They say in the last few moments of your life, your entire life flashes before your very eyes, playing back like a movie. I must have been dying, because all of a sudden, I was watching my short life of twenty years play out before me.

Hebridia. I was young and naive, maybe five or six years old. My father held me on his lap as he scribbled down calculations and dosages. For what, I didn't know - some kind of vaccine, maybe? I knew he was a scientist and I knew he made medicines, but that was all I knew. He loved me dearly, though, and included me in everything. We rode wave runners together, hunted and farmed together, and so much more. But that was all I could remember.

And then I was seven with my mother. She had bright auburn hair and a charming, lovely smile. I was assisting her with a woman who was in labour. The woman thought I was too young, but my mother assured me that I would be all right, that I could handle it. She was a gentle woman, but had a fierce heart. She was full of fire, Eilidh Fólais, and her patients knew to never cross her. And that was all I could remember of her.

Cailean and Calum, the three of us young and stupid along with my twin brother, Dòmhnall. We used to collect crabs from traps that hung off of the docks and we used to flip them over, step on their claws and rub their bellies until they fell asleep, and then we would put on crab puppet shows. Calum always had the best stories for our crab puppets, so he would always narrate them while the rest of us would perform. Dòmhnall was more shy and quiet than Cailean and Calum, so his crab was usually a minor character or even a magic talking tree.

Ashilda was young, only four years old, but she loved the crab puppet shows. She had auburn hair, like my mother, and brilliant storm grey eyes that mimicked the skies of Hebridia, which were constantly covered in clouds. She loved to dance more than anything. In Hebridia, we called big gatherings a cèilidh, and she was always the center of attention on the dance floor at every cèilidh the Fòlais family attended.

Alasdair and Anndra were too young for me to know what they were like, or even would have been like. They'd only been about a year old when they died.

Dòmhnall. I watched his death. We'd become separated from our family when the pirates attacked and we ran and ran as far and as fast as we could, but it wasn't enough. A sword stabbed him through the abdomen and I could see the light leaving his youthful eyes, eyes that would never grow old. I was fearful. I ran from the gruesome face that laughed at the murder of a child and found myself hiding in a barrel. I was found later, when it was safe to come out.

My uncle was all I had left, and my young cousin. He spoke with an official-looking man and another beside him in a language that I couldn't understand. Well, the official-looking man and the other man did. My uncle spoke on Hebridean to the other man. I sat in a chair beside him, still in the clothes I wore on the ship, the last clothes I wore in Hebridia that were still stained with Dòmhnall's blood, and I was seated beside my uncle. He told me then that I had to start calling him my father or else we would all get into a lot of trouble. There were tears in his eyes when he said it.

At school, the children were harsh. I didn't speak English, so they mocked me. But you knew that. They said things to me that I was told were cruel, but I didn't know what they meant. I had a teacher who spoke my language and she would teach me English, and I would have to meet with her even outside of school. My uncle's new wife, Agnessa, was the daughter of a Hebridean refugee who moved to Panem as a child. She spoke to us for the first week in Gàidhlig, then insisted that we speak only English in the house. It was a very difficult transition.

And then you. The boy. The blonde boy with the charming smile, the brilliant blue eyes, who always smelled of cinnamon and clove, you who was unconditionally kind to me when so many others weren't. At lunch, no one wanted to sit with me, so I sat by myself underneath a tree. This blonde boy - you - sat down beside me and uttered something that I couldn't understand. "I don't speak English, I'm sorry," I told you in my native language. You only smiled, said something else, and then we ate in silence.

One particularly rainy day, only a couple of months after I came to Panem, it was raining. I'd always loved the rain. The rain soothed and comforted me, but to most others, it was a nuisance. As I walked home from school, a couple of boys in my grade ran up to me, said some things that I couldn't understand and then shoved me into a big puddle. They laughed and laughed, and then they ran off. I seethed with anger, wanting desperately to know why they hated me so much, when suddenly, there was an outstretched hand in my face. I looked up into the brilliant blue eyes of the blonde boy who was kind to me, and I took your hand. You helped me to stand, and then pulled off your own jacket to wrap around my shoulders. I gave you a gentle smile, unsure of what to do or say since we couldn't communicate. And you smiled back and then gestured to yourself. "Peeta," you said. That I understood - you were introducing yourself.

"Katniss," I replied with a smile. I let you walk me home, although the walk was in silence. The next day at school, you were covered in bruises. I returned your jacket to you, wondering if you got those bruises because you were kind to me, and resolved to never let someone get beaten for me again. I couldn't let you be kind to me, even though it was so wonderful. I avoided you mostly, not wanting it to happen again, and I could tell how much it hurt you.

A year into my living in Panem, I was nine, and I was nearly fluent in English. It was easier to do than I had thought, considering I had constant exposure to it. You had bumped into me in the hallway at school, forcing me to drop what I was carrying, and you stopped to help me.

"I'm so sorry, Katniss!" you said apologetically.

"It is okay," I said back in English, and you looked up at me with a smile on your face.

"Your English, it's... it's so much better," you said. I nodded gently, careful not to smile. We stood, and you handed me the things that I had dropped and you collected. "I... I'll see you..." you said sadly, and you left. But what you didn't know was that I watched you leave, unhappy with what I felt I had to do to keep you from getting beaten again.

When my uncle died, it was you I thought of running to. I'd had no friends, or really anyone other than Prim and Agnessa. You had been the only one kind enough to me for me to consider a friend, but the thought of bruises on your sweet face scared me into staying away. You helped me anyway. When I was lost to the world and dying of starvation against a tree near your house, I saw two loaves of bread appear in my face and when I looked up, I was met by your kind eyes. We were eleven at the time, and you were giving me bread that you had purposely burned so that I wouldn't starve. It was raining and you had come out in it to hand me that bread, and you were smiling warmly. Part of me didn't want to accept your charity due to pride, but I couldn't let pride keep little Prim from starving.

"PEETA!" I heard your mother yell, and you turned with fear dancing in your eyes to look at her, and then you looked back at me.

"Katniss, go! Run!" you told me, and you helped me to stand and pushed me to run off, and I did. The next day, your left eye was swollen shut, it was bruised so badly, but when we met eyes, you smiled at me, signalling to me that you believed the beating to be worth it. I never thanked you, not until years later, because I couldn't bring myself to do it. You never asked me to thank you, either.

When I was twelve, I met Gale. I thought he was going to kill me, but he didn't. Instead, we became very close friends, closer than I could have imagined. And suddenly, I thought that I didn't need you to be happy. Not when I had Gale.

When we were fourteen, I started apprenticing as a midwife. I started going to the bakery beforehand to pick up cookies for my patients, but what I didn't realise was that I wanted to be around you. I wanted to see you, even though I told myself that I was just doing kind things for my patients. You smiled every time that I came in, and when you served me for the first time, your cheeks were red the entire time. You were always too kind to me - kinder than I deserved, especially since I wasn't kind to you.

When we were fifteen, you stopped me in the hall one day, tapping my shoulder with your hand. I felt my heart stop when my eyes met your beautiful blue eyes and then it started it up again, beating faster than I wanted it to. I was sure you could see it thumping through my chest. "Hey, Katniss?" you asked me.

"Hm?" I asked back, trying not to sound as desperate for your touch again as I felt.

"Would I be able to... borrow your chemistry notes? You're just so smart and you seem to know everything... The last unit made no sense to me," you said to me, and I nodded and pulled the notes out of my notebook, my fingers brushing yours only for a moment as I handed them to you. I could see a gentle blush creeping onto your cheeks. "Thanks... I'll... give these back soon." You gave me a charming smile and then you left, with me not having uttered a word.

Shortly before I turned sixteen, you crept into my dreams. I dreamt that we were in school together, outside at lunch underneath the tree where you had joined me for the first time. I couldn't hear a word that we were saying, but we were smiling and laughing. You looked so handsome, so beautifully blonde with eyes a brilliant sky blue, and a smile so charming and so kind. I saw your arm slide around my shoulders - felt it, too - and then you leaned closer to me. The contact of our lips, the softness of yours against mine, jolted me awake and I gasped, not knowing where the hell that dream came from. Somewhere deep inside of me, my mind was telling me that I wanted to kiss you, that I wanted to love you, and marry you, and be totally and completely yours, but I suppressed those feelings as much as I could. I didn't want to love you, or kiss you, especially marry you, and I didn't want to belong to you. I didn't want to love or marry anyone. But I couldn't stop the dull ache in my heart that longed for you.

I can't tell you the fear and the pain that I felt when your name was called at the reaping. We were both sixteen then, and terrified, convinced that we weren't coming home, that we'd both die in the arena. Perhaps that was why I took advantage of the whole 'star-crossed lovers' thing that Haymitch created. I thought I was going to die, and I wanted to know what dying while loving you felt like. It hurt so much that I couldn't bear to let you die. Nor could I bear the pain of being without you even in death, so I convinced you to join me for a suicide by nightlock berries, but we were interrupted before we got the chance. Perhaps things would be different had we actually gone through with it, but I don't think I would have died genuinely loving you.

I still remember every kiss we shared. In the cave, three times before I went to get your medicine. The first was when I was arguing with you about going and you took my shoe. My love, the feelings that erupted inside of me were enough to warm me from the cold and make me explode inside. I had desperately wanted to know what it felt like to kiss you for so long, and then I did, and I liked it so much that I wanted to do it again and again, never stopping. The second was after you had taken my shoe. The third was my promise to you that I would return, and I did. When I returned, you were angry with me for the scratch on my forehead from Clove's knife, but you kissed me again anyway, a fourth time, because you were glad that I was alive. We kissed a fifth time when I was angry with you for nearly eating a nightlock berry and you kissed me to calm me down. The sixth kiss we shared was right before we threatened to eat those berries.

I kissed you a seventh time on the stage at the Capitol at our post-Games interview, excited to see you again alive and in one piece, and I couldn't let go of you throughout the entire interview. That kiss made me feel warm and happy and invigorated inside, but it lasted only a moment, because it seemed that that kiss wasn't for us.

It was on the train home that I realised your feelings for me were genuine. I had no idea. It broke my heart to tell you that I wanted to forget, to move on, to try and piece together my life in a way that I could retain who I used to be, and you turned cold towards me. I thought that you stopped loving me, and part of me was glad, but the part of me that kissed you with hunger back in the arena longed for your touch, and longed for your lips on mine.

We kissed again, an eighth time, several months later. It was right before the Victory Tour, when we were presented to the Capitol on television and you slipped and I lay on top of you. I didn't have to kiss you, but I wanted to, and I pressed my lips to yours and lost myself in you as my tongue tried to find its way to yours. I felt the fire erupt inside of me again, but we were interrupted. After that brief interview, you said to me, "Nice acting. I almost thought that kiss was real." And then you were gone. "It was real," I thought to myself.

Our ninth kiss happened on the train to District Ten, after we'd accidentally started a riot in Eleven. I screamed myself awake from a nightmare and you were by my side in seconds, holding me in your arms and telling me that everything would be okay, that it wasn't real. I pulled my tear-stained face from your now soaked shoulder and felt my hand raise itself to your cheek, as if involuntarily, and brushed my fingers gently across your lips. The Katniss that I didn't know I wanted to be took control of me, and I pressed my lips to yours, kissing you and refusing to let you go. "Stay with me," I begged you, fighting tears again as I clung to you.

"Always," you whispered back, crawling into my bed beside me and holding me tightly. It was this kiss that made me realise that perhaps my feelings for you weren't fake after all. Or rather, I stopped lying to myself by saying that that wasn't what I wanted. Our tenth kiss was for the cameras in Ten, and we shared our eleventh in Nine, our twelfth in Eight, and so on until we shared our nineteenth kiss in District One.

Our twentieth kiss was on the same stage we'd had our interviews at before the Games in the Capitol. We were being interviewed by Caesar Flickerman and you'd dropped down to one knee and proposed to me on live television for all of Panem to see, just like we'd planned. I acted surprised and thrilled, because I knew you were going to do it, and I let you slip the ring onto my finger and when you stood, you took my waist in your hands and I took your face in mine and we shared our twentieth kiss.

At this point, kissing you seemed to be almost natural. Our twenty-first kiss happened in the Training Center, where we were staying in the same penthouse flat we'd stayed in before going into the Games. You came down for breakfast from your room and passed me on your way to your seat beside me. "Hey," you said with a charming smile.

"Good morning," I said, lightly pecking your lips, and I blushed a furious shade of pink as you looked at me quite confused. There were no cameras here, so why was I kissing you? I decided to take my breakfast in my room that morning.

Our twenty-second kiss happened as we waved goodbye to the Capitol. We held hands as we waved to those ridiculously dressed people and I felt you squeeze my hand, and when I looked at you, you smiled and pressed your lips to mine, then turned back to wave at those Capitol idiots. I smiled warmly, still feeling your kiss lingering on my lips, but we wouldn't kiss again for a long time.

Our twenty-third kiss happened shortly before the reaping of the Quarter Quell, when we sat on the fence at dawn and argued about who was going into the arena with me. I'd told you that I didn't want to lose you, and then tried to pretend I hadn't said it. You'd already heard it, though, and knew what it meant, and you said my name again and again until I was forced to look at you and you pressed your lips to mine for the first time in months. Oh, my darling, you have no idea how that kiss made me feel. I wanted to stay on that fence kissing you forever, but I knew that I couldn't. Instead, the Katniss that I knew I no longer wanted to be took over, and she panicked and ran. You called out my name and I continued to run until I was safe inside of my house. I didn't see you again until the reaping.

I wanted to kill you for volunteering in Haymitch's place but I knew that I couldn't stop you. I could see in your eyes how angry you were at how I was going back into the arena at all, and I knew that you were just going to ignore every protest I gave. A tear ran down my cheek as I thought of losing you in the arena. All of District Twelve gave us the familiar three finger salute as we were sent off to our deaths.

In the days leading up to the Games, I fought with myself over how I felt about you. Did I love you? Were my feelings still fake? No, they couldn't be. I've known that I've had feelings for you for months now. Every time you looked at me, you made my heart flutter and every smile made me want to explode. I couldn't ever stop thinking about how soft your lips were or how much I wanted to kiss you every time that I saw you. Once, I nearly did, but I saved myself by hugging you instead. You seemed tense, but you returned it anyway.

At the parade, we had our twenty-fourth kiss. You came out looking so handsome in that all black vest with your muscular arms exposed and I couldn't help myself when you came over to me after my conversation with Finnick, and I started touching your arms. "You look... incredible," I said with hunger in my eyes, and you smiled at me.

"You look gorgeous," you replied. "What'd Finnick want?"

"To know all my secrets," I replied.

"He'll have to get in line," you said with a chuckle, and I smiled, my hands still on your well-toned arms. You looked at my hand on your arm, and then back up at me. "You want a kiss?" I was almost taken aback by this rather forward question, but I couldn't stop myself from nodding. I felt the heat inside of me exploding as you took me in your arms and pressed your lips to mine, and right before I felt my hands make their way up to your hair, Portia, your stylist, started scolding me for even thinking of doing so. I was embarrassed, but I laughed, and you smiled at me and took my hand, giving it a firm squeeze and then kissing my cheek.

Our twenty-fifth kiss happened when we were preparing to go downstairs for training. We were wearing sleeveless shirts and once again, you looked incredibly handsome, and when I saw you come out of your room dressed like that, my eyes looked at you hungrily. You stopped in front of me with a seemingly tired facial expression. "There's no cameras here, Katniss. You don't need to keep up the act," you said, but you must have seen the hurt in my eyes, because for a moment, you looked down at your feet, and then you gently pecked my lips with yours. "Come on." You gave me a smile and held out your hand and I took it.

The day of our interviews, I knew I was in love with you. I knew for a fact that what I felt was love and god dammit, Peeta Mellark, I loved you so much. I loved your beautiful blonde curls and your perfect blue eyes, I loved your sweet smile and how you always wanted to keep me safe. I loved your firm embrace and the softness of your lips. I just loved you. I watched you as you talked to me on the roof of the Training Center before our interviews. I didn't hear what you said, but I watched you with all of the love and the admiration I felt for you. I didn't know how to tell you, and I wasn't ready yet. I knew I was wasting time, but I was so scared that you wouldn't believe me or you'd laugh in my face, or worse, tell me that your feelings for me were all a rouse and you never actually loved me the way you said you did. I fantasized about your soft, warm lips on mine and your strong hands exploring my body. I felt like a silly teenager - but then again, I was a silly teenager.

That night, you told the world that I was pregnant in a last-ditch effort to get the Games cancelled, but it didn't work. When we returned to my bedroom and heard the door lock behind us, I threw myself into your arms and cried into your shoulder. "Peeta, I can't do this... Oh, Peeta... Peeta..." I moaned through tears, and you held me tightly in your arms.

"Shhh, it'll be okay..." you tried to tell me, but it wouldn't work. Not tonight. Tomorrow, I could lose you, and my greatest fears were manifesting. You told me to take a shower and I did, and you waited to embrace me again when I got out, and then it was your turn. Yours was quicker than mine and you climbed into my bed - our bed - as quickly as you could and held me in your arms. I felt your lips bury into my hair and I smiled against your chest, tears still forming in my eyes. I turned my head to look up at you.

"Peeta..." I whispered, and you looked down at me, and before either of us knew it, your lips were on mine. My hands were on your face and I wiped away tears that fell from your eyes, and we kissed and kissed until we fell asleep in each other's arms, our faces mere millimetres away from one another's. When we awoke, all we did was look into each other's eyes. "I don't want to be in the arena with anyone else. Only you," I said, and you nodded.

"If that's what you want," you whispered to me. We heard a knock at the door. "I'll see you soon," you said, and you pressed your lips to mine one final time before getting up and leaving. Twenty-six and twenty-seven.

Twenty-eight happened after you'd hit the forcefield and died. Oh, my love, I was so afraid that I had lost you, but I hadn't, and with tears of joy in my eyes the moment you took your first breath after Finnick did CPR to save your life and overcome with emotions, I kissed you and held you close to me. "Shh, it's okay... it's working now..." you told me as I cried about your heart having stopped.

Our twenty-ninth and thirtieth kisses were somewhat similar to our twenty-eighth. It was after the island where the cornucopia was had finally stopped spinning. While it spun, my hand slipped from Johanna's and I fell into the water. I didn't know it at the time, but I was on the complete opposite side of the island from you, Finnick and Johanna, and you had asked Johanna where I was - demanded, even - but she didn't know. And then, the sound of a cannon went off. You panicked thinking it was me, and as you ran around the island searching for something you feared, my floating corpse in the water, instead, you saw me hoisting myself up onto the rocks and lying across them on my stomach.

"Katniss!" you called, running as fast as your legs could carry you on that uneven surface until you were by my side in seconds after I first heard you call my name. "Katniss! Katniss! Are you all right, Katniss?" I gave you a thumbs up as I continued to cough water up and you gently rubbed and patted my back, and then I rolled onto my back to look up at the sky when your lips suddenly came crashing down on mine. I was shocked, already stunned from the water in my lungs but even more when I felt your hands holding my face and your lips against mine, warming me to my very core. I felt my hands go to your face, one cupping your cheek and the other running through your hair. "I thought I lost you..."

"Come on, you're not that lucky," I teased with a smile, and you rolled your eyes at me, but smiled. "Can't say the same for Cashmere. That was her cannon that went off. Guess she wasn't dead by Johanna's impeccable axe-throwing skills." You smiled again as your hand brushed back my hair, now loose from the current pulling my hair free of its braid, and you kissed my forehead. "Guess it was my turn to give you a heart attack."

"I'm extra sorry for the one I gave you back at the force field," you said with that beautiful, handsome smile of yours.

"Good, you should be," I teased, and you pressed your lips to mine again in a quick kiss and helped me to stand.

Thirty-one was the kiss that changed our relationship forever. Our thirty-first kiss was the kiss that made me decide that enough was enough, that I would confess my feelings for you. After we kissed, I told you I loved you, and I could have sworn I saw you cry tears of joy as I cried about how angry I was at myself for not confessing my feelings sooner.

Thirty-two was the kiss we shared before I left with Johanna and the coil, the last kiss we shared before we were picked up in the arena by the rebel forces in Thirteen, and thirty-three was the kiss you gave me when I was put under again in my delirium. As that scene played back in my head, I cringed at how I called for you, begged for you and could only say your name, but I knew that that was the moment that you knew for sure that my love for you was real.

I can't tell you how ecstatic I was when I learned that Calum and Cailean had survived. As soon as I saw them, with their mirror image features and their single blue and brown eye each, I couldn't stop crying as I hugged them both tightly. They hadn't told me about my father yet, and wouldn't for a couple of days. When they told me about my father, that was when I found myself slipping into a depression.

My heart broke when I saw how heartbroken you were when I pulled myself away from you. I was sad and still delirious, in shock still from all the emotions I felt, from confessing my love to you to learning that two of my brothers were alive, to learning that District Twelve had been bombed and so many people, your family included, died. How I was to be the face of the rebellion. I couldn't cope, and I blocked out the only person in the world who could help me cope: you. I told you I loved you again in the rain, in that moment we shared together, but I knew there was still a lot on your mind and that you wanted to talk to me. I was a bit shy, but I was tired of dodging my feelings, so I let you bring me to your room and sit me down on your bed.

"We need to talk about this... about us," you'd told me, and I nodded. "How long have you loved me?" I shrugged.

"Longer than I've known," I replied honestly. "I stopped lying to myself in the Capitol, before the Quell. I knew I had feelings for you, but I kept suppressing them."

"Why do you love me?"

"Peeta..."

"Katniss, I just want you to understand why I'm questioning you about this. Do you know why?" I did. Most of my love for you had been fake, for the cameras only and only sometimes did I kiss you for real in between, but you never knew that those kisses were real. I nodded in response to your question. "Why do you love me?"

"Because love is weird," I replied, and you raised an eyebrow. "I'm not good with words, you know this."

"Well, you're gonna have to get over that because I need to hear your reasons. Most of the love you've shown me hasn't been real. I want to know why this is real, why this is different from everything else." I nodded again.

"Very well, but prepare for a very long night because I've got to formulate my words."

"You don't have to tell me tonight. You can take some time to think about it, as long as you need, but until then, I don't think we should see each other." At that, I felt my stomach drop, but I knew why you said that. You wanted to protect your heart. I'd broken it so many times that I couldn't blame you. I went back to my room that night and spent all night writing down a letter - or rather, a script, that I would read to you. That way, I couldn't mess up what I had to say. I wrote down all of the reasons why I loved you and also included some mushy phrases I thought you'd like, but I wasn't sure if I could actually voice them. It took me two days to work up the courage to read it to you. I knocked on your door and you opened it, surprised to see me standing there with a bunch of papers in my hands, and you raised an eyebrow.

"I need to talk to you," I said, and you nodded and let me inside. I sat you down on your bed this time and looked down at my papers while you eagerly waited for me to speak. "You asked me why I loved you... Why this was real and how it was different from the others..." I looked at my papers and became lost for words, then sighed and dropped them to the ground. "I love you because you've always been kind to me, even when I didn't deserve it. When we were young, you were the only person who was kind to me. Everyone else saw me as different because of where I came from, but you didn't. No one could talk to me, not even you, but you found a way to communicate with me. I pushed you away because one day, I saw you had been beaten probably for how you treated me and I couldn't live with that, but you didn't give up, only stepped away to give me my space. And I love you because you respect my boundaries, even if they hurt you. I love you because you're my sun and you keep me safe not only from the real world, but from my nightmares. You keep me safe from others and myself as well. I love you because you annoy me with constantly wanting to protect me, especially when I think I don't need it. There's no one else in the world who will go to the lengths that you do to protect me which means there's no one that cares for me like you do, Peeta." I paused for a moment, trying to read your facial expressions, but they were neutral. I was always easy to read, but you never were. "I love you for your kind heart. Even when it's not me that you're being kind to. You're so kind to everyone and you always want to help everyone, even when it inconveniences you. You have a love for life that I wish I had. You're kind to so many people who don't deserve it. You'd never be any other way... I love you because you didn't let the Games break you, but I did, and you easily could have allowed them to break you, but you didn't. You were strong for me even when you probably barely had any strength left for yourself... Don't think I didn't know that you didn't have nightmares, too." I smiled as I got to the next part. "I love your appearance as well. You have no idea how incredibly handsome you are. I've always been attracted to you physically, and it took way too long for me to be attracted to you emotionally. I only wish that I could have told you sooner... maybe then you'd believe me."

"I do believe you," you said, looking up into my face. I hadn't realised that I had tears leaking from my eyes and I quickly wiped them away with my sleeve, but you only smiled and held your arms out to me. "Come here." It was my turn to smile and I collapsed into your arms, holding you tightly and kissing your face over and over as I freely sobbed into your shoulder.

"I'm so sorry for everything, I never wanted to hurt you. I love you so much, Peeta," I cried, and you gently rubbed my back.

"It's okay, Katniss. I love you, too," you told me, and you took my face in your hands and kissed me in what was our first kiss as romantic partners.

We shared many kisses in Thirteen after that, and soon, we started sharing a bed. Nothing more than sleeping and cuddling, but it was more than enough for us both. About six months in, you wanted to pursue a sexual relationship, but I wasn't ready, and you told me to say "Peeta, I want to do the sex with you" when I was ready, which I did eventually, but not for a long time.

And then came our marriage. We were married in Thirteen the night before we were due to leave on our missions, the ones that would separate us for two years. I wore a cream-coloured dress with the Fòlais tartan and you wore a simple white formal outfit - not a suit, but still very nice - and we participated both in a traditional wedding ceremony and in our own District Twelve toasting ceremony. I also convinced you to let us say a traditional Hebridean wedding vow, but it wasn't as easy on your tongue as it was on mine. We couldn't help but share a laugh as we held hands before the altar and professed our love for one another, promising to never falter. Our first kiss as Peeta and Katniss Mellark was one of passion and of love, telling all who came to witness our union how much we truly loved each other, and how our love was not what the Capitol made it out to be.

Two years without you. My darling Peeta, those two years without you were unbearable. Every night, I cried myself to sleep because you weren't beside me, as a husband should be, but it wasn't your fault. We were given a life joined together and ripped apart by President Coin, who specifically requested that we lead separate missions. I don't even think that she intended on us being separated for so long, but what did it matter? After a couple of months, she was dead, and so was District Thirteen.

And then we were together again. I wanted to kiss you and hold you and tell you how much I loved you when I saw you in District Eight, full beard and all. Don't ever grow your facial hair like that again. I might be dead, but I'll haunt you until you shave it. It isn't you. The beard was a man hardened by war, and you are not hard - you're Peeta, my sweet, soft, gentle Peeta with lips so warm and so soft, with a scent of cinnamon and clove, sometimes dill, and the eyes of the sea.

Oh, Peeta... I'm sorry for everything. I promised you that I wouldn't die and yet here I am, giving up on life. Burning and on fire, my heart torn to shreds as the last image I had of Prim erupted into flames. I couldn't leave you. I couldn't. I promised I wouldn't. I can't leave you, Peeta, I can't! I can't... I can't...

"Katniss..." It was real. The voice was real. How could the voice be real? I was dead. Or dying still, because the images were still flashing before my head. My last images of my life weren't of the great things I'd accomplished, like bargaining with Coin to rescue Annie Cresta and Johanna from the Capitol after the Quell, or creating a tracker jacker antivenom to cure Annie when she tried to kill myself and Finnick, or saving Johanna's life when Gale gave her the wrong vial of antivenom that was made for B- and not Johanna's A+. Of the great things I did in District Eight, or on that horrid two-year long mission. My last images were of you. My last thoughts are to you. Oh, Peeta... You are my life - were my life. My life was yours, and now it's all gone...

"Katniss, come on, wake up..." There it was. The voice. I heard it. It was familiar, and it was real. Peeta... Peeta...

"Peeta..." I murmured, coming to, and when I opened my eyes, I was met by a bright flash, and when my vision cleared, I could see that I was in a hospital setting. My eyes darted around, making out the clean white walls, cabinets, the bed that I lay on, and then finally, blue eyes, with blonde hairs falling over them. "Peeta..."

"He's not here, sweetheart," I heard the voice say. It wasn't Peeta - it was Haymitch.