It wasn't my intent to broach such a topic. We were sitting in silence at the small table, each chewing thoughtfully on our food. Greasy Sae had blessed us with a stew that made me feel more at home than I had in countless days. It reminded me of the Hob, and made me ignore the fact that my family home and Peeta's bakery were smoking piles of ash. As I slurped the soup that contained who knew what, I could almost forget about the fact that the meadow my father had taken me to was a mass burial ground now, the soil still freshly piled on top.

We'd spent the day working on rebuilding the bakery. Once Peeta got it in his head to do it, it became almost an obsession. If we weren't sleeping or eating, then he was working on the bakery project. Haymitch swore up and down that he'd talked to Peeta about it, but it had done nothing to dissuade him. If anything, it had added fuel to the fire of his determination, and no amount of pushing from Haymitch had resulted in anything else.

The restoration of the bakery became the talk of town, and it even made the news in the Capitol. People of Panem were still eager to gleam as much information about the star-crossed lovers from District Twelve as possible, and Peeta's work had made several news outlets. The phone had begun to ring so much with requests for interviews and visits to the district to document his progress that I'd ripped the cord from the wall in a fit of frustration the week before. We'd spent enough of our life in the spotlight, first in the Hunger Games and then in the war. All I wanted, and all Peeta needed, was peace and quiet away from the public eye so we could figure out what our lives were supposed to be again.

Perhaps it was the musing on the relationship we'd spun for the public that brought the question to the forefront of my mind. I certainly didn't realize I had been thinking of anything on the matter as we ate. But then, as if by some unseen force, the words tumbled from my mouth before I even had the chance to ponder them, "Have you ever kissed someone before?" I asked. Then, as if clarification would ever be necessary, I added, "Or been kissed?"

He glanced up from his soup bowl and laughter spilled from him. He looked so caught off guard that he dropped the spoon into the bowl, leaned back in his chair as he pushed the sleeves of his sweatshirt up, and studied me with his full attention. "You are joking, right?" he asked after a beat, squinting as if trying to gauge my reaction in the soft glow of the setting sun poking in through the open windows.

Not knowing what possessed me to ask such an asinine question, I shrugged. "I don't mean me. I meant someone else." I couldn't quite meet his gaze and instead studied the contents of my soup intently. Suddenly, I was thankful for the distance the table put between us.

"Oh, so you are serious." My fingers itched to grab the butter knife not an inch away and to stab it into the table in frustration. Anything to swipe that smirk off his face.

"Forget I asked," I said with a shake of my head, angrily grabbing my spoon and shoving soup into my mouth to prevent any further stupid questions. This topic only led down one path, and it was one I had carefully been avoiding in the weeks since his return. The media was in a frenzy to see what happened next for the Mockingjay and her devoted husband, but at that point their guess was as good as mine. I wasn't used to having countless hours on end to ponder the possibility of romance, and it didn't suit me now that I did. My brain tried to focus on anything and everything else, and I was more than happy to let it.

"Katniss, it's always been you. Ever since we were five." Even though I'd heard the story, told before the masses in his declaration of love, it felt so much more real to hear it this time. With the privacy of the walls around us and the absence of cameras and without the rest of the country watching. Though the dining room was large, the soft glow of sunset offered an intimacy I became aware of as he spoke.

I only hoped that the dimming light outside hid the blush that burned my cheeks. Letting my head tilt down toward my bowl for additional cover, I took another sip of soup. "But surely you must have kissed someone else in the meantime." Then, to emphasize my point, I added, "It's been over a decade."

"Did you?" he retorted. I didn't need to look up to know the intensity of his gaze. He knew full well that I'd kissed Gale, more than once. But his tone suggested he meant besides Gale, just as I had meant beside myself when I asked him. "I guess I just didn't see the point in going around kissing girls I knew I would never have feelings for," he concluded without giving me a chance to answer.

Silence lapsed over us again, and I ventured a glance up. His eyes were on his bowl as he ate, but I could feel his desire to look back at me and gauge my reaction. The Gale Thing still weighed heavily between us, but it was a topic I wasn't comfortable with yet. Even I was unsure about my own convoluted feelings for him. I knew that nothing would ever happen between us, not now, but that didn't mean that I didn't sometimes wonder what would have happened if things had gone differently. Could I have felt those feelings towards Gale, if Prim were still here and he haven't scurried off to District Two in shame?

Thoughts of Gale reminded me of something he had told me. I couldn't even remember the exact words, and it felt like years ago after everything that had happened in the war. I remembered, however, that he'd been almost offended when I'd asked if he'd kissed someone else or had feelings for someone else. Of course he had. And though I hated my need to compare Peeta and Gale, I couldn't help but realize this glaring difference between the two. Gale had only ever started paying attention to me as more than a friend once he realized that others might actually find me desirable as well and that perhaps I wouldn't always be available and waiting if he wanted the chance. But Peeta? Peeta had always waited for me, hoping one day I would see him.

Pushing my chair back from the table, I collected my bowl and bread plate and moved towards the kitchen without a word. My stomach twisted in knots and my appetite was effectively squashed. My brain could focus on nothing else apart from Gale and Peeta, and eating anything further would only upset my stomach more.

I heard his chair scrape against the floor behind me but didn't slow my walk until I reached the counter. Setting the bowl and plate into the sink, I gripped the edge of the counter to give my hands something to do. I almost wished for the return of my previous life. I would take the hunger and the struggle and the despondent mother to have the simpler life of caring for my sister and not having the luxury of all the time in the world to have to figure out what I wanted for myself. My life had never been about me before, and now that was all there was left and it was suffocating. I was so terrified of making the wrong choice or making a choice based on the wrong reasons that I didn't want to choose anything at all. And a part of me, a large part, reminded me that I didn't have to choose anything. At least not yet.

"I'm sorry," he said as he approached, sliding his own bowl and plate across the counter towards the sink I blocked. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or to offend you in anyway."

How could I possibly explain that I was neither uncomfortable nor offended, but simply confused? Peeta had been aware of his feelings since we were five, and I still had no idea how to make sense of my own mess. A part of me wanted to tell him the truth; that I wanted to explore the possibility that we had something real and that it hadn't all been an act for the cameras. At times, it certainly hadn't felt like it. But if I confessed to that, I would also have to tell him that I wasn't sure if I was only turning to him now because Gale was no longer an option. Because a part of me had been drawn to Gale, too, and I still wasn't certain whether it was just out of comfort and loss or if it could have been something more with him as well.

"Please don't apologize," I said. If anything, I was the one who needed to apologize. "It wasn't anything you said," I told him as I took a step away from the counter and turned to face him. "It's just..." but I couldn't find the words to say, because everything in my mind was such a cluttered mess.

"You don't have to explain," he told me quickly. "You don't owe me anything, Katniss."

Which was, of course, the most absurd thing he could have said. I owed him so much, if not everything. And I wanted so desperately to make up for the fact that I had made his life a living hell. But I always knew that telling him so would do anything but reassure him. He was infuriatingly humble, after all.

I'd like to say I didn't know what came over me, but it wouldn't be the truth. I'd felt the urge before, used the tactic as a defensive mechanism to stop him from saying something I didn't want to hear. Only this time it felt like I did it to prevent myself from saying something I didn't want to hear. Whatever the motives, he did not seem to expect it. As I leaned toward him and angled in, he didn't react. And as my lips pressed against his, he didn't pull away.

I'd lost count of the number of times Peeta and I had kissed, but this time was different. There were no cameras watching, no motive to prove to Snow that we were as madly in love as we claimed. The only ones to witness this kiss would be us, and it made the moment so intimate that I almost immediately pulled away in regret, out of fear of what significance the kiss could hold. But then his hand caught my cheek as he stepped into me, and it was almost as if the world tilted on its axis as he tilted my head slightly back.

Though I was acutely aware of my lips, they no longer felt under my control. Instead of pulling away as intended, I moved closer. Not a breath of air remained between us, and I felt the heat radiating off his body as it had in the cave when he'd been ravaged with fever. When he deepened the kiss, I was not prepared and yet my body reacted immediately, submitting to him completely.

I felt it, then, in that exact moment. That fire deep within me, the one I'd felt that evening on the beach in the arena. When he had told me that no one needed him, and I had been so sure that I could not have survived without him. I had kissed him then to prevent him from saying things I didn't want to hear, just as I had started this kiss. But the ignition of the fire within me had nothing to do with indecision or guilt or worry and had everything to do with hunger and want and desire.

Drawing him closer, I was consumed by him. I wanted nothing more than to melt into him. Though my lungs ached for air, I could not pull away. If anything, I brought him in. It was a feeling I hadn't felt in almost a year, and I was desperate to explore it. But as I gave myself over to the feeling, I knew quickly it wouldn't last. For Peeta, the moment was not the same, as evidenced by the way his hands grasped my shoulders and abruptly pushed me away a moment later.

I gasped, not only for oxygen but from shock. Staggering a step back from the suddenness of it, it took my clouded brain a minute to register the look on his face. As his hands released my shoulders, they clinched into fists. Though I couldn't hear the words he muttered under his breath, I recognized the strain on his face, and my heart sank.

I should have expected it, of course. Dr. Aurelius had worked miracles with Peeta over the winter, but Peeta wasn't completely cured. Reaching for something to ground myself, my hand caught the counter's edge again and I gripped it desperately as I watched Peeta struggle to snap out of his head and back into reality. It dawned on me that I had been a complete idiot. I had reacted on a gut feeling, and I hadn't stopped to consider what effect it might have on him.

"You kissed me while you were helping tend to my leg in the cave in our first Hunger Games," he spoke louder, the question directed to me, "real or not real?"

I fought at the ache in my throat that made it difficult to swallow. "Real."

"You and Haymitch devised a plan to fake a romance between us in order to gain sponsors for the Games. Real or not real?"

Desperately wanting to defend myself and explain, though we'd been through these types of questions before, I fought the urge. It wouldn't help him, and would only serve to confuse him further. "Real."

"You're still playing the game since we're supposed to be the happily married star-crossed lovers from District Twelve. Real or not real?"

This question was new, but I didn't hesitate as I replied, "Not real." While I wasn't entirely certain why I had kissed him, it wasn't something staged or methodically processed and planned. And while I wasn't entirely sure my motivations were completely pure, it had had nothing to do with the illusion of our relationship put on for others.

"I'm sorry," he said, but he struggled over the words. My chest ached, to think that I had done this to him. Lost in the moment, I hadn't stopped to think how kissing him would affect him after being hijacked to hate me. Miserably, I stood silently before him, waiting for the war within him to calm.

"Should I call Aurelius?" I asked as the silence stretched on.

"No." Though the delivery didn't carry bite, the word sounded like ice. "I'm fine."

Peeta didn't lie to me; that wasn't part of who he was. I was a liar, through and through, and I had lost count of the number of ways in which I had twisted the truth and manipulated reality with him. But he was honest and good and didn't carry the ulterior motives I did. It that moment, however, I couldn't help but think that he wasn't fine at all. Still, I wouldn't push him, though I certainly was going to have a conversation with Haymitch about it.

As his face gradually relaxed, I couldn't work my own tension from my body. Snow was dead, as was Coin, and I had foolishly believed that these facts meant I was finally in control of my own life. But I realized that even from beyond the grave, they had the ability to twist and pull on the strings of my life. Even if I could sort out my own heart and figure out what I wanted, I realized for the first time that it might not be up to me at all, what my future held.