The smell of wet asphalt hit Katniss' nose before she was even fully awake, creeping up onto her skin and over the strands of hair that had snuck out of her braid during the night. One of her hands had fallen asleep where it was tucked under her head, feeling heavy and hesitant to bend even as she flexed her fingers apart. Numbness turned to buzzing and she groaned, finally pulling her head away from her pillow and pushing her sheets down to the foot of the bed. It had been easy getting used to sleeping with the window open at night, since Haymitch apparently couldn't be bothered to get air conditioning installed in the girls' dormitories. She rubbed her eyes with one hand and reached the other down, swiping her fingers through the droplets on the window ledge and tracing the trails they left behind. It meant she would be going for a run in the rain, she realized, something she hadn't done since she was back home in the woods.
The idea of a workout in this weather seemed perfect —it was getting ready for the rest of the day that would be difficult. She could feel heaviness beneath her eyelids as she climbed down the bunk, a surefire sign that at least some of the ugly evidence of yesterday's breakdown was still present. On the plus side, she thought, it wasn't like anyone was going to ask her what had happened. The likelihood of anyone approaching her today was practically zero, and that was exactly what she needed if she was really going to try again.
The AGA parking lot was already more than half-full as Katniss jogged up the soggy hill and toward the winding drive that led back toward the highway. It wasn't much of a surprise, considering the area. One glance at the football stickers she saw on the back of the oversized, mother-of-an-athlete SUVs told her the season was well underway. She wrinkled her nose with amusement as she put the place behind her, keeping thoughts of sweaty teenagers and their aerosol-coated mothers far from her thoughts.
The rain began to pick up as soon as she was halfway through her usual loop. The hair still tucked into her braid bounced heavy and soaking wet between her shoulders, more of it falling out of its tie with every step she took. It plastered to the skin around her shoulders like the wet leaves pooling in the swampy roadside ditches she passed. Again, she remembered taking quiet morning runs through the pine-needle trails in the woods back home, the main difference being that there never any cars blaring their horns at her back there. That was the whole point of getting up early — it was supposed to mean there were less people on the road to honk and stare at her as she ran by. Normally, drivers stuck to short warning bursts to let her know they were coming. Apparently, she'd done something particularly offensive this morning, because one particular car was honking relentlessly as it approached, like the driver's hand was glued to the horn.
Katniss slowed her pace and swung to the right to give them room to pass, even though she'd been running on the shoulder to begin with. The beeping continued, and she found herself jogging adjacent to the car's bumper — a car she recognized. A familiar blue sedan with an even more familiar driver was currently coasting leisurely at her side and forcing the cars behind him to turn into the oncoming lane and go around.
"Katniss Everdeen!" He exclaimed with mock surprise, leaning his entire body toward the window and tossing an arm around the passenger seat, which was occupied by Peeta. "You look…uh, completely soaked."
She sped up just to make him drive a little faster and snuck another peek their way. Finnick was practically begging for her to take the bait, but she cared more about the bewildered look on Peeta's face. She winced to herself, wondering just how miserable she looked, and rolled her shoulders back, halfheartedly hoping that it would stop her from looking like a cat left out in the rain. Finnick never seemed to travel without Peeta at his side, and the two of them had seen her looking far worse for wear than she usually ever allowed. It wasn't fair, not when they always seemed so carefree.
"Can't imagine why," she deadpanned, turning her eyes back to the road. "Are you two stalking me?"
"Not today," Finnick teased. "We have preseason training to get to."
"I don't remember Haymitch installing an ice rink in the gym."
"We're supposed to be running outside for personal workouts today, but now this is happening," Peeta clarified, sticking his hand out the window to catch the raindrops. "In Finnick's mind that means we go get PT work done instead."
"Oh, like you're complaining."
Katniss surged forward again as another car's horn started beeping in the distance. Thankfully, Finnick decided to take the hint. He sped away down the road, promising to see her when she got back to the gym by honking a few more times.
Finding him took absolutely no effort once she got home, completely drenched from the rest of the run home. Finnick was leaning over the top of Effie's desk, absentmindedly poking through her jar of pens and smiling dazzlingly in the poor woman's direction. From what she could see, Effie was blushing slightly under the layer of hot pink blush on her cheeks, trying her best to shoo him away as soon as she saw Katniss coming. Effie's nose wrinkled in disapproval at the stream of water coming off her, but the brightly colored woman turned back to her computer without a word.
"Don't give me that look," Finnick rolled his eyes and followed her through the lobby to the automatic doors, a blend of sweat and chalk hitting their noses as soon as they opened. "I was being cordial. Effie happens to like it when people compliment her outfits."
Katniss knelt down to remove her shoes, brushing a wet lock of hair behind her ear as she unlaced the first one and tossed it into the corner. "A hockey player and a fashion guru? I had no idea you were so well-rounded."
He sucked in a breath to respond, but a sharp voice cut in before he could voice his reply.
"Well, would you look at what dragged the cat in."
A pair of long, shiny legs stood right in front of her, one foot bouncing against the floor of the gym and the other firmly planted ankle to toe. The legs ended where a crimson, rhinestone-studded leotard began, leading up to a pair of muscular, crossed arms and an upturned chin. Johanna wore a smile on her face, but her eyes were roving between Katniss and Finnick like she was expecting an attack.
She stood up awkwardly, more aware now than ever of the way her hair was messily plastered to the side of her neck. Johanna's was in the shortest braid she'd ever seen, just barely jutting out at the base of her neck. Katniss counted at least eight bobby pins holding it in place, and she knew there had to be more hidden up there somewhere.
"He's not supposed to wear shoes inside the gym," Johanna continued, clearly unsettled with the lack of response she was receiving.
Finnick looked down at his feet and then back up at her with a self-assured smile. "I'm not inside the gym," he countered, waving a hand toward the floor. He happened to be standing right on the threshold between the lobby and the gym, and he looked absolutely delighted about it. "But if you wanted me a little closer…"
Johanna drew her head back and snorted. "Aren't I a little younger than your usual type?" Katniss thought she saw a gleam in her eye, even as she regarded the both of them with her usual blend of amusement disdain. Her arms had unfolded, for one thing, and her hand was now splayed along her hip, fingers drumming against the edge of her leotard. It had certainly been a while since Katniss spent any amount of time around her, but that kind of body language only meant so many things where Johanna was concerned.
"Not necessarily — I just enjoy a challenge," Finnick purred, sliding his arm up the side of the door.
Johanna's eyes widened. She ran off to the bars without another word to either of them, casting plenty of glances back at him while she put her wrist guards on and chalked them up. Katniss had to keep herself from laughing at the scene in front of her. The chuckle died in her throat the moment she saw that Finnick actually lingering to watch her start on the bar, head turned to the side and arms folded as he leaned against the side of the automatic door.
"You're getting drool on the carpet, Odair."
"I am not," Finnick replied breezily, without missing a beat.
"Didn't you say you're supposed to be getting something done today?" She prompted, glancing over at the therapy center pointedly. He ran a hand across his face, rolled his shoulder a couple of times and sighed deeply, apparently less thrilled with his original plan now that it was really happening. She couldn't blame him; half of the trainers Haymitch employed looked more like championship fighters than therapists.
"You're just going to throw me to the wolves like that, Everdeen? How do you sleep at night?"
"Like a baby." She shoved him closer to the therapy center and paused as they both caught sight of Peeta, who had already checked himself in. His palm was pressed flat against one of the therapy benches, every muscle in his upper body straining to keep his full weight off his injured ankle. Katniss could see the evidence of it in his arms where his veins rose up under his skin and in the tight clench of his shoulders. His other foot was raised off the ground behind him, and his jaw was clenched tight. She winced as he tried to lift his foot off the ground even higher, hoping the look on his face meant concentration instead of pain. Peeta's clear blue eyes came up and settled right on hers, and Katniss found herself unable to immediately look away. The corner of his mouth tilted up reassuringly, as if she was the one who needed it, and the tension in his shoulders seemed to deflate a bit. He turned to listen to his trainer, a younger, quieter woman with short hair and a shorter vocabulary. She helped him to sit up on the bench and gestured for him to raise his entire leg up as high as he could bend it.
"Is he gonna be okay?" Katniss looked back at Finnick, who was making a show of filling his water up at the fountain to stall for time.
"If he survives the rest of these appointments, maybe," he deadpanned, swallowing a mouthful of water before screwing the cap back on the green Gatorade bottle.
Katniss snorted and looked back again, watching Peeta's leg muscles flex and contract as he rolled his ankle in the air. She saw his eyes tighten up again, but the rest of him looked okay. "I know you told me he hurt it in practice, but I never heard about anything else."
Finnick's eyes trailed over to watch as the therapist guided Peeta to a metal chair and showed him how to tie one end of an elastic exercise band to the leg of a nearby bench. She looped the other end around the ball of his foot and stepped back as he stretched it away from the table in slow, repetitive movements. Finnick inhaled deeply and shifted to face her, angling his body away from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the therapy center.
"There are three alternate captains on our team: me, Mellark and that Clemmons guy we told you about. He came on a season after us, but he's actually pretty good. People forget who our actual captain is half the time, and he doesn't really do much to discourage them." Katniss recalled the photo she'd seen on the wall of the ice rink. Cato Clemmons had been one of the taller players in the team photo, blond hair sweeping across his forehead that made him look like he'd gotten a hair transplant from a Ken doll. "One of the things we do as alternates is learn everything the actual captain does."
"What's an alternate captain supposed to be doing when he's in a game?"
"We watch the ice in case a bad call gets made, talk to refs about said bad calls, maybe interpret for Coach if someone's not getting the message — incredibly fascinating stuff, I know," he smirked as he caught Katniss watching Peeta again. His face fell as he followed her eyes down to his injured leg. Finnick leaned his elbows up on part of the window frame, dipped his head down and started to scuff the edge of his shoe against a chip in the floor tile.
"Let me just preface this by saying that he's probably the most humble, cool-headed athlete in Texas — besides yours truly of course — and he really doesn't get worked up over a lot. I'm not saying he won't rough a guy up if the situation calls for it, but it never really gets personal for him. He's that idiot you see coming up to guys on the other team after a fight and tugging them up off the ground," he continued affectionately. "Peeta's all about team morale, so when any of our guys mouths off or does something that'd make you want to shove them out of your face, he usually just lets it slide. Usually that's all it is, too, a bunch of shit-talking and adrenaline leftover from a practice scrimmage or whatever. Ninety-nine percent of the time, there's no drama to deal with."
He seemed like he was still stalling for time, like he wasn't sure he was supposed to be telling her all of this.
"So what about the other one percent?"
Finnick shrugged and the corner of his mouth twitched up. He took another sip of water before heading for the therapy center's tiny lobby area. "That's a story you'd be better off hearing from him," he said, walking backwards through the sliding doors. "I doubt he'd mind telling you about it if you asked."
She watched for a minute as Finnick flung himself on to the bench closest to Peeta and smacked him lightly on the shoulder, a move that even she could tell was meant to be encouraging without being overt. Peeta turned his head and said something she couldn't hear, but nodded her way with a curious look on his face. Finnick nodded and raised his eyebrow up in a way that made her wish she wasn't still standing there where they could see her. She turned and paced toward the main entrance without acknowledging either of them, intent on changing into a set of clean clothes and shaking a set of very blue eyes from her mind.
Two strong pairs of arms encircled her the moment she stepped into the dormitory common room. A small noise of surprise caught in Katniss' throat as Madge and Rue encircled her, muttering apologies and explanations, clutching at her shoulders and looking her right in the eyes to make sure she was okay with the sudden closeness.
"Oh, Katniss, we're so sorry," Rue moaned, her entire face scrunching up in contrition. "Johanna made it seem like you wanted to — and then we were just — and those judges — can you forgive us?"
She nodded firmly and brushed her braid back away from her face, her hand caught near her chin as they enveloped her in another hug. They sat and stretched out on the edge of the floor, filling her in on the rest of the invitational and thankfully choosing to skim over the part when she'd run out and left them to compete. Madge barely stumbled over her words as she analyzed the scores, and Katniss was fine with pretending she didn't notice her glance up to check and see how she was reacting to the entire thing. Sitting in a full split on the floor in a triangle with the two of them felt like the most normal thing she'd done in ages. She was wearing a leotard voluntarily, for starters, gaudy gold stripes flashing across her waist serving as just another testament to the changes she was trying to make.
They spent the rest of the day exactly like that, not-quite pretending she'd never walked out on them in the first place and cutting her off every time she tried to apologize for it. It was funny, really, how the both of them reminded her of her little sister. Madge was all Prim in appearance — the wispy white-blonde hair that tried to escape every clip that held it back, the intelligent eyes and high, reedy voice that made her seem younger than she really was. Her nose was longer and straighter than Prim's, and her eyes were a little greener, but Katniss suspected if you put them next to each other, they could pass as family.
Rue, on the other hand, was all Prim in personality, if not a little more excitable. The more Katniss watched her flitting between the uneven bars, the more she was reminded of a little hummingbird. Sometimes it was the way she asked Katniss for tips on getting her rotations tighter and spoke so quickly that she had to repeat herself. Other times, it was the way she could barely stay on the dismount mat long enough to stick a landing before running back to them and asking how it looked. Images of Prim twirling around in their small kitchen with a crown of dandelions on her head came to mind almost immediately.
"So, Katniss," Rue asked, leaning her head on her folded arms against the beam she was practicing on, "The hockey guy you keep hanging out with — what's that about?"
"Finnick? He's like, a walking innuendo. I'm pretty sure he's not interested."
"Not him," Rue argued, lifting her head off the beam and nodding it toward the therapy center. "The other one."
She paused, her arms held out in front of her mid-routine and looked down at the two of them. Madge was leaning up against another beam, pretending to pick at her nails but very obviously interested in whatever answer she was going to give them. Rue wasn't even trying to be subtle as she waited for Katniss to react, a knowing smile drawing attention to the freckles on her cheeks.
Katniss shook her head and twisted her body into a slow back walkover, making sure to pull her legs as high over her head as they would go. Her eyes were carefully focused on the sponsor banners in front of her as she answered the two of them.
"They're just friends of mine. It's not - I don't think it's something."
They exchanged a look, something Katniss only saw out of the corner of her eye as she twisted in the air again. "Just friends who drive an hour to cheer you on at your first meet? Madge, how many 'just friends' like that do you have?"
"I was homeschooled," she answered, grimacing and picking at a rip on the inside of her thumb.
"Okay well regardless, boys don't just show up to watch gymnastics meets on without being invited. Not just because."
Katniss considered her words as she dismounted, watching rain continue to stream down the windows. She shook her head. Just because he and Peeta had probably been the only people there not related to a gymnast competing or working the event didn't mean their visit meant anything. How could it?
"What makes you so sure?" She asked, turning to watch as Rue swung herself up onto the beam and straightened up like a flower greeting the sun, grinning like she'd heard exactly what she wanted to hear. Rue didn't hesitate to act as she responded, answering Katniss between back tucks and handstands and split jumps.
"It's kind of obvious."
"Why do you think Finnick spends so much time getting to know you?" Madge piped up. "He's researching."
"Oh yeah? Explain that then," Katniss pointed at the wall near the entrance to the lobby. Finnick stood with his arms crossed and a wild smile on his face, eyes glued to Johanna on the floor as she trained her quad full with Haymitch. She was having a hard time of it, only making three rotations in the air before landing on almost every try, and Katniss couldn't decide if he looked more intimidated or impressed with her. He wasn't wearing the self-assured, leisurely expression he usually had on when he was talking up the women in the gym, and he kept turning his eyes away the minute Johanna's head would turn in his direction, pretending to be doing something else in case she looked his way. She carried on without seeming to notice his attention at all. Katniss felt sure she'd be able to feel someone looking at her like that.
She waited until Haymitch looked her way, his brow raised and questioning why she was standing around instead of practicing. She flicked her eyes over to Finnick and then to Johanna and raised her own eyebrows up, waiting until he got the message. Haymitch rolled his and shook his head, mirroring her thoughts exactly.
"I didn't say it was a full-time job," Rue muttered, following Finnick's line of sight and giggling. "He's gonna get himself in so much trouble."
Finally, a subject she knew something about. Grabbing her empty water bottle off the ground, she straightened up and threw an amused look back to the girls at the beams. "I think he knows."
Katniss walked up to the fountain and shoved the wide mouth of the bottle underneath the spigot, leaning her hip up against the button on the side to start the water flowing and tapping the cold metal basin with her free hand, looking around the gym while the water ran and cooled down. Haymitch had taken a break in spotting Johanna to go and crank the windows open, manually pulling at a set of chains until the top half of the window opened in. The cool smell of rain hit the gym immediately and collective sighs of joy echoed throughout the building, girls breaking from their workouts to go run up and stick their arms out into the downpour. It looked gloomier than it had for days, but the gym felt anything but.
Katniss watched Haymitch's shoulders pumping up and down as he tugged on the heavy chain and forced the window open. He stopped halfway through to adjust up his sleeves, exposing an angry scar on his arm that she'd never seen before. It stood out stark-white against his tawny skin, curling across his arm like the jagged crest of a wave. Katniss frowned, trying to catch a better glimpse of it without stepping any closer. He shifted away as soon as she tried, forcing the last part of the window open and letting his arms drop down to his sides.
She couldn't help but think back to what he'd said before, when she'd gone to his office and he'd told her they had more in common than she thought. He had been talking about loss, and the angry mark on his arm spoke volumes more than he had himself. Unconsciously, her fingers skimmed the same spot on her own arm, wondering what could have torn so deep into him, whether it had been something that happened while he was in competition. She tried thinking back to her own early years of training, searching for even a memory of the name Haymitch Abernathy that reached farther than her month at his gym. She felt someone standing behind her and turned, ready with an apology for running the water so long, but it was only Peeta standing there, leaning on one crutch and tightening his bag with the other. Everything in his body language said he'd been trying not to startle her.
"Kind of sad, isn't he?"
She turned and looked back, watching as Haymitch shooed the younger gymnasts away from the window. How did he know? "Haymitch?"
"Oh, no," he laughed, slinging his bag over his shoulder and pointing over at his distracted friend. "Mr. Tall, Dark and Hopeless."
"Oh." Katniss smiled wryly in agreement, rolling her eyes theatrically for his benefit. "It's gonna come in handy that he's used to getting his teeth knocked out."
Peeta looked at her a little wide-eyed, his smile growing by the second. Katniss hoped all of his teeth were real. She tore her eyes away from his mouth and focused her attention to her own hands screwing the top onto her water bottle instead. It didn't do her much good, since her eyes were back on his in a second.
"So I get the boot off next weak-ish," he held his leg out between them, turning it from side to side and regarding it like he was out shoe shopping. "And as long as nothing happens between now and then, Portia says I'll be cleared to skate."
One of his hands was drumming against the side of his crutch and the other was readjusting on the grip. He looked nervous, like he'd received bad news instead of what was obviously good . The way he'd said it sounded like most people did when they found out they would have to get a boot put on their foot, not the other way around.
"You don't sound as thrilled as you seem like you'd be,"
"The minute this thing comes off my leg, the team's going to be expecting me at my a-game. I don't know if I can deliver," he explained with more of that self-deprecating tone in his voice. It was the first time he wasn't being totally real with her, for some reason, and she was surprised at how much she didn't like it. If he'd really been as hurt as Rue and Finnick kept hinting at, and he'd been working through it in therapy with such good progress, there was no way he couldn't get himself back out on the ice. She didn't understand how he was missing all of that himself.
Katniss opened her mouth, trying to find something to say that was as encouraging as he usually was and coming up painfully short. Surprisingly, his smile — the real one she preferred — dawned on his face, even though she hadn't said a word yet.
"What?"
"It's just, you get this look," he grinned, shrugging his shoulders, "you looked like you were going to yell at me for something."
"I wasn't," she responded awkwardly, more than willing to bet that's exactly how she'd looked. She'd always been terrible at hiding emotions. She turned again, ready to chalk up their whole conversation as proof Madge and Rue had been wrong.
"Katniss, wait — about what you said a while ago," Peeta spoke up quickly, moving half a step forward on his crutches and reaching out to keep her where she was. "We have a scrimmage coming up, and I don't know if you're gonna be free…"
A frantic voice in her mind told her to make up an excuse, to take the out he was trying to give her before it could come back and bite her in the ass, but another part of her wanted to see his face light up again, to make him understand that he was meant to be more than just a benchwarmer on the team he loved. He had to see what he was capable of, even though she had never seen it for herself.
"I'll go," she breathed, trying to ignore the feel of what she knew was Madge and Rue staring at her from their places on the equipment and the hammering in her chest. "Of course I'll go."
