Katniss laid her head against the back of the smooth, cool, leather of her seat, thankful for the solitude of the private room. She hadn't even known private rooms on trains existed, other than on long-haul trips. But apparently this train had them, and at least now the three hour ride to New York was going to be one she could enjoy without worrying about prying eyes and curious glances.

She'd been thankful when Peeta had stood firm with her when she'd requested they travel to New York by train. It was, of course, going to take them over twice as long, but she knew she wasn't ready to step on a plane just yet. Effie had – reluctantly – acquiesced to their wishes, after much consternation over it being a 'waste of time'. And after watching Peeta hold the phone receiver to his ear for at least fifteen minutes while Effie waxed lyrical about the importance of punctuality, she'd also been thankful to find Effie had been allocated a separate private room on the train to them.

Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it from her pocket, unlocking it to see a message from Prim.

Good luck. I know you won't need it, but just in case they try to pull shit on you again, remember what I told you. P.

She smiled to herself, remembering how protective Prim had been over the days after the interview with Caesar. She'd spent the entire following day calming the younger woman down and talking her out of 'giving that man a piece of my mind'. She'd been adamant that she would take the days off work to travel to New York with Katniss, until Peeta had assured her he wouldn't let anything happen this time.

It said something for Peeta that Prim hadn't doubted him at all.

Katniss glanced at her watch, wondering where Peeta was. The train was due to leave in 5 minutes, and while she'd gotten to the station in plenty of time after leaving the cemetery, she assumed he wouldn't be far behind her. Half an hour later, she was beginning to worry. What if he'd gotten delayed? What if he wasn't coming anymore? What if-

"Hey Katniss," Peeta breathed out, pushing through the door and closing it quickly behind him. He was limping and out of breath, his face flushed, and with a heavy duffle bag slung over his shoulder. She watched him, relief coursing through her, as he practically threw the bag in the overhead compartment and slumped onto the seat beside her.

"You ok?" she asked. He nodded, eyes closed, breath coming in fits and starts.

"Yeah," he wheezed. "Car freaking broke down five blocks away. Had to attempt to limp/run/hobble the rest of the way, otherwise I wouldn't have made it. Man, I did wrestling in college, not track. And my leg…..dammit, it's not ready for that kind of exercise yet. I'm not cut out for that shit."

Katniss couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth. "What did you do with the car?" She queried.

"Left it on the side of the road. Called Haymitch. He has a spare set of keys. He can get it sorted over the weekend." Peeta leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands dangling limply towards the ground, and without thinking Katniss reached a hand out, rubbing reassuring circles against the small of his back.

"Well I guess you can afford a new one soon," she said lightly. He turned his head, glancing back at her, one eyebrow raised.

"I guess you're right," he muttered. She could feel his breathing start to level out, and when he sat up straight again, the bloom of red covering his face had slowly begun to fade to a pale pink. She moved her hand from his back and offered him the bottle of water at her side; he took it thankfully, gulping the cool liquid down greedily. He twisted the cap back on and handed it back to her, leaning back against the seat again. "Thanks. I'll head down to the food car soon, get you another one."

Katniss waved it aside, then felt a lurch as the train began to move away from the platform. Her heart thudded nervously – the train moving meant they were officially on their way, and one step closer to New York – and without even asking for it, she felt Peeta's hand envelope hers on the seat between them.

"It's going to be ok," he said softly. "We just know to be more guarded this time." She nodded, but didn't reply.

She was quiet for a while, listening to the faint, repetitive movement of the train, watching the lights of Panem flash by the window beside her seat. She knew soon enough they would be out into open fields for a short time, and the sky would be pitch black, nothing but a faint smattering of stars. She knew she was going to enjoy that part of the trip the most. The expanse of nothingness.

She saw from the corner of her eye Peeta move from their room quietly, then return ten minutes later, bottles of water and sandwiches in plastic containers in his hand. He held one out to her as she glanced over at him.

"I just got us some sandwiches, I hope that's ok," he said. She took one of the sandwiches from him, along with one of the waters.

"Thanks," Katniss said softly. She turned to look back out the window, taking one of the perfectly sliced triangles from the container and biting into the corner of it. She felt him move in close to her, peering around her shoulder. They'd finally moved out into the open fields she'd been looking forward to.

"I always liked this area just outside of Panem before we moved," Peeta commented, holding his still wrapped sandwich in his hands. "All open fields, full of nothing and everything. And it's just as nice when you can see nothing but the stars."

She tuned to him, slightly surprised that his thoughts aligned so similarly to hers, though she knew she shouldn't have been. He always seemed to say the right thing at the right time.

They ate, and chatted about nothing in particular. The more Katniss spoke with him, the more comfortable she felt making casual conversation. She'd never been one for talking, but something in him seemed to bring it out in her. With him, the words she wanted to say were a lot easier to find.

"So, uh, Haymitch and I have been doing a bit of digging since he spoke to us," Peeta started eventually. "I thought you might be interested in looking through some of the new papers he dug up." Katniss shrugged, watching as he stood, reaching up for his duffel bag. His shirt rode up, baring a strip of the bare skin of his torso. She couldn't stop staring at it, remembering how his skin felt under her fingertips. She quickly glanced away before he caught her staring.

The thick pile of paper landed with a thud beside her on the seat, and her mouth dropped open as she looked at them. "Seriously?" she asked, reaching over and flicking the corners of the paper. There had to be hundreds of them.

"Absolutely," Peeta replied, pulling out a navy blue and red long sleeved shirt from his bag and slipping it on before sitting on the other side of the pile of papers.

"Where on earth did Haymitch find all this?" Katniss eyed the pile hesitantly, hoping it had all been obtained through legal means.

"He has a few buddies, apparently, and it's all above board," Peeta said simply and shrugged, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. "I didn't ask anything more than that."

Katniss nodded, and pulled a dozen pages off the top. "I guess we start reading them," she began, "Although I'm still not entirely sure what I'm looking for."

"I think we'll know when we see something," he replied positively.

Paper upon paper spread across the seat as they began to make their way through the stack. Occasionally one or the other would point out a particular paragraph or reference, discuss what type of payment Cecelia Blundell had received, how quickly the potential case brought forward by Jonathan Gloss was finalised. Katniss still couldn't grasp how so many incidents had been swept under the rug, couldn't understand how no-one else had never joined all these dots before. But the figures that were presented in front of her partially gave her the answer.

"This guy," she started, pushing the piece of paper in her lap towards Peeta, "Charles 'Chaff' Flinders, lost his freaking hand in an incident after a flight from Atlanta to Denver, and settled for a lovely round sum of 5 million. 5 million, Peeta. On top of all of Flinders medical bills, it seems. This Snow is giving out money like its chump change, and for what? To save his reputation?"

"To save his empire, more like it," Peeta muttered. He looked up at her, eyes glazed over from looking at the papers for almost an hour straight. "It might look like Snow's throwing money about, but he's smart. Bad press and lawsuits would cost him far more in the long run. It's like he finds out what it will take to get them to go away…and he meets that. He's generous enough that people just don't bother doing anything more about it."

"Generous," Katniss snorted. "A generous asshole." Peeta nodded in agreement and closed his eyes. She studied him in concern. "Are you ok?"

He opened his eyes, grinning tiredly. "Yeah. Just exhausted. And my eyes hurt. And before you say any more, yes, I'll look into getting some glasses. Between you, Haymitch and Annie….." He trailed off, and straightened up the paperwork spread across his lap, placing it on the other side of the seat. "But I need to take a break. It's kind of depressing and infuriating at the same time." Katniss followed suit, dumping her papers in between her and the window.

"You're right. There just seems to be so many…injustices. Like, I know these people obviously accepted this money and were happy enough with it. But I don't think Snow should get away with what he's doing. I mean, one day, someone could get…" She trailed off, realising that was she was about to say 'killed', and it had already happened. And while the events that led to it couldn't have prevented their accident, it was still a blazing reminder that if the airline had been held to account on other occurrences, maybe, just maybe, things may have been different.

Peeta reached his arm out, tucking it around her and drawing her close to his side. She paused for a moment, before allowing her head to rest gently against his shoulder. His fingers played with the ends of her hair and he sighed softly. "I think, with what we've managed to pull together here, that we won't even have to do very much at all. Hell, just handing this over to whomever the proper authority would be is likely to be more than enough to get this guy in a shitload of trouble. Once we're back from New York, we'll look into it, and send this all off. And be done with it."

"I agree," Katniss said quietly. She closed her eyes, and thought back to the afternoon they'd woken in her bed, warmed by the late sun, Peeta's fingers trailing down the length of her hair. And wished she was there.

Their quiet was broken by a loud chattering, and they realised with a start that it was Effie's voice coming down the hallway leading to their compartment, gaily announcing that she was 'heading to speak to them right' now. They looked at each other - and at the paperwork scattered around them - in horror.

"Shit!" Katniss hissed. "We don't want her to see this!" Peeta nodded, and pulling his arm from around Katniss, yanked off the long sleeved shirt he wore, hurriedly shoving the papers under it. Dammit, there was too much of it, too much to hide under the shirt without raising suspicion. Katniss watched as Peeta glanced at the door, then back at her, and with only moment to spare, grabbed her by the waist, pulling her onto his lap and crushing his lips to hers.

"And I- Oh! Oh! Oh my goodness!" They broke apart to see Effie standing in the now open doorway, mouth opening and closing like a fish, iphone pressed to her ear. Her bright red lips formed a perfect 'O' as she continued to stare at them; at the way Katniss was straddling Peeta's lap, the way her fingers had curled into his hair, the way his hands were clasped firmly on her ass. "Oh, um, I'll…I'll come back later!" Effie stuttered, tottering backwards on her heels and slamming the door behind her. They could hear her shrill voice as she stalked away. "Well, I'm sorry, but I'll have to speak to them later, because for goodness sake, they were practically fornicating in there!" They looked at each other, unable to help the snorts of laughter that escaped.

"Sorry," Peeta apologised. "But I thought it was the easiest way to get rid of her. She seems pretty….proper." He looked away from her sheepishly. "Uh, you can move if you like."

She nodded, half relieved and half disappointed. She liked being that close to him, liked the feel of his body against hers…..but her head was too full of questions, and confusion and an impending sense of nervousness for their interview. And they were on a train, for crying out loud, now was not the time. She shifted, sliding off his lap and back onto the seat beside him, her fingers laced together in front of her. They were silent for a moment, and Katniss wondered if he could hear the thundering of her heart as clearly as she could.

"You didn't have to apologise," she said softly.

"Yeah I did. I just dragged you onto my lap without even asking," he reminded her. "Basically to freak out Effie."

She shrugged. "And there I was thinking you just wanted to cop a feel," she said lightly, her lips still tingling from his kiss. She felt him freeze beside her, could feel his intent gaze lingering on her.

"Well….that was definitely an added benefit." Peeta's voice was low, throaty.

"Yeah," she said hesitantly, surprising even herself by admitting it out loud.

"So you agree?"

"Mmmm-hmmm," she replied, not sure what else to say. She stared down at her lap, watched as his hand snaked out, gripping her hands between his. Peeta tugged on them lightly, so that she instinctively looked up at him. His Adams apple bobbed, and she could see the muscle twitching in his jaw from setting it. He was looking at her so seriously, she thought, eyes full of want and need and…something more. But she couldn't place it.

Or didn't want to place it.

He half turned to her, their shoulders bumping and aligning to each other. His free hand reached up, cupping her cheek, and her eyes closed as his fingers danced across her cheekbone, smoothed across her brow. If her heart had been thundering loudly before, it was engulfing her now, blood pounding in her ears, through her veins. He leant forward until his forehead was resting against hers, and he drew their joined hands up flattening her palms against his chest. She was surprised to feel the thudding of his own heart, beating out a rhythm that was as erratic as her own.

"We're on….a train," she whispered, as he pressed a light kiss first to one corner of her mouth, then the other.

She felt him grin against her cheek and his lips pressed to the edge of her jaw, close enough to the soft skin below her earlobe to cause her to shiver. "So? Effie already thinks we're….fornicating," he emphasised. She chuckled, felt an echoing rumble in his chest, but remained still as his lips continued a soft trail along her cheek.

"Effie's not right all the time, is she?" Katniss replied softly, absently twisting the fabric of his shirt between her fingers as his lips laid against her closed eyelid.

Then Peeta pulled his head back, waiting for Katniss to open her eyes. "No," he said simply, when she did. He waited until her gaze was locked with his. "But when we're not on a train, Katniss, and we're alone…" He trailed off, pulling his hand away from hers. She didn't move her own, kept them planted firmly on his chest. They stared at each other, almost like a battle of wills, until Katniss couldn't help but avert her eyes.

Peeta didn't say anything more, simply moved his arm around her and pulled her close like he had earlier. She dropped one of her arms back to her lap before hesitantly sliding the other around his waist, resting her hand against the waistband of his jeans.

She knew what he was alluding to; he didn't have to say it. Not when it was pretty damn obvious that both of them knew where this was going. Even though it felt like he was two steps ahead of her and she was always trying to catch up. Even though she still didn't want to get herself in too deep just yet.

Even though she was pretty sure she was already damn well there.

It was the city that never sleeps, but as Katniss waited in the hotel lobby while Effie checked them in, she was certain that's all she wanted to do.

The rest of the train trip had been uneventful, and while both she and Peeta had remained on edge prepared for a return visit from Effie, it had never eventuated.

"Well, we're in luck! Capitol Airlines never does things by halves, you know," Effie announced as she moved back to them, door cards in hand. "Mr Snow is being so wonderfully gracious and supportive of the two of you during all of this. Only the best for our lovebirds - we've all been allocated rooms on the top floor of the hotel, how wonderful! Just imagine the views!" Katniss wasn't sure whether Effie was more excited by the prospect of a view of New York, or the fact she'd been given a room on the top floor.

"That's great," Peeta said smoothly, reaching out a hand for his key. Effie handed his over, then gave Katniss hers, before clutching the long handle of her lime green suitcase. "Ah, before you go, Effie, was there something you wanted to speak to us about earlier on the train?" Katniss stifled a smile as she watched the colour rise on Effie's cheeks.

"Oh…well, it- it really wasn't anything important," she stammered. "I had just been speaking to one of the travel planners at Capitol – they wanted to know if you required any sightseeing tours booked while you were in the city. But I, well, I assume you'll be perfectly fine doing- I mean, organising your own activities."

"We'll be fine, Effie, thank you," Peeta replied with a smile. She nodded, and sharply turned on her heel towards the bank of elevators, Peeta and Katniss following in her wake. By the time they were ensconced in the small space, the elevator smoothly rising to the top floor, she was chattering loudly about what restaurant she was going to go to for a late supper, how she was looking forward to catching up with friends she hadn't seen since last years' fashion festivals.

The elevator doors slid open, and with barely restrained relief, Katniss stepped out, checking the number on the two doors closest to her to know which way to turn. She muttered a good night to Effie, moved left down the hallway and noted Peeta followed her. Effie moved in the opposite direction.

"Oh, Peeta, Katniss!" Effie called. They both half turned. "We need to be on our way to Rockefeller Plaza by 6.30am, so don't be late! It's a very, very important interview you know!" She tossed them a small finger wave and continued on her way, humming the annoying tune that had been playing the elevator.

Katniss rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm pretty much going to order room service and crash," She told Peeta, tugging on her suitcase as one of the old, ragged wheels caught on the carpet. She heard it squeak, and vaguely wished she'd thought to ask Prim if she could borrow her much newer – and nicer – one.

"Yeah, me too," Peeta replied. "Today was…long. And tomorrow will be as well." Katniss nodded, and stopped when she saw the numbers to her room in bold black script on a door.

"This is me," she said unnecessarily. He looked down at the numbers on his own card, and up at the door directly opposite hers.

"And that's me," he pointed.

"Ok."

"Ok."

Katniss stood, wondering what to do. Part of her wanted to invite him in. But the other part, the part that wasn't quite ready for that yet, won out.

"Good night, Peeta," she finally said, leaning over and kissing his cheek. She turned, inserted the electronic key in the lock and opened the door. She glanced back over her shoulder to see Peeta watching her quietly.

"Good night, Katniss," he replied, then turned to his own door.

She stepped inside and closed hers, leaning against it the minute the lock was in place. And briefly wondered if she'd made the wrong decision.

True to his promise to Prim, Peeta ensured that the interview went nowhere near the topic of Alice and James Everdeen. Granted, neither of them expected it – this station was vastly different to the station that aired Good Morning Panem back home – but there had still been the element of what if?

Their morning had been frantic, as they moved from hotel to the television studio, through make-up and wardrobe. Katniss had listened as Effie tried to remind them how much of the country was going to see this interview (like she needed to be reminded), and then watched, more than a little bemused, as Effie stood nervously just behind camera one, watching them intently as they went to air. There was a…charge in this studio that hadn't been there for their last interview, and Katniss couldn't quite figure out what it was.

In the end, the interview was light and fluffy, focused on Katniss' relationship with Prim, Peeta owning his own bakery. The few delicate questions they got in relation to the crash itself, they deflected gently. Both were careful not to say anything that could be seen as the slightest bit negative towards Capitol Airline, or its owner.

They'd save that for their return from New York.

They acknowledged the few dates they had been on, agreed that, yes, sometimes good things can come out of bad situations. Laughed awkwardly when the question of happily ever after was brought up, politely declined when asked to share a kiss.

It was, quite possibly, the longest ten minutes of Katniss' life.

Finally, Katniss breathed out a sigh of relief as she leant on the railing, looking down at the late morning diners in the plaza. It was over. They were done. No more interviews.

"You ok?" Peeta's voice came from behind her, and she half turned to see him standing, hands shoved in his pockets. "You hightailed it out of there pretty quick." He moved towards her, limping a little, his hands curling over the rail beside her.

"Just…glad it's over," she sighed.

He nodded. "Me too. Now all we have to do is go home, get the head honchos of the Capitol to sign on the dotted line, and we're free. No more obligations."

"Not entirely free. I have to see the specialist again on Friday," Katniss reminded him. "And then look into all that dodgy Capitol stuff."

"The 'dodgy Capitol stuff', as you call it, isn't an obligation, Katniss, or something we necessarily need to do. If you don't want to, if you just want to try and forget about it all, that's fine." His voice was steady, even, non-committal. But she didn't buy it for a moment.

"C'mon, Peeta," she sighed. "You won't let this go. And you know I won't either. Not with everything we've found out. Maybe 'We're Free' was the wrong term to use. Maybe….maybe we just call it the time for our opportunity to rebel against the man."

Peeta smirked, then turned to lean against the railing, looking up at the lines of flags fluttering in the breeze. Then he sighed. "Effie's coming our way."

"Shit," Katniss muttered. She turned, plastering as genuine a smile as she could on her face. And then it dropped. "Is that….." She trailed off, glancing up at Peeta at the same time her hand reached out instinctively to grab his.

"Yup," he replied softly. They waited until Effie stood directly in front of them, her face slightly flushed, eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

"Katniss, Peeta, I've been looking for you everywhere! I thought it would be lovely for us to go out for lunch together, now that you've so kindly finished your interviews for us. And I thought it would be a nice opportunity for you to meet my esteemed employer – the very gracious Coriolanus Snow."

Katniss glanced down at the hand that stretched out towards her, then up at the eyes that seemed to burn into her.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Everdeen, Mr Mellark."

A/N - Thanks, as always, for the follows, favourites and reviews. I appreciate them a lot, more than you know!

You can find me on tumblr under sponsormusings :)