Chapter 1: Dandelion in the Spring

Every few seconds, I can't stop staring at him.

I only ever hold it for a moment or two, before averting my eyes down into my meager lunch, scowling at my sandwich – or, more specifically, the two pieces of bread that make up my sandwich.

A part of me still can't quite believe yesterday happened. Did it really happen? A Merchant – or as I've heard some Seamers like to derisively call them, a "Townie" – throwing bread to me?

No, I practically try to tell myself – he threw the bread in my direction. There's a difference…. isn't there? Annoyingly, my recently nutritioned brain can't seem to think of one, and when I next steal a glance at the blonde-haired boy sitting and laughing with his friends across the room, I reserve my scowl for him. I feel his back stiffen a little, the pronounced muscles there tensing on high alert in that moment that someone senses they are being watched, and I duck my head back into my lunch before the boy can even turn his head in the direction of my spying.

Peeta Mellark and I have been classmates in school since we were small, though we've never spoken once in all that time. We share several classes together in Fifth Year, the final grade in Lower School; next year, we'll matriculate into Upper School with the big kids. That graduation is always marked by another milestone – becoming old enough to participate in the Reaping for the Hunger Games.

I pick at the baloney nestled between two slabs of whole wheat bread. The edges of the bread still carry some scorch marks from being burned; I had helped Mother slice the foodstuff carefully both for our heartier dinner last night and to prep my and Primrose's lunch for today. Enough of it was salvageable, more than I would have thought, which makes me wonder why…. Peeta's mother would have deemed them unable to be sold.

My mind flashes back to yesterday evening, in the deluge of a driving rain. I had already traversed much of Town, trying to desperately sell off Prim's old baby clothes. Naturally, there hadn't been any takers, and the elite of District 12 had one by one turned me away with mostly cold indifference. Even my maternal uncle who runs the Apothecary shop cast me out as if he didn't know me. He probably tells himself he doesn't, and that he doesn't have a sister who flouted all tradition to run off and marry my daddy, a poor coal miner.

In my malnourished state, it was actually the hostile reception of me at the front of the Mellark Bakery that had been the most memorable.

Spying the establishment's trash cans outside their front door, ready for nightly collection from the garbage collector, I had set down the unsold baby clothes in a wet patch of grass for only a moment, my desperation brought on by slowing starving to death fueling me to rifle through the cans. Townies are always wasteful, I've heard adults in the Seam say. Whereas we use everything, they might toss something out that still could be useful. One man's waste is another man's treasure. And I did find leftover food! It wasn't much – an apple core here, a tin of beans there with some left to scrape off the bottom. But before I could grab and make off with it, I saw stars and a blinding pain shot through my skull as I was walloped in the back of the head.

In a daze, I could see and only vaguely hear the Witch (that's what many in the Seam call the Baker's shrewish wife, always behind her back) screaming at me, how she was sick of Seamers pawing through her trash and did I want her to call the Peacekeepers. I didn't say a word, merely crawled away, scooped up Prim's baby clothes and staggered along the green to the base of an apple tree a short distance away. I half-expected the Witch to follow me and further drive me off; she didn't. There, under that tree, I slumped, utterly defeated. Curled up in a ball, I waited to die. I only hoped that it wouldn't be long before death also took Primrose and even Mother (though she's been of no help since Daddy died) so they wouldn't have to suffer.

After all, whatever's after this life has to be better than District 12 – where you can starve to death in safety.

The pain at the back of my skull had begun to ebb into a dull throbbing. My hearing was coming back by degrees, when I heard a crash come from inside the Bakery. Its lighted windows looked so warm and inviting, despite the animosity of one of its residents. There was the tinkling of a bell as the door rammed open and a boy with dirty blonde hair stumbled out, his mother following and waving a rolling pin (that must be what she hit me with) and screaming:

"FEED IT TO THE PIG, YOU STUPID CREATURE! WHY NOT?! NO ONE DECENT WILL BUY BURNED BREAD!"

From under the apple tree, I had watched as the boy shuffled through the mud to the pig pen adjacent to the bakery. I vaguely noted the Witch moving back inside, perhaps to help a customer. The boy was at the simple fence of the pig pen, but hadn't moved.

Then…. he looked at me.

Glanced back, really, then in every other direction furtively, as if he was afraid of being watched. Then, he tossed two loaves of bread in my general direction, so that the pieces landed on the wet cobblestones away from where I sat. I vaguely remember thinking how he had a good arm – did he play for the school baseball team? Even though the boy appeared roughly my age, I could observe bulging, healthy and strong forearms straining beneath his undershirt.

Next second, the boy was shuffling back to the bakery's front door, and stepping inside. It wasn't until after I heard the door close, and the chimes of the bell fading away on the air that my malnourished brain seized on his name:

Peeta.

Somewhere, somehow, I found the strength to rise, and scramble over to the loaves of bread, which were rapidly becoming soggy. Gathering both up in my arms, I raced with invigoration I didn't know I had all the way for home. I ended up leaving Prim's baby clothes behind in the patch of grass just off of that apple tree, but once I remembered this, it hardly mattered. Hopefully, someone else had been able to salvage them the way I would now salvage this bread.

Prim's eyes had lit up when she saw the gift I brought home for dinner. I still haven't told Mother exactly how and where I got the bread, and she didn't ask. I have my doubts she ever will. Perhaps she thinks I stole it and amazingly managed to not get caught by the owners, or worse, Peacekeepers.

In any case, the bread has managed to keep quite well. If we conserve it as frugally as we can, we might be able to stretch it out into nearly all of next week.

Hopefully, by then, I'll have come up with a plan for how to keep myself and my family alive.

Aside from using up the last of the bread, the one thing that remains unresolved is what to do about Peeta Mellark.

Seam folk take the concept of a debt very seriously. Most of my neighbors describe the phenomenon as "owing," and you pay back what you are owed. That is, if you can. And what is frustrating me about Peeta Mellark to no end is that I have no idea how I can repay him. He doesn't want for anything (except for maybe a mother who actually cares – that makes two of us), has two strapping older brothers. With the nature of his family business, he's never gone to bed hungry a night in his life. What could I possibly offer him in return?

You could thank him, a little voice in my head whispers to me. I bristle proudly at the suggestion. If you owe someone a debt, you don't thank them with your words. You thank them with your actions, paying the debt accrued in the form of something tangible… except I have nothing tangible, much less of value, to offer Peeta for his kindness, and I find myself right back where I started. Trades are supposed to be easy, and fair – Mother gets paid for her healing remedies all the time (at least, she did, when she was still actively working), usually in the form of foodstuffs instead of coin or the odd sesterce note.

Medicine….. I could pay Peeta back in medicine! I could ask Mother to borrow from her remaining Healing stock and shove the contraband into Peeta's locker the next morning.

The instant I think this, though, two problems arise: one, I could easily get caught and accused of dealing drugs in school. I might be a minor, and not even quite yet of Reaping age, but the school headmaster and the Peacekeepers don't take kindly to drug dealing around these parts. Two…. what kind of medicine could Peeta possibly need?

Ask him, the little voice in my head prods me. I swat it back, almost hissing like Prim's ugly cat, Buttercup.

Luckily, that won't be necessary. From my vantage point, I can deduce what medicine Peeta will likely need: morphling, and lots of it. Possibly even some herbs – rosemary and thyme. When he turns his head to laugh at something the Mayor's daughter has said, his profile informs me that he is sporting a truly ghastly black eye. It mars the blueness of his eyes…. eyes as blue as a summer sky. Like sapphires….

I mentally slap myself. What am I thinking? And I quickly glance back down into my half-eaten lunch, cheeks oddly flushing.

The bell rings to signal the end of the lunch period, and I wrap up the remainder of my baloney sandwich. I'll give the rest to Primrose later; she'll almost certainly need it more than I do. My heart swells as I think of my sister, the one person whom I'm certain I love.

I have to pass by Peeta Mellark's table to exit the cafeteria. He's rising off his bench, frame stooped and leaning over the table as he murmurs something to his friend, Delly Cartwright. The redhead who bizarrely always has a huge smile on her face, meets my eyes and I shift them away back onto Peeta. A few more steps and I'll have passed him….

"Hey."

It takes me a minute to realize that the greeting actually came from me. That I've stopped right behind him, my books hugged to my chest. Peeta turns slowly, his cobalt orbs blinking, and I feel my cheeks stain pink under his stare.

"….. H-hey, Katniss." A small smile upturns his lips. Offhand, I have to concede that I rather like his smile. A shiver passes through my body at the sound of my name on his lips, and my grey irises blink as I frown, bemused.

"You know my name?"

"Of course I do," Peeta's voice is unusually soft.

A brief, and awkward silence follows. My brain is needling me, and finally I cave, spitting it out.

"Thank you!"

I almost shout it, but with a decent cacophony of noise still generated by our rambunctious classmates leaving in a steady stream, it doesn't garner much attention. Except from the three Townie kids at this little table. Peeta's blue orbs have expanded slightly, and behind us I can hear Delly and Madge Undersee, the Mayor's daughter, whispering together in confusion. What is she talking about?, they must be asking.

Peeta knows, though. He knows without me having to elaborate. He dips his head in a nod. "You're welcome."

I'm wringing my hands by this point, bunching up the hem of my blue dress – the nicest article of clothing I own. It was a hand-me-down of my mother's, from her Merchant days…. "That's…. that's what I came to say. Thank you."

I don't move, however, and neither does he, the pair of us just staring at each other under the observation of both Delly and Madge. In the silence, I take the time to better study Peeta's face. Peering at him, I conclude his mother must have switched him pretty bad – the blackness around his right eye is actually closer to purple. There's also a red welt on his forehead. A hiss escapes me, as I bite my lip. It's a shame his mother has to be the way she is. Why couldn't she leave him alone? Take away the injuries, which hopefully will fade with time, and Peeta is quite…. handsome….

"How….. how's your eye?"

"Fine," Peeta shrugs. "Bumped it when my idiot brother timed opening an oven door wrong."

I cock an eyebrow. "Uh-huh." I can tell from the way his eyes shift that he knows I don't believe him. I almost ask him to explain the red welt on his forehead, just to hear what line he'll think to feed in order to spin that one away. I go back to worrying my bottom lip. "My, uh….. my mother has morphling to treat that. I…. I could bring it to you tomorrow, if you'd like."

Peeta's jaw unhinges ever so slightly in surprise, but he recovers quickly, chuckling a little. There's that smile again. "You don't owe me anything, Katniss."

I frown hard, obdurate. "Yes, I do." There's a hard edge to my voice. I have a debt to repay, and by Panem, I'm going to repay it, and that will be the end of it.

Peeta's face falters, and he nods almost resignedly. "Yeah. That would be…. fine."

I straighten. "Excellent." I am just about to turn around and flounce out of there when Peeta calls out:

"Katniss!"

"Yes?"

"Bring the morphling tomorrow, if you want… but I know a better way you can repay me, if you feel you have to."

I stiffen a little, bracing myself. "And what is that?" I'm expecting him to ask for a free kiss or something. That's what most boys our age are after, or are starting to; I've seen couples paired off in the school play-yard, lips locking in the shadow of the statues of Lucy Gray Baird and Haymitch Abernathy, our only two Victors of the Hunger Games. If Peeta does ask for a kiss, I won't turn him down, even though people say that Seam kissing Merchant is bad luck.

Instead, Peeta asks:

"Would you like to sit with us at lunch tomorrow?" Both of my brows nearly vacate up into my hairline at this, though when I scan the faces of Delly and Madge for their reactions, both girls are nodding welcomingly. Peeta is eyeing me bashfully. "Would you like to be…. friends?"

I pick on some lint clinging to my skirts. "I've never been very good at making friends," I mumble.

"We don't mind, so long as you try," Delly pipes up.

Meeting Peeta's stare, I finally nod. "OK. I'll sit with you at lunch tomorrow." I don't make a vocal commitment regarding the friends part, but I have a foreboding feeling that might now be out of my power anyway.

"Great!" Peeta beams. "See you then." And he strides off with Delly and Madge in his wake.

I finally exit the cafeteria to find the halls close to empty, and walk back to class alone. When the final bell rings at the end of the day, I retrieve my homework books from my locker and steal down the stairwell to the first floor, easing into the hallway to pick up Primrose.

My sister's blonde curls finally bounce into view, and with a rare and genuine smile, I tuck her into my side. "Ready to go home, Little Duck?"

Prim grins cheekily, wiggling her little bottom like a duckling shaking its tail. "Quack."

We head out into the sunshine of the school play-yard, the sun's rays making everything shimmer more, on account of the dewey residues of yesterday's thunderstorm. As I absently pass off the last of my baloney sandwich to my sister, who digs into it ravenously, I am looking down at my feet.

Later, I would say that it is almost fate that I was. Otherwise, I would have missed it.

A puff of yellow is breaking through a crack in the cobblestones. A dandelion…. pushing up through the concrete. Like it was planted right there for me to see. Reaching down, I pluck the little flower, which has been somehow surviving in a harsh world, and hand it to my sister, who takes it happily and promptly blows out the little puffs. Lifting my eyes, my stare lands on Peeta Mellark clear across the play-yard and almost surely watching me. He's gazing in my general direction, anyway.

An image of the dandelion floats in my head as our eyes meet, and I finally award Peeta with a genuine smile. I think of it as a down payment, the rest of which will be reimbursed with interest starting tomorrow.

After all, you never forget the face of the person who was your last hope.

A/N: I am absolutely thrilled with the continued response to Maysilee, and it convinced me that I'm not... quite done yet. It has been observed that fanfic authors live or die by the slow burn. In my long career, I have mostly died by it, largely out of an impatience to get our OTP kissing. That is my Achilles' heel. Everlark has been no exception for me. I have made attempts to write no arena, slowburns for them before... with mixed results. A first crack at this latest idea actually became 40 Years Is Long Enough for Coal to Burn and Shine on one of my other channels. I have always wanted to do a true, low-simmer slow-burn for Everlark, preferably without any time skips. This is my best effort at doing that. Enjoy the read!