Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters and I don't own your opinion. So, thanks to Suzanne Collins and thanks for reading.

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Chapter 2: Peeta

Peeta walked down the hallway, towards his locker, while thinking about the last hour objectively. He couldn't help but feel a little accomplished. He had finally talked to Katniss, he had finally gotten over the anxiety and had just done it. He'd been looking for an opportunity to talk to her for over a year now. Of course, nothing seemed quite as terrifying now, as it had yesterday or even this morning. Katniss had always intimidated him. She was stunningly beautiful, smart, obviously a gifted artist. He had had a crush on her for the last few months. Today though, he'd been surprised to find her so.. nervous? No. Shy? No, not that either. Maybe, the best word that he could put to the way she had seemed today was cautious.

He could feel the warmth in his face, knew that he was probably beet red from talking to her. It had been worth it though. 'Not to be rude or pompous,' he thought, 'but it is probably natural instinct for me to try to make the girl I like smile, to make her... feel safe.' He knew that Katniss probably liked Gale, because they seemed so close, but he thought that he could at least be her friend. She had been so nice to him today, making him wonder why he had been scared to talk to her at all. She wasn't super social, but that was okay. He didn't need to date a social butterfly, nor did he care about who else liked her. He was just going to pretend, to tell himself that she liked him. 'Even a little bit,' he thought, 'even a little bit could give me the chance to at least be her friend.'

Shaking his head, he focused on switching out the books in his bag, for the few that he needed for the afternoon.

"Look, Katniss."

Peeta turned to see Gale following Katniss out of the art room. Funny, normally they seemed like a cohesive unit, but she didn't seem to bite at his conversation starter. She just brushed past, storming towards the stairs. He now remembered why he had been scared. That glare alone, Peeta assumed, would make any man hesitate. Gale did slightly pause, before running to get in front of Katniss, walking backwards so that he could face her.

"Please just hear me out?"

Peeta decided, once they had hit the staircase, that he would follow from a safe distance. He needed to use the stairs to go to lunch anyways, he told himself. He knew that their conversation was none of his business, but his curiosity got the better of him.

Did she like Gale? Did Gale like her? Why was she so upset? Would he finally get some answers? Part of himself hated that he followed, but the other was racing with nervous excitement. Peeta had suspicions last year, when Gale and Katniss didn't go to the prom together, so he had asked Delly what the situation was there. At the time, Peeta was just interested in their dynamic as an outsider. He reached the stairs.

"What, Gale?" Peeta heard Katniss nearly growl in frustration. He had never been happier to be the third party in a conversation. Peeta had heard that Katniss was an archer, and right now, Gale was nothing but target practice.

"You think you can just shut me out for what has it been, two weeks, and then act like nothing happened? Don't worry, I won't force you to talk to me." Peeta knew that Katniss was in pain, but he could hear the rage, dripping heavily from every word. Even he flinched.

He thought, 'Gale, stupid, say something.' Then he realized that he had no reason to root for the guy, he didn't even know him. Peeta guessed he just felt a little afraid of what that kind unadulterated rage from a woman was capable of doing to any guy. He had known Gale was important to her, but how important was she to him if he just straight up ditched her for two weeks?

"I... I like Madge, Katniss." Gale's voice was hesitant, as if he was afraid of the outcome. Wait- Gale didn't like Katniss? He had suspected, but Peeta felt an involuntary surge of relief. 'At least,' he thought, 'I won't have to duke it out with her best friend.'

"You think I didn't know that already?" Peeta was nowhere as shocked as Gale, but he was caught up in trying to hear her next words. She laughed bitterly and Peeta wondered if Gale realized yet how bad he'd messed up. Delly was like a sister to Peeta. He'd made Delly laugh like that once and the fear of it still haunts his subconscious brain. "But more importantly, why does that have anything to do with you avoiding me? Did you just get tired of me existing? I'm sorry, but I can't help that." At the end, Peeta heard her voice crack, which sent him down the stairs. He wanted to give her, or more likely, him a chance to recover from what had just happened. When he rounded the corner of the flight of stairs, he paused when she met his eyes. He tried to make an apologetic gesture, like "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.'

Before he could move again, she had looked away and said, "Goodbye, Gale." Her eyes held a death glare and her voice was enough for Peeta to feel the chill, and he had only seen it. He decided to stay still as she stormed away, letting the cafeteria door slam behind her. They didn't need a repeat of this morning.

Gale didn't look so great, so Peeta walked down another step or two and said, "Umm... hey man. Are you okay?"

Gale looked up, his gaze intense. "You know her?"

Peeta just nodded. "Yeah, we have a few classes together." He tried to sound unsure. "I know Art we have together and I think English? Maybe math?" Peeta knew exactly what classes he had with her: Art, English, and Math.

Gale narrowed his gaze, "You like her?"

Again, Peeta tried to seem a little aloof. "Yeah, she seems pretty cool and her art is awesome." He smiled a friendly smile. Gale nodded, as if lost in thought. Peeta bounced on his toes, one, two, three times. Then he walked the rest of the way down to Gale, holding out his hand.

"I'm Peeta Mellark," he said.

"Gale Hawthorne," Gale said, as he reached out and almost seemed to try to cut off the circulation in Peeta's hand. Peeta got his hand back, which was nice, as he was fond of the idea of keeping both of his hands. Of course, Peeta, the baker's boy, usually hid his strength. So, while Gale was strong, he was less or just as strong as Peeta. Peeta's secret was hefting around one hundred pound bags of flour every day.

"So, Gale... see you around, I guess?" Peeta smiled, then waved to excuse himself to go get food. He could hear the rumble of his stomach. He barely escaped Gale's burning glare on his back, before Peeta was assailed by Delly Cartwright, one of his close childhood friends.

"Hey Peetaaa! Guessss WHAT?" Her excitement was a little like shock therapy to Peeta sometimes. Painful, but sometimes it paid off.

"What?"

"Guess!"

"What?" Peeta gave her a look that says, "Tell me so that I can go eat food."

"I invited Katniss to the party for you!?" He swore that he felt his heart stop. He pulled her to the side, so that they weren't in front of the cafeteria doors.

"What exactly did you say?" he asked, panicking a little.

"Well, I told her that I thought that you would like for her to come, then Madge said that Katniss would love to come, then Katniss smiled and said, 'Thanks.'" She smiled, proud of her accomplishment. Honestly, it was impressive that she had gotten Katniss to agree to attend a party. Delly knew that Peeta liked Katniss, of course. She had guessed it, only weeks after he knew about it himself. Delly smiled and he smiled back, feeling a little bit more hopeful. He looked over to Katniss, seeing Madge look at him and smile.

'Crap,' he thought. 'Of course, the first day that I get the nerve to talk to her, both of the best friends were on the case.' He hoped that Madge at least would take his side. He highly doubted, from the glare he felt on his back earlier, that Gale was even remotely excited about the prospect of any guy liking Katniss.

Delly laughed at his hesitancy, smiled, and waved as she walked off to join the volleyball team at their table. He shook his head, began to walk toward the food, when Madge passed and waved with a smile. He smiled back and gave a single wave in her direction. Maybe, all hope was not lost. Spencer and Ryan, the idiot twins on the football team, talked to him as they stood in line.

"Of course, there are a lot of hot girls in the school." Spencer seemed to have a one track mind today.

Peeta laughed. "Yes, there are a lot of beautiful women in this school." A few of the girls blushed, hearing him as they walked past.

Ryan wiggled his eyebrows. "Peeta, man. Why don't you have a girl? I know ten girls dying to date you. What gives?"

"Well," Peeta said. "I don't feel like dating at the moment." That was technically not a lie, because he did want to be her friend first.

"Uh huh," Spencer and Ryan said, grinning like the Weasley twins.

Peeta chuckled, getting his food, then said, "Well, later guys!" He looked around for an empty table, to see Katniss and a little girl sitting down nearly four tables away. Peeta had eaten half of his food in the line, because he was so hungry, so he kept the burger and threw the rest away. He thought about Katniss' dryad concept from earlier and smiled. She really was something else.

As he walked up he heard Katniss ask, "What's your name?" Her voice was so warm and affectionate that it shocked him a little.

"R...Rue," the little girl said.

"Katniss," she said, holding out her hand for a handshake.

Yeah. He was definitely not going to stop liking Katniss Everdeen any time soon.