A/N: Oh hey there! You can put down your pitchforks now, the next chapter is here. So I finished uni (yay!) then got sent on a work trip for 5 weeks on short notice and didn't get my laptop. After that, I went on a holiday for 5 weeks, again, without my laptop, hence the delay. If you have questions, like I've said before, PM me or sign in so I can reply to your reviews. Aggressive guest reviews aren't going to make me upload any faster. Thank you for those that are still following this story and have patiently waited.

I just want to point something out before you begin reading, so this chapter doesn't seem out of place. A lot of you are concerned by the fact that Peeta does not think about Katniss or is dispassionate toward her, so I'll just paint the picture a little. Peeta and Katniss have been in the Capitol for 2 months but they've only actually had three interactions; at Annie's house, the Benefit and at Bristel's. All of them have been short but friendly. So, no, Peeta doesn't think about her much because she is no longer a constant in his life and he spent three years without her, plus he's got a lot of other things preoccupying him.

Additionally, the chapters only cover a small portion of time for each character, meaning there are things going on that the reader is not yet privy too, as you'll find out in this chapter.

We go back in time for a little bit in this chapter, so you might want to familiarize yourself with chapter 6 again, as well as the others leading up to this one.

Happy reading!

Monday June 20th 2016 – The Capitol

Rye's fingers drum nervously on the top of his mahogany desk in our family's head office of the Capitol. The repetitive noise is slowly growing more agitating as I wait for him to finish whatever he is reading on his computer. He'd texted me earlier, while I was working on some new illustrations, to ask me to swing by the office. Our father isn't in the office today, instead he is visiting one of our bakeries in State 9, doing whatever mandatory tasks there are that I have no interest in.

In the large office space, Rye looks like the ever-efficient business man he is, dressed in a sharp suit and tie, sitting behind the imposing desk. Only I can see the slight crease in his brows that tells me something is wrong. And I'm pretty sure I know what it is. He finally looks at me and swivels away from the computer.

I speak first. "She got parole didn't she?"

He sighs and nods. "It got confirmed today."

"How'd you find out?"

"Leevy has a contact."

I pause for a moment, pondering that statement. Leevy knows about our mother's parole? Well, that makes me look even more terrible, considering Madge is still in the dark.

"You need to tell Madge. Before Leevy does." He says, mirroring my thoughts.

"I was going to." I say a little harshly. How many times had I had this conversation? Too many, and I still haven't gotten around to it. God, I'm awful.

Rye doesn't say anything, he just looks at me levelly.

"I'll tell her today."

"Why have you kept it from her?"

I close my eyes and draw a deep breath. "I don't know." Because her life is perfect and mine is not? "I didn't want to tell her if it wasn't even true."

Rye considers this and looks like he thinks it's a valid excuse, until he says, "She's not going to leave you just because our family's fucked up."

I chew at the inside of my cheek. "I don't know…it's not a good reputation is it?" The Undersee's are all about reputation, after all.

"Your insecurities are getting in the way of your head."

I sigh and stay quiet. He's right, I don't honestly believe what I' m saying. I'm just frustrated by the whole situation.

"Mom's going to come here isn't she?"

Rye looks down at his hands, his forehead creased as he considers what I've said. "It wouldn't surprise me."

Yeah, that's what I thought. I get up from the chair, ready to get out of here, my body growing tenser by the second. "I'll see you around, okay?"

He nods, watching me carefully. "I'll swing by sometime."

I'm out of our building as fast as I possibly can. Why does it feel like my life is a complete mess?

I spend the walk back from our office trying to calm down to avoid a complete meltdown when I tell Madge what has happened. I check my watch and note that she'll probably be home by now. I make a promise myself that I won't avoid it the minute I get home. Enough is enough.

I only get fifteen minutes to collect my thoughts before I'm passing Darius and entering the elevator. She can't be too mad, can she? I tried to act in her best interest, after all. My thoughts sound desperate, even to me.

I find her on the couch, typing away at something on her laptop. She looks up with an easy smile. "Hey! Where've you been?"

I pause in the doorway, biting my lip, my resolve already crumbling. "Um, Rye wanted to talk to me."

She picks up on my tone straight away, a frown creasing her forehead. "What's wrong?"

So I take a deep breath and plough on ahead, telling her everything that I've been avoiding for weeks. Her face is composed as I explain and when I finish, she doesn't do anything at first. I can't read any emotion on her face. Her eyes stare downward as if she's calculating something.

"How long have you known about this?"

I'd dumbly been hoping she wouldn't ask that question so I wouldn't have to tell her I'd been keeping something from her for so long. I should've known it'd be the first thing from her mouth. She waits for my answer, tight lipped. "Two months."

Her face doesn't change. Her state of calmness unnerves me. She puts her hand to her mouth, gazing to the side of the room as she ponders over her next response. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was waiting for it to become official." Once I hear it out loud I know it's the lamest excuse ever.

"And it's official now?"

I nod my head. "I didn't want to worry you if it wasn't real."

I can tell it's with great strength that she keeps her composure. She draws a deep breath and sets her jaw slightly. "You didn't want to worry me? Peeta, I've been worried about you for weeks. I've been asking you what's wrong and you've been lying the whole time."

I have the defensive urge to say that I haven't been lying about everything; that there were other worries plaguing me, but I know that it won't help the situation at all. "I'm sorry – "

"I don't want you to be sorry!" She suddenly yells. I stop talking in shock. "I want you to talk to me. You never talk to me about anything important!"

"That's not true."

She raises her eyebrows challengingly. "Really? Who told me most of the information about Katniss and your mother?" I don't answer. "Your brother did. Finnick did. Not you. Two years we've been together and there's still a lot I don't know about you!"

"Because we never really talked about that stuff –"

"Because you wouldn't tell me!"

I know at the start of our relationship I'd avoided those challenging topics for two main reasons; I didn't want to scare her off and I wasn't ready to talk about them. Eventually we just got to a point where I didn't want to burden her and I rarely thought about them because they didn't have anything to do with my new life in the Capitol. Until now, we never had reason to discuss them.

"They weren't important –"

Her mouth falls open and her eyes narrow as she stares at me disbelievingly. "Not important? Peeta they're a part of you! They've been affecting you. That makes them important. You've been different ever since you came back from State 4. You wouldn't even let me in then! I offered to fly home to be with you after Finnick died and you just shut me out."

I fumble for a counter argument, coming up empty. I'd spent so long keeping these two parts of my life separate, that I don't know how to deal with them together. Before Finnick's death, distancing myself from the past had been easy; Katniss, to my knowledge, didn't exist and my mother was trapped inside a jail.

She sighs and rubs her eyes with her hands. "I'm just going to go out on a limb here, because we've already surpassed ridiculous, and assume Katniss knew about your mother before me."

Fuck. I should've known Leevy would say something to Madge about the Benefit. They've been best friends since childhood. Of course she would tell her about the conversation on the balcony.

She waits patiently for my response, her eyes hard, daring me to challenge her.

"Yeah, I asked her about parole at the Benefit." I say and it comes out sharper than I intend, my natural defences emerging against her accusations. However, I feel horrible as I watch her eyes glisten as she struggles to compose herself. "Madge, she doesn't have anything to do with this."

She scoffs, crossing her arms on her chest. "She has everything to do with this, Peeta. I have tried very hard to not let her get in the way of this relationship. I have tried to accept the fact that the girl you were once head over heels for is now in our lives. But she knew something important about you before your own girlfriend did. And I can only assume back in March, you didn't want me to come to State 4 because she was there too. Is there something going on?"

"Madge that's not –"

"You still have her things." She says suddenly and I shut right up.

"What?"

"In your bottom desk drawer, where you hid my ring."

Any form of an argument I had welling up inside me is distinguished immediately. She knows. Anger consumes me. Hours upon hours of planning, of worrying over that ring, and she already fucking knows about it!

"When did you find that?" I demand.

She looks at me defiantly. "When you were in State 4."

That was three months ago. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Are you serious?" She asks, in a low voice. "Maybe because I didn't want to spoil your surprise? It seems silly now but I thought you were actively planning a proposal! How do you expect to get married if you can't even confide in me?"

"I can confide in you!"

"No, you can't! Otherwise you would have told me instead of Katniss. We wouldn't even be having this conversation!"

I sigh in frustration. "The only reason I told Katniss was because she worked that entire case."

She frowns. "You don't think I have a best friend who is also a lawyer?"

"It's not – " I clench my hands in anger. "She understands."

I wish I could take back those two words the minute I see her face. Hurt streaks across her face, replacing the anger. She swallows and from the set of her mouth and I can tell she's holding back tears. "Right. And I don't."

"Madge – " I reach an arm out toward her, but she holds up her hands, taking a step back. She looks at me with hurt swimming in her eyes and then whips around, searching the apartment for her phone and keys. She snatches both of them up and then stalks down the hall, toward the door. "I'm staying at my place tonight." She slams the door closed, leaving me shocked, still standing in the middle of the hall. I stare at the door for a moment, letting our fight sink in.

I fucked up. I know I did. Realistically, I knew I fucked up weeks ago when I still hadn't told her. Katniss even told me so much at the Benefit last week.

Katniss.

With Madge's accusations in my mind, I enter my makeshift studio and open the bottom desk drawer; the one I never use. The one that has old things lying in it. The one I knew Madge wouldn't look through to find the ring. Apparently, I misjudged her.

There are a few old paint brushes and notepads lying in the front. Removing them, the ring box appears. I place that, unopened, on top of the notepads which leaves a handful of things in the back of the drawer, lying haphazardly on top of one another. I reach in and pull them out, setting them onto the floor. Madge is right, they are Katniss' things. Things she left behind nearly 4 years ago that I should've thrown out a long time ago. I'd never had the heart to. They aren't even particularly important things; a pair of sunglasses, a lip balm, some old photos, a bottle of nail polish and a lecture notepad with her notes from one of her senior classes. It's not like she would've missed these things. But back then, I hadn't wanted to let go of her and it would've felt that way if I threw them out. It took a year maybe, before I started forget about them, and from there I honestly hadn't given them much thought until…

Suddenly, I realize something is missing. I look back in the drawer and sure enough, a small silver ring glints in the back. It's just a normal ring; an everyday piece of jewellery. However, she'd never owned this in college. I'd accidently acquired it 4 months ago and then promptly forgotten about it with my new engagement ring dilemma. The dilemma that is now redundant anyway. She'd been wearing it the night of the storm and managed to hold onto it throughout the entire ordeal. That is, until she was admitted to the hospital. They'd removed it from her hand and with nowhere else to put it, I'd pocketed it. After accidently taking it home with me, my intention had been to give it to Annie to send back to her. That is, before I realized she had moved to the Capitol. However, out of sight out of mind, I'd completely forgotten about it, failing to return it to either Katniss or Annie.

Now, I turn it over in my fingers, remembering the night it'd been placed into my hand.

Katniss looks anxious as she lies in the hospital bed of the ER, waiting for a doctor or nurse to see her. I imagine we have a good few hours of waiting left; a hoard of people have filled the ER because of the storm and she is far from critically injured. I know she hates hospitals. She hadn't liked them in college because of her father, and after everything that has happened to her in the last few years, I know she hates them even more. Not hate, even. Scared. They scared her. The way she admitted that as I carried her from the bakery surprised me. She's always been incredibly strong – stubborn too – and it takes a lot for her to admit weakness. I know it took a lot for her to tell me what happened in the three year gap between college and now. It bothers me, how much she suffered. I had no idea about any of it. I had no idea it had gotten that bad. No one ever told me. But most of all, it bothers me that I wasn't there.

The anger that I'd been holding onto for weeks, that forced me into the storm, dissipated once she began her story, huddled in the storage room of the bakery. Any pretence she'd put up since we'd been in State 4 broke down. The confidence, the assured attitude, had all dissolved in that room. She told me everything with raw honesty and emotion, and that's why it hurts so much now. It surprised me, slightly, that seeing her broken down and upset would affect me like it used to. But it does. Despite everything that happened, I still hate to see her hurt. I would never wish anything bad upon her.

That's why, now, when I see her distraught expression as she lies in the thin hospital bed, I entwine my hand with hers, giving it a squeeze. Her head swivels toward me in surprise, her eyes glassy, before she squeezes my hand back lightly.

"You doing okay?" I ask.

She nods, then looks like she regrets it. "Yeah my head just hurts and my vision's kind of blurry." She closes her eyes, her head leaning against the bed. I'm nearly certain she has a bad concussion.

"Peeta?"

"Yeah?"

She takes a deep breath and then opens her eyes to look at mine. "What I said the other night…when you asked me if I regretted leaving..."

I remember. She's said she didn't regret leaving that night in State 4. That hurt worse than anything.

"I told you I didn't regret it. But what I meant was…I don't regret leaving, because I ended up getting help, but I regret the way I went about it." Her eyes suddenly fill with tears. "I'm sorry, Peeta. I really didn't mean to hurt you. If I could go back in time, I would do it differently."

A few days ago, I might've brushed her off. Told her that it was too late. I would've let my anger get the best of me. But now that I know the truth, and I've gained some perspective, I know she really means it. Annie told me the other week that just because she isn't suffering outwardly, doesn't mean she isn't suffering at all. I hadn't really understood what she meant completely, but now it all falls into place. We all put up different fronts, ways to protect ourselves. I've broken through Katniss' tonight and she's suffering just as much as the rest of us.

I watch a tear trail slowly down her cheek. I lean forward and place a comforting kiss on her forehead, the best I can do in the moment. "I know, Katniss. I forgive you."

She looks taken aback, like she hadn't expected my forgiveness. A week ago, I wouldn't have expected those words from me either. "Why?" She breathes.

I smile a slightly melancholy smile. "You're not a bad person, Katniss. I know that. And I don't want to fight with you anymore over this. You made a bad decision at a difficult time. I can't blame you for that. We've both grown up since then, too. We've both moved forward."

She studies me from a moment, processing my words, then gives me a watery smile. "I'm happy for you, you know."

"I'm happy for you too." I smile.

A small amount of time passes as we both observe the busy ER, with nurses and doctor's running to and fro. My hand remains in hers, giving her comfort. I think back to the beach where we'd screamed at each other. She'd yelled at me and told me she loved me. I dismissed it quickly, assuming the proclamation was drawn out of anger, but looking at her now, I think maybe she might've meant it. And from the way my heart froze when she got dragged out into the tide, there might still be a part of me that loves her too. Thinking about it now, we never really fell out of love, not really, but even reunited now, three years of separation still stands between us. It's a different kind of love now. We both have different lives. Katniss told me on the second day here in State 4 she wanted me to move on, to be happy. I want that for her too.

I sigh, flipping her ring around in my fingers. In another life, we might've been perfect for each other. We weren't an obvious match, not really, but it had been easy to be with her. Well, you know, discounting deaths and legal dramas. But I always thought that we completed each other. Maybe we would have stayed together if both our lives had been simpler. But now, three and half years has pushed us far apart, to other people. I'll admit I hadn't expected her to be seeing my doorman. That was…confusing. Though Darius is a decent enough guy. She deserves someone decent. As for me….well, I'll see if I still have a girlfriend by the end of this.

I collect Katniss' things, realizing I'm going to have to return that ring sometime, and find a small cardboard box in the studio to keep them in. I put it high on a shelf with other boxes of painting supplies where Madge won't find it again.

I return the other random things to the drawer, my fingers lingering on the engagement ring box. Had I rushed into this? I'm not sure. I've never married anyone before. I'd been sure when I'd bought the ring at the beginning of the year, even if I didn't pick it out. But that was before Finnick's death brought along a whole lot of baggage, things that I clearly hadn't thought about. Things that I'd try to bury, that have now been dug up. I never even realized so many problems were lurking beneath the surface until today.

Madge is right. I don't talk to her about things the same way I used to talk to Katniss. But they're different people. In fact, they're vastly different people; they're polar opposites. She lives in a perfect world where people's mother's don't abuse other people or screw over their families. I don't, and never will, live in that world. As much as I hate to say it, there's a sense of disconnectedness between us because of that, something I hadn't had with Katniss. Though, I never thought that Madge would be bothered by Katniss. Few things break through Madge's confidence, but apparently Katniss has been a topic that's been plaguing her, one that she hasn't told me about either. Poor communication is clearly a two way issue between us. I wonder what exactly Finnick and Rye had told her about Katniss. Was it good? Was it bad? Who did Madge imagine Katniss Everdeen to be? What did she imagine our relationship to be like? I never felt the need to talk about Katniss with her. For me, Madge and Katniss were from two completely different lives, two separate different worlds. Unfortunately now, it seems those worlds have bled into one another messily.

I continue to flip the velvet box in my hands, feeling the softness underneath my fingers. I have so many questions plaguing me with no answers. But as my mind spins around in circles, dragging my thoughts through the present and the past, it keeps landing on one thought in particular: I wonder if any of these problems would have come up if Finnick hadn't died.

Without any answers to my questions, I close the desk drawer and return to the lounge room, needing to formulate a plan before I lose the only other girl I've ever loved.

000

Step one of my plan fails when I turn up at Madge's apartment the next day and she doesn't answer the door. I don't know whether she is purposely avoiding me or she is just out. I lean my head against her apartment door, letting out a sigh. I'd never actually had a major fight with her before. Sure we'd had small arguments over two years, but nothing this big. So I have exactly zero expectations for how she'll act. Luckily for me, I know someone who does.

Time for Plan B.

I feel like I've hit a new low when I enter the United building and head toward the legal office in search of Leevy. I'd been there once or twice before with Madge but I'd never had to visit Leevy for situations like this. It is about lunchtime and I know they don't go out for lunch every day so I'm hoping Leevy is available. No one pays me any attention as I make my way to the legal floor.

Stepping into the sharply decorated room, I notice the office isn't full. There are only a handful of people milling about, the remainder of the employees most likely finding the best lunch spot on the street. I immediately head toward the dark haired girl at one of the desks before I stop in my tracks, realizing it's not Leevy.

"…that's really not within our parameters. It's not our legal obligation to do that." Katniss sighs into the phone while twirling a fork in what looks to be a Chinese noodle box. I look around for Leevy but she's not in the room. I already expected Katniss to be here but I figured Leevy would be here with her. I hesitate, unsure of exactly what to do. However I've already caught Katniss' attention by just entering the room. Her eyes flit up as she continues talking, "Look that's really not our problem – " I make a move to leave when she holds up a finger at me, signalling me to wait. "Yes I understand that…okay, I'm going to put you on hold while I look into that." She punches a button on the phone a little forcefully as she places it in the hanger, rolling her eyes. "Some people are ridiculous." She mutters, then turns her attention to me. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

She smiles at me effortlessly and I'm pleased to see some of the easiness return to our complex relationship. "I was looking for Leevy."

"Oh," she frowns, "yeah she's in the copy room, I'll go get her."

"I can do it, you can finish your call – "

"No," she cuts me off, waving at the phone, "if they're going to be an asshole about it, they can wait."

I smile, slightly, as she strides out of the room. She hasn't lost her candour over the years. I look around the room, ignoring the stares of the others in the office as I wait for Katniss and Leevy to come back. It doesn't take very long. Maybe a minute later Katniss enters with Leevy hot on her heels. Leevy hands her a file of some sort and she plonks back down at her desk chair, picking the phone back up with a look of disdain.

"Alright, so I have the documents with me…"

I turn my attention to Leevy who gives me a small smile filled with sympathy. "I'm guessing Madge is ignoring you? That's why you're here?"

I cringe slightly. "I'm hoping you know where she is."

She nods then casts a quick glance around the room. "Katniss, how long do we have left?" Katniss, who isn't even holding the phone to her ear anymore, looks up from the notepad she's writing on. She checks her watch and shrugs. "15?"

"Alright, let's take a walk." Leevy says to me. She leads me into an empty conference room.

"I went to her apartment but she wasn't there. Or she didn't answer the door." I say as an afterthought.

She nods, unsurprised. "She's working." She presses her lips together as if thinking what to say next.

"How bad is it?"

"You know this is much bigger than just one lie, right?"

I sigh. "I didn't mean for it to be."

Her sharp eyes appraise me for a moment as she considers what to say next. "I guess, you never knew how she felt when you first started dating, right?" She asks, perching herself on the end of the conference table. I shake my head. "Right. Well, pretty early on, when you'd only been dating a few months, she told me she liked you a lot but you were quite closed off about your past and she was worried you were still hung up over someone else." I want to roll my eyes at myself. That early on? Have I always been this transparent? "She stuck with it though and eventually when things started to get more serious she went to your brother since she'd learnt very little from you. He explained it a little more; the family stuff you had going on, what happened with Katniss and so on." I try not to get unnerved by the fact that Leevy clearly knows much more about my life than I ever thought. "And at the time I think she got it and didn't want to push you on that stuff, seeing as they weren't really problems at the time."

"Until this mess of a year happened." I mutter under my breath.

"Yeah. I don't know when she found out about Katniss being here, because I only figured it out a few weeks ago. Madge never told me who she was."

I always wondered that actually. Did she know Katniss worked at United a long time ago or did she only figure it out recently?

"I never realized that was a problem for her."

Leevy gives me a look that I struggle to decipher. Sympathy? Pity? "Did you ever really get over Katniss?"

The word yes is on the tip of my tongue but I pause. Surely I did, right? I got over her. I moved on.

Or did I just lock it all away?

"That's not relevant anymore. Maybe not then, but we've all moved on by now." I say. Despite any previous issues I had with it all, there is no question that now, we are most definitely over.

Leevy looks frustratingly unconvinced but continues anyway. "Okay, regardless of that, she was always a little upset that she didn't really know your family. I mean she's only met your dad a handful of times. I think she feels like…" Leevy hesitates and I raise my eyebrows urging her to go on, "like she's more emotionally invested in this relationship than you are."

I sigh. Well fucking done Peeta. I really need to go talk to her. "Is she home tonight?"

Leevy appraises me for a second, with a protectiveness for Madge, as her grey eyes bore into mine. "Yeah she'll be there." She finally tells me.

I breathe a sigh in relief. "Thanks Leevy."

"Just don't screw it up."

000

I knock on the door, nervous for the first time in over a year. It only takes a few moments for it to swing in, revealing Madge. She looks at me levelly. "I was wondering when you'd come over." She opens the door and gestures with her head for me to enter.

Not a terrible start.

The main area of the apartment had been converted to a photography studio a while ago, so I veer off to a side room where I know a couch sits. She follows me wordlessly. Rather than sitting down, because there's still a good chance she might throw me out, I turn to face her. She doesn't look angry but she doesn't look happy either. She waits patiently for me to make the first move.

"I'm sorry, Madge."

She simply nods her head, leaving me a little helpless. "I know you are."

I pause, at a rare loss for words. "Okay. Yeah. I know sorry doesn't fix anything but…" I sigh, "Madge, I really didn't mean to push you away. I wasn't trying to do that. Honestly."

She looks at me with sad eyes. "Sit down." She says softly. I take a seat with her on the sofa, each of us angling our bodies toward each other. "Do you not trust me?" She asks.

"What? No! I do trust you."

"Then why have you kept things from me?"

It's a valid question. I'm crushed with a wave of guilt over what I've been doing unknowingly to her, in my futile and idiotic attempts to erase my past.

"Because…I just don't know how to deal with it, Madge. There's just so much shit going on…I don't know what to do." I finally admit, truthfully. "But when I met you…it all went away. It didn't matter anymore. I could forget about the hurt from my relationship with Katniss. My mother was in jail and to my knowledge not getting out anytime soon, so I could forget about that too. I was trying so hard to just have a normal life with you, you know?" I look into her bright blue eyes and her expression sombre. "I wanted to be good enough for you."

Her eyebrows pull into a frown. "Good enough?" She asks incredulously. "But you still pushed me away after Finnick died. Why? You have to know I would've helped you, right?"

Here we go. "I knew Katniss would probably be there. I thought it best if you weren't as well."

She breaks eye contact, biting her lip and looking down at her hands in her lap. "I'm going to ask you something, okay? I need to be honest with me. Did you anything happen between you two?"

"Madge!"

"What do you expect me to think?" She argues back. "You never got over her."

"That's ridiculous."

"Is it? I don't think so. Your brother told me you loved her a lot and that it broke you when she left. Finnick told me much the same."

"Nearly four years ago." I implore. "She's no longer in the picture Madge. I'm with you now. I love you."

Her face softens. "You know I love you too. But Peeta we can't go on like this if we can't talk to each other. We can't expect to get married if we can't confide in each other. We need to be a team, not at odds with each other."

I hang my head. "I know, I know. I'm going to work on it, but it might take some time okay? I've never talked much about the past. I haven't dealt with all of it properly. I've spent so many years trying to forget it."

"You can trust me." Despite my earlier words, her voice tells me that she doesn't think I trust her. I look into her eyes. They're open and earnest, her anger already dwindling. What did I do to deserve Madge Undersee?

"I'm worried it will scare you away."

She looks surprised, then saddened. "Do you think my life is perfect?"

Yes.

I don't say it out loud but something in her expression tells me she can already guess my answer.

"Peeta…" She trails off, shaking her head. "I love you. It's going to take more than your past to get rid of me. I just need you to talk to me. We have to be honest with each other."

Her face is imploring, hopeful, maybe with a touch of pleading. She wants this to work as much as I do. I know if we can't take this step, we can't take anymore.

"We'll work on it." I promise her, even if the idea of being completely honest scares me.

000

From there, things remain slightly rocky. Madge still opts to stay at her place, though she visits our apartment a few afternoons that week. It's almost normal. Almost. Most of the time we do what we've always done, it's just occasionally a new question will crop up about topics that've been silent for so long.

We're in unchartered waters. We promised each other we'd work on our relationship but there is nothing guaranteeing it will work. We have two years of bad habits to break and ugly topics to converse about. Annie tells me that it will be okay, we just have to be honest with each other. I don't know why that creates a knot in my stomach or feels like such a foreign concept.

That Saturday morning is the first in a very long time that I wake up alone in the apartment. Disheartened, I get ready in the quiet space, and without Madge reminding me of the time I end up late, unsurprisingly. In a hurry, I stride quickly down the street toward Bristel's to pick up our usual breakfast order. Just as I'm debating whether or not to pick up Madge's order with the hope that she'll come to the gallery, her blonde hair comes into my view. She's leaning against the brick cafe wall, watching patrons come and go, already swarming the streets, with two coffees in her hands and a takeaway bag slung on her wrist. Well, if this isn't progress I don't know what is.

"Hey." She smiles at me, greeting me with a kiss.

"You're coming today?"

"Of course."

In a similar fashion to every other Saturday, we weave our way towards the gallery, down the little laneways and dashing through the traffic, caffeine perking us both up as it flows through our veins. Our conversation is light, and if our argument wasn't burned into my brain, I would've thought this was a perfectly usual Saturday morning. However, underneath our illusion of normalcy, there's a slight undercurrent of awkwardness, of uncertainty. It has just enough presence to mar the otherwise perfect day.

When the kids flow into the art class an hour later, a few of them squeal with delight when they see Madge. She bends down and greets them all enthusiastically. The usual ones are there; Eddy and Lavinia, Mitchell, along with some new comers. I chat with the parents for a bit, tell them when to come back to get the kids, then I chorale the little bodies into their seats.

Madge and I wander the classroom, praising the kids' pictures and giving out helpful hints as we go along. When I reach Lavinia, she asks me for help, then like usual begins chattering at me happily. She is much more outgoing than her reserved brother, Eddy.

"…and then my mommy made chocolate chip cookies. It was so good! But she only let me have two…" her voice trails off, finished telling me about her playdate and the horrible cookie situation. Her eyes drift up to Madge, talking to a little boy on the other table. "Did you marry Miss Madge yet? My mommy says that's what grownups do when they love each other. You're a grownup. You said you would."

If there was an undercurrent of awkwardness before, it's a full-fledged wave now crashing around the room. I cringe internally as Lavinia loudly picks up the conversation we'd had the month before, where she suggested I marry Madge.

"Not all grownups get married. Sometimes they want to wait."

I feel eyes on me as I skirt around the issue with Lavinia. Briefly, I look over the top of her head and find those ice blue eyes. I can't read them exactly, though there seems to be a tinge of sadness swimming in them. Lavinia goes to say something else but I quickly steer the topic away from marriage, asking which colour paints she wants to mix together. She's easily preoccupied with creating a bright fuchsia pink.

I'm uneasy for the remainder of the lesson, my concerns I'd pushed back into a dark little corner of my mind, now at the forefront of my thoughts. An hour later the parents return and the kids put their pictures on the drying racks, swapping them out for last week's pictures that they can now take home and display proudly on their fridges or tack up on their walls. Without speaking, automatically Madge and I move about the room, setting up for the older class that starts in a half hour.

"I don't think I ever told you," her smooth voice floats across the room, breaking the silence for the first time, "that the ring was really beautiful." I pause, my gaze levelling with hers. I wonder exactly where she wants to go with this. "You know that it wasn't a 'no' to marriage, right?"

"I never asked you the question."

Her painted lips twist to the side of her face. "Does that mean you weren't going to?"

"What? No." I frown. "I was…just trying to make it perfect." I laugh, a short beat, humourlessly. I should've known perfection was well out of reach for me.

She leaves whatever she was doing and walks toward me, her hand cupping my cheek. "I love you. I'm not saying no, I'm saying one day. Okay?"

I stare into those blue eyes I love, the ones that have been my world for the last two years.

"One day." I agree.

"Besides," she continues lightly, grabbing a cloth and wiping the table. "We're young, we have forever." I watch the cloth move in circles on the table. "I was meaning to ask you, Leevy invited us for dinner tomorrow night. Will you come?"

I blink, my mind still stuck on her previous words. A week ago, it wouldn't have been a question. Unchartered waters, I remind myself. We're in unchartered waters. "Uh, yeah, tomorrow? Do you…should you meet me at the apartment and we'll head over?"

"Yeah, let's do that."

She agrees easily and I can't help but think we're taking small steps forward. My only hope is that once we get everything out in the open, we don't take ten steps back.

000

The first time Madge came to my apartment had been after our third date. I'd opened the door, gesturing for her to enter first. She'd wandered in confidently, her fingers gripping her tiny shoulder bag and her artistic gaze critically appraising the insides of the apartment. She'd seemed appreciative, though Finnick's words about how boring and lifeless the apartment was had echoed in my head self-consciously. Her eyes had swept over the bare walls.

"No paintings?"

"I've been meaning to put some up." I lied.

She'd nodded thoughtfully, then smiled her million dollar smile, flopping down onto the couch as if she lived there already, her bag tossed to the side. I loved that. "I have some good prints, if you want some stuff."

That marked the moment that Madge started creeping into the apartment. Pictures started gradually adorning the walls. Small accessories and sparks of colours from blankets and rugs made the apartment feel more homey, less clinical. She'd change the pictures every six months or so and once we started travelling together our faces started appearing in the frames.

I'm reminded of the memory when she comes on Sunday night, her eyes appraising the apartment, looking for changes. As if I would have changed anything in a few short weeks. There are so many touches of her in the apartment that it feels surreal as she wanders in like a visitor.

"Ready?"

We walk hand in hand down to the street where we hail a cab to take us the short 10 minute drive to Leevy's apartment. The sun is just beginning to set, casting a low glow of light across the city roads. I'd been to Leevy's apartment quite a few times, for dinners like this or social gatherings filled with drinks and chips on the weekends. Today, she hasn't spared on the food. She has antipasto platters with an expensive pinot grigio, followed by a roast lamb meal with a large array of sauces and salads. Conversation flows easily between all of us and it's just enough to pretend like everything is normal. Though I don't doubt for one second Leevy knows all about Madge and me, she doesn't show it. Enjoying the return of normalcy, it doesn't occur to me that this might be a special occasion until dessert hits - a chocolate cheesecake and smooth Italian espresso - and Leevy looks sideways at her husband with an excited smile on her face. In those few seconds before she speaks I realize exactly what is happening. I note for the first time that though she has a wine glass, it's been filled with sparkling water all night and she has a cup of tea instead of coffee with her cake. As she tells us they have some news, my suspicions are confirmed. There are only two kinds of things that people announce this excitedly after a dinner like this: marriage or pregnancy. Considering she's already married it's no question that it is the latter.

"We're going to have a baby." She announces, taking her husband's hand with barely contained excitement. I react before Madge, hugging and congratulating them. I look behind me where Madge is getting over her shock and rising from the table too. As she hugs her best friend I watch curiously and see that although she is smiling there's something slightly wooden about it. When we resume eating dessert, chatting about due dates and genders and gifts, Madge regards Leevy curiously.

"I didn't realize you guys were trying for a baby."

She doesn't seem to notice Madge's mood. "We weren't really actively trying, but we're not getting any younger right? We figured we'd just see what happens and well…" She trails off gesturing to herself.

"Are you leaving United?"

"I'm not sure," Leevy says unfazed, "obviously I'll take at least 6 months off. I might go back on a part time basis. Though my parents will probably want us to get a house now. Maybe move a bit closer to them."

I don't doubt that Leevy's parents will dictate exactly what they want for their grandchild. Only the best. Her lack of concern over her career also didn't surprise me. Her parents dictated that as well, a long time ago. Actually, a baby is perfect for Leevy, because now she isn't required to keep climbing the corporate ladder which is what success is measured by in her family.

Madge, however, her reaction surprises me. I can tell she's excited, as she begins chatting about baby shopping, but there's something I can't quite place swimming beneath her expression. It keeps my curiosity piqued, and a small nervous tremor in my gut, for the remainder of the night as we slowly wrap things up. By 10:30pm we're heading out the door.

She doesn't say anything about it, but when we reach The Victor's Village she takes the lead and heads up to the apartment. I don't complain, though I do catch her hand in the elevator and get her to look at me. "Are you okay?"

She puts on her smile, the one I'd seen a million times in the midst of a Capitol party or event. It isn't genuine. "Yeah."

I swipe the card for the apartment door, a small metallic click echoing through the hall as it swings in. I watch Madge walk into the apartment, her pictures lining the walls, her decorations and accessories collected from overseas trips spread across the surfaces and it hits me that this apartment is more hers than mine, despite my name on the paperwork.

"It's great about Leevy, huh?"

"Yeah," she nods absently, "surprised me."

"I can tell."

She doesn't respond. Her quietness creates another nervous flutter in my stomach. As she moves within the apartment placing her things down, my eyes stray to a picture of us on the wall, the one from Laos a year prior, and I start to think about a lot of things, playing in front of my eyes, like a movie reel. I think about the trip to Mongolia and Central Asia she planned for us next year, with no time limit, nothing to come home to. And the way her father had joked he'd be indebted to me if I managed to bring her home. About how he had said she wanted to work abroad for United, something she'd never told me. The way she always says how young we are with the entire world at our fingertips. How much time she always says we have. Her mood slowly begins to make sense in my mind, fitting into a picture I'd been slowly, and unknowingly, building across time.

"Why does Leevy having a baby scare you?"

Normally, I might've worked my way toward the question gradually, instead of coming right out with it. But I finally placed her emotion and I don't want to skirt around the issue. She wants us to be more honest with each other after all, right?

Her mouth falls open, perhaps surprised that I'd read her accurately. Her eyes close briefly and now to my surprise, she leaves the room, walking into my study. I frown and begin to follow her but she comes back in, a small velvet cube in her hands.

That damned ring box.

She opens it carefully, tilting it back and forth.

"We've never talked about the future, have we?"

"No."

"I always thought we were on the same page but after tonight…why did you buy this, Peeta?"

"I want to marry you." I say obviously.

She nods. "Where do you see us in five years? What are we doing? What is our life like?"

Anxiety builds within me as I step slowly toward her and take a seat on the leather couch. "I see us married. We have our own house, somewhere out in the suburbs. We can build studios for both of us to do our work in. We have a baby or maybe we're trying for one."

The slightest of smiles pulls at her lips, but there is not one ounce of happiness in her expression. Tears pool in her eyes. She closes them briefly. "I was afraid you'd say that."

I stare at her questioningly. "I always thought you wanted kids? You love them. You're so good with them."

"Well of course we have to have a child eventually. I mean, someone needs to take on our family companies. But we have so long to think about that, Peeta. A decade."

I might've accepted what she said or considered a compromise if she hadn't said those two words. Have to. I know Madge's life has always revolved around the family business, making the right connections, forming the right relationships. She is amazing at charming people and equally amazing at using those skills to do good in the world, through United. But I never thought that aspect of her extended to our life together. I thought we were separate from that. Unlike her, I'd long since grown out of the idea of spending my life within the Capitol and running the family business. I'd grown out of it in college.

I want a family home, outside of the city, where I can paint and illustrate and be a dad. But I want to start a family with Madge because she wants to, not because she has to. I don't want a child as a business arrangement, to force into this life so the family wealth lives on. And I don't want to wait 10 years for it either. Her whole approach seems….cold, an adjective I've never once used to describe her.

I consider her own childhood: being the only child, growing up with a nanny, attending the best private schools of the Capitol, the best fine arts university, being constantly tied to United as its future owner. Her life was set for her from the very beginning and I'm starting to think perhaps I was naïve to think her future would look any different.

"You want to wait that long to have a baby?" I ask in astonishment, skimming over everything else so wrong with her admission.

"We can't travel if we have a child, Peeta. I won't be able to do my photography. I'm going to inherit United, I don't have time to raise a baby. I don't want to be tied down so young, Peeta. I thought you'd understand that."

I look around my own apartment, the rich opulence of it that I never wanted. The life I've been living here has never been what I really wanted. I don't want to spend most of our nights at overpriced restaurants, socializing with people we don't really care about. I don't want to attend elite Capitol parties or grand openings. I don't care about making business connections or what my reputation looks like. All that stuff is an illusion. It's not real. I only ever did it for her.

I thought this was temporary. I thought we'd grow out of it. This life was never my end game plan. This life was formulated to break free from old ties, to move on from the past. I used it to forget. However, somewhere in the last three years, with all my energy forgetting the past, I've lost part of myself in the midst of it all.

I stare at the blonde beauty in front of me; someone who I thought was so perfect for me. She is perfect for me, I correct myself, if I'm happy with the life we currently lead.

"I'm willing to sacrifice those things to have a family."

She looks at me sadly. "I'm not."

She gently closes the ring box and places it carefully on the table. I stare at it for a long moment, our fight from the other week running through my head. It is suddenly redundant with this new information; information that I had no idea even existed until now. We've so horribly misread each other. We've survived this long on half-truths and wrong assumptions. We could spend weeks, months, years, correcting every other issue that already exists in our relationship but if we don't have the same future, what is the point of it all?

I take a deep breath, rethinking things over and over, before my next words finally fall solemnly from my lips.

"We have a problem, then."

000

A/N: Did that provide some perspective? I really tried to show the change in Peeta and Katniss' relationship and different forms of love between people. It's been so long that they just can't be in the same place that they were in college but they still care for and respect each other. As for Madge, well their "perfect" relationship had flaws from the very beginning and the issue about their future was the last straw. Finnick touched on a few of the problems in his conversations with Katniss. And despite everyone else's opinions about Madge, she's not perfect either.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it all!

P.S. Yes, there are only two more chapters left, but there's an epilogue that I'll be uploading separately as a one-shot. Forgot to mention that :P