Part II

Easy is a refuge

And it's an easy place to be

But when the sun shines on you

What will the whole world think?

-Needtobreathe, The Reckoning

Old Orchard is a town over from Miner Falls, but the land area is larger. By the time I drive from my home to its town center, it's really not too far from the capitol at all. Unlike our town, which was home to the miners that excavated coal before the mine was collapsed, the residents of Old Orchard have their own farms. Rue's family, for example, has over three hundred acres, all within town limits. It truly is a magnificent piece of land, located in the rolling hills where we can see for miles. Even the cows seem to appreciate the sun dipping below the trees, enveloping the sky in vibrant hues of red, yellow, and orange.

I suck in a breath of the open air before turning back around to step inside the barn.

There must be three hundred people packed in Rue's family's barn, all dancing and laughing away. There are even more outside, like adults smoking cigars and spitting tobacco away from the kids enjoying the line dances currently being performed. Rue's birthday seems to have attracted a good majority of the town, old and young alike. I've never seen anything like it.

I spot Prim quickly and watch as she waves, dancing energetically alongside a dark-skinned boy who introduced himself as one of Rue's various siblings. The boy can't be more than six, but he certainly seems to have a bit of a crush on my fair-haired companion. He hasn't left her side all night. Luckily Prim's a good kid. She hasn't minded much, if at all.

Tilting my wrist toward me, I sneak a look at my watch.

"Having that much fun?"

Rue giggles as I smile, trying to tell her I'm not looking because I'm bored. She rolls her eyes, patting my arm and shaking her head. "Has anyone ever told you that you're too nice?" she asks, winking at me.

"Yeah, my mother tells me all the time," I say. "So does my best friend."

The only difference is that my mother thinks being nice will ultimately get me in trouble while Hersh reaps the benefits of my inability to say no.

A soft laugh escapes her lips, barely audible over the band playing near the back of the barn. I had originally been surprised to receive my invitation to Rue's thirteenth birthday, but I realized that my original confidante had turned into a good friend. I could tell her things that I couldn't tell my friends back home, people that wouldn't understand. There are some things that outsiders don't appreciate.

"Well, I don't think we should worry about someone being too nice," Rue says, grabbing her cup off the table and smiling. "To be honest, I think we could all use a little bit more nice in the world. Thanks for coming, Peeta."

She lets out a four-note whistle and disappears into the crowd like a bird in flight.

I let the line dance finish before waving at Prim, tapping my watch. Her smile fades a bit but she tells Rue's brother goodbye and skips toward me, red-faced from dancing. It was a bad week. One of the boys that frequented the coloring table lost a long-fought battle with bone cancer and it hit home for all three of us. To have this party, a chance to try and forget, was a blessing.

Prim finds her favorite radio station as I pull the truck out of the farm's long driveway. We hit the highway and it won't be long. It's only about twenty or so minutes by highway before we hit the exit, another five to her house. The road's dead, as expected late on a Saturday in early April, so I keep sneaking looks to Prim. She tugs on her blond braid, looking down into her lap and letting out a breath.

"She's going to be fine," I tell her.

The twelve-year-old nods her head and manages a weak smile, but I know that nothing I say will get her mind off the boy, coincidentally the same age as herself, and Katniss's upcoming doctor's appointment at the beginning of May. Her mind will not rest until Katniss's routine bone marrow aspiration, a test Haymitch booked weeks ago, comes back clean.

"She's almost five years cancer-free. Isn't that, like, some kind of milestone?" I continue, not sure if I'm trying to convince her or myself.

I know it's a milestone. If you look at the history on my computer at home, you will come across no less than fifty websites dedicated to the explanation of Acute Myeloid Leukemia including, but not limited to, Wikipedia, the American Cancer Society, and Panem Children's Hospital's homepage. I have learned that five years is what is considered a huge milestone in the world of oncology. Katniss is even one of the Inspired Stories on PCH's website. I've learned almost too much.

Prim nods her head. "I know," she says. "Katniss is safe, but I always worry."

We fall into silence, Prim humming along to the radio, until we reach our exit. As we're driving down the curved ramp, Prim turns to me. Out of the corner of my eye as I attempt to yield back into city traffic, I can see her smile has once again reached her eyes.

"Speaking of Katniss…"

Not this again.

After bringing Katniss to Miner Falls, we didn't speak for a week. She didn't show up for my rehab. I would stop by like usual on my days off but she would be locked in her room and I would do my homework at the kitchen island with Prim chattering amiable and Haymitch watching me, shaking his head. Then, as I was taking a jog around the hospital with Finnick, testing my knee's limits, Katniss showed up, sitting on the rock wall and waiting until our lap was finished.

"Victory lap," she'd said once Finnick went back inside. "Before long, you'll be sprinting."

Two weeks of happiness and, bam, as if she realized we were getting too close again – like our holding hands in Miner Falls – she locked herself out. It's becoming a game we play. One step forward, two steps back. Currently, I'm on a step forward.

"I already told you, Prim. It's up to her."

Prim rolls her eyes and leans her head on the window. "She's too stubborn for her own good," she mumbles.

Personally, I think Prim may want us together more than me. She's a hopeless romantic and, given the tween novels she reads, I know she's waiting for us to go frolicking off into the sunset together. But, that's not the way it's going to go with Katniss, if it's going to go that way at all. Katniss needs slow, dependable, and steady, not fast, rushed, and unsure.

"She's guarded, but we knew that going in," I tease, hitting her arm lightly with my fist but keeping my eyes on the road ahead of us. Getting Prim into a car accident is not the way to win Katniss Everdeen.

I'm just not exactly sure how to win her. She's not like other girls. Not in the slightest.

Prim sighs dramatically. "But she likes you! I know it!" she exclaims. "She just needs to stop listening to her own stupid theories."

"What stupid theories?" I ask.

"She doesn't believe in love."

I'm pretty sure I just heard my heart breaking in my chest, smashing into ten thousand pieces. I fell fast and hard for Katniss Everdeen. She, however, has not done the same and, if what Prim says is true, she has no intentions of ever doing so. My fingers tighten on the steering wheel and despite the darkness I can see them turning white. So, if she doesn't believe in love then what has she been doing with me? Whether it's intentional or not, these last few weeks she's been leading me on. It's one of our good weeks, so she'll come by rehab, we'll do homework together. She'll hold my hand for an extra second when I, very gentlemanly and I hoped romantically, help her out of my truck despite her eye rolls. Once, I caught her staring at me.

I thought I might have been getting at least somewhere. I knew getting into Katniss's heart wasn't going to be easy. I didn't think it would be impossible.

"She's so blind, though," Prim continues. Apparently, my silent mourning over a relationship that will never happen hasn't derailed any of her inner ramblings. "I mean, no offense, but it's so obvious that you like her. And she's just…ugh, sometimes I think she intentionally tries to make herself miserable."

Great, we're both masochists. That doesn't bode well for our situation moving forward.

When we pull to a stop in front of her house, Prim's rant is over and she looks up at me. "Are you coming in?" she asks, a hint of hopeful wonder in her voice.

I answer her by opening my door.


During our first shut out – for lack of a better term for how Katniss avoids me every so often – Prim told me the story of Haymitch and Maysilee.

"Aunt Maysilee was beautiful," Prim said.

I had stopped by after dropping her off on the Tuesday after I brought Katniss to Miner Falls. When we got there, we heard loud stomping footfalls and two angry voices from the second floor. Prim rolled her eyes and shook her head, but didn't say a word about the noise and instead went further into her story.

"She was our mother's best friend, just like Haymitch was Daddy's."

"So, Haymitch isn't actually your uncle?" I asked.

Prim shook her head and my mind started to spin. I had just assumed they were related to him, figuring that it was how he has custody of them. Neither Katniss nor Prim had ever divulged information on either of their parents before and I assumed that this meant they were dead and Haymitch, being next of kin, got the girls.

Apparently, I was wrong. There is a bigger story to Haymitch and his nieces than meets the eye as I'm beginning to expect whenever I learn anything about Katniss Everdeen.

"Not by blood," Prim said, pulling out a pitcher of juice and pouring two glasses full. A loud bang echoed from upstairs. "Haymitch and Daddy lost touch for a long time, after Haymitch left Miner Falls. But, Maysilee was a nurse at Children's and Mother ran into her one day when Katniss first got sick. They were really our only family and they helped us a lot."

I knew the basics of the Haymitch Abernathy tragedy. When someone gets that famous, I suppose it's only natural for a town to gossip. He was our hometown hero and, when he lost his wife in a plane crash that killed forty-seven people and he walked out only to find comfort in a bottle, the town gossiped even more. My mother, for one, thought he was going to end up one of those story of famed celebrities turning to drugs and alcohol, dying too young.

There was another fierce crash upstairs and it made me wince, but Prim wasn't fazed at all. I could hear a grunt that sounded like Haymitch's but again it didn't faze her in the slightest.

"Well, I don't remember too much about her, but Aunt Maysilee's death really hit Uncle Haymitch hard. The fact that he was okay and everyone else died. You know he drinks, but it used to be really terrible," she said.

"What got him sober?" I asked, knowing Haymitch wasn't necessarily sober, but it was as good a word as I could come up with.

Prim nodded her head up to the ceiling. "Katniss," she said. "He stopped drinking when Katniss relapsed."

A door slammed above us and someone stormed down the steps. Katniss stomped right through the kitchen, not even noticing us, with Haymitch right on her heels. He stopped at the island and pulled out a glass and his favorite scotch.

He looked at me for a moment before addressing Prim. "Your sister is going to be the death of me," he said, chugging the scotch, pouring himself another, and then wandering out through the back door Katniss had stormed through. "She's raising my blood pressure!" he shouted, probably hoping Katniss would hear.

Prim giggled. "Okay," she admitted. "He stopped drinking heavily."


The house is pitch black when we walk in.

"Katniss?" Prim shouts. "Uncle Haymitch?"

There's no answer. I switch on the lights to see Prim looking at the message board they have. There are no messages saying where they've gone. Prim starts to shake and, I have to admit, my heart's beating a little too quickly for my liking. Katniss and Haymitch rarely leave the house. For them both to be gone is unusual and, for them not to leave Prim a message, oddly chilling.

Before I can say anything, Prim sprints up the stairs. On instinct, I follow behind her.

Katniss's door is open and we walk in. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, except the scrapbook I know she keeps on the top of her bookshelf is sprawled on the floor. It's odd because Katniss's room is always so neat and organized. Prim has since left Katniss's room and is running around like a chicken with her head cut off, searching for signs of some sort that will alert her as to why the two are gone. I walk in fully and look down at the page she has open.

It's none of my business. In fact, this is a private book, one Katniss hasn't even thought to show me, and looking through it seems to be an invasion of her personal space. However, I find myself curious and while Prim's racing footsteps echo through the house, I look down at the page she had obviously been looking at before she left.

It's not really a scrapbook in that it's not fancy and laid out like women in town would do. It's instead a collage of pictures, cut out into various shapes and thrown together without much apparent thought. However, the pictures always show the same duo, Katniss and a shockingly handsome boy that looks as if he could be her brother.

The first picture my eyes draw to is one of Katniss and the boy maybe a year or two ago. Her hair isn't quite as long as it is now but it is still in its trademark braid. She's sitting on the boy's lap as he stares at her, a look I know all too well on his features – longing. This boy, much like myself, has fallen into the trap of the lovely Katniss Everdeen.

I don't want to look any more, a stream of jealousy flooding through me, so I turn the page.

This page features a different duo, Katniss and a blond girl, but these pictures were taken long ago. Katniss and the girl are no more than five or six and both extremely ill. I've never seen pictures of Katniss ill before. She's either in a crocheted hat, usually with a white flower flopping on it, or has wisps of hair growing back in. The girl she sits with in all these pictures goes from having beautiful blond hair that snakes to her waist to hair chopped at her chin to no hair at all. Her skin, which is always pale, takes on a sickly pallor as her hair suddenly disappears.

The one I like the most is right in the center of the page. Katniss and her friend stare at the camera, both cross-eyed and fighting giggles. Katniss's cheeks are chubby like a chipmunk, to which I can only assume is due to the drugs coursing through her body, and her friend doesn't look nearly as sick as she does in some of the other ones.

"Peeta?"

I leap up and see Prim standing in the doorway, her eyes darting between me and Katniss's book.

"I, uh, I didn't mean – "

"It's okay," Prim says, stepping forward and taking the book off the floor. She shuts it and places it on Katniss's perfectly made bed.

She sighs and opens her mouth to say something, just as the door downstairs opens and Haymitch's guffaw engulfs the house. Both Prim and I sprint down the stairs, only to stop at the open banister.

"Katniss!" Prim exclaims. "What happened?"

Katniss is on crutches, her foot in an air cast. She's glaring at Haymitch, who's still laughing. "It's all his fault!" she hisses.

"Hardly, sweetheart," Haymitch says. "I called you for dinner, you tripped down the stairs. How is that in any way my fault?"

"I wouldn't have tripped if you didn't leave your stupid stuff all over the house!" she screams. "I'm more of an adult than you are!"

Haymitch rolls his eyes. "I sat in an emergency room for three hours with a growling stomach to make sure you didn't break any of your precious little bones," he says, walking toward her and smirking as he taps her nose. She grits her teeth. "And then I walked myself up to the cafeteria to trudge through their late night snack foods while you were getting that stupid x-ray to see if there was anything salvageable to feed my little princess for dinner. I feed you, I make sure you're not broken, and you're standing there calling me an unfit guardian? You spoiled rotten brat."

Prim descends the stairs and carefully wraps her arms around Katniss's waist. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just a sprained ankle and a bruised tailbone," Katniss tells her. Her eyes flicker over Prim to me. "Doctors say I should be off my crutches in less than a week."

"She's just a drama queen," Haymitch says over his shoulder as he walks toward the kitchen.

Katniss sticks out her tongue in his direction.

I roll my eyes and fight a laugh, but Prim is still holding on to Katniss as if she's afraid her sister will disappear if she lets go. Katniss notices this and gently tugs on Prim's braid. "I'm okay, little duck. I promise."

"When you didn't leave a note, I thought the worst," Prim mumbles into Katniss's side, refusing to remove any contact.

Katniss leans down to kiss the top of Prim's head, moving the hand she had used to tug on Prim's braid back to her crutch. "Prim, you're such a worrywart," she says.

Although her voice is light and airy, her eyes show her true emotion. She's upset, most likely due to the fact that Prim gets scared when a normal twelve-year-old shouldn't. She would make a horrible actress.

"And you probably worried Peeta for no good reason," Katniss continues.

This perks Prim right up, just as her sister intended. She carefully lets go of Katniss and then launches herself at me, using all the force she wanted to use with Katniss and more. We nearly topple over.

"Oh, Peeta! I'm sorry. I was just so scared!"

"Don't worry about it," I say, listening to Katniss crutch into the living room. Once I know she's out of hearing range, I kneel down to whisper in Prim's ear. "Everyone gets scared sometimes."

Prim nods and looks up at me, giving a small smile that tells me she knows I was scared as well. She lets go and walks into the living room, asking Katniss if she can look at her ankle and I follow her, waving goodbye as I head back to my truck.

I'm surprised when I see Katniss's face. It's almost as if she doesn't want me to leave.


When Finnick sees her on crutches, his face drops.

"What the hell did you do?" he asks, completely forgetting about me and walking to Katniss. He sits her down in a chair and eyes her foot, looking up as she gasps a little when her bruised tailbone hits the seat. He gingerly takes off the air cast and shakes his head. "That's a beautiful sprain you got there, sugar."

I walk over to look. Finnick's right. Katniss's ankle looks like a balloon and is riddled with fierce purple blotches that inch up her leg and over the top of her foot. I can only imagine what her tailbone must look like if this is her sprained ankle.

"Icing it?" Finnick asks. Katniss nods. "Keeping it elevated? Not stepping on it – "

"I'm not stupid, Finnick," she interrupts.

Finnick lets out a laugh. "Yeah, maybe, but you're stubborn. Something tells me you're not going to scream for someone to get you something if you can do it yourself."

Her head drops to her lap.

"That's what my crutches are for," she insists.

Finnick rolls his eyes and looks up at me. "She's my worst patient," he says, jerking his thumb at her. "Didn't do anything I told her to do. Ended up falling face first into her bedside table because she wouldn't use a walker."

I look to Katniss. She's never told me why she needed physical therapy in the first place and I can tell she doesn't want to because she's suddenly finding her lap very interesting. Finnick replaces her air cast and shakes his head.

"My first patient. Almost regretted my career choices when I got this one," he says. Then he winks and pats Katniss's knee affectionately. "She crept up on me though. The best ones always do."

When I look back at Katniss one final time before Finnick guides me back to the plastic obstacle course, she still doesn't look at me.


As we go to leave, Mr. Crane slinks in and makes a beeline for me. He smiles warmly, covering calculating eyes and a firm interest in the company board. He nods his head to Katniss and then turns to me.

"Are you free for a moment to speak with Mr. Snow?" he asks.

I look down at Katniss. She still won't look me in the eye, her shoe apparently so much more interesting. "I can call Haymitch," she mumbles.

"No," I rush to say. To be honest, I want to give her a ride home because I'm afraid if she calls Haymitch she's going to disappear into one of her shut outs again. I don't want her to shut me out, not now when I feel like I'm just beginning to piece her together. Not now when I want her to know it's okay to let me in. Like Delly said, I have to assure her that I'm not going anywhere. "Sorry, Mr. Crane. I have to take Katniss home."

"Nonsense," Mr. Crane says, nodding to Katniss again. "Katniss Everdeen is always welcome in Mr. Snow's office."

My eyebrows leap into my hairline. Katniss sucks in a breath. But, ultimately, we're escorted to the top floor, which is lined with offices. The one in the very back, which no doubt has a beautiful view, belongs to one Mr. C. Snow, President. It says so on the brass plaque on his door. Crane tells us to go in and I open the door for Katniss to crutch herself inside.

"Ah, Mr. Mellark!" He has his back to us but turns when the door is shut. He eyes Katniss greedily. I don't really like it. "Miss Everdeen! What a surprise."

"The surprise is all mine, believe me."

I'm beginning to wonder if the temperature drop in the room is just my mind playing games with me.

Snow raises an eyebrow at her foot but doesn't say anything. Instead, he turns to me and a large grin snakes it's way to his face. "I didn't know you two were friends," he says. "This is wonderful."

"Wonderful?" I ask.

"Yes, well, I wanted to ask you up here to see if we could use your story when Mr. Crane and I present the final proposal for the rehabilitation program."

I don't really understand why he needed to see me. He already made me sign a waiver for the use of my story and opinions on the program for Snow's proposal. When I don't answer, Snow continues.

"We'd like for you to deliver it to the board," he says. He looks at my legs and a smirk fills his features. "I'm sure just by walking into the room, the board will see the benefits of what it has done for you."

I know what this is about for me. Snow wants to exploit my injury for his own personal agenda. An inpatient rehabilitation program at a privately owned hospital will bring in a pretty penny. What he thinks is so wonderful about Katniss being here as well intrigues me and scares me at the same time. Snow isn't an imposing character in his appearance. He's small with white hair, little beady eyes, and a white rose on his lapel.

"And, if you would, Miss Everdeen, the opinion of a former patient, who has seen first hand how much our program is improving, would be exquisite," Snow continues. "Especially one with a story such as yours. So…touching, after all."

My cue to nod comes when Katniss smiles. "Of course."


We don't speak again until we're in my truck, the keys in the ignition but the engine still silent. Katniss goes to look out the window but I reach forward and cup her chin with my hand. My stomach burns with hunger, imagining that if this was any other girl I would be kissing her, while Katniss shivers.

"What was that?" I ask, flicking my eyes in the direction of the hospital.

Katniss takes a deep breath. "My – "

And then she does the one thing I never thought I would see. Katniss Everdeen bursts into tears. I don't know what to do except reach over and pull her toward me. She rests her head on my chest and my chin lies in her hair. I whisper soothing words my father used to say when I was upset as a little kid. Once her sobs have quieted to sniffles, she doesn't pull away. Instead, she pulls me closer.

"I just want to forget," she says. "Is that so hard for everyone to believe? Every time there's a telethon or benefit or anything to promote the hospital, Snow wants me to tell my story. And, I can't not say yes, not after everything this hospital's done for me. But, I just want to be normal, you know? I just want to forget I was ever sick and move on with my life."

"Katniss, your story is amazing," I tell her, not trying to defend Snow, but realizing just why he likes using her. "You're alive. You're beautiful. You're an inspiration."

She shakes her head against my chest. "My story's not amazing," she whispers.

"Yes, it is," I say. I remember reading her Inspiring Stories piece. The fact that she's still alive is a miracle in and of itself, any of the families that lost their child to cancer would attest to it. Sure, I don't know everything. I don't know why she had to go to physical therapy. I don't know what happened to her parents. But I do know that she's fought valiantly for her life and won.

"It's not," she insists. She pulls away from me and shakes her head. "Look, you don't deserve this. You deserve someone who can fall in love with you. I can never do that. So, just drop me off and we can go our separate ways."

I have been clinging desperately to the hope that Prim had been lying. With those words, Katniss has taken to my heart with a baseball bat. It's bruised and broken, dropping passed my stomach, down to the feet.

"I'm sorry for leading you on."

Now she's stomping on it, her boots jumping up and down until it paints the floor red.

"Why can't you?" I start willing my mouth to shut up but it's not connecting with my brain or my broken heart. It's even quivering slightly in a not-so-manly voice that I'm embarrassed to know is coming from my mouth. However, my mouth just keeps running, not listening to me. "Don't tell me you don't believe in love. Prim told me about your theory. And, to be honest, it sounds stupid to me."

Katniss turns to me and glares. "Love just hurts you in the end."

"No, it – "

"Yes, it does!" Katniss screams. "Haymitch almost killed himself because of it. My parents…when your parents hate each other, scream and yell and threaten divorces and – "

"They do!" I don't know what's taken over me, but I'm yelling too. "You think, just because I didn't get affected by the cluster, that my life is so wonderful? My mother's a psycho and if she had somewhere to go she'd of left years ago. My parents can't stand each other!"

Katniss looks taken aback for a moment, as if she never expected me to yell at her. I never expected it either, but now that it's done, I feel a weight lift off my shoulders. Katniss takes a breath and looks up to the ceiling.

"You're not the reason your parents fight."

Any and all relief I felt at yelling disappears in a matter of seconds. Katniss starts playing with her fingers and I wait. I don't say anything and will her to get this off her chest.

"I was," she continues. "Money was tight. You know, Miner Falls isn't known for millionaires. When I got sick it was devastating and my parents…they were so in love with each other but…"

I reach forward and grasp her hand, urging her to go on.

She inhales. "Once they closed the mine, my dad lost his job. He had to work three part-time jobs just to put food on the table for Prim and make sure I could still get treatment. He hated that he couldn't see me because he didn't want me to…" She lets out a breath. "He had too much pride to make my mom work. When I went into remission things got back to normal but, you know what they say, a dying kid either brings you together or it tears you apart. My parents were too in love. It could only tear them apart."

Her hand shakes under mine. "One night my mom had to make that call. They had fought earlier that day. I remember it and then the next thing I remember is I woke up in ICU with Haymitch sitting in a chair telling me my parents were dead. I was twelve."

She looks up at me and I shake my head. "You don't have to tell me all this," I say.

"You wanted to know," she says, but it's not spiteful. It's almost solemn. "The call my mom made that night was to tell my dad to hurry to the hospital because the doctors weren't sure if I was going to make it. My dad rushed and ran a red light. He died instantly and my mother was so overwhelmed. She just lost her best friend and her husband, she thought she was going to lose her daughter too, so she OD'd on my pain pills."

We sit in silence. There's really nothing I can say.

"So, that's why I don't believe in love," she concludes. "People want it because they think it's so great, but it just makes you dependent. Then it ruins you. I've always been dependent on my doctors, my parents, Haymitch. Now, I can finally live my own life. I don't want to be dependent on anyone. I like it this way."

"Don't you ever want to get married, have kids?"

She shakes her head. "I never want to bring a child into this world. It's a terrible place and once it's born there's no way to protect it, not from anything." She turns to me and gives a tiny smile. "So you, Peeta Mellark, deserve someone with a heart wide open, just like yours. Mine's clamped shut so don't waste any more time and energy trying to open it."

I don't want to accept this. I can see why she doesn't want to open her heart. She's scared. Scared she'll grow attached and lose, just as Delly predicted. Katniss's story is dark and lonely and it makes me feel horrible, imagining Katniss at twelve, believing she's the reason both her parents are dead. Seeing her mother kill herself. Knowing her father did everything to be with her, to save her, and in the end fate intervened. I think of myself at twelve, carefree and thinking my parents' petty arguments about taxes and money were bad. However, despite all of this, I refuse to believe her heart will be closed forever.

"What if it opens?" I ask. It's a desperate plea.

She rolls her eyes, but her voice is only breath, as if she wants to believe what she's saying just as much as I do. "Then I'll let you know."


I do the board meeting. Katniss does not. President Snow doesn't seem too concerned with Katniss being missing, especially when the board members all take well to my story. It's a little deceptive. Mr. Crane's brief bio slide on his fancy slide show makes it seem like the prognosis on my leg was much worse than it actually was, but I just say the things I was scripted to say. Finnick did help me. I did find it convenient not to have to drive forty-five minutes both ways every day. Everything I have to say is true.

Katniss doesn't come to my rehab. I don't bug her at home. Prim doesn't question me about it at all, nor does she ask me in on Tuesdays. I'm not sure if Katniss told her anything or if she just senses the tension, but I'm glad she doesn't ask because I don't particularly want to tell.

I feel like I have a lead plate on my chest just thinking about everything Katniss has gone through and the fact that I yelled at her. She shouldn't have had to tell me anything. But, I find myself missing her more now that she's gone than I ever did during any of her shut outs. It's probably because I know she's not coming back this time. Despite being able to hang out with my friends instead of driving to the capitol those two days I used to spend solely with her, I've never felt lonelier.

Part of me wants a wacky result when the reaping happens because I know it will draw Katniss back to me, thinking she owes me for the letters I wrote her all those years ago, just like she thought she owed me to help with my rehab. But, I've never been that lucky. My blood work came back perfect. I don't have cancer. I should be thrilled, and I know it's horrible for me to be wishing a death sentence on myself, but I wanted to be reaped this year. It just makes me that much guiltier.

I hit myself in the head with a cake pan just to see if it will make me sane again.

"Dude, that's two years in a row everyone's been clear. Maybe they'll stop pricking us!" Hersh says, sitting at the decorator's table, fiddling on his cellphone.

"Yeah," I mumble.

Hersh lifts his eyes from his phone and stares at me. "What's the matter?" he asks. "You've been bumming for a month."

I don't answer and continue icing cupcakes with white floppy flowers that remind me of the crocheted hat Katniss wore in her scrapbook pictures. I'm hopeless. Really, this is pathetic.

"Did you and Katniss break up?"

The question makes me snort. Since I told Delly about Katniss at New Years, it didn't stay quiet long that I was not only friends with the legendary Katniss Everdeen but that I also housed a huge crush on her and possible thought I was in love with her. Hersh thought I was stupid. Delly thought it was a bit rash. I maintained that Katniss was suggesting it might be a relationship, based on her interactions with me. I didn't tell them anything else, although I know they assumed the best.

Now I know she was leading me on and had no intentions of ever entering a relationship with anyone, myself included. I feel stupid, to say to least.

I don't have to say anything for Hersh to shake his head. "Dude, there's other fish in the sea. In fact, that's a very pretty fish called Fern Foster who has been asking about you."

I really don't care who Fern Foster is or if she's been talking about me or not. Fern Foster isn't my concern. My concern is that I'm willing to wait forever for Katniss's heart to open. Again, I'm hopeless. I've accepted it. I'm never going to get married because the only girl I'd ever marry is dead set against it.

There's got to be some sort of way for me to get over this.

My phone vibrates on the table and I shake my head, knowing it's Delly. I don't feel like talking to Delly right now and having her say she told me this was a bad idea. My phone stops ringing and I go back to the cupcake. Then it starts up again.

"Just answer it," Hersh hisses. "Maybe it's Katniss begging you to come back to her."

I wish. Maybe…

My arm stretches abnormally fast and I groan, seeing Prim's smiling face on the caller ID. I almost silence it, but something sits wrong in my stomach. I'm upset with Katniss, not Prim and shouldn't take it out on her. It's not her fault.

"Hey, Prim," I say.

"Peeta!"

My throat constricts. Prim is crying. Sobbing, actually, and it makes my hands tremble so much I'm afraid I'll drop the phone. Quickly, my mind runs through things she could be crying about. One of their geese died. One of her favorite kids in the reading room is dying. I know before my list tells me exactly what is going on.

My heart races in my chest. "Where are you?"

"Home," she sniffs. "Uncle Haymitch was…going to come...but I told him...to stay. Will you…get me?"

"Of course," I tell her, my eyes flooding with my own tears. "How is she?"

"She hasn't…she doesn't know." Prim chokes out another sob. "Just...come. Hurry."

The line disconnects and I'm out of my chair and out the front door before it does. My eyes spill water. Here I was, wishing myself ill for my own personal gain when other people are actually dying. While I was hoping for a wacky reading, Katniss's bone marrow aspiration came back with abnormal results. Prim didn't need to say it for me to know.

"Peeta…Peeta!" I'm opening the door to the truck before I finally turn around. "Peeta!"

Hersh pulls the keys out of my hands. I'm about to yell at him, tell him to leave me alone, scream that I need to go, when he pushes me out of the way so he can sit in the driver's seat. I raise an eyebrow but he doesn't say anything. Hersh was never good with emotion. Seeing me like this probably threw him for a loop.

"You can't drive. You'll crash," he says, not to anyone in particular and certainly not to me, as he drives toward the highway. "Just tell me where to go."


Hersh comes back from the cafeteria with three steaming cups – one coffee, two with tea bag strings hanging out – and a brownie covered in plastic wrap. He holds the dessert out to Prim, but she's cried herself to sleep on my lap, her face buried in my shirt, while we wait for Haymitch to return.

Katniss woke up for a fraction of a second before they put her back under in order to perform a lumbar puncture. Haymitch said the doctors were only doing the spinal tap as a precaution, making sure none of the leukemia cells they found in her bone marrow had entered her cerebrospinal fluid. If they do find any, she'll have an MRI done to see how the cancer has spread to the soft tissues of her spinal cord and brain.

It occurs to me that her body is rebelling against her. It makes me wonder when it started, if the beast was already gaining strength inside her when we first met or if it grew just as our friendship grew, as if it was just waiting for an audience, waiting for us to meet.

Haymitch enters the waiting room, takes a look at Prim, and lets out a breath. I don't know what to do so I look to him for advice. He's been through this before. He knows how to survive. Right now, I feel like I'm drowning.

He kneels down in front of me and gently pats Prim's back. She wakes instantly and turns around, her arms leaving my neck to wrap around his.

"How bad is it?" she asks.

Haymitch kisses her forehead and shakes his head. "Why don't you go see her?" he says. "But, you got be strong, blondie. She's scared as hell."

Prim shakily steps out of my lap and shivers as a nurse that followed Haymitch takes her shoulder and gently guides her away. As soon as she's around the corner, the attention turns from Prim to me, Haymitch giving me a stern look.

"Alright, boy, you listen to me," he says, pointing a finger in my face. "This isn't going to be pretty. It's not going to be like any Lifetime movie. It's going to be ugly and if you can't handle that, get out now."

"I understand, I volunteer – "

"No, you don't understand," Haymitch says, staring at me with fire in his eyes. "She's a mess and I can send in any amount of expensive drugs, any number of specialists, and it still might all be for naught. If you say you want to be there for her, you got to be there. You can't bail when it gets rough and it will. Trust me."

"Is she going to die?" I ask.

Haymitch's face drops. He lets out a breath and runs a hand over his face. "I don't know."

I nod and try to swallow the growing lump in my throat. "Do you want a breather?" I ask. Haymitch has been here for hours, sitting in the waiting room through Katniss's first test, going in while she was in recovery, pacing during the spinal tap and finally going to her when she came to. He must be exhausted, emotionally as well as physically.

"It must be hard for you," I continue, thinking of Prim sitting with Katniss. Haymitch must see what I see, an uncertain future. "Being in there right now."

He thinks for a moment and gives a dark chuckle. "Oh, I think we can count on it being unbearable wherever I am."

An emotion flashes across his face that I'm sure is written all over mine as well. Pain. However, he masks it easily, nodding his head down the hall. "If you're in, go on down. As much as she can't stand it, she's going to need a friend for when blondie and I get on her nerves."

I stand from my chair and he quickly takes my seat, turning toward Hersh, who I had forgotten was here. He raises an eyebrow. "Who the hell are you?"

"Peeta's ride," Hersh says, the look of momentary awestruck at being addressed by Haymitch Abernathy similar to the look on my face when I first met the Everdeen guardian.

Haymitch shakes his head and, without asking, reaches for one of the steaming cups Hersh placed on the table. He lifts it to his lip, takes a swig, and nearly spits it out on the floor. He eyes me for a minute, looks down at the tea meant for me, and looks back up.

"No sugar, boy?" he asks. When I shake my head, he groans. "I have to do everything myself around here."

He staggers up and walks toward the lounge that I'm sure he's not supposed to be in. But, since he's Haymitch Abernathy, I suppose he can do whatever he wants. Or, at least, he thinks he can. Hersh looks at me with wide eyes and I laugh.

"You get used to it," I say before looking down the hallway. I have to find someone to direct me.

I have to see Katniss.


Katniss only ever wrote me herself once. She scribbled her response in purple crayon and the words weren't nearly as well crafted as that of her mother's. Her sentences were short, sometimes just fragments, but to my five-year-old self they painted a picture, a picture of what Katniss Everdeen was really like.

And she seemed like a girl I really wanted to get to know.

I kept that letter hung up on my wall, right next to the mockingjay she drew for me. I would read it at night, right before I went to bed, so it would remind me to hope and pray for her to get better. At the time, I didn't know how else to help her.

Now, I still don't really know how to help her.

I knock on the wall before I fully enter. Katniss and Prim are both in the hospital bed. Katniss is attached to IV poles and machines, some beeping, some not. Prim has weaseled her way around the wires to wrap herself around her sister's waist, her head resting on Katniss's arm so she can look up with adoration at the sister I know she loves more than life itself. Katniss, in true Katniss fashion, is wearing a scowl as Prim giggles at something I've missed.

When I knock again, Prim turns around and smiles. "Hi, Peeta," she says, any ounce of the terrified twelve-year-old she was only moments before replaced with a seasoned warrior, a soldier to reassure the general that all isn't lost. She looks back up at Katniss and kisses her cheek before sitting up. "I'm going to check on Uncle Haymitch."

"Okay, little duck," Katniss says. Prim makes a face and Katniss smiles. "What? Too old to be a little duck anymore?"

A flash of remorse spreads across Prim's face, as if she's realized her sole purpose in life is to do whatever Katniss needs her to do and she's just failed. She looks down at her shoes and quacks softly, but turns toward me so Katniss can't see the tears in her eyes. Then, she rushes out of the room, leaving Katniss to sigh. I keep my spot by the door, waiting for my commands. Like Prim, my purpose is to do as Katniss wants, what she thinks I can do to help her survive. I'm not sure if there's anything I can do physically, but Dad always says laughter is the best medicine. Maybe, just maybe, I can aid her once more, this time with myself instead of my letters.

Katniss looks up at me and shakes her head. "I'm not going to keel over yet," she says. "You can come closer."

So, I do. I sit down on the edge of her bed, resting my hand next to hers, free for her to take if she feels the need. At first, we don't do anything. We sit in silence, listening to the beeps of the machine alerting us that she's still alive. In my head they sound like ticking time bombs and I wish for a moment they were, that way I could open them up like on television shows and find the red wire, cutting it in half and shutting it off, saving Katniss from blowing to bits.

Katniss pulls me out of my thoughts when she takes my hand. I'm sure I can see the fear flowing from her head down her arm into my hand. We both share the burden of her survival.

"Peeta?" she asks and, for the first time since our blow out, I look into her eyes. The mesmerizing puddles of gray that flicker with light, so pale in color they nearly blend into the white surrounding them. They show her every emotion and this is why she's such a terrible liar.

"Katniss, I'll do anything," I say when I really mean I'm sorry for yelling, I'm sorry for not calling, I'm sorry you're dying. I'm sorry there's nothing I can do to keep you from this challenge placed on your shoulders. I'm sorry I can't take your place.

She nods once. "Will you stay with me?"

I don't know what she means. I'm sure I'm not allowed to stay long and surely she doesn't mean overnight. Perhaps she means to come by like I did those months when we were getting along. Maybe she just means encouraging her like she did for me.

Really, in the end, it won't matter what she means. I'm not here to think. I'm here to do as she asks until she walks right out of this hospital with a clean bill of health because I refuse to see any other alternative.

So, when I say, "Always," I mean it.


They admit Katniss that night so they can start her on a regime of chemotherapy first thing in the morning. I stay until visiting hours are over. Haymitch is a complete wreck as he sets a sleeping Prim down on the pullout couch in Katniss's room, the same type of couch my father slept on in another section of the hospital when I screwed up my knee. He beelines it to a chair next to Katniss's bed shortly after, sitting and staring at her as she rests, shot up with a small amount of sedative so she can relax and sleep before her big day.

I take one final look before going out into the waiting room. Hersh looks up from his phone when he sees me and he stands, stretching after sitting in the chair for hours. I open my mouth to thank him, but he holds out his hand to stop me.

"You would do the same for me," he says and, in a rare show of emotion, he pulls me into a brief hug. "I'm so sorry."

We don't say anything else on our car ride home.

My mother is already in bed when we get there, but my dad is sitting at the kitchen table, obviously waiting for me and trying to make it seem like he's enthralled with a crossword puzzle in the newspaper he's already finished. When I walk in, he stands up, and I feel like a little kid again when I walk into his arms.

He doesn't even get a single word out before I burst into tears. He pulls me into the living room, sitting us down on the couch, and starts coddling me like I am five-years-old again and scraped my knee on the gravel playing baseball in the street. He rocks me back and forth, kisses my forehead, pats my head, all the things I realize mothers are suppose to do but mine hasn't done for years. I feel embarrassed to be seventeen and bawling my eyes out to my father, but I won't be the first seventeen-year-old in this house to do so. Rye's been comforted like this before, as has Leaven. I suppose it's my turn.

Only I'm not crying about losing a state championship, a rejection letter from my top choice school, or even a break-up with a girlfriend. Whereas my brothers only leaked tears – or in the case of Rye's team losing states, letting out a few streams – I think all the water in my body will run dry until there's nothing left because I'm not crying over something petty.

"She can't die, Dad," I say, my voice weak, my breathing erratic, but my tears slowing.

He shushes me and the water works begin once more. I let myself fall apart tonight, because tomorrow, just as Haymitch told Prim, I have to be strong for Katniss. There will be no weaklings on her team.


I have never skipped school before. With my mother being the head of the PTA in a town small enough that word of everything I do always seems to get back to her, it really wasn't much of an option. I've never even thought about it. However, halfway through my first class, I can't stand it anymore. I stand up, gather my books, and walk out, ignoring the exclamation of my teacher, Hersh and Delly's wide eyes, and the gossip of every other student in my class. It will get back to my mother, but at this point I don't care.

My usual route takes an extra fifteen minutes with rush hour traffic.

Effie has to call ahead to get me cleared to go up and Haymitch apparently added me to Katniss's list of okayed individuals. I don't have to check in with Effie again and can just head up before going to see her. Now, I have to check in with another receptionist at the nurses' station on the oncology floor.

The woman, whose nametag identifies her as Venia, eyes me a moment as if she's sizing me up before handing me my badge that will allow me to wander the floor. She warns me that Katniss may not be back in her room yet but that I'm free to wait there if she isn't. When I get there, I notice that her room isn't empty like Venia expected and, instead, is bursting with noise.

"Peeta!" Prim exclaims, jumping off the side of Katniss's bed and running toward me.

"Hey, girls," I say, bracing for impact. Prim launches herself on me. I look up at Katniss and see that she's chuckling. "How are you?"

She shrugs. "I'm okay."

"She had surgery this morning to put in a central line and she's already got two units of blood in her," Prim states, pulling away to tell me. "She's ready to go."

I swallow loudly and I'm sure everyone's heard it. "Transfusion?" I ask.

Katniss nods. "My red blood cell count was low," she says and then she turns to Prim. I can vaguely hear doors opening and closing behind us and the hurried speech of hospital workers in the hallway. "Prim was there the whole time and she was so good. Did she tell you that she wants to be a nurse?"

Prim blushes crimson, her entire face the color of a tomato, and she bashfully looks at her shoes when Katniss praises her.

"She didn't tell me," a deep voice says.

Prim's eyes light up and she lifts her face from the floor. "Cinna!" she says.

I turn around to see a male nurse. He winks at Prim before patting her head, walking into the room and sidestepping me to get to Katniss's bed. Unlike most of the other nurses I've seen, Cinna's scrubs are not Disney-themed, nor do they have happy cartoon images. His scrubs are all black with gold trim. On anyone else, it would make me terrified but his smile is so warm when he sits down on the edge of Katniss's bed, it's hard to deny how much he cares.

He leans right into her face. "Remember, head high. Smile," he says, patting her cheek. "I'm still betting on you."

"After all this time?" she jokes. "I would have thought you'd choose someone with better odds."

Cinna shakes his head. "I have too much money riding on you, so don't let me down now." He winks and stands, going to one of the machines and adjusting something on it. "So, I mean, I know I haven't seen you in a while, but you forgot to mention this morning that you have a boyfriend."

Prim starts to giggle and I'm pretty sure I'm the same shade of red as Katniss. She gives her nurse a look of astonishment and Cinna raises his hands in surrender. As if it couldn't get any worse, Haymitch walks in at that precise moment and I'm sure I'm going to be banned.

"She better not," he says with a gruff chuckle. Although he's laughing, his face is void of any type of smile. I'm not sure if it's a joke or if he's serious. "I didn't clear him to be a boyfriend."

Katniss has gone purple she's so embarrassed and Cinna laughs. He takes her face in his hands and chuckles. "You sweet, sweet girl. I'm just teasing you," he says. "You haven't changed at all."

Once her face has lightened, Katniss introduces me to Cinna, her favorite nurse. "This is my friend Peeta," she tells him. "Be nice."

I try my hardest not to let my heartbreak show on my face at her introduction of me. I should be appreciating the fact that we're friends again, not still mourning our lack of common future goals. Ultimately, I want the whole package – wife, kids, maybe even a dog or something. Katniss doesn't want kids nor does she have any desire to be someone's wife. However, thoughts of these future kids of mine have gone from curly-haired blonds to little girls with dark hair in braids and little boys with pale gray eyes practically overnight. I have fallen hopelessly and far too deeply for her than a seventeen-year-old should.

While lost in thought, I didn't notice Katniss's room begin to fill with people and then empty. I stay with Prim on the couch while Katniss goes down to the treatment room with Haymitch and Cinna after her oncologist came in for a brief chat.

"Dr. Heavensbee loves Katniss," Prim says as she beats me in poker for the third time. "He's going to get her in remission. I know he will."

I nod my head, hoping Prim's right. Knowing Prim's right. Katniss will be okay. We stare at each other while I reshuffle the cards. We're both in denial that anything bad will happen to her.

"He's the head oncologist," Prim continues, nervously rambling. It's making me nervous too. My good leg is bouncing up and down on the floor. Her voice shakes as she keeps up her mantra that Dr. Heavensbee won't give up on Katniss, even if it looks bleak. It may be helping her, but by the time she segues into a story about one of her school friends, all of her nerves have transferred to me.

It's going to be okay. She's going to be okay. I'm not going to let her not be okay.

I'm still repeating this in my head when the door opens and Katniss walks in, followed by Haymitch and a nurse mumbling behind her, clearly upset Katniss wouldn't sit in the empty wheelchair she's pushing. The nurse puts the wheelchair next to her bed and tells Haymitch to press the call button if Katniss needs anything, and leaves with a shake of her head. Prim leaps up off the couch and helps Katniss into her bed, despite the gripes Katniss makes that she can do it herself.

"Are you nauseous yet?" Prim asks. I can definitely see her being a nurse one day, even if Katniss hadn't told me earlier about her sister's future career plans.

"Not yet," Katniss says, pushing Prim away, not wanting to be fussed over. Prim backs off but still remains at the side of her bed. "Why don't you and Haymitch go get lunch, all right?"

Prim eyes the clock. It's a little passed eleven, but her stomach has been growling for the last ten minutes. Prim's about to argue, but Haymitch nods his head. "Come on, blondie," he says. "I need coffee."

"Yeah," Katniss agrees. "He's not usually awake this time of day."

Haymitch glares at her. "Hush it," he says.

Prim nods her head and sighs. As she walks passed me, she smiles. "Do you want anything?" I shake my head and she goes to Haymitch, taking his hand and walking with him out of the room. Haymitch rolls his eyes but I notice he doesn't withdraw his hand.

Without them in the room, I don't know what to say. My words, which seem to work with everyone else, always seem to fail me when it comes to Katniss. Maybe it's because Katniss is so bad with them herself. Maybe it's because I don't want to say the wrong thing. So, instead of speaking, I act. I sit down on the side of her bed and hold out my hand, offering her comfort and encouragement.

She looks at it for a minute and then smiles. "Feel free to ditch when I start blowing chunks," she says, but she still inches her hand forward slowly until she laces our fingers together. I know it's not because she's attracted to me – my mind suddenly bringing me back to the boy in her scrapbook and a fierce jealousy floods me – but I allow myself to take comfort in it.

"Eh, you blow chunks, I'll probably be right there with you," I joke. The only thing I really know how to do in this situation is make fun of myself, so I guess this is the route I'm taking. "We'll do it together."

She shakes her head but she does crack a smile. And then we shoot the breeze. It's almost as if we've never fought. Words flow between us about safe topics – my knee, her sister, who Finnick might flirt with next. I watch as her face falls ever so slightly, the nausea no doubt kicking in, and try to keep up the banter. It's me talking at the end with Katniss keeping her mouth clenched shut.

It's when Katniss finally loses it nearly two hours after Prim and Haymitch left that I realize they left for a reason. Haymitch is keeping Prim away, possibly for her sake but mostly for Katniss's. She doesn't want Prim to see her like this. I don't really know what to do except grab the pink emesis basin and pull her braid off her shoulder. Without even realizing it, I climb into her bed, positioning myself behind her as she throws up, rubbing her back and letting her lean into me until she heaves forward once more. When she leans back, apparently done for a minute, she tells me to press the call button.

The nurse with the wheelchair from earlier looks less angry now. She smiles sadly and tells us she'll bring Katniss her second dose of Reglan, which I'm then told is an anti-nausea medication. By the time she comes back, Katniss is dry heaving and I feel completely helpless behind her.

The medication is delivered through Katniss's central line, which I stare at a few moments too long. It's a three-pronged port that she pulls out of her shirt and gets attached to the IVs. I've seen kids wandering around Children's with them before, but I've never been so close. Katniss notices my stare and shifts uncomfortably.

"Just another part of the freak show," Katniss mumbles, exhausted from the toll on her body.

She doesn't see herself the way I do. Whereas I see Katniss as an amazing girl, someone beautiful and inspiring, she sees nothing special. If anything, she doesn't understand herself. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help it. I lean forward and press my lips to her cheek. She stiffens in my arms instantly but remains with her back against my chest, lurching forward every so often. By the time all the medicine is circulating through her blood fifteen minutes later, she's nearly relaxed.

Prim bounces in just as Katniss begins getting restless. Haymitch raises his eyebrows at our position but wordlessly takes the emesis basin to the bathroom to clean up. I know Prim is sighing on the inside, seeing all the romance she desperately wants to see despite the situation. However, I know this isn't romantic. Eleven years ago, I wrote her letters. She's seen me through my rehab. It makes sense to be here, supporting and encouraging her just as like we've done for each other in the past. Platonically. Together this time as friends instead of strangers or acquaintances.

Of course we will go into this as one. We always do.


Once upon a time, my mother used to be a good parent, or so Rye tells me. When he was younger, she used to coddle him and hug him, all the normal motherly actions. It's no secret that my mother desperately wanted a daughter and, obviously, neither Leaven nor I fulfilled her ultimate wish. So, each additional son ended up being a burden to her and, I guess in punishment for getting a Y instead of an X from Dad, she expected more from Leaven and the most from me. Whereas Rye could kill someone and she'd probably help him bury the body, Leaven would have to bury it himself but if word got out she'd disown him. As for me, I could bury the body a million miles away and she'd still catch whiff of it and she'd personally escort me to the authorities while she was at it.

So, I am not in the least bit surprised when I pull up in front of the house and see her sitting in her lookout chair by the window, as if she's waiting for me to get home. In fact, I kind of expected it. The text from Hersh (Mayday! Mama Mellark NOT happy. Run for your life!) helped too. Our town is too small – and too gossipy – for my mother not to catch wind that I not only skipped school today but that I walked out of class. Not the respectable behavior everyone expects from the Mellark boys.

Now I just need to decide whether or not I should even walk in or if it will be more practical to spend the night in the back of the truck.

Sometimes avoiding my mother until she's mad at someone else has its benefits. However, in this case, there's really no one around that will get her upset enough to forget about me. Rye and Leaven are still at school and I don't think Dad can do anything more terrible than disrespecting my teacher, playing hooky, and leaving the town to make up a whole gaggle of stories about what I was possibly doing in my newfound free time.

The door of the truck sticks. I have to ram my shoulder against it to even get it to open.

The sun is just beginning to set and the sky has taken on my favorite hue, a dark yet vibrant orange, the type that seems to embrace everything it touches. I take a few moments to bask in it, hoping to draw some of its strength. I feel depleted of energy, which is certainly never good when my mother's in a mood. Before I open the door, I can hear my father in the kitchen. I haven't missed dinner, so at least I won't get yelled at for that.

The minute the door jiggles my mother gets up out of her chair so she can stand in the doorway, her hands on her hips, her mouth at the ready. I don't need to see it to know it's happening. When I get the door open, I'm not even through the threshold when her tirade begins.

"Where have you been?" she demands. Before I can open my mouth to tell her, she continues. "Walking out of class! I cannot believe you! Did I raise a Neanderthal? You do not just walk out and disrespect your teachers! I have half the mind to send you off to military school!"

I open my mouth but I can see my father in the doorway. He slings a towel over his shoulder and shakes his head. The message is clear. He's already worked on her and I need to shut up or his hard work is going to go down the tubes.

"Do you have any idea what they're saying? They always warned me – the last one's always the rebel! But, no, I thought we'd raised you better! You respect your elders," she hisses. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am," I say.

She throws her hands in the air in some big display of frustration. "Good lord, Peeta! Can't you use any common sense?" she exclaims. "I get home and there's a message on the machine from the school and your good-for-nothing father has no idea where you've gone off to! Even Delly and the Donner boy had no idea where you were."

Okay, so that's how Hersh knew. My mother sought them out for information. At least no one's been thoughtless enough to tell her about Katniss yet. She does not need to know. Oh, could you imagine? Peeta's somehow managed to befriend one of the cluster kids. She'd tell everyone at her book club so they could pity her as if she actually knows Katniss, probably tell the PTA about what a sweet girl she is, cry at church for a little for attention, and she'd insist that my college essay could be about it to boot. The last thing this town needs is my mother identifying with the cluster.

"Sorry," I mumble.

She rolls her eyes. "I've had your father make a pie for Mrs. Parkinson as an apology and to pay for it you're working all day Saturday. And that doesn't mean sitting at the counter doodling either!"

Oh goody. Now I have to take her shift. Of course that would be her punishment for me. I look over her shoulder to see my father shrug and I just smile. I don't want her to ground me, so I'll graciously accept this.

"Okay," I say.

She huffs in response before storming into the kitchen, the conversation over and with effective punishment. But, more importantly, it's over on her terms.


I tell my father I'm going to be late on Friday so I can visit Katniss after my rehab considering I can't see her Saturday because of that stupid shift that will require me to open and close the bakery. He nods his head.

"Oh, tutoring kids at the Y? Sounds good. I'll tell your mother they're serving you dinner."

Considering the Y is a good forty minutes away just outside the state capitol's city limits and no one in town ever goes there, it'll be safe bet to tell my mother that. This way, she can brag at her PTA meeting about how wonderful I am and no one will know it's a lie. The longer she doesn't know about Katniss the better and everyone knows that.

With gas prices soaring and a pickup from the dark ages, I'm surprised my mother hasn't yelled at me about my constant trips to the state capitol. Either she hasn't realized it's where I'm going or she doesn't care as long as I'm using my own money. Since I only make money for working at the bakery on weekends – my mother decided years ago that weekday shifts would be tacked onto our chore lists – and that's about three times less than minimum wage, I don't have a lot. But, it's worth every penny.

If anything, it's gotten old man Cray to like me.

"I'm surprised that old thing still runs!" Cray says when he sees me coming.

We have one gas station in Miner Falls and it's got a pump from the depression era. Cray sits sniveling in the tiny convenient store, which mostly sells cigarettes and packs of gum, and hates on just about everyone. The mine closing hit him hard, just like everyone else, because even though most of the miners lived in town there were a few that drove in from places like Old Orchard. The miners would stop by Cray's to fill their trucks, grab some smokes or chew, and then go on their merry ways. My brothers used to stop by to see which crude magazine Cray managed to get his hands on that week and he'd always be renting it out to some of the kids at the high school for a little extra cash. He's also got the only place in town that sells condoms, since the apothecary is dead set against it, and that draws a fair number of my classmates, although I'm not sure I'd trust anything that came out of Cray's. It's kind of a dump and, although everything in Miner Falls still has a thick layer of coal dust covering it even a decade after the mine shut down, this place can make your toes crawl right into your feet.

But, Cray seems to like me enough and while he yells at just about everyone else for wasting his time, knowing damn well that they still have to get their gas here since he's the last station for another ten miles, the only bad things that tend to come out of his mouth when he talks to me are about the wheezes my truck makes.

"Don't poke fun of my baby," I tell him, slapping the money down on the counter.

Before it was mine, the truck belonged to Leaven, before that Rye drove it around, and before that it was my father's. Since we have a delivery truck my father can use when he can't walk somewhere and a four-door my mother drives, the truck became the kids car and, like every other hand-me-down I've ever gotten, by the time it got to me it was sputtering with old age. But we don't travel far and I think I've doubled the mileage on it since meeting Katniss so it's still not even close to a hundred thousand. So, sputter it may, but it drives just fine.

Cray snorts but takes my money. "You drive a lot, Mellark," he says, trying to pry. "Unless you stop by just to see me."

It's meant as a joke, but I kind of feel bad for Cray. He's mean and cranky mostly, angry at the world because his brother inherited his father's huge farm when he died leaving Cray with just about nothing. Thread Farm has been a gold mine for Romy and Cray's kind of stuck. Not only that, but his wife left him years ago for a trucker and he doesn't have any kids or grandkids to keep him busy. I don't mind stopping by and listening to him every once and a while, but today I don't really have time for his chatter. I've got rehab with Finnick and I'm bordering on making it there on time as it is.

So, I just smile, hoping he'll take the hint. He does.

"Stinks about that knee of yours," Cray says while he rings me up. "Baseball team sucks without you."

Our baseball team was never anything special with me either but he doesn't say that.

"It's a rebuilding year," I tell him as we wait for the receipt to print. "Next year will be better."

Cray rolls his eyes. "Let's pray for that. Donner can pitch as well as he wants, but they ain't doing nothing without hitting," he says. And then he pulls up his magazine, giving me full view of a topless woman on the cover, and buries his face in the article he was looking at prior to my arrival. I take that as my cue to leave.

"See you later, Cray!"

He gives some sort of indistinguishable response and I'm out the door before he can say anything else.

The ride is boring. The radio stations all seem to have commercials going at the same time and so I listen to ads about the new laser tag place in the capitol and the reasons why I should go to Sonic for my next meal. I drive a good fourth of my journey before anything decent turns on and I'm speeding a little because I'm bored. There's really no one on the highway right now. It's usually dead aside from people going to and from work, but the closer I get to the capitol the less dead it becomes and I have to slow down. I hit a minor snag just before my exit, but I still make good time.

Finnick smiles when he sees me, but I notice it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

He starts me out doing stork stands, just because it makes him chuckle, and then we move into block workouts. Today, I'm to jump off the block and stick the landing. From across the room, Johanna shouts out to me that I should be a gymnast. She's mocking me because I'm so loud landing – when I do land on feet – I sound like an elephant. Once, when I actually stick one, Finnick lifts my hands in the air as if I've finished a routine at a gymnastics competition and tells Johanna I'm going to win gold. She snorts and rolls her eyes, but I think she's kind of having fun.

My time goes by quickly and soon I'm checking out, ready to sprint up the stairs to see Katniss. I sign my name on the slip and turn around to grab my things, surprised to see that Finnick has his bag over his shoulder as well and is standing by the door, almost as if he's waiting for me.

"You're going to see Katniss, right?" he asks. When I nod, he opens the door. "Come on, I'll walk with you."

We take the staff elevator, which seems quicker than the usual one I take, and we're silent most of the way. I'm not sure why Finnick is going up and I'm not entirely sure I want to ask. When we get to her room, I can see Haymitch talking to Dr. Heavensbee down the hallway along with a doctor I've never seen before. Prim is sitting on the floor outside and I sidle up next to her, copying her position so we're both sitting with our knees to our chests. I tell myself it's an additional part of my therapy and not because I'm avoiding following Finnick into Katniss's room.

Prim tugs at her volunteer shirt's collar before looking up at me. "It's Katniss's birthday tomorrow," she says.

How did I not know this? She must of said it sometime. Did I just not pay attention?

"She's still going to be here," Prim continues. "I was wondering if maybe you would help with it. She doesn't want us to do anything for her, but I don't think she could say no to you. I just want her to have a good day."

"Sure," I tell her. Now I have to figure out how I'm going to do this with my shift tomorrow. "What do you want me to do?"

Prim shrugs. "I don't know. Something special. I want her to have…just in case," she cuts off and shakes her head, letting out a breath before looking down the hallway in front of her. When she continues, it's so quiet I can barely hear her. "I just want her to have the perfect day."

My stomach flops. "What's going on, Prim?"

"She woke up this morning with numb feet," Prim says, looking at the rainbow floor tiles. "The neurologist thinks her chemo is causing something called peripheral neuropathy."

She jerks her head down the hallway to where Haymitch is standing. "They're trying to decide what to do now. She's almost through the treatment so they might just put her on a twenty-four hour drip or they might change it completely. Uncle Haymitch won't really tell me anything else."

I let out a breath. To be honest, when Haymitch told me I didn't understand the night Katniss was diagnosed with her relapse, I didn't believe him. I volunteer at Children's every Tuesday. I see things no one should ever see. Prim starts to shake beside me, her eyes filling with tears. She looks so much older than the nearly thirteen years that she has lived. This is a girl who has walked a war, worrying about stepping on landmines and causing her sister undue stress. She was barely eight when her parents died. She has not known a time when someone wasn't worrying about Katniss. Now, the sister that has always protected her from everything – so apparent in everything Katniss does – is breaking right in front of her eyes.

Prim shakes her head and lets out a breath. "It has to get worse before it gets better," she says, her voice suddenly loud.

"It's going to get better, Prim," I say, not entirely sure if I'm lying or not.

She gives me a watery smile. "I know," she says. Her eyes scan the hallway. "I trust Dr. Heavensbee. She's going to be okay."

We sit and wait for Finnick to exit in complete silence and it's in that moment that I realize something important. Katniss isn't the only soldier. We are all soldiers in the war Katniss will lead, each and every one of us. Our battles are different, but we all have the same purpose. We stay strong so that one day, no matter what, Katniss won't be alone.

It's when Finnick steps out, walking by us to speak with Haymitch and Dr. Heavensbee, and Prim rushes in, that I look down the hall to the nurses' station. Cinna sits in a chair looking through a chart, his body clothed in the same black scrubs I've seen him in before, the ones with the gold trim, his stethoscope wrapped around his neck. I take only a brief moment to think and then I do.

"Peeta!" he says, closing the chart and looking up at me. "What can I help you with?"

"I need advice," I say. Out of every doctor, nurse, child life specialist, anyone in this whole hospital including myself, Cinna knows Katniss the best. He understands her, where she's been, where she's going. He's been here since the beginning. He is her favorite nurse and, even though he's not supposed to play favorites, he clearly favors her. "If I were to do something special for Katniss's birthday with her still being here, what would you suggest I do?"

It is scientifically proven that it takes a third of a second to blink an eye. That is three to four hundred milliseconds. I'm sure if I timed it, it took Cinna even less to spread a smile on his lips, a gleam in his eye that tells me my question just might have made his shift.


It is decided that Katniss's treatment will be completed. Since her last dose was supposed to be tomorrow, they see no harm in moving forward with one more. Katniss will have a week break and then they will assess her, but her next round will be a different type of medication in hopes of not doing any more damage. They're hoping the neuropathy is a side effect, since it is known that one of her drugs can cause it, and that it will go away once she's put into remission. It could go away immediately, or it could take years. Or it could be permanent. When Haymitch and Dr. Heavensbee tell this to Katniss while Prim and I are in the room, I realize the significance of the term small victories.

I know that in order for Katniss to live, a part of her has to die. Even in a week, you can already see the effects. One of the drugs in her specific cancer-killing cocktail caused conjunctivitis and her eyes are still slightly pink and inflamed. Her appetite is gone, partially from the medications, partly because she's stubborn and doesn't want to puke up her lunch so she's not eating. Add in her chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy, or as Dr. Heavensbee calls it CIPN, and the fact that medications are disrupting her sleep patterns to the crockpot of side effects. It leaves her cranky and restless.

And she has every right to be.

"You don't have to do this, you know."

I look up from the sketch I'm drawing to see Katniss staring at me. Prim was reluctantly dragged out of the room by Haymitch to go to dinner. I learned that they call it Prim Time and Haymitch does it at least every few days, or more if Katniss insists. Tonight, Prim's night of attention brings them to some pancake house she's been dying to go to which features a play gym and children's arcade attached. I think there's even a nine-hole mini-golf course. It speaks volumes that surly Haymitch will even step foot inside.

Prim Time is a great thing. For Prim, it's important. As for me, I'm not complaining. It means I get to spend time with Katniss with the only interruptions being the occasional nurse check.

"What don't I have to do?" I ask, setting the sketch down. Her eyes go briefly to see that I've drawn half of a bouquet of dandelions. "Keep you company? Yeah, you can't get rid of me that easily."

When I look up, I'm surprised by the look on her face. The corners of her mouth have dropped but not in the scowl to which I've become accustomed. Even through the pink, her gray eyes still captivate me. The whites of her eyes are bloodshot, so they stand out so much more. Beautiful isn't a strong enough word. I think my favorite color may change.

"I hurt you," she says.

Yeah, I suppose she did. But, it was my own fault for assuming. I should have asked if what we had going was verging on dating before I thought too much about it.

"We live in the present, Katniss. Not the past."

She nods and she's tired, so I tell her to sleep. Her eyes don't close immediately, but they do close. It's weird, in a way, that I'm completely comfortable with her, just sitting here and watching her sleep. I wonder if this is what love is, just wanting to be in the same room as the other person and knowing that the moment I leave I'll start to miss her, even though I know she's sleeping.

I'm sunk. Really, its like Katniss has tied an anchor to my foot and I'm falling to the depths of her ocean.

Her internal clock alarms her only minutes before Prim comes bouncing in, a crown on her head from the restaurant and a bag of goodies from her winnings. She waves a stuffed goat around as if she's five and sets it on Katniss's bedside table.

"I won Lady for you, Katniss," she whispers, kissing her sisters cheek and smiling.

"Thank you, Prim," she says. Her eyes start to flutter again and the rest of us exchange looks.

Feeling particularly daring tonight, I lean forward to kiss her forehead. She flinches slightly, but doesn't say anything to stop me. "I can't come tomorrow," I tell her. "I got to work all day, but I'll be back, okay?"

Katniss nods her head. She doesn't say anything.

I told Prim I would give her a ride to where she's staying earlier. She directs me on where to go through the dark capitol streets, telling me how she spent an hour trying to get enough tickets to win the goat.

"Katniss won me one once," Prim says. "It was at a carnival. So, when I saw it, I knew I had to get it for her. But, I don't think she remembered."

"I think she's just tired."

Prim shrugs and points to the next turn. "Maybe."

The house we stop in front of is not the beautiful Victorian that she lives in. The neighborhood isn't nearly as nice, the houses closer together, the street loud compared to the cricket-chirping perfectly manicured lane where I usually drop her off. The look on my face must show my concern, wondering if Haymitch has any idea of where his niece is staying, because Prim reaches over to pat my cheek.

"The Hawthornes are good people in a bad place," she says. "They understand. Trust me."

She thanks me for the ride and bounces, just as she always does, up the stoop. When the door opens, she's engulfed into the arms of a dark-haired woman before she's led into the house. I wait until the door is shut behind her and then, satisfied that she's safe inside, I make my way home.


I hate closing the bakery. It's not just flipping the sign at seven. Closing the bakery means cleaning every surface with disinfectant and sweeping all the crumbs. A good sweep is not enough. It has to be a great sweep. The ovens have to be cleaned. Certain doughs have to be prepared so my father can put them in early the next morning. The money has to be counted, everything logged in the register. And, when it's only me closing, it takes forever. I'm lucky to leave at eight thirty.

Visiting hours are long over by the time I stride passed Octavia, one of the nurses, nearly an hour later. However, she just watches me and smiles, avoiding her eyes as if to pretend she hasn't seen me. Dr. Heavensbee stops me outside Katniss's room. He's the doctor on call tonight and is well aware of the plan Cinna and I created yesterday. He holds out a couple facemasks and shakes my hand.

"Remember, it starts at midnight," he says with a wink.

Then he sets the chart into the bin on the outside of Katniss's door and walks down the hallway as I enter her room.

Katniss looks up from her laptop, the sounds of Friends echoing from the speakers. Her eyes widen. "Peeta?" she asks.

Without a word, I go into the closet and grab her sweatshirt, tossing it in her direction. "Put this on," I tell her, looking around. She's been detached from her IVs and other machines, just as Cinna said. She eyes me warily and I fight back a chuckle.

"I'm not kidnapping you," I tell her.

She shuts her laptop and looks at her coat. "Why do I need this?"

We don't have time for this. I walk toward her and take the fleece, sticking one of her arms in it before moving onto the other. "Do you trust me?" I ask. When she nods, I guide the zipper up to her chin. "Come on, then. I have something to show you."

Since she can't walk on her numb feet, there's only one way to get her out of the room and I'm not sure she's going to like it. I do it anyway. As quickly as I can I take her in my arms, bridal style I note, and she squeals. Her arms flail and latch around my neck, trying to keep herself from falling.

"Peeta, what are you doing?" she demands.

I fight the gasp that wants to escape from having her this close to me, in my arms. I feel like Superman. I can protect her from anything, if only I could stay in this position for the rest of my life.

"I thought you said you trusted me?" I joke. She scowls and I chuckle, telling her to be quiet. Octavia lets her eyes fall to the counter. Dr. Heavensbee doesn't turn from facing a chart. No one bothers us as I walk Katniss to the stairwell. I'm thankful now that my family is a family of bakers. Years of lifting heavy bags of flour make Katniss seem like air in my arms. I bet she's barely a hundred pounds soaking wet and she's just getting lighter each day she's here.

The roof of the hospital is where the nurses and doctors take time to go outside, or so Cinna says. There is a landing pad for the helicopters but the other side is empty. It had been set up just as Cinna said it would be – a blanket on the ground with a few pillows, an extra blanket to wrap Katniss in, nothing too romantic but cozy, almost homey. I walk to the blanket and settle her down on some of the pillows so she doesn't get uncomfortable. Then I take the masks out of my pocket, fixing one over my own face before handing it to her.

"What are you doing?" she asks. She knows I don't need a mask. I'm not immunosuppressed. She doesn't realize, or maybe she does, that I'm doing this for her, to show her that we're in this together.

I reach forward and put the mask on her face for her since she's not doing it herself. "Well, what you do, I do," I tell her.

Talking with masks on isn't the easiest thing, especially with the loud hum of the city streets, partying up on a Saturday night, so Katniss and I sit in our silence. Outside our niche on the roof, the world continues to turn. People live their lives as they always have – work, family, material objects. We live for these three things in our present society, not necessarily in that order. If I've learned anything from spending time at PCH, not just with Katniss but with my volunteering, it's that we live for the wrong things. We should live for days. The moments we want to be swallowed up whole in.

Don't ask me how but as we near midnight I find myself in one of these moments. Katniss is curled up in the flannel blanket, wrapped up in my arms, her head on my chest as she fights fatigue in my lap. I would give anything to be swallowed now and spend every moment of the rest of my life with Katniss, not speaking and just being, our eyes trained on stars that float in the night sky.

"What are you thinking?" she asks. It's quiet and through the mask I can barely hear it, but the city's hums have softened and, aside from the occasional ambulance roaring to life, the night favors us.

It's a risk, but I answer her truthfully.

"I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever."

She's quiet for a minute and I begin to wonder if she didn't hear me. However, when I go to say it again, she turns to me and I can see, even through the mask, that she's smiling. She gives a single nod of her head and then buries herself into my chest.

Midnight comes all too quickly. I lift Katniss into my arms, still wrapped securely in her blanket, and walk down the staircase. Dr. Heavensbee waits at the door, a wheelchair at the ready, and I gently place her into it. We walk together and get her situated into her room again, reattaching the heart rate monitor and turning it back on. Haymitch is waiting when we arrive, a smile on his face when he sees Katniss's smile.

"Happy Birthday, Katniss," I tell her. She smiles a little more and closes her eyes.

When I leave a moment later, all the nurses are leaving one of the empty rooms, wheeling out machines and a teaching dummy. Octavia opens the door to the stairwell and has her arms full of pillows and the blanket we sat on. Johanna once said that Katniss has this whole building wired to her beck and call. The fact that these people broke hospital policy, faking a code so we could slip back in, just to give this one spectacular girl a good day is proof of that.


Rue and I sit at the coloring table. Prim took the day off and is helping Haymitch with Katniss at their home. After being released on Sunday, she's been at home in her own bed. Dr. Heavensbee gave her an additional week before starting her next round in order to give her body, and the CIPN, a break. It is now a waiting game. With her immune system completely suppressed, we are waiting on a possible infection to strike. I took her outside for the last time. She is no longer allowed out, her body too weak. I know now that her birthday gift was not just a good moment for her; it was her last semblance of freedom.

My phone vibrates on the table where I have set it between me and Rue. Earlier, Prim sent me a text saying Katniss had come down with a fever. She had stayed home from school and had told me she would keep me updated. No news was good news, but I spent the rest of the school day checking my phone.

I click the text message bubble. ER is all Prim has written.

My stomach does about five flops. Rue sighs beside me and tries to bury herself in helping the kids. I try but I can't focus. My hands are shaking. I can't get a single line right. I had been attempting to draw a picture of me and Katniss from her birthday, entertaining two little girls who were so enthralled by my work they had begun catching flies in their mouths without notice.

As soon as my shift is over, I make my way to the ER. I have never been in it before, at least consciously. When I messed up my knee I'm sure they brought me here first but I didn't wake up until I was in my room. Either that or I don't remember. Just like every other section of the hospital, the tile floors are rainbow and the walls are decorated with giant animals. Prim, with her long blond braids, sits alone in the waiting room, her hands wringing together. Whereas I pause, Rue walks right out from behind me, wrapping her arms around her friend. I fall into the seat on her other side.

"She started hallucinating," Prim says. Her eyes are focused on the ground. "It got so high so fast. She kept saying my name over and over, like she couldn't find me."

Rue continues to hold her tightly, but Prim reaches out to grab my hand. She gives it a squeeze. "She said your name too. She kept muttering, asking where you were," she tells me. I try to swallow the lump in my throat and fight the urge to run to her. The look on her face tells me Prim is doing the same.

Instead, we sit. We wait. Because that's really all we can do.


Thanks to everyone who reviewed Part I! For all the anonymous reviewers, I look at yours as well. Thank you. To Of Pearls and Paints: since you've disabled PMs, I just wanted to give a shout out to you. Your review made me smile and I was so glad to see that you liked this.

Sorry this took so long to get up. I really wanted to get it right. Like Peeta, I have been dutifully researching in order to make sure this seems believable. As always, the lines you recognize from the trilogy do not belong to me. I think there are about seven or eight. I hope everyone enjoyed Part II. I hope to get Part III up by next week.

Let me know what you think!

PS. If anyone out there is really good at making banners or covers and would like to make one for this story or my other ones, I realized I'm not very good at it when I made one for What's A Soulmate?