"And here's to another fantastic year at Capitol Records!"

Caesar Flickerman's enthusiastic voice rang out across the room to a round of applause, hoots and hollers, and he raised his arms as though in victory, his smile wide and almost maniacal.

Katniss rolled her eyes.

Caesar's speech had been the final official part of the evening, at a party that she'd already stayed at later than she'd intended, and definitely way later than she'd initially wanted to. She hadn't really had a choice, though. She'd had to mingle, had to chat, had to stay for all the formalities.

For all the PR bullshit.

She and Peeta had circuited the room numerous times, and while he'd continued to schmooze comfortably with everyone, she'd still been completely and utterly out of her comfort zone. Plus, their earlier conversation had remained on a loop in her head, until she thought there was a pretty good chance it was going to be embedded in there forever.

I was a goner.

At one point in the evening Plutarch had swooped in and taken it upon himself to escort her from musician to actor to talent manager to entertainment reporter, giving her the type of 'artist attention' she'd never expected. She'd always known the record label had liked her as an artist, had been happy with the small level of fame she'd managed to achieve. But this…this was something entirely different. She was being paraded around for everyone to see, being whispered about as the Next Big Thing. Which - while a little overwhelming and unexpected - was fine, she supposed. It was the Next Big Thing with the Fabulous Boyfriend label that was bothering her. Or, more specifically, the 'boyfriend' himself.

What did he mean by it never happened, anyway? She wasn't stupid. She'd been there. In person. Had LIVED it, for crying out loud.

She remembered her prom night finishing like every 80's prom movie nightmare.

"Hi guys." She heard him before she saw him, felt his arm slip around her waist before she'd had a chance to brace herself for it. She felt herself flinch slightly before she willed her body to relax at Peeta's touch. "Sorry, I got stuck by the canapés for Caesar's speech."

"A good place to be caught," Katniss joked, forcing a smile through teeth clenched tight with nerves.

"Too true, too true! Because when Caesar starts talking, who knows when he'll be finished!" Plutarch laughed, winking for the benefit of the two journalists they'd been speaking with before Caesar had begun. He tipped his head towards Peeta in recognition. "I suppose I should let the two of you mingle together again for a little while now though, shouldn't I? Can't keep Katniss to myself all night!"

"Actually, Plutarch, I was thinking of sneaking away with Katniss a little early this evening." She felt Peeta's head dip slightly towards hers as though he was going to press his lips to her temple, then stop a hairsbreadth from her skin. "Katniss will be holed up in the studio quite a bit this week, and we'd like some…well…"

"Don't say another word, my boy!" Plutarch said jovially, and Katniss could see the calculated approval in his eyes. "We completely understand. Go, go, I'll entertain our guests."

Before she could even murmur a lackluster goodbye, Peeta was quickly guiding her away, his hand splayed lightly against her left hip, while her right butted up against his. They were close enough, as they wound their way through the crowd, that they aligned from shoulder to thigh, and Katniss felt the heat emanating from Peeta's body, the warmth and comfort that was a reminder of a short time in her life. She hated that it still made her own body flare, and set her blood to thrumming, much like it had back then.

No matter what he tries to tell you, Katniss, it absolutely happened.

Peeta didn't say a word to her as they navigated their way out, though he nodded and smiled and exchanged salutations with people as they passed. He winked and smiled beguilingly at a few joking comments about their early departure, though his jaw tightened and his eyes froze over at a couple that were verging on the overtly explicit. Katniss couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at their leers, and the audacity of their words.

"I hate that side of the industry," she muttered, turning the corner behind Peeta towards the exit, and tossing a look back at the group of guys who'd seen better days. "They can get so egotistical."

"Yeah. I hate it too."

He fell silent again, and as they pushed through the back door of the venue, Katniss immediately spotted their town car - it wasn't hard to miss, seeing as it was highlighted by the constant popping and flashing of cameras of the paparazzi against the darkened night.

She didn't think she'd ever get used to this.

They hurried to the car, Peeta moving in front and allowing his arm to slip from her waist, his hand instead linking with hers to guide her. She kept her eyes down, focused on the path in front of her, ignored the shouts of Peeta's name, and the few calls of hers. And welcomed the silence the moment the driver closed the door behind them, only their slight breathing and the faint purr of the engine breaking it.

The minute the car pulled away from the curb, Peeta's hand left hers, and he slid to the far side of the seat, putting what felt like miles between them. And before she had even half a second to recognise it or realise it was coming, the car was filled with an awkward and pregnant tension that she really should have expected.

It was silent for most of the ride home, Katniss' hands twisting nervously in her lap as she stared blindly at the driver's headrest in front of her. Peeta had been so much like himself all night - even after their revelations - that the change in him once they'd gotten in the car was almost absurd. Part of her wanted to bring their conversation up, to help ease the awkwardness; the other part wanted to forget about it completely. But-

"There's only going to be one stop tonight, Andrew."

Katniss' head shot around as Peeta's voice broke through her thoughts, glanced beside her to where he was slumped down on the other side of the backseat. His gaze was fixed firmly out the window at the streets as they passed. "Only one stop?" she asked, nervousness shifting into a tension that flooded her body until her spine felt like a metal rod.

He nodded, though he still didn't look at her. "I think we need to talk sooner rather than later, don't you?"

Katniss bit down on her lower lip, cracked her knuckles in her lap. "I didn't mean tonight."

"We can't let it go any longer. We obviously have very different memories of that night, and we can't afford…"

"Can't afford what?"

"Can't afford anything to screw this up." He kept his voice low, so that the driver couldn't hear the words that were being spoken between them over the soft crooning of Frank Sinatra on the radio. "And if we're walking on eggshells around each other because of something that happened in high school, it's going to cause problems."

"It was already there, Peeta. We just avoided it, pretended it didn't exist," she murmured, and he nodded.

"You're right. And it was the wrong thing to do. We should have talked about it at the very beginning."

Katniss glanced out the window as she felt the car begin to slow, noted they were on her street as opposed to his. "My place?" she queried, surprised, and shifted back to face him. This time he turned, and she was shocked at the fatigue she could see in his eyes, in the grey shadows that underpinned them, the way the blue seemed about ten shades duller.

"You would have been dropped off first, it only makes sense. Is Madge going to be home?"

"No." How convenient. "She's out of state with her boyfriend until tomorrow afternoon."

Peeta nodded and closed his eyes, took a deep breath as the car pulled to a stop. "Alright then. Let's go."


She'd never expected to see Peeta Mellark in her apartment again.

He'd spent one short afternoon there, early on in their charade, where they'd awkwardly sat in her small living room, sipping on glasses of lemonade and locking in pieces of information they figured people would ask them about in regards to their 'relationship'. It had been…weird, to say the least, and she was certain they'd both breathed a sigh of relief when it had been over. So no, she'd definitely not expected him to be here again. But he was.

And lemonade was definitely not going to cut it for this conversation.

Katniss yanked open the refrigerator door, bent slightly at the waist and studied the contents. "I've got vodka, a white, beer, and I know there's a red in the pantry."

"What's the beer?"

"Stella, it looks like. Madge's boyfriend is a bit of a fan of Belgians."

"That's fine."

She plucked two of the bottles from the shelf, popped the tops quickly, and slid one across the kitchen counter to Peeta, where he'd pulled himself up onto one of the small Ikea stools. They both raised their bottles to their lips, took hearty sips.

And then silence reigned supreme.

For a while Katniss thought they'd never talk, that she'd be able to avoid the conversation just out of sheer nerves and silence. Of course, Peeta had never worked that way, not for as long as she'd known him.

"I think you need to tell me again what you think happened on Prom night," Peeta finally ventured, fingers scratching at the red and white label on the bottle in his hands.

"I don't think I need to," Katniss replied indignantly, her shoulders immediately stiffening. On the counter offensive straight away. She placed her bottle onto the counter with a sharp clink. "I said it all earlier."

"Well I think you do," he argued. "Because what you said earlier makes no sense to me. You said that on Prom night you told me you liked me, and that I turned you down."

"And that's exactly what happened." Katniss folded her arms across her chest, beer forgotten in a wave of 8 year old embarrassment. "I don't need to say it again."

Peeta opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "Right. Okay. But do you remember what I told you tonight?"

How could she forget? Ms Seeder. Art class. Goner.

She curled her lip. "Oh, I remember. And that's why what you did that night makes no sense to me. At all."

"Because it didn't happen like that!" The words burst forth from him as though they were a dam breaking, and his hand dropped back to his lap. "Katniss, I practically poured my guts out to you tonight about how head over heels I was for you all through high school, and all you can tell me back was that apparently I was an asshole to you on Prom night!"

"You were!" She shot back, arms flinging out so her palms slapped on the counter. "I had to run away that night with my tail tucked between my legs! It's no surprise though. Even if they can make it to friends, there's no way the homecoming king and the social pariah could ever have been more than that. How could I have been so stupid?!"

Peeta's eyes widened, and he reached up to tug at the blond waves at the crown of his head, letting out a little growl of frustration. "I'm so damned angry with you right now."

"Me?" Katniss rolled her eyes. Anger, she found she could do so much better than hurt. "Well why don't you grace me with your version of prom night, Romeo? Then we can be on our way with all this PR relationship bullshit. We'll call it off. Not even Prim's medical school is worth this hassle."

"Fine!" He slugged down another gulp of beer, and this time when he looked at her, the fatigue from before was gone, and his eyes flashed with life. "I asked you to Prom as 'friends', Katniss, because you never would have gone otherwise. You might not think it, but I knew you, and I knew it was the only way I could get you to agree. I got to know you those last couple years better than most of the friends I'd had since elementary school, even though you shut me out of some of the most important things in your life."

"My mom-"

"I just wanted to help!" He interrupted her, not letting her get a word in. "I could see it eating away at you, and you just refused to tell me about it, every time. So I left it, figured that you'd share with me when you were ready."

"This has nothing to do with prom night," she pointed out, ignoring the guilt that wanted to rise at his words. That, at least, was the truth. He'd tried so hard, and she'd shut him out of it every time.

"We got in my car after prom finished," he said firmly. "While everyone else was getting trashed or checking into a hotel so they could bang until the sun rose. Not us. We drove through town, singing along to the radio as I took you home, and my head felt like it was going to explode because you were singing beside me, and you never did that, and your voice was still like…magic. I can't even tell you what songs they were because all I could think about was how amazing you sounded, and how good you smelt and how incredible you looked and how damned nervous I was about telling you I liked you, and hoping it wasn't going to completely fuck up up the night."

This time his eyes burned into hers as he looked at her, and she was shocked to see the grief there. "And we pulled up to your house and suddenly you were sitting there telling me how at least there was one good guy to graduate from our class and how you were glad I wasn't a dick like Logan Marvel and how you were really glad we were friends and how I made school so much easier for you to handle the last couple of years. And every word of love I'd had on the tip of my tongue faltered because it hit me you were just telling me how good a friend to you I was."

"That's not what I was saying!" Katniss contested hotly, her cheeks flushing and her mind reeling from his recounting of the night she'd hated with a passion for so long.

"Well that's what I was hearing!" Peeta rose, turned in a half circle. "And then you looked at me, confusion all over your face, then practically ran from the car. Suddenly it was like I'd never existed. You never called me, never spoke to me again."

"You never called me either," Katniss retorted.

"You stormed off first."

"You said nothing to everything I told you!"

"You told me nothing!" This time he shook his head, planted his hands on his hips. When he finally spoke, his voice had lowered considerably. "I went to see you a week later, but you'd left for Georgia earlier than you'd planned. Haymitch was at your house, told me it was better off if I just left it, not to drag it out. I didn't know then what he meant, but I just…accepted it. So I went to college, met Finnick and Annie and never expected to see you again. I guess now Haymitch's words make sense."

"He never knew I liked you," Katniss snapped, but there was a worry welling in her stomach. Had she really not been clear with him? She'd practiced her speech so much before that night - words had never been her thing, and she'd so badly not wanted to get them wrong. But maybe…oh god, maybe she still had.

"Katniss, growing up even I was aware at how astute Haymitch Abernathy was. He would have known even if you hadn't."

"But…but why would Haymitch say that to you?"

"He was looking out for you, I suppose, obviously thought I'd turned you down, hurt you. It doesn't matter anyway." He ran his tongue across the front of his teeth. "I think, looking back, that night maybe shows us what neither of us wanted to see at the time."

She inhaled sharply. "Wh-what do you mean?"

He shrugged. "We were both wanting to tell each other how we felt that night, and we failed miserably. Communication is important, and if we couldn't even do that, then maybe it was the right thing to happen. Maybe it was, I dunno, the universe telling us we weren't meant to be."

The welling worry burst into a full fledged panic that she didn't even completely understand, and she waved her hands in denial. "No, Peeta, no, you didn't fail. I didn't even give you a chance to say anything that night. I ran away."

"And I let you. I could have told you, Katniss. I had a week to go to you, and I didn't. My pride and hurt stopped me." The way his shoulders slumped told her the annoyance, the anger, the frustration that had been fueling him, had all but disappeared. "We might have had different versions of that night, might have been hurt for different reasons, but in the end, we both failed." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I think…I need to go, catch a cab. I'll call Plutarch in the morning and cancel the contract. I'll pay whatever fees they had drawn into it in case it ended prior to the agreed terms. I don't want you to worry about that side of things."

He reached for the jacket he'd draped over the second stool, shrugged it on heavily as though it were made of lead. And with each step he took towards the door, Katniss felt the panic rise inside her until she was worried it would pour out of her mouth in incoherent noises.

"No!" She suddenly called out after him, waited until he'd pivoted slightly on his foot to look at her. He did nothing but lift an eyebrow slightly in query. "Don't. We…we can do this. I promise. We'll just…we can. I need to. For Prim. Okay?"

He stared at her for a moment, before slowly nodding. "Okay, Katniss. If that's what you want."

"It's what I want."

"Then I'll see you in the studio on Monday."

She nodded in reply, then watched in silence as he opened the door and closed it again after stepping out into the hall.

Slumping against the counter, she exhaled deeply, ran a hand across her face. Something told her that the reality of that night was something in between both their stories, and in hearing his side, something else inside of her had shifted.

And it had shifted dangerously close to an edge she'd walked away from a long time ago.


"Sources say the re-release of Katniss Everdeen's single The Valley Song could see her finally knock Thirt33n off the top of the charts. They might be making different music, but it looks like the country is just as taken by the raven haired beauty as they are by our number one boy band! Now back to you in the studio, Claudius."

Katniss stood in the doorway to the living room, watched as Madge sprawled across the sofa, a bowl of cheetos balanced on her stomach and a soda in hand as she watched the entertainment channel.

"You realise how embarrassing it is knowing you're watching this, right?" She blurted, leaning against the wooden frame.

Glancing towards Katniss, Madge managed to yawn and shrug at the same time. "It's kinda funny."

"It's really not."

"You mean you don't like hearing all the gossip about yourself?"

"Ha." Katniss pushed at Madge's feet and dropped into the now spare space at the end of the sofa, grabbed a handful of cheetos. She popped a couple in her mouth before continuing. "What is it today? Triplets? I'm really from Canada and I'm just trying to get a visa?"

"Nope! Apparently Finnick Odair will return to The Mockingjays, but you'll be replacing Annie Odair, who's decided to leave the band."

Katniss rolled her eyes. "Every damn day."

"See?" Madge winked, turned back to the TV. "Kinda fun, right?"

"Hilarious."

She tried to focus on the show in front of her, studying the host with the weird blond perm who was now chattering about some upcoming blockbuster movie. It didn't work, though.

All she could hear was Peeta's voice from the night before.

"Madge?"

"Hmmmm?"

She picked at invisible lint on one of their bright green throw pillows. "Did…did you, uh, know Peeta, um, liked me in high school?"

Madge slowly turned her head, lifted an eyebrow incredulously. "You're kidding me, right?"

"What? No."

Madge put both the bowl and her drink on the coffee table, pulled herself up into a sitting position and drew her legs up against her chest. Her long blonde hair hung over her shoulder in a messy ponytail. "Peeta Mellark was completely, utterly, stupid sick head over heels for you from the moment you arrived at school."

Katniss blinked. "What?"

"Katnissssss." Madge drew the word out in frustration. "You asked, I told, don't play dumb. I thought you knew too, and that's why you guys stopped being friends or whatever. That he told you and you turned him down. Which I thought was stupid because I thought you liked him too, but you escaped so quickly after we graduated that-" she shook her head to stop her train of thought. "Anyway. You never really brought it up again, other than to curse him occasionally, so I didn't see the point in asking for clarification."

Katniss was still two sentences back. "Wait, you thought I liked him?"

Madge shrugged. "You were subtle about it, but living with politicians for parents made me pretty adept at reading people, believe it or not. Even as a teenager in high school, which is probably why you were my only friend. You had no pretenses, didn't give a shit about my family status."

"And he liked me."

This time Madge leant forward and knocked Katniss on the side of the head lightly. "Hello? Anyone home? Because yes. And of course now I want to know why you asked."

"No reason."

"Bullshit."

"Honest."

"Katniss, you are the worst liar ever." Madge twisted her body so that her legs were now tucked under her and her hands were firmly on Katniss' shoulders. "Tell me."

"No."

"I will bug the shit out of you until you tell me."

Katniss hissed, screwed her nose up. "You would."

"Yeah I would," Madge agreed, dropping her hands back to her sides. "So spill."

Indecision warred for about another two minutes before Katniss sighed, and almost every word from her conversation with Peeta the night before got blurted out in a rush. And it gave her a burst of satisfaction to see Madge speechless when she was done.

"Well shit," Madge finally muttered. "That was unexpected."

"We just…had two completely different memories of that night."

"And you completely screwed up."

"That's not helping!"

"But you did," Madge reiterated firmly. "Your speech was the worst 'I like you' speech ever. I can't believe you never told me this before."

Katniss folded her arms across her chest. "I thought my speech was okay."

"You basically told him you were glad he wasn't a dickhead."

"He wasn't - isn't!"

"Yeah, but telling him he was better than Marvel Logan was pretty crap. You needed to say something along the lines of 'I wish we were banging in a hotel right now.'."

"Oh my god, no," Katniss whispered, horrified.

"Well, you needed to say something a little more obvious. Though he has to shoulder a good chunk of blame for not just getting some nuts and telling you regardless. You know, caution into the wind and all that jazz. You were as bad as each other."

Katniss stared at Madge for a moment before dropping her head into her hands and groaning. "It's such a mess."

"It doesn't have to be, not anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…you both just have to apologise to each other, agree to leave all that shit behind, do what's best for you both. Try to be friends to get through this fake stuff. Then once it's done, at least you've buried this miscommunication hatchet."

Katniss lifted her head slowly, chewed on her bottom lip. "We could. That's right. We could."

Madge tipped her head to the side. "But…"

"But? There's a but?"

"You don't want that."

Katniss' grey eyes widened. "Of course I do!"

"No you don't." Madge hopped to her feet, crossed to the buffet and opened the top drawer. She waved above her head glossy pieces of paper with a slightly torn edge and an obvious crumple to them.

Katniss felt her heart sink.

"I found these the other day. Squirreling away pictures from my magazines of the two of you? And what photos they are, Miss Everdeen. My my, look at your face."

"What about it?" But Katniss already knew what Madge was going to say, what she was going to insinuate. She felt it lock in her throat, and she struggled to inhale.

Madge waved the photos again. "Your face in these is practically screaming 'I love you Peeta Mellark! Let's make dark haired, blue eyed babies together!'."

"Shut up!" Katniss demanded, and she knew if she looked in a mirror, her face would be bright red.

"Deny it," Madge challenged.

"I…I…shut up!"

Madge nodded slowly, approvingly. "Good. I'm glad you admitted it, even if it was in a roundabout way. At least now we can do something about it."

"Do something? We? What are you talking about?"

"I can't leave you to this on your own, Katniss. You need a little help to…spread your wings a bit more."

"I'm already doing that, with work," Katniss argued.

Her friend nodded in agreement. "You're right, you are. But you're gonna need more than just that. You want Peeta Mellark, don't you?"

Yes. No. Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. No.

Yes. Oh god.

She always had.

"Yes," she finally said meekly.

Madge grinned. "Good. And we have three weeks before that stupid movie premiere you guys have been contracted into attending, right? So we need to get to work."

"Work? The premiere? What does that have to do with anything?" Damn, she was so confused right now.

Madge crossed the room and tossed the glossy pages on Katniss' lap. "Yep, we've got work to do before that premiere. 8 years later, Katniss, you're finally going to find the right words to say to him. And if his face is any indication in those pictures, he's not going to say no."

Katniss glanced down, scrutinized Peeta's face in the half dozen photos. It didn't tell her anything, but apparently Madge could see something she couldn't. She frowned doubtfully. "He won't?"

"Definitely not," Madge grinned with a firm nod. "I guarantee it."