This chapter has been a bit of a beast to me… it was just an egg that wouldn't hatch, but now that I'm finished with it I'm not looking back! I wrote out the entire chapter, and then decided it sounded to fake and trashed the entire thing and started from scratch. So, I apologize, this isn't my best chapter and I'm a little irritated with it, but I don't suppose there's much I can do about it now.

I hope you'll at least partially enjoy this update, and I promise, there are better-formulated ones to come!

Disclaimer: All setting and characters are property of Suzanne Collins.

It's been over a month since I vocally granted Peeta permission to ask me to marry him. I anticipated about a week's worth of waiting before he tossed the "surprise" my way; after all, when Peeta yearns for something so imposing, it doesn't take him two blinks to whip up something fantastic.

But after four weeks of stinging expectancy, I find myself growing restless in the shadow of three potentialities. For one, Peeta may be having trouble formulating a satisfactory scheme (which is not likely). For the second, it's possible he's forgotten about the entire ordeal altogether (which is even less likely—Peeta never forgets anything).

The dissection of the situation points with near certainty at the third possibility: Peeta is devising something of unfathomable grandeur, requiring an intense degree of secrecy to foster the element of surprise. How he will achieve this, however, is beyond my understanding. With each passing day, my anticipation only grows deeper. He couldn't spring this on me regardless of the amount of effort placed into the deed.

Some mornings, I awake to a perplexingly jubilant Peeta, and I think to myself, today's the day. I imagine that I'll traipse down the steps to see the words Will you marry me? creatively spelled out across the living room floor in cheese buns or flower petals or something as sickeningly tacky.

But no such event arises. After I dress and enter the kitchen, Peeta is ankle-deep in cooking breakfast as usual, donating no more than a gentle kiss on the cheek.

Occasionally, I regret permitting him to ask for my hand, wishing I would've spared us the entire bout of anxiety over planning the ordeal. It would've been so much simpler to snatch a day-old loaf from the breadbox in the kitchen and toast it in the fire right there, underneath the stone mantle at twilight, consummating the relationship. We carry out our lives as if we're married, anyway; we share a home, we share a bed. Although we haven't made love since that first night, apart from a few of Peeta's experimental endeavors, he holds my minimally-clothed silhouette as a husband would hold his wife underneath a cloak of sheets, and he whispers genuine assurances in my ear that make me forget there was ever a day where I didn't love him with my whole heart.

Although there are surely moments in which I resent myself for allowing this process to come about, whenever I see the newfound glimmer in his celestial irises, the slight twinge of regret instantly evaporates. The boy is never-endingly selfless; I can reward him with this one pleasure, surely. I have no doubt this progression fills him with unconquerable delight, which, after all he's done for me, is something I owe him with resolute certainty. If he can sacrifice his desire to have children for me, I can sacrifice a few months of dull discomfort for his sake of throwing together a halfway-decent proposal and consequent wedding.

Besides, it's not as if I've never wanted to marry. Granted, majestic ceremonies may have never been yearned for, but that's a direct result of my upbringing—I was raised where embellishment was impractical, where gestures were judged by significance rather than ornamentation. The idea of marriage itself had never been repulsive, just unfitting… but that was before Peeta's unrelenting love advocated for something far greater. While many of the merchant girls I went to school with seemed more fascinated by the notion of a legal union itself, I was always more fond of specific people. If a prospect were to arise, I could see myself wedding. Matrimony for the sake of matrimony was abhorrent, whereas matrimony as a promise to a lover was far more digestible. It was something I'd nonchalantly considered as an outside shot with Gale, but my love for him had never been as aggregate, as incensed as with Peeta. Only with the boy with the cerulean blue orbs and saccharine smile could the idea of marriage seem suitable, even… attractive.

Official union seemed only natural and inevitable with Peeta. That was something I thought went without saying; it wasn't until Peeta's dream dissembled him in my arms, leading him to guiltily admit his desire to marry me that I realized he thought it was something I was trying to avoid. Which is why, I suppose he "needed" my permission. Maybe, when the Games still existed, matrimony had seemed unappealing simply because it was a requisite… I would have to marry Peeta in order to keep my family alive. But now that we'd both lost everything aside from each other, the notion of wedding him transformed from a stipulation to a compulsion. I suppose it was needed now, still, but not for the sake of others—it was necessary for my own sanity, and for his moreover.

I don't outwardly announce to Peeta that I am satisfied—not eager, not thrilled, but warmly content—with our impending marriage. I'll allow him to see it for himself; maybe the visual will be even more gratifying than vocal statements. But until I'm afforded the opportunity to illustrate my contentment, I wait patiently for the day to arise.

When it does, I suppose I'm not inherently surprised. I expect it almost immediately, upon his request to venture outside of the district for the afternoon, but I couldn't predict how the events would pan out.

After the lunch hour comes to a close, and the crowd in the bakery dwindles, Peeta leaves Haymitch in charge of the registers and Rory to monitor the ovens while he ushers me out to the forest behind the market. He vigilantly instructed for me to dress myself in warm attire but brought his wool cap for me regardless; before we head out back, he slips it over the crown of my head, kissing my nose as he tugs it over top of my rose-dusted ears.

As we venture into the wood, I suppress my amusement at his integral clumsiness. While the man's movements are poetic in the bakery, before the amber light of the fire, and in between the warmth-soaked sheets, out in nature, he bares the grace of a drunken hippo. That can be blamed partially on his bad leg as well as the fact that Peeta never had to thrive in the woods. The only instance in which his survival depended on agility had been during the Games, but even that terrain was more navigable than the mountainous, ragged topography of the thicket beyond the fences of District 12.

Regardless of his initial gracelessness, Peeta surprises me by his confidence in the land. He assertively guides me through the forest, reluctant to disclose the destination; not once do his eyes grow wide with uncertainty, with confusion. He knows the way. After we've been venturing for over half an hour, I recognize that he must've made this journey several times in preparation for today.

He carries nothing with us but a small wooden basket, strips of timber weaving together to form the bin, handle clutched tightly in his gloved palm. With the remaining hand, he cups my hipbone, holding me at his side. Recurrently, I find his bright eyes sifting through my expression, a delicate smile swerving over his blushing lips. I find my own cheeks flowering with color in the ghost of his beauty, although I attempt to conceal it with shying glances. I can tell, however, that he knows I'm attempting to hide my attraction by the touch of satisfaction that brushes over his features.

I suppose I've always found Peeta handsome, although it seems as though the winter season brings out his inherent beauty more effectively than ever. With the backdrop of blanketing snow, his silken skin seems fairer, the innocent blush in his cheeks coloring him healthily. His hair, bleached by sunlight in the summer shades darker by winter, curls more golden, softer and shapelier rather than course and unruly. His lips are darker, plumper, more alluring as his breath swirls invitingly around them; I want to kiss him, almost constantly nowadays, but I refrain.

"Where are we going?" I ask him, gently brushing my mouth against the fabric over his shoulder.

"Wonderland." His response is musical, chiming.

I giggle at his statement, but my skepticism still remains. Only I ever ventured this far out into the woods, sometimes with my father when he was alive, and seldom with Gale. Even those who managed to sneak out into the forest could never make it this deep into the thicket without becoming hopelessly lost—I never expected Peeta to prove more effective. I'm surprised he hasn't admitted defeat yet and clued me in on where we're going, but he still seems to have a firm grasp on the undefined path.

"Can you tell me what's in the basket?"

"You'll know soon enough, love," he murmurs lightly into the bitter air, his lips finding my iced cheek.

And I do, because within two minutes, the wood becomes all too familiar, and my chest aches at the realization that he's taking me here, to the place that I thought only I knew of. To my secret sanctuary.

We emerge from the tree line to a wide clearing, where the winter sun shines frigidly overhead, the sunlight glinting off the polished, translucent surface of the lake. I feel a painful tug in my core as my feet plant themselves firmly in a patch of snow on the sandy banks, my breath catching somewhere deep in my lungs.

Peeta remains at my side, analyzing my reaction patiently, but expectantly, allowing me all the time in the world to gather my composure. I can hardly believe that now, I stand before the safe haven I've avoided for far too long out of some bizarre form of self-preservation.

The first words that escape from my hesitant lips, hardened with frost, petition, "How did you know?"

It couldn't be chance; no one, by sheer luck, would stumble across the most sacred ground of mine, the place that belonged to no one but me and my father. This meadow, these age-old trees heard all the songs my father had to offer with his golden tongue. They knew all of my secrets, all of his, all of him in a manner of unfathomable intimacy.

Peeta watches me with eyes of unplumbed gentleness, the tips of his gloves kissing the arc of my cheek.

"I've been writing with Gale," he admits softly, cautiously. Before I can snap over to him in shock, he continues, "I begged him to tell me of what place, in all of Panem, was most significant to you. He was a little reluctant to tell me at first, but eventually… eventually, he said that this was it. This was your little sanctuary. He said you'd never told him in so many words, but you took him here once or twice—"

In my chest, a kindling fire rages at Gale. I'd kissed him here, what felt like ages ago. Through the film of hindsight, the kiss was nothing, but it was a kiss nonetheless. Was this gesture of Gale's out of mockery? Out of spite for Peeta?

"—and he could just see it in the way you looked at this place, that it meant so much more to you than you could ever express. Than you would ever express. He told me that he didn't understand the significance of this meadow, and you'd only taken him here for shelter, but… he knew it was special, Katniss."

The fire begins to diminish in my chest, and I find my gaze softening as I watch the man with the golden hair who stands before me, eyes studying his striking features. This moment is not about Gale, I tell myself. It's about Peeta. It's always been about Peeta.

My following response is so soft that even I can barely feel it strumming my vocal folds. "Why would you take me here?"

A wisp of hair has untucked itself from the knit cap, and Peeta lifts a finger to brush it back underneath the rim, his eyes boring into mine.

"I wanted to take you to the place where you felt like no one in the world was watching. A place where you felt the safest, most comfortable, most… at peace, I suppose."

When a diamond of a tear slips from the corner of my eye, it leaves an icy trail in its wake, inviting Peeta's lips to kiss it away. His palms cup my jaw and he holds me close, grinning down at me with impossible ardor.

A part of me prickles with heat, wanting to produce some sort of anger at him for taking me here, to this place that used to only belong to me, but I couldn't be mad at Peeta. Regardless of how powerful my intent would be. His intentions are pure, are good, and they only hasten what would've happened anyway at my own hand. By the way he beams down at me, filling this entire hidden wonderland with warmth and affection, he reminds me that there's not a corner of this world I don't want to share with him. I can't discern why I hadn't just introduced this meadow to him on my own in the first place.

In a way, I'm thankful it was he who brought me here, not begging for explanation, for justification.

His lips are on my cheek, his breath swamping over the tingling skin there. "Do you want to see what's in the basket?" he implores softly.

I nod, permitting him to duck down and pull the wooden-stripped crate between us, tugging back the lid. In it rests two pairs of shoes, both white, one evidently much newer than the other in its unflawed leather coating. But these shoes are different than the ones we both sport on our feet; attached to the bottom are thin, silver blades, curling at the heel and toe.

Ice skates.

"I… I don't think I know how to do this," I laugh nervously as he pulls out the bleached pair and places them in my small, mitten-encased palms.

His are worn from years of use, the material scratched lightly and darkened with age; he removes them from the basket as well, his free hand clutching mine. "Let me teach you," he offers ever-so-gently, his timbre sugary and tender.

We lower ourselves to the snow bank—I, much more hesitantly than he—and he takes my boot in his hands, delicately pulling it off my foot. As if I'm a child who cannot tie her own shoelaces, Peeta tucks my toes into the skate for me, lacing up the pallid threads, gracefully twining the tips into a bow. The second is soon to follow.

I will myself to stand as he laces up his own skates; my natural elegance is wiped away with the addition of blades on the bottom of my shoes, and I hold my arms out at my sides to steady my wavering body. Within seconds, Peeta is at my side—surprisingly, even with his bad leg, his grace surpasses mine when on the skates.

"Have you done this before?"

He smiles, a palm naturally resting on the small of my back for support. "I used to do it all the time. Not on this lake, but there was a pond closer to where the bakery used to be—" The blues of his eyes falter, darkening momentarily, "—and I would go out there with my brothers. Every winter. I hadn't gone skating since before the Games, though, until Gale wrote back to me and told me about this place. I took my skates out here and once I finally found it, I practiced for… for hours, I think. I felt like a kid again. I almost forgot that things weren't like they used to be." When I look at him with sad eyes, he only shakes his head, as if my sympathy is unwarranted. "But, anyway, I thought I could teach you how, if you didn't already know."

My head thrashes anxiously. "I have no idea what to do."

A breath of a chuckle puffs from his lips as he presses them to the heated skin of my neck, just below my earlobe. "Just hold my hand, love."

And so cautiously, with agonizingly dawdling hesitation, Peeta finally manages to drag my reluctant body onto the solid sheet of ice. Immediately, the sensation feels bizarrely foreign as I find myself sliding across the surface, the boy propelling us forward.

"Slide your foot, a little like this," he instructs patiently, demonstrating with his own skate. He surprises me with how agile he is on the ice; it's almost as if both of his legs are his own.

I do as I'm told, but my knees aren't acclimated to the fluidity of these movements. If it weren't for Peeta's hand, I wouldn't be upright. But he's at my side, as he always has been and always will be, keeping me from falling. His patience is enduring regardless of how clumsy I am on ice. He compliments me when I do something right, and corrects me if it's not.

After about fifteen minutes, I grow familiarized with the frictionless texture of the lake, my motions growing less inept and more willowy with experience. However, Peeta's hand does not leave mine, which I am eternally grateful for; we skate together in spinning circles, arcing around the edges, taking turns guiding and trailing.

The longer we spend on the ice, the more beautiful the sensations become. The bitter whip of the wind blooms in refreshing breaths around my cheeks. We slice through the air and my giggle is lost somewhere in the breeze; I feel so close to flying here, at Peeta's side. Like I'm a dove. This sport is peaceful, relaxing, yet exhilarating all the same. It calms the rigidity of my muscles and soothes my burning mind. It's a lot like hunting, only harmless in every sense, and immensely more intimate, as Peeta can do so with me.

When we finally wear ourselves out, we glide back to the banks at the edge of the lake where our shoes lie, collapsing on the frozen shore. With our backs to the cool earth below, chests open to the endless sky, we allow ourselves to catch our breath.

I don't realize what I'm doing until Peeta's body grows still at my side; a musical melody is swirling in the air over us, around us, enveloping our frigid bodies in its golden warmth. It takes a few moments to grasp that this sound, honeyed as it chimes through the meadow, is resonating from behind my own lips. I'm singing. The action seems so natural, so suiting as we lie together at the bow of the shore. It echoes hundreds of melodic lyrics my father had sang here, ringing in his wake. This was the sanctuary in which singing had not only been welcomed, but had seemed so compulsory. The trees invite our songs like old friends would, and everything around us grows still as my voice coats the clearing.

I don't sing very often anymore. When I do, it's typically to coax Peeta from an episode; I do it for his sake, because I know he needs it. But here, in this moment, it seems so fitting that I cannot will myself to stop. This was my wonderland of song and will remain so for years and years to come.

At some point, I feel Peeta's gloved fingers slipping around my palm, bringing it gently to his chest. Even through the stratums of fabric, his heartbeat pulses perceptibly from within; when I look to him, his eyes are so bright, brimming with uncontainable bliss.

When my song tapers off at the end, a void of silence suddenly assumes the air around our stilled bodies, and soon, I hear Peeta fill the absence with a mollified sigh.

"That was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard," he murmurs gently, propping himself up on his elbow at my side. From underneath his own cap, his golden hair curls out, and I sweep it away from his forehead.

All I can do is smile back at him, suddenly feeling filled to the brim. Of what, I'm not sure; all I know is that, if there had ever been a trace of hollowness in my chest, it's gone now. In this moment, in my haven, with Peeta's broad-shouldered body overlooking mine, I feel… whole.

I tell him softly, "This was always our place for song."

Sweetly, he smiles over me; I pull myself up so that I'm sitting, tucking my knees into my chest. He props himself up at my side, arm bowed around my shins protectively, reassuringly.

"I don't need you to tell me what this place means to you," he begins almost inaudibly, blue eyes smoldering. "I know that it carries some profound sense of importance, something so substantial you couldn't even tell Gale when you took him here. If that's a secret that belongs to you, then I'll let it remain there. I just want you to know that… Oh, god, I don't know. I prepared out this entire grand speech, but it all seems so damn cheesy now, and so fake. You deserve much more than that." His eyes dart away from me as he scratches the back of his head, a blush curling in the apples of his cheeks. "I brought you here because I wanted to take you to the place where you felt the most safe and secure in the entire world. Because that's what I want to do for you, Katniss. For the rest of our lives, I want you to know that every solitary act of mine is in your name, is to protect you and to please you. Because you're my sanctuary, Katniss. My own personal wonderland. In a world as dark and frightening as the one we've grown up in, you provide that single glimmer of light that gives me direction. And hope. Without you, I'm so… I'm so lost, so afraid, stuck in the confines of my own mind, unsure of what's real and what's not. But with you, I'm as sure as I can be. I have never felt so loved as when you let me hold you. The world always goes quiet and my mind stops worrying. Because all I need is you, all I've ever needed has been you, and I have no doubt that it will remain that way for the rest of our lives to come." He leans in now, our noses only inches apart as his irises glimmer, like cosmic constellations, blossoming with irrefutable sincerity. "You anchor me to the earth when I feel as if I'm about to drift away, but you still let me fly, and you show me a love I've craved for years but have never deserved. You love me with all of my faults and all of my fissures, and I love you all the same. I will always love you, Katniss Everdeen. I love you for your scars, your mistakes, the walls you put up, your stubbornness, your unconquerable pride… and your generous acceptance, your brilliance, your enduring heart. And I want to love you for all that and more until I die, hopefully, years and years from now and, hopefully, by your side. Because standing by you through thick and thin provides the most noble, most beautiful cause I could ever dream of living for."

His gloved fingers have slipped into the pocket of his coat and dug out a petite black box, holding it above my pleated knees with his celestial gaze shimmering and glossing over as a tear brims from the corner. He smiles so widely, so tenderly, so unfalteringly that I find myself grinning through my own tears, my palms cupping over my mouth as a sob bubbles in my throat.

Peeta pulls back the lid to the box, revealing a golden band bearing a charm at the peak. Instead of the traditional diamond, however, a silver-colored bead rests at the apex of the ring, and I feel my heart palpitating so elatedly that it nearly rips itself from beneath my ribcage.

A pearl, I think to myself. The second one he's given to me—I still have the first, hidden in a small chest in the sock drawer at home. I'd clung to it for dear life for so long, unable to let go of the token.

This pearl will be no different.

"Katniss, will you let me love you as loyally as my heart can manage, for the rest of our lives, by… by letting me take you as—by letting me be your husband?"

His charismatic confidence washes away along with the saltwater from his eyes, leaving a man so humble it paints him with unfeasibly profound charm. His nervous stammering causes my stomach to flip, but not uncomfortably. He sits before me on the snow-stained bank, offering me much more than the band in his hands will tell… he offers me a steadfast promise: to protect me, to accept me, to love me in a way I have never been loved before. And he does so with absolutely no false pretense of arrogance. Despite his faltering intonation, his honesty is patent, indubitable, adoration swimming in his sky-blue irises.

A tear streams over the corner of my stretched lips as I nod, quite fervently, choking out a trace of a sob; he takes my mitten-swathed palm, removing the fabric so that he, with shaking hands, can slip the band onto the fourth finger. And within seconds I'm grasping him by the wrists and tugging him over me, our bodies splaying out over the frosty shore. He gazes down at me through a film of tears, his smile brilliant and lined with elation, before he envelopes my tiny silhouette in his arms. I melt into his hold as his face burrows into the tender crook of my neck. Peeta weeps into my collar as I, too, find myself sobbing against the warmth of his chest, hands clutching at the fabric over his back. I feel his fingers in my hair, on my neck, one palm firmly pressed against my waist as he twines me delicately into his hold.

I assumed that the proposal wouldn't take me by surprise due to my impatient anticipation, and yet, Peeta does not fail to sweep me off my feet. He never does. He has taken me to a place that I used to hide away deep in the confines of my heart—but now that Peeta and I are due to wed, what's mine is his. I will withhold no secrets from him. This place, which had been a sanctuary passed from my father to me, will be a haven passed from me to Peeta… we will come here for years, I imagine, on cool spring days and sticky summer afternoons. To lay on the sand, to swim in the inviting pool. To curl up under the sun together as I sing to him. And, if Peeta should ever slice his way through my steadfast reservations by, somehow, convincing me to carry his child, we can pass this secret onto a younger generation to come.

As Peeta showers me with delighted kisses, I find myself giggling through my tears.

"You knew I would say yes," I tease as his lips shape around my nose, over and over again; to my forehead, my cheek, my brow, my chin.

"I know." In between kisses, he lets out another chuckle. "But that doesn't mean I'm any less elated."

We roll in the snow so that I'm now propped over him, hands embedding into the fabric of his chest, feeling the pulse of his flying heartbeat. I have never seen him so inexorably euphoric, unable to imagine how I could do anything to interrupt this. His happiness is my own, my love for him boundless and prodigious.

Together, we remain on the shore of the frozen lake, woven up in each other's lingering heat. We press kisses to the inches of exposed skin and wipe away whatever droplets of tears may escape through our tangled lashes, perfectly content with everything this moment has to offer. Because, like Peeta said, this sanctuary provides us the element of protection and of solace, allowing us to forget that the world still spins around us.

For now, it is just me, and it is just Peeta, knit together in our shard of an idyllic wonderland.

I hope that was at least halfway-decent for all of you! Once again, if at all possible, it would be wonderful if you could leave some feedback, specifically with your opinions on what you want from the wedding. I have a fairly general idea of what I'll write, but it's definitely open for tweaking! Your advice is always very much appreciated. :)