Oh god.

My first absurd instinct is to close my eyes and pray for the earth to open up and swallow me.

Even I know I'm being ridiculous. I can't help it. Embarrassment radiates in waves from my body. I am sure I am redder now than when I first saw Peeta naked. If I could glow, I probably would.

I can't see his face. As far as I can tell, he hasn't yet made any moves to cover himself. He's probably frozen in shock, as I am. Yet for all I know he may be immobilized with anger. I don't really know that side of Peeta. It's a side I've rarely seen; one that I've rarely triggered.

This would do it, don't you think?

Yes. Yes this would definitely be something worth getting angry over, if I were Peeta. I'm sure I've crossed some sort of line – violated something meant to be private, even from me.

By this point I am sure years have gone by, and all I've bee able to do is sit here and pray for something to make me disappear.

Suddenly, he speaks.

"You do know that even though your eyes are closed, I can still see you, right?"

His voice is the key, the noise to break my paralysis. "Oh god," I whisper.

And then I do absolutely the most childish thing possible. I literally dive for the covers and pull them up over my head until I am completely hidden from sight. The bed shakes with his laughter.

Well, that's good.

At least it means he's probably not mad. But how can I possibly face him now? How can I look him in the eye after … after where I was, and what I was doing?

"Katniss …" I can hear his smile through his voice, even as he sighs with a bit of exasperation. I don't answer him. I can't.

"You know you'll have to come out of there eventually," he says.

I shake my head for a few seconds until I realize he can't see me. "Nope," I manage. The word takes a few tries to get out.

My reply makes him laugh again.

"So you're just going to stay there, under the blankets, forever."

My only response is to drop my face into my hands on the bed and moan. Because he's right. I will have to come out eventually.

Finally, I adjust the blankets so I can see him with one eye.

He is lying in the same spot, and has made absolutely no effort to cover himself or even change his position. The only thing that's different is that he has propped his head up on one arm to see me better, and has rested the other on his chest. His legs remain as open as ever.

My eyes look anywhere but between them.

He watches me, his face unapologetically happy. He is clearly enjoying this.

I let the blanket fall away from my face enough to scowl at him. This only makes his smile grow wider.

"What?" I finally snap. I keep the covers wrapped around me, so only my head is visible.

"Hello," he says pleasantly. As if he walked up to me in the street. As if we were anywhere but here. I purposely deepen my scowl. He smiles, looks to the ceiling, and shakes his head.

"What!" I repeat again.

"You're just … you're kind of a funny person, Katniss. After … even after last night? This is still how you react? How you feel?"

He's not scolding me, but there's a hint of disappointment in his voice. I let the blanket drop a little more, so that while I am still wrapped in it, I am no longer hiding in it. Though it's still difficult to get words out, I am compelled to explain; to make him understand.

"You were sleeping."

"So?"

"So …" I have no idea how to put into words what I need him to understand – my curiosity, my embarrassment, or even the newfound sense of giddiness that has, since, vanished.

"So … I'm sorry."

His eyebrows go up. He looks sad. "What on earth for?"

"For looking at you. Without your permission."

There's a pause, and then his face breaks into a grin again. It's as though he can't help himself. I'm glad he's like that around me.

"I told you, I don't care if you see me naked. Awake, asleep … dying in the mud." He sits up and slides his hands under the blanket. I feel his fingers graze my waist as they eventually settle on my back. He pulls me into him, leaning back onto the pillow. "You, Katniss Everdeen," he says, "my love," he whispers, and chills run through me, "can see me naked any time."

I can't help but smile. But I still need to reassure him, to let him know that I regretted what I had been about to do. There's so little in our lives that we can control. I cannot violate the last piece he has left.

"I wouldn't have touched you," I assure him. "I know it looked like -" I shake my head. "But I would never … without your permission. Just so you know."

During the pause where Peeta takes in what I've said he must go through half a dozen different expressions before bursting into unabashed laughter. My scowling at him only seems to egg him on.

Something about his face, about the particular way he's laughing, calls to my memory. In an instant, I am transported back to the elevators the night of the opening ceremonies, with Chaff kissing me, Finnick's teasing, and Johanna's bare breasts reflecting the light off of Peeta's costume.

I know what he's thinking now.

"I … am not … pure," I practically growl at him, but this only makes him laugh harder. He throws his arms around me and pulls me into him, and is just so genuinely happy that I cannot help but be affected by it, despite my best efforts to remain angry. I feel my face break into a smile, and even though I try and hide it by burying my face in his chest, I know that Peeta can tell.

"Well fine!" I say, half smiling, half still trying to put on an air of annoyance. "So if you know so much, tell me."

He's still having trouble catching his breath.

"Tell - tell you what?" He manages to get out in between gasps.

"Tell me what's allowed. I assume that touching while sleeping is, in fact, ok, and I'm just the big idiot who didn't know any better?"

Peeta leans up and kisses me, his hand on the back of my head pulling me harder onto his lips. When he breaks it, he is still smiling.

"Yes," he whispers. "Yes, touching while sleeping is ok." He pauses. "I mean, I wouldn't go up to strangers and do it, or anything."

I poke him.

"But you can do anything you want to me, Katniss." He kisses me again. "Day or night, asleep or awake …" Another kiss. "I'm yours."

I languidly slide into his arms, pressing my cheek to his body. His arms wrap lovingly around me. Peeta's happiness has infected me. I feel it flowering in my chest, as if it's taken root in my heart and is now pumping through my veins until it reaches every part of me.

Only Peeta could do that.

I lift my head to look at him, amazed at the person in front of me. Amazed at his understanding and patience. Amazed at his ability to touch and move me in ways I never knew myself to be capable of.

He presses his lips to mine again. Not urgently, not to ignite a new fire, but there's a definite firmness and passion to it. One hand finds my cheek.

For a long, long while, he simply looks at me. His thumb continues to graze my cheek softly as he holds the back of my head with his other hand. It's like he's trying to preserve me, to capture this moment in his memory forever.

"Hi," he whispers.

"Hi," I whisper back.

I don't look away. Not just because I owe it to Peeta to be as present as possible for what might be my last days alive, but because I don't want to. I want to stay there, lost in his limpid blue pools, forever immortalized by his loving gaze.

But even I can recognize that I'm not lost. If anything, I feel more found than perhaps I ever have been before.

So I look back, keeping our gaze unbroken, just existing in the world, with Peeta. I seem so spill over with happiness at the thought of it. It's as if I discovered some vital part of me that never existed before. One that I would be lost without.

And then, in the depths of his eyes, something shifts. There's something new there, something unexpected. If I had to put a word to it I would say… a sadness, almost.

"What is it?" I ask.

He doesn't answer for a few moments. Instead, with a pained expression, his eyes roam my face, as if he were bidden to memorize its every intricate detail. When he does respond, his voice is cracked.

"Have you ever wanted something … something that – that you never thought was possible?"

"Yes," I answer, thinking of my father. Of the many times I would have given anything in the world to see him again.

"Have you ever gotten it?"

I shake my head. Nothing could make that possible.

"Well I have. Here. Now. With you. And it's … " He searches for the words. "Part of it is exquisite, like happiness that – not only happiness that I never thought I would feel, but happiness that I never thought I could feel." His hands find my face again. "Happiness that I didn't know was possible."

I smile, and duck my head down to brush his lips with mine. When I pull back, his eyes are closed, as if he's trying to preserve the feel of my lips on his.

"Any moment now I'm going to wake up and this will be gone."

I don't think I would have heard him if my face weren't so close to his. Even now I'm not 100% sure he was saying it to me, and not to himself.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it's happened before."

There's a pause as I digest what he said.

"…What?"

He bursts with exasperation. "Because that's what happens every time, Katniss!" I'll … I'll dream of this, or imagine this, and ..." He frowns. "Sometimes I'm stupid enough to lose myself in it."

His eyes find me again. They are sharp. Piercing. "And that's the worst thing to do. Because the next thing I know … I open my eyes to darkness. And I'm alone. And I'm ... I'm nothing to you. Again."

He seems to deflate in front of me, resignation and sadness filling his eyes before they close again.

What do I say to that? My life has been filled with moments that have been all too real. More than once I'd wish that it was a dream, and that any moment I'd wake up to find my father alive, my mother awake, or my sister with a full stomach.

I don't think I've ever had the opposite – what Peeta is talking about now. A moment so good, so wonderful, that I was sure it couldn't be real.

I have no words of my own. So I use Peeta's.

"Hey," I whisper, wrapping my arms around him, pulling him into me. "I'm here … I'm right here." His arms wrap around me, crushing me to him.

He holds me like he's drowning. Which he is, a little.

My head drops down and I continue, whispering softly in his ear. "Come back to me. I'm right here."

It's what Peeta says to me at night, when I'm thrashing and screaming at some horror that has visited me in sleep. At first, I'm not aware of anything but the terror that clutches my heart, but as the seconds pass, the first normal thing to register, without fail, is the sound of his voice.

"Come back to me," he whispers in the darkness. "I'm here. I'm right here. It's ok." Over and over he says it, holding my thrashing limbs against him until I am still. Until I'm back.

And so I throw him the same rope he throws me, trying my best to bring him back from whatever darkness is trying to take him. I keep whispering, slowly, gently, fingers stroking his hair. Occasionally, I'll place a kiss on his cheek, or his temples, or his lips.

Finally, he opens his eyes.

"See? I didn't go anywhere." When he doesn't respond, I press a little harder. "You were never nothing to me, Peeta. Even before."

He doesn't smile. He looks at me, as if trying to decide whether to ask me something. Finally, as if he can't stop himself, he carefully asks,

"You don't … regret it, do you?"

"Regret … what?"

"Last night."

It still takes me a few seconds to realize what he means. When I do, it's like ice in my veins.

"Why would you even think that?"

"Because … we're in a weird situation, and … sometimes people say things that maybe, in the light of day ... they regret saying."

I'm stunned as the realization hits me. He's not talking about making love. He's talking about me telling him that I love him.

My voice comes out harder than I expect it to. "No I don't regret it. I meant it. I mean it!."

He looks away from me, but I place a hand on his face and force his gaze to meet mine.

"Peeta. Listen to me. My only regret is that I didn't realize it sooner. That I didn't tell you more often. Every day. I've loved you since before I knew it."

My eyes are imploring, begging him to believe me. I try and pour every ounce of conviction and truth into them. "You, Peeta Mellark, are my love. And I love you."

His hands are gripping my face so tightly it almost hurts. Then he smiles ruefully.

"That's exactly what Dream Katniss would say, you know." But then his grin vanishes, and his expression sobers. "That would be worse than all the nightmares put together, I think. To finally have you, to know that we're together, that you love me back, and that we … that we were – you know, together like that … and then to have it taken away from me. To have them somehow … I don't know. Make you not love me." Lines of misery start to cross his face. "I don't think I could devise a worse torture."

His words break my heart. Not only because I want to reassure him that this is happening, that I, that this, that we, are real, that my love for him is real, but because the only way to really and truly prove my love to him is going to be so painful. I am going to die for Peeta. I am going to give my life so he can live.

In some distant, removed part of myself, I remember that Peeta would make an infinitely better spokesperson for any revolution than I could. But I am removed from that idea now. Whatever is happening in the outside world … we aren't a part of that. Not right now. Not in this moment. Now, we are just us. Two kids lucky and unlucky enough to have fallen in love, and to have loved each other, the day before going off to their deaths.

Enough. Stop thinking like this.

I can't let this happen, this slide into depression and fear. I have to do something to snap him out of it. To snap us out of it. Pain and fear and misery will come soon enough. It's not allowed here. Not now.

And with that thought, I am struck by a sudden impulse.

"Say Peeta," I begin, in what I hope is an innocent sounding voice. I lightly trace my fingers over his collar bones.

"Hmm?"

"Do you remember … when we were talking about things that are allowed and not allowed?"

"Like, five minutes ago?"

"Mmhmm," I murmur, still trying to keep a light and airy tone.

And then, without warning, I slide my hand under the blanket until my fingers find what they're looking for. They wrap around him, firmly.

He gives a sharp intake of breath and practically sits up in shock. He's pushed himself up nearly to seated on his hands, a look I've never seen before smoldering in his eyes. He's both surprised and daring me to go on at the same time.

"Well then you'll have to tell me," I continue as my hand moves on him. "Since you seem to know best … is this something I should go up to strangers and do?" I am trying to maintain my innocent tone, but I've started enjoying the effect I'm having on him too much to play for much longer.

The truth is, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Instinct, more than anything, is guiding me now, though I try and watch Peeta's reactions carefully, like he watched mine.

And if I think of it that way, as cause and effect - a tighter grip bringing a deeper moan, faster movements bringing faster breathing – I actually seem to do well.

At first, I try and look sexy, whatever that means, but soon it becomes clear that it couldn't matter less to Peeta what sort of faces I might be making. All he cares about is that it's me.

Besides, he's closed his eyes and let his head drop back onto the pillow with a groan. He's panting more heavily, his mouth open. I pepper the line of his jaw with kisses, then move to his neck pressing more firmly onto his pulse point.

He reaches up and gasps my head with both hands, holding me steady as he stares, desperately, into my eyes. It looks almost as if he's in pain, the way his eyebrows furrow together. But the sounds he makes tell me otherwise.

"Katniss …" he breathes. I quicken my movements, almost daring him to try and form words. "God," he groans, letting his head fall back again.

I smile, enraptured by the new discovery I have made, thrilled with my ability to make him feel good.

And that's only with my hand.

My heart quickens as I am filled with a sudden, reckless sense of abandonment and daring. I couldn't possibly … could I?

For the briefest of moments, I am filled with a fleeting panic.

What if it's something that no person would ever do?

It's certainly a risk. There's no way to answer my question from earlier. Maybe there just is something wrong with me, to be thinking this. And I don't even know if that is something he'd like. The question is, do I trust Peeta enough to tell me if it's wrong? To let myself be that wrong with him?

But it's not a question. There is no question about that, because I trust Peeta with part of me that I've never trusted anyone with. It's more than trusting him with my life. It's trusting him with my body. It's trusting him with my heart.

And in the end, my desire – the desire to be there for Peeta in our last days, to bring him, as he put it, the happiness that he never thought possible – wins out.

He realizes what I am about to do a second before it happens, but by then it's too late. My head is already under the blankets, my lips having wrapped themselves around their prize.

The noise he makes might be an attempt at my name.

But I can't really tell.