He he. This chapter is going to be totally spontaneous because I only have a tiny part of it planned out. That is okay with me, I guess, but that means it might be lame or boring. I hope it isn't!

My sleep was dreamless and pleasant, despite the horrible pains I got in my abdomen every now and then. Throughout the whole night I was acutely aware of Peeta right next to me, sleeping soundly. Well, I didn't know if he was actually sleeping or lying awake, pretending to be asleep, but I assumed he was because I wasn't conscious of much.

When I woke up, it was my body that was alert first. I sat in bed drooling for a bit before my brain caught up. Finally, I snapped into focus and saw that Peeta was looking down at me with a weird face on. "You're awake. That is good. If you were doing that in your sleep I would be pretty freaked out by now." Peeta grinned at me and snorted back quietly.

"Yeah. Good thing I'm awake." I'll just let him think that. Heaven forbid Peeta freaking out.

"Are you feeling okay this morning?" Peeta blinked his eyes down at me. When I frowned at him, he went on defense. "What? I didn't say 'how are you?' You told me never to say that to you."

"You did a good job patching me up." I patted my stomach and tried to hide my wince. "I feel as fit as a fiddle."

"That is good. Prim stopped by a little bit ago and wanted to talk to you. I said I would get her when you woke up." Peeta tossed the covers off of him, but before he could swing his legs over the side of the bed, my hand on his arm stopped him.

"Peeta," I began, but then I was suddenly unsure what to say. "I want to talk to you. You keep coming back to me no matter what I do, and-and you are so protective, and you give in to easily, and I think I know why."

"Why?" Peeta put on a face that I didn't quite have a name for. Something along the lines of 'it-has-taken-long-enough-for-her-to-get-it' and 'aw-she-is-so-sweet-I-love-her-so-much'.

"I guess I am the only family you have except for your father." I smiled somewhat shyly at him.

"You wouldn't really know what it is like…" he squinted off to some invisible point on the wall. "Not having a family. I won't ever leave you, whether for your benefit or for my complete selfishness."

Early-morning tears welled in my eyes because Peeta was so un-selfish it made me look bad. I scrubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand and waved Peeta off. "You should go get Prim so I have time to compose myself. I don't want to be bawling all over myself when she gets here." My eyes were still closed when I felt Peeta's warm hand cup the back of my neck. I looked up just in time when Peeta pressed his lips to mine.

My brain instantly went into its shut-off mode and melted through my ears, but I didn't pause long enough to say goodbye. It was all I could do not to wrap my arms around his neck and accidentally tear my bandages off in the process. I hope Peeta didn't mind my crying too much, because it had to have been wet. It was odd; Peeta sort of tasted like metal, but as far as I was concerned he hadn't been eating metal recently.

Peeta used his thumb to tilt my head up higher. I felt his hands shaking, and my air supply was slowly dwindling, but heck. What did I care?

We finally broke apart, breathing heavily. Peeta laughed. "Sorry about that. You didn't start bleeding again, did you?"

"Who cares?" I laughed airily, and it sounded drunk, but I felt perfectly fine. In fact, I felt better than I had in a long time, but I wasn't about ready to tell him that.

"I should…" Ha-ha. It seemed as though I wasn't the only one who was experiencing brain failure. "…get Prim. Right."

As the door swung shut behind him, I leaned back against my pillows and took deep breaths, attempting to regain sanity, which I had so easily lost. Peeta had a way of doing that to people. Well, me in particular. I don't know how many other girls he's kissed, and I don't really want to.

Some ten minutes later, I heard the door open again. My wound had begun to act up again and if I had my way I would lie there motionless all day, but it was embarrassing enough to have Prim catch me in Peeta's bed. No matter how dirty that sounded, it was true and there wasn't any other way to be straightforward about it.

"Katniss!" Primrose exclaimed, running over to the bed and hoping onto it next to me. "I knew I would find you in here since you just ran out of that room in the hospital like a lunatic and you weren't in your room."

"Breath." I suggested to her, putting my hand on Prim's shoulder.

She took several deep breaths and then stared up at me beaming.

"Why are you acting so ecstatic this morning? It's as if you ate a rainbow and its coming back up."

Prim frowned at my metaphor. I guess it was really bad, but no one seemed to care because she smiled again. "It's a surprise!" she giggled. "I can't tell you."

I looked up at Peeta and raised my eyebrows. He shrugged.

"I brought my brush." Prim held up a black plastic hairbrush that I recognized to be the one from District 12. "Do you mind if I do your hair? I looks as if a rat nested in it."

I snorted quietly and looked away as if to hide my blush, remembering Peeta's fingers knotting in the back of my hair pulling me closer to him. Yeah, it probably did look like a rats' nest. No kidding.

"Yeah, sure. You can do my hair if you want." With a painful grunt, I sat up and tucked my feet under me.

As Primrose brushed out every tangle (Hehehe) in my hair, she began telling me a story.

"Back in District Twelve I had a really good friend at school. Do you remember me telling you about her, Katniss?"

I shook my head, and Prim made an annoyed sound because I had messed up my hair when I did that.

"Well, she had really long hair, and it was the strangest color. Something like red, except so dark it was almost black. Anyways, it was a very strange hair color. She never spoke unless spoken to, but she had this brilliant mind. Everyone loved her and she was top of the class, but ninety percent of the people in our class didn't even know what her voice sounded like. Her family was pretty much like our family. She lost a parent to a mining accident, and in hard times there was barely enough food to live."

Peeta looked somewhat uncomfortable, but he didn't leave the room. We all knew Peeta had come from a family where starvation was never an issue, and so it would make sense for talking about money—or the lack of it—made him uncomfortable.

"Just four months before the last Hunger Games, she and her baby brother starved to death."

I frowned. Prim had never told me about this, and she would have if I knew my little sister. "That is a horrible story. What was her name?"

"Her name was Alexis." I felt Prim stop brushing my hair and a few moments later she crawled around me to sit on the edge to face Peeta and I. "And that is what I want to name your daughter."

"Alexis?" I smiled and tried to imagine it in my head; the tall glass column holding my beautiful baby, with her pale, unblemished features and her jet-blank hair. Alexis.

"Do you like it?" Prim asked with an anxious look.

I glanced up at Peeta, looking for his approval. He smiled and nodded once. When I turned back to my sister, she was barely containing her excitement. "I really like it."

"You do?"

"I really do."

Prim threw her arms around my neck and hugged me tightly. "There is something I want to show you! Come on." When she tried to take my hand and tug me off the bed I gasped in pain.

"Ouch! Hold on a second, Primrose." I winced and gently pulled up my shirt to reveal the bandage, which had a little strip of blood, tracing the actual cut. I could tell the spot was slowly increasing. "Dangit, Peeta, it started bleeding again."

Peeta frowned and came over to the side of the bed. "Do you want me to redo your bandages?"

Meanwhile, Prim just sat awkwardly beside me with a face on. When I saw her looking at me, I laughed nervously. "See, Prim? This is why I was in Peeta's room. My stitches accidentally got… ripped open and I couldn't bandage myself up because of the weird angle the cut is at, so Peeta did it for me, but if I up and left to go to my room, it would start bleeding again."

It was as if a little light switch in Prim's brain turned on. "Ohh…"

"I think it should be okay, though." I pulled my shirt back down over my patched-up wound. "It looks like it stopped bleeding."

"Can you still come with me to the thing I want to show you?" Prim wasn't quite as excited as before, but her eyes still sparkled eagerly.

I pretended to consider it. "Hmm…. Yeah. Yeah, okay."

She grinned and pulled a strip of cloth from her pocket. "Put this on."

"Umm…" I took it from my sister and held it up, puzzled. "What is it?"

"A blindfold. I have one for you too, Peeta." She pulled a second one from her pocket and put it into Peeta's hands.

After only a second of hesitation, we put the blindfolds on and pulled it taut. I really hated not being able to see, but I had to trust my little sister when she took both mine and Peeta's hands.

"Okay. Follow me."

Okey-dokey! That chapter wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, but that is just me. Thanks to all of my loyal reviewers whom I have not named, for one reason or another (I just can't remember them). I will try to post the next chapter soon!