AN: *WARNING* *WARNING* This fanfic contains some outrageously, horrifically messy writing - I kid you not. I don't care about reviews, but please don't flame. I flame myself more than anyone else needs to.

Why must inspiration always hit me when I'm having exams? If I fail econs... we all know why, ha. So. This might be a two-shot, I'm not sure yet, but if there's one thing I'm quite positive about it's that there should be a lemon somewhere or other. A tasteful one. Oh, and if you could adjust the story width? That would be splendid.

One last thing! If you would like to see how Katniss and Peeta are like to me you can check out my artwork at: liefelijkoverleveren (dot) deviantart (dot) com. I promise it'll be worth your time.

With that! Chapter name and lyrics within are taken from "On The Safest Ledge" by Copeland. (Beautiful song, amazing band.) Here we go!

The sun burns a hole straight through your old flaws

If you look toward the sky even on your greyest night

Could you be happy now with the wind in your hair

And your eyes open wide and your feet going nowhere?

She has to give herself something to do, and this is better than nothing. The slips of paper in her fingers tremble along with her hand, and she dumps them on the carpet, kneels by the fireplace, and feels for a match.

Nearly half a year ago, before she'd left the Capitol, Dr. Aurelius told her that the deepest, most underlying problem within her troubled patchwork soul was that she'd rendered herself unforgiveable, claiming every tragedy as another piece to a twisted, violent jigsaw puzzle encapsulating all her crimes. The berries. The impulsiveness in the Victory Tour that cost people their lives and stirred up the rebellion like sparks to tinder. Every propo she'd ever done which left Peeta less of himself and more of a mutt. He clutched her arms, made her look into his eyes, and told her that none of what happened was her fault. But she could not bring herself to believe him.

Hope could not be so near at hand. The doorway out of this misery could not - should not - be open so soon. She must pay for her mistakes, her impulsiveness, her rashness; she must pay for them in full. Because to forgive herself is to forget, and she owes too much to too many people to forget what they had sacrificed, even if it means staying in the darkened room of her mind, helpless against the nightmares.

One month passes, and then another, then still yet another. Greasy Sae, head shaking in quiet concern, makes her breakfast and dinner, draws her baths, and also invites Peeta, who comes with fresh bread every morning and tries to smile at her from across the table.

She doesn't need to be particularly smart to figure out that he is the one who cooks lunch for her and leaves it set neatly on the table while she loses herself (literally, and half on purpose) in the woods. She reflects gloomily with her chin in her palm that it's really very frustrating that he was the one who nearly lost his mind because of a torture planned specifically for him and the moment he's recovered somewhat he's already looking out for her again, making sure she has what she needs, the girl who was broken only because she'd happened to lose some people in her life she'd loved a great deal. (And she hadn't even lost him in the end.) Can you compare stuff like this? She wonders. Whose situation was more dire? Huh, what a trick question. Of course his.

They talk sometimes, about trivial things like bread and hunting and the weather, but she sees the pain in his eyes and wonders if he can see hers. Everything comes down to him, for some reason; every activity in her life is marred by the distance she puts between them, and somehow it's all very clear that the sooner they get this out of the way the better they can heal. She knows he wants to reach out and touch her, and the truth is that she needs his touch; but she can't ask, and she won't let him. He's the last person she wants to hurt and she's done too much to him to accept his arms and his forgiveness just yet - the nightmares must have their way in the darkness, and she will wait until the wall she put between them has worn down with time.

She is a ghost during the daytime and more join her when the sun sets. Most nights an image of her little sister alight in flame blazes hot and furious in her mind, torture replayed over and over like the jabberjays in the Quell. Only this time, this time, this is real. At first, any thought of healing is tossed aside in the harshness of her grief, but as the months go by and the circles under her eyes blacken she begins to wonder wearily that if Prim could reach out to her from the other side, she would plead, fingers clasped around her own, that she let go.

Let go and live.

She doesn't know - that is, at least, what he thinks - but he's observing her from afar.

And he wishes he could come nearer, nearer to her house, to her side of the couch on those blessed days when dinner is followed by some meager attempt at small talk in the living room, nearer to her. If there's one thing he's nearly always ever been, though, it's a gentleman; and with a person like his girl on fire, one can never be too careful. So he does little things. He bakes cheese buns for her everyday, prepares her lunch, and tries not to sit next to her chair and wait for her to get back so they can eat together. He isn't sure she's ready or if she would appreciate his company at the only meal she's able to be alone at. He gives a wry smile, remembering some people who'd asked him frankly (and a little bewilderedly) how he could stand loving her, taking care of her, doing a hundred little things that she brushed aside so easily. His reply was always the same: "You don't know her." Nobody knows her, it seems (and that's understandable because she held everyone at arm's length) but he does. He has the nights on the train, the times they spent on the Training Center roof, the days in the arena to prove it. Everyone is watching her, but they don't see. Only he does.

He doesn't know how to explain it, but she's revealed a side of herself to him no one's ever witnessed (except maybe Gale) and somehow every cuttingly straight remark she's made or black frown she's given him can never affect the way he sees her ever again.

That's why he's patiently waiting. Because he wants to catch a glimpse of his Katniss and he doesn't care how many months or years it will take.

Days go by and he learns to deal with his flashbacks. Every single one is horrific, but he has to believe he's getting better, coming out of it, even if he doesn't think so. There's a chair in his room that becomes his gripping post, and when the terror of a flashback looms upon him he learns to clamp a hand on the chair and take the false memory by the horns. He gulps deep breaths, then struggles to make out if the memory's shiny, then he counts to ten and thinks about all the good things anyone has ever done for him. In spite of this , every time does leave him like a patched-up vase that can't stop cracking and he finds tears in his eyes as he fights off visions of Katniss growing fur and fangs, Cato and his gigantic sword chopping him to bits to feed to the mutts, the bakery on fire with his family burning within, Johanna screaming while the Peacekeepers throw buckets of water over her. He steels his nerves and hunts for a towel by himself. No one will walk into his bedroom and find him crying. No one will draw from their own limited optimism and energy to help him. There are people with worse wounds than his own. He doesn't want to reopen anyone's wounds.

Finnick visits her in her dreams halfway through the fourth month, trapped and desperate in the horrible embrace of a rose mutt. For once, for the first time out of countless many, she can hear his voice. Katniss, I did this for me. For you. For Annie. Is that sugar she smells? For Peeta. For Panem. I chose my path. His lips stretch in a joyful smile even as he fights a mutt away. I wouldn't have let you save me if it meant sacrificing one of the others.

But she flings herself to the side of the bed in grief, still asleep. I can't yet! She cries back to him. I can't forget so fast what you did as though it were nothing. I can't forget your life. That's why I remind myself every night! Finnick, don't you understand? That's why I let the nightmares come!

She comes awake with a start, realizing that she's hollered every word - why else are her ears burning so surely? Her hand feels for her boy with the bread before she remembers that they don't do the sleeping arrangements any longer. She tries to tell herself that she's glad, that her trashing was never good for his own sanity in the first place, but there's a dull ache right over where her heart is and she takes hours to fall back asleep.

All the while he listens to her call for Finnick, lying dormant and sad on his bed. This isn't the right time to barge in and comfort her, he reasons, even though it's all he can do not to imagine taking her in his arms and holding her. She needs her time alone, he tells himself - can't he see that by the wall she puts between them every morning? (He doesn't know it comes crashing down every night.) With a sigh, he closes his eyes and tries to remember how it felt to stroke her hair.

The last night she stands for this, the night she crumbles, rain is falling hard and she sees Prim again - only this time she's holding her little sister's hands, unwilling to let her go.

This time, Prim turns to her, tears to her eyes.

And this time, Prim is the one who says, "Katniss, let go."

She chokes as she tries to swallow down the sudden hard lump in her throat as she remembers that was exactly what she'd said to Prim at the Reaping. Now she knows what it feels to let someone go to their death… to shake off their hands and tell them, "You go on. Go on and live. I've got to do what I've got to do, but stay where you are in the land of the living if you love me." And finally she knows, too, that she has to let all those people go, because that's what they would've told her if they could.

She has to let them go the first chance she gets.

Her mind wanders to her boy. Because he is hers, hasn't been anyone else's, ever. Her boy, her sweet, patient, gentle, selfless boy. She realizes, all of a sudden, that she wants to keep it that way, wants to keep him hers for always, but right now the cumbersome wall she's put up between them complicates things even with Gale gone. (She doesn't want Gale back. Not for a long time. And not because she hates him, but because his fire burns her frequently and she has to heal. He never offered her true hope, not in the way she realizes Peeta does.)

She needs her boy, cannot survive without him, and has finally learned to accept that as a good thing. She knows why her best friend had said she would pick who she couldn't survive without, knows why her boy didn't disagree - because it is true, and it is beautiful. It's the privilege one of them hoped to have. Somehow admitting that she only loves him wouldn't be enough; he needs to know she can't survive without him. And she wants to give him that, but not while she is a ghost with more ghosts for company at night and an unnecessarily effective wall between them.

You know, you could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve him. Haymitch, that old drunk, right once again. She doesn't deserve him. He doesn't deserve her, deserves more than her. But she needs him to survive, and she wants to hope that maybe… maybe he needs her too.

She pads across the floorboards and opens her window, gasping as showers of cool raindrops pelt her face, her arms, her hair. She can see his house, the light in his room at this hope-forsaken time of night. The only thing that occurs to her as she slides down the wall to crumple onto the floor and let the wind blow the rain in is that she misses him. She misses him so badly.

He stares at his still-wet paintings and wishes he didn't bring all the memories to life on the canvas. Things he should forget, things that should stay forgotten. He never had Katniss's problem, nightmares of people he killed, because he'd hardly killed anyone. But then he remembers the District 8 girl. Foxface. Brutus. Mitchell. And he hates it, hates himself, wants to scream, "What was wrong with you?" He's so angry that paint begins to splash on canvasses with a violence so unknown to his own self that he gets angrier, smashing the bristles of his brush into what was Mitchell hanging bloodied from the fence, ruining it for good. For good. He likes that phrase. Yes, it's good he can't get his painting back. And he doesn't want to try, either.

Gripping his windowsill in frustration, he opens the latch and lets the rain rush in, soaking him and his paintings and making the colours on his hands, his shirt, his canvasses run. He runs a hand through his sopping hair and grimly watches the forms of violence and torture recede and pool defeated onto the newspapered floor. He won't remember any of this stuff. He refuses to, he decides, scooping up the newspapers and dumping them in a pile so he can burn them in the morning.

With a sigh he slumps defeated, on his floor, against the wall. He's not tired and he knows better than to try and sleep when he doesn't feel like it. Offhand he wonders what she is doing, and then he feels a painful twist in his chest. It's not a flashback - they only come once in awhile now because he has grounded himself, truly grounded himself, in what's real - but he hurts all the same. He hurts for her.

Gale isn't here with her anymore. Greasy Sae can only do so much. And Haymitch stubbornly refuses to set foot inside either of their houses until they've "resolved the problems they have with each other." He wishes every minute of the day that he could be by her side, protecting her, comforting her just like he did in the nights on the train, which he remembers now completely. He knows why he didn't understand those memories while he was in District 13 - they'd been hijacked specifically. They were that special to him, actual proof that he had been there when she needed him.

Then he sees the shock and terror in her eyes when he'd wrapped his hands around her neck to choke her to death and he blinks away the wetness in his eyes. She should never trust him now, and he can't blame her. He knows she must have had a nightmare tonight (she has nightmares every night) but whenever he hears something as remote as a soft cry from her window he immediately closes his own because the last thing he wants to do is run in there and end up hurting her again because she doesn't need him.

He misses her, though. He misses her so badly.

He picks up the paintbrush he flung away and carefully mixes a warm olive and also a cool, crystal grey, and on the rain-soaked canvas that once hold a bleeding Rue covered in petals he begins to paint a girl with warm skin and cool eyes like dim starlight.

His girl. She'd kissed him after the rose mutt incident, with no cameras around, Gale bleeding at the side. She'd kissed him because she wanted to.

He says it aloud, because it's something Dr. Aurelius would've made him do.

"My girl." That sounded right somehow. He knows it to be true. He wants to kiss her so badly, to feel her lips against his own.

Then, because Dr. Aurelius would've prompted him still further, he whispers her name.

"Katniss." His girl, who used to be on fire. Not on fire anymore, but blown out. He needs to light her back up, watch her burn with life again. He wants children with her, a home, Haymitch as the crusty old Grandpa and that lethal Buttercup as their guard cat.

He's never done this before. Painted her, that is. It brings a small smile to his lips, remembering Effie in the Quarter Quell, asking him if he'd painted Katniss to impress the Gamemakers. The truth is that he'd never do something as precious as paint her in front of just anyone, and tonight he is doing it by himself, for himself. He needs to see her with his eyes, even if it's just a picture. He needs to hope that someday she'll let him hold her again… so he paints her doing just that.

She fights back tears as her hand wobbles, shaking the words she is carefully trying to write. The sunlight beams coldly down on her bare thighs and calves stretched out as she struggles to form words. Everything seems to want to stop her, but she's determined that today is the day she will let go.

To Boggs: I cry every time I think about your family. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. You were like my father and I couldn't save him either.

To Rue: You were always about to take flight, but you can't now because I didn't save you. I'm sorry.

The shorter the note, the harder it had been to write. It was almost like the lists she used to make in her head, starting with her name and branching out to more excruciating details, but this time, she can't even make herself specify the excruciating details. So she doesn't. She has to give herself something to do. And this is better than nothing. This is good enough.

To the whistler in District 11: You lost your life because of me. I couldn't save you.

To Madge: I should have saved you. I couldn't. Sorry.

To Finnick: Couldn't save you. So sorry. I'm so sorry.

Finally she forms the words "To Prim" and then promptly stops. The paper begins to blur in her vision until she can hardly read her sister's name. What to write, she begs herself. What to write. She buries her head in her knees, hugging them closer to herself, dropping the pen.

To Prim:

No words come.

To Prim:

She hears a plaintive meow and finds Buttercup at her elbow, watching her, like he knows what she's trying so desperately to do. He slips his head under her arm, a show of affection that would bring her to tears if she weren't already crying, and she cuddles him close.

To Prim:

"I can't do this," she tells the cat. He hisses halfheartedly back. Yes you can.

To Prim: I wish you were here. Buttercup misses you. Peeta planted your flowers around my house. I think you would've liked them.

She can't bear to write I'm sorry. But she must. She must, so she can let her go. And so she adds it with as much bravado she can muster and gathers up all the other slips of paper.

"It's time to burn," she tells Buttercup seriously.

The fire is lit and she begins to toss the notes in one by one. She even closes the windows and breathes in the smoke that collects rapidly, making out that it's the final punishment, that there'll be no more after this. It's amazing how many people she needs to let go of, though, and she's only halfway through before she'd coughing hard. The door opens and she whips her head towards it. He is standing there, his hands full of paint-smeared newspapers, his face alarmed.

"Katniss! What's going on?"

"Letting them go," she croaks.

"Not yourself too, I hope," he tries to joke, hurrying to open all the windows. She doesn't try to stop him, doesn't feel like telling him that he's ruining her little ritual. He's the breath of fresh air she needs.

"What are you doing here?" She asks him carefully.

He turns to look at her. "I saw smoke from your chimney and wondered if I could share the fire. I've got some stuff to burn." (Actually he could've lit his own fire in his own fireplace, but he wants to see her.)

She raises her eyebrows. "You're going to burn paint?"

"Is that a bad idea?" He starts to panic. "I just really want to get rid of all of it."

"Dunno," she shrugs, moving closer to the window. To him. To fresh air. "Might be toxic. Might be too easily flammable, burn the house down. Maybe not. I'm not sure though."

The look on his face is so comically dismayed she wants to laugh. "What am I gonna do then?"

"Just stick it in the trashcan and wait for it to get carted away."

"But…"

She watches him. "You need to let stuff go, do you?"

He bows his head. "Yeah."

Everything comes down to this, always. Him and her, side by side. The Games have changed so much of their lives that it will never be the woods with Gale or the bakery with two older brothers and a possible town girl on his arm (but never in his heart). It will always be them, two unlikely people joined by a mutual need to survive… no, she corrects herself. That was her conviction. His was to keep her alive. She'd never agreed to this arrangement, but it had grown on her heart like a silent garden creeper until the fact that she was trapped in its vise could no longer be ignored. And she doesn't want to ignore it any longer. She wants to accept it.

Her heart gives a queer jump in her ribcage. He's so close to her. Their arms are nearly touching, though why that would make her jumpy after all this time she has no idea . She licks her lips, nervous all of a sudden, and wants to laugh when she understands how people feel around each other when they're in love but don't know how to say it. Because finally, finally, yes, she knows she is in love with him.

But does he love her? (She doesn't know that she's doubting his love only because she's so sure of her own.)

You know, you could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve him. Her stomach falls and the words slip out of her in a croak before she can stop them. "Stay with me."

Did she…? He lifts his head to look at her with a gaze so intense she could melt under it. His own heart is thumping, hammering in his chest at the words he never knew he needed to hearso badly.

Stay with her.

Stay with her.

Stay with her. Is she kidding? This is what he wants to do for the rest of his life.

He takes her hand and they pause, holding their breaths, before he presses the back of it to his lips. "Always," he whispers back.

She is a girl on fire once more, her hands in his hair, pulling him closer as she kisses him dizzy. She's resting a hand on his chest, breathing his name into his mouth over and over again, "Peeta, Peeta, Peeta," and it gives him a thrill from his head to his toes. When she comes up for air tears seep out of the corners of her eyes, and in a daze he brushes them away tenderly with his thumb, his arm around her for the first time in months. He can hardly believe he is holding her again - it feels so good. "I've missed you," they tell each other at the same time, and they laugh. Then he's pulling her back and kissing her again, feeling her lips moving on his own, licking his way through them and hearing her gasp and laugh breathlessly because this feels amazing, so amazing. They are letting go, but not in the way they thought they would. This is better than whatever they could have dreamed up.

"You're kissing me because you want to," he murmurs softly against her cheek as he holds her. "Real or not real?"

Pain flashes across her face and she's glad he doesn't see - this is something she needs to come to terms with without him noticing because it'll hurt him if he does. He deserves to know that she wasn't kissing him because she wanted to in the first Games. He deserves to know that she kissed him on the beach in the second Games because she needed him. And now, he deserves to know that every kiss she gives him is real, real, real; every kiss is a kiss she wants to give, has to give, because she loves him.

She nuzzles his ear so he'll turn to look at her in the eye, and then - the first gift she can give him, the fresh start to a lifetime of loving him - she tells him, "Real."

His eyes light up like a little boy's and she hugs him close, hands on his solid back. "Making your childhood dreams come true?" She tries to joke.

"More than you'll ever know," he breathes back, his lips trailing down her neck. He finds a spot and sucks sweetly, and the air gets knocked right out of her as she buries her hands in his hair and whimpers.

What brings them both back down to earth is the cat, who meows crossly, circling their legs. She sighs and pulls away, genuinely upset at having to leave him. "The fire's still burning and I've got half of my people left to let go."

She doesn't have to explain because he understands more than anyone else. He takes her hand and they walk back to the fireplace together, and when they sit he pulls her into his lap because he wants to make this easier for her. When she's carefully laid Prim's slip into the flames at last and has watched it crackle merrily, he adds his newspapers. It isn't as bad as they'd thought, just a noxious smell, then the fire goes out on its own as if it knows that's all there is, that now everything's forgiven, forgotten.

She turns to him, eyes fixed on his, then he makes a move as if to stand. It's his way of telling her that if she wants he can leave now, give her some hours, even days alone if that's what she needs to say goodbye fully to the people on her slips of paper. But she whispers, "Stay with me," and that's when he knows she's already bid them farewell. His hands slide up and down her arms because she's shivering. "Stay with you?" he asks.

She nods, stands up, and pulls him to his feet too, smiling tenderly at him. "Come on." She leads him through every room in her house and he seems to understand that she's introducing them to him, almost like he's a breath of fresh air the sad, musty memories in the faded walls yearn for. Then she brings him to her room, straight to her bed. He hesitates, watching her sit on the edge and hold out her hand to him. He wants this so badly, wants to be holding her in his arms when the nightmares come, wants to be there for her when she needs him. This is where she needs him the most. But he has to know she's okay with it. "You sure?"

Her smile startles him - it's so happy, so unlike her usual glower that it should be assent in itself - and she says, "Get over here, Peeta." He crawls towards her, scoops her up in his arms, and kisses the breath right out of her. Her hands are in his hair, on his back, and he pulls her leg around him closer as he kisses her cheek, her forehead, her nose. "Stay with me," she repeats the words she spoke for the first time in this very room, before the Quell, when he'd carried her up because she couldn't walk and she'd wanted him to climb in with her but she couldn't ask. This time he knows what she's really asking, and he strokes her hair and says, "Okay." His hand still smells of cinnamon and dill from the bread he baked this morning.

As they lie in bed together that night, she smiles, tracing her finger along his arm, making him laugh because it tickles. He adjusts his prosthetic leg, which he sleeps with, and pulls her close; then he asks her a little shyly, "You love me. Real or not real?"

She pulls away in surprise, amazed that he would ask her, of all things, if her love was real or not real. The clarification game. The game which helped him figure out whether what he himself knew was right or wrong. He must've known she loved him then; all this time, all throughout the first and second Games and the rebellion she'd loved him, worn her heart so unknowingly on her sleeve, and it must've been showing to Haymitch, to Prim, to Finnick, to Cinna, to Boggs, to Coin, toGale, to him all along and she didn't know that, but he remembered.

And now he is finally asking her, because he can hardly dare to believe it is true.

She takes his face in her hands to look him in the eyes. Her fingers trail across his cheekbones, ghosting past the hollows in his temples, finding his forehead, and her lips follow in their wake gently while his eyelashes flutter shut and he exhales through his nose. She loves him. She loves him. She, Katniss Everdeen, loves Peeta Mellark, the boy she could live a thousand lifetimes for and still not deserve. There isn't anything she would ever want to hold back from him, least of all this, so she wraps her arms around him tighter, puts her lips to his ear, and whispers, "Real."

He thinks the tears in his eyes might be a little obvious, and his voice cracks noticeably as he says, "I love you too." Her eyes glisten and her smile back is shaky. "So now we both know." He looks up from where he's kissing his way down her neck. "Know what?"

She takes his hand and plants small kisses on his fingertips. "What's real."

"You never knew I loved you?" His voice is concerned.

"I mean... I know now that you love me even after all the things I did to you. And you were always declaring your love for me to some audience. Hearing you tell me to my face, with no one watching us... I don't know…"

He catches her drift. Her confession means the world to him, and so does his to her. And it's true, really - he has never once told her outright that he loved her… until now. He grins, tapping his fingers gently on her waist. "I love you."

Her answer is a gasp and squeal of laughter, and his smile widens as she tries to regain her composure. "Ticklish huh, Everdeen?"

"Don't make me get my bow, Mellark," she threatens and tries to push his fingers away, but her hunter's senses are off a second too late and they're rolling around in bed laughing and squealing while he tickles the life right out of her. Pretty soon she's crying for mercy, literally, tears streaming down her aching cheeks as she makes wild attempts to escape from his clutches and begs, "PEETA! Stoooooop!" He laughs in complete disregard before pinning her in place, whispering, "One condition."

She's too tired to even roll her eyes. "No." But his hand gives her a few warning pokes and she gasps helplessly. "Okay, okay, okay! What?" He smiles innocently. "Oh, you know I'm a nice guy. One kiss is good."

Her sigh is one long, exaggerated exhalation because she's so out of breath, then she scrunches up her face like he's a disgusting cockroach and pecks him on his cheek. But he turns his head so she's kissing his lips instead. What they've done to trigger this he doesn't know, but it's like a switch being flipped on deep inside them - a curiously warm feeling in the pits of their stomachs that they'd never planned on feeling so soon. Their laughter and pants slowly melt into little sighs and moans as he grasps her head closer to his, eyelashes brushing against her cheek, and coaxes her mouth open.

How could they still feel this need deep inside them? The only answer she can give as she licks his soft lips is that it's been far too long, the wait. The wait for this moment where they're wrapped so amazingly around each other, where they can never be unsure of what they feel because it's multiplied a hundred times and very pleasurably real. His hands are caressing her waist and her legs are tangled in his before one slithers up higher and rubs a deft heel rubbing against the small of his back, which feels achingly good. He lets out a quiet moan and responds by finding that spot on her neck she loves and sucking gently so that she lets her head fall back with a gasp. Just as he's hoping against hope that, you know, this might actually lead somewhere, her eyes snap open. She pulls away suddenly, gives him a mock glare, and pushes him off her neatly. "The deal was one kiss, Mellark."

He stares at her, openmouthed and utterly disappointed. "You weren't leading me on, were you?"

"Don't put it past me." She does her best to cover her sudden panic with a smirk.

He buries his face in his pillow and groans. "I hate you."

"What happened to the declarations of love?" She teases, but he catches the huskiness in her voice, how she's taking a while to catch her breath. She caresses his hair, then says embarrassedly, "Peeta… I'm not ready yet."

He turns his head to give her a gentle smile. "Don't worry about it. Honestly, I had no idea we were going that way either."

"But," she bites her lip bashfully. "You want to?"

He entwines his fingers with hers. "Of course I do," he whispers slowly. "But I'd never if you don't want to."

"I... want to." She says falteringly as she traces his collarbone and tries to maintain eye contact. "Just not now." Her face feels hot.

"Sure." He yawns and rests his hand on her hip, touched that she feels comfortable enough to be open with him even if it means admitting that she's scared. Their eyelids are closing of their own accord when an angry meow echoes off the walls and Buttercup jumps gracefully onto the bed, making them both jump. He sits up straightaway, half wondering if the animal's going to attack, when she laughs and squeezes his arm. "He's upset we forgot him."

"Really?" He's not entirely convinced, not even when the cat lies on her other side and sandwiches them closer.

She smiles and cuddles into his chest, tired out from all the tickling and kissing. "Mm-hmm. And I think he's jealous too because he's not the only protector anymore," she murmurs sleepily.

His eyes light right up, but since he doesn't need any explanation he just kisses her cheek. "'Night, Katniss."

And the moon throws light onto their bed and their little family as they drift off huddled together to a sleep with no nightmares.

Could you be happy to fall like a stone

If you'd land right here safe in my arms?

It's fine; lock all your doors through the night

Keep it alright here safe in my arms.