Thanks to everyone for the reviews! I didn't know it was possible to laugh that hard. You guys seriously made my week. I'm going to apologize for the wait on this chapter.

If you haven't already figured out, I got a new story out. Well…not story exactly, but it's a collection of poems, written by me of course. They're themed towards HG. Mostly in Peeta's POV, but one in Gale's, and if I'm not mistaken, I think there's one in Katniss', too….

oOo

For the first time in a great while, I opened my eyes and found it to be morning. No nightmares, no waking up screaming, no nothing. I glanced over to my left, where Peeta's head was flopped onto his shoulder, and he was snoring lightly. I hoped he got some rest.

I cast my eyes over to the clock on our bedside stand, and saw that it was 6:27. Maybe I should wake up Peeta. Breakfast was in half an hour.

Gently taking his arm away from my waist, I tucked my feet under me for better support. Ugh. One thing I absolutely hate when I wear a nightdress to bed is how it gets all twisted up in the night.

I considered how to wake him. Blowing in his face would work… So would shoving him off the side of the bed… So would kissing him, but I've already used that… I laughed quietly to myself and just shook Peeta's shoulder.

"Come on, Peeta. Breakfast is in half an hour. Get up." I said loudly in his ear.

No response.

I sighed. Should I just let him sleep? Nah. He'd want me to wake him up. I gently gripped his shoulder and shook again. "Wake up, Peeta. Breakfast is going to start soon."

He grunted in his sleep and mumbled something, but went back to snoring quietly.

Is kissing him awake the only way? Seriously? Maybe he was just pretending so I would kiss him. Well, I guess that was one way. In my opinion, asking was easier.

Leaning over him, I put my face right up close to his. By close, I mean our lips were about two millimeters away. "Peeta, it's time to wake up." I could feel his breath tickling my nose. I sincerely hoped I didn't sneeze on him. "Wake up, Peeta. Now." I think the reason he wasn't opening his eyes was because he was enjoying this. He didn't want to wake up because I would stop. Which, to be frank, was a dumb reason.

You know what? If he didn't want to wake up, that wasn't my problem. He could stay asleep for all I cared.

I sank back down into the covers. One of his arms was draped across the pillows next to him from holding me last night, so there was already a nice little pre-made at his side for me to curl up in. My head rested on the side of his chest, and I was just getting accustom to his slow breathing when he stirred underneath me.

Peeta let out a tired breath. "You awake?" He asked wearily, voice slurred from sleep.

Well, thanks, Peeta, for waiting until I decided to go back to sleep to wake up. I really appreciate it. "Yeah, I'm awake."

He glanced down at me cuddled up next to him, and a smile flickered across his face.

"It's six thirty. We're going to breakfast, right?"

"Yeah." With a small groan, Peeta sat up, helping me up with him.

We swung our legs off the side of the bed and stood up. A bone somewhere in my back popped, and I let out a quiet yawn. Since I took one twice yesterday, I didn't feel like showering, so I just pulled a random set of clothing out of the closet and went into the bathroom to change.

When I closed the door behind me, I noticed that the slight aroma from last nights' bath still hung in the air. I inwardly apologized to Peeta for the "girly" smell as I stripped myself of the nightdress and pulled on fresh clothes. I uncaught my braid trapped under my shirt and redid it neatly, glad my hair wasn't in need of too much attention. When I got back into the room, Peeta had already dressed.

He shook out his blond hair and offered his hand to me. "C'mon"

As we left the room, I fell in step with Peeta and slipped my hand into his. I had to admit I felt guilty for being such an obstacle in his life. He deserves a chance away from me. Maybe I'll take Primrose to the library…

We walked in silence to the lunchroom, thoughts occupying our subconscience. The only noises around us were the quiet thuds of our feet slapping against the concrete floors. When Peeta and I reached the double-doors of the cafeteria, he opened them for me.

As usual, we spent a split-second glancing around to find my family. But once I found them, Peeta's hand brushed my shoulder.

"Let's find us a table alone, alright? I think I want to talk to you about something." His voice was casual, but the sinking feeling in my stomach was sudden and inevitable.

Was I in trouble? Did he change his mind about staying with me after all? Was I just too messed up for him?

All the way to a secluded table in the corner, I chewed on my cheek nervously. When we sat down, food before us, the sick feeling in my stomach had turned more into a dying elephant nesting in a good three-quarters of my body. The poor elephant…

I glanced up, and found myself looking straight into brilliant—not to mention amused—eyes.

"Please stop looking like I'm about to hit you with a 2x4, Katniss." The corners of his mouth twitched into a diffident smile. "What do you think I'm going to say?"

My eyebrows tilted half-mournfully-half-embarrassedly, obscuring my view of Peeta. "Maybe… You've gotten tired of me?" I mumbled, and then winced, waiting for his response.

I was taken aback when Peeta actually stood up and came to sit by me. His arm encircled my shoulders and he pulled me closer to him. "Why don't you trust me?" He said quietly, pressing his cheek to the top of my head. "I've told you, Katniss, I will never leave you. Don't ever think that I will."

The rush of relief I felt was nearly overpowering. In fact, I was so overwhelmed by it that I let out a laugh and clutched my forehead in a hand. Between thankful breaths, I managed to ask, "Well, what did you want to talk about if you aren't abandoning me?"

Peeta pulled his arm away, but kept hold of my hand, pressing it to his stomach. "Actually, it was something you brought up a while ago. About starting over."

I nodded, trying to go a step ahead of him, anticipating the rest of our conversation. No such luck. My memory of that day was hazy.

"Restarting as two normal people, living in two normal houses. And that brings me to what I wanted to talk about with you. Annulling our marriage."

Ooohh. I remembered now. An understanding smile stretched across me face, but it was quickly followed by a worried expression.

"What?" Peeta rubbed his thumb across the skin of my arm and frowned at me.

I swallowed and looked down at our entwined hands. "The Capitol warnings."

Though he was confused at first, the light in his eyes adjusted to his "I'm-beginning-to-understand" look.

"Peeta, there is a 70% chance they will attack before we get home, which is a frightening thought because that is in two weeks. Two weeks, when we won't be married. In that time, either one of us could be killed. When we were talking, our plan was to cancel our marriage until we're ready, and then re-marry. If I'm dead it's impossible to do that."

A sad sigh blew from Peeta's lungs, followed by a sympathetic squeeze of my hand. "I understand, Katniss. I honestly do, more than you think. But…look at it my way. Say there was a roomful of people doomed to die the next day, and you were the only person who knew. In that room were children, people in love, people who had long lives ahead of them if they weren't about to die. And you knew. What would you do?"

I certainly hoped he wasn't playing a game with me, because this little scenario seemed foolish to me. Slightly irritated, I replied. "I wouldn't tell them. Because sometimes hope is more welcome than…truth."

As I said it, Peeta's line of reasoning was setting in on me. MY mouth popped open slightly in a surprised expression.

"Exactly." He smiled forlornly. "Live in the now. Let's go along pretending that we don't know they're coming, because we don't. One difference that is between us and those helpless people in the room was that we have a chance."

"All the more reason to live in the now." I agreed dryly, without really wanting to. "Does that mean…?"

"And now that brings me to say, if it is okay with you, today would make a perfect opportunity to visit the judge."

I liked where this was going, but mostly because when this point was first brought up, there was uncertainty whether "annulling marriage" meant "breaking up". But Peeta had put it in a very positive way. He put it in the best way possible, which made me nod, slowly at first.

In a few seconds, I was nodding a lot. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let's visit the judge." My mind was so preoccupied with that, that I had forgotten the whole frigging reason we were sitting here in the lunchroom at 7:00 in the morning.

"Um, Katniss?" Peeta had to practically hold my shoulder down when I prepared myself to get up. "Breakfast first."

Feeling the faintest flush of my cheeks, I shrugged contritely. "Of course."

We sat, side-by-side, eating our flavorless breakfast in comforting silence. When our trays were cleaned, we stood up and paused for a second next to the table.

His blue eyes were fixed on something behind me, then he straightened up. "I'll go take the trays back, okay?" He scooped the trays up in his hands and disappeared.

Okay, that was a little weird. I turned around, too, to see what Peeta was looking at. Not what, who. My mother had stood up, and was walking towards me with a curious look on.

"Hello, Mother." I greeted her with a smile, inwardly curious of why she was curious.

"How is everything?" Mother raised her thin eyebrows at me, sparkly blue eyes still lit.

I shrugged. "Same."

She seemed to hesitate for a split-second, and glanced inconspicuously back to where Peeta had vanished. "Is… Is everything okay with you and Peeta? You didn't sit by us, which made Prim and I wonder."

I nodded my head, glad her reasons were simple enough for me to wrap my head around. "Everything is fine, Mother. He wanted to talk to me about something. I suppose he just wanted us to eat alone for once."

A smidgen of relief made her smile-wrinkles crease further. "That's good. I was just worried. Well…" She glanced behind her once more, towards the table where Primrose was still sitting. "I have work today, sadly enough. I was lucky to be able to have lunch the past few days. I probably won't be that fortunate for long."

"Good luck, Mother." I willingly put my arms around my mothers' fragile shoulders and gave her a loving hug. Over her shoulder, I could see Peeta walking back. "Tell Primrose I said hi and I love her, okay?"

"Sure thing." Mother patted my cheek fondly. "I love you, Katniss."

"I love you, too." It had been a while since those words were exchanged formally between us, and it triggered something inside me. Without really planning for it, I planted a kiss on her lined cheek.

With bits of sentiment making my eyes water, I watched her go back to Prim, and they walked out of the cafeteria doors.

Peeta, who had materialized next to me, took my hand. "You ready?"

When I turned my head to nod at him, his eyes immediately made me pause. The azure irises were staring into mine with a…look.

"Are you alright?" He asked, touching his fingertip to the corner of my eye. Thankfully, it wasn't wet.

No, I wasn't alright. I was scared to death. I couldn't die. I had so much to live for. That realization a minute ago hit me like a grenade. For me and Peeta, "I love you"s was exchanged generously, but we had only really loved each other for a year. My mother, my flesh and blood, who raised me and loved me no matter what. Had we really not told each other we loved each other that much? I felt awful. In a matter of weeks the Capitol will attack, and-and who knows if any of us will come back to say those three words again.

"I'm fine, Peeta." I gave him a brief peck on the cheek. "Let's go see the judge."

I remembered the day Peeta and I had gotten married. It was right after I broke the news to Gale that I thought I had his baby inside of me. If I had known everything that would happen, things would have been different. But the preliminary red tape was simple.

Annulling was far from simple. It took Peeta and me a good six hours of standing up, writing, sitting down, waiting for certain papers to be faxed and sent across District 13. All in all, at 1:45, Peeta and I stumbled out of the judges' office, muscles sore from sitting so long, glad to have it done.

Peeta joked. "Was all that time worth divorcing?"

"Don't call it that." Drunken with leftover impatience, I pinched his lips together as we walked, causing our path to veer slightly to our left. I nearly ran into the wall. "It makes us sound like heartless wretches. And of course it was worth it. One step closer to being semi-normal."

He laughed, and my fingers fell away from his mouth. "Alright. So what should we do now? Lunch is over."

"Too bad, 'cause I'm starving…"

An idea lit up Peeta's unblemished face. "Come on," He stopped and tugged me the opposite direction. "We're going to the kitchen."

oOo

The sense of accomplishment is overwhelming. HAHAHA