"Peeta," says Haymitch, knocking on his door. "Can we talk?"

"About what?" he calls back through the door.

"You know what about," he says with a sigh.

Peeta opens the door and gestures for Haymitch to come in.

"What exactly is there to say, Haymitch?" He folds his arms over his chest. "I know you didn't maliciously keep things from me." He shrugs. "I'm just so angry that I may have hurt the people I just tried to help."

"You're such a good person, Peeta," says Haymitch. "I figured too, if I hadn't tried to save her and saved you instead, that you'd have been pretty unbearable from here on out." Peeta gives a slight head motion, agreeing wordlessly with Haymitch's comment. "I never would have forgiven myself if I didn't bring at least one of you home. I finally had someone with a fighting chance, someone who was luckier than all the rest. Someone, well, two someone's, who actually fought for each other and not just with each other. There's been four of us from District 12 in the past 24 years that have survived the Games…no one ever wins them." He pauses thinking off and about the other Victors he knows and the things they've been through. No one ever wins, except the Capitol. The Capitol always wins.

"Is that why you tried so hard this time?" Peeta asks. "Probably helps that you two are so much alike, where you don't even have to communicate to get something done. Wish it was that easy for me. Trying to get Katniss to open up about anything is excruciating. I don't know what else I can do, and I can't beg her to talk to me about things. I know I can't." He shakes his head and throws his arms up. "Why couldn't she tell me about the thing with Snow? I know she told me 'everything wasn't a lie'" he makes quotation marks in the air, "but why can't she tell me the truth?"

"Peeta," says Haymitch. "I told her not to involve you."

"Why?" he asks.

"I told you already, but I don't have to worry about you," he nods his head towards the front of the building. "Though, now, I suppose I should never assume that you don't need any help. Maybe that's been my problem the whole time. Katniss can do so well on her own, sometimes I forget that there might be other people who need my help." He takes a moment, thinking about whether he should tell Peeta about his experience with his own Games, with how they ended for him, about Lenore Dove. He wanted to plead with him to hold onto Katniss and protect her with every fiber of his being, but he knew that would have to happen on its own.

"Did she really kiss Gale?" Peeta asks, quietly.

"Well," says Haymitch. "I guess he kissed her."

"Ah," nods Peeta.

"Don't give up on her, Peeta," says Haymitch with a reassuring pat on his arm. "She can't see it now, but if you've known love, you can see it in other places and between other people." Peeta stares at him perplexed. He surely hadn't meant to say that whole thing out loud. He definitely knew what it was to know love, and even more so, knew what it was like for it to be taken away…and he wouldn't wish that on Peeta. To watch the life fade out of them and be completely helpless to do anything about it. No, he wasn't ready to tell that story. "I need a drink," he states matter of factly. "But, Peeta," he pauses at the door, "you shouldn't have yelled at Katniss, she was just doing what I told her to do." Peeta nods and Haymitch disappears from the room so swiftly that Peeta doesn't have a chance to say anything back.

Looking around the room, he began to wonder about Haymitch. What had happened to him? Where was his family? And most importantly, who was this love he spoke up? Granted, Haymitch was anything but an open book, but if he had something to say…why didn't he just say it? "Snow had them killed." He says to no one at all and then quickly looks around to make sure no one heard him. He resolves himself to the fact that for the short term, Haymitch will probably never speak about anyone he cares about…and in the long term, that was anyone's guess.

Not too long after Haymitch leaves, Effie is tapping on the door rushing him to get ready to go, Peeta however, the longest thing it takes him is accounting for his leg. He assures Effie he'll be done on time and he is right. In a timeframe acceptable to Effie, Peeta is waiting with everyone else to enter. Effie reminds everyone what they are going to be doing and how the night is supposed to go, with no alterations, and no deviations. Then she tosses the schedule aside.

"And then, thank goodness, we can all get on that train and get out of here."

"Is something wrong, Effie?" asks Cinna.

"I don't like the way we're being treated. Being stuffed into trucks and barred from the platform. And then, about an hour ago, I decided to look around the Justice Building. I'm something of an expert in architectural design, you know," she says.

"Oh, yes, I've heard that," says Portia before the pause gets too long.

She explains how she was ordered back to our quarters and that one poked her with their gun. Most likely the result of the disappearing Victors and Mentor earlier in the day. They'd snuck out of sight and were unaccounted for, likely for longer than they would have liked them to be. Out of nowhere Katniss gives Effie a hug, tells her that it's awful, and tries to suggest they not even go to dinner now. Peeta thinks she's laying it on thick because she still feels guilty for snapping at her earlier, but she may also genuinely not want to go to dinner, and he couldn't say that he wouldn't abandon ship and leave with her without a second thought.

After some arranging the group enters as follows: prep teams, Effie, Portia and Cinna, Haymitch, and last but not least, Katniss and Peeta. As they start to go toward the stairs, Katniss and Peeta lock hands effortlessly.

"Haymitch says I was wrong to yell at you. You were only operating under his instructions," says Peeta. "And it isn't as if I haven't kept things from you in the past." Implication being their interviews for the Games, when he told all of Panem that he liked Katniss, before he'd even had the gall to say it himself. Delly was right, he had plenty of opportunities, he was just too anxious to take a chance. Maybe if he had, this whole thing would be different. Maybe, but then again, if he had something before the Games and if Prim's name was still called…and she still volunteered…he'd never let her go in alone, even if it hadn't been his name that was drawn. Maybe it was okay that things worked out this way.

"I think I broke a few things myself after that interview."

"Just an urn," he teases.

"And your hands. There's no point to it anymore, though, is there? Not being straight with each other?" she asks.

"No point," he says. The war inside him starts raging as he wills himself to ask the only real question that had been on his mind since the conversation earlier, arguably, that's probably what caused the outburst. Pushing past the hesitation threatening to choke him he asks, "Was that really the only time you kissed Gale?" Somewhat regretting asking, and still hoping she wouldn't admit to any more.

"Yes."

A light shines brightly on them and they make their way down the stairs together.

Peeta, in good spirits, pulls Katniss into his arms and they begin to dance. His arms never leave her. Whether it's by arm, elbow, waist or hand, they're always interlocked. Peeta starts to think about how sweet this all was, but too bad that so many kids had to die for this to happen. If this would have happened anyway…if he had just talked to her back home when they had all the time in the world. Would she have felt less forced to be with him? He'd caught her looking at him several times over the years, and he knew if he hadn't burned that bread for her, his songbird may have died before they even got the chance to speak.

More to it, if that really was her only kiss with Gale, had he only done that to confuse her? To make her think that there was something there. Was there something there? Had he been oblivious to some preestablished relationship? Was there something between her and Gale? Was that the only kiss they'd had and that was the one Snow happened to catch? Well, he's not here now, Peeta thinks earnestly to himself, while we're here, I don't have to share. We can carry on this way, if we need to, but at least while we're here…Gale can't come and kiss her, and I suppose that is a victory in itself.

Thus begins the never ending flow of districts and parties and speeches…but only the ones Capitol approved, no personal additions, not a single thing to break up the never ending monotony of the tour. Peeta doesn't bring up the kiss with Gale again, he only tries to get a reading on her kisses with him. They felt genuine, but were they?

Then one night, as Peeta is pacing the halls of the train, he hears Katniss screaming. Rushing into the room, without knocking, he carefully and gently shakes her awake. Telling her that she's perfectly safe, that he's there if she needs him. At first he tries to leave…

"Peeta," she says slowly. "Will you stay? At least, until I fall asleep."

"Yeah," he nods and climbs into bed with her. Wrapping his arms around her as she scoots up close to him. Funny how now they have an entire bed, but it's like they're still sharing that single sleeping bag in the cave. She always felt so right beside him, so close that he could protect her, save her, and never let a single bad thing happen to her. It also helped that when he'd dream about losing her, and he'd jolt awake, she'd be right there in his arms, her steady rhythmic breathing, reminding him that she wasn't actually dead. That they had saved each other. That no one left anyone else in an arena. It started out just this single night, but then it started to happen every night, then he would just follow her to bed and shut the door behind them. Nothing else happened, and that was fine with him, because she was there in his arms…not Gale's.

Once they finally reach the Capitol, they realize that in the districts it wasn't working, that they didn't believe them, that they thought it was all an act, all one big act of defiance. People in the Capitol were different, they believed them. They were completely taken by the love story. The star-crossed lovers, lucky they got to keep one another. But it's all too little, too late. There would be no way to stop this train.

In the Training Center one night Peeta is caught off guard.

"We could get married," she says and he stares down at her. "I mean, like you said, Haymitch. This is going to happen anyway, so why not now? At least now we can control the narrative, at least now it can't be forced by the Capitol, right now we can control the story."

"Sure," says Peeta, a bit angrily. "Let's do it." He gets up from his seat and immediately leaves the room, but not before catching the exchange between Katniss and Haymitch.

"I thought he wanted this," says Katniss.

"Not like this," Haymitch says. "He wanted it to be real."

As Peeta leaves, he couldn't agree more.

Katniss follows not far behind him, leaving only Haymitch sitting by himself.

"What should I do, Lenore Dove?" He asks, as if she's there and could still talk to him. "How do I help these kids?" His heart breaks a little. "I know she cares, I've seen it, but how do I help her see it?" He covers his face in his hands, then leans over the arm of the chair to pick up his partially drunk bottle. "Wish Burdock was here, he'd know what to tell his little girl, he knew love, too. And his love was allowed to flourish, to grow, to become something so strong that it brought two girls into this world…one who is so like me, I wonder that he didn't just come yell at me." He sighs heavily. "His little girl, I tried so hard to save, only for her to come back in nearly the same amount of trouble that I did. Except, she brought. Peeta, too. Ah, my darling, how do I help them?" As the bottle clinks to the floor empty, his eyes shut and he's dreaming of her again, gumdrops and all. Like a never ending cycle of despair. He'd already lost so much, he couldn't bear the thought of ever having to do that again. In fact, he refused. He'd keep those kids alive, if it was the very last thing he did.

After an unknown amount of time, Effie comes bursting into the room to rouse Haymitch for the party. She sees him slumped in the chair, and sighs heavily. Not again, she thinks to herself. I'm used to this when we have another set of dead tributes to bring home, but now we actually have someone alive…how could he possibly still be so bad? She had seen the Games, she knew everyone he loved had died, she even knew that it was probably President Snow who orchestrated it…but she admitted, that wasn't something she was willing to address. Haymitch was entitled to his grieving, but he really needed to get it together now. Katniss and Peeta needed them. They were very much their kids, and they wouldn't let anything happen to them if they could help it.

"Haymitch!" she hollers, from a safe distance. "You're going to have to work your way back here, because we need you." She picks up a pillow and casually tosses it across the room. "Haymitch Abernathy! Wake up!" She says in frustration, grabbing something from the table and chucking it at him. It works, but not before a slew of questionable things are yelled in her direction. "If it hasn't bothered me over the past 24 years, what makes you think it will now?" She chuckles lightly and leaves the room.

The next night is the proposal, live with Cesar Flickerman. Katniss acts as surprised as she's able, Peeta pours his heart out exactly and as sincerely as his heart can manage…everything he says is true, if only a bit more fanciful to really drive it home. Katniss agrees, obviously, it was her idea. Though she did feel a sense of guilt through the whole thing. He wanted it to be real. What kind of real? Really truly? Really sincere? Really easy? Real, how? It was real, just not in the traditional sense of the word…maybe that was what Haymitch meant, but right now all she could feel was dread. Snow had shook his head to her unasked question. She hadn't kept up her end of the bargain, she hadn't convinced the districts and she hadn't calmed things down, she hadn't convinced him of her love for Peeta. Though the Capitolites themselves ate it up. They're entirely convinced, but they were not the ones who needed convincing. It was Snow and she had failed. Irrevocably.

"What do you think about us throwing them a wedding right here in the Capitol?" Snow asks the cheering crowd. "Oh, before we set a date, we better clear it with Katniss's mother." The audience laughs heartily and Snow puts his arm around Katniss, Peeta's hands flex and release defensively. He wanted to protect her from this man, but what was he supposed to do? "Maybe if the whole country puts its mind to it, we can get you married before you're thirty."

"You'll probably have to pass a new law," Katniss says with a laugh.

"If that's what it takes," says the president with conspiratorial good humor.

The rest of the night and the dinner party go by without much of note. Katniss and Peeta stay together for the whole time, with the exception of a single dance that Katniss shared with Plutarch Heavensbee, the new Head Gamemaker for the 75th Hunger Games and the Third Quarter Quell. Then at 1 am, exactly, they're back on the train headed to 12 and the Harvest Party as the next and final thing on their agenda. Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch all anxious to be done with it. The Victory Tour took a lot more out of them than any of them realized…until they got back home.

Overnight, Peeta woke from a nightmare and walked to Katniss's room. She was sound asleep, but he couldn't, so he climbed into the bed beside her and fell asleep. When he finally woke up, Katniss had curled up into him with her head resting on his arm. He wasn't sure when they had gotten so close, but he figured it was probably out of habit. Watching her sleep, when soundly, left him wishing to never wake her up. He never wanted to disturb her, if she could sleep, she should. Never mind that he had nightmares every night and the only thing that kept him sane was Katniss beside him. She starts to wake and turns toward him.

"No nightmares," he says.

"What?" she asks.

"You didn't have any nightmares last night," he says.

"I had a dream though," she says. "I was following a mockingjay through the woods. For a long time. It was Rue, really. I mean, when it sang, it had her voice."

"Where did she take you?" he says, brushing her hair off her forehead, slowly, wondering how much longer he had with her like this.

"I don't know. We never arrived, but I felt happy."

"Well," he says, "you slept like you were happy." It's a statement. He could spend the rest of his life lying here in this bed with her in his arms and he'd never have a single complaint, but of course it couldn't last…this was where he was happiest. Even when he was hurting, he was still at his happiest with her.

"Peeta," she says, pulling him back to the present. "How come I never know when you're having a nightmare?" The question catches him off guard, but he'd never deny her an honest answer.

"I don't know." I try to make sure you don't. "I don't think I cry out or thrash around or anything." He shrugs and starts to pull his hand through her hair, little bit, by little bit. "I just come to, paralyzed with terror."

"You should wake me," she says.

This statement surprises him. He'd prefer to let her sleep. Just because he isn't, doesn't mean she shouldn't.

"It's not necessary." He waves the air in front of them. "My nightmares are usually about losing you." He figured he might as well admit it to her. What she does with the information is up to her, but he supposed he could at least tell her the truth. "I'm okay once I realize you're here." His arm tightens slightly around her and he lays his head down on her. "Be worse when we're home and I'm sleeping alone again." He might as well admit that, too. He didn't expect anything from her, no declaration of love, nothing she wasn't comfortable volunteering up herself. In response, all she does is roll even more into his arms. They'd be back in Twelve soon, and even though they still had a few hours, that time would come too soon.

Once the train pulls into the station, Katniss and Peeta share a long look, grab each other's hand and lace their fingers together. With a light but earnest squeeze, they exit onto the platform. No one is really there to greet them, it's mostly just the Mayor's family. Madge comes over to them immediately, wanting to hear all about the tour, and slowly, pulling Katniss away from Peeta. Their hands break apart, and as he watches her leave, his shoulders drop just a little bit.

"Ah," says Haymitch, clapping Peeta on the shoulder. "She'll come around. I have no doubt about that." Peeta stares at him perplexed. "Oh, come on, Peeta. You spent nearly every night in her bed, didn't you?" When Peeta doesn't answer, he continues. "She's so worried about Snow, and what the future holds…well, she doesn't fully appreciate what she has. But I am certain that at some point, she'll realize how much she cares about you." He laughs lightly. "I know what it looks like, and it looks a lot like Katniss. It might seem like the odds are insurmountable right now, but have some faith, and pack some patience." He squeezes his shoulder. "True love is worth it, my boy, some people just need more time to realize it."

"Why are you so sure, Haymitch?" asks Peeta, watching as Katniss disappears from view.

"Because I've been there." It's all he says before leaving the train station himself. "Now go see your little friends or go home and bake something, but don't sit around her and mourn for something that does exist." Haymitch pops the top off a bottle of liquor he stole from the train and chugs about half of it, before he himself disappears from view as well.

Thinking on Haymitch's words, Peeta walks down through the square, wondering if there was any truth to what he said. She'd all but told him that everything was a lie, granted, he had a lot of doubts when it came to that whole thing as well…and Katniss had let her sleep in his bed the majority of the Victory Tour. How he wished it didn't have to end. How he wished that she loved him too… "What did Haymitch mean?" He says out loud to himself. "She'll come around? How will she come around?" He shakes his head and nearly runs into a figure walking in front of him. "Oh!" He nearly shouts, taking a step back. He looked up into the face of the only other person he was sure was his competition. "Sorry, Gale."

"Just get back?" Gale asks, coolly.

"Yeah," says Peeta. "Katniss left the station with Madge."

"Where are you going?" His voice is cold, but also inquisitive.

"I don't know," Peeta shrugs. "Wandering, I guess."

"Ah, okay," says Gale with a nod. "See ya, Peeta."

He takes off without another word, and so quickly, Peeta wouldn't have had time to say anything else…even if he wanted to. Which he could admit, he didn't want to. He continues walking, saying hello to several people who pass him, but it's mostly like he's sleepwalking. It's not until one voice pulls him back to the present, forcing his thoughts of Katniss to leave…temporarily.

"Hi, Peeta," says Delly.

"Hey, Delly," he says back. "How's it going?"

"I should ask you the same thing!" She squeals. "You're engaged, Peeta!"

He'd always valued her friendship, though when it came to Katniss, she was easily his biggest nag. Ever since they were kids, he'd told her about giving the bread to Katniss, because he couldn't live with himself if he'd just allowed her to die…how foretelling that ended up being. The years that followed were constant of her seeing he was looking at Katniss, sometimes her looking at him - apparently - and constantly telling him to go talk to her. Now more than ever he regretted not having done that. How would things have been different if the Reaping had still gone the same way and they'd been together, or at least more friendly than they were at the start. It had been months, and he himself had still never really had a heart to heart with her about his feelings, maybe it would be unfair of him to do that, maybe she would shut him out forever. He could live forever, alone, if it meant she was happy. Even if that meant she was with Gale.

Peeta would never ask her to feel things she didn't, the Capitol had already done that for her. Yes, they were engaged now, but that had been her idea. Her idea because, "it's gonna happen anyway, why not now?" Why not now? Happen anyway? Certainly not the attitude he had hoped for going into an engagement. But Snow had forced their hand, and had made Katniss promise to convince him of her love. What love? Haymitch seems convinced it's there…somewhere? Forgetting he's even talking to Delly, he notices her waving her hand in front of his face.

"What?" he says. "Sorry. What did you say?"

"Oh, Peeta," sighs Delly. "Have a little faith, will you?" She shrugs and walks off toward her home. "Congratulations, anyway." With that she's gone. No longer up for a conversation. Not that he blamed her, he had tuned her out…unintentionally, but tuned her out nonetheless. His walk back to Victors Village and to his home was slow and exhausting. His mind racing over a million things, so many moments that he'd just brushed off before…everything having some sort of meaning now, after what Haymitch said.

By the time he's made it up the stairs to his house, he's resolved himself to the fact that, if Katniss wants to proclaim her love…he's all ears.