Chapter 1: Dreamed a Dream

Katniss stood awkwardly on the outskirts of the large ballroom, her weight shifting from one foot to the other as she twiddled with the pendant on her necklace. Her nerves were getting the best of her; nerves that arose from a number of things.

First was her general discomfort of having to be in a room full of strangers. Katniss didn't really know how to act around a large crowd, especially when wearing a dress and heels. The one person in the room she knew was her faculty mentor, Professor Abernathy, but he seemed too preoccupied at the punch bowl, which was most likely spiked by some prankster undergrad.

Second was the anxiety that always followed her whenever her boyfriend Cato wasn't around. He was a jealous and controlling man and she hadn't told him about the banquet tonight; probably because he would have forbade her to go, and partly because she didn't want to get her hopes up. To call him her boyfriend would be too kind a word; more like her captor, but if the rest of the night went in her favor, maybe his hold on her would loosen and she could be free.

The final contributing factor to her nerves was the small pit of excitement she had tried to keep at bay since she had gotten that letter six weeks ago. She had read it so many times to remind herself that it was real.

Dear Miss Everdeen,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen as a finalist for the Presidential Endowed Graduate Scholarship. You are cordially invited to join your fellow finalists, faculty mentors and board members at a banquet held in your honor, where the final winner will be announced. Attire is formal...

Katniss took a deep breath; her life had been filled with disappointment and she wasn't ready for another one. As much as she wanted to feel excited about the opportunity, she refused herself the luxury. Katniss knew what winning would mean.

It would pay for her student loans, would help pay for Prim's college tuition, and she could quit her job and be free from Cato. Despite having to provide for both herself and Prim ever since their father died before Katniss's freshman year in college, Katniss refused to settle on a mediocre life for herself, and especially for Prim. Their mother had fallen into such a deep depression after their father's death that Katniss was forced to pick up the pieces and do what she could to provide the best for Prim. She knew that her own schooling would be important in the bigger scheme of things in order to provide Prim with the life she deserved, but Katniss could only take out so many loans and eventually had to seek out more gainful means of employment. Prim was going to start college in a few months and Katniss wasn't proud of the things she had to do to keep their finances afloat. Winning the scholarship tonight could change things.

Katniss refused to let the optimism get the best of her and anchored herself once more by twirling her pendant around her fingers.

"That's a really nice necklace."

The voice shook her from her thoughts and she jumped at the sudden intrusion. Only then did she realize that directly in front of her was a man's broad chest, dressed in a black suit and forest green tie. She thanked him, and brought her eyes up to meet his. They were the bluest pair of eyes she had ever seen.

Katniss was not a woman of many words, but had she looked up into those eyes five seconds earlier, she doubt her brain could have even managed the pathetic, "Thanks," she had muttered in return. As she tried not to gawk at her new blonde haired, blue-eyed acquaintance, her ears managed hear him ask her to dance. The most she could muster was an affirmative nod and she composed herself enough to place her hand in his when he offered it to her.

Peeta was not thrilled about representing his family at the scholarship banquet. The Mellarks were generous donors to the University of Panem and his mother would not allow an invitation to a formal function thrown by the University to go unattended. She cared too much about the family's reputation, but apparently the scholarship banquet was not important enough for the matriarch of the family to attend herself. Peeta ended up with the "honor".

Peeta surveyed the room and found that many female eyes were watching him. Whether it was his handsome appearance, or his reputation as the heir to a rather large family fortune that drew the looks and suggestive smirks from the women around him, he didn't know or care. He had learned his lesson having dealt with his fair share of gold diggers and high maintenance co-eds during his time attending the University of Panem. He had graduated only two years before, but the girls hadn't change. They were all the same, superficial girls he had casually dated during his time as a student.

He continued to skim the room, biding his time until the winning announcement was made and he could slip away from the rest of the banquet unnoticed.

The color of her dress was what caught his eye, first. It was a deep orange color, his favorite, and it reminded him of the summer sunsets he used to watch on the beach during Mellark family vacations. Peeta noticed the fabric of the skirt swaying back and forth and saw the owner of the dress rocking nervously on her feet. He finally looked up at her face and saw a distant look in her eyes, and watched as she restlessly played with her necklace. He could tell by her expression that her mind was in a million places at once, and he found himself relieved that she was one of a handful of women in the room that wasn't staring at him. It was endearing that she seemed to wear her emotions on her face, and he felt oddly compelled to go talk to her and hopefully quell some of the nervousness that spilled over into her every action and expression. His feet found his way over to her and resisted the urge to chuckle as he stood in front of her for a good minute without her realizing his presence.

As he led her to the dance floor and placed a hand on her waist, Katniss still couldn't believe she had said yes. Well, more like gestured "yes" since her brain and mouth had seemed to disconnect the moment she saw those blue eyes. There were so many reasons she should have turned him down.

First and foremost was Cato. If Cato knew she was at this banquet, she knew he would be upset, but if he found out she danced with another man, especially one this attractive, he would go ballistic. Katniss should know better than to get on Cato's bad side.

Second was her aversion to the male species in general. In her current line of work, most of the men she encountered were disrespectful pigs and her "boyfriend" could be considered to be the biggest pig of all. Typically, the line "That's a really nice necklace" meant that they were looking at something entirely different than her jewelry; more likely the part of her body that it rested on. Yet here she was, dancing with this tall, blonde, handsome man after he used that exact line.

She slowly brought her eyes up to meet his and realized she couldn't have turned down those blue eyes, even if her brain could have remembered all the reasons to say "no".

He continued to lead her as they floated along the dance floor, effortlessly maneuvering around the other dancing couples. Katniss suddenly became aware of the searing looks burning into her back from pretty much every female in attendance. She couldn't blame them. Her mystery man was gorgeous and she was nothing special.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Katniss. Katniss Everdeen," she replied. "What's yours?"

She tried to ignore the look of confusion on his face when she finished her question. She felt insecure enough being so close to him and didn't need any more reasons to feel inadequate. "Peeta. Peeta Mellark," he responded.

Katniss tried to place the name; she knew she had heard it before. Perhaps he was a fellow scholarship finalist, yet the tailored suit he wore and the way he carried himself made her question that assumption. Somebody like him probably never needed a scholarship. She continued to wrack her brain to find the connection with the name.

He must have realized that her mind was some place else, and that she was uncomfortably filling the silence between them with the thoughts that raced in her head. His voice brought her back again.

"You're a very graceful dancer," Peeta complimented. "Very light on your feet."

She knew she should be flattered by his words, but instead she tried to hold in a smirk. If he only knew...

Peeta was uncomfortable around a woman for the first time in his life. Usually he was charming and the women would melt at his words, turning into giggling, flirty airheads. This girl Katniss Everdeen was proving to be a challenge.

But Peeta was never one to shy away from a challenge.

He was intrigued by how different she was from any other woman he had interacted with. Her face gave her away and she often found herself lost in her thoughts. He found it adorable when she furrowed her brow in concentration after he told her his name. That was probably what shocked Peeta the most: the fact that she seemed to genuinely not know who he was.

He wanted to get to know this girl.

The song finished and he hesitated for a moment before letting go of her waist and hand. The second his hands left her, she immediately reached for the pendant around her neck like it was a security blanket. He glanced at the pendant again and noticed that it was a bird flapping its wings, with an arrow between its talons. He was about to open his mouth to ask her about it when he was interrupted by a cheery female voice on the microphone.

"Welcome, welcome everybody to the Presidential Endowed Graduate Scholarship banquet! My name is Effie Trinket and I am the head of the University of Panem Scholarship Committee".

Katniss had become familiar with Miss Trinket throughout the application process. The woman had a bubbly personality, almost to the point that it irritated Katniss, but she couldn't deny that Miss Trinket was a tremendous help throughout the past few months while Katniss compiled her credentials and applied for the scholarship.

Miss Trinket continued to speak, informing the audience about the history of the scholarship. It was awarded to one graduating senior and would pay off all the student loans they had accrued during their four years at the university.

Katniss realized she was holding her breath. Then she remembered that she was still standing next to Peeta Mellark. The name was so familiar to her but she still couldn't seem to place it. Her thought process was again broken as Miss Trinket invited all the finalists to the stage.

She turned to Peeta and thanked him for the dance and flashed him a small smile. The smile he returned made her heart jump. She made her way to the stage and was joined by the other five finalists.

As part of the program, the finalists were to present their senior projects to the crowd. The scholarship winner had already been decided behind closed doors, so the presentations tonight did not effect the final outcome. The program was more of a way to showcase the university's diverse talent and encourage attendants to donate money to the school. One by one, each finalist approached the podium and talked about their projects and future plans; topics that ranged from government to business, science to engineering. Katniss was the last to go. Since she was a music and theater major, rather than speak, she was going to sing.

As Katniss was introduced, she was joined by her faculty mentor, Professor Haymitch Abernathy, who was the man who taught her how to act. Singing came naturally to her; her dearest memories were listening to her father's beautiful voice and joining him while he sat at the piano. It was there that she fell in love with song, and eventually musical theater, and she knew that she wanted to be on the stage. It was where she felt closest to her father, especially now that he was gone. But she had a rude awakening when she first joined Professor Abernathy's drama class.

One of the first scenes that they acted out was the final scene in Romeo and Juliet. It was when Juliet awoke in the tomb only to discovered that Romeo had poisoned himself. Having never been in love, she tried her best to play half of the "Star-Crossed Lovers" routine. After the scene was over, Professor Abernathy was brutally honest. "You're supposed to be in love, sweetheart. The boy's dying. Give me something I can work with!". They stubbornly butt heads but Professor Abernathy could tell the passion Katniss had and continued to challenge her. After enough practice, Katniss could at least present herself as a decent actress and she hoped her singing would get her the rest of the way.

She took a deep breath and stepped up to the microphone. The song she chose to sing was from one of her favorite Broadway musicals, Les Miserables. It was a song she could relate to, sung by a character in a similar predicament as Katniss's. The character, Fantine, did what she had to after she was abandoned and forced to care for her child alone, and that included selling her body.

Katniss had to take care of Prim when her father died and her mother mentally and emotionally abandoned them. She did what she had to do to provide for them, even if she had to resort to a similar means of income as Fantine. The song started to play and as she took a breath to begin, she caught those striking blue eyes in the audience.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high and life worth living,
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving...

Peeta watched as the nervous girl he had danced with melted away the second she stepped up to the microphone. Before she sang one note, he already knew that her voice would be amazing. Nobody could ooze the type self confidence she did in front of the microphone unless they had talent, especially after seeing how nervous she was before she got on stage.

But nothing prepared him for the voice that he heard. He tried to hide the sharp intake of breath when she sang her first line. Peeta was completely entranced. He hadn't realized that his feet began moving him closer to the stage but he felt an undeniable pull towards her.

But the tigers come at night.
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame...

As he got closer, he realized that her voice wasn't the only thing extraordinary about her performance. The expression in her voice and in her face tugged at his heart; she captured every emotion in the song and he wondered what had happened in her life that allow her to convey these emotions to the audience so easily. He wondered if maybe she was just that great of an actress. But their previous interactions that night, the way her thoughts spilled so easily into her facial expressions, made him believe that this wasn't the case.

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...

As she sang those last lines, Peeta knew he was a goner. Hearing the agony in her voice shifted something inside him. He would find out why she was hurting, and he would do whatever it took to make it right, to make her happy.

He was still staring in awe as she stepped back with the rest of the finalists. People were enthusiastically clapping around him but he couldn't even bring himself to lift his arms.

Katniss usually had a mild case of performance anxiety before she sang, and she had thought that all the nerves from the night would manifest themselves on stage. One of her biggest crutches was her necklace; Professor Abernathy constantly scolded her for playing with it while she performed. For some reason she was surprisingly calm and confident tonight, but she had found a new crutch in the dazzling blue eyes of Peeta Mellark.

They were fixated on her throughout the performance and whenever she felt nervous, her attention focused to those steady blue eyes. When she finished her song, she felt emotionally exhausted. She took her nerves and used them to fuel her emotional performance and by the reaction of the crowd, she knew that they were all moved.

As Katniss stepped back from the microphone, the nervousness crept back as she realized that the scholarship winner was to be announced soon. She began to reach for her necklace but stopped as she again caught Peeta's eyes. His facial expression after her performance filled her with a sense of pride and she couldn't help the slight smirk that emerged on her face.

"Bravo! Bravo!" Effie squealed, "What talent we have here at the University of Panem! We are soon approaching the announcement of the winner of the 74th Presidential Endowed Graduate Scholarship. But before we go to the main event, we would like to thank some very important people for their generosity to our prestigious university."

Effie began to rattle off names of donors as the audience politely applauded. Katniss clapped along with the crowd although she had mentally zoned out, still holding Peeta's gaze.

"And, last, but certainly not least, we would like to thank the Mellark family for their generous contributions to our school." Katniss snapped out of her dreamlike state when Effie uttered the name. "The Presidential Endowed Graduate Scholarship would not be possible without your family's donations. Here representing the Mellark family is Mr. Peeta Mellark, who is also an alumni of the University of Panem. Thank you!"

The applause was the loudest for Peeta out of all of the donors that were announced. A spotlight found him in the audience and he smiled and raised his hand, acknowledging the applause. The flash of his smile caused squeals from some of the women in the crowd. Katniss, however, stood frozen in place.

How could she be so stupid? No wonder the name had sounded so familiar. She silently berated herself for not realizing sooner. She must have made a complete fool of herself all night to one of the heirs of the most famous family fortunes this side of the coast. Katniss recalled her roommate Madge's excitement when they first stepped on campus at the University of Panem.

"I heard that one of the Mellarks goes to school here! Maybe we'll meet him and he'll fall madly in love with one of us. Then he'll introduce the other one to his brothers and we can both become part of American royalty!" Katniss just rolled her eyes at her friend. She didn't have time to worry about romance. She was too busy trying to figure out how to feed her family, pay tuition and pass her classes. No time for romance with those kinds of priorities.

The realization must have been playing on her face, because Peeta looked at her again and gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged his shoulders. Katniss forced herself to snap back to reality. After all, the announcement she had been waiting all night for was approaching. An announcement that could change her life, that could help her take care of her family, that could maybe restore the small amount of dignity she had left.

"Now, for the moment we've all been waiting for! To all of our finalists, we are very proud of you! May the odds be ever in your favor!" Effie was handed a small envelope and began to speak. "Congratulations to..."

Katniss held her breath as Effie opened the envelope and pulled out a small slip of paper. She desperately hoped that her name was on that slip.

"...Benjamin Turner!"

Before the announcement, Peeta watched with amusement as Katniss's face showed the realization of who he was, but his stomach dropped, later, when he realized that the name Effie had announced wasn't hers. Knowing how easily Katniss's emotions played on her face, Peeta tried to avoid looking at her.

First he watched as Benjamin Turner, the engineering major, approached the microphone, thanked everybody for the honor, and announced that they could call him B.T. for short. He glanced over to the other finalists that weren't picked. They all clapped for B.T. but their faces were wrought with disappointment.

As much as he didn't want to see that similar disappointment in Katniss's face, he couldn't help but look at her, too.

He immediately regretted his decision. The expression on her face wasn't disappointment. It was panic.

Katniss tried to be a good sport and listen to B.T. as he rattled off his acceptance speech, but her insides were crumbling. Again, she had allowed herself to hope, to dream, and she came away empty handed. She started to realize what it meant. She would have to go back to Cato, she would have to keep doing a job she hated. He would continue to control her.

All she wanted to do was escape, but she was stuck on the stage having to listen to B.T. make his speech as all her dreams shattered around her. As soon as it was over and they were allowed to leave the stage, she bolted for the door. Professor Abernathy didn't make an attempt to stop her; he knew what the scholarship meant to her, even if he wasn't aware of all the gritty details. There was a bottle-neck at the stage steps as the banquet attendees approached to congratulate B.T.

Katniss used this opportunity to slip through the crowd unnoticed.

Peeta tried to intercept Katniss as the finalists left the stage, but it was so crowded that he couldn't get to her in time. He tried his best to keep track of the orange dress as he maneuvered through the crowd.

He found his way through the door of the banquet hall only to catch a glimpse of a deep orange fabric as the elevator doors closed. Peeta tried to catch the elevator, smashing the down button only to realize he was too late. The sign for the stairwell caught his eye and he tackled the door and bounded down the stairs, but by the time he made his way from the lobby into the street, the orange dress was nowhere to be found.

He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair and chuckled to himself. Never had he felt anything like this for a woman. He only hoped that he see would see her again someday.

Author's Note: This is my first attempt at a HG fanfic; I hope you enjoyed it! I purposefully left some things pretty ambiguous, but things should be answered as the story goes on. As you can see, this will have alternating POVs (Katniss and Peeta, mostly, but some others along the way) in order to tell the story how I envisioned it. Thanks for reading!