Once we get back to our house, it doesn't take Peeta and me very long to put my things away. We find places in our room for the few things I want in there, place my few other belongings around the house, and there's plenty of room in the dresser for the small subset of my wardrobe I actually plan on wearing. The rest goes into the closets of the bedroom next to ours, as the closets of our room are already full of Peeta's Capitol clothes. We don't plan on touching either collection until the next time cameras show up.

Between packing and unpacking, I do find some pieces that end up in the dresser instead of the closets. Plain pants and tops without any ornate embellishments. Rugged trousers and shirts I can wear in the woods. Even a few undergarments that seem to be designed with utility in mind instead of display. I appreciate Cinna's efforts to give me at least a few clothes I can actually use.

It's while we're folding clothes and putting them away in the dresser that Peeta stops and sits back so suddenly that I start, as though he's just noticed some danger and I need to be ready to protect him. My eyes quickly scan all of the room's potential entrances before I remind myself that we're not in the Games anymore.

"You know, I think this is the first time we've ever done anything normal together," he says.

"Yeah," I agree after a moment. Our whole relationship has been tainted by the Capitol, our actions planned and orchestrated from the reaping until just yesterday. And coming over here in the middle of the night just to try to survive the terrors in my head, that could hardly be considered normal. But folding clothes? Organizing closets? Placing my things around my new home? It doesn't get much more normal than that. "Nice for a change," I add with a small smile that Peeta doesn't hesitate to return.

Once we're done moving my stuff in, Peeta makes us dinner consisting of a quick bread and some meat from our Capitol ration. I don't like eating the Capitol-supplied meat. Even though it comes from District 10 and not the Capitol itself. And it's not like we'd be allowed to give it to hungry Seam families if we didn't eat it. We've already helped feed everyone with Parcel Day, anyway.

Still, I vow that we won't be eating from our ration anymore once I can get back to the Hob. Peeta just smiles at me from across the table and shakes his head a bit. I find his reaction curious, and look to him for an explanation. "It's nothing. It's just…" He pauses for a moment as he collects his thoughts. "You're always surprising me. Sometimes I feel like I don't know you at all."

I can feel myself scowling at him. "We've certainly been through enough together, we should know a little something about each other by now."

"Well, sure, but we've always been dealing with life and death. We've never had a normal conversation with one another," he says.

I'm starting to see what he means. "So… you want to have a normal conversation?"

"Yeah," he says with a nod. "I mean, wouldn't it be nice to talk about normal things? Isn't it strange that I know you'd risk your life to save mine, but I don't know what your favorite color is?" A smile creeps onto my lips as I answer.

We spend the rest of the evening having a normal conversation, and I learn all sorts of normal things about Peeta, except they're not normal to me because I'm learning more about Peeta. His favorite color is soft orange, like the early sunset before the sky turns deep red. He takes his tea without sugar, despite growing up in the bakery where they always had sugar on hand. He likes to sleep with the windows open, a habit he formed because after working in front of the ovens all day he craved the cool breeze, even in the dead of winter. His favorite time of year is fall, because of the colors, and because the Games are over for another year. When he was very young, his maternal grandmother lived with the family, and unlike her daughter she was very kind and loving towards the three kids.

And I tell him about myself. Not soul-rending confessions that I could never imagine myself making before we met, but simple things that I might otherwise use to deflect from more personal topics, but Peeta listens as intently as if I were divulging my deepest secrets. I tell him my favorite color is green, like the foliage in the woods. I tell him my favorite season is spring, because it means rebirth, and that I've survived another winter. I tell him I never knew any of my grandparents. I tell him about using my father's bow and his leather hunting jacket, how they make me feel like he's still a part of my life. I tell him about how Gale and I met, how it took years for us to trust each other but eventually we became as close as family. I tell him about my failed attempts to teach Prim to hunt, and how secretly I was glad she reacted the way she did, that she kept her natural compassion even despite our desperate circumstances.

It surprises me again how much we seem to already know about each other. Peeta suggests that one of the reasons I loved the lamb stew in the Capitol so much is that, among all the delicious concoctions we were served there, the comparatively simple stew was the closest to something we might have eaten here in Twelve. I point out that Peeta always double-knots his shoelaces; he explains that he once tripped over his laces and ruined an entire tray of cookies he had just finished icing, and after his mother was done punishing him for the infraction he vowed to never make that mistake again. Peeta mentions that I tend to rub a particular spot over my left eyebrow; I explain that when I'm stressed I sometimes get headaches in that spot.

We've finished dinner and moved to a couch in the living room, turned sideways to face one another with our knees touching, when he says something that brings me up short.

"Rye was so worried about his last reaping," he says. "He tried to hide it with that sarcastic attitude of his, but he was terrified. I thought it was funny, considering I had more slips than he did-"

I don't hear the rest of Peeta's story. That sentence won't leave my head, and it takes me several moments to figure out exactly why. "Wait, how could you have more entries than Rye?"

Peeta just looks at me. When the answer finally dawns on me, I gasp loudly. "But- But- Nobody in town takes tesserae!"

"No, nobody in town will admit to taking tesserae," he corrects me. "You know all those shops depend on the Capitol to send them supplies. Rooba doesn't have anything to sell until the delivery from District 10 comes in. The Cartwrights can't make shoes without leather. Remeed's grocery has no stock without the shipment from Eleven. And without grain from District 9, we can't make bread."

"But tesserae grain's no good for the bread you make," I insist, still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that the pampered merchants I've spent my whole life jealous of might have been taking out as much tesserae as I was.

"You'd be surprised," Peeta says. "It won't do for pastries or the finer breads, we save our Capitol ration for that. But if you take tesserae grain and mill it down some more, and doctor the recipe a bit to cover for it, it does serviceably well in heartier breads."

A horrible thought occurs to me. "Heartier breads?" I ask.

"Yeah, something like rye or one of our seed breads-"

I cut Peeta off mid-sentence. "Or one filled with nuts and raisins?"

Peeta's eyebrows shoot up as he realizes what he's accidentally admitted to. I wonder if he'll open up about it, and if I'm ready to open up about it. I've never really discussed this, we barely mentioned it when we talked in the arena.

He lets out a deep breath and his shoulders visibly sag as he begins speaking. "You remember how bad that winter was." I nod at him; I remember struggling through that winter very clearly. "The Capitol had been shorting our deliveries all winter. I wasn't even twelve yet, but my mother has a cousin who works as some minor functionary in the Justice Building. She snuck us in so my mother wouldn't suffer the humiliation of being known to have taken tesserae, and she fudged our paperwork to make it look like I hadn't signed up until the next week, after my birthday." He pauses, lost in thought for a moment. I don't know what to say, so I just wait for him to resume. "That's why we were there so late that night, any why we were alone in the bakery."

"It was that day?" I ask. "I remember smelling the baking bread when I was walking by, it's what attracted me to look in your trash." I feel the twinge of embarrassment I expect at the memory, but it's not as bad as I'd feared. Peeta already knows everything about that night, there's no sense being embarrassed to talk about it with him.

"Yeah. We – well, I – spent the afternoon milling the tesserae grain, and then we started making loaves to sell in the morning." He takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I think maybe that was what gave me the courage to do it. I mean, I think I would have done it anyway, but the fact that it was my grain in that bread... I never stood up to my mother, not before or since, but that night I didn't hesitate to drop those loaves in the fire."

We're quiet for a moment. "I never thanked you for that."

Peeta shakes his head. "That's not why I did it."

"I know," I say softly. I lean forward, reaching out to take his face in my hands, and pull him into a tender kiss. "Thank you," I say quietly once my lips are free.

Peeta smiles softly at me. "You're welcome." When we sit back, our hands find each other across the back of the couch, as if we just need to be touching somehow.

Something Peeta said before starts to bother me. "What did you mean, that's why you were alone?"

"If anyone else had been down in the bakery, they would have known where the grain came from."

I almost can't believe what Peeta is saying. "Your mother brought you to get tesserae... in secret?"

"Only at first," he says. I don't understand why he's trying to make excuses for that awful woman. "My dad blew up when he found out later that night, but by then it was too late. It's not like we could give it back."

If his father was that mad about it, it couldn't have been something that was expected, no matter how common he tried to make it sound earlier. "Your brothers never took any tesserae, did they?"

Peeta tries to keep his face impassive, but I can see when the pain flashes across it. "No."

"Did you ever take any more?"

Peeta shakes his head. "The only thing my mother cared about was her precious reputation. Dad threatened to tell everyone we were taking tesserae if she ever signed me up again. She tried to argue with him, she said it was the one surefire way to get some value out of me." He chokes out a bitter laugh. I squeeze his hand tighter and begin rubbing his knee with my free hand. "I'm not sure if she really believed he would follow through on his threat, but she never took the chance. But of course Dad easily agreed with her that what was done was done, and there was no reason not to take the remaining eleven allotments for that year."

I sigh as my heart breaks once again for everything Peeta has gone through. "I can't believe your mother did that to you."

Again, Peeta tries to defend her. "It's not the worst thing. I'm sure you took every tesserae you could."

"I did that myself. I chose to do that. I would never have let Prim take any."

"Well, congratulations. You're a better mother than mine," he says bitterly.

The sentence hangs between us for a moment. Somehow I can tell Peeta is thinking the same thing I am, so I go ahead and voice it. "Do you want to have kids one day?"

He doesn't respond at first, his gaze drifting as he seems lost in thought. "I did," he finally says. "Before the reaping. I always wanted children. But now..." He shakes his head again. "I'm not sure I could."

"That's how I've always felt," I say. "I couldn't stand to see my child reaped, or starving, or orphaned by some accident. I just couldn't do it. So I swore I would never have children. It was one of the reasons why I never wanted to fall in love or get married.

"Well, at least we're on the same page, then," he says. He smiles at me, but his eyes are as sad as I've ever seen them. And even though I'm glad we agree, even though I'm relieved that this won't become a point of conflict, even though I've never wanted kids anyway, for some reason a part of me is as sad as Peeta looks.

…..

That night, when I wake up panicked and covered in sweat with a scream already growing in my throat, Peeta is there for me. Once his strong arms and gentle kisses have calmed me, we lay quietly together. I cling to him as if he's the only thing anchoring me to reality, and he holds me as if I'm the most precious thing in the world. I'm still too frazzled to go back to sleep and Peeta won't let himself relax until I do. So we lay awake together.

As the minutes pass, I become acutely aware of how close we are. My head is resting on Peeta's upper arm; his hand is gently stroking my hair, which has come loose from its braid. His other arm is curled around my waist, with his hand rubbing small, soothing circles over my lower back. Both of my legs are wrapped around Peeta's good leg, clutching it as if it were a tree branch I was hanging from. Anyone seeing us like this would make a lot of incorrect assumptions about the state of our physical relationship. As Prim had earlier.

"Peeta, did you mean what you said today?" I ask before I can lose my nerve.

"Probably," he says sleepily. I jerk my head back in surprise, drawing a smile and a light chuckle from Peeta as he pulls my head back to him and drops a kiss in my forehead. "I mean, I said a lot of things today. But I don't remember any that I didn't mean. Do you want to be a bit more specific?"

"When you talked about my, um, what you said about me and, um," I stammer out before he stops me. I actually breathe out a sigh of relief when he interrupts me; he must have figured out what I was referring to more from my embarrassment than from anything I managed to say.

"When I said I thought you looked nice in pants because they show off your body?" he asks with a small smile. I nod to him and fight the urge to hide my face in the crook of his shoulder. I'm not sure why I'm so embarrassed by the subject; truthfully I've never given enough thought to my body to be embarrassed by it. I was only ever worried about what I could do, not how I looked. Was I big enough to use my father's full-size bow instead of the smaller one he made for me when I was a child? Was I strong enough to haul my catches to the Hob? Was I quiet enough to approach my prey without scaring it away? But somehow, trying to talk about this with Peeta, I'm nervous. Nervous about what he thinks. Nervous about what he'll say.

Peeta's smile seems somewhat timid as he answers, but his words are as confident as ever. "Of course I meant it. I wouldn't have said it otherwise."

"You really..." My speech falters; I've never really discussed this kind of thing before, let alone discussed it with a boy I'm lying entwined in bed with. "You really think of me... that way?"

"Well, yeah." The way Peeta says that it's like he doesn't understand how I could be asking the question. "I mean, I don't want to come off like some sort of creep," he says, a touch of nervousness tingeing his voice. "But I am a guy, Katniss. At some point between five and sixteen I started thinking about more than just sneaking you a cupcake and finally getting you to talk to me."

"What did you think about?" I ask. I regret the words almost as soon as they leave my mouth, and this time I really do hide my face against his arm.

Even though I can't see Peeta from my hiding place, I can practically feel his gaze intensify in response to my implication. Thankfully before going into detail, he knows me well enough to ask, "Do you really want me to answer that?"

"No," I say quickly, drawing another chuckle out of Peeta. I roll my head around so I can look up at him once again. "This is just so strange to me. I mean, look at me. I'm not worth thinking about like that."

"Don't say that," Peeta says, a surprisingly harsh tone entering his voice. He looks as surprised by his tone as I am, and he takes a deep breath before he continues. "I hate it when you sell yourself short like that."

I don't sell myself short, do I? My denial must show on my face, because as if he can read my thoughts Peeta says, "You do. You did the same thing in the Capitol when you should have been promoting yourself to Haymitch. You're incredible and you don't see it. I just wish you could love yourself as much as I love you."

I can't help but scoff at his sentiment. "I'd be the most conceited bitch in Twelve if I loved myself as much as you love me."

"Well… Okay, maybe, yeah," he admits with a warm smile that I can't help but return. I just can't control my emotions at all around this boy.

"Call me beautiful if you want," I say, knowing I'll never convince him otherwise. "But I'm not… whatever you were thinking this morning."

"And what was I thinking this morning?" he asks. He's trying to sound light and teasing, but I can hear the seriousness in his voice. When I don't answer, he does it for me. "Was I thinking that you're beautiful?" he asks playfully. "Or was I thinking that you're drop-dead gorgeous?" He nuzzles my nose lightly with his own; I smile involuntarily. "Or was I thinking about how sexy you are?" I feel like I should be uncomfortable with Peeta talking about me this way, given how nervous I was just a minute ago, but somehow I'm not. It feels like the most natural thing in the world.

"Maybe I'm just insufferably proud of myself," Peeta continues.

"Oh? And why is that?" I ask playfully.

"Well, look where we are," he says with a gesture towards our intertwined bodies. "We just met two months ago and we're already sleeping together." I shake my head in disapproval but can't help a small laugh at his insinuation. "I think I'm doing pretty well considering I've never had a girlfriend before."

"Yeah, right," I scoff.

"What do you mean, 'Yeah, right'? You don't think this is going pretty well?"

I shake my head at him again. "Peeta, I know you've had girlfriends."

Peeta looks surprised for just a moment before he smirks at me. "And how exactly do you know that? Have you been paying attention to me after all?"

How exactly did I know that? It's hardly the only thing I know about Peeta, either - I think back to all the things I didn't realize I knew about him until I was practically shouting them at Haymitch. "Maybe..." I slowly admit, causing a wide grin to break out on Peeta's face. "Maybe I was trying to figure out why you kept staring at me!" I try, but it doesn't faze him.

"Well, you're wrong," Peeta says. "I've never had a girlfriend."

I sigh. I really don't know why he keeps insisting on this point, and I'm starting to get a bit upset about it. I don't like him lying to me, even if it's about something this inconsequential. "I know for a fact that you dated Rillis Cooper."

Peeta's mouth hangs open in surprise for just a moment before he responds. "I went out with Rillis Cooper one time, because she begged me to take her to the spring festival."

"Peeta, it's okay," I try to reassure him. "I'm not going to be mad because you dated other girls before we even met."

Peeta huffs out a breath. "Katniss, Rillis Cooper is gay."

I can't help the gasp that escapes my lips. Homosexuality is not unheard of in Twelve, but it's definitely discouraged, and nobody speaks of it openly. The Capitol does its best to discourage homosexuality in the districts, because gay couples don't produce offspring who can spend their childhoods in a reaping ball and then grow up to slave away in a Capitol-controlled industry. Gay couples are not allowed to marry, or to officially share a residence. In the town, where marriages are the contacts by which the wealth and privilege of a family business is passed down, homosexuality is as unacceptable as the Capitol wants it to be. Opinions in the Seam vary - some folks could care less, uninterested in anything that doesn't affect how full their bellies are, while others deal with their frustrations in life by bullying people they know the Peacekeepers will never protect. So Town and Seam, gay people do their best to hide. For Rillis Cooper to trust Peeta with a secret like that really says something.

"Her parents don't know, of course," he continues. "She needed a date to the festival to keep them from suspecting anything, and a fake date to get my mother off my back sounded pretty good to me too."

"I didn't know you two were that close," I say.

"We're not," Peeta says. "The whole thing was fake, Katniss. We weren't really dating."

"That's a heck of a secret to share with someone you're not close to."

"Well…" he begins nervously, "She thought it was safe to tell me."

I can tell from his tone of voice that he's still trying to avoid something. "Why?" I ask.

Peeta lets out a sigh before he answers. "Because she thought I was too," he admits. "She noticed that I never dated girls," he adds pointedly, "and she drew the wrong conclusion."

I consider his answer for a moment. "When we talked in the cave, when you told me about the first day of school, you said you noticed other girls."

"Well, sure," he says. "I noticed lots of other girls. I tried like hell to develop a real interest in one of them, because they didn't intimidate me like you did, and I knew they'd be impressed by silly things like iced cookies with their name on them. But it never worked, because none of them could measure up to you."

For just a moment, I'm floored. I don't know why I keep feeling this way, but every time we talk like this, it's like I realize all over again just how much I really mean to Peeta. Sometimes I feel weird about it; Peeta's always meant something to me, ever since he saved my life with the bread, but it was nothing I could ever put a name to. I certainly didn't spend a lot of time thinking about him. But this situation we're in now, where we're both undressed and we're in bed together and we're so close we seem to be trying to envelop one another, Peeta's been thinking about this for years.

Suddenly the need to get this right overwhelms me. I know myself. I know I tend to close myself off. I know I push people away. Sometimes it's to protect myself, and sometimes it's just a reflex. Sometimes I just can't help it. But if I ever do that to Peeta, I'm not sure I could ever forgive myself. I love him and I want to protect him from anyone who might hurt him. Even from myself.

But at the same time, I have to reevaluate some assumptions I've been making about Peeta. I've been assuming that he knew what we were doing, that he was vastly more experienced at all of this than I am and that I've been playing catch-up this whole time. But if he's really never dated before…

"So are you saying you've never…" I begin, but nerves kick in again before I can finish my question.

"I've never…?" Peeta asks after a moment.

"You've never… been with anyone?"

Peeta opens his mouth to answer, but then seems to stop himself as he realizes my real meaning. "You mean, have I had sex with anyone?"

I can't look him in the eyes as I nod my confirmation, and bury my face against his shoulder once again. "I'm sorry. You don't have to answer that."

"Don't be sorry," Peeta says. "If we're doing this – if we're living together, if we're sharing a bed, if you're telling your mother 'not yet' – then you have a right to know. I'll tell you anything you want to know, Katniss."

Part of me feels like Peeta doesn't owe me an answer to this question at all, and I'm embarrassed that I even asked it. But I can't deny that I want to know. I know I want to share everything with him; shouldn't that go both ways? So part of me feels entirely justified in asking. But not enough for me to work up the nerve to look up at him.

"But Katniss," he says, "I've been hung up on you since I was five. When exactly was I going to be with anyone else?"

"I don't know," I mumble against his shoulder. "You spent so many years not even talking to me. You could have found yourself some… distractions." I try to keep my voice even, but if I'm being honest with myself – something I've been trying to do more of lately – even the thought of Peeta being with some other girl, even before we properly met, makes my gut twist in unpleasant ways.

"Hey." Peeta nudges me with his nose. "Come on, look at me." When I don't move he places a soft kiss onto my temple and nudges me again. "Please?"

I'm powerless against the pleading tone in his voice. I come out of my hiding place and look back at Peeta, his face writ with concern but his eyes filled with love. "Katniss, you're it for me. It's always been you."

"But-" I begin to protest, but the rest of my sentence gets swallowed when Peeta presses his lips to mine. Immediately our discussion is forgotten, all my nerves and fears melt away, as I once again lose myself in the delicious feeling of Peeta's lips moving against mine.

Too soon Peeta pulls back. I open my eyes to find him staring intently at me. "Katniss, you're the only girl I've ever been in love with. And one day, when we're both ready to take that step, you'll be the only girl I ever make love with." He punctuates his statement with a gentle kiss on my head. "Only you." And one on my cheek. "Always you." And finally he reclaims my lips.

When we break apart this time, I know I have a big, dumb smile on my face, and Peeta returns it. "Are you okay now?" he asks.

I nod my head. "I guess I don't have to be nervous about how new all of this is for me if you've never been with anyone else either."

Peeta's eyes narrow in question. "You mean you've never…?"

The question is so surprising to me that I don't even remember to be embarrassed about answering it. "Before I met you I was dead set against ever being in a relationship. Who would I have had sex with?"

Peeta's eyes dart away; suddenly he can't meet my gaze. "Well…"

I let out a small sigh when I realize what Peeta's thinking. I bring my hand up to his cheek and turn his gaze back to me. "Gale's never been anything more than a friend to me. You know that."

"Yeah, I know," he says, seemingly embarrassed at his own worries.

I decide his own words may be the best thing for him to hear right now. "Peeta, you're the only boy I've ever been in love with. And one day - one day soon at the rate we're going - you'll be the only boy I ever make love with. It's only you, Peeta."

Like Peeta, I punctuate my words with a kiss. And like me, he looks a lot happier when we separate. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just not used to… not being jealous of Gale."

"You were really jealous of Gale?" I ask.

"So much," Peeta says with an embarrassed little grin. "I was jealous of him before I even officially met you."

"Were you jealous of the friendship we actually have, or the relationship you thought we had?" I ask.

"Honestly, both," Peeta says. "I won't lie and say I'm not happy to hear that you weren't interrupting your hunting trips to have crazy, Capitol porn style outdoor sex marathons." I bite back a smile and shake my head; even in moments like this Peeta can crack a joke and diffuse the nervous tension. "But even aside from that, he got to spend so much time with you. See you smile. Make you laugh. Even being able to look you in the face was something I could only wish for."

"I used to catch you staring at me," I say.

"Only when I chanced a look at your face," he says. "Usually I would only dare to look at you from behind."

I can't help the smirk that grows on my face. "Is that why you're so obsessed with my ass?"

"And your hair," he answers sheepishly. "I used to spend hours thinking about what it would be like to run my fingers through your hair, or how your ass would feel in my hands."

The moment feels right, and I decide to be bold. "Well, you feel my hair every chance you get, but you haven't grabbed my ass once. What gives?"

…..

When I wake up the next morning, I know exactly where I am, and who I'm with, and the thought immediately relaxes me.

I smile when I remember how the night had gone: My nightmare. Our conversation afterwards; somehow every time Peeta and I talk we always manage to grow even closer together. And finally the first tentative touches that had grown into clumsy groping as we began to learn each other's bodies. We didn't go very far last night, we didn't remove any clothes and we still stayed away from certain areas, but we both know where we're headed. And almost despite myself, the idea doesn't scare me at all.

I open my eyes to see Peeta staring back at me with such intense adoration that it makes me want to shrink into the floorboards, and also to fly and soar through the air like a bird. He's tracing his fingertips over the swell of my hip so lightly that I can't even really feel it through the material of my nightgown, except I can feel where his fingertips are by the jolt of electricity they send coursing through me. If I'd known love could feel this good I would have sought it out much sooner. That or run away from it that much harder. Probably both.

I realize Peeta hasn't blinked in the several minutes since I woke up and started looking at him. Then I realize that neither have I. I quickly look away. "You spend an awful lot of time staring at me, Peeta."

"Well, now that I know you won't punch me for it, I'm taking full advantage," he says teasingly. "Plus, I'm trying as hard as I can to memorize every single detail of this moment."

That's something new. "Why this moment?" I ask.

"This is our first morning waking up together," he says.

"No it's not," I say, a bit confused. "I slept here last night, too."

"Yeah, but that was just a one-time thing. This is the first morning of the rest of our lives, and I always want to remember it."

I don't have a coherent response to that, Peeta's always been better with words than I have. So I do what I usually do when Peeta leaves me completely speechless: I kiss him. I try to put all my emotions and all my love for him into the kiss, because I know my words can never express it. Soon we're back to staring at one another, except now we're smiling and out of breath.

"You might as well get used to this," Peeta says. "So much of our relationship happened in the arena, or at the behest of the Capitol. But these moments here at home, these are ours. And I want to savor them. I want to immerse myself in them. I want to remember every last detail of them for the rest of our lives. I'm going to be acting like this for quite a while."

Those damn words of his. "And how exactly are you acting?" I ask, just to hear more of them.

Peeta's smile grows, like he knows exactly why I asked that. "Like a sentimental fool. Like a lovesick boy. Like someone who's living in a dream and doesn't want to wake up."

"What's your dream?" I ask.

"You're my dream. Always have been. I'm living my dream. Katniss Everdeen, sleeping in my bed. Katniss Everdeen, living in my house. Katniss Everdeen, snuggled comfortably in my arms." The way Peeta says my name, it's like I'm some sort of mystical ethereal superbeing. Is just hearing someone say my name supposed to fill me with such warmth? Now Peeta leans down close so he can kiss and nibble at my ear while whispering playfully, "Katniss Everdeen, letting me feel her body. Katniss Everdeen, sitting in my kitchen telling her mother that she plans on making love with me." It's the first time either of us had said it in so many words, and it makes me blush furiously, but I can't keep the wide smile off my face as Peeta leans back and sighs contentedly. "I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever."

I consider this for a moment. "No, I wouldn't want to do that."

"And why not?" Peeta asks.

"Because we're going to have so many moments together that will be even better," I say, leaning up to kiss him again.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm going to wake up, and I'll still be buried in that riverbed, and this will all have been some fevered fantasy," Peeta says one our lips are free. "Except this is so much better than any fantasy I ever had."

"You know, I was just thinking the same thing earlier," I tell him. Before he can ask for an explanation, we're once again interrupted by someone at the front door, a pounding this time instead of Prim's lighter knocking.

Peeta groans, and moves to get up. "Does this happen every morning at your house?" I ask tiredly, rolling away of him and flopping back down to the bed.

"Only since you started sleeping here," he snarks back at me as he throws some clothes on.

"At least it's not my mother or Prim this time," I offer weakly, still trying to cling to the warmth left where he was lying with me just seconds earlier.

Peeta's already on his way out the door. "From the sound of it, it could be Haymitch. If he ever knocked."

I'm just starting to get out of bed myself when I hear Peeta answer the door.

"Mellark. We need to talk."

"Okay. Come on in, Gale."

…..

So... That chapter was pretty much fluff piled on top of fluff piled on top of fluff. But I figure there are enough heartbreaking Everlark stories, this one can be sweet and sappy and fluffy for a while longer. How much longer? This may change because some of this isn't written yet, but my best estimate at the moment is that I have another five chapters left that will continue in the vein of these first five, exploring Everlark's new relationship and their new lives, moving Peeta and Katniss into the places I want them to be at the start of Catching Fire. Then the main plot of Catching Fire will enter this story in approximately Chapter 11.

Next chapter: What does Gale want? How will Peeta react? What will Katniss do? And what causes one of them to say this:

(a line you may recognize from a non-THG franchise)

Preview quote from Chapter 6:

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."