One-Shot: Get a Response

"Ohhhhhhh, that is a piece of bad luck!" Caesar moans, and he sounds genuinely pained. It might feel, at this point, as though I am listening to things while underwater, but I can clearly hear some people moaning right along with him; a few have given agonized cries.

"It's not good," Peeta agrees, shaking his head in a dejected manner. If I wasn't so stupefied (and slightly angry), I would almost believe that what he is saying is true.

"Oh, wouldn't you just love to bring her out here and get a response?!" At Caesar's question, the crowd screams assent. "Sadly, rules are rules and Katniss Everdeen's time has been spent…."

Caesar has barely finished the sentence before I hear the crowd start to boo loudly, and lustily. I can hear it even over the sound of my own ears ringing. I am still too stunned to speak, and I know the cameras must at least be getting my reaction some way, somehow from backstage, so perhaps Caesar's hypothetical, although no doubt floated facetiously, would be rendered moot anyway.

All the while, I keep hearing Peeta's confession of love from moments before, and recalling how I instantly pieced it together. Me. He means me! He's in love with ME!

My feelings are a jumbled mess, so I couldn't give an adequate, much less coherent, response, even if Caesar could drag me back out onstage. I'm speechless. I'm agog. A little outraged. But there is also a tiny part of me that is almost…

Flattered.

Meanwhile, Caesar has attempted to move on to the next question. I can hear hecklers cutting into the commentary, though from backstage, never mind even out onstage where Caesar and Peeta are, the stage lights are bright enough that it washes the audience out so the hecklers can't be identified, never mind hear what they're saying. But then, to my amazement, the catcalls become louder, and clearer:

"Bring. Her. Out! Bring. Her. Out! Bring. Her. Out! …."

And then, still others: "Kat-niss! Kat-niss! Kat-niss!" It sounds similar to the chants of my name at the parade, but even more insistent.

We all see the moment when Caesar recognizes what is being demanded of him by the rabble. His voice trails off awkwardly in the middle of a question. I have to hand it to the man: he's almost as good of an actor as Peeta, in pretending that this is somehow spontaneous. Fat chance; I have to believe it was planned! Peeta, on the other hand, looks bemused.

"Um…. Peeta…. I do believe…." Caesar stammers off again, smiles tightly, then leans over and whispers something to his interviewee in the opposite chair. A hot mic picks up some of it anyway.

"Unprecedented, of course…. Would you mind terribly eating into your three minutes…?"

"Not at all. But it has to be her decision…" Peeta declares emphatically. A lusty cheer crescendos from the crowd as they guess what is about to happen. I feel my face, which up till now has been blushing from a myriad of emotions, suddenly blanche. Credit where credit is due to Peeta for gentlemanly wanting to make sure the decision rests with me as to whether or not to come out – which I don't. Yet I'm fairly certain the Capitol won't care about my say on the matter anyway. They'll drag me out there, to get the juicy story, my reaction in full, even though Caesar claims he's breaking all kinds of protocol. At the very least, I've never before heard of a tribute who has gotten more than his or her three minutes of fame. I myself would have been happy to have less, but it seems I'm about to get more than my fair share anyway. Other mentors might loudly complain, and rightly so.

Which reminds me…. I frantically look to Haymitch for help, but of course, the drunk is merely smirking with intrigue and raising his liquor bottle to his lips. I want to seethe - hell, even smack him. Whatever Peeta intended to say (and his undying declaration of love for me clearly was his intent) this was almost surely planned in their private session beforehand. Of course, now it all makes sense! Peeta was the one who suddenly asked to be coached separately.

I'm shaking with rage, humiliation, confusion, but the tremors help me not a whit as stagehands suddenly sweep into this section of the wings, grab me and all but haul me out onstage. I can't see any of the studio audience from under the spotlight glare, but their cheers are deafening.

My eyes find a camera gobbling up my reaction. I can see my own mouth hanging agape, though my face is less white than I figured it would be. There is still a potent pink tinge to my cheeks. Peeta rises to take me in like I'm the light of the dawn, and were it not for what I've pieced together about him, and how in some other ways all I thought I knew about him (at least by reputation) was a lie, I'd almost think the way he is looking at me with such…. love was real.

Caesar flits over to me. "Miss Everdeen…." he tries to sooth me with his smooth baritone. "Your district partner…. has just confessed his undying love and attraction to you. Have you anything to say?"

My tongue has chosen this moment to get stuck to the roof of my mouth. I make exactly one strangled noise that is embarrassingly unintelligible (Effie Trinket must be having a fit backstage) before I manage a word.

"I…. I….."

I can almost feel the audience leaning in, straining so they don't miss one wretched word. I catch a glimpse of myself in the jumbo screen again, and manage a passable weak smile; it comes off as more of a grimace. "I never imagined myself attractive enough to warrant the attention of the male gaze!"

I sound like a Capitol version of myself, the schoolgirl version of Katniss Everdeen that the audience has come to expect from me. From the perspective of someone like Effie Trinket, it must be a flawless answer. Except what I really want to say is pushing against me, crying out to be let free, but I haven't the words with which to voice it. I want my own voice, and even though Caesar, the crowd and even Peeta can pretend that they're letting me say my piece, that they're giving me my voice, it still isn't mine.

It has to be her decision…..

How perfectly gallant of you, Peeta, I think acerbically, sarcastically. My smoky, grey eyes place him in my sights again, and though I am spurred to glower at him, I know I can't, not with the eyes of the nation upon me. I can't turn him down; the people won't stand for it. Oh, sure, some might call it scandalous in all the Capitol gossip columns, the way they do after that insipid programming in which a bunch of half-naked men parade around with roses and the femme fatale, the lady of their affections, turns all but one away.

Except this isn't What a Capitol Romance! or whatever it's called. This is the Hunger Games. Where, suddenly, my ability to hold or break Peeta's heart means life and death, and could doom us both, depending on what I say.

Do I want to crush him, just before the Capitol decrees to kill him?

Somewhere along the line, a hush has fallen over the studio audience, and my feet have carried me towards Peeta. I gaze at him, my lips still slightly parted in an agog expression. I see the boy's Adam's apple bobble as he stares at me, awaiting my answer. Awaiting his fate.

"Katniss?"

I try to imagine how I might respond if we were back home in District 12. If he had confessed to me his love out back on the rear loading dock of his family bakery, where we traded and sometimes talked when I managed to overcome my anti-social tendencies and form some, stilted words. Or if he had stopped me in the cobblestoned school courtyard as Prim and I began our walk home. I can almost picture it, him grabbing my hand in an almost sappy way, me turning back to him, a question in my eyes, the hem of my blue Reaping dress swishing at my ankles.

These fantasies allow me to latch onto something I can say next. A question: "Why…. why didn't you tell me sooner? Why didn't you say anything?"

For some reason, the audience Awwwwws at this. Peeta stares at me as though I've suddenly grown an extra head.

"Have you ever had a crush on somebody?" and he asks it rhetorically, as though anything involving love should be obvious. "Telling someone whom you have a crush on that you have a crush on them is a big No-No!"

The audience bursts into laughter. As for me, I smile weakly. Interestingly, I find Peeta's bashfulness, self-deprecating horror at the thought of confessing his feelings for me directly to my face, instead of doing the obvious thing and confessing it to the entire country, almost amusing.

Yet all the same, also annoying, and my smile quickly turns into a frown as I bristle. "A real District 12 man would have walked right up to me and asked me out on a date!" I sound oddly petulant; if I were any younger (or any more offended), I'd even stamp my foot.

"Oh ho! She's playing hard to get, folks, isn't she?" Caesar giggles.

"Shut up!" Peeta and I bellow at him in unison, me casting it over my shoulder so that my chestnut tresses tousle.

The audience roars with guffaws. Caesar looks stunned into silence, and at least has the decency to turn red.

He can't be any redder than me. I turn back to gaze at Peeta, and am a little heartened to see that he is blushing as well.

"I…. I didn't know that…. that was what you wanted."

I huff, frown prettily as I cross my arms over my chest. "And how would you ever have known what I wanted….. if you never asked?"

The words are flowing from me easily enough. It feels like I am saying them….. and yet oddly not. It's almost like I'm saying exactly what I'm feeling without knowing beforehand that that is what I've been feeling.

Peeta gawps at me for a moment, then blasts out: "Well….. because I didn't want to get shot, for starters!"

I can't help it; I smirk. "Then you don't know enough about me, Peeta – my bark is worse than my bite."

"Really? How about your aim? Cause I know that that's deadly accurate!" A few awkward chuckles from out in the audience. Thankfully, Peeta doesn't specify what I would be aiming with. Nor does he reveal my reputation as a huntress, and exactly what I hunt.

My smirk broadens, and I actually roll my eyes at him. "If you had asked me out, I would not have…." I almost say shot, then catch myself. "…..used a weapon against you, Peeta."

"No. Just turned me down."

I shrug. "Yeah. I probably would have." Somewhere backstage, Haymitch is probably throwing all his liquor against the wall and screaming in rage at me. What the hell are you doing, sweetheart?!

What I'm not prepared for is how Peeta parries this wound that should cut him as deeply as one of my arrows. "Why?"

I suck in a sharp breath, almost a gasp. He might as well have shot me himself with that one. At any rate, I have to admire his gall. His courage that he's somehow managed to find at the most inopportune time! Great, I scowl at myself. Now I'm starting to think like Effie Trinket! I gaze at him, this boy who says he loves me, and I finally make a real effort to search him for any duplicitousness, if this really is an angle he's working, that he's plotted with Haymitch.

To my horror, I find none. His deep, impossibly blue eyes are as sincere, as…. kind as ever.

And that, even more than being dragged out here against my will, to render a verdict that really isn't mine to give, isn't in my power to give, is what scares me the most.

I wasn't being dishonest, in what I said before. Whether I would have turned him down or not, I would have appreciated Peeta, even respected him, more if he'd walked right up to me, stuck out his hand, maybe introduced himself and then launched right into asking me on a proper date. I might have said No, but I still would have been flattered. Instead, he's chosen this moment, when we're….

I can't help it: I burst into tears. My arms, still folded across my chest, now wind about me so that I'm hugging myself. I'm mortified, I'm disconsolate – I'm blubbering on national TV, and don't even know really why.

"Is….. is she crying?" Caesar asks, stupefied, and I don't even think he's playing to the crowd anymore. I wonder if any of us are, even Peeta. He has eyes only for me, and I for him. It is like the studio has disappeared; the audience may as well not exist.

"Katniss?..." Peeta takes one step into me; I flinch like the frightened prey I'm accustomed to stalking in the woods. "Katty….?"

"Don't!" I squeak through my tears. Thinking of Prim, of how she's always called me 'Katty', throws a fresh puddle of tears onto my existing ones, compounding my sorrow and despair.

"Why…. why didn't you say anything….?" I'm weeping. "Why did you – with the…. with the bread! And the…. staring at me in class! Why didn't I thank you…. why didn't I….?" I bury my face in my palms as I sob. I feel a shadow pass over me as Caesar brushes past me, crossing the stage to Peeta.

"Is she all right? …. She's not making sense!"

"On the contrary, Caesar," Peeta rumbles. "She's making perfect sense."

"Then you know what she's talking about? With this whole bread business….?"

I've reduced myself to sniffles, hiding behind my palms. Suddenly, I feel someone's touch brush my skin, sending a jolt of electricity up my arm, and now I gasp, as someone tenderly lowers my hands from my face. My face that is still streaked with tears. I open my eyes, lashes fluttering against the moisture and the lingering glare from the spotlights, to see Peeta looking at me with compassion that I don't deserve.

It is the exact same look he sent me when we locked eyes in front of the bakery that rainy day more than four years ago.

"You wanna know why? You wanna hear me say it? OK….."

"You're not asking me out now, are you?" I interrupt him, wincing. "Cause it's a little late for that." The audience chuckles at this, but it's an oddly nervous, disconcerted chuckle.

Peeta grins bitterly, ruefully. "Maybe. But it's not too late for me to say this: Katniss….. I love you."

"Awwwwwwwww….." The audience has taken on the timbre of a leaky balloon.

A sort of loping blubber escapes me, the sound akin to a sob. Tears are still streaming down my cheeks; my eyeliner is surely ruined. "But why?" I moan. "Why do you love me?" I shake my head. "I didn't do anything to deserve your love…"

"Is that what this is about…?" Peeta dips his head a little to catch my eyes, smiling.

I shake my head frantically. "You don't understand. Love can hurt you – it's hurt me. Just look at what happened to my mother, she…."

Peeta nods thoughtfully, as though he understands precisely what I am talking about. "You're right. Love can hurt. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't give it a try, right?" He takes one finger and lifts my chin with it. "And for the record, love isn't something that can be bartered in one of your trades, Katniss. Love is free. Kindness is free. You didn't have to do anything to earn my love except be the amazing, selfless person that you are…." The audience is Awwwing again; I think I hear a few bawling.

I'm gazing at him, hanging on his every word. "You didn't have to do anything either. All you had to do was toss me that bread…."

Peeta studies me, bemused, certain he has misheard. "You mean, from when we were children? Katniss…." Then it registers what else I've said. "Wait: ….. are you saying….?"

I whimper, and I'm crying again. I take one step into him. "I'm afraid," I whisper to him, tear-choked. "But now I don't care." I catch his eyes and hold them. "I truly…. deeply…. love you, and before we die, I want you to know."

In my peripheral vision, Caesar is sobbing and blowing his nose into a flamboyantly colored handkerchief.

Peeta chuckles nervously, stepping into me as well. He is much too close now, I can feel the heat of him bathing me in waves. "You know…." he chuckles again. "If they don't hold us hear much longer, we can take that date and still get to bed at a decent hour." The audience starts whooping encouragement.

"It's no good…." I shake my head, my face still lined with tears. "Peeta, when we …. tomorrow morning, we're going to be thrown into an arena and then we're going to die in there…" I turn my face away sadly. "Let's not make it difficult."

At this point, we've more than blown past whatever bit of Peeta's three minutes we had left…. And I'm fairly sure Caesar Flickerman, the Gamemakers, the Capitol, hell even the President could give a shit.

I'm staring at the floor, at my tears making stains on the polished wood, when I'm startled by Peeta, suddenly grabbing me by my arms and giving me a vigorous shake. "Well, what are you talking about when we die in there?! How do you know we're even going to die?! One of us might….."

Right, I think. One of us. "Because only one of us can…."

The rest of my sentence dies an abrupt and yet peaceful death in my throat, because Peeta's mouth is suddenly, furiously on mine. He's kissing me, and I'm astonished with myself to realize that I'm kissing him back. I gasp, my lips parting with the sound so that his tongue slips in between the split and when they touch, I moan. My arms, seemingly of their own accord, reach up to loop about Peeta's neck, my hands fisting in his golden curls, which I've always secretly wondered about.

I'm still crying, but it doesn't matter anymore, as I close my eyes.

The audience is going absolutely ballistic, Caesar is clapping his hands in delight and cheering himself, even as he's also screeching to make himself heard, but the tumult sounds so far, far away. Peeta and I are lost in our own little world. His hands go to my waist, and when he picks me up, he spins me around and I clutch all the harder to him.

It's the most amazing first kiss I could ever have had.


Peeta and I are still kissing many hours later, alone together on the rooftop of the Training Center. My bodice has been undone (I think by me), leaving me topless except for my bra, which Peeta is now fondling. He is cupping one of my aching breasts in his incredibly large hands as I bounce eagerly up and down in his lap, his cock sliding in and out of my very wet folds. The skirts of my interview dress have been shoved up and over my hips. My lover and I rut against each other fiercely; I am panting, gulping for air until Peeta drags my mouth back down to his so we can make out some more.

"Mmmm….Hmmmm….. Faster…. Faster…." I gasp, beg. He hits me in just the right spot, and throwing my head back, I cry out. His lips crush mine once more, and I melt into his kiss, going down on him harder. "Mmmmm….. Hmmmmmm… Mmmmmmmm – MMMMMMMHMMMMMMMMMM!" With a squeal, I feel myself cum all over him.

Peeta chuffs into the skin along the soft curve of my neck, then kisses me on the lips deeply as he grunts out his own orgasm.

My virginity taken, I rise daintily off his lap and smooth down my skirts. We both redress, our backs to each other even as we both sport goofy smiles on our faces. I giggle when I listen to Peeta zipping up his pants.

The sound is gone in the next second when I remember the reality that we, in making love, tried but ultimately still failed to escape from. Tomorrow, we'll be expected to fight to the death, and at least one of us is going to perish, despite us having just found each other.

"Katniss?"

I turn back to this man with whom I've fallen in love. "Y-Yes?"

"I just want you to know that I'm not going to kill you."

I gulp. "I won't, either," I whisper. Firmly do I make the vow, in the same solemn way I might have at least entertained giving to him vows of a very different kind.

"And I also want you to know that I won't let them change me in there. Turn me into something that I'm not. They don't own me. If I'm going to die…. I want to still be me."

It's admirable of him, truly. I wish I was as good enough a person as he is that I could feel comfortable saying the same. Except:

"I just can't afford to think like that." Stepping into him, I take his face in my hands and kiss him on the mouth goodbye, gently.

"Goodnight…." I whisper. Then: "I…. I love you."

Peeta beams. "I love you too," he murmurs.

And, staggering on wobbly, unsteady legs that have now known the love of a man, legs covered with virginal blood and his dried semen, I leave him there, staring out at the city skyline.