He hated the hotel's clock. If Peeta were to design a clock with the intention of annoying anyone who had to sleep in a room with it, he still wouldn't have ended up with a model as bad as this one. Its glowing numbers painted the entire room with enough red light that he could make out the tiny floral pattern of the wallpaper on the far wall. And somehow, even though it was a digital clock, it made these little ticking noises every second or so that made him want to rip it from the wall and smash it against the ground until it was nothing but scraps of twisted metal and bad memories.

But satisfying as the clock-destroying fantasy was, he had to admit it probably wouldn't help him get to sleep. His exhaustion weighed on every bone of his body, but no matter many how times he moved into new positions or how many stupid sheep he counted, he couldn't fall asleep. If that damn clock hadn't lit up the entire room, he might have thought there was a sleep fairy hovering in the corner and blowing raspberries at him.

Oh God, if he had fallen to that level of description, he had really been up for way too long. Peeta glanced over at the clock. 6:19. Katniss usually woke up around 6:45, sometimes 7:00, so at least he wouldn't be alone for too much longer. He turned to look at her. She slept soundly, and Peeta watched the steady rise and fall of her chest as sunlight began to peek in around the edges of the heavy curtains. Like this, with her lips parted and her dark hair fanned out around her, Katniss looked more at peace than she ever did when awake.

He was almost disappointed when her eyes opened. Katniss tried to say something, but it came out as nothing more than a yawn.

"Good morning."

"What time is it? I mean, yeah, you too."

He looked over his shoulder. "Six fifty. We've got plenty of time before we need to be anywhere."

"When did you get up?" She rolled onto her side to get a better look at him. "Please tell me you got some sleep."

Lying seemed like a really bad idea right now, so he kept quiet. "Oh, Peeta."

"It'll be all right. I've pulled all-nighters before big tests before." No need to mention that he had never done particularly well on any of those tests. "I'll be all right. Don't worry about me."

"I'm your girlfriend. I'm going to worry about you." She sat up, and a very distracting sliver of her stomach came into view as she stretched upwards. He reached for her waist, but she playfully slapped him away. "Not now. You should try to get some sleep."

"I know something that makes me tired," Peeta answered.

She sighed and smiled down at him. "Are you determined to be difficult today?"

"Katniss, if I wasn't difficult, you wouldn't like me nearly as much."

She snorted in response to that, but she met him halfway when he leaned up for a kiss. This time, when his hands went for her waist, hers kept them there instead of pushing them away.


She had to give him some credit: Peeta had really good intuition about what would make him fall asleep. By the time she returned from the restroom after cleaning herself up and getting dressed, he was out cold. She kissed him on the forehead and headed out in search of some coffee. Maybe this La Quinta would be the place that disproved her hypothesis that you had to pay at least a hundred bucks a night at a hotel for the complimentary coffee to be halfway decent.

Karma must have been working for her that morning, for Katniss hit the sweet spot of hotel breakfasts. There weren't so many people about that she had a hard time getting her food, but there were enough other customers that she didn't feel like she had to make small talk with the custodial staff. Unfortunately, she hadn't been quite good enough in her past lives to earn some good coffee to go with her sad little pile of eggs and overcooked bacon. Looked like her theory still stood.

They had listened to a little NPR on the way out, so she already knew nothing major had happened yesterday, but she still took a look at the paper. Katniss always liked to check out the local papers when she was traveling to see if there were any coupons or suggestions of events in the area. As it turned out, Yuma was pretty dead this weekend. They had caught the week in between the Fourth of July celebrations and the town's Summer Fest. Bummer, but Katniss chose to see it as an extra surprise for next year, when Peeta would hopefully be working here.

She really should pass the newspaper on to one of the other guests, but instead, Katniss found herself flipping to the classifieds. She couldn't do this. Contracts were due in April, and even if they hadn't been, she refused to leave her district scrambling to find a replacement only six weeks before the school year started. Heavens, she didn't even know that Peeta had a job here, and she still couldn't stop herself from looking through the education classifieds. Yuma Public Schools had an opening for a mixed biology/chemistry position.

This was ridiculous. Yes, she loved Peeta, absolutely, but they had only been dating for four months. They had never talked about getting married, and yet here she was, ready to leave her job and her friends, the entire life she had carved out for herself in Panem, for him. What had happened to the independent woman she had once been? She and Gale had fought for months over his desire to move back to the reservation, and Katniss had long wondered if that was the fight that had pushed her over the edge in filing for divorce. Was this willingness to leave her life behind a sign of love or desperation?

No, she couldn't handle this right now. She tossed the newspaper down onto the seat next to her and gathered up her breakfast dishes.


"Morning," Peeta greeted her from the vanity as she entered the room. Though he had a good half hour before he needed to leave for the interview, he was already dressed in his suit.

"You too. I brought you coffee."

He accepted the paper cup. "Thanks."

"I wouldn't thank me 'til you've tried it. Not the best."

Peeta blew on it before he took his first sip. "Not the worst either."

"There's the optimist I know and love." She reached up to brush a stray piece of blond hair into place. "Did you get some good sleep."

"Yeah, actually."

"Good. Just don't psych yourself out, and you'll be fine. You know what you're talking about." She wrapped her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and pressed a feather-soft kiss to his shoulder, careful to check she hadn't left any trace of makeup behind.

His reflection met her eyes in the mirror. "Are you really the best judge of that?"

"I assure you that I am an excellent judge of whether or not someone is full of shit, and after months of careful consideration, I've decided you aren't."

"Thank you. I'm glad to hear it." He rubbed his chin and cheeks, searching for any stubble he might have missed while shaving earlier. She imagined that being blond made those rogue hairs more difficult to spot. "I think I'm going to head out a few minutes early, give me some time to get my nerves under control before the interview."

"Sounds like a plan." She gave his bottom a playful swat. "Now, get out of here. I want to brag to my friends about my rich lawyer boyfriend."

"You really picked the wrong kind of lawyer, didn't you?"


"Peeta. It's nice to meet you." Alma Coin's hand felt like ice. Or maybe his was really warm. Sweaty palms would make a great impression. "Please, sit down." From her hair to the bookshelves behind her, everything in the attorney's office was made of clean lines and hard edges. Though no curtains hung over the windows, the light that filtered in was cold, grey, and sterile.

He gave her a warm smile. "It's nice to meet you in person as well. I'm glad you could make time for this. I was reading about the Crane case a couple days back, and it seems like it must be occupying a lot of the office's time." Already, he could feel himself loosening up, getting more comfortable. For all the weird, almost robotic rigidity that Coin possessed, she was a person, and he had always been a people person. He could do this.

"Yes, it's definitely been quite the case. Now, because we are very busy here, I would like to keep the small talk to a minimum. I've got a few questions to ask, if you don't mind."

Okay, a little strange, but the brightest people all had their idiosyncrasies. "Of course."

She reached into one of her desk drawers and grabbed a piece of paper without even having to search for it. That was some pretty impressive organization right there. And wait, was that a checklist of questions? "Excellent. Let's get started."