I do not own 'The Hunger Games' or anything related.


Stupid girl! Stupid! Shouting out his name like that, alerting her presence to anyone nearby! Not that there was anyone nearby, but there might have been! And I could tell from the guilty look on the girl's face that she knew what she did was the wrong thing to do! But even so, everything had changed. The girl smiled, and I couldn't help but smile with her. The fact that I could save the boy as well as the girl. But what was going on? Why had the game makers done this? I looked in their direction, continuing to work on the arena. Perhaps the kids' star-crossed romance had worked better than I thought, had won the audience over so much, that the game makers wanted it to continue, to become the focus of the games, understanding that viewers wanted to route for true love. I tried to get sleep, as I needed it for tomorrow, but I couldn't, as I was too excited over the prospect of saving the boy, working out as how to do it. The star-crossed lovers plot, that was the key. Make it all about the romance, about their love story.


A word of note before I continue. It's a commonly held myth that in the star-crossed lovers plot the two were already madly in love. But that wasn't true. After all, as Peeta rightly pointed out after the interviews he was the only one who made such a declaration of love, not Katniss. I mean sure when he did so she blushed and looked down, but that wasn't exactly the same! I know that's what Katniss thought and the role she was supposed to play, but that's not what draws people in. No one watches or listens to a love story about people already madly in love with each other, at least people madly in love with each other who get together straight away. I mean sure, romance between the two is a key aspect, but it's not what drives the story. The first part of the story and the audience's interest are driven by HOW they get together. First there is the meeting, the initial (non-romantic) interaction, the chemistry between them, the obstacles that are in the way of the prospective romance, the will they or won't they get together before they eventually get together. After this, the story's plot is DO they stay together, followed by more obstacles, whether they're still as compatible with each other, usually followed by some argument that splits them apart only for them to come back together. For reference, I use my own relationship with Rachelle, the only girlfriend I ever had. I think of the first time I saw her, and she saw me. It was after that time when I laughed at Everdeen's singing, and when everyone turned to look at me, and I said I laughed because he sounded like a girl. At that point, eventually everyone turned their attention away from me, except for one girl, who continued to stare at me. I remember thinking what was her problem. I remember every time I happened to notice her from that point on, she was looking at me. I remember her looking at me after my old man beat me up that time I stopped him from hitting Larie, and again after I had killed him. It was around the time I started to notice girls that I decided that she was attractive. There was one night, after I made sure Larie was asleep, and I couldn't, whenever that happened I went out to the meadow. The meadow had always been a safe place for me, a place that I could escape to whenever life got too much for me. But it was that night, when I stared up at the moon and stars, wondering it perhaps there were people on the moon, and if so how did their lives compared to ours, or perhaps the stars were suns far away and if they had worlds too revolving around them, that I realised someone was nearby. I turned to look around. It was the girl. She seemed startled that I noticed her.

"What the Hell do you want?" I snapped, which was really the question I've always wanted to ask her.

"Sorry," She said, "I just…"

"Just what?"

I stood up. I was intrigued. Anyone else would probably get upset with the way I talked to them, yet she seemed unfazed. She just seemed to be struggling for an excuse as to why she was looking at me.

"Nothing. I'm sorry."

She turned to walk away.

"No wait, stop!"

Stopping, she turned to look back at me.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Rachelle."

"I'm Haymitch."

"Yes, I know who you are."

"Yes, it's probably hard not to have heard of the guy who killed his own father."

"No, it's not that. You're the boy who made fun of Everdeen's singing."

I was taken aback that this was my most memorable moment.

"That was like the first day of school!"

"Well you left quite the impression."

Probably better than that certain other thing to leave an impression with.

After that we just started talking, about our families, about opinions, but never about my old man, or my ma. Nothing that was a painful subject. We talked for so long I asked her if she wanted to sit down, at which point she decided she had been out for too long, and needed to get back before anyone realised she was gone.

"Wait!" I said before she left, "Do you – um, want to meet up again?"

"When?"

"…Are you free tomorrow night?"

"Tomorrow's no good. How about the day after?"

"Sure! I can make it then! We'll meet right here!"

"It's a date!"

I blushed. She blushed too, but acted like she hadn't, and walked away.


And so that's how it started. Whenever we had time, we would meet up at that spot in the meadow. At first, we'd just talk about every day things, before we moved onto more depressing topics, like the Hunger Games, and the people lost. Again, though, we never talked about my old man, or my estrangement with my ma. As we talked, we got closer, first touching each other's hands, before sharing our lips. The day after, I spotted her. I was wondering if we should keep our relationship a secret when she walked up to me and kissed me on the lips, at which point I placed my arms around her, and she did the same. When we parted, I grinned at the stares we got. She went back to her groups of shocked friends, who were muttering to her, likely showing their disapproval. I turned to look at Mel, who continued to stare at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. I'm just – shocked that you got a girlfriend before me."

I remember there was a time when we laid together on the meadow ground, my arm around her shoulders.

"You know something, Haymitch? I used to think you were something dangerous. Like a mountain lion."

"Oh? And what now?"

"Now that I've gotten to know you, I realised that you're just a pussy cat."

"Meow."

"Don't make fun of me!" She laughed, pushing me.

"I'm not!" I laughed back, taking her in my arms, rolling in the meadow grass.


Ahem! So ok, maybe what I've just told isn't the greatest love story, but I hope you noticed the structure. The first meeting, the first interaction, and the anticipation if it becomes something more, and when it does….

So no, it was never about them already being madly in love with each other.

It was HOW she falls madly in love with him. And at that point, she seemed to be on the right track. Between her reaction to his declaration to when being told that two victors from the same district can be crowned, it would definitely get people wondering. A part of me wondered if this was the most important part of the portrayal of their relationship. The question hanging over their relationship, really, the question that had always been hanging over their relationship whether on camera or not, was not the traditional 'will they or won't they'?

It was 'Does she or doesn't she'?


I framed their relationship in the plot of a romance. You had their first meeting when they became tributes (Even though I suspected they met before, but there was no need to go into that!). You had them shown together during the chariot rides. You had them acting like a happy pair, followed by the boy's declaration of love and the girl's reaction. You had the boy saving her life, and now you have the promise that the two can both be crowned victors.

Yes, I do believe they are up for some actual romance soon.


I got up around the same time as the girl. I was trying to think of some way to direct her to the boy's location. This time she was extra cautious, watching out for any other tributes. Returning to the last location she saw him, the girl set a fire (I guessed as a way to misdirect the careers), before setting off to find the boy, correctly deducing that he would be at the stream near the lake. Heading downstream, she found the boulder where the boy bled against, and while still under the influence of the tracker jacker venom tried to wipe it away. Tracing the blood trail, the girl also found a few torn pieces of fabric.

"Peeta!" She whispered, "Peeta!"

What was she doing? I know she was only whispering but even the tiniest sound was bound to alert someone! She must know that! I could forgive her for her outburst when first hearing about the unexpected rule change, but this? A Mockingjay landed on a nearby tree mimicking her tones, forcing her to stop. She was prepared to move on. What she didn't know, though, was how near she was to the boy. In fact, he was only to her left, a fact that I wanted to scream at the monitor. If she moves now, then she'll lose him.

"Come to finish me off, have you?"

She turned in the direction of the voice. She called for the boy, but was unable to see him. She crawled along the bank, not realising she was about to step on him. Jumping back when he spoke to her again, she helped him out, getting him near the stream to wash the mud and plants off him and so that she could get a better look at his injuries. Leaving his clothes on a nearby boulder to dry, she tended to his tracker jacker wounds and his burn, before trying to get some food into him. When she examined the District 2's wound he gave the boy, I gained the impression that the girl wanted to run away, showing that same surprising squeamishness when she looked at her own burn wound. I could tell that she was at a loss at what to do, as did the boy. The leaves used to treat tracker jacker wounds were able to draw out the pus and reduce the swelling, and the burn ointment also helped as well, but I knew, and I'm pretty sure they did as well, that nothing without help from outside the arena could do anything about it. The girl admitted she didn't know what she was doing, but the boy was sympathetic, wondering how does she hunt if she was so squeamish, to which she replied that killing things was easier, and joked that she might be killing him right now, to which he replied if she could speed it up, and she responded with telling him to shut up and eat his pears. The boy said that perhaps she should have let her shower me after all, to which she asked if he had sent him anything. I felt a pang of guilt. After a moment's pause, the boy asked the girl if I sent her anything. She replied the burn medicine and bread, but phrased it like it was no big deal.

"I always knew you were his favourite," He said.

I felt a little stung when he said that. Not that I've given him any reason to think he was my favourite, or that I had a favourite to begin with. Always knew you were his favourite? I didn't know what I did to give that impression. That's not to say I didn't like the girl, even though we didn't get along. In fact, to tell you the truth, I did like her in spite of how we didn't get along. She reminded me of so much of me when I was her age, along with other people… Did I have favourites between the two? I didn't think so. I still don't think so, but like I said, I had given the boy no reason to think I favoured him, but what had I done to make him think even beforehand that she was my favourite?

"Please, he can't stand being in the same room as me," The girl replied.

Again, I felt a little stung, but just like the boy I've given the girl no reason to think that I liked her, or that I could stand her. I've thought back to how I treated her. Aside from at the beginning, where I complimented her for volunteering for her sister, to how I greeted her the first day we started my official mentoring when I realised there was a chance, to even complimenting her, I haven't been that nice to her since, from being harsh when she protested over being told to be with the boy, to criticising her during the preparation during her interview, and again after she shoved the boy, even slamming her into a wall and shouting at her. It's no wonder then she probably hated me, although perhaps that had changed with the arena, after I got her the burn medicine.

"That's because you're so alike," Muttered the boy.

So that's it! The reason the boy even suspected that beneath my apparent hatred of her that I liked the girl, as well as the reason why we never got along. Because we were so alike. Mind you, I like to think that Peeta and I are alike too, just in a different way from Katniss. She shares the same negative qualities as me whereas he shares my positive.

I got the impression that the girl did not take kindly to being compared to me. Deny it all you want, sweetheart, but we are alike.

She let him doze off, but by late afternoon she woke him up so that they could start moving. However, he proved too weak to be carried for too long, so they settled in a cave. Carpeting the floor with pine needles, she placed the boy in her sleeping bag before giving him a few more pills from the first aid kit she took from Marvel. She tried to cover the entrance in order to conceal it, but it would have been clear to any human that it was manufactured. As if recognising this, she tore it down in frustration. The boy, noticing her mood, called her over. She went over to him, brushing the hair from his eyes.

"Thank you for saving me."

"You would have done the same," She replied.

That I had no doubt, with or without the new rule. Then I read the fear on her face. The genuine fear. And that's when I knew. She was really afraid of this boy dying!

"Look, if I don't make it back-" He began to say before the girl interrupted him.

"Don't talk like that."

"But just in case I don't-"

"No, Peeta, I don't want to discuss it." She placed her fingers on his lips as an attempt to silence him.

"But I-"

And that was when she kissed him.

I could already imagine the impact it was having on the Capitol audience.

"You are not going to die, I forbid it. Ok?"

"OK," The boy whispered.

I thought about the kiss, how she kissed him on the lips before breaking away, likely due to how hot he was. Hot from the fever! Well as first kisses go (And I could tell this was the first time she had kissed someone) considering the circumstances, it was satisfactory. However, it was unsatisfactory for the kind of relationship that needed to be portrayed to the audience. Well it was a start, but I really needed the girl to up her game. Oh sure, that first kiss was bound to create a lot of buzz, but by kissing him she had cemented her status as an interested lover, or at least had romantic feelings for him, but if they were going to continue as that they needed to portray something more. I thought about my own first kiss with Rachelle, how after so much looking and dancing and talking how we eventually came together, looked at each other in the eye, and then after so much waiting we finally kissed, and as we kissed our hands went up and down each other's body-

OK, so maybe it didn't happen exactly like that, but that's the kind of thing people expect to see! They want to see passion between two people who knew what they were doing. No one wanted to see a pair of awkward teenagers awkwardly kissing and touching each other (NOT that kind of way!) uncertainly, having never kissed anyone before and becoming use to each other's touch! And I was pretty sure the girl knew herself that it wasn't much, but how to make sure?

"Perhaps we should send them something?" Effie suggested.

I smiled at the idea.

"Effie, you're a genius!"

"Nice for it to be acknowledged," Effie replied.

Going through the menu, my grin got wider as I tried to find the best item to convey the message. Yes. This should do it! I selected the item.

"You're sending them a pot of broth?" Effie asked me incredulously, "Well that doesn't seem so courteous! What kind of message are you trying to send?"

The message was You call that a kiss? But now the question was how well was that message going to be conveyed to the girl. Well, she understood my reasons for not sending her water. Perhaps she would understand this too.