"All I can think about is what got us here," Peeta tells me. Mason is asleep, and it is the middle of the night. We're leaving him with Haymitch come morning, and it's tearing us up. So we try to find solace in each other.

"We got us here," I tell him.

"I know that," he says with a smile that's both sad and heartening. "I meant every moment of our lives up until this point."

"That's a lot of moments," I point out. I sit, perched on the table in the living room, drinking coffee so I don't have to sleep. He stands in front of me, between my legs, absentmindedly brushing the hair from my face.

"I keep thinking of one in particular," he says, his thumb catching on the edge of my mouth.

"Which one's that?" I ask.

"On the Tour, when I showed you my paintings."

I feel a blush heat my face, and look down at my coffee cup.

"That one's a favorite of mine," I say quietly.

"Why?"

"You were bearing part of yourself to me that I hadn't seen before," I explain, the blush crawling up my neck and settling on my cheeks. "This entire world locked away inside of you that was perfect and beautiful and untouchable at the same time that it was wounded and just as tortured as I was."

"You said you hated my paintings that day," he says, a small smile warming his face.

"I did," I say. "Some of them. But they showed me everything that you were. Perfect, imperfect, scarred. I loved them and I hated them."

"It seems like so long ago," he says.

"It was."

He's silent for a minute before he says, "What I remember about that day is the way the sun lit up your face and how gray your eyes looked. For so long, your eyes had been closed off and distant. But in that moment, I swear, I could see every moment of your life in your eyes, everything you'd ever felt and everything you felt right then. I thought then that I'd never love you more than I did right then, in that train car."

I can't say anything that measures up to what he says, not in a way so eloquent. So I say, "I remember what came after."

He grins at me, but before he touches me again, he says, "I was wrong, you know. I love you more than I could possibly love anything else."

"I know," I breathe. His lips are almost on mine when I say, "You're so perfect I don't even know how you're real."

"You're going to be the death of me, Katniss," he whispers, his lips touching mine, his hands in my hair, both of our souls, our hearts, our bodies, entwined.

As we lift off from the dungeons of District 13, I can see through the window of the hovercraft that it's raining. Perfect weather for such an awful day. I put my head in my hands and groan. Peeta's hand falls on my back, but it's small comfort for me now.

Mason has never cried when we left him; not when we left him with my mother for a whole day because we were busy, not when Madge and Gale had him overnight, not the one night when he spent the night with Peeta and Haymitch. But he did today. Peeta had put him, gently, into Haymitch's arms, while we were both fighting tears. He'd looked at us for a moment, like he was trying to work out why exactly we were leaving him this time. Haymitch had smoothed down a cowlick in his hair, and wrapped Peeta in a one-armed hug. That's when Mason started screaming.

The sound of it was like a bullet had pierced my skin and lodged itself in my heart. Peeta had started crying, and Haymitch was desperately trying to calm the baby down. I don't know if I was crying, but it felt like Mason knew that this time, we might not come back. He reached for Peeta, reached for me, and tried to wriggle his way out of Haymitch's arms. In the end, I had to pull Peeta from Haymitch's compartment.

Now, on the hovercraft, we don't speak. We don't really need to, because I know we're thinking the same thing. How could we? He's only three months old. What if we die? What if he has to grow up without a mother and father? What if we never live to see him take his first steps, say his first words, go to his first day of school? My hand finds Peeta's immediately. Now that we will be half a world away from our son for God only knows how long, Peeta is the only real thing I have left to hold on to.

"I love you," I hear him whisper. To my horror, tears spring up into my eyes. I cover my eyes with my free hand until I think the urge to cry has passed, then lean my head against his shoulder. I've spent so much time agonizing over Mason and whether or not he'll grow up an orphan, that I haven't really contemplated the very real fact that Peeta could die in the Capitol.

I can't imagine it. Can't even begin to think of what life would be like without him. Our son without a father, only bland stories about who he was, how perfect he was, stories that will never measure up to the real thing. Lonely nights in a bed too wide for just one, rolling over and not feeling him, asleep and heavy-breathed, next to me. His smile, wide and bright, never materializing in front of me again. No more gentle words and rough fingers in my hair, his voice groaning my name. No steady arms to bring me solace, no sweat dripping off his forehead and onto mine, no more beautifully spun sentences on the struggles and joys and futilities of our lives. No more Peeta. Just a dark gray room, beyond which lies nothing at all.

"I love you, too," I whisper back. It's all I can say to him right now, but it's enough.

Everyone in the hovercraft sits in silence, too. Finnick stares at the floor with unusual intensity. Johanna looks both ferocious and deeply unhappy. Boggs looks out the window. Madge and Gale are bent over a map, pointing at things that I don't care enough to look at. Peeta and I look at each other, wishing we were alone, wishing we were somewhere safe, wishing for the war to be over already, wishing to be free.

We land in Twelve not much later, where a makeshift transportation area has been set up outside the fire zone. We're on the ground long enough to go to the bathroom and eat something before we're loaded onto a cargo train, where countless soldiers sleep with their heads on their packs.

Being celebrities—I roll my eyes—Squad 451 is allowed a small compartment with bunks and dim emergency lights. Peeta and I share a bed, and so do Gale and Madge. There aren't enough for all of us, so Johanna and Finnick share a bed, too. The trip to the Capitol will take three days in this old train, nothing like the luxury, high-speed trains we rode to and from the Capitol

On the second day of the trip, while Finnick is off talking to some of the soldiers from Eight in another car, Johanna lies on the bunk above Peeta and me. I wish I could say something to her, figure out why she's so unhappy—though it's not hard to guess—but before I can, Boggs comes over with the screen we're allowed to use to talk to our family. We're the only squad afforded that luxury, because of our celebrity status, but this time I don't roll my eyes. Peeta grabs it from him, but neither of us do anything, because we don't know how to work it.

"Tap the blue icon in the corner," Boggs says neutrally. "Find Haymitch's name, and tap it."

"Okay," Peeta says, and thanks him. Haymitch picks up in record time, and both of us crowd our faces around the screen. Haymitch has Mason propped up in the sling that he's wearing across his chest.

"How is he?" I demand immediately.

"Fine," says Haymitch, waving away our looks of concern with annoyance. "He settled down pretty quick after you left. He just needed some Grandpa time."

"How's he sleeping?" asks Peeta.

"Pretty well," replies Haymitch. "I'm staying with your mom and sister, Katniss, while you're away."

"Why?" I ask waspishly. Over the last month or so, my suspicions that my mother and Haymitch are together are stronger than ever, and this doesn't help.

"It's easier," grunts Haymitch. "They don't have to find me in the morning before work to give me the baby. More convenient for everyone."

Peeta sighs, and says, "Thanks for taking care of him while we're away, Haymitch."

Haymitch mumbles something about it not being a problem, and unbuckles the sling so he can slide Mason out of it. I hear Haymitch telling us that Thirteen is giving the baby a formula supplement because it'll take time for the frozen breastmilk I pump to be shipped back to Thirteen from the front. I don't really pay attention, though, because I'm studying my son's face, in grainy detail though it is. His eyes look bright and blue, and he's cooing happily at Haymitch. When Peeta replies to something Haymitch says, though, Haymitch turns his head toward the screen and reaches a hand out.

"Hi, Masey," coos Peeta. "Daddy misses you so much."

"Hi, baby," I say to him. He makes a fussy little noise and reaches further toward the screen. I know that he probably can't focus well enough to make out our faces on the screen, but he knows our voices.

I look over at Peeta and his eyes have that glassy look about them, and I know he's about to cry. He doesn't though, because Johanna jumps down from her bunk and crowds her face in next to ours and starts talking to the baby. Mason doesn't react as strongly to her voice, but he knows it's her. Gale and Madge come to see him, but just for a moment, before finally the screen is handed back to me and Peeta. Just me and Peeta.

Peeta talks some more to Haymitch, and it's obvious that Mason is visibly agitated. He reaches for the screen again, flails his arms around when he can't reach it, and begins wailing.

"I'm sorry, guys," says Haymitch. "We gotta go. Be safe."

Haymitch hangs up before either of us can get a word in, and I know that Mason's cries are reverberating around in his head just like they are in mine.

As if on cue, the train stops for fuel, and a gruff man announces on the speaker that there will be an hour long stop, so it's best we get out and stretch our legs. Peeta and I both jump up immediately and make for an exit, because neither of us can hold our tears in for much longer.

As soon as we're outside away from prying eyes, I sob, "I'm a terrible mother, why did I leave him? Why did we leave him?"

Peeta pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes, but under them, I can see tears leaking out onto his cheeks. He gives a great rasping breath and I wrap my arms around him. He breaks down into genuine sobs then, and I'm not any better. Eventually we just sit on the grassy ground in District Five, holding on to each other like we're the anchors holding each other down, and cry.

"I miss him so much," I manage to get out.

"We can't die in the Capitol, Katniss, we can't," says Peeta between sobs. "We can't let him grow up without parents."

"I know," I say. "Don't leave me here alone, Peeta Mellark."

"Never," he says, calmer now. "Wherever you go, I go, too."

"We're a team," I whisper.

"We can't leave each other," he tells me. "We can't leave him."

"Don't die," I breathe.

"I won't," he murmurs. "I need you, Katniss. More than anything. Mason needs you. You're not leaving us alone on the planet without you."

"Never," I say.

"We've lived through two Games. We lived through bombings. A rebellion can't kill us."

"No, nothing can kill us," I say, even though we both know these are promises we may not be able to keep. But I know, somewhere deep inside of me, that we'll make it through this war. We've survived through too much to die when we're an inch from freedom. We don't die. We'll live to see the day Snow is strung up outside of his mansion. We'll live to see Panem's first election. We'll live to see Mason turn a year old. We'll live to see Prim's eighteenth birthday; the day she would've been free from the Reapings forever. We'll live to see the day Mason turns twelve. We'll live through anything, because that's what we do. We survive, together.

When the train screams its warning whistle, we stand and join the other soldiers crowding onto the train. The train that will take us to the Capitol. To Snow. To violence that will probably scar us forever. The train that will take us to freedom.