One time when he was young, Peeta had been at the bakery with his father. It was winter, around Christmas, and they had stayed late to finish off an order of holiday cookies. By the time they were heading home, it was already dark out, and he remembered running into the parking lot, which was glistening beneath the street lamps – something that he should have noticed, now that he thought about it. He'd only made it a few steps before his feet slid from underneath him and his back hit the pavement. Hard. It took him several attempts before his lungs caught air again, and he just lay there on the sidewalk, gasping helplessly as if the fall had caused him to grow gills.

As he stared at the image in his hands, that's exactly how he felt. Like he couldn't breath. Like the chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere had suddenly shifted to a lethal toxin. He gripped at the collar of his shirt to stretch it away from his neck, hoping that it would help. It didn't. He stumbled back a few steps, his legs collapsing beneath him, until the brunt of his weight was leaning against the banister.

She was kissing someone else. He'd seen him before. Hawthorne. Gale. He was a few years ahead of them, and everyone assumed that he had Katniss were a thing. Peeta had prayed that they were cousins, or something, they certainly looked it. But cousins didn't kiss that way.

His throat was dry, but he managed the words: "Who else has seen these?"

Effie looked at him apologetically.

When they had left for dinner, the sun was still up, so it had to have happened between the time they had left the Hob and the time she appeared at his hotel room, he reasoned. They were only apart for a few hours, when she had gone to visit her sister. And her sister was staying with family friends. The Hawthornes. Where Katniss was staying as well, and ostensibly where Gale would frequent. But if she was with Gale, then why did she end up in his hotel room? Spending the night with him.

That was jumping to conclusions though. Katniss wasn't his. She didn't belong to anyone. And the truth was, he'd been too much of a coward to tell her how he felt about her. So to expect her to stay faithful to something that didn't actually exist was kind of insane. It didn't stop him from feeling incredibly hurt. Or prevent his hand from clenching into a fist at the sight.

"Buy them all Effie. No one can see these," Peeta said tightly.

"Peeta you can't protect her," she said.

He flipped off the iPad and held it out to her. "It's not like she signed a contract," he said, his words clinging desperately to the back of his throat. "She can kiss whomever she wants."

"It's not that," she said and took the iPad from him to change the browser. She extended it back to him, opened to the gossip website TAZ, and again he found the picture staring back at him.

"Mockingjay Finds Another Bird to Make Her Sing," the headline read. He didn't bother reading the rest. All of those sorts of articles were the same. Sources say this. A close friend says that. He scrolled further to find an image of him and Katniss, but they weren't smiling. This was also typical. They weren't actually fighting in the photo, merely walking down the street, but the way their bodies were positioned and how the sun glared in their eyes, they didn't look happy.

This was the usual method for destroying a career, and Katniss was the definite target. He read the bottom caption: TAZ is a production of Panem Pictures.

"Why would they do this?" he said, his eyes scanning the same sentence over and over to be sure. "Why would the studio want to drag one of their stars through the mud?"

Effie took the tablet from him and frowned. "That's because Katniss isn't a part of Panem Pictures anymore." The tips of her lemon yellow fingernails brushed his cheek softly. "I'm afraid we've been tricked. It's all been an awful trick."

Peeta found himself gripping the railing of his porch so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The blood began to drain from his ears, whooshing in erratic patterns until he felt dizzy.

An awful trick?

It couldn't have been. He knew it by the way he held her. The way she had kissed him. It had been real.

"It's a misunderstanding," he said. "Whatever this is," he gestured towards the iPad in her hand. "They should have let her explain. They should have checked with us first."

"It doesn't work like that," Effie said. "It's not about the picture. Katniss found a way to take advantage of your kindness and Panem's exposure, and she played us all for a fool." Effie let out a huff that was far more genuine than her usual accosted expression, leaving Peeta feeling even more uneasy than before. "There was a leak in the Associate Press, about a rival record label to Panem's Capitol Records. Katniss Everdeen is one of the musical acts on the list." Her fuchsia tinted lips creased downward. "The studio had no other choice."

Peeta combed his fingers roughly through his mussed blond curls as he began to pace the length of the concrete porch. His eyes shut tight as he tried to steady his thoughts. All he could see were flashes of her smile. The way her eyes glistened in the sunlight when she gazed up at him. It hadn't seemed calculating. He had believed her. But if it had been sincere. If she had really meant it. She would have told him.

He stilled, suddenly, and his hands fell from his hair to rest around the back of his neck. "Why like this?" he asked. With Maureen it had been different. He had known the news before the tabloids released it. He was constantly prepped to deal with damage control. But this was sudden. A strike of lightening that painted them both in ugly lights.

Effie's eyes flitted away abruptly, and he knew, immediately, that she understood what he was implying.

"They're not happy with you either, Peeta," she shook her head. "I've been warning you, with the way you've been acting, but you haven't paid any attention to me." She was back to her normal demeanor. Her curls bouncing on top of her head as she spoke with passionate indignation. "I know that you're young – and that you want to believe the best in people – but in this business Peeta. You're only going to get hurt."

"They're using her against me, aren't they?" he said, his finger pointing at her accusingly. Effie coiled back with a surprised gasp, and Peeta blinked a few times, stunned by the menacing tone his voice took. One that he could barely recognize. He jammed his hands quickly into his jean pockets and looked at his feet. "I think you should go, Effie," he said. "I don't – I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Peeta," she said gently. "I'm worried about you." Peeta set his jaw, and Effie took the hint, moving across the porch to retrieve her purse. As she made her way towards the steps, she paused to touch a hand to his arm. "I know that you care about her. But I don't think you realize all that's on the line."

He chewed on the inside of his lip, worrying the skin between his teeth as he numbly watched Effie's powder pink Mercedes back out of the driveway. Fishing his phone from his pocket, he selected a number from his contact list and held it to his ear.

"Are you busy?" he said.

Finnick's chuckle bellowed on the other end of the line. "How many ways can I tell you, 'I told you so?' Let me count the ways."

"Funny, jackass," he mumbled. "I suppose you've heard the news."

"It's only my home page," Finnick said, his voice slanted by his obvious smirk. "Let me guess. You'd like a drink."

"For starters," Peeta said with a heavy sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping that it would help him to breathe. "Fuck," he shouted. "Do you think?"

"That she's sleeping with tall, dark, and handsome?" he mused. "I would."

"She slept with me last night," Peeta blurted out, his hand covering his face. "I mean not in the figurative way, the literal way, and I thought..."

"That she was into you."

He pressed his lips together, his eyes looking off into the distance without focusing on anything. "I don't know what I think anymore."

Finnick pulled into his driveway about twenty minutes later, a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, that he pressed into Peeta's chest as he passed him through the doorway. He tossed his leather jacket across the back of the sofa, and lifted his feet onto the edge of the coffee table when he sat.

Peeta inspected the label and went to fetch some glasses from the kitchen. "When you suggested liquor, I assumed you were joking."

"Nonsense," Finnick said, accepting the glass that Peeta offered. "A man should never wallow without a good – mid level, glass of whiskey." He took a sip and then considered his statement. "I mean there are obvious exceptions, and one probably shouldn't engage in it alone too often. But this occasion practically begs for it."

Peeta slumped on the couch beside him and gazed at the amber liquid. "I feel like I've been kicked in the chest by an elephant," he said simply.

"I'm not sure if that would hurt much," Finnick said and threw back his glass. "They're legs are like stubs, I'm sure they couldn't kick very fast."

"Please, a bit of sympathy here," he said, and winced when he sipped his drink. "I'm suffering a major life ennui here."

Finnick picked up his phone, the browser opened to the tabloid page, and looked at it thoughtfully. "The kissing makes sense, I guess," he said. "Although truth be told, I kind of thought she liked you." He thumb ran across the screen and he pressed his fingers against his temple, his green eyes narrowing. "But the paps in Pittsburgh. Weren't they all Panem paid?"

Peeta nodded.

"Yet they still ran the pictures." He dropped the phone on the table. "What am I missing?"

Finishing his drink with a painful gulp, Peeta swiped the back of is hand across his mouth. "She's leaving the Mockingjay to sign with a competing record label," he said. "Panem caught wind of it before the news broke."

Finnick filled both of their glasses, his lips pursing with a smacking sound before he spoke. "So let me get this straight. In the last 24 hours, she's gotten close to this guy, especially close to you, and has a controversial record contract that's about to break."

"What are you getting at?"

"It's just... the timing is odd," Finnick said, and let out a heavy sigh as he sat back against the cushions.

Peeta narrowed his eyes, and refused the glass offered to him with a wave of his hand. "You think it was all an act," he said harshly. "That doesn't even make sense. We've been acting the whole time."

"For the cameras, yes," Finnick agreed. "But what about to each other?"

Peeta's eyes darted away quickly, and he clenched his jaw tightly to subdue the grimace that threatened to crease his lips. Finnick teased his glass of whiskey against his teeth, but didn't take a sip, instead placing it back onto the coffee table to rest his elbows on his knees.

"That picnic, over at Snow's a few days ago," Finnick said. "She kept on asking these questions about you and Maureen. I figured – I assumed it was her weird way of saying that she liked you. You know in that way that emotionally closed off people do. But, I don't know," he ran a tired hand through his bronze hair. "Maybe it was about losing her free ticket to stardom."

"And that's why she kissed me," Peeta said, his voice barely breaking a mumble.

"It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened in this business."

Peeta reached for his whiskey and emptied it in one swig. He reached for the bottle and watched the amber liquid slosh over the rim of the glass as he roughly poured.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Finnick said gently. "It happens to the best of us." Peeta let the whiskey burn his throat in a steady stream. "I know you liked her."

"I don't want to talk about it," he said tightly.

"Peeta, I'm serious, you don't deserve this," he said. "It's this town. The way they operate. They're always looking for something and when they find it, they chew you up and they spit you out."

And suddenly it all made sense. The tightness in his chest, that was turning dull, almost numb. It was that emptiness behind Finnick's smile, and the vacant look in Maureen's eyes. The warnings his friends had been heeding for months now echoed in his mind until he gripped both ears to silence them. He understood now, why Maureen turned to pills, and Finnick hid his relationship with Annie from the spotlight, the alternative hurt too much. He couldn't trust anything, or anyone. Nothing was real.

"Feel free to break out into choruses of 'I told you so,'" Peeta mumbled. He poured another glass, his vision struggling to focus on the table in front of him. "I think I need to wallow on my own for a while."

"Maybe I'm wrong," Finnick offered. He hesitated to stand, and took the bottle of Jack from the table before he moved to the door.

Peeta kept his eyes on the floor, listening to the door creek open a click shut. It was true, Finnick could be wrong, but the prospect seemed unlikely. Every scenario that played in his mind ended the same way. He had fallen helplessly for a fantasy that did not exist.

His phone buzzed to indicate a new text message, the words were blurry across the screen when he attempted to read it. It was a message from Katniss, and he laughed bitterly at the dismissive apology explaining that she couldn't come over.

"Of course not," he said, and threw the phone across the room.


Katniss lay on the stiff mattress of her giant bed, surrounded by a plethora of overstuffed white pillows. The thermostat was set too low and the tip of her nose was cold from where it peeked above the down comforter. She stared dully at the dark ceiling before glancing at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

6:08

The red numbers flashed. Exactly three minutes past the last time she had looked at the clock. A common pattern that had emerged around midnight, when she had first tried to fall asleep. All attempts had proven to be unsuccessful.

Sun light began to creep through the heavy curtains that she hadn't thought to draw closed, forcing her to bury her face in a pillow to find darkness.

She was supposed to be at Peeta's. That was what they had planned for after she met with Haymitch. But the contract, and betraying Panem Pictures, and hiding it from Peeta, it was all too much for her to face him. She had sent him a text, a brief one, explaining an early call with the show in the morning, even though there was nothing scheduled. And his response seemed to have come with some amount of hesitation. A simple, "Okay," which made her heart catch in her throat in a mixture of anxiety and guilt and dread.

What would happen when he knew?

There was a soft thump against her door, and Katniss scrambled to sit up straight. The time on the clock hadn't changed, and Haymitch didn't even know that this time of day existed. She threw back the comforter, craning her neck to inspect the door carefully, before climbing out of bed to answer it.

There was nobody at the door when she opened it, and the hallway was clear in both directions, but at her feet was a manilla folder with her name scrawled across it in black sharpie. She bent over to retrieve it, carefully unfastening the metal clasp that sealed it to slip out the contents.

Her eyes narrowed at the title of a tabloid that she had only vaguely heard of, but as she took in the contents of the page she nearly gasped. It was a picture of her and Gale, kissing outside of the Seam in the dead of night when she thought they had been alone. In fact, she had barely even thought about the kiss since it had happened. It was closure, that's all. She ripped through the magazine, finding the article that spouted about her secret affair. Her knees began to buckle and she steadied herself in the door frame when her eyes landed on Peeta's wounded face.

In a daze, her feet began moving on their own accord until she was in Haymitch's room. She clutched the magazine in her fist, watching his heavy, uneven breaths. Her hands trembled as she debated waking him, but instead she reached for the keys on the counter next to the television. Haymitch had rarely left his room since they had arrived in LA and his rental car had remained mainly dormant ever since.

She rushed to the parking garage, weaving up and down the rows as she scrambled to press buttons on the key pad. Finally, the taillights on a red sedan came to life. Katniss ripped open the door and brought the engine to life. The drive to Peeta's house was one that she was only slightly familiar, yet she made all the turns with ease until she was pulling into his driveway.

Her heart thumped in her ears, causing her to grip the steering wheel with white knuckles to scare the anxiety away. She wasn't sure what to say. That the picture was a lie? But then what? She was still lying to him.

Letting out a breath she didn't know that she was holding, she unclasped her seat belt and walked to his door. He answered on the second knock. His hair disheveled, and his eyes sunken and puffy. He was still wearing the same clothing from yesterday, and Katniss frowned as she took in his appearance. His eyes flitted to the tabloid clutched to her chest, causing her entire body to tense.

"I need –," her throat felt too dry to speak and she cleared it quickly before she continued. "I need to talk to you."

He stared at her for a moment. His lips pursed thoughtfully, and his gaze held a surprising coldness that frightened her. Suddenly though, his expression became unreadable and he turned his back to her to move back into the living room. "If this is about the pictures, I already know," he said evenly.

Katniss tipped back the magazine enough to see the photo again, and she shook her head vigorously before chasing after him. "I can explain..." she said.

"It's fine," Peeta said, shrugging a tired shoulder. "I get it. It's business."

"Business?" she repeated. She lifted the tabloid and waved it at him accusingly. "Did you know about this? Did you do this?"

"No, I didn't," he said harshly. "In fact I tried to stop it, but I'm sorry. There's only so much I can do for you."

"Do for me?" she spat. "I don't need your help."

"I know," he said. "Not anymore at least." He pointed at the magazine in her hands. "You've got everything you want now."

"This kiss meant nothing, Peeta," she shouted, her voice nearly unrecognizable. "That's what I would have told you, if you had asked, instead of jumping to conclusions and plastering it everywhere that people could see."

He flinched, his mouth gaping as he tried to form a defense. He shook his head briskly. "This isn't about the kiss Katniss, and you know it."

She didn't know though. Peeta had seen the pictures and was upset over them. That was what she knew.

"I know about the contract," he said. Katniss stumbled back a few steps, collapsing against the door frame. "The studio knows. That's why they released those pictures. It had nothing to do with me."

"Peeta," she sighed. "I had no idea. I only found out about it yesterday."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he begged. "It effects me too you know. I put my career on the line to help you." He ran a hand through his blond curls tersely. "I just wish that you trusted me enough to tell me. I thought that..." Peeta said, his words trailing off with a heavy breath.

"You thought what?" she asked carefully.

"This thing between us," he said, gesturing at the empty space that separated them. "I thought that maybe it was something more than an act."

She frowned and took a few careful steps towards him before her lips tipped up into half a grin. "It is," she said.

He lifted his eyes to meet hers. Bright blue eyes hesitant, betrayed by the hopeful smile that spread across his lips.

He moved the meet her in the center of the room, but faltered. "I can't – I can't pretend anymore, okay? Too many things here are a lie, and I can't do that anymore. It's driving me crazy! There are so many people that I've seen fall apart over these games. I don't want to be one of them Katniss. I don't want to lose myself that way. And I'm afraid that if I keep up with this act, that I'm going to lose myself.

"I don't want to worry over photos, and question everything about you because I'm too much of a coward to tell you how I feel." His hand touched her cheek, and she sank into his warmth. Katniss' eyes fluttered shut, a hot tear that she hadn't felt slipping down her cheek. "I love you," he said, and her entire body ached at the declaration. "I've loved you since we were kids, and I need to know that you feel that way too."

Her heart began to beat impossibly fast, pumping blood to her ears, deafening her to the sound of silence that lingered between them. Her eyelids fluttered open to meet his uncertain gaze. "Katniss?" he said. "Say something? Please."

"Peeta, I –," her voice caught in her throat, and her cheek felt cold the second he retracted his hand from her face. She cared about him. She knew that. But love? The kind that led to marriage and a family, that wasn't something she was ever looking for in life. She wanted to take care of her sister, and she accomplished that. These feeling she developed for him weren't a part of the deal and it terrified her.

What would happen if she let this grow? If she devoted herself so completely to someone as her mother had with her father. She couldn't lose herself that way. The thought of Peeta slipping away from her already hurt too much.

"It was all a game," he said, stepping away from her. "The way you acted."

"Not all of it," she said quickly.

"How much?" he said. "If all of the cameras were gone tomorrow, what would be left?"

"I don't – I don't know," she said. "I care about you, I do. But I was never looking for anything serious. You know that." Folding her arms across her chest, she chewed on the inside of her lip. "The closer we get, the more confusing it is."

He took a painfully deep breath and said, " Well let me know when you figure it out."

Peeta stomped to the kitchen with heavy foot steps as Katniss watched, choking on the threat of tears. She moved to the doorway, ready to leave, when she saw the paparazzi creeping in the bushes outside. She wasn't sure that it surprised her. News of her torrid affair would mean cameras lining the streets around his house and her hotel room trying to get a glimpse of the full tale.

She dried her eyes and took a few breaths to steady herself, her face void of emotion. Her hand had just touched the doorknob when she felt his light grip on her wrist. His eyes were focused out the window, empty, hollow orbs staring numbly into space. "Let me walk you out," he said. His hand moved from her wrist to lace his fingers with hers, and he opened the door to guide her out.

Across the lawn, she could hear the chorus of clicking camera lenses, but her eyes stayed locked on the hard lines of Peeta's face.

"One more time? For the audience?" he said coolly.

In a daze, her feet dragged behind him, and she was startled by the foreign feel of his lips pressed to hers as he cupped her cheeks and kissed her against the side of Haymitch's rental car. He opened the driver's side door, helping her slide into her seat, and she gripped his hand tightly, her eyes pleading with his empty gaze, unable to let go.


A/N: Thank you for your patience! I'm about to go on a trip, but I'm hopeful I'll get the final chapter out before that. As always, I appreciate your feedback, it's a joy to read!