Katniss and the Rebels

Chapter 32: Winter Wonderland

AN: Here's chapter 32! I hope you like it

Thom POV

Gale plonks down into the seat across from Darius and I, drops his lunch tray on the table and stares at us.

"I have a proposition."

Darius and I glance at each other for a brief moment before turning back to Gale,

"Alright." Darius says

We were planning an elaborate scheme to set our charming friend Gale up with Madge Undersee. It was all thought out and everything until we turned around at Peeta's party to see his tongue already down her throat.

Seemingly they didn't need our help after all.

"It's about Madge…"

Darius frowns at me, "Madge?"

I nod seriously, "Yeah, we know Madge. Blonde girl? Blue eyes? Mayor's daughter."

Darius clicks his fingers and turns back to Gale,

"Oh yeah the girl you were making out with at Peeta's party!"

"That's the one!" I agree

Gale rolls his eyes at our antics and I snigger,

"Yeah, yeah okay guys-"

"You remember back in the day when Galey here used to complain all the time about how the people in the town thought they were so much better off than us?"

"I remember that" I respond "I also remember him saying that none of those girls were his type."

"Something about conventional beauty wasn't it Tommy?"

"Yeah, yeah something like that."

"Haha very funny." Gale says drily "You done now?"

I sigh, "I suppose so. Now what's your issue with the girlfriend?"

Gale runs his hands over his face once and when he takes them away, I can see the confusion and despair in his eyes.

"I kind of asked Madge out on a date…"

"Kind of?" I ask

"Yeah…we went out to coffee on Sunday and…it just sort of happened."

Nobody speaks for a moment, Darius continues eating his lunch, Gale stares at his food to avoid our gaze and I struggle to figure out how we ended up here in the first place.

Then Darius swallows and raises an eyebrow,

"And you need our help planning the date?" he presumes

Gale nods slowly.

Darius clasps his hands together, tugs his lips up into a tight smirk and leans forward.

"Have you any ideas? Cinema? Dinner? A picnic perhaps?"

Gale rubs the back of his neck, "Well actually, she mentioned that she wouldn't mind if the date was on Friday…so she could see us play at the Hob."

"Lovely" I say truthfully.

It's difficult to imagine Madge Undersee watching us perform in the Hob of all places but nothing seems to be going to plan this year. And if it makes Gale happy then who am I to judge?

"So what do you need our help with?" Darius asks

"Well…I know we decided on a setlist already…but…."

Darius and I simultaneously nod in understanding.

I pull out a notepad and pen from my bag and we all make room for them on the table,

"What are you thinking?" I ask, clicking my pen.

Gale smiles for a moment before listing off a few songs and I write them down.

Darius leans over my shoulder and watches as I write, every so often commenting on whether a song is romantic enough or if we should swap it for another and I let him.

It takes us about ten minutes to come up with a decent list of romantic songs, thrown in with one or two others so we don't bore everyone else in the Hob to tears (something I don't mention to Gale). I rip the page from the notepad and hand it to Gale.

"You want to tell Katniss about the change?"

Gale looks up from the paper to me, his eyes wide,

"Yeah, sure." He mumbles

"She won't mind" Darius insists

"Of course not." Gale replies, but he sounds less convinced than us.

"She really won't" I smile "Speaking of, where is she?"

"Oh she said Peeta wanted to show her something" Darius says and I can feel him shrug beside me.

"See!" I say pointedly "She's happy and in love! Who's she to stop you and Madge from being happy and in love!"

Gale sighs, "Suppose so"

I smile softly, "Nothing bad is gonna happen Galey."

"Definitely not!" Darius agrees "Not while we are around anyway!"

Gale scoffs, "Yeah okay." he hesitates for a moment, "But thanks for your help."

Darius grins, "Oh we aren't done yet. Now let's talk about what you're doing before the show."

"And after" I include.

"And after, very good point Tommy. So I'm thinking food beforehand and a nice walk home afterwards?"

"It'll be quite late and dark by then. She might prefer to drive home." I say

"I don't have a car." Gale mentions

I glance to Darius who is already looking at me.

"You could borrow one?"

Gale glares at Darius, "I'm not stealing!"

"Borrow" Darius emphasises "I said borrow."

"Who would I borrow a car from?"

Darius and I meet eyes again and we both know we have the same person on our minds.

"Peeta"

Peeta POV

"I'm getting a strange sense of déjà vu here Peeta." Katniss remarks from beside me and I grin widely.

"You aren't blindfolded this time." I remind her, opening the first door on the left of the hallway and making sure nobody is watching before gently ushering her through it.

Katniss narrows her pretty eyes at me, "If your plan is to fulfil some fantasy of making out in a broom closet then its not happening."

I shake my head, "It's not a broom closet and that's not the plan, just go in."

Katniss bits her lip nervously and I try not to stare at that too much,

"I promise it's safe." I reassure her.

Katniss looks both ways of the corridor before rushing inside and pulling me in after her.

I shut the door and fumble for the light-switch that I knew is somewhere on my right and just as I find it, I feel Katniss's cool hand slip into my left.

As light fills the space, Katniss looks around in confusion,

"Peeta? What are we doing here?"

I press a finger to my lips and tug her gently up the secluded staircase.

She doesn't say another word and lets me guide her up the four flights of stairs.

I catch her frown from the corner of my eye but she doesn't say a word until we finally reach the top

"But...the school only has two floors?"

I slide my bag off my shoulder and bend down to open it,

"Yes it does, but the building has three to include the attic." I remind her

"But then...that would mean-"

I stand up again, the light from the staircase below us has dimmed so I can hardly see anything except the anticipation in Katniss's grey eyes.

"That would mean, we've reached the roof." I hand her the hat and gloves that I retrieved from my bag and put on my own.

"But-" Katniss splutters "Don't you need a key? Or even a passcode to get up here?"

I shrug, "My brothers used to come up here all the time. They're the ones who told me about it. If they hacked the system to let them out then they never said. I tested it yesterday just to be sure."

"But what about safety?"

I raise an eyebrow at her but it's unlikely she can see it in the dark.

"You think Principal Snow cares about that?"

"Fair point." She admits as she fumbles to put on her gloves.

I throw my bag over my shoulder, put my hand on the doorknob and look at her,

"You okay with this?" I check.

Despite the terrible lighting I can still see Katniss's teeth when she grins at me,

"Definitely."

I take her gloved hand in mine and I pull the door open.

The blast of bitter cold hits us without warning and I gasp but Katniss simply laughs behind me.

"Come on." She exclaims and before I know it she's running out onto the roof, tugging me along with her.

A laugh escapes me too as we recklessly run along the somewhat icy rooftop.

There isn't much to see, there's a chimney yet I fail to see why a chimney is needed in a school but it wouldn't surprise me if Principal Snow were to have such luxuries as a fireplace in his office.

White, soft, light layers of snow trail along the edges which have stone walls along them that come up to approximately a little more than half my height.

Katniss slips on a bad patch of ice causing her to clutch onto my coat tightly as she struggles to regain her balance.

"S-sorry." She whispers and her voice is almost lost in the rough breeze.

"It's alright" I kiss her head gently "Perhaps we should stop the running yeah?"

She nods and snuggles more into my neck, "Good idea."

I try and hold back my massive grin but it doesn't work.

There's a rotten bench along one of the walls at the back of the roof, looking over the football pitch. The bench is long and wooden and seems to be one of the lost ones from the physical education department. The sound of students playing outside below us is faint and faraway and I'm grateful that we can hardly hear them. It makes it that much easier to forget them, to forget where we really are and just lose ourselves in the beauty of this moment.

Katniss leans her head on my shoulder and I'm about to lean my head against hers when I remember something.

"Oh I've a surprise for you."

Katniss laughs again and a smile spreads across my face just from the sound of it.

"Another surprise?" She asks me but there's no annoyance or irritation in her tone which I take as a good sign.

"I promise it's worth it." I whisper, leaning down to kiss her nose which has turned slightly red from the cold.

I grab a small box from my bag and open it before handing it to her,

"Want one?" I tease and Katniss mouth opens,

"Brownies? You made brownies?"

"Yeah I made them yesterday, they were supposed to be for the bakery but I made too many sooo..." I place one on a napkin I brought and hand it to her, "Now we can enjoy them."

Katniss accepts it and smiles, "Thank you."

We sit there in silence for a few minutes as we munch on our brownies which turned out really nice, not that I'm boasting.

"Thanks for bringing me here Peeta." Katniss whispers when we've both finished eating and I've packed the box of leftover crumbs away.

She leans her head into my neck again and I feel the thick fabric of her hat scratch my skin but I don't complain.

"Well I thought about bringing Finnick but I didn't think he'd appreciate it as much as you would."

Katniss laughs softly, "You're probably right."

Although it's the last thing I want to do, I know we should probably go back downstairs.

Unfortunately we still have three more classes of torture to sit through.

Katniss seems to be thinking the same as she rises her head from her solace in my shoulder.

"You want to head down?" she asks halfheartedly

"No but we probably should anyway."

She smiles and kisses me gently.

We stay kissing on that cold, rotten, wooden bench for a minute more, the feel of the wind brushing against us and the taste of chocolate brownies still on our tongues as we try to savour the memory of this.

Both of us desperately trying to hold onto this fleeting moment of light snow, freezing cold skin and warm lips in our private, beautiful little winter wonderland.

We pull apart and I lean my forehead against hers for a brief moment, eyes closed and our gloved hands ridiculously intertwined.

This is real. After all this time, all those years of hopes and dreams and cautious glances across the classroom. This is actually real.

It's only now that I realise how wrong I was as a child.

When I was convinced that I was in love with the girl from school with the pretty brown hair and mesmerising voice.

I didn't know that girl, I didn't love her, I had a crush on her yes but I certainly wasn't in love with her.

But this...the feeling in my chest whenever I see her, the smile that spreads unconsciously over my face whenever I hear her name or hear her talk or laugh, mixed with the way her hand always seems to fit perfectly in mine and how I feel every single time she tells me something about herself that I never knew, the knowledge that she trusts me enough to know her secrets and about her past...this is loving Katniss Everdeen.

My eyes snap open and they meet hers, the grey orbs that glint with kindness and warmth, both a contrast to the weather that surrounds us.

Her eyes flicker across my face and I smile reassuringly.

Now that I've finally accepted the nagging thought that's been lingering at the back of my mind for several weeks, there's a strong, bubbling feeling in my chest that begs me to tell her.

But I can't, I shouldn't. We've only been together two months or so, it's too soon.

Too soon for a normal teenage relationship and definitely too soon for Katniss.

So instead of obliging the newfound ache, I stand and throw my bag over my shoulder.

Katniss stands too and we walk inside to the blissfully warmer building.

We stop for a moment after I shut the door, both of us reluctant to leave.

"Thank you for coming Kat." I say

"I'm very glad that I did" she leans up on her tippy toes and kisses me cheek.

We each take off our hats and gloves and I place them in my bag again.

I take Katniss's hand in mine, grateful to feel her skin properly against mine again and we trudge down the four flights of stairs before blending into the crowds in the hallway once more.

When the bell rings at the end of the day, I'm still lost in the memories of my lunchtime adventure with Katniss.

As my feet guide me through the halls, I reminisce on the feeling of her in my arms as we ate surrounded by nobody except Jack Frost.

I'm so lost in thought that I almost bump into the three people standing protectively outside my locker.

I snap out of my daydream and blink twice to make sure I'm not seeing things.

Gale, Thom and Darius are all leaning against my locker, they all stand up straighter when they see me and I know they've been waiting for me.

"Hey" I offer awkwardly.

What are you supposed to say when your girlfriend's three best friends corner you at your locker after school?

"Peeta" Thom says and he smiles at me as if to let me know that they aren't going to give me some protective best friend talk, "Just the person we wanted to see."

I nod even though I've no idea what he's talking about.

Darius has his arm slung around Thom and is looking me up and down in that way of his that always makes me feel like he's judging me. Thom nudges Gale beside him who has his arms folded and is staring determinedly at the ground.

Gale sighs in exasperation, "Peeta we...I need to ask you a favour."

Raising an eyebrow, I drop my bag to the floor and I know this is going to be interesting.

AN: Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it!

- xTeam Mockingjayx