Chapter 2

First, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who commented, favorited, or followed this little story of mine. It means so much to me that it's gotten such a warm welcome, and I'm really excited to start joining the HG fandom, as opposed to lurking in it as I have been. There are so many amazing Everlark writers out there!

Slight disclaimer: This chapter includes some religion and church-going. Suzanne Collins never mentions religion in the series, and I always assumed (in my head-canon) that religion had been lost somewhere along the way to the world being a dystopian disaster. But, my story being a different time and place, I decided that it needed to be a part of the story. Because honestly, in 1940s Chicago, you went to church. Period. Hopefully this won't offend anyone.

Suzanne Collins owns the Hunger Games, I'm just having fun with her characters.

"Nothing happened, Prim. He walked me to the door, shook my hand, and left. We're going to be friends, that's all."

"Friends? What does that mean?"

"It means that I probably won't see him again, except occasionally on the street, where I'll wave to him and he'll wave to me and we'll move on with our lives. Now eat your breakfast."

From the moment she woke up, Prim had been quizzing me nonstop about the previous night. She had decided, without having met him, that Peeta and I were destined to be together, that we were soul mates, star crossed lovers from opposite parts of town. It was this last one that made me roll my eyes.

"I think he sounds romantic. He'll bake you cookies on your anniversary that say I love you, and bring bread home every evening to your chunky baker children."

"Prim, it's not like that. You know me, I don't date random guys." I started collecting our breakfast plates and bringing them to the sink. My mother's empty bowl was sitting in the bottom; yet again, she had come home late and left early.

"No kidding," Prim said knowingly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you don't date at all. And that you need to let yourself go sometimes." She came up behind me at the sink and rested her head between my shoulder blades. "I know things have been hard for you. For us. But you deserve to be happy. If you'll let yourself be."

Without looking up, I told her, "Prim, I am happy."

"No, you're not. You haven't been happy since Dad died. None of us have. But he wouldn't want us to mourn forever. And if he were here now, I'm sure he would want you to find someone and fall in love. So would Gale."

I turned around and started scrubbing plates silently. I knew that hopeless romantic Prim would want me to date so she could plan my wedding and all, but I didn't think she would go there. It was a low blow. But I knew she was also right.

"Just think about it, ok, Katniss?"

I nodded and kept my eyes on the dishes as she walked away. I turned my head towards the doorway of the kitchen and sighed. Why did she have to bring my father into this?

It had been 8 years, nearly a decade, since I had last seen my father. 8 years since he was alive. 8 years since my life changed forever.

He used to work at Panem Steel, a job he got at 14 and stayed at until the day he died. Literally, I smirked to myself. It was considered a good, steady job, and provided a decent living for him and my mother in the early years. But when the market crashed in '29, his pension, his hours, his wages were slowly cut, and eventually, like all of the workers, he only worked if there was a need. With the economy so bad, manufacturing was hit the hardest, and he often came home before lunch, telling us that there was simply no work for him that day. But he would still get up the next day and kiss our heads goodbye, hopeful that the foreman would allow him to work and bring home pay that day. I was still young, and Prim was in diapers, but I noticed little things. Like my mother making us dresses from used potato sacks. Or my father walking and hitchhiking to the Southside every day to avoid paying for the streetcar. But we still had something to eat every day, even if it was mostly bruised potatoes and apples.

One day, Prim and I came home from school to find my mother and Mrs. Hawthorne huddled together in the kitchen, the two youngest Hawthorne's clinging to her skirt, Gale staring at the fireplace. I immediately knew that something was wrong. Word had spread that there was a fire at the steel mill, and no one knew a thing. We waited and waited, still no word. Finally, Gale grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me outside. "Come on, we're not waiting for them to show up. We're going down there ourselves." And with that, both families loaded themselves onto the streetcar and headed for the mill.

When we arrived, it was chaos. Firemen were frantically trying to put out a massive fire with their hoses, but seemed to be getting nowhere as the fire spread across the building. The police kept the crowd of frantic wives behind the imposing steel gates. Everyone was shouting and craning their necks for a better view. Slowly, we saw a group of men approach the gate, their metal helmets bobbed down, covered in soot and limping, some with burns on their hands and faces. Medics and nurses with stretchers started helping the more injured men, and women either ran to hug their husbands in relief or hold their hands on the stretchers. A priest made the sign of the cross over a few, giving them their last rites, just in case.

We stayed there for a long time as one hour passed, then another, and slowly the crowd outside of the gate began to disperse. More and more men came out, but none with the last name of Everdeen or Hawthorne. Finally, a police officer came by the women standing outside the gates. "I'm sorry," he said. "We've found all of the survivors." A few of the women burst into sobs. Mrs. Hawthorne shook her head with her eyes closed and swayed little Posy in her arms. My mother crumbled to the ground and never made a sound. Gale and I just stood there watching, and he silently interlaced his fingers with mine.

It turned out that a pot of hot molten iron had turned itself over, fell on top of a couple of men, and then spread fire throughout. My father and Gale's father were working above where the fire started, and couldn't get out. Even with the supposed safety measures that had been put in place, nothing could have protected them with such a wild and unpredictable fire that had started. It took the Chicago Fire Department until the early hours of the next morning to finally put the blaze out, and by then the building was nothing but a shell of blackened machinery and support beams.

12 men died that day, including my father and Mr. Hawthorne. Their bodies were too burnt for a wake, but we had a proper funeral for each, and attended all 12. The church gave us some money that had been collected for the families, most of it going to the funeral home. Most of the families in the Seam brought over what they could, glass trays of casseroles and twisted breads. Panem Steel never gave us a dime.

My mother never recovered from her crumpled position that day at the mill, and she simply stopped living. She stayed in bed all day, never washing, never moving, just staring at the blank wall all curled up. In my grief, I was left to take care of myself and Prim all alone. At first, it didn't seem too bad; we still had some food in the pantry, and we lived off the funeral food for weeks. We weren't any worse off than the rest of the country's unemployed families, and we were already used to making do with very little. But after a couple of months, the pantry was bare, the church money ran out, and the food platters stopped coming in. Other families were still struggling to put food on their own tables, let alone ours. But we had nothing coming in, no money for rent or for food. At 11 years old, I was faced with protecting my entire family from both starvation and eviction.

Not knowing where else to go, I first went to the church. God always provides, my father used to tell us. The pastor tsked and shook his head at me when I told him of our problems. Unfortunately, as he explained, the church was already spread too thin in helping out a number of families. What he could give us was to let us stay in school, and told us to join the sisters in the convent for breakfast. I nodded and thanked him, but couldn't help but notice that he was still able to keep his stout belly somehow. When we showed up at the convent the next day, there were rows and rows of Seam kids wearing tattered and patched school clothes, their skinny legs dangling from the benches. We were each served a small bowl of oatmeal and a cup of milk, and it quickly became the only decent meal of the day for us. On the weekends, when we had to make do with only mint tea for the day, we longed for Monday morning when a nun with a kind face would scoop out plain but hearty oatmeal. My mother never seemed to notice our hunger on the weekends; she simply stared at the wall or the floor, never even looking at Prim when she spooned tea into her mouth.

Food was somewhat taken care of, but each month I faced the challenge of paying our rent. I turned to selling our meager possessions. In anger, I sold almost all of my mother's jewelry, telling myself that if she wanted to keep it she would have to get her ass out of bed to stop me. I kept my parents' wedding rings though. Somehow, I couldn't bear the thought of anyone else wearing them around town. Next went the wedding china, the little ceramic figures my mother had brought with her from her days as a merchant's daughter, even Prim's baby clothes. Then came all unnecessary furniture, which Gale helped me load into a borrowed trunk and sell down at the used furniture store on 60th St. He himself had done the same a month before.

The Hawthornes were always quick to offer us some leftover soup or a slice of bread whenever they could spare. But they had 5 mouths to feed, including a baby and growing teenage boys. Mrs. Hawthorne didn't seem nearly as affected as my mother did, although I'm sure she mourned in her own way. She started taking in extra laundry to help pay their rent, and Gale had already dropped out of school and was working two jobs.

It turned out that one of Gale's jobs was working as a mechanic in a shop in Cicero called The Hob. Darius, the owner, was supposedly connected to the Mob, although Gale always dismissed this rumor. It did seem like an awful lot of men in fancy suits brought their cars there and never seemed to pay a dime.

It was Gale that brought me to The Hob after I sold almost all our furniture. He thought that if he could teach me to make repairs, Darius would see how valuable I would be. "You smart, Catnip," he told me. "Plus, you could slide right under the cars. Trust me, you'll be a natural."

And I was. As soon as Gale started his lessons, I caught on quick. He often commented that I was better than he was, and I always smiled at the thought of being better at a man's job than a man. At first, Darius shrugged his shoulders at me in Gale's old oversized overalls, and didn't seem to notice me. I just showed up every day after school, following Gale around, learning what I could, and getting paid nothing. But one day, after I successfully fixed the carburetor on one of his best client's Cadillac, I earned Darius's respect, and left that day with my first paycheck: 50 cents.

I remember grasping the coins in my hand and looking up at Darius hopefully. "Come back whenever you want and I'll give you 50 cents a day," he told me. "Can't pay you more, you're not even supposed to be working at your age, thank you Mr. Roosevelt." I learned that day that Darius was a Republican, through and through, and it was better not to mention the President or his New Deal.

On the way home, Gale sniffed and complained about Darius being a cheapskate and paying me under the table, but I didn't care. I finally had a way to make money for my family. I remember calculating in my head: 50 cents a day, 6 days a week, would be $3 a week. $12 a month. Enough to pay our $8 a month in rent, and $4 left over, giving us $1 a week to live on. More than before, but still certainly not enough to feed 3 people.

My money from The Hob kept us going for a while, and at least kept us from being homeless. But everything was tight. No new clothes, no birthday gifts, no extras. We went to bed hungry and woke up hungry, and there never seemed to be enough to go around. We didn't even have electricity until I dropped out of school and started my job at Capital Electric.

As I scrubbed the leftover pancake from our plates, I smiled to myself thinking of the days when Gale and I both worked two jobs together. I had decided to drop out just a few weeks into high school and follow Gale to better wages at Capital Electric. Gale was already working there, and kept his job at The Hob on nights and weekends, so I thought I could do the same. Things were starting to look up all around us. I saw working as the only way to help my family get ahead, not just stay in survival mode. And I could keep Prim, the smartest girl in her class, from a similar fate; maybe she could even graduate. So I dropped out, and two days later, convinced a foreman that I was 16, and found myself sweeping floors on the main level. Gale would meet me for lunch, and on nice days we would sit outside, close our eyes to the sun and talk about our plans for the future. I had already resigned myself to a life living in the Seam, working at Capital, and taking care of Prim and my mother. But Gale wanted to see the world, make lots of money, and have women hanging off his arms. I scoffed at his notions and told him he was crazy. No one left the Seam. He would simply pull a few stems of grass out of the ground, squint away from me, and say, "We'll see, Catnip."

But then the war started, Gale left, along with almost all the men in the neighborhood, and things changed. I guess he did get to see the world like he wanted, I thought sadly to myself.

Around the time that Gale left, my mother started coming out of her silent mourning. I think it was still too much for her, though, being in the house where she had lived with my father. She soon took a job at the County Hospital, using her background as the neighborhood midwife to get into the maternity ward. She was gone almost all day and all night, and we only saw her when she sleeping on the couch, still unable to sleep in the bed she shared with my father. But two women's salary was certainly better than one, and before long, we had cereal, milk, even meat on the table, when we had the ration coupons. Prim had new shoes, even if they were cheap, and we had heat and electricity again. Ironically, life during the war for us was good.

I still had to play mother to Prim, and walked her to school every day before I left for work, pulling her along past the merchant shops and telling her to hurry up when she lingered at the windows. Like the bakery window, her favorite. Even with my new salary, I never let her stop and get a cake or cookie. Paycheck or no, we were still Seam, and long held prejudices lingered.

The thought of the bakery snapped me out of my thoughts, and I realized that I had been washing the same plate for over a minute. I usually wasn't this dreamy, and didn't allow myself time to think about what had happened over the last decade. But last night and Peeta's actions made me feel more self-conscious about who I was and where I lived. What was his plan, anyway? Would he really think of me as a friend? What do friends do anyway? Gale and I had spent lots of time together, but it was so natural, and felt like more than a friendship. More like a kinship. And I missed having that in my life.

I groaned internally at the hole I had dug myself into by asking Peeta to be friends. But I couldn't help the flurry in my stomach that he gave me last night. More so than Gale had ever given me, and I thought he was the bees knees at 14. Could I even be "just friends" with Peeta?

I quickly shook my head of the thought and wiped my hands on my overalls. My outfit was light years away from my one last night; blue baggy overalls over a man's undershirt and work boots. I still worked at The Hob when I could, helping Darius out and keeping my mechanic skills up to par. I glanced at the clock. If I didn't leave now, I would be late, and Darius would pull my braid and lecture me about keeping chicks around the shop.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

The next day was Sunday, and I was late yet again, this time for church. I could hear the bells chiming as I raced down the street, my bag hitting my thighs and the ends of my open coat flapping in the breeze. My mother and Prim had already gone to an earlier Mass, but they knew better than to wake me early on the weekend. The 10:30 service was filled with us late risers, women with young children desperate to get out of the house and hung-over twenty-somethings.

I leapt up the steep row of steps leading up to the church – a cathedral, really, built years ago by Polish immigrants new to the city and desperate for the churches of the old country. The tall stone spires majestically towered over the neighborhood, as if a constant reminder of its presence. It seemed as though the whole neighborhood centered around this one church. Sure, there were the public school kids whose parents either didn't go to church or simply didn't care, and a couple of Jewish families, but almost everyone I knew went to St. Michael the Archangel church and school.

I reached into my bag to find my head scarf – necessary for women to enter the church – and I suddenly see it, in my mind, sitting on top of my dresser. "Oh no," I pleaded, searching for something, anything that could cover my hair. My entire bag possessed only my pocket book, a few loose coins, bus fare stubs, and the remnants of my lunch from Friday.

I threw my head back in disgust and sighed, knowing that now I wouldn't be able to go to church, and would have to attend Confession next Saturday in order to properly receive Communion. If there was anything I avoided more in my life as a Catholic, it was confessing my personal thoughts and sins to an old, snoring priest.

"Looking for something?" I turned around and saw Peeta walking up the steps in the same suit he had worn on Friday night, only with a different tie, paisley this time.

"Oh, hi. Do you, ah, do you go here?"

"Not really. Well, sometimes. Mainly Christmas and Easter. My family isn't big on going to church. How about you?"

"Me? Oh, I grew up here. Went to school here too until, I, um, had to leave." I went back to rooting through my bag, avoiding his gaze. "Funny, I don't remember seeing you come to mass ever. I'm sure I would have remembered seeing you."

I heard Peeta chuckle, and I hoped he didn't take my last comment as flirtation. "Yeah, well, God and I didn't always get along."

"What made you come back?"

I paused and looked directly at him, hoping that I hadn't offended him. Asking about someone's religion was "the height of rudeness," according to my spinster Aunt Effie.

"Ever hear the saying, there are no atheists in a foxhole? Well, let's just say sometimes war makes a believer out of you." I nodded and went back to my bag.

"So, what are you looking for?" He asked again.

I sighed. "My head scarf. I left it at home, and usually I have a Kleenex or something…"

"Here," he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief. "You can use this."

He handed me a plain white store-bought handkerchief, soft and well-washed. On one of the corners was stitched "PM" in blue letters. Peeta Mellark.

"Thanks," I muttered, and grabbed a couple of bobby pins from my coin purse. "Here, hold this," and I threw my purse into his arms as I secured the hankie to the top of my head. A smell of clean soap and yeast drifted down front atop my head.

I looked up at Peeta and he stifled a snicker. "Shut up," I told him, and grabbed my purse.

"No, it suits you. You should wear my hankie out more often."

"Shut up, Peeta, we've already missed the procession." I spun on my heel and went to open the heavy oak doors to the church. Of course, Peeta reached them first and held it open for me.

My heels clicked on the marble floors of the entryway and I could hear the Latin already radiating through the chapel. I could hear Peeta's dress shoes follow me through the second set of doors, and we both dipped our hands into the holy water font at the same time. The touch of his fingertips was electrifying, as it had been two nights before. I caught his glance for a mere second before chastising myself for thinking such thoughts. In the holy water. In church. I was going straight to hell.

It was even worse through the entire mass. I was surprised that Peeta had followed me to my usual spot in the back pews, and sat right next to me the whole time. I tried to keep my eyes forward or down, but I couldn't help but feel his presence the entire time. The warmth of his body sitting next to me, the way he still kept bouncing that knee nervously. I noticed that he double tied his shoelaces. That he bit his nails. That his breath smelled warm and minty. He was so close to me on the kneelers that I could feel his breath on my cheeks and completely forgot where we were in the hymnal. I spent the next hour paying little attention and mostly noticing the man whose initials I wore on my head.

At the end, we both allowed a glimpse at one another and each gave a small smile. He started to walk towards the doors but without telling him, I veered left and went to the Marian shrine, where rows of small red candles danced before the statue. I dug in my bag once more and picked out two pennies to slip into the collection box and then, as I did every Sunday, I lit two candles. One for my father, and one for Gale. I gazed up at the statue of Mary, her haloed head bowed towards her folded hands, blue and white dress flowing outward. Perfect and pure. Everything I felt I wasn't. My father had always told me to pray to Mary, and she would intercede on my behalf to her Son. I wondered how my prayers could be answered, especially when I had no faith, no trust in my fellow man. I wasn't even sure what I was praying for. Yet here I was, paying and praying to the middle man.

When I turned around, Peeta was waiting for me. He didn't ask about my two candles, and I didn't tell him. We walked out of the church together silently. It was strange to see him in a place so different from the ballroom of two nights ago, and I felt awkward about what to say to him. He kept walking next to me as I turned in the direction of the Seam, and luckily broke the silence for both of us.

"So, um, I'm actually thinking of getting my own place. See those houses over there?" He pointed down the street from the church to the collection of two and three flats that peppered down the street. "Old Mrs. Alberts is renting out her downstairs space. Might take her up on the offer."

"You don't want to live at home anymore?"

"Nah. It's too weird. Plus, my mom and I don't really get along."

I nodded. I remembered the bakery's mistress. She always glared at us Seam kids with scorn as she swept the front stoop of the building, as if our mere presence might taint the cream puffs. I had heard many stories involving her rudeness to Seam customers, refusing them the freshest bread loaves and frightening the children away from drooling over the cakes in the window. It was the reason – besides abject poverty – I had always avoided the bakery, and tried to distract Prim's request to go inside. The last thing I wanted was to hear yet another shopkeeper label us Seam trash.

"What about working at the bakery?" I asked.

"Well, I still have my job there. At least I think I do. I like the bakery and all, but I'd like to do other things too. Maybe I'll go to college."

"College?" I didn't know anyone who went to college. "What would you do there?"

"I dunno, study, take classes, meet people. I like the draw, maybe I could take art classes."

"You draw?" Peeta was suddenly full of surprises. He had traveled half way around the world, knew how to bake and draw, wanted to live on his own, go to college. I, on the other hand, was stuck making kitchen phones and spent my weekends covered in motor oil. "Well, Mr. Mellark, you're turning out to be a regular Renaissance Man, aren't you?" I teased him.

"No, I just like to doodle and stuff. It's a stupid idea, I should probably just study business or something. Or stay at the bakery. What would I do with an art degree?"

I stopped walking and turned to him. "I was kidding. Seriously, if you love art, then do art. Make yourself happy, Peeta. Find out what you love and follow it."

Peeta didn't smile at me like I thought he would, but instead stared deeply at my face with an almost desperate look. "Maybe I will. You still have no idea the effect you can have, you know."

I raised my eyebrows and touched his shoulder lightly. "So you'll listen to me, then?"

"Always."

I nodded and started walking again. "Well, good. Life is too short to not make yourself happy. You should know that, Mr. War Hero."

Peeta seemed to smile to himself about something. We continued walking in silence, and yet again Peeta seemed to insist on walking me home. In the daylight, the Seam looked even worse, especially with shoeless children running in the streets, mangy dogs barking, and every front porch covered in mothers and diapered babies, shouting at one another from across the bent fences. I could already see the gossip mill starting as they started at me walking home with a merchant boy.

"I'd like to see you again, Katniss," Peeta replied when we reached my house yet again.

I shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I, um, I don't know about that."

"I like talking to you. Come to a movie with me."

I smiled. "There's no talking during the movies."

"Then come have dinner with me."

"Peeta, I work a lot, and I have to take care of Prim and the house and-"

"I won't take no for answer. What do I have to do to convince you to spend time with me?" he asked hopefully.

"I don't know, bribery?" He wasn't joking though, he still looked serious and expectant. I sighed. "I'll think about it, ok?"

Peeta smiled and pointed at me. "That's not a no. I like it!" He started walking back down the street.

"I didn't say yes!" I shouted after him.

"You will!" he shouted back without turning around. I had to chuckle at his persistence. We'll see, I smiled to myself.