This is the beginning of a CF/MJ AU that I've been working on for the past year. I was waiting to post it until it was complete, because I don't want to be one of those people with ten different unfinished stories posted, but I submitted this opening chapter for Prompts in Panem's Visual Prompts week for the Canon Location prompt The Train.

If you want to know what motivated me to write this AU, then read the rest of this Author's Note. If you don't care, then skip straight to the story.

I started devouring THG fic right after I finished reading MJ, mostly because I found MJ to be such an unsatisfying ending. I started with post-MJ fics, then moved on to in-Panem AUs, before really finding my jam with out-of-Panem AUs. I read a hundred different Everlark fics that featured Katniss finally admitting her feelings for Peeta, anywhere from pre-HG to post-MJ, but they all seemed to end there. Katniss and Peeta getting together seemed to be the end of the story, in every story I read, while the question in my mind, the question that had lead me to seek out HG fic in the first place, was What happens next? How would the rest of the story have happened, after they were together? How would them being together have changed the story? So I began writing.

(Note: I'm not saying other such stories don't exist, nor even that they didn't at the time. I just hadn't found them yet.)

So that's what this story is. This isn't a story about Katniss falling in love with Peeta; for the purposes of this story, that already happened in the novel The Hunger Games. This isn't a story about Katniss and Peeta stumbling and fumbling their way towards a relationship; that happens by the end of this prologue. In this story, Katniss and Peeta will not be trying their hardest to sabotage their relationship. Katniss will not hide from her feelings. Peeta will not ignore her for six months. Neither one of them will use Gale as an excuse to avoid each other.

This is a story about Katniss and Peeta, in a relationship. Katniss loves Peeta. Peeta loves Katniss. They are together. And together they face the Capitol, President Snow, President Coin, the Victory Tour, the Quarter Quell, the rebellion, the war, and all the other adversaries and obstacles of Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

Fair warning: Catching Fire skips half a year between the 74th Games and the Victory Tour, but I don't, because that's when the lovebirds have to figure out what it means to have a relationship back home and deal with the repercussions and fallout of their sudden bonding. So there's six months of Katniss and Peeta adjusting to life back in District 12 and adjusting to life as a couple before the plot of Catching Fire finally comes into this story.

Oh, and if you were wondering: I don't own The Hunger Games. I don't own the characters in this story, the situations they find themselves in, or the small quotes from the original books that I incorporated into this story. This story is meant purely for entertainment and amusement.

So now, let us join our pair of Star-Crossed Lovers, in the fair fuel depot where we lay our scene…

(I also don't own Romeo and Juliet. Just in case there was any confusion.)

…..

"It was all for the Games," Peeta says. "How you acted."

"Not all of it," I say, tightly holding onto my flowers.

"Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is, what's going to be left when we get home?" he says.

"I don't know. The closer we get to District Twelve, the more confused I get," I say. He waits, for further explanation. I don't feel ready to give one, so to deflect him I change the subject back to him. "So what about you, you're saying you never played anything up for the audience? You were being sincere the entire time?"

"Yes," he says, and the pain in his voice is palpable. "I thought we both were."

I'm usually reticent to explain myself, more comfortable letting a conversation wither and die rather than risk saying anything too revealing about myself. But somehow, after everything we've been through, everything I've shared with Peeta Mellark over the last month, in this moment something in me forces words out. "Peeta, I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to make of you. You were trying to be friendly, then you tried to push me away. We trained together, then you shut me out. You announced you loved me on television, but then in the arena you helped the Careers hunt me down. You saved my life, but I couldn't even tell if that really happened or if it was a tracker jacker hallucination. And the entire time I knew that it didn't really matter if we did care about each other, because for one of us to go home we'd have to kill the other."

"Katniss," he says, "I would never have killed you. I love you. For real, not because of any strategy or scheme or Game. From the moment my name was called, my only goal was to keep you alive."

The sincerity in Peeta's voice takes me aback. When I reply, my voice is small. "I know that now. But even if you had tried to tell me that before the Games, I doubt I would have believed you. I would have thought it was all part of your strategy to win."

"Is that what you were doing?" he asks sadly. "Were you trying to set me up so I'd be easier to kill?"

"No," I answer, "I was trying to set me up so you'd be easier to kill." I start to blush from the embarrassment of this admission, but I see only confusion in Peeta's eyes so I push on. "You never knew what you meant to me. The boy with the bread. That day in the rain behind the bakery, that was everything to me. When my father was gone, and my mother failed me, and the whole world seemed to turn its back on me, you were the only one who helped me. You were my one ray of hope in a world of darkness. You were my dandelion in the spring, my one sign that things could be good again. You saved my life, you saved my whole family's lives. And as soon as you were reaped I knew that the only way I could ever see them again was to kill you." My breath catches in my throat, and I feel like I may cry. I blink away tears as the words start to tumble out of my mouth seemingly on their own. "It only got worse when we were on the train and I started to get to know you as a real person and not just a spectre out of my past. But the whole time all I could think was that in a week one of us was going to have to kill the other! I didn't know what to do or what to think, I didn't know if you were being sincere or you were trying to manipulate me, I was so confused I didn't know what was real and what wasn't."

Peeta seems to consider this for a long moment. "And what about now?" he says.

"Now, I don't know," I say. "So much has happened so quickly, and I haven't let myself stop to think about any of it, because the only thought I allowed myself was how to keep us alive. Now that we're safely out of the Capitol I'm trying to process everything, trying to make some sense of it."

I don't know exactly what response I expect from Peeta, but I know I don't get it. Instead he merely stares at me for a moment, then says, "Well, let me know when you work it out," and turns to leave.

For a moment, I watch him go. My new ear listening to every footfall of his new leg. Somehow I know that if I let him walk away now I'll lose him forever, and I surprise myself again by admitting that I don't want that to happen. "Peeta!" I call after him. "Peeta, wait!" But he doesn't slow. I run after him trying to catch him before he makes it back on the train and he's able to put a locked door between us. "Peeta, stop!" I call out, and now I can feel the tears I tried to hold back starting to flow.

When I catch up to Peeta, I grab him over the shoulder and yank him around, shoving him up against the side of the train. His eyes are wide with shock, I can tell his mind is still in survival mode from the Games, but then his whole face softens as he sees the tears on my face. I speak quickly before he gets a chance because I'm afraid of what he might say right now. "Don't walk away from me, Peeta! You can't spend ten years pining away for me and then walk away in a huff because I need more than a few hours without the threat of imminent death to figure out how I feel! Not after everything we've been through together. Don't you dare do that to me!"

"What do you want me to do, Katniss?" he yells back, and now he's starting to cry too. "You've told me so many different things I don't know which way is up anymore! And when I ask you about it you tell me that you don't know either. So what would you have me do?"

"Help me!" I exclaim. "Help me figure out what was real and what wasn't. Help me figure out what's up and what's down. Help me figure out what we are to each other."

"Here's a start: Everything I said was one hundred percent real," he says, starting to sound angry.

I roll my eyes. "Oh, really? How about when you helped the Careers hunt me down, when you told them to strand me up a tree until I starved and kill me when I tried to come down for food? That was real? One hundred percent real?"

He seems genuinely angry now. "I was trying to protect you!"

"So now it's okay when you lie to protect me but it's not okay when I lie to protect you?" Peeta looks confused at this, and I can't believe he still doesn't get it. Didn't he see the sponsor gifts we got? Where did he think those came from? Did he think everyone was as kindhearted and honest as he was? Hadn't he ever met his mother? "Do you think we would have gotten any food if I hadn't pretended to love you? Do you think a heartfelt and genuine 'I don't know how I feel, this is all happening so fast,' would have gotten us the medicine for your leg? Do you think there's any chance in hell they would have let us both live if I hadn't acted the way I did?" I can tell from the look on Peeta's face that no, in fact, he hadn't thought about any of that before. "I kept us alive with my kisses just as much as I did with my bow, so don't stand here with your full belly and your healthy blood and your beating heart and try to tell me I did anything wrong!"

Peeta just looks at me for a moment. I spent the whole Games marveling at his skill with words, and now I've rendered him speechless. Finally he looks away and mumbles something so quietly that I have to ask him to repeat it.

"Eleven years," he says, sighing loudly, "not ten. It was eleven years I spent pining away for you, too chicken to actually introduce myself."

"Eleven years is a long time to wait to just give up and walk away," I say.

Peeta looks at me for a long time. "I suppose so," he finally says.

Before either of us says anything else, the train whistle interrupts us. "We should get back on the train," Peeta says, but he makes no move to do so.

"Together," I say, extending my free hand towards him. It's a request, but not a question.

Peeta stares at me for a long moment, but finally takes my hand. "Together."

…..

It's late. Peeta and I are alone in the lounge car as the darkness slips by outside. Haymitch and Effie have gone to bed for the night. It was awkward on the train after our fuel stop, everyone knew there was a new tension between Peeta and me but thankfully nobody tried to bring it up. The only comment made was from Haymitch, on his way to his room for the night clutching a bottle in each hand, calling over his shoulder, "Remember you two, you've got a show to put on tomorrow."

Peeta and I share a couch, sipping hot chocolate. My onion flowers are in a crystal vase to the side. We're having a long conversation about our feelings, and I'm surprising myself by participating in a long conversation about my feelings.

"I spent so much time at the Training Center, really starting as soon as your name was called at the reaping, trying to convince myself that I could to kill you. Because I knew it was the only way I could come home. And it was really hard for me, because I didn't want to kill you. Not because I'm any kind of a good person or because I'm above killing, I killed people in the arena and I'd do it again if it meant going back home to Prim. But I didn't think I could kill you. Because of the bread."

"In a weird way, I was relieved when I was reaped. As soon as you volunteered to be the tribute, I thought about volunteering so I could be there to help you. But if I couldn't even screw up the courage to talk to you, how could I volunteer for the Games? And what business did I have? What made me think I would even be capable of helping you in any way, or that you would accept my help? And while all of these conflicting thoughts were battling it out in my head, my name was called and the decision was made for me."

"At first, it wasn't real, for me. A kiss for the sponsors so they would send us some food, a kiss for the Gamemakers so they had a good enough show to leave us alone until you healed. It was all part of the game. But then, suddenly, it wasn't. That kiss, in the cave, after I came back from the feast. The one that you stopped because you thought I was bleeding too heavily? I felt that kiss, in a way that I hadn't with any of the others. That was a real kiss. The full-blown panic I flew into when we were separated in the woods and you didn't answer my calls, that was real. Deciding I'd rather kill myself than come home without you, that was real. The hysterical fit I had when they separated us on the hovercraft, that was real. And it scares me to death to feel that much. It scares me to care that much about another person."

"I think I knew, deep down. I know enough about you that I should have known. You're not the type of person who declares their undying love for someone they barely know. I could tell you were forcing yourself to act, I could tell how reluctant and how uncomfortable you were, but I just told myself it was because of the Games, or because of the audience, or because you were new to the whole romance thing. I mean, when you found me by the river I as much as told you to act like we were in love, and then when you did I fell for the act anyway. I didn't want to admit the obvious, because I thought I finally had what I'd always dreamed about having: You."

"After my father died, my mother just turned off. She couldn't handle the pain, so she just tuned out the world for a while. She would spend all day, every day, just staring off into space, oblivious to anything happening around her. Oblivious to her children starving. I hated her for that, I still hate her for that, because we needed her. Prim and I needed her. She was all we had left, and she abandoned us. That's what love is to me. Vulnerability. Weakness. My mother loved my father so much that she let her children starve. After that I told myself I would never let myself fall in love, because I didn't want to end up like my mother. I never wanted to care about someone so much that losing them would have that effect on me. And then I found myself in the arena, deciding that I'd rather kill myself than have to watch you die."

"I hate to say it, because I hate the Games and I hate the Capitol. But the happiest I've ever been in my life was during those interviews, when I thought you really loved me, when you were by my side with my arm wrapped around you and we were going home together."

"I hate to admit it, because of everything I've been through in my life: I lost my father, I almost starved to death, I've had to fend for myself and my family since I was eleven, I fought for my life in the arena. But this might be the most scared I've ever been in my life. I think I really am falling in love with you, and it terrifies me."

Finally we seem to have talked ourselves out. I have no idea how late it is now, it feels like we've been talking for hours. I find myself staring into Peeta's eyes for an endless moment, losing myself in them. He's staring back at me, what does he see in my eyes? Does he lose himself in my eyes like I'm losing myself in his? Is that love?

Eventually Peeta breaks the silence. "What about Gale?" he asks softly.

I want to dismiss the question out of hand, but we've been too honest with each other tonight, so I force myself to really think. What about Gale? How do I feel about Gale? Do I love him? In a way I do, he's like a brother to me, but do I love him the way I'm afraid I might love Peeta? Do I even know enough about love to answer the question?

"Gale," I begin, "is my best friend. He's practically my brother. Since my father died, he's the one person in the world I've been able to trust, truly trust. I'm closer to Prim, but I can't really confide in her sometimes because I'm trying to protect her. Gale has been my only companion, my only confidante." I pause, and take Peeta's hand. "But I've never had a conversation like this with him. I couldn't imagine trusting him with some of the things we've said tonight. Before tonight I couldn't imagine myself ever trusting anyone enough to even have a conversation like this." I pause and lose myself in Peeta's eyes for another moment. He doesn't say anything, so I continue. "I started off in the Games, pretending to love you. And then at some point, without even realizing it, I wasn't pretending anymore. Then in the interviews I had to pretend again, because even if I did have genuine feelings for you they wouldn't be enough for the cameras. And then thinking about going home, and thinking about my family, and yes thinking about Gale, all of my old fears came back and I managed to convince myself that it was all pretend after all, that I was just confused and I was so wrapped up in the Games that I didn't know what I was thinking. But now, sitting here tonight, talking with you, talking for real - with no cameras, no audience, no threat of imminent death - I can't deny how I feel, no matter how much it scares me."

"So what are you saying?" Peeta asks gently.

"Peeta, I don't know if I love you the way that you love me. I don't know if I would even be able to recognize it if I did. But I know that I completely lost it the few times I thought I might lose you. I know there isn't another human being alive I would be able to have this conversation with, there's no one else I trust enough or feel comfortable enough with to discuss myself in this much depth. I know that I felt safer in that cave with you than I have any night I've spent alone in luxurious Capitol beds since. I know that when I look into your eyes, I lose all sense of my surroundings and all I want to do is keep staring. I know that sometimes, when I kiss you, when I'm not consumed by terror and I'm not trying too hard to put on a show, sometimes I just lose myself in the kiss and my whole body flutters and I never want it to end. I know I'd be miserable without you in my life, and it terrifies me to be that dependant on another person, but I know that the only way I can face that fear is with you there to give me strength."

Peeta smiles at me. "I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what you're describing sounds an awful lot like love."

This really is the oddest conversation I've ever had, because instead of clamping my mouth shut and retreating behind a wall of embarrassment, I return the smile. "Well then, I guess maybe I love you."

Peeta suddenly bursts out laughing. I compare this to his reactions this afternoon at the fuel depot, and decide that I'm not the only one who seems to have been changed by this conversation we're having. "You know, I've spent a lot of years dreaming of a day when you'd say something like that to me. It's hardly the most conventional declaration of love, but it may be the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

I can feel my face redden, but my smile only deepens. "You should know by now, I'm hardly the most conventional girl."

"Hardly. But you are definitely the most beautiful," he says, and leans in to kiss me.

The moment our lips meet, I can tell this isn't like any other kiss we've shared before. This isn't hesitant, or fleeting, or desperate. It's not the least bit uncomfortable. We're not sick, or injured, or starving, or dying. There are no cameras filming us, no audience watching us, no Gamemakers or sponsors or president judging us. This kiss is only for each other, and neither of us is pretending, not one bit. Peeta's lips are warm, and soft, forceful yet giving, and somehow still taste like fresh dough even though I know it's been at least a month since he's been near any. I can feel my body react as our lips part and our tongues meet, there's a hunger in me that's both stronger than ever before and yet not as overpowering, perhaps because I'm finally willing to admit that it's there, finally willing to see a day in our future when I might satisfy it. This is a kiss between two lovers, this is a kiss meant to express love, and it breaks down all remnants of resistance in me. I can no longer deny how I feel. I can no longer deny my love for Peeta. And after, when we're leaning our foreheads against each other and panting for air, when I recover enough breath to look straight into Peeta's impossibly blue eyes and tell him, "I love you," it's completely real. There's no more pretending, no more hesitation, no more fear. Only love.

…..

That's it, Katniss and Peeta are officially together. For the rest of this story, they will face their trials and travails as a united front.

Next chapter: What happens when they get back to District 12?

Preview quote from Chapter 2:

"Because I didn't want you to come home with him. I wanted you to come home to me."