Thank you so much for the follows/favorites/reviews! I was absolutely blown away with the response the prologue got... I always forget how kind people on this site can be. I'll try not to let you down with this chapter! ;)

Also, quick shout-out to SFCBruce for helping iron out some of the wrinkles in this chapter, yet again. On that topic, if anyone is up for putting up with my snarly plots and awkward grammar and be a full-blown beta for this fic, shoot me a PM!


010. Go to Prom

Katniss grows accustomed to masking her horror, however difficult at first, as she watches her best friend's life corrode right in front of her.

In October of his junior year, Peeta is diagnosed with Telangiectatic Osteosarcoma in his distal femur. He's pulled from school so he can face round after round of chemotherapy, which causes her sunshine boy to sleep more, eat less, and lose his golden hair. Yet, even on his worst mornings, his eyes are bright and she finds him smiling, the sun still shining from his expression. She can't imagine a day in which Peeta couldn't manage to find an opportunity to shove some unwarranted optimism into their lives; he's always searching for hope and finds it in the most bizarre of places, but that's the Peeta she's grown to adore.

Yet, his withering condition still gnaws at her, even if he doesn't show his distress. Katniss has always been the worrier of the two.

On one evening in February, Katniss trudges through the high dunes of snow that litter their tiny town and scales the tree beside the bakery, thankful once she comes across the lifted pane of Peeta's window. She's grateful he always sleeps with it open, even in the heart of winter, when their tiny Pennsylvanian town is smothered in arctic temperatures. When she stumbles through the opening, she finds Peeta sitting at his desk, hands crooked behind his head.

He's been waiting for her.

"What'd the doctor say?" she questions, breathless, kicking off her leather hunting boots so she can curl up on his bed, bringing her icy toes to her almost-but-not-quite-as-icy fingertips. Peeta spares her the discomfort and lifts himself from the swivel chair at his desk, and while carefully avoiding putting any weight on his left leg, he crawls beside her and takes her feet into his hands. She gasps a little at the contact, reveling in just how warm his palms feel, and how comical the sight is of his large baker's hands completely engulfing her tiny feet.

"Shit, Katniss. Your feet are freezing," he hisses.

"That's what happens when you trudge half a mile in a borderline-blizzard to ask your friend a question he still has yet to answer."

He chuckles at her, always more amused than deterred by her crossness, which is probably why the two of them hardly ever argue. Although the girl practically lives in a constant state of irritation, Katniss notices that Peeta, even with his poor health, is seemingly incapable of growing irritated with her. She can only imagine how much worse she'd be if she had cancer, not him.

His eyes zero in on her feet to pointedly avoid her glare; she watches as he draws his lower lip between his teeth, which he always does when he's fighting for the right words to say. It's her cue to brace herself.

"Peeta—"

"Well, as of right now I'm not going to get my leg amputated, so that's always a plus," he tosses her way, his tone uncomfortably light; she knows there's more beyond what he's started to tell her, that he's just attempting to cushion her fall. That's what Peeta does best. Cushion. She knows that he's well aware she prefers bluntness over evasiveness, but it's something he's always struggled with. Something he probably always will.

She guesses that's what happens when you're good with words. You ruthlessly use them to avoid things.

"Peeta." It spurts from her lips a little more forcefully this time.

Finally, his eyes lift to hers as the heels of his hands knead the soles of her feet. If her heart wasn't pounding so rapidly from her anxiety over what he was about to tell her, she'd actually take the time to savor the feeling. She loves his hands.

He sighs.

"They're taking me to Pittsburgh."

Her heart coils between her ribs. "For what?"

"Apparently, my initial response to the chemotherapy wasn't 'ideal,' so they're sending me up to Pittsburgh. A hospital there has the drug I need, and their doctors are more adept at administering it, so I'll undergo treatment there for two days and then wait at least another 19 before going back to Pittsburgh to do it all over again. They said I'll go through at least three cycles of treatment, with radiation, and if it's effective... I guess they're hoping I won't need surgery." He attempts to relay the doctor's proposal while keeping his voice light, but his disregard of the severity of the situation doesn't ease the flipping in her stomach. She stubbornly folds her arms over her chest, her lips pursing, eyebrows knit together.

His fingers become more gentle on her feet, swiping over her toes unhurriedly, and she finds that he's watching her with his attentive blue gaze. Why is he looking at me like that? she thinks to herself, but the answer hits her the moment the question diffuses in her head. Of course. Peeta's more concerned over her reaction than he is of his own health.

Not only is the boy optimistic, but he is outrageously selfless, too.

"At least… I mean, at any rate, it'll make you better, right?" she offers weakly. She knows how strenuous the chemotherapy has been on Peeta so far, and she guesses this process will only make things worse, and there is little in this world that Peeta deserves less than pain. But if it keeps him alive, and restores his health at least partially… she can't complain. "This is a good thing," she finishes quietly, not quite convinced, but she knows it's what he wants to hear from her.

In response, he gifts her with one of his award-winning smiles.

"That's my girl."


Before she can blink once, her sunshine has been ripped from their tiny town, leaving nothing but a starved, frightened moon. She curls up in her creaky twin bed, the sheets raveled around her frigid toes, and she hugs her pillows to her, but it's a pathetic replacement for her best friend. She doesn't sleep.

Before she can blink twice, the sun returns to Panem, only his rays are dimmed now, his eyes dull and his smile forced. She comes to his window to find the pane closed tight; once she struggles through the frame, she sees him splayed over his comforters, fast asleep. He must've been too tired upon his return to even open the window. She crawls up beside him, tucking herself in his arms. He doesn't even stir.

He's not the same when he's awake—which is quite a phenomenon of its own, considering the boy sleeps and sleeps and sleeps—and although she initially tries to pass it off as fatigue, she soon realizes the drugs and the radiation have had a much greater toll on her best friend than either of them could've predicted. This entire process has sequestered parts of him she used to love so dearly, replacing them with darker traits that frighten her and make him less and less like the boy who's supposed to be her everything. He becomes far more hesitant, guarded, favoring silence over prattling on about whatever floats to his mind; Katniss quickly notices just how much she misses his running dialogues and smiles and hugs and everything that made him so definitively Peeta and so different from everyone else.

One of the hardest pills to swallow is that although he doesn't tell Katniss he wants her to stay away from him, it's clear he doesn't crave her company the way he used to, because he no longer curls up with her on his bed.

In fact, he doesn't touch her anymore.

This goes on for week after week, and it's barely noticeable at first, but soon reality is nearly screaming its sadistic truth in her ear. By the time Peeta's in his second month of treatment, and on his third cycle of chemotherapy (since each lasts three weeks), his father tells her that the doctors have diagnosed Peeta with depression. Apparently, the condition is not uncommon for cancer patients enduring intensive chemotherapy, but the regularity of the disorder does not comfort her like Mr. Mellark had intended. She misses her sunshine boy with his dimples and his gentle blue eyes and his readiness to welcome her into his room at night, who would let her double-knot his shoelaces for him, who would paint portraits of her and marvel at her abilities to take out nearly anything with her shotgun.

She waits until it's all over, until March turns into April which blossoms into May, and Peeta's treatment ceases. He calls her one day to tell her the tumor is gone, but his voice is quiet and not at all triumphant like it should be, so she promises she'll be over in five minutes to celebrate.

And he turns her down. He says he needs to sleep.

As each day passes, Katniss begins to feel more and more alone. The boy that had once been her best friend, her sunshine, her entire universe all wrapped in one, has vanished. But Katniss, with her stubborn conviction, refuses to let go of him, just as he once refused to let go of her.

So one night in May, she waits until the early hours of the morning to flit up Peeta's tree, slithering through his open window, letting herself into his bed as if she was always welcome there. Once, she had been. And she's determined to be again.

Peeta often sleeps on his back, and tonight his arm is extended across the bed, and she snuggles up against his side as if he'd left the open space just for her. At the first contact, Katniss feels him automatically stiffen against her body.

"K-Katniss?"

She nuzzles deeper into his chest just as she used to, before he began shutting her out. The gesture is mostly to remind him of how sincerely she cares for him, but she can't deny that it's also partially to soothe the ache that's been lodged in her chest for weeks. Although he never directly demanded she not touch him, his embraces have been so much less receptive as his treatment advanced. She knows his detachment isn't because he doesn't care for her anymore, because she knows Peeta well enough to know he'll never stop caring for her; rather, the treatment seized his sense of control, draining him of all energy and diminishing his capacity for patience. In his depression, Peeta felt broken.

He feels broken.

And she knows exactly what that's like.

She wants to restore this balance of power, somehow, by any means possible; she knows it's what she has to do to bring back her boy with the bread. If she can convince him that he's still in control of his own life, that he's not been abandoned, maybe he'll return to her.

"We were eleven when my father died," she begins, unsure of exactly where this quasi-prepared speech will take her, since speaking has never been her forte. "And I was so convinced that if I pushed you away, I would be able to somehow find my own strength again, by myself, because I wanted to be independent. Do you remember that?"

She feels him sigh, although the tension that wires his body still holds him stiff against her. "I do."

"You gave me the bread and showed me that, sometimes, the way to find strength is to let people help you get there. I always thought power was about self-sufficiency, but you showed me that, sometimes, the most empowering thing I can do is let people help me up when I've fallen down instead of struggling to get up on my own. Do you remember that?"

His arm, which has been lying limp underneath her, flexes below her shoulder and curls so that his fingers barely brush over her shoulder blade. Even a stroke so fleeting, so soft, makes her skin feel like flame, because it's the first time in months that he's reached out on his own to touch her.

"I do," he reiterates.

"And it was so foolish of me to think that things would get better if I pushed people away. I thought that would make me feel in control of my own fate again. But I was wrong. I was stupid, Peeta. Do you remember that?"

Even with the uniform cocktail of cricket chirps, bird songs, and the silky breeze beyond the window, Katniss swears she can hear him smile though the dark before he says, once again, "I do."

She's confident he's acutely aware of where she's going with this, and so she spares him the suspense and slams him with the crux of her speech.

"Well, I think you're being stupid, Peeta," she tells him, blunt as ever.

She melts a little when she hears him chuckle at her side, his breath sweeping over her temple. "Katniss Everdeen, always so considerate of the feelings of others."

"I'm serious. For someone who's always done everything in his power to get me to open up, you sure as hell are talented at walling yourself in. Some days, it's almost like I don't know you anymore, Peeta. And that hurts. You've always been my best friend."

A stodgy silence, thick as syrup, pours over them as he lifts the hand that's not caressing her back to run it through the soft golden down that's begun to grow over his skull again. God, she'd missed his hair.

She surprises herself when it's her voice that slices through the quiet.

"I miss you, Peeta." She says it in the present tense, because she still misses him even in this moment, since she's unsure if the boy in her arms is the boy he used to be. Her words are a desperate plea as she calls her lost friend back to her, back home.

He strums her heartstrings when he tells her, "I've missed you, too," because there's something in his verb tense that seems so conclusive, as if it's promising an end to his distance. As if he is home, here, now, with her.

Before she can even conjure up some measly reply, she suddenly feels his arms wrapping around her, anchoring her to his warm body underneath the pale orange bedspread. She's vaguely aware of the thumping of her heartbeat and the electrifying heat pooling in her belly, and she does everything in her power to disregard them.

"I'm sorry for being such a terrible best friend," he murmurs thickly, his voice tangling in her disheveled braid as he holds her. "I just... I haven't felt like myself lately. I feel so drained and ugly and weak, and I can't move or eat like I used to. I can't even paint. And, on top of all that, the doctors say that the cancer might come back, and it's so exhausting to think that after all this, it might not be over. That this may never be over."

Even though his words wring her heart like a dirty dishcloth, she's thankful he's at least opening up to her again. That he's talking. She missed his voice. "I know, Peeta. But you can't let the uncertainty dictate your life. What happened to the optimistic boy that used to think he was invincible?"

Although he chuckles, she can hear that it's only half-hearted. "I never thought I was invincible, Katniss. I just used to think that there was no point in being negative."

"Right. So leave all the negativity to me, Mellark. I do it best."

This time, the laugh that rumbles in his chest is more genuine, and she feels herself smile at the sound.

"You do have a point." He sighs. "I really am sorry, Katniss... I shouldn't have shut you out. You deserve better. What can I do to make up for it?"

In the darkness, she can't tell where her body ends and his begins, their figures no more than a mesh of black and grey, her heat twined in with his, his breath synchronized with hers. She decides she likes it this way.

Her mind immediately latches on to the response he used to give her time and time again.

"Just lend me one of those pretty little smiles of yours," she replies evocatively. She feels him grin against her temple.


As the summer grows hotter, the tension between them soothes. Although it takes several laborious weeks, as recovery from chemotherapy and his consequent depression is far from instantaneous, the sunshine boy and the lunar girl slowly ease back into the simplicity and the coziness of how things were before. Although Peeta is still bound to crutches and his energy has yet to fully return, his spirits have certainly risen, and the two are, once again, as thick as thieves.

Due to the numerous weeks of school he missed, Peeta has significant ground to cover to graduate on time, and even though she's never been able to boast paramount grades, Katniss is surely not unintelligent. She and a friend by the name of Delly Cartwright—a slightly chubby yet naturally attractive blonde who's fostered a crush on Peeta for years—team up to tutor him on the weekends through the fall and winter months.

It's a particularly bitter day in February when the three of them find themselves pent up in the school's pitiable excuse of a library, hunched over their biology textbooks as they collectively attempt to cognize the process of meiosis. Delly leans back, nibbling on the end of her pencil as she asks them about prom.

"Do either of you have dates?"

Katniss stares back at the blonde blankly, glancing nervously to Peeta, who is donning the same bemused expression as she, and her stomach flips as she tries to stifle a giggle. Almost thirteen years later, and Katniss still adores Peeta's wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights expression.

Delly rolls her eyes at the two of them dismissively. "Oh, please. Don't tell me you haven't even thought about it yet. It's in less than three months!"

Truth be told, Katniss hadn't even given it a moment's consideration. Peeta was barely out of the hospital during their junior prom, so neither had wanted to attend last year; Katniss assumed this year would be the same. Unless Peeta asked her, there'd be nothing on this earth that could possibly coerce her into making an appearance. And because it's their senior prom, she resolves that if Peeta does go, he deserves to go with someone better, someone prettier and kinder than Katniss.

An actual date.

As Katniss and Peeta's silence amplifies, Delly gapes at them like they've both admitted to living on Mars. "Guys… it's our senior prom! Do you know how big of a deal this is?"

"Obviously not," Katniss shoots back, half-amused with Delly's overzealous reaction. "It's just a stupid dance."

Delly appears to be personally wounded by Katniss's indifference; after all, no one could be quite as obsessed with stereotypical high school "rites of passage" as Delly Cartwright, Panem High's bubbly romantic. "It's one of the most magical nights of a young girl's life, Katniss Everdeen!"

Katniss is about to laugh at Delly's dramatization when she notes that Peeta has been awfully quiet at her side. Her gaze flickers over to him for a split second before lurching back to Delly, but the glance is enough for her to notice that his eyes are pinned on his lap, hands folded over the textbook, cheeks the shade of wild cherries.

She struggles to conceal her confusion; Katniss has never been a talented actress.

A triumphant grin sweeps over Delly's plump lips. "See, even Peeta agrees with me!"

She sees his eyes flicker apologetically up to hers, widening in embarrassment, his fists clenching. "No, Katniss is right. It's just a stupid dance," he asserts, but his tone is hardly convincing. It only deepens her confusion, and if there's one thing that Katniss knows, it's that she prefers being the mystery, not the detective.

When their tutoring session comes to a close, and Katniss carries Peeta's books as he shuffles on his crutches to his car (although he's allowed to walk without them, he says it's less painful this way), she watches him the whole while, trying to decipher his expression.

Once they reach the vehicle, she presses a palm firmly to his chest. The force almost topples him over, but he somehow manages to regain his footing despite the thin sheet of ice spanning over the asphalt.

"Peeta, what was going on in there?" she almost barks.

He frowns, playing the clueless card. "I don't know what you're talking about."

But he does, she knows he does, and she has little patience for his typical evasiveness. Her fingers, tucked in the pocket of her mittens, curl around the fabric of Peeta's jacket, holding him in place. She's always been the aggressive half of the pair. "Don't play dumb, Peeta."

The air between the two of them is so frigid, so dry and crisp, and she watches white swirls curl from his mouth as he breathes, quickly at first, then slower, the wisps growing more intricate. His lips are a dark shade of pink, and his tongue darts out over them to keep them from chapping, and for a split second she wonders what it would be like if she parted through his visible breath and pressed her own icy lips into his and—

A painful shock pulses through her entire body as she grows rigid. No, she didn't just think about kissing her best friend. Of course she didn't. They're just friends.

She forces herself to meet his gaze and she notices that his cheeks are flushed. She prays that it's merely from the cold and not because he noticed her staring at his lips.

Shit.

What is wrong with her?

He takes a deep breath, effectively derailing her train of thought. "The night that I told you I'd gone to the doctor for some x-rays, and they said I might have cancer—"

"Peeta, what does this have to do with prom?" she interrupts, exasperated, her own cheeks surely pink from embarrassment.

"Trust me," he pleads, and his celestial eyes are so sincere that she does as instructed without second thought. After all, when has he given her reason not to trust him? "Anyway, when you crawled through my window that night, you said some things to me. You said you'd do anything for me—" Still true, she thinks to herself—"and that I should find reasons to be alive. And… well, I did. I found reasons to stay alive. Ten, to be exact."

Her brow is creased in confusion. God, why did the boy have to be so ambiguous? "What are you saying?"

He hisses out a sharp sigh, and his eyes flicker up to the sky as if he's praying for a deity to help him find the words to tell her, and she wonders when it became so difficult for him to talk to her. He's always had a silver tongue, but recently, she's seemed to have rendered him speechless on multiple accounts.

He abandons all elusiveness and spits it out.

"I wrote a bucket list, Katniss."

She cocks an eyebrow. That's it? Even she had made a bucket list when she was younger—granted, there was something about a unicorn and castle written into hers, so she doesn't know how legitimate her own bucket list could be considered. But, especially since his own life was in limbo at this time last year, recording a set of aspirations doesn't seem too odd to her.

And considering that even though Peeta's in remission of the cancer now, the doctors can't promise it won't ever come back... she can't blame him for still holding onto it.

"Peeta, that's…" She frowns. "How does this have to do with prom?"

He runs his fingers though his golden curls, which have grown back thick and lush, covering his frost-bitten ears. And then his gaze falls back on her. Blue meets silver, and for a moment, she feels weightless.

What is wrong with her today?

"That was the first thing on my bucket list," he tells her, his voice trapped in the cold February airstream. "Go to prom."

Her chest caves a little, and she tries to cover her reaction up with a weak smile, but it's hardly effective.

Truthfully, she'd love to go to prom with Peeta. He'd be the only person capable of making that stupid affair bearable, dare she say possibly enjoyable, and she's always wanted to see him in a bowtie... but the boy deserves a real prom date. After all he's been though, he's at least earned himself a night out with a beautiful girl who'll let him take her to dinner beforehand and book a hotel room afterward just like they do in the shitty chick-flicks both she and Peeta despise. He doesn't deserve being stuck with his mediocre-looking best friend who can't even walk in heels to save her life. (She'd wear her leather hunting boots to prom if it were up to her.)

She realizes she's still aggressively clutching the fabric of his jacket, and she releases it, folding her arms stubbornly over her chest.

"Well… I guess you could ask Delly," she tosses out, successfully avoiding his gaze.

He snorts. "What?"

She tries not to think about why his reaction almost makes her smile. "I mean, she was the one who brought it up. She thinks you're cute, you know. She's had a crush on you since the third grade."

Peeta doesn't say anything, and Katniss finds herself rambling on in the atypical absence of his commentary.

"She's kind of pretty, I guess—and you two would look nice together. You know, blonde hair, blue eyes—"

She hears him interject with a cautionary "Katniss," but she continues regardless.

"—and you wouldn't have to worry about planning activities or making reservations, because Delly likes to do that stuff, so the whole night would be pretty easy for you—"

"Katniss."

"—and she'd definitely get a blue dress, because she's romantic and girly and would look for a gown that'd bring out her eyes, and blue is a wonderful color on y—"

"Katniss." His voice is more insistent, his tone deeper, and she finds herself involuntarily meeting his stare.

She almost chokes when she sees that his irises are shimmering, his lips pressed in a hard line, dimples carved deep into his rosy cheeks as he tries—and fails miserably—to muffle his amusement.

"If your obliviousness wasn't so funny, I'd find it almost tragic," he jests, his voice light and good-natured.

"Careful there, Mellark, or I'll make you capsize on your crutches."

"Touché," he chuckles, unable to contain his laughter anymore. "But please, enlighten me: What in the world would possess you to think I'd want to take Delly Cartwright to my senior prom?"

She feels her cheeks blooming with heat. "You deserve a girl who can be an actual date for you."

He shifts on his crutches as he rolls his eyes at her. "Who needs a date when you can drag your passive-aggressive best friend with you?" His smile is so wide that it almost overwhelms Katniss, and she decides that never has an insult sounded so beautiful. "I mean, the fact that my best friend is not a huge fan of prom may complicate things a bit, but I think her company would be more than enough to make the night perfect."

Katniss condemns herself for the fact that her stomach is flipping in celebratory cartwheels. Since when does anything about a stupid high-school dance excite her? "Are you asking me to prom, Peeta Mellark?"

"I'm sorry to ask you in such a boring way. I know how fond you are of grand, romantic gestures."

She wants to punch him, but the asphalt below their boots is too icy and, with her luck, she actually would knock him over.

Before she can even begin to formulate a response, he leans in a little closer, his tone smoothing out, the humor dissipating on cue. "Really, Katniss. I'm well aware of your vendetta against traditional festivities, and I'm not going to ask you to buy a five-hundred-dollar dress or wear heels or even dance, but… it really would mean a lot if you'd go to prom with me." He smiles guiltily. "At least so I can knock it off my bucket list."

She doesn't know what legitimate reason could possibly keep her from accepting his proposal, if such a reason existed. After everything he's ever done for her—offering her his friendship on their first day of kindergarten along with a cookie, lending her crayons, giving her two loaves of bread and a silent vow to be there for her if ever she needed it—she owed him this simple pleasure, if not more.

Even if this wasn't a matter of reparation, even if she owed him nothing, it was evident by the excitement in his blue eyes and the smile on his lips that her acceptance would mean the world to him, and there's little on this planet she values more than his happiness.

She offers her answer without thinking twice.

"As long as you keep your word about the heels."


Just as always, Peeta doesn't break his promise. It takes him weeks to talk her out of wearing her faded, creased hunting boots to prom; he takes her to a strip mall half an hour outside of Panem on one mild weekend in April where they compromise on a nice pair of ballet flats.

Katniss never imagined so much preparation could go into a three-hour affair, and after being personally victimized by Delly, Madge, and their friend Annie Cresta—by "victimized," she means "dragged against her will to a myriad of boutiques and salons"—it occurs to her just how much she detests the entire female species.

The girls are more than ecstatic to shove Katniss into dress after dress, because none of them can remember ever seeing Katniss in anything outside of faded t-shirts and jeans. Annie ribbons a baby blue gown around her and tells her, "This'll bring out Peeta's eyes," and all Katniss can do is gag. Too many sparkles. Too many rhinestones. Too much tulle. Too much... girl.

It takes them several outings before they decide on a dress, and although her associates preferred other prospects, this one makes her feel the most comfortable and the least like an exotic, obnoxious pelican.

The day of prom, seemingly all the high school girls of Panem flock to salons to have their hair done in outrageous coiffures, their nails painted to match their dresses, their skin artificially tanned—Katniss thinks they all look like oompa-loompas, personally—but the lunar girl has other plans. She stays at home and lets Prim experiment with Madge's old curling iron on her impossibly long, thick mane. It's the first time in ages that she can remember not just slopping it back in a braid.

Prim was always the more feminine of the Everdeen sisters, her hands naturally gentle and steady—perfect for her dream career as a surgeon—unlike Katniss's, which were calloused from climbing so many trees, steady but harshly forceful. Prim had hands for healing, Katniss had hands for breaking things.

But after about two hours of Katniss sitting cross-legged in front of their ancient television set as she and her sister passively regard some lackluster cooking show, she decides if medical school doesn't work out for Prim, hairstyling certainly will. The girl's a natural. Additionally, the younger Everdeen offers to toy with Katniss's makeup, and since Katniss knows how to put on nothing beyond a thin coat of cheap drugstore mascara, she feels she has no option but to oblige. And although Prim's handiwork is not extremely intricate, she does manage to even out Katniss's complexion, dusting a thin layer of pale eye shadow over her lids, tipping it off with eyeliner and a thick coating of her own mascara that is of a much higher quality than her older sister's.

"One day, I hope I'm as pretty as you," Prim tells her as she guides Katniss to the mirror in their small bathroom, and before Katniss can contradict her sister, she's greeted by a girl on the opposite side of the glass that glowers at her under thick, dark lashes, her molten mercury eyes guarded and flustered.

The girl's lips, coated in a rosy sheen, part in surprise and then press together again, eyes growing wider, and Katniss tries to fight the smile that bubbles to her lips, because although this girl is beautiful, it is most definitely her. She looks the same as usual, just polished and refined, with thick curls cascading over her slim shoulders, still clad in a t-shirt. She's still human. She's still Katniss Everdeen. Not transformed, merely enhanced; exactly how she wanted it.

Mrs. Everdeen passes by the bathroom then, stopping in the doorway at the sight of her daughters gawking in the mirror; she drifts in silently, her feet hardly touching the floor as she glides—more like an apparition than a human—behind the two sisters. She cups a cold hand over Katniss's shoulder, her frail, thin fingers trembling against her daughter's heated flesh, a ghost of a smile breaking out over her pale, cracked lips. Mrs. Everdeen hardly speaks anymore, and when she does she typically murmurs nonsensical comments that her daughters have resigned from attempting to decrypt, but today, she whispers to her daughter's mane, "You have so much of your father in you." Katniss's stomach clenches and her throat thickens, as she knows it's one of the most sincere compliments she'll probably ever receive from her mother; she remembers little of Mr. Everdeen apart from how handsome he was with his cosmic irises, sharp nose, and broad shoulders. And, of course, that when he sang, even the birds stopped to listen. Peeta often tells her he passed that trait onto his eldest daughter, too.

Katniss offers her mother no more than a curt nod, because she's positive that if she does anything more she may break out into tears, and Katniss promised herself long ago that she would never cry because of her mother again. With that, she retreats to her room where she slips the gown she purchased from the hanger, stepping into it and zipping it up from the side. It fits like a glove and conceals the sharpness of her bones well so that she, for once, actually looks healthy. She knows how concerned Peeta becomes when her ribs are visible and he can see the full extent of her undernourishment. This is his night. Her goal is to please him, not befall the subject of his worry.

She's just slipping into the white ballet flats that Peeta had bought her several weeks back when the sound of the doorbell ricochets off her walls, sending her stomach curling. She rushes down the main hall to find that Prim has already answered the door, and before her stands her sunshine boy clad in a black tuxedo, looking so much more healthy and strong and confident than he had a year ago. His skin is vibrant, curls styled perfectly out of his face, revealing his bright eyes and sharp jaw and soft lips pulled up in that beautiful, dimpled smile of his and—

She gasps.

"You're walking, Peeta."

He's poised in the doorway, shoulders so impossibly broad—when did that chubby blonde boy become the eighteen-year-old man standing in the threshold?—arms free of crutches as he holds a small white box in his hands. The corsage, most likely.

She hasn't seen him for over a year without crutches, or a wheelchair, and she blinks once, twice, but—

"I thought I'd try just one night without the crutches. I wanted to make you feel obligated to at least have one dance with me." His voice sounds like silk, and he holds out the box for her as he appraises her, eyes raking over her from head to toe. In anyone else's stare, she'd feel uncomfortable, shriveling up under their gaze, but beneath Peeta's, she only feels emboldened. The way those blue eyes widen in amazement—how she loves that—surely can't hurt, either.

Before he can say anything further, Prim shoves the two of them together and snaps a few obligatory prom photos before sending them on their merry way. She notices that Peeta's gait is hitched with a slight limp, but he's walking. Actually walking again.

She's reluctant to admit that maybe, just maybe, Delly hadn't been completely off the mark when she'd labeled senior prom as "magical."

Peeta steps ahead of her so he can open the passenger-side door of his black sedan for her—she's always thought his middle name might as well be Chivalry—and just as she's about to slip in, his fingers brush over her arm, capturing her attention. Her chin tweaks in his direction to find those two sky-born orbs much closer to her than she predicted, and she nearly stumbles back in surprise.

"I think your color scheme is far better than whatever Delly Cartwright would've picked out." He winks, teasingly, always teasingly.

Her focus fixes on his bowtie and then the slivers of his vest that poke out from underneath the base of his lapels, both a soft shade of pale orange, which all match perfectly with her dress. The gown is simple, spilling down around her feet with a sweetheart neckline over her breasts (if she had cleavage, this dress would certainly flaunt that well), a thin string of peach-shaded roses attaching from the left side of the collar, flowing over her shoulder and rejoining with her dress in the back. The gown is not meant to accentuate the curves Katniss doesn't have, and it surely is not a dress that'll capture the attention of every eye she passes—no double-takes will be happening in her wake tonight—but it serves its purpose. It makes her both look and feel beautiful, for once. Truthfully, it's the first gown she's encountered that doesn't make her want to vomit.

They drive to Undersee mansion—Mr. Undersee is Panem's mayor and, thus, has quite the magnificent home—where they're greeted by Madge and Gale, who's come back from college for the weekend to attend Panem High's prom with Madge for the fourth year in a row (she'd pity him if he wasn't so in love with his girlfriend). Annie and her boyfriend, a man by the name of Finnick Odair who none of them have met, still have yet to arrive, along with Delly and her last-minute-pity-date, Thom. Upon arrival, Gale actually laughs at her, saying, "Hell must be freezing over, because if I didn't know better, I'd say Katniss Everdeen is actually wearing a dress." She responds with a terse "Fuck off, Gale," which has been their customary greeting.

Within minutes Annie pulls up, swinging on the arm of Poseidon himself. She introduces them to Finnick, her twenty-year-old boyfriend, who flashes them all with his blindingly white grin, canines and all. He kisses both Katniss and Madge's hands.

"Enchanté."

She hears Gale mutter to Madge, "Is this guy real?" She's thankful that her date is a little more receptive, accepting Finnick's hand warmly. But then again, Peeta has always been far more amicable than Gale.

Delly and Thom drop by soon after and the eight of them share an impossibly elaborate dinner in the Undersees' fully-garnished dining room, the décor around the table alone probably of greater value than every item in Katniss's shack combined. She feels oddly out of place here, as she always does whenever she visits the Undersee residence, eating a gourmet meal prepared by hands that've probably never been blackened by coal dust like hers. Although she's never actually been in the mines, her father was constantly covered in grime, and since she used to spend so much time with Mr. Everdeen, she'd been darkened by contact, too. It was always under her fingers, in her hair, reminding her schoolmates and herself of her destitution. It'd been the mark of poverty.

These past few years have been easier, now that Mrs. Mellark is gone and Mr. Mellark readily employs Katniss at the bakery, but she rarely has enough to eat regardless, and so she doesn't quite know what to do when a full plate of spaghetti is slid in front of her. She pushes it around with the silver prongs of her fork, hesitant to swirl it into her mouth. But after a few moments, she feels something brush over her knee and she immediately looks to her right where Peeta sits, reaching his hand below the table to rest a palm on her leg in response to her discomfort. Peeta's always been hopelessly receptive, able to decipher her moods like flashcards. She knows Peeta thinks she's easy to read, even if no one else does. But that's because he knows her better than anyone. And so, in this moment, she knows that he knows she's hopelessly unprepared to handle this dinner, and he's just trying to calm her in typical Peeta-fashion.

She grows angry with herself, however, when her heart rate spikes at the feeling of his palm over her thigh. His touch never used to do this to her. But, for some God forsaken reason, over the past year she's become more attuned to his contact, confused by her sensory responses.

She silently curses herself for her reaction, because they're just friends. There is no way that this is healthy, let alone normal. Especially since Peeta clearly doesn't think of her as anything more than a close companion, which he made implicitly clear when he told her, Who needs a date when you can drag your passive-aggressive best friend with you? She knows that she's merely someone he cares about who he can use as a tool to knock wishes off his bucket list, in case the cancer comes back, which the doctors have warned him of. Not that she minds being his "tool". She owes him immensely.

After the dinner comes to a close, and all of them are primed to explode from the excess pasta—save Katniss, who hardly ate more than a few noodles—they make their way to the school, crowding into the dimly-lit, poorly-decorated gymnasium along with a horde of girls caked in too much makeup and sweaty boys that practically secrete Axe body spray.

"Wow, Delly was right. This place really is magical," Katniss shouts to Peeta over the low rumble of the music, sarcasm dripping from each syllable. It's too loud to hear him, but she can still see his laughter brighten his face even in the harsh indigo lighting flooding the gym.

His mouth opens to reply, but the two of them are ripped forward before he can usher his response; she finds that Delly is grabbing them both, yanking them onto the dance floor. Katniss is almost thrown into Madge and Gale who are already pressed against each other, her back to his stomach, his hands dragging her hips against his, and Katniss's throat runs dry because she is not prepared to stomach this sort of dancing. But she looks to her left and sees that Annie and her Poseidon-replica are participating, too—his lips are on her ear, and she's giggling, and Katniss whirls around to Peeta in panic.

"I'm not going to dance with you like that," she barks out before he can say anything, her tone as defensive as it would be if he'd openly asked her to grind with him. He surprises her by chuckling, shaking his head and responding with a lighthearted, "Didn't think you would."

For some reason, this settles oddly with her, compelling her to pry further.

"Why not?"

"Because you, Katniss Everdeen," he teases, his smile bright, "are so utterly pure that the very idea of grinding probably makes you want to put on a turtleneck."

Regardless of how true his judgment is, the assumption still irritates her—does he really see her like that? As some virtuous little prude?—and it makes her blood bubble, heat wracking through her veins. Even though she's sure he didn't mean it as such, she takes it as a dare.

"Pure," she hisses back disgustedly as she whirls around, grasping the backs of his hands with her palms and sliding them to her hips as she presses up against him. Even over the pounding of the music, she can still hear the small sound of shock that bursts in the back of his throat, and it makes her smile contentedly. She did that to him.

But it's her turn to emit some variation of a squeal when she feels his fingers hook against her dress, clutching her hips tighter against him as he leans to whisper in her ear, "You know, this wasn't on my bucket list." The way his breath curls around her ear makes her clench her thighs together.

"I just like proving you wrong," she plays back triumphantly, and then she arches herself harder against Peeta. She doesn't know exactly what's possessing her to do this, to keep doing this, but she finds that, strangely, she doesn't want to stop. The growl of the bass floods their ears, hijacking their senses, urging them onward and depleting their inhibitions. She feels Peeta against her backside, really feels him, and it startles her at first but surely doesn't discourage her; she continues dancing with her best friend in a way that had mortified her only a few moments before, but now, seems completely normal.

This was definitely not in her forecast for prom.

As the song tapers off at the end, Peeta surprises her by releasing his grip on her hips and swiveling her around so she can face him. A thin sheen of sweat beads at his hairline, and his breath is ragged, but his irises are bright with an emotion she doesn't quite understand but is curious to unfold.

"I think we should go get some punch," he tells her thickly, but she can sense that there's something beyond what he's saying. She just doesn't know what.

She smirks up at him before raising her thin fingers to straighten up his slightly-crooked bowtie. "Who's the pure one now?" she provokes, lifting a thin brow.

"I think you're confusing 'pure' with 'dehydrated,'" he chuckles breathlessly as they begin their journey to the punch table, his limp hardly noticeable, and it's now that the horror begins to settle in her core. Oh my god, what did I just do? screams the voice in the head, and she's thankful for the dim lighting so that no one can pick up on her violent blush.

Oh god.

She just did that with Peeta.

Her Peeta.

Her best friend.

Her "just friends" best friend.

Peeta pours them each a cup of punch before they settle themselves at a table in the corner of the gymnasium.

"So, is this night everything you'd imagined it'd be?" she jokes with a dry throat, masking her humiliation well, jostling him with her elbow.

He looks over at her playfully. "We've only had one song so far. I think it's a bit too soon to say. Although that last one was pretty fun." He bites his lip.

She would attempt to dismiss their recent endeavor with a joke if the fact that she'd danced like that, with Peeta, didn't utterly disgust her. That's not Katniss. Growing defensive and trying to prove people wrong? That's certainly in character, but grinding up against her best friend? She's used to curling up with him in his bed on a regular basis, but that seems so innocent compared to whatever they just did.

Fuck. Maybe she is hopelessly pure.

She realizes she's been silent for too long when Peeta brushes his hand against hers, beaming her back down to the present. "So, is this night as awful as you thought it'd be?"

She shrugs, unsure of how to answer. Peeta has sustained a perfect balance of humor and chivalry, but she's made a complete idiot of herself, and they're only on the second song.

He must realize she's uncomfortable because he rapidly changes the subject, pointing out awkward couples freckling the dance floor. The two of them sit back and laugh at their classmates, some of whom are trying desperately to slow dance to a sped-up rap number, and it eases Katniss's nerves almost immediately. At least she hadn't been the only one to do something stupid.

After a while, Peeta coaxes her back to the dance floor, and although they consciously avoid dancing like that again, they still pass the night alongside their friends. Katniss would be lying if she said she wasn't at least mildly enjoying herself, especially with Peeta repetitively pressing a hand against the small of her back for occasional balance, other times to simply keep her near him. He whispers witty remarks in her ear over and over again, and she thinks to herself that she couldn't possibly enjoy prom without him, and warmth propagates through her belly when she realizes that she's giving him a good night, too.

When their time left is waning, the obnoxiously loud pop music fades into a softer number, and almost immediately the entire student body grows calm, couples pairing up and wrapping their arms around each other. She looks to Peeta for guidance, her eyes wide, and he concedes a small grin and wordlessly reaches out his palm.

She takes it willingly.

His hands find her waist again, but this time his touch is so much more gentle, and she drapes her arms over his shoulders, her fingers mindlessly sweeping through the soft curls at the base of his neck. He pulls her into him so that their bodies are flush up against the other, and in every place that they're joined she feels electricity transforming her skin into a live circuit board.

She watches him watch her, dragging his lower lip between his teeth, causing her breath to catch when he whispers, almost inaudibly but with unquestionable sincerity, "I should've told you earlier, but Katniss Everdeen, you are the most beautiful girl on this entire dance floor."

His voice is so tender that she almost considers that he means it as more than just what a teenager would say to his best friend, but she bites on the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood, because she cannot let herself believe that. She can't afford to think that way.

"I don't know. I could point out a dozen sets of fake lashes that prove otherwise."

He rolls his eyes at her, but within seconds his gaze is digging into hers again; she's unsure as to whether it's the dim lighting or something else that's making his pupils so wide, but regardless of justification, she cannot bring herself to look away.

"It's all fake, Katniss. All these massive ball gowns and pounds of makeup and fifty-dollar manicures… they're all trying to be the most stunning person here, to outshine the next girl in line, but you just… you're trying to be yourself. You're real, and you're beautiful."

She almost faints right there, in the middle of the gymnasium, but the support of his body and his arms manages to keep her upright.

"You have to say that. I'm your best friend."

"Yes, but that doesn't make it any less true," he tells her, and for some reason, she feels something in her chest plummet dramatically into her belly, her mouth drying in disappointment as she swallows roughly. Just friends. It echoes over and over again in the back of her mind. "And while I'm complimenting you, I might as well thank you for sacrificing your Saturday night to walk on broken glass with me."

She laughs. "It wasn't so bad, after all." She teases a curl at the nape of his neck, feeling goose bumps rise underneath her palm. The notion is oddly satisfying, so she continues to brush her fingers over his skin; she watches his eyes roll back a little, which elicits a small smirk from her lips. "To be honest, I think the night has been moderately successful."

"Yeah?" he lifts a brow.

"What else do you have on your bucket list that I can help you knock off?"

The look that manifests over his features must be one of the most adorably gratifying expressions she's seen from him in ages. It's almost as if she's just told him he's won the Nobel Peace Prize, or that he's entitled to a lifetime supply of chocolate.

"Plenty," he replies jubilantly, and he surprises her by tightening his grip around her, his fingers raking through her curls as he cradles her head against his chest. Unlike the bulk of the male students here, he smells more of cinnamon than of Axe, soothing her senses effortlessly.

She tries to pull away as she tosses back, "Well, what's next? We've got all night!" Yet his grip on her doesn't loosen, and he spins her back against him, bracketing her cheeks with his palms to keep her eyes secured with his.

"Patience, Ms. Everdeen. We've got all the time in the world."

And, for the first time since he was diagnosed with cancer nearly a year and a half ago, and underwent chemotherapy for the several following months, as Peeta holds her on the dance floor, standing unaided on his own two feet, it suddenly occurs to her that he's right.

They've got time.

At least, for now.


Questions, comments, concerns are always welcome by way of reviews, PMs, or even Tumblr asks. And again, if you'd like to be a beta for this fic, shoot me a message. :)

Have a wonderful weekend!