"Allies?" "Always."

Chapter 9

"Just a few more finishing touches and we can start with your make-up." Portia fixes the lapel on my black suit with flame accents.

"Can you please hury?" I rush her. I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I haven't seen my baby in two days. I want to see her so bad that it hurts, burns even.

"Come on, Peeta. You can't rush perfection."

"I'm not rushing perfection, I'm rushing you." She gives me a look that says, 'Do you want to rephrase that?' "Sorry."

"Hold still." She puts some sort of gel in my hair, combing through it backward with a comb that has narrow teeth. She dabs a bit of foundation on my face, rubs it in, and checks to see if it's uneven. Then she gets out another weird cream. "Why haven't you been able to sleep?" She asks, rubbing the stuff under my eyes.

"How did you know that I couldn't sleep?" I ask, a little nervous for the answer.

"The bags under your eyes."

"Oh." In my mind, I'm relieved. "I can't sleep without knowing she's within reach if something bad happens."

"It's okay." Portia is probably my only real friend in the Capitol. She's by far the only one who understands me, besides Katniss, of course. "Don't worry. You'll see her soon."

"I know." I smile. "And that's why I want you to hury!" I stress my point drastically.

"Okay! Okay! I'm hurrying!" She laughs and finishes up the last little touches, taking forever because, 'You can't rush perfection.'

My heart is beating out of my chest, trying to reach her before the rest of me can. We sit there for what seems like forever until I finally break. "Portia! I'm about to die! Can I go now?!"

"You could have gone ten minutes ago. I just wanted to see how long it would take you to burst." I've never seen somebody laugh as hard as I'm seeing right now.

"What?!" I scream. "I will get you back for this, Portia! I'm not kidding! You're gonna get it!" And that makes her laugh harder, if that was possible. "Get it together already!" I holler. "We should have been in there ten minutes ago!"

"Okay." She chokes out. We manage to get to the floor above the training grounds, where the interviews take place, right as the girl from Five walks on stage.

As the doors to the lift open, a pair of eyes instantly meet mine. She was standing beside the elevator doors, probably waiting on me all night. I could imagine her standing there alone as interview after interview passed, thinking, 'This is it. He'll be here after this one.'

No words are said. Our eyes do all the talking for us. She collapses into my arms as I step out of the elevator. "You worried me to death, Peeta! Don't you dare ever do that again or I'll-" She begins the threaten me, knowing that she wouldn't hurt me, couldn't. "I've missed you so much."

I can tell that she's about to cry. "No! Don't! You'll mess up your make up, Katniss!" Portia must have caught it too. "You should have seen him in the room, though. He kept telling me to hury up and he almost killed me when I told him that he could have left ten minutes ago."

Katniss smiles that smile that I love. "It's been lonely without you here." She says to me.

"Well," I release her from the embrace, holding her hands in mine. "I'm here now, and I'm never leaving again. I promise."

Then Rue walks over to us. "What a beautiful dress, Katniss!" She gives a genuine smile. My heart melts at it's warmth.

That's the first time I noticed her clothes. "Woah." I say under my breath. She is radiant in a dress wih jewels all over it, shining in the light. But above all, I think Rue got it. The one word I would have used. Beautiful.