to get married, I just always kind of assumed I would marry someone and have kids, but I need to know where we stand. So, I think of a decent segue into that kind of conversation and see if she picks up on it.

The groom, being interviewed by the cameraman, insists that it's his wedding too and that he should have a say in the dress. Here's my chance. "I wouldn't want to see your dress," I say, trying to make it sound casual. "At least, not until the doors open and you're walking toward me down the aisle."

Katniss doesn't say anything. In another part of the store, a bride is fretting about her dress not fitting because she gained a few pounds. Now I feel like an idiot.

"I mean, I don't care if we get married or not," I backtrack. "I'll be your boyfriend for the rest of my life, I just...never mind. Forget I said anything."

Katniss sighs and rolls over so she's on her back and can look at me. I keep my eyes focused on the television where they're onto another bride who has her groom's mother in the shop with her. That seems like a recipe for disaster to me, thinking about what my mother would do to Ka–

"Do you want to get married?"

I turn away from the TV. Katniss's face is blank. I can't read what she's thinking at all. I opened up this can of worms; I might as well throw everything out there. This is what we're supposed to do with each other.

"I'd love to marry you," I tell her, turning my head down to her feet. "I want the whole shebang with you – go house hunting, see you in your wedding dress, have kids, a dog, the white picket fence. But, I know that scares you and I'm not going to force any of it on you. You're the only person I'd ever marry, so if you don't want to, we'll just live in sin for the rest of our lives."

Katniss snorts at the last bit, but I'm being a hundred percent serious. "I only want that with you," I add, trying to hammer in my point.

When I look up, Katniss is biting her bottom lip. "Do you think about that a lot?"

"Kind of. I mean, I've thought about it before," I tell her. "I've pictured it in my head."

She adjusts on the couch to a sitting position. "What do you see?"

I shrug. "I don't really see anything different about us exactly. I guess I just see us, happy, you know?" I smile, almost imagining it myself while I tell her. "We're chasing a dog that's covered in mud, or a little girl's jumping up and down at the counter because she's excited to lick the bowl while we're making a cake. I guess, I just see us growing old together and that's all I really want."

Once I put away the little girl with the two blonde braids and clear gray eyes and chocolate covering her face, as well as the golden retriever whose coat is covered in mud, I turn back to Katniss. She has tears in her eyes.

"Why are you crying?" I ask.

"Because the way you see things is so beautiful." She takes a breath. "But I don't know if I can give you what you want."

I hold out my arms and she falls into them. "All I need is you," I tell her. "Everything else is bonus."

"Promise?" she asks, not looking up at me. It reminds me of the night when I asked her if she would still love me despite what I was going to tell her. She looks just as lost and afraid as I had felt.

"Promise."

The last day of our vacation is the same day that Haymitch has to meet with the hospital board and the other members of the It Can Be Good Again Foundation for their monthly meeting. I have a shift at Mags' until noon, but when I get back Haymitch has just left and Katniss is sitting on the steps, staring at the door, waiting for me to walk through.

It's the first time that we've actually been alone together in the house. Once I kick my boots off, she takes my hand and leads me up the stairs. We have a few hours before Haymitch's meeting finishes and he grabs Prim on his way out of PCH. The timing of his meeting and my shift was impeccable and I'm just as eager as Katniss for this. Once we get to the top stair, she pulls me down to kiss me and by the time we make it to her room her legs are wrapped around my waist.

We barely breathe, trying to keep our lips together as long as possible. We keep kissing as Katniss slides back down my body, her feet landing on the ground with a small smack. She goes almost immediately for the buttons of my white work shirt. My mind goes blank, my shirt comes off, and we fall into Katniss's bed. It's been a while since we've been able to kiss like this and it seems like both of our minds allow our bodies to take over. We attack each other – there is no other way of putting it.

Eventually the raging lust cools down when we're both breathing heavy. As Katniss catches her breath so she doesn't suffer any oxygen deprivation, I take her hand and kiss the scars on her palms from the graft-versus-host. I make eye contact with her as I lift up her shirt to kiss the scars from the radiation and all up her stomach.

"Peeta?"

I look up as see complete terror in her eyes. "Do you want me to stop?"

She shakes her head and opens her mouth to say something, but Katniss has always done better with her actions than she has her words, so instead she reaches down and yanks her shirt over her head.

"Ugly, right?"

To be honest, I hadn't even looked at her scar and when I do, I'm shocked at how small it is. I was expecting something the size of her fist the way she talks about it, and it's not what I expected at all. She has one dark puckered oval right under her collarbone that's about the size of a quarter. Then there's a line incision just under it and another puckered mark an inch or so down and right. "You're beautiful, Katniss." I lean down and kiss the skin that's brand new to me.

"Really?"

"Katniss, everyone has scars," I say. "If I had a magic eraser, would I erase your scars? No. I fell head over heels in love with a fighter and a survivor. I wish I could make you more confident about them but the only way I'd erase them would be if it meant erasing cancer out of your life entirely, no diagnosis, not treatment, nothing."

Katniss stares at me and I wonder if what I said just sunk in with her at all, or if it even made sense to her. We've been together for two and a half years and I'm just now seeing them.

"Do you think this would've happened anyway?" she asks. I frown, not quite understanding, and she clarifies. "Me and you. Like, if I never got sick and we both grew up normal, there was no cluster, would we still be us?"

Miner Falls would have been a completely different place from the town I grew up in if there had been no cluster. Maybe it would have been the cheerful town my father always recalled with such fondness if kids didn't start dying and the mine didn't close and the people didn't move away. And, when I think about Katniss with her hair in braids skipping down Main Street with Prim on their way through the shops as if there's not a problem in the world it makes my heart hurt because I know that's the exact opposite of what Katniss had and exactly what I wish she remembered when she looked back on her childhood. Maybe, if the doctors at Boone Memorial had called with results of anemia when we were five, Katniss would have became friends with Delly and Madge, and the three little girls would grow up giggling and feeding the cat that hid under the bakery porch. Maybe Katniss and I would've been high school sweethearts instead of star-crossed lovers. Or maybe Katniss and I would have been friends that didn't want to ruin anything between us and fall back on each other once we'd already been in failed marriages. There are so many possibilities as to how we could've met and fallen in love.

But this is the fate we were given.

"I think," I say, "that we would be different people, but we would've found each other eventually. Because I believe in soulmates and all that other corny stuff you love so much."

Katniss smirks at my sarcasm and then turns her head to look at the clock on her bedside table. When she looks at me, her eyes are alight.

"We still have some time before Haymitch and Prim come home."

She doesn't have to say it twice.

Chapter Facts (author's note below)

"I didn't realize until now how starved I've been for human closeness" is a direct quote from The Hunger Games

The Pace for Progress 5K was held on Saturday, September 7, 2013.

Main Kwong is a chinese place in Charleston, WV.

Prim's ringtone on Katniss's phone is the second verse of "Cups (When I'm Gone)" (radio version) by Anna Kendrick

Boone Memorial Hospital was mentioned in Part III. It's in Madison, WV, about a twenty-minute drive from where I'm imagining Miner Falls to be located.

The show Peeta, Katniss, and Haymitch watch while avoiding Parents Weekend is House Hunters on HGTV. There's also a reference to House Hunters International.

The Thanksgiving football game is based off a tradition in my hometown and something my family has gone to for generations. The Cougars are an actual mascot for one of the two high schools in Charleston, the Capital High Cougars.

"Rub a dub, thanks for the grub, yay Jesus," is a grace that used to be said at the summer camp I went to as a kid. It's also used with slightly different wording in an episode of Family Guy.

The movie that Peeta says he is taking Katniss and Posy to is Catching Fire. Posy might be kind of young, but I figure she's a mature little girl. She's the same age as one of my cousins, who is dying for November to come, so I figured why not. The movie Katniss and Peeta watch on Thanksgiving, Peter Pan (2003), was chosen because it stars Jeremy Sumpter as Peter, who is my headcanon Peeta for this fic.

The shows on TLC that Katniss is watching are My Strange Addiction and Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta

Thank you all for the support. I'm so sorry that this chapter is so late coming. There were some personal issues going on in my life (they're detailed in a post on my tumblr if you would like to read about it) and I just couldn't. However, I'm determined to finish this before I head back to school. I estimate one more chapter and then an epilogue. The new cover image was made by the wonderful Ro Nordmann. And, as always, all mistakes are mine.

Again, I'm so sorry for the long wait. I hope it was worth it. Let me know what you think!