A/N: So I feel like a parent who's abandoned their child over taking so long to update this story! I am SO SORRY! It's not really an excuse, but I did start working full time back in January, and all my time got eaten up.

I am still planning for three more chapters after this one, the story ending with ch. 24. This chapter is the lead up to the ribbon cutting ceremony, then the next will one will cover that, and so on and so forth!

Again, I am SO SORRY. I hope you guys find this chapter, this update, and truly enjoy it! And *hopefully* the next chapter won't take forever for me to post! You guys have been THE BEST. THE BEST.

I can't say thanks enough, for all the feedback. Again, you guys are awesome. Hopefully you haven't forgotten about this story. As always, thoughts/comments/questions are welcome!

So here it goes...

Peeta decided the next day that he wouldn't bring up the subject of marriage until after the ribbon-cutting ceremony. He was elbow-deep in dough for loaves of rye bread – he was making those to honor his brother and newborn Rye – when he made that decision.

He and Katniss had had a quiet night after his confession and proposal, crawling into bed early and actually sleeping soundly. Neither one of them were plagued by nightmares, and when he had slipped out of bed to shower before work, Katniss wasn't far behind him, getting ready for a day in the woods.

And there was surprisingly little tension between them, in the last month before the filming. Peeta supposed that much of it was due to how busy they both kept themselves, how they had very little free time to actually worry about anything other than the ceremony. At Peeta's request, Cressida had sent them a packet with possible questions that would be covered in the interview. Katniss and Peeta spent their evenings going over the questions together, laughing over some of the more ridiculous ones, and cringing over some of the more difficult topics.

"Oh here's one," Katniss told him one night. They were seated together on the couch, their coffee table a mess of papers.

"How did you feel when you lost the baby? How am I even supposed to answer that, there was no baby," She retorted, setting down her packet of questions with gusto.

"Yeah…" Peeta began, not sure how to respond to that. "They don't exactly know that was faked…"

And it was true. Peeta hadn't aired hardly any of their personal life on his phone calls to Cressida or her assistants. She knew that Katniss and Peeta were a couple, that they lived together in District 12 where Peeta owned the bakery and Katniss spent her days hunting and helping out around town – and that last part might have been a little bit of an embellishment from Peeta, but Katniss did give away much of her game, had helped plant the field…

Katniss scowled at him. He knew he wasn't going to like what she was about to say.

"Well, we might as well already be married then," she seethed. "I'm sure they don't know that was fake either."

And in true Katniss style, she had stomped off upstairs before he had the chance to reply. He gave her a good fifteen minutes before he climbed the stairs to find her. She had already dressed for bed, her thin cotton nightgown pooling around her as she sat cross-legged on the mattress.

"I'm sorry," she whispered bitterly as Peeta climbed into bed behind her, kissing her bare shoulder and rubbing her arms.

"You're just stressed," he told her for what was likely the fifteenth time in the past two months. She was quiet, but her hand found his, her fingers cold. He knew that she hadn't meant what she said.

Katniss slipped her hand away and then turned to face him, her mouth soft and warm, open and inviting against his own.

"You know," he managed between kisses, "it is quite scandalous that we're already living together, and doing this, and we aren't married…" he teased.

Katniss tensed for a moment, and then pulled back. For a second Peeta was afraid he may have taken his teasing too far. She had just been upset. But then her features broke out into a wry grin.

"Are you saying we should stop?" She asked, quirking one dark eyebrow in his direction.

"No, that's not what I'm saying…" He replied, grinning back at her. He had been about to make a plea, tell her that she had to marry him, for her virtue's sake, but then he stopped himself. He wasn't going to bring it up again until after the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

"You really think everybody waits until they're married…?" Katniss questioned. Peeta thought that if her eyebrow quirked up anymore it would touch her hairline and he had to suppress a laugh.

"Because I can tell you they're lying...everyone thinks I'm so innocent, but I know what went on at the slag heap…" Katniss replied, her arms folded across her chest. She seemed to realize the implication of her words, though, and her cheeks flushed bright red.

"I had two older brothers, Katniss. I know all about the slag heap too…" Peeta laughed, leaning forward to kiss her again. She put her hands up, though, and he met resistance. She furrowed her brow, looked as if she had a question to ask.

"But you just know that from your brothers, right…? There's nothing else…nothing else you need to tell me…?" She asked, quirking her eyebrow once more.

It took only a moment for Peeta to realize what Katniss was asking. Of course his memories had been altered and he had asked her detailed questions about her relationship with Gale. And with other tributes. The Capitol had shown him images of her in intimate situations with himself, with Gale, with others. But none of it had been true.

But she had never asked the same of him.

He thought it was obvious. There had never been anyone other than Katniss. His brothers had teased him about it, almost relentlessly. Bannock had tried to pressure him into courting other girls – but Bann's idea of courting involved various amounts of kissing and touching on the slag heap, and that wasn't what Peeta was interested in at all. Rye had come to his defense, but then Peeta's name had been reaped and they both just looked at him with pity.

His family had been tight-lipped on the subject of girls once he returned from the games. Bann and Rye had clapped him on the back, congratulated him on his victory and on finally getting the girl. But his memories were fuzzy from that time period, and he wasn't sure how much they had known about the exact nature of his relationship with Katniss. Had they sensed his sadness, the feelings of bitterness and betrayal? Or had they simply attributed it to stress from the games, having to kill to survive and losing his left leg in the process?

Of course there had been months where he and Katniss hadn't spoken to one another – or so he'd been told. It had been Mrs. Everdeen's strict rules about Katniss, who was only sixteen at the time, seeing boys – or at least that was the story they'd told the press.

Despite all of the lies, despite all of the heartache, it had always been Katniss. Would always be Katniss.

"No, no…" Peeta shook his head, chuckling softly. Katniss seemed to relax, just a little bit.

"There was never anybody else. It was always you…" Peeta told her, his tone more sincere. He placed one hand on the curve of her jaw, his thumb stroking the smooth skin of her cheek. Katniss moved her hand, her fingers curling around his wrist.

"You know, you were the first boy I ever kissed," Katniss revealed, her hand a reassuring weight against his wrist.

"Really…?" Peeta asked, almost increduously. He wished he could remember all those kisses from the games, from the Quarter Quell, but he didn't have to. Now he had countless other kisses to make up for all the others.

"I would have thought – " Peeta nearly said his name, nearly mentioned Gale, but he stopped himself. Gale Hawthorne was still a sore subject for Katniss, though Peeta could sense that her anger toward him had waned over the past year.

Katniss shook her head, averting her gaze for a moment as if she were shy all of a sudden. Peeta could see why the other tributes had teased her during training before the quell, had made affronts to her innocence. Despite all they'd been through, and regardless of how intimate they'd become, she still looked so young, so chaste.

Peeta closed the distance between them and pressed a kiss to the corner of Katniss's mouth. He felt the upward tug of her lips as she smiled, and Peeta followed it to her cheek, then her jaw, pressing fervent kisses there. Peeta leaned over Katniss as she lay back on the bed, her dark hair fanning out across the white sheets. He couldn't help but think of that first night she climbed into bed with him, wearing that same cotton nightgown, her appearance otherworldly. She was an angel.

Peeta trailed kisses down her neck, lingered on the hollow above her collarbone. Katniss let out soft sighs, her hands finding purchase in his hair. He shifted his weight back onto his legs – a tad bit awkwardly because of his artificial leg – as his hands moved up her legs, sliding over the hard convexity of her knees, the pliant flesh of her thighs as he pushed up the fabric of her nightgown.

He was pressing wanton kisses back onto her open mouth when his hands contacted the crisp cotton of her underwear. His fingers curled around the around the edge of the garment and he broke away from the kiss to pull them off completely, Katniss moving her feet to help him. And then Peeta's hands were back on her thighs, his lips pressing wet kisses to the tight flesh of her abdomen. His teeth grazed the arch of her hip and Katniss gasped, her fingers tangling into his hair once more.

When he gently coaxed her legs apart and moved purposefully lower, Katniss's eyes grew wide for a moment as she caught his gaze. But then he set to work and Katniss shut her eyes, her mouth falling open in pleasure.

He'd never done that before. He'd heard his brothers recount various acts during their more bawdy conversations, either bragging or attempting to educate Peeta on various methods for pleasing a woman. And Peeta could remember how embarrassed he'd been, how he had listened at first, when he was younger. But as he grew older he waved them off, told them he didn't want to hear about his brothers having sex.

He wasn't skilled, but what he lacked in technique, he made up for in eagerness. He was just happy that Katniss was a novice herself, that they could learn all the delights of intimacy together.

And Peeta tried to help Katniss prepare for all of the attention that was about to be cast on her, when the film crew arrived. He took more time off from the bakery, trusting it to Edda and Theo and Marc – who was a little too eager to start back to work with a squalling one month-old at home.

Cressida, Pollux, and their crew were coming in the day before the ceremony, via train. Katniss wasn't too happy about hosting them all for dinner, but Peeta had offered and they had accepted the invitation. He thought it would be good for them to catch up before all of the filming started. Peeta knew it would ease his fears, at least. And Cressida had promised that she wouldn't be filming the dinner. Peeta had laughed at that, but he was grateful.

And the town was all abuzz, excitement high with the coming ceremony. As mayor, Thom got bombarded everywhere he went, and so he started sending Leevy – his secretary – out instead. The dark-haired girl didn't seem to mind running his errands, though. She would blush when Peeta asked her about it, when she stopped by the bakery each day to cart Mayor Thom's coffee and pastries back to him. Peeta just gave her a warm smile and sent her on her way – with extra coffee, of course.

Leevy and Thom's tentative relationship made Peeta reminisce on his first few months back in District 12. How long it had taken him to realize that the magnetic pull toward Katniss was love – love that was different than before but that might have never been completely abandoned. Love that had lived somewhere inside him, too rooted in his very being to ever be stamped out.

Everything had been so new, so overwhelming. To think of her as the girl who stood shyly in the space between their houses as Sae made her way over to Peeta's, it seemed so foreign now. He could hardly believe a time had existed when she wouldn't even speak to him, when she had shut out the entire world.

Peeta had stayed at the medic facility for months in order to recover, under Dr. Aurelius's care. Katniss's own recovery had only begun weeks after his return, only once he was a steady presence in her life. Had Dr. Aurelius known that would happen? Had he suspected as much? Was that why he had encouraged Peeta to move back to District 12, to tell Katniss she needed to phone him?

"Did you know?" Peeta couldn't help but ask, the next time he spoke with Dr. Aurelius. It was two days before the ceremony and tension was high, so he'd called the doctor talk.

"Did you know that Katniss would recover more quickly with me here?" Peeta wouldn't presume that her recovery had hinged on his return. No, his return had merely been a catalyst.

"Well, you know I can't tell you about Katniss's treatment, Peeta." The doctor replied. "But I did think it would help, you two being near each other…"

Peeta could remember the head doctor telling him as much, but at the time, Peeta had thought he meant it for his rehabilitation. But Peeta also hadn't known how bad Katniss was back then.

"I think it's helped her more than it could have ever helped me." Peeta remarked. "I mean, it has helped me, so much. But Katniss, it's like she's back to being herself – an even better version of herself…"

"I'm glad to hear that, Peeta." Dr. Aurelius replied in an even tone. "Now tell me about all this filming…"

The day before the ceremony, Peeta cleaned the entire house while Katniss cooked for their guests – with Sae's help, of course. The older woman had offered her help early on, and Peeta had the suspicion that she just wanted to be in the middle of the action, so she could have more to brag and gossip about. But she really was a great help, and she stayed in the kitchen to watch over the meal while Katniss left to shower and get ready.

Peeta had seen her dig through their closet over the past few days, trying to decide what to wear. She didn't talk about all the clothes that Cinna had designed, how they still hung in her closet, never worn. She mostly wore pants and comfortable tops to hunt in. Peeta didn't care what she wore – she was beautiful regardless.

Katniss let Peeta shower first, since he was planning on walking down to the train station to retrieve Cressida and her crew. She was quiet as she slipped into the bathroom – once he was finished – and he moved into their bedroom to get dressed. He pulled on a pair of brown trousers, knowing his black ones might be worse for the wear if he strolled down the dusty lane to the station in them. He chose a crisp collared shirt to wear as well, and was buttoning it up when Katniss exited the bathroom, a cloud of steam trailing behind her.

She had chosen a floral dress, simple in construction but with a bright print. He'd kissed her earlier when she'd picked it out, encouraging her to wear it. He was just happy that she had asked his opinion – it meant she cared about how he saw her, that she trusted his guidance when she was trying to make a good impression.

The dress had been lovely on the hanger, but it was nothing compared to how Katniss looked in it.

He whistled a tune all the way to the train station. It was a happy song, a quick-paced jaunt that people of the district usually danced to – or at least that was how Katniss had explained it to him. There hadn't been much occasion for dancing before the rebellion. And not much afterward, either. But then Peeta thought of all of the good that had happened for those who had survived – the new houses and stores, plentiful work and food, all the babies being born without the fear of Reapings…

It was quite a different life than Peeta had even imagined living, but one he was grateful for.

He met Cressida and Pollux at the station, their assistants lugging the camera equipment and other bags behind them. They practically gushed over Peeta – how much he had improved, how life back in District 12 seemed to favor him. He could feel his cheeks color just like Katniss's had done when he'd caught sight of her in that floral dress just half an hour earlier.

And Peeta had been a bit apprehensive about seeing Cressida and Pollux again, had worried that their presence might trigger a flashback. He'd been so unstable on the mission to the Capitol, unable to trust himself or anyone else, really.

He remembered them both – how Pollux had saved them by leading them through the underground passages, had lost his brother Castor. How he couldn't speak, couldn't sing…but he could whistle…

"We came back and filmed here…before…" Katniss had confessed to Peeta in the dark, quiet hours of the night, a few days before the film crew's arrival. Her head was resting on Peeta's chest, and he tightened his hold around her, waited for her to continue.

"Cressida and everyone, they brought us back," Katniss said softly, and Peeta somehow knew the "us" she was referring to meant her and Gale, though she wouldn't speak his name. "Filmed my old house…" she added.

And Peeta had realized how cruel it must all be, to invite Cressida and Pollux back into the district to film, to dredge up those painful memories of when the district was a charred and broken thing. He didn't know though – he had no way of knowing. The Capitol hadn't shown him the propos – not in their true form, anyway.

And he had asked her to do the same thing, to be interviewed and filmed back in District 12 not by her own choosing, by the same crew that had plagued her in Thirteen, in the Capitol…

"Pollux asked me to sing," Katniss said, breaking the silence and interrupting Peeta's thoughts. "Well, he spelled it out, at least…" she added, just a hint of humor in her voice.

Peeta smiled in the darkness of their bedroom and bent down to press a kiss to her forehead.

"I sang The Hanging Tree…" Katniss whispered, her voice even quieter now. "And they filmed it all. They ate it up. But I didn't sing it for them…"

Peeta slipped his fingers through her long, dark hair, felt the silkiness of it, the beauty. He didn't know what to say. In those moments, when Katniss finally decided to bare her soul, to share those parts of herself with him that were beyond the physical, he had learned to keep quiet, to wait and let her speak what was on her mind, in her heart at her own pace.

"I hadn't sung that song in ten years," she explained a little louder in tone, a tiny bit more animated. "I got in trouble, when I was younger, for singing it – my dad taught it to me, and I had no clue what it even meant. But then, the more I thought about it as I got older, I realized it what it was about…"

Katniss had paused at that, and Peeta wracked his brain to think if she'd ever sung that song for him. The Hanging Tree…he could easily imagine what it was about – a tree where people were hanged, perhaps? Especially if Katniss had gotten in trouble as a child for singing it, had been too young to understand the lyrics.

She had laughed, and Peeta had felt the warmth of her breath against the skin of his neck. It wasn't an entirely happy laugh, he knew, but he'd take it over her crying any day.

"Haymitch told me you started singing – in the Capitol, when you were recovering…" Peeta had told her as they lay in the dark. "He said you wouldn't eat, you wouldn't speak…but that one day, you started singing…"

Peeta hadn't asked Katniss to sing The Hanging Tree for him.

But it was all he could think about for a moment when he saw Cressida and Pollux standing there, at the train station.

One of Cressida's crew had asked him a question – Mara was her name, Peeta thought – but he had completely missed it. For a moment he was afraid he would break down, have some sort of episode, but he'd never been triggered by someone else's memories before.

Peeta shook his head, though, and apologized, the visions of Katniss singing to Pollux in the middle of a field blurring back into the present moment.

"Oh, I just was asking if we could drop all of our equipment off before dinner?" Mara asked again, nodding toward their bags.

Peeta was explaining what little he knew about the earliest recovery efforts when they made it back to the Victor's Village almost an hour later. The film crew was mostly wearing black, and Peeta was glad that the roads hadn't been too dusty. It had rained the day before, all of the loose dirt congealing into hard-packed earth. If they had come in late July or August, though, their clothes would have turned a dusty brown.

Haymitch was sitting on his porch, squawking back at his geese as they honked at him, when Peeta neared the row of houses. Peeta invited his former mentor over with a wave, the older man replying with a "don't mind if I do." And Peeta suspected that Haymitch had planned it that way, since he didn't reek of alcohol.

Peeta saw Katniss's half-wary look warm into a hesitant smile when she realized the group hadn't brought their cameras. All of the filming they'd done on the mission to the Capitol, that whole period of time was something of a hazy dream to Peeta now, more than a year later. Parts were still sharp and clear, memories of a conversation he had with Gale, of Katniss's mouth firm on his own, the tight hug she'd given him before they split up…

But in general, it was a blur. He knew Cressida and Pollux, but more like he'd seen them on some video footage from the games he'd watched. He was not the same person who had fought and bled alongside them, who had been so angry and hostile and deranged.

And so he smiled and laughed, told them all about his bakery, the Harvest Festival, the elections. He made sure Katniss was comfortable, that Haymitch didn't get too intoxicated. Over cake and coffee the crew convinced Haymitch to take part in the ribbon cutting ceremony as well. Peeta smiled as the older man grumbled and complained, but he could tell that Haymitch was pleased.

They went over the schedule of events – from what time the crew would head back to the Victor's Village to conduct the interviews and film about town, to when the ceremony would take place. When Cressida's new assistant – no one had the heart to correct Katniss that she wasn't Messalla, that Messalla was dead – asked if Katniss would sing The Valley Song during the ceremony, Peeta almost cringed.

All he could think about was her confession from a few nights back, about singing The Hanging Tree, about being filmed…

It was too much. Katniss was going to shake her head, say "no no no" and retreat to their bedroom like she'd done so many times before. Peeta's breath caught in his throat, waiting for her to disagree. But she was quiet for a long moment, thoughtful.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to…" Peeta said, his hand firm on her knee, the fabric of her dress soft beneath his fingers as he squeezed her leg reassuringly.

"I'll do it," Katniss replied matter-of-factly, surprisingly them all a little. Peeta let out the breath he'd been holding.

He looked at her appraisingly – the scarred girl who had killed in order to survive, who had lost those she loved, who had embraced her own grief like a lover, had lived too deep within in it for a time.

She was stronger than he could have ever imagined.