Although this story is a divergence, the ending is about as close to canon as I'll ever get. It wrapped itself around my heart, and I hope it does the same for you guys too :*)

Thank you so much for following, reviewing, and supporting this one. And all my gratitude to Chelzie and Court for their beta love.

Music: "Girl in the War" by Josh Ritter.

Katniss doesn't reach the Capitol. She heads that way after following Primrose's directions into the woods, but traveling undetected makes the route infinitely longer, and without a source of communication, there's no way of knowing what's happening beyond the trees shielding her. A couple of weeks into her journey, she comes across a refugee camp. She ventures close enough to steal food and spy from behind a tent as a group of men recap the rebels' invasion of the Capitol.

She'd missed it. Of course she had. What had she been thinking? What did she expect? To get there in disguise, on foot or by train, before Peeta and a bunch of D13 hovercrafts?

She hadn't been thinking. Not for a long time.

The refugees listen to reports on an old portable device while Katniss eavesdrops. According to what she hears, the rebels used the information she gave Peeta to rescue Annie Cresta and Johanna Mason. They infiltrated the city center, got into the mansion, and captured the president. They won the war. And that was that.

Evidently, Peeta had been chosen to execute Snow, but he'd publicly refused to do the gruesome honors. Instead, Abernathy volunteered to pull the trigger.

On that awful-wonderful day, Katniss curls up between two trees, a safe distance from the refugee camp. A butterfly lands on her finger and then flutters away. She allows herself to shed a tear for her grandfather. Just one.

She moves on from there, keeping a hood over her head and her mouth shut, cursing inwardly but surviving. After over a month of this, she reaches an island by boat, a tiny country northeast of Panem. There, an abandoned cabin materializes in the forest like something out of a dream she once had. The walls are sturdy, there's a fireplace, and thankfully the faucet still runs, but the rest of the place needs work. She trades squirrels at the local Hob Market for supplies to clean out the cobwebs and chimney, fix the roof and porch, and fill the cabin with blankets and dishes.

She cuts her hair so that it hangs just past her earlobes, dyes the locks a dark blond, and gives herself a shot—another item worth haggling for at that market—that changes her eye color from gray to brown. Her past is dead, nobody knows her here, and no one is looking for her, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be cautious.

She becomes Kat Everlark. The name is easy to get used to.

More months pass. Autumn ices into winter. Winter melts into spring. One morning, she sits by a lake and stares at the water's surface reflecting the sun, gold flecks shimmering over black. From the public statement her grandfather made, the world already believed Katniss Everdeen-Snow was dead. Yet for some reason, the rebels didn't refute it and instigate a search. Instead, they give her memory a posthumous official pardon. She has no idea what Peeta told them, what he bargained, but whatever it was, it protects her now. Her name has since vanished from broadcasts.

What did you do to make that happen, Peeta? What dumb thing did you do?

At sunset, she gathers her quiver and bow. It's been a long day, and her game bag is empty because she hadn't been able to concentrate on hunting, because she'd been too busy remembering him. A fresh wave of melancholy forces Katniss to a halt in the woods. His face is there whenever she closes her eyes. Her heart is so full of him that she'll never be able to push him out, even though she should. He looked after her, but he couldn't have forgiven her for escaping, deceiving him, leaving him the way she did. His life does not, will not, include her.

It's dark by the time she reaches the log cabin, kicks off her boots, and boils water for tea. For the most part, she keeps to herself, living quietly in these woods, learning to hunt and only conversing with the locals when she has game to barter. The one person that she's accepted as a friend is an older lady by the name of Greasy Sae, also a good tradeswoman.

As the stars glimmer outside the window, Katniss settles in a chair before the fire, the heat rolling across her bare toes. She sips her tea—no sugar—and thinks of double-knotted shoelaces and cheesy buns. It hurts to smile, but she does. It's quiet in this cabin. She's lonely, scared.

Will it always be like this? Is she meant to be alone? Has he thought of her at all? Did he think of her when her grandfather was shot? Why does she miss Peeta more than her own flesh and blood? Why?

Peeta cares about me. He always has. That's the difference.

I care about him. I need him. I can't need him.

Katniss's eyes sting, but she can't let it out. If she starts, she won't stop, and it will take ten times longer to put herself back together.

The days are tolerable, pleasant sometimes, especially when she's hunting. It's the nights that are tough. The silence. The half-vacant bed. The nightmares of children, chariots, arenas, riots, explosions, fires, war. Nightmares of her grandfather, the man who stopped breathing because of her.

Hours later, she wakes up gasping, having killed him yet again by telling Peeta her secrets. Repeatedly, her grandfather lives a full life and then dies inside her head. Lying back down, Katniss squeezes her pillow, imagining Peeta gathering her into his arms. It doesn't make her forget, but it does stop her from killing her grandfather once more in her dreams that night. Instead, she buries him.

kpkpkpkpkp

The birds wake her up, their tiny chirps flitting into the air from outside her window. The sun hasn't fully risen yet, but there's a pink-gold light hitting the sill and parts of the woods. She loves mornings like this, the openness of them, promising her another chance to do something right. There's no one—no maid or personal assistant—striding into her room with a clipboard, before she's even had a cup of hot chocolate, to go through a bulleted list of grim duties for the day.

No. She can do better now. She's read about the districts in Panem rebuilding themselves, and if she weren't officially dead to them, she would be there to help. Maybe she can do good things here—once she gets used to the people, and the people get used to her.

First, she has to finish working on this cabin. Even before that, she needs something warm to drink. Hot chocolate does sound good. She has a small jar of cocoa powder that Sae gave her as a welcome-to-town gift. It's so precious that Katniss hasn't dared touch it. She's tempted now, but can't bring herself to use it. It's the sort of sweet, creamy drink that makes her long for pastries—and other sweet things. It makes her think of a little boy who would have loved the taste, and thoughts of that little boy make Katniss think of the grown man he became, and that makes her think how nice it would be to share a cup with him. And all of that reminds her that she's alone.

Maybe just some coffee, though she hates the stuff. Wiping her eyes, Katniss drags herself out of bed, throws an oversized sweater over her t-shirt, and pads into the hall in her socks. The birds have apparently stopped chirping, and she realizes that she's humming a lullaby to herself: the only tune that comforted her as a child before bedtime, when she missed Peeta's friendship.

With a shake of her head, Katniss quits the tune and heads toward the kitchen. And that's when she smells it. A familiar aroma fills the cabin with its rich, yeasty scent. And . . . melted cheese.

She trips over her own feet. It can't be.

That's when she hears it: cabinets opening and closing. Her heart drops into her stomach. Blindly, her shaky palm reaches up and presses against the nearest wall for support. She leans into it, the movement causing the floorboards to creak.

In response, the sounds in the kitchen stop, too. There's a charged moment of suspicion—because maybe her loneliness, all those days and nights staring into the fire, have made her crazy—and then of surrender, because if she's gone mad, that's fine. If madness is this blissful, she will allow it.

All thoughts vanish once his footsteps resound through the house. Tears are already pooling in her eyes when his blond head appears around the corner, glinting in the sun's rays as the day breaks fully from outside. It's his wow-blue eyes staring back at her. It's him. His hair is longer and mussed. He's wearing jeans and a cotton shirt that shows how much weight he's lost. But when his gaze drinks her in, his features transform into the most tender expression she has ever seen.

"Remember me?" he asks softly.

"Peeta," she whispers, and that's all she can do. He's stolen her breath. Her breath belongs to him.

He looks as thin and pale as something squeezed out of a tube, but he's here. "You're beautiful when you're speechless."

"You look awful when you're tired," she says.

Peeta crosses over to her and takes her hands in his. The touch sends her spiraling, tears spilling down her cheeks. His throat bobs, like he's holding back from crying with her. They move at the same time, pressing their foreheads together. She's going to ask how he found her, but she really doesn't care. He's Peeta. He will always find her.

"This woman, Sae, told me where you live," he explains. "The door was open, but I didn't want to wake you. I made you breakfast."

"Breakfast," she echoes.

His nose grazes her temple. "I just thought we could eat together."

She chuckles through her tears and lifts her head to gaze at him. There's no anger or resentment on his face, no questions about why she left him the way she did. There's simply understanding. He knows. He forgives her.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," she says.

Peeta hoists her against him, hugging her tightly. He plants kisses in her hair as she sags into his chest, her fingers threading around his neck, inhaling his safe scent. They hold on and on and on.

kpkpkpkpkp

Peeta tells her how, after she left, he threatened to stand down as the Mockingjay if the rebels didn't pardon Katniss. It was a bluff. He wasn't planning to do it, but he was very convincing. He got what he wanted, although Abernathy and Hawthorne still hold that against Peeta.

With so much to do, he stayed in the Capitol after the war, then went to District 12 to help with the rebuilding. And then he went to find Katniss. He didn't reveal to anyone where he was going, only said he wanted to find a home far from everything. He wanted to live in peace, somewhere clear of the past, agreeing to return to Panem twice a year to be the Mockingjay.

Aside from that, he's free to be with her. This cabin becomes their home.

They pace themselves, growing back together. They sleep in the same bed—only sleep, nothing more. They're inseparable but careful. They touch but don't touch. They're so busy picking up one another's pieces. Sometimes they shout at each other about petty things: dirty dishes or innocent comments that are taken the wrong way. Once, she throws a freshly baked cheese bun at him, and he throws it back, yelling that he just pulled it out of the oven. The whole thing is too ridiculous, that they break into laughter. True laughter, splitting Katniss's gut in half, until they're beaming at one another like normal fools. Like kids feeling something very close to love.

They cling to each other on the couch. Talking, thinking, breathing. Most times, they don't speak at all, playing with one another's hair or fingers instead.

Another day, she walks into their bedroom as he's draping a shirt over his bare chest. He stops. She stops. The wanting is like an idea—swift and unexpected and there. Peeta's gaze flits over her. He isn't, and she isn't, and they aren't. But he wants, and she wants, and they want. In between all that, Katniss feels the not yet in her heart, and the soon in her belly, and very soon between her thighs.

From then on, she chews on her fingernail when she hears him in the bathtub. He closes his eyes when she licks crumbs off her lips from the food he's cooked. She sings while picking berries from neighboring bushes, and he leans against the porch and listens. He paints her face on canvas, and she shaves his, smirking at his jokes about letting her handle a blade around him.

They tremble at night from memories they can't escape. Then they hug and whisper about the day they met, and it makes them feel better—and so do the kisses, which he initiates, but she intensifies. It's tender, then demanding as their tongues meet. Those nights get hotter and deeper and longer, in more ways than one. The sounds in the room change, like a season shifting from one temperature to the next, from screams to sighs. It's not sex, but they work their way around that.

The very soon comes on her birthday. In the morning, Peeta bakes a surprise while enjoying music from an outdated player that he bought from Sae's stall. As one of his favorite songs floats through the room, a forgotten tune from another century, Katniss shuffles into the doorway, sleepy and wearing his shirt. The instant Peeta sees her like that, he grabs her. Propped onto the counter, she giggles as he alternates between feeding her bites of lemon cake and nibbling powdered sugar from her lips. He sighs against her mouth during a particular lyric about a girl who's been in a war and has eyes that sparkle and bubble into rain.

In the afternoon, she's floating in the lake, letting the sun hit her face, when the water ripples. Her eyes open, and he's there, next to her. She stands upright, wiping droplets from her eyes, needing to see him clearly, because he's an even brighter light. It feels wonderful and natural to be naked with him here.

A present dangles from his index finger: a pearl attached to a silver bracelet. "I found it in the arena," he admits, fastening it around her wrist. "It struck me that something so beautiful could exist in such a horrible place."

It's like her dream, when she last slept in the Capitol, which was never really home. This forest, this boy—they're her home.

Peeta kisses the pearl. "Do you like it?" he asks.

Katniss stares at the gift, then at him. "I'm in love with you," she says.

They barely make it out of the water. He hurries, carrying her across the grass, her legs encircling his waist. They pant in between ravenous, impatient kisses. They're dripping wet, but that's irrelevant. They need a bed. Fast.

In their room, her head hits the pillow. He covers her, all damp skin and shaky breath, his hips wrapped up in her thighs. As his open mouth brushes her nipple, she tips her head back. When he sucks on her with a groan, it makes her skin hum and turns her into the sun.

They say nothing as they watch each other. He drags his palm down the side of her neck, across her breasts, down to her knee. Grabbing her there, he hooks her leg over his hip and sinks his weight onto her. The last time they did this was fire and ice. This time, it will be different. The blankets shield them, cloaking them in a bundle of movement and anxious noises. He maneuvers, the crown of him just outside of her. She's ready to draw him into that achy place, but he grins, twitching forward a fraction at time. It's unbearable. Katniss has never begged for anything, but she does now. Her whimpers inspire Peeta to torture her more.

They're both wet everywhere. Their skin, their mouths. She's wet all over him. It feels so good, she might howl from it.

Peeta knits her fingers with his, forming them into fists, and holds them on either side of her head. He lifts his upper body to glare down at her. A delicious glare, not a dangerous one. Like this, locked beneath him, she's his. He's hers. Anything else is . . . well, they know.

He leans down to kiss her, then pauses just above her lips, and—Katniss's whole body bows off the bed. "Oh," she yelps toward the ceiling.

He's inside her. Just as his mouth hovers over hers, his hips roll forward, and he slides through her, so hard through her. And yes, he does it again, one long stroke out, one long stroke in. His rhythm robs her of breath. He thrusts up into Katniss for the third time and pushes a moan from her throat, all while his parted lips remain inches from hers. It goes on and on. He whips into her until even the bed is knocking against the wall.

They grow louder, holding nothing back. She loved him as a stranger once, then as a friend, then as the enemy. However, Katniss has never cherished Peeta more than she does today, when no one can hear them for miles.

"Stay with me," he gasps above her.

"Always," she says, because she's never been anywhere else.

With a shudder, he spreads her wider and gives her more. His head dips, her chin lifts, and their mouths do the rest. It's a kiss that deepens and wipes them of memory and makes them come. The pleasure seizes them, their bodies rise from the mattress, and they shout into the kiss.

Peeta feels the same about Katniss. She knows that he does, but wrapped up in his arms, she asks anyway. A simple question.

And he answers. Just one simple word.

Last sweet note: The paperback edition of my book is now available :) Check out my profile or tumblr for links!

I'm at: andshewaits (d0t) tumblr (d0t) com.