I couldn't let these two go! I thought of a few more things I want to see them do before I leave them to their own devices...
bjbkj
Peeta and I woke up with the sound of hushed voices a few feet away. I leaped to my feet, grabbing for my bow. Peeta grabbed my arm, keeping me from shooting at the people that watched us cautiously.
"What are you doing?" I hissed. Our visitors were clearly armed.
"They aren't peacekeepers." He whispered, his eyes roving over them carefully.
"Who are you?" I demanded. "What district are you from?" They wore gray, all looking similar to me, but what I noticed was their amber-colored skin paired with nearly black eyes and hair.
"We're not going to hurt you, if you don't attack us. We'd like to talk first." The woman said. Her two companions nodded, lowering their weapons.
"What do you want?" Peeta asked.
"Are you refugees from District 12?" The smaller man asked.
"Are you from District 12 or the Capitol?" Peeta countered, and I scowled at them quietly, not really knowing what to divulge or how to respond.
"Neither."
"Then yes, we are District 12. We left a couple days ago."
"We're from District 13, scouts. District 13 moved underground after the bombings, the Capitol lied when they said we all died."
I can tell Peeta is still suspicious, and I can't say that I believe their story.
"Prove it."
The woman gave her gun to the larger man, stepping closer with her hands raised. I kept my bow in my hand but didn't draw an arrow.
"In 13, we stick to very strict schedules, and right now, since it's 6:47," she confirmed by showing me a watch hanging from her neck, "we three have 'scouting' on our schedules." She pulled up her sleeve, showing me white ink on her arm, detailing her duties for the day. Sure enough, scouting was in this time slot. I looked at Peeta, to see if he thought it was enough. He didn't.
"Yeah, you have schedules, but how does that prove D13 is still around?"
"Here, you can see our map of this area and the bunker on our holo." She pulled out a small square block of metal, poking it a few times before it projected an image, which she showed them.
"This area is District 12, I assume you know the general layout, with the coal miners, the merchant area and the Victors Village." Peeta nods and she continues. "And here's where we are now, and here's District 13." She opened another setting. "This is the underground intelligence center, and here's our medical ward. Here are our hovercrafts and our weaponry. Does that prove it to you?" I have to say that I'm convinced, this would be a pretty involved lie to construct just to gain the trust of two kids from 12. I nod.
"Well, since you're here, and you obviously don't have much in the way of protection from anything stronger than animals or unarmed people," I scowled, this woman is making it very hard to like her, "Why don't you come back with us. We have plenty of refugees that have escaped to District 13, which is free from the Capitol." I look at Peeta to see what he thinks.
"What would we do there? Or I guess the bigger question is, how permanent are we talking?"
"You'd be welcomed into the system, our organizers would set you up in compartments with roommates, and given schedules like this with tasks to keep yourselves busy."
"Roommates?" I echo at the same time that Peeta puts his arm around my waist.
"Yes, we don't allow unmarried minors of the opposite sex to share a room. Period, no exceptions." My jaw loosens as I try to find a convincing argument.
"Oh, well we're already married. Not legally, of course, our justice building doesn't allow minors to be married, but we've been together for about a year and a half, and we followed our District's toasting ceremony." Peeta explains. I try to keep my shock off my features. He gives me a squeeze and I tuck my hand into his resting on my hip. That was a smoothly delivered lie, and we're just waiting to see if this woman buys it.
"Married? How old are you?"
"I'm 18 and she turned 17 two months ago." He smiles. Another perfectly executed line, we're both barely 16.
"Hm, I can't say for sure, you would need to provide some proof, but obviously you don't have anyone to vouch for you and you don't have any documentation, so it's really up to our administrators. I can't promise you anything."
"I'll talk to them when we get there. I don't think it will be a problem. But Katniss and I will share a compartment." He says with finality, exuding a confidence I can't say I have.

"We'll have to see, I can't make any promises." She repeats. I hook my bow over my shoulder and start packing up my few things, making sure I refill our water bottles as Peeta does the same.

"Let's get moving then." I say crossly, not particularly excited to move right into what appears to be a very rigid "system" as she called it. I guess we don't have much choice, though.

"What are your names?"

"Peeta and Katniss Mellark," Peeta tells them, and I don't think I imagine the pride in his voice as he puts his last name with mine. When they turn to lead the way, I give him a small smile to let him know I think he was brilliant. He smiles back and reaches his hand out to me. We walk hand-in-hand behind our escorts for several hours, stopping briefly to scarf down our lunch and rest our feet. I keep my bow in my free hand the whole time, ready to fire at a moment's notice. I'm not sure if I am more wary of wild animals or the scouts from District 13.
~~~

"Stand back, this swings outward." The larger man helps her to open a gigantic metal door that is camouflaged on the outside to blend in with the ground.

"There's about a mile of tunnel, then we'll get to the main hall where we can get you situated." We follow them inside, and Peeta jumps when the door makes a heavy crash behind us. We trudge on through the mostly dark tunnel, lit only with the map which they had referred to as a holo. I haven't seen something so small project that large of an image, only the Mayor has something similar in place of a screen to watch the Games and the news. I've only been in his house twice, when my mother had to take care of Mrs. Undersee and brought me along, since Prim was still to young to help back then. We took many turns, and I tried to keep track of them in case we ever had to leave and find our way out. I was doing pretty well until the short man started telling stories about the history of 13, after all of Panem thought it had been wiped out. I let Peeta deal with responding for the both of us and tried to block out his voice.

"We had a huge fever that killed the majority of the people, but that was several years ago and we've recovered for the most part. Of course, new citizens are always welcome here." I frowned. A fever would be trapped inside, since the entire District was underground. They would be difficult to introduce to the environment, but practically impossible to avoid once they got in.

"How did you control it?" I found myself wondering aloud.

"Quarantine, for the most part. We have a medical ward that's completely closed off from the rest of the air vents, water system and food supply. That way if we caught a few people sick, we can get them in there before it spreads too far. Medical staff wear protection, but unfortunately, we still lost a great deal of them in the first wave." He explained. I nodded, going back to memorizing our route. Apparently, not even the scouts had it memorized, as the woman kept referring to her map to keep us on the right course. I tried to not let that bother me.

"We're here," she said, punching a code that I couldn't see into a keypad for the door that slid open. I glanced back as we passed through, relieved that it didn't have a code going out. I wonder if they have guards to keep people in or if they're mainly concerned about an unknown and unwelcome visitor from the Capitol.

"Lan, we have a couple more from 12." With that, we were turned over to the welcoming officials who interrogated us on the validity of our marriage, our ages, health and skills.

"We got married by our district's standards, that's as official as you need," argued Peeta. The officials were unconvinced.

"You are both very young. 17 and 18, if you're telling the truth about that. We're going to assign you separate compartments." Peeta and I looked at each other, and his face held defeat. I'd remained mostly silent during our plea, and now jutted my chin out defiantly.

"No. I will not live apart from my husband. We have been married by 12's customs for over a year and there is no reason for you to keep us separate."

"Miss-"

"Mrs. Mellark." I correct him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Peeta's mask of defiance, although he's probably a little surprised that I'm so determined to live with him.

"Mrs. Mellark," He amended dubiously, "I'll have to check with my superior, but if you are so determined to live with this young man, I personally see no reason to doubt your claim." He puts his clipboard down on the table and leaves the room to check. I look over at Peeta, somewhat triumphantly. His eyes are wide and his jaw is slack. My eyes dart to the door to make sure nobody is watching.

"Wow." Is all he says, and I give a nervous laugh.

"What, you thought I'd share you with a stranger?" I ask him quietly, taking his hand again.

"I-I guess I'm just surprised you want to live with me that much." He says quietly, seriously. I frown.

"Of course I do, I ran away with you, didn't I?"

He shakes his head, a disbelieving laugh falling from his lips.

"How did I manage to make you fall in love with me? Yeah, I know you ran away to save me, but now that we're in relative safety, I didn't know if you would want to stay with me, when it would be easier to just settle into 13 as teenagers."

"I will always stay with you, Peeta, I love you and I'm not planning on letting you go." I tilt my face up to his, meeting his eyes and smiling. He lets a huge smile of his own cover his features.

"But-" he warns, "We've been married for awhile, so we need to do married-couple-things to make sure people believe us." I raise my eyebrows.

"Married-couple-things?"

"Mhm, like this," He lifts my fingers to his face, kissing each knuckle, "or this," he scoots closer to me on the bench we're sitting on, wrapping his arm around me securely. I rest my head on his shoulder, letting myself meld to him. "There you go," he chuckles, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb. We're sitting quietly like this when the man comes back, with a smile on his face.

"I got permission for you to share a compartment, and here's your key." He holds up a silver key and an envelope with a number written across the top.

"Thank you, we really appreciate it." Peeta says, and I smile to show him I am grateful as well. Peeta takes the key and grins down at me as he drops it into my palm. We shoulder our backpacks and leave the small room that we spent so many hours doing paperwork and answering questions in.

"Ask anyone where that number is, it shouldn't be too hard to find," Lan says as he scribbles information into the log on his desk. I nod as we close the door behind us.

"We're in, we escaped, and we're living in District 13. Can you believe it? We won't even have to fear the reaping." Peeta says, holding me close to his side.

"I can't believe it." I breathe, hardly able to wrap my mind around it. "We've escaped the reaping, the Capitol, the peacekeepers, your mom..." I trail off, squeezing his hand tighter.

"Thank you, Katniss," He suddenly stops walking and turns me toward him, holding my shoulders. "Thank you." He dips his head down and presses his lips to mine firmly, and somehow I can feel how much he loves me through my lips against his, and when he pulls away a moment later, all grin and misty eyes, I still feel a little dizzy. I laugh and tuck myself back into his side and we start looking for our new compartment.