The sun dances on the wooden floor in front of me and I wake with a warm happy feeling. Peeta's arm is still wrapped softly around me and I nestle back into his embrace. I haven't felt this safe in so long and I'm not about to let the moment pass me up. I let my breathing match his slow and rhythmic breaths and close my eyes, but don't go back to sleep. My thoughts drift to a future and where this could all lead. I think I could marry Peeta now that there is no Capitol forcing it. But there could never be children; I would make sure of that somehow. There's probably some surgery or medicine I could take to make me sterile. It's a sad thought, but I know I could never risk it. I open my eyes again not wanting to think of that right now. I roll over in Peeta's arms and rest my head under his chin, listening to his steady heartbeat.

"Good morning." Peeta says, burying his face in my hair.

"Good morning. I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay, I'd much rather be awake."

I smile and breathe in his warm scent. Slowly I realize I slept peacefully for the first time in what seems like years. "Did you have any nightmares?"

"Not one." He says planting small, sweet kisses on the top of my head. "You didn't have them either, did you?"

I shake my head no and then go back to listening to his heartbeat. I don't ever want to move. I feel like I have years of lost time to make up for. Peeta takes to brushing my hair back off my face. It's grown quite a bit since the bombing and most of my bald spots are gone now. We lay here for quite a while, not talking, just holding on to one another.

A banging on the front door jerks me awake. "Haymitch." I groan.

Peeta sits up "I went over to Haymitch's yesterday and he had plenty of liquor."

"Then he's just drunk." I roll out of bed and pull on the pair of pants I left on the floor last night. I head for the stairs and Peeta isn't far behind.

I yank open the front door ready to yell and Effie is standing there in a magenta wig with a huge smile on her face.

"It's going to be a big, big, big day! I have wonderful news!" She walks around me and into the house. "Now, we don't have much time, so I'll just give you the details you need to know, the rest I'll tell you on the train. Rescue teams found Finnick alive down in the sewers. After months of surgery and therapy he's ready to go home. You're part of the welcoming committee and you have ten minutes to make yourselves decent enough to get on the train."

"You couldn't have told us a week ago?" I grumble, but Effie is already looking at her schedule and ignoring me. Peeta grabs my hand and drags me back upstairs. We dress quickly and are back down in front of Effie before she even has time to tell us to hurry.

Peeta and I trot across the yard after Effie and when we catch up she's banging on Haymitch's door.

"I went to tell him first. I thought he would need a little more time to get ready." After five more minutes of waiting on his doorstep and Effie talking about how rude and inconsiderate it is to be late, Haymitch almost falls out of his door with a bag in his hand.

"What is that?" Effie points to the bag and wrinkles her nose at the stench of stale liquor.

"I don't know how dependable these trains will be with their alcohol. We do have a new president after all."

Eventually, after several drunken falls and Peeta and I having to practically carry Haymitch on the train, we pull away from District Twelve. We dump Haymitch on the nearest sofa and take in our surroundings. It's the same train that took us to the Capitol as tributes.

I think Effie notices my face, because she says "They just couldn't see destroying something so nice, so they put it to use." She sits in one of the plush armchairs and her eyes adopt that vacant look that she wore when I last saw her in the Capitol. As annoying as Effie can sometimes be with her manners and schedules, I genuinely like her.

Peeta goes to deposit Haymitch's bag of liquor in his old room while I wander around the train. It hasn't changed much and it's giving me the feeling I'm being secretly transported back to the Capitol. My breathing goes shallow and I make my way to the very last train car and press the button that allows the back to open up and become an open air compartment. The air is freezing, but I gulp down as much as I can. It helps, but only a little. I start to panic and thoughts of going back into the arena begin to overwhelm me. I take another deep breath and then start my repeating game again.

"My name is Katniss Everdeen. I live in District Twelve. Prim is dead. My mother is in District Two. I love Peeta. Finnick is alive. We are going to District Four to welcome him home. We are not going back to the arena. I can't go back to the arena."

"What are you doing out here?" Peeta asks, as he wraps an arm around my shoulders. "You're freezing."

I take a minute to practice breathing before I answer him. "I panicked. My brain was trying to trick me into believing we were going back to the Capitol. We're not going there are we?"

"No, we're going to District Four. It will be alright, I promise." Peeta hugs me and then leads me back into the warmth and confinement of the train. He probably thinks I was going to try and jump. I can't blame him. If I had been out there any longer I don't doubt I would've started considering it.

We spend the rest of the afternoon in the sitting room with Effie. We play chess, look out the window, and try and guess which district we're in. After a while Haymitch disappears into his room and I fall asleep.

Effie wakes me up rattling Haymitch's door trying to get him to come to dinner. I open my eyes to find Peeta sitting across from me and hastily trying to hide a sketchbook and pencil under the cushions of his chair.

"What are you doing?" I ask, sitting up a little too quickly and making my head spin.

"Nothing." Peeta says, standing up and stretching. "Just getting up to go to dinner and I was about to wake you."

I nod and as soon as Peeta is a few steps away I dive for his chair and grab the book. He lunges for me, but misses and topples over. I open the sketchbook and find pages and pages of Peeta's drawings. Some of them are flowers, animals, and places. There's even one of Buttercup, but they're mostly of me. Half of them look like they're from before the Quell. Peeta grabs me from behind and lifts me off the ground and tackles me on the couch.

I curl up around the book, but I'm laughing so hard that my strength gives way long before it should have. "Give it back!" I gasp.

Peeta gives me an exasperated look and runs off to his room. I flip myself off the couch and try and run after him, but I end up half walking, half crawling. Effie finds me propped up against a wall in the hallway trying to catch my breath.

"Katniss?" I think she might be afraid that I've gone mad.

"Peeta has a sketchbook and I was trying to look. He fought me for it."

Effie almost smiles and then says "Well get up and go to the dining room. We're late for dinner as it is." And she clicks away in her shiny high heels.

Peeta comes down the hallway next and helps me to my feet.

"Why won't you let me see your drawings?"

"Because I didn't die in the Quarter Quell, that's why."

"What do you mean?" I make him stop.

"I left them on the train, so that you would find them when you went home." Peeta says, not looking me in the eye. "I wanted to give you something…To remember me with."

The thought is so sweet and sad at the same time I just hug him and give him a quick kiss. "Effie's upset that we're late for dinner."

"Let's not upset her anymore then." Peeta takes my hand and leads me off to the dining car and after today, I never want to let go.