***A/N Update 8/18/11***

If you like this story, please see its extension, as proposed below, entitled The Embers. Thanks!

A/N: I'm not sure if this story is really finished as-is, so please take it as a work in progress. I was thinking of expanding it into multiple chapters, detailing the initial exposition of this story, so this would be some kind of middle chapter. I'm also thinking about writing alternately in Katniss and Peeta's POV's.

Please let me know what you think. Any and all (respectful) reviews are greatly appreciated. Enjoy!

Love, LilD

The Lake

We trek up the last steep incline before reaching our final destination. Peeta still doesn't know where I'm taking him; he would follow me anywhere today.

It is my 21st birthday, and the forest around us is in full spring splendor. A ceiling of fresh green leaves shades us from the bright sunlight, and mockingjays singing infinite melodies flit through the branches.

It's a perfect kind of day for me, like my old days hunting in these woods, with the scent of damp earth in the air. I've had many good days lately, good weeks even. Not always happy, not all the time, but good. Better. My nightmares remain frequent, but Peeta is always there for me in the night. He hadn't exactly moved into my house, but he has been spending nearly every night there for a while now.

Our growing back together is a long, sometimes messy, process. Peeta and I both have bouts with our demons, but we are working through them, together and with Dr. Aurelius, and things seem to be getting better all the time.

It was a rough start. I had initially resisted being close to Peeta, physically and emotionally. Although he had wanted to reach out to me, I was not in a place where I could deal with any of that. I was too haunted, too broken by everything I had been through, everything I had lost.

Peeta, while far from whole himself, remained quietly devoted to me. Every day he would come to see me, making sure I took my medicine and ate and bathed. I had let him, even though I was merely going through the motions, because I had somehow known it was good for me. Between him and Greasy Sae, I was kept alive. But I wasn't living.

One evening, after what must have been several months of this, Peeta arrived at my house to find me practically catatonic with sleeplessness and agony. For the past several weeks I had only been able to sleep in short bursts, night and day, vivid, horrid nightmares waking me, making rest impossible. "You're not sleeping," he had said, concerned. I wasn't hungry, but Peeta had made me drink some tea and eat something. I had changed into my pajamas and he was tucking me into bed, when his face furrowed up in concentration as he tried to recall something through his poisoned memories.

"I would sleep with you when you had nightmares," he had said. "Real or not real?"

We hadn't yet returned to playing this game; I wasn't ready for it yet. Barely lucent enough to understand what he was saying, too tired to care about all it implied, I had murmured, "Real." And then as I had lain there, facing the wall, I felt Peeta's body next to mine on the mattress. The heavy weight of fatigue became more than I could bear, and, lulled by Peeta's warmth and comfort, I gave in to it.

I hadn't woken until past midday to find Peeta sitting in a chair beside my bed, holding my hand with one hand and lightly stroking my hair with the other. "No nightmares?" he had asked.

"No nightmares," I had replied.

Of course, they quickly returned, but Peeta spent nearly every night with me from then on, and his comforting arms let me feel a semblance of safety and kept me sane through the roughest patches. Peeta, too, continues to have episodes where his body seizes up, a chiseled, stone-like grimace on his face as his tortured memories surface and dissipate. It can take him days to recover from the worst of them. Those are the nights when I hold him.

We went on the same way we always had, by helping each other survive. As I grew increasingly able to deal with talking about the past, Peeta would ask me real or not real questions, sorting out the details of what he really remembers. Working on the book has helped. By sketching and painting the many people who have been lost, they live with him in a way no one can tamper with.

During the Quarter Quell, on the night Peeta and I had kissed on the beach, I had thought for a brief moment that I might actually be in love with him. This feeling returned in District 13, at my first reaction to seeing him alive on television. I never had time to give any real thought to the matter, though. There were so many more important things at those moments than whom I loved.

However, as Peeta's mind continued to heal, it wasn't long until our games of "Real or Not Real" had turned toward questions of our most intimate moments together, the private ones. I deal with them the best I can, which isn't well at first. But as I opened up to Peeta more, I had found it healing for myself as well, in a way. By reliving that part of my own past, I came to realize that my heart was Peeta's long before I had allowed my mind to believe it.

I finally came to understand how much I truly need Peeta, for so many reasons. I was beginning to lose count of the number of times we had saved each others' lives. And I realized that without him, there is no way I would have been able to find any meaning in life again. Slowly at first, and then more deeply, I allowed him in, allowed him to love me, allowed myself to return it.

It felt right, falling in love with Peeta, I think as we come across the final bend in a trail only I can see. I've been up here by myself many times since I returned to District 12, but it took me a while to want to share the lake with Peeta. For a long time, it remained my last great hiding place, where I would go to be alone, remind myself of everything in life that is true, and good, and worth living for, or remember my father.

When I woke up this morning clasped in familiar, comforting arms, Peeta had said, "So, what do you want to do today, birthday girl?" I had nearly forgotten it was my birthday.

"I don't know," I had replied honestly. "I'm in the mood for hunting, but you'll scare everything away," I teased. Then, the thought occurred to me. Why not take Peeta to the lake? I found the more I shared with him, the more open we were with each other, the easier everything became. "Wait. I know." I had told Peeta that we'd be going for a bit of a hike, to someplace special. After a quick breakfast, we gathered provisions for the day into my best game bag before heading out to the woods. The lake, I had decided, was too beautiful not to be shared, and I know Peeta will appreciate it.

"Are we almost there?" he huffs behind me as I stop. We are there. "Wow," Peeta muses as he steps beside me and puts his arm around my waist. "It's beautiful, Katniss."

I lay my bag under a large shade tree as Peeta surveys the landscape with the eye of an artist. "How long have you known about this place?" he asks me.

"As long as I can remember," I tell him. We lay a blanket under the tree and sit hip to hip, and I tell him about the lake, from the memories of my father taking me here as a child, to finding Twill and Bonnie, the refugees from District 8, and how those who escaped District 12 during the rebellion were rescued from here. We both leave silent the fact that Gale had led that rescue. "I wasn't sure how it would feel, the first time I came back here after the war, but I'm glad I did. It's so peaceful here. And I'm glad I brought you here," I add, because I am.

"I'm glad, too. Thank you," Peeta says. Then, "Teach me how to swim? I never really learned properly." He laughs. I know we are both thinking of the time I gave him a swimming lesson in the second arena, which had just been a ruse to allow us a moment of private conversation.

"You're right," I say, stripping down into my underclothes and heading for the water. Peeta is quick to follow, and we leave a trail of cast-off clothing and wade into the water. Although the spring day is quite warm, the lake water doesn't usually heat up until summer. Right now, it's cold, but not uncomfortably so. In fact, this being the warmest day so far this spring, it's rather refreshing.

I do try in earnest to teach Peeta to swim for a little while, but he keeps wrapping his arms around me, picking me up like I'm perfectly weightless in the water, and I give up. I do manage to teach him to float on his back, though, and we float together for a while, holding hands, looking up into the endless blue sky.

"You'll just have to bring me back if you want to teach me to swim," Peeta says as we pull our soaking wet bodies out of the water.

"If you'll let me," I reply.

We move our blanket into the sun and stretch out on it, relaxing in the luxurious warmth of the late morning. It's not long until Peeta is kissing me, his lips caressing my face and neck, saying something about taking off our underclothes to dry.

After he makes love to me, I lie in Peeta's lap as he runs his fingers through my damp hair in the tender way that has become so comfortable.

After a while, Peeta points to the tiny concrete house, some twenty yards from us, and asks me about it. We retrieve our clothing, then walk toward the small structure as I tell him about playing house here as a little girl and of finding Twill and Bonnie taking refuge in it. I omit my few meetings here with Gale. He doesn't need to know.

As we walk around the house, I spot a good dozen waterfowl around the edge of the lake, and I remember that I brought my snare wire. I trot back to grab it, telling Peeta I want a duck pie for dinner. Peeta has been using his baking talents to concoct savory pies with meats and gravy and vegetables, and they're about as delicious as any food I ever ate in the Capitol.

Peeta kisses me before I go out to set the snares, warning me not to go far. His tone is casual, but I know he's serious. I return to find that Peeta has set up a picnic on the blanket. We lunch on bread, cheese, cold chicken, and fruit as we talk. We discuss with much enthusiasm my mother's upcoming visit. She's been a bit nomadic these past few years, moving from this district to that as she helps supervise the establishment of new hospitals. Even during her visit this summer she will be doing some work in District 12's new medicine factory. As Peeta and I feel able, we take occasional trips by train to visit her, but not often. She's so engrossed in her work, still burying her own grief, and I'm still not terribly fond of trains. They bring back too many memories of trips to and from Games, of the Victory Tour. But it will be great to have her come home to District 12, if only for a brief while.

After we eat, we spend the afternoon lazily at the lakeside. I link wildflowers into a crown while Peeta sketches the landscape, the animals, me. He says that when he comes back, he wants to bring his paints. "This place is perfect, Katniss. Like you."

We kiss for a long time, then he lies on his back and I nestle up under his arm, my head on his chest, and I watch the mockingjays singing from their leafy branches. And I sing to them a new song, one I know they haven't heard yet.

I know a girl

Who is joyful and free

She sings to the birds

And flies through the trees.

I know a girl

Who is joyful and free

Who heals from her heart

And is part of me.

I know a boy

Who is joyful and free

With a heart as deep,

Eyes green as the sea.

The mockingjays sing my simple song back to me. I don't even notice the tears streaming down my face until Peeta gently wipes them away. "That was beautiful, Katniss. The birds think so, too, or they wouldn't be singing it so loudly."

It's true. The forest is alive with my melody. I sit back against Peeta. He envelopes me in his arms, and I close my eyes and listen for what feels like a long time until the notes slowly fade off and the birds acquire other songs.

"Take a walk with me?" Peeta murmurs.

"Okay"

He helps me up, and we walk hand in hand around the shoreline. I check my snares as we go, finding three birds. A great day all around, I think.

We walk back to our picnic spot, hand in hand, and I can't help but think that this is the happiest I've been in a long time. Maybe since that fateful Reaping nearly five years ago. I push the memory from my mind. Not today, I think.

We stop, and I look up to find we are at the door of the house. Peeta looks through the opening, then at me, as if he's getting some kind of idea.

"We can go in," I say.

"Okay," he says, grinning. Before I know what's happening, Peeta swoops me into his arms, and I instinctively hang on to his neck as he carries me through the door. He kisses my forehead and gingerly sets me down.

The floor of the little room, exposed to the elements with only one window intact, is strewn with leaves, pine needles, and other forest debris. Miraculously, my old twig broom is still propped in a corner, and Peeta helps me tidy up. I sweep the last pile of pine needles out the door and turn to find Peeta laying twigs in the fireplace.

"It's kind of warm out for a fire," I say as he finds matches in my bag and uses one to spark the twigs in the hearth.

"That's not the point," he says somewhat slyly, which is odd, because I've never known him to be sly.

He pulls the end of a loaf of bread, left over from our lunch, from my bag. And then it dawns on me. Peeta and I have discussed getting married. I've known I truly love Peeta for a while now, and I know it's what he wants. But after I had so tenaciously held to the belief that I would never, that I could never marry, it has been difficult for me to accept the idea.

I'm about to protest, to tell him, again, that I'm not ready yet, but I stop myself. I'm not sure why, but something tells me to just go with it, to trust Peeta. So I do.

Picking up a pointed stick, I kneel beside him in front of the small flame at the hearth. Peeta skewers the bread as I hold the twig. Placing his hand over mine, we hold the end of bread over the fire.

"This doesn't really count, you know," he says as the bread browns. "We'll have to sign the papers, and this isn't our house, so we'll need to do a real Toasting. If you'll marry me, Katniss."

I look into his brilliant blue eyes and see them express the tender devotion that I've seen in them so many times before. The faces of everyone I've lost flash through my mind, as they often do, and I think about how unfair their deaths were, how I never want anyone precious to me to be taken from me ever again, how I don't know if I can do this.

"Katniss," Peeta says softly, as if reading my mind, "They died so we can live. They would want you to be happy." And I know it's true. We have to live, because they can't. We had promised, didn't we, when we memorialized them?

"I know," I reply as he takes the bread off the flame. Peeta rips a small piece from it and holds it to my mouth. I eat it.

"We could do it this summer, when my mother is here," I say as I hold the bread to his lips. But he doesn't eat yet. "Yes, I'll marry you."

He grins, takes a huge bite of bread, and nearly chokes on it. Once he's recovered, he lifts me into his arms and kisses me in a way he never has before, which by this point, I thought was impossible.

I find a feeling creeping up on me that I'm not very used to. It's the same feeling I had in the first games, when Claudius Templesmith had announced that Peeta and I could win the Games together. Hope.

"Real or not real," he asks me.

"Real," I say. "Very, very real."