Notes: I just saw about two minutes ago that FF.N completely ruined my formatting and everything. I really hope it works again, sorry for those we had to read that.

"Who the fuck. Invented stairs? 'Cause I will fucking kill him. And then eat him. For my goddamn lunch. FUCKING asshole."

Katniss seriously wants to bang her head on the wall, eat a strawberry popsicle, and smack Johanna Mason on the head. Not necessarily in that order.

Katniss has been in the God forsaken church for seven fucking minutes, and already she wants out. She hasn't even gone to therapy yet.

Those seven minutes (and counting) are being spent climbing stairs. Because apparently, there is no elevator in the goddamn church, and apparently, there are ten flights of stairs.

Ten flights isn't all that bad. Hell, Katniss has hiked eight miles straight in the woods before, tracking some deer.

But those eight miles were spent with her father and best friend, Gale Hawthorne. Not Johanna Mason, another messed up as fuck girl Katniss had picked up on floor three.

She knows nothing of Johanna, besides one, she hates stairs; two, she likes making threats; three, she says fuck in every single sentence; and four, Johanna is pretty fucking messed up and hella scary.

Finally, finally, after ten torturous minutes, the two reach the tenth floor.

Johanna sprawls on the ground, moaning about her back and her legs and why, in the name of Jesus friggen Christ, why does this stupid church not have an elevator?!

Even though Katniss pretty much considers herself a heathen, Johanna's words were a bit much, considering where they were and the whole don't say Lord's name in vain business. The group therapist/Jesus lover whose name was Plutarch looked properly traumatized after Johanna's outburst.

Katniss calmly steps over Johanna and sits down at one of the blue plastic chairs that are lined in a neat semi circle. Some kids are already there. One of them, a devilishly handsome boy with a seductive smirk that she hates already, walks over and sits next to Katniss, crossing his long, athletic legs. He has perfect bronze skin and messy, yet perfectly styled curls. With his chiseled body, bright green eyes, and confident smile, Katniss immediately knows what he's after.

"Want some gum?" He asks in low, sexy voice, reaching into his pocket and revealing a large handful of the candy. Katniss almost laughs at how comical it is. They're in a support group. For messed up kids. Not at some bar on 65th street. But then again, he'd probably be offering to buy her a drink, not give her a stick of gum.

"No thanks. I'm good," Katniss replies stiffly.

The kid shrugs, and pops a few pieces in his mouth, chewing thickly. He still manages to look good while doing it, though. "Suit yourself. I'm Finnick Odair, at your service." He stands and does this bow that gets half the girls in the room giggling. Katniss wants to puke. How shallow does he think she is?

"Hi Finnick. I'm Katniss Everdeen. Come here. I have a little something for you." She motions for him to get closer, and he smiles and closes his eyes, like she's going to kiss him.

Instead of a kiss though, Finnick Odair gets a smack in the face and a loud, "Fuck off!" He knows now not to mess with her. She's been through enough shit to spot a playboy, good-for-nothing, douchebag.

A few minutes later, the session starts. The guy named Plutarch is running it. "It looks like we have a few new faces today." The man smiles at Katniss. She doesn't smile back.

He then reads roughly ten passages from the Bible, and ends his introduction with, "Remember, God always gives enough strength for the next step."

Katniss wonders if it's their slogan or something, because she's literally seeing that everywhere.

After that, introduction time. Name, age, and if you're comfortable, reason why you are here. There's first the mental illness: depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, a compulsive liar, and two OCD kids. Then there's the addicts: alcohol, drugs, porn (when the kid, Marvel is his name, says he's 'overcoming a crippling addiction to pornography' , Johanna leans over Katniss and says, "What do you prefer? Single, doubles, fetish…" needless to say, it was very awkward.) And then the victims: rape, abuse, bullies, etc.

Then there's her. Katniss isn't sure whether she's here because of bereavement for her father and sister, or because of the things she witnessed in the bombing.

So she just says that her father and sister were killed in the terrorist attack on Grand Central Station. Everyone stares at her. Plutarch smiles sympathetically, and everyone else follows suit. Even Johanna lessens her glare just slightly.

Katniss hates it.

She hates being the center of pity. She hates it so much. While she sits there, internally brooding, Plutarch interrupts her thoughts.

"Katniss, being our newest member of the group, why don't you share some of your feelings and how you're doing."

You are a joke. Katniss thinks, glaring at him.

Evidently, this man gets a lot of messed up teenagers that only glare and scowl and reply in one word answers or nothing at all, because he smiles and quote another Bible passage.

Katniss is about to slap him.

Eventually, he moves on to a girl, (Annie is it?) who is the perfect model for crazy. But she obviously has been here before, having a perfect response to the how are you feeling today? question. She even throws in a fews lines from the Bible.

As Katniss sits there, effectively drowning out Johanna's complaining, Finnick's flirting, Plutarch's Bible quoting, and everyone else's chatter, she's filled with a strange sort of pain that she can't quite put a finger on. It's not like the stomach-wrenching, can't-fucking-breath type of pain Katniss experienced when she was told from her hospital bed in the burn unit her sister and father had not survived. The pain definitely isn't that intense, physical torture that she experienced in the immediate aftermath of the attack. It's just. Just...

There. It's just there. And it leaves Katniss with a strange, empty, and hollow feeling, and she really really really hates it, because she can't think and she can't feel anything. When the terrible, awful, utterly controllable pain is within her. Because she can't explain to anyone this pain, which doesn't hurt, because it numbs everything. The pain is controllable, because she can just hold it within her. But sometimes the most scarring wounds are on the inside, and this is definitely one of them.

It's like a drug, she realizes. It feels like when she was high on the morphine in the burn unit, and how all she could feel was nothing except for happiness and rainbows and unicorns. But this is eight-hundred times worse than morphine, because there is no rainbows and unicorns that comes with it. All it does is numb her. And when she's feeling this pain Katniss can't do anything but hold it in, but it's so terrifying because she can't feel any love for her mother. She doesn't feel any love towards Prim, no love for her father. No sadness, or fear, or nothing. She's nothing. And what's the scariest about it, about this newfound pain that's always there, is that it is always there.

Katniss glances up, and realizes everyone's staring at her. Plutarch's eyes are filled with such shock and immense sadness it scares her. The other teens are just stareing, some with their mouths open, speechless.

Katniss realizes she must've said all that messed up shit aloud. Judging by the faces of her fellow group-mates, that's not the kind of stuff they share at support group.

She stands up and stumbles away, muttering something about using the bathroom. Plutarch calls her name, but by the time she fully registers what he's saying, she's gone.

Katniss somehow finds her way down the countless flights of stairs, and ends up outside, hunkered down by some old sycamore tree in the corner of the parking lot. All she can think about is Prim and her father, buried deep in the ground, with their eyes cold and unseeing.

Her sister will never grow old, will never get to kiss a boy other than Rory Hawthorne, will never travel the world, will never eat a Rocky Road ice cream again. Her sister, who died at age twelve. Her sister, who Katniss was not able to save.

She thinks about her father, the kindest man in the world. A man who will never take his daughters to the beach again, a man who will never get the promotion he'd been working so hard for, will never again kiss his wife, never again hug his daughters. Her father, whose birthday is in two weeks, and God, he was almost fifty years old.

Katniss doesn't know when she starts crying, when the tears start falling and probably will never stop. Her crying is the loud, ugly type that hurts your stomach and your chest and your everything, and makes anyone hearing wonder if the person crying will be okay ever again.

"Um, excuse me? Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?" A boy's voice asks from above her in an alarming tone.

Her sobs have since then calmed down to an annoying hiccup, though her eyes are still leaking water. Katniss looks up through blurry eyes and focusses on the boy in front of her. He has messy, golden-blonde curls and tan skin - fitting the stereotypical definition of a lifeguard or surfer dude from California. He's fairly tall, and has a nice, athletic body. His eyes, though, his eyes are what take her breath away, because sure, they are beautiful, but looking into his clear blue eyes, Katniss knows this boy.

She knows this boy.

Katniss doesn't know how long she sits there, gawking at the boy in front of her with fucking tears still streaming down her face (goddamn it, stop crying!) because he's alive. Maybe not well - she has no idea the physical and emotional scars that are hidden underneath his worried expression and thick sweatshirt and sweat pants.

Hell, she has no idea if he's even fucking sane. But he's here, and he's alive.

Katniss can work with alive.

He frowns a little, and sits down next her, grimacing as he does so. Only then does she notice the thin, metal cane that he carries. "Hey, hey, stop crying. I'm not that ugly, am I?"

Katniss blinks herself out of her trance and wipes away her tears, laughing breathlessly as she does so. "No. No, no you're not. You're just. Just." She isn't sure how to phrase oh, I just saw you that day when my, and probably your, life was ruined. No biggie. without freaking him out. So she just says: "You just… you look like someone I saw on a very important day."

The boy purses his lips and then nods, straightening out his leg with a wince. "Okay. Okay, fair enough. My name is Peeta Mellark." He holds out his hand for Katniss to shake.

She tentatively takes the hand, feeling the scars that fit perfectly with hers. "I'm Katniss Everdeen."

He smiles. "Katniss? Like the plant?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Pita? Like the bread?"

He laughs, and it's a beautiful sound, full and rich and loud. "Fair enough. And to answer your question, it's Peeta, as in P-E-E-T-A."

"Hm."

They sit in silence for a few seconds. It's just starting to get awkward, when Peeta suddenly opens his mouth to say something. Katniss waits, but then he frowns and closes his mouth again.

Well. That just got awkward again pretty quickly.

When he does it again for two more times, she sighs out, "Just ask me whatever you want to ask."

Peeta blinks in surprise. "Um, wow. Am I really that obvious?"

Katniss shrugs. "I'm good at reading people. And the mouth opening is sort of a given. So go ahead. Shoot."

"Okay. Okay. Um, can I ask… um, why are you… why were you crying in the middle of a church parking lot?"

"That is… that is actually a very good question. I have no idea."

"Katniss. I've known you for all of ten minutes, and already I can tell when you're blowing bullshit. It already took me a lot of courage to ask that. So answer it," he says. Katniss was always awful at lying.

"If I'm not telling you, there's a reason, okay?" She snaps, immediately regretting her harsh tone when a look of hurt flashes across his clear blue eyes.

"Okay, okay. Jeez. I'm sorry." Peeta says, eyes wide.

"Yeah…" she grumbles, scooching farther from him.

This time, the silence really is awkward. Katniss can sense he's about to leave, the way he clears his throat and shifts a little.

"Um, hey, I think I have to go now…"

He can't leave. "Wait!" The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them.

Katniss… she doesn't know him. She doesn't know anything about him, except for his name and that he probably lost a leg (what else would the cane be used for?) and his family and his life. Katniss doesn't know him, but she wants to. She needs to. Katniss doesn't know how to explain it, this connection she feels with Peeta. She doesn't even understand it herself.

But whatever it is, it's enough to make Katniss grab his hand when he stands. "I'll go with you."

She thinks he smiles.