Trigger Warnings: Mention of panic attack and acknowledgement that sex exists

Hours later I'm laying in bed wide-awake, watching the moonlight play across the ceiling. The preps, Effie and Haymitch departed hours ago after Katniss failed to hide a yawn effectively. The preps left the building completely, but Effie has been staying a room down the hall. I haven't seen Annie since the interview, but I'm not surprised. Effie and Katniss were talking earlier about how Annie was having a bad day. She's resting. Katniss meanwhile is lying next to me, sleeping undisturbed. I glance at her. She's on her side, hair splayed out on the pillow besides her, fingers gently curled before her. Thinking about how much Gale's visit hurt her makes me want to scream. The idea that even after witnessing what she was going through, he could still go to the press knowing what it would do to her… I grind my teeth and let out a frustrated sigh.

Katniss shifts in her sleep, moving closer to me, and wrapping an arm around my waist. I roll onto my own side, so we're lying face to face. I wrap my fingers in her hair. Her eyes slowly open. Reaching out, she entwines her fingers in my curls. A smile plays across her lips.

"Peeta," she whispers, sleepy closing her eyes.

"Hmmm," I respond just as quietly.

"Remember, we're supposed to be madly in love, so it's okay to kiss me anytime you want."

"That's my pick up line," I tell her sleepily. "It's how I get all the girls."

"Obligating all of them pretend to be in love you during a fight to the death, till they fall in love you for real?"

"Yeah, that's my move." She laughs quietly. I can just make out her smile in the moonlight. I can hardly believe how much I've missed seeing it. Without thinking about it, my hand extends, and I lightly stroke her jaw with the backs of my fingers.

"Do you know how much I love you?" I ask her softly.

"How much?"

"Enough to eat night lock for you. Enough to go back in an arena with you. Enough to withhold information even as they pump me full of tracker jacker venom, Enough to let you step on my heart a million times, and enough to let you come back to me even after all of it." I see her eyebrows crease in the white light.

"What's wrong?"

"How much do you love me?"

"You know I've always preferred actions to words," she whispers. "What happened?"

"If I couldn't protect you from everything would you still love me?"

"Of course I would Peeta," she tells me without missing a beat. "And of course you can't protect me from everything. Do you know what we are?"

"What?"

"A team. That's what married people do. We each protect the other. You can't protect me from everything without my help."

"By that logic we've been married since we were sixteen."

"No, we've just had that part of marriage down since the age of sixteen. What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Peeta."

"Can you show me how much you love me?" She leans forward, catching my lips with her own, and my lower one between hers. Her fingers trail up my waist, my back, my arms. Her baby bump, pressing lightly against my body. My grip on her hair tightens. She breaks our lips apart.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," I snap.

"Don't lie to me Peeta. Actions have always meant more to me, you know that. You're kissing like you're upset right now."

"I have an upset kiss?"

"You have all kinds of kisses Peeta. You have tender kisses, I love you kisses, I want to fuck you kisses, I want to make love to you kisses, it's going to be okay kisses, quick there's a camera on us kisses. I love all of them…although I must admit the camera kisses aren't my favorite. Right now it's an I'm upset kiss. What happened?" I hesitate.

"I asked Plutarch were the reports of your pregnancy started." She sits up quickly in bed. I let her hair fall from my grasp. She's holding herself up on her hands, body still twisted to face me.

"What did he say?"

"What if this was caused by someone we know…"

"It was my mother wasn't it?"

"No. At least I doubt it."

"Peeta…who was it?"

"He didn't say. He just told me where the first few stories originally broke."

"Where?"

"District 2." Katniss sucks in her breath. "There's no proof it was him."

"Who else in District 2 knew?" she demands angrily. "I…can't believe this…we used to be friends…best friends…I once depended on him to keep me alive and visa versa…and now…"

"He's not the same person. War changes people."

"No. He always had this in him. He used to rant and rage against the Capitol, and he used to rail against you for perceived wrongs…like loving me, when you had just as much a right to love me as Gale did...I just didn't want to admit it." Her voice starts to shake a little. "Maybe, if I'd caught on sooner…he wouldn't have gained so much power…he wouldn't have been able to hurt…her." I place my hand on the back of her neck and pull her into me.

"Ask the questions Aurelius has you ask to stop a panic attack from coming on," I whisper, kissing her temples.

"Help me? I remember their structure, but when I'm really upset it can be hard to make them fit."

"Are you one hundred percent sure that not having Gale around would have kept Prim alive?"

"No. She could have died when the Capitol attacked the district if it wasn't for him."

"Well then…is it really fair to yourself to say that Prim is dead because you let Gale into your life?"

"Probably not."

"What can we do to turn that probably into a maybe?"

"Remind me we never officially found out if the bomb was something he designed."

"We don't know that. It's impossible to prove who designed that bomb. That information died with Coin and Snow. It's over now. Dwelling on it won't bring her back, and it won't help you heal. We heal by going forward." I touch her baby bump. "This is forward. We heal by continuing to live and bringing new life with us." Katniss drops her hand to her stomach, and inhales deeply. Her eyes are gently closed, and I breathe in her scent, like pine and wind. She grasps my curls again.

"We heal in twelve," she whispers. "Not here."

"Do you still want to go home?"

"More than anything. I miss the woods, real woods. As much as I love that tree there are more willows in the woods by twelve. It's home. It's where she's going to be from and spend her childhood, where she'll come home to. It's where I want her to be born. I don't want any part of the Capitol to have any claim to her." Listening to Katniss talk about this, I imagine a small girl, with dark brown curls and my wife's eyes, smiling happily at me as she runs through the meadow or terrifies Haymitch's geese. I've never heard Katniss talk about this, and I'm so moved watching her in bed with me, belly swollen with our baby as she strokes it soothingly, there is nothing in the world that can stop me from giving her what she wants, let alone what she needs.

"Okay," I whisper. "Let's go home."

AN: I've officially mapped it out, and if all goes according to plan there will be 52 chapters and an epilogue in this story, so we still have a ways to go. I hope you're all still enjoying it! It've been working on it a lot during break, and there are some exciting things coming up! Please leave a review!