Dearest Diary,

Two events of note occurred today. First, I realized that Peeta Mellark, who just yesterday I considered an ally, and far more importantly, a close friend, is an irredeemable prat. Second, I became betrothed to him.

Were it not for the nightmares, Katniss would have thought she laid awake the entire night. She lost count of how many times she kicked her blankets away only to retrieve them minutes later, the cool air having failed to lull her to sleep. She wanted to get up and look over the ledger sheets again, but with Prim in the room with her, even asleep, Katniss didn't dare risk it. Her younger sister's even breathing seemed deafening as she watched shadows crawl across the ceiling, sharp and claw-like. The weight of the knife in her hand was comforting, a physical reminder that she was here, that the events were not just a dream.

On second thought, she had no idea why she found that comforting. Her mind could conjure some odd scenarios, but if she could slip away into one of them right now, Katniss would happily agree to it. Maybe she could. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the Seam. In this dream, she was sitting next to the fire at home, her boots and coat laid out beside her, waiting for the flames to chase away the chill after a morning trek to the village, and -

Someone was at her window. Katniss bolted upright, knife ready, ears keened. Nothing. She slipped from her bed and moved towards the window. She of anybody ought to know that they offered no real safety, but the tiny garden of the Everdeen home left no room for trees, and any intruder would have to scale thirty feet straight up to reach their window. Not that she put it past Crane to slither up the stone wall like a lizard, but it did seem unlikely.

And thankfully, a thorough inspection yielded no evidence of any more spider-like tendencies. She checked that the window was securely locked before returning to her bed. That lasted for all of thirty seconds before Katniss decided she ought to have a look around the rest of the house. One could never be too careful, after all. In her bare feet, she was silent as a shadow as she moved from room to room, eyes carefully searching for even the smallest details out of pace. As it turned out, there were rather a lot of them. The Everdeens had never been a tidy lot, and Katniss found many pieces of half-finished embroidery, newspapers, and letters sitting about. Most of the newspapers and letters were hers, but small-minded as it was, she took some pride in that the embroidery must belong to Prim or Mother. None of hers laid half-finished, as it had barely been started.

"Katniss."

She almost screamed. Thankfully, Katniss managed to save herself that embarrassment. Perhaps she could make a habit of it. "Mother?" she whispered. In the silent household, it sounded deafening.

"Go to bed."

She held her knife behind her back as she started back towards the staircase. Katniss had no desire to answer the questions wandering about with a knife at two in the morning would prompt. "I can't sleep."

Her mother appeared at the top of the stairs. In her nightgown and with graying blonde hair hanging in a long braid over one shoulder, Eileen shone more brightly than Katniss could after hours of primping. The effect was only heightened when she gave her daughter a soft smile. "Try to rest. You have a busy day before you tomorrow."

"I'm not going to marry him."

"Don't forget your promise to me."

"I haven't. I'm still not going to marry him." She could find another solution if she had to. There were only a few weeks left in the season. Katniss could weather any scandal for a few weeks, and with a bit of penny-pinching, she should be able to afford Prim another season. The gossips would have something better to talk about by next year. Magpies' fascinations never lasted long.

She did not want to, but Katniss started up the stairs anyway. If they were going to argue, they might as well keep it to just one subject. From here, Katniss had a far better view of the disappointment in her mother's eyes. Perhaps she could still flee back downstairs.

Eileen's eyes flicked down. "Give me the knife." Katniss hesitated, but Mother held out her hand, she handed it over. Eileen studied it for several seconds. "I thought Haymitch would have given you a bigger one."

"I can more easily hide this one in my sleeve."

"Ah. That explains it." She turned the knife over in her hand. "Go back to bed. I'll give it back when I'm certain you aren't going to run off."

The idea of running away hadn't occurred to her, but it was a tantalizing possibility. If she left tonight, she could secure a spot on a mail coach and be miles out of the city before dawn. Haymitch had mentioned in his last letter that he needed another set of hands to keep the Seam from rotting to pieces beneath him. Katniss could spare her family the expense of another worker if she was there to help him, and in any case, what worker could care as much for her home as she did? No day laborer could have the commitment she had to her ancestral home, and it would surely show in the quality of their work. If she was going to have to redo half their work anyway, why not save herself the effort and expense and do it herself?

No, tempting as it was, she couldn't do that to Prim and Mother. "I would never."

"And you're downstairs in the dark because…?"

"If I wanted to run away, I would be halfway there already."

Eileen smiled and shook her head. "Go to bed. You'll wake up Mary if you keep up your wandering, and I don't want to hear her complaints tomorrow." When Katniss reached the last step, Eileen reached out a hand to stroke her braid. "You know, I think this will be good for both of you."

"Is there a saying about faith in lost causes? There ought to be."

"You're early." Mother frowned at Katniss' words, and a jab at her ribs demanded a proper greeting. Katniss did not so much as wince. Some wars could be won with smiles and sweet subterfuge; others required simple brute force. Katniss could not claim to now which category her current situation belonged to, but now that she had chosen her strategy, there was no going back.

Peeta pretended not to notice. "I thought you might be the sort to rise early. Thankfully, I was right."

"I certainly wouldn't be coming down to greet you in my nightgown."

He winked. Bloody winked at her, like this was all a game to him. And perhaps it was. She wouldn't put it past him to have set up the scene in Crane's study. Yes, she had been the one who suggested going up there in the first place, but if he hadn't insisted on following her, they never would have been caught.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but Peeta only turned to her mother and smiled. "Good morning, Mrs. Everdeen. I apologize if I've interrupted breakfast."

Luckily for Peeta, the Everdeens rose much earlier than most fashionable Londoners, and had finished breakfast well over an hour ago. If he had interrupted, Katniss would have murdered him on the spot. The man had already ruined dinner parties for her, and she suspected he was about to destroy the charm of the Everdeens' sunny yellow parlor. She was not going to let him do the same to breakfast. Nobody deserved that kind of punishment.

Mother, not surprisingly had a more charitable view. "Your company is an addition to any meal, not an interruption."

"That's very kind of you, Mrs. Everdeen. Thank you."

"I imagine you and Katniss have a great deal to discuss."

"We do." He looked to her, searching for confirmation, but Katniss remained silent. "Could we please speak alone for a moment?"

"Of course." Mother disappeared, making a show of closing the parlor door behind her.

"I guarantee that she is listening in." Katniss could perfectly picture Mother's scowl at that, but, to her credit, Eileen stayed silent. In her place, Prim would have argued.

"Then you'll have to be on your best behavior." She glared at Peeta, but it had no effect. "I think your mother would forgive me almost anything as long as I have convinced you to marry me before I leave."

"Then I'm afraid you'll be in rather a lot of trouble."

"Katniss." She wished she could hate his voice. He had no right to sound so reasonable right now. "You know this has to happen eventually."

"No, I don't." Katniss crossed her arms over her chest, childish in the extreme, and collapsed down onto the narrow sofa. The cushions bounced back beneath her, groaning at the abuse. Peeta joined her, sitting close enough his weight pinned the green fabric of her day dress to the cushions.

"You really thought we would make it through this without being caught?"

She had never given much thought to it, actually. When Prim's safety was at stake - and more than ever, Katniss felt convinced that it had been from the very start - nothing else mattered. Like a horse with blinders, her peripheral vision disappeared, and all that existed was the threat that she had to eliminate. And Peeta, unfortunately. She had never quite managed to rid him from her thoughts. "And when did you realize this was unavoidable?"

"I wouldn't call it unavoidable. Destined, perhaps, but not unavoidable. As for when I knew…" He mulled that over for several seconds, which surprised her. The man almost always had a glib reply waiting at the tip of his tongue. "I think I knew when you came to my house."

"That long ago?"

"It was after I asked you to marry me." He winced. "The first time."

"As I recall, there wasn't much asking involved. It was more of a statement."

"I think I owe you at least a dozen more apologies for that."

"Yes." He should know better than to think she would disagree on that point.

Peeta straightened and smiled. "So I must be allowed to see you at least a dozen more times. I can't allow such an affront to stand."

"I'm not marrying you."

"I think you are."

Her eyes narrowed. "And you're going to convince me?"

"I don't need to do much convincing. We both know you'll do it for Prim's sake."

If he wanted a fight, he had found it. "And you think it will do my sister so much good to have you in our family?"

"More good than a sister in the gossip papers!" She jerked back at the anger in his voice.

Sagging down in his seat, Peeta took a deep, ragged breath and dragged a hand slowly down his face. "I'm sorry. There was no need to shout." Still resting his elbows on his knees, he looked up at her, and for the first time, she noticed the bags beneath his eyes. It seemed she was not the only one who had suffered a restless night.

Hesitantly, Katniss reached out to him, covering his hand with hers. He turned his palm up and wrapped their fingers together. "What do you want from me, Katniss? Please tell me, because it feels as if the second I understand, you do something that makes me question it."

Possibilities flooded her mind. Let me go back to the Seam and we can forget each other. Be my closest friend. Kiss me again. Contradictory, but so very appealing, and if she opened her mouth, Katniss thought all of them would fly out at once.

"I don't know." Her tongue felt thick, heavy, and the words did not sound like her own voice.

Peeta's eyes searched hers. She wondered if he had seen the thoughts playing out in her mind, hoped he could make more sense of them than she could. He squeezed her hand tight. "If you choose not to marry me, what will you do?"

"Go back to the Seam as soon as possible." That much, at least, she knew.

"Why is it that all the women I love want to run away from me?"

"The Seam isn't nearly as far as Italy."

He snorted. "I wondered if you knew about that."

Her hand withdrew from his. "You weren't going to tell me."

"Eventually, I would have."

Logically, this other woman shouldn't matter. Peeta was not her husband, ideally would never be, and she certainly gave no thought to the mistresses and sweethearts the other men she knew kept hidden away. She ought to let the matter slip away like the non-issue it was, but she could not resist the urge to pry. "Do you write to her?"

"I did for a while. Not anymore."

Something inside her crystallized at those words. "After we, er, well, after this happens, I'm going to live at the Seam." There it was. No taking it back now.

Peeta's brow arched up. "I think you already said that."

She understood now the need for heavenly trumpets and angel song. Some people simply wouldn't recognize a miracle happening in front of their eyes without them. And even if this happened thousands of times a day to people all over the world, it felt momentous to her. Katniss' voice shook over her next words. "And I don't want a child yet."

"You're saying yes." Peeta straightened. "Really? You mean it? No, never mind, I'm not giving you the chance to say no again, I just –"

She cut him off with a kiss. Their teeth clanked together on impact, and she pulled back, sitting up on her knees and holding Peeta's face still between her hands as she went in for a second attempt. He moaned beneath her when their lips met. This was what she remembered from last night. Her hands slid down the sides of his neck to his chest and down towards his stomach, and Katniss marveled at how solid he was, how warm his skin felt through the thin material of his shirt. Peeta pulled her up, practically draping her over him as he leaned against the back of the sofa, hands resting lightly over her bottom.

She wanted to devour him. Katniss moved from his lips to kiss along his cheekbone, back into his hairline, down to his tensed jaw. She caught a glimpse of his eyes, now an incredible shade of deep blue, and she clenched her legs together against the rush of warmth that sent through her.

When she grabbed a fistful of his shirt with some vague notion of pulling it free of his breeches, Peeta moved his hands from her bottom to her shoulders. "Katniss," he whispered. She felt the rise and fall of his chest under her palms. "Katniss, I don't want to stop, but your mother is –"

That sent her reeling back to her senses. Katniss pulled back, putting an almost respectable distance between their bodies and smoothing down her skirts.

Peeta, for his part, just sat there, still leaning against the backrest. She wasn't sure what he could do to make himself presentable. His lips were pink and swollen, and his shirt was rumpled where she had grabbed at it. He watched her with a huge, goofy smile. "That was a yes?"

"With conditions."

"It was a yes." He offered her his hand, and she latched onto it. Katniss bit down on her lower lip as she felt tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. Funny, she never thought she would be the sort to cry at getting engaged.

"I think a quick wedding would be best," Peeta said, "seeing as you can't keep your hands off me."

"I don't remember you arguing with me."

"My dear Mrs. Mellark, would I ever argue with you?"

"We're not married yet, and yes, you would."

"Then in the interest of not arguing, I suppose I have to agree with you." He sat up and smoothed down his shirt, tucking the piece she had pulled back into his breeches. She quickly diverted her gaze when she noticed the tenting around his groin, but curiosity had her looking again a moment later.

"You said yes." He still sounded amazed. Peeta shook his head. "I didn't even have to bribe you into it."

"Now I must know what you were going to bribe me with."

"Oh, you'll like this." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a long, folded piece of paper, which he handed to her. "I found it in a secret compartment in Crane's desk."

She frowned as she studied the front, and her fingers went to a name on the front. "That's him."

"We found our Mr. Coriolanus Snow," Peeta agreed. "That's what made me take it. As it turns out, he's an inventor. He has done quite a bit of work for the military, and I think we just found the plans for his latest project."

Katniss pulled back a corner and saw the mast of a boat. "You looked at it?"

He nodded. "It's a warship of some sort. I don't know if it's one we have or a design for someone else."

She exhaled. "We need to get this to the War Office as soon as possible. They need to know what Crane has been doing."

"I'll take it as soon as I leave here."

"You mean as soon as Mother and Prim let you leave. It's not going to be easy to escape them, you know."

"A small obstacle to overcome for king and country." He smiled as he stood, helping her up as well. Peeta kissed her temple. "Ready?"

"No, but I'll try."