Author's note: Tons of goodwill, thanks and chesebuns to my amazing betas, dandelionsunset and francatwild.

Chapter 3—the job offer

The day after her father was killed, 11-year-old Katniss Everdeen was in charge of herself, her little sister and her catatonic mother. She just didn't know it yet.

Why would she? She was a child. Her parents had always taken care of her, always been loving, always put her and Prim first. She had no reason to even suspect that her father's death would catapult her mother into a grief-induced stupor so profound that her daughters nearly starved to death in front of her while she stared into nothing. Katniss had no way to know that her first morning without her father was also her first morning without her mother.

But she learned it quickly enough.

The day that Peeta Mellark had saved her (and Prim and her mother) with the bread, it didn't occur to her that he may have burned those loaves on purpose. And when it did occur to her the following day, she dismissed it. The entire district knew that Mrs. Mellark beat her sons. Peeta had to have known that burning bread would result in a beating. Why would he risk that for a girl he didn't even know?

Still, whether he'd done it on purpose or not, Katniss knew that those two loaves had stopped the spiral of despair and starvation she had been in. She did more than feed her family that day. Katniss started down the path to self-sufficiency. It was the following day when she had seen Peeta's battered face, and then the dandelion, that she remembered her father's lessons about foraging for food, and hunting, and where he kept his bow and arrows in the woods.

Rosemary Everdeen, Katniss' mother, slowly came out of her stupor. It happened in fits and starts. She'd be present for an hour here or an hour there, then go back to bed and sleep for a couple of days. Those times were actually worse for Katniss than when Rosemary didn't respond at all. It was hard seeing Prim get her hopes up that their mother had returned to them, only to have her check out again for a few days. Eventually, though, she made a recovery of sorts. She was never again the radiant woman that Katniss remembered form her youth, but at least she was present.

Rosemary had grown up as a Merchant kid, the daughter of the apothecary. Her parents disowned her when she married a boy from the Seam, but Rosemary never lost her knowledge. Now that she was coherent, she had set up a small business as a healer. It didn't pay well—most of their clients were from the Seam, after all—but Rosemary was good at her job and never turned anybody away.

In the years that followed, Katniss developed a routine that kept food on the table and a roof over their heads. Hunt with Gale. Go to school. Eat lunch with Madge. Go home. Eat supper. Sleep. It didn't leave much time for Katniss to do anything else, and it wasn't always enough. Even with her and her mother's best efforts, they still sometimes went hungry. But it was as close to security as anything she'd had since before her father died.

The Mellark brothers were absolutely not a part of Katniss' routine.

Katniss and Madge had just started eating lunch when Madge said, "Why are those two coming over here?" Katniss looked up and saw Rye Mellark walking over to them, dragging a very flustered Peeta behind him.

"Everdeen. I hear you can sing," said Rye, with no preamble at all. Peeta tried to bolt, but Rye forced Peeta into a chair and sat down next to him, never taking his eyes of Katniss. Peeta pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes while his face started cycling through several shades of red.

Katniss, who had been staring at Peeta with her mouth half open, turned her attention back to Rye. "What?"she asked, clearly confused.

"I said, I hear you can sing," said Rye. Peeta tried to escape by sliding under the table, but Rye caught him halfway and pulled him back up into his seat. "Young Peeta here says you've got quite a voice," said Rye, clapping Peeta on the back. Peeta moved his hands to cover his whole face. All Katniss could see were two bright pink ears under his blond hair. "It was the sweetest thing, Everdeen. He got all poetic talking about it, didn't you, Peet?" Rye now had his arm around his little brother's shoulders and was talking to Peeta like he was four. "Here's how he put it. He said that when you sang, the birds stopped to listen. Didn't you, Peet?" There was a HUGE grin on Rye's face. She scowled at Rye, which made him look even happier.

Katniss decided that Rye and Peeta must be pulling some kind of joke on her. She was just about to tell them off when Madge said, "She can sing, actually. Katniss has a beautiful voice."

Katniss turned to stare at Madge, who shrugged and said, "You sing to yourself when we do homework." Rye started to look excited. Peeta slid his hands halfway down his face and shot Madge a look of profound gratitude.

Katniss asked, "Why do you care?" Rye told her about his bluegrass band, all Merchant boys. Katniss didn't know any of them very well but she knew some of their family members. Dalton's little sister, Delly, was in Katniss' class. Delly was a bit too cheerful for Katniss' taste, but she was nice to everybody. Marsh was the butcher's kid and had seen Katniss sell rabbits to his mother. And then there were the Mellarks. Mr. Mellark bought her squirrels. She didn't know Mandor, but at least he'd never been mean or rude to her.

Anyway, according to Rye, they were all quite good musicians. "So why can't one of you sing?" asked Katniss.

At this, Peeta removed his hands from his face, which was returning to its normal color and said, very solemnly, "Because it sounds like animals dying." Rye shrugged and nodded his head.

Katniss raised her eyebrows at Peeta. He held her gaze, and she could see a twinkle in his blue eyes. In all the years they had gone to school together, he had never looked her in the eye for more than a moment. Maybe this wasn't a joke after all. "Why would I want to sing in your band?" she asked Rye.

"Well, obviously, if we are good enough, we'd make money. But nobody is going to hire us without a singer. And nobody is going to hire us twice without a good singer."

"How much money, exactly?"

Madge actually knew the answer to that. "The band that played last year at the Harvest Festival received 600. That amount or more is probably going to be set aside for next month's Spring Festival. And the more elaborate toastings will usually pay a band 100 or so just to play a few songs."

Katniss frowned and looked off into the distance behind them, running numbers through her head. If this cut into her hunting and trading time, there was no point in doing it. She faced Rye and asked, "What would I need to do, exactly?"

Rye explained that they would need to start rehearsals right away if they wanted to have a shot at playing the Spring Festival, which was only 6 weeks away. They probably needed a couple of hours every day after school, at least at first. Katniss shook her head. "That won't work. I need that time to—" she paused for a second- "do my homework." They all knew she had nearly said, "I need that time to hunt." Granted, her hunting wasn't exactly a secret but that didn't mean it was a good idea to go blabbing about it. And while she and Gale spent Sundays hunting and trying to get stocked up for the week, they still needed at least a few weekday afternoons to supplement what they had.

"Fair enough, "said Rye. "How about evenings, maybe after supper?"

Katniss rolled her eyes. "Right. A girl from the Seam who spends her evenings hanging out with four Merchant boys. You might as well name the band 'Slag Heap.'"

"Oh, c'mon, Everdeen. Who gives a shit about that whole Merchant-Seam divide, anyway?"

"Merchants," spat Katniss. "Besides, you aren't the one they'll call 'Seam Slut.'"

Peeta spoke so forcefully that it stopped the entire conversation in its tracks. "Nobody will say that about you, Katniss!Ever!" Rye and Madge looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Peeta looked just as surprised at his outburst as the rest of them. He put the heels of his hands back over his eyes.

Katniss wouldn't look at Peeta. She played with the end of her braid and murmured, "Yes, they will, Peeta. They'll say that and worse. My own mother was Merchant and she got disowned when she married my father."

Rye rolled his eyes. "Everdeen, your grandparents didn't kick your mom out because they were Merchants. They kicked her out because they were assholes. They still are. We should know. The apothecary isn't far from the bakery and the Mellark boys have been there plenty of times over the years." There was real bitterness in his voice. Katniss wasn't sure which thought disturbed her more—the fact that the two boys sitting across from her had met her grandparents and she never had; or that Mrs. Mellark's abuse had given her absent grandparents so much business.

She looked at the brothers. Rye had a closed expression on his face and was looking at the wall behind the girls and Peeta was looking down at his hands. He glanced up at Katniss, and she could see shame in his eyes. Well, Katniss could relate to being ashamed of your own mother; she just didn't know what to say about it.

Madge finally broke the tension by asking, "What if you had rehearsals at my house? There's always somebody there, and you really can't ask for a more secure chaperone than the Mayor or the Mayor's wife. Besides, if my dad approves of your group, well…people can think what they want but they'll be much less inclined to say it. And much more inclined to hire your band. Assuming you're any good, that is."

Rye looked impressed. "Can you really swing that?" he asked.

"Maybe", shrugged Madge. "Can't hurt to ask."

The bell rang suddenly, announcing the end of lunch. Katniss packed up her lunch, which she hadn't finished, and said to Rye, "Look. I don't know. I need to get my mother's permission. And I need to think about it. Can I let you know in a day or two?" Rye nodded.

As they all started on their separate ways, Rye caught up with Katniss and said, "Wait. Katniss. There's something else." Peeta was already halfway down the hall but he frowned over his shoulder at Rye. Rye waited until Peeta had gone into his classroom before saying, "This isn't just for me. This is about Peeta, too." Katniss waited for him to explain while Rye took a breath and lowered his voice. "Look, Bannock was supposed to take over the bakery but he knocked up the carpenter's daughter. They got married and now he's apprenticed with her father. I'm next in line to inherit the bakery."

"Ok," said Katniss, still unsure where this was going. "And?"

"And," Rye continued, "I don't want the bakery. At all. Peeta does. And he'd be really good at it. He's happy there, at least when our mother isn't around. Everything about it that I hate, he loves."

"You could always take Bannock's route," Katniss pointed out. "Marry a merchant girl and take over her parent's trade. For that matter, so could Peeta." She found herself frowning at her own words.

Rye whispered, "I don't want to get married, ever. I don't want to take over anybody's trade. I'll never get rich playing music, not in this shithole of a District. But if I do this right, I won't starve, especially if I stay on part-time at the bakery. If Peeta has the bakery, he gets the life he wants and I get the life I want. If he doesn't get the bakery, well…he'll probably wind up in the mines."

Rye looked at his feet. "Our mother...never liked Peeta," he confessed. "Well, she never liked any of us, but she's really awful to Peet. I think she wanted a girl. Instead, she wound up with a third boy who could never inherit anything. Peeta has made it clear to her that he'd never agree to an arranged Merchant marriage just to stay in town. He just isn't wired that way and she knows it. I think she always expected him to wind up in the mines. It's one of the reasons she's worse to him than she ever was to Bannock or me. In her mind, he's already Seam."

Rye looked up at her then. Even though he and Peeta physically looked a great deal alike, Rye's eyes were much harder than Peeta's. Peeta's eyes were warm and open; Rye's held anger and secrets. She was reminded of Gale. Returning to his normal voice, he said, "Listen, Everdeen, I've never even heard you sing. For all I know, you suck. But Peeta and the Mayor's daughter both say you're good. I'd like to hear you sing at least once so I know for myself. Talk to your mom. Think it over. Just don't dismiss this out of hand because of some Merchant-Seam bullshit, ok?"

Katniss nodded. Rye let out a breath he'd been holding and walked away. Katniss stood in the nearly empty hallway for a moment before her feet took her in the right direction. She was having a difficult time sorting out her thoughts but some deep instinct told her that this decision would profoundly change her life. She just couldn't tell if it would be for better or worse.