Alas, I have nothing to say right now, so go ahead and read.

oOo

I woke up an hour later, fuming when I realized what time it was. Peeta seemed to be thinking hard, either that or dozing too, because his eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell slowly with every breath.

"Why the heck did you let me sleep?" I hissed, not necessarily angry at him, but angry at the fact I slept.

Peeta opened his eyes and he stared curiously at me. "You needed the rest. Are you mad at me?"

"I—" I sighed. "No, I'm not. But that was an hour we could have spent doing other things, not sleeping. You do realize this might as well be our last day together."

He looked sympathetic as he brushed his lips across my temple. "Lunch arrived not ten minutes ago. Do you want to eat?"

"Want? No, but I'll eat anyways." Pulling away from Peeta, I sat up and let him get off the bed. But before he could turn his back to me and get the tray, I saw something; a glint in his eyes. It looked sort of apologetic, and excited at the same time. Weird.

When he returned with my food and sat back down next to me, I inspected today's menu; leg of lamb, a roll with some jelly, and a little pot of what looked like mashed berries. After offering him half my roll, I began eating. The meat here wasn't near as good as my freshly-caught wild squirrel, but it was meat. After I was done eating that and the half-roll, I started slurping up the berries, when I caught Peeta's eye. He was staring at me with the same look. But when I caught him looking intently at me, his gaze changed and he looked away.

It was then I noticed a peculiar aftertaste of the berries; some type of unnaturally-sweet something or other. I shrugged, sure it was just another weird District 13 plant. But when I scraped the plastic cup clean, I turned to Peeta, smacking my lips. The trace of sugariness still in my mouth, but along with the feeling of a full stomach came fatigue. "Those mashed berries were quite odd. I don't think I've ever had them before."

"Haven't you?" His voice was soft. "Their sugar berries."

I froze, realizing what just happened. Oh, crap. Crap, crap, crap. Peeta just drugged me. I could already feel the heavy sensation in my head and forced my eyes to stay open long enough to give Peeta a look of resentment. I lost consciousness to his soft lips on mine, telling me it'll be all right. I'll get him for this.

Dreams flickered on and off in my head, never lasting more than a few minutes. I saw that boy again… Sweet dark-honey-colored curls bouncing on his ears, except there was something odd about him. Not quite right. He started to cry the moment my vision sputtered again and there was Primrose, huddled against a broken bit of wall that was charred at the edges, looking frightened. A flash of red streaked across my mind and I was standing in a familiar forest. I had hunted there several times, but it wasn't as serene as it had been then. There was a tense atmosphere around me, like right before a hovercraft came.

Suddenly, a patch of the ground next to me erupted with golden sunlight and I was tossed backwards as shards of gold pierced my skin. But no matter how hard I tried, no sound would come from my mouth, or movement from my limbs. Thankfully, that dream flashed to a different one soon.

I was sitting under a tree, not far from where my last vision was. A sweet call of a mockingjay rattled from the treetops above me. Looking up, I saw not a small black-and-white bird sitting on one of the branches, but a young girl. What's with all these children popping up in my head?

The little girl sprung from the branch and landed lightly on her feet right next to me, straight black hair swinging around her pale face. This little girl was so utterly familiar, yet I've never seen her in my life.

She looked at me inquisitively with her big blue eyes and sat down at my side. Something inside of me gave a small tug and I put my arm around the child. She seemed about four years old, yet… so helpless and small. Just when I was about to lean down and press my lips to her forehead, a wind sprang up, rustling the dry autumn leaves around us. And before I knew it, the sweet toddler was crumbling into the wind like sand.

I yelled out for her and scrabbled around in the dust, desperate to cling to what little connection I had with her. But all that was left in the pile of sooty powder was a single, tiny white feather with a black tip.

But as soon as the blackness washed over me, it was done. Groaning quietly, I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at the puffy white ceiling of my madroom. The first feeling I had was irritation. Peeta had drugged me and he was going to pay.

I looked around, the last traces of the sleep syrup wearing off. Peeta was sitting next to the bed, back against it. All I could see was the top of his fair head as he hummed under his breath.

"Peeta Mellark." I said, voice only a bit garbled from sleep. "You drugged me."

He peeked his head over the side at me and smiled, apologetic. "You drugged me first. How are you feeling?"

I didn't really answer, just gave a small snort.

"I had to do it." Peeta sat up on his knees and leaned over onto the bed close to me. "I have a surprise for you."

"Since when do surprises make up for drugging someone?" I snapped, a little harsher than I intended.

"Since I got us a picnic." His eyes shone.

A jolt ran through me, so abrupt it was almost painful. Those eyes… I stared in bewilderment into Peeta's, casting my memory back to when I was asleep. They were the same eyes of the tiny girl snuggled up next to me under the oak tree. Was that…?

"Are you okay, Katniss?" Peeta's gentle voice brought me slamming back down to Earth. "You look like you just saw a ghost."

"I did…" That sounded really peculiar, even to my own ears.

He gave me a worried look.

"In my dream…" I sat up and pulled my knees up to my chest, shaking slightly. And I told him what I had seen of the girl in the tree.

As I talked, Peeta sat there, a crease becoming more and more evident between his eyebrows. When I stopped, all was silent. A minute passed, then two, before he said anything. When he did, it was just barely a breath. "Alexis…"

Hearing the name was like a bull just plowed into my chest, knocking the breath clean out of me in a loud whoosh. With a strangled cry, I doubled over, hot tears spilling from my face. But she wasn't mine any more. It's not fair to have her constantly come up in my mind when she won't ever come up in real life. Like Gale. Hearing his name in my head hurt as well.

Without another word, Peeta crawled up onto the curved white bed and pulled me into his arms, a familiar act we were both accustom to. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything, Katniss."

I scrubbed furiously at my eyes, but the tears didn't stop flowing. "It's-it's okay." But I couldn't say anything after that because my teeth began chattering madly. I didn't even feel cold, really.

Peeta wrapped the thick white blanket around my shoulders and laughed once without amusement. "I guess that means my picnic is going to have to be postponed."

"No, no." I shivered. "I want to do it. Honestly."

His hands stroked my hair. "We can wait a little while until things are a little less… miserable."

That's one way to put it, I guess. My head felt like it was going to burst, but every second I sat huddled against Peeta's chest, the tight feeling was diminishing. He was like my own special sleeping gas.

Taking a shaky breath, I pressed myself closer to Peeta, breathing in his warm scent. Since he had barely baked at all in a while, there wasn't the smell of bread or icing on him. But uncovered there was a nice clean scent of freshly washed cotton.

Peeta kept stroking my hair, and at one point tilted my head up towards his. This was so routine, I didn't think twice about leaning upwards and pressing my lips to his. A hand cupped my neck, and fingers trailed on my jaw and neck.

For a second we were locked together in a fiery embrace, but it ended abruptly when Peeta drew back, panting quietly from lack of oxygen. "So-So are you okay enough to do the picnic with me? Or are you still mourning?"

To be honest I never wanted to think of that girl again. It may sound really callous, but thinking of what would never happen hurt too much, and ignoring it altogether was much easier. "I want to have the picnic."

The corners of Peeta's fine mouth twitched upward in a crooked, striking smile. "Come on." And he slid sideways off the bed, pulling me down with him.

The floors of this mad-cell weren't quite as padded as the walls, but it didn't hurt tumbling off to the left onto it. Partly because Peeta broke my fall, poor guy.

We sat up right away, and never breaking off our gaze, Peeta reached over and pulled a woven basket from under the bed. "I'm sorry I drugged you Katniss." He said quietly, and sounded truly contrite. "I wanted to surprise you with a nice picnic on our supposedly-last day. But to do that without anyone else in it or without you having an attack, this was probably my only option."

That sweet, puppy-dog look in his blue eyes, accompanied by the strands of golden hair falling in front of his face made it hard to respond the way I had wanted to a few minutes ago. "It's no problem. I did it first to you."

"Yes, but that was life or death." Peeta pointed out, removing two cheese rolls from the basket. My mouth started to water. "When you woke up and were so affronted, I immediately regretted it. Would you have rather me not done it at all?"

"No." I accepted one of the buns from him and bit into it. The tasty cheese melted on my tongue, bread still warm from the oven. "This is wonderful. Thank you, Peeta. Honestly." If my mouth wasn't so completely full with food, I probably would have kissed him on the cheek. But I really didn't think Peeta would appreciate bits of cheesy-bread-spit on his face.

His eyes twinkled.

The next food pulled out of the magic basket of his was an actual wild groosling. The salty taste of the meat flooded my senses. "Where the heck did you get this stuff?" I wanted to know. Mostly the only poultry that I knew of growing here in District 13 was goose, duck, and chicken. But tasting this wild bird, clearly caught from outside nearly made me moan in longing for home.

"I bought it. Some Hunter had just brought in his day's catch and I managed to sneakily buy his last item off him." Peeta looked triumphant.

"But how come the only thing we ever eat is the stuff from the Livestock Quarters? I haven't eaten a wild animal in months."

This question seemed to bring both of us up short. Peeta looked confused. "You know, I'm not really sure. I've seen plenty people bring in wild stuff back when I baked daily at the kitchens, but I know what squirrel tastes like." He wrinkled his nose. "That stuff we're eating is not squirrel."

"Maybe all the Officials eat it." I put my bone in the basket and tore a hunk of the groosling's breast meat off and started gnawing on it like an animal. Thank goodness Peeta didn't seem to mind. "Give the refugees all the farmed animals and the Officials the good stuff."

"Don't worry." He smiled at me slightly and picked at his meat. "When we get back home, you'll hunt for us every day, and we'll eat rabbit stew for dinner, and fill ourselves with berries and goat cheese for breakfast." Peeta's eyes closed, absorbed in the thought. "And I'll teach you how to make bread, though you'll be terrible at it. And for lunch we will have your half-burnt bread that tastes like cardboard along with some goat cheese." His eyes peeked open. "The cheese will be better than the bread."

I snorted lightly. "No trust, whatsoever. No wild squirrel for you, mister, until you eat your bread."

The subject was dropped, though Peeta still had that amused glint in his eyes. He reached into the basket and pulled out a jar full to the brim with juicy blackberries. "I got these with you in mind."

My jaw nearly dropped to the floor. "I suppose you illegally got these as well? Depriving doctors of their daily dose of fresh food?" Taking the lid off, I breathed in deeply, savoring the scent of the forest.

"Bought them as well. Apparently the Hunters and Foragers don't get paid enough for their finds." Peeta popped a dark berry into his mouth and chewed. "So is this an okay last day?"

Pausing from inhaling half the entire jar, I looked up, juice all but dripping down my chin. "You have no idea how much this means to me. It's just like home."

After a few seconds of sneaking fond glances at me, Peeta stood up and offered me his hand. "You remember how to dance, right?"

Dancing? "Pardon?" I frowned. "Dancing? There isn't even music. I can't even dance!"

"You did at the Victory Tour."

As if that made everything so much better. "That was just swaying back and forth and turning in the occasional circle with sappy looks on our faces."

"Than why not do it again? Here, with me?" His eyes met mine and they looked sad, despite the charming smile stretched across his lips.

I suppose there wasn't anything wrong with it…it just seemed odd. "Okay." I took his hand and was pulled into his strong arms.

There was about one minute of the swaying back-and-forth stuff, but after that we just stood in one place holding each other. Peeta's steady heartbeat lulled me into a sense of security here in his arms, and I glanced up to see his face. To my surprise, it was slightly confused, blond eyebrows wrinkled together.

"Are you okay, Peeta?" I asked softly, pulling away a few inches to see his face better.

"I—" He seemed a tad bit reluctant to tell me, but he did anyway. "I'm confused, that's all. Just tomorrow you will be going into surgery and I don't know if you'll come out the same person. Barely a few months ago everything we felt wasn't our own feelings, and just like this on the Victory Tour we danced, aware of dozens of eyes upon us. Now we dance like this and all I'm asking myself is 'do I even know who Peeta Mellark is anymore?'"

"I may not know much, Peeta," I brushed my thumb against his cheekbone reassuringly. "But I know who you are. Who I am. That much, I do know."

I've noticed over the time we've been together the color of Peeta's eyes change depending on his mood. Right now they were a slate blue, shining sadly against his pale skin. His gaze didn't break apart from mine. "Who are you?"

A while ago I would have shrugged and said I didn't know. A while ago I would have said my life wasn't decided yet and the answer to that question was a mystery. But being chosen for the Games shaped me, whether in a good way or bad way I didn't know. The Capitol made sure to influence my future so heavily there was no backing out. So yes, I knew who I was even if Peeta didn't. "I am Katniss Everdeen, and while being a tribute in the 74th Hunger Games, I fell in love with the bakers' son. And together we are saving the world."

In a sentence it summed up pretty much my whole life, excluding nearly starving to death for the first fifteen years of my life. Though 'saving the world' might have been a bit of an exaggeration.

Peeta was silent for a second while his face slowly morphed from melancholy to bewilderment. He looked down at me with an expression of total wonder.

Surely this wasn't new to him?

I was just about to become uncomfortable when Peeta twined his arms around me and began kissing me with such zeal I was shocked, and didn't have any time to react. But thankfully he didn't pull away, so I had time to twine my fingers in his hair and pull him closer.

Every part of our bodies was touching; shoulders to shoulders, hips to hips, even one of my legs was curled around his. Probably not too appropriate, but since my mind wasn't quite working at the moment, I didn't care of the suitability of the situation. No one was watching, right? Besides all the doctors in the observation/computer room, of course.

Peeta's hand slid down my back and wrapped around my hip and inched gradually back upward. I realized with a shock that the edge of my shirt was going up with it. What the heck?

My brain was going into overdrive, freaking out, screaming at me while white noise filled my ear. Stop him, stop him! No, he'll stop himself. How do you know! Stop him before he goes all the way! Ahhhh, no stop him now before it's too late! What the heck is he doing?

But just then the strangest thing happened, and was also very painful, I noted.

A brilliant flash of white light flooded my vision and a feeling like an explosion erupted in my head. Stumbling back, I cried out, the pain intensifying. Flickers of color danced across my mind, each color bringing on a new, but utterly agonizing, experience.

Gold daggers flashed, waves of icy blue sent ripples of anguish up and down my spine, deep red was my own blood splattered on my chest, but finally, at the end, was black. It fired a surge of electricity into my skull and vibrated down to my toes, sending screams of torture ripping from my lungs.

It was all over me, inside of me, burning my every being. Why wasn't this pain ending? I thrashed around, trying to tear the fire from my chest, but it just kept getting hotter and hotter.

I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't feel. All I knew was I had to get this pain out of me or I would die. And dying didn't seem too bad at this point.

oOo

Hope that wasn't too AWESOME for you people. Oh, and by the way, I forgot to say it but this chapter was dedicated to my friend Michelle. Love you guys!