A/N: Thank you to Elricsister for beta-ing the first half of this chapter and my friend for pre-reading the second. Shout-out to A14anderson for their review last month and judahcem for their PMs this past week. All the feedback I receive is invaluable but y'all especially have helped give me the motivation to finally update this story after nine months.


Even though I insist I don't want a thing for my birthday, Peeta bakes me a red velvet cake with my name written in frosting across the top for breakfast and he, Haymitch, Sae, and little Tessie sing me Twelve's birthday song. Their rendition is loud and out-of-tune, but I'm thankful for it nonetheless.

Instead of going into the woods alone, Peeta surprises me with a lunch fit for a picnic and we hike together to the peak of the meadow. On an old quilt of my mother's, we lay under the sunlight and point out shapes in the clouds, feasting on my favorite lamb stew with dried plums that he tells me he and Sae made the night before.

Having switched out my usual baggy jeans and plain t-shirt for a simple dark green day dress that ends just above my knees, I discard my hunting boots and allow my legs to tan in the sun.

At Peeta's request, I undo my braid and lie on my side, allowing him to sketch me. When he's done with the drawing, he rips it carefully from his sketchbook and signs his name in the bottom right corner, insisting that I take it as my final birthday present. I don't typically like photos of myself. I have long accepted that I'm unphotogenic. But I seem to come alive in Peeta's work. The misplaced, muddy freckles on my cheeks look youthful and girlish. My short, knobby bare legs look slim but womanly where they're made visible by the shortness of my dress. There's a self-conscious smirk playing on my soft, full lips and a blissful calm in my almond-shaped gray eyes. I am beautiful in a way I haven't been since I was last dressed by Cinna's hands.

"Do you like it?" Peeta asks self-consciously, and I realize just how closely he's been watching my reaction.

"I love it," I say sincerely. His face lights up in a toothy smile.

"You should come see my studio sometime," he says shyly, "I can paint you in color."

I feel a blush rise to my cheeks. "I would like that."

I sit up straight beside him, taking in everything; the comfortable heat of the sun, the rustling of the light wind in the trees, the sporadic musical callings of the birds in the sky, and Peeta.

Peeta, with his overgrown, ashy, blond curls and his clear, long-lashed, sky blue eyes; the distinct masculine curve of his clean shaven square jaw and straight line of his sculpted Greek nose; his broad, fair-skinned chest lightly dusted with his soft blond down; his strong muscular arms that have worn off so many of my nightmares and kept me safe on so many uncertain nights; his attenuated, soft, carnation-colored lips which were my first kiss, my last kiss, my most frequent kiss, and the only kiss that ever made me want another.

It occurs to me then just how much I long to feel those lips on mine again, how I've been craving them since the desperate last days of my interrupted youth and continued to crave them still even when we were both half-mad and surely doomed to die.

How easy it would be to reach down and press those lips against mine, how much I wonder if he would still react the same way, if his breath would still taste the same, if his tongue would shyly touch mine as I pressed my chest against his. But there is no romantic inclination between us anymore. The roles have been put to rest and his love for me has died with the melting of the last of District Twelve's winter snow.

But his eyes are still locked in mine and my fingers are still holding desperately tight onto the only vision of myself I've seen in months that's made me feel worthy of another's gaze. So I sit up straight in my spot, hold the drawing tight in my lap, and sing him a song, because I know that that's what made him love me first and a naïve, juvenile part of me will always hope that that is what will make him love me again.

I sing him an old song I can't remember learning but which the lyrics and tune for come easy when I am basking in the glory of being the focal point of all that lies within his sight.

Blue is the color of the planet from the view above

Long live our reign, long live our love

Green is the planet from the eyes of a turtle dove

'Til it runs red, runs red with blood

The lyrics are slow and bittersweet, the chorus high and reflective, and his grin comes to a wonder-filled smile, filling my stomach with butterflies and making me smile coyly at my hands.

Blue is the color of the shirt of a man I love

He's hard at work, hard to the touch

But warm is the body of the girl from the land he loves

My heart is soft, my past is rough

But when I love him, get a feeling,

Something close to like a sugar rush

It runs through me, but is it wasted love?

The question hangs in the air just as the mockingjays begin to pick up the tune and I stop there, suddenly too shy in his line of vision and too exposed in my dress.

The mockingjays in the treeline begin to parrot my tune and Peeta watches with a sense of pure glee.

"That was beautiful," he breathes, still looking at the mouth of the woods where my song to him is being passed down to the entire forest.

"Thank you," I say quietly.

He turns back to me, peering at me curiously. "Real or not real? The first time we met, you sang."

"Real," I confirm. "Well...sort of real. On the first day of kindergarten, I sang in front of our music class." I look down at my thighs. "The first time we really met was before our first Games."

"Why weren't we ever friends in school?" he asks.

I shrug. There's the long list of logistical reasons, of course. He was from Town and I was from the Seam, he was popular and I was an outcast, he never truly knew suffering and I knew suffering better than I knew myself. But all these answers seem artificial, like I'm reciting something I've been told rather than coming up with an original answer myself. If he had tried to approach me—and he very well might've, as my memory was filled with gaps and blocked traumas long before Prim's name was drawn at her first Reaping—I doubt I would've given him the time of day. I never really had any friends growing up. Even before my father's death, something seperated me from other people. I never played with the other children on the dirt road in front of our Seam house when I was a small child. I didn't participate in games of hopscotch, four-square, or jump-rope at recess.

"I don't know," I say honestly. "But it's a good thing we're friends now."

We walk home in a comfortable silence. He carries the picnic basket and I the now grass-stained quilt. When our hands find one another, he holds onto me tightly. Even when we make it back to the Victor's Village where Haymitch is sitting on his porch, neither of us let go.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart!" Haymitch calls with a raise of his bottle. He already wished me a happy birthday at breakfast, but he seems about three bottles deeper than he was a few hours ago, and so he must've forgotten. "Welcome to the shittiness of adulthood!"

I call him my thanks and he waves away my invitation to join Peeta and me inside. No skin off my back, I think to myself. Even though it's selfish, I wouldn't mind being only with Peeta for the rest of the day.

We curl up onto the couch with Buttercup and all three of us must fall asleep at some point, because I'm awoken an hour or so later by Buttercup jumping off my chest and the phone ringing shrilly from the kitchen.

Blinking sleep from my eyes, I take the call with my mother and return to resting against Peeta's chest. She wishes me a happy birthday, asking me how I'm doing and what I've been up to, and then I give the phone to Peeta because she starts to ask me way too many questions about him when she hears him murmur something at my side. My mother and Peeta have always gotten along. She loves people easily and he's easy to love. They chat amicably and I listen halfheartedly until Peeta gives me the phone so she can wish me "happy birthday" again and say goodbye.

After she hangs up, we eat more cake for dinner and then head back to the couch to laze around some more and see what's on television.

We've barely sat down when Buttercup lets out the cat equivalent of a scream from the kitchen. "Looks like it's dinnertime," I say.

I get up to feed the little rascal but Peeta puts his hands on my back gently. "It's your birthday," he says, "Pick something to watch. I'll go feed him."

I scowl in annoyance at his insistence but give in, sitting back down and turning on the television as I hear Peeta scooping cat food into Buttercup's bowl in the kitchen. Television has changed significantly in the short time since the war. Although still a Capitol dominated industry, it's now a unifying force in Panem. Whereas I and many other Twelve residents were fortunate enough to attend school long enough to have at least a high school level grasp on reading, writing, and mathematics, many districts didn't have such luxuries. In places like Eleven and Eight, where farms or factories were the main employer, some children never went to school at all. Instead, they worked long hours in hot fields or crowded manufacturing plants from the time they were toddlers, slaving away their entire lives to produce food and clothing for the highly educated but willfully ignorant Capitolites. But then, after the war, working class people suddenly had hours and hours of free time which they had nothing to do with, and government financial support was allowing for televisions to be commonplace in most every household. So district news channels, educational programming, and easy viewing shows took over. Now, Peeta and I turn on the television in my living room every night to view trashy storytelling in its most enjoyable form: in shows and movies that rely entirely on generously paid actors, and not at all on the deaths of innocent children. In short, we watch a lot of soap operas.

"There's nothing good on tonight," I call into the kitchen, surfing aimlessly through channel after channel. All our favorite poorly written and overly acted shows seem to be only playing reruns, so I gnaw on my thumbnail subconsciously, watching commercials with a passive interest.

The phone rings in the kitchen and I jump up. "I've got it!" I tell Peeta. It feels strange to tell him that I'm getting the phone in my own house.

"Hello?"

"Katniss, darling, is that you?" Effie Trinket asks on the other line. "It's been months since I've heard from you! Haymitch told me that he'd tell you and Peeta to call, but he never did! How are you doing?"

"Fine, how are you?" Peeta raises an eyebrow at me and I mouth Effie in his direction. His eyes widen in excitement.

It's been so long since Effie and I really spoke, and I realize with a jolt that in a way, I've missed her. She's overly talkative and outrageously optimistic, but she's never been one to force conversation out of me when she knows I wouldn't know what to say, and her constant monologuing combined with her thick accent create a soothing white noise while I mutter the occasional noises of reassurance and agreement.

It's not until she addresses me directly that I am broken out of my reverie. "It's such a shame that you turned down Plutarch's invitation to your party," Effie says. "I tried to tell him, it's always the thought that count—"

"What?" I ask, unsure whether or not I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing.

Effie tut-tuts at my interrupting. "Katniss, surely Haymitch relayed my message about your birthday party. Why, we talk everyday!"

"My what ?"

"Did Haymitch not tell you? God, he can be so irresponsible sometimes, I swear." Effie holds back what sounds like the beginning of a sigh. "Mr. Heavensbee, who I'm sure you remember, has been running a campaign since January to promote the first annual Mockingjay Day. There's billboards advertising it all over the Capitol! It's such an honor, Katniss, and it's such a shame that you weren't made aware of it sooner. I understand that your...situation makes you unable to attend, but I told Mr. Heavensbee multiple times that they ought to send you an invitation anyway. I mean, it's just common courtesy! And to think that Haymitch didn't tell you about the ball or the parade! I'll be sure to mention it on our phone call tomorrow, don't you worry—"

Effie's voice fades to static in the back of my mind as I begin to process the implication of all that she's just told me. Although unlike before, the white noise she provides is no longer soothing. As naïve as it is, I've still previously considered my birthday somewhat of a private affair. But privacy is a privilege which I no longer possess. Everything about me belongs in some capacity to the citizens of Panem and the Capitol. I was never a person to them, just an object, a revolutionary symbol and a televised metaphor used to politically motivate the masses. Now that there is no more political cause to be promoted, I'm completely intangible. I'm just an idea. I'm the theme to an extravagant, late night party at the Presidential Mansion and the reason for a daylong parade revolving around and around the city circle. As much as I hate to admit it, Haymitch was right: I am never, ever getting off this train.

Too encased in my inner turmoil and panic, the telephone slips out of my grip and falls to the floor, cracking against the hardwood and startling both Buttercup and Peeta. Buttercup pounces off the furniture and makes a beeline for the kitchen, his usual façade dropped at the sudden appearance of perceived danger. On the couch, Peeta shuts his eyes and presses his hands roughly into his ears on either side of his head.

"Peeta?" I ask tentatively. He has the same expression he used to get in the Capitol, all those months ago, when he was still constantly wearing handcuffs around his wrists. I approach him slowly, bringing my shaking hands to his wrists and squeezing, digging my nails into his skin hard enough to hurt. I approach the couch slowly, turning off the television with a press of the remote.

"Peeta?" I implore again, my tone more insistent. He pushes his hands deeper against the ears and the sharp curve of his jaw.

"Leave, Katniss," he pleads, his voice slightly too loud due to his covered ears and his tone desperate and begging. "Leave, Katniss, please."

"No," I say resolutely. He begins to whimper, alternating between unintelligible, animalistic noises of distress and forlorn calls for me to leave him.

"No. I'm not leaving you." Frustrated and ignored, I wrap my fingers around his wrists and squeeze, digging my nails hard enough into his skin to hurt and prying his shaking hands away from his reddened face.

"Calm down, Peeta. It was just a loud noise. I accidentally dropped the telephone." He looks at me, silent but miserable, his blue eyes focusing on me desperately as he clings to reality. "I'm not leaving," I say. Loosening my grip on his wrists, I run my thumbs apologetically over the marks from my nails, gnawing on my bottom lip anxiously. More for myself than for him, I repeat: "I'm not leaving."

Someone knocks loudly on the other side of my front door and Peeta and I both turn immediately, startled and both brought back momentarily to the mentality only a victor can constantly maintain.

"Sweetheart!" Haymitch calls drunkenly from the other side of the thick mahogany. "Open up! Effie's chewing my ear off on the phone. Two Games and a war can't get you but you hang up too suddenly and she thinks that you've died."

I swing the door open and he stumbles over the threshold, chuckling as he looks from me to Peeta on the couch. "Shacking up, are we?" he asks. I scowl.

All the angst I felt when Effie told me of his failed news delivery comes back to me and suddenly I'm furious, shoving Haymitch harshly in the chest with my small hands, making him drop the half-empty bottle of liquor in his hands as he grasps the rails on the front steps to steady himself.

"I cannot believe you!" I spit, ignoring Haymitch's agitated string of obscenities. "How could you? The entire Capitol—the entire country—" I sputter, "—parades, balls, God knows what else—they're all using me and you didn't even tell me!"

Haymitch laughs humorlessly. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he says mockingly, "my apologies. I'll make sure to call you up right away next time, since you always handle reminders of your fame so serenely."

"It doesn't matter—!"

"It always matters, sweetheart, because I'm the one that everyone who gives a single shit about you is depending on. I'm the one who answers Effie's calls and listens to your doctors and tries to defend you on the phone when Plutarch wants to paint the entire fucking city blue and dedicate a week to the Mockingjay. So don't come crying to me if Effie slips up and you're upset, because half my life is dedicated to you and lover boy over there and I'm the one whose stuck with you in this awful fucking Village for the rest of my life. Now walk across the street and pick up the phone and tell Effie that you're sorry, because all she wanted to do was wish you a happy birthday."

Stunned, I go.


A/N: The song Katniss sings to Peeta in the meadow is "Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems" by Lana Del Rey and Stevie Nicks.

Right now, I'm in my senior year of high school and applying to colleges. Outside of school, I am judging for the eighth year of The Houses Competition. I'm also taking AP classes for the first time and my grandfather recently passed away and life has just been a lot these past months so this can't always be my top priority. I have written other things—most notably a Harry Potter drabble which I posted last month in honor of Ginny Weasley's fortieth birthday—so believe me when I say that I'm still always lurking here and thinking about updating. It's just actually going through with it that's hard.

Combining story subscriptions across Ao3 and FFN, there are fifty of you in total who are actively waiting for updates to this story. I know that may not sound like a lot but it's mindblowing to me that anyone out there cares about and likes and looks forward to my writing. So, I really do want to be better at updating and I want you to know that y'all mean everything to me. Thank you!