Author's note: Many, many thanks to dandelion sunset, francatwild and chelziebelle for being such amazing betas!

Prologue—The observant one

Starvation, beatings, verbal and emotional abuse—these were the only things that Marigold Mellark had given to any of her sons for as long as Peeta could remember. He did not remember a time when she had held him close, told him she loved him, or showed any pride in his achievements. Peeta had stopped expecting her affections when he was small, maybe four or five years of age.

However, he didn't stop wanting his mother's affections until a cold, rainy afternoon when he was eleven-years-old. Mrs. Mellark was screeching at somebody out their back door, "You filthy thing! Get off my property or I'm calling the Peacekeepers! I am sick to death of Seam brats like you pawing through my trash!" Curious, Peeta looked out to see who it was, and what he saw nearly made his heart stop.

Katniss Everdeen was stumbling away from the bakery trash cans where she had obviously been foraging for food. As his mother stormed back inside, he saw Katniss collapse underneath their apple tree. She was soaking wet and had to be freezing. He expected her to get back up, but instead she just wrapped her arms around herself and glanced up at the bakery before putting her head on her knees.

Peeta knew things had been bad for Katniss since her father had died a few months earlier in a coal mine explosion. She'd been coming to school looking unkempt, and sometimes she didn't bring a lunch to eat. He'd heard her mother had gone mad with grief, but surely she'd snap out of it soon, wouldn't she? Even as Katniss grew thin and quiet, he still thought of her as being the confident, happy little girl his father had pointed out to him on their very first day of school. Farl Mellark told his son how he had been in love with her mother but she'd chosen to marry a coal miner. When Peeta asked why, his father said, "Because when he sings... even the birds stop to listen."

Peeta thought that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, until later that day. The little girl with two braids stood tall on a chair, in front of everybody, and sang so beautifully that the birds really had stopped to listen. He remembered the look in her eyes. Sparkly, he thought, her eyes are sparkly. From that day forward, she had owned Peeta's heart.

Now, the vibrant, spirited girl he had loved through the years had become a walking skeleton too weak to stand. The sparkle in her eyes had been replaced with defeat. Katniss had accepted her death. He could see it. And his mother was going to let her die in their own yard.

Peeta felt like something deep inside of him had cracked open. He waited until his mother's back was turned and quietly pushed two nearly-finished loaves directly into the fire. They were expensive artisan loaves, cooked in a wood-burning stove and filled with nuts and dried fruit. They were popular sellers among the Merchant class, but Peeta himself had only tasted it once. When his father taught him how to make it, they'd eaten a loaf at dinner that night. Peeta knew it was the kind of bread that filled you up.

When the loaves were scorched just enough that they couldn't sell, he removed them with tongs. Preparing himself for what he knew was coming, he showed the bread to his mother. He felt the blow from the rolling pin on his face but it only registered physically. Mentally and emotionally, he was under the tree with Katniss. His mother called him stupid and told him to feed the ruined bread to the pigs, as he knew she would.

Katniss was still huddled underneath their tree. She raised her head and looked at him as he walked to the pig pen but he didn't dare look back at her. If his mother found out, this was all for nothing. He tore off the end of the more seriously burned loaf and threw it to the pigs. He checked to make sure his mother was not looking, then he threw the loaves towards Katniss and walked back into the bakery. When he looked outside a few minutes later, Katniss and the bread were gone.

One whole side of his face throbbed with pain and the heat of the ovens was making it worse. Later that day, Peeta's father saw his eye and brought him upstairs. (Farl Mellark rarely prevented his sons' injuries but he had become quite adept at treating them.) Peeta quietly told him everything. His father looked very sad but said nothing as he placed a cold compress on his son's eye and gave him willow bark tea. It tasted awful but helped ease the pain a bit.

Peeta never wanted his mother's attention or approval again after that. He had seen her for what she really was—a small-minded, cruel woman who would have let a child starve to death in her own yard and been glad. As he got older, he realized that his mother foolishly believed that being a Merchant family put their social standing just one small step below President Snow. Peeta knew better, though. People from the Capitol made no distinction between Merchant and Seam—to them, everybody in District 12 was a hillbilly.

Since that day, Peeta had also kept his eye on the girl from the Seam. The day after he threw the bread, he was sporting a shiner that covered half his face but Katniss was looking better than she had been in a long time. She caught him staring at her after school; her gray eyes were so piercing that he had to look away. A moment later he glanced back, but she was staring at a dandelion, which she picked before running off with her sister.

Over the next several months, he watched her regain some (but never all) of the weight she had lost. She must have started hunting like her father had, because she began trading squirrels with his father. "Always right through the eye," his father would remark. He'd heard she was also trading at the Hob, District 12's black market. He even started seeing her mother around town occasionally, and Katniss and her little sister, Prim, looked like they were being better cared for.

Nobody ever saw Katniss with her bow and arrow, but everybody knew she was an accomplished huntress. One Saturday afternoon when Peeta was 13 years old, one of the Peacekeepers, Purnia, came in to make some purchases. She told Peeta and his father how Katniss had shown up at the Hob that morning with a lynx pelt. "I don't know what she did with the meat, but I bet that cat weighed a good 40 pounds. I'll tell you what. If I ever have to go into those godforsaken woods, I'm not even gonna bother with my sidearm. I'm gonna bring Katniss Everdeen. Yes, sir." Peeta was so proud of Katniss. Peacekeepers thought she could protect them.

As they grew older, Katniss regained some of the spirit and confidence she'd had as a child, but—it was different now. She was different. Her gray eyes no longer sparkled; now they held fire. She never raised her hand in class, but if she was called upon she always had the right answer. She wasn't shy, but she didn't talk much. Her face was an open book. Peeta could usually see exactly what Katniss was feeling at any given moment—usually anger, sadness or suspicion—but since she never talked, he didn't know why.

The biggest change in Katniss, though, was that she had become so... self-contained. His Katniss had grown fierce. She didn't seem to need anybody. The other girls at school were all about trying to get the attention of one or more boys. They worried about clothes and hair and who was seeing who and all of that. Katniss, on the other hand, dressed as if she expected that she might need to climb a tree at a moment's notice. She wore pants, boots, and what he was nearly certain were her father's old shirts.

Katniss was definitely a late bloomer. When school ended last year, she could have passed for an undernourished 12 or 13 year old, even though she was 15. But when school started up again in the fall, well, Peeta knew he was in for a long year. On the first day of school, he and his friend, Will, were talking at lunch. They were having a fairly involved discussion about what to expect from the new wrestling coach when Will stopped talking mid-sentence. He was staring at something over Peeta's shoulder. Peeta turned to look and felt a bolt of desire flash through his body.

Katniss Everdeen had grown up.

She was walking in their direction, looking for a place to eat lunch. Katniss was a good bit taller than she had been, although still tiny compared to most of the other girls their age. She had also grown small, high breasts that bounced a little with every step. She was wearing pants—she nearly always did—but instead of hanging on her like an old sack, they clung to her thighs and hips. The belt she wore accentuated her tiny waist and when she turned her back to them to talk to Madge Undersee, she gave them a lovely view of her very round, very firm bottom. Will whispered to Peeta, "Who knew a girl in trousers would get a 9.5 on the peter-meter? Man, I hope she starts a trend."

Like any other boy his age, Peeta had sexual fantasies. It was rare for him to go more than a day without having to stroke himself to orgasm. But his fantasies up to this point in his life had always been fairly vague and rarely included Katniss. She was so pure, so perfect, and he loved her with his entire soul. It felt wrong to objectify her like that. Besides, he was 15. He didn't need much imagination; all he needed was about 3 minutes alone.

Those days were over. As it turned out, Peeta's imagination had an astounding variety of suggestions about Katniss, now that she was smoking hot. He nearly failed chemistry that first quarter because Katniss' gym class ran track just outside his classroom window. She wore these little shorts and a t-shirt, and like most kids from the Seam she ran barefoot. Katniss was faster than every single girl and nearly all of the boys, and when she ran, her braid would fly out behind her and everything on her body bounced.

No, the days of Katniss being too pure to star in his fantasies were long gone.

Katniss, as always, seemed totally oblivious to how people reacted to her. If she did notice anybody looking at her for too long, she'd scowl, and that was usually enough to scare them off. (Although Peeta did notice that when she caught him staring, she didn't scowl.) Katniss, as she had for years now, kept her walls up and nobody from school was allowed in, except for possibly Madge Undersee, who was quiet as a mouse. Soon enough, people even began to wonder if Katniss liked girls—that is, until she started spending time with Gale Hawthorne.

Gale Hawthorne. Peeta wasn't entirely sure what Gale exactly was to Katniss. He knew she didn't have any brothers, but maybe they were cousins. They sure looked an awful lot alike, what with the gray eyes, the dark hair, and the olive skin. They never seemed to flirt with each other or act in any sort of romantic way. No hand holding or trips to the slag heap.

On the other hand, she was with Gale all the time. They hunted together, they traded together, he was pretty certain they went to the Hob together. If nothing else, Katniss trusted Gale. And since her father had died, Peeta had only seen her smile for two people—her sister Prim and Gale Hawthorne.

Gale was tall, good-looking, from the Seam, and he could hunt. He was probably perfect for her. Peeta tried very hard not to resent the guy. It wasn't Gale's fault that Peeta lacked the courage to talk to Katniss.

And really, that's what it all came down to—his lack of courage. Peeta loved her so much that the thought of her rejection made his palms sweat and his eyes burn. He knew he was being foolish. He knew that if he talked to her, she would either reject him or she wouldn't. Either way, he'd have his answer and could move on with his life, right? There was no shortage of pretty girls around to keep Peeta company. After all, he might have been in love with Katniss Everdeen but he wasn't dead. If Katniss turned him down flat, he knew he'd be able to find consolation in the arms of any number of girls.

But that's all those girls would ever be—a consolation prize. Second best. Not enough. And Peeta knew what that did to a person. All he had to do was look at his mother. So Peeta continued to love her from afar and waited for something to happen that would push him into the path of Katniss Everdeen.