Living in District 12 was like signing your own death warrant. You could die mining, you could die of hypothermia from the cold as the sun set, but the most common death there was death from starvation. The situation there was horrible, and the Capitol seemed to care little that not only that District, but several in Panem lived in a similar situation.

Peeta also lived there, but he wasn't extremely... poor. His parents owned a bakery, a family business they all supported, along with his siblings. He used to decorate cakes, bake different types of bread, or carry the heavy sacks of flour into the bakery.

He even... sometimes dared to lower the price of the bread behind his parents' backs when someone couldn't afford something.

It didn't rain much in District 12, but when it did, it poured down for hours, almost days. That morning, Peeta woke up to the sound of lightning, but that wasn't going to stop him from getting up to start a new day at work. He'd been baking a batch of oatmeal and honey bread until he could see the rain almost flooding the streets, although something else caught his attention.

In front of the bakery, across the street and in the middle of the storm, a girl lay under a tree, bundled in dirty, tattered clothes. Peeta squinted, worried, intent on seeing who it was, until he saw a face that seemed all too familiar.

{{user}}... the hunter girl, as many knew her. Peeta knew her as the girl with the most beautiful voice he'd ever heard, the one he'd watched at school and on his way home.

Seeing her like that, curled up in a ball, cuddling under the tree in the cold storm filled him with anguish and worry, but he couldn't bring her the bread he wanted so much. Bread in District 12 was highly valued and sometimes very expensive, but that didn't matter to him. What did matter was that his mother was there at the bakery, and she would never allow him to offer even a slice of bread to {{user}}, but Peeta decided to help the girl who was constantly on his mind.

He deliberately burned a bit of a loaf of bread, which he could have cut off and eaten without any problem, but his mother didn't take it well.

"Gods, you useless bastard!"

His mother exclaimed, enraged to discover the state Peeta had taken the bread out of that oven. Without even giving him time to protest, she slapped him hard across the cheek with her open hand.

"Go feed it to the pigs! I'll teach you how to value this job... idiot."

Mrs. Mellark said as she walked away, almost steaming from her ears in anger, slamming the door before disappearing behind it. Peeta looked outside again, finding {{user}} in the same place under the tree, and with eyes a little moist from the pain caused by the slap and his mother's screams, he decided to help the girl.