Note: This was written as a gift for thebluelake as part of AO3's Hunger Games Spring Fling Fic Exchange.

The first sight that always caught Peeta's eye when he looked out his back window and into Haymitch Abernathy's yard was the swimming pool. Their houses were on opposite sides of the block so their backyards met in the middle, separated only by the rickety wooden fence that surrounded Haymitch's house. His own yard was nothing special, just grass maintained to a level of perfection that gave it an almost artificial quality. And he really wasn't much for horticulture. There weren't any flowerbeds or shrubs or a garden lined with crisp vegetables and fragrant herbs. Nothing he could plant would be as interesting to look at as the wild expanse behind Haymitch's place, anyway.

In the two years Peeta had been his neighbor, he'd never seen Haymitch attempt to mow his yard. For that matter, he wasn't entirely sure Haymitch even owned a mower. The few times Peeta offered to help, Haymitch would hurl empty bottles and epithets at him until Peeta finally gave up. So beyond the fence, instead of fit-for-a-golf-course perfection, were thick blades of crab grass dotted yellow with dandelions each Spring, noxious weeds that climbed the exterior of the house, and wildflowers that lasted until the first frost of the season. In the middle of it all, nearly swallowed up by the tall grasses and brush around it, sat a rusted metal structure that had once been a child's swingset, now a haven for wasps that nested in every available crevice. The pool was next to it, the faded azure plastic cracked and filthy, dry as dust. A thicket of berries crawled up the ladder that no feet had touched in years. Inside were two thin maple saplings that must have sprung up through cracks in the bottom, with spindly branches that peaked out over the top, making the whole thing look like a gigantic, neglected potted plant.

Peeta wasn't sure he had ever seen anything more heartbreaking. Or more beautiful.

That morning, though, something else managed to divert his attention. For once the curtains covering Haymitch's sli