A few months go by and I'm told I'm adjusting well to my physical therapy. Wiress thinks it has something to do with me having been an athlete, while Katniss thinks it has more to do with my stubborness. I think I just don't have a choice. I mean, I could wallow in the grief of having lost a part of a limb, but that wouldn't do anyone any favors. So, instead, I threw myself into learning how to manage on crutches, worked on hopping around rooms using the furniture as handle bars, and finally got fitted for a prosthetic. It took me awhile to figure out what kind I wanted. Katniss put in her two cents on it too though and that helped...a little.

"Well, you could look like a bionic man with one of those metal ones or all futuristic with the bendy ones like the runners use." She suggested as we look at pictures on my laptop.

I was at home by now, my stitches having come out a few days earlier and healing was going well. I had been in the hospital for two weeks, pitching a fit when they tried to keep me longer because I hated being there when they said I was doing so much better than they would have thought. My mother was helping again, sort of, and Jack had gone back to school. I was even helping bake again, sitting an on stool, mixing dough, or decorating cakes. Katniss would come in after dropping her sister off and we would sit at a table and do our homework together.

"Well, I don't run, I mean, I had to, but I didn't like it, so I don't think the flexible one is necessary. I do like the look of this fuller one and it says I can do whatever I want in it. I mean, I wouldn't shower with it on or anything and I was never big on swimming, so I think it's a good choice." I say to her, pointing out a picture of a man who is playing basketball. "Plus, I can have the bigger part either painted to look like the rest of my leg or leave it to look how it does there."

Katniss looks at the picture and then me, eyeing me up and down. "I say leave it. I mean, why not? You aren't ashamed of what happened; you even talked to those kids about it at the hospital, saying how it was weird and even though you still feel your leg sometimes, you've gotten used to it and it's only been six months. Plus, this cheapy one they have on you now was only meant to be temporary until you picked a better one."

"Well, no it was meant for me to get used to having an attachment. But I know what you mean." I correct her, my hand rubbing her thigh. She smiles at me and looks at the picture again, nodding her head,

"Yeah, I think that one is good." She clicks on the picture and as it pulls up, she takes a breath in, "That one's from Nike. You sure your parents' insurance will pay for it?"

My mother is counting out change in the register and overhears Katniss, so of course she answers, "Oh, they are going to pay for it, and if they don't, that coward's parents will. I will not have my son walking around in some cheap knockoff because that...animal couldn't walk away. Oh no, Peeta will have whatever he wants."

She closes the drawer and walks away, mumbling to herself about Cato being a rabid animal that should have been put down instead of being sent to a mental facility. Cato's lawyer insisted that he did indeed need help with his anger, but didn't think time being in a juvenile detention would do the trick. So, instead they were going to try an institute that had a program made especially for hotheaded teens like him. It was five hours away and he would be there for six months before being evaluated again. My mom wasn't thrilled about it, but she was happy when a check came in the mail from his lawyer's office. It was also agreed that they would pay for at least fifty percent of my hospital bills, physical therapy, and whatever prosthetic I chose.

Katniss and I rolled our eyes at one another, having gotten quite used to her being unhappy with most of what had taken place. My mother was sure that Katniss would leave, because "who in their right mind would want a boy who was as deformed as you are now?" That was a fun night. I had just gotten home and my mother was insistent that Katniss only stayed with me while in the hospital because she felt sorry for me. My brothers weren't home and my father had gone to the bakery to help Bran close up the bakery while Katniss had to watch her sister.

"She'll dump you as soon as she can. But she just couldn't do it while you were all holed up in there, doesn't want to look like too much of a bitch."

I remember my face getting all hot and actually yelling at her, "Mom! Katniss and I are together because we want to be! She isn't hanging around to be nice, she actually is nice, something which you know nothing about apparently! So quit thinking that she's that superficial just because you are! Get out of my room!"

I disliked the fact that she would think Katniss is so petty when she was the only petty one around. My friends had visited me in the hospital more than she had. Even Thresh insisted upon making a mash up video of the Homecoming dance we had missed, just to see all the things we gladly avoided. Seemed like his after party was the better part of the night and he had people going on record telling me how sorry they were and how I should get a metal leg just to prove how badass I was. It was a funny video. My mom spent a total of ten hours in my room out of the two weeks I was there. I'm glad for it; I didn't need her negativity around me. Plus, Katniss spent more time there then she probably should have and I didn't need my mom around us just to make faces.

I did regret that I couldn't take Katniss to the very dance that had started us actually talking to one another. I recalled what she told me as she sat on my hospital bed the night before the dance:

She was sitting across from me as we were playing Scrabble, passing some time between horrible movies that were playing on the TV when I had brought it up. "You know you could still go to the dance tomorrow night if you wanted to."

Her gray eyes looked at me seriously for a moment and then she laughed, "Yeah, because I'd been so into dances before you asked me. Gimme me a break, Peeta, I was only going because you had asked me, not because I was already going."

"Yeah, but you have a dress and everything, it'd be a shame for you to waste it." I replied as I looked down at my letters to attempt to come up with some word that could possibly give me a lead. As I shifted the tiles around, I continued, "You shouldn't be in here with me when you could hang out with your friends."

Katniss slammed her hand down on the bed, "Dammit, Peeta! I don't want to hang out with them! I want to be here, with you! If I wanted to be with them, I would, but I want you, always you."

I looked up at her, startled and shocked and a warmth spread through me like nothing I had ever felt. Well, no, that wasn't true; I had felt it before, when we had been making out behind the giant tree in the forest. Yet, this was different. I couldn't respond with anything but a, "What?"

She stood up, pushed the tray away from me, and sat right in my lap, putting her arms around my neck. "Peeta, if you couldn't tell, when you had asked me to the dance, I was actually pretty excited about that. I mean, yeah, I never wanted to go to any of the other dances before, but when you asked, it was different."

I couldn't help but watch between her deep gray eyes and her full lips as she spoke. "Why was it different?"

"Because I had hoped that someday you would ask me to go somewhere, anywhere with you." Her voice was low when she admitted this and her cheeks flushed a beautiful shade of deep pink. She looked away for a second but I put my finger under her chin and made her look me in the eyes.

"Why didn't you just ask me then?" I had to know, I'm not sure why, but I wanted that answer even if I already knew it. She shook her head a little, trying to break eye contact again but I wasn't having any of it. I gave her a small peck on the lips with mine and asked again, "Why didn't you make the first move?"

"I guess I was just waiting because...well, I'd seen how the other girls at school looked at you, Peeta. I saw the same things they did. But I also saw you do things they probably didn't notice." I took my hand away from her face, placing it on her waist instead, and waited for her to continue. "Like the way you always helped the art teacher set up the canvases for class or how you would sneak cookies to some of the kids who came into the bakery when I would come in to pick something up for my mom. Or how you wouldn't beat your brother in wrestling even though you're better."

I didn't need to hear anymore, she'd been paying more attention to me than I had originally thought and the warm feeling I had spreads out through my entire body. I take her face and pull her in for a kiss that she won't soon forget and I don't want her to. I pull away for a moment, resting my forehead against hers, "If I didn't already know that I was in love with Katniss Everdeen, I'm pretty damn sure of it now."

She let out a soft giggle and kissed me again, mumbling against my mouth with an "I love you too."

After that, we were definitely inseparable. After two more weeks of resting and getting used to my new "situation," I went back to school, using crutches at first. I found them annoying and asked to be fitted for a prosthetic soon. Katniss helped me with almost everything that she possibly could when I had those crutches too. I tried not to rely on anyone, but there were some things that I just needed help with, like at lunch with the food tray or switching my books between classes. But now with the temporary leg, I could do much more on my own and once I had the one I really wanted, I figured I'd be set.

Now, we were sitting at the park, newly fallen snow surrounding us as we swung back and forth on the old creaky swings. My father wasn't thrilled that I was out here, new leg and all in the cold, but I was quite warm in my coat and hat, donning a pair of gloves when I saw that Katniss had a pair of her own.

"Soooo, I was thinking about something," she started, stopping her swing and planting her feet in the snow.

I stop mine as well and twist my swing to face her, "What's up?"

Katniss looks down at the snow and then back up at me, seeming shy all of a sudden which isn't like her, around me these days anyway. She finally looks up at me and answers, "Will you go to the winter formal with me?"

I smile; this is exactly where we started before.

The End

A/N - I realize that the ending may have seemed rushed, but I tried to make sure everything was tied up at the end. I hope you all enjoyed it and I thank every one of you for reading! I also want to thank Ms. Collins for two of the most perfect characters to have worked with in a new way.