Author's Note: Hey, for my friend Madonna, guys we are just going to say that Katniss got with Gale. And that Peeta moved on and fell for Madonna. Enjoy! And no flamers please.

How Peeta met Madonna

Peeta and Madonna met in the medical ward. With all the districts uprising and complete war breaking out nearly everyone has ended up in the medical ward at least once if they didn't go to the morgue first. That's when Peeta met her. She was so different from Katniss, and yet so similar. Dark brown hair short to her shoulders and it was wavy and loose about her face. Her skin was tanned from working outside and her nose looked like it had been broken before and not reset properly. It would have been a regal nose, but it was slightly crooked like her smile. Her smile was vicious though, that was how Peeta knew that she was a soldier like the rest of them. She was small and she moved quickly and decisively, with the confidence that the higher ranking officers were graced with. Her eyes though – they were brown but they were beautiful. They showed her mercy and her grace and her morals.

He learned that her name was Madonna, and from her hospital bed she commanded legions. Everyone came around her for tactical advice on how to move their squadrons and she offered her advice clearly and swiftly. It seemed she had never lost a fight. Why she was in the medical ward though was because she had broken a leg and an ankle and had bruised her ribs saving one of her new recruits. Madonna was also a new amputee, she lost a finger somehow; she never explained and her nurse attending to it never bothered to explain the story. She was young, only fifteen, yet she was already a captain. He never learned just how she was promoted so fast and so young. All he learned from watching and listening was that she was from District 13 originally and that she was not to be trifled with.

She wasn't loved by everyone though. Rival officers, usually of a lower rank yet older age than her, ignored her orders and never followed her advice. They more often than not lost their fights and sometimes even their lives, but they never learned. Their bitterness ensured that they would never be promoted. Their hatred came up with the idea to call her the Rat.

Even though Peeta hated the nickname – she obviously didn't deserve it – she just smiled grimly at the insult. From then on it was sort of like a hated nickname. She never acknowledged someone if they called her that to get her attention, and the only time she ever struck someone for calling her the Rat was when they tacked on ass. That was when Peeta learned she was violent. That private had his arm twisted so hard that it was dislocated from the shoulder, sprained at the wrist, and all the fingers were broken.

Madonna had shown her violent tendencies before though. Every time they lost a unit she broke something, usually an object although one nurse tried to sedate her when they told her that they lost a district. That nurse was sedated instead and had woken up with a bloody nose but no memory of just how she got it. No one bothered to tell her, she could have guessed what happened. But from then on they learned to never get in her way.

All while Peeta was there recovering, he was coming to terms that Katniss was not a monster and that she was with Gale. He was fine with that. He liked Madonna better. And when he left the medical ward he always came back just to catch a glimpse of her tracing paths along a map for their men to take.

One day though, he was visiting and he had finally gathered the courage to talk to her while she wasn't busy with the other officers. He was going to deliver her lunch and flirt with her, and if she broke one of his bones then great! He would be in the medical ward again, with her. However, that was the day he realized that she had been discharged and she was back on the field once more. He knew that he could not follow.

It wasn't until after they had won that he learned the news. She had died with the siege of the Capital. How she had died was a different story every time he asked.

"The Rat died when she cut the red wire on a bomb instead of the blue."

"Captain Rat died of dysentery."

"Rat died when a building collapsed on her."

"Captain Madonna was stabbed in the gut trying to save one of her scouts from enemy fire."

"The Rat's Ass died from a broken heart – she never wanted this war to end."

That last one, Peeta punched himself and they received a broken jaw for their lies. He finally learned from President Coin himself that Madonna had died under torture. She was captured and she refused to reveal any plans so they let her choose her death. She chose Night berries. Peeta had never felt such agonizing pain before as the mental anguish of discovering her death. Yet, he was glad that Madonna had died with honor and she didn't suffer terribly. Still, whenever stories were told of that siege on the capital he never forgot Captain Madonna and her sacrifice.