A/N: After a recent discussion with another fic writer, I decided to write this. I do not write many songfics. I find them… cheesy?*giggles* But this song is just too fitting not to write into a fic about how the relationships we witness as children affect our interactions as adults.

Disclaimer: The Hunger Games and all the characters in this fic are the property of Suzanne Collins. 'Because of You' belongs to Kelly Clarkson, her production label and anyone else who makes money off this song. I certainly do not. I'm only doing this for kicks.

Enjoy!

'You're really one pathetic excuse for a coward', the sixteen-year-old frowned at the face staring back in the mirror.

Portia and his prep team had once again outdone themselves. Not an ash blonde hair out of place. It was impossible to tell they'd applied any make up at all, likely because they'd used so little. Portia'd insisted his facial bone structure was simply too spectacular to need more than basic pale rouge highlighting to glow on stage- whatever that meant. His suit was one of the most comfortable things he'd ever worn, the fabric so light and breathable it felt as if he was wearing nothing at all.

Although, Portia had made some disparaging comment about the accents not doing justice to the iridescent azure in his eyes, she'd huffed and shrugged it off easily, adding that he was handsome enough to pull it off... and he and Katniss would only further showcase each other's grandeur dressed this way.

The meaning behind his quirky designer's parting comment wasn't clear to him. He'd yet to catch a glimpse of his district partner at all that day and hadn't been graced by her company much of the previous day, as she'd made her disdain for him pointedly clear the moment Haymitch had stated his intent to be coached separately for the interviews. It was an admittedly pusillanimous and yet inherently necessary decision if he was to go through with what he'd planned.

He didn't really know her beyond his observations of her through the years and the few awkward and somewhat forced words he'd managed to wrangle out of her over the past few days since they'd been reaped, but he knew enough to know she'd misinterpreted his request for isolation as some sort of personal offense against her. He'd witnessed her harden, grow distant, distrusting of others after her father's death. He was fairly certain she hated him or was planning the best way to kill him this point. Probably both.

He could live however short a time he had with that. At least, if it meant she got to live the rest of her life resenting him for it, anyway.

The teen let out a frustrated breath, fighting the urge to run his hand through his perfectly styled hair. Truth was he hated that Katniss was still in the dark. He hated that she hated him. But, regardless the effort expanded in this singular feat, he could not find it within to tell her how he felt beforehand- not when it meant finding the words while losing himself in those infinite steel eyes. He'd unsuccessfully tried for over a decade, after all. From the age of five, a fleeting glance from her rendered what he'd known since he'd gain the ability for speech to be an impressive gift for eloquence completely useless.

Yes. He was a coward. He'd be an arrogant blowhard not to admit it.

Almost as far as he could remember, every time he tried to confront her with his feelings, something dark interloped… stifled... choked. Even moments prior, when the mocha-skinned Capitolite woman mentioned the Seam huntress' name, he felt that twinge of apprehension, of yes, fear, that had become as familiar to him as an old friend, twist at his gut.

And now, as he continued to stare at his immaculate reflection, he found the emotion inexorably transporting him back to that first time he'd been resolved to tell the healer's daughter exactly how he felt about her. He could feel his pulse thrum stronger in his veins at the mere recollection.

He'd been a very young child. It'd been his very first day of kindergarten. His father had pointed out the most amazing, most beautiful girl in the entire universe to him and he was going to marry her. Only problem was- she wasn't in his class. She was in the other kindergarten class. But, he'd been resolved not to let that stop him.

He was going to marry the pretty, dark-haired girl with the voice that made the birds stop singing.

He'd run all the way home ahead of his older brothers, ignoring Flax's frantic admonitions for him to slow down before he hurt himself. He couldn't be bothered with the threat of a scraped knee when his future love life hung in the balance, after all. He'd had a plan. If he couldn't talk to her at school, he'd ask his dad to take him to her house. He knew her mom, right? That meant his dad knew where she lived. He could get him to her and he'd tell her he loved her and when they got big enough, they'd be together.

So ecstatic was he when he'd dashed through the front door of his family's bakery, he'd failed to notice the odd fact the counter had been unattended. He just swooped under it as he'd always done; making a beeline for the kitchen until he was stopped by the enraged voice that rang clear through the doorway. He'd frozen at the sheer agonized indignation that tinged his mother's inflection. He'd heard her raising her voice plenty of times, but it'd never sounded like that.

"How did you honestly think I'd react to you telling me you showed my son who that woman's filthy child is? What did you tell him about her? Don't touch me! Don't even come near me. Just answer me!"

Peeta'd backed away from the door confused, turning to see his older brothers entering the shop. Flax had immediately locked the door and flipped the sign to 'closed' before grabbing Rye's hand and roughly pulling him under the counter to where their baby brother stood gaping horrified at the things he was hearing from within the kitchen. The eldest of the Mellark boys had maneuvered his younger siblings to a corner behind the counter and slumped down, each of them curled into his side. Rye'd held both hands adamantly to his ears, but Peeta was too transfixed by the words his mother vociferated to have the good sense to protect himself from the influx.

"Did you tell him you're still in love with her? Did you tell him she rejected you and that's why you settled for me?" Suddenly, they'd heard something crash (or maybe it was thrown) and jumped in unison at the abrupt clatter. "How did you spin that one, huh? How did you explain to your five-year-old that you don't love his mother? I told you not to touch me!" At this point, her voice had been breaking with the tears the boys could almost visualize flowing down her pallid cheeks freely.

They'd heard some violent shuffling and what sounded like grunting before their father's decidedly softer voice had rung through, obviously trying to placate her. "I've never been unfaithful to you. I take care of you and our boys. I will never abandon you. How much more would you ask of a loyal husband?"

They'd heard the violent shuffling again, then the sound of footfalls violently stomping away up the stairs, followed by the dejected, mournful near wail, "I would ask the love that's due a wife from her husband, the love I stupidly believed was my right the day you agreed to our toasting… my mistake."

When his father had exited the kitchen a few moments later with that broken, despairing glaze to his eyes and looked down upon the three of them bundled together in that corner, he'd immediately enfolded them in his massive arms. He'd murmured nearly incoherent apologies for things none of them really understood.

By the time his father's released them to go re-open the shop, tears had been streaming down Peeta's plump little cheeks and he didn't know why. But, that strange churning feeling had begun in his tummy whenever he thought of telling his father he liked the pretty girl with the two braids he'd pointed out in school that day.

He decided to wait a little while and find out where Katniss lived on his own.

Portia and his team finished with him far too early for his taste and sanity, the sixteen-year-old mused ruefully, trying in vain to block out the onslaught of unwelcome reminiscing that seemed bent on domineering his psyche. The preps always joked he was too pretty to need much work as opposed to Katniss, who was such a train wreck, a day was barely sufficient to make her presentable. He wholeheartedly disagreed, of course. He'd believed her beautiful long before anyone Capitol had laid a finger on her. However, the standards here were ridiculous and apparently, torture was required to make women what these people considered attractive.

He loathed that he had so much solitary time today. Too much time translated into malapropos ruminations of what he intended during that interview in a few hours. It meant he had to come to terms with his decisions. It meant he had to remember things, people; circumstances he'd all the sooner prefer were locked away in whatever dark recess of his mind his nightmares inhabited.

He stared out his strange 'window' (or whatever the high-tech glass projector that resembled a window in his room was, anyway) at the Capitol people excitedly going along their daily lives and found his mind wandering back to the one time he'd built up the courage to do what was right by the girl he cared about more than anything.

He'd seen her wilting down to skin and bones for weeks in school. He couldn't allow her to die, but he was at a loss as to how to help her. Sneaking food from the bakery was impossible. His mother kept the inventory and watched them like a hawk as they ate so they could never sneak table scraps, not that they had enough to spare. But, he would've eaten every other day if it meant she lived.

It'd been Rye's turn to work the ovens that afternoon, but he had to study for some math test and begged him to switch shifts with him. He was failing the class and failing a class meant, their mother would light up his older brother's hide to the point he wouldn't be able to show his face or likely move right for days. The decision took Peeta all of a quarter second to make.

He was stoking the coals in the ovens when he heard the commotion coming from outside.

He was going to ignore it at first. His mother going on a tangent was hardly front-page news. He just felt sorry for the poor bastard who'd fallen victim to the woman's razor sharp tongue. Then, he caught wind of some really nasty things she was screaming about the Seam and his stomach turned. Those people had it rough enough without being maligned by an embittered hag. Wiping his hands on a clean rag, he made his way to the back door with the intention of making some random excuse to gain his mother's attention. Maybe, that would allow whoever she was accosting a chance to make an escape.

It was a good thing whatever his mother had said to her had her swiftly replacing the lid to their trash bin and hastily if wobbly backing away from their back door in the direction of their pigpen, where she slumped against their tree, because he was frozen in place the moment he saw her. In fact, he barely registered when the back door closed, blocking out his view of her or the nasty remark his mother made that he had baking to get back to as she roughly brushed his shoulder while passing him on the way back to the kitchen.

All he could see for that fraction of a second as he stared at the grain of the door was an emaciated eleven-year-old, barely strong enough to move, shaking in the rain.

That's still all he was seeing as he swiftly moved away from the door toward the ovens and slid two of the heartiest, most expensive loaves they sold into the flames he'd just stoked moments before. He held onto that image as the acrid smell rose from the oven and the dark smoke filled his lungs, causing his eyes to sting and water. He started coughing just as his mother came into the kitchen from the front room enraged.

He was busying himself with removing the darkened loaves from the fire, too distracted by the burning in his chest and the moisture building in his eyes to notice his mother picking up the rolling pin from the metal prep table. The smoke that blanketed the room made the impact completely unforeseeable until he found his face turned from the sheer force of it. However, the macabre image of the girl he loved dying of starvation, curiously anesthetized from both the pain and the harshness of the words his mother brandished callously upon him as she shoved him out the door.

He was still in some bizarre adrenaline/mortification-induced stupor when he stumbled out the door, barely registering his mother's choleric, insult-laced command that he feed the ruined bread to the animals in the pen. He didn't dare look up, as he mechanically broke off the smallest pieces possible in an attempt to stall for time. He hadn't thought further ahead than this point. If he was completely honest with himself, he hadn't even thought this little revolt out this far in the first place. He'd acted on instinct and passion. And, now that he was out there, being pelted by freezing rain, holding back tears of fear and smoke inhalation while trying not to look completely pathetic in front of the girl of his dreams a few yards away- his courage had just about fizzled out.

For this reason, he was eternally grateful to whoever the unseen patron was who decided that precise moment they needed baked goods.

His mother predictably snorted, choosing the paying customer over chaperoning the feeding of their pigs. He was certain she'd finish her handiwork on redecorating his anatomy later. It all depended on how well that transaction with whoever was at the store went. His mother tended to have a short memory when she had a full purse.

Focusing his eyes on his family's pigs, mortified to so much as glance in the prone girl's direction, he used the brief respite from his mother's company- as soon as he'd made sure she was out of view, of course- and launched the two loaves in the direction of the old apple tree.

As soon as they were out of his grasp, he made as quick a retreat back to his home as he could and slammed the door behind him, his pulse pounding in his ears as he slumped heavily against it. It took him several moments to compose himself enough to run a shaking hand through his hair before venturing a quick look through the back window, cringing with guilt at the afterthought that he just chucked the bread at her. Threw it at the ground without even aiming... in the pouring rain... like she was nothing more than an animal.

He was such a coward.

Thankfully, by the time he'd ventured the small shred of courage to look out that window, there was no sign of her... or the bread.

Peeta found himself forced out of his musing by the almost frenetic raping at his door he'd come to recognize passed for normal for Effie Trinket. This was immediately followed by a shrill and far too cheerful, considering the somber ambiance within the bedroom, "It's time! Let's get going. We don't want to be the last ones down, do we?" ringing through the closed entryway.

With one last look at his reflection in the mirror, the blonde schooled his features into the all too familiar facade of congeniality he'd mastered over a lifetime.

Curiously, he felt much of the apprehension from earlier leave him as he moved with purpose out the door and toward the elevator.

He even found himself chuckling lightly to himself at the irony as he waited for Katniss to arrive.

Figured what it would take him to find the courage to confess his feelings for her would be the equivalent to forfeiting his life on national television.

Every muscle in her body seemed to scream in agony.

That was the last straw. Peeta Mellark had to die.

Maybe she really could do what Haymitch had once suggested, half-joking, a couple of weeks prior and sneak in one of his open windows while he slept- smother him with a pillow. Honestly, how much stronger than her could he really be if she caught him completely by surprise, all snuggled up in bed- the sadistic tyrant.

The edge of the seventeen-year-old's lip quirked up at her own devious machinations as she lay splayed on the side lawn of what had recently become her most abhorred neighbor's home. She tried to achieve level breathing, something that caused copious amounts of pain after the aforementioned had forced her to do five sets of twenty-five squats interspersed with twenty-five push-ups within the last hour.

She needed this kid dead. She wasn't sure anymore if he was really trying to make her stronger for the Quell or just liked getting his kicks from watching her crawl home after these little torture sessions of his.

She flopped onto her stomach with a pained groan just as the conversation from the front porch reached her. She'd all but forgotten they had an audience that day. Or, more precisely, Peeta had an audience. Some of his merchant friends had decided to visit to provide moral support during training.

She'd pretty much ignored them. She wasn't trying to be antisocial, specifically. Nevertheless, she couldn't help note that the three spectators were female. She didn't really mesh well with other members of her sex. They just didn't have the same things in common. And besides, where were all of Peeta's male friends? She knew he had quite a few of those. He was on the wrestling team in school. Why weren't they coming around?

There was a little voice in the rational part of her mind, admonishing they were likely at their jobs, since Merchant men were expected to take up their family's trade once they were out of school and out of the reapings. She was far too tired to pay much mind to weak voices in the back of her mind on that particular day.

She'd just gone through her routines as instructed by her taskmaster as he went through his and ignored as he joked and chatted with his friends. She also adamantly ignored that little churn in the pit of her stomach every time one of them touched him. They were allowed to touch him. They were his friends. She used to touch Gale all the time when they'd hunt.

So why did she want to break their fingers, again?

As the sound of their conversation grew closer, she felt like she was encroaching on their privacy. But, curiously, not enough to make her presence around the bend on the home known and, from the tone of their conversation, they were completely oblivious to their audience of one within earshot on the ground as they sat on the swing on his porch. They continued what was apparently a conversation they'd been carrying on as they walked toward the home from the front yard, where Katniss knew Peeta was martyrizing/training poor Haymitch.

The Seam huntress sat up on her elbows, straining to her their nearly whispered colloquy.

"...for nearly six years, I went to every single wrestling match and he never looked this good. I have no idea if it's because he's rich now and he can eat whatever he wants, but I would do literally anything he asked. Just look at him."

The raven-haired girl felt every muscle stiffen and her blood run cold upon hearing the unknown girl's flippant statement. She knew there was no way the girl was referring to her middle aged mentor just as surely as she knew she had no right whatsoever to the emotion causing her veins to boil. That didn't stop the flush to burn up her body, however.

"Soley! You shouldn't say those things about him. He loves her. You know that." Katniss could hear the outrage in the voice of whoever this other girl was as she hissed a quick reprimand. "And you know he wouldn't be here if it weren't for her. She helped get him back to us. You should be grateful to her for that. Besides, he's always kissing her. You saw them on the tour..."

"Oh, please, Ace! You and I both know firsthand that is not what kissing Peeta Mellark is like", the first girl hissed back defensively and the Seam huntress found herself rubbing a hand up and down her face almost manically to keep from making the aggravated sound threatening at the back of her throat.

Of, course the nicest human being alive would stay friends with his ex-girlfriends. And, of course, there would be one that would have "clinging" issues. The question here was; why did this even bother her?

She had zero claim to Peeta. She'd promised to get him out of the Quell alive. Albeit, this was a promise she'd been questioning as of late, but one she knew she would ultimately keep. Beyond that, they were friends. He'd confessed he'd noticed other girls beyond her. Why did the knowledge that someone else knew what his lips felt like make her want to scream?

"Stop it, Soley!" This was the third girl. This was the first time Katniss had heard her speak. She didn't sound outraged. Her voice was laced with poorly restrained indignation. "He chose her. He loves her. She is his fiancée."

Almost before she could get the last word out, the first girl was already retorting. There was a choked quality to her intonation as if she was holding back a sob. "No, Lacy, you're actually Rye's fiancée. You've held him, comforted him, and been with him from the moment he found out his baby brother was going back into that nightmare. That's what real love is. That's what Peeta deserves. Have you ever genuinely seen or heard her do that for him even once? Huh? I don't think she's ever told him she cares for him half as much as he confessed he loves her. I don't think she's even capable of it. I think she's as screwed up as her mother."

The Merchant girl's words hit like a physical impact and, all at once, Katniss could not fill her lungs with enough air, regardless how hard she gasped.

"...she's as screwed up as her mother." The words rang through her mind, blurring her vision into a different place- a different time.

She'd been twelve for only a few months and the novelty of it was fresh. She was so excited when she'd arrived home after making a round to the Justice Building after school that day, her baby sister's toy wagon carrying their monthly ration of tesserae grain and oil. The eight-year-old had met her with an impossibly beaming smile and eyes large with the anticipation of forthcoming nourishment as she always did on days like these. It put a bounce in her step as she headed out to the meadow and beyond the fence to see what else she could find to augment their future meals. She'd managed to make it home with her very first wild turkey.

Of course, it'd taken all afternoon for the bird to stupidly, waddle under the tree she'd been sitting in and now it was dark. But, it was well worth it to be able to eat turkey. She didn't even have a clear recollection of the last time she'd had any.

Unfortunately, as she inched closer to home, another realization struck... she had no idea how to dress a wild turkey. She'd seen her father do it dozens of times before he'd died, but he'd never shown her how it was actually done.

She was going to need help. She was going to need her help. She bitterly swallowed the lump in her throat and forced back the tears that stung at the back of her eyes before entering her small home.

Prim had to be fed, darn it. She'd drag her by her hair if she had to...

The first thing she noted upon entering her home was the complete darkness and lack of sound. She felt her way to the kitchen and lit the stove for some light, simultaneously setting a kettle with water to boil for tea. She put on a second pot to make a broth with some greens she'd picked the previous day for Prim and her to share for dinner. It wasn't much, but it would hold them until she could make some rolls with the grain she'd brought home earlier.

Next, she ventured into the bedroom to get the next task out of the way as quickly as possible. To her surprise, she only found her little sister taking a nap, her mother nowhere to be found.

Slightly worried now, she left the small bedroom and was just about to leave through the front door in search of her wayward mother when the light from the stove reflected off a lone figure, hunched over in a chair in the furthest corner of the small living space, facing the wall. The way her whole frame shuddered made it obvious she was sobbing.

Katniss was too tired of this routine. "Mom, I caught a turkey. I need you to show me how to dress it." Her tone was clipped and emotionless. She had no time to waste on kind words for someone who was unwilling to help herself anymore.

As the child expected, the blonde woman's posture didn't shift whatsoever at the sound of her voice. Therefore, running both hand's worth of her nails in frustration through her head, Katniss swiftly cut the distance between her and her mother. She placed both hands on her shoulders roughly as she bent forward so that she was almost nose-to-nose with the despondent woman. She started shaking her violently as she spat, "Mom, you have to dress this turkey. I don't know how and we're not going to let perfectly good food go to waste. Do you hear me? Get up. Fix this stupid bird, right now!"

As a result of being shaken, the woman lost her grip on what she'd been holding tightly to her chest and, as it clattered to the floor, she finally locked her red-rimmed, tear-stained eyes with her daughter's as if seeing her for the first time. She furrowed her brows and her lip twitched as if to reply to her previous harangue. However, in the end, she only wordlessly lifted herself from the chair, making her way to the kitchen, her movements mechanical and almost painful.

The twelve-year-old wrested her eyes away from her, fighting the pang of remorse at her actions that tried to claw its way into her chest. Pity wasn't going to get any of them fed. Her eyes settled on what had landed on the floor when she had shaken the older woman out of her languor.

A wave of rage, sadness and unfathomable longing threatened to suffocate her as her gaze traced the detail of the photograph of her parents' toasting.

In that instant, fighting back the agonizing tears she was sure she'd let out later, in the privacy of her bed- she made a silent oath to herself she'd never feel that much for anyone in her lifetime. She was never getting married. She was never having children.

She would not become her mother.

"Well someone's completely zoned out and neglecting her training responsibilities. If she don't have to do anymore of this crap, I'm on strike too, warden."

Katniss startled out of her reverie to find Haymitch sprawled on the grass a few feet before her, his head supported by a fist on one propped up elbow. His expression was an infuriating mix of superiority and amusement.

A scathing retort was on the tip of her tongue when her eyes darted up to a heavily panting blonde who'd just jogged around the bend of the house into her periphery. He scowled down at her in disapproval, both hands going up in the air as he gasped out, "You can't just quit after a little strain, Katniss. Your body has to get used to the stress of the work outs." His blue eyes now shifted down to their mentor as he moved to stand right behind him. "And you're supposed to be jogging, no breaks for another hour. Now, get moving." He punctuated his command with a non-too-gentle shove to the older Victor's rear-end with his foot.

Haymitch looked positively livid as he propelled himself to his feet, rearing to charge the much younger man. "Did you just kick me with that Capitol manufactured piece of crap, you self-righteous piece of-"

"HAYMITCH!"

A foot away from a completely sanguine Peeta, the recovering alcoholic turned his eyes back to the now standing Seam huntress with something akin to curiosity.

"You're not going to beat this psychotic idea of training us half to death out of him. He's as stubborn as you are, two decades younger and, right now, a whole lot stronger. Just do what he says and we can all go home all the sooner." By statement's end, her voice had achieved a whining quality much like that of a petulant six-year-old, but she didn't care. Everything hurt. She wanted to finish with this nightmare and get into a scalding hot bathtub.

The old mentor snorted unhappily, clearly unwilling to verbally, acquiesce to her argument. Still, he took off jogging in the direction of the unoccupied houses in the village.

"Thanks for the back up."

She wasn't sure if it was the fact that she was still shaken from the recent unsavory trip down memory lane or the fact that she was feeling particularly defensive at what she'd overheard, but the question found its way out through her lips as if of its own accord. "Are your little girlfriends still here to fawn over you?"

The baker's youngest couldn't help the way both one end of his mouth and an eyebrow quirked up at the inquiry. It was just too unexpected. It was all he could do not to outright chuckle. "I haven't had an actual girlfriend in couple of years, Katniss. But, yes, they left a few minutes ago.

The raven-haired girl ruminated this for a moment, keeping her eyes set on their mentor's retreating form, before asking the follow up question she knew she had no business asking, but still found herself in dire need to know the answer to in order to maintain composure for some yet unfathomable reason. "But they were your girlfriends at some point, right?"

Peeta's smirk grew into a full-blown grin. Did she even realize she was blushing? "Not all of them." He purposely kept his response as ambiguous as possible.

Katniss snapped her head around to level an icy glare at him, to which he only responded by shrugging innocently, the smile never leaving his face. This only caused the Seam teenager to narrow her eyes at him in frustration. "Why aren't you with one of those girls now? They seemed interested enough while they were here."

The smile ever-present, Peeta shortened the distance between them inching his face so close to hers, she was certain he was going to kiss her. She found herself eagerly anticipating the kiss. However, at the last second he veered off just right, instead whispering in her ear, "You still owe me a lap around the district before you can go home, sweetheart."

With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, she braced both palms squarely against his chest and shoved... hard. She took off running in the opposite direction as his laugh echoed behind her, causing her to snicker to herself as she ran. His laugh was infectious.

As she traipsed through the district, her mind wandered back to the accusation Peeta's admirer had launched against her and her own dark recollection.

It was true, in a sense.

She had never told the boy with the bread what he meant to her. He'd saved her and she'd never told him what he meant to her. Well, that had to be resolved. Seam did not owe debts to anyone.

She would make sure that Peeta Mellark knew exactly why he deserved to survive the seventy-fifth annual Quarter Quell.

FIN

A/N: Ugh! Yes. I was in one of those moods when I wrote this and, yes, if you've ever read any of my other work, you're well aware of the 'mommy issues'.XD If you liked this…

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