A camping trip helps a stressed out Peeta find that peaceful, easy feeling. Written for talesfrompanem on Tumblr for the prompt 'peace'. With apologies to the Eagles for subverting the title of their song (which was stuck in my head nearly the entire time I was writing this story). This ficlet is rated E, and in case you can't tell from the rating, it's smutty. I make no apologies for needin' a little everlark lovin' today.

o-o-o

She wants to take me camping.

I'll do almost anything for Katniss, endure almost any torture. But camping? Why on earth would I want to march through the wilderness with an eighty pound pack just to get eaten by bears?

And worse is knowing it's something she used to do with her ex, so every minute of it she'll be comparing me to him. To tall, dark and broody, mister I'm so much more of a man than you'll ever be, something he makes sure I know every time I see him, which is far too often in our small town.

But how can I refuse? When she looks at me with silver eyes sparkling and tells me it'll be the perfect cure for all of the stress I'm under running my dad's bakery while he convalesces and my mother tries to interfere in every damned decision I make? When she somehow convinces my brother Rye and his wife to take over Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday so that we can have a true weekend alone together?

—

The two hour drive to Panem State Park may well be the highlight of my weekend. It's a perfect late September morning, the sun bright and the sky cloudless. The early morning prep at the bakery went exceedingly smoothly, and Mother didn't pop in to belittle me before Rye and Dells took over. I have a hot mug of tea in my Jeep's cupholder and Katniss curled up beside me, singing some pop ditty about me being trouble, trouble, trouble. In her smoky, sultry voice, the lyrics become a dirty promise that has me shifting in my seat.

But once we park at the station, once I strap on a pack that's not quite 80 pounds but might be 75, my mood deteriorates. Katniss keeps up a gentle banter as she walks the forest floor with nearly soundless steps. I crash through the brush like a foul-tempered bear, tripping over roots and nearly scratching my eye out several times on low-hanging branches.

I try, I really try, not to bitch and moan when yet another bug flies up my nose. But it sucks. My new hiking boots are rubbing my heel raw and the old knee injury that killed my scholarship hopes flares up with every staggering misstep. This death march from hell is endless.

Though Katniss usually has zero patience for, well, anything, she doesn't lose her temper with my shit mood. Here, in the woods that she's loved since she was a little girl, she's luminous. Her bright eyes dance everywhere, and she sees things I'd never have caught - the white tail of a rabbit darting under a bush, mushrooms clinging to a fallen tree, a glistening beehive - and she delights in showing them to me. She's so comfortable in the wild, so at home, she's practically a wildling herself.

Yet she's stuck with me, a townie to my core. My only previous camping experience was in a cabin at scout camp when I was a kid. And I hated even that.

She guides us along without ever once looking at the map that the park ranger gave us, even though we're not following any path that I can figure out. But her steps are sure, as if she's walked this route a hundred times. And maybe she has. Maybe this is the exact place where she and Gale used to spend time together. The thought makes me sick.

By the time she stops, I'm sweaty and aching and acting like a jealous asshole, grumbling under my breath and refusing to even answer her questions. She stands in the centre of a small clearing and spins around. "Perfect," she breathes.

I grunt. If not for the circle of river rocks, I wouldn't even know this is a backcountry site. It just looks like a spot where the trees don't grow quite so closely together.

Katniss drops onto a fallen log and gestures for me to join her, which I do because my feet are killing me. The bottle of cold water she passes to me soothes my parched throat but doesn't improve my mood. I slump, scuffing at the pine needle covered dirt with my ridiculous boots. She frowns, but still doesn't call me on my shit attitude.

Rummaging in her pack, she pulls out the bag I know contains a tent, then empties it methodically. The sheer number of pieces hurts my head. I'm certain you'd need an engineering degree and a team of technicians to turn it into something shelter-like. I bet Hawthorne can assemble it blindfolded. I wonder if she and Hawthorne used this very tent to—

"Are you hungry?" she asks, snapping me out of my very painful ponderance. I shrug. I am, frankly I'm hangry at this point, starving on top of morose and irritated. But if she's going to go off and shoot a squirrel for us to eat she'll see just how unmanly I am.

Katniss laughs, warm and husky. "I'm not interested in squirrel either," she says, and I wonder whether I can kick my own ass with my knee acting up this way. But she digs through her pack and produces a small insulated bag containing hot dogs, of all things. My jaw drops and she winks. "How about you get a fire started while I set up the tent?"

Starting a fire is the one thing I'm capable of out here, good at, in fact. The bakery is all electric convection now, but when I was a tot, my grandfather was still using wood ovens. At his knee, I learned to start a fire no matter the circumstance. I gather fallen branches while Katniss organizes the 846 individual tent pieces, give or take 830. And by the time I have a nice fire going, she's put up our shelter and set up our bed.

She ditches her boots to curl her bare toes in the moss and pine, I join her, and roasting hot dogs over the fire calms me, at least a little. We don't talk much, but with my aching feet freed from their overpriced prison, and with three of Nathan's finest warming my belly, I start to feel a lot better.

We watch the small fire burn down to embers, then she tugs me to my feet. "Come with me," she murmurs. And I do. Because I would follow Katniss anywhere. This gorgeous wood nymph who I've loved half my life.

She doesn't put her boots back on, so neither do I, though I'm nervous about cutting the shit out of my feet walking through the forest. But the path she leads me along is mostly bare dirt, and we go slowly enough that I can be cautious about the few rocks and pine needles.

We go no further than a hundred yard before the canopy of trees open and we are standing near the rocky shore of a tiny lake, a perfect blue jewel, partly shaded from the afternoon sun by the thick trees all along what must be the southern and western shores. The water is so calm that the surface is mirror-like, reflecting back the trees and the blue sky above. For several long moments, I just stare, heart filled with gratitude.

Her hand slips from mine, and after a few beats, I tear my eyes away from the beauty before me to focus on the beauty beside me. She's watching me with mischief in her silver eyes while unbuttoning her flannel shirt. "How about a swim?" she says.

"Didn't bring a suit," I mutter, distracted by her dainty fingers, by the eroticism of each button slipping free. She's wearing a thin white tank top underneath, one that emphasizes the swell of each perfect breast.

She laughs. Her flannel gets tossed over a tree branch and she starts on her cargo shorts. "Did you suddenly get shy, Mellark?"

I snort; I don't care if she sees me, and she knows it. But she's usually so reserved, almost pure, that seeing her strip down out in the open has me bewildered. It's like she's a completely different person in the woods. And that hurts more than I'd expected. I love seeing her happy, I do. But I can't help wondering why she's wasting her time with me, putting up with my seven day work weeks and my toddler-esque bedtime and my near constant stress headaches when she could be out here with Hawthorne all of the time.

I'm still brooding when a splash sounds beside me, and I catch a glimpse of long, lean legs disappearing into the water. I glance at Katniss's pile of clothes - flannel, shorts and bra, but no tank or panties. So I quickly strip down to my boxers and dive in.

Then shriek in a very unmanly way.

"Damn this is cold!" I yell, my nuts climbing up into my stomach, icy water sluicing from my soaked hair over my shoulders and down my back like so many tiny daggers. Katniss giggles, maybe the first time I've ever heard her giggle. I want to bark at her, but she's standing a few feet away in water only waist deep, and her tank is completely see-through, her dark nipples straining against the wet fabric like magic bullets. Despite the cold, my dick stands up to say hello!

Katniss is insanely sexy, I don't think she has any idea how many of the men in our small town lust after her. I know I've always been one of them. But she barely noticed me until I came home after college, just over a year ago. That's when she started coming to the bakery in the early mornings, before her shifts at the veterinary clinic where she's a technician. We chatted nearly every day for months before I finally gathered enough courage to ask her out.

We've been together since.

I stalk towards her now, and she bites her lip, torn between standing her ground and trying to run. Her stubborn nature wins, and she grins defiantly at me just before I scoop her up into my arms, cold, goose-pebbled skin pressed together. I kiss her hard, but only for a moment. Then I toss her back into the water.

She's laughing when she surfaces, splashing me, and we spend more than a half hour chasing each other through the glassy water, playing like kids. Only when her teeth are chattering so hard I can barely understand her do I call for a time out.

The late afternoon sun illuminates a large, flat rock a few dozen yards from where our clothes await; it's there that I carry her. Then I cover her shivering body with my own, and kiss her blue-tinged lips until we're both warm and panting, the sun pounding on my back no match for the heat between us. But as much as I want her, a rock perched in a lake isn't the best spot to do more than kiss. So with huge reluctance, I force myself up and carry her back to the shore.

We trudge back to the tent hand-in-hand, bare feet still wet and with pine needles sticking to them. I barely notice the discomfort though. Katniss is only wearing her flannel unbuttoned over her damp undergarments, and every step as she leads me teases me with glimpses of those wet panties clinging to her perfect ass.

But when we get back to our campsite, our home for another 24 hours, my fantasies of climbing into that tent and finishing what we started on that rock are shattered. "I know you're not big on squirrel," Katniss teases, "but how do you feel about fish?" She pulls a bunch of carbon sticks from her pack and begins twisting them together. I'm a little curious what else she has stowed in the packs, she put everything together, only collecting a single change of clothing from me. Planned every aspect of this weekend. While I puzzle over that, two fishing rods with reels appear almost like magic.

I like fish, but the idea of catching and cleaning one makes me feel a little green, and worse, it reminds me, yet again, that this is a place she shared with mister oh-so-manly. A place I'll never truly fit in.

I follow her back to the lake anyway, after tugging my pants back on. Might as well not get my nuts eaten by blackflies.

We wade out again to the large flat rock and settle side by side. At least it's a beautiful spot to suffer.

I've never been fishing before, unless you count those carnival games with the little magnets on the end of the line (everyone wins a prize!). But Katniss is surprisingly patient with me, baiting my hook with some squirming red worm thing, showing me how to cast the line. And thankfully there's not much to do in fishing but wait, something I've always been really good at.

Katniss lays her head against my shoulder and I wrap my free arm around her. She fits so perfectly against me, like I was made for her. For a few minutes, I do feel calmer, like my stress is parked somewhere back on shore. It's almost like meditation. "I haven't been here in so long," she breathes. "I'd almost forgotten how much I love it."

And now I feel fucking awful, keeping her from the places she loves and things she wants to do. All of those feelings of inadequacy come roaring back. I'm not good enough for Katniss. I'm not good enough for anything. "I'm sorry," I tell her, my voice hoarse.

"For what?" She glances up at me, confused.

"For keeping you away from this place for so long." It's ripping me apart, knowing how being stuck with me has made her life so much duller, so much smaller.

Katniss lifts her head off my shoulder and scowls, and I want to kiss that scowl so bad. Instead, I turn my focus back to the water.

"You haven't kept me away from here." They're the words I expected, but instead of sounding scripted and placating, Katniss sounds pissed off. "Why would you even say that? You're the reason I finally came back." I glance back at her, but she's turned away, staring out over the gloom gathering along the shore. "I knew this place would be full of memories, and I didn't think I'd be strong enough to face them alone."

It's like a spear through the chest, knowing how many memories there are for her here, and how melancholy they make her. I can't help but wonder how much of what we're doing is Katniss reliving the good times she had here with Gale.

The rod in my hands jumps; I nearly drop it. Katniss's somber mood vanishes. With a smile, she sets aside her own rod and shows me how to reel in my line. The fish that emerges from the water, squirming and fighting, is an ugly silvery-green thing, maybe two feet long. I have no idea what it is, but Katniss's reaction suggests it'll be good for eating. She's laughing, holding it by the gills and removing the hook as it continues to squirm. My stomach also squirms. But she's so happy that I bite my cheek and plaster on the biggest smile I can.

Her expression says I'm not doing a good job of convincing her. But she takes pity on me, not insisting I hold it or asking me to pose for a selfie with it or anything like that. "This will be enough for both of us," she says. "And I have some dried noodles in my pack too." Thank goodness for that.

Dusk is falling when we get back to our site, the dense trees blocking much of the twilight. Katniss, of course, has flashlights. She's thought of everything. While she cleans the fish, something I'm not keen to watch, I stoke a decent fire from our embers, and gather fallen wood, using her tiny, almost useless little hatchet to turn it into manageable pieces. I catch Katniss watching me and grin. She likes my arms, something she's never been shy about telling me. I wish I had a bigger axe, I could give her a little show. Remind her I have some things going for me.

But then she sends me away to fetch a jug of water from the lake, and I'm forced to pick my way along the path slowly and cautiously in the dark, reminding us both how completely out of my depth I am here.

I boil the noodles and sauce mix and she fries the fish. We eat right out of the pans and I'm surprised and grateful that it's actually delicious. When I tease her about it, since Katniss is normally a terrible cook, she sticks her tongue out at me. "It's not a soufflé, mister master baker," she laughs. "But it's hard to screw up cooking over a fire."

"I doubt that," I snicker. "I'm pretty sure I could mess it up, if I could find food out here at all."

Very little moonlight penetrates the trees, we have only the firelight to see by. But Katniss's smile is unmistakable, a flash of white teeth in the darkness as we rinse out the pot and stow it away. "I have my father to thank for being able to hunt and forage. He taught me so much about survivalism," she says, melancholy infusing her voice. "He wanted me to be prepared for any scenario." Her soft laugh is laced with bitterness. "But he couldn't prepare me for a life without him."

"I'm sorry," I tell her, because I am. The terror I experienced when my dad collapsed in the bakery is nothing compared to the horror Katniss's life became when her father was killed in a car crash. We were only in middle school, but the whole town knew that her mom lost her mind when she lost her husband. Even now, I don't know all of the details. Katniss is loathe to talk about that time, but it was several months before her uncle moved in with them, years before her mother recovered. But the cute, bubbly Katniss I sort of knew in grade school was gone forever.

She reaches over and squeezes my hand, and we sit silently, watching the fire crackle and pop. It's so peaceful, so relaxing.. "I want to say it's quiet here," I muse after a while. "But it's not." The woods are practically screaming with crickets and peepers, and other sounds I don't recognize, but which Katniss identifies for me. It's like a natural symphony. I'm captivated.

"Hypnotic," she says, and she's right. There's a rhythm to the night sounds, it's soothing.

The fire wanes, but neither of us move to put any more wood on it, simply watching, hand in hand, each lost in our own thoughts.

"My life has changed so much since the last time I was here," she whispers, breaking me from my trance. "But this place is exactly the same. Even after ten years."

"Ten years?"

"Yeah. Well, eleven I guess." Her fingers flex against mine, as if she's counting in her head.

"I just assumed you came out here with Gale," I admit.

"Gale?" she scoffs. "Why on earth would you think that?"

I shrug. "You were always doing stuff like this with him. Camping, hiking, fishing…" My voice sounds petulant, I know it does.

"Hunting, Peeta. We went hunting a few times, with his uncle. For turkeys, mostly. But Gale hates fishing, he doesn't have the patience for it. He wouldn't go hiking unless there was a purpose for it, he never thought just enjoying the woods was a good enough reason. We definitely never camped together." Katniss sighs, turning back to the fire. "And I never brought him here. This was my father's favourite place. You're the only one I've ever wanted to share it with."

"Oh sweetheart," I breathe. "I didn't realize." I pull her snugly against me, and she doesn't resist. "That's what you meant about the memories."

"Yeah," she says, nestling deeper into my embrace as I press my lips to her sweet hair. "I locked away so much about him, when he died." I know that's true. I've spilled the dirt on pretty much all of my family's dysfunction to Katniss, but while she'll talk about her sister Prim, their mother, and even their crazy uncle Haymitch, her dad is a topic that only rarely comes up. "It's easier to share him with you," she murmurs, contradicting my thoughts completely. "Because you're so much like him."

I pull back, studying her face in the firelight, mostly shrouded in shadows. Even in the dim I can see she's not mocking me. But I remember her dad, he was larger than life, a big man with a booming laugh and a smile for everyone. "Katniss," I say, wary. "I don't think I'm anything like your dad. He was brave and adventurous and amazing, and I'm just a dumb townie."

"Stop it," she barks. "I hate it when you put yourself down. And it's not even true." She grabs my face in her hands and I can't help but lean into her touch. She has no idea, the effect she has on me. "You're kind," she says, voice wavering, "and so generous. You're selfless almost to a fault. And you listen, you really listen, to me and to everyone. And you make me feel safe. Those are the things that made my dad special too."

"Katniss," I whisper, but she's not done.

"I don't care that you don't hunt or that you're not too keen on fishing. I love you, Peeta, exactly the way you are." I turn my head to kiss her wrist, almost overcome by her words, by the sincerity behind them. "I suck at cooking and I couldn't care any less about movies or television, but you still love me, right?" She knows I do; she's trying to make a point.

And succeeding.

"With all of my heart," I tell her.

"Then stop comparing yourself to Gale," she says, cutting away everything else to lay my biggest insecurity bare. "I chose you. I love you." Then she kisses me, lips soft but insistent.

I forget Gale, forget my ineptitude, even forget my job and family stresses. There is only Katniss, only the woman I've loved always.

Without breaking our kiss, I haul her into my arms and stand. Her arms fly around my neck, and I walk the half dozen steps to our small tent. Katniss tilts her head back and laughs, husky and warm.

Getting the zipper open with my arms full of Katniss is a worthy challenge, and my prize is her soft sigh when I lay her on top of our sleeping bag.

It's pitch black in the tent, not even a whisper of light from our dying campfire penetrates the nylon walls. I lean over her, but catch her braid under my hand and she yelps. When I pull away to apologize she reaches for my face but instead pokes me in the ear. I try to kiss her again but she moves at the same time and we bash noses like middle schoolers just learning to kiss.

I sit back on my knees and laugh at the ridiculousness and novelty of it, and after a moment, she joins me, snickering as I stroke her belly blindly. I could search for the flashlight I know she's stowed somewhere near the door. But I've never been in complete darkness like this, it's never this black in town, and it's disconcerting but also exciting.

Katniss wiggles in the darkness, maybe trying to find me. But I grasp her waist and her attention.

"You just lie still and let me love you," I say, and she sighs, but stills. I know her body better than my own, have studied every dip and curve and ticklish place. The darkness is no detriment now. With sure hands, I pull off her flannel, and the tank beneath it. She's still braless from our earlier swim, and though I can't see her breasts with their dark, pouty nipples, I can certainly feel them. Katniss moans as I pull one perfect peak into the heat of my mouth, sucking hard, the way I know she likes it, rolling the other between my fingers, plucking and teasing it to aching hardness. Then I switch, soothing one nipple with my tongue, pinching the other.

Katniss squirms and bucks underneath me, trying to hurry me along. But I take my time, worshiping her breasts, lavishing them with attention. It's so incredibly rare that we have unhurried time to make love. She still lives with her mother and uncle, I'm stuck above the bakery with my mother and eventually my father again, once he's released from the rehabilitation centre. Far too often, Katniss and I are forced to settle for quick, near silent fucking. She deserves better. She deserves to be savoured, and tonight I'll do just that.

It's with reluctance that I surrender those perfect peaks, but more wonders await. I kiss a path down her belly, trace the riot of goosebumps with my tongue. Her cargo shorts are easily dispatched, and I press a hot kiss to the cotton of her panties, damp again but not from lake water this time.

"Peeta," she gasps as I graze her cotton-covered pussy with my teeth, breathing a rush of hot air through the fabric.

The sheer need in her voice is nearly my undoing. I ease her panties off and she assists, but moves her hands quickly away again, her breathing harsh, expectant. I can't see her pretty pussy in the stark blackness, but I can smell her arousal, feel the heat emanating from her core. I nuzzle her inner thigh, biting just lightly, and she curses.

I kiss her lower lips softly, and she tilts her hips up, begging for more. Something about the darkness makes teasing her feel cruel; instead, I lick a long line through all of her spicy wetness, from entrance to clit, and she moans her appreciation.

Katniss keeps moaning and bucking as I feast, alternating between thrusting my tongue inside her like a tiny cock and sucking on her clit. Her hands find my hair, tugging as she writhes against my face. It's so hot, her uninhibited cries, that I'm practically humping the sleeping pad beneath us, desperate for some friction to ease my own ache.

When I slide two fingers into her waiting heat, she cries out, like sensual music splitting the night. She's never been loud like this with me, we've never really had an opportunity to be this free. It's a drug, her sweet sounds, and I want to hear more. I want to hear her forever.

She chants my name over and over. I suck her clit and her snug walls tighten around my fingers. I know she's right on the edge, and the gratification of that makes me groan against her flesh. Nothing is as good as pleasuring Katniss.

Her trembling thighs clamp around my ears, preventing an escape I have no desire to make. Then she comes, and it's a fucking glorious thing, she arches and wails my name with abandon, pulsing around my fingers. It's nearly enough to push me over too as my dick begs for release.

She slumps, sated but still quivering with aftershocks, and I bring my sopping wet fingers to my mouth, sucking away her arousal loudly so she can hear it. Katniss moans. "Come back up here," she says, and her voice is hoarse in a way that makes me feel like a damned hero.

I slide off my own shirt before climbing up her body. I'm careful in the darkness, not to crush her or pull her hair again. Kissing Katniss with her bare skin pressed against mine is the best feeling. She tugs at the waistband of my pants. "Lose these," she demands against my lips.

"Yes ma'am," I laugh. I'm so eager to be inside her that just pulling off my boxers makes my dick throb. She kneads my ass muscles, then pulls me closer. She's so slick and ready that I slide in smoothly, and I have to pause, buried inside her right to the hilt, to catch my breath. "Oh fuck, I gasp.

Her fingernails rake up my back and her calves wrap around my thighs, and she feels so damned good that it's driving me insane. But I can't see her gorgeous face and it's disconcerting. I try fucking her harder, but if anything it makes the disconnect worse.

As if she can feel my uncertainty, Katniss pulls my face against her throat, her mouth against my ear. "Peeta," she moans. "You're so sexy." I groan at her words. She's not much of a talker during sex, that's more my thing. But I think she knows how desperately I need that connection right now. "You feel so good. So big and hard," she sighs.

And I'm a goner.

I grab her thigh, hiking it up over my hip, spreading her wide, and fuck her with fast, brutal strokes. She keeps chanting in my ear, yes and more and harder, Peeta. I bite her neck, not quite hard enough to mark but hard enough to make her swear. Her pussy flutters around me, an unexpected second orgasm that sends me hurtling into the abyss. I come with a shout, my cock pulsing, my ass muscles tensed, every inch of my body on fire.

We lie panting in the darkness, kissing and caressing, loving each other. "I needed that," she laughs as she pulls away, fumbling for the edges of the sleeping bag, wrapping them haphazardly around us. I know it's not very late, probably not even ten yet, and I want desperately to lie awake, cuddled together and whispering in the darkness. But after months of having no days off, another in a string of obscenely early mornings and the hike to get here conspire against me, and I drift off to sleep almost the moment her soft body again settles against me.

—

When my eyes pop open, it's later than I usually awaken, but not by much. The sun isn't up, but there's a little bit of thin grey light seeping through the tent. It's neither my alarm, nor habit that has me awake pre-dawn on the one day in more than three months I could have slept in.

It's Katniss.

More specifically, it's my gorgeous girlfriend kissing a path down my body, her lips soft and warm against my chilled skin. "Fuck," I groan as she bites that spot where my leg connects to my groin, a place she knows I'm sensitive. She laughs.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," she says, and I'd laugh at the absurdity of that if she wasn't gazing at me from between my legs, her words ghosting across my hard cock.

"It certainly is," I murmur, and she laughs.

Unlike last night, I can see her every expression as she teases me, pressing wet kisses to my shaft, using the tip of her tongue to tickle my crown. Can see the love that shines from her eyes, and the pleasure she gets from driving me to the edge. I cup her beautiful face in my hand, and she smiles. That smile feels even better than what she's doing to my dick.

And what she's doing to my dick is utterly amazing. She draws the tip of me into the heat of her mouth and I can't hold back my groan of pleasure. Her small, soft hands grip what doesn't fit in her mouth, stroking just firmly enough to make me crazy, but not quite enough to make me come. Over and over, alternating firm suction with fleeting licks, kissing and tasting and even grazing me oh so lightly with her teeth. Sweat beads on my forehead as I fight the primal urge to thrust upward, to speed her pace. I know she can tell that she has my control in tatters.

Her own control is being tested too, she shifts and squirms and sighs, and I know she's almost as aroused as I am. "Come here," I growl, tugging gently on her wrist.

Little minx that she is, she shakes her head and then sucks harder. I arch helplessly. "Please, Katniss," I beg. "I want you."

She releases my cock with a soft pop. "I'm yours," she whispers, silver eyes shining. She slides sinuously back up my body, rubbing her wet pussy against my aching shaft, and I moan. I'm so close to the edge, so primed to explode. She takes pity on me, reaching back, grabbing my cock and notching it in position. I howl as she sinks down, surrounding me in the hottest, tightest prison.

Her lean thighs flex and she starts to ride me, slowly, pleasure written all over her gorgeous face. I reach for the tie at the end of her braid, slipping it free then unravelling the raven mass with gentle fingers, until her hair floats in rumpled waves around her like a corona. She smiles indulgently. I love her hair, love to sift my fingers through it, love to see it curtaining us when we make love.

I slide my hands all over her body, everywhere I can reach, caressing the gentle curves that were hidden in the darkness last night. Strong thighs and smooth ass, tiny waist and perfect apple tits that sway as she rocks against me. "You are so beautiful," I murmur. "So incredibly beautiful. I'm so lucky."

She leans forward, hands bracketing my head, making her hair spill around us, brush against my chest, envelop us in a cloud of lavender and woodsmoke. I cup the back of her neck, pulling her down further to kiss her, and she makes little mewling cries against my lips. I can't last; her sounds, her scent, the silken vise of her pussy gripping me, it's too much.

I wedge my hand between us, finding her clit, swollen and wet with her arousal. I strum it, and she tenses around me, pulling her lips from mine to gasp, a broken wail of pleasure.

And my restraint is gone.

Katniss tucks her face against my throat as I lever my hips upward, pumping into her hard and fast, one hand still cupped around her nape, the other circling her clit firmly. The reverent predawn silence is broken only by our panting breaths and the slapping of flesh against flesh. She whimpers my name, then murmurs "I love you," against my throat and I come, shuddering and groaning, filling her with pulse after pulse. She follows me just a heartbeat later, her cry almost a scream and the sexiest thing I've ever heard.

I cradle her against my chest, pressing kisses to her hair while my breathing calms. She's sweaty and disheveled, completely magnificent. "I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever," I whisper.

Katniss lifts her head to look at me. Usually, when I get too sentimental, she rolls her eyes or gets uncomfortable. Today, she simply smiles. "We have so many more good moments ahead of us, Peeta," she says softly.

She's right. We do.

She only lets us tarry in bed a few moments longer, then sits up and pulls my t-shirt from last night over her head. "Come on," she says. And of course I do.

We pad towards the lake, hand in hand, me in boxers, her in only my shirt, though it's practically a dress on her. It's not quite warm out yet, but I don't feel even a speck of discomfort. "Are we going fishing?" I ask. I enjoyed the fish well enough last night, but I'm not sure how I feel about fish for breakfast.

She laughs. I don't know if I've ever heard Katniss laugh as much as she has the past twenty hours or so. "Not just yet," she says.

We emerge from the tree cover to the shore, and I stop dead in my tracks. The forest had obscured the sky from me; here in the open, it's a masterpiece. Glowing gold and muted orange, streaked with pink, the sunrise has painted not only the sky, but the mirror-like surface of the small lake as well. It's hands down the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Or the second most beautiful, actually. "You like?" Katniss asks, her tone smug, but also just a little bit tentative. I tear my eyes away from the splendor of nature to gaze at the love of my life. She's chewing her lip, the rising sun burnishing her skin, crowning her in gold.

I can only gasp her name, overcome by awe. She pulls my hand to her lips, kissing my knuckles. "Come on," she whispers again, and leads me through the shallows to the flat rock we'd fished from yesterday.

She sits between my knees, her back flush against my chest, my arms wrapped around her collarbones, and we keep each other warm as we watch the shifting colour show play out before us. The artist inside me, the part of me beaten down by life and familial expectations, roars to life. I try to commit every bit of the spectacle before me to memory, aching to capture it in pastels, or even in oil paints. Though I'm awake long before dawn every single day, I can't remember the last time I watched the sun rise. The bakery kitchen is all but windowless, and I haven't had a day off since before Dad's stroke. I've been trying so hard to keep everything together for him that I've forgotten the simple pleasure of taking ten minutes to watch the sun paint the sky in fire.

Five, ten, fifteen minutes pass in silence. The sun clears the horizon, streaking the water with platinum. Waterfowl float lazily by. Emotion clogs my throat, burns my nose. I have no doubt this is exactly the reason Katniss brought me here. Not to relive her past, not to enjoy the outdoors the way she hasn't been able to lately, but to give me this perfect moment in time, this peaceful easy feeling, surrounded by beauty, far removed from all of the stress. It was never about Gale. It was always about me.

There's only a hint of pink edging the fluffy clouds when she turns to face me. She traces my face with gentle fingers. "There you are," she says. I raise a brow, and she shrugs, smoothing her fingers across my forehead. "You've been so stressed out," she says. "It's nice to see the worry lines gone."

"Are you calling me a wrinkled old man?" I grin. I know she's not. She shakes her head at me, but doesn't let me joke away her concern.

"You can't keep going the way you have been," she says.

"What choice do I have though?" I know she's right, but it'll be months yet before my dad can come back to work. He's improving, day by day, regaining his speech and mobility. Doing better than we'd hoped in those first dark days. But it's a long road.

"Your mother is taking advantage of you." Her words are quiet, tentative. But while she's voicing a thought I've had myself, many times over, I feel compelled to defend Mother. Katniss doesn't let me, shushing me as soon as I open my mouth. "You dad never worked seven days a week. He always had someone to help. You're shouldering everything."

"I know," I sigh, and I do. Dad had not only me, but a full time manager in addition to his part time staff. But Mother fired Dalton while Dad was still in the ICU, somehow convinced that he was too expensive, though Dad paid him a fair wage, not an extravagance. Without his expertise, I'm working just to keep the bakery in business at this point, running myself absolutely ragged not only doing everything, but doing things I'm not even very good at, like ordering and keeping the ledgers. I haven't had time to even think about looking for a replacement. And telling Mother that we need help invariably leads to more of her complaining that they paid for my fancy business degree - the one I didn't want - for this very reason. So that I could run the bakery. And how could I possibly betray them now?

"Your dad doesn't know, does he? That she's working you to death." I shake my head. I can't even argue with her phrasing. "He needs to know."

"I don't want to stress him out," I tell her. "He has enough to deal with right now."

"He can handle the truth, Peeta. He wants to know what's going on. He's worried about you, about why you look so miserable." Katniss visits my dad more often than I do, between the hours I keep and the exhaustion that has me asleep before 9 every night, I'm barely getting to the rehab centre twice a week, and I'm crappy company when I am there.

"I don't want to make things worse with Mother," I admit. It's already hard enough living with her without Dad as a buffer. I can't imagine the hell that would result from talking to Dad about her interference.

"I've been thinking," Katniss says after a pause. "What if you weren't living with your mother any more?"

I nod, it would make life easier for certain. "I know I need a place of my own," I admit. "But I can't afford it." It hurts to tell her that, I should be able to take care of myself, I'm 23 after all. But the salary I draw from the bakery isn't fantastic, and a big enough chunk of it goes to Mother for rent that I feel like I'll never climb out of this hole.

"We could afford it, if we did it together." Her voice shakes a little.

"You want to live together?" I hope that's what she means, not that she wants to give me charity or something. But she nods solemnly.

"Yeah, I mean, if you do." She sighs and turns away, looking over the water. "It's the logical next step."

I don't give a shit about logic. I catch her cheek, turning her back to face me again. "But is it what you want, Katniss?" I can't risk this not being for the right reasons. I want real.

"Yes." She searches my face, and when I break out into a huge, shit-eating grin her expression softens. "I want more days like this with you," she admits.

"I'll still be working stupid hours," I remind her. I trust my dad will insist we hire a new manager once he finds out what Mother has been doing. But the bakery is in my blood and early mornings are par for the course.

"I know," she says. "But I want to crawl into bed every night with you, even if it's not quite dark outside." I snicker, and she grins at me. "I want to build a life together, Peeta. And I want to start now."

My whoop startles the ducks milling around the lake's edge as I scoop Katniss onto my lap and kiss her until she's squirming and laughing against my lips.

We decide the big flat rock is a great place to make love after all, with the sun beating on my back and the granite scraping our knees and our passion echoing across the water.

We swim a little, and eat packets of instant oatmeal instead of breakfast fish. Then we crawl back into our sleeping bag and chat about our future all cuddled up together, just like I'd longed to do last night.

And though my boots are still uncomfortable as hell, the hike back to my car is far more pleasant. Accompanied by Katniss's smoky bourbon impression of the Eagles, I'm filled with hope for our future, and with a peace I haven't felt in forever. All thanks to the beauty by my side who insisted on taking me camping.