It's weird. For the first time ever, I looked to see what my story looked like with a live preview thing, and I realized my lines before and after each A/N are not there. So, I'll try to do something else that will make it easier to tell the difference between an author's note and the story. So…This chapter is dedicated to one of my best friends, junbug24. She is a lot of help when it comes to my stinking writers block. But someone asked me what team I was on. I have to admit it changes, but almost all of the time I'm on Team Peeta. Most of the time it's 70% Peeta, 30% Gale, but it changes. So in answer to your question, yes. I am very much on Team Peeta. I just love Gale too.

oOo

I woke up to her screaming. Sitting bolt upright, I could see her dark form next to me, huddled and twitching. Her eyes were open wide, and she was just about to scream again when I reached out for her.

"Katniss, you're okay…" But before I could put my arms around her, she flinched away from me, chest heaving.

"S-Stay away!" She cried, scrambling as far away from me as possible.

My heart beat irregularly fast. "Katniss, it's me, Peeta! Kat—"

"No, no! G-You're not… Go a-away!" She made frightened whimper.

I reached over, despite her attempts to scramble away from me, and touched her cheek tenderly. Katniss' reaction was automatic. She whimpered and collapsed. Literally. She didn't even aim for my arms or anything.

I scooped her limp body up and held her gently to my body, reassuring her that I was there for her. Katniss' heart rate hadn't gone down much, but her heavy, terrified breathing slowed. Now she just laid across my lap, gray eyes staring up at the ceiling, wet and shiny from the tears that poured from them.

After a few more seconds of not moving at all, she moved her eyes to stare at me. "You—You're Peeta again."

"Of course I am…" My fingers caressed her face gently.

"You were…You were Snow. He was trying to k-kill me." Katniss' chest heaved again and panic rose in her eyes.

"No…" I supported her body, holding her head to my shoulder with one hand, the other wrapped around her waist. "I won't ever let him get you, Katniss, I promise. He won't ever touch you." There was a fierce protectiveness air in my voice, quelled only when Kat put her hand on my cheek.

"I know. It was just really scary." She blinked, and another layer of fresh tears were pressed out of her eyes. Her hand slid around my neck, and I thought it was to support herself of something, but instead she gently lowered my head to hers and kissed me. I could taste the salt of the tears on her lips.

As gently as Katniss would let me, I pressed my body down on top of hers. But it was apparent Katniss wasn't aiming for gentleness. In fact, she kind of surprised me when her hands started to sneak down my torso.

I pulled back and said warningly, "What are you doing?"

Katniss blinked. "Nothing." She said in a too-innocent voice. "Just, um…" When no explanation came to her, she sighed. "Not anything bad…" She mumbled, embarrassed.

I let her have the benefit of the doubt. "It's okay. You're not in trouble. But…I do kind of need to talk to you."

Katniss frowned. "Are you sure I'm not in trouble?"

"Nah." I laughed slightly and put my lips to her throat. Then I sighed and rolled off of her. Now down to business.

Both Kat and I sat up, disheveled but alright.

"So what do you need to talk about?" Katniss attempted to smooth back her hair (sucker).

"If…" I bit my lip. I really didn't want her to get her hopes up. "There is a rumor going around that District 13 is rebuilding the districts, and if…If 12 manages to get rebuilt, I would like to start fresh."

Katniss slow nodding turned into shaking her head. "I'm…not following you."

"Our life." I entwined my fingers with hers. "If we ever manage to get out of Thirteen and go back to District Twelve, I would like to start our lives fresh. I was thinking about it with Prim while you were getting tests done. Restart as two normal people, living in two normal houses." I grinned. "And we'll go from there."

"Would we ever be able to be normal?" Katniss sighed as well.

"We could certainly try. So what do you think of the idea?" I put my face near hers teasingly.

Katniss pretended to consider it. Then she sat up on her knees. "I think we could give it a try." And she leaned her body forward onto mine.

What is with this behavior today? I resisted the urge to do more than just kiss her back. And then it clicked in my brain. I pulled gently away from Katniss and smiled. "I know what you're doing, there."

She raised her eyebrows.

"You're getting back at me for yesterday when I wouldn't let you sulk." I laughed to myself. "This is a very interesting way to do it, though."

"How could this be getting back at you?" Katniss actually seemed genuinely confused.

"You're testing me and making me restrain myself from you when you are being seductive."

Katniss blinked once, and then burst into a fit of laughter. It was wonderful hearing her laugh again, even if it was for a weird cause. She bit her lip to keep herself from laughing more. "I'm being seductive? Honestly?" Her voice was amused and a bit incredulous.

"It's killing me, with you acting the way you're acting and me not being able to do anything about it!" I was laughing too.

Katniss' eyes were watering from the laughter. "Then why do you resist?"

That caught me off guard, and my smile faltered a bit. "You know why."

"Actually…I don't."

I sighed. "Katniss, I don't think it would be very smart to because that would put you at risk of getting pregnant, and I'm not sure that we are ready to raise a kid right now. This time, it's our choice, and we need to think before we act."

Silence.

"Katniss?"

She pouted and put her head on my chest. "I hate it when you're right."

I put my arms around her and laced my fingers together on the small of her back. "But if we didn't have to worry about an infestation of babies, I probably wouldn't resist."

We laid there together for a few more minutes, me just gazing at Katniss facial expressions. At first she just looked somewhat wistful, and then the corners of her mouth twitched upwards. I would give anything to know what was going on in her mind right now… When her eyebrows knitted together into a frown, I smoothed it out with my thumb. "What are you thinking of?"

"Nothing, really. Are you just… Never mind." Katniss bit her lip.

I raised my eyebrows at her but said nothing.

After another five minutes or so, she looked up at me. "What's your favorite part about you and me?"

"Huh?" I shook my head and recovered from zoning out.

"What do you like most about us? I mean—that sounds really cheesy, but what do you like the most about being together?"

I cast my eyes around the room, and let them finally settle on her again. "Can I be shallow?"

Katniss grinned. "As shallow as you want."

"I like…" I put my lips right near hers. "…The taste of your breath."

Katniss looked puzzled. "My breath? That's a bit—"

I pinched her mouth closed again. "Sh. I'm not done. I also like…" With my index finger, I traced Katniss spine all the way down to the waistband of her new white pants. I felt her shiver underneath my touch. "…the curve of your back. I like when you blush if either one of us had said something that we shouldn't have."

That, of course, made her blush.

"But my favorite part is when I think back to two or three years ago. Back when I use to stare at you fiddling with your black braid from across the room to where you would sit, alone. How I wanted to get the nerve up to talk to you, to tell you how I felt, but never actually doing it. Then I open my eyes to now and think 'what did I do to deserve you?' You could have had anyone in the world. You could have let me stay in the mud to die. You could have won and chosen anyone in the whole world to be with. Yet you still choose me. And I think of then and I think of now and pray that this isn't just a dream."

There wasn't a reply. I looked down at Katniss, who had her face buried in my shirt.

"Katniss, love? Are you okay?" I tilted her chin up and saw the wet streaks of tears running down her face. Seeing her weeping like that, I held her to me and said nothing more.

Once Katniss was done crying, she lifted her head and hiccupped quietly. "You're so sweet, Peeta. And you wonder why I chose you…"

I smiled to myself and brushed my lips across her temple. "Your turn."

"Let's see…" She rested back against my chest. "I like…your hair when you first wake up. How it sticks up everywhere and hangs in your eyes." Katniss reached up and ruffled my blond hair endearingly, making me smile. "I like how just unbearably cute and soft-hearted you are. How you help me with things I could do myself, just to be a gentleman, and how you compliment me just to make me smile."

I couldn't help but smile at that as well.

"But my favorite part is this—" She stretched her neck up and kissed me tenderly. It felt as though someone had knocked me flat on my back, leaving my heart beating wildly and a woozy feeling doing summersaults in my head. Katniss drew away and put her hand on my chest. "How I could practically feel your heart skip a beat, and you even sometimes gasp a little bit when I kiss you. That's my favorite part."

I was about to say something to that, ideally something that would make Katniss kiss me again, but a little bell rang somewhere in the room.

Katniss sighed. "Breakfast time." She clumsily crawled around me and off the bed to a mysterious metal panel set into the wall that I hadn't noticed before. She grabbed the edge and opened it. To my surprise, it looked just like a metal safe, yet a steaming meal was sitting right in the middle of the box.

Seeing my look, she shrugged and brought it over to the bed.

"Are you going to eat this time?" I asked Katniss, eyeing her closely.

"Now that you are here. But I'll share."

So we settled down in the bed and began breakfast.

oOo

Hoped you liked this fluffy chapter!