Even in my hazy, half-asleep state, I hear the morning rain tapping empty rhythms onto the wooden bedroom floor. Ugh. You have to close the window. But then I become aware of the smoothly-muscled arm draped over my waist, the leg that had slipped between mine in the night, the steady heartbeat beneath my cheek that brings me to my senses. I curl into his body, his warmth, willing the world to fix itself and leave us alone for once; but the persistent cadence of the rain has a heartbeat of its own, one that I know I will regret ignoring. Get up and close the window, Katniss.

Cursing nature, I disconnect myself from the tangle that Peeta and I had a routine of becoming, letting his arm fall onto the hollow of the bed that I always filled. Immediately, the chilly spring air, heavy with the rain, cuts me like a knife. The desire to climb back into bed and fall into a coma is overwhelming in my barely-awake, single-track-mind state. As I shuffle to the window – why are you so far away, you Godforsaken hole in the wall? – I heard Peeta shift under the covers. His voice barely reaches me over the pulse of the rain.

"Katniss? What are you doing? Come back to bed," he murmurs, his voice thick with sleep. In spite of myself, I smile; I love how catatonic he is in the morning. It's adorable. Over the year or so since we had come back to District Twelve and during the many months we had spent waking up together, this hadn't changed. The nightmares and the flashbacks had become less frequent, but the ache I feel when Peeta isn't with me at any time in the day has only gotten stronger. Mostly things had gotten better, easier, since I told him that I loved him for the first time. I feel less guilty relying on him to help me work through the memories and the dull weight on my body that never really went away. In those moments, the difficult ones, I remember the way that he had smiled when I first told him, remember how happy I had realized then that I make him. It's moments like these, the easy ones, as well as the difficult ones, that make me realize how happy he makes me. How safe I feel in his arms, or even when he's in the room. How loved I feel when he looks at me. It makes staying alive, enduring the weight of my grief, worth it to see him smile like that.

I glance back at him, tousled and careless in the humidity, rubbing sleep from his eyes and squinting to see me in the gray light. "It's raining," I say softly. "I have to close the window." He nods, apparently satisfied with this explanation, and lets his head fall back onto the pillow.

I continue to the window, cursing when I step in the icy puddle that has gathered below the window. I push the window shut, muttering profanity and hopping over to the rug to rub my foot dry before falling back into the bed. Too tired to maneuver my body into its previous, comfortable position, I leave my head level with Peeta's stomach, my eyes tracing over the muscles under his bare skin for a split second before they close again.

"Katniss."

I groan, not opening my eyes, wishing for sleep.

"Katniss, you have to wipe the water off the floor, too." Since when is Peeta the voice of reason?

"I could care less about the floor right now. The weather's awful, so I don't have to get up today. New rule." I realize then how cold I am again and break my fetal position for just long enough to scramble for the blanket and drag it over my head, still a foot from my pillow.

I hear Peeta sigh and feel his absence as soon as he sits up on the edge of our bed. The moment I hear the metallic click of his prosthetic leg, guilt overflows within me, and I lift the blanket over my head to watch him hobble to the bathroom for towels to spread over the puddle. What kind of person am I, making him get up and put on his prosthetic so early in the morning because I'm too lazy? Whenever I brought up any sort of guilt involving his leg since we had returned to Twelve, be it in nightmares or situations like these, he always reassured me that it wasn't my fault, I had done my best and saved his life, he still loved me. So I just wait until he returns to bed, not bothering to take off the prosthetic again, and resettles under the covers, shifting lower so that our faces are level. I'm sure his feet are hanging off the end of the bed – mine are right on the edge.

His eyes are still sleepy as he reaches for my waist to pull me into him. His arm stretches out to provide me with a pillow, and I smile as he placed a gentle, morning kiss on my nose.

"Thanks for doing that," I murmur, trailing my fingers from his cheek down his neck and then to the arm wrapped around me, tracing circles onto his shoulder. "I don't deserve you. I'm too lazy."

"I think you have a right to be," he says, closing his eyes as he exhales, content. Times like these, when we are both so at peace, are precious to me. It took me years of loss and grief to see that, to appreciate it, to get here – a place where, for seconds or sometimes even minutes at a time, I am living in the present and not in the painful past. In our first Games, these moments meant nothing to me. Now they are my whole world.

"Maybe we should stop sleeping with the windows open," I suggest, moving my fingers down to his bicep, mapping out more lazy circles.

"It's relaxing, though," he answers, his voice almost at a whisper. I switch tracing words onto his forearm. Window. Rain. Relaxing. I. Love. You. So. Much.

Almost as if he knows what I'm writing with my fingers, he smiles, and for a moment it takes my breath away. "We'll keep it, then. I think we can handle it."

His eyes flutter open as he presses his forehead to my temple. A smile tugs at the corners of my lips.

"Well, now I don't deserve you," he whispers. And just as I turn further into him and just barely press my lips to his, my stomach growls loudly, twisting through my entire body and breaking our early-morning spell. Peeta laughs, and it's the loudest thing I've heard so far today.

"I guess it's time for breakfast," he says, throwing back the covers and sitting up for the second time. As I squirm back into the warmth, he grabs my hand and laces his fingers through mine, dragging me up with him. I complain as he pulls me out of the bedroom and into the hall, not even bothering to put a shirt on, leaving the pattern of skin grafts on his torso exposed; by the time we reach the stairs, I'm so indignant that he releases my hand – but by the time I've tried to make a run for it back to the bedroom, he is bending down, grabbing my legs, and swooping me over his bare shoulder. As he walks down the stairs with me in tow, careful not to bump me into the wall, my protests turn into laughter, and by the time he sets me down on the couch in the living room, I'm reaching for his neck to pull him down for a kiss.

He pulls away after just a couple, intent on feeding me. "What are you in the mood for?" he calls from the kitchen. I watch his muscles contract and relax as he pulls open the refrigerator, checks the pantry to see how much bread we have left (a lot, as always), starts the coffee maker. I hate the stuff, but Peeta practically inhales it every morning, so Plutarch gave him one for our first Christmas back in District Twelve. It was only after he had reassured Peeta that it was made in a new, non-Capitol-affiliated factory in District Three that Peeta would open the box.

"How about pancakes?" I ask, recalling the syrup we had tapped in the forest the week before. Looking at the spile that Haymitch had quietly lent us was impossible without thinking of clocks, ocean-themed wedding cakes, and sugar cubes. That had been a difficult day. But today would be an easy day. At least, I hoped so.

"Pancakes it is, then," Peeta says, smiling at me as he moves to pull out materials – flour, eggs, frying pan. His eyes are carefree, not intensified by the quiet concentration that overtakes him when he bakes, nor clouded with the violent memories of hijacking that threaten to consume him, nor brimming with concern as he shakes me from my nightmares and holds me in the dark.

When he asks me to get the syrup out of the pantry and I set the heavy glass jar onto the counter next to his busy hands, he pauses and looks at me. In his eyes, I see the memories growing foggier, weighing down the boy I know, the boy I love; hardly panicking anymore, I uncurl his tense fingers from the mixing bowl and wooden spoon he is close to snapping and massage warmth into his hands.

"Peeta? Peeta, look at me, "I say, relieved that my voice sounds so calm. "Peeta? It isn't real. This is real, you and me." I squeeze his hands. His eyes won't meet mine; they are fixed on something beyond my elbow, so I press my lips to his, counting on this to do it. I tell myself that it will because it always has, but deep down I'm terrified that one day it won't work and he'll really be gone.

But today, right now, in this moment, it does work; I feel his hands soften slightly as he deepens the kiss, one of his hands finding my waist and the other caressing my cheek. I place both of my hands on the nape of his neck, where I know he is sensitive, and this erases the hallucination completely. Thank God, I think. One more day with him.

He breaks the kiss, but rests his forehead on mine. I do my best to smile. "I love you," I say; my voice is quiet, but strong.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers. He moves his other hand to my cheek so that they are both tracing my cheekbones. "I love you, too. So much."

I smile; I am trying to lighten the mood, but I also can't help but feel the eternal weight on my heart lift slightly when he says this. I hope, more than anything, that I never lose this feeling.

"Well then, make me some pancakes!" Peeta smiles, but the sadness is still visible in his eyes, set deeper, it seems, in his now-pale skin. I wish I had the power to erase the last 60 seconds, erase the last three years, erase all the losses that haunt us. But if the last three years hadn't happened, you wouldn't be with Peeta the way you are right now. You don't have the power to erase anything, so what's the point in trying? All you can do is work through it, day by day. Moment by moment.

Peeta continues with the pancakes, adding lemon juice and vanilla the way his father taught him to. Please, God, don't let this trigger anything. I stay by his side, weaving my arm around his waist, tracing more words over the canvas of his bare back. Syrup. Flashback. Worried. Please. Stay. With. Me.

It is only after another glance at the glass jar of syrup that I solidify my decision – every movement, every word, every action must be thought through and considered carefully in the aftermath of a flashback. Feeling playful, I separate from Peeta and move quickly across the floor to the bowl of flour on the opposite counter; by the time he has turned around to see where I went, I have scooped up a tablespoon of flour in the palm of my hand and launched it at his face.

The cloud of white colliding with his still-pale skin reminds me for a split second of what it must have looked like above ground in District Thirteen when the Capitol was dropping bombs – the very same attack that Peeta had warned us about hours before, to his own punishment. But this bomb, this explosion of white ash settling on the floor, on the bridge of his nose, in his tousled hair, evokes initial shock and, seconds later, incredulous laughter as opposed to super-extended fear and the burning hatred of war. This war is made audible by screams of laughter as Peeta reaches across me to scoop up more flour and release it right above my head; I can only imagine how strange I look with the contrast of white flour and dark hair. Peeta would look absolutely ghostly if he weren't smiling triumphantly.

It is then when I run, since he has grabbed the entire bowl of flour and I am unarmed. As I duck behind the table, he launches more flour into the air, covering us both – as well as the surrounding furniture – in a thin white dust. I am shrieking with laughter as he chases me through the living room and around the entire first floor of our house; it is only when we reach the couch again that he catches me in his arms from behind, spinning me around as I curl my legs to my chest, still laughing. Just as we fall onto the couch, the entire bowl of flour lands bottom-down on the floor and the contents of the bowl explode into the air. And even though we know what a huge, ridiculous mess it is and that we will have to clean it up eventually, we look at each other and burst out laughing again, so hard that I end up falling from my precarious perch on the edge of his lap and rolling on the flour-covered ground, still hysterical, before he picks me up and settles me comfortably on his lap, wrapping his arms securely around my body, still quivering with laughter. His lips find my hair (undoubtedly covered in flour) and then my neck, where I'm sure he feels my pulse racing with the energy of the chase. I lift my hand to his dusty, ghostly-pale cheek, and smile again.

"You look pretty scary right now," I say, breathing heavily.

"Oh, yeah?" His lips move to the hollow just below my jaw, and my stomach contracts with excitement the way it always does when he tells me that he loves me. Please, God, never let me lose this feeling.

"Yeah," I say, suddenly breathless. I am vaguely aware of the ache in my cheeks from smiling so much.

His lips are trailing up my cheek, leaving a path through the field of flour. I feel his breath as he chuckles. "Well," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, "I think you're beautiful. So, so beautiful."

My heart swells in my chest, filling the room. I love you. So, so much. "Well, I think you're trying to get out of cleaning all this" – I gesture with my arm to the room at large – "up. Not that I can blame you…"

His kisses cross my cheekbone, running over the bridge of my nose before he plants a final one on the tip of my nose. "How about we finish making breakfast and leave it here for Haymitch?" His lips are less than an inch from mine. I imagine electricity sparking between us, bridging the minute gap.

My smile grows even wider. "I think that sounds like a great idea." I lift one of his hands to my floury cheek and press my lips to his, smiling into the kiss as his other hands winds into my hair. He leaves his hand on my cheek even as I slide mine from underneath his and move it to his cheek instead, my fingers absently tracing words onto his skin, vaguely aware that they will show up, faint shadows forming mazes through the layer of flour on parts of his face.

Pancakes. Hunger. Love. This. Moment. Is. Perfect.