Kids go back to school and get everyone else's germs and I get sick because my immune systems seems to be on a permanent vacation. Good for you because I basically laid in bed and wrote this while watching Tom and Jerry with this kids, bad for me because being sick sucks.

I'm telling you things are about to happen quickly, hold on, shit is going to get real.

Peeta: Since you have to take Bran and the kids to his game early, maybe we should have our first sleep over?

I read over the text at least a dozen times. He wants me to stay over. Peeta wants me to sleep at his house with his kids. I wanted to but at the same time I didn't want to send the wrong message. I've heard all of the talk about Peeta and my quick relationship. Madge texts me regularly about the things she's heard from the vine and wants to know if they hold any truth. Most of them center around marriage and adopting Peeta's kids or how I've become pregnant myself.

"What's up No Butt?" Johanna takes off her reading glasses and puts them on top of her head.

"Isn't it chicken butt?"

"Yeah but chickens have more of an ass than you do."

"Thanks," I say sarcastically.

"Welcome, now what's up?"

"Peeta wants me to stay over tonight because I'm taking the kids to Bran's game on Saturday morning while Peeta trains Vick."

"Sleep overs are always fun, if you know what I mean," Johanna wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

"It wouldn't be like that. At least I don't think. Oh my God, what if Peeta expects to have sex? I mean we've definitely been building up to it but I can't have sex with his kids in the next room. At least not the first time I stay over there," I ramble on sending myself into a panic.

"Chill, if you're not ready just tell Peeta that. I mean he's had blue balls for this long, what's a little longer?"

"You're not helping."

"Seriously just tell him that you aren't comfortable doing anything the first night staying there, assuming he wants you to stay over again."

"You're right. This is probably a one-time thing."

Johanna gives me a breathy chuckle but doesn't give me anymore advice. I send Peeta a conformation text before starting my work.

XxX

"Hey what took you so long?" Peeta asked when I walked into the apartment.

"I had to go to my place to get some things," I say holding an oversized tote bag up for evidence.

"You can just put your stuff in my room."

"I want Katniss sleeping with me!" Sage said bursting out of the hallway and barreled into the kitchen.

"Sage, we've talked about this. Katniss is my guest. Your guests don't stay in my room; they stay in your room right?"

"Yes," Sage mumbled sullenly.

"How about I sing to you before bed, we haven't done that in a while?" The little girl with wild blonde curls beams up at me. I wish the world could be as simple as it is from the eyes of a four year old.

I drop my bag onto Peeta's bed and head back to the kitchen but before I stop in the boys' room. The door is cracked so I don't knock; I just peek my head in to see Bran and Jack playing together. My heart hurts as it fills with too many happy emotions too quickly when I look at Bran. For only being eight, he has so much responsibility that has been thrust upon him and he deals with it so well. Bran has to practically raise his two younger siblings, just like I did with Prim. Though the difference between Bran and myself, I had no choice. It was either fight or die. With Bran, he could easily go out and do what normal boys his age do but instead he chooses to stay in a take much of the work load off of his father.

"Katniss!" Jack shouts when he sees me, forgetting all of his toys and jumping into my arms.

I have to quickly move the door out of the way to catch him but when I do I quickly kiss the top of his head. "Hey Jack, hi Bran. What are you guys doing?"

"Spiderman!" Jack crawls down my body like Spiderman would climb down a building and proceeds to pretend to shoot webbing out of his wrists around the room.

"Guess what," Bran says as he busies himself with putting away Jack's abandoned toys.

"What?"

"We had to read out loud from the book we read the other night and I read my paragraph so great I got a sticker on the board!"

"That's so great, Bran." I say genuinely happy.

"It's only because you helped me. There were so many big words but I remembered that you made me sound them out and that's what I did. Mrs. Purnia says that she might put me in the next reading group next week."

"I can't wait," I smile.

XxX

Dinner is the same like every other night. Peeta talks about work, Bran says something he learned in school, Sage talks about one of her friends from class while continually pushing her hair out of her eyes, and Jack excitedly tells us about what he baked with Daddy in a garbled voice. I talk about new findings in the forest. I'm not used to talking about my job with anyone other than Gale or Jo because people don't find what I do interesting, or that important. But Peeta asks questions and remembers odd details of what I told him previously. The kids, but mostly Bran, love the science part of my job; the test tubes and microscopes. Sage loves the fact that I sometimes trampled around the woods like Brave, only without the bow, the bow only comes out on the occasional Sunday.

"So are you excited about me taking you to your game instead of your Dad?" I ask Bran as I slip Jack's pajama top over his head.

Bran shrugs. "It'll be like every other Saturday."

"Yeah but this time it's only going to be me. You won't have your dad nervously standing at the sidelines waiting for you to break a bone."

"Good, he can stop making everyone nervous," Bran laughs.

I smile and kiss Jack on top of his head, tucking him into his bed. I cross the room and kiss Bran on top of his head as well.

"Okay, I'm going to go say good night to Sage. I'll see you in the morning."

I close the door behind me and immediately turn into the room next to it. Sage is already in bed with a plethora of stuffed animals surrounding her. She scoots over upon seeing me and I slide into the twin sized bed next to her.

"Have you said night to your Dad?"

"He's gonna come say good night to me after putting Jack to bed."

"Okay. Do you want to read a story or do you want me to sing to you?"

"Sing please," she snuggled into my side making it hard for me to move once she's fallen asleep.

"What song?"

"The meadow one."

I smile; Deep in the Meadow was the first song I sang to Sage after having woken up from a nightmare. It has quickly become her favorite, just like it was Prim's favorite and my favorite when my father sang to me.

I start singing softly into the little girl's ear, the sweet and gentle melody lolling her sleep. I look up once the song is finished to find Peeta leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest, a lazy smile on his face.

It takes a moment but I finally free myself from Sage's grasp and stand from the bed as Peeta bends over and kisses his daughter's forehead and turning out the small lamp on the nightstand.

Peeta leads me by the hand to his bedroom. He doesn't shut the door all the way, a good sign that he too isn't ready for us to take the next step in our relationship. The cracked door doesn't stop Peeta from cupping my face with both hands and kissing me deeply, pulling my body until it's flushed with his.

"I love you," he says breathlessly.

"What?" My eyes open wide in shock.

"I love you," Peeta repeats himself.

"Peeta—" I cut myself off because I don't even know what I should say. "We don't even know each other."

Peeta shakes his head and quickly kisses me again. "We know each other well enough to know that I love you."

"You don't love me, Peeta."

Peeta looks at me and for a minute I think he's going to be mad, maybe start yelling, and force me to leave. But his facial expression changes and he gives me that same lazy smile that he was wearing watching me with Sage.

"My kids love you, you know? They talk about you all the time in the morning when we're all getting ready. Sage and Jack are fighting about who you'll play with or say hi to first, and God," Peeta starts to give off a light chuckle. "Bran loves school so much. He hated school last year but this year it's like he's a different kid. I got a call from his teacher and she is so amazed about how fast he's been learning how to read and he's excelling in math. That's because of you!"

"I don't help Bran with his math," I try to protest that it's not me that is improving Bran's school work, it's simply just him.

"Yeah but you sit there and he explains it to you and you take interest," Peeta explains. "My kids love you Katniss, and so do I. I love you because of how seamlessly you've woven yourself into our lives. I don't think we could ever go back to how things were before and I never want to."

Truthfully, I think Peeta is just excited that his kids have accepted me and he's calling that excitement love. In all reality, just like a shiny new toy, I'm waiting for him to discover how boring and broken I really am and toss me aside. But I refuse to tell Peeta any of those thoughts.

"I don't know what to say," I shake my head.

"I'm not expecting you to say it back. I don't even want you to say it back until you're ready, that is if you're ever ready. I just had to say that I love you because it feels right to me," Peeta kisses me softly again before pulling away from me all together.

"I figured you wouldn't mind sharing a bed but if you think that's too soon then I'll take the couch, I don't mind."

I shake my head. I don't want Peeta sleeping on the couch; I want him sleeping with me in his bed. "You don't need to sleep on the couch."

Peeta smiles. "Okay, I'm going to go change and brush my teeth."

I change into the tee shirt and sweatpants that Peeta lent to me. When Peeta returns, I excuse myself to brush my teeth and wash my face. When I return, Peeta is already in bed. He smiles at me as I round the bed and slide in next to him.

"I didn't freak you out by telling you I love you did I? You're not going to run?"

"A little freaked out but I'm not going to run," I answer close to as honest as I can.

"Good because that would suck."

"You make too good of cheese buns to run," I joke.

"Well in that case," Peeta pulls me into him so my back is pressed against his front. He wraps an arm round my waist and buries his face in the crook of my neck. His hot breath feels so good on my bare skin. "cheese buns just became what's on the breakfast menu."

XxX

I wake up the next morning to a weird sensation tickling my nose. I open one eye to see bright blue eyes and a mess of blonde hair staring back at me, only it's not who I expect.

"Hey Jack, where's Daddy?" I rub the sleep out of my eyes.

Jack glides the pillow feather across the tip of my nose and a wiggle it like a bunny rabbit causing him to giggle. "He's baking."

I turn to see the clock reads only a bit after five; I still have almost another two hours until I need to be up. I pull the covers back and let Jack curl in beside me. I wrap my arm around him protectively before kissing the top of his head. "Go back to sleep, Silly."

"Okay," he nuzzles into my chest.

"I love you," I murmur without thought.

"Love you," Jack mumbles back and I can't help but smile.

XxX

"Way to go, Bran!" I shout from my seat on the sidelines. He just blocked the third attempt at a goal. Sage is perched on my lap watching the game with me while Jack is playing in the grass with his Spiderman toy at our feet.

I already had the chairs and small cooler by the time the game is over so I could listen in on what the coach had to talk to the players about. It's something Peeta always did so I thought that it might be necessary.

"Peeta?" The coach said looking at hi clipboard briefly before looking up to see that he's not here. "Bran, where's your dad?"

"He's not here."

"Who'd you come with?"

Bran points at me. "Katniss."

"Who are you?" The coach gave me a once over.

"Oh, I'm—uh," I start to stutter.

"Don't you know," a kid from Bran's team starts to shout. "That's Bran's mom! She and the baker are married and having a baby."

"And where'd you hear that?" the coach asked.

"School," the boy shrugged.

"Well apologies, Mrs. Mellark, can you tell your husband that it's his turn to supply snacks for next Saturday's game?"

"Will do."

It's awkwardly quiet on the way home. I know it's from what Bran's teammate said about me being his mom and marrying his dad and me being pregnant. I know that I need to address this, probably before leaving the vehicle; I'm just not sure how to approach this subject.

"So about what that kid said about me being your mom." There, I just went out and said it. "Do you get that a lot?"

"Yeah," Bran shrugged.

"And me getting married to your dad and having a baby?"

"They say that a lot too."

"And how do you feel about it?"

Bran shrugged. "I don't mind. You can be our mom if you want."

I knit my brows together. "Would you want me to be your mom?"

Sage shouts an enthusiastic yes from the back seat of my Jeep and Jack mimics her.

"You'd be a better one than the other one I had," Bran says sadly.

I take my eyes off the road for a moment to look at him. He so easily breaks my heart and makes it impossible to say no. "If that's what you'd like," I agree with him.

Bran gives me a toothy smile. "That means you and dad have to get married now."

Sage gives a loud shriek of excitement and I try to return everyone's enthusiasm with my own smile but I can't help but to be panicking on the inside.