Theme music: "Science & Faith" by The Script

NOTE: A scene from this chapter was submitted to Prompts in Panem on Tumblr for Round 3 (in March 2013) for Day 6, Canon Places - The Cave. So if you think you might have read this before, that's probably where you saw it.

Stargazing

Katniss Everdeen is the most stubborn girl I have ever met. She is definitely the most stubborn girl in all of Twelve. Maybe in all of Panem. The universe.

"I'll take the zipper side," I insist with admirable calm. It had taken her some minutes to negotiate me into sharing the sleeping bag with her. The temperature is dropping like bird shit – frozen bird shit, no less – and, honestly, I had not been looking forward to spending half the night freezing my ass off on guard duty. Or trying to sleep while knowing that Katniss was freezing during her shift. No, sharing the sleeping bag with Katniss is not going to be a hardship in that sense.

I would have been more than a bit apprehensive about the close quarters except that we're both so weary and dirty that I doubt it'll be dangerously pleasant… or even remotely tempting. Or maybe I'm just kidding myself, but whatever. The decision has been made: we're sharing it. But now she's trying to tell me that she should be the one facing the entrance just in case someone finds us, sneaks up on us in our sleep, and tries to kill us. She wants to be the first line of defense, the first target, the first to face death.

Goddamn it. Why does she do this shit to me?

"I can't shoot an arrow around you," she explains. She's not as cool as she'd like me to think, though. I can see the way her jaw muscles clench both before and after her remark.

"You can shoot over me. I'll be, like, the barricade or whatever."

"No."

"Well, I'm not letting Clove have a clear line of sight to you."

"Clove is dead."

This is news to me. I want to ask, but I don't really think she wants to tell me the details, and if I'm honest with myself about it, I have to admit that I don't really need them. Although the information would be nice to have, I ask only what I need to know: "Who's left, then?"

"Cato, Thresh, the girl from Five, us."

That's all?

"So I'm taking the zipper side," she concludes.

I experience a strong and immediate desire to bang my head into the nearest wall.

She adds, "Look, no one's going to be out there searching for us in this weather."

Okay, that's a valid point, but… "If that's the case, then there's no reason for you to sleep closest to the entrance." The following thunder clap seems to second that.

She crosses her arms. "There's no reason for you to do it, either."

Oh, a stalemate. Fantastic. I huff out a breath. "Okay. Thumb war," I propose.

"What."

"If we had a table, I'd suggest arm wrestling."

"This isn't funny!" she growls.

I love that growl. Even when she's pissing me off. "No, it isn't, but the longer we drag this out, the less rest we get. Either let me take point or we go to thumb war."

"Thumb war it is."

We battle, she wins. How the hell had that happened? My hands are way bigger than hers. "Hey, hey, best out of three!" I protest when she smirks at me.

"Nice try." She unzips the bag with a flourish and holds it open. "After you."

Grumbling, I acquiesce. "If you get stabbed, slashed, or strangled tonight—"

"Then you can take the entrance side tomorrow without any arguments from me."

"That's so not funny it's… really not funny."

I lie back and wait for her to tuck herself in beside me, zipping us in nice and snug. And despite the amount of weight we've both lost recently, the fit is very, very snug.

Approximately two minutes after she lays her head on my outstretched arm and presses her back to my front, I know with absolute certainty that I'm not going to be able to convince myself that I'm sharing a bed with one of my brothers. And not for the reason you're thinking. Well, not exactly. I mean, yeah, it feels like there's electricity humming in this bedroll with us, but my body is still so exhausted from combating infection and blood loss that there's no way I'll have any inconvenient issues, er, arising tonight. Actually, my problem is that I just can't figure out what I'm supposed to do with my other arm, the one not tucked under her head for a pillow.

"You're not sleeping," she points out after about ten minutes of muscle-locked awkwardness. Is it just my imagination or does she sound accusing?

"Neither are you."

"You're all tense."

She's kidding, right? I mean, hell, she feels like one solid muscle cramp. "Because you are."

She wiggles, her booted feet accidently kicking mine at the foot of the sleeping bag, and then I feel her hand on my arm, pulling it over her waist. She tangles our fingers together and, when she lets out a deep breath, her body melts invitingly against mine. Still wary but knowing my compliance is inevitable, I lean a bit closer, nudging her braid aside with my nose.

When I inhale the musky scent rising off her skin and feel the soft strands of her hair against my lips, I know – with absolute certainty – that I've been kidding myself. I try to angle my hips away from hers, but there's just no room to work with. Goddamn it.

"Katniss?" I ask softly.

"Hm?"

I open my mouth to mutter a pre-emptive apology for being a boy. Given how fast the Capitol medicine has been working, it's probably a good bet that I'll be back to my normal, sixteen-year-old self by morning. The rich, lamb stew that Haymitch had sent us today will also play a major role in my recovery, I'm sure. And then there's the fact that I'm snuggling in a sleeping bag with Katniss Everdeen.

I open my mouth to warn her about, you know, the fact that I'm what you could call a morning person, but I just can't bring myself to say it. Maybe it won't happen. Maybe she won't notice if it does. Maybe it will rain muffins tonight with a side of strawberries.

"What?" she asks, sounding slightly irked.

I breathe out against her neck. I settle on a lame "I'll see you in the morning."

"See you in the morning," she answers. Her fingers squeeze mine.

I close my eyes.

My first thought upon waking is of Katniss' voice, her words – admission? – from yesterday: "You don't have much competition anywhere."

My heart throbs. So do, um, other things. Shit. A moment of panic stampedes through me, from scalp to soles, before I realize that I'm alone in the sleeping bag. I open my eyes. Rain-cloud-diffused daylight illuminates the cavern… which is alarmingly empty.

I sit up so suddenly I almost catch my knees and boots in the fabric of the sleeping bag and lose my balance. As I struggle with the zipper, I note the presence of both backpacks, the hiss-and-patter of rain outside and the sharp counterpoint of splatters on the tarp overhead, the large box of food we have yet to finish eating from yesterday…

But no Katniss. No bow. No arrows.

Shit, shit, shit.

I scramble toward the cave entrance and—

—nearly tumble back down onto the floor when Katniss swings around the corner, her jacket sparkling and glistening with rainwater.

"Hey," she says, grasping my arms while I try and convince my hammering heart to squeeze itself back into my chest. She steadies me, probably thinking that I'm fighting a wave of dizziness, and I'm grateful for her touch no matter the reason for it. Grateful even as I feel a bubble of anger push against my skin from within.

I don't trust myself not to start yelling at her again. I know I'm being unreasonable. She probably had to go to the bathroom or something. Now that we're both capable of some mobility, there's no reason for having to spend every single moment in sight of each other. But it's hard to turn off my panic reflex after spending however long terrified for her safety, hearing cannons boom and not knowing if one of them had been for her.

When I'm calm enough to manage it, I answer, "Hey. Morning. Did you go hunting?"

"Not really." She moves past me and sets down the mostly full bottle of rainwater on the cave floor. Ah, she must have gone out and fetched it. "But if the opportunity had presented itself…" She shrugs.

"Oh. Right." I glance out into the rain, flinching when another flash of lightning and an accompanying, ear-splitting crack of thunder rip through the arena. Not the best of times to answer the call of nature, but it beats the trough method. I pull my hood up and head out into the deluge. There are few things more miserable than trying to manage a bowel movement in the rain, but I'm pretty sure I've experienced most of them in the last week and a bit so I don't complain.

Honestly, given the fact that the sword wound on my leg is almost completely healed, I've got nothing to complain about. I cannot believe how efficient the Capitol medicine is. I'll have a scar by the end of the day today and little else to show for my brush with death.

Katniss welcomes me back to the cave with a small bowl of rice and stew. It isn't warm anymore, but I honestly couldn't care less.

"So, anything on the agenda today?" I inquire.

"Not as long as it's raining like this."

I guess that means I can get back to that unending list of questions I'd started working down back in the Training Center. Grinning, I ask her when her birthday is. She takes the random topic selection in stride.

"Why did you start wrestling?" she says before I can ask what she usually does on her birthdays.

"Well, with two older brothers, it's kind of an occupational hazard." Do or die. But, uh, not literally… obviously.

She pokes her spoon into her bowl of stew, mixing each individual grain of rice into the broth. "You're really good at it."

"No, not really." The old flash of unease in response to being singled out is still there, but I feel a kernel of pride beneath it… because Katniss had just admitted to noticing me. Again.

"You would have won the school tournament last year if you hadn't thrown the match."

I stare at her.

She looks up. "What?"

"Maybe I didn't throw the match. Maybe Duff really beat me." He certainly could. He's bigger and heavier than me. Although those factors don't always guarantee a win, they're often a part of it.

Lowering her gaze to her cold stew, she mutters, "You had him, but you let him win. It was obvious."

Obvious to Katniss. God, how closely has she been paying attention to me?

When she glances at me, her lips twitch as if she can't help smiling and that's when I realize that I'm the one who's smiling like an idiot and taking her along for the ride, catching her up in the net of my elation. I want to ask her when she'd started noticing me, but I can't do that to her. If we were alone, maybe, but we're not and I don't want to embarrass her. And, if I'm totally honest, I don't want anyone besides me to hear her answer.

"You better watch out for Duff when you get back to Twelve," I tease instead.

Her mouth quirks up in a true – if lopsided – smile. "You'll protect me."

That I will. "Am I so transparent?"

"You just want a chance to show off now that you know I'm paying attention."

"Damn right."

She laughs. Oh God, she's beautiful.

Because I want an excuse to sit next to her again instead of facing each other on the slightly-damp sleeping bag, I grab a stick and start poking little holes in the dirt floor of the cave.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting ready to take you stargazing." I try not to smile as I wait for it…

"…what?"

I slowly let the grin out, softening it into an invitation to a friendly conspiracy. "But you're going to have to use your imagination."

She stares at me, incredulous. "It's daytime. And it's raining."

"I know. That's why we're going to have our stars on the ground." I continue jabbing more holes of varying depths and widths at irregular intervals. "Pretend the world is upside down," I begin, gesturing to the field of holes-in-the-dirt stars. "This is the sky and these are the stars and we're going to make up our own constellations with names and stories."

"Peeta."

"Yeah?" I don't look at her. I can feel my ears starting to burn with embarrassment.

"Where did this come from?"

She means my crazy, inverted-world idea, I think, but hell even I don't know. I offer to explain the stargazing bit instead. "Uh, well… you know how our Earth Science class is slightly less exciting than watching dough rise?" She frowns slightly and I belatedly realize I'd used a baking metaphor that she might not be familiar with. Yeast is expensive in Twelve. "Or waiting for water to boil?"

"Yes." Her tone is guarded. She has no idea where I'm going with this.

"Right, so if you were guy who likes a girl and wants to ask her out, it'd be the perfect time to try and come up with some ideas for your first date."

"You spend Earth Science class thinking up places for a date?"

"Pretty much."

"And you thought of stargazing?"

Most recently, yes. I've got a lot of ideas, actually, but I focus on this one. "Not just stargazing, but making up constellations, telling stories about them…" And then I could sketch them out for her, make a little book of tales that are ours, hers and mine. That book could still be ours even if this moment isn't. "So, I know we don't have any actual stars right now, but we've got lots of dirt and some light and nothing else planned for today so I thought… um…"

Katniss continues watching me.

I gulp.

Finally, she finishes my thought aloud: "You thought we could have a date?"

"Er…" I feel the skin at the back of my neck tighten. I know I'm turning bright read. I suddenly feel hot and sweaty inside my jacket. "Uh… would that be too much to ask?"

It must seem incredibly stupid for me to even suggest something like a date in the middle of the Games. We've both been injured and starved. Death could be just around the corner. But I think it's because of this that I dare. The odds might be in our favor today, but tomorrow and all the days after are little more that speculation.

I'm hesitant to meet her gaze, but I do it anyway, bracing myself for her reaction. For a very long moment, she just looks at me. I can't read any sort of response – positive or negative – and I hold my breath. Finally, she gives me an almost smile and moves to sit next to me on the sleeping bag. "You go first," she directs and I'm so relieved that I don't bother to argue.

"Okay." I survey the field of holes on the cave floor and, after a minute, I select a small collection of them, connecting them with lines drawn from the soggy stick in my grasp. "Okay. This is a squirrel."

"A squirrel?" she prompts.

"Yes, an uncatchable squirrel." I have an inspired thought, though I'm careful not to imply too much when I share it: "The one squirrel that no hunter can shoot or catch, no matter how skilled they are."

"Really?"

I nod.

"So it's like… the lord of all squirrels?"

I bite back my laughter. I don't want her to think it's a stupid idea. Maybe it is, but I think it's great. Katniss and I are both alive and she has agreed to have a date with me. We can talk about squirrels, common or noble, if we want. I don't care what anyone else thinks of it. "Yes. The lord of squirrels and he lives in a tree so tall that he can climb up to the highest branches and harvest stars for his dinner."

Katniss reaches for the stick but, instead of taking it from me, she guides my hand with hers and draws in a few lines above the squirrel lord. "He glows after he eats them," she adds, indicating that the lines are meant to be rays of light emanating from his furry body.

I'm grinning so widely that my face is starting to ache. I bump her shoulder with mine. "I like that. Should we give him a little glass lantern for his home? So he can curl up and shine all night long?"

"With his little belly full of stars," Katniss agrees, helping me connect the stars of his lantern, caging him inside it.

"Awesome," I tell her, but the word barely does my feelings on the matter justice. "Now you." I offer her the stick and she takes it. A small wrinkle appears between her brows as she thinks. I have to curl my fingers into my jacket to keep from reaching up and gently smoothing it out with my thumb.

She makes up a story about a goat that used to be a beautiful woman who mistakenly ate a plant called Goat's Breath—

"Is that a real plant?" I interrupt.

"Does it have to be?" Her apprehension would look defensive to most people, but I can tell the difference. She's nervous, afraid of making an ass of herself and getting laughed at. I know how that feels and I'd never do that to her.

"No, no. I'm just curious. I don't know much about plants." If I'm going to draw this someday, I'd like to know if I should be working from a point of reference or if I can come up with a whole new creation.

"Oh. Well, it's not. Real, I mean. It's not real."

"Okay. So what happened after she turned into a goat?"

It turns out that the woman-goat got lost in the woods, was attacked by a wild dog, and rescued by Katniss' little sister, Prim. Prim nursed the goat back to health and named her "Lady" and now the goat loves Primrose Everdeen with a devotion never before witnessed in a goat.

"And that's because she's not really a goat at all." I grin at her cleverness: Katniss is so smart. With this little story she has brought her sister back into the Games, reminded everyone of how Katniss had volunteered for her at the Reaping, and what a special girl Primrose Everdeen must be. Katniss might not be a people person, but her strategies are brilliant. I could learn a lot from her.

"Exactly," Katniss agrees, returning my smile and giving me that look. She passes the stick back to me. "Top that."

I take on her dare with yet another wide grin – or is it still the same one from earlier? – and I make a show of rolling up my jacket and shirt sleeves. God, have I ever smiled this much in one day?

We spend the afternoon coming up with story after story. Most are silly, but I love them all. And I love the way Katniss becomes more and more uninhibited with her ideas. I have no idea if there's anything in her life that allows her to be creative – she's so pragmatic all the time – so I wonder if this is a first for her, if I can do this for her.

When the anthem starts to play that evening, the relaxed atmosphere thickens with a vague sense of dread. For a few hours, I'd kind of forgotten that we were in the middle of the Games. I can feel from where our shoulders are pressed together that Katniss is tensing, too. I can't remember the last time I'd heard rain drops falling or drips splattering the tarp over our heads. Our date is over and the storm is done.

Swallowing back a sigh, I offer her my hand and we head up to the mouth of the cave. I wrap an arm around her shoulders before she can start shivering. Our breath plumes like white goose down in the night air. The storm had been relentless today – lightning and thunder punctuating our stories – but I'm pretty sure that I hadn't head the cannon.

So I'm just as surprised as Katniss when a single face appears in the sky. District Eleven.

Thresh is dead.

Manny's Hunger Games Fanfic Rec's

"Fae" by HGRomance - because magic is as magic does and this story is so magical it makes my eyelashes tingle. And check out the suggested theme music for the fic, too. It's a wonderful fit.