As I expected, the little sleep I get is the best I've had in weeks.

I'm alone when I wake, the sheets tucked up carefully around my side. Through the open window I can see that the sun is already bright and high in the sky. I smell fresh air, and bread.

I can't exactly pull back on my party dress, so I open one of the drawers from Peeta's dresser and pull a t-shirt out, tugging it over my head. It falls all the way to my knees, but walking around Peeta's house in just a t-shirt might send the wrong message, so I dig a little further into the drawer until I find a pair of shorts he must have kept from gym class. They're still ridiculously large on me, but there's a drawstring around the waist, and I pull it tight against my stomach.

Peeta is already showered and dressed, of course, seated at the table with an empty plate and a cup of tea. A newspaper is spread open before him. He doesn't appear to hear me tiptoe down the stairs, and I take advantage of the moment, watching him in silence as he takes a sip of tea and flips to the next page, smoothing the thin paper down with his hand.

After a moment I hop off the last step, letting myself land with a soft thump, just loud enough that he hears it. "Hi," I say quietly.

Peeta twists around in his chair to see me. "Hey," he says. If he's bothered that I've borrowed his shirt and shorts, he doesn't show it. "Good morning. I made some bread, and there's jam and butter in the fridge if you want it."

"I could smell it all the way upstairs," I say with a small smile, and pull a plate from one of the cabinets over the sink before turning back to the kitchen island to cut myself a few slices of bread. It's only when I join him at the kitchen table that I realize how eerily familiar I am with his kitchen. Almost as though it were my very own – because it is, I remind myself, it's the same exact one.

"What are you reading?" I mumble between mouthfuls of bread and butter.

"The Capitol Courier," Peeta says, his eyes trained on the page. "I asked Effie to get me a subscription."

I wrinkle my nose. We don't have a newspaper here in Twelve, but even I could tell the Capitol Courier was nothing but fluff about the latest parties and celebrity gossip just by skimming the covers on the copies left by my door each morning in the training center. "Why?"

He shrugs. "There's some interesting stuff in here. Stuff about politics." He doesn't elaborate, and I don't press him to.

As we lapse into silence, I can't stop myself from thinking again of what Peeta had confessed to me last night.

It was true.

I love you.

It's not like I was surprised. In that moment in the arena, begging me to kill him, Peeta had no reason to exaggerate his love for me. He was dying. He wanted to die. There was no point in playing to the cameras at that point. Just me and Peeta, a bow and arrow and berries, and something swelling in my chest that wouldn't allow me to let go of that bowstring.

Was it rebellion? Madness? Love? I could watch that video of myself a hundred thousand times, nightlock cradled in my palm, and I'll still never know the answer.

Peeta is quiet while I help myself to a second piece of bread. He seems wrapped up in the newspaper, anyway, so I don't interrupt him until I'm finished eating.

"Should we…" I trail off, unsure what I'm even going to say.

Peeta lifts his eyes from the Courier. After a long pause, he says, "Should we what?"

"Clean up," I say. I pull his plate across the table towards me, brushing the crumbs onto my own before I stack the plates together. I drop the plates in the sink and run the butter knives under the tap.

"Thanks," he says.

"Sure." I twist my fingers into the end of my braid. "Guess I should go home."

Peeta nods, pushing his chair back from the table to stand. "Is your mom gonna be upset?" he says, one side of his mouth curling up into a half-smile.

"I don't know." I honestly don't. I was surprised when she made her comments about me being too young to date, back when we first returned from the Games, and up until now I haven't done anything to test her sincerity. I suppose I'll find out in about five minutes.

"Um, thanks for breakfast." I take a step towards him, expecting a goodbye hug, maybe a kiss. But Peeta stands still, his face betraying nothing.

"Sure." He smiles. "See you later, Katniss."

I shift awkwardly on my feet, unsettled by how aloof he's acting. "Okay. Bye." I give him a small wave as I see myself out.

About halfway home I realize that my green dress and heels are still somewhere up in Peeta's bedroom, crumpled in a pile on the floor. I pause for only a second before continuing home. Something felt completely off between Peeta and I this morning, and I need some time to work through my thoughts before I can see him again.

Luckily there are no neighbors around in the Victors Village to see me creep back down the street – none except Haymitch, that is. Of course this would be the one day Haymitch makes it out of his house before two in the afternoon. "Sleep well, sweetheart?" he calls out from his front porch, shielding his eyes against the sun with one hand. "I guess Trinket wasn't worried for nothin'."

"Shut up, Haymitch," I say, folding my arms over my chest. In any other scenario I'd run the remaining fifty feet to my front door, but the gravel digging into my bare feet is too uncomfortable.

No one is around when I slip through the front door, but there are signs that Prim and my mother have already been about their day: a few dishes stacked in the sink, a half-empty glass of water on the kitchen counter. Wherever they are, I'm glad it isn't here.

Upstairs I draw a bath. While I wait for the tub to fill I shove Peeta's borrowed shirt and shorts under the quilt at the foot of my bed. I don't want my mother to find them in my hamper when she does the laundry this week.

The heat of the bathwater feels unbelievably luxurious as I lower myself into the tub. It's shameful how quickly I've become accustomed to life in this house. Hot water on demand…a dishwasher…even a washing machine for our clothes. We have the means to keep ourselves cleaner than any other family in the entire district, and we don't even need it, because no one in this family will have to worry about working in the mines ever again.

I wash myself quickly with a sweetly scented soap that Effie gave me, and work the knots out of my hair with a thick, floral-scented liquid called "conditioner" that Venia swears by. But the task of cleaning myself up doesn't take long. As I settle my back against the side of the tub and try to relax, I finally let my thoughts drift back to Peeta, and what we did last night.

I guess it would be fair to say that I'm physically attracted to Peeta. Even now, alone in the bath, the memory of his fingers and his mouth makes my stomach tighten in a way that I'm still only just beginning to understand.

I had his dick in my mouth, I think suddenly, embarrassment flooding through me. I let my head sink under the water, hoping it will clear my mind.

It does no such thing, of course. By the time I come up for air my body is practically on autopilot. I move one hand between my legs and move my fingers in a circular motion, my hips jerking unexpectedly when they brush directly against my clit. I've done this before, a few times when I was alone in the house and restless, and never managed to bring myself to orgasm. But now I have memories to guide me.

It takes me longer than it took Peeta last night, but I get there. And instead of satisfying my need, the ache for him only grows stronger.

I'm laying on the couch in the living room, watching the television with disinterest when my mother returns home. I sit up straight and watch as she deposits a large paper bag on the kitchen counter. She must have been grocery shopping. "Hey," I say.

"Oh. You're here," she says.

Where else would I be? I think. I don't have to attend school anymore, and I can't hunt in the woods while there are still cameras creeping around the district. I've hardly left the house in the past several weeks unless my victor duties required it.

"Yeah, I have the night off, so no prep work today," I say.

She nods, but doesn't say anything as she starts to put away the groceries. I see a bundle of carrots, a zucchini squash, a bag of rice. I'm about to turn back to the television when she speaks.

"You stayed over at Peeta's house last night?"

My eyes flick back to her face, but her neutral expression reveals nothing.

"Effie kept us at the party really late, and I didn't want to wake up you and Prim," I say.

"That's thoughtful of you," she says, and it's impossible to tell if the hint of sarcasm I perceive is really there, or just my imagination.

"Yeah. I got to sleep in Prim's room – his version of Prim's room, I mean," I lie shamelessly. "I get why she likes the light so much."

Mother doesn't say anything else, but a few minutes later she comes into the room and sits beside me, placing a small cardboard box on the coffee table before us. "I got these for you."

I look at her oddly. "What is it?"

She gestures to the box, and I open it. My face flushes. She bought me condoms.

"We didn't –"

"I don't want to know the details," she interrupts me. "I just want to know that you're being safe."

"But we're not…it's not like that," I protest weakly.

Mother says nothing, but her look says she clearly doesn't believe me. Maybe she's a little more perceptive than I've given her credit for. She nods her head towards the box and says, "Keep those," before standing and heading up the stairs.

Momentarily stunned, I sit with the small box clutched in my hands. I've never actually seen a condom outside of a school textbook, and now I've practically got a lifetime supply in my lap. I trudge up the stairs after her, and shove the box deep into the drawer of my bedside table.

Thanks to some kind of scheduling overlap – a high society wedding that the Capitol doesn't want overshadowed by the now-famous star-crossed lovers – we have a whole week to ourselves before our final public display in District 12, the Harvest Festival. But since the cameras aren't actually gone, and I can't actually do anything with them around, I choose to spend most of the time feigning illness in bed. Effie's in a near panic the entire time, bringing me herbal teas and brightly colored pills from the Capitol that she swears will perk me up.

She decrees that Peeta isn't allowed anywhere near me, for fear that he'll catch my mystery sickness just in time for the festival, which is fine by me. I overhear her side of the conversation when she calls him on the phone. It's brief. "I thought he'd put up more of a fight," I hear her say, to no one in particular.

It's a relief, but as the days pass without any sign of Peeta, I start to feel a little…hurt. I thought he'd at least show up with some baked goods, maybe speak to me through my bedroom door under Effie's watchful gaze. But then I remember what he'd said to me – and what I hadn't said back – and all I feel is guilt.

Prim has school during the day, but she sits with me by the fire in the evening and tells me about her day. Ever since we came back, a lot of kids have been stopping her in the hallways or the cafeteria to ask questions about Peeta and me. "I don't know what to tell them," she admits. "Daina Limm wanted to know if you really kiss that much all the time."

I smirk a little, looking down at my fingernails. The deep green nail polish is already chipping off from last Monday's application. But I'm sure my prep team will have another color ready to match my dress for the Harvest Festival, anyway.

"Nobody kisses that much all the time," I say, thinking suddenly of our parents. They kissed a lot, when I was young. But Prim was too little to remember it.

Prim frowns and watches me pick at my nails for a moment, clearly wrestling over something in her mind. "You and Peeta…are you…" She pauses. "You seem different from how you were in the arena."

I glance up at her. The temptation to confide in her is almost overwhelmingly strong. If there was just one person I could talk to about all this, someone I could confide in, maybe I could begin to understand what's going on in my own head. But Prim is just twelve years old. A child.

I shrug. "Peeta's great."

My non-answer is enough for my sister. But it's not enough for the Capitol reporter tasked with interviewing Peeta and me as we prepare for our joint appearance at the Harvest Festival a few days later. "We heard you two left together after Monday night's gala event at the mayor's house," she says coyly.

My own face hardens immediately, but Peeta laughs it off with his usual charm. "I walked Katniss home, that's all," he says.

"But our cameramen reported that you two ran off on the way back –"

"There are a lot of little back roads around town," Peeta interrupts, polite but firm, an apologetic twist to his grin. "It's easy to get lost if you're not familiar with the district. No offense to your cameramen, of course."

Thanks to Peeta, the interview continues without a hitch, and I'm confident we'll appear completely enamored with one another when the piece airs around the country. But as soon as the news crew packs up for the day, we're left in an uncomfortable silence, though neither of us moves from the small loveseat where we're pressed together from shoulder to foot.

"You seem like you're feeling better," Peeta says once they're gone.

"Yeah." I'd admit to him that I was faking the illness all week, but the slight edge to his tone suggests he already knows it was a lie.

"Can I say something?" Peeta scoots away from me slightly on the loveseat, and turns in to face me.

"Sure." I brace myself, keeping my hands clenched tightly in my lap.

Peeta swallows. "Well, first, I'm sorry." His hand touches my knee, tentative, only lingering for a moment. "I know I've sort of been distant lately."

"No…it's okay. I was sick," I say quickly.

He gives me a look. "I still could have called, or brought over food, or something. So I'm sorry. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to think about how you were feeling." Peeta looks down at his hands and pauses. "Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to say, which is…I guess…I don't really know how you're feeling."

I say nothing, but my heart is pounding so loudly in my chest that I think it's speaking for me.

This is the moment when I should be honest. When I should tell him about the little notes Haymitch sent me in the arena, and the invisible strings that tied every kiss back to those silver parachutes. I should tell him that love has never been an option for me – not with my mother's blood running through my veins, and the way my father's memory still trails after her like a second shadow.

Instead, I can't stop thinking about how warm and rested I'd felt when I woke up in his bed. How different it was to kiss him in that alleyway, when we were finally alone. How hard and hot he was in my hand, and how my entire body had felt like a livewire under his mouth and his tongue.

Peeta lets the silence stretch on, until he finally lifts his eyes to meet mine. "I'm confused, Katniss," he says. "I thought you knew how I felt about you. And I thought that you…" He trails off, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

I lick my lips, my mouth feeling suddenly dry. But I owe him some kind of answer. "I do know how you feel. And…I feel things for you, too." It's vague enough to be true. "I guess I just feel like…we barely know each other, Peeta."

I regret the words the moment they leave my mouth, certain he'll be hurt by the implication. That despite weeks together in the arena, clinging to the edge of life – nearly dying for one another – we are little more than strangers back here in Twelve.

But he surprises me. Eyes bright, he grabs my hands in his. "I get it," he says earnestly. "I do. It's why – I thought we'd come back here, and we could meet each other's families, and eat dinner together, and just be normal together, you know? And instead they're still dressing us up and shuttling us around to these stupid parties. It's so…fake." His face falls a little. "Maybe we aren't doing this right. The other night, it was too much."

"Maybe," I echo, though a little voice in the back of my mind is protesting otherwise. Amongst this maddening swirl of guilt and longing and fear, the one thing I know for certain is that I like the way Peeta makes my body feel. This could all be so simple, if we could only reduce ourselves to lips and tongues and tangling limbs.

"I hate saying that, though." His eyes fall to our hands, entwined on our knees, before darting back up to meet mine. "I've been thinking about you all week."

My thighs squeeze together as the memory flashes through my head. "I've been thinking about it, too," I admit.

Peeta bites his lip, like he's mulling over his next words. He leans in closer. "Was that really the first time you've ever come?" he asks, his voice low in my ear.

A little shiver curls down my spine. I glance around the room, hoping desperately that the cameramen didn't "accidentally" leave a microphone behind in hopes of picking up some behind-the-scenes footage. I wouldn't put it past them. "Yes."

"I want to do it again," he murmurs. "Do you?"

My eyes widen, even as I feel the twinge between my thighs intensify into a dull throb. "Peeta…"

"Sorry." He laughs a little, dropping his forehead against my shoulder. "I know I just said it was too fast."

I scratch at the back of his head lightly with my fingertips, the way I did back when we were in the cave and I was trying to comfort him. A shiver rolls through his shoulders. "It's okay," I say. "I don't mind."

"Will you come over tonight?" he asks, pulling back. His eyes are wide and clear, and I can't look away. "I could make you dinner. I miss you."

Now that we've more or less made up, I'd much rather dine with Peeta than suffer through another dinner with my mother, Prim, and Effie, who's become our permanent houseguest this week. But it's not going to happen. "I don't think so. My mother wasn't really thrilled about me staying the night."

Peeta has the grace to look sheepish. "Really?"

I smile a little. "Yeah, really." I decide not to tell him about the condoms.

"Well, I'm sorry." He smiles at me shyly. "I really didn't want to let you go."

My cheeks warm. "Me neither," I admit.

The morning of the Harvest Festival dawns clear and bright. Effie couldn't be more ecstatic – about the weather, the food, the decorations, the everything. She flits around the house with her portable telephone glued to her ear, a constant stream of chatter between her and the trainload of people who arrived from the Capitol to help make today "the most glorious Harvest that District Twelve has ever seen." (Effie's words, not mine.)

As usual, I spend most of my day at the mercy of my prep team. Knowing that it's our last session for at least six months, when the Victory Tour will start, makes it slightly easier to bear. Flavius clucks his tongue in dismay when he sees the small, prickly hairs that have grown in on my legs in the past week, and though I honestly can't see the difference, Octavia's sigh is heavy when she sees the state of my eyebrows. "Didn't you use those tweezers I left you, Katniss?" she asks.

"I…lost them," I say sheepishly, though the truth is they're still in the bathroom cabinet where I left them thirty seconds after she pressed them into my hand.

Though they've managed to replicate it before, they ask my mother to plait my hair in the complicated braids that have become almost as famous as my face. Cinna unveils my festival dress just as she's tucking the ends into place.

"Oh, Katniss. That's gorgeous," Mother murmurs, and I have to agree. Cinna has found yet another angle on the girl on fire theme: this time my dress recalls the dying embers of an autumn bonfire, and the red and orange and gold of the forest as its leaves change color. He helps me into the dress as my prep team watches in rapture. The skirt is full, the bodice slim, and just over my breasts the fabric becomes so sheer it's nearly translucent, so that it looks as though brilliantly colored leaves are growing up and over my bare skin, down my arms to my fingertips.

Peeta looks dazed when he finally sees me in the dress, in the Justice Building where we're made to wait until it's time for our speech to kick off the festivities. "You look…"

"Amazing. I know." I have no problem saying it, since it's one hundred percent thanks to Cinna's magic. "I don't know how Cinna will top this one."

Peeta looks particularly handsome himself, in slacks and a reddish-orange button-down shirt that matches the warm tones of my dress, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He takes my hand and pulls me in gently for a hug.

"I don't know," he says, his voice low so that only I can hear. "I think you'd look even better out of it."

By the time his meaning clicks in my brain, my face is on fire, and then Effie's right there beside us, speaking a mile a minute about the speeches we're about to give. I barely pay attention; Peeta's going to do most of the talking, anyway. He watches her intently, nodding in all the right places, but I can see the red flush creeping up his neck. I suppress my smile. Only Peeta could be embarrassed by his own come-on less than a week after he had his head between my legs.

The ceremony itself flies by, one final, forgettable speech to cap off a long string of them, once again devoted to gushing about our gratitude to the Capitol. Thankfully, tradition dictates that this is a celebration for the district itself, and even the prospect of hobnobbing with Peeta and me isn't tempting enough for the Capitol's socialites to risk mixing with the hoi polloi. There are no strange men sliding their arms around me as their friends snap a photo, no strange women showing me their elaborate, braided hairdos, done up as tributes to my own styling. All the faces I see tonight are familiar: from the Seam, from school, from trading at the Hob.

Nonetheless, I stick close to Peeta for most of the evening anyway. He's still my partner in this confusing, dangerous mess, and the cameras don't pack up until later in the night. We hold hands as we chat with well-wishers, and I even let him feed me a bite of pumpkin pie.

I'd expected this night to feel unbearably awkward, but in an odd way I feel more comfortable than I have in weeks. Whether it's thanks to the friendly, casual feel of the festival, or simply the knowledge that this parade is finally coming to an end, my heart feels light in my chest for the first time since I can remember.

Just after sunset, a few men and women from the Seam pull out their fiddles and strike up a lively tune. Peeta pulls me out for a dance, despite my protests, and we stomp and clap and swing around one another breathlessly until his knee starts to hurt. I'm about to follow him when a hand catches my wrist from behind.

It's Gale. I smile widely, turning back to face him. "You don't look ready to sit down yet," he says, leaning in so I can hear him over the sound of the music and dancing.

I glance behind me, looking for Peeta, but he's already caught up in conversation with one of his friends from school. Gale is eyeing me skeptically when I turn back to him. "You need his permission to dance?"

"No," I say, frowning, but I let him lead me back out into the crowd.

Gale is a good dancer, light on his feet, and he swings me around to the music until we're both out of breath. But eventually the song ends, and most of the musicians put down their instruments to take a break. One lone fiddler breaks into a soft, mournful piece that sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it.

I start to walk away, but Gale's hand lands on my shoulder and I spin around. His hand slides down my arm to take my hand, his other resting over the curve of my hip, and he steps in a little closer, his body moving slowly in time with the music.

My muscles tense. I've only ever danced like this with one person before: Peeta. And I wasn't trying to pass off Peeta as my cousin.

I start to back away, but Gale's grip on me tightens. "I've barely seen you, Catnip," he says. It's true. His family has visited my new home in the Victor's Village a handful of times, but we've never had an opportunity to talk privately – and the woods are out of the question until the Capitol's cameras are finally gone.

"Just one more day," I say quietly, glancing around us just in case one of the cameras happens to be nearby. "Then we can go hunting again."

Gale doesn't answer. We dance, moving in slow circles, until he says, "So you…and Peeta Mellark."

I hope he can't see the sudden flush on my cheeks. "Mm hmm."

"Didn't expect that one," he says. "Not on your part, anyway."

I'm not sure what to say. Gale knows me better than almost anyone – knows the way my mind works. There's no way he fell for the show Peeta and I put on in the cave. Is there? "It was certainly unexpected," I say.

He seems to think I'll say more, but I press my lips together and say nothing. Gale is my closest friend – he deserves an explanation for this sudden shift in my personality, for this stranger he's been watching on a screen for the past month. But not here – not now.

The song ends, and we release one another. Gale runs one hand through his dark hair, looking down at me seriously. "See you tomorrow?"

"As long as…you know." I tilt my head towards one of the cameramen, who's slumped back in a chair by one of the picnic tables, his camera settled on his lap. Gale nods in understanding, and lifts one hand in a wave before he turns away to wade through the crowd in search of his siblings.

Peeta is waiting for me by the edge of the dance floor, sitting on a hay bale. He starts to stand when he sees me approaching, but I wave my hand at him. "Don't get up, my feet hurt," I tell him.

He nudges me affectionately as I collapse onto the hay bale beside him. "You're the life of the party," he teases.

I roll my eyes as I slip one foot out of my high-heeled shoe, rubbing the arch with my thumb. "Yeah, right."

"Was that your friend Gale?" he asks, his voice unusually bright.

I glance up at Peeta, but his eyes are trained on a long blade of hay that he twirls between his fingers. "Um, yeah," I say. "I didn't know you knew Gale."

"I don't," he says quickly. "I just…I mean, I always noticed you, so. It was hard to miss him."

Makes sense. Gale is tall, and he's undeniably handsome. If Peeta really was in love with me all those years, he would have taken note of my most frequent male companion.

Effie appears then, looking frazzled, her curly blue wig slightly askew on her head. The crowd here is a little rowdier than the ones she's used to at the Capitol's stately affairs. "Our train leaves for the Capitol at eleven, so we need one last shot of the victors," she says, clapping her hands together. "Up up up, let's go!"

Peeta tugs me to my feet despite my sigh of protest, and we make one final loop around the dance floor until Effie proclaims the footage "good enough." With a clasp of hands, kisses on our cheeks, and the promise (threat?) that she'll be back in no time to prepare for our Victory Tour, she's gone – and so is every other person sent here to sculpt us, primp us, and record our every move for the past two weeks.

The realization dawns on both of us at once, and as I tilt my face up to meet Peeta's smile with my own, he leans down and kisses me.

The kiss startles me. Not because the cameras are gone, exactly – been there, done that. But last week's kisses were in private. Now we're kissing in front of our families, our friends, our entire district. The only people who we don't have to convince.

After a moment I break the kiss, placing one hand on his chest as I shift back on my heels. I glance to my right – few people appear to be paying us any attention, but Peeta catches on to my hesitance, and his smile fades a little.

"Sorry," he says after a pause. "I guess I forgot you're not really into PDA."

"It's okay." I force a smile. Something has already shifted between us, as I knew it would. What I didn't anticipate was how awful it would feel. "I'm um, I'm pretty tired."

"Yeah." Peeta steps back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks. "I could walk you home?"

I look past his shoulder, to where my mother is seated at a picnic table next to Hazelle Hawthorne. Nearby, Prim is chatting animatedly with one of her friends from school. Even from here I can tell she's still got plenty of energy tonight – it wouldn't be fair to drag her home now just because I'm suddenly feeling awkward with Peeta.

"You don't want to stick around?"

"Nah. I'm tired too." Peeta leans down and raps lightly on his fake leg with his knuckles.

I roll my eyes despite my smile. "I'm not Effie. You don't have to convince me."

His laugh is short. "Yeah, I know."

We walk in silence most of the way home, the laughter and music of the festival fading behind us in the distance.

We've just reached the front steps to my house when Peeta stops suddenly, looking slightly agitated. "Can I ask you something?"

I gaze up at him, confused. "Sure."

He presses his lips together for a moment. "Did you and Gale…have something?" he asks. "Or…do you?"

I stare back at Peeta, trying to process the question. Before I can answer, he takes my silence for a yes.

"Oh, god," he says, running one hand down his face as he turns away from me. "I'm such an idiot."

"Peeta – no, don't – don't say that," I say, stumbling over the words.

He turns back, and the look he gives me is so raw I can feel my heart cracking in my chest. "Katniss, please don't lie to me."

A chill runs through me. "I'm not," I say. My voice sounds strangely high. "He's just my friend. There's nothing – there's never been more."

It's the truth. There has never been a romantic connection between Gale and I – just the bond of survival, which slowly grew into friendship. His hands on my hips tonight…the heat I felt coming off of his body as we danced…that was the closest he's ever come to revealing that there might be deeper feelings there.

A lead weight sinks in my stomach as I consider the possibility. That Gale's terse comments about Peeta tonight were a mask for his jealousy. That he wants more than a reliable hunting partner, and an ear to listen, from me.

Peeta's still said nothing. I grab his hand, forcing him to look at me. "I'm telling you the truth," I say firmly. "Gale and I don't feel that way about each other." Even as I say it, my stomach squirms with the knowledge that I could – maybe, possibly – be wrong.

Peeta's eyes look lost as he stares back at me. "Okay," he says finally, his voice thick in his throat.

I squeeze his hand and thread my fingers through his, swallowing hard. "Okay?"

He nods, then lets out a deep breath, laughing slightly as he does it. "I'm sorry," he says, rubbing his eyes with the back of his wrist. "I'm just…I don't know how to handle all this. Sometimes I feel like…like you're the only thing that makes sense in all of this. You're the thing keeping me together. And if I lost you…I can't."

I wrap my arms around him then, pressing my face against his shoulder so he can't see my tears. There are too many to hold back, though, and soon he can feel them through the damp fabric of his shirt. "Oh, don't cry," he whispers, one of his hands coming up to stroke my hair. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

I sniff loudly, and pull away to wipe at my face. Black streaks of mascara come off on my fingers. "It's fine," I say, turning my head away. "I don't want to lose you, either." As I say it, I realize I mean it. I really, really mean it.

"So I guess we're on the same page, then," Peeta says, laughing shakily.

I try to smile back, show him I'm okay, but I can tell it's not very convincing. "Same page," I repeat.

We stand like that for a while, Peeta's hands running in soothing circles over my back, until I've got my sniffling under control. His rust-colored shirt is stained with the remains of my makeup, and I run my fingers over the black splotch uselessly. "Sorry I ruined your shirt."

Peeta smiles, shaking his head slightly. "I don't care."

I shrug. "I should go to bed, anyway. I can finally go hunting in the morning."

If the idea of me returning to the woods with Gale bothers him, Peeta doesn't show it. "I guess sleeping at my place is out, with your mother and all," he says.

"Yeah, I'd say so."

"Alright. Well, goodnight, Katniss." He bends to kiss me. It's a quick, chaste kiss, but before I can second-guess myself I link my hands around his neck and hold him there, keeping our lips pressed together. Hoping he understands what I'm trying to say: You won't lose me.

His cheeks look darker in the dim yellow glow of the streetlamps when we finally break apart. "Sweet dreams," he says, giving my hand one last squeeze before he turns towards his own house down the road.

I climb up the steps to my front door and pause, turning to watch him as he strides up an identical set of steps. He turns back just as he's opening the door, and seeing me, he waves. I wave back before I slip inside.

Well, this story is getting longer than I intended it to! Oops. There will be a third part...probably just a third part, though.

I also can't remember the timing of the Harvest Festival - is it after their Games, or after their Victory Tour? - but I don't have a copy of the book around to check, so. In this world, it's after the Games!

Most importantly, thank you for all the wonderful comments!

Edit 2/27 to add: Oops, that last paragraph wasn't supposed to be in there. It's from the next part. Now deleted. :)