One Wish

"There's a man across the street." Katniss said, pulling at the curtains.

"What do you mean?"

"There's a man. Across the street. By the trees," She repeated slowly, peeking out of the window once more. "Just starin' at the house."

"What?"

"Get up and look, will you?"

"Are you sure you aren't seein' things?"

"No, come look for yourself!" Prim frowned and got up from her position on the couch, carrying her mangy yellow tomcat in her arms. "See. I'm not crazy." The older girl whispered. Prim looked through the gap in the curtain. Quickly she pulled back, dropping the cat and yanking the curtains shut.

"Across the street?" She asked, her eyes wide. "Are you sure?"

"Err…Yeah?"

"Well," The youngest says, raising her eyebrows. "He's now standing on the pavement. On our side of the road."

Katniss blinked, a wide-eyed frown crawling onto her face. Cautiously, she pulls the curtain back. Her sister is right. The man has moved, and is now standing there on the cracked pavement, bathed in the pale moonlight, with his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

"Who is he?" Her sister asks.

"I don't know." She replies.

"Why is he here?"

"I'm not sure."

"Do you know who he is?"

"No."

"What should we do?" Prim asks, biting at her nails anxiously. Katniss shuts the curtains and takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and walking to the front door.

"We aren't gonna do anything. You're gonna stay in here and I'm going to go see what he wants." Katniss says decidedly. Prim rolls her eyes.

"Please. I'm sixteen, Katniss. I think I can handle some weirdo." She says.

"Prim. I'm the one holding the baseball bat," Katniss tells her younger sister, holding up the metal bat that they keep in the umbrella stand by the front door.

It was her father's bat, from the days when he tried to teach his two daughters how to play baseball in the back yard. Katniss preferred disappearing into the forest to baseball. Prim preferred healing. So Mr Everdeen usually never had someone to play with. Katniss regretted all the times she had shaken her head and gone to climb trees or swim in lakes. If she could, she would have him back, even if it was just for an hour or two, and would play baseball with him.

"I'll wait by the phone to dial 911." Prim says, coaxing Buttercup out from under the coffee table and sitting back on the sofa. Katniss swung the bat in her hands and leaned it against the wall as she unlocked the many deadbolts lining the door. The cold night air hits her and she shivers, before picking up the bat and stepping out onto the wooden front porch. To the untrained, the porch would creak and squeak with every step, but with her hunter instincts, Katniss is completely silent as she creeps out, down the porch steps.

"Can I help you?" She calls out, gripping the icy metal of the bat in her hand. The person turns and faces Katniss, but she can't see his face properly, his hoodie casting shadows over his features. He's tall and broad-shouldered. He takes a step forward. Katniss stands he ground and brings the bat up into view, resting in both her hands.

"I'm not dangerous." He speaks up, his voice low and husky.

"I am." Katniss states. The person chuckles.

"I can see that. But I'm not here to kidnap you or anything." Katniss stiffens.

"No?"

"Definitely not," The person replies. "I've been looking for you."

Katniss frowned yet again. He'd been looking for her? Shit. Have the cops caught on to her hunting in the forest? Surely they know that she hunts regularly. Of course they know. They buy game from her all the time. Would they turn her in? She squints at the guy.

Damn. She can't hit a cop.

"Are you a cop?" She asks suspiciously.

"Do I look like a cop?" The man chuckles, looking down at his dark ensemble.

"Undercover?"

"Look, I'm not a cop. Or someone from the FBI or the CIA or MI5."

"If you were in the MI5, you'd probably have a British accent."

"I'm not British," The man says. He looks to be about the same age as Katniss, which only makes her more curious. "I used to go to school with you." He says finally.

"You did?"

"Yep. But I doubt you remember me. It was nearly ten years ago and all."

"Ugh, don't say that. I already feel old without your help." Katniss grumbles.

"Me too." He says, and she can see his cheeks move into the shape of a smile. Or a grimace. She sticks with a smile.

"Uh, can I know your name?" Katniss asks, the cold of the pavement sinking through her fluffy socks, chilling her to the bone.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry," The stranger says, reaching out a hand toward her. She flinches, and then realises, her cheeks flaming, that he was only intending to shake her hand. When his large hand envelopes hers she shivers, electricity shooting up from where his skin is touching hers. "Peeta Mellark." He introduces himself. Katniss pauses, trying to remember that name. Mellark... Mellark. It sounds familiar.

"Katniss Everdeen." She returns.

"I know."

"I was about to say that I didn't need this bat anymore, but I'm starting to rethink that," Katniss says, twisting the bat in her hands. "How do you know my name? And where I live? And why are you looking for me?"

"Were. Were looking for you. I've found you now." The person corrects her. She rolls her eyes and takes a step back.

"I could smash your head in before you could react." Katniss threatens.

"And I was a professional boxer. I think I could handle you."

"Was?" Katniss asks. The guy doesn't answer. "Alright, but tell me how you found my house."

"Googled it?"

"How did you know my name?"

"I went to school with you." The person reminds her.

"So? I can barely remember who my teacher was, let alone my classmates."

Katniss scowls. She knows she's being harsh and bitter, but she's cold and tired, and standing outside at half ten on a Friday night talking to some weirdo who has claimed he has been looking for her.

"I have a better memory?"

"Why are you looking for me?"

This question seems to stump the guy and he flounders, shifting this weight and letting out little puffs of air as he tries to figure out what to say.

"Look, it's a long story. And complicated."

"Summarise?"

"Why don't you meet me? At the Ocean Cafe at say half eleven? Tomorrow? It's a public place, so it's not like you're in any danger."

"No thanks." Katniss says.

"Please, you have no idea much this means to me."

"Sorry, but I'm not about to meet up with a guy who's freaked me out." Katniss raises her eyebrows, slings the bat onto her shoulder and steps away, walking back up the front yard path and onto the porch steps.

"Please. This is my life. I just wanna explain."

"I said no thanks."

"Can't you give a guy a break?" The person shouts, exasperated. Katniss whirls around.

"What is your problem?" She hisses, marching forward a couple of metres. "You think you can come to a girls house at half ten at night, stare at her house for a couple of hours, and then say you've been looking for her, and then expect her to go somewhere with you?"

"We'll, I don't know-"

"I'm not crazy!" Katniss cries.

"Well, you were when you punched Cato Calloway in seventh grade!" The person says loudly. Katniss freezes, her heart hammering violently in the cavity of her chest.

"What?" She asks in disbelief.

"I know who you are. You know who I am. So please. Please meet me and hear me out."

"I'm bringing pepper spray with me." Katniss growls.

"You'll come?" The person says, his voice taking on a joyful tone.

"Jesus Christ. I have nothing better to do." Katniss grumbles, turning away and jogging up onto the porch.

"Bye!" The person calls.

"Go away!" Katniss yells back.

Slamming the door, securing the arrangement of deadbolts and placing her fathers bat in the umbrella stand, Katniss sighs. Well, that was weird.

"Do I need to dig a grave?" Prim asks, looking around the doorframe leading to the living room.

"I didn't kill him." Katniss says. Prim giggles.

"So... Who is he and why is he here?" Katniss' sister asks.

"He said that he's Peeta Mellark. And that I used to go to school with him. And that he wants to meet up with me because he has a long story to tell me." Katniss tells her. It sounds even more of a bad idea as she speaks.

"And what did you say?"

"I told him sure."

"What?" Prim's eyes widen comically.

"I'm not actually going."

"Why not?"

"Because he's a stranger. He can find some other girl to pester," Katniss says, flopping back down onto the couch. "I'm not interested –or stupid enough- to go anywhere with who this Peeta person is." Katniss changes the channel. By morning she'll have forgotten about it.

"He's gone." Prim says softly from the window.

"Good. I don't wanna see him ever again."

A/N: Thanks for reading! I intended to have this entire story written up for Valentines Day, but realised that this combined with writing my current story wouldn't work. So I'm splitting it into (I think) three or four chapters. My apologies for any grammar/spelling mistakes you may find, I wrote this first chapter in about a half hour, during one of my spontaneous moments :3 Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and have a wonderful Valentines Day!