"PRIMROSE EVERDEEN! I TOLD YOU NOT TO LET YOUR HAIRBALL IN OUR ROOM!" Prim opened her eyes and sat up on the couch seconds before her older sister stamped out of their shared bedroom and threw a mottled yellow ball of fur into the living room.

"Katniss!" Prim yelped. "Don't throw Buttercup!" The mangy cat mewed and crawled atop Prim's blanket before she cradled it in her arms.

"What were you doing out here - PRIM!" Katniss yelped yanking Prim's worn blanket off the nearly threadbare grey couch revealing a seventeen year old with dark hair and olive skin laying next to the fair skinned blonde seventeen year old girl. "RORY HAWTHORNE, I'LL TELL GALE YOU WERE WITH MY SISTER IF YOU DON'T GET OUT RIGHT NOW!"

"Have fun in college, Prim." Rory muttered sleepily before sitting bolt upright and running out of the small two bedroom mobile home to his unit two buildings away. He had a thing for Prim ever since his voice began changing, but unlike his older twenty three year old brother Gale who asked Katniss to be his girlfriend at age eighteen, he didn't have the guts to act on his feelings.

"Nothing happened, Katniss." Prim pointed out as her twenty one year old sister gave her the death glare. "Rory was going to help me pack the rest of my room." Katniss glared at the small face arranging itself into a pout.

"Like hell he was." Katniss muttered.

"Yeah. Just like you say Peeta gives you cooking lessons when you're at his house." Prim quipped causing Katniss to throw a pillow at her.

"Shut up, Prim!" Katniss grumbled. "C'mon. We have to be at Sae's Cafe in half an hour. Peeta's meeting us with his truck." The girls packed two suitcases each.

"I'll tell Mom we're leaving." Prim called. She ran across the house and knocked on her mother's door. "Mom!"

"Come in!" Mrs. Everdeen called. She smiled at Prim standing at the door with her two suitcases. "You're leaving today, aren't you?" Prim nodded. "You and Katniss?"

"Yeah. Mom can you send me the natural health magazines you don't want anymore? You said you'd go through them." Mrs. Everdeen nodded.

"Ya going to college, girl?" Haymitch Abernathy asked from the cot in the corner of the room.

"Yeah. I'll tell you what I learn about cirrosis, Mr. Abernathy!" Prim promised. Their neighbor groaned.

"Your mother's herbs keep me going, girlie." He muttered. Mrs. Everdeen was a herbal nutrition consultant at the Seam, WV Whole Foods location. She took the samples home and ran an informal herbal supplement consultation for the residents of the Rolling Green Mobile Home complex where she, Katniss, and Prim lived.

"Bye, Mom!" Katniss called. Without waiting for a reply, she steered Prim out the door. As she had nearly raised Prim by herself, it was fitting that she would guide Prim into the new world of college. After their father had died seven years ago in a construction accident, Katniss had taken to doing odd jobs around Rolling Green and the surrounding areas before her mother found work.

Prim was the one who became interested in her mother's career at Whole Foods. After finishing her homework, she would scour her mother's natural health magazines for new information. At age seventeen, she had been accepted to Panem University's Premed program of study that included a minor in complimentary medicine. Katniss was in her third year at Panem University studying wildlife biology with an emphasis on hunting and fishing management.

"Well, there's our little college girl!" Sae called from behind the counter at her diner aptly named Sae's Cafe. It was conveniently next to a bus stop where many people in Rolling Green waited for their commute to work. "Hey, Prim!"

"She's all grown up, huh!" Captain Darius asked as his co-worker Police Sargent Cray waved from their posts at the counter drinking cups of black coffee and munching on plates full of Sae's homemade doughnuts.

"Yeah." Katniss said.

"I remember when she would run around at night delivering asprin and whatever samples your mom had at her place to your neighbors." Darius chuckled.

"Yeah, you scared me once when you were patroling on your bike." Prim quipped. Katniss bit her lip to restrain herself from telling Darius that, while she was in high school, she and Gale Hawthorne would strategically place sticks in the road and laugh while Darius took a spill on his duty rides.

"Well, I made you a pastry, girl. On the house." Sae said smiling before placing a large cinnamon roll frosted in Panem University's colors of red and white in front of Prim.

"Oh! Thank you!" Prim gasped.

"Great." Katniss muttered. "You'll get her hyped up for our road trip. Thanks, Sae." However, she smiled at the owner / operator of the cafe before biting into her own Panem University frosted cinnamon roll. Soon a horn honked outside. "Thanks, Sae. We'll see you at Fall Break. Prim, c'mon, that's Peeta!"

"Hey!" Darius called stepping out into the parking lot. "You drive these girls safely to college or else I'll fine you for double parking, son!"

"PEETA!" Katniss called running toward the shining red truck. The bed of the truck contained Peeta Mellark's things as well as the Everdeen girls' belongings they kept at Peeta's house throughout the summer.

"Hey, Kat!" Peeta called waving at the girls. Katniss climbed into the truck and ruffled Peeta's blonde curls before kissing him soundly. "Let's get this show on the road."

"Ew, guys." Prim groaned. "Don't make out this whole trip!"

"Shut up, Prim!" Katniss muttered as she draped her leg over Peeta's as he drove. Katniss and Peeta would take turns driving. Prim shrugged and plugged her headphones into her new iPad. Opening a free anatomy review app, she kept herself occupied as Katniss and Peeta gushed about their last few hours together.

They drove down the road past the suburbs where Peeta lived and where his parents operated a gourmet bakery. Both Katniss and Prim had put in hours after school cleaning the floor or doing dishes for extra money. Before the girls were old enough to get work permits, Peeta had coaxed his dad to pay them in cash. His mother as bookkeeper didn't as questions as their business was suddenly cleaner without much of an increase to their expenses. Prim smiled at Katniss who was in the center of the seat curled up against Peeta's side with Peeta's arm draped over her shoulder. She knew Katniss was grateful for the Mellarks' help, so it made sense that they would help her transition into her new phase of life.