So being ill for Christmas is fantastic…and debilitating for my work ethic, but I really wanted to get this final chapter up for Christmas Day, or as close to it as I could manage. It is coming up to 2:30 AM in England; I have a box of tissues and Olbas inhalers on call; I feel alive.

Twelve drummers drumming

Peeta rolled over in the sumptuous double bed and kicked off some of the layers of fur that threatened to drown him. When that did nothing to ease the heat, he groaned and sat up, surveying the room grimly. At first, this lavish room had been a pleasure to wake up to, but now that it had been his prison for over a day, he disliked every feather-stuffed pillow and golden tassel of it.

His flagrant red pyjama shirt had ripped in the night. The ridiculous, silken garment had evidently been tailored to someone's skinner build: the shoulders were too narrow, the arms and torso too constricting. Grumbling to himself, Peeta ripped the whole thing off, balled it up and threw it across the room. When he had first woken up here, his last memory being of him getting struck around the head by a mystery assailant, he'd been slightly fearful for his life. Now he was, at best, seriously pissed off.

He sidled over to the bedroom door and hammered. 'Excuse me! Would anyone like to tell me what's going on now?' No-one came to this room except to serve him food and clear his dishes, but he continued to yell as if he had an audience a thousand strong. 'So what, you're just going to keep me trapped in here for the rest of my life? That's probably illegal, and I think I have rights!'

Peeta was thrown for a loop when his frantic knocking was replied.

'Yes?' he breathed.

'Room service,' came a sprightly reply.

This was new. They hadn't announced their arrival before. He could take them, knock them out and run past them, run…where? He didn't know where he was only that it was most likely the domain of some hedonistic Capitolite. 'Come in,' he said and stepped back.

The door opened to reveal two women, barely older than him, dressed in identical, white uniforms and wheeling a room service trolley between them. Their professional smiles froze on their faces before falling into crude gapes as they took in his state of undress.

'Er,' Peeta fought the urge to fold his arms over his torso, 'should I just take the tray so you can go?'

'Oh! Not at all, not at all,' one said, seizing full control of the trolley, 'I've got to come in and see if everything's to your tastes.'

'We both do,' the other chipped in, rushing after her before she could have the door slammed in her face.

Peeta looked blankly between them, unmoved by their eager, effervescent countenances.

'That's funny. My servers weren't so attentive last time. They just left my food at the door.' He tapped his chin faux pensively. 'Must be something to do with how I was fully dressed then.'

The women at least had the decency to look embarrassed. 'Oh, not at all, sir. The young master insisted that you be treated as a most honoured guest. After all, you must be wearied by your isolation.'

'I am, I guess. Why doesn't "the young master" just let me out, or at least explain why I'm here in the first place?' The young master had to be Katniss's Capitol admirer. What he didn't understand was why he wasn't lying bloodied in an inhospitable torture chamber instead of standing in a plush suite, having a good old-fashioned pampering practically forced on him by two attractive brunettes.

'Please, sit down, sir. Let us spoil you,' one said, pushing him onto the bed rather roughly.

Peeta supposed it was easier to play stupid and accept their inelegant evasions. 'You drive a hard bargain. Can I at least know your names?'

'I'm Aelia,' the one with the rounder face and hazel eyes announced.

'And I'm Caelia,' the taller, dark-eyed one pressed.

'Breakfast?' asked Aelia, lifting the silver cloche with a flourish.

'Sure.'

'A massage?' Caelia asked. Aelia scowled at her.

'Er.'

Before he could blink, Aelia had brandished a bunch of grapes in his face. 'Open wide.'

'No thank you,' Peeta ducked away from the swinging fruit and found himself caught in Caelia's talons.

'You have lovely shoulders,' Caelia murmured in his ear, trying to knead out the tension she was in a way causing, and he leapt from the bed.

He again looked between the two women, who weren't even attempting to be subtle anymore. They leaned towards him, their intense gazes promising something that Peeta knew he would be very uncomfortable receiving. And then he saw it. Katniss. They were meant to look like Katniss, as if one girl was a substitute for another.

'I can eat my own fruit,' he said in a measured tone, 'and my shoulders feel fine.' He took up a strawberry from the array of fruit Aelia had uncovered and popped it into his mouth. 'Everything is completely to my tastes. You may leave.'

Aelia and Caelia regarded him for a short while.

'I'll run you a bath!' Aelia declared, darting into the ensuite before he could deny her.

Caelia charged forward. 'I'll help you prepare.'

Peeta shuffled backwards, holding his pyjama pants tightly to his person. 'You know what? I'm good.' He sighed and shoved his hand roughly through his blond curls, refusing to feel guilty over the next words. 'Look, Caelia, I know what you two are up to, and I'm pretty sure that your boss has everything to do with it, but I love Katniss. I love her. And you're beautiful and sweet and that massage did feel very good, but I just can't see myself with anyone but her.'

'Oh,' said Caelia.

He wasn't sure what that indicated, but he crept forward tentatively and rested his hands on her shoulders, keeping the rest of his body at a careful distance in case she went for his pyjama pants while he was off guard. 'So please, if you have any information at all that you think would be useful to me, tell me,' he gently urged, shamelessly aiming what Bran would teasingly call "mutt eyes" at her flushed face.

'Bath's ready,' Aelia broadcasted, her sunny demeanour faltering when she saw the pair of them. 'Of course, Caelia. You wait for me to get out of the way and then you sink your claws in.'

'No!' Caelia snapped out of her daze and appealed to her colleague. 'It wasn't like that. He gave me a lovely speech about how he was in love with that girl Katniss and could never be with anyone else, and it was the most adorable thing.'

Aelia's suppressed rage melted into frothy fawning. 'That is so darling!'

'She is one lucky girl.'

'She's here, you know.'

'What?'

Aelia covered her mouth, shaking her head frantically.

'Forget her, she's deranged,' Caelia informed him buoyantly.

'She seems perfectly sane to me. Please, tell me about her. Is she ok?'

'She arrived yesterday,' Aelia squeaked under the power of his blue eyes. 'She looked all right. The young master's looking after her.'

'All right,' Peeta murmured. 'All right, thank you so much.' He drew Aelia into a brief hug, which made her squeal in a convoluted mixture of surprise, fear and something Peeta couldn't identify. Long after he had let his arms fall to his side, she clung on. 'Er, please let go.'

'Right, of course, sorry.'

Peeta waved uncomfortably as they sidled out of the room, dragging the food trolley after them, before stepping into the bathroom. 'Capitolites,' he murmured as he took in the sight. Forget a bath, that was a freaking lake.

Well that was surprisingly easy, Peeta thought as he removed the rest of his clothes and slid into the indented bath. What he didn't realise, as he relaxed back in the water, was that Aelia and Caelia were only the first act.

The second wasn't kind enough to grant him a long interval, stalking into the ensuite without a consideration for his privacy. Peeta studied him, his employer. His hair was no longer blue, his eyes were unmasked, but there was no doubt that this was the man who had hired him merely thirteen days ago.

'I was wondering when you would show up,' Peeta said.

Roe never spoke a word, only sneering as he prowled the perimeter of the bath like a jungle cat circling its dying prey. But Peeta refused to die. He sat up and looked as dignified as he could when covered in soap suds.

'What are you doing?' he asked.

'Just checking out my competition.'

And no doubt coming to the conclusion that the odds are stacked in your favour, Peeta thought in this new sarcastic tone that he could have only picked up from one person. What would Katniss do, say? She would be bold, defiant, unflinching. 'Oh, enjoying the view?'

Roe met the barb with a humourless laugh. 'Hardly. In truth, you've been a thorn in my side right from day one; I just didn't know that until a couple of days ago. Types like you are the worst. Trust me, my father has to deal with snakes like you every day in the world of politics. They set themselves up as innocuous, affable men. They joke with you, dine with you, share your dreams and secret desires, and then they just as quickly turn around and take all you have. You kissed my girl. You used my gifts and stole her right from under me.'

'I didn't kiss your girl; I kissed Katniss Everdeen. And last time I checked, Katniss Everdeen doesn't get stolen. I've got the slap to prove it.'

Roe sank to his knees right in front of Peeta and, without a shirt to grab onto, locked a hand around his neck. Peeta forced himself to keep relaxed, to keep watching his opponent with composed blue eyes.

'If it weren't for Heavensbee and his shitty guidance, I'd have you rotting six feet under the snow. I'd have you beaten up so bad even your mother wouldn't love that pretty face anymore.'

Peeta laughed at the irony. Be bold, be Katniss. 'Try it.'

Domitius Roe released him. 'I've got bigger things to worry about and other ways to win her. I have her here, you know.'

'I know.'

'Those two airheaded slappers told you, I suppose. They'd do anything for a pat on the head.'

'Don't talk about them like that,' Peeta said, calmly enough.

'They work for me, I can call them whatever I like. Especially when they didn't do their jobs properly.'

'They work for your father, you spoiled dick, and they didn't do their job because there was no job to do. No-one, I repeat, no-one could turn my head away from Katniss.'

'Admirable,' Roe remarked, eyeing him lazily, as if he had already won their dispute and was considering leaving, 'but that's all you can give her, right? Your dedication and your looks. But looks fade, passion wanes. What's left after that?'

'Plastic surgery?'

'Funny,' Roe drawled. 'Here's what's even funnier. I have Katniss here, so you know, and over the past afternoon, I've been introducing her to the benefits of a Capitol lifestyle, of being a senator's son.'

Peeta caught his implication immediately. 'You really haven't been paying attention to her at all, have you? Since when has Katniss ever cared about money?'

'Don't dismiss the idea so quickly. You didn't see her yourself. She was rather keen on the bow and arrow set I gave her. See, I'm learning. I am paying attention to what she likes. And when I gave her the forest, a whole forest to really call her own, she was more than keen.'

'You idiot,' Peeta snapped, to temper his growing disquiet. 'She loves her forest for its memories just as much as she loves it for itself. What will that new forest mean to her?'

'And what about her sister? Primrose, wasn't it? What a sweet girl, and all the world to Katniss. In fact, I bet Katniss wants to give all the world to dear Prim. But the world costs money, so much money.'

'No,' Peeta said, but he wasn't so sure. Money. Katniss tolerating this man for money in itself was an idea that Peeta could immediately discard. But Prim. What wouldn't Katniss do for Prim? Or to give her family a better life? Peeta knew beyond a doubt that Katniss would lay down her life for her little sister without a question. And he knew that because that was one of the many things he loved about her.

'Face it, delivery boy, I've won,' said Roe with an indulgent leer, 'and you know it.'

By the time Domitius Roe had swept from the room, the bathwater had gone tepid. Peeta didn't even notice.

…

'Never expected to see you again,' Katniss said with a wry smile.

'We have a nasty habit of sticking around where the action is,' Cinna remarked. 'It was annoying in high school, but it's a valuable trait in this industry.'

'And what is this industry?' Katniss asked warily as Octavia fretted over her face, gabbling again about 'beauty base zero'.

'Not an answer you'll want to hear. You've been dragged into the deceptively frivolous world of Capitol entertainment. You didn't ask for this, I know, but with your quick wits, a certain blond ally beside you and a damn good lawyer, you could make it through.'

Heavensbee had lingered following her unceremonious awakening that morning, and now he came to the fore, briefing her on what to do and what to say.

'You'll be meeting Mr Roe at eleven, and you'd better make it good for the cameras. Smile, schmooze. He's your mysterious benefactor, your guardian angel. Let the whole Capitol know how grateful you are.'

'I'm grateful.' Grateful that his blunder attempts at "wooing" helped me get to know Peeta. 'How grateful though? That depends. I've been here for almost a day now. Where the hell is my boyfriend?'

'Boyfriend?' Octavia sighed, before attempting to exchange a giggle with Venia. The fiercely professional, blue-haired woman allowed her a tight-lipped smile.

Heavensbee, on the other hand, had gone sternly pale. 'Do this small thing for the cameras and you just might see him again.'

'You keep making promises. How do I know that you won't just evade them again?'

'You don't.'

She glared at his back as he left.

'Would someone, anyone, explain what is going on here? How I ended up in this mess? Because I have absolutely no idea myself.'

She looked to her stylist team, her kindly designer, but it was Cressida who sat up from her inconspicuous corner and said, 'All right, Katniss. I'll tell you.'

'Well, good.'

Cressida sank back into her easy slouch. 'It started when Senator Gaius Roe, first hired Mr Heavensbee, PR guru to the stars, to tame his only son's wild ways.'

'What's a PR?' Katniss whispered to Cinna.

'Public relations, how a celebrity comes across to the general public audience.'

'Mr Heavensbee had a bright idea on how to do it. What was the antidote to Roe Jr hitting the news for wrecking cars, spitting at reporters, getting kicked off out of bars, clubs, nationwide tours of Panem, and showing a genuine disregard for other human beings? Why, showing that he could actually give a damn about another person. And why not make a romance out of it and build it into a reality show while they were at it? The public always goes for a good show. Panem et circuses: bread and circuses. That's all the Capitol audience really want.

'There were doubts at first when Heavensbee first pitched the idea to Domitius, but the kid ate it up. He said he already had an eye on somebody. A girl in District Twelve, a hidden beauty, a diamond among coal and lots of other crap like that. It was better than they could have hoped for, so they ran with it and hired a director, me. Hi.' She gave Katniss a cavalier wave.

'Initially, I found it to be rather dull fare. I'm not into all the glittery, fluffy nonsense that everyone else seems to love, but I've got to eat, haven't I? But then things got interesting. The boy he hired to deliver these gifts to you, a simple necessity to ease your suspicion but altogether meant as a complete non-entity in this process, he got the Capitol talking. In the end, it wasn't Roe's gifts or inane commentary they tuned in to see, it was you being so tenacious and him being so magnetic that drew them in.'

'How did you see everything? I know there was a camera, but sometimes Peeta didn't have it on.'

Cressida smirked. 'Castor and Pollux in their full body suits. Once your gifts started taking place outside, it was easy for them to follow you, fill in for what Peeta's cap-cam couldn't get. You know, for an acclaimed huntress, you sure don't pay enough attention to your surroundings. Though, I'll let you off. That boy of yours is pretty distracting.'

Katniss snarled. 'I can't believe this. All this time, we were being spied on. Our life, our private life broadcast across the Capitol as cheap afternoon entertainment.'

'Oh, no cheap afternoons involved here. This show has a prime spot on the schedule and a following of millions. Once we recognised the sheer popularity of the romance growing between you and Peeta, we subtly encouraged it. Why do you think Cinna went so far as to dress Peeta up in that suit?'

'Cinna, you were in on it too?' Katniss asked with unexpected sadness.

I'm in on you getting your happiness. I was following the show before I joined the team, so I had ample chance to see you shine. I personally requested to style you for the tenth episode. Whatever you decide to do from here, I'm rooting for you.'

'It's so romantic, though,' Octavia gushed. 'They're already calling you the star-crossed lovers.'

'Why?' Katniss asked.

'Because your love is so beautiful and yet so forbidden!'

'Who forbid it in the first place? Domitius Roe? Why does it matter what he has to say about us?' Katniss turned to Cressida. 'Mr Heavensbee is doing the PR for Domitius, right? How much does he know about this whole clandestine plot?'

'He knows about the public interest in you and Peeta and our attempts to magnify it. He's on board for that part. He thinks it gives the show more interest, more conflict. But in the end, he's expecting you to fall into the young Roe's grasping arms. We know that's not likely to happen.'

'So will you help me now then? Will you help me find Peeta and get out with him? You want your viewer rating and I want to go home. They coincide more or less.'

Cinna smiled at Katniss. 'Portia's with Peeta right now, readying him. When you and Domitius meet again, we'll make sure Peeta's right there with you.'

…

But he wasn't, not at first. It was just Katniss and Roe. And that was rather like being trapped in a nest of tracker jackers, waiting tensely to see whether or not they would smother you.

'More tea?' Domitius asked, pouring her some before she could even decline.

'Thank you,' Katniss said with a sweet smile. It had taken her minutes of manipulating her face in the mirror to learn how to affect that smile. 'You are very kind.'

'Very kind,' Roe repeated. 'I don't know why I've become like this, Katniss. I only know that I can attribute it to you. You've changed me for the better. You make me want to give you everything I can. And I wouldn't regret it, not a single thing, because you're worth it, Katniss Everdeen.'

She resisted the urge to turn in her seat and check whether or not Mr Heavensbee was miming the words along with him.

'Thank you,' she repeated again, before lifting the cup to her lips in order to avoid more talking.

'You look gorgeous today.'

She was dressed in a pale blue, fur-trimmed dress that accentuated the silver in her eyes. Roe sat across from her garbed in all white. It filled her with unease for some reason, that colour. A failed attempt to make an angel of a known devil. 'So do you,' she said all the same.

Where's Peeta?

Almost as if he had heard her call, Peeta stormed through the set of doors that she happened to be facing (because this room was grand enough to have two) looking imposing in a crisp suit of grey.

'Peeta!' That morning, when Haymitch had contacted her, he had urged her to be cool, to read the scene carefully before acting, but she forgot all of that as she leapt from her seat, ran across the room and hurled herself into his arms. He staggered backward, knocking his head on the door, but hugged her back with no less enthusiasm.

'Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?' Katniss asked, pulling back, hands crawling over his face, his neck, his arms, all the probable sites of injury.

'No, I'm fine. I'm great.' He took her face in his hands and smiled hopefully at her. 'I thought you'd given up on me. I thought you'd given him a try.'

Katniss pulled out of his grasp. 'How could you think that of me?'

'You know I could never think anything badly of you, Katniss. He got inside my head, convinced me that this world was better for you and Prim, especially Prim. And I know that you'd always put Prim before me.'

'You idiot,' and Katniss thumped him lightly on the chest. 'The best place for Prim is Twelve. With me and her mom and you and Buttercup and Rory. And the cupcakes? Where in this Capitol would she get those cupcakes?'

Peeta breathed a shuddering sigh of relief. 'We'll go home then, and I'll give her all the cupcakes she wants. You won't be able to walk through your house for the sea of cupcakes flooding it.'

Katniss laughed. 'Then where would all the cheese buns go?'

'The forest. We'll dig a hole in the ground like squirrels and store them by the crateful.' He held her by the waist and pulled her close again. 'And no-one else would be able to find them,' he whispered for her ears alone.

'I'd like that,' she whispered back, smiling like crazy. Peeta was here and undamaged and making sweet promises that she knew he would keep if she held him to them, no matter how ludicrous they were.

There was the sound of shattering porcelain behind them, and Katniss turned around to see Domitius Roe standing in the centre of the room, a smashed teacup at his feet. 'This isn't how it's supposed to go.'

The room was silent, but the hungry cameras were still rolling. Cressida, Castor and Pollux were scattered about the room. Domitius seemed to see them for the first time. 'Get out,' he ordered them quietly. When they didn't respond, too shocked by the request. 'I said get out!' They hurriedly gathered their equipment after that. 'You too,' he said to Plutarch Heavensbee. 'Yes you, especially you.'

'Domitius,' Katniss began once the doors had closed behind them. Katniss had despised the cameras moments ago, but now they were gone, she recognised them for what they were: protection.

'Shut up, you stupid bitch,' Domitius replied.

Peeta started forward in swift fury, but Katniss held him back.

'I offered you the world on a platter. What else can you need? What does that baker's boy have that I don't? He's nothing. He'll live a baker, die a baker and no-one will care.'

'And you, Roe?' Peeta asked. 'What are you without your father? You can't inherit the title of senator, you know. And judging by the reason you're doing this ridiculous show in the first place, you're hardly going to make the friends you need to elect you as one when dear Daddy's reign of glory is over.'

'Careful, baker brat,' Roe hissed as he powered forward. 'I'm not going to play by Heavensbee's stupid rules anymore. I could mess you up right here, right now, and no-one would care. I bet I could kill you right now and my dad would find a way to cover it up.'

Peeta laughed. 'And how do you think you're going to kill me? I bet you couldn't even lift the silver spoon out of your mouth without breaking a sweat. And I'm not usually one to boast, but I could probably lift your scrawny ass over my head without a trouble.'

Katniss gaped at Peeta. 'Where is this sass coming from?'

'Spending too much time around you?' he suggested.

'Don't say that after we've been apart for a day.'

'A whole day. Don't tell me you're about to become one of those clingy girls.'

'Never. If anything, you'd be the clingy one, puppy-boy.'

Roe cleared his throat. 'I don't need to lift a finger to, er, subdue you,' he said. 'I've got guards for that.'

He did indeed. Four men, all taller than Peeta and burlier too, slid from their unobtrusive posts around the room and began to converge on them.

'You wouldn't,' Katniss said.

'I would.'

'On your lovely rug?'

'Blood is pretty hard to wash out,' Roe admitted.

'Do you really think I'd go straight over to you after I see the guy I…like a lot get beaten up by your command.'

'Yes, everyone has their price.'

'Not everyone thinks that way!'

'They don't think they do, but you don't know how you'd react to a jewel encrusted bow that can fire say ten arrows at a time.'

Katniss frowned. 'That isn't a thing.'

'It could be.'

'Even if it was possible, what would be the point of it? Arrows are all about precision aiming. With ten arrows…why am I even explaining this to you?'

'Imminent death approaching,' Peeta murmured from behind her.

Katniss wished she had her hunting equipment. She stepped out of her high-heeled boots. They would have to do as weapons.

The drums of death were beating. Katniss could hear them, far off but drawing closer. Peeta perked up and looked about quizzically. Domitius, by contrast, went very pale and very still.

'Shit,' he mumbled to himself, then he rose his voice to command. 'Stop,' he said to the house guards, 'just stop. Go back to your posts. Nothing happened here. And you two, go over there, sit down and shut up. I don't want to hear a word from you.'

So Katniss and Peeta wordlessly ignored him, running from the room and into the grand reception hall. Through the front windows, they could see a grand procession cut a path through the snow, a black car flanked doggedly by a party of drummers in matching red coats.

'The President,' Domitius murmured with a healthy dose of trained fear.

'For real?' Peeta mouthed at Katniss.

She shrugged in return and looked down at their clothes. At least they were presentable.

Two seemingly important men and their entourage emerged from the black car and continued the parade up the stairs. Next followed a ridiculous amount of security measures, pairs of security guards filing in, probing the area and validating that Katniss and Peeta weren't war-mongering rebels or something else to that farcical extreme.

Finally, President Snow and a man the Twelve residents could only assume was Domitius's father, swanned into the house. The President was a lot smaller in real life, though every inch the television added to his height was probably intentional. Otherwise, he looked surreally the same with his white hair and shrunken mouth and eyes that would have better suited a snake. It unmanned her to see him just metres away from her with no partition of glass between them. If she walked around him, she would see the back of his head. She had never seen the back of head. It sounded foolish, but after all the speeches she'd seen him deliver, she had almost begun to discount the fact that he would have one.

'Good heavens,' he said, looking coolly between the three teenagers, 'people.'

'Mr President, I'm so sorry.' Gaius Roe has a tendency toward plumpness, as most Capitolite males did, but he was well-groomed and looked nothing like his son, which ticked some boxes in Katniss's eyes. 'If you would like to head straight into the–'

'No, Gaius, I'm curious about this.'

'All right,' the senator enunciated carefully. 'Domitus, would you like to explain exactly what has happened here? Wait, is that the girl from Twelve? The one you were sending gifts to? You brought her here? And who is that young man?'

'He's Peeta,' Katniss said hesitantly. 'He's from Twelve too. We were sort of abducted from there, actually.'

Even in the President's presence, Gaius felt the need to sigh heavily. 'Domitius, not again. You cannot simply kidnap people when you feel like it. You're as liable for my reputation as I am for yours, and so help me if you haven't caused enough damage to the Roe name already.'

'I had a reason. If you could just let me explain.'

'There is nothing to explain on your part. This is a house of the senate, not a shelter for district-born children. Where's Mr Heavensbee?'

'I don't know. I sent him away.'

'Find him and stay with him and listen to what he has to say for damn once.'

'But–'

'That is an order, son. It's that or I'll confirm your return to Capitol Star for the next season.'

Domitius growled and stalked away, searching in vain for something loose on the floor to kick at before he disappeared into the next room. Peeta and Katniss cheerfully watched him go.

'My deepest apologies for that, Mr President.'

'I've had teenagers too,' Snow said in a tone that was too empty for the personal, reassuring words. 'That is not the worst I have seen.'

Then both men turned to Katniss and Peeta, as if only just remembering that they were still there. Neither of them seemed to know what to do with them.

'Well, what are you waiting for?' Gaius said, after a while. 'Please vacate my premises.'

'But we have no way to get home,' Katniss told him.

'That isn't really my responsibility.'

'Then we'll just loiter about in your gardens until we starve or freeze to death then,' Peeta said. 'How benevolent of you, Senator.'

Gaius began to reconsider, but President Snow cut him to the chase with an impatient wave of my hand. 'For goodness' sake, Gaius. We have so many more important things to discuss here. Thirteen won't wait forever. The two of you, take my hovercraft home.'

The two adolescents should have been bowled over by this flippant form of generosity, but they were still bargaining.

'Can we have our coats back too?'

'And my scarf? It's the woolly orange one.'

By now, the two powerful politicians were too exasperated by these upstart teenagers to say no.

…

'So, I think I'm going to call Haymitch and tell him what happened,' Katniss shouted over the din of the drums that flanked their crawling car. 'I think he'll be able to tell us what legal action we could afford to take against this whole show fiasco.'

'Oh, is it "Haymitch" now? Should I be worried?'

Katniss hit him on the shoulder. 'Why would I come all the way from District Twelve for you if you needed to be worried? I could be propping my feet up at home right now, or out in the woods.'

'But instead, you're here with me, in an overheated car that reeks of roses and surrounded by a dozen overeager drummers.'

'Don't make me regret it.'

'Wouldn't dream of it.'

They curled up on the backseat until it was time to transfer to the hovercraft, breezing past the confounded security with a letter of authorisation from the President himself.

'I am…extremely tired,' Katniss realised as they strapped themselves in.

'You've come a long way, done a lot.'

'Don't you dare make that face at me.'

'What face?'

'The one where you're sorry for things you had no choice about.'

'Ah, I know the one. Still, you had to cross the whole of Panem to save my sorry butt.'

Katniss was too exhausted to listen to him try and heap more blame on himself. 'Shut up. It was worth it; you were worth it. End of story.'

Even though she had her eyes closed, she could feel his smile on her face in almost the same way she felt the sun. His hand twined with hers. 'Next thing I know you'll be saying that you love me or something,' Peeta joked.

Katniss tried to throw his hand off, but only once. Then she let their joined hands hang between them and clasp ever tighter. 'No,' she said. Not yet.

'All right,' Peeta said good-naturedly and brought her hand up to kiss.

'What are you doing?' she mumbled.

'Wearing down your defences.'

'I see.'

Peeta waited for a prudent amount of time. 'Is it working?'

Katniss paused to think before a slow, satisfied grin spread across her face. She could feel Peeta poised next to her, awaiting her diagnosis.

'Hmm, give it another twelve years.'

AN: So there it is, the end, everything all wrapped up with a neat little bow. I guess the only thing left to say now is: thank you to everyone who followed this story through until its conclusion. Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays and a happy new year.