I've heard your reviews! I'm excited to post this update (finally!). Since it's been so long since the last update, here's another brief review of our progress so far: Peeta and Katniss initially left D12 in September, joined D13 a few weeks later in October, left the next March and got to Canada the following April (over a year later). Last chapter, K and P were put in temporary housing and she sold the locket to get them some money.

xXx

Canada is a strange place. Their money is made of waxy paper, and nobody uses coins much. Because the coins seem to hold little value to these people, I've been finding them all over the streets and picking them up. My threadbare pocket clinked every time I dropped another coin in while we walked.

Peeta and I had been working on establishing ourselves here. We'd decided to get Peeta a new pair of pants first, since he'd likely be more valuable as a worker right off the bat and I could figure out something right after, when he'd been paid. It would be much harder to find work for me, since this area doesn't really have assembly lines.

The obvious choice was working in a bakery. He had the skills to create beautiful frosted flowers, mix colors like I'd never seen, and do so quickly and efficiently. We set out to find a store selling clothes, asking for directions here and there, which earned us plenty of confused looks.

Eventually, we made it to the store, and as soon as we stepped inside, my jaw dropped.

There were colorful clothes everywhere, some jackets like we'd seen people wearing, but a lot of denim and a variety of soft, stretchy shirts. I looked at Peeta in awe, and he seemed as shocked as I was.

"This is insane, would these people even miss anything if we swiped it?" He whispered to me. I stifled a laugh. Stealing seems particularly unwelcome here, and we'd promised the immigration officer that we wouldn't cause any trouble. We made our way to the person standing behind a glass counter.

"Hey, I need some new pants. What do you recommend?" Peeta started. The store attendant looked like he wanted to laugh.

"What do you mean, recommend? They're pants, just grab a pair of jeans or something." He shrugs.

"A pair of jeans?" Peeta echoed, turning away from the man and looking at me confused. "What are jeans?" He mouthed silently. We returned to browsing, and I found a sign proudly proclaiming that these 'jeans' were $24.95.

"Why aren't they just called denim pants?" I whisper, pointing to the stack of thick material and the sign.

Peeta grabs a pair, holding them up to his waist to check the length. After a few tries, he finds a pair he's satisfied with and brings them back to the counter.

"I'll take these." He tells the man, reaching into his pocket for our small wad of bills.

"Alright, all sales are final, no returns, refunds or exchanges." He rattles off, punching numbers into a machine, which chimes and opens a drawer. "That'll be $24.95. Cash?" He asks, holding his hand out.

"Uh, yeah, cash." Peeta replies, counting out the bills and handing them over. The man takes the bills, puts them into the drawer and hands Peeta a coin back, which Peeta passes to me.

"Thank you, have a good day." The man says, handing a slip of paper to Peeta.

We take that as an invitation to leave, and Peeta looks at the paper as we start walking back to our apartment.

"What the hell is this?"

xXx

Peeta has an appointment coming up soon for his interview at the bakery. The immigration officer told him to be 15 minutes early and to look clean and presentable. Of course, the only 'presentable' clothing item we have is the new pants, but even so, Peeta showers again and I help him style his hair.

We'd grown much more comfortable around each other, he sat in only his towel on the bed while I fixed his hair. As long as the towel stayed in place, I was fine, and I told him as much. He had laughed, but agreed to my terms.

After his hair was done, he dressed in his old clothes, but swapped out the old pants for the new jeans, coming out of the bathroom looking much cleaner, and much more mature than before.

"How do I look?" He asked with a grin, turning around as I examined his appearance.

"You look good, nice. The jeans... they uh... make your ass look good." I stammered out, rubbing the back of my neck.

Peeta laughed, smiling at me.

"You like what you see?" He teased, leaning in for a kiss. I rolled my eyes, standing up and looking out our window.

Since we didn't have watches or any timepieces, we'd been told to keep an eye out for any clocks in the area. I'd found one on a nearby building which told us the time on a screen. It was right outside our apartment and visible from the window. It was 1:24.

"Your interview is in about 20 minutes." I remind him. "You should head over to the bakery." I pull the pencil-drawn map out from a drawer and hand it to him.

"Yeah, I'm heading out now. I look okay?" He asks, looking again into the mirror.

"You look great, get out of here so you're not late." I give him a shove towards the door. One more kiss, and he leaves.

I turn around, looking around our new home and wondering what I'm supposed to do while I wait for him.

Food? Yeah, food would be good. I look at the change in my pocket and the few bills Peeta left with me. We have less than $30 left now after buying the jeans.

I stuff the money into my pocket again, heading out after Peeta to find places that sell food.

Apparently, the question 'hey, where can I buy some food?' is not only a weird question, but a poorly worded one. I'm directed to many restaurants selling all kinds of food. This is not what I'm looking for, although a soup place makes my mouth water, and I make note to find it again later. I finally ask someone where I can buy flour, salt and meat.

"You mean like a grocery store? What, are you new here? There's one right around the corner, its called Aldi's, you can't miss it." They respond. I thank them and head towards the store they mentioned.

When I get there, I'm shocked at the size. I mean, everything is bigger here in Canada, but even just a food place is gigantic.

Inside, rows and rows of food tempt me. I stick to the basics: flour, salt, meat. That'll be able to sustain us for awhile, we can go for awhile without eating much.

As I add up the prices of each item, I realize we still have some money left over. I head back to where I found the flour, grabbing a bag of beans as well.

I pay for everything, counting out coins instead of breaking up one of our precious bills. When I leave with a bag in each hand, I have a huge smile on my face.

I make it back to our apartment without incident, although I do get a lot of stares. The meat goes into the ice box, and the rest of the food gets put into the empty cabinet next to the sink.

I sit back down on the couch feeling proud of my accomplishments of the day.

Our apartment came with a tv, so I figure watching something may help us understand Canada better.

I turn it on, and the picture shows a man sitting behind a desk and talking to the camera about a fire in a building in the city. It hadn't been on for more than 10 minutes before the door opened and Peeta came back inside, looking excited.

"How'd it go?" I ask, standing up.

"I got the job!" He exclaims, a huge smile on his face. Mine soon matches, and I run to hug him.

"I knew you would, there's no way they could turn you down! Tell me what happened." I turn the tv back off and sat down with him.

"Well, they didn't seem to be very impressed at first. He said he knew I was new to town since the person who set up the meeting said they were from the Office of Immigration, but he thought I might have been better prepared. Told me I should've brought a resume."

"A what?"

"A piece of paper with all my other work experience. I told him I didn't have many previous jobs, but I grew up working in my family's bakery up until about a year and a half ago. I told him if he would allow it, I could frost him a cupcake so he could see my work."

"And he let you?"

"He did, I frosted a whole dozen with different flowers as well as a cake, which he already had the design for. He said he'd never seen someone decorate it so fast without it looking terrible." He smiled, reaching into his pocket. "So he gave me $100 for my work and told me to come back on Monday at 4am to start." He grinned, handing me the bills.

"$100? That's amazing!"

"And I have a surprise for you, too."

"More?" I exclaim, he's already gotten a job, earned $100 and that's not all?

"I asked what he does with the stale bread and he said he usually brings it to a local soup kitchen, which he says feeds poor people, but he let me bring a whole bag back here too!" He jumps up to go to the kitchen, coming back with a paper bag full of a variety of breads.

"Peeta, this is crazy!" I dig through the bag, finding the bread slightly stale, but overall in good shape. "I'm proud of you." I smile up at him, leaning forward to kiss him. He beamed back at me.

"You know, I have a surprise for you too." I bring the bread back to the kitchen, motioning for him to follow. "I did a little shopping." I open the ice box, showing him the package of meat and the cabinets with flour, salt and beans.

"Wow, this is perfect, Katniss, we can eat real food again!" He grins. The bread goes into another cabinet, but not before we take a couple loaves out and eat them for dinner. It tastes incredible, and I can't imagine what it'll be like when we can afford to buy some of the other foods in Aldi's.

Our first week in Canada has been an overwhelming success.

xXx

What do you think? I can't wait to work on the next chapter, I have a ton of ideas for their next steps. If any of you are from Canada (let me know who you are in a review!), I apologize for any weird, inaccurate details. I've only been to Canada once, and I went to Vancouver, which is considerably different than where they are, I'm sure. I chalk it up to being sometime in the future and things being different...

I'm also going to start doing review responses again (only from ch13, sorry to anyone who reviewed earlier!), I haven't done them a lot lately since reviews tend to be as inconsistent as my posting schedule, but this story has generally gotten a few reviews per new chapter. Leave me a note before you leave and I'll respond in the next post!

Review responses:

caroline: I may have something involving Canada!Prim in the works... you'll have to keep reading to find out!

Sakuchik: muchas gracias! Estoy honrada estar incluida en tus favoritos, disfruta este nuevo capitulo!

American Socialist: hmmm... maybe a civil war is immanent? We'll see what Canada has to say about intervention and/or refugee support...

TheInsane: I feel you! I'm working on more chapters, I promise! I've also posted a couple updates for other stories during quarantine if you're bored enough to check those out haha

mae: wedding bells may be in the future, we'll have to see!