Ellijay, Georgia 1984

When Peeta had made the long ride from his house back to the thrift store and then on to Katniss' house, the sun had been out, and he had worked up a sweat climbing the last hill to her street. His heart had thumped in his chest as he had walked up her driveway. His sweaty palms crumpled the brown paper bag he was holding as he knocked on her door.

But she hadn't been home, and that was almost an hour ago, and since then as he had waited on the step by her kitchen door, the sun had fallen behind the trees, and the day was growing colder. He looked at his watch every few minutes, unsure of what to do.

He could just leave the bag by the door. She would find it and maybe – maybe – she'd know who had brought it. But that felt too uncertain, and ultimately, he really wanted to see her again. One last time.

Peeta would never forget the second day of kindergarten. He was new to Ellijay and still trying to learn the names of the other kids in his class. The teacher had made them line up at the door of the classroom so they could go to music, and Peeta was nervous. His brothers made fun of his singing voice all the time, so he never sang in public. As they had paraded down the hall, Peeta frowned down at his brother's tennis shoes that had just been handed down to him. They were too big, and he had tripped twice already that day because of it.

The music teacher made them all sit in a circle while she taught them a song to learn each others' names. She would sing a line first, "Where is Juny?" and then the class would sing with her, "Where is Juny?" At that point, Juny would sing out his response, "Here I am, here I am!" Then everyone would sing, "We have come to greet you, very nice to meet you. La la la. La la la." Each child would be called on as they sang the simple tune and learned names.

As luck would have it, Peeta's name was one of the first called out. His heart began to race as he heard his own name on his teacher's lips, echoed in the next line by all the other children. It was his turn to respond. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. The teacher was looking around the circle and the other children were looking at each other. Who was Peeta? Who was supposed to answer?

Suddenly, he heard a voice next to him rise up above the murmurs in the room.

"Here he is, here he is!"

Peeta turned to the girl next to him. She was smiling at him, and as he stared into her soft, gray eyes, he suddenly felt reassured.

The girl continued the song then with the teacher and other children, and the moment passed, but Peeta felt like his world had suddenly changed. After that, he couldn't really focus on anything but figuring out her name. The rest of the song went by as he listened carefully. Finally the teacher called a name, and Peeta realized the girl wasn't singing along. And then she was singing alone again.

"Here I am, here I am!" Her voice was clear and ringing, resounding inside of him and filling him in a way that made his chest expand. He knew her name.

Katniss.

It was as if everyone else around them suddenly fell away, and she was the only one in the room. The song came to an end and she turned to him, somehow alerted to the fact that he was staring at her.

She looked puzzled as her eyebrows came down over her eyes, and he realized his mouth was open. His face flushed red – he could feel the heat of it – and he instantly turned towards the teacher. He was so embarrassed. He didn't look at her again for the rest of the class.

He had never even spoken to her, never thanked her.

His hesitancy towards her had become ridiculous over the years. In a small corner of his brain, he knew they were basically friends in that vague way all kids are who attend the same school in a small town. If he just said hello one day, it wouldn't be a big deal. But the larger part of his brain was too consumed by the myriad of times he had stared at her, imagined her life, seen her unexpectedly in town, all the occasions he had tried and failed to approach her, and as a result, he couldn't bring himself to make a step.

Until today. Perhaps it was the inevitability of leaving that had finally pushed him to talk to her in the thrift store. Perhaps it was the sheer luck of just happening to see her on this day, his last one in Ellijay. His mind veered away from the idea of fate. Too many bad things had happened to him in his short life to think that there was any willful hand directing his life. He was too optimistic to believe that.

But when he saw her in the Goodwill store earlier, he knew he had happened upon an unexpected piece of luck, and he had to act on it. So he had approached her, spoken to her, and then when he'd seen what happened with the dress and the book, he knew he could do something. For the first time in his life, he made up his mind to act regardless of consequences. He could help her and he would because he couldn't leave this town and know that he'd let slip by this one chance to help Katniss Everdeen.

So he sat shivering in her carport waiting for her to come home, knowing that he'd have to leave soon in order to get home while it was still light outside.

Finally he saw her cautiously pushing her bike up the driveway. She didn't understand why he was here, and even after he handed her the bag, she looked wary.

And then she was pushing the bag back at him. "I can't!" she said anxiously.

He stepped back, shocked, holding his hands up so she couldn't shove the bag into them.

"I can't take this! I can't pay you for it!" Her voice was frantic now, and he realized how fragile she was. A fear flashed through him as he realized he had not thought this through. He hadn't expected that she might not accept his gift.

"Katniss, please! I don't want you to pay me!" He tried to explain. He just wanted to help. But standing there, it was as if he was watching her unravel, and before he knew it, he was hugging her. What had gotten into him? Where did this decisive person come from? Maybe he just couldn't stand to watch her cry.

He felt awkward patting her back as she stood there stiffly, and before he knew it, he'd begun talking, rambling on about who knows what. But the entire time he talked, an alarm was ringing in the back of his mind. He had to get home. He was going to be late.

"Think of it as a going away present," he said, taking a step back from her.

Her eyes looked confused again. "But you're the one going away." He could tell that in her mind his explanation didn't add up.

"Yeah." He was getting nervous. It was late. His mother would be looking for him. "I'd better get going," he said, backing away from her and then turning down the driveway.

She followed him down and stood by as he picked up his bike and got on. He looked back at her one more time. He just couldn't believe he would never see her again.

"I don't know what to say." She was practically whispering, and her face still showed the anguish churning inside her. "Thank you."

He couldn't help himself. He reached up with one hand and cupped her face.

"I'll see you again," he said, feeling more assured than he ever had in his life. He couldn't have explained it. In that moment, he just knew.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled up in front of the bakery where his father stood loading a U-Haul truck. His father looked up as he got off his bike.

"There you are," he said, frowning slightly. "We were beginning to worry." He reached for the bike and lifted it up, sliding it between a dresser and the wall of the truck.

"I, uh, just had to take care of one last thing."

His father looked at him curiously. "Everything OK?"

"Yeah. "

"Well, your mother's inside. She's been looking for you."

Peeta grimaced as he read between the lines of his father's warning. He walked up the steps to the bakery slowly, holding the bell on the door so it would not signal his arrival. Lightly taking the stairs up from the kitchen, he could hear his mother on the phone.

"I will be so relieved to move back into an actual house. Really, Celia, you don't know what it's been like, living above the bakery like a bunch of immigrants. So humiliating . . ."

Peeta rounded the landing that led to the Mellark's living room and was on the third step up to the next floor and the safety of his bedroom when he heard his mother's voice.

"Peeta!"

Scotta Mellark had a disquieting way of saying his name, never actually yelling, but the tone she used sent a cold spike of fear into his gut each time.

He pivoted on the steps, "Yes, Mother?"

"Come down here."

He slowly descended the few steps to the living room which was now full of boxes, the furniture having already been taken out to the truck. His mother was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

"Where have you been?" she asked, her voice controlled.

"I just had to, I mean, I wanted to say goodbye to a friend."

"We've been working all afternoon. Without you."

"I helped before I left. Dad said we were mostly finished."

She looked around the room. "Does it look like we are finished?" She took several steps to cross the space between them. "Is your room finished?"

"Almost," he said firmly. "I have to pack my bookshelf and then just the last minute stuff that I'll put in one last box tomorrow morning."

He saw the back of her hand coming, and he braced himself. The hit itself didn't hurt so much anymore, but when her rings raked against his cheek, he flinched as they cut into his skin. Still, he tried to keep his face composed. He was expecting this consequence.

"I'm sorry."

"Get up there and finish. And think twice before you disappear again. You don't go anywhere with my say so, you hear?"

Later that night, Peeta had packed everything but his sleeping bag and his clothes and toothbrush for the morning. His brothers had each chosen corners of the room for their sleeping bags, but he'd put his near the door. Hidden under his pillow were a sketchpad and his best pencil.

He'd been waiting all evening for a quiet moment, and as soon as his brothers were snoring with varying degrees of vigor, he snuck out of the room and down the stairs to the bakery. In the stairway he could still catch the smell of bread despite the fact that they hadn't baked since yesterday morning. The room was perpetually warm even without the ovens going.

After turning on the light, he walked past the long row of ovens and hoisted himself up on the big, stainless steel counter at the far end of the kitchen. He rested his back against the oven knowing that from here, it was hard for anyone to see him.

Pulling his legs up underneath him, he opened his sketchpad to the next clean page and started with an oval, slightly lopsided. He grounded it by sketching the graceful curves of her neck and shoulders. Next he placed the outline of her eyes and shaded her nose – somewhat angular but not sharp. Before beginning her cheekbones, he closed his eyes. He could still feel the hard plane of her jaw, the softness of her cheek under his palm. He let out a long breath and returned to his work.

He spent the most time on her eyes. The charcoal pencil was the perfect tool for bringing out the storm in them, the troubled look that haunted him. If he could just get it right.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been working. He gradually became aware of his neck straining over the pad. His back seemed frozen in place. He used his pinky to smudge one last line – the shadow that brought out the worry between her eyes – before straightening up. His back ached as he stretched out his legs. He looked critically at the picture. It wasn't quite right, but it was the best he could do for now. He'd have to try again.

Sliding down from the counter, he walked over to the light switch on the wall. He surveyed the kitchen again. He would miss so much of this place. He flicked off the light and quietly crept back upstairs to his room.

Blue Ridge, Ga, 1992

Peeta peered into the back of the Suburban. Between his car and hers, they had managed to pack all of Katniss' stuff and were getting ready for the drive to Atlanta.

The last few days had been busy. The counselors had divided into teams to address clean-up and lock down of each area of camp in preparation for the off-season.

And Peeta and Katniss continued seeing each other. He tried to be sensitive to her fears of public consumption, and he also made sure they had time alone every day.

They had spent that first night together waking and sleeping, wrapped in each other. They'd initially gone to sleep with her spooned up against his chest, but he'd awakened some hours later to find that he must have turned over on his side at some point. She'd followed him and was pressed up tightly behind him, one arm around his waist, her hand resting precariously below his belt. He'd lain there a moment, unsure of what to do until he'd finally rolled over. Slowly he shifted until he was facing her, bringing her hand with him, holding it in his own and bringing it to his lips.

She had opened her eyes then, staring at him vaguely in the dark room. And then her hand had traveled to his hair, pulling gently on it as she sighed. He couldn't help himself. He kissed her forehead and then her closed eyes, and then he had moved to her cheek. She sighed again, stirring, as he rolled her on her back so he could continued softly kissing along her jaw. He felt her hands tighten around him, as his lips tugged gently on her earlobe. And then they were kissing again, urgently in the darkness. Her body felt hot in his hands as she moved against him. He couldn't stifle a groan when she nestled her hips into his, seeking the contact that he also craved.

He could tell when she became aware of him hard against her. She tensed in his arms and pulled back minutely, looking at him. His hand cupped the side of her face, feeling the hard plane of her jaw and the softness of her cheek. He ran his thumb across her cheekbone, a part of her he could draw with his eyes closed.

"Should we . . . ?" Her voice stalled.

"Stop. Yes." His answer was gruff, but he pulled back lying down beside her and pulling her to him. She nestled into him, her back to his chest, and he couldn't keep from pulling her hips tight to his.

It had been an excruciating night.

He had made a conscious decision to sleep in his own cabin since then – mostly because it would have been too easy. He knew they needed to wait, but if he had stayed with her, he would have been hard pressed to hold himself back like he had that first night.

His instincts told him to go slowly. Camp was not real life: hadn't Madge tried to tell him that the first week he was here? And he realized the truth in her words now that he was on the other end of the summer. He'd only been away from home six weeks in all, and yet he felt as if he'd been gone much longer.

And anyway, he couldn't deny that he was still a bit wary of his relationship with Katniss. Hell, he didn't know if he was supposed to call it a relationship. He had tried not to think at all in those terms, tried hard not to label it in his mind but instead just live in the present and not question the future.

But it was hard. He was a planner by nature.

And then there was the issue of what would happen when they got home.

Home. He wasn't even sure what that word meant to him anymore. If this summer had emphasized one thing, it was that he needed to move out of his parents' house. He was too old to stay there, and even in the few days he'd spent there during the break, he had felt himself falling into old habits of appeasement. He was an expert when it came to the duck-and-weave way of dealing with his parents. He'd managed to negotiate their expectations for him before by placating them, avoiding them and keeping his true feelings to himself. But he didn't want to do that anymore, and he knew that if he let himself be real around them, it would only lead to the raging arguments that had replaced the physical abuse of his childhood.

After having the smallest taste of living on his own, Peeta knew he could not go back. Not for long. His first priority was to help Katniss get settled. Then, he'd do the same for himself.

He reached into the back of the Suburban, adjusting piles one last time and making sure things were secure, before closing the back gate and heading into her cabin.

He found her staring out the kitchen window, lost in thought. Coming up from behind, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest. He reached down and kissed her cheek.

"Hey," he said quietly. "How are you doing?"

She took a deep breath. "It's weird," she said. "It's hard to believe I'm leaving this place."

"You'll be back."

"Yeah, but it won't be the same."

"No." He paused. "Are you sorry to leave?"

She turned in his arms and nestled into his neck. "No, I'm ready. Just . . . nostalgic, I guess."

He ran his arms under her shirt, feeling the smooth skin of her back under his palms. She shifted, and he felt her lips briefly on his neck.

"It's weird to be at a point where I can't envision what my life is going to be like. I mean, just the day-to-day, you know?"

He pulled back and peered into her face. "It's exciting," he said.

"Yeah," she agreed, but there was a note of uncertainty in her voice that was echoed in her eyes. She looked up at him and gave a half smile. Her hands found his cheeks briefly before burying into his curls. She reached up to kiss him gently and then returned her head to his chest.

He held her a few moments until he heard her take a deep breath. She pulled away.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah. Ready." Holding his hand, she walked out of the kitchen, through the living room, and out the door. Once he had exited too, she reached in and pulled shut the heavy wooden door and then closed the screen. She stepped back and followed Peeta down the path to their cars.

He led the way and opened her car door. "I'll follow you since I'm not exactly sure where we're going."

She stepped towards the door but did not get in. Turning to him, she said, "See you at Jo's place" and gave him a quick kiss.

He pulled her back to him for a deeper kiss. "See you at your place."

A/N

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