Trudging back to his locker, Peeta's mind was so deeply focused on his misery that he almost didn't see her there, leaning against the door, nearly drowning in the beat up leather jacket he knew she liked to wear.

His heart sped up and he managed to stammer out a greeting. "Um, hi."

One of Katniss's eyebrows quirked upward. "Ready to discuss the terms of your surrender, Mellark?"

"My what?"

"Your surrender. Admit I'm better at your game than you are and we'll go our separate ways."

He shifted his books on his hips and stared her down. "Don't see how I could see you less than I do at the moment."

Katniss caught the corner of her lip in her teeth and stared down at the floor between their feet. "You dared me," she insisted. "And I won."

He was pretty sure this weird, paranoid, embarrassing week wasn't what he'd had in mind the other day.

"What you said was that I couldn't surprise you," he reminded her. "We didn't discuss terms."

Katniss's arms crossed defensively. "What did you have in mind, Mellark?"

"If I take you by surprise, just once, you let me take you to the spring dance." Watching her eyes widen to saucer-size gave him a sense of satisfaction he hadn't felt all week.

"And if you don't?"

He shrugged. "Name your terms."

"You have to admit that I won," she insists.

"That's it?"

"That's all I want."

"Alright, Everdeen. You're on." He stuck out his hand to shake. She stared at it a second then clasped his in her own. He'd expected the firmness of her handshake. He was unprepared for the jolt it sent up his arm. Their eyes locked and he wondered if she felt it too. Her hand fell hastily to her side.

"See you around, Peeta." She beat a retreat down the hall.

Peeta spun the lock on his locker and grinned. Katniss Everdeen had no idea what was in store for her.

"C'mon, Haymitch, I really need that book out of my locker," Peeta cajoled.

"It's nine o'clock at night. You should have come earlier, before the hockey game came on." The night custodian eyed him suspiciously in the glow of the old television perched on top of a battered file cabinet."Whatcha got in that backpack, Boy?"

Peeta tried not to gag on the fumes of Haymitch's whiskey breath and shrugged. "Just my other homework. I figured I'd return it tonight. Save hauling it over here tomorrow. So, is it alright with you if I run upstairs. Ten minutes, promise. You can time me."

The corner of the older man's mouth twitched down. "Make it five, Boy. I'm timin' ya."

"Thanks!" Peeta called out as he pelted down the hall and up the stairs toward the area where his locker waited. He spun the combination, grabbed his math book and slammed it closed, then raced around the winding corridor to the spot where Katniss's locker was located.

Number 248. With a smile on his lips, he extracted his surprise from his backpack and taped it to her locker door.

Five minutes and thirty seconds after leaving Haymitch's office for the first time, the older man was locking the door of the school behind him.

Peeta whistled all the way home.