Chapter Text
There's a bit of a commotion in the cafeteria; the boys are sitting in small groups and giggling under their breath, handing each other their mobile phones. Katniss, with her tray in hand, casts a puzzled glance at Madge, and they both walk over to Gale, who is confabulating with the baker's son.
"Well?" she exclaims, sitting down next to her best friend.
He looks at her and bursts into an amused laugh.
"Are you sure your innocent eyes can take it, Catnip?" he asks her, and she rolls her eyes.
"I skin turkeys every Sunday for lunch, I'm not that innocent," she replies to him, scornfully, and Peeta extends his mobile phone towards her.
“Apparently our beloved President Snow shot a sex-tape, years and years ago. With the first lady, even. Behold.”
Madge covers her mouth with her hand, her expression somewhere between shocked and amused.
Katniss looks at the video of dubious quality where a young girl all colorful and dirty moves over another young boy with blond hair.
"... Is that all?" she finally exclaims, indifferent and superior, and Gale gives her a playful punch on the shoulder.
"Why, you'd know better, you great expert?" he teases her, and Katniss looks at him in disgust.
"Certainly I will not show you," she replies, sourly.
It's their way of joking, and so Gale doesn't mind and just smiles.
“Auch. That one burns,” Peeta comments.
Madge sighs, and brings a grape to her lips.
"Well" she comments, the air of a lived-in woman "Everyone knows that politicians have at least one sex tape hidden somewhere. It doesn't surprise me at all that our dear president had fun in his youth."
A moment of silence falls over the table, and then Katniss takes the floor, her voice broken with doubt.
"Madge... Your father is the mayor."
Madge widens her smile, continuing to eat her grapes.
"Oh good god," Peeta comments, under his breath.
Gale bursts out laughing so hard that a couple of teachers give him a dirty look.
"Madge! Please, if this really happened I have to ..."
"You want to see my dad having sex that badly?"
Gale falls silent as Madge smiles amusedly, chin up, and this time it is Peeta's turn to burst out laughing.
"What a bunch of depraved people," he finally says, "I like it. Pizza at my place tonight?"
Katniss watches him for a few seconds. He is looking at her with a shining light in his eyes. It's not the first time they've spoken at school, but it's the first time Peeta has tried to join their little group like this, because he usually hangs out with his circle of friends. In fact, it's strange that he even sat at the table with Gale that day. It can't just be because of the president's stupid sex-tape, right?
His eyes sparkle, and Katniss thinks she sees a hint of hope behind his clear irises.
She remembers the longest conversation they ever had, when she was only eleven and had pretended to run away from home after a stupid spat with her mother. She'd somehow found herself behind the bakery and Peeta, seeing her, had come out with a couple of cheese scones and offered her one, 'To put you in a good mood again'. He'd even offered to sneak her home if she'd stuck with the idea of disappearing for a while, but the anger had waned with every mouthful and by the end of those ten minutes, guilt towards Prim and her father had won her and she'd gone back.
Then, somehow, Katniss had become shy and had failed to thank him properly. They would see each other at school, in the corridors, and he would always raise a hand in a gesture of greeting, but he was always surrounded by friends and she felt uncomfortable going to talk to him.
Instead, now...
Katniss smiles, almost without realizing it.
“Only if you cook it,” she replies, ignoring Gale and Madge who have resumed poking each other.
Peeta extends a hand.
"Extra cheese," he tells her, and Katniss feels a prick of warmth arise in her chest - he remembers, then.
She shakes his hand.
“Deal”.
***
Twenty years later, her daughter asks, "Mum, when did you realize you were in love with dad?"
Katniss reflects for a moment.
Good grief. It had been ages since she thought back to the day the students discovered the president's stupid sex-tape and the evening that ensued.
Surely she couldn't tell her little girl about that!
"... He once offered me cheese scones," she then says, and he hears Peeta burst out laughing from the kitchen - he knows it's a lie and he also knows why she's telling it.
She lets it go as she continues to answer her little girl's questions.
She's going to make him pay for it that night anyway, threatening to turn on a camera as they crawl into bed. Like every damn time.