To Katniss, it felt like the red carpet would never end. It seemed endless; a line of photographers and journalists and publicists and who knows who else, all jostling for the best interviews, best angles, best exposure. And all the while, she had Peeta beside her, his hand either firmly pressed to her hip or the small of her back, or engulfing her own as he led her down the pathway, towards the doors that promised to deliver her to freedom.

She was strung as taut as a wire after the kiss but, as usual, Peeta seemed perfectly fine as he mingled and posed and conversed.

Finally, after what felt like hours, they stepped inside the theatre, leaving the news crews and paparazzi and screaming fans behind. Katniss let out a sigh of relief - the most nerve-wracking part of the night was over, and she could at least hide in the darkened theatre and not speak to anyone for the next two hours.

And then she glanced up and caught Peeta's eye.

Alright. Maybe the most nerve-wracking part was yet to come.

"That went well," she said as flippantly as possible, all while her stomach felt like it was dropping out of the bottom of her shoes.

"Sure," he said smoothly. "You handled yourself really well."

"Thanks."

"And the kiss was a nice touch. It was pretty believable."

Her cheeks flared while she searched his face for sarcasm or recognition or anything. There was nothing.

"I, uh..."

"Did they ask you to do that?"

Katniss blinked. "Who?"

Peeta shoved a hand in his pocket, and while his voice sounded nonchalant and his face was expressionless, there was something defensive in his pose. "Plutarch and Caesar. I'm pretty certain you stipulated no kissing when we started this, so I'm just a little confused why now all of a sudden you're doing it for the cameras."

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish while she tried to figure out what to say. "I, uh, no. That was all me." She swallowed heavily. "I did it because I wanted to."

"You wanted to?" He quirked a brow in question, even while the line of his jaw tensed.

"Well I...actually, do we have to have this conversation here?" She gestured around them, and the people milling about waiting for the movie to begin. Even if the media were all outside, she knew there were plenty of loose lips in Panem - she could only imagine if someone overheard their conversation and word got out. "There's too many people around and they don't need to hear a whiff about the contract, you know?" He followed her gaze, taking in Panem's so called entertainment elite and nodded before tipping his head to the side, indicating towards an empty hallway to their left. She led him there without a word, then turned back to him the moment they were out of the crowd.

"So you did it because you wanted to?" Peeta repeated, leaning against the wall and folding his arms across his chest.

She nodded. "I told you I wasn't kidding. It made sense to do it." Oh god, Katniss. It made sense? Are you a freaking idiot?

"Did it?"

"I guess...I guess I kind of got carried away."

"Carried away?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Quit being vague and just tell him! "But, ah, mostly it was because I wanted to." She gripped her hands around her clutch, tightly enough that her knuckles were white with tension. Oh shit, here goes nothing. "I did it because I wanted to kiss you."

Peeta blinked once, twice, the long blond eyelashes tangling together with each closing sweep. Finally emotion was beginning to seep into his face, and more than anything else, it held confusion. "You...you wanted to kiss me?"

She shrugged, glanced away. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"Why not?" Her eyes flit back to him nervously.

This time, Peeta pushed away from the wall. "Because you stipulated very early on that there wasn't to be any kissing as part of this arrangement. You even had it written into the contract - which I can remember Plutarch and Caesar being none too pleased about. And now suddenly you've changed your mind?"

"Things change," Katniss retorted.

"Like what?" He took a step closer to her, close enough that she could feel the heat emanating from him, could smell the heady cologne he wore that had teased her all the way down the red carpet. His voice had lowered, had an edge to it that hadn't been there before.

"Like feelings."

"What kind of feelings?" He pressed.

"I-"

The announcement overhead advising that the film was about to start burst into their conversation like unwelcome static, and both startled at the intrusion. From where they were, they could see people slowly making their way into the theatre itself, the occasional glance thrown their way in curiosity. It took everything inside her to stop from wiping her sweaty palms on the unforgiving silk of her dress, instead making do with keeping them locked around her clutch.

"We should go in," she muttered, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that their discussion had been thwarted.

"No, I can't leave this conversation the way it is, Katniss," Peeta said firmly, determination clear in his eyes. "I can't leave it for hours like we did the other week at the party. We need to talk about this now."

"You don't want to see the movie?"

"Right now, I don't give a shit about the movie," Peeta replied with a shake of his head. "We only had to walk the red carpet. We can do whatever the hell we want to now. And I want to talk about this. I want to know what's going on."

Katniss breathed in deeply, knowing that if he wanted to talk about it, she finally needed to be truthful with him. There was no way she could last these next few months without telling him, and kissing him had only seemed to confuse things more. There was only one thing she could think of doing.

"Fine," she murmured, with an air of finality. Time to throw that last bit of caution into the wind. "Call Andrew, get him to come and pick us up early. We should go somewhere to talk, and I know where we can go without being interrupted."

His eyes searched hers for a moment before he finally nodded. "Okay. Tell me where you want to go, and we'll go."

"The studio?"

She could hear the doubt in Peeta's voice as the car idled outside the non-descript brick building on the corner of Victor and Tribute.

She fidgeted with the hem of her dress. "Yeah. I...there's no one here on Friday nights, and..."

He shrugged, reached over the front seat to tap the driver on the shoulder. "Andrew, just wait for us, will you? We won't be long."

"Sure thing, Mr Mellark," the driver replied agreeably. "I'll park in the garage, just give me a call when you're ready."

Both Peeta and Katniss stepped out, and - not for the first time on the drive over - she wondered if this was a bad idea. Was she really ready to play him her song? Was she really ready for him to know the truth?

Would she ever be ready?

"When you said somewhere we couldn't be interrupted, I assumed you meant your apartment or something," Peeta said quietly, keeping a significant distance between them as Katniss punched in her access code and waved absently to the night security guy.

"Oh. Well...yeah, that would have made sense. But I have something to show you before we talk."

"Here?" His tone screamed of incredulity, and she couldn't blame him.

"Yeah."

He followed her silently down the halls, past darkened studios and offices that, during the day, would normally be bustling. In the quiet night, it was almost eerie in its lack of life.

Moving into the studio she'd been using for the last 2 months, she headed straight for the sound booth. She knew how Cinna worked almost as much as he knew how she did, and signing into the computer in the corner of the room, she broke his password quickly and easily.

"This is not a side of you I expected to see tonight," Peeta said wryly. "Hacking computers and passwords."

"Cinna's used the same password for as long as I've known him. He might be a musical genius, but he's also organised as hell," Katniss muttered, scrolling through his files until she found what she was looking for. The moment she did, she paused, swallowing nervously. Her fingers rested gently on the mouse as the cursor hovered over the file on the screen.

"So what is it you wanted to show me?" Peeta lowered himself into the chair beside Katniss, rested his arms on the desk in front of him.

"I, uh...this." She glanced at the screen, waited until he followed her gaze.

"Is this one of your tracks for the new album?"

"Yeah. It's the one we just finished up before you came in the other day."

He reached up, ran a hand across the back of his neck as though he were nervous. "I told you that you don't have to play me your stuff, Katniss. I just want to talk about-"

"This will explain it," Katniss blurted, cutting him off. "I'm not good with off the cuff words like you are. I need practice and refinement, and I work a lot better when they've been written down. So please, just...listen."

Peeta dropped his hand back into his lap, nodded slowly. "Okay then."

Her finger shook slightly as she finally clicked on the icon that opened the file, watched as the mix populated on screen, the lines of audio just waiting to begin.

She closed her eyes, and listened to the recording of her own voice sing everything she wanted to say, but couldn't.

When it was done, the room was silent. She couldn't even hear her own breath, and it wasn't until she felt lightheaded that she realised she'd been holding it.

She exhaled heavily, opened her eyes. And when she looked at Peeta, his own were wide as saucers.

"Katniss...was that...was that about us?"

She lowered her gaze down to her lap. "Yeah. I, um, wrote it after the Capitol party."

"And it's about us."

"Yeah."

"And you meant the lyrics in there? You really meant them?"

Katniss didn't say anything at first, a lump forming in her throat as she tried to determine the words she wanted to say. And then she felt his hand curve around her chin, lifting her face so that she was looking at him.

If I could do it all again, I would, but I'd find better words to say. Ones that told you how I feel, the truth, the feelings that never went away.

The ones that only got stronger with time.

"Yeah. Yeah I did. I do."

She watched as his throat bobbed, as a muscle in his cheek twitched. "I, uh…" He trailed off, and while he didn't let go of the gentle hold he had on her chin, she could see the weakening of his shoulders as he started to slump in his seat, as his gaze lowered to the ground. And her heart dropped.

Shit. How could she have been so stupid? She was never listening to Madge again.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "Shit. Shit. I shouldn't have said anything." She jumped up from the seat, jerking out of his hold, quickly shutting down the computer so that Cinna would never know she'd been there. She was halfway out the door when she felt his fingers encircle her wrist.

"Katniss." His voice was soft, gentle, and she bit down on her lower lip. "Don't leave."

"Why not?" She snapped, refusing to turn to look at him. "I've just made a fool of myself in front of you. I should have known better."

"No." His voice was firm, no nonsense. "The last thing you've done is make a fool of yourself. I'm just a little shocked and surprised, is all."

"Don't try and make me feel better, Peeta." She'd just poured her heart out in song, and he was virtually shutting her down. She didn't need his pity.

"I'm not. But I think I need to share something with you."

She scoffed, rolled her eyes at the wall. "I don't want to hear your music right now."

"I'm not going to play you my music." He tightened his grip slightly, tugged so she had no choice but to turn around. "Come on."

"I just want to go home."

"Just five minutes. I came here for you, didn't I? It's only fair."

She scowled - hadn't she made a fool of herself enough in front of him? - before using her free hand to gesture him past her. "Fine. Then let me go home and wallow in my embarrassment."

"Katniss, you don't have to be embarrassed," he insisted.

"Whatever." She was now firmly entrenched in a place of wanting to be difficult.

He shook his head, moving into the hallway and guiding her behind him down the corridor, up a flight of stairs, to the second door on the right. Peeta reached into his pocket, pulled out a slim pair of keys and unlocked it; he grasped the doorknob before pausing. "Just don't freak out, okay?"

"What, like I could anymore than I alrea…" she trailed off as he opened the door and flicked on the light.

The room was full of her.

Well, not technically. But the wide wall opposite the door wasn't full of pinned up sheet music or scraps of paper with lyrics on them, like she had expected it to. It - along with the rest of the room - was full of drawings and artwork, some black and white sketches, others brought to life with paints or pastels or chalk. Of the streets of Panem, of far flung destinations she could only ever dream of visiting, of the dandelion-filled meadow two blocks over from their high school. Of people she saw every day - Cinna, Plutarch, Caesar, Portia - and people famous in the industry - Cressida Jones, Finnick and Annie, Johanna Mason. But more than anyone or anything else, she saw herself. There were dozens upon dozens of renderings of her everywhere.

"What-what is this?" She stepped inside, crossing to the watercolour of the meadow, reaching up to touch it lightly. He followed her in, closing the door behind them.

"This is what I've been working on," Peeta said quietly. "When you've been in the studio, I've been up here, drawing and painting."

Her fingers traced the splashes of green, the streaks of yellow. "I thought you were working on new material."

"I am. This is new material."

She turned to him slowly, the embarrassment and horror she'd been feeling less than ten minutes before draining from her, confusion taking its place. "I don't understand."

He shoved his hands in his pockets, rocked back slightly on his heels. "When I told you why I agreed to the contract, I said it was because Plutarch and Caesar agreed to help me with my career, if Finnick and Annie decided to make their hiatus permanent. They did - it was just my art career they agreed to help me with."

"What?" Katniss' mouth dropped open. "Your art career?"

Peeta shrugged, and this time his cheeks flushed pink. "They know art has always been my first love - I was forever drawing and sketching and painting whenever I could when we were on tour. It was one of the reasons they agreed to add an art component to a summer program Annie, Finn and I ran last year. They could see I had promise."

"Promise?" She shook her head. "Peeta, this is more than promise. These are amazing." His cheeks deepened to a darker shade of pink at her words. "But what if Annie and Finnick want to continue? What happens then?"

"Then we continue," Peeta said simply. "I love my life as a musician - playing the guitar often feels like just another form of art for me. But I need to make sure that I've got a life beyond that. Even if The Mockingjays stay around for another ten years, I'm going to need to do something with my life after that, you know? Either way, I know that Caesar and Plutarch are behind me."

"But if you're not a musician, what do they get out of it?"

This time, a faint smile curved the right corner of his mouth. "Plutarch and Caesar have their fingers in plenty of pies, trust me. At least, with this, I'm getting what I want either way."

Katniss' head felt like it was going to explode with all the new information. Here she was, thinking that Peeta had been working on songs for a new album - and instead, he'd been drawing and painting practically everyone in his life.

Including her.

She moved closer to the artwork, studying it all intently. The more she looked at the ones of her, the more confused she got. There was a difference in the ones he'd drawn of her to all the others. They were...softer, brighter, gentler, sharper, all rolled into one.

She felt his gaze searing into a spot between her shoulder blades.

"There are, um, so many pictures of me," she finally muttered. "I'm surprised."

"Why? I like to draw what inspires me," Peeta replied after a beat of silence. "I guess I just have an eye for beauty."

She tracked her eyes over to him, felt her stomach flutter. "Don't," she said quietly.

"Don't what?" He took a step towards her, and she took a step back.

"Don't try and make me feel better about before," Katniss reminded him, nerves creeping into her voice.

He stepped even closer until he was directly in front of her. "I'm not trying to make you feel better. I'm just trying to show you what you showed me, in my own way."

"And what's that?" She tried to keep her tone strong, unaffected. She failed.

This time, his voice was low, low enough that she had to strain to hear him. "I've never stopped thinking about you, Katniss. Not once, not in the last 8 years. It's always...it's always been you."

Holy shit.

"You don't mean that."

"I do." He took another step closer to her, and this time, his hand rested lightly on the curve of her waist, drawing her in until their hips bumped. "These last two months have been a catch 22 for me."

"How?"

"Because I got to spend all this time with you, and had to pretend that I wanted you. Except that I really did. Badly." His free hand trailed up her arm, fingertips dancing across the bare skin. "I wanted you, and I thought you couldn't stand me. It's been driving me insane."

This could not be real.

"This isn't real," she insisted, even as his arm began to slide around her, drawing her in even closer. The seemingly constant dull ache in her core that she had whenever she was around Peeta flared to life, startling and stunning in its intensity.

"It's very real for me," Peeta replied, his voice catching. "I promise. And from the sounds of your song...it's real for you too."

Katniss inhaled sharply, felt her chest press against his with the movement. Her stomach was now filled with butterflies, and she was fairly certain her heart was about to leap out of her throat and splat on the ground at her feet.

So she didn't even give herself time to consider the consequences.

Her arms slid up around his neck at the same time his mouth came crashing down on hers, a fierce collision of lips and teeth and tongues and 8 years of pent up need and longing. She pulled herself even closer, rising up on the tips of her toes so her elbows could rest on his shoulders and her hands could curve up and clutch eagerly at the top of his head, and the blond waves she'd loved from the moment she'd first sat beside him in the high school library. She felt the groan build up in the back of her throat as his hands slid over her hips, gripped the curve of her ass, and let it spill from her lips when the hard length of him pressed against her. She ground against him eagerly, encouraging his hands to tighten his hold on her.

"We can't do this here," she muttered, pulling away slightly, while his mouth moved to nibble at the junction of her throat.

"Do what?" His voice was muffled, and she could feel the vibration of his words against her skin.

"This," she sighed, even as she tipped her head back to give him better access to her neck. It just felt so ridiculously good. "We're meant to be fake; this isn't meant to happen."

At her words, he pulled back. The blue of his eyes had darkened to almost midnight, the pupils dilated with need. "Forget the contract, Katniss. This has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with anything but you, and me, and us."

"There is no us."

"Yes there is." He said the words forcefully, insistently, lifting his hands to cup her cheeks, his thumbs brushing the curve of her jaw. "I want there to be an us. I always have. We made mistakes, we both did, and we both know it. But we've moved past that. I just...This should happen. It needs to happen, if you'll allow it."

She stared at him, bewildered at the honesty and intensity in his voice. Even when she'd realised she'd wanted to tell him how she felt, even as she'd played the song to him, even as she'd admitted that the lyrics were about him, she hadn't expected this. Not in a million years.

But while she hadn't expected it, she wanted it. Wanted him. More than anything else.

"I'll allow it," Katniss murmured, surprised at how easily the words fell from her lips. "Just...not here."

"Not here?"

She allowed the smile to cross her face slowly. "We've got a perfectly good hotel room at Capitol Towers."

Andrew was, as always, discreet. He didn't comment once as they kissed and groped like teenagers in the back of the car on the way to the hotel, didn't even glance in the rearview mirror. He opened the door for them like they'd sat in the back like perfectly respectable adults, bid them a good evening like he always did when he escorted them around.

They walked through the lobby with a foot of distance between them, stole glances at each other as the rode the elevator to the twelfth floor, managed to walk responsibly down the hallway towards the room booked in her name.

And then the minute the door closed behind them, they leapt on each other, hands impatiently tearing at clothes, mouths branding each others, tripping over each other as they stumbled their way over to the bed, falling in a tangled heap onto the smooth sheets.

Katniss heard a seam rip, apologised in her head to Effie for ruining such a lovely dress. And then Peeta's mouth was making a trail down her neck, down her breast, over the hardened peak, and she didn't give a shit about the dress at all.

"I've dreamt about this for so long," Peeta murmured against her skin, his hands pulling the dress down until it draped around her waist. He rose back on his haunches, tugged the dress down the rest of the way until it slid past her feet and he could discard it on the floor. He looked down, eyes filled with desire raking over her desperately.

Then he was pulling her into his arms, and they were rolling over the bed, clothes being torn and stripped and thrown aside, bare skin flush against bare skin, curves and angles bumping and sliding against each other as sweat began to pearl and breaths began to pant. Her heart pounded eagerly against his, even while her legs wrapped around his waist, drawing him close, so impossibly close, that she didn't think she'd ever be able to let go.

"Katniss, I…" His voice was heated against her ear, his mouth sucking lightly on the lobe.

"Ughhhhh." She didn't even know what language she was trying to speak, only that whatever he was doing with his hands and his hips and his mouth was making her hunger for something she hadn't wanted in a long time.

"Can we-"

"Yes."

He lowered his forehead to hers, and they did nothing but stare at each other as the realisation of what they were about to do sank in. Without taking his eyes off her, Peeta reached for the pants he'd discarded on the edge of the bed, fumbled in the pocket for his wallet, and the thin foil square that it contained. Nerves thrummed under her skin as she helped him roll it on, as he slowly and patiently - as if he'd waited his whole life for this very moment - slid inside her.

They moved together in the dark, hearts racing, breaths panting, mouths groaning, as they dragged each other over an edge neither had ever expected to tumble over together.

An edge both knew they could never tumble over with anyone else again but each other.

It was the ringing of her phone that pulled Katniss from sleep, the vibration echoing against the wood of the side table in conjunction with the faint strains of her ringtone. She cracked an eye open, propped herself up on one elbow to look at the screen.

Plutarch Heavensbee.

Well, this was to be expected.

With a groan, she flopped back down, staring at the ceiling until the call cut off, sighing in relief when it finally did so. After the night before, the last thing she wanted was to deal with Plutarch and Caesar - she didn't want to think about anything but Peeta, and how things had forever changed between them.

Then she swore when her phone began to ring again.

"You going to answer that?" Peeta's muffled voice came from beneath the sheet; all she could see of him was a shock of sleep rumpled hair.

"It's Plutarch."

"And you're surprised?"

She reached underneath the sheet, poking him in the side - he twitched, slapping her hand away lightly with a snort of laughter. "Of course not. Doesn't mean that I want to speak to him right now."

"We need to get it over with sooner or later. We both knew they'd hear about it somehow." Peeta shifted so that the sheet fell away to rest just below his shoulder blades. His face was still partially smooshed by the pillow, and his eyes were heavy lidded and sleepy.

Katniss didn't think he'd ever looked better.

"Fine," she sighed, just as the phone cut out again. "Oh, what a shame. He hung up."

"Just wait."

Sure enough, within thirty seconds it was going off again. And this time, she reluctantly picked it up. "This is Katniss."

"Katniss, it's Plutarch. I've got Caesar with me. I think we need to talk."

She rolled her eyes. "Is everything alright?"

"I don't know, Katniss. Perhaps that's something you need to tell me."

"I'm fine."

"I'm certain you are." He paused, and cleared his throat. "We heard some...reports this morning."

"You did?" She didn't usually play coy, but she felt like it was appropriate right now. It wasn't like they'd done anything wrong, so she had no intention of feeling guilty, no matter how much Plutarch probably wanted her to.

"Don't play coy - you know what I'm talking about. This was entirely unexpected, and not something that we anticipated when we signed the contract."

Katniss glanced down at Peeta, felt the smile tug lightly at the corner of her mouth. "I don't think any of us anticipated anything, Plutarch." Peeta shifted closer to her, wrapping his arm around her waist as he strained to hear the other end of the conversation. She slid down until the phone was close to both their ears.

"I can't remember anything of this type of...clause being written into the contract, Katniss." Caesar finally spoke up, and she could practically see him tapping the tip of his chin with his finger as he spoke. She imagined they were in the main office at Capitol Records, gleaming city behind them, coffee pots and fruit platters in front of them.

"There wasn't anything in the contract, we know," she confirmed.

"And you also understand that, technically, the contracted six months ended two days ago. So I want to remind you that there's no financial benefit or bonus attached to this kind of stunt, either."

Katniss grinned, and caught Peeta's eye; his own grin matched hers as he slid his hand down her free arm until it was twined with hers. He lifted their joined hands to his lips, and even in the dim light of the early morning, she could see the glint of gold against both their skin.

Peeta took the phone from her, held it closer to his ear."Good morning Caesar, it's Peeta. I believe you have some concerns?"

"Peeta, we're just wanting to make clear to both of you that there is no benefit for this. You didn't have to take this step. It goes above and beyond our requirements. I thought you understood that."

"I assure you, we're not looking for a bonus, nor are we looking for any additional financial benefits," Peeta said calmly. "And we took this step because we wanted to."

"I don't understand."

"We're in love," Peeta replied simply, and at his words, Katniss' heart did a slow roll in her chest. It still sent a thrill through her every time he said it, ever since that first time he'd murmured it to her, the morning after their first night together 4 months earlier. "And getting married is the last thing either of us would ever do for fame, I assure you. Now, if you both don't mind...I'd like to spend the morning, uninterrupted, with my wife. And we're not taking any calls for the rest of the day."

Katniss watched as he ended the call and dropped the phone to the floor beside the bed, then smiled as he winked at her and drew the covers over their heads.

A contract was one thing. Reality was another entirely.

It was much, much better.

A/N - Thank you for reading. I had a lot of fun with this - I'd love to hear what you think, either here or on tumblr. I'm there under sponsormusings :)