A/N: This chapter starts out with Cato and it sets up for a really intense Chapter 59. Things start to fall into place, now. :)

"I shouldn't have freaked out...she never would've come out of the room." I sit on the edge of the bed and comb through his hair. "Don't go back there next time. Have your dad and brothers come here." ~

"Got it..." I sigh. My mom doesn't even know what room we live in. Thank god. I can't believe this. ~

"I don't want to worry about you getting hurt or killed while I'm gone." I laugh nervously. If I come back, I don't want to find him in a coma. "Do you feel better at all?" ~

"Breathing's easier." I pause, looking up at him. "Don't worry."~

"Can you see colors yet?" I take his hand in mine. "Are you hungry? Thirsty? Lunch is soon..." Having missed breakfast, I'm hungry myself. But I won't go without him. ~

"No." I shake my head a little. "I wanna eat, but can we stay here for a minute or two so my head stops pounding?" ~

"However long you need, Peeta Bread." Fuck his mom. We got permission from his dad. That's all I care about. I don't care if she tries everything to stop it. It's happening. And I still don't know if she heard the proposal or not. Oh well. "I'll stay as long as I can until we leave." ~

"...Thank you." I whisper, staring at the ceiling. ~

"You really hit your head hard." For a minute, I even thought he got knocked out. And that wouldn't be the first time that it's happened. "Just take deep breaths." ~

I nod. "I wish you didn't have to see that. That...that's normal for me." ~

I start crying again the second he says that's a regular occurrence. "She could've killed you if she'd gone on longer..." ~

"It's not like she hasn't tried." I whisper, keeping my eyes focused on the ceiling, waiting for colors to come back into view. ~

"I...see." I've never come across someone who has been this hated his entire life. How he even held on to life before the Games, I have no idea. And to live with the most hated, bigoted person in the world? Anyone else would've given up. Not Peeta. "Soon, she'll be out of your life forever. You know why?" ~

"Why?" I direct my eyes to him. ~

"Because you'll be living with me." ~

A smile immediately spreads across my face. "I don't think I can wait. I mean, we're already kinda living together." On our own. ~

"Kinda. But after the war, we can live above ground again." I want sunlight. It's only been a week but I'm yearning to be outside again. "Anywhere we want." ~

"I'd like that." I always wanted to see the other Districts...something few ever got. Now...to live anywhere? That sounded incredible. ~

"So would I." I can finally go back to District Two. Or we can live in Twelve, or some other obscure place like Four or Eleven. "Anywhere of your choosing." ~

"I want to go somewhere where no one will hate us for being ourselves. Where it doesn't matter, how we were involved in the war or that you won the Games. Where we can just...live, and be happy together." I smile at the prospect. "Somewhere warm, though. Because Twelve was always cold. So change would be nice." ~

"Twelve seems fine, though. It'll get all fixed up and stuff, you know. I think I'd like to see some snow. It might've snowed once or twice in Two. It's rare." There was snow in District Twelve when I was on the Victory Tour. It was really nice. I mean, Two gets snow, believe me-but in the mountains. Not for me to walk around in. "It looks like fun." ~

"It's not just Twelve...it's some of the people, and the basically year-round cold." I laugh. "I do like the snow. I just feel like cold without snow isn't so great." I scratch my head. "But we can make snowmen, and have snowball fights..." That would be nice. ~

"Like...throwing balls of snow at each other? Wouldn't that hurt?" ~

I start laughing hard, and it gets my head pounding again, but I don't care. "Yes, that's exactly what it is-but it only hurts if you hit someone right in the face!" I think for a second. "Well, maybe a snowball fight amongst a bunch of Career tributes could hurt." I laugh again quietly and look back to the ceiling. "It's fun." ~

"I don't think I'd win that, though." I laugh. "How do you even make a ball out of snow? It's like fluff." ~

"That's probably because you don't get a lot of it in Two. In Twelve, we get a lot of the heavy stuff. Packing snow, we call it. It sticks together really well-but sometimes it's too icy and the snowballs become ice balls. And that is what really hurts." ~

"Did anyone throw ice balls at you?" I can't help but think they did. How else would he know that they hurt? ~

I sigh. "Yeah. Often. But...let's..let's try and keep this conversation happy, right?" Other kids, older kids, my brothers..but I didn't want to think about all of that. ~

"Well, soon enough, they'll all want to be your friend." They have to like him now. After proving how tough he is, and potentially saving everyone from future Hunger Games...they owe him. Forever. "And if not, you and I can throw ice balls at them." I laugh. ~

"I don't want to be their friend." I shut my eyes. "As long as I have you, I won't need anyone else at all." ~

"You don't have to like them. But we can still have an ice war with them. It sounds like fun." ~

"Maybe." I smile. "But we have to be able to go somewhere else when it isn't winter. Because then Twelve is just cold and depressing. It's cold and depressing in the winter, two, but you want to see the snow. So we'll see the snow. Just don't get disappointed or anything." I laugh. ~

"I won't be disappointed!" I'm excited for the snow. It seems childish, but...seeing it on the Victory Tour made me want it more. "And do you want to go swimming? I can teach you how. I learned it a couple days ago." ~

"Where?" I look over at him. There wasn't really anywhere to go swimming in Twelve. I could float, because we had some awkward form of gym in middle school where they taught us to swim in this lake, but all I could do was just float there. ~

"Four. I think One also has a bit of water." I smile, thinking of Peeta in swim shorts. Yay. "I'll help you swim. But it isn't easy! Finnick had to show me how for like two hours." ~

"Right, they're fishing...That'd be really cool. I bet I'd suck, though." I smirk. ~

"I'll hold you afloat." I wouldn't let him drown. "Actually, I'd just hold you. All night long." ~

"...I'd like that, too." I can't wait until that first night. When all of this is over, and we can just sleep in peace. No fighting. No his father. No my mother. No war. No Hunger Games. ~

"And we can have our own house, too. A big one, where you'll always have enough food to eat. And your own clothes to wear." Although, I think he liked wearing my clothes. But I'd rather see him in typical Peeta clothes instead. "And all the cats and dragons that we want." ~

It starts picturing in my head. "It sounds perfect, Cato." I reach out for his hand. I want to be with him more than anything. "Everything about it." He's perfect. I can't even process it now. I could cry, but my head hurts too much, and I know crying won't help that at all. ~

"It is perfect. So perfect that all of our neighbors will be jealous of us. And, and, you'll be the coolest boy in Panem. All the girls and all the guys are going to want to date you, but I can be like, naaaaah, he's taken, bitch!" ~

"I wouldn't have any want for them anyway." I laugh. "Not when I have you." ~

"I know, but it's still a nice thought. Being one of the most coveted people in the entire nation, that is. Instant self-esteem boost." And with the Capitol gone, no forced prostitution. No one will have to worry anymore. "You'll always have me. But you'll be more loved than ever before, when this is over. You deserve this." ~

"Don't forget about you," I remind him. "You deserve it, too." I flex my fingers in a grabby motion because he hasn't taken my hand yet and make a whining whimper type noise. "Mine." ~

"Oh, now you beg for me and expect me to satisfy you and your obsession with hand-holding?" I push his hand away, laughing. "I asked for permission to marry you, Peeta. You have to outdo that if you want my hand." ~

"Why? I just wanna hold your haaaaand." I pout. "Besides, my head hurts. I can't think now." I shut my eyes again and open them. Still no colors. "I'll do something fantastic when you get back." ~

"Don't go out of your way to do something for me. You always do." I give in and take his hand, rolling my eyes. That boy. "It's my turn." ~

"Well, I already had an idea." His mom. "So you've got to at least let me do that. Take it as a birthday present." I smile when he takes my hand. ~

"Oh, fine! Fine. But that's it! Nothing else." I'm afraid to know what it is. ~

"Nothing else!" I laugh. "I just thought of it, and I have to. I would even if you'd told me not to." ~

"Disrespecting my authority, Lover Boy?" ~

"Maybe a little?" ~

"Rebel Peeta has returned." Every Peeta is good. Every version of him. ~

"No, no." I smile. "Plain old lover boy Peeta just wants to make you happy. And he knows that you don't know how happy his idea'll make you, so he'll do it even if you object." ~

What the fuck could it be? "BABIES?" ~

I go beet red. "No! I'm a boy!" I squeeze his hand. "Jeez Cato, we just got officially engaged, and you're already talking about babies." ~

"Well...I know that, hence your dad saying 'You're asking me to marry my son.' I know you're a boy." I'm reminded of that every night. Those boxer shorts...damn. "We can take someone else's. I don't know." ~

"We're not going to steal a baby, Cato." ~

"No! I mean like, let's start a little older than that...how about a four year old?" ~

"We're not stealing a child either!" ~

"But...no Peeta Jr.?" I whine. ~

"We can't steal someone else's kid." ~

"What if they gave it to us? We can request a little blonde one." ~

I sigh. "You're crazy. That's adoption, first of all. And I don't think they let you look around and just pick." ~

"But...but our kid would be the most badass Career-Twelvie hybrid to ever exist. That ever will exist. Don't take this moment away from me!" ~

"It's kinda genetically impossible, love." ~

"Adoption, though..." I was looking forward to seeing a mini Peeta running around the house. But he just went and crushed that dream. "Forget it." ~

"Why?" ~

"I don't want to think about the things we can't have. Forget I even said anything." I sigh. "So, about the house...I was thinking we have this gigantic bed all to ourselves. Well, obviously, but yeah..." ~

"Don't go changing the topic on me when neither of us is done with the conversation, love.." I want to sit up, but it will only just aggravate the pounding. ~

"I just wanted a chance to prove to everyone and myself that I would make a better father than the asshole who raised me, okay?" ~

"And..." I begin carefully. "I never said I would deny you that chance." ~

"So you'd really...?" ~

I don't directly answer him. "I've always wanted kids and a family." I say, looking at the ceiling. "Since I was little. And when I started having feelings for guys, I was upset with myself for having conflicting wants..." I sigh. "So I looked into it. There are ways. Lots of them." ~

"Lots?" I ask him. "What do you mean?" ~

"I mean, the obvious stuff, like different ways of adoption...but there are ways that it would be our kid. At least, I mean, of one us, genetically." ~

"Only...one?" I don't think I'd want one if it wasn't both of ours or neither of ours. Just one? "How, though? Sex?" ~

"No." I laugh quietly. "I mean, not really." I pause. I'm always awkward talking about these kinds of things. "It's like, you get someone else to carry it for you-because obviously, neither of us is capable. But, like..." Okay, really awkward. "I mean, you get what I'm saying?" No, probably not because you're talking in circles. ~

"I...don't really understand what you're getting at." You're talking in circles, Peeta. ~

"Like..." I pause. "Okay, it's easier for me to explain for someone on the total other side of the situation. Say, there's two girls. And they're in love. All that sorta thing. And they want a kid. So they'd get a donor-usually anonymous, but not always-and one of the two of them'd get it medically put into them," It's so awkward for me to just use the word, so it's constant "it"'s. "and then they'd have a baby that was theirs." I make a weird face. "So it's like the opposite, except nothing's obviously anonymous, and.. I'm so awkward, I'm sorry." ~

"Oh...that's kinda weird." I laugh. "Forget I asked...I'll think about it." ~

"I mean, you get what I'm saying, right?" I sigh. "I really did always want kids. I wasn't just some fifteen year-old looking this stuff up in a library for fun. I wasn't that lonely." ~

"No, I get it now." It seems plausible...though it's still way too early to be thinking about marriage, let alone kids. I was kidding, at first, but it's true...I do want them. Okay. "I understand. We can think about that later, though." ~

"Well, yeah, I mean," So awkward. "You just asked, so I...yeah." ~

"Don't blame me!" I play-slap his cheek, laughing. "Don't worry. We're on the same page here." ~

I shut my eyes and smile. "Good. Because I'm awkward. And I probably would've never brought it up." I laugh. ~

"You don't need to be afraid to tell me these things, no matter how awkward. You can tell me anything and everything that's on your mind." ~

"I'll keep that in mind." I pause. "Everything's still black and white. I miss your eyes." I look over at him, waiting to see the aqua spheres but only getting a limp shade of grey. ~

"Has that happened before?" ~

"Yeah...That's why I'm not really freaking out." I shrug my shoulders a little. "I mean, when I was little, I couldn't see a thing for a week. So, on the bright side, it could've been worse." ~

"Oh..." Frowning, I lie down next to him so that we're face-to-face. "I just don't understand...you were so little. How could she have figured out you were gay? There had to have been something else." ~

"I don't know.." I look at him. "I mean, she always favored my brothers. I didn't even know I was gay. So I didn't understand, either. I still don't, really." ~

"One day, it'll be okay. You'll never lose sight again, or be pushed into a wall, or be thrown down the stairs...or be emotionally abused ever again." ~

"Or get smacked with an iron, or forced to touch the preheated oven's racks, or have my head dunked into a filled sink until I passed out because I couldn't breathe, or locked out of the house in the snow, or pelted with ice and coal...ever again." I realize I've started crying, bringing up all of these things. But those aren't the worst of it, even. ~

"Please stop...don't talk about it if you're going to cry." I take the corner of the bedsheet and dry his face. "I know I said you can tell me everything that's on your mind, but...I know that she does terrible things to you. You don't need to tell me. I've seen it in action." ~

"I'm sorry." I look away. "I just...No one's ever known. And it was hard not to scream to people that the reason you're limping through the halls in second grade isn't because you're a clumsy idiot who trips down the stairs all the time." I mutter. ~

"How could you go through this all? Being all optimistic?" ~

"What do you mean?" ~

"Your entire life, you've been abused beyond belief...it's just, wouldn't most people want to just die already?" I shrug. "I guess I wouldn't really know, since that doesn't really happen around District Two." ~

"I did." I shut my eyes. "Maybe that's why I wasn't so afraid during the Games. I really did want you to win, because I really didn't want to go home." ~

"You didn't try to...end it, did you?" ~

"Back in Twelve, you mean?" ~

"Yeah, before the Games." ~

I take a deep breath. "Only once." ~

A/N: Only once. Get ready for the story. Some really crazy shit going on next chapter. /3 Review!