It definitely feels like I've been writing this for more than ten days. Things have come so far from pear trees left on doorsteps.

No Lords today, I'm afraid, but plenty of leaping...and fluffiness.

Ten Lords-a-leaping

When Katniss awoke, the first thing she saw was an eye, bright blue despite the dimness that shrouded her. Her first reaction was to tense, prime her body, scope her person for any potential weapons, but then she remembered.

'Morning,' Peeta murmured lethargically, cupping her face in his hand and kissing her deeply, and Katniss relaxed entirely. She yielded to his bold tongue, feeling in ways that she had never thought possible. She was so aware of herself, and of him, as they mastered each other, grasped the way their partner moved and breathed, acted and reacted.

Eventually, they remembered that they needed air and fell apart, but not too far, taking in their surroundings. After the party had dispersed last night, they had commandeered the curtained gazebo under which the musicians had sat. Peeta's father had nodded understandingly and lent them the woollen blanket that he'd draped over his stall table and a cup of hot chocolate each. Then he had left them to huddle and sip their drinks and work out how they fit together.

'Can I be completely honest with you?' Peeta asked.

'All right,' Katniss hummed. She felt a bit like Buttercup at the moment. Even that grumpy fleabag could purr.

'I'm in love with you. Not just from these ten days, don't worry. You don't have to rush out an insincere reply. I just want to say that I love you and have loved you since we were five years old. It was the first day of school. My dad singled you out as the daughter of the woman who broke his heart. I guess it was inevitable after that.' Peeta slid his hand into Katniss's unravelling hair. 'I can still see you clearly. Your hair was in two braids, not one, and you had this brilliant smile on your face. Even then I thought you were pretty.' Katniss laughed bashfully. 'But I didn't truly fall until you got up in front of the whole year, all smiles and confidence, and sang the Valley Song. You had the most beautiful voice I ever heard. That's when I knew.'

'You knew exactly when?' Katniss whispered, thinking back to her mother's counsel.

'Yes,' Peeta said, resting their foreheads together.

'And you didn't stop loving me once in all those twelve years?'

'Not once.'

The bread. Peeta had spared the loaves and taken the beating for love, even though he had never demanded any favour or affection from her in return. 'But why? Why me? I haven't done anything to keep your interest. I was never one of those bubbly, fun, pretty girls that seemed to hang about you all the time.'

'Maybe that's not what I wanted.'

'You wanted the person I was when I was younger, a carefree songbird.'

'I want the Katniss right here in front of me, even if all she's doing is contesting my declaration of love.' He burrowed his nose into her neck until she was snorting with helpless laughter. 'Besides, you're not so different from that little girl as you think. Look at you, you're like a little giggle machine.'

'You're ruining my hostile front,' Katniss griped.

'I don't just want to ruin it, I want to destroy it.'

'That might take a long while.'

'Twelve more years should sort it out.'

Katniss chuckled and snuggled further into his embrace. 'All right, smartass.' Then she stopped to think. 'But Peeta, if you were…if you were in love we me this whole time, why did you take this job? Why help someone else win me over? Not that you did a good job in doing that.'

He didn't laugh at this like she had come to expect. 'Well, when he first approached me with his offer, I wanted to punch him in the face. You'd think I would have realised that other people could and would fall in love with you like I did. But then he told me his plan, painted this whole picture of all the wonders I could send you on his behalf, and I guess I gave in. I knew I'd never be able to give you those things out of my own pocket, so I took the job. And if you took any joy from it at all, at least I'd have a part in it. It was easier than trying to compete with him.'

'You didn't have to compete anyway. Like I said, there's no competition.'

'And with your scores of other admirers?'

'You don't have any competition anywhere.'

With a radiant grin, Peeta rolled her on top of him and they kissed until a stripe of light fell across them. To their mortification, Mr Abernathy was standing outside their little oasis with one hand propping the curtain open and a wry smile on his face.

'Ah,' he said with dry amusement, 'so that's what's behind here. I suppose you've been making your own sort of sweet music in here, huh.'

'What?! No!' Katniss spluttered, scrambling off Peeta.

'We're clothed,' Peeta insisted, standing to demonstrate. 'Definitely clothed.'

His day-old suit was now wrinkled and misshapen but decidedly on.

'Get your minds out of the gutter,' Mr Abernathy told them. 'I was making a joke there. I was being paronomastically inventive.'

'Oh.' Peeta laughed half-heartedly. 'Good one, sir.'

Mr Abernathy grumbled. 'You're lucky I can just about tolerate the both of you.'

This had Peeta smiling a lot more genuinely.

'The feeling's mutual,' Katniss replied.

'Inspired reply, we'll make a lawyer of you yet. Speaking of lawyers, I'm late to work. Just do me a favour and don't let anyone else catch you out here. I hardly want some fastidious old Merchant hag storming into my office and demanding I prosecute you for public indecency.'

'All right, Mr Abernathy,' Katniss sighed, looking away as her face turned its newly discovered favourite shade of pink.

Peeta caught a different part of the man's discourse. 'Wait, you're late to work? What time is it?'

'Coming up to eleven.'

'Oh…oh man! I have to pick up today's gift! See you later, Katniss.' He pecked her quickly on the lips but lingered longer than he had planned, smiling dopily. 'I can't believe I get to kiss you now.' Katniss leaned in for another kiss to affirm his beliefs, and Mr Abernathy harrumphed somewhere in the background.

'Don't you have somewhere to be, Lover Boy?'

'On it, on it. Bye Katniss, bye Mr Abernathy!'

The two Seam folk looked on rather fondly as Peeta picked up his father's blanket and raced out of the gazebo.

'He's still presenting the gifts?' Mr Abernathy asked.

'He can't not present them, I guess.'

'So you don't alert your mysterious admirer of the truth?'

'Yes.'

'And what happens when the gifts finish and your admirer wants to meet you in person?'

'I…'

'You'll want to think about that in the next few days,' Mr Abernathy hinted. 'If you or Peeta want any help, legally or otherwise, my door will always be open. But first, I need to get there myself. See you around, kid, and be on your guard.'

Katniss stood in the shadowy interior of the gazebo for quite a while before venturing out into the light. The square was stirring with life, and Katniss realised with a sick feeling that any of these bustling pedestrians could have come across her and Peeta during their private moment. The remnants of last night's magic still hung between the buildings of the store-lined square, frail paper constructions that didn't look so magnificent now their flames had died out.

The square opened out onto the merchant high street on one side and the Seam on the other. Katniss turned in the latter's direction. People were pointing at her. Despite her mussed hair and bedraggled orange dress, she was still recognisable as the girl on fire who had been the focus of yesterday's dance. She ignored them, marching quickly on. Then she saw something that made her slow again.

There was a young woman standing in the square that didn't belong. She had to be a Capitolite with her shaved head covered in tattooed vines, but she was alone and gazing pensively up at a string of lanterns. Perhaps she was lost, Katniss reasoned, separated from her party of tourists.

'Excuse me,' Katniss asked as she approached. It was something Peeta would do, she knew. 'Is everything ok?'

'Yes,' the woman replied with more confidence than Katniss had expected.

'Oh, all right. You're not lost or anything?'

'I was just remembering the night. Wasn't that dance a thing to remember? Hang on, you were one of the dancing girls, weren't you?'

'Yes.'

'You were radiant, the whole affair was. District Twelve is like an unpolished diamond.'

'Thank you?'

'My name's Cressida by the way.'

'Katniss.'

They shook hands.

'I, er, should head back to my house soon so that my family don't think I'm dead or something.'

'Out all night?' Cressida grinned knowingly. 'I know the story. I should probably attempt to find my tour group.'

'Good idea,' Katniss asserted, nodding uncomfortably. 'Well, goodbye. Nice to meet you, Cressida.'

'Nice to meet you, Katniss.'

Katniss nodded once more and left, glancing over her shoulder to see that Cressida had returned to gazing up at the lanterns.

…

'Where have you been?' Mrs Everdeen demanded as soon as Katniss entered the house.

'Sorry, Mom.'

Katniss evaded the question and the woman herself, flitting up the stairs. Prim waylaid her in their shared bedroom.

'Where have you been?' Prim hissed excitedly.

'Please, Prim,' Katniss groaned.

She removed her shawl, stroking the fabric. Katniss was pretty sure by now that all of her clothing ensemble, and she suspected Peeta's as well, was thermally insulated. It was almost as if Cinna had known that they would spend all night outside.

'I'm not leaving until I get an answer.'

Katniss studied her for a moment, saw the sheer level of intent in her eye, and acquiesced. 'All right, I was with Peeta.'

'The whole time?'

'Yes.'

'And?'

'We talked and danced.'

'Yes, I saw that. But after that.'

Katniss folded her arms. 'He kissed me.'

Prim squealed. 'And did you kiss him back.'

Katniss visually struggled with herself before admitting, 'Yes.'

Prim flew forward and hugged her tightly. 'I knew it! I knew it! All this time didn't I say?'

'All right, all right, no need to be so smug.' Nevertheless, Katniss smiled as she hugged her sister back, allowing herself to revel in the joy of it all for a little while. 'What about you though? Pretty sure I saw you dancing with a certain Rory Hawthorne last night. For a long time.'

Prim quickly disengaged. 'That was nothing. Nothing at all.'

'The tables have turned, little duck.'

Prim squeaked and fled the room. Laughing to herself, Katniss shut the door and began to change.

…

Aggravatingly, Prim was first to the door after it was knocked. By the time Katniss had raced down the stairs, Prim was already chattering away to her boy with the bread, and whatever she was saying had Peeta turning a deeper shade of red by the second.

'Prim, leave him be.'

Peeta was wearing his official delivery boy cap again, and for a brief, fearful moment, she worried that he had regressed into cheery yet hands-off professionalism. That fear was destroyed by the smile he gave her as she walked up to him. One that declared everything was right in the world as long as he could keep looking at her. It made her coy and goofy and disbelieving of her situation.

'Hi again.'

Katniss tried to chide him when he pulled her close and pressed their lips together in full view of a gushing Prim.

'It's fine, Katniss. Prim can handle the truth.'

'Yeah,' Prim chirruped, 'come on, Katniss. It's not like I'm Mom.'

'It's not like who's Mom?'

The three adolescents gasped as Mrs Everdeen emerged from the kitchen, ominously sharpening a kitchen knife. Katniss saw Peeta's eyes focus on it and his Adam's apple bob. It was the quintessential awkward silence, everyone looking to someone else to speak first.

'Remember,' Peeta joked uncertainly, 'I'm a joy.' He brandished his hands for emphasis.

'You're a good young man, Peeta Mellark,' Mrs Everdeen said with a particularly vigorous scrape of the knife. 'Look after her.'

'I will, Mrs Everdeen, with everything I have.'

Katniss's mother smiled beatifically at them, only half seeing them, caught up in a wistful memory. In a seeming daze, she turned and sauntered back into the kitchen.

'There, you have the Everdeens' full blessing now,' Prim announced triumphantly.

'Thank goodness for that,' Peeta replied. 'Katniss and I were just about to head out for her gift. Do you want to come with us?'

'I don't want to get in the way.'

'You really wouldn't.'

Katniss wasn't in love yet, but the way Peeta treated Prim – as someone valuable outside of the fact that she was his beloved's treasured sister – sent her spiralling towards that eventuality. The three of them walked through the Seam, Peeta's arm linked through hers even as he listened with rapt attention to everything the youngest Everdeen had to say. Prim was, and had always been, the most precious person to her in the world, and it tickled Katniss that the boy she had chosen could also see why.

There was already a hubbub in Twelve's town square when the trio arrived. Peeta used his considerably larger frame to cut a path through the burgeoning crowd, the two girls riding his slipstream. Katniss thought she saw Cressida again, but even a bald woman with unique tattoos was hard to identify for certain in this crush. When they got to the front of the gathering, they saw what had drawn all the attention. Ten strapping young men stood in formation, arms folded behind their backs, legs parallel to their shoulders, heads down, completely motionless. They all wore coordinating, finely made garments, intricately patterned with red, white and gold, short-sleeved despite the weather and designed for free and fluid movement.

'Very nice,' Prim murmured appreciatively.

Katniss looked aghast, Peeta deeply amused.

'What about Rory?' he asked.

'I can still look.'

'Don't encourage her! She's too young.'

'Calm, Katniss.' Peeta hugged her shoulder. 'You don't want to miss the show, do you? They can start now that we've arrived.'

The men's heads all snapped up as one and spread their arms with conscious showmanship. The two on the furthest ends swapped sides by tumbling across the performance space in an impressive series of symmetrical somersaults. The audience rumbled with awe. The other acrobats began to demonstrate their athletic prowess, vaulting and spinning and changing formations with slick planning. They formed two rows, one behind the other, and drew exhilarated gasps as the men in the back row flipped right over their counterparts' heads. Then the new back row did the same, the cycle repeating twice more to the sound of fervent applause. Four men danced out of sight and returned with a small trampoline each.

'This is so cool!' Prim shouted, gaping at how high the men could leap on the trampolines and how many consecutive flips they could do. Katniss supposed that she could agree.

The performance was all of ten minutes in length, a mere coincidence Peeta insisted, and following the thrilling conclusion (one where Katniss expected to be carting a couple home and into her Mom's medicinal care) she was dragged over to meet the acrobats.

Peeta shook all of their hands, recalled all of their names, exchanged jokes and thanked them deeply for their stellar performance. Katniss was introduced as the gift receiver, although that title wasn't so undesirable today. She had genuinely enjoyed this one, though for their grace and proficiency, not the vapid reasons Prim suggested.

'Did you see their shoulders?' Prim asked while they waited for Peeta to direct the performers to a place where they could eat something wholesome and nutritional.

'Yes,' Katniss said patiently.

'Honestly, Katniss. If you weren't kissing Peeta all the time, I'd think you were completely uninterested in other humans.'

Katniss didn't even honour that with a reply.

'You know, Peeta looks a lot like he could be one of them. I mean, build-wise.'

Katniss felt extremely relieved when Peeta returned to them. 'I feel kind of responsible for these guys until they can take their train back to their district. I'm going to head over to the diner with them. Do you want to come?'

'Yes!' Prim whooped.

'All right,' Katniss said, allowing him to slide his arm around her waist. 'Prim reckons that you'd be right at home in that acrobatic troupe.'

'Do you, Prim?' Peeta jokingly flexed his arm with a scrunched look of concentration. 'I don't know. Those trampolines look horrifying. I'd probably get on one and fall straight off the other side.'

Both Everdeens chortled at this.

The acrobats were all humble, amiable individuals from Eleven, and they found Prim's stuttering attempts to converse with them adorably charming. As they strode onwards, Peeta and Katniss hung back and talked in furtive voices.

'Mr Abernathy told me today that we can't keep this a secret from your employer forever. He'll have to find out about us, and soon.'

'Does that scare you?'

'That might depend on who he is. Why won't you tell me who he is?'

'I signed a contract,' Peeta said, yet when Katniss gave him a sceptical look, he easily relented, 'but I've probably broken every other clause. He called himself Nero Black, but I think it's a false name. He's also from the Capitol. He said he met you on a tour and was instantly enamoured.'

That didn't narrow it down. Katniss had probably bumped into hundreds of Capitol men since the tours began.

'What did he look like?'

'As unidentifiable as any Capitolite does beneath their obfuscating costumes. His hair was blue, but who knows how much that changed? He wore sunglasses. He was about the same height as me. I haven't seen him since he enlisted me. Who knows what he looks like?'

'You worked for a person without knowing who they are?' Katniss asked exasperatedly. 'That could have been dangerous for both of us.'

'My position as an intermediary allowed me to check the safety on everything. It all turned out all right, didn't it?'

'So far. The story isn't over yet.'

'Look, Katniss, you definitely want to be with me, not him?'

'Yes.'

'Then that's all we can tell him. If he truly cares about you, then your free will should matter to him. If it doesn't,' his hand tightened on her waist, 'then I'm willing to fight.'

'Me too,' Katniss said, 'but let's hope it doesn't come to that.'

'Yes, let's hope.'

AN: Thank you to everyone for your ever-brilliant response. Every automated email is like Christmas come early.

Blondmomma09: I'm so honoured that you introduced your mom to this story! Anonymous: Cinna needed to appear at some point in this story, as did PrimxRory. Yep, all the dancers were female tributes. Finally a kiss! Trude: Thank you. You only have to wait a couple more days to find out! Ahschung: Thank you, I'm glad you thought so. :D