Chapter 5

A/N: Sorry this took so long to post and for the quality of it. I've spent the last month mostly staring at it and trying to add the right details. I hope you enjoy it anyways.

Dinner gets weird for me, mostly having Peeta here but not our kids. I never had dinner with all these loved ones. He helps my mother bring the platter from the kitchen, his biceps looking so firm. I try not to but every time I see him somewhere, like against the counter just now putting the brownies out, I think. We did it there, on our first Anniversary. We're going to do it there on the kitchen table, oh and there on the floor. The thoughts come vividly with pictures that might have made even Johanna uncomfortable. I can't help blushing and grinning. I shouldn't be thinking this right now. Awkward thoughts with my mom and little sister right there and I can't really act on them anyways or share them.

He touches my arm and I twitch. I must have really been out of it for him to catch me unawares. "You okay?"

"Yeah." I say unconvincingly even to my own ears. He frowns and gives me that, 'seriously you're lying to me about this?' look.

"Just thinking, I've never invited a boy over for dinner before, a whole family with boys but."I mumble and shrug, the Hawthorne family were mostly boys. Messy, fart joke making boys. I think I would give Peeta a heart attack at this point if I told him I had been thinking about our future sexual escapades in this house. And a nosebleed. That wouldn't be nice so it was okay that I was lying to him.

"Well then I'm glad it was me." He says laying on the charm.

Wait, what? I'm still bad at hiding my emotions so I blush.

"That I get to be your first." He clarifies.

That doesn't help, and I'm left speechless. My family is here Peeta! What had I offered up as my excuse again? He couldn't be saying what I think he was, he didn't know that. For sixteen year old Peeta that was just a wild dream, and he was way too polite to say that even if he was my Peeta to my family. I glance at my mom and Prim to find that they haven't reacted to Peeta's comment at all. No, we thinking the same thing.

He pulls out my chair for me with a flourish and goes to sit down across from me.

It's as he sits down that I remember what I had said and answer, pleased with my double meaning. "Me too."

He smiles at me, and I try not to laugh.

The table has cream linens on it and a vase with flowers in the middle like a well to do merchants home. I wonder if my mother missed this sort of thing from her old life.

"It's nice to have guests, again. Now that we're neighbors you should stop by more often Peeta."

He makes a show of smelling the roast. "If I had known that was an option, I would have invited myself sooner."

We start passing the food around.

My mom laughs. "You're much like your father. Speaking of which, how is your Aunt doing?"

He answers politely and we started eating.

"This is great Mrs. Everdeen." He says half way through his slice of roast.

"Thank you, Peeta." She says glancing at me.

Wha? Oh. I suddenly become very aware that I haven't thanked her for dinner yet.

"Yes, it's very good." I add and I didn't have to make it.

My mom smiles at me.

Dinner is also suspiciously quiet, no little kids making a mess or looking for attention. It makes me jittery. My shoulders tense it's never good when the kids are this quiet. I look down at my scar less arms and remind myself that I don't have Nick or Dandel yet. Not yet Therefore they weren't playing with the knives or seeing if they could fly or dead from eating rat poison. This is okay silence, enjoying your food silence.

Peeta is done eating first and Prim starts a conversation with him. I'm still fighting off the mother sense tingling and worry that I didn't know where my children were. I hadn't worried before I sat down, but this table was full of memories of them.

Prim laughed.

Peeta brought over a spiced apple pie, a fall tradition for us as a married couple, but he doesn't know that. My mom and Prim praised it highly. Peeta glanced at me hopefully. Oh. "It's delicious." I praise with a moan. Like it always is.

Peeta blushes but smiles modestly. He has to know that was tasty. I've yet to taste any baked thing of his that wasn't. I know he had some failed batches when he first returned to twelve but he never shared them.

After dinner, Peeta insists on doing the dishes so I volunteer to help him by drying them. I think it's by my family's design that we end up alone in the kitchen. I want to wrap my arms around his waist from behind but I couldn't. It was also harder drying the dishes with our shoulders so close and alone, not to do anything or otherwise indicate a relationship that wasn't there yet, while chasing off memories. I wasn't this bad normally. It had to be because I couldn't, that it was almost all I could think about. Like when I had to go without dinner so Prim could eat that dinner was all I could focus on.

Peeta playfully splashed some water in my face. "What has you so distracted?"

You. I shrugged. "Just thinking about the victory tour coming up." I lie.

He hands me a clean dish. "Yeah. I'm not looking forward to it."

"Me either."

Too soon all the dishes are cleaned and put away. I couldn't think of any additional reasons to keep Peeta here with me. He says his good nights to my family and I walk him home.

"I think I'll be safe walking the two houses down to mine." Peeta grins.

"Well if you don't want me to join you." I turn around as if to head back home.

"Wait, " He grabs my arm and I let him turn me back around.

I could have started some witty banter but I didn't have the time to waste anymore. I had to send him a message and I had to make sure he remembered it. The first thought, kissing him senseless wouldn't work as he wouldn't be able to remember anything else.

"You know, this has probably been the best day of my life." He's glancing up at the stars.

I wince. It's sad if its true but I guess spending a full relaxed day with the person you're in hopelessly in love with has to count for something. He will live to have so much better than this though. "Peeta, you know that you mom is wrong, right? You are the best of your family."

He nods in that 'okay sure, drop the subject before I get emotional' way.

I hug him and whisper in his ear, "Meet me with Bee at the tree at midnight."

I get the expected confused look like he had misheard me. I brush my fingertips against his cheek and down his jaw and let myself admire his innocence. Victors were never innocent but veterans and pawns in a bigger game, tortured and left an orphan even less so.

I hope that the weirdness of my words and tenderness towards him will be memorable enough that he'll remember it when he needs to. It's the best I've got. If he met me at the tree with Beetee then district 13 would have to pick him up too, right?

We reach his porch. He hugs me and I return it enthusiastically. " Goodnight, Katniss."

I don't want to say goodbye, but I have to keep my tears in. Instead I kiss his cheek and back away. I wave towards him and head home.

When I get there I wake Prim up for a hug. "I had a nightmare." No, I lived a nightmare, but it's the only way I can think of to address this, I keep my voice low, knowing every room must at this point be bugged and not wanting to give Snow any awful ideas to try. " that you and I were both in the Capitol. That the games were in the Capitol and you were reaped and I had to watch you be hurt by some trap you got into because you were trying to help someone else."

"You've already given me my life back." She say confidently. "If I had to you'd help me get out."

"I can't save you from the traps, like a fire in the mines."

Prim says nothing. What do you say to such a hypothetical dream?

"Just promise me that you won't choose to go to the Capitol."

She looks even more confused and a bit like she thinks I'm losing it. There is nothing more I can say without pushing it or seeming suspicious to those listening from the Capitol. The last thing my family needs is for Snow to think I'm already some subversive rebel spy. I hug her longer than necessary, and say goodnight.

In my room I write an explanation letter to myself about what to do with the one addressed to the Mellarks and to hide it until then, certain the Snow searched my room the day of the Victory tour and his threats. I add that pushing those I am starting to really care about away will not make it easier if they die. I lesson I had learned from extremely painful experience. Being honest with them about my emotions while not fun would make us all stronger. If mom had never told dad that she loved him it wouldn't of made it easier when he died, it would have only led to endless regrets, guilt along with the despair.

I lie in bed and try to calm my nerves. I stare up at my ceiling until sleep claims me like a quick drowning pulling me under and paralyzing me.

***HGHGHGHGHG

Katniss woke up with a headache that felt like someone had dropped her brain off of the training center roof and then put it back into her head. Everything was brighter than it should be. Had I hit my head? Peeta was sitting in a chair in my bedroom drawing something by the window. It could be my headache or lack of sleep on his part but he looked so tired, so much older. I was fascinated with the serious expression on his face and his long eyelashes that I had never noticed before.

"Peeta?" I croaked.

He looked relieved when he looked up at me. "How are you feeling?"

"Head hurts." I rub my temples.

He nods and passes me a tray of food. It smells amazing. Scrambled eggs with cheese in them, pig bacon, fruit, and a Danish of a sort I'm not yet familiar with but that smells strongly of spiced apples.

"Thanks." I say before diving in.

"What time is it?" I ask.

He points to a bedside clock I didn't recognize that declares that it's noon. I don't think I've ever slept in this long. I thank him and begin to eat. Then I notice the walls that are painted to look like a forest at sunset. I don't think that was there last night. I had heard that he could paint but he must have painted all night. Paint fumes could be the reason for my headache.

"What happened? Did I hit my head?" I ask.

"How much do you remember?" He asked back.

That wasn't good. "Uh. I remember trying to sleep last night? I think?" Did I hit my head in my sleep or during a nightmare?

"And what happened that day?" He asks.

As nice as it is that he was looking out for me, if weird, I had to ask "Where's my mom?" If I had hit my head, wouldn't she be treating me? I didn't see the point in telling him about my day hunting in the woods and visiting Hazelle. How would that help?

I see him struggle for words for a second. "You know your mom moved away a long time ago, back when you were still a teenager."

I snort. "I am still a teenager even if I don't feel like it. " I see him tense and then he takes my left hand in his and kisses it.

I blush and then glance at my hand for the first time today. There are new scars and old ones I don't recognize, and the skin feels thinner. I realize that Peeta has a lot more scars too and has wrinkles on his forehead that were never there yesterday.

"Katniss, I know this is going to sound strange but-"

"How old am I now?" I ask standing up and looking for a mirror. I couldn't have, had I been in a coma for years? Had I forgotten what happened to me?

"Nearly 40." He answers carefully.

The mirror I find confirms this in my wrinkles, but I can't remember anything since going to sleep a few months before the victory tour. How could I forget decades?

"What happened?" I ask trying to hide my panic.

He's about to answer when we hear crying in the next room. I follow Peeta cautiously across the hall.

"Daddy!" A little boy with blonde curls grabs Peeta's legs and I know at once that this must be his son. Of course it is. I feel my throat tighten, Peeta would make a great dad. I feel a bit of weird jealousy of the child's mom. Peeta must have moved on as he should and found a woman who deserves him, and he's just visiting an old friend. If I am thirty something then Prim must be married too now and I'm all alone like I planned. I should be feeling accomplished that I managed to avoid falling in love despite two persistent boys and decades of trying. Well, for all I knew they gave up quickly, even before this coma I must have been in. My mom clearly had. Was Gale still my friend after he's probably found someone else too?

I am broken from these thoughts when Peeta hands me his son who puts his small arms around my neck.

"Come on, snack time Nick." Peeta leads us downstairs. It occurs to me that maybe I'm not in my house but his.

Nick tugs on my hair. "Woods today?"

Peeta hands him an apple slice which he plays with and then consumes. "Maybe you should ask your, dad?"

"But I wanna go with you!" He leaps from my arms to the couch and growls on all fours like a wolf. He yips. Peeta grins widely at his son and makes faces.

On the side table is a picture of this older Peeta, Nick, a school age girl with dark hair and blue eyes, and older me. Had I been older when the accident occurred? Had I just forgotten my life? Wait. A persistent related thought came to me and wouldn't be brushed off.

"We're, you're, I'm married?" I squeak out the question. I have to be misreading this.

He kisses me gently. "Yes."

This has to be a dream because I'm never getting married. I can't afford the weakness of being that attached or dependent on someone else. I'm ashamed of myself.

"But I'm never getting married, I couldn't stand to watch my child get reaped!" I cry in denial.

He pulls me close and makes me look him in the eye. "Katniss, there are no more games, and Snow is long dead. We're safe. Our children are safe." He says it so convincingly that I have to believe him. A world with no more hunger games? So this is a dream, but a nice one with no mutts or dead children. Despite Gale's woodland ramblings, there is no way we could stop the games. The Capitol controls everything. They are always listening to us weak and starving cozens of the Districts. They wiped out 13 for defying them. Such monsters can't be defeated. Is this a future I wish I could have? Of course it is. Except for the being married part. That was for people too stupid or weak to live otherwise.

But if it was true, a world without Snow and the Hunger Games...

"I wish this wasn't a dream." I sigh and shake my head.

"Its not a dream." Dream Peeta says predictably, then winces and grabs his chest, gasping. I'm suddenly back in the arena and his blood poisoning has hit his blood stream making him feverish, weak and shaking. His face is red and his hands shake as he stumbles towards the kitchen. Just like then the boy who saved my family's life is dying and I feel useless and lost. I hear a crash of metal hitting floor and glass breaking and a thump.

Why am I dreaming this? I suddenly realize, as the little boy grabs me and cries loudly, that this isn't a dream. It's a nightmare.

...

Dun Dun Duuuun. Your first cliffhanger. What do you think? Reviews are motivation!