Spring comes both too quickly and not fast enough.

With the new season there is an abundance of fish and game to hunt. Gale and I gather the freshly sprouting berries and tubers. We butcher turkeys and quails, even the rare deer. We trade a fraction of everything we forage and hunt for anything we might need from the Hob, as well as the handful of townspeople willing to batter with us. I am able to regain some of my weight that I lost this last winter. Yet, it is not enough. In what world, at what restart, will I ever have the access to enough resources, to properly prepare for the Hunger Games?

In the time that passes, Peeta and I grow closer. Our friendship is more than just that, but we have not voiced out loud what exactly our relationship is. I have not felt the need to, and Peeta is either feeling the same, or is not wanting to push his luck. There are stolen kisses and touches of the hand, but we maintain a friendly demeanor in school and in front of people. Sometimes we will meet in the Meadow, and he will lean down to kiss me, just like that first time, and I will feel the warmth spread through my chest, reminding me why I am here in the first place.

Since that winter night, huddled around the fire, beneath the towering trees, I continue to take Peeta out into the woods. Just the two of us. It is never with Gale, but I think Gale has suspicions that I have been taking Peeta outside of the fence. Gale gives me a vague ominous warning against trusting others too much on one of our morning hunts. Gale still does not trust Peeta – and I wonder if he ever will, but I do not let him spoil this for me.

Those warm spring days, lounging with Peeta in the sunlight, are more than I could hope for.

I almost do not remember the cold of the lake.

The relationship is so uncomplicated between him and I. So different from our original story. Just a Seam girl and Town boy, learning each other. Peeta now knows my favorite color, my love of cheese buns, my favorite hunting perches; all those little things, that hold no weight, yet mean more than those heavier burdens people see from the outside.

It is so relieving that I do not have to continue to pretend I do not know him.

Except, there was one moment, that had given me pause.

We had been walking in the woods. I had just told him my favorite color…

When I asked him the question back, already feeling smug that I knew he would say orange, Peeta said, "Yellow."

I paused in my walk, startled by how much that affected me.

It was a harsh reminder that he is different. He is not my Peeta. He is prone to changing, to becoming someone else.

I brushed off my reaction at the time, but that moment sticks with me.

I cannot know why he said a different color. There are innumerable possibilities. It could have to do with our blossoming relationship. Or the fact that this Peeta has yet to be reaped and does not yet fear never seeing another sunset. It could have nothing to do with me. It could mean he was never the same Peeta to begin with.

Multiple times throughout the day, I have to stop myself from spiraling. To hold myself together.

I still remember Finnick's advice. That letting yourself fall apart and putting yourself back together is so much more work, than stopping yourself from shattering in the first place.

I have to maintain a piece of sanity. I frequently remind myself that whatever I have now, whatever I have in the future, will never be as bad as what that first reality dealt me. Even if this Peeta is different, even if I cannot stop Gale from becoming consumed by the hate, even if I cannot stop the reaping, or stop Prim from growing up too quickly: I have all of this time, to make up for that which was lost, and the determination to prevent all of their deaths. Even if they are not the same people, or my preferred versions of them, they can be alive after the war.

It will only take immense effort.

Effort, that I am not entirely sure I have been putting forth.

As I let the days pass, I realize how much I am not doing. I still train, somewhat, for the arena, but not nearly as much as Peeta, Haymitch, and I had done before the Quarter Quell. Part of that is because I have resigned myself to another attempt.

During the first week of spring, I had gone out into the woods, alone. It did not take long to spot nightlock. I had not touched it, but hovered near, marking the location of it in my memory. So that in the future, I have that out, that option. As the days pass, I only grow more certain. Every lazy afternoon with Peeta, every casual dinner with my mother and Prim, every sunrise I spend with Gale, I count the days to the reaping. More and more convinced that I will need another restart. I tell myself that the next time, I will be more organized, and focused, and I will not just train myself, but the others; and also, put into place plans, or warnings, to those that I love.

Now that I am resigned to death, and (possibly) restarting, I am more experimental with what I can say or do.

I start to skip school, more often than not. I spend this time out in the woods: exploring, practicing, hunting.

When Peeta questions all of my absences, I tell him that I find school useless, and while he may feel the same, his expression shows surprise. Of course, skipping school does come with consequences, and knowing him, he is well aware that me not attending it is out of my norm. I wonder how many things I am doing that he adds to a list of his, noting all of the behavioral changes. I worry that he will predict me and guess at my suicide attempt, and try to stop me; but I think I am getting caught up again. That this Peeta, while attentive, is not my Peeta. There has been no reason to suggest I am unhappy, that I would careen towards something as drastic as planning my own death – even if it is true.

I am more forward with Gale about my relationship with Peeta. I expect his resistance, his objections. There are some, but Gale mostly says things like, "Just be careful," or, "If that's what you want," which is surprising and hard to believe, considering that first time around. Perhaps it is the fact that in this reality, to him, it looks as if I am not guilted into it, or forced, or merely trauma bonded to Peeta. While that last may still be true, this Gale does not know that.

I take Peeta out into the woods every chance I get.

Out there, we spend lazy afternoons. He sketches. I show him my bow and how I shoot it. He is impressed, but wary. I get him to chase me through the woods. It is fun, but it is also my way of covertly training him. I teach him the names of plants and trees; especially those that are particularly dangerous or good for food. While this Peeta is not the one who will join me in the arena, it is good to know that this sort of clandestine training will work on him.

I try to show him how to climb a tree, but he gives up on that pretty quickly.

"I don't know how you do it," he says, panting. His hands are scraped raw from trying. "I must weigh too much."

I drop down from the tree.

"You're strong enough," I tell him. "Just not very agile."

With that, I snatch the notebook he uses to sketch with and take off through the trees. He laughs and gives chase. I dodge the trees and keep my feet from tripping over the underbrush. I lead him towards the stream.

I stop at its edge. The water is high now, with the winter melt and spring rains. I wait there for him to catch up. I can hear him coming from a mile away. He stops just beside me, panting even harder than before.

"Maybe you have a point," he says. "About the agile thing."

I smile and then proceed to show him how to uproot the tubers at the edge of the stream. I teach him the names of the more well-known ones and tell him why they are a good hearty source of food in case he is in need.

"I don't know how you learned all of this stuff," he says.

"My father, mostly," I tell him. "Then trial and error."

As he finishes pulling up the tubers, I sit back and flip through his notebook. There is a sketch of the woods. Snow falling over two figures in the Meadow. A frog on a lily pad. A bird's nest with eggs. An outline of me, not finished. Then there is a page of plants, sketched in detail, the ones I have taught him, with their names beneath them.

I smile. Good, he is studying.

I can tell he is learning not merely out of interest or necessity, but because he knows it is important to me. He does not realize why it is important to me, but that does not matter.

For these last few weeks, I have loved how little things matter. There is just this. A baker boy and a Seam girl, learning each other. There is no who will live and who will die. No arguments of self-sacrifice. I only wish there was no fear.

I am fearful.

I watch the sun rise and set like I am awaiting my own death sentence. And in a way, I am.

One chore-filled afternoon, Peeta arrives at my house in the Seam.

I had only shown him where it was one time, when he walked me home from the Meadow. It is midday, and I have no plans to see him. I stand up, dropping the shirt I am mending, worried.

"What is it?" I ask him.

Peeta smiles at Prim and I, stationed in the front yard.

"I thought there's something you might want to see," he says. "Both of you."

He leads us to the bakery. Around the back. His brother stands in the pig pen. There are tiny little things rolling around in the mud. A larger pig, clearly still pregnant and laboring, lays nearby.

Prim looks excited.

We are standing outside of the pen, but Peeta asks Prim if she wants to help, and then they climb over. Peeta and his brother show her how the birthing process works. The little healer inside of her is ecstatic. I find it gross, mostly, but I can understand why he wanted to show us.

After all is said and done, the piglets are cute. When they're not covered in fluids.

Peeta is muddy and his hands are dirty. He leaves Prim and Rye to examine all of the little ones. There are five of them in total. They check them for any abnormalities. Prim is fully invested in what Rye is telling her.

Peeta leans against the gate between us.

"Prim's birthday is soon, isn't it?" he asks me, keeping his voice low.

"Yes, pretty soon."

"Next week we will have to work on the cupcake."

I smile, hugging myself around the chest.

"Yes, but I may be a little rusty," I say.

"Good thing you have me," he jokes.

"There's a dinner we are doing, with the whole family," I tell him. "I want you there."

Peeta looks a little surprised. I have not introduced him to my mother, not yet. His brothers know about our friendship by now, and maybe even his father, but I am sure no one has let his mother in on the secret.

"I'd like that," he says.

I smile but say nothing else.

To have all of my loved one's in on one meal, while it may be awkward, it is all I could hope for.

The following week Peeta and I are back inside of the bakery's kitchen. The back door is left propped open. The fresh spring air mingles with the scent of cupcakes. Sunshine falls through the windows. I keep gazing outside the open door, at the piglets rolling around in the mud.

I work on my gift for Prim. Peeta meanders around the kitchen, completing chores and tasks. He checks my progress every once and awhile, giving me tips. I swat him away when he tries to help too heavily. I want to do it all myself.

Once I am satisfied with it, he puts it in the fridge. He tells me he can bring it by when the dinner occurs this weekend. I thank him.

He offers to walk me home.

"I just need to finish up a few things, but you can wait for me outside," he says.

I wander over to the pigs. One comes up to me, eager to be pet. I touch its damp fuzzy little head.

It's taking Peeta a little longer than I expect it to take. The day is fairly hot for spring. I walk over to the apple tree and sit against it. Overhead, the tree is in full bloom, its leaves shading me from the worst of the heat.

Eventually, I hear the back door close and Peeta is walking across the yard. He has his hands behind his back. I narrow my eyes.

"Who told you?" I say immediately.

His guilty smile gives it away.

"Prim," he says.

"Of course she did," I say.

I stand, trying to keep the scowl from my face.

"Alright," I say, indignant. "What is it?"

He pulls his hands around. In them, he holds a cupcake. Not the one I just made. Something he must have hastily put together right after I stepped out of that door.

The design is unconventional to say the least. Sporadic. There is a small blue snowflake. A dinky little miner's helmet. Brown tubers. A tiny pink pig. All of these last few months. Right there.

"Happy birthday," he says to me.

"Thanks," I say, hardly believing I am turning sixteen. Again.

But this time, I get to spend it with him.

I lean up for a kiss, under that fated apple tree, hardly believing how much I have already changed the future.

That same weekend, the dinner goes well. No one comments rudely that Peeta is there. Even if Gale is fuming with distrust in the corner. Peeta stands in our little shack of a house as if he does not notice that Prim and I must share a bed. He compliments Hazelle's food. Prim loves the gift I made for her. She shares the cupcake with Posy and Rory. She tells our mother all about the piglets and how she wishes someday we might own a pig, too.

It is hard to believe the reaping is in two weeks.

That night, I walk Peeta back to the bakery. We pause in the Meadow.

The stars overhead are so bright this night. I look up at them. I begin to wonder for the first time, why this has happened. How had I woken up in the past? Was it luck? Fate?

If it was destined to happen, then that means there is hope.

I look up into Peeta's eyes, as he tells me how happy seeing my family made him.

More than ever, I wish I could warn him. He does not know that in two weeks, everything we have built together, every moment I have managed to steal, will be put to the test.

To keep myself from saying too much, I kiss him, interrupting the words coming out of his mouth. He returns the kiss. One of my hands moves to his cheek, pulling him into me. I kiss him as if he is water and I am begging to be drowned. The kiss reeks of sorrow.

He breaks away, looking concerned.

"What's wrong?" he whispers.

I blink, realizing there are tears running down my face.

I want to say: I love you.

"Nothing," I say instead, my voice wavering.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

"I will be."

"Was it something I said?"

"No."

"You can tell me," he whispers.

He wipes away one of my tears.

I cannot tell you.

"Thanks for coming tonight," I say.

I leave him there in the Meadow, unable to tell him the truth.

I spend the next week with constant anxiety. I do not attend a single day of school. My mother receives a notice from the Justice Building about my attendance. I see it on the kitchen table. She does not say anything to me. She does not have to; she left it there for me to see. Not as condemnation, but a warning.

It does not matter.

I wish skipping school was the only thing I needed to worry about.

Everyday that I go out into the woods, when I am supposed to be in class, I sit in front of the nightlock bush. Arms wrapped around my knees. Eye closed. Imagining an escape.

I am not sure if I am more afraid that it will not work, or that it will.

If it does, how long could I keep it up? How long will I be satisfied with only a few months of peace? How long could I stand being only a teenager? How long until I crave more than my small piece of life? Until I start to make more and more mistakes, recalling memories that only I have, and the others start to suspect something is wrong with me? How many times can one endure death, in any number of ways, until their mind is no longer the same, no longer sane?

And if I think about it more, I start to pity my loved ones. As if I am personally keeping them trapped, even if they do not know it. I do not wish to keep them stuck. I want to see them grow, change, achieve things. That's all I've ever wanted this whole time. The whole reason I grieved them in the first place.

I resolve myself. If it does work, I tell myself it cannot become a habit. Death – a restart – must only be done in dire or unintentional instances.

This first one must be done, though. In the name of science. If only because I have wasted this attempt.

The day before the reaping, I pull Prim close. She is trying to get ready for school, oblivious. I tell her to go to the Hawthornes. I will not walk her to school today. She gives me a worried look, but does not say what she is thinking. She knows I have not been in school. Has seen the warning on the table. I hurry from the Seam to the bakery. I knock on the backdoor.

I expect it when Peeta's father answers. I had been there only an hour ago with Gale, trading.

"Is Peeta here?" I ask.

Mr. Mellark looks at me strangely but does not object. He nods, then goes inside. A few minutes later, Peeta is walking up to the door. He tries to hide the anxiety he is feeling, but I see it.

"Katniss?" he says. He joins me on the back steps, hastily closing the door. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see you," I say.

"We'll be at school, soon," he says. "We'll see each other there. If you're going today…"

It is a question. That I have no intention of answering.

"If you were ever reaped, what would you do?" I ask him.

He is thrown off by the question, and definitely worried, now.

Yet, he still thinks about it before answering.

"I'd probably lose," he says.

"No, but would you try?"

"I can't say I wouldn't try," he says. "I wouldn't want to kill anyone, but I can't say what I'd do in that moment. I guess… I would just wish that if I was going to die, I would still want to be me."

It is almost like what he had said to me, that first time. He is still Peeta.

"And what if… what if…" I struggle to say it. "What if you and I were reaped together?"

Peeta frowns. "Why would you ask that?"

"What if I know that we are going to be reaped tomorrow?" I say.

Peeta stares. Then he seems to decide something. He reaches out and touches my shoulder. A soothing touch.

"Is that what you're afraid of?" he asks, sympathetic. "The chances – "

"No," I interrupt him. "What if I know it, Peeta. Without a doubt. You and I are going into the arena."

"Then that would be unlucky," he says. His eyes are sad. "And I know you would win."

I try not to be offended. I know he is simply implying that I am a survivor. That I have the skills necessary to pull it off. But I also hear something else. Things I fear about myself. That it may be easy to perceive me as hardened and heartless – a killer. That I would let him die. That – as has implied for all of my life – he loves me far more than I could ever love him.

Even now, having only known me for a few months – and I, him, for a few years – it is assumed that I could never love him more. As if saving him that first time, as if enduring the Victory Tour together, as if watching him lose himself, as if watching him die – had meant nothing to me.

Of course, he knows none of that.

"I love you," I say to him. Unbidden. The words so quick. So impossibly easy to say.

His eyes widen. He opens his mouth to speak, but then the door opens.

His mother stands there. At first, shocked. Wordless. Then the anger comes down over her face.

"What's going on here?" she asks. "You should be getting ready for school! Who is this?"

"I have to go," I say, rushing down the steps.

Peeta flinches towards me, as if to grab my arm. "Wait," he says.

"Peeta!" his mother says. She grabs him by the shoulder, pulling him back.

I rush across the yard. Retreating. Just like that first time, when Mrs. Mellark had chased me from their trashcans. Her angry voice falling over me. I only hope there are no nearby rolling pins she can use on him.

I can hear Peeta calling my name, even as I crawl under the fence. Echoing in my mind.

I swallow the nightlock without chewing it. Death comes quickly. Before I can even decide what it tastes like.