It's Monday - means Firebird update :) A little reprive from the politics around, right ?

My huge thanks to xerxia31, dandelion-sunset for betaing and being so good friends, always wanting to help -thank you so so much ladies !

And to the fantastic, awesome, gifted and talented akai-echo - you are awesome and I can't thank you enough for your talent :)

Please do not hesitate to leave a comment - they are always welcomed :) Let me know what you think about this story !

"He was a ballet dancer? Peeta?" The words came out of Katniss's mouth as shock spread into all of her, slowly sinking in. Flashes passed through her mind. Haymitch, avoiding answering specific questions. Peeta's grace, far different from Finnick's, the stocky build, coming from hours of practice, the way he placed his hands on her hips earlier tonight when she made her pivot – it was the same as a ballet dancer. It was the way a ballet dancer was taught to hold his partners.

"Katniss? Everything's all right?"

She froze at the sound of his voice, close to her ear. Too close.

"I... I gotta get out of here…"

She looked around, spotting her old leather jacket on the chair next to the one Annie was sitting on. Climbing down from her stool, she walked on shaking legs towards her possessions, grabbing her jacket and purse in an angry movement, not hearing a word of what Annie was telling her. The club around her was a fog, sounds distorted to muffled noises, the air heavy with sweat, alcohol and cologne.

She burst through the glass door, letting the music die behind her, and started walking down the pavement, breathing in the cool air of the night, trying to collect her thoughts. She felt her skin shivering under the assault of the cold, as she walked away from the club, trying to untangle the sleeves of her jacket from her bag.

She ignored the feeling in her stomach, or at least, she pretended to. She felt betrayed; by Peeta, by Finnick, but mostly by Haymitch. Why didn't anybody find it relevant to mention to her that her partner was an experienced ballet dancer? She wouldn't have looked like a total idiot, complaining about dancing to that stupid bolero to someone who could actually do it.

She finally managed to put her jacket right, sliding her arms in the sleeves, looking for a bit of warmth. Her mind, nonetheless, continued to wander to the dance sessions – noticing afterwards all the clues that were evident, the ones she hadn't taken notice of before. The way Peeta and Haymitch had hugged, the first time she saw them. How he talked with Martyna that day, too. His knowledge of the bolero, far too precise to be only something he had made up on the spot. How could she have not seen those things?

She hurried a bit more, wanting to put as much distance between her and the club, hoping to reach the safety of her place as quickly as possible.

"Katniss! Wait!"

Of course Peeta Fucking Mellark would come after her. He wasn't a man who would leave a damsel in distress in the street, at night. As if Katniss was a damsel. Or in distress.

She heard the sound of his steps on the pavement, noticing for the umpteenth time how loudly he walked when he wasn't on stage. But she didn't want to talk to him right now. She just wanted to go home and think about everything that had happened today, from the announcement of her getting an important part, to this revelation of Peeta's past. So she did the only thing she could think of.

She started running.

Forgetting she was wearing heels.

She felt the pain in her ankle, before everything faded to black.

She opened her eyes just to immediately close them again. The light was too bright after the dark. Light? But it was supposed to be the night, no? She had just left the club, running away from Peeta, so why were there lights everywhere?

"Katniss? Open your eyes."

No, she would not comply. She didn't want the light right now.

"Katniss, I know you're awake. I'm going to call the nurse now." The man's voice chimed into her brain, again.

Nurse? As in a hospital?

She finally lifted an eyelid carefully, just to assess that the room she was in was too white to be hers, and that there was a broad-shouldered, blond-curled man facing away from her, obviously talking to someone on the other side of the door. Peeta.

Finally opening both of her eyes, she tried to sit up in the bed, only to feel her head start spinning as soon as she was up, forcing her to grab the handles on the side of the bed to keep her balance. The movement she made wasn't lost on the woman rushing into the room, passing by Peeta.

"Hey, there. How are you feeling?" The nurse started looking at the machines around her, before grabbing the chart at the end of the bed, writing something down in it.

"What happened?" Katniss asked, wondering why she was in the hospital.

She had no clue as to how she went from running from the Guatemala-whatever club to a hospital room.

"You fell head first on the pavement and lost consciousness. So I took you to the ER to be checked out," Peeta answered her, raking his hand through his hair as he walked towards the bed, positioning himself on the other side of the nurse.

"I fell? I don't fall! I have excellent balance!" she protested.

"Trust me, dear," the nurse chimed in. "Your boyfriend is right. You fell and are lucky to only have a few scratches on your knees. Now I'm going to test your joints, to be sure the ankles and knees are all right. You're a ballerina, right?"

Boyfriend? BOYFRIEND?

"He is…" she tried to deny the status of the man by her side.

She really did start. Wanted to deny it.

Before she could utter the next word, however, she felt something on her lips. Not a hand, no. Softer, warmer…. Like lips.

Peeta was kissing her.

Not a deep passionate kiss, but something very light, a butterfly kiss, just a feather of a touch, but it was enough to render her speechless, stunned by his gesture. As she tried to recover from her shock, she felt his mouth travel to her ear, where he whispered very quietly, "I told them I was your boyfriend so they would let me stay. Don't blow my cover." She didn't know what to do – except scowl and send daggers with her eyes. Her brain caught up with her rather quickly, finally persuading her to go on with this charade, resolving to deal with Peeta later. Because this kiss meant nothing, right?

Peeta had turned towards the nurse, being careful to take Katniss' right hand between his own, to her surprise. He was really playing the doting boyfriend well.

"How is she?"

"I'll tell you that in a minute. Miss Everdeen, do you feel pain anywhere?"

"My knee hurt."

"We'll start there, then." The nurse took the bedsheet off, and Katniss realized she was still wearing her dress. Her tights were definitely ruined, and she started to hitch up her skirt to get rid of them, when she remembered who was in the room with her. Her dance teacher turned fake boyfriend. There was no way she was going to show him more than what he needed to see.

"Can you, um…" she asked, looking at him shyly.

Realization spread across his face, and a blush started to appear on his cheeks as he took in what was happening. He clumsily looked around, trying to figure out what to do with himself until relief arrived, in the form of the still-opened door that he crossed to hastily.

"Ah, young love," sighed the nurse. "It's good to take time to get to know each other, before you - you know - do it."

"I'm sorry?" Maybe it was a residual effect of her contact with the pavement, but Katniss didn't understand what the older woman was saying. Or maybe she didn't want to understand.

"I was just saying, it's good to wait before having sex. People rush things nowadays. Now, let's get back to this knee. You're a ballerina, right? You didn't answer earlier."

The nurse helped Katniss take her tights off, and started placing her hands around her right knee, carefully touching it, checking for any problems. It gave the young woman the time to recover from what she just heard. Waiting for sex? Really? Why would the nurse think that? Oh, right – she didn't want Peeta to see her underthings, as she was pretty sure they were just friends, and friends don't do that in front of one another, right? She decided to ignore the comment, focusing on the most important thing – her joints.

"Yeah, I am."

"Okay. You need to tell me if it hurts, and if so, how badly, okay?"

"Sure."

Her knees were bent, stretched, bent again, and even twisted, without any noticeable pain, and Katniss felt hopeful she would be released from the hospital soon. She had tested her ankles under the sheets while the nurse was occupied with her knee, and knew everything was normal there. The stretching she did when warming her muscles before a rehearsal or a lesson was more painful than the nurse's touch.

The nurse spent a few minutes on her ankles, before finally pulling the sheets back up

"Seems everything's fine, you will surely be a bit sore, but that's to be expected," the older woman said, opening the door. Katniss saw a now familiar mop of hair waiting in the doorway.

"You can come in, dear. She's all right. We're going to discharge her. Will you be the one monitoring her?"

"I'm sorry?" the comments came in sync. Peeta and Katniss shared a look of confusion.

"Oh, nobody told you? Well, you can be discharged, but as you were unconscious, we will need to have someone monitor you for 24 hours, just to be sure you don't have a concussion. And I will need the name of said person, so we can have it in your file. It's just in case, but better safe than sorry, right?"

The silence that fell after the nurse's words was all Katniss could hear. She didn't want Peeta to intrude into her life more than he already had, and tried to convey her thoughts through the glare she sent Peeta's way. She wasn't ready for him to be so steady and unrelenting, not bending to her steely eyes, not caving to her demands. He stood there, just looking at her, seemingly oblivious to the nurse still standing next to them, waiting for a name to put on her charts.

Katniss was stubborn, but there was a strength pouring out of the blond man that gave no doubt who would win as far as her health was concerned.

"Fine!" Katniss hissed.

Peeta turned to the nurse, a smile widening by the second.

"Just put my name. Peeta Mellark…"

"Peter?" the nurse interrupted.

"No, Peeta. P-E-E-T-A M-E-L-L-A-R-K"

"Like the bakery?"

"Yeah."

"You're related to them?" the nurse asked again, leaving Katniss wondering what they were talking about.

"It's my family's, yes." Peeta seemed annoyed.

"Oh. That's why you're named like a bread!"

Peeta sighed, this time, almost losing his smirk. It was apparently not the first time he had to explain his name.

"No, it was supposed to be Peter. But apparently the woman at the desk who noted my name on the papers mistook it for Peeta. My dad pointed it out, but it was never corrected. So I'm stuck with this name now," he answered.

"I kind of like it. It makes you stand apart." The words had left Katniss's mouth before she realized she had spoken them.

She started blushing, because, frankly, why did she say that out loud? It was one thing to think it, but to let the world – and Peeta – know about it was something else. But she realized she kind of liked that he had a name that wasn't common, one that made him really stand apart – in a good way, not like the goofy first names she heard in the classes sometimes. The ideas the parents had, really….

"Oh, that's so cute! Well, if you could please add your phone number here," the nurse showed him a tiny place, "and here," another box, "we'll be done. I'll just go find Dr. Fitzgibbons and you can take Miss Everdeen home." Taking the chart with her, the nurse exited the room, leaving Peeta and Katniss alone.

"What was that? Why did you kiss me? Why did you pretend to be my boyfriend? Are you completely mad?"

Katniss was finally able to release the anger that had been slowly climbing since Peeta kissed her.

"I figured that you wanted…"

"Excuse me? In which universe did I allow you to kiss me?"

Peeta smiled and quickly brought a finger to Katniss's mouth to silence her.

"I thought that you would want to get out of here as soon as possible, and as I didn't know who to call to come and take you home, it was the best solution I could come up with. And I didn't want you to be all alone in this room without anyone around."

Oh. He was being kind. Just like he always opened the doors for women, or rose from the bench when she arrived... Or all the little things he did on a regular basis that she didn't pay much attention to.

"By the way, should I call someone? Your parents? Siblings? Friend? Boyfriend?"

And it hit her right here right now. She knew all of this, of course. Knew she was now without parents, her sister was an ocean away, and as for a boyfriend, there hadn't been one for a while now. She was alone. It was one thing to know, it was something else to hear it from someone else – someone that had no clue whatsoever about it.

It hit her hard in the chest, the pain of all of her losses, of all the distance and loneliness.

It hit her so hard so couldn't help but start crying. Sadness and pain overtook her as the tears started to fall from her grey eyes, falling silently on her red halter dress. Sobs echoed throughout her thin body, but Katniss kept her quivering lips closed, not allowing the sounds to leave her.

But there was nothing she could do. She had kept them for too long inside of her.

She cried the tears that didn't fall when her father died and she had to take over for her mother, to be sure her sister would be fed.

She cried the tears that didn't fall when her mother decided to leave this earth and she had to be strong to carry on her life. To fight to be the legal guardian of her sister. Or to just have food on the table.

She cried the tears that didn't fall when, after a full day of dance, she worked every night, balancing two part-time jobs to earn money.

She cried the tears that didn't fall when her previous boyfriend, Teddy, closed her door for the last time, carrying his box of things out of her apartment, never to come back. Because everybody left her eventually.

For the first time in her life, though, someone was there. Peeta was there. Without a hint of hesitation, he opened his arms and took her into a hug, gently pressing her against his solid chest.

Katniss could feel his hands, moving up and down her spine, comforting, as words poured out of his mouth to her ear – what he was saying she couldn't understand, but the smooth cadence of his voice soothed her sadness. It was like he was a Patronus to her dementored mind, slowly clearing out the dark thoughts that had invaded her head.

She had no clue how long she lingered in Peeta's warm embrace, but she could feel relief flowing through her – as well as a deep shame at crying in front of someone she'd known for only a couple of weeks. She hadn't even cried in front of Gale, her childhood best friend now turned park ranger in Montana, after the funeral of her mother. She hadn't cried during the night she spent consoling her sister before she left for Europe.

"I'm sorry – I'm not a crybaby type of girl…"

"I know that, Katniss. Don't worry. It needed to get out."

"I mean, I never usually –"

"You're clear to go, Miss Everdeen!" The chipper tone of the man coming into the room – Dr. M. Fitzgibbons if his badge could be trusted – as he looked at the chart in his hands.

"So, Mr…" He quickly looked from the papers to Peeta. "Mellark? Like the bakery? Oh, the cheese buns are to die for!"

He stared straight at Peeta, as if he expected him to answer or talk back, but nothing came, only Peeta's extended hand in the air.

"These are Katniss's discharge papers? I'll take them, and we'll be gone then."

"Oh, yes, they are. Well, Miss Everdeen, you're most definitely cleared for dancing, but take it easy for a few days. And if you experience any dizziness, anything wrong - dizziness, headache, nausea or vomiting, confusion, anything out of the ordinary, you call us, or have Mr. Mellark give us a call, right?"

Both nodded, waiting for the doctor to take his leave.

"Well, you can go, then. And I look forward to seeing you on stage, Miss Everdeen. I have my subscription for this year. Any clue which ballet you'll be in?"

"Not yet, doctor. We keep it secret until the last moment. It's not the dancer that counts, it's the whole group," Katniss answered, wiping her tears away.

"I will have to keep an eye out for you, then! Well, have a good day."

"Day? What time is it?" Katniss asked suddenly, feeling completely disoriented. She truly had no clue how long she had stayed in the hospital, just remembering it was 11 p.m. past when she exited the club.

"It's nearly seven-thirty AM."

"Oh my god, Peeta! Why did you stay all night here? I mean, you should have gone home!"

"It was the right thing to do," he answered softly, looking around for Katniss's jacket, which he found on the door hanger, along with her purse. "I didn't know who to call, your phone is locked, and I figured you would want to see a friendly face when you woke up. So I stayed. It's no big deal, Katniss, really."

But it was. He had spent the night away from his family, or whoever was waiting for him, to just stay here with her, so she wouldn't be alone when she woke up.

"It is, Peeta! You have a show tonight and you need your rest!"

"I'll take a nap this afternoon, don't worry." He shrugged.

"And what is it with your name? Why does everybody know you? Why don't I?" She could feel the scowl showing on her face.

"Would you like breakfast, Katniss?"

"What?" That wasn't the answer she expected.

"Breakfast? My treat?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm hungry. Now put your coat on, and let's go. I'm your keeper for the day."

"Honestly, you can just drop me home and I swear if I feel dizzy I'll call the doctor. No need for you to waste your day with me," Katniss said, looking at the buildings passing by.

After a painfully long walk out of the hospital, with Katniss walking precariously on her pair of heels all the while attempting to try to convince him she could take a cab home, she had finally let Peeta settle her into his car.

"If you're dizzy, you won't be able to call the hospital. You're stuck with me all day, Katniss."

She could see him carefully checking the heavy morning traffic before merging into the street.

"I can take care of myself! I've been doing this for years!" Katniss said, anger never far from the surface.

"Then tell me who to call to watch over you, and I'll be gone," Peeta answered her simply, before putting his turn signals, because he was just that kind of guy.

She tried to get deeper into the car seat.

"I don't need anybody."

Peeta quickly turned his head and shot her a look.

"Give me one number and I'll leave you alone," he said simply.

"Haymitch's."

"Well played, Sweetheart. But it won't work. He's gone for the weekend."

"How do you know that?" How could he know that her teacher was away? Were they that close to one another?

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

Katniss was starting to get comfortable with the banter between herself and Peeta. It was strange how easy it was talking to him, and she could see herself laughing easily at the things he would say if it wouldn't please him so much. But wouldn't it? Wouldn't it be good for her to let go for once, to laugh and chat with someone without a care in the world? How long had it been since she made a new friend?

Gale was long gone, settled in Montana, and she remembered how excited he was the last time she went there. They had known each other for decades, having grown up together. On one of their hikes in the Glacier National Park, he told her how he had fallen head over heels for a blonde journalist. Katniss was later introduced to Cressida, a smart young woman who graduated from Berkley in Journalism and was now working for one of the big networks in Helena.

Madge had been spending the last year and a half planning her wedding to her own Dr. Derek, a veterinarian she met at one of her dad's parties.

Katniss understood distance and life had taken a toll on her friendships – she wasn't going to argue about that, or whine at her friends for making lives of their own. And then it was Prim's turn to fly away, to the other side of the ocean, leaving her all alone.

Alone.

She looked at the buildings surrounding Peeta's car, taking in the unfamiliar landscape.

"Where are you taking me? We should have turned on Rodger's to get to my place..."

"I told you. Breakfast."

"There was a Starbucks just outside the hospital. It would have been perfect."

"I'm not eating anything from there. They shouldn't be called pastries, they're barely pre-made so-called dough with a little bit of toppings. I can't believe people find them edible. I mean, I'm pretty sure there is not an ounce of butter in those. How can they call something a pastry if there isn't butter? Butter makes the taste! Butter binds all the other ingredients together, and gives them this flavor, you know? But no, they don't use it. They use this oleo nonsense so they can claim it's fat free!"

She didn't know what started it really. His rant against Starbucks, or pro-butter, the way he started to speak with the hand that wasn't on the wheel, the seriousness of his face as he delivered his monologue, but a bubble started in Katniss's mouth, quickly turning into laughter. And this time she let go. It was too much, watching this usually serious, caring, kind man getting mad at something as superficial as Starbucks non-pastries. Everybody knew they weren't made in the back kitchen.

"It's like eating cardboard! Why are you laughing, Katniss?" His eyes were wide with surprise and concern. "Are you feeling okay? Do you hurt anywhere? Katniss? Answer me!"

But Katniss was hugging her ribs tightly, tears falling from her eyes, as she laughed away her pain and sorrows.

"Katniss!"

Peeta had stopped the car on the side of the road and was now leaning over to Katniss, worry clearly spread on his face. He touched her arm, sliding his hand up and down, in a reassuring manner, like a father would do to his child, but she went on laughing so much it hurt her.

Quickly, his warm arms encircled her, hugging her, comforting again.

And once again, she smelled his scent, what she had catalogued in her head as Peeta-flavor, a mix of leather, cinnamon and something Peeta.

Pressed on his warm chest, Katniss started to relax, letting the strong arms soothe her, his heartbeat calming her erratic one, letting him whisper sweet nothings in her ear all over again.

She could get used to this closeness, she realized. She didn't feel trapped in an unbreakable embrace, and knew right away that at the slightest movement on her part, he would let her go. But the truth was she didn't want to move right now. So she told him.

He whispered his answer in her ear. "So we won't move."