I'm so sorry for not updating in a very long time!

I had serious writer's block. I couldn't decide how I wanted this story to go and I just had an inspiration today.

Enjoy!

I'm awake by nine, which is sleeping in by my standards. When I wake, Peeta's showered, dressed, and making something. "Chocolate chip pancakes," he says when I exit my room. He nods towards the table. "That's your work uniform." It's a black polo with the word Mellark's. "We wear jeans with it, but yours are still wet so you can borrow a pair of mine, or something," he tells me.

He sets a plate of pancakes in front of me and sits beside me. "Are you mute, now?" he asks.

I scowl at him. "Sorry," he says. "I guess you're just not a morning person, huh? That'll probably change. I'm a morning person."

"You seem to be a middle of the night person, too," I say.

He smiles. "Now she speaks. Are you going to eat your pancakes?"

"You didn't give me a fork."

He laughs and stands to get me a fork. "My bad. So, after work, you and I are going to go to Walmart and get you some clothes."

"I don't have money," I repeat.

"For God's sakes," he laughs. "Don't worry about the money, okay? If you really want me to, I'll take it out of your first paycheck."

"Take it out of my first paycheck," I insist.

He smiles. "You're very independent. I like that about you." I look away, uncomfortable. He smiles at me for a minute longer before he stands up. "So, you'll work the lunch shift six days a week from 10:30 to 3:30. You get paid $7.50 an hour. On Sundays, the diner's closed."

"God. This really is an old-fashioned small town, isn't it?" I ask.

He laughs. "On Sundays, I go to my brother Rye's house. Our parents live in New York City, so me and my other brother go to Rye's and chill. You're welcome to join me on Sunday."

"I don't know . . ." I say.

He shrugs. "No pressure. There's not much to do around here, though. We've got the TV, I guess, but you don't seem like the TV watching kind of girl."

"Then I guess you don't know much about me, huh?" I ask.

Peeta turns to me, a half smile on his face. "Let's change that, then."

AEAEAEAEAEAE

After my shift, I want nothing more than to kill Peeta. When the dinner guy shows up at 3:30, we trudge up the stairs to the apartment. "I'm showering first," I snap.

"No problem," he shrugs. "How was your first day at work?"

I scowl at him and slam the door to the bathroom. I hear him chuckling through the door.

I undress and get in the shower. There's a small knock on the door and Peeta just barely opens the door. "Katniss, before I say anything I would just like you to know that my eyes are closed." I find myself smiling just a little bit. "I'm going to put some more clothes on the sink for you, okay?"

"Okay," I say. He sets them down and closes the door again. I begin to wonder about the diner owner, Peeta Mellark. What normal guy would just let a girl he barely knows stay in his apartment, wear his clothes, and fill a position in his diner that she's completely incompetent for? I was under the assumption that he didn't have a girlfriend, or else he would never have let me move in with him. Peeta was no predator – I'm a very good judge of character, and I could tell Peeta had never hurt anyone and he would never hurt me, either. I'd only misjudged one person's character – Gale's.

Gale. What if he was looking for me? What if he was after me? I'm sure he was. He couldn't ever find me. He'd definitely kill me then. And he'd kill Peeta, too. I couldn't put Peeta in danger like that. No matter how much I liked or trusted Peeta, I couldn't stay. I couldn't stay, knowing the danger I was putting him in.

I turn off the shower and get dressed quickly. I braid my hair and prepar myself to just walk out of the bathroom, say thank you to Peeta, and leave. Not that I want to, of course. But I had to.

When I exit the bathroom, Peeta's sitting on a couch in the living room, watching a March Madness basketball game. "Oh, c'mon!" he shouted at the screen. "You call yourself a number one seed? Jesus."

I smile. "Do you think they can hear you?"

He turns to me, embarrassed. "Sorry. I get really into basketball games." He stands up and walks over to me and pretends to sniff me. "Oh, good. You don't smell like fries anymore."

I laugh. Peeta's standing uncomfortably close to me, but I'm okay with it. He makes me feel so safe, and so at home. I needed someone like him. I hadn't felt safe in a long time. Peeta was the only person I'd ever known, other than my father, who made me feel safe. That's why I had to go. I couldn't make myself comfortable here when I could potentially have to get up and run away in the middle of the night.

"Look, Peeta," I say. "Thank you for everything you've done for me."

"It's no problem," he says. "It's the least I could do."

"I have to go," I say.

He furrows his eyebrows. "No you don't."

"I do," I say. "What if . . . he comes and finds me? Do you realize how much danger you'd be in? I can't do that to you."

He smiles. He actually smiles. "Oh, Katniss. You're worried about my safety?"

I nod, suddenly embarrassed. "Have I mentioned that I got second in the state in wrestling in high school? Or that I was the first string linebacker of my high school football team all four years of high school? Or that I was the first string linebacker for the University of Kentucky my junior and senior year?"

I shook my head. "Must've slipped your mind."

He grins. "If you can't tell, I was pretty damn good at beating the crap out of people. Still am, actually."

"You've beat the crap out of someone recently?" I ask.

"Few weeks ago, some guy tried to take money out of the register," he shrugs. "I made sure he didn't. And I'll make sure that your jackass of an ex-boyfriend never comes within twenty feet of you."

"You shouldn't have to deal with that," I say. "You shouldn't have to deal with some damaged, broken girl with a crazy psychopath following her around. It's not your problem."

"It is now," he says softly. "I'm involved now. If you leave, I'm going to have to go after you."

I grin. "Did you really just quote Titanic?"

"Quote what?" he asks.

"Titanic," I say.

"Never seen it," he says.

My jaw drop. "Are you kidding me?"

He shrugs. "I mean, I know how it ends. The sink ships, he dies, and she doesn't live happily ever after. It's a depressing story."

I shook my head. "You have to watch that movie."

"Will you watch it with me?" he asks.

"Nope, I'm going to make you sit alone on the couch and watch Titanic by yourself," I say. He looks at me like I'm completely serious. "I'm kidding, moron. I'll watch it with you."

He grins. "Maybe they'll have that at Walmart, too."

I smile. "Probably."

AEAEAEAEAEAE

"That was ridiculous," Peeta says when we get back in his truck after our Walmart stop. "Twenty dollars for a movie?"

I laugh. "It's worth it."

"For a movie that I already know the whole story for . . ." he grumbles.

"You just wait," I say. "You'll cry."

He laughs. "I will not cry."

On the way back to the diner, Peeta's stops at Pizza Hut. "What are you doing?" I ask.

"If you're going to force me to watch a three hour chick flick, we might as well make a night out of it," he says. "I'm stopping at Jim's, too."

"Who's Jim?" I ask.

"Jim's is the candy store," he says.

AEAEAEAEAEAE

At 7, Peeta starts the movie. I like watching Peeta watch the movie. Just like I thought, Peeta got very into the movie. I could tell he was a hopeless romantic. As the credits start to scroll, Peeta grabs a Twizzler and sits back. "That's it?" he asks.

I nod.

"So she lives to be one hundred and she never forgot about him?" he asks. "That's beautiful."

I laugh. "No, I'm serious," Peeta says. "She was, what, seventeen when the ship went down? That's eighty three years of her life that she never forgot about someone she'd known for two days. That's amazing. That's the kind of love I want one day, you know? No matter what, you never forget that one person you loved more than anything."

I pause. "Yeah, that'd be nice, one day. I don't have the best experience with love."

He shrugs. "Me either. I had a couple high school girlfriends and a girlfriend in college, but none of those were stellar."

"I've only had Gale," I say.

"Is that Jackass's name?" he asks.

I smile. "Yes."

"I don't know why he'd ever hit you," Peeta says. "Man, if I had a girl like you, I'd treat her perfectly."

I cock my head to look at him. "A girl like me?"

"A girl like you," he says. "Strong, independent, determined. Beautiful."

"Peeta," I say softly.

"You deserve to be treated perfectly," he says. "Let me show you how you deserve to be treated."

"Peeta," I whisper.

"Let me, Katniss," he says, inching towards me. "I can be the Jack to your Rose."