Peeta

I watch Katniss as she sleeps, her face turned away from me. Her rich olive skin stands out against the soft white sheets and I hesitantly reach out to touch her shoulder and she sighs.

"It's not polite to stare," she says and chuckle.

"You always know," I say. "How do you always know?"

"Your breathing changed," she says as she turns over to look at me. "And I felt your arm move."

"How you feeling?" I ask and she shrugs.

"Sore," she says. "Relaxed." She rolls her eyes and pulls herself closer to me.  "Wonderful." I smile and pull her hair out of her face. I kiss her cheek and she groans.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I need to get up," she says. "But I have no idea where any of my clothes went last night and I do need that stupid hunk of plastic to get up."

"I'll get it," I say sitting up and reaching for my pants. I pull them on and throw Katniss my shirt from last night. She sits up and pulls it on before. Crawling to the edge of the bed, she sits and starts rifling through the pile of clothes before pulling out her strap and carefully fastening it around her waist. I find her leg laying on the floor underneath the bed and I pull it out, helping her attach it. She kisses my forehead and I hug her middle. There's a knock on the door and Katniss freezes and looks at it.

"Go get a shower," I say. "I'll take care of it." She kisses me softly and I get up  and go to the door while she hurries to he bathroom and shuts the door. I open the door to see Haymitch standing there. "Can I help you?"

"You guys left the party pretty quickly last night," he says. "And people saw you two run into the train last night." I think for a moment and then come up with something that might just fool the old drunk.

"Yeah, Katniss accidentally drank some of that gross stuff that makes you sick on purpose. She didn't get enough to throw up, but she was pretty sick to her stomach so I stayed here with her last night," I say. I push past him towards my room but he stops me.

"Do you love her?" He asks.

"Of course I do," I say.

"So you really gonna stick with that story looking the way you do and the smell following you from her room?" He asks.

"There is a certain amount of privacy she'd like to keep," I say. "And with people already making such a big deal about her love life, whatever you believe, she was sick last night and that's the story that you will tell the others when they ask." He chuckles and nods.

"I had my doubts about you," he says. "But it's gotten pretty obvious that you really mean to do what's right with that girl."

"I do," I say before entering my room and shutting the door. I go into the shower and clean myself up before getting dressed and going into the hallway I see Katniss standing in the doorway of her room. She looks frightened and her hands are shaking.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"There's blood on my sheets," she says drearily. "I'm bleeding and I don't know why." I walk over to her and she truly looks terrified.

"Are you okay?" I ask and she looks up at me.

"I don't know," she says. I follow her into her room to see a deep red stain on her bedsheets.

"Did I hurt you?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"That's too much blood," she says. "And I know it would have stopped by now if it was."

"You're still bleeding?" I ask. She nods, holding her hands to her chest.

"We need to tell someone," I say. "She looks at me horrified.

"We can't!" She says. "We'll get in trouble."

"Portia won't tell anyone," I say. "She's not a gossip and hopefully she can help you without making a ruckus." She just looks at me for a brief moment and then nods. I kiss her temple and then leave to find the stylist.  She's standing beside the breakfast foods when I find her and tap her on the shoulder.

"I need to talk to you," I say.

"About what?" She asks.

"Something's wrong with Katniss," I whisper. "There's blood and she feels okay but there's so much blood and I-" Portia cuts me off with a gentle slap on my shoulder.

"Has her mother ever talked to her about something like this?" She asks. I shake my head.

"She's too scared," I say. "She has no idea what's going on. Do you?" She nods.

"I think so," she says. "I'll go back and talk to her. You should wait in the hallway." I follow her back to the bedrooms and she knocks softly on the door. Katniss opens it just a crack, sees Portia and ushers her in before closing the door tightly. I sit in the hallway and wait while I hear them talking in hushed voices. After a while, Portia comes back out and Katniss follows her. Portia shoots me an understanding smile before exiting the coach. Katniss just stands in front of me, her arms crossed not meeting my eyes.

"Is everything okay?" I ask. She nods but she still looks upset. "Is there a reason?" She purses her lips. "Do you want to talk about it?" She covers her mouth.

"It's stupid," she says quietly.

"It's not stupid if you didn't know what was going on," I say.

"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" She asks. I get up and lead her into my room shutting the door behind her.

"So what's going on?" I ask.

"It's hard to explain," she says.

"Did I hurt you?" She shakes her head rapidly.

"It would have happened whether we had spent the night like did or not," she says. "It's my body's way of making sure I can have a child. It refreshes itself every month or something. I didn't really want the details." I look down, just kind of weirded out about what she's saying. "I know it's weird. How do you think I feel?"

"So this is just something you have to deal with?" I ask.

"Apparently," she says. "I was never healthy enough for it to happen before. It should have started happening two or three years ago but it never did because I wasn't staying healthy enough for it to happen."

"What does it mean?" I ask. "You said something about a child?" She goes over to my bed and sits down and pats the place next to her.

"It means I can have kids," she says. "But just because this happened doesn't mean I've changed my mind about having a baby." I look down at my hands.

"You know, that isn't the only thing I think about, Katniss," I say and she lays her head on my shoulder. "But I am never not going to want kids."

"I know that," she says. "But this is most definitely not the time or the place to be thinking about that, Peeta. We're way to young."

"I know," I say. "But you didn't flat out deny them this time." She looks down.

"It'll happen some day," she says. "Whether I want to be or not, at some point, I'm going to get pregnant. But I really don't want to worry about anything like that right now." I nod and wrap my arm around her.

"I'll be there," I say. "I'll take care of you. Both of you if that becomes the case."

"I know," she says softly. "But whether you like it or not, there's still things that you can't protect us from." We both look through the window to see the tall buildings of the capital disappearing in the distance.