I do not own The Hunger Games.

Plot: Present day A/U. Katniss Everdeen is the best ski instructor on the mountain. When a raging storm causes an evacuation of her mountain, she finds something unexpected on the slopes – an unconscious Peeta Mellark. They are forced to find shelter and learn to trust each other again in order to fight the elements and an unexpected threat.

Rating: M (language, sexual content)

Length: 4-5 chapters, probably not more than 12,000 words

Special thanks to:

*Sighing39 for the inspiration and cheerleading

*BaronessKika for cheerleading

All typos and mistakes are mine.

-o-

Black Diamond: A ski slope with a black diamond rating is said to be one of the more difficult slopes relative to others around it. (wisegeek dot org)

The Summit

"Katniss to Effie, over." Katniss Everdeen paused to survey the area, radio in one hand. The mountain in front of her, normally so serene and comforting, was a mass of swirling, blinding white snow. Katniss had grown up travelling its face and learning every nook and cranny and tree. She was going to need that knowledge to find the tourists who might have defied the safety advisory and stayed on the slopes.

"Katniss, this is Effie. When you're done with your last sweep, head back to the lodge. It's getting ugly out there. Over."

"Roger. I've got one more spot I want to clear. It's where the tourists stop to catch their breath on the Lunatic Fringe. Then I'll be down. Over." Katniss knew she was being rude staying out a little longer and that it would probably annoy Effie. She was tired and hungry, so she ignored the pang of guilt she felt.

Katniss heard a new voice come over the radio. "Roger. Get down here as soon as you can, Sweetheart. Effie's not joking around: news channels say this is going to be the worst storm of the season. Over."

"Roger. Haymitch? I thought Effie was coordinating the evacuation of the mountain? I'm checking something out on the Black Diamond run. I'll be down as soon as I can: ETA about 25 minutes. Over."

"Roger. But stay in touch. Visibility is already shot and you're not Ski Patrol. There's not much you can do, anyway and I can't have my best ski instructor getting hurt. I'll have Sae get some hot chocolate going for you. Over."

"Roger. Katniss out."

Katniss clipped the radio to her belt carefully. She pulled her ski glove back on, reseated her goggles and returned to scanning the mountain for stragglers as she slowly made her way down the trail. The snow was a thick, wet blanket, making turns treacherous. That fact, combined with limited visibility and heavy winds, meant that Katniss's descent was very slow going.

She reached the copse of trees a third of the way down the Black Diamond trail. The locals called the flat piece of land the Meadow because it was home to a grouping of small trees and some beautiful flowers come the Spring. Right now it simply provided some shelter for Katniss to reseat her backpack and scan the mountain with binoculars in the waning, gray light of the storm.

There. What's that lump? A Tree? A body? Katniss's blood suddenly hummed with adrenaline. She knew that there wasn't a bush in that location. She bent her body into the wind and used her ski poles to make her way toward the lump, all thoughts of hot chocolate and getting off the damn mountain gone.

-o—

What do I do now? Katniss thought. She had slowly dragged the lump, which had turned out to be a large and unconscious person, into a cave she knew deep in the Meadow, a thousand yards off the trail. That would help shelter them from most of the wind screaming down the mountain like a banshee. Visibility was gone completely and the falling precipitation was a mixture of ice and snow. Those combined factors were going to making getting down the mountain safely almost impossible. She was going to have to radio in her location and hope that Haymitch could get up the mountain to get them, which meant that she would have to put up with his snarky comments about how she couldn't take care of herself.

She sighed, reaching to pull off her glove and unclip her radio but grabbing only the empty karabiner.

Fuck. Where is it? Katniss was sure she had clipped it securely to her belt earlier. Sparing a glance at the inert form on the floor, she made it to the mouth of the cave and glanced out. The wind was whistling past like a freight train, the snow and ice nearly horizontal. It would be almost impossible to travel more than 5 feet from the location and not get hopelessly lost.

That damn radio could be the difference between life and death, Katniss thought grimly. Think. If you can't get help, what else do we need? Unclipping her skis and stacking them inside the entrance, she quickly tugged on her glove and scoured the area just outside the cave mouth for small sticks to use as kindling. Perhaps they could build a fire, but they needed dry wood to make that happen. She laboriously dragged what she could into the mouth of the cave.

For once she silently thanked Effie for her bright orange safety backpacks. Effie believed in "big, big day" disaster preparedness: each person was given a backpack during an evacuation that was fully stocked with water, trail mix and Cliff bars, a first aid kit, matches, flash light, dry socks, gloves and a thermal sleeping bag. Katniss was pretty sure that it even had an extra set or two of men's Under Armour. It would be enough to hopefully get her through rest of the storm safe and dry. She would have to deal with getting them down the mountain without help once the snow stopped.

Katniss made a small fire, using some of the drier wood and moss she had located inside the cave. The wet wood she left inside the mouth of the cave, hoping it might dry. The fire immediately cheered her and made the situation seem less dire.

She finally turned to the heap of a person huddled in the middle of the cave with a flash of annoyance. What kind of idiot stays out in this sort of storm? Knowing that she had already broken every rule for basic first aid by moving him, she gingerly removed his hood and goggles to reveal a shock of sun-streaked blonde curls. Her hand paused as she smoothed the soft curls off of his disturbingly familiar face. She gently touched the dried blood on his cheek and then moved to remove his gloves, laying them closer to the fire so they could dry. She unzipped his jacket slightly to check a carotid pulse and, with relief, confirmed that his pulse was strong.

She sipped some water and ate a Cliff bar while she thought of her next move. Should she clean the cut on his face? She wondered how long he had been unconscious. She tried to recall her limited first aid knowledge with little luck: her job was to race down the mountain, not fix up dumb skiers who put their own lives in danger. She wished her younger sister was there to play nursemaid – Prim was much better suited to that role than Katniss. She felt another flash of annoyance at the situation.

She heard rustling behind her and turned to face her companion, who blinked groggily.

"How are you feeling?" Katniss asked.

"Katniss? Katniss Everdeen?" Her companion said in disbelief.

-o—

Peeta Mellark felt worse than that time his brothers had dragged him out of bed and jumped up and down on him to wake him up – an event that had left bruises for a week. He moved his hand up to his head and then realized he was still in his ski jacket and pants. It also dawned on him that he was on a rock floor. Lastly, he also noticed that he was not alone.

He recognized that long, dark braid with a start. He doubted there could be two of those braids on the planet.

"Katniss? Katniss Everdeen?" He said, not trusting his own eyes. He watched her turn toward him and it was like high school all over again: the curve of her cheek, her tiny pearl teeth nibbling on her surprisingly full lower lip in such a way that he had to stop himself from staring and her signature scowl, now directed at him.

"Peeta." Her terse words did nothing to dissipate the familiar longing in his gut.

He laughed drily. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" He had meant for it to sound flippant. Instead, it sounded flat. Desperate. Like everything else he had said or felt in the last two weeks.

"Saving your ass." She sounded angry.

"You always thought it was a nice one." He pointed out.

She rewarded him with a glare. "If I'd known it was you, I would have left you out there."

"Thanks. I don't doubt that's true." Peeta sat up, grimacing. "Do you have a first aid kit with you? And why are we in this cave?"

She begrudgingly handed him the first aid kit. "We're in this cave because of the weather. I couldn't get you down the hill in your condition and now it's too bad out there for us to move. We're stuck."

Peeta stared at her and then laughed a harsh, dry laugh. "I'm flattered, really. If I had known that you wanted to get me alone again this badly…." When he saw her face, he added, "Come on, Katniss. Everyone knows that you're the best skier on the mountain. There's no way that you're stuck. You could be down the face in five minutes."

"Maybe if I hadn't stopped for you… There's almost zero visibility out there and predicted winds of up to 30 miles per hour. We're going to have to ride it out."

"You could radio for help." Peeta pointed out flatly.

Katniss shook her head. "I must have dropped the radio dragging you in here."

Peeta stopped wiping his face with an antiseptic wipe to gape at her. "You're kidding. Then we really are stuck here?"

Katniss nodded, not meeting his eyes. The silence was deafening, broken only by the rasping sound the cloth against Peeta's face and the popping noises of the small fire.