AN-Hey! I want to thank you for clicking on my fanfic and giving it a chance! Before I get started, I just want to make it known that I am in no way trying to take credit for the wonderful trilogy that Suzanne Collins wrote. Any Hunger Games characters and direct quotes belong to her. This is my first fanfic, so any sort of feedback would be greatly appreciated. The first chapter is just a short little teaser of what's to come.

Hope you enjoy!

Katniss

She never imagined he would leave her. He promised he wouldn't. Though it wasn't his choice, the selfish part of her has a hard time forgiving him for leaving her here. Alone. As her best friend from childhood, and most recently her husband, she'd always been able to count on him. He was the only constant in her ever-changing life.

They'd been friends ever since she could remember, becoming closer when the deaths of their fathers forced them to grow up much too quickly, and inadvertently threw them together. As they aged, he developed feelings that, to her dismay and his disappointment, she couldn't find it in her to return. He was in love with her, while she only loved him. Loved him in the way one does a friend, not a lover.

When she told him that, he was hurt, but he didn't turn her away. He hoped that if he just loved her enough, she would grow to love him in the way a man loves a woman. He continued to pine after her, until she agreed to marry him two years later. Gale was elated, thinking that she'd finally come around, finally fallen in love with him. She let him think that, and tried to make herself think it too, because that was much better than thinking of why she really did it. She wishes she could've loved Gale in that way, because that's what her best friend deserved.

But she didn't, couldn't. She used him. She had to. For Prim. She hopes he would've understood why she had to marry him, if she'd ever had the chance to tell him. But now he's dead, and she'd rather he died thinking she loved him instead of knowing the truth. Well, both truths. One, that she wasn't in love with him. And two, that he hadn't left her completely alone. He'd left her with a tiny baby growing inside of her. His baby.

Widowed and pregnant were never a part of her plan, nonetheless at 19, but she'd manage. She'd find a way to survive, because that's what she did. Above all, she was a survivor.

Always.

Peeta

He looks right through the customer he's helping and onto the nearly empty street, a smile on his face despite the sinking feeling in his gut.

"Peeta?" The older blonde woman on the other side of the counter asks. "Are you alright, dear?"

"Yes Ma'am." He lies. "I apologize. I was up all night baking and I'm just a little tired. Can I get you anything else?"

"Its quite alright, dear. I understand you must be overworked, what with your eldest brother leaving the bakery." Overworked. I'll remember that one. "Oh, and could you throw a cheese bun in the bag? You know how I love those."

Effie, the effervescent town gossip, has purchased one cheese bun every day since Peeta can remember. And Peeta always tried to give it to her on the house, because Effie is the bakery's most loyal customer, and Effie always overpays. Anytime Peeta tries to bring up the subject, Effie always brushes him off, and tells him to get a girlfriend, to which Peeta smiles. Today is no different.

"It'll be $4.25 for the bread, and I'll throw in the bun for free because I was such a lousy conversationalist today." Peeta offers.

"Nonsense," she says, confirming what he already knows. "Everyone gets tired. Keep the change." She finishes, handing him a $10 bill, knowing full well her total is only $5.25, bun included.

"Effie-" he starts, but she doesn't give him the chance to finish.

"Peeta, take break. Or a nap. Or find a nice girl to take out. It's a shame that a nice young man like you is single." She finishes, tossing him a smile as she grabs her bag and heads for the door.

He just smiles. At nearly 22, most would have expected Peeta to have settled down by now, as he'd wanted to be nothing more than a loving father and doting husband his whole life. But Peeta could never seem to find the right girl. He'd gone on a few dates, even had a girlfriend or two, but the boring, well-off blondes he seemed to attract just weren't what he wanted for his wife. Little did he know, the girl he needed was just about to walk through the door.

AN- Okay, so I get that this is a little confusing right now. But, I promise that most questions will be answered with the first couple chapters. I have no Beta. All the mistakes are mine:/ I will try to post regularly. I'm going to warn you that I am not an expert on the tragedy that is the Holocaust or on WWII-era Germany. I will stick to U.S. measurements during the story because that is what I am familiar with. Please review! And if you wanna come fangirl with me over on tumblr, I'm 16sydd16 there also.