She seeks me out more now, for everything. For help doing things that she struggles with herself, but never used to admit to…like carrying her haul back from the woods on a particularly good day…for comfort in times of pain, for sex, for love. Sometimes I still see the frustration and nerves in her eyes. Katniss has become accustomed to knowing how to do things—how to shoot, how to skin, how to find water and herbs, how to survive against the odds. She's trying to learn, or relearn, a new skill now; the skill of how to trust. I'm not going to set myself up by pretending that she had an overnight epiphany and that that's what led to all this. If she thinks I'm telling others, particularly Haymitch, things I'm keeping from her, she turns on me. If she thinks either one of us are trying to give her advice, which I mostly don't even attempt, she turns on us. And then some days she turns for no reason at all. But usually, now, she apologizes when she thinks she's in the wrong. She's more self-aware. I don't see that bratty, petulant side that came out so often before, though she's still moody and bossy. Sometimes, I wonder what it would've shaped up to be if it had been she and Gale instead of me. I wonder if they would have clashed more; him being so strong-willed. My natural inclinations are less demanding and pronounced and there's very little I need to be truly happy, I think. Every time I'm able to put my arms around her and pull her into me, the other things, the hard ones and the painful ones and the scary ones, don't seem real anymore, seem as insubstantial as the wind.

One day she's out, and I'm idling. The bread for the week is baked and I've painted more canvasses than I know what to do with…the whole downstairs bedroom is stacked with them. My shift with the debris was today, but they were working around the bakery and I was told I'm exempt. I'm grateful for that; I don't want to have to wonder where the ashes I'm touching came from and remember my family that was lost. I miss my father the most; because he was the kindest, the most untouched from the daily trudge of living in the conditions we all did, even the townspeople. I need advice, and not that kind of cynical, off-the-cuff advice Haymitch gives me. I also don't want to talk too much about Katniss to him, since he's so far into our circle, and risk it getting back to her. I wish there were more options, but the truth is that even in school I didn't have the kind of close friends that I'd be comfortable sharing this information with. Often, I heard my friends boast about girls they had conquered, tell stories about their romantic exploits. I think they just assumed I was doing the same, but I never talked about Katniss, afraid they would have found it strange, this ongoing obsession with a strange girl from the Seam who seemed to go out of her way to ignore people.

I settle on Delly. She's been true to her word about not speaking about my purchase in the Hob, and she's known Katniss for at least as long as I have. She's a girl, too, and maybe can help me understand the deep recesses of their minds. I never even had a sister who could help me understand girls better; they're an enigma. I catch up to her one day in the Hob and we set up a lunch. I haul a basket filled with bread and cheese up to a higher part of the Meadow…really, the distance you can go from the district now is only limited by how far you feel comfortable straying, since the fence is a nonentity. I don't want to get caught by Katniss, even though I'm not doing anything wrong. The view from the hills is spectacular, too. We spread out an old horse blanket and sit.

"What's up?" Delly asks me, with a slight note in her voice that indicates she might already know where this is going. I mean, how many other deep conversations would I have to expound upon. I had already told her I needed advice about something. "Or, should I ask, how's your love life?"

"It's actually better than it's ever been," I admit.

"Well, what's the problem then?"

"That's the problem," I say. She laughs.

"Okay…I need more information," she says. I begin to explain about Katniss, how I'm terrified that she's only in this for the comfort, that she could turn around any second and decide she's not ready after all, how every moment I spend loving her makes me want to love her more and makes me more afraid to lose her, how I want to help her heal but I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I don't realize how much I've been keeping inside until it all pours out. Delly, to her credit, listens without interrupting. Finally, I talk myself out and blow out a big breath. "Now what?" I ask.

"Okay," she says, "So what's the worst case scenario?"

"She turns on a dime, I guess, and decides that she wants nothing to do with me."

"Peeta, she hasn't done that since the day you walked onto that stage at the Reaping. The farthest out she's gone has been…" Here she begins to tick things off on her fingers. "…she was aggravated you didn't tell her until it was in front of the whole world…which I can understand, even though you had good reason…she was pissed off when she thought you were working with the Careers…which was a bad judgment call in terms of your personality but not at all unexpected…she was frustrated and nasty when you were insisting she was an evil mutt…which is Katniss being Katniss, since her patience threshold is somewhere around nonexistent…and that she's been vacillating between being totally into you and totally distant for the better part of three years. Fair summary?" I nod.

"Yeah, except that last one is pretty much all that matters right now, and in case you haven't noticed, that's the only one you didn't summarily dismiss."

"Because you can't do anything about it," she says.

"Delly…that really doesn't help."

"Okay. So. Katniss isn't really inclined to be close to people, for a bunch of reasons we won't go into, but which make sense. Especially now, unfortunately. If I had to guess, that's probably because she's petrified to lose someone again and give up on life entirely." Delly's face softens. "I'm amazed she came out of it after Prim, as strong as she is." I kind of am too, now she mentions it. "She also has no romantic or sexual experience at all, as far as you know, which is pretty far."

I open my mouth to protest that until now, neither did I.

"Shut up, Peeta," she says, kindly. I close my mouth again. "Let me finish."

"So she's probably scared just of the physical intimacy alone. Even under normal circumstances, there's a lot of trust involved in going where you've been going. She probably feels unsure of herself, which she's not used to, and that'll make her feel powerless instead of confident."

"She's also trying to work through all her own hurt from the loss of a lot of people she loves, which will probably take years to come to terms with. She's pretending she doesn't need support doing that, but she does, whether she admits it or not. She might admit these things to herself even if not to anyone else." I hadn't thought of that. "Also, she's probably totally disoriented with the rest of us over the fact that our day-to-day lives have drastically changed over the course of the past year."

"A person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode,"* I mutter.

"Well, those are educated guesses and intuitive leaps. But I'd bet you a free box of condoms," she teases, "That most of them are at least close to the truth. You've probably deduced some of it yourself."

"So what do I do?"

"What can you do?" she responds. "She's another person, Peeta. She's going to make her own decisions about her life and who she wants in it. Do you want her in yours?"

"Yes," I answer without hesitation.

"Even if she's difficult, uncertain, and still healing?"

"Yes," I say, "Even if anything. Until she tells me point-blank that she doesn't want me in her life anymore."

"She's not going to say that," Delly says confidently, which makes me feel a bit better. "Not after everything you've been through together. She wouldn't have been pounding on that door screaming her head off after the first Games. She wouldn't have freaked out and had such a breakdown when she thought you were going to die from that forcefield. She wouldn't have had a worse one after the Capitol got you, bad enough that she basically forced them into getting you out. And she wouldn't be seeking you out now. She wants you in her life, definitely. My thought is that she's just trying to figure out how to trust someone again."

I think about this.

"How do I help her?"

"You already are," Delly says simply. "Let her come to you, Peeta, as she's ready. If she does come, go slow and let her take over if she wants to. Trust her words. I don't think she'll lie to you; at most, she'll say what she believes to be true at that time. Katniss is a rotten liar anyways," she adds. "If she seeks you out, love her. Whatever happens, you can never go wrong if you love her and tell the truth. Just be prepared that it might not go as smoothly as you'd hope. But then, what relationship does?" she asks rhetorically.

This all sounds too simplistic and straightforward, but I can't find a rebuttal for it, or any loopholes. This is, indeed, the reality: I'm only responsible for myself, not for Katniss. I can't force her to make a definitive decision, nor can I demand that she not. It's a waiting game, I think, frustrated. I'm tearing handfuls of grass out and shredding them as I think. Delly puts a hand on my arm. "Penny for your thoughts."

"Why can't it all be easier?" I burst out. "I love the girl! Since when did girls reject guys that love them for ten years? Haven't I done everything I could? Haven't I been there all along? Why is she still holding back?"

Delly does something unexpectedly at this outburst, and smiles. She leans in and hugs me, pulling me towards her. I haven't been hugged by a girl besides Katniss in a long time, and I'm hyperaware of the differences, but it's clear this hug is platonic, though it's fierce.

"You're a good man, Peeta," she whispers in my ear. "It's just who you are."

I wonder how she can possibly tell this.

"She's the one who saved me," I whisper.

"You saved her, too, she just doesn't know it yet. But she will. I think."

It's late afternoon by the time we pack up. In the dwindling light, we hike down the hill. Delly hugs me again before we go into town, but then I remember. "Hey Delly!" I call down the hill before I veer off. "Johanna's coming in two weeks!"

Delly looks pleased. "Oh, great! Let me know, I'd like to see her!"

When I let myself in, dark is falling and the house is dim, except for a single candle that burns in the dining room, in an armchair that sits across the way from where I paint during the day. I glance over to see Katniss, curled up, with a big book spread across her lap. The chair almost swallows her up, she's so little. I know the book by sight: this is the volume we've been working on adding pictures to together, of the ones we've lost. Just yesterday I was quietly filling in the colors in my sketches of Thresh and Lavinia. I don't tell Katniss when I work on it alone; I wait until she's ready to contribute, since bringing it up sometimes bothers her, triggers her isolating behavior. I learned this the hard way. But she's gazing steadily at someone. I walk over. I had a guess as to who it would be, but it was wrong. Rue stares up at me, her gentle smile beckoning, pigtailed hair sticking out in bunches. She's sitting in the fork of a tree. Katniss looks up. "Where have you been?" she asks.

"Lunch with Delly," I tell her.

"Should I be jealous?" She isn't the jealous type, I know.

I lean in and bury my nose in her hair. It smells beautiful. I kiss the top of her head, "Never before and never after," I say.

She looks back down at the page and I see her deflate. "I miss her," she whispers.

"Me too," I say, "Did you love her?" I ask cautiously. This is not even the type of question that would have been allowed a few months ago.

"I did, very much," she says simply, and closes the book. She leaves it on the chair cushion as she stands, stretching her arms so that her back crackles.

"Can I have a welcome-home hug?" She smirks. "I'm not your wife," she says, but steps willingly into my embrace anyways. She tilts her head up and I kiss her nose. "Dinner?" I ask her.

"Sandwiches," she says, "I got distracted in the woods today. The Mockingjays were singing…" I know now why she came home to gaze at Rue. I feel a stab of sadness for her. "Okay," I tell her, "It's okay. How are you feeling?"

"Just tired. I feel like I shouldn't be tired when I do so much nothing, though."

"Your mind is doing gymnastics," I tell her. "That's tiring."

"I had my call with the doctor today," she wrinkles her nose, "He says I sound a little better but he's still pushing those damn pills."

"What'd you tell him?" I query as I move towards the kitchen to slap together some food.

She follows me. "I told him I had you, actually." When Katniss says things like this, they never come out sounding romantic, just matter-of-fact. When I say them, they make me sound like a lovestruck choir boy. "Oh, there's a having of the me, now?" I ask her. She nods, but leaves it at that. This is Katniss-ese for "I refuse to sound like one of those girls." But there's a lot in what she doesn't say, too.

We sit with the food. Katniss has finally given in and brought the cat over, since she spends her nights here anyways, and he wails for her. It was begrudging, but I know the thought of him alone in that house was bothering her. She keeps most of the doors in it closed. Katniss does not like the Victor's Village. He rubs our feet now, looking for cheese scraps, which I throw him. She doesn't. "Go hunt," she tells him. We drink cold mint tea. Then I surprise her, extracting a bar of chocolate from my back pocket. This was a gift from Delly, and I have no clue where she found it, since sweets of any kind are rare unless you know how to make them, but I'm re-gifting. I hand it over.

"Is this chocolate?" she inhales it. "Wow. That smells amazing. Where on Earth did you get it?"

"Ah, I have my ways," I tell her, as she snaps pieces off and hands them to me. She herself takes a bite of the bar and closes her eyes. "Mmm," she says, "Thanks." She's finished half of it before she wraps it and hands it back, "Save the rest for later on." She sucks the chocolate remnants off her fingers and watching this completely nonsexual act, I get turned on. Of course. Those perfect pink lips…her tongue curls out and swipes the bottom corners clean as I watch. When she rises, I begin to wipe down the table. It's amazing how domestic all this has come to feel. I am decidedly NOT going to point this out, I think, amused. The mere suggestion would guarantee that Katniss would resort to living in the woods, with the wolves, before I even finished the thought.

"I'm going up," she says, "I want to rest." I make a quick decision to let her have some space. It seems like it's one of those days, with the Mockingjays and Rue. "Okay, I'll paint for a little while," I say. "And there's some clothes I have to mend."

She shakes her head in a negation. "No, I don't want to be alone."

"You have the cat," I remind her.

"I don't want to be alone with the cat," she amends, and I laugh. "Are you asking me to come with you?"

She nods and holds out a hand to me. This strategy Delly has about getting her to move closer by letting her move away seems on target at the moment. My own strong fingers close around it, and she leads me…and the cat…up the stairs. She climbs into bed with all her clothes on, and when I follow her lead, I can feel her shaking as we lie together. It was imperceptible until I was this close. My heart goes out to her, all of a sudden. I lost my family, but Katniss lost hers, too. And Rue. Darius. Finnick. Gale has moved away. All these are people Katniss was closer to than I was. I push her hair behind her temple and kiss her forehead. I wish I could say something, do something, to make her forget. It's just us, in this quiet room, with the past so big it crams itself into every space. I trail my thumbs down to her neck and begin to rub her lightly. The muscles at the crease between her neck and shoulders are so tense, they're like stone. I pinch gently, rolling them around, trying to help her relax. She closes her eyes and sighs. "That feels good, Peeta." Every time she says my name, a little shiver runs through me.

"Want me to do your back?" I ask willingly. She thinks for a second then sits up and lifts her shirt over her head. She turns so I can reach her back, and I trace my fingertips over the soft white cotton of her bra straps in the back. Gently, I unhook it, even though she didn't, and slip it off her slight frame. She doesn't resist. I want to be able to see that luminous, silky skin as I touch it. I kiss the back of her neck, where the nerves cluster. She makes a soft sound. I wrap my hands over her shoulders, as fragile as bird bones, and begin to work the tension out. I can feel actual knots.

"When was the last time someone gave you a backrub?" I ask.

She laughs, shortly, but doesn't say anything. I have a feeling this is not a question that's open for discussion, but I think of her father. Surely not her mother. Prim? Cinna? Someone gone. I'm the bearer of back rubs, too, now.

"Okay," I whisper, and I'm quiet as I move further down her back. She's breathing quietly, evenly, and I'm glad. She jumped once or twice when I hit a spot that must be particularly sore, but now she's calming. I work on her for maybe forty minutes, finishing up around her lower back. I ache to toss aside the rest of the fabric that protects her body from my eyes, want so badly just to gaze at her body next to me, but I don't push. When I finish, I pull my own shirt off and then I lie with her. I lie on my back, and she moves automatically to lie her head on my chest and whispers, so lowly I almost miss it, "Thank you." I hug her tighter in response and rest my cheek against her hair. I'm not tired yet, but I know she is, so I lie still. The cat creeps onto the bed near our feet, which twine together under the blankets. Before too long, I feel her drift off, and then it's just her tiny form, curled against my big one. "I love you," I whisper to her hair, and I hope that some day, she believes it with all her heart.

She beats me awake. She moves so silently when she wants to, that I never even feel her slip out of bed in the mornings. I was awake late, replaying my conversation with Delly in my head and listening to Katniss breathe, guarding her from the nightmares. It must be early morning before I drop off. When I wake and reach for her, the bed is cold next to me. I sit up quickly and I'm reaching for my shirt when she pushes the door open with her back, because her hands are occupied. I relax.

"Where'd you go?" She knows that we both get startled when either one of us wakes up alone unexpectedly.

"Hey," she says, a little awkwardly. "I thought that I should thank you for last night. I was about five minutes from freaking out by the time you found me. I kept replaying…you know…over in my head and it wouldn't stop." It's then that I notice she's carrying a tray. She sets it on the bed over my lap. She must have showered, because she's still damp and wearing an old robe of mine I usually throw over the shower rod. I always enjoy watching Katniss in my clothes; that possessive impulse comes over me again. The tray bears what looks like a goat-cheese omelette and some freshly sliced cinnamon-raisin bread from yesterday. She's even brought up tea.

"Katniss Everdeen, you cooked."

She wrinkles her nose at me. "I can do it, Peeta, I just don't like it."

"Aww, that makes me special," I tease. She smiles, though.

"Damn right! I almost burnt the damn thing to a crisp, you're lucky I smelled it…"

She curls up beside me in the robe as I take an experimental bite. It's quite good, actually. I tell her so. She looks self-satisfied. I offer her some but she claims to have already eaten. I doubt she went through this much trouble making herself something, though.

"I'm not there for you enough," she says suddenly and unexpectedly. I blink, trying to keep pace and change topics with her. "What?"

She repeats it. "You're always there for me, and I hardly ever even ask how you're getting through. How are you?"

I think about this question for a minute before answering, "I'm not myself entirely, and I don't know if I ever will be, but it's so much better with you here. I'd go crazy if I had to get through this on my own. I knew we had to come out of this whole thing together." This is not romantic hyperbole. I literally can't fathom how the solo Victors managed alone, after suffering so much and seeing so much horror. Her face softens.

"Why does it matter if I'm here or not, other than the fact that I saw it with you, Peeta?" I grow frustrated with this question. I've answered it, in some variety or another, about a thousand times so far.

"Because I love you." I say shortly.

"I don't know what that means!" she bursts out, and when I look at her expression, it's one of misery. She truly does not grasp this concept of romantic love, or she's that afraid of it, or both. My heart softens again. Will it always be so soft? I can't bear to see anyone suffering, least of all her. I set the tray down on the floor by the bed and lie down next to her again, supporting my head with one cocked elbow.

"Do you want me to explain?" I ask patiently.

"Yes." She whispers.

I start slowly but gain momentum as I speak. "It means that when I wake in the morning, the first thing I ask myself is if you're okay. When I sleep at night, the last thing I ask myself is if you're okay. It means the touch of your mouth or the smell of your hair or the feeling of you reaching for me makes me forget all of it…everything…even just for a little while, because I'm so grateful to have you here with me. It means I'll wait for you, as long as you need, until you tell me to my face that you don't want me anymore. It means that I spend the day thinking of ways that I might make you smile, counting off in my head all the things you love: the primroses by the door, goat cheese, the smell of a fire, the absolute silence of the woods just before you make a shot that's dead-on, that bread with the garlic in it, your father's coat wrapped around you…that thing I do with my fingers." I add this one to lighten the mood, smiling while I say it. "It means I try to figure out what you're going to say before you say it, and when I look in your eyes I know what kind of day you've had, sometimes even what triggered it. You fill up my days, Katniss. You drive away my nightmares. You help me to hope again." My tone is emotional now. "I just think you're beautiful and smart and fearless and luminous. The first time you told me you loved me, I thought I could die on the spot and be happy." There's one more I want to add, something I want to say to her, but I know that it would cross that unspoken boundary, that I would see the dawning understanding and light flooding her eyes flicker out, that I would lose her. So I don't. This is enough. I fall quiet. My eyes have dropped, and I'm afraid to look at hers. I'm afraid to breathe. I'm afraid to not be enough. But there it is, and now she has all of me. I don't know what other means I have to help her understand. I feel my eyes begin to fill in the silence. Stupid, so stupid, so stupid and scared.

And then, there's her hand, tipping up my chin. She must see the shine in my eyes, and I wonder, is it always going to have to be her, to be strong? Or do I have some kind of strength that's just different?

"You've done more for me than I could ever have dreamed possible," she says, enunciating clearly. Then she kisses me. She does not say she loves me, but I feel it in the kiss as she swings over me again, bends down low as I lie prone and wrap my arms around her waist as far as I can get them. She rests her forehead against mine. I'm breathing heavily, though whether from the kiss or the emotional expenditure I can't tell. I don't know how, but as we move together again, our hands begin to stray. The kisses are passionate, wet and filled with need and with the words that don't exist to finish what I need to say, perhaps what she does. The touches are desperate fumblings, hands on cheeks and napes and tangled in hair, hands on my chest, drawing me in, the slow drag of fingernails that makes me groan aloud. All I can feel is soft skin, hot mouth, thick, silky hair, and heat. So much heat. We're panting, sweating, even on top of the bed in the cool air. Katniss is whispering my name into my mouth. I feel like she's trying to devour me. I've never seen her in such fervor. Intensity burns from her eyes and her mouth and her pores. She is utterly without fear. She is as beautiful and powerful and dangerous as a bird of prey. As a roaring fire. I close my eyes and let myself be consumed. It's all I can do to hang on to her, to try to meet those crushing kisses with what, from my end, would be gentle ones. I think achingly of how desperate I am to be inside her as her warm hand grips my cock, throbbing and sputtering. I try to imagine that tenacious heat, waiting for me, calling to me. Resting my weight on my palms as I watch her face, eyes wide with wonder, as I feel her shudder with pleasure all over, the sounds we'd make coming together, being closer than any two people could be. Feeling those strong legs wrap around me, listening to her moan my name as I rock her, kiss her neck, hold her close. For a moment, when I feel the wet heat, I think that my daydream has been so realistic that I'm actually projecting it onto where I am, as I begin to snap back to reality.

Katniss has shifted her weight off of me. Before I can open my eyes, my eyebrows furrow at the fluttering, sleek touch on the head of my cock. Are her hands wet? From herself? In the second before it registers and my eyes fly open with a jolt, I have just enough time to think, that's her mouth, Peeta, not her…

I'm not wrong. Katniss' steely eyes are looking up towards me, but even in their intensity I can tell she's curious, like a little kid, to see what kind of reaction she'll get. As I watch, she flicks the tip of her tongue over my slit. I get the kind of nervous self-consciousness she must have had on our last go-round, because I wonder briefly how I taste to her. She runs her tongue under the crown, teasing and tickling to see where the good spots are. It's only when I watch her lips engulf me that I find my voice and begin to moan. Colors, streaming tails of them, shoot off behind my eyes. I'm not even aware my hands are buried in her hair hard enough to hurt her until I feel her shiver, herself. I loosen them hastily, though I've noticed that—strangely for most people, maybe not for Katniss—she's kind of into pain when we play around. She takes me a little deeper, testing her capacities, maybe. She wraps her free hand around the base of me, holding on tight like I've taught her, and slides it up as her mouth moves free for a moment.

"Oh my god, Katniss," I get out. "Where did that come from?"

"Ah, I guess you'll have to keep hanging around me to find out," she quips. Then, as though the marvel never ends, she states, "I want you to stand up while I do it."

"Holymotherofgodno," I say this as one long word.

She pouts. Pouts. "Why not?"

"BECAUSE YOU WILL KILL ME, WOMAN."

She starts laughing. "Next time?"

My voice is wobbly, "You mean they'll be a …next time?"

"If you're a good boy. And you know, Peeta, you're always a good boy." She dips again, and I know it won't take long, especially with that last offer clanging in my head. "I want you to…" I begin to shudder as she closes on me again, begin to suckle gently at the head of my prick, her movements slow, tempting. I want to push forward with all my might as I feel my orgasm gather at the base of my spine and begin to move. But through sheer force of will I keep my hips low. Then, in horror, I reach down and take her shoulder, trying to sweep her aside, "Katniss, I'm…"

She won't move. She knows what I'm saying and she knows what I'm trying to do with the greatly diminished amount of strength in my arm, and she knows what will happen if she ignores me, but she stays put. And then I come. Then I come, and it is glorious, and everything in the world is blotted out. It doesn't take long for me to come out of it, but I wish it had. I wish it had, because my memory will never be able to capture that the way it truly was. The way it truly felt to see the deliberate knowledge in those curious grey eyes, feel the primal force of those possessive kisses, that first lap of…then I'm mortified. Mortified beyond all human ability to be mortified. I don't even want to look. Is so much of this going to be this awkward and mortifying? I'm jealous of the people who have the details ironed out. When I open my eyes, it's one at a time, and with a wince. Katniss stares deviously at me from her perch over my heaving chest. Her mouth is…her mouth is wet. Her mouth is…

Her mouth is descending on me, but the kiss is chaste, perfunctory. She, after all, has no idea if my reaction to my own taste will be as compelling as hers had been when I'd finished her that way. I wonder with both curiosity and unease if she'll find out one day. As in life, Katniss cannot be described as boring in bed, however virginal. She feels like a great mythical creature being set free, bright as the sun in her want, now that it's escaped.

"Okay?" she asks. This is something of a joke between us now.

"Um, yes, okay," I say. We're smiling. But then a frown crosses my brow, "Katniss, uh…don't feel pressured to, uh…"

"Peeta, I thought you were world-renowned for your silver tongue."

"You should talk," I get out. And then I realize that Katniss would no more feel pressured into this than she has into any other endeavor. She's not the pressuring kind, least of all from me, since dying comes up at the top of the list of things I'd rather do than ask Katniss to swallow my juices as I come. I shouldn't be completely shocked by now, after a few other unpredictable actions in this department, but I always am anyways. In those moments, I feel like maybe I don't know her at all.

She leans in and kisses my nose, my cheeks, my earlobes, my forehead. She is loving me now, not fucking me. Her face is serious.

"I'm going to be here for you more," she tells me solemnly. "I promise."

"When you're ready, I'll be waiting," I say. "In the meantime, we're just fine." And we are.

*Shout out to Mr. Ronald Weasley! ;)