(a/n): This will be a retelling from if Katniss had always loved Peeta and their love was never forced or an act for the cameras.

For the whole story: All credit goes to Suzanne Collins.

Chapter 1: Reaping.

My mother has left out one of her lovely blue dresses for me to wear. Matching shoes as well.

"Are you sure?" I ask, I know her clothes and belongings from the past are important to her. I'm also trying to get past my anger, by letting her help me I won't be rejecting her.

"Of course. Let's put your hair up too," She says and then I let her towel dry my hair and braid it up onto my head. The girl in the mirror doesn't look like me, her hair up in a bun instead of down in the braid. And I'm wearing a dress when usually I'm in my fathers jacket when I'm hunting.

"You look beautiful," Says Prim in a quiet voice.

"And nothing like myself," I tell her and hug her as I know how hard the first reaping is, especially for Prim. She's worried about me as we both know the chances of her name being pulled out are slim.

The Reaping is the only thing that I can't protect Prim from. I notice that her blouse is poking out the top of her skirt, a sign that she is still too young, we're all too young. "Tuck your tail in, little duck," I say, tucking it in myself.

Prim giggles, giving me a small, "Quack."

"Quack yourself," I laugh. "Come on, let's eat." I kiss the top of her head.

We decide to leave the fish, greens, strawberry's and bakery bread that Gale and I collected this morning for this evening, in celebration. The bread has my attention before I look away, I need to focus on the Reaping and Prim instead of my feelings for the bakers son. But I'm worried about him, he may not have as many entries as Gale and I, but he still has more than Prim. Instead we eat the rough bread and milk from Prim's goat, Lady, although no one has much of an appetite.

At one o'clock we head to the square, already District 12 has turned to silence, families hoping their child won't be picked. Attendance is mandatory unless you're on deaths door. Peacekeepers will go round checking in the evening, and if you're not dying then you'll be imprisoned.

The square is one of the nicest places in District 12, surrounded by shops and usually markets depending on the weather. However, today bright banners are up but the air is thick with grimness. Camera crews are perched on rooftops, reminding us why we're all here.

We all file in silently, looking at each other, wondering who it's going to be this year. The reaping is a good opportunity for the Capitol to keep on tabs with the population when everyone signs in. Then 12 – 18 year olds are herded behind roped areas marked in age order, oldest at the front and youngest at the back. Just like 12 – 18 year olds are herded into an arena to kill each other until only one is standing.

Family line up around the perimeter, grasping each other in hope that their child isn't sentenced to death. Others in the crowd, the ones that don't care, take bets on what unfortunate soul it is this time.

I'm standing with a group of sixteens, all huddled together as the space gets more cramped as more people file in. Tense nods are exchanged and then everyone focuses on the temporary stage up by the Justice Building. It holds three chairs, a podium and two glass balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. Twenty of them have my name, Katniss Everdeen, and only one has Prim.

The Mayor sits in one of the chairs along with District 12's escort, Effie Trinket, with her pinkish hair and spring green suit, not forgetting the scary white grin on her face. They murmur to each other, looking at the empty seat next to them.

The clock strikes two and the Mayor stands up to read the speech he reads every year, telling the history of Panem, the country that rose up from the ashes of a place that was once called North America. Disasters, droughts, storms, fires, encroaching seas that swallowed up so much land, the brutal war, all resulted in Panem, with a shining new Capitol followed by Thirteen Districts. Then came the Dark Days, the uprisings of the Districts against the Capitol, Twelve were defeated and the Thirteenth was destroyed. The Treaty of Treason was then created, giving us new laws to create peace and as reminder that the Dark Days must not be repeated, the Hunger Games.

"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," concludes the Mayor and he finishes by reading the list of past District 12 winners. In seventy-four years, District 12 has only had exactly two winners. Only one is still alive, Haymitch Abernathy, a middle-aged man, who appears to be staggering on stage and into the third chair – drunk, as always. The audience applauds and a confused Haymitch gives Effie a hug, which she barely manages to fend off.

Since this is all being filmed, District 12 is the laughing stock (as always) of Panem and the Mayor looks distressed because of it. He calls the attention back by introducing Effie and the tensions grows stronger around me. Some have even started to cry. Two people are about to be chosen to die.

Bright and bubbly as ever, Effie trots to the podium and gives her signature, "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" Her pink hair – that has to be a wig – has shifted slightly off-center since her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on about how an honor it is, but we all know how she's aching to get promoted to a better district where they have proper victors, that actually have a chance at winning and are not drunk.

I spot my best friend, Gale, and he is looking back at me with a ghost of a smile. I am thinking of the forty-two names in that glass ball and how the odds are not in his favour. He's thinking the same thing, as his face darkens and he looks away. There's still thousands, but he still has forty-two. Then I am searching for him through the sixteen year old boys, just seeing the back of his blonde head. Seeing him lessens the tension inside me a bit, but not enough to make me completely relaxed.

"Ladies first!" Effie cheers and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball and pulls out a slip of paper. Everyone around me holds their breath, followed by complete silence. My thoughts chant the others around me, it's not me, it's not me, it's not me.

It isn't me. It's Primrose Everdeen.

The air escapes my lungs, I struggle to remember how to breathe, my mind is stunned by the name and it feels like a nightmare. No, this is not true. I'll wake up any minute and this will all be just a nightmare. Only it isn't a nightmare: Prim has been picked. Someone is gripping my arm and I think I had started to fall and they caught me. My legs have gone numb.

I want to laugh, surely there must have been a mistake. This can't be happening. One slip out of possibly thousands! I didn't think she would have a chance, I hadn't even worried about her and now she is going to her death. Her death.

The crowd murmur unhappily, like they always do when a twelve-year-old is chosen, because no one thinks it's fair and it isn't. And then I see her, blood drained from her face and her blouse has become untucked again. A gasp escapes me.

"Prim!" A cry comes out of my throat and my muscles begin to move again. "Prim!" I don't shove, other kids make way for me, allowing me to get a clear pathway to the stage. I reach her just as she's about to climb the steps. I push her behind me, blocking her from there view. They can't have her.

"I volunteer!" I gasp. "I volunteer as tribute!"

There's confusion on stage since no one has volunteered in decades, the protocol has become rusty. In other Districts some would volunteer to risk their lives for the honor, but I'm doing it to save my sister. I'm doing it so she can live and I will die in her place.

"Lovely!" say Effie. "But I believe there's a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um…" She trails of, unsure herself.

"What does it matter?" Says the Mayor. He's looking me with a pained emotion and I think about all the strawberries I sold to him and his daughter, Madge. "What does it matter?" he repeats again. "Let her come forward."

"Prim, let go," I say harshly, because this is upsetting me and I can't afford to cry – I can't look weak when this is going to be shown again across the country. "Let go!"

I can feel someone pulling her from my back. I turn to see Gale has picked her up and she's thrashing in his arms, crying and shouting. "Up you go, Catnip." He says in a voice that he's trying to keep steady. He carries Prim to my mother and then I climb the steps. I have to dig my nails into my fists to stop myself from crying.

"Well, bravo!" gushes Effie, clearly pleased with the change of events. "That's the spirit of the games! What's your name?"

I swallow hard. "Katniss Everdeen."

"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!" Trills Effie.

No one claps. Not even the ones in the back, holding the betting slips, the ones who usually don't care. Possibly because they're all from the Hob and have seen me around, or because they knew my father, or have encountered Prim, whom no one can help loving. So instead of acknowledging applause, I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which shows how much we don't agree and how wrong the games is.

Then something unexpected happens. Slowly, one and then another, followed by the rest, touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasional seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means goodbye to someone you love. I'm so shocked my mouth opens in a gasp, I didn't think anyone cared about me.

Now I am close to crying, but fortunately Haymitch decides this time to come staggering across the stage to congratulate me. "Look at her. Look at his one!" He hollers, throwing an arm around my shoulder and the smell of alcohol is strong. "I like her!" His breath makes my stomach twist. "Lots of…" He can't think of anything for a while. "Spunk!" he says. "More than you!" He releases me and heads for the front of the stage. "More than you!" He shouts at the camera.

I'll never know if he was actually drunk or taunting the Capitol because he falls of the stage, knocking himself unconscious. I can't believe he's my mentor, but right now I'm grateful for the time he has given for me to compose myself. My throat lets out a noise, clearing away the tears and bile that threaten to come up. And then I turn emotionless, I don't want the audience or my fellow tributes to see my fear.

"What an exciting day!" Effie cheers, trying to get the attention back to the Reaping again. She attempts to straighten her wig, which has been pushed further to the right. "More excitement to come! It's time for our boy tribute!" She plants one hand on her head, while she crosses to the ball with the boys names in and grabs the first slip. She zips back to the podium where she reads the name out loud for everyone. "Peeta Mellark!"

No. Not him. Out of all those slips - those thousands of slips - she had to pick the two that I love the most, the two that mean more to me than my own life. This can't be happening.

I follow the crowd's eyes to where Peeta stands his beautiful face is shocked, those blue eyes full with sadness. His eyes meet mine for a second and I look away. Then he makes his way to the stage. I search the remaining boys in desperation. Someone – anyone – has to volunteer for him. Where are his brothers? I know one enough is out there, but of course he won't volunteer.

Effie asks for volunteers but no one steps forwards. I want to beg them, to throw someone else in his place instead of him. Anyone but him. But no, I'm stuck with Peeta. I'm going into the games expecting to kill the boy I'm in love with – have been in love with for years.

The Mayor begins to read the long, dull Treaty of Treason as he does every year – it's required – but I'm not listening to a word. Peeta and I are going to the games, only one of us can come out or none of us. A bigger knot had started to twist in my stomach over the idea of losing him – I can't let him die.

Why him? Out of everyone, why did it have to be him? Out of all those thousands of slips, it had to be the guy I'm in love with.

I have never spoken to Peeta, only observed him from the outside but the moment that made me love him was during a very dark time when my father had just died and my family was starving. The district had giving us some money for compensation but it was only enough for a month of grieving, after which my mother was expected to get a job, only she didn't. She didn't do anything but sit in a chair or huddle under a blanket, staring into the distance. Once in a while she would stir and get up as if moved by some urgent purpose, only to collapse back into stillness. No amount of pleading from me or Prim seemed to affect her.

I was terrified. At the time all I knew was that I had lost not only my father, but a mother as well. At eleven years old, with Prim just seven, I took over as head of the family. There was no choice. I brought the food at the market and cooked it as best as I could and tried to keep Prim and myself presentable. Because if it had come known that my mother could no longer care for us, the district would have taken us away from her and placed us in a community home. The sadness, angry hand prints on their faces and hopelessness deflated the children from the home. I couldn't let that happen to Prim, she wouldn't have survived there. The community home would crush her like a bug. So I kept our predicament a secret.

The money soon ran out and we were slowly starving to death. I kept telling myself that I could hold out to May and then when I was twelve I could sign up for tesserae and get grain and oil to feed us. Only several weeks, but we wouldn't have survived till then.

Starvation happens all the time in District 12. Victims are seen all the time, with families with too many to feed or older people who can't work, those injured in the mines, straggling through the streets. And one day the straggling stops, they become motionless on the streets or lying in the meadow. Wails from a house, declaring another victim.

On the afternoon with my first and only encounter with Peeta Mellark, the rain was falling, icy cold. I had gone round town, trying to trade some threadbare old baby clothes of Prim's in the public market, but no one wanted them. I had been to the hob with my father on several occasions but I was too frightened to venture into the rough, gritty place alone. My father's hunting jacket had soaked through, sticking to my hollow frame and I dropped the clothes in a muddy puddle. I didn't pick it up, afraid that I would fall over and be unable to get up again. No one wanted those clothes, no money or food to take home.

I couldn't face going home with my mother's dead eyes and Prim's hollow cheeks and cracked lips. I found myself stumbling down a muddy lane, my body to weak from the rain and hunger, but I went behind the shops that serve the wealthiest townspeople. The merchants live above their businesses, so I was technically in their back gardens. I remember the garden beds not yet planted for the spring, a goat or two in a pen and a dog tied to a post, hunched over defeated like I was.

Stealing is forbidden in District 12, punishable by death. It crossed my mind that there might be something in the rubbish bins, and those were fair game – anything was fair game. I was desperate for anything, but unfortunately, the bins had just been emptied.

I passed the baker's, the smell of bread made me dizzy and my stomach echoed a plea. The ovens golden glow spilled out the open kitchen door. I took a deep breath, taking in the wonderful smell for a second and then I turned to their bin. It was spotless, not a single crumb left behind.

A voice started screaming at me and I looked up to see the baker's wife, telling me to go or she'll call the peacekeepers and shouting about us brats from the Seam looking through her rubbish, she's never starved like anyone from the Seam before. I carefully placed the lid back down and backed away, then I noticed him, a boy with blonde hair peering out behind his mother's back. He was in my year, so I had seen him around school, but I didn't know his name. Why would I know? He hangs around with all the townspeople. His mother went back in, grumbling, but he must have been watching me as I made my way behind the pen that held their pig and leaned back against the old apple tree, too cowardly to go home.

My knees buckled with the realisation that I had nothing to take home, nothing to feed my family. I was too sick and weak and tired, I hoped they called the peacekeepers or the community home or just to leave me to die under the apple tree in the icy rain. There was a clatter in the baker, followed by the screaming mother and then a blow. I wondered what was going on. Feet sloshed in the mud and I winced, thinking she was coming back. But it wasn't her, it was the boy. In his arms, he carried two large loaves of bread that had to have fallen in the fire as the crusts were black.

His mother was yelling in the background, "Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!"

He began to tear off chunks from the burned parts and toss them into the pen, my stomach rumbling with every throw. The front bell rang, the mother disappearing to help a customer.

He never even glanced my way, but I was watching him. Because of the bread, because of the red welt that had stood out on his cheekbone. What had she hit him with? My parents never hit us, I couldn't even imagine it. I watched as he took one look back at the bakery, checking if the coast was clear, and then his attention back on the pig as he throw the loaf of bread in my direction. He sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door behind him.

I stared at the loaves in shock and disbelief. They were perfect, forgetting the burnt areas, and I greedily snatched them up, wrapping them protectively in my hunting jacket and then hurrying home in delight. Did he mean for me to have them? He must have since he didn't throw them into the pen. They landed at my feet. The heat of the bread burned my skin and I clutched them tighter, thanking the boy silently.

When I reached home, the loaves had cooled but inside was still warm. When I pulled them out, Prim's face lit up and went to tear a chunk but I made her sit, forced our mother to join us as well and poured warm tea for us. I scarped of the black stuff and we ate the loaf, slice by slice, our stomachs finally at ease.

I put my clothes near the fire and climbed into bed and into a dreamless sleep. It occurred to me the next morning that the boy might have burned the bed on purpose and I wondered why. Knowing that helping me would result in him being punished. His enormous kindness touched me, he saved me and my family from starvation. I would for ever be thankful to him, but I couldn't explain his kindness.

We ate slices of bread and then went to school. It was as if spring had come over night with warm air and clouds dotted around the blue sky. At school, I passed the boy with his face now swollen and his blackened eye. I was going to say thank you but he didn't acknowledge me in any way, he was with his friends from town. As I collected Prim and started home from school, I found him staring at me from across the school yard. Our eyes met for a second, a part of me hoped he would talk to me, allow me to say thank you, but he turned away. I dropped my gaze, embarrassed, knowing exactly what he had seen: a desperate starving girl from the Seam. But as I looked down, that's when I saw it, the first dandelion of the year. A bell had started to ring in my head and I thought of the hours I spent in the woods with my father. I knew how we were going to survive.

To this day, I am thankful to Peeta, for his bread that gave me hope and the dandelion that I wasn't doomed. More than once, I have turned to catch his eye in the hallway, only to quickly flit away. Maybe if I thanked him or spoke to him I would feel less conflicted, but ever since the bread I have never been able to forget him. I would watch him when he wasn't looking, look through the bakery window to see him working with his family and see him around the square with his friends. I had grown to like him from a distance, even to love him from the side-lines. A part of me had hoped that maybe we could grow close as we grow up, but I was from the Seam and he was from the town, two different worlds in District 12. Now, were both sentenced to kill each other in an arena with twenty-two other tributes. If I was going to survive – try to survive – then I would have to forget about him, but I can't, he saved my life and now I will save his. That is a promise I will make to him.

The Mayor finishes the Treaty of Treason and motions for me and Peeta to shake hands. His are as solid and warm as those loaves of bread, he looks me right in the eye as I do everything I can to keep my face emotionless. He squeezes my hand as if to reassure me but maybe it's just a nervous spasm.

We turn back to the crowd as the anthem begins to play.

(a/n): That's the first chapter, I hope you liked it and please do tell me what you think.