Chapter 1: Healer, Baker and Victor

My house in the Seam is quiet when I get up in the mornings. There is not the sound of my mother preparing medicine. Nor the sound of my sister Katniss coming back from a hunt.

They've been gone for years.

My name is Primrose Everdeen. I am 28 years old, and the Healer of District 12. Sixteen years ago, I was Reaped for the Hunger Games my first eligible year. Katniss volunteered in my place. My childhood crush, Rory Hawthorne, was Reaped with her. Both were killed, though Katniss got really close to the end.

The next year was the 75th Hunger Games, a Quarter Quell with a special twist. It said that whole families of the Reaped tributes except for one member would be Reaped. I was Reaped again, but my Mother bravely volunteered for me, even though she was not age-eligible. Because she was my only living family, I was thus made the spare. Rye Mellark was Reaped, and his younger brother Peeta was the only one to stay behind. That year, we got a Victor: his mom.

Who I can now see is continuing to make her surviving son's life a living hell as she yells at him outside the bakery as I head into Town. When she hits him over the head on my way back from getting medicine, I feel the need to step in.

"Paula," I tell our third Victor. "Leave him be! He just made a mistake."

She sneers at me. I know how my mother was competition for the kind Baker's affections; she was a Merchant who broke class lines to marry my father, a Seam miner.

Taking Peeta by the hand, I lead him back to my home in the Seam to heal him up. Unfortunately, he is beaten often, and is my most frequent customer. We have become good friends over the years, mostly because we have deep pain to share in.

"Gahh!" Peeta groans as I apply morphlimg to the bruise on his head. "Sorry it's so bad."

I shrug. "I've treated worse, Peeta - on you and others."

"Only thing that could make my life better is if she hadn't won the damn Games. Or if Katniss had won..."

I sigh. He long ago admitted to me how he had been in love with my sister. "Why didn't you tell her in the Justice Building?"

"I wanted to, but Mom wouldn't let me!"

I bristle as I wash a rag in the sink and cross back to him. "My advice? Find someone else, get married and get out from under her thumb."

Peeta smirks. "What about you? Best Healer in Panem could find a nice fella."

I shrug. "I had a love and I lost him to the arena, same as you! But at least I went and told him! Even if... he didn't love me back."

As I bend over Peeta to clean his wound, he suddenly takes my face in his hands and pecks me on the lips. I leap back, startled, but then swat him, amused. "Didn't anybody ever teach you to ask a girl before kissing her?"

Peeta grins. "Can I kiss you, Prim?"

"May I?" I correct, raising an eyebrow. I indulge him. "All right. You may."

Peeta kisses me again, longer this time. I drop my rag and actually drape my arms about him, kissing him back. "Hmmmm..." I moan in pleasure.

Peeta opens my mouth to his and our tongue's battle for dominance. When I sense his hands feeling up my ass through my gown, I become very wet. Abruptly, I push him onto my work table and straddle him. Still kissing, we strip each other of our clothes, and I come down on a man for the first time in my life.

It hurts at first, but I learned from Mother that the first time always hurts for a girl. I rock my hips into Peeta's member, riding him up and down as we both moan into each other's mouths. "Uhhh... Huhhh... UHHH!"

Peeta thrusts up to meet me, faster and faster. Until at last, he shudders and ejaculates inside me.

We hold our sweaty bodies together for a moment, before I swiftly and gracefully rise off of him. Bandaging him up and redressing him, I send him out the door with an odd, "Come again soon!"