Part Two.

Peeta didn't believe in soulmarks. Didn't want to believe in the ancient superstition where your soulmate's first words to you were written across your own flesh.

He was five years old when he first realized the downside of having a pre-determined soulmate. It was his first day of school and his father had walked him from the Merchant Square to the elementary schoolhouse. His brothers had run ahead to meet up with their friends before the bell rang.

"Who's that?" Peeta asked, his eyes drawn instantly to the little girl in a plaid dress, her dark hair in two braids. He wasn't sure why. According to Rye and Graham, girls had cooties and didn't make great friends anyways. His brothers would know, they were six and nine, practically adults. They didn't need to be walked to school on their first day of school.

"Ah," his father smiled kindly. "That is Katniss Everdeen."

Peeta's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"

"I almost married her mother Lily, once upon a time." His father replied. "But Katniss' father was her soulmate and you can't stand in the way of that, even if you wanted to."

"Are you and Momma soulmates?" Peeta was always the most curious of the Mellark boys. He wanted to know how something worked, but also why it did. His parents' relationship never made sense to him. His father was kind and always smiling, while his mother was standoffish and cold.

"I don't have a soulmark, like you do." Bannock smiled, lightly tapping Peeta's left ear. It was after his first haircut as a baby that his parents realized his soulmark, hidden by his full head of hair. He kept his hair long now, because his mother told him he had to.

"What about Momma?" Peeta asked. Neither Rye nor Graham had a soulmark. His brothers teased him relentlessly about his mark, saying he was a "softie" and that only girls believed in love. They didn't dare pick on Peeta when their mother was in the room, though.

Bannock paused. "She does. But the boy died in the Games a year after they met."

"I hate the Games." Peeta said. And he meant it.

"If it weren't for the Games, your mother and I never would have toasted. And then where would you be?" His father teased. But it was hollow. Losing a soulmate was serious; even at five, Peeta understood that. It was probably why his mother was so mean all the time.

"Yeah," Peeta said, his eyes still on the girl, Katniss.

"Why don't you go talk to her?" Bannock mused, a teasing grin on his face.

But Peeta couldn't move. If she didn't say the right words, he'd be crushed. He didn't care about his soulmark, not really, but he'd seen parents with visible ones and now knew his own didn't have them, and knew which couples seemed happier.

That afternoon, when she sang "The Valley Song" in music class, Peeta knew for sure that he wanted to marry Katniss Everdeen when they grew up.

Over the years, Peeta kept an eye out for Katniss. At about eight, he had the brilliant idea to have Rye trace the words onto a piece of paper for him. He wanted to compare her handwriting to the little scrawl behind his ear, written in a deep green. But their last names sat them at opposite sides of the room and the pencil sharpener was at the back of the classroom near him so he never had an easy excuse to wander near her desk.

When he became friends with Delly Cartwright in third grade (girls did not have cooties, it turned out), he thought he would have an in. Girls were all friends with each other, that was the rules, or so Peeta thought. But Delly, sweet as she was, seemed to annoy Katniss. Everyone seemed to annoy Katniss. Except her little sister, Primrose, of course. Madge Undersee, the mayor's daughter and Peeta's mild acquaintance, was the closest thing it seemed Katniss had to a friend. But Madge snapped at him when he asked if she could sneak him a piece of paper with Katniss' writing on it. Said it was "stalker behavior" and "why didn't he just talk to her like a normal person?" Peeta was mortified.

He tried to keep his distance even more after that. He never quite got over her, persay, but he was able to think about things other than just her for a few years. It helped that he was mildly popular. He was a merchant, did well on team sports though he thrived on the wrestling team, and was nice to everyone. Being the youngest Mellark, the teachers all knew him before he stepped into their rooms and were surprised at how well-mannered he was in comparison to his two older brothers. "Must take after his Daddy," they'd say. It made Peeta blush, but he was proud to be like his father.

As he got older, he wondered why his father didn't have a soulmark. If anyone in District 12 deserved to be happy, it was Bannock Mellark, at least to Peeta. Not that having a soulmark had done Peeta much good. He was in love with a girl he could probably never have, doomed to marry another. Because there was no way his soulmate would be okay with him pining after Katniss. He would have to give her up, and he wasn't ready. So he tried not to talk to girls at all.

It wasn't that hard, though. Other than Delly, he didn't have any female friends. And he wasn't as attractive as Rye or as quick-witted as Graham. Though he loved the bakery, he wasn't set to inherit the family business either. Traditionally, it was the eldest son. Of course, Graham could reject his birthright, but it would pass next to Rye. The chances of both his brothers giving up their rights to the family bakery were very slim. Thankfully, all the merchant girls knew it too.

When he was eleven, though, ignoring Katniss became impossible. Her father died in a mining accident on a Saturday in the late fall and Katniss and her sister didn't return to school for a week. Peeta wanted to say something to her, tell her he thought her dad was really nice and it was a shame he had died. But any time he got up the courage to say anything, the words would get caught in his throat and he'd chicken out.

Then there was the bread.

He had watched her wither away all winter, her clothes hanging off of her thin frame more and more each day. He wanted to share his lunch with her when he noticed she stopped bringing hers. But he knew Katniss enough by now to know she wouldn't accept a handout.

He finally got a chance to help her one night when he heard the pigs making a ruckus. Someone was out there. He peered through the window, ready to call for his brothers. Sometimes they had to run off drunk miners or Seams digging through their trash. Peeta didn't like to do the latter because while sometimes their family went to bed without supper, he knew people in the Seam had it much worse. His mother didn't approve of his kindness, saying he was weak.

When he saw it was Katniss hiding by a tree in the rain-no, laying by a tree in the rain, clearly exhausted from the walk from the Seam in search of food-Peeta reacted on instinct. He grabbed the two extra day old loaves he had been preparing for his family's dinner and thrust them into the big stone oven. His mother would heat up leftover stew for the third night in a row in a few minutes so he had to be quick; the portions were hardly filling, but the day old bread usually helped cover the difference. Thankfully, it only took a few seconds to burn the edges. He didn't want it all burned for fear she wouldn't eat it.

"What the hell is that damned smell?" Graham came into the kitchen, sniffing the air. His language seemed to have taken a nosedive at fifteen.

"It burned." Peeta shrugged, holding up the clearly partially burned loaves. "I'm going to feed these to the pigs."

Graham narrowed his eyes and Peeta rubbed the back of his neck. "You never burn anything."

"It's for Katniss..." Peeta admitted. It had been hard to hide his crush on Katniss as the years went on. Especially from his nosy brothers.

"Ma is gonna kill you," Graham's eyes went wide.

Peeta was out the back door before his brother had a chance to talk him out of it. He threw the bread past the pigs and as close to Katniss as he could. He tried to make eye contact with her, so she would finally see him. But her eyes flew to the bread and she hurried off.

By the time he's inside again, Katniss is long gone and his whole family is in the kitchen. Graham didn't need to tell them what happened.

"I've raised an idiot!" His mother yells, raising her hands in the air.

"That's hardly fair-" Bannock started, but was cut off.

"What would you call a son who doesn't understand the value of hard work?" She turned to Peeta. "That was our dinner, you lazy boy."

He wasn't sure why he was being called lazy, but he didn't dare correct her. "I saw someone out there who needed it more than we did."

"We take care of our own." It was an accusation. "Or are you too good for your family?"

"That's not it, Ma."

"Good thing for that soulmark or no respectable merchant would ever love you." Greta Mellark spat, though she didn't sound relieved for Peeta's future.

His mother didn't talked about his soulmark, perhaps because it reminded her of her own. The boys had never seen it, Peeta wasn't even sure if his brothets knew she had one, but from the way she never took her socks off, he had to assume it was on one of her feet.

"The nerve of you, boy. Wasting good food on that trash."

"Katniss isn't trash!" Peeta blurted out, unable to stop himself from defending her.

Whack. Peeta didn't see the pinroller coming. He had been hit by his mother before but this was different. She had a nasty temper and the boys didn't dare raise their hand back to her for fear of the next blow.

He must have blacked out. When he came to, he was in the room he and his brothers all shared though they were nowhere to be seen. Instead, his father sat at the end of his bed, head in his hands.

"Pa?" Peeta called out, his throat dry. His head was throbbing and he reached up to touch his forehead before his good sense stopped him. He let out an embarrassing cry, glad Rye and Graham weren't there to tease him.

"Shh, don't move." Bannock gently placed a wet wash cloth over Peeta's right eye.

They sat in silence for awhile. Finally, Bannock spoke again. "You need to quit this thing with Katniss."

It was definitely not what Peeta expected his father to say. "I won't burn anything else."

"It's not just the food, Peet." His father looked resigned. "You've always been so kind and I'm sure Katniss is a nice girl, her mother certainly was back in the day. But I don't want that kind of life for my sons."

"A life in the Seam, you mean." Peeta furrowed his brow, but winced and tried hard to relax his face. That welt was going to leave a bruise for sure.

"A life at odds with your mother." Bannock corrected. "Please, Peeta. For all of our sakes, but yours especially, give up your crush."

"It's not a crush." Peeta said, angry at his father for probably the first time in his life. "I love Katniss."

"You're only eleven." Bannock said slowly, sensing his son's mood. "And, you hardly know her."

"I know her."

"Have you even spoken to Katniss before?" His tone was kind, but Peeta was still mad. He didn't respond and Bannock took that as a no. "Look, son. I think the sooner you speak with her, the sooner you can get over her. You have a soulmate out there waiting for you. Don't worry about Katniss Everdeen."

"Okay, Pa." Peeta lied. "I'll talk to her tomorrow."

But, of course, he didn't. He ran into her on the sidewalk outside of school the next day, and she nearly said something to him, but instead she stared at the welt across his face with an odd look on her face. It wasn't pity exactly, but maybe guilt? He turned away in embarrassment and she dropped her gaze to the ground.

Not long after that, Katniss showed up at the back door of the bakery with squirrels in tow, shot right through the eye, and Peeta worried less about her thin frame. She never quite reached Delly or Madge's sizes, but she no longer looked like the wind would blow her over.

It was harder to keep away from her the older he got, though. He couldn't say anything to her, sure she didn't know his words, but he listened to her voice when she traded her kills with bread from his father. Maybe Madge was right, maybe he was a stalker. But he didn't care. Loving Katniss was all he knew. He resented his soulmark and whatever soulmate was attached to it.

By the time he was ready to say "screw it" and ask her out, she had started seeing Gale Hawthorne when Peeta turned sixteen. One day in the locker rooms after gym, he overheard Gale talking about how kind Katniss was and how she was the prettiest girl in the Seam, earning responses from his friends that their girl was the prettiest. It confirmed his suspicion that he had waited too long and the girl he loved had found another. The two had always been sneaking off into the woods together to hunt, but Peeta had hoped.

It was a long year after that. Fate, it seemed, was not on his side.

He thought things couldn't get worse until the morning of his second to last Reaping. Sweet, innocent Primrose Everdeen was called and Peeta's heart sunk. Because he knew Katniss. And, like he knew she would, she volunteered as tribute for her sister.

Fate must have been either really cruel or really kind. Because Peeta's name was drawn from the lot, the first merchant in nearly ten years.

On the one hand, Peeta had no reason not to talk to Katniss now. The Games were a death sentence, everyone knew it, especially from a District as poor as Twelve. He could confess his feelings and maybe have a few good weeks with her learning to care for him back. Or, she could say his words to him, be his soulmate, and he'd die protecting her. Or, worse, she wouldn't say his words, he'd try to protect her but she'd die anyways, and he would win the Games and go home to meet his soulmate. No matter how he played it out in his head, it was never the happily ever after he had always imagined with Katniss, soulmate or not.