This chapter is set before the Quarter Quell, on the eve of Katniss' and Peeta's wedding. As I said on the previous page chapters will alternate between being set in "present day" and being set earlier in the timeline. Hopefully it won't be too confusing.

I don't have the first idea what to say or do when Peeta and I walk inside the bedroom of the honeymoon suite. Most of all I would like to lock myself in the bathroom and cry and not come out for at least a month. At least there are no cameras in the room. Haymitch made sure of it, pulling some strings he somehow had with Plutarch Heavensbee, the man in charge of production for our wedding, to ensure that we get at least some measure of privacy tonight. It's going to be a difficult night as it is, without adding cameras and an excited audience to the mix.

Things have been moving very fast lately and it feels like everything is still spinning. Despite the excitement over the engagement and the voting on which dress I would get married in the plan wasn't for us to get married quite so soon. Neither one of us is nineteen, the legal age of marriage in Panem, and so the idea was to drag the whole planning process out until it would all culminate in a big summer wedding next year. Then things changed with the announcement of the Quarter Quell and we had to speed the process up. President Snow personally granted us a dispensation to be wed so young. My mother made a valiant attempt at postponing, or even preventing, the wedding by stressing how young we both are and how it's madness for two people our age to get married when the love hasn't been tested over time. Nobody cared about her objections and I didn't expect them to but I did appreciate that she tried.

I look over at Peeta and I see the mask he's been wearing all day has finally come off. All day long he has been playing the part of the ecstatic groom, smiling and laughing and saying over and over how happy he is and how he can't believe that this is real and that he loves me so much. The last part may be true to some degree, the middle part is true but not in the way people think and the first part is as far from the truth as it can get. He's not happy. He despises this as much as I do. I didn't understand why at first but Haymitch made me see things through Peeta's eyes. He's essentially getting what he wanted the most but it will never be more than a façade. Forever stuck having the person he loves merely pretending to love him back and being fully aware of it. It would have been easier for Peeta if we had just gone our separate ways and he could have nursed his broken heart and gotten over me. Instead I will always be there, right by his side but not feeling the way he feels. In a way I think Peeta's fate is the cruellest of all the victors'.

"Well..." I say, harking my throat. I look at the bed with its gaudy red satin sheets and heart-shaped pillows. "We should just... You know..."

"Get to it?" says Peeta in a hollow voice.

I reach out my hand and find his, giving it a light squeeze. As much as what's expected of us scares me I don't want to add any further rocks to his burden. All day long I've been dropping my façade of happiness whenever we've been out of public sight and I could see how it made things worse for him. It's not fair of me to do that so I force myself to disregard my discomfort as much as possible.

"Let's just take it one step at a time" I say. "Let's just go brush our teeth. That's not so overwhelming."

He lets go of my hand and walks towards the oak door on the other end of the room. It's the only door so it must lead to the bathroom. I take another look at the bed and try to fight the discomfort I'm feeling. I've slept with Peeta in beds before. Several times, in fact. It shouldn't be such a big deal to do so tonight as well, only those other times were all perfectly chaste. Peeta never tried to touch me in ways I hadn't invited him to and he never acted as anything other than a friend. The fact is I like sharing my bed with him. I grew up sharing a bed with my sister and the presence of another human being in bed with me is comforting. Having him there to help ward off the nightmares means a lot. I've taken the opportunity to share my bed with him while we've been in the Capitol because I feel so much better when he's there. We even spent last night together, me wrapped in his embrace, trying to draw strength from one another before the wedding we were both dreading.

Tonight is going to be different, though. Tonight he is going to kiss me in other places than just my mouth. Tonight he is going to touch me where nobody has touched me before. Tonight he is going to…

I close my eyes hard and try not to think about it. I don't feel ready to have sex. I'm not comfortable with the idea of another person being that intimate with me. I know Peeta will be gentle and careful and all of that but it doesn't make much of a difference. I'm not ready to have sex with anybody.

Is Peeta looking forward to it? There must be some part of him that wants this, even though he would have wanted it to happen because I chose to do it with him. He's a seventeen year-old boy who will be getting to have sex with the girl he's been in love with for a long time. I would never call myself an expert on boys but it seems to be pretty well established that guys Peeta's age are very interested in sex and will eagerly engage in the activity whenever opportunity arises. Will he be eager? Will he know what to do? Has he done this before with other girls? I find myself hoping that he hasn't. It seems more bearable if we're both beginners at this it's not something he's already shared with other girls. For some reason just the thought of him doing things like that with somebody else rubs me the wrong way.

Will he enjoy it? Will I live up to expectation? A blush creeps across my face when I think about it. I don't have the first idea what I'm supposed to do tonight. It can't be as easy as just lying there. The guy can't be expected to do all the work. I've overheard enough man talk to know that women can be good or bad in bed which means I'm expected to perform as well. But perform how exactly? What if I'm not good? And on the flip side, what if I am good? I've seen Peeta cry, I've seen him sick and hurt to the point of being near-death, I've seen him happy, I've seen him angry and I've seen him frightened. I've never seen him experiencing pleasure. It seems so… intimate. Am I ready to see, feel and hear him in such an intimate moment? I'm not so sure that I am.

Last but not least there's the worry about what sex can lead to. The whole purpose of sex from a biological standpoint. I can't even count how many people have come up to us today and talked about how romantic it would be if we had a honeymoon baby, whatever that means. Half of Panem seems to be circling their calendars for nine months from now, hoping or expecting for me to be delivering a baby at that time. No doubt Plutarch Heavensbee would be called in to produce the televised birth. I cannot deal with that. I will have to find some way of preventing that. Tonight all I can do is pray fervently that a pair of first-timers won't be able to make a baby. My cycle is unpredictable at best so I have no way of knowing if I am especially fertile right now or if we're relatively safe. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, which is unbearable in the midst of everything else.

The bathroom door opens and Peeta comes back to the bedroom. I tear my eyes from the bed and realize I've been standing here for a while. I begin to walk towards the bathroom to get myself ready. Peeta doesn't look at me, sitting down on the bed to remove his shoes. I can't tell what he's thinking or feeling other than that he's uncomfortable too. I almost wish he wasn't. I would feel better if he was calm and okay.

I take my time in the bathroom, carefully washing the makeup off my face and spending ten minutes undoing the elaborate bun my hair is up in. When my teeth have been brushed I reach behind me to unzip my dress and I realize I can't reach the zipper on my own. I'm going to have to ask Peeta to help me. Well that should at least bring about some form of natural progression of events. I wonder if he will move my hair to the side to reach the zipper and if he will lean in and kiss my neck. He's allowed to now. We're legally married. Panem law dictates that a husband can demand sex from his wife, and vice versa. Removing the legal possibility of rape within marriage brings more possibilities for conception and furthering our numbers. He can touch me wherever he wants to, whenever he wants to. In public he will be more or less required to, to uphold the charade. I wonder how often he will go for it when it's just him and me.

I walk back out to the bedroom to find that Peeta has removed the bedspread and snuffed out the candles that were lit all over the room, making the room smell faintly of smoke. Only two candles are left and he bends over to blow them out as well.

"No, don't!" I say. He looks up at me, surprised. "They'll wonder how come the candles didn't get to burn down."

"We snuffed them out before we went to bed" answers Peeta. "We didn't want to have to get out of bed after to blow them out."

The way he casually says it makes a chill run down my spine. I swallow and let him finish with the candles. Then I turn my back to him.

"Unzip me?"

He walks over and stops right behind me. His hand reaches up and moves my hair to the side. Another shiver runs down my spine, more pleasant this time. His hand grazes my skin lightly and it's not entirely unpleasant either. Then he finds the zipper and pulls it down. Once it's all the way down he takes a step back and lets me shimmy out of the gown on my own.

"That's a nice dress" says Peeta, an odd tone in his voice. "Cinna's very talented."

"He is" I say hoarsely, feeling awkward as I'm stepping out of the dress and standing here with only a slip on.

Peeta doesn't say anything else. From the corner of my eye I can see him moving around the room as he removes his clothes, keeping only the boxers on. He normally sleeps in boxer briefs and a t-shirt but tonight he won't be sleeping in anything at all. Both of us seem to find it all a bit awkward and he keeps his underwear on and I'm still in my slip as we get under the covers.

I don't know how I expected this all to happen but this was not quite what I had assumed. We're just lying there, side by side, not even touching. My hands are on the comforter, playing awkwardly with a seam that runs through the red satin. Peeta reaches over and turns off the lamp on his nightstand and the room falls into darkness. I can hear him shifting in the bed and I feel myself stiffen as I wait to feel his touch underneath the covers. This is silly. I'm used to feeling his body next to mine beneath the comforter. Why should this feel so awkward?

I keep waiting but his touch doesn't come. My eyes are beginning to get accustomed to the darkness and I turn my head towards him, finding him on his back staring at the ceiling with an expression I can't read.

"So…" I say, eager to get started. The anticipation is killing me and I would rather just have it over with. Losing my virginity is something I never thought would happen and from what I hear it can be unpleasant even in the best of circumstances. I want it to be done so I can go to sleep and try to forget that we're now nothing but a pair of breeders for President Snow.

"So" says Peeta.

"Shouldn't we just… get on with it?"

His head turns and he looks at me. I was expecting nervousness, love, shyness, excitement, trepidation, arousal or any combination thereof. Instead he looks irritated.

"Nothing's going to happen" he says in a mildly annoyed tone. "You can relax. I'm not going to touch you."

Surprisingly the feeling that comes over me is not relief. Instead I feel perplexed and a little bit rejected and I lift myself up on an elbow to frown at him.

"I don't understand" I say. "We're married now. We're supposed to be… you know…"

"We're not going to" says Peeta with determination. "They can force us into marriage but they are not going to make me rape you."

I don't know what to say. It is the last thing I expected to come out of his mouth right now. After a moment of blinking and trying to find something to say, anything at all, I manage to form a reply.

"You… wouldn't be raping me."

"Of course I would be" he snorts. "What, you want me? Are you horny right now? If there were no government, no pressure, no outside forces, would you be wanting to have sex with me tonight?"

"No. But…" It didn't occur to me how difficult this would be for him, that he could see things in that light. I try to picture how it would feel. Feeling like you were expected to force yourself on a person you care deeply about, against their wishes. I don't want him to feel like that but in a way he's right. I don't want to have sex tonight. It's just that it's not Peeta I feel is forcing himself on me. It's Snow and his whole regime. Peeta is just another victim, same as me. "But we have to" I manage to say.

"Why?" questions Peeta. "Says who? What are they going to do, give you an exam tomorrow to check and see that your virginity is lost? You can't physically tell that anyway. The only thing that matters to them is that other people think we're screwing like bunnies tonight."

"Maybe that's enough for right now" I say tentatively, trying not to feel weird about the words and phrases he's using. It's unlike him to be so… crude. "It won't be forever. You know we're expected to…" I trail off, unable to mention the unmentionable. I know that Peeta doesn't want us to have children anymore than I do because he knows full well that our kids would end up in the arena.

"Do you want to have sex, Katniss?" Peeta asks again, the faintest hint of hopefulness in his voice.

"No." I lay back down again, staring at the ceiling instead of at my husband. The fact that the word husband describes his relationship to me now is something I don't know if I'll ever grow accustomed to. "I don't feel ready. I mean I've never even… done any of that kind of stuff. Just kissing. I'm not prepared for going further than that but I don't think that will matter to President Snow."

"Nevertheless" says Peeta and I feel him shifting on the bed. "They can force me to kill but they can't force me to rape. I don't think I could even… physically perform right now. So you can relax and go to sleep."

My cheeks feel like they're burning when he hints at physically performing. I've never given much thought to that aspect of him before, though I've woken up a few mornings feeling his hardness pressing against me. He's always been asleep so I never put a sexual connotation to it. Now suddenly it's different.

I turn my head again to look at him and to my surprise he's lying with his back to me. Rejection suddenly courses through my veins, irrational as it may be. I was dreading sex tonight but oddly enough finding out that Peeta refuses to do it and maybe even can't do it tonight and now has his back turned to me makes me ridiculously annoyed. What, now we can't sleep in each other's arms anymore? That's absurd. Why does he think he might not be able to perform? Is there something wrong with my body? Is his love for me so noble and chaste and too pure for physical stuff?

Of course I know that's not the case. Deep down I understand how difficult this must be for him and that the idea of forcing himself on me is probably what's keeping him from getting aroused. It's the back turned to me that hurts more than anything else. Well, two can play at that game. With a huff I roll over on my side so that my back is turned to him. In doing so I realize that the comforter isn't nearly as big as you would expect in a bed like this. Apparently even the damn bedclothes are designed to keep us physically close. As I wrap the comforter around myself I pull it away from Peeta. He grabs it and gives it a tug to cover himself. He doesn't pull it back very far, I'm still able to cover myself, but all the frustration and anxiety and desolation I've been feeling over the past year is threatening to boil over and I give the comforter a forceful tug that no doubt leaves him with very little of it.

I hear him sigh and brace myself, expecting a childish tug-o-war for the comforter. When nothing has happened in about a minute I shift a little so I can look over my shoulder and see what is going on. Peeta is lying there, two feet away from me, only half of him covered by the comforter. He seems to have decided not to play and to let me win this round even though it's fairly chilly in the room and he's only wearing boxers and for a second I'm even angrier at him for being such a martyr.

Then I start to feel bad and I roll over on my other side again so that I'm facing him. I sit up a little and move the comforter so that it covers him as well as me. Then I lay back down again, a little bit closer to him now but still with space between us. I close my eyes and try my hardest not to cry and to just go to sleep.

It's harder than I thought to drift off to sleep tonight. Peeta's back is still turned to me and he's very obviously upset, though I don't think it's fair that he's taking it out on me. Our forced marriage is not off to a good start and for the first time I start to wonder what the rest of our lives will really be about. I thought I was at least going into this with a friend and ally but maybe this is going to end up making us dislike one another and harvest only bitterness between us. Maybe this is another strategy by Snow. Taking Peeta away from me by chaining him to me.

Even I have to give that credit for being really clever.

I struggled a bit with this chapter, and with several other "flashback" chapters that I've done work on, because I really don't want it to be too similar to TGS. Let me know if you feel I'm starting to slip into that territory and I'll try my best to steer it back out again.
Thanks for reading!