A/N: Final chapter, everyone! I've really liked this story; I hope you have too! That long bolded italic part is from the book, not my own imagination, so I do not own it okay? Thanks! Much love. Thanks for being dolls.

"What the hell?!" Mrs. Mellark seethed. That was about when I noticed that the bakery… was a complete and utter mess. Flour, egg, and butter were everywhere. And me? I was wrapped up in her son. I pulled away, embarrassed, and Peeta rubbed the back of his neck. His mom approached and he subtly pushed me behind him. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, that is, until

"Peeta! What the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded. "Can I ever count on you for anything? Look at yourself! You're a mess! And the bakery will take hours to clean!" She raised her hand and in that instant, I had a flashback to way back when I was eleven and desperate.

It was during the worst time. My father had been killed in the mine accident three months earlier in the bitterest January anyone could remember. The numbness of his loss had passed, and the pain would hit me out of nowhere, doubling me over, racking my body with sobs. Where are you? I would cry out in my mind. Where have you gone? Of course, there was never any answer.

The district had given us a small amount of compensation for his death, enough to cover one month of grieving at which time my mother would be expected to get a job. Only she didn't. She didn't do anything but sit propped up in a chair or, more often, huddled under the blankets on her bed, eyes fixed on some point in the distance. Once in a while, she'd stir, get up as if moved by some urgent purpose, only to then collapse back into stillness. No amount of pleading from Prim seemed to affect her.

I was terrified. I suppose now that my mother was locked in some dark world of sadness, but at the time, all I knew was that I had lost not only a father, but a mother as well. At eleven years old, with Prim just seven, I took over as head of the family. There was no choice. I bought our food at the market and cooked it as best I could and tried to keep Prim and myself looking presentable. Because if it had become known that my mother could no longer care for us, the district would have taken us away from her and placed us in the community home. I'd grown up seeing those home kids at school. The sadness, the marks of angry hands on their faces, the hopelessness that curled their shoulders forward. I could never let that happen to Prim. Sweet, tiny Prim who cried when I cried before she even knew the reason, who brushed and plaited my mother's hair before we left for school, who still polished my father's shaving mirror each night because he'd hated the layer of coal dust that settled on everything in this town. The community home would crush her like a bug. So I kept our predicament a secret.

But the money ran out and we were slowly starving to death. There's no other way to put it. I kept telling myself if I could just hold out until May 8th, just May 8th, I would turn twelve and be able to sign up for the tesserae and get that precious grain and oil to feed us. Only there were still several weeks to go. We could well be dead by then. …

On the afternoon of my encounter with Peeta Mellark, the rain was falling in relentless icy sheets. I had been in town, trying to trade some threadbare old baby clothes of Prim's in the public market, but there were no takers. … The rain had soaked through my father's hunting jacket, leaving me chilled to the bone. For three days, we'd had nothing but boiled water with some old dried mint leaves I'd found in the back of the cupboard. By the time the market closed, I was shaking so I hard I dropped the bundle of baby clothes in a mud puddle. I didn't pick it up for fear I would keel over and be unable to regain my feet. Besides, no one wanted those clothes.

I couldn't go home. Because at home was my mother with her dead eyes and my little sister, with her hollow cheeks and cracked lips. I couldn't walk into that room with the smoky fire from the damp branches I had scavenged at the edge of the woods after the coal had run out, my hands empty of any hope.

I found myself stumbling along a muddy lane behind… some shops. The merchants live above their businesses, so I was essentially in their backyards. I remember the outlines of garden beds not yet planted for the spring, a goat or two in a pen, one sodden dog tied to a post, hunched defeated in the muck. …

When I passed the baker's, the smell of fresh bread was so overwhelming I felt dizzy. The ovens were in the back, and a golden glow spilled out the open kitchen door. I stood mesmerized by the heat and the luscious scent until the rain interfered, running its icy fingers down my back, forcing me back to life. I lifted the lid to the baker's trash bin and found it spotlessly, heartlessly bare.

Suddenly a voice was screaming at me and I looked up to see the baker's wife, telling me to move on and did I want her to call the… police and how sick she was of having… brats… pawing through her trash. The words were ugly and I had no defense. As I carefully replaced the lid and backed away, I noticed him, a boy with blond hair peering out from behind his mother's back. I'd seen him at school. He was in my year, but I didn't know his name. He stuck with the town kids, so how would I? His mother went back into the bakery, grumbling, but he must have been watching me as I made my way behind the pen that held their pig and leaned against the far side of an old apple tree. The realization that I'd have nothing to take home had finally sunk in. My knees buckled and I slid down the tree trunk to its roots. It was too much. I was too sick and weak and tired, oh, so tired. Let them call the police and take us to the community home, I thought. Or better yet, let me die right here in the rain.

There was a clatter in the bakery and I heard the woman screaming again and the sound of a blow, and I vaguely wondered what was going on. Feet sloshed toward me through the mud and I thought, It's her. She's coming to drive me away with a stick. But it wasn't her. It was the boy. In his arms, he carried two large loaves of bread that must have fallen into the fire because the crusts were scorched black.

His mother was yelling, "Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!" He began to tear off chunks from the burned parts and toss them into the trough, and the front bakery bell rung and his mother disappeared to help a customer.

The boy never even glanced my way, but I was watching him. Because of the bread, because of the red weal that stood out on his cheekbone. What had she hit him with? My parents never hit us. I couldn't even imagine it. The boy took one look back to the bakery as if checking that the coast was clear, then, his attention back on the pigs, he threw a loaf of bread in my direction. The second quickly followed, and he sloshed back to the bakery, closing the kitchen door tightly behind him.

I stared at the loaves in disbelief. They were fine, perfect really, except for the burned areas. Did he mean for me to have them? He must have. Because there they were at my feet. Before anyone could witness what had happened I shoved the loaves under my shirt, wrapped the hunting jacket tightly around me, and walked swiftly away. The heat of the bread burned into my skin, but I clutched it tighter, clinging to life.

All of this flew through my mind in that instant. Before she could strike the blow, I jumped forward to receive it instead. Peeta caught me as I fell back, a welt already forming on my cheek the same as he'd had years ago. His mother gasped and appeared as though she were about to apologize, but Mr. Mellark walked through the entrance at that moment. He took in the mess and gave a sort of laugh before his wife spun around and he coughed.

"Uh, Peeta. What happened here?" A glance at me and his jaw kind of unhinged. "Katniss, what on earth–?"

To this day, the look in Peeta's eyes… It's the angriest I've ever seen him. He was livid.

"Mom hit her," he snapped. "She was going to slap me but Katniss stepped in front." Without another word, and despite his anger, Peeta pulled me out the door with all the gentleness he had, up the side entrance, and into their house.

He set me down me on his bed and his hand lifted to pull at his mouth, something I'd seen Gale do when he was upset.

"Peeta, I'm fine…"

Peeta shook his head firmly. "No. No. She hit you. Hitting me, that's whatever. I can deal with her. But you… No. She can't hurt you."

Confused, I shook my head as well, trying to comprehend what was going on. Of course his mother hitting Peeta was unacceptable and I couldn't believe it, but me? "Peeta, really. Why is it such a big deal?"

Unexpectedly, Peeta sat down next to me. "Katniss…" He trailed off and seemed to make an internal decision. "We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair… it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up."

"Your father? Why?" I asked.

"He said, 'See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner,'" Peeta told me.

"What? You're making that up!" I exclaimed.

"No, true story. And I said, 'A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could've had you?' And he told me, 'Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen.'"

I nodded, smiling slightly. "That's true. They do. I mean, they did." I'd been stunned that he remembered that specific day, but also confused. What was the point of his story?

"So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent," Peeta said quietly.

"Oh, please," I said. I was laughing a little, but only because I really didn't know how to react.

"No, it happened. And right when your song ended," he said, "I knew–just like your mother–I was a goner. Then for the next nine years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you. I did when we were fourteen."

For a moment, I was almost foolishly happy, in the way where your brain seems to stop what it's doing, and then confusion swept over me again.

"But… does that mean… You…" I hesitated. Peeta's story had a ring of truth to it. That part about my father and the birds. And I had sung the first day of school, although I hadn't remember the song. And that red plaid dress… there was one, a hand-me-down to Prim that got washed to rags after my father's death.

It would explain another thing, too. Why Peeta had taken a beating to give me the bread on that awful hollow day. So if those details were true… could it all be true? I had no words. I blurted the first thing that came to mind.

"You have a… remarkable memory," I said, haltingly.

"I remember everything about you," he murmured. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "You're the one who wasn't paying attention."

I swallowed. For the first time in my life, Peeta Mellark was making me feel nervous. "I am now."

Peeta shrugged. "Well, with Gale pretty much gone, I don't have much competition here."

Say it, Katniss. You want to. "You don't have much competition anywhere." Then I was leaning in. Or, you could say falling, if you wanted to be cliché.