I've been toying with this idea forever now and I know I said I wouldn't start serious work on this until TCYDT has been completed but I've been stuck with the flu for the past week and I thought posting this might give me some energy.

As the summary suggests this is my dive into the AU genre of Katniss and Peeta not being reaped and that I intend for it to be a slow burn. Probably a very slow burn. I'm hoping to be able to do this in my own little way yet still keep them as in-character as possible. which is always a challenge when you're merely borrowing the characters from somebody else but then again who doesn't like a challenge?

I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on Mr. Stoker's lecturing from the front of the classroom and I can't wait for this school day to finally be over. It's getting dark earlier and earlier with every day and I know that in a few hours it will be too dark in the woods for me to be able to go hunting, and I desperately need to go hunting today. It's been five days since we last had a decent meal and the lack of food is making my head spin. I can deal with hunger, even though it's hard to go to sleep at night when my stomach is screaming for food, but I can't handle watching Prim starve. For her sake I need to hurry home once the school day has ended, change into my comfortable hunting clothes and head out in search of food. Maybe if I'm lucky I can shoot a goose late for its trip south over the winter. If nothing else, a squirrel or a rabbit might cross my path. At this point I don't care much what I manage to kill, so long as it's got enough meat on it to take the worst edge off our hunger.

My stomach growls but I ignore it and gaze out the window. Snow has begun to fall, the first of the winter, and I take it as a bad sign. Madge nudges me with her elbow and I slowly turn my face back to look at Mr. Stoker and I make an effort to focus and listen to what he's talking about.

"This May you will be done with school and heading out into the real world" he says, hands clasped in front of him.

I snort. It's not being done with school everyone here is thinking about. It's being done with the reapings. When this year's reaping is over none of us will be eligible again, meaning that we only have to survive this one last time and then we're done. I don't think any of us have been this nervous since our first year. We've made it this far. Can we really make it one more year, now with the most amount of slips we'll ever have?

"You will have to go looking for jobs" continues Mr. Stoker. "Many of you will work in the mines or take over your parents' business. You will find yourselves responsible for contributing to the household income."

I snort again and roll my eyes as discreetly as I can. Many of us have been contributing to the income for years now, in some way or other. Merchant kids help their parents from an early age; Seam kids do whatever they can to help the family scrape by. No family can afford not having every abled person help out in some way or another.

"Within a few years, many of you will be married."

At this point he's lost my interest completely. I don't intend on ever getting married. I cannot afford the kind of love that leads to marriage and inevitably the conception of children. Having Prim in the reaping is bad enough; having a child of my own in the reaping is unthinkable. I keep listening to our teacher as he prattles on but I'm thoroughly uninterested in what he has to say and I try to will the clock to tick faster so the lesson can be done and I can hurry home. I'm not even sure this monologue qualifies as a lesson in the first place. What are we supposed to be learning right now exactly?

"When you marry you will move to a new home and many of you will be welcoming your first child soon thereafter. This year, your last year of school, we have decided to help prepare you all for this big step forward in your lives."

"How are they going to do that?" mumbles a Seam kid sitting behind me. "Teach us all how to change diapers?"

"Teach us all how to make babies?" suggests a boy sitting next to him and I hear them both laugh quietly.

I roll my eyes again and rest my chin in my left hand. I don't see either how they're going to be able to help us prepare for this and in my case it feels completely unnecessary. I feel I already know most of what I need to know about providing for a household and as for practical details surrounding toasting and parenthood they could not interest me less. There's something rather off-putting about hearing a teacher tell us we'll soon be having children when, really, we still are children. What's the rush? Life expectancy in the district may not be much to cheer for but we can at least afford to wait until we're a couple of years into our twenties before we procreate.

"For the next five months you will all be participating in a special project" continues Mr. Stoker. "You will be paired up and each pair will be given a scenario based on probable life situation."

I frown and share a look with Madge. Probable life situation? What is that supposed to mean?

Madge points to me and then at herself, raising her eyebrows in a silent question. I nod. It goes without saying by now that she and I will team up for any kind of partnered project. Maybe if I'm lucky we'll have to spend some spare time working on this and we'll spend that time at her place. The few times I've visited Madge in her home I've been treated to bakery bread and homemade jam. My stomach growls just from the thought of it.

"The pairs will consist of one girl and one boy, and yes, you will, in a way, be playing house."

This catches my attention and I sit up straight. Oh no. I don't want to be paired up with a boy. I don't even know any of the boys in my class. Quickly my eyes trail over the classroom and I do a quick count, hoping that there will be more girls than boys, in which case Madge and I might still be able to team up. I'm not so lucky. It seems there are fifteen girls and eighteen boys if my count is right. Just when I think it can't get much worse Mr. Stokes adds that it's going to be ladies' choice. My cheeks burn and I want to sink through the floor and disappear. Why can't we just pull names from a hat, Effie Trinket style? How am I supposed to be able to pick one of these boys to do a project with? The only boy I'm comfortable talking to is Gale and, oddly enough, one or two of the peacekeepers but I don't know how to interact with the guys in my class. What if whomever I pick rejects me? This can't end well.

"In the interest of being fair, and to avoid any fighting over potential partners, it will be the luck of the draw that decides who chooses first" says Mr. Stokes and I wish now more than ever that he would just stop talking already. "You have until tomorrow morning to decide who you want your partner to be and you will all be paired up then. On Monday you will receive the first part of your scenario. There will be five parts in total, each adding new information such as the family expanding or somebody being laid off from work or a rain storm ruining your roof. You get the idea. You will be required to provide budget plans and write essays on various subjects, to name a few examples of what this will entail."

He keeps on talking but I stop listening. I'm feeling a knot in my stomach just thinking about this project. It was dumb enough on its own but having to be paired up with some guy I don't even know and play house with him? I get the basic point of the exercise, that we should learn to handle our finances and probably that we should get some insight to how relationships require compromise, but I don't think we'll get much out of it. I know how to feed my family in a pinch but I can't exactly suggest my poaching as a way to make ends meet and how exactly are we to learn about compromising in a relationship when paired up with someone we don't want to actually be married to? At least when people get married they choose one another and they want to make things work and they have similarities that bring them together. Pairing up with some guy at random isn't going to properly reflect that. Why should I even want to compromise for some classmate I barely know?

The class finally ends and I grab my books and shove them in my bag. I'm in even more of a hurry now to get out into the woods and get a chance to clear my head. I can only hope I'll be one of the last girls whose name is drawn and I'll have a much smaller pool of guys to choose from but with my luck I'll probably be the first one to pick. It's downright embarrassing. What if I pick some other girl's boyfriend? I don't pay much attention to my classmates' lives. There could be any number of couples in our class and I haven't got the faintest idea. I look over at Madge and wonder if she at least knows which guys are single, or which ones are complete jerks.

As I leave the classroom I hear a voice behind me.

"You okay?"

At first I don't even realize the question is addressed to me. When nobody else answers it I look over my shoulder and I'm surprised to see Peeta Mellark looking back at me, one eyebrow raised and a look of what might be concern in his eyes.

"What?" I ask.

"Are you okay? You look a little... rattled."

I scowl. The last thing I need is for some popular merchant boy to think the assignment makes me uncomfortable. It does, but most of the other girls, and boys for that matter, seem to find it exciting. I don't want to come off as socially inept in comparison.

"I'm fine."

"Okay" he nods. "Good."

I turn my head to look forward again and keep moving, expecting the conversation to be over. Peeta Mellark has never said two words to me in the twelve years we've been schoolmates so there's no reason we'd have a chat now all of a sudden.

"So who are you picking?" he asks.

I turn to look at him again, scowl in place.

"Huh?"

"Tomorrow. For the project. Who's your pick?"

"How is that any of your business?" I ask, sounding so unfriendly that my mother would freak out if she could hear me.

"Curious minds want to know."

I can't for the life of me figure out why this would matter to him. There are a few guys in our class who might be concerned nobody's going to pick them and they'll end up without a girl partner but Peeta is hardly one of them. He has no shortage of friends and I know there are a number of girls in our class who probably wouldn't mind being partnered up with him for this project.

"So..." he says casually and I realize he's now walking beside me, carrying his books by using one arm to press them to his chest. "What do you think of the project? Interesting or stupid?"

"Stupid" I mutter.

"Yeah I guess" he says with a short laugh. He then seems like he's about to say something but changes his mind. He notices my not entirely friendly glare and gives me an awkward smile. "I think Mallory Grey is going to pick me."

"Okay" I say, wondering why he's giving me this information.

"Is it just me or is she a little... scary?"

I almost laugh, though I don't know why. Mallory Grey is the daughter of one of the women who work at the Justice Building and while she can definitely be a bit pushy I don't know if scary is the word I'd attribute to her.

"I guess I'm kind of wondering if you'd like to help me get off the hook, here" says Peeta, blushing a little. "If you don't have somebody else in mind for a partner, I mean."

I stop. He stops too, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and looking a bit uncomfortable. A lock of blonde hair hangs over his brow and I find myself wishing he would push it back with the rest of his curls where it belongs. I'm having a bit of trouble comprehending that Peeta Mellark, the boy with the bread, is speaking to me in the first place. The idea that he just asked me to pick him for a partner is mind-boggling. I never so much as thanked him for throwing me that bread all those years ago. Why would he want the first thing to do with me now? This can't be his idea of me owing him a favour. Can it? Or, even worse, is it all some kind of joke to see if I'm stupid enough to fall for it?

"Why me?" I ask after a moment, already insulted that he might be asking me because he takes for granted that I wouldn't have a clear choice in mind already.

"Because you seem smart and I wouldn't mind having a creative partner on this thing" he says. "Plus my father speaks highly of your mother so I'm thinking you're... probably a neat person, too."

I frown. His father talks about my mother? Why on earth would he do that? How would he even know who she is? Then again, my mother did grow up in town and maybe she and Mr. Mellark knew each other way back when. They are probably roughly the same age. Though I hadn't thought anybody in town would have anything good to say about the apothecary's daughter who ran off with a coal miner.

"My mother and I are nothing alike" I say.

"Okay." Peeta sounds unsure and he shifts his weight over to his other foot. "Well, maybe you can think about it? I'll see you around."

He walks off in the direction of the lockers and I watch him go, wondering what on earth just happened. Why would a merchant boy want to be paired up with me for something like this? If he wants to avoid partnering with Mallory Grey there are several other girls he could ask. Madge, for instance.

I head for my locker and put my books away. I don't have any homework to do for tomorrow except, I guess, to decide which guy I want to play house with for the following months. After grabbing my jacket I angrily slam my locker shut. This is the stupidest project I've heard of in all my life and I don't see what use I will have of it. They could have at least paired us up at random and taken some of the edge off. Maybe they want to give people who are dating someone in class a chance to pretend being married with their possible future spouse but why torment the rest of us?

I take another look out the window and see that the snow has thankfully stopped falling. On a less fortunate note I can tell that it won't be light out much longer. I need to hurry up and get home so I can change my clothes and go out hunting. At least if we can have some meat on the table tonight the day won't be a complete failure.

I know this is only a short opening chapter but any thoughts/comments are much appreciated!