A/N: This takes place somewhere around the end of Mockingjay and before the epilogue. Hope you enjoy. :)

Girl on fire; the name's proven itself to be prophetic. No matter what she does, no matter how far she runs, she's still stuck here, burning alone in the ashes of what used to be.

She comes to screaming her name as the flames lick her body and burn her little sister to the ground. Every night brings a new horror, vivid images of Prim burning, or Rue slowly closing her eyes as life abandons her. Sometimes it's Finnick, smiling at her, popping a sugar cube in his mouth, and the next moment he's gone, taken away from her like everybody else. She sees them all in her nightmares, bloody and battered and bruised, or happy, laughing eyes and bright smiles, and Katniss doesn't know what's worse; to see them dead or alive, to be reminded of the reality or fooled by fleeting moments of happiness that only exist in her mind.

"Peeta," she murmurs as her eyes slowly adjust to the dark, her heart painfully colliding against the walls of her chest. Katniss lifts a hand to her face, brushing away some stray curls sticking to her slick forehead, her entire body covered with sweat after she'd tried to run faster, always faster, to reach Prim and save her. "Peeta," she repeats, fear edging in her tone when the arms that used to protect her and ward off the nightmares don't wrap immediately around her. "Peeta." She turns, reaching out with her arms to feel him, grab him, tuck herself in his arms and never let go.

Instead, her fingers only clench around thin air. The spot beside her in bed is cold and empty.

She's up on her feet in no time, her body moving on its own volition, guided by dread and instinct. She has to move, she has to find him. Losing him, too, is not an option. She calls out his name once, twice, again and again as she goes down the stairs, hoping to find him in the kitchen, baking, smiling at her as he'd reveal a tray of her favorite pastries. Peeta's not there, though. The house is empty and silent, still asleep as the sun hasn't even risen yet. It's too early, even for him.

She's running to his house, bare feet barely brushing the damp grass as she flies, mockingjay spreading her wings. There's no time to waste, because who knows what could have happened to him? She's screaming his name as she all but kicks open his front door. Peeta. Peeta. Peeta. Like a song. Like a mantra. Like a cry of agony.

He never answers, and that's when it finally dawns on her, the sheer horror of the reality – that's when she decides that reality, even if it hurts, even if it makes it impossible to breathe, is always better than her dreams.

Because in her dreams, he's here.

But the truth is, he's not.

She can look for him all she wants; she can scream and run, calling his name, begging him to come back, but it won't change a thing.

Peeta's not here. He's never been. And it's been her reality for the past months.

Katniss sinks to her knees, tears she hasn't shed in so long blurring her vision, and the more she cries, the more she feels dizzy, until she's certain that her brain has ceased functioning.

What use can a brain be anyway, when the rest of her is dead?

She doesn't know how long she spends on the cold hard floor, but when she rises to her feet, the sun is up and the birds are singing.

She hates them almost as much as she hates herself.

Katniss brushes the back of her palm to her eyes, fresh tears still flowing freely; she thinks she hasn't stopped crying at all, even in her torpor. The fabric of her gown is painted with dust at her knees, and that's when she takes in her surroundings for the first time. No one's been in there since Peeta left before the Quarter Quell. She thinks of Prim and her mother, holding onto each other tightly on the couch, forced to watch the Games, hoping she'd return, probably even hoping that Peeta could come home, too, like they had done during their first time in the arena. And then she thinks of Peeta's family. Of his mother, a cruel woman she'd never felt anything but contempt for, but who still had to feel something upon seeing her son go twice to the place of nightmares. His father, who'd always been kind, and who'd promised to make sure Prim wouldn't starve if she died. His brothers, that she knows nothing about; was Peeta close to them? She can't even remember their names.

She wonders if they came in here, looking for something to hold onto.

She knows she does. On her nightstand, there's a seashell sent by Annie where lay the pearl and the medallion Peeta gave her on the beach. Tokens from the boy with the bread. Gifts she cherishes dearly, from the boy who loved her, the boy she took so long to let in; the boy she took so long to acknowledge her feelings for. And now he's gone.

God, how it hurts. To know Peeta's out there somewhere, but that he doesn't love her anymore. That the sweet boy who'd grown to be this brave young man who gave her strength will never look at her again like he did on that beach.

It kills her.

Prim is gone. Peeta is gone. Everybody's gone.

Even dead, Snow wins.

It hits her like the lightning hit that tree; it doesn't break her – no, she won't be allowed the luxury to just crumble and die, and finally get some peace – but it damages her beyond repair.

The only one who could mend her heart and life is gone.

Instead, she turns to the only person who can understand what it feels like to feel nothing but pain and agony.

Haymitch.

He's dead drunk on his couch when Katniss stomps in his house, but the minute she starts crying again, Haymitch is awake and sober. The sound only breaks what remains of his heart; the sight of her, tousled hair and puffy eyes and angry red marks where she dug her nails to ground herself, brings him back to Thirteen and the mentally unstable girl who'd flung herself in his arms, trying to find comfort in him.

She does exactly the same.

"Oh, sweetheart," he murmurs in her hair, awkwardly patting her head, his free hand soothing down her back. He feels her hot tears rolling down his neck, her tiny hands grabbing at the front of his shirt, and Haymitch feels that one thing he only feels for her and the boy: the desperate need to protect her, to shield her from the rest of the world. Isn't it why he came back? To guard her, to take care of her? Even if he's only watched her from afar, leaving her care to Greasy Sae, it's still his job – will always be his job to be there for her, for them.

"I want him back," Katniss struggles to whisper, all but choking on her sobs. "I want him back, Haymitch. I want him," she repeats. There's nothing petulant in her tone; nothing but pain and heartache, and she's had so much of them, too much.

"I know, sweetheart. I know," Haymitch replies quietly, still stroking her hair and back. "It's gonna be okay, I promise." He knows she has no reason to trust him, not after all these promises he'd made and broken, but somehow it seems to calm her down. Haymitch gently pushes her off of him, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. "It's gonna be okay, Katniss." He takes her in, pale and exhausted, too thin, and he shakes his head. "You need to take care of yourself. When's the last time you actually went out in the sun?"

She laughs, and then sniffles, and smiles. "What about you?" she asks, almost cheekily.

That's his girl.

Haymitch chuckles, patting her cheek before getting up. He comes back with a glass of water and Katniss empties it in one gulp; from running to Prim in her nightmare, to desperately looking for Peeta, she's dehydrated. "You know, he's allowed phone calls," he tells her after a moment. "It could help him, knowing you still care about him."

"Of course I do," Katniss replies, almost defensively. She doesn't even know why, because it makes no sense to be angry with Haymitch.

"We're talking about the boy who's been tortured until he would forget he loved you," Haymitch says, his tone calm and patient. "Right about now, the only thing he knows is that he's dangerous and that he's confined in the Capitol with Aurelius until the old man decides he can go on with what's left of his life."

Tears start rolling down her cheeks again, but this time Katniss wipes them, refusing to cry again. It's ridiculous, really, because while she has no problem telling Haymitch how she feels on a night of weakness, the idea of calling Peeta over the phone to tell him sounds terrifying. Kissing him to bring him back to her was easy; back then, she hadn't been able to think of something else. But things have changed. She remembers the look in his eyes when she voted yes to another Hunger Games; but then he'd kept her from killing herself with the berries, and for a second Katniss tries to imagine what it's like not to know how you feel about someone, but still feel that impulse to save them.

And then she realizes she knows that feeling oh so well.

"I can't," she admits weakly, shaking her head. "But you…you tell him. Please," she begs Haymitch. "Tell him…tell him that I still have his pearl."

Haymitch nods, even though he has no idea what she's talking about and doubts that it'll help Peeta with his altered memories. But what does he know anyway? No one else seems to understand what these two feel for each other – he's not even sure they know themselves.

Just as quickly as she stomped in, she's gone, and Haymitch stands at the doorframe, watching her walk not to her house, but to Peeta's.

Greasy Sae offers her help, but Katniss declines it politely, saying she needs to do this alone; Haymitch just sits on his porch, bottle in hand, eyes trained on her.

She spends the whole day cleaning his house. Dusting the shelves, polishing the furniture, mopping the floors. She throws sheets, curtains and rugs out of the window, and then washes them in a basin with water and soap; each Victor's house comes with a washing machine, but she seems to need to do it on her own. The exhaustion helps her forget, and focus on something else than the boy she misses so much, even if her labor comes from cleaning his house. It takes a few hours for Haymitch to understand why.

She thinks that if the house is ready, he'll come home sooner.

He sees her break down as she tries to wash his clothes. Portia and Cinna's touch. People she loved; losses she still mourns. Haymitch goes to her and kneels down beside her, taking the shirt she was trying to wash from her hands. "Here, lemme do that," he says gently, soaking it in the water. The fabric is a muted orange, and Haymitch smiles. "That'd go well with that dress you wore in Eleven," he says.

Katniss gives him a small smile. "I remember thinking that Peeta would love it," she says, more to herself than to Haymitch. "His favorite color's orange, you know."

He takes her in, dark braid and grey eyes, still wearing the blue gown from the night before, and he thinks, no matter what, you'll always be his favorite thing.

She hunts. Peeta bakes. Haymitch drinks.

He's been back for five weeks now. In retrospect, she's ashamed of the way she welcomed him – if you can call running away from Peeta welcoming him. There's a part of her that didn't believe that he was really there; there was this tiny part that was afraid of running to him and hug him, after how he'd tried to strangle her the last time she'd done just that. But mostly she didn't know where they stood. Was she still allowed to want his arms around her? Did he still want to be her friend? Or more?

For years, she'd always done one thing when faced to the unknown: run.

But she's tired of running. So tired.

She sees him every day. At first, he just comes by for breakfast, a loaf of bread or a tray of cheese buns in hand. They hardly talk. She wants to say something, anything, but the words are stuck in her throat, and she just ends up staring at him; when he looks up and their eyes meet, she tries hard not to look away and blushes. He smiles. Two weeks in and he shows up for every meal, bearing bread or muffins. Three weeks in, she has one of her worst nightmares, one that leaves her crying all night, clawing at the inside of her palms, desperately trying to get a grip on reality. Peeta sees the cuts on her hands the following day and cleans them up; he's so gentle that it makes her cry again. And then, he draws her in his arms, cradling her against him, and it's the first time in months that she feels alive.

She almost asks him to stay the night. She needs him – God, she wants him – but she doesn't know how to say it without sounding like she just wants him there to take care of her. She doesn't know how to say that she wants him because it's him, and she's missed him, and there's no one else she cares about this much. So she doesn't say anything.

That night, she accidentally breaks a plate while doing the dishes and he freezes. He breathes hard, digs his teeth in his lip and draws blood. Her instincts scream at her to run; but she doesn't. Instead, as he clenches the back of a chair, she remembers how he told her that pain was the only thing grounding him, and she decides that this has to end. Pain only brings more pain, and there's only so much pain someone should have to bear. So she wraps her arms around him from behind; holds onto him as he hisses and screams, and never lets go.

When the trembling subsides, he can't even meet her eyes. It kills her. Because she's let him see her at her weakest; because she's allowed herself to take comfort from him – and she wants to do that for him, too. So when he tries to escape her embrace, she only tightens it, and says, "Don't let him take you away from me. Not again." He turns in her arms, facing her, and for a second she believes he's going to kiss her – she realizes she's already standing on her toes. She wants it. But he doesn't; he wraps his arms around her and breathes her in for a long moment, and she silently cries against his chest. He does, too.

One morning of the fifth week, she walks out of her house to go to the woods, and her eyes are drawn to the yellow bushes. She's been avoiding them since Peeta's return; the gesture was sweet, but it was too much. Katniss fully turns to look at them, and the next moment she's kneeling on the ground, holding a delicate bloom to her nose and inhaling its sweet scent. She closes her eyes and she sees Prim, so young and so beautiful, just like the flower she was named for. She sees her father, too, taking her to the woods, teaching her everything she knows. She sees her mother, the pink flush on her delicate skin every time her father would come home and kiss her cheek. Katniss opens her eyes again, and instead of pain, she sees beauty.

Only Peeta could do that. Give meaning to the world again.

She rises to her feet and goes in, looking for a pair of scissors, and she makes four bouquets. One for her house, one for Peeta, one for Haymitch and one for Sae. She puts her flowers in a vase and then she's climbing the stairs before she knows it, her hand on the doorknob of Prim's room; it's with a shaking hand that she slowly opens it, and she focuses hard on the beauty and not the pain. She sees Prim sitting at her dressing table, combing her beautiful golden hair. She sees Prim cuddling with Buttercup in her bed. She sees her happy and gorgeous, and she forgets about the rest as she steps in.

She finds the ribbons in a drawer of the dressing table. She picks a blue one for Peeta's bouquet; it's the same shade as his eyes, bright and brilliant and beautiful. Katniss presses her lips together, refusing to ruin this moment by crying again, and she knows he'll be proud of her. She picks a pink ribbon for Haymitch, thinking of Effie's wig, and another blue one for Sae, just like the blue yarn her granddaughter played with. She goes back downstairs and makes her bouquets, delivering Haymitch's first, and then Sae's; she knows Peeta will be in town all day, helping with the reconstruction.

She's hanging out the washing when she spots him walking up the Victors' Village alley. His face immediately lights up with a beaming smile and he walks just a bit faster; for the first time in weeks, Katniss allows herself to really take him in. No one could see he has a prosthetic leg, with the way he walks and runs and lifts heavy loads; he's tall and lean and strong again, and she longs for the feel of those arms around her. The thought brings a pink flush to her skin, but it's not embarrassment she feels; there's warmth spreading over her entire body that isn't entirely unpleasant – in fact, she likes it.

Peeta finally reaches her, sweat slicking his forehead from the exhaustion of the reconstruction, hard muscles showing under his slightly too tight shirt. "Hey," he smiles. "How was your day?" he asks, leaning against the side of the house.

"Good," she replies with a smile. "I meant to go help today, but I ended up doing something else instead."

"It's okay," Peeta says. "Let me go wash my hands and I'll help you with that," he adds, nodding at the laundry basket.

She grabs his wrist gently as he turns, and Peeta frowns just a little. "No, no, it's okay. You should go take a shower, and I'll fix you something to eat in the meantime. Okay? I'll bring it over."

He grins. There's just something about a domestic Katniss that is entirely too endearing. "Okay," he says, and before he can over think it, he leans in and presses a quick kiss to her cheek. Katniss looks up at him, wide eyes and bright smile, and he almost kisses her. Instead, he gives her another smile and then walks to his house.

Katniss lifts her hand to her cheek, and she feels her heated skin; she definitely likes that warmth.

She makes him a sandwich; it's too early for dinner, and she's not as good a cook as he is. She can make something substantial, like stew, but it's a fine, warm day, the kind of day that she used to love back when her dad would take her to the lake and they'd have a picnic of berries in the woods. Katniss then grabs his bouquet and goes to his house, waiting for him in his backyard. It's a beautiful day and she wants to be outside.

She smells his shampoo before she hears him coming closer; she thinks she'll always love the scent of cinnamon better on him. Peeta takes the seat next to her on the porch, and he frowns again as he sees the flowers in her hand. It's a curious little frown he seems to be wearing a lot around her; sometimes it shows confusion, sometimes pain or struggle as he tries to understand what's going on. Katniss smiles at him encouragingly and he mirrors her. "I never thanked you," she says softly, giving him the flowers. She sees his fingers touch the blue ribbon, recognition flicking in his eyes, and Peeta opens his mouth before closing it again. He just nods, and Katniss goes on, "Prim always loved you. When I – when I…" she starts, her voice cracking for a second before she steadies it. "When I wasn't there for you, she kept saying that I shouldn't give up on you. Because you were still there, deep inside. And she was right." A lone tear escapes her eye, and his thumb is wiping it before she can lift her hand to her face. "It was really sweet, what you did. Thank you."

He smiles at her, and she thinks that he has the most beautiful smile she's ever seen. Peeta chooses a primrose from the bouquet and gently, he tucks the stem in her dark braid. "Here," he says, "it looks better there than in a vase."

She wonders when sweet nothings started making her blush.

And then she realizes that change doesn't necessarily have to be bad.

They don't really discuss it. One night he just stays longer than usual, and they end up falling asleep on her couch, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. When Katniss comes awake a few hours later, she feels happy and light and free, and she doesn't want the feeling to ever end. She watches him quietly, her eyes roaming from the burn scars dotting his skin to the way his lashes tangle up together, and she realizes that this feeling of peace has always been related to him. She remembers the nights spent in his arms, the way he looked at her like she was so precious, all these peaceful moments they spent together when she broke her heel and had to stay home; there are still moments when his eyes go dark and he clenches his teeth and she's afraid she's going to lose him, but he's here. Peeta's here and for the past few months he's been regaining a lot of his memories.

When he looks at her or wraps his arms around her, she's almost sure that he remembers loving her.

She doesn't allow herself to think he does love her, though.

Peeta stirs, slowly blinking his lashes. "Hey," he murmurs sleepily. He tucks a stray curl behind her ear before glancing around. "I should probably get going," he says, though he sounds as reluctant to leave as she is to let him go.

"You don't have to," she tells him softly, forcing herself to look into his eyes. She needs to say no more; he's up on his feet, tugging at her hand and leading her to the stairs. She almost laughs because this is her house and he's the one leading her to her own bedroom, but she can't because her heart is about to burst out of her chest.

She falls asleep as soon as they get under the sheets, Peeta spooning her from behind, his face nuzzled in her neck, his arms tightly wrapped around her.

It's the first night without nightmares. They'll come back, Katniss knows it; but just like in the arena, Peeta and she do better together. It's late in the morning when she wakes again, and she blinks open her eyes to find Peeta gazing down at her. "Hey," she slurs. "You stayed."

Her stomach growls, and he laughs. "I didn't want you to wake up alone. But now I guess I should go make you breakfast," he smiles.

Katniss shakes her head. "No. Can we just stay here a little bit longer?" she asks softly, already curling up to him.

He wraps his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin. "You asked me that, once. When you broke your heel. You asked me to stay. Real or not real?"

"Real." And you said you'd always stay with me, Katniss dares not add.

"I hardly get any sleep," he confesses after a moment. Katniss looks up, seeing that curious little frown on his face again; she's been so busy thinking about how she couldn't sleep without him, that she didn't really take any time thinking about him. As usual, Haymitch would say. "I remember nights on the train. Real or not real?"

She nods. "Real." And then she adds, "There were still nightmares, but it was better. Thanks to you."

Peeta seems to ponder her quiet admission for a minute, and Katniss just stays there, wrapped in his warmth, hoping it won't make him run away. She doesn't know why she's so scared; it's her thing to run, not his. "Can I ask you something?" he finally says, his voice just barely above a whisper, his words lost in the crown of her hair.

She's not sure she's ready for what is about to follow, but she owes it to him to at least try. "Sure," Katniss says, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye.

He stares at her for a long moment, with those bright blue eyes. They have lost this dark, cloudy haze they had after they rescued him from the Capitol; now they're this beautiful blue again, soothing and gentle, just like he's always been. He sighs softly, and then he asks, "Why do you think I came back?"

Her immediate, selfish answer is, for me. But it can't be. Not after everything he went through because of her. She hears Haymitch's deep chuckle in her head, that tone he uses only for her, the one that says that she's disappointing him. So brave but so stupid at the same time. "I – I don't know," she replies quietly, averting her gaze.

He cups her chin with his hand and tilts it so she looks at him again. "Katniss," he says her name tiredly, and yet still like it's the most precious thing ever. "Do you know why Dr. Aurelius didn't let me come home sooner?"

That's a question she's been asking herself for months. Why had she been sent back to Twelve under Haymitch's guard, and Peeta kept in the Capitol? Hadn't he saved her life; kept her from committing suicide? He hadn't been hostile towards her at all at the Victors table; just shocked, maybe disappointed by her vote, but she didn't think he was a danger to her anymore – to anyone, really. So why did Dr. Aurelius keep him so long?

"There was a lot of talking. Mostly him," Peeta chuckles. "He kept telling me that none of this was my fault, and that I shouldn't feel guilty. As if it could change the fact that people died because of me." His hold on her tightens, almost to the point of pain; to his pain she answers with care, nuzzling her face in his neck, pressing her lips to his skin in a soft, feather-light kiss. She feels him shiver, and she remembers that one night on the train back to the Capitol after the announcement of the Quell; how he'd opened his arms to her, how she'd held onto him, promising herself she wouldn't be the first one to let go.

"You held me in your arms, and you kissed my neck," she murmurs. "Real or not real?"

"Real," she feels him nod. "I was angry with you. It wasn't fair, but after what had happened to Gale… I just couldn't. I couldn't hug you without thinking that you did the same with him when I wasn't there."

She thinks of what it must have been like, to be at the mercy of the Capitol, endlessly tortured. She thinks of the people in Twelve and the other districts, who had to see her pretend wedding orchestrated on TV, and then friends and neighbors being whipped or executed. Her wedding cake. More deaths. She'd been able to sympathize with them; understand, even, that they weren't ready to fight back. But not even once had she realized that Snow had done the same to Peeta; that they'd altered his memories not only to hurt her, to turn him into a weapon, but also to make him forget who he was.

"You had every right to be angry," she admits, guilt edging in her voice. "It wasn't fair, the way I acted towards you. Both of you." She pauses. This is exactly what she's been running from for years. But she swallows the lump in her throat and goes on. "I didn't know how I felt. I was confused. When Haymitch told me you wanted his help to save me the second time, and then you wouldn't even look me in the eye, I didn't know what to think. I thought you hated me."

"I could never hate you," he interrupts her. "I mean, they tried to make me hate you, but it didn't last long. I guess I love you too much for anybody to alter that."

Love. Not loved. Her heart beats so fast she's sure Peeta can feel it.

"One day, Dr. Aurelius asked me what I would do, if I could leave the Capitol. I said I didn't know. He just seemed to let it go, and we'd go back to talking about how it wasn't my fault if I had tried to strangle you, or called you a mutt, or caused all these people's deaths. And then, he would just ask again. I still didn't know."

"So what changed?"

Peeta laughs. "You still have no idea," he whispers, shaking his head, grinning. Katniss frowns and he laughs again. "Haymitch called. He called me a few times, but we didn't really talk. And then one day he told me you still had my pearl. When Dr. Aurelius asked me again what I would do if I could leave, I told him I'd go home to you. And that's when he let me go."

"Just like that?" Katniss asks, confused.

He laughs again. "Just like that. For weeks I didn't have a purpose. My family was dead. I thought you hated me. And then Haymitch told me about the pearl, and…" He sighs deeply, touching his forehead to hers; they've kissed a thousand times, but nothing has ever felt this intimate before. "Before that, I didn't care if they let me go or not. I had nothing to come home to. I thought…I thought you deserved some peace, and if I came back, you'd never get it, so I was ready to stay locked in my hospital room forever."

She thinks Haymitch was right: she could live a hundred lifetimes and still not deserve him. So she leans in. Her lips are about to brush his when Peeta tilts his head, and they land on his cheek instead. She's hurt and she's confused and she wants to run, run, run, but Katniss forces herself to breathe and be still. She can't just go around kissing him like that; not when he's done all the talking, and she hasn't said a thing.

They both know she's not ready yet.

She can't tell him she loves him; can't, because it's still so new, the acknowledgement of her feelings. So she tells him, "Stay with me."

He kisses the top of her head. "Always."

The following day, she walks over to his house to pick up his things.

Haymitch raises his bottle as he watches them go from his house to hers, arms full of boxes. "About damn time, kids," he calls out.

There are days when they laugh so hard it hurts.

But there are also days when his eyes go dark and he screams vicious, horrible things at her.

She tries to ground him, saying not real, not real, not real, until he calms down. But one night he overpowers her, and he's slamming her head against the wall when Haymitch knocks him out with a bottle.

She's weeping quietly, curled up to him, when he comes to, hands over his head, cuffed to the stairs. Haymitch is sitting on a chair at the table, and he says, "You two need to work out some tension here." And he leaves. Smirking.

Katniss reaches for the keys but Peeta stops her. "No. I don't trust myself," he tells her, his voice shaking. "Go to bed. Lock the door. Take a knife with you."

"Peeta, I'm not –"

"Katniss," he interrupts her. "If it wasn't for Haymitch, I'd have killed you."

"So what?" she asks him, angry now. "I'm supposed to leave you there, cuffed to the stairs?"

"Yes!" he says, eyes wide. "Don't you see how –"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, because her mouth is on his and her hands are cupping his cheeks and the rest of the world ceases to exist.

She thinks of Annie and Finnick, and how they always looked lost in a daze of happiness.

And then she looks at Peeta and she feels the same.

She writes. He paints. They seal the pages with their tears.

They promise they'll live well to make their deaths count.

On that night she feels the heat and the hunger again, she finally understands what desire and need and want mean.

Love, even.

He kisses her goodnight, but when he tries to pull back, she holds onto him, keeping him close – it's impossible for them to get any closer, but Katniss tries with all she's worth. She kisses him again, long and deep and sweet this time, and then it's a blur of flurry kisses and gentle caresses and the promises of more, more, more.

Her mind's in a cloudy haze, but the world finally seems to make sense.

So, when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?" she doesn't hesitate. She presses her lips to his again, and says, "Real."

After breakfast, Haymitch suggests he and Peeta should go take a walk.

When Peeta comes back, his face is flushed and he won't meet her eyes for the rest of the morning. Katniss tries hard not to laugh; really, she's relieved that Haymitch chose to talk to Peeta and not her. But mostly she's too happy to tease him.

Haymitch is their family, no matter what. And it brings tears to her eyes to see that he pushed himself to do this, go talk with Peeta like a father would do. She lost her father; she might never see her mother again. Peeta's entire family is gone. Only Haymitch remains.

They're all damaged and sick and weird, but they're a family.

They grow back together.

Peeta comes home to find the house completely upside down.

He finds her in their closet, knees bent to her chest, arms wrapped around them, puffy red eyes and running nose. "Oh, Katniss," he whispers before sitting next to her. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and she nuzzles her face in his neck. "What happened?" he asks.

"I – I lost it," she murmurs, sobs catching in her throat. "I'm sorry. I lost it. I've looked all around the house, and I can't find it. I'm sorry"

This is a terrible idea, boy, he hears Haymitch say in his head. She's gonna freak out and she might even end up saying no.

Peeta retrieves something from his shirt pocket, and hands it over to Katniss. "Is this what you're looking for?" he asks, unable to suppress the smile on his face.

Her eyes go round as she sees the pearl in his hand, and Katniss beams, happy tears rolling down her cheeks. "You found it!" she says, grabbing the pearl with one hand, the other cupping his jaw as she leans in for a kiss. She pulls back to smile at him, and it's then that she sees it.

The ring the pearl has been set in.

Her eyes grow even wider, if possible, and Peeta would laugh if his heart wasn't threatening to fail him. And then, Katniss nods her head. "Yes," she says, bright smile tugging at her lips.

"You didn't even let me ask," Peeta teases, slipping the ring on her finger.

"Shut up," she laughs, before kissing him again.

"Why am I here?" Haymitch groans, smug smirk on his lips. "Dinner's not even ready yet."

Katniss glares at him. She nervously tugs at the skirt of her dress – the orange frock with autumn leaves Peeta loves so much – and decides that it's too pretty a dress to be stained with Haymitch's blood. "Don't play dumb," she warns him.

"You sure you wanna do this?" Haymitch calls out to Peeta, who's busy in the kitchen. "You know, she's not that pretty and she definitely ain't the sweetest either," he mocks.

Peeta walks to them, deliberately stepping in between a homicidal Katniss and a laughing Haymitch. "You're not that pretty or sweet, and we still love you, Haymitch," he says simply, grinning.

Peeta turns to Katniss and gives her a smile and she reciprocates it, and for a second Haymitch almost feels embarrassed because there's just too much love in the room and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Mocking them is easy; making the poor girl blush as he tells her that they should close those damn windows at night is fun; but he didn't even remember what it felt like to love until those two damn kids stepped in his life. It's still something Haymitch is not fully used to. "So, are we doing this or what?" he growls. "I'm starving."

Katniss rolls her eyes and Peeta just smiles, and they both kneel on the floor by the fireplace, toasting their bread.

There's a lone tear rolling down Haymitch's cheek. "Damn you, kids," he mumbles.

the end