"Hi Katniss." I jumped when I heard Peeta's smooth voice behind me.

"H-hi Peeta! Sorry, you scared me." I pressed my hand to my heart, as if I could steady it with my hand.

"Thanks for coming, were you able to get some skates?"

"Yeah, and I'm warning you again, this is a really bad idea..." I rolled my eyes, recalling the same sentiment expressed over texts when I asked him to meet me here.

"Where does your prosthetic start?"

"Here." He pointed just below his hip; his whole leg is fake.

"Let me help you with your skates." I knelt down in front of him looking up inquiringly when he didn't sit on the bench. He sighed and sat.

"Tell me if they're too tight. They should be snug but not bruise your ankle." I guess that would only be a problem with one ankle...

I laced up his skates and stuck my finger into the top to check the tightness.

"Kay, you're set to go!" I took his hands to help him up. "Relax Peeta, if you fall, it's just ice, it doesn't hurt that bad and you won't get a skinned knee like on concrete." He still looked nervous as I led him to the ice.

I let him grab the wall with one hand and kept his other hand in mine.

"Take a step now." I demonstrated and he slid his foot forward hesitantly.

"You need to pick your foot up." He let himself slide forward before gripping my hand tighter and carefully lifting his skate off the ice.

"Like that?" I laughed, patting his hand with my free one, hoping it would maybe clue him into the death grip he hand on mine.

"Just like that."

His hand remained tightly squeezing mine and I reminded him again, "I'm serious, Peeta, relax, you're doing fine." He took a deep breath and loosened his fingers a tiny bit. He continued to take small steps forward, gradually becoming used to the motion.

"How do you feel?"

"It's not so bad..." He chuckled breathlessly.

"See?"

We kept going for a few more minutes, coming back to the entrance of the rink.

"Time to let go of the wall now..." I grinned at him. His eyes grew wide.

"I'll pull you down."

"You'll be fine, Peeta."

"I don't want to injure you."

"I'll be fine, you won't hurt me. If it makes you feel any better, I'll move away if I think you're falling."

"Yeah, I'd rather fall than take the future gold medalist out of competition."

I laughed.

"That's very far in the future, Peeta. The Olympics aren't for two years."

He shrugged.

"You still have a shot at gold. Everybody says so." I smiled.

"You know what you need? You need to fall once to see its not that bad." Before he could process this, I gave his hand a little tug and he lurched forward with a yell. I slid back a little as his hands made contact with the ice. He didn't even fall, really, he has good balance.

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?"
He sat down, huffing.

"And I'm supposed to let you drag me around the middle of the ice now?" He chuckled. "Um... How do I get up?" I laughed, reaching for his hand and digging my toe pick into the ice to keep myself in place. When he was standing again, he tightened his ponytail, straightened his jacket and set his face into a look of determination, reaching his hands for me.

"Kay, don't let me fall on you, got it?" I laughed again, nodding.

He started slowly, putting one foot in front of the other and not tearing his gaze from his skates. I smiled, skating backwards to steady him. Eventually, I let go of one hand and then the other, and he skated on his own for a few seconds before catching his fake leg's skate on some rough ice and fell forward. To keep my promise, I let him fall, coming back to him to make sure he was okay. He looked up at me with a huge boyish grin.

"I did it."

After we'd done a few more laps, Peeta aimed for the wall and hung on to stop himself, telling me,

"Can you do some of your routine for me? I haven't seen it other that on TV." I laughed.

"It looks the same on TV as it does in real life, Peeta."

"Well it's the same routine, but it doesn't look the same."

"Okay, sure. I wish I had some music though." I skated in a big circle, closing in on the center of the ice. Something started playing, and I glanced over my shoulder at Peeta. He had his glove in his teeth and his phone out, pointing the speakers in my direction. He nodded, grinning at me.

I took my position, catching the beat before taking off to do my favorite routine. It wasn't too difficult of a routine, since I hadn't warmed up properly, but it still looked cool with all the turns, spins and spirals. I didn't want to risk a jump, since those could so easily go wrong without proper warmup. When I was done, Peeta clapped enthusiastically.

"You're a shoe-in for gold!"

"Why thank you," I curtsied making my way back over to him. "Want to go some more?"

"I think I should probably get off the ice, my leg is starting to freeze up. Can I get you some lunch?" This sounded suspiciously like a date, but I'm not complaining.

"Sure, we can go to that new sandwich shop around the corner. I hear their chowder is to die for."

"Chowder it is then, m'lady." He offered his elbow and I took it, grinning. He stuck close to the wall as we went back to the opening of the rink, but his steps were smoother than they were earlier.

"You're getting the hang of this."

"Yeah, I'm kinda glad you talked me into it. Wasn't such a bad idea after all."

I helped him get his skates off and shoved mine into my bag to take with me. We headed out to his car; Haymitch had dropped me off this morning so mine was back at my place.

"When's your next performance?"

"In a couple of weeks, I think. I usually let Effie work all that out."

"You live with them, don't you? Haymitch and Effie?"

"Yeah, they're kinda like my mom and dad."

"That must be interesting, they're both quite the characters.'

"Mhm, Haymitch keeps me grounded but Effie keeps me in line. It works pretty well, really." I was glad that he didn't ask about my biological family. I don't think I'll ever be able to discuss that.

"Haymitch is a crack up, he kept shouting at our screen the other day, like you could hear him. And when you would nail the landing, he would shout 'That's my girl!' right in my ear and smack my shoulder." He chuckled. I laughed, nodding.

"Yeah, he's done that for years. I always advise people to give him four feet of empty space so that they don't come away deaf and bruised."

"Fortunately, Effie intervened about halfway through the piece, but I wasn't really sure what to do..." I laughed.

"With Haymitch it's always a gamble, if you let him, he might get annoyed that you're being a pushover, but if you fight back, he might get mad that you're disrespecting him. It's fun though, eventually you learn to gauge his reactions for the best response." I took a bite of my chowder, deciding I should have shut up a couple minutes ago, since it's getting cold. We talked about where we would like to vacation out of anywhere in the world, and decided that on a break sometime, we should go to the mountains in Colorado and find a cabin to hang out at with a few friends. We finished our soup talking about the summer Olympics, and the waiter came and interrupted our conversation about sushi.

"Can I get you two some dessert?" I looked at Peeta.

"Yeah, I think so."