Disclaimer: I don't own, nor did I come up with, any of the Hunger Games characters. They are the brain child of Suzanne Collins. My brain just wanted to pick out a possible everyday Katniss, no hunger games, and see if her and Peeta couldn't work out the differences.

"Author"'s note: PLEASE REVIEW. I am new to the fan-fiction writing biz, so I'd really love to hear your opinions. No pressure!

Submitted: 4 OCT 2017

Chapter One- Everdeen

Ever since Katniss Everdeen had turned thirteen, Madge Undersee was the only girl she could stand to be around at any given time. All of the other girls, well, they were always emotional and Katniss always felt like an outsider when she was around them.

Katniss looked over to Madge, briefly, as they walked toward class, then back ahead trying to focus on Madge's new rant of the morning. Kat knew, of course, that she must not fit in because of her personality. She was decently certain that she didn't look or smell like roadkill, she was decently smart, and she wasn't a bad listener, either. Madge, however, was a girl among girls. She had no problem weaving in and out of that... group without any problems.

'Yet,' Katniss thought, 'Madge chooses to be around me for some reason.' Whatever it was, she was grateful for Madge. Other than Madge, the only person that seemed willing to be her friend was Gale, whom she'd known for eight years. But they apparently weren't on speaking terms, which was very frustrating, because Gale hadn't even told her why. He just ducked out anytime she came anywhere close to him in the last few weeks.

Katniss looked up, flinching instinctively when she saw Gale looking their way at the end of the hall. As if to prove her point, he turned the other way as Madge waved and walked away. Katniss had been friends with Gale since they had been little kids, and yet, all of a sudden, he had no desire to hang around. Kat was a little hurt by it, but she wasn't the type to beg people to love her. If he didn't want to be around, that wasn't her problem.

She looked up to hear Madge, her voice concerned, saying, "Katniss, are you okay?"

Katniss inwardly grimaced. Madge already worried about Kat too much, so she just nodded and smiled. There were two types of people in her world, Kat realized. The ones who listened a lot and talked little, like her, and people who talked often, listening when they needed to, like Madge. Madge didn't look wholly convinced, but Katniss guessed Madge knew her well enough to let her come to Madge if she really needed to later.

Madge, instead of pressing, continued on in the earlier vein of her rant. "I mean, designer clothes make no sense. Why would anyone want to pay one hundred dollars for a t-shirt?"

"Exactly," Katniss indulged.

They arrived at Paylor's classroom and took their seats. Their history teacher, Miss Paylor, had earned a grudging respect from Katniss in the past month. Kat appreciated Miss Paylor's obvious and refreshing military background. Miss Paylor, always straight to the point, saved Kat from the unnecessary effort of drudging through fluffy speeches to understand what would or would not be on the test.

At the same time, however, Kat realized that her efficiency left Kat with no room to dawdle or procrastinate. Paylor had a commanding presence. To Miss Paylor, history was not a slew of odd facts and random dates and names of humans that didn't really mean anything. Paylor treated history, surprisingly, like a vast and complex series of stories about a people that began to seem as real to Kat as Madge was. This, of course, made it vastly uncomfortable to study colonization under the clear cut understanding that Miss Paylor gave them. The efficiency was refreshing, but even Katniss had trouble not getting emotional when thinking about how it would feel to see Madge whipped or beaten, the have some foreign entity come in and completely eradicate the happy life she had known. Well, Katniss guessed, she knew of grief. Kat felt a wave of gratitude for her life, for Madge, even for her seemingly silly worries and concerns.

The bell ending class shook Katniss out of her head and back into the world. Lately, Kat realized, it was becoming increasingly easy to zone out, to not pay attention to the world around her.

When history ended, after she had waved goodbye to Madge, Katniss started towards her art class. Though she wouldn't consider herself much of an artist, Katniss was glad to be done with choir. At her high school, she had to choose an exploratory class. Sure, she could have chosen something more athletic, but dancing was not Katniss' top priority, nor was long distance track. She had chosen choir, because she had loved to sing with her father when she was little. But then, in choir, every day, she found herself inundated with memories of the two of them, in the forest, with the birds.

She thought of when she was four, sitting in her father's lap, in the midst of several redwood trees. She could still feel the sunshine on her cheek, the cool breeze in her hair. She knew that if she was cold, all she had to do was lean further back into the warm, protective embrace of her father. They sat for hours listening to her father sing with the birds to her.

She shook her head. She couldn't have another day, much less another year like that. So, she was offered art or home education. She remembered laughing at the very suggestion of home education. She couldn't, despite her best efforts, cook anything without burning it to a crisp. She smiled, knowing that she needed to cling to the art option, like Tom Hanks clinging to a volleyball on a raft. Art was the only option that she had, in which she didn't fail an exploratory class. How embarrassing would that have been?

Cinna, her art teacher, was a professional clothing designer, who seemed to be doing some pro-Bono teacher work. He had gone to this high school and responded to the desperate pleas for a teacher from New York or wherever he had called home before coming back to teach here. He had one rule. No Mr. Cinna, no, "Cinna, sir"- no formalities, just his name. Cinna, like Beyonce or Cher. Kat liked the sentiment. Cinna didn't make her use useless pleasantries.

She worked her way to her seat toward the back of the circle. Sometimes, like today, Cinna had the easels out and arranged in a circle for the convenience of his being able to see their work, but being close by for any questions that they might have had. Otherwise, they were just in rows, like any other classroom.

"Today," Cinna instructed, "is your day to explore any medium." He smiled, briefly seeming to look in my direction as if he thought of something amusing. "Of course, you are allowed to choose a medium that you are more comfortable with, because we do have a year for you to explore all of your options." He made a small gesture, indicating for them to gather the necessary materials. She thought of the redwoods, how they seem to ascend forever, going up and up and up in her memory. She struck out towards the the charcoal, not noticing the golden hair boy next to her.

In her rush, she bumped into the boy nearly head on, and instinctively jerked in the other direction, trying to correct the mistake. She would have fallen if he had not caught her arm in time. She straightened back out to see his deep blue-gray eyes searching her face.

"Katniss... Everdeen, right?" He smiled.

"Yeah. Sorry for that... umm... Peeta Mellark, right?" Katniss saw his eyes widen in shock. Had she gotten his name wrong? She had been pretty sure she was right. He smiled, leaving her confused. So... did she get his name right? The pause was just long enough to be a little awkward.

"Yeah, that's me." His body relaxed, Katniss saw, as she thought that he seemed to sound as if they had known each other forever.

She didn't really know what to say, so she just nodded, then made a small gesture as if to say 'You first'. He wasn't having it. He shook his head, still smiling. He pointed to her and said, "You first." She paused for a second, nodded, then headed toward the charcoal. Peeta seemed to go for the acrylic paint. Other than the basics, Katniss was still hopeless at recognizing the different mediums. Honestly, she decided just to get her charcoal utensils and stick to herself.

She carefully passed Peeta on her way back to her seat. She sat, putting the utensils to her left, opening up the sketch paper, and focusing on what she wanted for the drawing. Katniss thought about the way that the grooves in the trees fascinated her. No tree was the same, yet her brain screamed at her, looking for the pattern that had to be there. She assumed that trees, like humans, are unique, even if they seem exactly the same. She thought of the Greek tales of dryads, the nature spirits whose life force was found in the trees and other various plants. She wondered what she saw in the dryad in her redwood. She started to work, when Peeta asked, "Katniss, what is your favorite color?" The question interested her, not because of the question, but because of the seriousness with which Peeta had asked it.

"Is it green?" he asked, once again searching her face, like he was asking for the answer to a well guarded secret.

She nodded, turning back to the tree, when she heard him ask, "Like a lime green or...?" His question prompted a response, like he was trying to have a conversation with her. So, she said, "Evergreen."

A moment passed before she asked him, "What is your favorite color, Peeta?" Still, she was wondering was this sounded like a life or death conversation. The tone of the conversation had just seeped in quickly, and she didn't know how to change it.

Looking at his work, Peeta smiled, "Orange."

Katniss smirked, turning to him. "Like orange orange or...?"

He glanced over, then blushed and turned back, saying quietly, "No, more like the softer orange in a sunset."

She turned back to her work. Did he blush because he didn't actually want to talk to her? What he had said wasn't particularly embarrassing. Katniss wished she was better at reading social cues. Madge had given her some tips, but she was still pretty lost usually. They spent the next few minutes in a slightly more comfortable silence. Kat thought about the way she loved nature. Nature was dependable. Poisonous plants were always poisonous, flowers bloomed in the same seasons every year. 'Unlike people,' she thought. She added images in the grooves of the trunk, a young ballerina, a hand print, some ruler marks up the edge of the tree.

She looked to the clock and knew that it was time for her to get ready to put her work away for the time being. They had about ten minutes left before the end of class. She turned carefully, trying not to bump into Peeta, and when she looked up she saw him staring, some kind of wonder-struck look on his face. She blushed. For a second, she thought, is he looking at me? Then she realized, no, he's looking at my tree.

"Umm... Peeta?" She prompted. No response. "Do you... like... it?" She drew out the words in her hesitation. She was getting more nervous by the second. Why was he staring? "It's not my best," she rambled. "I was just doodling." She paused for a seconds, then went to walk away. He grabbed her wrist gently.

She looked down, and if she was reading him right, he looked... indignant. She tried to think of anything she could have done wrong. She ran through Madge's rules again. She had been nice. Check. She had apologized. Check. Confusion. Definitely check.

"What?" he asked.

"Uh..."

"What did you just say?"

She gulped. "I... uh... I asked if you liked it?"

He shook his head. "After that."

"I said it wasn't my best, that I was just doodl-"

"How could you say it wasn't your best?" She looked at him, seeing a slightly pained, slightly confused, and slightly frustrated look on his face, as if he was torn between all three emotions at once. She looked down.

"Katniss... of course I like it." She heard the smile in his voice. She looked back to him saying, "I love it. It's amazing, okay?"

"Okay," she blushed,"are you... mad at me?" She cracked a small smile.

He laughed. "Mad? No. I'm not mad, Katniss. I was just upset because this is one of my favorite pieces that you've done this year. I was upset that you couldn't see how amazing it was." He paused, looking curious. "Why ruler marks?"

She was shocked. "You noticed that?"

He nodded.

"Well, I was thinking about how tall she would be, her growing up and marking how tall she gets..."

"She?" he asked.

Katniss felt herself becoming self-conscious, which made her feel vulnerable. She didn't know how she felt about that.

"Well, I thought of my tree as a dryad, you know like the-"

"Like the Greeks." He smiled, looking at her with a huge smile. "That's awesome. I would have never even thought of that."

He looked like he was going to ask her something, so she paused, but he let go of her her wrist, as if he just realized how long he'd been holding it. "Umm... see you later?" He turned to put his things away.

"Wait! Can I see yours?" she smiled.

"No!" He looked horror-struck.

"Oh.. okay. How is that any fair?" She heard annoyance in her voice. She didn't know why she was surprised.

"Well, I can't show my muck to the next Picasso or Monet or whatever." He was joking with her, but somehow, she felt a little sad that he didn't show her. "Maybe later," he said, looking down.

"Sure," she heard herself say, smiling. "Later." She turned away and took a little extra time to put her stuff away, getting a grip on herself. 'Peeta is just a super nice guy.' She thought, 'He doesn't like you. Just accept that.' She bitterly chuckled to herself. She was a mess. She heard someone come up behind her. Maybe Peeta had forgotten something. Maybe she could ask him...

She turned around. It was not Peeta, unfortunately. It was Gale.